by Darcie Wilde
But Rosalind had not been happy to be in the Seymores’ parlor as Mrs. Seymore unfurled her operatic tale of unrequited love and tragic suicide. Harkness had watched Rosalind’s cool poise crack, broken apart first by surprise, and then by anger. This wasn’t just because she sensed Mr. Townsend’s dislike of her. Something had been wrong before he and Townsend had walked into the house.
Miss Thorne had also been at the Theatre Royal the night before.
And Harkness hadn’t asked Miss Thorne a single question. Not one. His mind slowly turned this fact over, and turned it over again.
He was in the act of signing his notice when Tommy Aitch darted in. “Sir, there’s a Mr. Littlefield out front, and he’s asking for you, personally.”
“He would,” murmured Harkness. “All right, Tommy, let him in.”
Adam tucked his notice under a blank sheet, and stood to meet the new arrival, slightly relieved. He didn’t want to have to continue to think about his conduct toward Miss Thorne.
George Littlefield was a dark, slender, neatly made man. He’d never lost the casual, slouching stance he’d learned at the boarding schools he’d attended as the son of a minor aristocrat. Had fortune been kinder and his father been less profligate, George would have been sitting in Parliament rather than at a desk at the twice-weekly paper, The London Chronicle. As it was, Harkness knew Littlefield to be good at his trade, and as honest as newspapermen came.
This time, though, Littlefield looked distinctly uneasy as he walked into the patrol room. “What’s doing then, Littlefield?” asked Harkness. “Something’s wrong?”
George laughed, a little. “Trust you to see it right off, Harkness. Yes. I’ve been bunged straight in the middle of this Cavendish business, just like you, I hear,” he added, because he was a newspaperman, and he was not about to miss a chance to confirm a rumor.
“Who’d you hear that from?”
George waved his ink-stained hand. “The major keeps a fund to help encourage people to talk, just like your lot do. But . . . this isn’t the usual, Harkness.” In fact it was so unusual that Littlefield was digging his hands into his pockets without bringing out notebook or pencil.
“What’s the matter?” Harkness gestured for George to take a chair. George perched on the edge, the heel of his boot hooked over the rung.
“It’s my sister, Alice.” George’s crooked leg jigged restlessly up and down. “She had dinner with Fletcher Cavendish last night.”
Harkness leaned back, taking care not to show how startled he felt. “Why was Alice dining with Cavendish?”
“She was invited, but not by him,” George added quickly. “By Rosalind Thorne.”
Adam opened his mouth. He closed it again.
“And why was Miss Thorne dining with Mr. Cavendish?”
“Well, that I’m afraid was Alice’s fault.”
Harkness steepled his fingers and looked over the tips at Littlefield, assuming an air of very obvious patience. George ducked his head.
“Sorry. Telling it all the wrong way round. Major’d read me the riot act for it, but it’s my sister . . .” He scrubbed at the back of his neck, and started again. “Alice has a friend, a Mrs. Seymore. And since I saw Captain Seymore taking his leave”—George jerked his chin toward the door—“I expect by now you know all about the pair of them?”
“We’re starting to.”
“Right. Well, as Captain Seymore was filing against Cavendish for criminal conversation—”
“Wait. Stop right there,” said Harkness. “Seymore was suing Cavendish?” Neither of the Seymores had thought to mention that. Not once.
“Well, I don’t know if he’d gone so far as to hire an attorney, but he threatened it any number of times. Mrs. Seymore swears she’s innocent, and when she said it to Alice, Alice introduced her to Rosalind. You know how Rosalind helps women with their problems?”
Harkness nodded. Rosalind had not mentioned the potential lawsuit either. But then, doing so would have directly contradicted what Mrs. Seymore said.
“And that, apparently, led to the dinner invitation from Cavendish. He invited Rosalind and a friend to dine, and talk over the matter of Mrs. Seymore. Rosalind, in turn, invited Alice.”
“Was Mrs. Seymore there?”
“Not she, but Alice says Captain Seymore put in an appearance. Drunk and demanding to know where his wife was.”
Harkness remained silent for a moment, letting George’s words settle in among the ideas and images he already carried in his mind. The picture there shifted, and shifted again.
“Where is Alice now?” Adam asked.
“She’s home. She’s supposed to be writing up the details.” George made a wry face. “The major’s turning cartwheels. Says she’s made all our fortunes.” Harkness felt his mouth twist, but he kept his feelings to himself. Expecting a newspaper not to make what it could from the murder of a famous man was like asking a cow not to give milk. It was against the order of nature.
But George wasn’t looking too happy about the prospect of increased circulation, or more inches in the columns. “To tell you the truth, Alice has gone a bit green around the gills about it all. I told her I’d come to you to find out what should be done. That, long and roundabout as it is, is why I’m here.”
“It’s fairly simple, actually,” Harkness told him. “Sir David Royce, the coroner, is going to need to talk to Alice. All she’ll have to do is tell her story clearly and simply and that will be that. She might not even have to speak at the inquest.”
“So there will be an inquest?” prompted Littlefield. “They’re saying Cavendish was murdered.”
Harkness met the newspaperman’s gaze. He liked George. They’d exchanged information in the past, but now was not the time. He had too much to find out on his own before he started telling the paper tales of murder, or suicide. Especially now that he knew that Captain and Mrs. Seymore were holding back important information. Captain and Mrs. Seymore, and Rosalind Thorne.
“Alice doesn’t have to worry,” Adam said. “Sir David’s fair and levelheaded, and he won’t be distracted by circumstances.”
Disappointment flickered across George’s face, but he rallied quickly. “That’s good to know. When a man’s sister is dining in company with one of the most notorious womanizers in the city . . . well . . . not that I think anybody could make Alice do anything she didn’t want to . . . but . . . people talk enough nonsense about women who write as it is.”
Harkness agreed that they did. “No one’s going to talk nonsense about Alice on my watch. Or, I expect, on the major’s.”
That actually got a laugh out of him. “You’re right there. He knows that A. E. Littlefield’s Society Notes is what keeps the paper going.” George got to his feet. “Still, thank you for saying it, Harkness.”
“Bring Alice down here,” said Harkness as they shook hands. “I’ll take her to Sir David myself.”
George agreed he would, and took himself out the door. Harkness watched him go, partly because he was worried about the man, and partly to make sure none of the patrolmen or others of the station’s staff stopped to have a quick word with him. Because everybody in the station knew about that fund the major kept to encourage people to talk.
When George was gone, Harkness closed the door to the patrol room and dropped into his chair. He stared at the map of London without seeing it.
Harkness had known Miss Thorne was at the theater just before Mr. Cavendish had died.
That was not so strange. There were, after all, at least a thousand others who were there at the same time. But that she had been there, and then with the Seymores, was something to raise a man’s curiosity.
But he’d said nothing. He had not asked a single question of her. The worst part was, he knew precisely why he’d held back. He wanted to give Rosalind a chance to speak with him first, privately, so
he could decide how to best present the story to Townsend, and to Sir David and whoever else might need to hear it. He wanted to protect her, just like Townsend wanted to protect Mrs. Seymore.
No, not just like, he told himself irritably. It wasn’t about reputation and appearance. It was about Miss Thorne.
But now George brought him this. Rosalind hadn’t just been at the theater. She’d had an appointment to meet the dead man. She’d been engaged to act in her own particular way, for the woman most closely connected to this crime, if crime it proved to be. And if he hadn’t asked her any questions, neither had she volunteered any information, including about this criminal conversation suit.
Which made Harkness wonder just what Rosalind was doing with and for the beautiful and clever Mrs. Seymore.
CHAPTER 18
What Reasons Must Come to Light
You think with horror of murder . . . but perhaps you little reflect that evil practices or habits may lead you, and that by no very long or winding path to these atrocious crimes.
—Samuel and Sarah Adams, The Complete Servant
“She did what?” cried Alice. “Oh, the idiot!”
Rosalind’s morning at Mrs. Seymore’s house had left her exhausted, confused, and not a little bit angry. None of this, however, had so overwhelmed her that she was ready to neglect her friend. As soon as Rosalind was able to leave Mrs. Seymore, she went to the cab stand and took a carriage to George and Alice’s little flat. There, she found Alice sitting on her own at the table that served her and her brother both for dining and for working. Alice sat there with her portable writing desk in front of her. She looked pale and disheveled, and the sheets of crossed-out and cross-written paper scattered around spoke to the serious disorder of her nerves.
Rosalind’s story of what happened that morning with Mrs. Seymore did nothing to calm her spirits.
“What is she doing, Rosalind, telling a tale like that to Bow Street?” Alice hurled her pencil to the table. “It can’t possibly be true. Can it?”
“I was hoping you might be able to tell me, Alice. She’s your friend.”
“Yes, or so I believed. I . . .” Alice pressed her hand against her mouth. “I’m sorry, Rosalind, I don’t think I’m very well right now.”
“You look dreadful. Come lie down.” Rosalind supported her friend to the sofa. Rosalind was familiar with the contents of George and Alice’s small flat and she was shortly able to find the bottle of bad port wine they routinely kept on hand. There was water in the cracked pitcher to add to it, as well as to wet down a cloth for Alice’s forehead.
“Oh, this is ridiculous!” Alice sniffed, accepting Rosalind’s ministrations. “And it’s my fault. I thought it was going to be so simple. You’d just talk to the right people, as you do, and find someone who could demonstrate proof of Margaretta’s innocence. I didn’t know . . . I never thought she might be lying!”
“How could you possibly have known?”
“Because it’s my business to know things!” Alice shouted to the ceiling. “It’s how I make my living!”
“You were not a newspaperwoman when she came to you. You were a friend.” In answer, Alice clapped her hands over her face and the damp cloth and muttered something Rosalind couldn’t understand, and probably wouldn’t want to repeat.
“Tell me about Margaretta, Alice,” she said. “How do you know her?”
Alice sighed and let her hands drop away from her cloth. “The usual way. Mutual acquaintances. There are more women who write than one might think, and we are a chatty group. Margaretta holds salons at her home, and I visit her once a month or so. She’s paid me for translation work, too. Her education was not the best, so sometimes there’s things in French or Italian she needs put into plain English. Of course, she’s a good source of gossip for Society Notes, too. And now the major wants me to write all about her,” she added abruptly. “I’m to write up everything I know about the Celebrated Mrs. Seymore.” Rosalind could hear the emphasis and the capital letters. “It’s not fair. I don’t want to air her secrets. She’s been a friend.”
“I know, Alice.” Rosalind brought the plain stool to the sofa so she could sit beside her.
“He told me I didn’t have to do anything I didn’t want to. Of course, he knows that if he dismissed me for refusing, he’d lose George, too, but . . . oh damn, Rosalind. The look on the major’s face. I swear he was counting the money right behind his eyes. I don’t want any part of this!”
“I know that, too.”
Something in her soft words caused Alice to sit up and look at her properly. “You’re not going to tell me I should help? That it’s right and proper and for my own good to know the truth?”
“Why should I tell you?” replied Rosalind. “You’ve just told me.”
“Oh. I did, didn’t I?” Alice flopped back down, and put her slippered feet up on the sofa arm in an attitude that would have had their old headmistress after her with a broom. “Is this how you felt with your godmother, Rosalind?” she asked. “And Jasper?”
“Yes. It is.”
“Why did you keep going?”
“Because it was my godmother. It was personal and I didn’t just want to know, I needed to.” Do not think of Charlotte now. Keep your mind on what is in front of you. Rosalind took Alice’s hand. “You do not have to make the same decision. You can choose to walk away at any moment.”
For all the years Rosalind had known Alice, she’d seen the petite girl in real distress only a handful of times. The first was when they were at school together, and Rosalind had sat in her room while Alice packed her things. George had been waiting downstairs then. He’d come to tell Alice that their father was dead, and they were ruined. Alice had moved quickly, almost frantically, as if she would find something vital she’d lost underneath her dresses and handkerchiefs, until she’d toppled over, right on the bed, not in a faint, but to just lie and stare at the ceiling.
The fevered, haunted look in Alice’s eyes now brought that other moment back in sharp relief.
And as at that other, distant time, Alice sat up very suddenly and very straight. She also thrust out her pointed chin in absolute defiance.
“Rosalind Thorne, I’m surprised at you!” Alice shook the cloth she clutched at her friend.
“At me?”
“Yes! How could you let me act like a coward? I’m not some fainting debutante. I am a woman of the world! Will Alice Littlefield be made mousy and missish by a bit of actor’s blood! Certainly not! And as for Margaretta! Well! If she thinks she can play her little parlor games with me, she had best think again!”
“And very carefully,” agreed Rosalind. She also removed the cloth from Alice’s grip before it could start dripping on the floor.
“What do we do then?” asked Alice. “You should probably know that George is off at Bow Street, trying to talk to Adam Harkness. He’s going to tell him about our dinner with Mr. Cavendish.”
“Very good.” Rosalind watched her hands carefully as they folded the cloth along fresh lines. They did not falter, even a little. “It is better he and Mr. Townsend have the whole of that story at once.” At least I hope it is.
Rosalind walked over to the little hearth and hung the cloth on the rusty fire screen, where it could dry. “We should turn our attentions to Margaretta,” she told Alice. “What does your writing circle say about her? Who are her particular friends? Are there rumors of . . . intimacies? Indiscretions?”
Alice shrugged heavily with both shoulders. “She’s perfectly willing to lead a dozen men about by their noses, but no one’s ever seriously linked her name with anybody in particular.”
“Not even Fletcher Cavendish?”
“Not even Fletcher Cavendish. I used to think it was because Margaretta loved her husband, and then I met him.” Alice pulled a face. “After that, I just assumed she did it because charming the gent
lemen was good for keeping herself à la mode, and that was good for sales.” She paused. “The story you said she told, suicide for love? Did Townsend and Harkness believe it?”
“Mr. Townsend wanted to,” said Rosalind. “I would say Mr. Harkness has his doubts.” She remembered him sitting still and quiet in his chair with the best view of the whole room, watching them all and saying nothing to anyone, not even to her. Not even to ask the questions he should have.
Her skin prickled and it was a long moment before she could force her thoughts back into their proper lines.
“Another possibility came up this morning, Alice. Cavendish might have been killed so that Margaretta would be blamed for it.”
“What would that accomplish?”
“Well, it would hang her, for one.”
“Rosalind, I don’t mean to be brutal. Well, all right, I do, but a pregnant woman cannot be hanged. She’d just plead her belly.”
“Whoever did this thing might not know she is pregnant.”
“That doesn’t make sense. Margaretta told us that it was Sir Bertram who was pushing the captain to go forward with the criminal conversation suit. Sir Bertram is the captain’s younger brother. The whole point of the suit is to have her child declared a bastard, so it can’t get in line for the title.”
“Assuming it’s a son.”
“Assuming it’s a son. If the legitimacy of Rosalind’s child was at the back of the quarrel between the captain and Cavendish, there’s no reason for Cavendish to be dead. He’s absolutely necessary for the suit, and the publicity.”
“Maybe the captain’s temper overrode his brother’s dynastic considerations. Or maybe there is something more going on here.” Rosalind frowned. “We know that Cavendish and Mrs. Seymore were acquainted for a long time. Do we know how they met? Or who her people are?”
“No.” Alice frowned. “That is to say, I don’t know who her people are. Margaretta will talk about every subject under the sun, except her past.”
“That is significant,” said Rosalind. If Mrs. Seymore had been a member of the haut ton instead of merely welcomed to its festivities, her background would have been sniffed out and chewed over within five minutes of her first appearance. But as she was only a species of entertainer, no one would think it necessary to question any story she told about herself, as long as it was not too terribly shocking. “She spoke of the potential for her child’s disgrace with great feeling.”