Dulcie Bligh

by Maggie MacKeever

  “So far was Mrs. Lytton from extending condolences that she left Arbuthnot House in a worse case than she found it!” The Runner couldn’t decide whether Sir William was more upset about the death of his wife, the theft of his papers and her jewels, or the disappearance of his mother’s companion. “Did you not know she went as a servant to Madame Arbuthnot?”

  Lord Dorset’s surprise dissolved quickly into amusement. “Livvy is a very enterprising young lady.” Crump was treated to a comradely wink. “I am a fortunate man.”

  Crump believed that the Earl was luckier than he knew, or deserved, since so many people were determined to clear his name. It was understandable that Mrs. Lytton would wish her future husband cleared of any suspicion of murder, at least until her claim on his wealth was assured. Crump had entertained suspicions about Primrose’s identity ever since Sir William had drawn a precise, if unflattering, word picture of the missing servant; Lord Dorset’s reaction proved his conjectures correct. Never had Crump known the like! An Earl’s betrothed passing herself on as a servant! “Will she lie for you as well?”

  The Earl considered the question. “I’m not sure,” he said at length. “You must ask her, if you wish to know. I must warn you, however, that Mrs. Lytton is apt to take offense.”

  Crump wished that he’d fortified himself with more than a quartern of gin before attempting this interview. “You still stick to your story that you were with Mrs. Lytton on the night of Lady Arabella’s death?”

  Lord Dorset accepted this temerity with godlike aplomb. “I do.”

  “At Vauxhall, was it?”

  “I believe so.” The Earl surveyed a gleaming boot. “My memory for such things is shockingly remiss.”

  Lord Dorset, drinking heavily and far into the night, had once won so staggering an amount at the whist table that White’s doors had almost closed permanently. Crump began to see how the thing was done. The Earl’s composure was nothing short of formidable. “Trysted often, did the two of you?”

  “My good man!” Dickon was pained. “I cannot allow you to cast aspersions on the lady who is soon to become my wife.”

  “Seems to me,” Crump retorted testily, “that you behave deuced queer for a man wishful of protecting a lady’s name! No sooner do you get involved in murder than you engage yourself to her and make her an object of great curiosity.”

  “You seem to believe,” Lord Dorset murmured thoughtfully, “that I have done Mrs. Lytton a grave disservice. Perhaps you are correct.” His habitual impatience resurfaced. “Have done with this, Crump! I have an appointment to view the prettiest little filly one might ever wish to see.”

  “A woman called at this house,” the Runner said, with an equal lack of good temper, “on the night in question. I would like to know her identity.”

  “You have been told who she was. Must we belabor the subject? It is hardly your concern if Mrs. Lytton was so anxious to see me that she could not await the appointed hour.”

  “On the contrary, it’s very much my concern. The lady was heavily veiled, but she could not disguise the color of her hair.” Crump paused for effect. “May I point out that Mrs. Lytton’s hair is black, not brown?”

  “You hardly need remind me of the color of Livvy’s hair. Lovely, is it not? In view of our circumstances, we thought it best she not be easily recognized.” Gracefully, the Earl took snuff. “The explanation is simple: Mrs. Lytton wore a wig.”

  Crump hooked his thumbs in his waistcoat. “Then where,” he demanded, “did Lady Arabella vanish to on the night she died? More than three hours are unaccounted for!”

  “Have you ever witnessed a séance, Crump?” asked the Earl helpfully. “You must speak with my aunt. She is well up on such things.”

  “A séance?” Crump was confused. “I’d appreciate it if you’d explain.”

  “I’m amazed that you have apparently never attended one of those convivial gatherings. I recommend it strongly. You might have your answers straight from the horse’s mouth.” Lord Dorset smiled. “So to speak.”

  “Horse?” Crump felt like he’d fallen into a vat of molasses, or a spider’s sticky web.

  “The purpose of a séance is to call up the dead.” The Earl closed the enameled snuffbox with an expert flick of his wrist.

  Crump’s brows snapped together in a ferocious frown. “You’ll be having your little game, guv’nor. Why did you slash Lady Arabella’s portrait to shreds?”

  “I beg your pardon?” For the first time, Crump saw Lord Dorset without a mask. “Arabella’s portrait?”

  Crump was disgruntled, for his tactics had shocked the Earl into betraying nothing more damning than astonishment. “It was your knife, all right, same as it was your knife found stuck in Lady Arabella’s er . . .”

  “Bosom,” supplied the Earl. “An unattractive word, but suitable. It always reminds me, somehow, of deflated balloons.”

  “We’re getting on the subject,” Crump persevered. “I haven’t heard a reasonable explanation of that knife.”

  “Ah, the knife.” Lord Dorset looked, Crump thought, like a man with secrets. “You are not the only person to be intrigued by that knife. I have received a veritable avalanche of mail.”

  “Mail?” Crump realized, with disgust, that he sounded like a bloody mocking bird.

  “Letters. Few are of an admiring tone. Not only do my anonymous fans exhibit great interest in my knife, some have gone so far as to express a wish for my blood.” The Earl pondered. “I wonder what they mean to do with it.”

  Crump tried a diversionary tactic. “What do you know of the mysterious gentleman who first appeared some months ago at Arbuthnot House?”

  “Gentleman? I would hardly call him that.” Lord Dorset smiled benignly. “You refer, of course, to Arabella’s long-lost cousin, so miraculously restored to her?”

  “Her cousin, is it?” Crump had not expected such an obliging reply.

  “So she called him, though I seriously doubt the validity of the relationship. If a cousin, not one held in any great esteem.” Crump waited hopefully as Dickon consulted his unreliable memory. “I only observed this so-called cousin once, and then but briefly. Arabella was most anxious to whisk him out of my sight. The name, I believe, was James.”

  “She didn’t want you to talk to him?” The puzzle grew. “Didn’t that strike you as queer?”

  “Not at all. Arabella’s cousin bore more resemblance to a Captain Sharp than to one with any pretentious to gentility. He was memorable only for the vulgarity of his attire.” The Earl’s gaze rested eloquently upon Crump’s Jockey waistcoat, which boasted vertical stripes of gaudy hue. “Which calls to mind another person of whom, I think, you have not taken sufficient heed.”

  Crump regretted the necessity of treading so warily with Lord Dorset, but the Chief Magistrate had made it painfully clear that no charges were to be brought until the murderer’s identity was unquestionable. “Who might that be?”

  “My esteemed cousin, of course. Hubert was not only among Arabella’s admirers, he has suffered recent financial reverses.” The Earl observed the Runner’s face. “You disapprove of my frankness? I collect you are not well acquainted with Humbug. He would be only too happy to serve me an equal turn.” A gold watch came into play. “You must forgive me for terminating this fascinating interview, but I must tend to my filly before someone else snaps her up.”

  Crump doubted this excuse. It was far more likely that Lord Dorset’s engagement was with one of the pretty horsebreakers known by such appellations as Brazen Bellona or The Queen of Tarts. Scowling, he followed the Earl into the long hallway. “I wonder if you might tell me how Mrs. Lytton managed, on the night she came here, to look both shorter and more opulent of figure than she actually is.”

  “Ask her!” Lord Dorset advised. “Considering that you haven’t the slimmest shred of evidence against either Mrs. Lytton or myself, your interest seems a trifle excessive, does it not? But my horses grow restless.” He paused in the front doorway
, which was surmounted by a semi-circular light with a straight-rayed fan tracery. “I wish you luck in your further investigations, Crump, and suggest that you proceed cautiously.”

  Crump crammed his hat upon his head and strode irately away, more determined than ever to prove the guilt of the maddening Earl.

  While Lord Dorset sought distraction from his various afflictions among cronies at Tattersall’s, that grand mart for everything concerned with sports of the field, the business of the turf, and equestrian recreations, his indomitable aunt was engaged in an undertaking of a far less respectable nature. Gibbon swallowed hard as they skirted the ground level opening of an underground slaughterhouse, its walls inches thick in putrefying blood and fat, into which sheep were hurled to be, broken legged, knifed and flayed by the men below.

  The Baroness displayed no revulsion at either the carnage or the stench. “Remove that offended expression at once!” she hissed. “You forget who we’re supposed to be.”

  Gibbon gazed down upon the tattered smock that proclaimed him a none-too-sanitary country laborer. White hair matted with dirt clung closely to his high-domed skull. The Baroness, in a rusty black gown, looked like a particularly malevolent crone. Straggling locks of lank gray hair peered from beneath the stained shawl that covered her head and shoulders. “As if I could,” he muttered.

  “Would you prefer,” Dulcie inquired, “to see Master Dickon rot in jail? It is not an impossibility. He could also be transported, or hanged.”

  “Not Master Dickon.” Gibbon thought of the various methods of discipline that awaited helpless criminals. Flogging was a mild punishment compared with the treadmill, the shot drill, and an ingenious engine of torture referred to, in hushed tones, as the crank. “May I remind my lady that she is not without influence?”

  The Baroness mingled easily with street screamers, thieves, and running patterers crying hoarsely of assassinations, seductions, alarming accidents. “May I remind you of where we are? You do me no great favor by using my title here.”

  Gibbon offered no apology, being too busy removing his mistress from the path of a herd of cattle being driven through the street. Never had Gibbon suspected, when first he entered Lady Bligh’s employ, that he would be called upon to conduct his iron-willed mistress upon regular excursions into the worst of London’s rookeries. He gazed unhappily upon the decaying piles of tenements that lined black, dilapidated streets where children played in gutters that were no more than open sewers. It was a scene that he once thought to forever leave behind, a setting for drunken violence and a breeding place for crime.

  They stopped before a tall crazily listing house that appeared to verge on imminent collapse. “Step lively, Gibbon!” the Baroness snapped. Resigned, the butler preceded his mistress through the gaping doorway, as ominous and foul as must surely be the gates of hell.

  A crafty-eyed slattern leaned against the wall. “Look alive, slut,” Gibbon said roughly. “We’re wanting the mort of the ken.”

  The woman spat. She reeked of gin. “Jael won’t be trafficking with the likes of you.” Silently, Gibbon held forth a coin. The woman bit it, shrugged, then stepped aside.

  The house was filthy and ill ventilated, a stopping place where transient wayfarers might sleep, huddled together regardless of age and sex, eighteen and twenty to a room. For a penny deposit, they might hire knife or fork with which to eat their greasy food. Grim-faced, Gibbon ploughed through the muck on the staircase, the Baroness in his wake, and led the way to the back of the house where two evil-visaged men guarded a closed door. The Baroness reached beneath her concealing shawl and held forth two gold coins. Recognizing her as a regular, and open-fisted, visitor, the men moved aside.

  Stepping through the forbidden doorway was like passing into another country. Here was none of the stifling heat and revolting smell that permeated the rest of the house, no sign of disease-ridden poverty. Well-executed prints hung on pristine walls above furniture that might have graced the abode of any successful tradesman. Gibbon, a figure of silent condemnation, took up a watchful position beside the door. Lady Bligh moved toward a massive chair where the matron of the establishment and unofficial regent of the entire rookery was enthroned.

  Jael was an eye-catching, dark-skinned woman of perhaps thirty-five, with unbound jet-black hair and pale gray eyes. If not for the thin scar that ran from left cheekbone to chin, she might have competed with the most successful courtesan. Bare feet peeped from beneath a bright-hued skirt as she rose. “You’re got up clever, Baroness. It’s not necessary; no one would dare harm you here.”

  “Wretched girl.” Lady Bligh, seating herself at a small table. “Do you mean to spoil my fun?”

  “From what I hear, you’ve been up to as many tricks as a barrelful of monkeys.” Jael picked up a deck of garish cards and placed herself opposite the Baroness. “Take care, Dulcie. There’s only so much I can do for you.”

  Gibbon remained impassive only through great effort. Not only must Lady Bligh associate with this brazen creature who, it was rumored, had been mistress to royalty before the mysterious assault that had left her both embittered and scarred, but must speak to her as an equal as well. Once the relationship had been conducted on a more businesslike basis, with the Baroness paying dearly to have her fortune read, but this state of affairs had abruptly altered on the infamous day when Dulcie saved the gypsy from a long prison incarceration. Jael paid her debts, for good or ill, as many a luckless offender speedily learned.

  “You can read the cards,” the Baroness retorted, “and spare me any further lectures. It is a sublime case of the pot calling the kettle black.”

  Jael laughed, revealing perfect teeth. No small force in London’s underworld, the gypsy was well known to Bow Street, where the standard practice was to leave her strictly alone. She shuffled the cards. “It’s more a case of leaping from the frying pan into the fire, if you take my meaning. There’s those who mean to see Dorset hang, and they won’t take kindly to interference.”

  “They shall have to.” Dulcie cut the cards to the left. “Name the person behind it, Jael.”

  “I can’t.” This in itself was ominous; a considerable force of pickpockets, prostitutes, cutthroats and worse were at Jael’s disposal, sharp-eyed creatures who were well rewarded for information received. “I hear vague talk, but no names.”

  Jael set out ten cards in a Celtic cross. In the center sat the Queen of Wands, a staff in her right hand and a sunflower in her left, at her feet a sinister black cat.

  “What of Arabella’s jewels?” The Baroness studied the cards. So often had Gibbon observed this ritual that he thought he might himself lay out the cards, could he but gather sufficient courage to touch the wicked deck.

  “Paste!” Golden earrings danced as Jael tossed her head. “That lady had deep dealings, and not just at the gaming table. Her baubles have been turning up regular as clockwork. There is a first-rate milliner on Bond Street, an establishment most respectable on the outside.”

  “And inside?”

  Not many were anxious to meet Jael’s cold pale eyes. The gypsy smiled. “You are an innocent, Baroness. Inside are Paphian intricacies available not only to bits o’ muslin but to married women and their lovers. The cost is a mere guinea or two.”

  “Arabella was a client?” Dulcie absently twisted the fringe of her shawl.

  “The owner of the place engages in discreet blackmail. From all accounts, hers wasn’t the only hand in Lady Arabella’s purse.” Jael leaned across the table. “Never fear, it wasn’t Lord Dorset she met there. Idiot woman! I’d have met him there myself, had the opportunity come my way in an earlier day.”

  Lady Bligh, untroubled by this frank disclosure, frowned at the table. “The cards.”

  A Ten of Swords lay across the Queen of Wands. “Your question concerned Dorset? Ruin and pain surround him, affliction and tears.”

  Gibbon, to whom the dissolute Earl had never spoken an unkind word, shifted position uncomfortably. H
e could not take the reading of the Tarot seriously, except in Jael’s commanding presence, listening to her hushed and somber tones.

  The gypsy looked puzzled. “Has Dorset any children?”

  “One,” the Baroness replied. “That I have been apprised of.”

  “A son.” Jael cracked the knuckles of one surprisingly elegant hand. “The boy will take an unexpected journey. He is threatened by selfishness and greed.”

  “That may be,” Lady Bligh remarked, “a gross understatement. Pray continue.”

  “Justice, reversed: legal complications and excessive severity.” The gypsy regarded her visitor. “I warned you. Dorset has powerful enemies.”

  “Powerful in what way?” Dulcie was equally serious. “Surely not politically. How, then?”

  “Evil, but no creature of mine. Only a fool would kill for imitation jewels.” The mocking smile flashed again. “If it’s fools you hunt, then look among the nobs! Any true thief would immediately know the difference between paste gems and the genuine thing.”

  “The last card, the outcome, if you please.”

  “The Nine of Wands, reversed. Obstacles and delay.” Jael settled back in her chair. “You will not have an easy task. I wish you luck of it.”

  “Well you may, for I know not where to begin. It seems that now I must determine what became of the real gems as well as the copies, and why!” The Baroness sighed heavily, and Gibbon wondered what artful scheme his mistress was embarked upon. “Perhaps I am foolish, and waste my time. Perhaps Dickon truly is guilty of the crime.”

  “Ah, he’d die damned hard and bold as brass.” For the first time, Jael’s manner was sympathetic. “Will you abandon him so easily, Baroness? What if I tell you it’s a certainty Lord Dorset is guiltless as a new-born babe?” The gypsy laughed. “At least in this affair!”

  “Truly, I believe in his innocence.” The Baroness grew even more frail. “What can I do, an old woman, alone? Particularly when, as my nephew Hubert informs me, I am thought to be wandering in the wits?”