Let's Talk of Murder

by Joan Smith

  She was expecting them. “What happened?” Prance demanded, almost before he was in the drawing room.

  “I nearly died of shock when Luten landed in at Lady Sefton’s,” she said. “What can have possessed him? I wonder if he knew I was going there.”

  They both looked at Coffen, who looked at the wall. “Coincidence,” he lied firmly.

  “Did you let Byron know you were leaving?” Prance asked Corinne.

  “I couldn’t get near him. I left word with Lady Sefton.”

  “Oh my dear! That was rather gauche.”

  “I don’t care if it is. I had a horrid time, Reg. It was like going out with– I don’t know what. One of the wild animals at Exeter Exchange. I was squeezed to death, and didn’t have any interesting conversation with Byron at all.”

  Coffen smiled.

  “Did Luten ask you to leave with him?” Prance prodded.

  “No, Coffen told me about Fanny, and I just left. But the strangest thing is, Luten walked up to Byron the minute he arrived, cool as a cucumber, and asked if he was interested in joining the Whig Cabinet, only Byron doesn’t think it will ever happen.”

  “An excuse on Luten ‘s part, you think?”

  “Nope,” Coffen said. “It’s real. He told me. They’re letting Byron into the cabinet, but they ain’t giving him a portfolio, nipcheeses.” When he saw Corinne ‘ s disappointment, he added, “Mind you, I doubt that’s the real reason he went pelting off to Lady Sefton’s as soon as he — that is to say —”

  “So he did know Corinne would be there!” Prance cried.

  “Dash it, I didn’t say that!”

  “Don’t worry. We shan’t tell Luten we know,” Prance assured him.

  “I hate imbroglios,” Coffen grumbled.

  Prance just stared. “I adore them. And now that I know the whole, perhaps I shall sleep— though I very much doubt it when I think of poor Fanny.”

  “She had on your lutestring gown, Corrie,” Coffen said, with a faraway, sad look on his face. “Gave me quite a turn. With her hair all sopping wet and dark, I thought for a minute there she was you…” He gave an involuntary shiver. “Creepy.”

  “Thank you very much for murdering sleep, Macbeth. Now I know I shan’t sleep!” Prance said, and went to pour himself a tot of brandy.

  “What’s he talking about?” Coffen demanded of Corinne.

  “It’s Shakespeare,” she said vaguely.

  “That explains it. He’s as bad as that William fellow he’s forever quoting at us.”

  “What a coincidence,” Prance said, with heavy irony.

  “I’m going home,” Coffen said. “You coming, Reg?”

  They left together. Mrs. Ballard had arrived home from her evening of whist and the ladies had a cup of cocoa before retiring.

  * * *

  Chapter 24

  “What, Fanny Rowan dead?” Clare cried, his eyes wide in astonishment when Corinne told him the next morning. She and Prance had called on Clare, ostensibly to discuss the auction ball.

  “Yes, shocking,” she said.

  While she engaged Clare in some sympathetic formalities, Prance scrutinized his reaction. Prance prided himself on his ability to read people’s expressions and body posture. As a director of some of the most successful amateur plays in London, he felt he was a better than average judge of counterfeit emoting. He judged Clare to be genuinely shocked. His body tensed upon first hearing the news. The jaw fell slightly open, the eyes widened, but not too dramatically.

  “But how did it happen? When?” Clare demanded. The questions, too, rang true. Would a guilty man not have blurted out, “How do you know? How did you find out?” Or if he had prepared his reaction, might he not have included a “Poor girl!”

  “Her body was hauled from the Thames last night,” Corinne replied, wearing a suitably funereal mien. They had decided to tell Clare as little as possible, and see if he revealed knowledge of other details without being told.

  “The fog was dense last night,” Clare said musingly. “She must have fallen into the river and drowned.”

  “Actually, foul play is suspected,” Prance informed him. Not a word was said about a bullet wound. He continued in a casual way, “What was she doing out of the Morgate Home at all? Do you know, Lord Clare?”

  “I did have a note from Mrs. Bruton this morning telling me Fanny had left us. She said her father had written inviting her home. She packed up her belongings and left with him— or some man. Someone called for her in a hired hackney in the afternoon. The man didn’t come in. Fanny had packed her belongings and was waiting, darted out to meet him. Mrs. Bruton had the notion he was an older man. Peeked through the window to get a look at him, I expect. It’s only natural. But how did she end up in the Thames? It’s incredible!”

  Prance wondered if Mrs. Bruton had written all these close details. It seemed unlikely. A part of their agenda was to discover, in a subtle manner that didn’t reveal what they were about, whether Clare had an alibi.

  He said, “Pity you hadn’t been there. I doubt Fanny could have pulled the wool over your eyes.”

  “As it happens, I wasn’t in town yesterday. I left early in the morning and only returned from Drumquin this morning. It was Mama’s birthday. Her fiftieth. A gathering of the clan for a family celebration.”

  Corinne wondered where his estate was, but didn’t ask. That could easily be looked into without quizzing Clare, and perhaps revealing their suspicions. “A big party, was it?” she asked.

  “As I said, a family affair. A couple of dozen aunts and uncles and the usual number of pensioners. Dull stuff, but I played the dutiful son, which is to say I drank too many toasts, danced with all the ugliest ladies, and went to bed early. An early night now and again is good for the soul.”

  “To say nothing of the body,” Prance added. Clare did look as if he had been indulging in a deal of drinking— or missing his sleep. His eyelids were heavy, and his eyes bloodshot.

  Corinne understood that Prance wasn’t going to challenge him on his alibi. “We came to see if we could help you with the ball,” she said.

  He gave her his charming, little boy smile. “That’s very kind of you. Actually I should see Mrs. Bruton this morning and decide what to tell the girls. They’ll be worried, poor things. I’ll have to call on Doctor Harper as well. He’ll be concerned about the repercussions. The scandal sheets have a field day with this sort of thing— young provincial getting her throat cut in the big city. Donations won’t so easily be forthcoming if our donors think we’re careless about the girls’ safety. I must speak to Bow Street, too, and see if they’ve discovered anything about the culprit. And if they’ve notified her father. I wonder what should be done about burial? Really there’s so much to do— I hate to be rude, but could you come back tomorrow morning?”

  It was too reasonable a request to talk away. Prance and Corinne expressed their sympathy and left. The man Luten had watching Clare would see if he spent his day as he had outlined.

  “How can we find out where Drumquin is, and if he was really there yesterday?” Corinne asked, as they drove away.

  “Drumquin is just outside of Croyden, not ten miles from London. He could easily have arranged to have Fanny picked up by some accomplice– you noticed the use of an anonymous hackney cab– killed her, and returned later to dump her body in the Thames, while his relatives, no doubt most of them drunk as Danes, will swear he was with them all night.”

  “Or he could have hired someone to do the whole job,” she suggested. “He mentioned her having her throat cut. I wonder if he doesn’t know she was shot, or was just being clever.”

  “He’s no fool. I wager he chose yesterday to murder her because the birthday provided an alibi.”

  “Perhaps. What I was wondering was what ruse he used to get her to go off in the hackney with a stranger, or presumably a stranger. I know she liked Clare. I wonder if he offered to set her up as his mistress in some flat away from the annex.”

>   “I expect she’d have leapt at the chance.”

  To avoid any unpleasantness about calling on Luten, Prance invited Corinne into his house when they returned to Berkeley Square. Luten had either been watching the window or asked his butler to notify him of their return. He came not five minutes after they arrived.

  “You weren’t gone long,” he said. “What did you learn?”

  Prance outlined the gist of their visit. “A hard alibi to test. How can we go asking his relatives if he was really there, at that party? It’s too farouche.”

  “There’s one thing we can do,” Luten said. “Find out if yesterday really was his mama’s birthday. Now who do we know who would know? Lady Clare was a Simpson before marriage. Her brother does some work for Brougham. I’ll send a note off to the House.”

  Prance brought his writing box of teak inlaid with ivory and Luten dashed off a brief query which Prance gave to his butler for dispatching.

  When the footman Luten had posted to watch Clare was relieved by another footman, the former reported to Luten that Clare had indeed arrived home in his traveling carriage at ten o’clock that morning, which looked as though he had spent the night at Drumquin.

  “Or somewhere,” Luten said doubtfully.

  “True, I don’t know where he come from,” the footman said, “but I know where he went to when he left shortly after Sir Reginald and her ladyship this morning. He went to the headquarters of the Morgate sect. Doctor Harper’s office is there. I went in and asked to speak to Doctor Harper, the secretary said he was busy with Lord Clare. I went away without leaving my name. Said I’d come back later. I wasn’t wearing my livery, so they won’t know I’m working for you.”

  When Prance’s footman returned with Brougham’s reply, their suspicions mounted. Luten’s face tightened in a chilly smile, then he looked up and said, “Interesting. It seems that Lady Clare, like Jesus, was born on Christmas day.”

  “What a foolish lie for him to tell,” Corinne said. “He must know we could easily find out the truth.”

  “He obviously has no notion we’re investigating him,” Luten said, with satisfaction.

  “One almost wonders if he would not suspect, though, if he were guilty,” Prance said. “You are, no doubt, familiar with William’s insightful line, ‘Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind.’ One’s first guess as to the source would be Macbeth, but it’s from one of the Henry plays. I’m not sure which.”

  “He really did look genuinely surprised when we told him of Fanny’s death,” Corinne said, and waited for some blighting remark from Luten as to her gullibility. He just looked at her, frowning without speaking.

  “His first reaction when we told him was very natural,” Prance said. “Not at all practised sounding, as if he had been rehearsing.”

  “But he was lying about his mama’s birthday party,” Luten reminded them. “Did he sound natural then?”

  “Yes, it came out very glibly,” Prance admitted. “You know, he might have been spending the day relatively innocently, with some married lady. Though I did find it odd Mrs. Bruton, who doesn’t strike one as by any means a literary lady, wrote such a detailed account of Fanny’s departure.”

  Coffen arrived in the middle of their discussion. “Any news?” he asked. Prance poured him a glass of wine and rang for his butler. Coffen would soon be wanting nourishment. He was feeling peckish himself, which was unusual.

  Luten outlined succinctly what they had been discussing.

  “Lied about his own mama, eh?” Coffen said, shaking his head. “Hard to trust a fellow who’d do that, but I believe I may be on to something else. That Harry Morrison fellow from Somerset House who worked with Henry– I had a word with him. Took him to a coffee house. The lad can hardly talk without breaking into sobs. He’s loaded with grief about Fogg, and sounds guilty along with it. I believe he was Fogg’s boyfriend. And plus he was wearing a little gold ring, a dead match for the one I found near the Albany. Odd he’d throw away Fogg’s ring, though.”

  “They would be pretty damning evidence if it were found on him,” Luten said.

  “True, but then why take it at all? And the lock of hair as well.”

  Prance attempted an explanation. “He might have taken them in an excess of grief when he realized he had killed his lover, then when he got outside, fear overrode grief. Self preservation is the most basic human instinct. Perhaps he saw a Bow Street Runner passing by, he panicked and flung them away. Though personally I am inclined to finger Clare as the murderer.”

  “You always want the high and mighty to be involved in our cases,” Coffen said with a sniff.

  “If we must dabble in sordid matters, I would prefer to deal with ladies and gentlemen.”

  “Dash it, we’re dealing with a prince. The first gentleman of Europe the journals call him. Ain’t that enough for you?”

  “It helps,” Prance conceded. “What did Morrison say?”

  “He didn’t say anything about the ring or the hair. I didn’t mention them.”

  “I don’t mean about the ring and the hair. I mean about his feelings for Fogg.”

  “Well, he allowed as how he and Fogg were good friends, how Fogg had been the only one who made him welcome there at Somerset House. The others all thought they was too good for him, as he didn’t go to university like them. I found that strange since the general opinion around the place was that Fogg thought himself too good for the others, so why pick on the lowest one, unless it was a romance. No accounting for taste once it’s a question of romance. And the more damning thing, Morrison wasn’t at work yesterday.”

  “Really!” That was Prance.

  “Said he had a cold, but he wasn’t coughing or sneezing, and his red eyes were only because he was bawling his head off.”

  “Did he admit to knowing Fanny Rowan?” Corinne asked.

  “His head jerked up when I mentioned the name. He said in a sly sort of way he thought he had heard Fogg mention her. But he knows more than he lets on, for he rushed on to say that Fogg wasn’t the one who had got her in the family way– which she wasn’t, but of course she had let on to Fogg that she was.”

  “But why on earth would Morrison kill her?” Corinne asked.

  Coffen’s brow furrowed like a washboard. “I’ve been racking my brain about that. Here’s the way I figure it. You all know Fanny slipped out the window to meet me. Maybe she slipped out and went to visit Henry Fogg the night he was killed. Say Morrison landed in and found them together, took a jealous fit. Fanny must have left before he killed Fogg, but when she heard he was killed that night, she’d have a pretty good idea who did it. If she tried to get money or something out of Morrison to keep her quiet, then he’d have a good reason to kill her. He don’t seem the type, but when a fellow falls into a passion, there’s no saying what he might do. Crime passionel,” he added, to clinch the argument, and tossed up his hands.

  Prance leaned his chin on his index finger and said musingly, “It looks suspicious, his not being at work yesterday, when Fanny was spirited off.”

  Coffen nodded. “It does. I thought of asking Fitz to stay behind and keep an eye on him but there didn’t seem much point as he was going back to work, so I mentioned I might drop in on him later, got his address, went and searched his apartment instead with the passe-partout I got from Fitz. He lives in a tumbledown set of rooms in an old cottage on the Thames.” He put his hand in his pocket, drew it out in a fist, opened his hand and on his palm lay an oval ivory miniature, framed in gold. “It’s Fogg,” he said, passing it around. “I found it beneath Morrison’s pillow.”

  Luten drew a deep sigh. “They’re both lying, Clare and Morrison. And Fanny, the likeliest one to know the truth, is dead. Did you speak to Sally, Coffen?”

  “Not yet. If ‘twas Morrison who did it, it’s not likely Sally would know anything about it. I mean to get a letter from the manager of Drury Lane this afternoon and take it to Sally. He’s promised to give her work, that’ll get her out of t
he annex. She’ll be so grateful she’ll tell me anything she knows.” The butler appeared at the door with coffee and sandwiches. “Ah, time for fork work! There’s a grand idea.”

  Coffen began to snabble down the sandwiches while the others had coffee. Prance, seeing the sandwiches were all meat, found he had lost his appetite.

  “What shall we do this afternoon?” he said, looking from Corinne to Luten.

  “I’m going to call on Mrs. Bruton and see if she can describe the man or the hackney that picked up Fanny,” Luten said. He cast a questioning look at Corinne.

  It darted into her head that this might be a sort of tacit invitation for her to join him, but she didn’t want to mention it in case she was mistaken. “What are you doing, Prance?” she asked.

  “I shall sketch up a few designs for Clare’s auction ball. I must have something to show him when we return tomorrow.”

  Luten turned a chilly look on Corinne. “And you, countess? No doubt you have some social outing planned?”

  The dread name Byron hung in the air between them. To punish him, she said, “Yes, as a matter of fact, I have.” Then she turned to Prance. “At what time shall we call on Clare tomorrow?”

  “Let’s wait and see what develops from Coffen’s and Luten’s visits this afternoon before we decide.”

  “Very well, then I’ll leave now. And please, don’t anyone feel it’s necessary to accompany me the two steps across the street in broad daylight.”

  “No doubt your faithful Black will be watching out for you,” Prance said, and went with her to the door.

  When he returned, he said, “I wonder what she’s doing this afternoon. Odd she didn’t see fit to mention it.” His eyes slid to Luten, who sat with his jaw clenched.

  “In any case we know what she’s not doing,” Luten said, with nostrils flaring. “She is not helping us solve this murder. No doubt she has more important things to do. Buy a new bonnet, perhaps.”

  “You ought to have asked her to go with you,” Coffen said. “A blind man could see she wanted to. Acting like children, the pair of you. Proud as peacocks.”