by Joan Smith
Breslau’s ears perked up. Now it was coming! A few animadversions on his life-style. “On the contrary, I come frequently. The moth in me was always attracted to the flame of drama. Coming here feeds my vanity, as well as my stomach.”
Her smile was condescending, but it struck her as odd to hear a man speak the unflattering truth about himself so unequivocally. “They seem a very convivial lot,” she admitted.
“They’re a breed apart; they live for the performance.” Breslau’s expression assumed an attractive liveliness. “There’s an enticing sense of urgency in the life of theater people, and along the way they manage to make all life exciting. Real life lacks that—thrill. I was dozing my life away in the House before I joined the Drury Lane Commission. Now the days aren’t long enough to encompass all I must do. Culture is vital to a nation, as vital as politics or wars, or so I have convinced myself. Do you feel no attraction to such a life, even in your more pagan moments?”
“My life has no pagan moments,” she said with a definite air of deprivation. Breslau was right. Her life had soared to previously unimagined heights of excitement since meeting Fleur and him. Chatham would be intolerable after this brush with drama. Pamela didn’t observe the tense air of expectancy in her companion. Secure that it wouldn’t degrade her in his eyes, she told the simple truth. “I adore all this. I wish I could be an actress. Rose Flanders mistook me for one.” A pensive smile played over her features.
Breslau was at pains to hide the gloating smile that wanted to come out. Miss Comstock would do. Now he had only to convince her that he would do for her. “Ladies are allowed to play in amateur productions. I plan to try out a new comedy I’ve written myself. I’ll be putting it on at my country estate in the summer. Would you be interested to try your hand in a part?” he asked casually.
She felt a rush of delight, alloyed only by surprise. “Where is your country estate?”
“In Derbyshire.”
“That’s very far away.”
“My carriage will be going, so you needn’t worry about your horses being put to the exertion—and the tolls,” he added mischievously. A sense of humor was also important in the future Marchioness of Breslau.
She gave him a bantering smile. “That eases my mind considerably, sir. You plutocrats aren’t always awake to the inconvenience of not having your pockets full of silver.”
“Before you point out the ineligibility of the scheme, let me say my aunts would be delighted to play propriety.”
“I’d have to discuss it with my parents,” she said. Her quivering lips and shining eyes spoke clearly of her desire to participate.
“If all else fails,” Breslau suggested, “I could invite Nigel along.” Her smile faded. He reached for her fingers in an avuncular fashion. “Isn’t there always a fly in the ointment?”
“More like a serpent in the Garden of Eden. It sounds heavenly, Breslau.”
The treacle tarts arrived and were soon dispatched. Breslau led Pamela to the door amidst a shower of farewells.
“First stop, the corner of Drury Lane and Macklin Street,” he called to his driver, and they were off.
The residence was a rambling rooming house, no longer elegant, but not quite sunk below respectability. They read the apartment numbers and climbed up two stories. Breslau tapped on the door and a manservant answered.
“I’d like to see Mr. Spiedel,” Breslau said.
“The master’s out, sir. Could I tell him who was calling?”
If Spiedel was involved, Breslau didn’t want to leave his name. “It’s not important. When do you expect him?”
“He comes and goes as he likes.”
“Does he dine at home in the evening?”
The man gave him a surly look. “Who’s to cook for him? I have enough to do with keeping his boots polished and his clothes in order and the dust and dirt out of the rooms, without turning cook. Mind you I can fry a sausage or a bit of gammon and eggs in a pinch.”
“He won’t be dining at home, I take it?”
“No, sir, he’ll not. Leave a note, if you like.”
“I’ll come back later. Has Mr. Halton been to call?”
“Who?”
Breslau repeated the name. The servant didn’t appear to recognize it, so the guests left, not much wiser than when they arrived. “If Spiedel’s in town, he’ll turn up at the theater tonight,” Pamela said. “In any case, he looks innocent. He doesn’t even know Halton. Yet it was Spiedel who argued with Fleur, and Halton who hired the carriage.”
“They must have met, at least, as they both hang about the theater. They could be working together.”
The marquise’s apartment was the next stop. It was situated on the second floor in a respectable brick building on the corner of Upper Grosvenor Square.
“My groom says her maid was at home when he called,” Breslau mentioned as they mounted the stairs. “If you could find an excuse into her bedroom, I’ll divert Maria while you look for clues. See if she keeps a diary, or has any letters lying around. That sort of thing.”
“How can I possibly ask to enter her bedroom?”
“I’m disappointed in you, Pamela. The effectual Miss Comstock stymied by such a detail? You’ve ripped your sleeve, and wish privacy to mend it. Fleur has only one sitting room, which I shall occupy. This is your opportunity to try your hand at acting.”
“All right, I’ll do it.”
When they knocked at Fleur’s door, there was no reply.
“The maid must have gone out,” Pamela exclaimed.
“That’s odd. The reason she didn’t accompany Fleur to Belmont was that she had a violent cold. My groom mentioned a racking cough when he was here earlier.”
“We really shouldn’t disturb her if she’s ill. Unless she’s so ill that she requires help,” Pamela said, looking uncertainly to her companion.
“I’ll ask the caretaker to let us inside. He knows me.”
A brightly questioning gaze was turned on Breslau. “Do you frequently visit the marquise?”
“That depends on your definition of frequent. Is once a week frequent? When I was wooing her into leaving Covent Garden, I began coming. I still bring a play or song or sketch for a gown around for her consideration from time to time.”
“A footman could do that,” she snipped.
Breslau felt a sense of gratification at this display of interest that amounted almost to jealousy. “He could, but I like to keep the personal touch with my leading lady. I’ll fetch the caretaker.”
Pamela was left cooling her heels outside the door till he returned with the key. It annoyed her that Breslau hung on the skirts of such a woman as Fleur. Indeed the whole theater atmosphere, while fascinating, was peopled with too many pretty, friendly actresses to entirely please her.
Breslau returned alone, carrying the key. “Maria’s out shopping. A suspiciously rapid recovery.”
This didn’t strain Pamela’s credulity. Once a cold settled down to a cough, it was only an annoyance. They entered the apartment and she looked around with considerable interest. The drawing room was not only respectable but elegant. There was no garish taste in the gold window hangings or in the dainty striped settee and cut-velvet occasional chairs. The place was small, but well got up. A cursory examination gave no clue as to where the marquise was, or what she was doing.
“The bedroom,” Breslau said, and headed for a door.
She noticed he was familiar with the route, and felt a sharper stab of annoyance. She was determined to find the room in bad taste, but had uphill work disparaging such a refined chamber. The canopied bed and window hangings were in a pale green, while the carpet repeated the shade, adding creams and rose. A shower of rosebuds covered the walls. The glowing mahogany furnishings were downscaled to suit a lady’s chamber.
“We’ll try the desk first,” Breslau said, and began sorting through a welter of papers.
Pamela joined him. A silver tray held an oddment of letters, invitations, bills, a
nd theater sheets. Breslau rifled through them and removed the letters.
“You’re not going to read her private correspondence!”
“How else are we going to learn what she’s up to?”
“It seems horrid.”
“Fleur is in trouble, Pamela. We have to find her.”
With this reason for doing what she very much wished to do, Pamela, too, began opening envelopes and glancing through letters. There were several from gentlemen trying to arrange an introduction.
She mentioned the names to Breslau, who shook his head. “It’s Max, Spiedel, and Henry Halton we’re interested in. Or anything bearing a crest.”
The only item of interest was some correspondence from J. Spiedel. He was a frequent writer, and obviously a frequent guest as well. Several notes expressed thanks for the charming dinner the evening before. Others suggested rendezvous in secluded spots. More than one thanked Fleur for her “generosity.”
“Does he mean money, or—” Pamela came to an embarrassed halt.
After enjoying her discomfiture for a moment, he said, “There’s no tone of the lover. On the other hand, I don’t see why she’d continuously give blunt to a young hanger-on she’s not involved with. Fleur’s not clutch-fisted, but she likes value for her money.”
Pamela glanced at another note. “It’s money,” she said. “Ten pounds. He’s telling her he ordered the new jacket, and will present himself at the theater for her approval. What a parasite.” She read on. “Now he’s dunning Fleur for an acting job in one of her plays. How interesting. ‘You can always bring Lord Breslau around your thumb!’ How is this winding job achieved, Breslau?”
He threw up his shoulders. “I’ve already told you; I am putty in the hands of a beautiful woman.”
After one scathing glance, Pamela continued the letter, which was longer than most. “It seems Mr. Spiedel is less malleable. ‘Pray do not bother using your influence to get me any position as a scribbler for an M.P. It would not suit me at all. I have told you so more than once.’ Pretty cheeky!”
“Fleur never asked me to hire Spiedel.”
“So I gathered, or he’d be treading the boards. What’s that you’ve got there?”
“Her bank statement.”
“She must be broke, supporting Spiedel and herself.”
“On the contrary, she’s high in the stirrups.”
Pamela went to his shoulder to see for herself. “Those three large deposits over the past six months—they would be benefit performances, or something of the sort?”
“No. Benefits are usually performed for ill or retiring actors. This isn’t money from her acting.”
“I daresay she has investments in Consols that pay her interest.”
“That’s possible,” he said.
“She’s rich as Croesus! A quarterly interest of a thousand pounds indicates an extremely large amount of capital, something in the order of eighty thousand pounds,” Pamela said, frowning over the figures. “The only other thing I can think of is—” She stopped.
“It looks that way. She’s blackmailing someone.”
“I didn’t mean that!”
“Did you not, Miss Comstock? Then you obviously imply she has a keeper. I’ve noticed your mind has a tendency to dwell on illicit affairs. Shocking, and you a country-bred girl.”
“That is not restricted to the city I assure you.”
“True, making love appears to be a universal vice.”
“And my mind does not dwell on it.”
“You’re right. Harp is the word I should have used. Your mind does digress to more edifying matters—murder, turning actress. There’s nothing more to be learned here. Mr. Helton’s residence is the next stop. Would you like to take this opportunity to visit your Aunt Foster?”
“Very well. Of course she’ll expect me to stay if I go in person,” she added with a quick peep to read his reaction.
Breslau looked perfectly indifferent, but his words cheered her. “Then you would prefer to go to Belgrave Square and write her a note.”
“If you’re asking my preference, I would prefer to go to Wild Street.”
“Ladies always do enjoy a brush with lowlife, but you’ve had quite enough enjoyment for one day. And incidentally, when you speak to Aunt Agatha, we haven’t been to the Drury Lane Restaurant.”
“Have we not been here, either, calling on Fleur?”
“Fleur who?” he asked, and took her arm to lead her downstairs.
A gurgle of laughter rose in her throat. “And I thought you were so toplofty! You’re a fraud, Lord Breslau.”
His attempt at showing offense failed miserably. A boyish grin removed the last trace of arrogance from his refined features, rendering him much more attractive to his companion. “Appearing bored with my calling lightens the odium of it, in the eyes of my family and their more dignified friends. Now that you have joined my circle of intimes, Pamela, there is no need for me to sham it with you.”
“Well that’s a relief. And now that I am an intime, may I go with you to Wild Street?”
He raised a thin finger. “There is where you misread me. I may do all the slumming I like, and enjoy it thoroughly. You, on the other hand, being a maiden of unsullied reputation, must toe the line. Till a lady has nabbed herself an unexceptionable parti, she must be above reproach, like Caesar’s wife.”
“I doubt that you would have taken Calpurnia to the Drury Lane Restaurant to dine on bubble and squeak.”
“Not while Caesar was in charge of the Roman army, certainly. If you wish to continue this depraved existence, you must heed my warning—the one about nabbing an unexceptionable husband.”
“A high price to pay for a visit to a slum.”
“This is true,” he agreed, and laughed.
Pamela was returned to Breslau House and dutifully wrote up her letter to the Fosters. She refrained from writing to Harley, as he would certainly come pelting to Belgrave Square immediately. She spent a tiresome thirty minutes in front of the grate with Breslau’s aunts, inventing a polite lunch and drive to account for the time less genteelly occupied. As afternoon shadows turned the saloon to a cave, Breslau returned. He wore his toplofty mask, for his aunts’ benefit.
Pamela assumed the aunts wouldn’t recognize the name and said, “Did you find your friend, Mr. Halton, at home, Breslau?”
“Unfortunately Henry left town and hasn’t returned yet. Even his servants were out. A neighbor told me he was away.”
“No word when he might return?”
“I’m afraid not.”
They exchanged a worried, questioning look. “It’s rather chilly. I believe I’ll get my shawl,” Pamela said, and left the room, looking over her shoulder for Breslau to follow her.
He rose almost at once. “I’ll freshen up for dinner now. Would you please hurry dinner forward tonight, Aunt Agatha? I’m in a bit of a rush.”
Pamela was waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs. “What have you been doing all afternoon?” he asked.
“Gathering dust with your maiden aunts.”
“You have me back now. I hang on your lightest word. Those speaking eyes suggest you want to quiz me.”
“Did you go back to Spiedel’s flat?”
“There and to the theater. I kept missing him by minutes, but he’s around town.”
“I wonder what he and Fleur argued about.”
Breslau looked distracted. “I’d like to know who she was getting money from. Neither Spiedel nor Halton has two pence to rub together. She couldn’t be blackmailing them.”
“We have no proof she’s blackmailing anyone.”
“You’re harping again, Pamela.”
“There are other ways of making money!”
“The marquise is not a doctor or lawyer or financier. If you actually have a sensible idea, I’d like to hear it.”
“Nigel mentioned the Frenchies had asked her to spy for them.”
Breslau brushed it aside. “I said sensible. Fle
ur has no state secrets to sell. She isn’t interested in politics.”
“What other sort of secrets could she have, that she can hold someone to ransom? Who could she be blackmailing?”
“Any one of her ex-lovers who has attained a position of importance. It begins to look as if her victim tired of paying up and decided to—terminate the arrangement.”
“Terminate Fleur, you mean?”
“That would be the surest way of doing it.”
Pamela’s heart clenched and her head felt light. “You really think she’s dead?”
It was impossible to read Breslau’s expression. He didn’t look as worried as he should if he thought Fleur was dead. Yet he was genuinely concerned. Pamela felt her own anxiety shrink, but it didn’t dissipate.
“I’m afraid we have to consider that possibility. We’ll go to the theater tonight as planned. I want to ask some questions backstage. Rose might know something. She mentioned Fleur having a deal of money. I thought at the time it was only a dig at the difference in their salary. Perhaps she meant more than that. She might have some ideas regarding the source of all this money.”
“We still haven’t spoken to Spiedel. He was on such close terms with Fleur that he might know something—if he’s not the culprit himself, that is.”
“If he’s not at the theater, I’ll slip back to his apartment during the play.”
“You seem really worried, Wes.”
He rubbed his chin with his knuckles. “I am, rather.”
Chapter Nine
In retrospect, it seemed to Pamela that where Breslau made his mistake was in returning home for dinner. If they had not done so—and the meal was tediously formal—his aunts would not have taken the idea to accompany them to the play. It was small consolation that the aunts nodded approval of her plain blue gown. Even Breslau’s moderate compliment that he couldn’t imagine why she so strongly preferred the rose left at home didn’t satisfy her. She knew when she was seated between Miss Agatha and Miss Anscombe in his box that the only excitement she might expect from the evening was the drama on stage.