by M C Beaton
“Come now,” said Lord Harvey. “Sir Benjamin was a typically stolid Englishman. I appreciate your defense of the divinely beautiful Lady Wright, Saint-Juste, but you cannot make me believe Sir Benjamin was a Gothic monster.”
“In the same way you could not believe a word against our friend Mr. Palliser? Yet, if you remember, it was well and truly proved that he beat his poor wife to death, as well as having very odd tastes in amusement. You English!” The comte spread his hands in a Gallic gesture. “All country sports and clean living on the outside and the sins of the fall of Rome on the inside. And so we are all going to find the murderer of Sir Benjamin, hein? And with your help.”
“My help? My dear fellow, I am hardly intimate with the bourgeoisie, although I may occasionally invite a few of them to a party. I barely knew the man.”
The comte leaned forward. “You gave a ball on May second last year. In his diary Sir Benjamin has made a note that he planned to meet a certain H. in the Yellow Saloon at midnight.”
“Much as I would like to help,” said Lord Harvey in bored accents, “I cannot possibly remember who was in the Yellow Saloon at midnight one year ago. Come now. I do remember Sir Benjamin was present at the ball. He played cards all evening and did not once join the dancers.”
“Well, that’s a start. With whom was he playing cards?”
Lord Harvey put a long, thin finger up to his brow. “Let me see. The game was whist and the stakes were high. Sir Benjamin always played deep but never seemed to lose, even when he was in his cups. There was James Henderson, Lord Fletcher, Lord Framley… yes, I am sure that was it. I remember, you see, because of the high stakes and because there were a great many people watching them play. Sir Benjamin won.”
The comte rose to his feet. “I shall ask them if he left the card table at midnight. I am most obliged to you, Harvey.”
“De rien. I must apologize for the fact that my wife is still in bed. Otherwise I am sure she would be delighted to receive you.” Lord Harvey gave Emma a cold look, and she knew he really meant that if his wife knew that that murderess, Emma Wright, was in her house, then she would never have thought for one moment of putting in an appearance.
“So that is that,” said the comte as they drove off. “But I did not expect this to be easy. Still, we have made a start. Now, did you sleep with your husband?”
“My lord!”
“I mean, did he have his own bedchamber?”
“Yes, but…”
“So we will now go and search it. No, do not protest. What would you do without me? Sink into apathy.”
Emma looked at his handsome profile, at his long, muscular legs in leather breeches and top boots braced against the spatter board of the carriage, and said quietly, “Why should you interest yourself in my welfare, milord?”
“Because it amuses me,” he said again.
Emma felt a stabbing pain at her heart. He would soon tire of the chase and then she would be left alone again. Austin was right. She should travel.
When they arrived outside Emma’s town house, the comte looked up at the windows. The curtains were tightly drawn and the blinds were down. Even the study curtains which the comte had drawn back were once more closed again.
“The funeral is over,” he said. “There is no need to live in perpetual twilight. Tell the servants to open all the curtains and raise the blinds.”
Emma nodded, suddenly too tired and depressed to argue with this man who looked on her and the murder of her husband as an amusement.
But as the servants ran from room to room, opening the curtains and lifting the blinds and opening up the windows, she felt a lift at her heart as sunlight flooded the rooms. She ushered the comte into her husband’s bedchamber, looking about her with that old familiar feeling of fear. His heavy presence still dominated the room. His shaving things were still laid out on the toilet table, and the air smelled of the cologne he liked to wear.
She sank down into a chair and watched as the comte went through every drawer and cupboard. He even opened up the wig cupboard and shook out the wigs. “Was Sir Benjamin bald?” he asked over his shoulder. “Three of the best nut-brown wigs.”
“No, he was old-fashioned,” said Emma. “He wore his own hair cropped short under one of his wigs.”
The comte turned his attention to the toilet table. “A vain man,” he murmured. “The best scented soap, pomades and pomatums, creams and lotions. And all the bottles topped with gold stoppers. Musk pastels for bad breath. Ugh! False teeth. Waterloo teeth. I am amazed he was not buried with them.”
“An inexpensive spare set,” said Emma. Waterloo teeth were so called because women had been sent over to the battlefield to extract the best teeth from the corpses to supply the dentists of London.
The comte turned his attention to a large William and Mary wardrobe in the corner. He opened the doors and began to go carefully through the pockets of Sir Benjamin’s coats. “Snuffbox,” muttered the comte. “Handkerchiefs, quizzing glass… nothing much here. Where is his jewel box?”
“On that shelf on top of the wardrobe,” said Emma.
He reached up and brought down a heavy japanned box. “Unlocked. Good,” he said, placing it on the bed and raising the lid. “Fine jewels, rings, stickpins, watch chains, seals. We lift the top out and what have we? More rings and seals and fobs and… aha, a pack of cards.” He sat down on the bed and extracted the cards from the pack and then ran the tips of his fingers over the surfaces.
His eyes glinted with excitement as he held out a card to Emma. “Regardez,” he said triumphantly. “Marked cards!”
“I don’t see anything wrong with them,” said Emma.
“Run your fingers very lightly over the surface. Do you feel them? Little pin pricks, my dear Lady Wright.”
He scrabbled in the bottom of the box again and then lifted out a pair of dice. He weighed them in his hand and then crouched down on the floor and rolled them, and then again, and again.
“We are trying to find out the identity of my husband’s murderer,” said Emma crossly, “and all you can do is play dice.”
He leapt to his feet. “You widgeon, you beautiful widgeon,” he cried. He held out the dice. “Do you know what we have here? A bale of bard cinque deuces, a bale of flat sice aces, a bale of fulhams, a bale of demies, a bale of contraries… in other words, false dice. Oh, heavens above and all the angels bless me, your esteemed Member of Parliament, that rock of society, that so-worthy husband, was a cardsharp. Now, there’s a motive for murder. What delightful perfidy. What a villain. Let us look at the magic box again. Any secret compartments? Yes, the bottom tray lifts out and what have we? Papers, by all that’s holy.” He unrolled them and then cast a quick glance at Emma and rolled them back up again.
“What is in the papers?” demanded Emma.
“Not papers. Illustrations of a naughty nature, Lady Wright. Enough to bring the blush to the most hardened cheek. Oh, my poor Lady Wright.”
His voice was warm with sympathy and his eyes, kind. “You are not even surprised,” he said gently. “What horrors of the bedchamber lie locked behind that beautiful face of yours. Come, you will serve me tea and then I shall go out and about and find the three men who were playing cards with your husband at the Harveys’ ball.”
Emma was suddenly shy of him. His personality filled the room. He belonged to a London world she had only visited but had never been part of, a world of frivolity and gaiety and ease.
As they sat over the teacups, he did not talk anymore about the murder, but rattled on gaily about his life in society and how he planned to take part in a curricle race on the morrow. Then he turned his attention to the drawing room. The walls were mud-colored, the original wallpaper having been varnished over. Various bad and dark and dirty paintings were hung around the room, and the furniture was heavy and carved and ugly, upholstered in dark purple velvet. The curtains at the window were also of purple velvet. A William and Mary marquetry longcase clock by Edward Burg
is with a square-topped hood and a yellow face stared down into the room and sonorously ticked off the seconds. The fireplace was a massive marble affair without decoration and surmounted by a large greenish-looking glass.
“You could start with this room,” he said. “A little brightness—even a little—would make so much difference.” He put down his teacup with a little click. “Now I must go off on the hunt.”
Emma envied him as she stood a few moments later at the window and watched him spring into the carriage, shouting something over his shoulder to his tiger which made the tiger laugh. He seemed so free of care.
But she was reluctant to return to her dismal thoughts. Not only was fresh air blowing through the house, but it was as if the comte had blown some fresh air into her mind. She rang for Mrs. Chumley and told the housekeeper that she might consider redecorating the rooms of the house, starting with the drawing room. She went on a tour of the house. Downstairs, off the black-and-white-tiled hall, was the study, now locked again. Then there was the library, a small, somber room with dull, uninteresting books behind glass cases. Beside the library was a saloon, smelling of disuse. Emma realized with a little shock that they had never entertained there during the Season. On the first floor was the drawing room, the Blue Saloon, although it was a uniform brown, and a little morning room, and next to that a dining room. On the second floor lay the bedrooms and, above them, the attics.
And then as she emerged into the hall again, it was to find Tamworthy and two footmen taking in bouquet after bouquet of flowers. There were early roses and tulips and great bunches of lilac. There were freesias from the Channel Islands and tubs and tubs of hothouse exotics. Their colors blazed in the dark hall and filled the air with a heady smell of perfume.
“Who sent these?” asked Emma, although she already knew the answer.
“Monsieur le Comte,” replied the butler. “Dear me, I do not know where I shall find enough vases, my lady.”
“Buy all that is needed,” said Emma, suddenly lighthearted. She felt full of energy after her days and days of lethargic despair. “And have the carriage brought round, Tamworthy. I must go to Sir Benjamin’s lawyers. I do not even know how to make out a check at the bank!”
The comte was in luck. By sheer coincidence, Mr. James Henderson, Lord Fletcher, and Lord Framley were all in White’s Club in St. James’s. They were just leaving the card room as he arrived, all looking very downcast. The comte wondered if some other cardsharp had just fleeced them.
He invited them to join him in a couple of bottles of burgundy, and they readily agreed. The comte had the reputation of being an amusing rattle. They sat down with him at a table in the coffee room and prepared to enjoy the comte’s usual frivolous flow of conversation.
The comte prattled on happily while he covertly studied the three. Mr. James Henderson was handsome in a very English way, tall, with good shoulders and a square face and very blond hair and light blue eyes fringed with fair lashes. He had resigned his commission after Waterloo and appeared to have substantial means. Lord Fletcher was a fribble. His thin brown hair was artistically curled, his face was whitened with blanc, and the palms of his hands stained pink with cochineal. He wore fixed gold spurs on his boots, and his coat was well padded with buckram at the shoulders so that he had the air of a man frozen in the middle of a shrug. Lord Framley had one of those heavy Hanoverian faces: pale bulbous eyes and thick lips and a short neck. He was carelessly dressed. His coat was covered with snuff and wine stains, and his linen was dirty.
The comte waited until they were at their ease and then said suddenly, “Congratulate me, mes amis, I have a purpose in life at last.”
“Something serious, no doubt,” drawled Mr. Henderson. “A night with our latest opera comet, Madame Divine?”
“Oh, much more serious than that,” said the comte. He hitched his chair forward. “I am going to discover who murdered Sir Benjamin Wright.”
This was met in dead silence. Three blank faces looked back at him.
Then Lord Framley gave a loud laugh. “Haw, haw, haw,” he guffawed, slapping his fat thighs. “You had us there for a minute. Stap me! T’was that wife of his. Everyone knows that.”
“Oh, no, they don’t,” said the comte. “Lady Wright was not arrested, and the reason she was not is that she was locked in her bedchamber all night. So you see, we have a murderer at large in society.”
“Probably some seedy burglar,” said Mr. Henderson, stifling a yawn.
“I say,” yelped Lord Fletcher, “it’s as plain as day that Lady Wright bribed the servants to say she was locked in her room. I heard that story.”
“But I have met the servants myself,” said the comte gently, “and they are the soul of honor.”
“People say she’s a witch,” said Lord Framley petulantly, “and that’s how she could get into that locked room. Anyway, why come to us?”
“You were playing cards with Sir Benjamin at the Harveys’ ball during May last year. In his diary Sir Benjamin has one cryptic note. He was to meet a certain H. in the Yellow Saloon at midnight.”
“You have been at the playhouse too many times,” laughed Mr. Henderson. “Where is the Yellow Saloon anyway?”
The comte looked at him, almost comical in his dismay. “I never think to ask the simplest questions,” he exclaimed.
“Well, I’ll tell you,” said Lord Framley. “It’s on the ground floor, almost directly under the ballroom.”
“So, do you know who went there at midnight?”
Lord Fletcher’s lips curled in a sneer. “You expect us to remember what happened a year ago?”
“I thought the three of you might remember that particular evening. Sir Benjamin relieved you all of a great deal of money.”
“Stap me! If you ain’t right,” said Lord Fletcher. “And that’s the last time I played with him. The man had the luck of the devil.”
The comte wondered whether to tell them that the late Sir Benjamin had been a cardsharp, but decided against it. Lady Wright would promptly be besieged by the half of London society demanding their money back if that story got around.
“So, how long did the three of you play?” pursued the comte.
They all looked at each other and then shook their heads. After a few more questions, the comte left, feeling depressed.
“You missed an amusing call,” said Lord Harvey to his wife. “The Comte Saint-Juste.”
“You should have told me,” pouted his wife. “Our comte is ever amusing.”
“Ah, but he brought Lady Wright with him. He is determined to clear her name.”
Lady Harvey looked at her husband in amazement. “But she has been accused of nothing.”
“Except by society,” her husband pointed out. “Saint-Juste has found a cryptic clue in Sir Benjamin’s diary. Evidently, Sir Benjamin was to meet a certain fellow referred to as H. in our Yellow Saloon at midnight at our ball last year. As if anyone could remember who was there.”
“Absolutely ridiculous,” began his wife. “I…” Then she let out a gurgle of laughter. “But I can tell you who was there. Madame Beauregard and her latest amour in such a state. I opened the door to see if I had left my shawl there, you know, the Norfolk one, because Mrs. Betty was most eager to see it, and there they were! I blushed all over and closed the door. And it must have been just about midnight.”
Lord Harvey laughed. “We’d better tell the fellow Comte Saint-Juste is hot on his trail. I shall probably see him this evening. What sport! Was not our comte himself interested in La Beauregard once? Murder, fiddle.”
“It is all a piece of folly,” said his wife. “The comte cannot have formed a tendre for the pretty widow—Madame Beauregard is a more likely candidate. People call Lady Wright pretty—but how can they call a waxwork pretty!”
That evening, Emma fell asleep, a bouquet of flowers on a table beside her bed. But during the night she had a horrible dream. Her husband was not dead. It had all been a macabre joke. She was pulle
d from her room and dragged down to the hall to face that public beating. The comte was standing among the servants. He looked gay and debonair. “What sport we are having!” he cried when he saw her.
“No!” screamed Emma, and woke with a start. With trembling fingers she turned up the wick of the oil lamp she kept lighted beside the bed.
The house was very still and quiet. A horseman rode past on the street outside. From far away came the voice of the watch calling the hour. She lay for a while trembling, reluctant to fall asleep again in case some other horrendous dream should be waiting for her. She picked up a book from the bedside table, determined to read for a little until she felt calmer.
And then she heard it.
A faint footfall on the stairs.
She swung her legs out of bed and wrapped herself in a dressing gown. She crossed to the bell to ring for the servants and then hesitated. Her nerves must have been playing tricks with her hearing. She looked at the clock. Two in the morning. That was what the watch had been calling.
She lit a candle and, holding it aloft, softly opened the door and made her way along the corridor. It was the one way to cure her morbid fantasies, she thought. She would find the house empty apart from the sleeping servants.
The candlelight threw eerie shadows dancing up the walls. The eyes of a portrait suddenly seemed to glare at her out of the gloom. She reached the head of the stairs and raised the candle high.
Then she froze.
A black-masked figure was standing halfway up the stairs, his eyes glinting behind his mask.
He took a half step toward her, and Emma screamed and screamed and dropped the candle. She turned and blindly groped her way along the corridor, dived into her room, and slammed and locked the door. She closed her eyes, her hand at her heart as she heard the servants thudding up from the basement and down from the attics.