Midnight Masquerade

by Joan Smith

  She was very much averse to lying, but more averse to revealing the truth. “Yes, I was there. It was hot and noisy belowstairs. I suddenly wanted to feel the fresh, cold air. I knew I couldn’t walk out the front door, so I decided to go up and have a look out on the roof. I had seen it earlier, and the window leading to it, when I went to the attic with your mama to retrieve a large tin pot she wished to use for making ices.”

  “You could have opened the French doors in the library,” he mentioned.

  “Well, I didn’t. I went up to the attic. I wanted to be close to the stars,” she added with a face that challenged him to deny this unlikely claim.

  “There were no stars out last night.”

  “I didn’t know that till I got there. I couldn’t see the sky from the ballroom,” she said, becoming irritated. “I often skip away from a ball for a few dances, to a conservatory, or . . .”

  “I remember,” he said softly, smiling at her. “Why did you tread so dangerously close to the edge of the roof? Did you think to discover stars hiding below?”

  “Of course not. I just went for a little stroll while I was out.”

  “That doesn’t sound like sensible Deirdre Gower, but I suppose I must accept it. Now comes the more difficult question for you. Why did you bother hiding it from me this afternoon, as it is so innocent?”

  She racked her brain for any excuse, however foolish, and said, “You were having so much fun playing at Bow Street that I decided to confuse you. Just dragging a red herring across the trail, to confuse the scent.”

  “That’s a lamentable excuse. You were working with me, not against me. You were alone?”

  “All alone, just me and the snow. Now it’s time for your catechism, milord. Where did you find the diamond, and who took it?”

  “I didn’t find it, and I don’t know who took it,” he answered simply.

  “You don’t know! Belami, you cheat! After I confessed going up to the roof to look for you. To see if you were coming, I mean,” she added quickly. “Naturally, while I was there I took a look down the road. Your mama was very much afraid you had had an accident, you know. She fretted about it all day long.”

  “That contingency did not occur to you, I take it.”

  “Certainly not. I’m not that foolish. And never mind talking about me. You mean to tell you don’t have the diamond?”

  “I haven’t seen hide nor hair of it. It was all a hoax. I hoped the culprit might give himself away. He should, by rights, have been extremely worried. We’re pretty sure it isn’t hidden in the house. We’ve looked everywhere.”

  “You haven’t searched your guests,” she reminded him.

  “It’s too gothic. I haven’t the gall to do it. I can’t ask the likes of Cottrell to strip, and to pick out the select few suspects—well, it’s hardly the thing, is it? I believe I’d sooner pay the money than do it. If the thief had it on him, though, he would have let a hand fly to his pocket to check, and thus give away its whereabouts. Someone ought to have been a little concerned at least. No one was. Your aunt wasn’t any too pleased either,” he added frowning.

  “No, she thought she had you snug in her pocket with the loss of the diamond to keep you in line. Well, what a take-in this is. The great Belami, investigator extraordinaire, has no more idea than the rest of us who took it. I believe I must get busy and find it myself. Are you going to go on with the ruse of having found it?”

  He shrugged his elegant shoulders. “For the time being, I shall. Confusion is good for criminals.”

  “A pity it’s not the criminals who are confused, instead of you.”

  “It is a result of people telling me lies. Perfectly unexceptionable ladies, whose characters ought to be able to be depended on,” he told her with a bold stare.

  “I’ve told you everything now.”

  “There’s one matter that still intrigues me. How did you talk Charney into canceling the announcement of our betrothal?” he asked with an air of indifference.

  “I pleaded on bended knee that she not condemn me to a life of waiting on rooftops for my husband to return.”

  “I suppose the truth of the matter is you have some other fellow in your eye,” he suggested. “I’m not talking about Bidwell. Who is he?”

  “Since everyone is telling me how madly I am in love with Bidwell, I have begun to discover qualities in him.”

  “Which qualities are those you refer to? Stupidity, foolishness, vanity . . .”

  “Hush, I may marry him after all,” she said with a smile that told him she was not serious.

  “Are you prepared to do battle with the brewer’s daughter he is currently courting?”

  “If I decide he’s worth it, I shall.”

  “Now that surprises me, Deirdre. I should have thought you much too proud to fight for a man you loved.”

  “Oh, no, not for one I loved,” she answered sweetly. Then she lifted her fan, gave it a shake below her eyes, and turned to undulate from the room, perfectly aware that his black eyes were following her. She was aware too that there was an inference that she had not bothered to fight for Belami. And she hadn’t. She was unsure whether she loved or hated him at that moment, but she had loved him at first, and she hadn’t gone an inch out of her way to lure him when he didn’t call on her. She had sat home for two weeks, pretending she had a cold, so she wouldn’t have the ignominy of watching him flirt with other girls. If she had been wise, she would have gone out herself and flirted her head off with other men. How could you win the love of a man who never saw you? At the doorway, she turned around, smiled like Lenore, and dropped a graceful curtsy.

  She had the unexpected joy of hearing his footfalls hurry after her. “Deirdre, wait!” he said, and she stopped just outside the door.

  His eyes, when he joined her, were kindled with a new, brighter light. They flickered quickly over her hair and face, with frequent darts to her lips—almost as though he were seeing her for the first time.

  “Yes, what is it, Dickie?” she asked nonchalantly, using his Christian name for the first time, though she occasionally called him that in her private thoughts. Lenore often called him it as well.

  “Dickie, what a stupid name! Call me Richard, if you want to please me.”

  “But I don’t, particularly. Especially not after your wicked trick in letting on you’d found the diamond, Dickie.” She tapped his arm with her fan as she said this, and smiled flirtatiously.

  She watched, bemused, as he moistened his lips, his eyes kindling still brighter. Why, there was nothing to this flirting business. It worked like a very charm, too.

  “Well, what is it?” she asked, feigning impatience.

  He placed his hand on her arm and began walking down the hall toward the front of the house. “I am greatly intrigued by this business of Bessler treating your aunt. Have you seen him do it?” he asked.

  She was aware of a stab of disappointment. Her answer was stiff, very much in her old mode. “Ac-tually, I haven’t. My aunt’s companion usually attends them. You can speak to her if you want to learn how it is done without quizzing Auntie.”

  “He was going to give her a treatment this evening, was he not?”

  “Yes. It doesn’t take long. He says Auntie is an excellent subject.”

  “Let us go up and see if he's finished,” Belami urged.

  “She wouldn’t like our going to watch,” she demurred.

  “I meant to watch from the next room, through the keyhole,” he admitted shamelessly.

  “Belami! How horrid!”

  “Isn’t it though? I’m really a wretched fellow when you come down to it. You’re sure we’re too late?”

  “Positive.”

  “Pity, let us return to the saloon, then,”

  “Very well.”

  “Or better, come with me to my laboratory. I don’t believe you’ve ever had a tour of it. It’s fascinating. An intelligent woman like you will be interested to see what experiments I carry on there.”
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br />   “I’d like to see it,” she agreed, flattered at his unwonted attentions.

  “It’s upstairs, just beside my bedroom.”

  “Oh, I can’t go there, Belami.”

  “You can call me Dickie. I’ll lock the bedroom door, if it will make you feel more secure.

  “And leave the door to the hallway open,” she added carefully.

  He sighed. “Would you like to find a chaperone, to ensure that I don’t ravage you among the test tubes and scales? I don’t know why you women always have your minds on lovemaking,” he added, to annoy her.

  “You’re the one.”

  “I?” he asked, his brows lifting to his hairline. “I invited you to view my laboratory, madam. If you’re only interested in flirtation, I suggest you remain below-stairs with Bidwell.”

  “I am not interested in Bidwell,” she said, exasperated at his sophistry.

  “Good, then come on up to my laboratory and flirt with me instead. I do it much better.”

  With a conning laugh, he turned to the stairs and they mounted together, the lady feeling almost sinful and Belami enjoying seeing the composed Miss Gower in an unnatural state of confusion. She hadn’t said actually for two minutes. If she said it again, he’d tease her out of the annoying habit.

  As if reading his mind, she said, “Ac-tually, I am very much interested in science.”

  “Good. Excellent. Ac-tually, I have a rather fine setup. It’s been a hobby of mine since I left Cambridge, where I read Science. I have in mind to perform a little experiment based on the work of a certain Friedrich Mohs, a German mineralogist, who worked out a table to determine the hardness of various materials a few years ago. Brilliant chap. Ac-tually, Miss Gower, I would be interested to test your hardness, but unfortunately Mohs’ scale only applies to minerals. You wouldn’t happen to be made of alabaster marble, by any chance?”

  “No, of human clay, like everyone else. What is it you mean to test?”

  “One of your fine diamond earrings ac-tually, if you will permit, and another substance I have got there.”

  “Ac-tually,” she added with a laughing peep at him from the corner of her eye. “I know I say it too much. It’s an irritating habit. Thank you for pointing it out to me.”

  He stopped and frowned down at her. “Are you trying to make me feel like two pennies, being so nice about my boorish behavior?” he asked.

  “No, like one, actually.”

  “Do you know, till this moment I never suspected you had a sense of humor,” he said in a complimentary tone as he resumed the climb.

  “Now you are being nasty,” she objected. “No sense of humor indeed, when I agreed to marry you. I’m sure society will find it a famous joke when you’re jilted. Not that anyone outside of this party would have any cause to suspect we were ever engaged. You didn’t exactly live in my pocket all month.”

  “I heard a rumor around town you were ill,” he mentioned vaguely.

  “Yes, I died, in fact, of boredom. Did the rumor not get about?”

  “Not a whisper. You should not have dwelt on the tedium of a future with me. I expect that was the cause. Were you ill?” he asked at the end, with a guilty start.

  “Do you care?” she countered.

  “Of course I do!”

  “Good, then there’s another case for you to solve when you finish this one.”

  “I have a much more interesting one. Sorry. I’ll bite my tongue.”

  “Another case? But how did you hear of it?”

  “Chamfreys mentioned something about a case of blackmail in high places.”

  “Which high place?” she asked with interest.

  “The highest.”

  “Mount Himalaya? What mischief can the sheep be getting into up there? Ah, you mean . . . Carlton House, or the palace?”

  “I should not speak of it, but offhand, which would you consider the more likely?” he asked with a wink.

  “Prinney, of course.”

  “There, you’re deducing already. Nothing to it.”

  He opened the door of the laboratory and lit the lamps, while Deirdre felt uncurling in her breast an unpleasant emotion that she soon deduced to be envy. How exciting, to be investigating a case at Carlton House! And she would be dying of boredom again at Belvedere Square with her aunt.

  Once the lights were lit, Belami went, with great ceremony, and opened wide the door adjoining his bedroom, then closed it and locked it. “You may hold the key,” he told her, offering it to her.

  She shook her head, indicating that this was unnecessary. She looked about the room at tables, two desks, and a few chairs. On the tables rested an assortment of scientific equipment. There was a microscope, surrounded by various small glass dishes, slides, and jars. Shelves above the table held bottles of various chemicals. A kerosene burner was set up on a stand to allow him to heat his materials, if the experiment called for it. Books were strewn all around, some open, some marked with sheets of paper.

  “The work I want to do is over here,” he said, pointing to a different table. On it rested a wooden tablet with some slabs of what looked like stones of various colors set into the wood.

  “Mohs’ Scale,” he said. “The first material is talc— the softest of the lot. The last is diamond, the hardest. Those between are arranged in order of hardness. When I find a piece of material and want to determine what it is, I try to scratch these tablets with it. This, for instance,” he said, picking up a jagged stone, “is quartz. Number seven on Mohs’ Scale, you see. It will scratch feldspar, number six, but not topaz, number eight. In fact, the scratch you see here on the quartz stone was made by Mama’s topaz ring. Now, may I have one of your earrings, please?”

  She reached to unfasten it, but Belami bent forward and did it for her. She felt her blood quicken as his fingers brushed her cheek. With his attention on unfastening the earring, she was free to look at him, the clean cut of his jaw, the haughty sweep of his nose, the long lashes. She regretted her caution in keeping the hallway door ajar. She resented too that he proceeded directly to business.

  He drew out from a drawer two blue papers, containing the remnants of broken glass collected from Lady Lenore’s grate. Lifting one largish piece of the glass, he applied it to the talc tablet, which it scratched easily, but it made no mark on the topaz.

  “Lead crystal varies in hardness. This piece is about six, I think. Now for a sliver large enough to hold from the glass Bidwell ground up with his heel. Here’s one,” he said, extracting it with some difficulty. It performed as the other piece had, scratching the low numbers on Mohs’ Scale, but not the topaz. Then he took her earring, and with it, scratched the sliver, managing to draw a few drops of blood from his finger in the process.

  “What have you proven?” she asked.

  “That I am but flesh and blood,” he told her.

  “Had you reason to doubt it?”

  “Yes, sometimes I think I’m an invention of my own imagination, like the theory I just disproved.”

  “What theory was that?” she asked with interest.

  “That only one glass was smashed in the grate on New Year’s Eve. I thought the second object was something else. The quantity wasn’t right, you see. I weighed the two piles of debris, and I weighed the glass I broke in my room. The powdered stuff is much lighter, I have a very accurate scale. It would even weigh, say, a small lock of your hair, or a piece of paper. What must have happened is that some piece of the glass flew off into the room, and we didn’t pick it up. Definitely the thing is lead crystal,” he added with a frown of concentration between his brows.

  “Is it possible Bidwell ground just a piece of the one glass he broke?” she asked.

  “No, I tried that. The broken glass plus the powder weighs too much. He stepped on something, twisted it into the stone hearth with his heel, possibly to conceal its original shape.”

  “What do you think it was?”

  “I did think it was your aunt’s diamond. Don’t laugh.
It was only a theory, and diamonds do crush up fairly easily. It helps to follow Wordsworth’s advice with regard to fiction, when working on a case. Suspend your disbelief, let the imagination soar, and see what possibilities take flight.” As he spoke, he flung his splayed hands in the air. “We have assumed, for instance, that our suspects are both sane. Just suppose one of them is mad. That he went to the trouble of stealing the diamond for the sole purpose of destroying it. Bidwell could conceivably have done it in spite, to cost his uncle Carswell anguish. We don’t know he is Carwell’s heir. We only think so, but can’t prove it here, isolated in the country.”

  “After you suspend your disbelief, you begin to recapture it, to bring the mad theory to earth and attach it to facts,” she said, smiling at him.

  “Oh, yes, it isn’t just an intellectual exercise.”

  “But Bidwell knew the stone wasn’t insured.”

  “He says he knew. I have no trouble suspending my disbelief that he’s lying. However, my disbelief balks at accepting that the diamond changed to lead crystal after he broke it, so that supposition is ruled out.”

  “Do you have any other suppositions?” she asked.

  “Well, the diamond might have been paste, but your aunt tells me duchesses do not wear paste, and there was no copy. Dare we suspend our disbelief on that point?”

  “I know she fiddles the cards a little, but there was never any copy that I knew of. And why should she perpetrate such a cruel hoax on you, Belami? She likes you.’’

  “That’s the wildest theory I’ve heard yet!” he laughed. “I don’t suppose she would tell you if she had a copy made. And the fact of discontinuing the insurance . . . If they wanted to reexamine the stone, for instance, and it had magically turned to paste—you can see why she’d have to discontinue it.”

  “They wouldn’t reexamine it if she’d just renewed the policy. It’s been insured for years, but only examined when she first took out the policy.”

  “What other nonsense can we consider?” he asked, rubbing his chin.

  “I wish I could think the whole thing had never happened.”