Bath Belles

by Joan Smith

  “Near Long Acre.”

  “I don’t know that part of London.”

  “East—drive east.”

  “But I don’t know that—”

  I pulled the reins from him and we were off, and a very bizarre team we made, to judge from the stares bestowed on us as we rattled along. My having forgotten to don a bonnet might have had something to do with it, I daresay. It certainly played havoc with my hairdo.

  “We really ought to switch to my closed carriage,” he suggested. “I could have it brought around in—”

  The horses were bolting dangerously, so I returned the reins to him. “Just be quiet and drive. Turn left here. Can’t you go any faster?”

  “This is a city team, miss.”

  “Give them the whip.”

  “Maybe you’d care to take the reins yourself, Lady Lade.’’

  “Don’t be impertinent!” I said coldly, though I hadn’t a notion what he meant.

  After a few false turns I espied Fleury Lane and directed Duke down it. I saw only Desmond’s carriage standing in the street, but it was hardly reassuring. If Eliot had come with mayhem in mind, he wouldn’t have left his rig there to be seen.

  “That looks like Des’s rig!” he exclaimed. “Now, what the deuce would he be doing here?”

  I turned to hop down from the perch, and Duke looked around for a boy to hold the reins.

  “Wait here! I want you to wait for me.”

  I didn’t want his two left feet making a racket on the stairs.

  “I think I should go with you—. I mean to say—”

  “Wait. I won’t be long.”

  I jumped down and ran toward the blue door. The bitter taste of fear was in my throat. My heart hammered painfully and my breath was short. What scene would await me? Eliot with blood on his hands, or a gun in them? I needed a weapon. I looked at Duke’s whip, but I wanted something more manageable. I ran to Des’s carriage, hoping to find a gun in the side pocket. All I found was another bottle of wine. I hefted it and deemed it heavy enough to knock Eliot out if I gave it a hard swing. With the bottle concealed under my pelisse, I returned to the blue door. I didn’t knock this time but crept in and up those steep, dark stairs as quietly as a mouse, with my ears cocked for sounds of violence.

  Kate’s door was closed, and no shrieks or sounds of gunfire came through it. As I drew nearer I heard the wail of a distressed Baba. His crying overrode the quieter hum of adult voices. I first placed my ear against the door, and when this told me nothing new I put my eye to the keyhole. All I saw was a dark wall at close range. After a moment, I realized I was looking at the back of a man’s blue jacket. Either Des or Eliot was standing a yard from the door, facing the room. The child stopped crying, and the buzz of voices cleared to recognizable words.

  “Don’t even think about it or she’s dead, and the kid, too,” Eliot said. He shifted aside, and I caught a partial view of Kate from the shoulder down. She held the baby in her arms and was standing right in front of Eliot. Her fingers moved convulsively, making it easy for me to imagine her fear. Eliot was using the mother and child as a shield to get out of the room. Des must have a gun, then.

  “Kate, get his gun. Put the kid on the floor, right here at my feet. If you want him back alive, you won’t try anything.”

  Kate made a low moaning sound, like a dying animal, but did as he said. She handed Eliot the gun and picked up her baby again. “That’s fine. That’s just fine,” Eliot purred. Knowing him for what he was, I thought that purr sounded as menacing as the cocking of a pistol. He wouldn’t leave them alive to report on him. He’d shoot Desmond first, then Kate.

  Much good a bottle of wine would have done when he came out that door and saw me! I lifted the bottle and stared at it, regretting it was not a pistol. I would have to open the door and try to crash the bottle against Eliot’s skull before he turned around and shot me. I checked his position one last time and noticed that he had edged a step closer to the door. He wasn’t more than eighteen inches from it now. I wouldn’t be able to get it open without hitting him.

  I couldn’t see him raise his gun and take aim, but Kate’s agonized wail told me that was what was happening. “You can’t ...” she whined. Of Desmond I saw nothing, not so much as an inch. Eliot’s hateful back blotted him out entirely. By the time I saw him he’d be dead on the floor. The image rose up in my mind, showing me what would happen if I didn’t move fast.

  If I couldn’t knock Eliot out with the bottle, I’d hit him with the door and knock him off balance. I clutched the handle and pushed the door fast and hard, with all my might. It opened ten inches, met resistance, then suddenly gave way, and I nearly fell into the room. My first glance was to Desmond. He was alive—looking very like a ghost, but alive. While I stood staring, he moved forward, quick as a lizard. At my feet Eliot sprawled, still clutching the gun, with Kate wedged beneath him. Baba had flown out of her arms and sat, stunned, halfway across the room. Des was already lunging for Eliot, but I was closer and got in the first crack. I lifted the wine bottle and brought it down across Eliot’s skull with enough force to break the bottle. I doubt that hard head cracked as easily. Wine trickled down his noble brow and splattered his jacket, but he was unaware of it. He was completely unconscious.

  There was a mad, incoherent scramble as Des pulled the gun from Eliot’s fingers, Kate eased herself out from under his prostrate form and soothed the squalling baby, and I gave Eliot’s leg a kick for good measure. My toe ached worse than ever.

  Then Des turned to me, with the gun dangling from his fingers, and asked in a shocked voice, “What are you doing here, Belle?”

  Witless with shock, I said, “I just came. Duke brought me.”

  A smile trembled on his lips. He pulled me into his arms and said, “I love you.”

  I pushed him away. “I bet you say that to everyone who saves your life.”

  He took a long look into my eyes before speaking and reached for my hands. “No, only to you.”

  “I wish you’d put that gun down before you shoot someone.”

  When we had all ascertained that none of us was mortally hurt, Des asked for ropes to bind up Eliot. I suspected that he had regained consciousness, but he played dead rather than face our wrath and contempt. When he was safely bound I hobbled downstairs to send Duke off to Bow Street. Before I could argue him into going, Bow Street came to us. Desmond had sent his groom there before coming to Fleury Lane, and we all went up to 2B.

  “That looks like Eliot Sutton!” Duke exclaimed. “Dead, is he?”

  “We should be so lucky!” I answered.

  “What happened to him?”

  “I hit him over the head.”

  “Ah.” He stepped back a pace, beyond my reach. “You should have asked me for my pistol, Miss Haley. I was just coming from Manton’s, and I have a brace of them in my curricle. But then, you wouldn’t need a pistol,” he decided.

  “No, I usually kill people with my bare hands, Duke.”

  He backed away another step before he realized I was joking. Soon Officer Roy took charge, but it was an Officer Roy grown gracious to atone for his former rudeness. His condescension when Desmond explained events was hardly less repulsive than his other mode.

  “So this brave little lady has saved the day, eh?” He beamed and patted my arm.

  “Regular Turk,” Duke informed him.

  “I knew you wasn’t the sort to put up with any shillyshallying,” Roy said aside, and gave me a wink. “Knocked him galley west with the door, there’s the ticket.”

  “Get this carcass out of here as soon as possible. We have to clean up this mess,” I told him, and went to get the broom to sweep up the broken glass before Baba and Duke got into it, for Duke had taken control of Baba and was playing with him on the floor.

  When I came back Roy had turned his revolting charms on Kate. He was making much ado over Baba, trying to wrest him from Duke’s clutches in such a rough way that Kate soon removed her precious
child to the bedroom.

  “There’s a pretty wee armful,” Roy said to Des, looking after Kate’s retreating form. “Is this her husband we’re hauling away?” he asked. There was an undeniable glint of scheming in his eye as he considered that this left Kate unattended.

  “No, she don’t have a husband, Roy,” Des told him. There was an answering glint of understanding and approval in the look Des gave him.

  “Eh, how does it come she has a kid, then?” Duke demanded. I was happy to see this token of conventionality in his thinking.

  “Of that ilk, eh?” Roy asked, but in no disapproving way. It was only interest he displayed. “A lass like that should have done better,” he added, glancing around the room. He took up one end of Eliot’s body, Desmond’s groom the other, and their conversation continued over the inert and sagging form. “The lass,” Roy said. “Your bit of stuff, is she?”

  Desmond, with unsteady lips, disclaimed any personal interest in the Incomparable. Before Roy left, he called down the hall to Kate, “I’ll be back shortly, miss. Around teatime.”

  Kate came into the saloon and blinked a watery smile at him. “Oh, thank you. It will feel so safe to have an officer in the house. They won’t lock me away, will they?”

  “For what?” Roy asked, bristling up most impressively. “The law hasn’t sunk to locking up innocent victims yet. Not while Arthur James Roy has anything to say about it.”

  “Oh thank you, sir.” She glowed. I’m sure Roy would have dropped Eliot and declared himself on the spot had it not been for his audience.

  “Don’t you worry, lass. I’ll not be letting anything happen to you,” he promised, and backed out the door. “You’ll come along to headquarters, Mr. Maitland, to lay charges?”

  “I’ll be right there,” Des replied, then turned to me. “You’d best go home, Belle. I’ll leave my groom here to give Kate a hand. Till her officer returns,” he added softly, with a little smile. “An ill wind that blows no good, they say.”

  “I’ll stay with her.”

  “Won’t your mother be worried?”

  “Yes, and it will do her a world of good to worry about me for a change.”

  “Kate will be all right. I’d feel better knowing you were home.”

  “Perhaps you’re right. I have some business to tend to.”

  “I’ll stop by later. You will let me in, won’t you?” he quizzed.

  “That depends on what new developments occur. If I learn in the meanwhile that I’ve been wrong again, you may find the door blocked.”

  “I think this time we’ve sorted it out, except to learn what he did with the money.”

  Kate came to thank us. “It was lucky you turned up when you did, Mrs. Mailer,” she told me.

  Duke gave a heavy frown and said, “She ain’t Mrs. Mailer.”

  Des opened his lips to explain, but it would have been such a long story that he decided to wait till later. Roy was hollering from the bottom of the stairs for him to come along. I stayed only till the groom returned to bear Kate company, then Duke said, “Shall I take you home, Mrs. Mailer?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “To which house, Elm Street or Berkeley Square?”

  “I believe I’ll go to my Elm Street address today, Duke.”

  He gave me a questioning look but said nothing about my suddenly having become Mrs. Mailer. “What happened back there?” he asked.

  “Nothing important. We scotched a snake.”

  “You should have killed it,” he said, but soon twigged that Eliot was the snake in question. I explained the details of the matter and even invited him in when I returned home.

  “You’ll want to be alone with the family,” he said. “This isn’t the time for me to—interfere.”

  A modicum of consideration was added to Mr. Duke’s short list of credits. “You’re right, but do come back later, Mr. Duke.”

  “My name is Ralph, Mrs. Mailer—er, Miss Haley.”

  “My name is Belle, Duke.”

  “An odd name for you.”

  Must I now add wit to his credits? No, it was not intended as sarcastic humor, but only as a comment.

  Before entering the house, I stood back and took a long look at it. It was difficult to imagine that but for an accident I would be the permanent mistress of this tiny establishment. My life would be circumscribed by Graham Sutton, his boring work, and his unsavory relatives and friends. I would be entertaining Eliot Sutton and Yootha Mailer. In time I might have come to accept their lax standards of propriety and their worthless daily routine. How very happy I was to have escaped it. I ran to the door, picked up the fallen brass knocker from the step, and went inside, smiling.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The short daylight hours of that November afternoon were fading to twilight before Desmond returned to Elm Street to give us his report. I had hoped for some privacy, but the little saloon was filled to overflowing. When Yootha Mailer brought Mama and Esther back from their drive, she came in for a glass of wine. No sooner had they taken their seats than Mrs. Seymour came over to inquire for the safety, and perhaps the sanity, of Miss Haley. Her reenactment of my flight in Duke’s curricle was vivid enough that Yootha remained to discover its cause.

  This made her late for an appointment with Mr. Stone and Two Legs Thomson. The latter was experienced enough that he did not come looking for her, but Mr. Stone tagged along to Elm Street. Duke had arrived about fifteen minutes after me and was there filling a chair and smiling at Esther.

  After guiding Mrs. Seymour to the door, I regaled Yootha with an account of her nephews’ shenanigans. She emitted a few polite exclamations of disbelief and hastened on to what really interested her. “You mean to say Miss Norman had the money all these years and wanted to give it to me?” It was as good as a raree show to watch the cunning greed on her face fade to regret.

  I assured her that Graham had told Kate his aunt would come to collect it, and I demanded to know why she had abandoned the girl in her sorry plight.

  “I had no idea she had the money!” she said.

  “I suppose you had some idea she was enceinte, and totally destitute without Graham to care for her!”

  “It was hardly my place to look after her! I don’t believe in encouraging trollops. A woman like that—you may be sure she found some man to take her under his wing.”

  As I had no idea how Kate had existed for those few years, my only answer was a blistering stare.

  “But the child, Mrs. Mailer!” Mama exclaimed. “The baby is your great-nephew.”

  “Rubbish! I don’t intend to become a great-aunt for a good many years yet. I am much too young.”

  “The poor girl,” Mama repined. “Something must be done for her.’’

  “It is Belle who got the greater part of Graham’s inheritance,” Yootha pointed out. “If you feel so strongly that Graham’s son requires support, it seems to me—”

  “Naturally I shall provide for him,” I told her stiffly. She might as well have said she didn’t believe me. Her glance said it as clearly as words would have.

  Mr. Stone shook his head and clicked his tongue. “A waste of blunt, Miss Haley. Let the little beggar learn to fend for himself. It won’t do him any harm.”

  “Mr. Stone!” Mama gasped, regarding him with the accusing eye of disillusionment. Mr. Stone had just cured Mama of her temporary enchantment, and I was heartily glad of it.

  When the wheels of Desmond’s carriage were heard beyond the window Yootha suddenly discovered it was time for her to go. “You won’t want to have much to do with that twisty fellow, Belle,” she warned me. They met at the door, both bowed stiffly, then Yootha and Mr. Stone left as Desmond entered.

  He made a much livelier tale of our afternoon than I had done. He substantiated my theory that Eliot had planned the whole theft well in advance and was lying in wait for Graham when he returned home that night with the money. “He says he had no notion of actually killing Graham,” he said. “He thought a blac
k mask and a gun would be enough inducement to make Graham hand over the money. He reckoned without his cousin’s determination. They got into a scuffle. Graham got the mask off him, and after that there was nothing for it but to do away with him. I can well imagine his chagrin when he discovered Graham didn’t have the money with him.”

  “Then it was Eliot who had been searching the house?” Esther asked.

  “Half of London’s been in and out. Eliot, my man Grant—I had a go at it myself, and I daresay Billie the Slash paid Elm Street a visit as well.”

  “Billie the Slash?” Esther asked, blinking. “What a horrid name! Does he slash people with a knife?”

  “Not at all,” Des assured her. “A slash is only a bullying, riotous cove. He’s never hushed a cull, to my knowledge."

  “Don’t kill his mark,” Duke translated for her. “So after Pelty posted the cole, Sutton snatched it and ran. Well, Des, you’ve whiddled the whole scrap now, eh? The stalling kens will do business with you again. That’ll save you a few screens.”

  “It’s back to business as usual,” Des agreed.

  “Did you recover your money?” Mama asked.

  “Not yet, but Kate tells me Eliot took it to the cottage he hired for her just east of London. He was afraid to leave it in his flat, where I could easily have found it. I’m going to the cottage tomorrow. Some ‘wedding’ Eliot was attending, eh?”

  Mama nodded and said, “If he hadn’t made the mistake of letting Kate come back to the apartment in Fleury Lane, he might have gotten away with his scheme.”

  “They always make one mistake,” Des said. “Actually, Eliot made more than one. Once he began spending the banknotes I would have discovered the source eventually. He found Kate such a simple, biddable girl that he thought she’d follow his orders and not speak to anyone. He was in such a rush to get her out of Fleury Lane that he didn’t give her time to pack up her belongings. She became quite insistent that Baba couldn’t be happy without certain favored toys, and she herself had left behind some clothing and things. He brought her home to pack and was to pick her up again within an hour. His groom followed you this afternoon, Belle, and reported you’d been to Fleury Lane. Eliot was on his way to sound you out even before you sent for him.”