By now, gossip had flown throughout the building, as I was aware, padding silently back and forth with wine for this lady, a set of working candles for another. Possibly it was only because most of the menfolk were still on the hunting field that I had few direct interrogations. But I had my answer ready in any case: that I understood that an incident had occurred, but that an individual had confessed and was even now under lock and key, ready to be despatched to Exeter Gaol.
* * * *
“A most touching scene you missed there, Mr. Dawson,” Jedediah Voke declared as he returned to my room ready for a nuncheon we both deserved. “As I suspected, young Izzie could not bear to think that Matthew was to be hanged without bidding him farewell. But she's a wise young lady, and demanded to hear the truth of what he had done. Of course, in response to her tender questions, he admitted he had only confessed to save her. Quite indignant she got then. What was he thinking of? Imagining that she had taken the trumpery stuff indeed! As if she would. In any case, she told him, the tiara was nothing but paste.” On any other occasion I might have laughed at his mimicry of the two young people. He concluded, “But where it was neither of them knew, that was clear.”
“So if they did not take it and hide it, who did?”
“Think of those dirty flounces, Mr. Dawson. And of the equally dirty shoes and pelisse which were found in the stoke hole. But somehow we have to bring the lady into the open.”
“I think you might leave that to me, Mr. Voke,” I declared.
* * * *
“The epergne, Dawson? What on earth for?”
Lord Teignbridge was clearly not happy to have his studies interrupted. He pointed impatiently at a small space on his desk for the branch of candles I had brought with me.
“It would add a touch of dignity to the dinner table, Your Grace. We do have four and twenty couples sitting down tonight, and it would honour the occasion,” I added vaguely.
“Go and leave me in peace. You know the duchess handles anything like that.”
As far as I knew, the duchess was in her hip bath in front of her bedroom fire, hoping to ease some of the day's aches and pains, so I could scarcely discuss the matter of table decoration with her. In any case, she was as little concerned with such matters as her noble lord. So I did what I always did: I made all the preparations I thought appropriate.
Alas, try how I might, I could not see how I could introduce Mr. Voke as a guest. However, a man of his build would look well in the family livery, particularly as the powdered wig would so improve his visage. And I would station him where he could observe every one of Lady Westgate's movements, down to the tiniest change in her facial expression.
* * * *
We were to be disappointed. Though Jedediah swore that she had paled as she saw the epergne, she managed to behave in a perfectly ladylike way for the duration of the repast, apart, that is, from an arrant flirtation with one of her fellow guests that made his young wife's eyes fill with tears. Shaking our heads as we supervised the removal of the last port glass, we admitted that we might have been mistaken. I bade two of the strongest footmen carry the epergne back to the strongroom adjacent to my pantry, where it should rest overnight with the rest of the silver and gold plate. It must be thoroughly cleaned before I had it returned to the attic, I called out, loud enough, I made sure, for the guests in the withdrawing room to hear.
“Have you fixed that strongroom lock yet, sir?” Voke, in his footman guise, demanded, possibly over-egging the pudding.
But he had started so I must finish. “Another job for tomorrow,” I said.
* * * *
“I have never in my whole life heard anything so outrageous!” His Grace declared.
“Outrageous!” his wife repeated.
They were both seated in his private library. I had summoned them—separately—with the discretion, I hoped, born of long years of practice, while their guests were playing at cards or, in the case of Lady Westgate, going down the line in an elaborate country dance. Now Mr. Voke and I stood before them, very much as if we were on trial ourselves.
“I think you had better explain,” His Grace said more temperately, as I filled his glass with his favourite brandy. “You say that young Izzie is completely innocent, and that young gardener—who, I understand, has made a full confession—is also free from guilt. How can that be?”
Voke spoke first. “It was Mr. Dawson who first drew my attention to an inconsistency in Lady Westgate's story. She claimed that two people had been in league, and try as we might we could not make sense of that. She showed us the glass from the broken window, as if that were sufficient evidence. But the window had been, in our opinion, broken from the inside, not the outside.”
“So young Lizzie or whatever her name is could have broken it and thrown it out to her lover.”
“Indeed. But he—Matthew, the gardener—was under the impression that it was not a tiara but a necklace that had been stolen, and it was only when he learned that Izzie had been arrested that he blurted out his confession. It was clear he had no idea exactly what was going on. Yet Mr. Dawson and I formed a very strong opinion that he was troubled by something. As yet we have been unable to discover exactly what. We hope that you will question him, Your Grace. He will not offer a lie to you, not even a white lie.”
“Very well. Have him present himself tomorrow morning, before breakfast—ten o'clock, sharp.”
“With respect, Your Grace,” I interrupted, “there is a very strong reason why he should be questioned tonight.”
“Have you been at the port, Dawson? No, that's not your way, is it? Very well. I shall do as you say. But if there's nothing in it, why, bless my soul, you shall look for another position come Lady Day.”
I was relieved to see the duchess shake her head firmly, covering her face with her fan to hide a smile. “Bring Matthew here,” she said, as sternly as she could.
“Your Grace.” I took the liberty of returning her smile. We both knew how essential I was to the duke's well-being, having been with him almost as long as his valet.
Round-eyed, scared, but with an impressively courageous bearing, Matthew bowed low, but raised his eyes to the duke's.
“Why did you lie to Mr. Dawson, young man? He tells me that you couldn't possibly have stolen Her Ladyship's geegaw.”
“Nor did I, sir. Nor Miss Izzie neither.”
“We know that, too. She is your sweetheart, is she?”
“She wouldn't look twice at such as me, Your Grace. Which is why I found it so strange that—that another lady should.” He flushed scarlet. “And even stranger when she . . . persisted . . . in her . . . very particular . . . attentions even when I told her that my heart belonged to another.”
“You actually mentioned Izzie's name?” I asked.
Matthew hung his head. “I do believe I might have done, sir. So when she said those terrible things about Izzie, I was fair dumbstruck. I thought if I said I'd thrown the thing in the lake—”
“Quite so. Very well, young man, I believe you. You may go.”
Her Grace said, “Matthew, you and Izzie are far too young to think about marriage, but if you wish to walk out with each other—on your half-days off, that is—I shall have no objection.”
I swear he would have kissed her feet, had it been seemly. As it was, he bowed so low I was afraid that he would topple over, and almost galloped from the room.
“Now what do you propose to do?” the duke asked.
“Mr. Voke and I have set a little trap.”
“This I must see.” The duchess pulled herself to her feet. “Come on, show me.”
“You will recall I placed the silver-gilt epergne on the table tonight, My Lady?”
“Hideous thing. His Grace's mother gave it to us for a wedding present. I thought it was safely stowed in one of the attics.”
“So it was. And in it we found the missing tiara. We expect the person who put it there to try to retrieve it tonight. I could not help but f
eel it appropriate, Your Grace, to ask Matthew to be one of those standing guard in the strong-room itself.”
* * * *
And so Lady Westgate found herself at last in the strong arms of the young man she had wished to make her inamorato, but in circumstances very far from those she had planned. We had had to wait till nearly three for her to creep down the back stairs to seek out the strongroom, which was not, of course, locked. We heard, from my darkened room, the sharp intake of her breath as she saw it. Then she plunged her hand within. When she withdrew it, however, she held not the tiara, but a cloth soaked with reddle, that would leave a red stain for many a day, designed as it was to mark sheep. There was no denying this evidence.
Her Ladyship whooped as she emerged—she might even have cried, “Tally ho!” Matthew pinioned the miscreant, and Voke formally arrested her.
She was not sent to the assizes, of course, because as a peeress she was entitled to be tried in the House of Lords. In any case, as His Grace pointed out, a clever lawyer would argue that she could not steal her own property. So what was to be done? She could not get away with such a vicious act, occasioned by nothing so much as having her adulterous advances rejected. What form could justice take?
In the first place, both slandered young people were given a sum of money sufficient, when the time came, for them to set up home—whether with each other, as Mrs. Lacock still doubted, or with another. Lest it give them ideas of an over-youthful marriage, Lady Teignbridge pocketed the purseful of guineas and locked it in Lord Teignbridge's desk. As a kindness to the woman I simply could not understand, Lady Teignbridge promised that she would not breathe a word of what had happened to the other guests. Of course, as I observed to Mrs. Lacock and to Izzie herself, both keen correspondents with other servants all over the country, the promise did not apply to them.
Naturally, her hands being inexplicably red, Lady Westgate found it necessary to quit the place where she had hoped to settle for an inexpensive winter, but she found, quite unaccountably, all society's doors shut tight against her. Justice, Mr. Voke and I agreed, was done the day she was forced to set forth for Vienna and that gaming hell.
Copyright © 2012 by Judith Cutler
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* * *
Department of First Stories: THE MALIBU WALTZ
by Grant O'Neill
* * * *
* * * *
Grant O'Neill is the pseudonym of Don Ray Aldridge, a songwriter who began working in the music industry at the age of nineteen, writing his first two songs with the Reverend Johnny Otis. Subsequently he worked in a wide variety of industries including aerospace engineering and real estate, and spent many years as an editor and publisher. A collection of Chandler stories he read in 2009 inspired him to try writing crime fiction.
I had scheduled a luncheon for twelve-thirty to juice some venture capital on a three-million-dollar foreclosure I'd been looking at in the Hollywood Hills. We agreed to meet at L'Auberge Agadir, one of those hot little numbers that spring up on Melrose Avenue from time to time, hit with the showbiz set, and have the lifespan of a tsetse fly. I was a few minutes early, but the waiter put me in a dark, pillowed corner in front and issued the wine list.
The theme was French-Moroccan. Two spacious rooms and a smaller bar area divided by Moorish arches. There were North African tapestries and scimitars on the walls, potted palms in the corners, and an abundance of terra cotta everywhere else.
The room filled rapidly with movie types over from Paramount with starlets on their arms and cosmetic surgeons with their latest Hooters creations on theirs. Fez-becapped French-Moroccan waiters straight out of Actors Equity scurried under the smoky lighting with towels on their arms and the overpriced menu in their heads.
That's when I saw Eden Folet for the first time, seating a second act of industry types. She had on a slinky white sheath accessorized with an ocean-sapphire necklace that matched her deep blue eyes, and tall ankle-strap heels that flexed the muscles in her calves like she was going somewhere in a hurry.
Somehow I'd missed her when I came in. Her eyes latched onto me for a second as she led them into the back, almost as though she recognized me, which unfortunately wasn't out of the question.
When it became apparent that my appointment was a no-show I ordered the salade nicoise and sipped the Pinot.
“Your friend hung you up.” Her voice had the smooth emollient texture of imported brandy. “How's the wine?”
I sat my salad fork down and leaned back in my chair. Eden Folet was standing across the table, framed in the sharp, smoky archway with a sympathetic smile. Her eyes were the deepest blue I'd ever seen, and they had room for an idea or two between them. Her ash-blond hair had white highlights that only come from a lot of play in the Southern California sun.
“It's being temperamental,” I said. “I think it needs a beautiful woman to coax it along.”
A slow smile tugged the corners of her lips and she finally let it go. “Oh,” she said with sudden effervescent laughter in her voice, “that was pretty good.”
“No, that was corny,” I said, revealing a telltale grin of my own. “But I don't know anything about wine and I had to take the shot.”
Eden caught the waiter's eye and dazzled me again with her straight, wide smile. I stood up and scooted out a chair and seated her. The waiter rushed in with a glass and turned it up, then cleared the second place setting. Her skirt hem rose as she crossed a pair of lightly tanned legs that made the fast calves even faster. Then she proceeded to knock off my wheels, fencing with me for a half-hour in flirtatious banter.
Eden Folet was alive and her vitality made me alive. I was sixteen-in-the-backseat-of-a-'64-Malibu alive.
I drank too much.
* * * *
I became a regular after that, dropping in a few times a week, always to find Eden anxious to see me. I knew from the beginning that she had someone, whether a boyfriend or a husband I wasn't sure, but I did know she wasn't happy with him.
In the following weeks I stepped up my visits and Eden even set times, albeit always casually, that I could come when she wasn't so busy. The restaurant closed every day during the week between two and five o'clock so the kitchen staff could prepare for the dinner rush and Eden could ready the bar for happy hour. I would skip lunches and take off early on those days, but she always managed to draw up just short of a real date.
* * * *
It came to a head one afternoon when everyone except the chef back in the kitchen had gone. Eden disappeared into the back and changed the music; it was an old George Michael tune, “Careless Whisper.” Her high heels dangled from her fingertips when she returned.
“Do you dance, Nick?”
“I do, yes.”
Eden sat her heels on the table next to her and held out her arms. I slid from the barstool and met her in the archway between the dusky barroom and the dining room and took her in my arms.
“I hardly ever dance anymore,” she said, laying her head against my shoulder. Her hair smelled of something musky and wild.
“You need a man who dances,” I whispered.
Eden didn't reply but snuggled my chest and swayed in my arms right up to the sultry sax solo. I pulled back and took her thin hard waist in my hands. I thought I saw a flicker of fear in her eyes but then I felt her release, give herself over to it.
I walked her back a step further into the shadows and kissed her softly, and then much deeper. Eden responded hungrily at first but suddenly pulled away.
“Dump him,” I said, gripping her waist tightly. “If you can't, I'll take care of him for you.” I drew her in roughly and kissed her hard, long.
Eden's breath burned into my neck when we parted.
“Nick, I can't,” she breathed. “Not yet. I can't tell you why now—”
I started to interrupt, but Eden pressed her fingertips to my lips and looked at me. I saw fear in her promising blue eyes, a solitary tear tracing down her cheek. �
��We were married nine months ago,” she said. “I'm surprised you didn't read about it. I want out, but we have to wait.”
I didn't understand that but said, “Nonsense. I'm a wealthy man, Eden—I can get you clear of him.” I felt my temper heating up. “Leave the sonofab—”
The fear in Eden's eyes melted away, replaced by the longing she must have seen in mine, as she silenced me with a soft kiss. I wanted this woman and, I'll admit it, I was willing to kill anyone who stood in my way to have her.
Eden broke the kiss. “Trust me this much, Nick,” she said, her lips so close I could taste the sweetness of her breath. “We will be—”
She was interrupted by a light, irritated tapping sound on the window in the restaurant. Eden bolted stiff, almost as if someone had slapped her. We drew back into the shadow and she peeked around the arch that concealed us.
“My God!” she exclaimed. “Fast, Nick—back to the bar.” I started to object but the panic on her face left no room for argument. Eden looked over her shoulder quickly as she moved. “Trust me, darling. I'll explain everything later.”
She pushed me toward the bar and trotted to her high heels sitting on the table. Curiosity took over and I hiked onto my stool and watched through the arch into the dining room.
Eden slipped into the shoes and clattered to the front. When she keyed the door Emerson Haddock walked in.
Los Angeles City Councilman Emerson Haddock.
* * * *
“Emerson!” exclaimed Eden, her panic somehow wrestled under control. “Sweetheart, why didn't you phone? I would have had Luc Pierre whip up a late lunch.” The councilman leaned to kiss her and Eden returned the affection. They kissed on the cheeks.
Behind Haddock was a woman, a beautiful blonde about the same height, weight, and age as Eden and with a shorter crop of almost identical dusty blond hair. She nailed me to the bar with a stare that dug deep and a smile that ran thrifty.
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