Ivory and Steel (2 page)

“Take a deep breath,” he advised. He still held her wrist in a firm clasp.

Phyllida recognized the impropriety, made a halfhearted attempt to pull free then abandoned it. He had such compelling eyes. If one weren’t careful it would be very easy to lose oneself in them.

If the opportunity was offered. It wasn’t. He picked up a fan from where it had fallen on the floor, flicked it open and waved it before her face with short, forceful strokes.

The breeze helped revive her. She straightened and focused her still-bleary gaze on the young lady next to her. “Why is she asleep? Are the others…” She clasped Miss Yarborough’s gloved wrist but the girl remained unresponsive, her arm limp.

“I’ve summoned a doctor,” Ingram said. He pulled her hand back.

She allowed it to remain in his grip, too weak to protest. “What
happened
?”

“When the lights were brought on after the opera ended I noticed no one in your party moved. It didn’t seem right you would all have fallen asleep. You, in particular, I had heard express considerable enthusiasm for the production.”

“It was very good. I cannot understand…” She bit her lip as her brain began functioning more fully, providing information and answers she would rather not have. After a moment she said, “We didn’t just fall asleep, did we?”

“No.”

“We-we were
drugged?
But why?”

“That, I am afraid—”

A sharp rapping on the door interrupted him. It opened and a dapper little man who looked strangely familiar entered without waiting for a response. He paused just over the threshold, leaning on his cane, and his slow gaze circled the box, resting on each of the occupants. After a moment he went to Louisa and pressed his fingers against the base of her neck. He shook his head then turned to Phyllida and Lord Ingram.

“Perhaps you’d care to tell me what’s been agoing on here, sir?”

Lord Ingram regarded him a moment from beneath lowered brows. “I’ve seen you before,” he said.

“That you have, sir. During the last interval, in this box. Her ladyship asked me to step up. Shortly afore you came in, that was. Frake, the name is. Benjamin Frake. Of Bow Street.”

“A Runner?” A note of satisfaction sounded in Ingram’s voice.

Phyllida glanced at him then drew herself up in her chair. A wave of nausea washed over her but she mastered it with only a brief struggle. “Can you tell me what has been going on?”

“In good time, miss. Your name?”

“Phyllida Dearne. The marchioness—Louisa—is my sister. Is she all right?”

Mr. Frake’s glance met Lord Ingram’s. The latter gave a slight shake of the head and the Runner nodded.

“Can’t say as I can do much for anyone at the moment, miss. Mayhap you can tell me what went on during the interval after I left?”

“Why?
Is
my sister all right? She’s so very still. And the others—” She looked about, her anxiety increasing, and she started to rise. The attempt left her head reeling. Her knees gave way and she sank once more onto the chair.

Lord Ingram’s grip tightened on her wrist, strong and oddly sustaining. “There’s nothing you can do at present. Don’t distress yourself, Miss Dearne.”

“If you could answer my question, miss? You don’t seem to be as bad off as the others.”

“The interval.” She frowned in an effort of memory. It all seemed so hazy. “Several people came in, that I recall. And a waiter—”

“Did everyone have some of the wine?” he asked.

“No. There weren’t enough glasses, you see, and—” She broke off. She could hardly say her sister had not wished to serve her visitors. Louisa had, in fact, wished to make it very clear to them she had become their social superior. She was rather good at that.

Mr. Frake drew a notebook from his pocket and scribbled something. “Just so, miss. So you didn’t drink anything until the gentleman here and those other two couples left?”

“That’s right. At the beginning of the next act. Miss Yarborough and I had lemonade. The others had champagne.”

“Is that your usual preference?” Mr. Frake asked.

Phyllida’s lips twitched. “It’s the way my sister likes it.”

Mr. Frake glanced at her from beneath bushy brows but refrained from comment. “What happened then?”

Phyllida concentrated. “Nothing. I watched the stage then everything became blurry. Look, should the others just be sitting there like that? Lord Ingram, I thought you sent for a doctor.”

“There will be one soon. Can you remember nothing more? Someone coming in, perhaps?”

“No. Does it matter? The Allbury diamonds haven’t been stolen. Louisa is still wearing them. Frake,” she added suddenly. “That’s where I’ve heard your name before. You’re the Runner who recovered the diamonds when they were stolen last fall.”

“That’s right, miss. You were away at the time, as I recall.” He walked around Louisa, who remained motionless. For a long minute he stood behind her, staring at her back, then he looked up and studied the fan Captain Lord Ingram still held.

A single watercolor portrait of an officer graced the chicken skin, rather than any scene from classical mythology. A name and regiment designation were neatly lettered beneath. Not a work of art, but the carved ivory sticks prevented it from looking as if it had been picked up for a shilling at Grafton House or the Haymarket.

Mr. Frake’s gaze traveled to the ones hanging from the dowager’s and Miss Yarborough’s wrists and his frown deepened. “They’re all alike,” he said at last.

“They’re part of a charitable project which my sister heads. Is this necessary? Can’t we
do
something?”

“In a moment, miss. Please go on.”

She clenched frustrated hands together. Oh Lord, she really did feel ill. With an effort, she concentrated on the fans. “Each is specially painted to bear the name and likeness of the buyer’s relative in the military. We have been selling them to members of the
ton
to raise money for medical care for the returning wounded soldiers.”

“Very commendable, miss.” The Runner took more notes. “Now if you could tell me—”

“Why are you asking so many questions?” Phyllida rose, this time successfully. She clutched Lord Ingram’s arm to steady herself then took a step forward. Ingram caught her but she resisted his attempt to force her back into her seat. “What is going on? No, I won’t be still.” She took another shaky step toward her sister. “Is Louisa—”

She broke off. Her vision might still be a little hazy but her sense of smell was returning in full force. She’d visited the hospital often enough over the last few months to recognize that sickly combination of blood and bodily fluids that invariably meant death. An unnatural pallor touched Louisa’s rouged cheeks and a red stain spread across the carpet beneath where she still sat.

Louisa… Rising nausea choked Phyllida and she swallowed, fighting it down. Louisa… She turned away, clutched Lord Ingram’s sleeve, then buried her face against his shoulder. He stiffened, then his reluctant arm closed about her. She shivered, cold, numb, unable to think or feel.

After a long minute she realized the Runner spoke, but his words made no sense. “What?” she managed to gasp.

Mr. Frake clucked his tongue. “I didn’t mean you to see her quite yet, miss, not until you was feeling more the thing.”

She nodded, her cheek brushing the smooth green velvet of Lord Ingram’s coat, and hurriedly disentangled herself. “That-that’s all right. I had to know sometime.” Her eyes burned but no tears forced their way down her cheeks. This time when Ingram pressed her into her chair she didn’t resist. “How…”

“Stabbed, miss. With her fan.”

It took a moment for this statement to penetrate the fog that enveloped her. Her head came up slowly and an almost uncontrollable urge to giggle seized her. “Stabbed with a fan?” Her voice shook and the effort to control it proved too great. “That-that’s impossible!”

“So one might think, miss.”

“Then how—”

“The outer sticks, miss. The ivory on this one here seems to have broken off. Only a thin overlay, it was, covering a cheap steel blade.”

This time she did giggle, and almost couldn’t stop. “They-they assured me it was solid ivory!” she managed at last.

“You were in charge of purchasing the fans, miss?”

“Yes, of course I was. Oh, how dare they sell me inferior merchandise! They
knew
it was for a charity endeavor. If that isn’t just like those tradesmen. I never should have trusted them.” She babbled, she knew, but couldn’t stop. Louisa…

Mr. Frake cleared his throat. “No way you could have known you was being cheated, miss. Not unless you went and broke one of them. M’lord, if you and the lady wouldn’t mind looking the other way?”

Lord Ingram positioned himself in front of Phyllida. She peered around him only to see the Runner bending over her sister’s body, doing something with the fan. Suddenly she had no desire to see. She closed her eyes tightly and clenched her gloved hands until they hurt.

“There we are,” Mr. Frake said after a moment. “Nasty-looking thing, I must say.”

Lord Ingram turned to look, unfortunately enabling Phyllida to see as well. The Runner wiped blood from a thin blade, which had been pulled mostly free from the flimsy casing of broken ivory fragments. The chicken-skin fan, with its fine-boned support, hung at a sharp angle from the top. Someone, Phyllida noted with horrible clarity, had filed the point of the steel to a needlelike sharpness.

Mr. Frake looked up, directly at her. “Do you know of anyone who would have wanted the marchioness dead?”

“How-how could anyone—” She bit her lip in a forlorn attempt to stop her chin quivering.

“Someone did, miss.”

Phyllida nodded and forced the rapidly escaping remnants of her composure back into line. “She-she could be a little difficult at times.” She swallowed, her throat achingly dry.
This isn’t real,
her mind kept repeating,
this can’t have happened, not to Louisa…

The Runner waited in silence, watching her, pencil poised. He needed more.

“She-she could be a trifle self-centered,” she managed at last. “She could throw tantrums, but she only wanted to be
loved
!”
Her control crumbled. Tears welled over the rims of her eyes then coursed down her cheeks. She groped blindly for her handkerchief in her reticule then accepted the one Lord Ingram pressed into her hands as a racking sob took her. “I
did
love her,” she gasped, her face buried in the fine lawn.

“Yes, miss, I’m sure you did.” He fell silent.

With heroic effort, Phyllida gulped a steadying breath and mopped her eyes with determined swipes. “I-I’m sorry.”

“It’s the shock, miss. Takes people different ways, it does. Now then, have you been carrying these fans for a while, or are they new?”

She focused her reluctant gaze on the remnants of ivory and chicken skin the Runner held and her eyes widened in horror. “But that-that’s not Louisa’s. It’s…” Her voice trailed off and she ended on the merest whisper, “She was killed with…mine.”

Chapter Two

For a full thirty seconds, silence reigned. Then a shaky sob from Miss Dearne broke it. She buried her face once more in Lord Ingram’s large handkerchief but her shoulders didn’t tremble. She just sat there, numb—or calculating? Mr. Frake’s eyes narrowed. It wasn’t always easy telling genuine shock from a clever pretense.

He glanced at Captain Lord Ingram, who scowled at the fan. Tension—or was it merely energy?—pulsated from the man. He’d bear watching, Mr. Frake decided. Definitely, that gentleman would bear watching.

He returned his attention to Miss Dearne, who now stared unseeingly over the pit toward the emptying boxes on the far side of the opera house. The depths of her gray eyes remained clouded—or were they merely blank, as if she were unable to fully comprehend the fact of her sister’s murder? With an effort, he fought back his instinct to feel sorry for her—to like her, in fact. His rapid assessments of people usually proved right but on one or two occasions he’d allowed himself to believe the best only to discover the worst. Long experience had taught him the nicest-looking young ladies might hold a few nasty surprises.

“How much lemonade did you drink, miss?” he asked.

She drew a steadying breath. “Not much. I don’t particularly like it.”

“Then why not have champagne?”

“My sister felt it proper for a poor relation to confine herself to lemonade or tea.”

Poor relation. He didn’t like the sound of that. Smacked of resentment, it did, despite her assertion of love.

A low groan interrupted his thoughts and all three of them turned to the marquis. Allbury muttered something under his breath then added more distinctly, “Lord, what a head. What sort of muck are they serving?”

“That sounds more like yourself.” A note of forced cheerfulness rang in Ingram’s voice. “Here, old fellow. Stay where you are, don’t try to stand yet.”

“Water,” the marquis said thickly. “Got the most foul taste in my mouth.”

“Not surprising,” said Ingram. He looked about. “Is there any way we can get some? The others will probably be waking soon.”

The door swung wide behind them and an elderly man garbed in the frock coat of a physician paused on the threshold, frowning. A wide-eyed waiter hovered at his shoulder, standing on tiptoe to see inside. Mr. Frake sent the latter running for water then turned in relief to the doctor to fill him in on what little he knew of the situation.

The man strode up to the young marchioness, gazed at her for a long moment then shook his head. “Nothing to be done here, I’m afraid. Well let’s see what else we have.”

He turned to Allbury, who had attained his feet if not his strength. The marquis leaned heavily on Lord Ingram, one arm draped about his shoulders for support.

Allbury blinked unfocused hazel eyes at him. “You’re a doctor,” he pronounced with care. “Just the ticket. I don’t feel too well.”

“No, I shouldn’t imagine you do if what I’ve been hearing is true. Sit down, m’lord. I’ll be with you in a moment.”

He examined first the dowager marchioness, nodded to himself, and moved on to Miss Constance Yarborough. Both, he assured Mr. Frake when he finished, should awaken shortly and suffer no lasting effects.

Allbury and Miss Dearne he also pronounced to be doing capitally. With that Mr. Frake agreed. The marquis appeared somewhat dazed but already he sat more erect. Miss Dearne seemed a trifle pale and her gray eyes lackluster and heavy but she had regained a measure of poise, a sure sign she was well on her way to recovery.

Mr. Frake nodded then drew the doctor outside into the hall and closed the door behind them. “Laudanum?” he asked.

“It would appear so.” The man frowned beneath bushy white brows. “It has a very strong taste though. It would not have been easy to induce five people to consume enough to render them unconscious for any considerable period of time.”

“Would champagne and lemonade do the trick?”

The doctor considered a moment. “They might. Especially if their attentions were distracted in some manner.”

The Runner nodded. “By the third act, I should imagine.”

Lord Ingram emerged from the box to inform them the dowager marchioness was stirring and Lord Allbury still asked for a drink. The waiter, who chose that moment to appear, handed his tray to Ingram, who carefully balanced the pitcher and glasses as they went back inside. Ingram poured water for Miss Dearne and the marquis, both of whom accepted it with gratitude.

While the physician dealt with the loudly complaining dowager, Mr. Frake retreated to a back corner and watched. Murder. He shook his head. Not a pleasant event under any circumstances. It occurred far more often among the lower orders of society but was by no means unheard of in the upper crust.

The
beau monde
they called themselves. He gave a derisive snort. Their carryings-on were no different than those of any other class, just embarked upon with more snobbery. What were duels, after all, but murder all neatly wrapped up in etiquette and protocol?

A lady, though, couldn’t be challenged to appear on the field of honor. That meant her enemy was reduced to a more plebeian form of ridding the world of her presence. He drew a deep breath and let it out slowly as he rocked back on his heels. This wasn’t an obvious—if messy—domestic bludgeoning or a violent robbery. This was subtle, daring, even clever. Someone had wanted the young lady dead, so that person had drugged everyone in the box then stabbed the victim and slipped away without being seen. Quite neat, really. Except only a limited number of people could have drugged the beverages. That made his job a little easier.

His thoughtful gaze moved across the recovering members of the opera party. Only that plain-faced Miss Yarborough had yet to come around. None of the others looked any too well at the moment but that was hardly surprising.

Miss Dearne, he noted, sat with her gloved hands clenched in her lap, never raising her gaze from them. That gentleman who’d been with her—Captain Lord Ingram—stood beside Allbury, saying something Frake couldn’t quite catch. The marquis appeared shaken and stared at the floor, his hands gripped about his glass. The dowager marchioness sat up straight, ignoring the doctor, her cold stare resting on the body of her daughter-in-law.

An involuntary shiver swept through him. No love lost there. But what of the others? Did any of them really like the young marchioness—besides her sister, of course? Or for that matter, was it all a careful act on the part of Miss Dearne? He shook his head. Deuce take it, any one of these people could be guilty!

He opened his Occurrence Book to a new page and started scribbling. After writing
Suspects
across the top, he hesitated a moment then licked his pencil.
Tristram,
he wrote,
Marquis of Allbury, victim’s husband. Dutiful but determined, irritated with her earlier. Second to recover. Now appears shocked. Grieved?
He ended that with a big question mark. He glanced at the older woman and wrote,
Rosalinde, dowager marchioness. Real dragon.
More like one of those rhinoceroses he’d seen pictures of. Broad in the beam and not a single chink in the armor plating.
Third to recover. Doesn’t like victim,
he added to his notes
.
He well remembered that from the affair of the diamonds last fall.

From his pocket he drew a gnarled briarwood pipe and stuck the end in his mouth without lighting it. He turned the page in his book and wrote,
Miss Phyllida Dearne, victim’s sister. Probably elder, recovered long before others, her fan used for murder.
He chewed the stem for a moment then resumed.
Miss Constance Yarborough.
He hesitated, then placed another big question mark after her name. After Lord Ingram’s, he wrote simply
, friend of marquis. Full of energy or nerves. First to find victim.

He closed the book and tapped his pencil along the edge. The laudanum could only have been administered to the party in the lemonade and champagne delivered to their box. He’d check with the lackey who brought it, to see if anyone could have drugged it either in the kitchens or
en route.
He doubted it though.

His teeth worked the briarwood stem. If the murderer was one of the people present he—or she—might easily have refrained from drinking his or her own drugged beverage until the others succumbed to it. Or one of those visitors to the box—Captain Lord Ingram, for instance?—who had not been offered a drink might have returned later, after the laudanum had taken effect, and stabbed the marchioness.

Yes, she sat near the back of the box. If the murderer had entered during a rousing chorus, when most eyes would have been focused on stage, then remained hidden in the shadowed recesses, no one in the other boxes would have been able to see.

He pulled the pipe from his mouth and returned it to his pocket. “Miss Dearne?” He took the empty seat at her side. “The champagne was uncorked most of the time everyone was here, was it not? And the lemonade decanter uncovered?”

She raised still-blank eyes to his face. “Yes.” Her voice sounded dull.

“Was anyone near enough to them to put in something? A small vial of liquid perhaps?”

Miss Dearne drew a ragged breath. “We did move about, but there was so much crowding.” She studied her hands in silence, as if searching her memory. “I’m afraid everyone, at one time or another, came close to the tray.”

He nodded. “Could you tell me who visited the box during that second interval?”

He opened his book once more and wrote quickly as she spoke.
Lord Woking,
he recorded, with nothing after it. That would be the graying gentleman who had come in first. Farther down, he entered,
Lady Woking, former deportment mistress at seminary in Bath where victim and Miss Yarborough educated. Married Lord Woking two years ago.
He chewed his pencil and nodded. The formidable matron with the trailing drapery who’d looked about fifteen years younger than her husband. “The other two, miss? The younger couple?”

Miss Dearne tugged at the fingers of her gloves as if they chaffed. “Mr. Quincy Enderby. I can’t tell you anything about him, really. His wife—Maria Enderby—was a school friend of Louisa’s.”

He added these notes to his Occurrence Book.
Mr. Quincy Enderby
—that handsome devil with the brooding eyes, and his wife Maria—the plump girl with the too-elaborate gown. He shook his head. Nothing unusual in any of this. Except one of these people must have hated—or feared—the marchioness quite a bit.

The sound of footsteps in the corridor caused him to look up in time to see a young gentleman of no more than six-and-twenty hesitate on the threshold. Mr. Frake winced. He hadn’t gotten a clear view of Mr. Quincy Enderby earlier but he had it now. A dandy who went in for the extremes of fashion while displaying none of the taste or know-how of the true Exquisite.

The would-be Tulip gripped the jamb with his beringed hand. The high points to his shirt collar held his head rigid, forcing him to slew his entire upper body around to peer inside. His dark brown hair, brushed into the artless curls
a la Brutus
, gleamed from Russian oil. Mr. Frake regarded the neckcloth of painstaking and clumsy design, with a ruby peeking out of its folds, with growing disapproval. Nor could he like the blood-red velvet coat over the white satin waistcoat shot through with gold and red threads.

Mr. Frake stepped forward. “If you please, sir. Mr. Enderby?” He took his arm and drew him back into the hall.

“Has something happened?” The man peered back the way they had come. “Been waiting for the marquis’ party to come down, you know, m’wife and I. Has someone been taken ill?”

“In a manner of speaking, sir. I—”

Mr. Enderby pulled free and marched back inside only to stop short.

Mr. Frake looked over the dandy’s shoulder. The doctor, released at last from his attendance on the dowager, now spread a royal-blue velvet cloak over the body of Louisa. As they watched, he adjusted it so her alabaster face could no longer be seen.

Mr. Enderby reached out a trembling hand. “Louisa—”

Miss Dearne, who sat huddled in the corner, rose quickly. “Mr. Enderby—”

He turned to her, his expression a mask of grief. “
How?”
he
cried. “Did she take ill? She was her usual self at the intermission!”

“We were all drugged and she was stabbed,” the young lady said before Mr. Frake could stop her.

The blood drained from Mr. Enderby’s face. He shook his head over and over, as if once having started the motion he was unable to stop it. He clutched Miss Dearne’s hand. “She can’t be dead,” he breathed.

Mr. Frake flipped open his Occurrence Book.
Overcome by grief,
he noted next to Mr. Quincy Enderby’s name, and added,
In excess, doesn’t ring true.

He closed the notebook with a snap. There would be little more he could learn at the moment, not until this lot recovered. He fought a cavernous yawn then gave up the unequal attempt. Tomorrow would serve very well to resume his questioning.

* * * * *

A dull throbbing behind her eyes awakened Miss Phyllida Dearne the following morning. She closed them tighter then buried her head beneath her pillow for good measure. It didn’t help. With a sigh, she sat up and glanced at the mantel clock.