Murder While I Smile (21 page)

Luten pretended to believe her. “I doubt Yarrow did the job himself. Who would he use?”

“One of his servants. He has a few who would do anything for money.”

“Is François Lachange one of them?”

Her shoulders squared and her eyes flashed dangerously. “Certainly not! François is my friend. Why do you mention him?”

“I understand Bow Street picked him up in connection with Boisvert’s death. They’ll get the truth out of him,” he said blandly, and watched for her reaction. She was certainly worried.

“Poor Fran
ç
ois,” she said. “But they can’t prove he did anything wrong when he is innocent.”

“You have no need to fear—if he is innocent.” Luten adopted a sympathetic pose to put Yvonne in humor with him. He could see no reason for Yarrow to have the artist murdered. It was Yvonne who was having her paintings copied. “If he has an alibi, for instance...”

“I’ll say he was with me, if needs be.”

Luten pinched back the sneer that came so easily to his proud face. “Let me see the letters,” he said.

After a moment’s hesitation, she drew them out of her pocket and allowed him a quick glance, but she didn’t let him hold them.

“When I have got Sylvie safely out of Yarrow’s clutches, then I will give them to you. Word of a lady—and an old friend,” she said, and returned them to her pocket.

“What do they say? I didn’t have time to read them.”

“Notes from Gresham outlining what materials were required for the rockets. Quotations in Yarrow’s hand from various companies that supplied the materials, with notations of how much profit he would make on each. Also an apologetic little note from Inwood stating that Yarrow’s offer was tempting, but he could not agree that Gresham was the better manufacturer. Inwood had discovered some flaw in the design. He was interested in science. His letter was written the afternoon of Inwood’s attack by ‘footpads.’ Unfortunately, it does not say what the ‘offer’ consisted of, but Marchant was just made an equerry. His occasional attendance on the prince pays a rather handsome emolument. Yarrow let slip that Inwood was so unwise as to use the word ‘bribe’ when the offer was made.” She gave a dismissing shrug. “He was very naive, Inwood.”

The glimpse of the letters Luten had been allowed seemed to jibe with her story. “How did he get on to Gresham?” he asked, with an air of innocence.

“I expect Mrs. Yonge approached him. She and Gresham are old friends. I have met him at her house a few times. Dreadfully common little man.”

Luten considered this. There was really little point in quizzing Yvonne. She had a plausible answer for everything. She might even be telling the truth.

“Pack up what you need, and I’ll provide footmen to escort you to Colchester to get your daughter.”

“Yarrow doesn’t let me keep a carriage. I’m practically a prisoner here. I wouldn’t be safe on the public coach.”

“I’ll lend you my unmarked carriage.”

“Come with me. You want to publicly prove Yarrow is a villain as badly as I do. Therefore, I can trust you. It might prove a hazardous journey, Luten. Yarrow is having me watched.”

“I didn’t see anyone lurking about.”

“Yarrow owns that brown brick house across the street. A Mr. Willet occupies it. He seldom goes out. Only when I do. Interesting, is it not? If we leave at once, he won’t have time to get his rig here to follow us. He’s already sent his footman off to call it. He recognizes you from the other day, when we escaped for a few minutes. I have a small trunk packed, ready to take advantage of the first opportunity that offered. I feared I would have to wait until after dark. As I shan’t be coming back, I could not leave without taking the few valuables I have collected.”

Luten hesitated only a moment, before deciding he should go along with her plan. “Have the trunk brought down and put on the carriage. We’ll leave right away.”

She pulled the cord and told her butler to have the trunk brought down.

Chapter Twenty

They left at once. Luten noticed Yvonne glancing at the house across the street, but he didn’t see anyone watching them. He felt she was trying to whitewash herself into a victim and went along with it in an effort to get the notes and letters.

They both kept a sharp lookout for any carriage following them as they wended their slow way out of London traffic into the countryside. No one followed them, not on the fifty-mile journey north through the autumn countryside of Essex either, where thinner traffic would reveal a following carriage, but she was either really anxious or an extremely good actress. A hundred times she lowered the window and pointed out anyone on the road. The rig always turned off or stopped before he took alarm. They stopped often to change horses, to allow a good pace.

At one stop Luten said, “I was surprised to find you alone this afternoon, Yvonne. I understood Prance was to call on you.”

“He was. Half an hour before he was due, I had a note from... a friend, telling me of Boisvert’s death.”

“Lachange?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, it was Fran
ç
oise. He stopped at the atelier to visit Boisvert. He took time to send me a note before going to tell Boisvert’s sister the horrible news. The Boisverts and Lachanges are good friends. I was in no state for company after hearing of the death. By the time you arrived, I had determined to get away at the first opportunity. You came most opportunely, Luten. It is possible you have saved my life.”

He weighed her story and could find no inconsistency in it. It might have happened as she said—or it might be a carefully contrived tissue of lies.

At evenfall they were halfway to Colchester. They stopped at an inn at Chelmsford for a hasty dinner and a change of team. The comtesse nibbled a piece of bread and gulped three glasses of wine, which did not have the effect of loosening her tongue or her grip on the papers Luten wanted but only made her sulky.

It was after ten o’clock when they passed through the ancient city walls of Colchester. This busy garrison town was noted as an agricultural center as well, but at that hour, there were few carriages or pedestrians about. They drove to an ancient half-timbered inn on High Street and dismounted. Their conversation took place at the front door, with the carriage standing by.

“You can hardly go to Mrs. Yonge at this hour and have Sylvie taken out of bed,” Luten said.

The comtesse looked surprised. “I doubt she would be in bed yet.” A blush colored her pale cheeks. “She is no longer a child, Luten.”

“How old is she?”

The arch smile she directed at him was a travesty. Yvonne suddenly looked old.

“That would be telling,” she said. A bit of arithmetic told him the “child” must be in her late teens. “I shall call, but I must go alone. It would look odd to Mrs. Yonge if I went with a gentleman. She would be bound to send word off to Yarrow. I know she spies on me. I stay at the Red Lion here in town when I come to visit. Sylvie has spent the night with me before. I shall go now and fetch her. Perhaps your driver could see if the inn has a carriage for hire?”

A frown grew between her brows. “She won’t be able to bring any of her lovely gowns with her. No matter, I shall buy her new ones when we are safely settled—somewhere.”

“I’ll wait for you here.” He called to John Groom, who darted into the inn and came back to tell them a whiskey would be around presently
.

“No, dear Luten,” she said, putting her two hands in his. “Your job is done. Here are the letters.” She handed them to him. He studied them eagerly a moment. “They are genuine,” she said. “I hope you make good use of them and put that wretch behind bars for life. Unlike France, there is no hope of England executing a peer of the realm.”

“Where will you go? Where can I be in touch with you?”

“If I read in the journals that you have Yarrow under lock and key, I shall go to London to testify against him.” Her face clenched and her eyes glittered with determination. “I’ll say anything you like, to see him get what he deserves.”

This statement did much to give Luten a disgust of her and confirmed that she was perfectly willing to perjure herself. Was she lying to him now? Were the notes and letter from Inwood some sort of hoax? Would they be revealed as forgeries if taken into court? Mouldy and Company would have a field day!

“Very well,” he said, but he knew he would have to remain in town and discover where she was going. When she left in the whiskey, he set his coachman to follow her at a discreet distance.

To pass the time until he returned, Luten enjoyed a plate of the famous oysters from the River Colne and a glass of ale.

Over an hour later, John Groom returned. “She went to that boardinghouse on Wrye Street right enough, but she never come out, your lordship. I waited an hour.”

“What did she do with the whiskey?”

“It dropped her at the door and left.”

“You’re sure she didn’t slip out the back door?”

“I couldn’t watch two doors, could I? Did the whiskey come back to the inn?”

“No. And no, dammit, you couldn’t watch two places at once. I should have gone with you instead of indulging myself in ale and oysters.”

He rose at once from the table. “Take me to the house,” he said.

His team had not been unhitched. It was waiting at the inn doorway. Luten got into the carriage, and his coachman turned off the High Street to continue for two blocks along a residential street. He drew up in front of a respectable-looking stone house. There were lights burning downstairs. The upper story was in darkness. Luten left the carriage and went to the door. On the second knock, a weary female servant in a cap and apron answered.

He adopted a friendly smile and said, “I would like a word with Miss Sylvie. I know it’s dreadfully late, but it is a matter of some importance.” He didn’t know what surname the daughter used, but the servant didn’t seem to find it odd that he used only her first name.

“Miss Beaudine has left,” she said.

“Out for the evening, is she?”

“Oh no, sir. She’s left for good this very day. She’s not coming back at all.”

“I see. How long ago
—
”

“She got a letter from London this morning. Her mama sent a carriage for her in the early afternoon.”

“Any idea where she’s gone?”

“Why, to London, sir, to visit her mama.”

“I see. Thank you.”

He tipped his hat and returned to the carriage. Chamaude, the wily witch, had outsmarted him. Sylvie had been spirited away from Colchester hours ago. Why had Yvonne led him this merry dance? Was it just to get him out of London for the day? What was afoot there? A memory of Boisvert’s lifeless body rose up in his mind. And young Inwood, murdered as well. Was she busy arranging another death? Whose? He doubted very much he would find her or her daughter in London. Yvonne had made an arrangement to meet the girl at some other place. She had probably ducked straight out the back door of Mrs. Yonge’s house, darted to the nearest coaching stop, and gone to meet Sylvie. He now felt fairly sure the letters he carried were useless. They might land his party with a libel suit if they used them in the House.

“Back to London,” he said to his driver, and crawled into the rig, fatigued from the long drive already endured and the prospect of another long haul before he could lay his head on a pillow.

His thoughts were black as the team ate up the miles. Bad enough to be outwitted but to be bested by a woman! God, he’d look a fool when he took this story to Brougham. And where the hell was Chamaude? If anyone could finger Yarrow as a villain, she was the one. That, of course, was why she had run off, no doubt on Yarrow’s instructions. And she had used himself to engineer her escape. The air was blue with his curses.

He was fifty miles from London. Fifty miles of dark, nearly deserted roads. Yvonne—or Yarrow—might have hired assassins anywhere along the route. Perhaps that was the very reason she had lured him to Colchester, to have his murder occur well away from London. His watch and money purse would be taken to make it look like the work of a highwayman. No one knew he had left town with Yvonne except her butler, who was part of the plan, of course. Even Brougham didn’t know he had gone, though he would suspect foul play.

He pulled the drawstring and directed his coachman to take a circuitous route back to town. It would make the trip a few hours longer, but at least he wouldn’t have to fear for his life every minute of the way.

During that long, tedious journey, he remembered he was supposed to have taken Corinne to the theater that night. She’d be furious with him. If she ever discovered he had been with Yvonne, he could forget his engagement. What convincing story could he tell her? A sudden death in the family? She didn’t know all his relatives—but she could smell a lie a mile away. He’d take her flowers first thing in the morning, along with his humble apologies. Better make that diamonds. Flowers weren’t going to get him out of this mess.

Chapter Twenty-one

Luten reached London at six the next morning, dog-tired, bewhiskered, rumpled, hungry, and extremely out of sorts. He planned to be up and about at an early hour, but as neither Brougham nor a jewelry shop would be available before nine or ten, he had a few hours to rest. He pulled off his jacket, his Hessians, and his trousers and fell into bed.

It was there that his valet, Simon, found him at his usual rising hour, eight o’clock. Seeing his master’s disarray (and the mess he had made of his bedchamber), Simon refrained from drawing the curtains. He tiptoed from the room and sent an order below that the upstairs maids were not to begin their duties until notified. Simon was extremely out of curl when he was greeted with curses at ten o’clock.

“Why the devil did you let me sleep so late?” Luten demanded.

“Why, you looked so fatigued, your lordship. Surely two hours can make no difference. The House has not yet convened.”

“I have more in my dish than Parliament. Prepare my shave at once. Bring me some coffee—and call my carriage.”