Petty Treason (10 page)

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Authors: Madeleine E. Robins

BOOK: Petty Treason
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Miss Tolerance took a seat across the table. “Do you pay rent, that they let you inhabit this corner of the room, sir?”
Glebb shook his head. “I’m good for business. Particularly later in the day, when people drink a little courage before they talk with me. But that’s not your question. What is it you need to know?”
“Is the name Etienne d’Aubigny—the Chevalier d’Aubigny—known to you, sir?”
Glebb drew his brows together and pursed his lips in a caricature of thought. “Frenchman name of Dobinny—” He did not
bother to essay Miss Tolerance’s pronunciation. “I’ve heard nothing of a Frenchman by that name going to the cents-per-cent. And if I don’t know it—”
“He has not been on the lookout for funds,” Miss Tolerance finished. “Not among the reputable moneylenders, in any case,” she added.
“Oh, I’d ’a heard about it if he’d gone to the sharks, as well,” Glebb said firmly. He slid his hand across the table, palm up, but Miss Tolerance was not done with him.
“No such Frenchman has been pawning or selling off his goods?”
Glebb considered. “Such a Frenchman might ’a done in the past—but I take it you want something more recent? Nothing worth noting. I could ask about, but it will cost you.”
Miss Tolerance smiled politely. “Of course. ’Tis only fair.”
Glebb looked up to nod as Boddick brought his pie and coffee. “I know the name, though. Outside of the financial area. Can’t recall why.”
“It might be because the man was murdered. His widow believes the murderer could have been an unhappy creditor.”
Glebb engaged himself in the demolition of the pie before him. When he looked up at Miss Tolerance at last he said indistinctly, “That don’t make sense.”
“Why not?”
Glebb swallowed his mouthful and explained patiently. “It’s what you call recourse, miss. When a gentleman defaults of a debt, even the lowest Jew may call the bailiffs in and seize ‘is property. Or take the matter to court and send the fellow to a spunging house—all it takes is shillin’ for the warrant. But once the man’s dead, may be harder to collect. If you do see any of your money, it’s like to take far longer. Ideal-like, you want your debtor in the top of health and of a disposing mind. P’raps a gullgroper might send someone to roast your toes if you was late chronic-like, or break a bone or two. But
killing
—that’s not about debt.”
“Debts of honor—” Miss Tolerance began, half to herself.
“Oh, well, yes.” Glebb was disapproving. “Gentlemen and them, they’re all for blowing each other’s head off for a farthing. It’s not the way of good business.”
“It wasn’t a duel, in any case. The man was beaten to death in his own bed.”
Mr. Glebb nodded and tapped the side of his nose with one short finger. “In ’is own bed? Beat to death? That’s why the name’s familiar, then. That West End business. Look to the household, I say. A wife, a child, a servant. Who else’d have so easy a chance?”
Miss Tolerance opened her pocketbook, took out several coins and slid them across the table.
“I’m grateful for your help, Mr. Glebb.”
“Well, aye. Come find me any time. I’m always here.” Glebb pushed the coins off the edge of the table and into his hand. “And I’ll ask about for word the gent was deep in to the sharks,” he promised.
Miss Tolerance had gained the street when a thought occurred to her and she returned to the Wheat Sheaf’s tap-room again. Glebb, brushing crumbs from his coat, eyed her without comment.
“When you make your inquiries regarding the chevalier, Mr. Glebb, would you ask as well about the size of his debt to tradesmen and the like? Thank you!” She left with Glebb staring after her, clearly weighing the scope of the task she had set against the money he would be able to charge for it.
Shrugging her way out of the door into the sour fog which was, even at this hour, beginning to drift in the street, Miss Tolerance considered. The d’Aubigny household had shown all the signs of life lived chronically beyond means: the missing objects which had most likely been pawned or sold, the patchy condition of the servants’ livery, the house in a good neighborhood but with paint cracking and shutters askew. Miss Tolerance made a silent wager with herself that the Widow d’Aubigny was missing jewels which had come with her into the marriage and were now reposing in pawnshops. But if Glebb could find no indication that d’Aubigny had borrowed money from professionals accustomed to lend it, whence would the money to support that household come? It seemed impossible that the man hadn’t borrowed money from someone.
Miss Tolerance’s horse was still in the custody of the grubby child she had paid to watch it. She dodged a cart barreling by at a speed certain to throw the unspeakable contents of the gutter up in an odorous spray, then crossed the street to where horse and boy waited. She flipped the boy a coin, mounted the hack, and started west.
Perhaps the chevalier had borrowed money from a private source, a friend or business associate. Anne d’Aubigny had suggested that only a moneylender would have advanced her improvident husband money, but it was clear to Miss Tolerance that the widow had not been in her husband’s confidence. Perhaps d’Aubigny’s superior in the Home Office would know, although Miss Tolerance had little confidence that such a person would share the information with a Fallen Woman who appeared on his doorstep asking questions. Regretting that she would have to return home and change from the relatively warm breeches, coat and greatcoat that she wore into more feminine garb, Miss Tolerance turned the hack toward Manchester Square again, to render her costume and her self unexceptionable to the clerks of the Home Office.
 
 
A
n hour later Miss Tolerance had achieved a highly reappearance calculated to suggest impoverished female virtue and bereavement without directly claiming either. Her dress was of dark gray wool, her dark blue coat was untrimmed, and she had removed the crimson ribbons and feather cockade which had formerly given her bonnet a rather dashing appearance. This costume, together with a posture and attitude which suggested anxiety at war with necessity, she hoped would gain the confidence of the Home Office. She hired a carriage to Parliament Street and began her impersonation there on the street, staring anxiously into her reticule and paying the driver with a collection of small coins, parting with each one with a slight frown of distress. Firmly in character, she entered the building and asked the porter for the office of Mr. Etienne d’Aubigny.
The porter looked distressed. He bade her sit and scurried off down the low-ceilinged hall. Perhaps the man was afraid she did not know of the chevalier’s demise and feared feminine hysterics; certainly he had gone to place the problem in more senior hands. A few minutes later the porter returned with a tall square-headed gentleman who asked her business with the chevalier. Miss Tolerance gave rein to her considerable sense of mischief.
“My poor dear cousin sent me,” she began. “The widow, poor thing. Quite distraught. I—” She stopped and applied a handkerchief to her eye as if to stop a show of grief. “Poor Cousin Anne! So much business to resolve! So many callers, so many letters to write! I only hope my small assistance may be useful to her. Indeed, when I left, she told me—”
This was apparently credential enough for the gentleman, who dismissed the clerk and invited Miss Tolerance into his office. Miss Tolerance took a seat opposite the desk, which made her the full recipient of drafts from which her host’s chairback protected him.
“Now, then,” the gentleman said. He settled himself at his desk. “I am Sir Andrew Parham. How may I assist you, Miss—”
Miss Tolerance disregarded the implicit invitation to give her name. “Sir Andrew, so very kind of you to see me. My poor cousin Anne asked me—’tis very hard to speak of it, such a horrid, untimely death, and of course everything left every which way. But her husband’s affairs, perhaps you might know, I’m sure the poor chevalier reposed the greatest confidence in you—”
From the expression on Sir Andrew’s face he had not much liked the poor chevalier. “That is very gratifying,” he began.
“You see, there it is,” Miss Tolerance rattled on. “Men always know so much more than they tell their wives. My poor dear cousin—so distraught!—is trying to discover who—that is to say, if you could help us learn—I imagine that—”
“Madam, if you would tell me how I may help you,” Sir Andrew said encouragingly.
“Ah, men are always so businesslike! You see, the chevalier told Cousin Anne that he had borrowed money from someone in his office, but she can discover nothing, and no one has come forward,
and she does consider it a debt of—of honor, and asked me to particularly inquire—”
Sir Andrew raised an eyebrow. “D’Aubigny borrowed money from someone in
this
office?”
Miss Tolerance pursed her lips and nodded. “That is what we believe, sir, and if you—”
“I hardly like to say this, Miss—” again the pause for a name, which Miss Tolerance again ignored. “The men at d’Aubigny’s level in this department are men with their ways to make. If the chevalier borrowed money here it was more likely to be a sixpence than a guinea. He certainly knew better than to approach
me
,” he said sternly.
“Oh, of course, sir. But we thought—and with the poor chevalier such a promising man, and certain to rise in the service—”
Irritation, Miss Tolerance was pleased to see, was now plainly written on Sir Andrew’s face. She continued, “—Quite certain to make his fortune, for he was such a
clever
man—”
“Yes, well—”
“—And only recently he came into money—my cousin was certain at first that it was a prize of some sort for his superior work, but then she thought that it must have been a tiny loan against his expectations. Expectations that have been so horridly dashed—and how is she to manage now? That money is all gone, of course. Such a—”
“I hope Mrs. d’Aubigny’s jointure was protected against any depredations—” Sir Andrew began. He had begun to regard Miss Tolerance with a kind of horror.
“Of course it was, the soul of honor the chevalier was, as I’m sure you know, and my uncle, Cousin Anne’s father, you know, quite properly saw her jointure tied up sound as can be! I don’t mean to take up your time, dear Sir Andrew, but perhaps you know who the dear chevalier’s particular friends in the office were? Poor dear Anne says he was so popular that he frequently stayed out of an evening—I am only just come to London, and the pace of life is quite unsettling to a country mouse such as I am. But with Cousin Anne so very overset, and so many details to be seen to—and the poor dear chevalier such a paragon in every—”
“Quite,” Sir Andrew broke in. “Madam, I regret to tell you that the chevalier, so far as I could observe, had no particular friends in this office. He made no push to attach anyone here in that way, and while his work was competent he was by no means the rising star his wife imagines him. As for his evening activities, I can tell you that there were reports that the chevalier played very deep, and was involved with Persons that this office regards without favor. In fact had the chevalier not died in this unfortunate way, he was likely to have been reprimanded in the strongest possible terms, and warned that his continued employment with this office would be imperiled by those connections.”
Miss Tolerance burst into tears. Which is to say that she buried her face in the handkerchief and let her shoulders shake.
“Oh, how horrid!” she gasped. “That I should have to tell these things to my poor Cousin Anne! Oh!”
Sir Andrew, aghast at what his ire had led him to say, rose and took her hand, patting it anxiously. His hands were square, meaty, and covered with dark hairs. “My apologies, Miss—” Still he had no name for her. “I had not meant to speak so bluntly, but—”
“And his connections—these people you speak of! What must they be, to have brought down such a threat of censure!” Miss Tolerance sobbed again and permitted her hand to remain in Sir Andrew’s clasp. “But if it is to one of them that the chevalier applied for money—have you no name to give me, sir?”
Sir Andrew appeared appalled by the idea. “Name? I only know—no, ma’am, I really know nothing to help you. Mrs. d’Aubigny might apply at his clubs—he was asked to leave Brooks’, but was still a member of the Tarsio, I believe. Or among his own countrymen in England. But has she no relative—no
male
relative who might more properly take on these inquiries for her?”
Miss Tolerance shook her head.
“Ah. Well, I regret, Miss—I regret that I truly cannot be of more help. I send my condolences, of course, and a collection is being taken up here to help defray the—that is, the final expenses—but you see, that is, you understand …”
Miss Tolerance understood very well. She got to her feet, still partly hiding behind the handkerchief, withdrew her hand, and
sniffed. “Oh, yes, Sir Andrew. And I do thank you for your time and your kindness in seeing me, particularly as it seems my cousin’s husband had quite deceived—oh!” Another paroxysm of false tears. “But that’s of no account now. I shall simply tell my cousin that you could not tell us who might have loaned the chevalier money. Poor dear Cousin Anne does not need to know the rest, do you think?”

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