Petty Treason (4 page)

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Authors: Madeleine E. Robins

BOOK: Petty Treason
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“Who would that be, sir?”
“Mr. Gregory Wheelock.”
“And what
did
Mr. Wheelock tell you about me, sir?”
“That you undertook investigation for a fee, that he had used you and found you reliable and discreet—more discreet then those men who advertise themselves as thief-takers might be. That you might be willing to, that is, that you, but I don’t imagine—” Colcannon seemed in danger of lapsing into complete incoherence. Miss Tolerance rescued him.
“In what way may I be of assistance, Mr. Colcannon?”
Colcannon at last sat opposite Miss Tolerance upon the settle. The afternoon light from the window lit his face as he leaned forward to confide in her.
“It is murder, Miss Tolerance.”
Miss Tolerance hid her surprise in an expression of polite interest. “Murder done, sir, or murder to be done?”
“Murder done, ma’am,” Colcannon said. Then, as he realized what she had asked, he sat back shocked. “You do not think I want you to kill someone?”
“Not at all, sir. Perhaps it was the dramatic way in which you spoke which startled me into imprudent speech. Even when the matter
is
murder,” she added, “it is more useful to me to hear the tale without flourishes.”
Colcannon nodded seriously, then sat regarding Miss Tolerance. After a few seconds he put his head in his hands and began to rub his forehead, as if he could scrub away his troubles. Miss Tolerance found herself growing impatient, and prodded him.
“So, there has been murder done, Mr. Colcannon? Might I ask how it involves you?”
Colcannon was shocked. “I am not involved, Miss Tolerance. How could you—”
Miss Tolerance spoke very gently. “Mr. Colcannon, will you start at the beginning of your tale and proceed direct to the end? I will save my questions until later, if you will save your agitation and scruples. If I do not apprehend the matter I will be useless to you. Please tell me what has happened.”
“Do you not read the papers? The Chevalier Etienne d’Aubigny, killed in his bed four days ago.”
The last time Miss Tolerance had opened the
Times
had been more than a week earlier. She had found the news depressingly full of the Queen Regent’s illness, reverses in the Peninsular campaign, and the latest brangle in Parliament over the Duke of Cumberland’s War Support Bill. Yet the name d’Aubigny was familiar to her. A second’s more thought and she had it.
“D’Aubigny is—was—married to your sister, I collect. That is how you come to be concerned. Permit me to condole with you, sir.”
Colcannon nodded.
“Can you tell me the particulars? And may I offer you some refreshment?” Colcannon did not reply, but watched dumbly as Miss Tolerance got out two glasses and poured a small amount of Jerez wine into each. He tossed his back at a gulp and began his story.
“My sister Anne married the chevalier four years ago. He is the son of an excellent old French family of the
ancien regime,
quite important in France before the revolution. His family—an uncle and his mother and d’Aubigny himself—escaped and came to England when he was a boy. Here his prospects were quite different, of course. But he was educated in England, and his uncle had some influential friends. He was regarded as a promising man. And there was always the chance that, given the successful conclusion of the war, he might come into significant property in France. I tell you all this so you will understand that my sister was flattered when he began to particularize his interest with her. D’Aubigny’s fortune had been lost in France, but there was nothing to suggest that he would not make his way in the world. His friends secured him a post in the government, and he still had the title. My father was alive then; he liked the match, and so did Anne. The settlements were made and the wedding celebrated.”
“My felicitations. When did your family discover that they were mistaken in d’ubigny?”
Colcannon frowned. “I never said—”
“Sir, when someone goes to such trouble to make it clear why a suitor was agreeable to his family, it suggests that there is bad news to come. Was the marriage not a happy one?”
“We thought it would be. Even a man who marries for money may make a good husband. But after a time …”
“The chevalier showed a different set of colors.”
Colcannon nodded. His lips pressed together in a thin line.
“His death was then a release for your sister?” Miss Tolerance suggested sympathetically.
“Release? Had he fallen from his horse or died of a fever, even numbered among the casualties in the Dueling Notices, I should agree, Miss Tolerance. But he was beaten to death in his own bed and left among the bloody sheets for anyone to find. You may imagine how fearfully this has overset my sister—her nerves are not strong. Somehow someone gained entry to my sister’s house and did this monstrous thing—and who knows but that they might not come back and serve her the same way?”
Miss Tolerance considered. “Is there any reason your sister should fear such a thing, sir?”
“A reason? You mean threats against her? No, who would threaten Anne? But such a murder is beyond reason; what might such a madman do? If the villain did not get what he wanted on his first visit he will surely come back again.”
“The murder was a robbery also?” Miss Tolerance asked. “What was taken?”
Colcannon blinked. “I don’t know that anything
was
taken. But the threat—”
“Your sister should hire guards for her house. Or you might hire them for her.”
“And tell my sister she must live like a captive in her own house? While she is in mourning? And the authorities, the magistrate and his constables, make free of the house in their investigation, in and out with barely a by-your-leave, bullying the servants. Imagine how such people would rub along with hired guards! I must tell you, Miss Tolerance, I have only the smallest reliance that Bow Street will find the culprit in this killing, and until the murderer is found, how can my sister—indeed, how can anyone in the neighborhood—sleep sound at night?”
Miss Tolerance observed the man before her. He was plainly in earnest despite his overwrought expression. She thought back to what she knew of him: the only son, he had come into his fortune upon the death of his father three years before. He had, as she had told Mr. Wheelock, extensive estates which he managed well, and realized a fine income from them. And he was older than his sister, and had probably been taught that she was a fragile blossom in need of his protection. Whether Anne d’Aubigny was fragile or not remained to be seen, but clearly Colcannon was distressed by his sister’s situation.
“Why do you place so little reliance upon Bow Street, sir? Some of the Runners are not genteel fellows; it is not a genteel calling. Yet it is, in the main, as honest and efficient an organization as you are like to find for the purpose in all Europe.”
“I told you this seemed to me the work of a madman, Miss Tolerance. Can plodding effort hope to catch such a villain?”
“It may well—certainly better than no effort at all. But are you sure your brother-in-law had stirred up the enmity of a madman, sir? Are there no other reasons why he might have been slain?”
Colcannon considered. By his expression Miss Tolerance deduced that he was weighing his answer carefully.
“He was French,” he said at last.
Miss Tolerance judged this a bad time to laugh. “There are a good number of émigrés in London, sir. Since most are not murdered in their beds, I cannot believe mere nationality is sufficient cause for so difficult and deliberate an assassination. And if the murderer was simply a madman who targeted Frenchmen in their beds, your sister is English-born and thus not in danger.”
“Yes. I suppose you are right. It is neatly reasoned.” Mr. Colcannon cocked his head and regarded Miss Tolerance anew. “I had wondered—that is, when I realized what this place was, I thought perhaps Mr. Wheelock had jested when he sent me here. Even before that, when he suggested I consult you. How could a woman do—provide—that is, the delicacy of your sex must surely constrain you in—”
Miss Tolerance, fearful that Colcannon would knit himself into such a frenzy of circumlocution that he would never reach the end of his sentence, spoke bluntly. “First, sir:
this
place is my house. I do not live in the brothel yonder, and while I am Fallen, I am not a prostitute. As for the rest, I have some skills which are uncommon for my sex, and a good deal of natural female curiosity. And I have a powerful need to earn my bread, preferably without becoming a whore myself.” Colcannon was blushing again. She took a little pity on the man. “I could reassure you more fully if I understood the nature of the work you wish me to undertake.”
“I want my sister safe, ma’am.”
“I understand, sir. But safe from whom? If you think your sister is threatened, surely you’d do better to hire guards for her house.”
“But for how long? Until Bow Street find the killer or decide they have looked long enough? What then? I want someone to find the killer, ma’am. Surely that is the only way to ensure my sister’s safety and give her some peace.”
Miss Tolerance sat back, turning her wineglass between her fingers. This was not her usual sort of commission.
“Did Mr. Wheelock give you to believe that such a task is within my abilities, sir?” she asked at last.
“Indeed he did. He said you’d had a notable success in the business of the Earl of Versellion—”
Miss Tolerance pursed her lips. “I set out to find a trinket in that case, sir, not a killer.”
“But you found him, did you not?”
“I did.”
At some cost to myself.
“But surely, sir, this matter is better left to the authorities?”
“I have already said, ma’am, that I place little reliance upon them. The constables—a pair of sordid brutes, looking to terrify my sister’s servants! And the magistrate in charge seemed little better, bullying my sister as if she were a chambermaid. I tell you, Miss Tolerance, the man may be well-enough meaning, but he has no notion of how to proceed, other than scaring poor Anne.”
“And you believe I would have better luck?”
“Mr. Wheelock said you performed quite thoroughly the task he gave you,” Mr. Colcannon said. “Miss Tolerance, someone killed the Chevalier d‘Aubigny. He moved in a number of circles, not confined to his own class. He was an émigré. He had a weakness for a certain class of female.” He glanced toward the window through which Mrs. Brereton’s house could be seen. “I need someone who can talk to Anne without scaring her to distraction,
and
to the sorts of people her husband was often among, and that Mr. Wheelock says you can do. I beg you, ma’am. Help my sister.” He leaned forward again, extending his hand as if to take Miss Tolerance’s own. She folded her hands in her lap, misliking the gesture.
“Mr. Colcannon, has it occurred to you that in seeking the killer I may unearth information that you and your sister would prefer to keep hidden? I do not bandy my clients’ secrets about, sir, but it can happen that in the course of so serious an investigation secrets may come out. Will it suit you to have it so, if the killer is caught?”
“Whatever secrets you unearth could only be d’Aubigny’s—I believe my sister is beyond being hurt by anything her husband did.”
“You have not answered my question, sir.”
Colcannon said, with a little stiffness, “You will follow your conscience. I would not expect you to do else.”
Miss Tolerance nodded, but thought he still did not fully appreciate what he was promising. She came to a decision: she needed occupation, and this was certain to keep her busy.
“I will need, first of all, to see your sister’s house, and to speak with her.”
“I will go straightaway and tell her to expect you. When?”
“Tomorrow in the morning, if that is convenient. But we have not discussed my fee, sir.”
Colcannon looked surprised.
“Would you not rather know beforehand? I charge three guineas a day, plus reasonable expenses, which I will detail for you.”
The man shrugged off the figures as if they were unimportant. “Do you require earnest money or an advance?”
Miss Tolerance was tempted, but had found in the past that advance payment seemed to license her clients to plague her for details, impeding investigation with their inquiries into what she had done and what she was still to do.
“We will agree to trust each other, sir. If I find my expenses are high and I need replenishment, I will inform you.” She stood and offered her hand. “You will tell your sister I will call upon her tomorrow at about eleven in the morning?”
Colcannon rose to his feet. He was only a little taller than Miss Tolerance, and looked directly into her eyes. “I cannot thank you enough, Miss Tolerance. I feel better in my mind already.”
Miss Tolerance said something polite about hoping to justify his trust in her, and walked the gentleman through the garden to the gate which let onto Spanish Place. Colcannon repeated his thanks and bowed over her hand. Miss Tolerance curtseyed, said her farewells, then locked the gate behind him.

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