Point of Honour (35 page)

“Good morning, madam,” Folle said to Mrs. Brereton. He evidently awaited Mrs. Brereton’s signal to join her, which she gave with an inclination of her head toward the sofa. Folle advanced easily into the room and turned to discover who Mrs. Brereton’s companion was. When he recognized Miss Tolerance, his demeanor changed remarkably. His back straightened, his eyes darkened, and his affable expression became hard and brazen. Mrs. Brereton, perhaps willfully, appeared to note nothing of the change.

“Good morning, Sir Henry. Will you take a cup of chocolate?” She indicated that he might sit. Folle bowed crisply and took, not the sofa, but the chair opposite Mrs. Brereton, nearest Miss Tolerance. “I trust you passed a pleasant night?” Mrs. Brereton continued. She passed a cup to Folle.

“Oh, very pleasant, very pleasant indeed.” Folle sprawled, one arm draped across the back of his chair, and eyed Miss Tolerance. “Interviewing new talent, Mrs. B? I swear, you whores work the damnedest hours!”

Mrs. Brereton’s smile cooled. “You are pleased to be provocative, Sir Henry. You will kindly recall that this is not a tuppenny stew, and moderate your manner accordingly.”

“Beg pardon, Mrs. B,” Folle said. “But let me just tell you—that one there is already employed at some mean business in Southwark. God only knows what poxes she carries about with her.” He eyed Miss Tolerance. “Though
some
men might think her worth the risk.”

Mrs. Brereton frowned. “This is not one of my employees, but my niece. But perhaps you already knew that? You have been warned, Sir Henry. I shan′t think twice about refusing you entry if you continue—″

“Exiled from the finest quim in England? That would be a sad thing.” Folle put his chocolate cup aside and inclined his head to Miss Tolerance in a mockery of politeness. “I am sorry I mistook your niece for something she ain’t. That leaves, of course, the question of what she is.”

Miss Tolerance smiled brightly. “I know well what I am, sir. And curiously, I have been hearing a good deal of what
you
are.”

Folle’s brow lowered. “From my noble cousin?”

“From a Mr. Hart, sir.”

Folle sat back with a lurch, as if the name had struck him a blow. If the hostility with which he treated Miss Tolerance had heretofore come from her perceived alliance with Versellion, it was obvious with the introduction of Mr. Hart’s name that Folle was ready to detest her for her own sake.

“He recommended that I ask
Mrs.
Smith
for more details.” Miss Tolerance watched to see if the lie hit home. “Sadly, that is not possible.”

“Why is that?” Folle’s grip on his walking stick tightened.

“Mrs. Smith is unavailable, having been murdered.”

At the last word, Folle lifted his stick several inches from the ground. Then, with a gesture bespeaking conscious will, he let it drop again. Miss Tolerance was aware that one of the footmen was hovering in the doorway, sensing trouble.

“What would an old dead whore know about me?”

“I believe Mr. Hart thought you would know something about
her
, Sir Henry. Did I say that she was either old or a whore?” Miss Tolerance’s voice was low and mild.

“You can’t trap me. And who cares what a lying blackguard like Hart says?”

“Oh, I found him compelling when he had a knife to his throat,” Miss Tolerance said mildly. “He spun me a tale that he was hired to pursue a noble lord and bring him down. He seemed to think his employer would stop at nothing to get what he wanted. And I’m certain Bow Street would take an interest, sir. Attempted murder is a grave matter, far graver for ordinary mortals like ourselves.” She returned his look of malice, smiling. “A peer might ’scape prosecution where a commoner would certainly hang … .” Miss Tolerance watched the effect her words had been having, and at the last let her words trail as she might have run her fingers through a still pond.

Folle rose to his feet, red-faced and unable to speak for his rage. Again he lifted his stick, but higher this time, nearly over his head. He would have brought it down upon Miss Tolerance except that the footmen, Cole and Keefe, had appeared on either side of Folle to restrain him.

Mrs. Brereton rose from her chair and observed that Sir Henry might find it more commensurate with his dignity to leave under his own power. Folle, still furious but under control again, shrugged off the footmen and stalked out of the salon. Cole and Keefe followed him purposefully. Miss Tolerance put a hand to her head, as if to be sure that no blow had fallen. Mrs. Brereton sat again and poured more chocolate. The expression with which she regarded her niece was not a pleasant one.

“I will thank you not to bring your business into my salon, to the detriment of
my
business, Sarah,” she said coldly.

“I beg your pardon, Aunt,” Miss Tolerance said meekly. “Although, if you recall, the business brought itself to me.”

“He started it?
Spare me your nursery excuses. Was that an argument I just witnessed, or some peculiar sort of interrogation?”

“Both, I suppose. Folle has confirmed for me the two things I believed, Aunt Thea. That he killed Mrs. Smith—the old woman in Leyton I told you about—and that he hired another murder done. He may even have been behind Matt’s death.”

Mrs. Brereton put her cup down; the saucer rattled. “Matt?” She was silent for a moment, privy to a range of thought and grief Miss Tolerance could only guess at. Then, “Why would Folle kill Matt?” she argued. “His tastes do not run that way, it’s only ever been girls—″

“Not all reasons for murder revolve around sex, Aunt Thea. Money, politics, family—all those can be excellent motivations for murder, and in Folle’s case, I think they were. But for now, whatever I believe, I have little evidence to lay before the magistrate.”

Mrs. Brereton shook her head. This was the first time her niece’s business had so nearly coincided with her own, and she clearly did not like it. “But where did Folle learn you had been interviewing in Southwark?” she asked.

“Here or there, Aunt. You know how talk flies about.”

This sally failed to amuse Mrs. Brereton, who asked coolly if Miss Tolerance had learned anything useful from Humphrey Blackbottle. Miss Tolerance admitted that Blackbottle himself had been of indifferent assistance. “One of his … people … provided a good deal of help, however.”

“I’m surprised to hear it. I should have thought that sort of person to be close as a clam and twice as suspicious.” Mrs. Brereton refreshed the chocolate in her cup and added sugar. “I cannot imagine that Blackbottle attracts a superior quality of help as a general rule, although—is there an Italian woman still manages his Cheapside house? I remember her from when I first came to London. She peacocked it around on the arm of her lover so boldly we almost thought he’d put his wife aside for her. It came to nothing in the end, though. The earl lost his interest in her and took up with that Deb Cunning, whom you say is now in Chelsea.”

Miss Tolerance stared at her aunt in fixed amazement. “Do you mean Mrs. Virtue, ma’am? There was a connection between her and Mrs. Cunning?”

“Only a man, my dear, and several years separated them, I think. Fanny Virtue, I believe she called herself. She was a few year older than I, very pretty, and new to London. Gave herself great airs, which made it sadder, I suppose, when her earl shifted his affections—″

“And that earl was the late Earl of Versellion?” Miss Tolerance asked.

“Of course. Within a year, I think, he had dropped her. He went through a string of light-o’-loves before he settled on the pretty, silly one.”

“Mrs. Cunning.” A vista of possibility had suddenly opened before Miss Tolerance.

“Yes. And La Virtue did not manage herself at all well. I put that down in part to old Versellion, for it was he introduced her to the Chinese vice—poor thing, she could barely remember her own name for a time after their parting, quite drowned her sorrows in opium, if one could say that. But as she’s still alive, and still managing Blackbottle’s business for him, I daresay she recovered herself from the habit.”

Miss Tolerance rose to her feet, staring at her aunt. “Why did you not tell me these things earlier?” she asked. “My God.”

“You never asked me,” Mrs. Brereton said mildly. “You asked about Deb Cunning, but not La Virtue. Sarah, will you not finish your chocolate?”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but I cannot. I regret to leave so abruptly, but—”

She did not stop to finish the sentence. Mrs. Brereton was left to drink her chocolate in silence.

A
nticipating another trip into Cheapside, Miss Tolerance returned to her cottage and changed into men’s clothes. The morning was bright and warm; in the garden a breeze murmured through the leaves with a green scent on it. Miss Tolerance started out on foot. The ideas forming in her head were so loose and yet so compelling that she required the walk in order to focus upon them and attempt to draw them into some whole and reasonable form.

Mrs. Virtue had been the lover of the old Earl of Versellion. Had Mrs. Cook known this? Had Humphrey Blackbottle acquired the fan for Mrs. Virtue particularly because of its connection to the old earl? It seemed logical to believe that Mrs. Virtue must know more of Versellion’s history-and of the fan—than she had permitted Miss Tolerance to learn, despite the word of honor given as Francesca d′Ippolito. For a few minutes Miss Tolerance’s anger—at Mrs. Virtue for her deception, and at herself for not catching her at it—burned very brightly. But the exercise of walking was as beneficial to rational thought as she had hoped; within a few streets of Manchester Square, Miss Tolerance recalled that she had never mentioned Versellion’s name to Mrs. Virtue. It was possible that the footman Versellion had sent with his payment had been indiscreet, and that Mrs. Virtue had deduced the identity of his employer, but after another street’s worth of consideration, Miss Tolerance discarded this idea as unlikely. She had heard Versellion order the footman’s discretion, and did not believe the order would have been lightly disobeyed.

It was as likely as not, then, that Mrs. Virtue had told the truth. Miss Tolerance began to compose a plan whereby she would confront Mrs. Virtue and in some way extract any information the madam had about Versellion’s family without drawing a line to the matter of the fan.

“′Old up, miss.”

A hand with blackened nails had gripped her arm strongly. Looking up, Miss Tolerance recognized the Bow Street Runner Penryn. “Zor Walter Mandif’s compliments, and he’s been wanting a word, if it’s convenient.”

Miss Tolerance, stopped in her tracks, said nothing but looked pointedly at the hand on her arm. It was removed.

“And if it is not convenient?” she asked.

Penryn smiled. He was in need of a razor, and his dark hair fell, overlong, over his forehead; from his odor Miss Tolerance deduced that he was not affecting the Romantic, but merely of slovenly habits. In his grin she saw a frank pleasure in the power of his office, compounded with some curiosity about herself.

“Mozt people find it convenient, miss. Zor Walter’s two streets over, at a coffeehouse, and begs you’ll join ’im there.”

Miss Tolerance considered for a moment and revised her plans. There was no point in antagonizing the Runners or their tame magistrate, and it was unlikely that Mrs. Virtue would disappear during an hour’s delay. She would follow Penryn, but she found it impossible to go without at least a token show of reluctance.

“I do not know if it’s wise for me to follow a man I barely know into a side street,” she murmured.

The Runner looked affronted. “Are you implying that Bow Street cannot take care of its witnesses, miss? Or of doing them ’arm itself?”

Miss Tolerance lowered her eyes demurely. “I would not think of doing so, Mr. Penryn.”

After a moment the man seemed to take the joke. One side of his mouth crooked up, and he muttered something about women. “Come along of me, then, miss.” He wheeled around, clearly anticipating that Miss Tolerance would follow, and strode off. She caught up in a few swift steps, adjusted her pace to match his, and they went off to find Sir Walter Mandif.

The Radical Coffeehouse was either a very unpopular place, or one whose denizens were not generally abroad until later in the day. Miss Tolerance stepped into the coffee room, which was large, shadowy, but banded with glittering stripes of sunlight from the windows, in which she could see the dust of ages stirred up by the sullen efforts of a girl scrubbing down tables. The place smelled of damp wood and mold, tobacco smoke and wood smoke, and very faintly of coffee. Miss Tolerance found Sir Walter Mandif sitting against the far wall, bleached by a shaft of sunlight, with a newspaper open on the table and a tankard to hand. He rose when he saw his visitor approaching and thanked her for attending him with the same courtesy he might have extended to a woman more regularly attired and situated than she was. Mr. Penryn, having provided the prize, withdrew to the bar and left Miss Tolerance with Sir Walter.

“You choose an interesting venue for this meeting, Sir Walter. Would it not have been better done to meet with me at my cottage, or perhaps at Tarsio’s, if not at Bow Street itself?”

Sir Walter offered her coffee, which she declined. “I thought, perhaps, a neutral meeting place,” he said. “This business appears to be more complicated than it first looked, and discussing it in a brothel did not seem prudent.”

“My home is not a brothel, Sir Walter.”

“No, indeed, Miss Tolerance. But it is situated awfully close by one, is it not?”

Miss Tolerance admitted the justice of this. “But which business is it that you wish to discuss?”

“The death of Mrs. Smith, of Leyton.”

“Are you still interested in it? Not many would be so solicitous of justice for a poor old Fallen Woman.”

“It is the murder of just such as Mrs. Smith, the poorest and most helpless, which does the greatest harm to our society, do not you think?” Mandif raised his tankard to his lips, tasted its contents, made a face, and set it down.

“I do, as it happens. But not many of your rank share that view, I think.”