To Mourn a Murder (25 page)

He slipped quietly into the rear of the shop into what looked like her workroom. The fading light from the side window showed him a table littered with untrimmed bonnets of all shapes and colours. Packets of ribbons, feather, silk flowers and small replicas of fruits were strewn about, along with pins, needles, thread and fine wires. Shelves along one wall held black hatboxes with the shop's name in gilt, like the sign outside. One corner was got up to serve as a kitchen. A kettle stood on the hob of a small grate. The ashes in it were cold. A cup sat on the drain board by the sink. A bottle of milk was left on the windowsill to cool. He sniffed it and screwed up his nose. Sour! He glanced at a staircase but didn't go up.

Mam'selle obviously hadn't got back yet. This was his chance to search her desk. It would be too much to hope to find Mrs. Huston's diamonds or the money the Bee had stolen, but there might be letters. He tiptoed into the front of the shop. It was darker than the rear room due to the drawn blinds. The dim outline of bonnets standing on racks gave the effect of women lined up in a row, watching him. Eerie! What he needed was a lamp.

As his eyes became accustomed to the gloom he could make out the stripes of the tiger rug on the floor and the sofa behind it. She'd likely have a lamp by the sofa. He headed for it and tripped over her. It was only his cane that saved him from landing on top of the corpse. His other hand brushed her hair and he gave a shuddering gasp. For thirty seconds he stood still with his heart pounding so hard he thought the passersby in the street would hear it.

Then he took hold of himself and limped around the body to find the lamp, just where it should be on a little table by the sofa. He found the tinder box, lit the lamp with trembling fingers and carried it to view the mortal remains of Mam'selle. She lay on her back with her two arms flung out and a surprised look on her face. She looked just the way Prance had described her—the cloud of blond curls, the modest black gown, pretty. Too young to die. But she was certainly dead. Those staring eyes, the surprised look on her poor, pale face ...

He moved the lamp along her body. The little hole in the bodice of her gown with the congealed blood around it was hard to spot against the black gown, but it was there. Either a bullet or a knife, or scissors for that matter, could have made it. He didn't care to investigate. A quick look around showed him the weapon was gone. There was nothing he could do for her now except notify the constable. But first he'd look for the desk.

It was there in a corner behind an aspidistra plant. Her business accounts were neatly entered. Her bank book showed she made a pretty good profit at one or the other of her trades but the deposits were regular and none large enough to suggest she was sharing the Bee's gains. He found three letters from her mother in Nottingham. Not Bath, not Shepton. No letters from any gentlemen at all. And at the bottom of the drawer, a French grammar, a relic of the days when she had decided a French milliner would do better than an English one. Nothing to connect her to the Bee. Odd he hadn't left his usual taunting symbol. He assumed she'd been murdered by the Bee.

She must have been working with him, or why else had she been murdered at this particular time? He didn't think she'd been the woman with him last night, though. The body didn't look as if it had only recently had the life torn out of it. At close range there was already a sickening stench.

No, the reason Mam'selle hadn't opened her shop today was that she was already dead. Maybe been dead since yesterday morning.

He went back to the kitchen and up the stairs to what proved to be her bedroom. It was small with minimal furnishings. Nothing exotic like the tiger rug. He made a hasty examination of the drawers that yielded no clues. He went downstairs, extinguished the lamp and went out the back door. Since he didn't want to get caught up in lengthy questioning, he wrote an unsigned note to the constable and had the coachman hire a link-boy to deliver it. Before leaving King's Road he stopped at two neighbouring shops to see what he could learn of Mam'selle's customers yesterday.

The tobacconist next door, put into a good humour by the purchase of snuff and a blue enameled box to hold it, both at inflated summer tourist prices, displayed a keen interest in the pretty milliner. "Betsy don't have so many customers in the off months," he said with a broad wink, "though she snagged a dandy t'other day."

"All wrapped up in a yaller scarf, was he?" Coffen asked.

"That's him. An out and outer."

"How about yesterday?"

"No gents. She had a couple of females in but they'd only be buying bonnets. She closed up early, around eleven. She didn't stop in to see me. She does usually when she's taking an afternoon off, to ask me to keep an eye on things."

"What kind of females?" he asked.

"The first one was a bit o' muslin that's under Mr. Miller's protection. He owns a hotel. T'other was a proper lady."

"You know this lady?"

"No, she weren't from around here."

"Young or old?"

The man furrowed his brow. "Youngish, but plain dressed. Not fashionable. She'd find nothing to suit her in Betsy's shop."

"Did she stay long?"

"I don't time them in and out, do I? I have my own business to run. Next time I looked the curtain was drawn. Why are you so interested anyway, mister?"

"Betsy's got herself in a bit of trouble," Coffen said, but in no condemning way.

"Can't say I'm surprised. What sort of trouble?" the tobacconist asked, just as the door opened and he had to greet another customer.

Coffen slipped out to avoid answering. His next stop was the George Inn on the north road. Unlike Prance, he wasn't put off by the homey smoke and ale aroma of the tap-room. He ordered an ale and took it to the grate, where a group of local fishermen were discussing the pittance they got for their catch, versus the prices the shops asked, and who did the real work, eh?

Coffen shook his head in sympathy and said it was a rotten shame. Within five minutes he was buying them a round of drinks and drifting into casual chat.

"I came down from London looking for a chum of mine who was supposed to be passing this way," he said. "Seems I've missed him. Fear I'm a few days late. Tall, dark haired fellow. You might have noticed him. He was driving a crested rig."

"Oh aye," a man called Jem said at once. "I seen him. A good looking lad. He come in but he didn't join us at all. He took his ale to Podey's desk to write a letter. I didn't catch his name."

"That'd be me he was writing to, likely. I never got his letter. I wonder, though, if it was my friend, Lord Jergen."

"Nay, it weren't him," Jem said firmly. "I know his lordship to see him. He used to spend his summers here a while back. I did some gardening for him and her ladyship, before I got my fishing boat. No, 'twas a younger lad than Jergen. Dark haired fellow, a gent."

Coffen felt again that ripple up his spine. "Did you ever see the lad hereabouts before?"

"Well now, let me think," he said, jiggling his empty glass. Coffen called for another round.

"Say about seven years ago?" Coffen persisted.

"I think I seen him some years ago," Jem said, but it was a doubtful speech, perhaps uttered to repay the questioner for the ale.

None of the other men had anything to add. He had learned all he was going to and returned to Marine Parade, where he enjoyed a hearty meal of Irish stew and biscuits, finished off with gingerbread and preserved plums. He debated whether to write his news to Luten or return tomorrow and tell him in person. As he disliked writing letters nearly as much as he disliked reading poetry he decided to have an early night and head for London at first light in the morning.

He told Mrs. Partridge about Mam'selle Grolier's death. "But don't let on you know," he cautioned, "for I don't want to get held up with police questioning. I sent a note in unanimous." He frowned, then said, "or perhaps it was anominous."

"You didn't sign it," Mrs. Partridge translated.

"That's it. Well, it was a dandy dinner, Mrs. Partridge, as usual. I plan to be out of here at the crack of dawn, so don't feel you have to see me off. I'll stop at an inn for breakfast along the way."

This token speech required no answer. He knew she would be up with a full breakfast ready, and he knew she knew, as well as she knew what a large pourboire he would leave her on the dresser. They said goodnight and he hobbled up to his room, where Partridge had a good fire going in the grate and his wife had a pan in his bed to warm the sheets and a hot brick wrapped up in flannel for his feet.

Where did Luten find treasures like this? He really should turf out the crew at his house and replace them with people who did their job. It would be fine to have a cook who could make gingerbread and fry sausages without charring them. By the living jingo, he'd do it one of these days.

When Luten suggested to Corinne that they pay a morning call on Lady Jergen, she regretfully declined.

"I've been neglecting poor Mrs. Ballard shamefully of late. Since the sun is shining I'm going to take her for a drive. The admirable Black has volunteered to replace my coachman while Coffen is in Brighton."

"What a treasure the man is," Luten said. "He can turn his hand to anything. You should lend him to Pattle for a week and he'd trim that lot of roughians Pattle calls servants into line."

"But how could I do without him for a week?" Beyond the doorway, Black's face glowed with pride. "I expect you'll be quizzing Lady Jergen to see what you can learn of last night's doings. I don't believe she knows a thing about the Bee, other than what she's told us."

"We didn't know what questions to ask. Someone must have helped Jergen handle the purchase of Goodman's jewelry shop, for instance."

"Wouldn't his regular man of business handle it?"

"The financial arrangements, but not the physical removal of whatever Goodman left behind. If he did leave anything behind. He might have packed it all up and stored it."

"To be sorted out by his heir when he died?" she suggested. "I wonder who his heir is."

"If Lady Jergen doesn't know, I'll send a message off to Coffen at Brighton to look into it. Or the Partridges might know. Unless I discover something startling I plan to go to the House after I see Lady Jergen, to learn the latest news of Napoleon. He's on his way back to Paris after being thoroughly trounced in Moscow. The Russian winter will kill what's left of his men if he doesn't move quickly. I'll see you this evening. Take care." He kissed her lightly and left.

The door was scarcely closed behind him when Mrs. Ballard came tripping downstairs, already dressed for her outing in a plain black round bonnet and black pelisse. Although her husband had been dead for years she still wore mourning. Prance, in his satirical vein, had once likened this self-effacing lady to a titmouse in crow's feathers.

"Where would you like to go, Mrs. Ballard?" Corinne asked, knowing full well what the answer would be.

"I thought we might drive along New Bond Street, if you don't mind, milady. I've run out of wool threads for the firescreen I'm working on."

Mrs. Ballard always found some excuse to go to New Bond Street. Born and reared in the country, the parks held no delights for her. This coincided very well with her mistress's preference. They both liked to see the bustling throng and peruse the shops, though Mrs. Ballard bought very little. Embroidery threads and perhaps some linen to make handkerchiefs as gifts for friends were her idea of a shopping spree. Corinne would buy her a box of marzipan, her favourite treat, which she would take to her whist party and share with her friends.

A fine day after several days of wind and clouds brought out a crowd. Sunlight warmed their shoulders and glinted from sparkling store windows. The broad streets were kept clean by workmen who swept up what the horses left behind, but an echo of the odor lingered, mixing with smoke from chimneys and the tantalizing aroma of coffee wafting from the busy coffee houses.

The clatter of hooves and rattle of wheels over cobblestones filled the air, muffling the human sounds of greetings. Horses and carriages there were in plenty–barouches drawn by a team of glossy bays, landaus, elegant little tilburys drawn by one pony, gentlemen's sporting curricles powered by a pair of blood grays and even a few high perch phaetons driven by ladies. It was Corinne's intention to acquire and learn to drive a phaeton when she and Luten were at his country seat in the summer.

But it was mainly the pedestrians that she and Mrs. Ballard enjoyed watching. Ladies in befeathered high poke bonnets and dandies in curled beaver hats and nip-wasted jackets, their shoulders padded to ridiculous widths, exchanged smiles and bows. Officers in their scarlet regimentals and shining black shakos stood out above the throng. Their military bearing easily distinguished them from scurrying red-coated post-boys, each with his bag of letters over his shoulder. Tattered link-boys who patrolled the streets with a torch after dark put their lights away in daylight and earned a few pennies by running errands and watching the horses of the gentry while they descended to go on the strut.

The noisier display of street corner hawkers selling gingerbread and cider, oranges and meat pies was missing in this polite area. No chimneysweeps with their long poles, no milkmaids with their pails hanging from a yolk across their shoulders, were allowed here. At a corner one girl, she couldn't be more than nine or ten, stood by a wicker cage of canaries, shyly tooting her wares. Mrs. Ballard was tempted to buy one, but as she considered the cost of a cage and the ongoing expense of feeding it and the bother of cleaning it each day, she resisted the impulse.

At the bow-windowed shops with their many panes, gentlemen raised their quizzing glasses to peer at goods imported from Africa, India, America, Japan. The best the world had to offer was on sale in London. The latest fashion in china and crystal, jewels and silver; in "toys" for the ton–fans, perfume bottles, snuffboxes and quizzing glasses; silks and muslin and calico and the newest japanned ware from the orient. The ladies went into a drapery shop and from the unparalleled array before them, bought an ell of linen and the woolens for the firescreen.