Death and the Cyprian Society (25 page)

 

Arabella had once consulted the great barrister Sir Clifton Corydon-Figge upon a legal point concerning her life expectancy, but she had never engaged him to argue a case for her. Therefore, she was uncertain as to whether he would be amenable to discussing strategies with a female client, or whether he would act pompous and patronizing, refusing to entertain her theories, since he, the legal expert, obviously knew better. The only way to find out was to try him.

“I’m anticipating a swift acquittal,” she said. “After all, they have not got the murder weapon, there were no witnesses to the act, and there is no proven explanation as to how the victim even got to Brighton.”

“You’re forgetting the motive,” said Corydon-Figge. “Miss Worthington had a very good
reason
for killing Madame Zhenay; the woman was blackmailing her.”

Arabella was gratified to note the absence of condescension in his voice or manner. It would have been so tedious if she had had to battle her barrister as well as the prosecution.

“And there is another problem,” said Corydon-Figge. He stood with his back to the large window of his sumptuous offices in the Inner Temple, and fixed Arabella with a bright, shrewd eye. “Your friend’s protector insists that the case be heard in the House of Lords, before the greatest collection of unpredictable ninnies this world has ever known. As Miss Worthington is the late Earl of Nutchester’s daughter, she does have that right, unfortunately.”

“Oh, dear!” said Arabella. “I had quite forgotten that! What are our chances of prevailing?”

“Slim, I fear. Peers tend to be somewhat inconsistent in their views, but in this case I think they will probably all find her guilty if they can. Because by joining the demi-monde, Miss Worthington has let her side down. The prosecution will therefore have no difficulty in persuading a passel of privileged prats that a fallen woman from their own ranks has fallen still further. They are hypocrites to a man. Of course,” he added generously, “the
women
of the peerage are an altogether different matter.” (Arabella was the daughter of a baronet.)

“As are barristers,” she added astutely. (Corydon-Figge had been knighted by the king, in gratitude for having successfully defended the reprehensible royal family against a multitude of lawsuits.)

“Of course,” said Sir Clifton,
“you,
as the client, could always reject Mr. Pollard’s request for the House of Lords hearing.”

Arabella shook her head. “I have paid you with monies provided
by
Mr. Pollard,” she replied, “and on that account, I am afraid we must honor his wishes. How do you propose to proceed?”

“Well,” replied her counselor, “I very much fear that unless we can discover the actual murderer, Miss Worthington’s prospects are bleak, indeed. It would help us greatly if we had her testimony. Does she still refuse to speak?”

“I am afraid it would do no good at all to put her on the stand.”

The barrister sighed. “As you have engaged me, Miss Beaumont, I shall follow your instructions, but I really should be vouchsafed at least one interview with the accused, if only to determine that her testimony not come out in court.”

“I cannot allow it, sir. If you heard Miss Worthington speak, if you
ever
heard her speak, it would prejudice you against her in such a way that you might be unable to go forth with your defense.”

“Very well. And what, may I ask, is your own theory of the case?”

“Suicide,” said Arabella, who had been thinking about this on the way over. “Madame Zhenay, fearing that she was about to be arrested again, for arranging the murder of one Tom Greely, decided to take her own life, and jumped off of Beachy Head. (Which is a favorite spot for suicides, if I may just point that out.) Her body either struck against the cliff on the way down, or was hurled against the rocks at the bottom, where it received the injuries sustained, including a smashed skull. The cadaver was then washed down the coast to Brighton, and lodged under the pier, where the accused was attempting to build herself a stairway up one of the posts to obtain the eggs from a gull’s nest.”

The barrister smiled. “Gulls’ eggs? I
love
those!”

“So does Constance, Sir Clifton.”

“I wish I could see it your way, madam, but I am afraid the prosecution has two very good arguments against suicide.”

“And what are they?”

“That the victim was going to be married to a duke—”

“I thought of that,” Arabella interrupted. “But, as the woman was also being investigated for murder, she knew she would have been hanged in any case. Perhaps she preferred a free fall on her own terms.”

“And her shoes,” said Corydon-Figge.

“Yes? What about them?”

“They were tied together by the ribbons that, when the shoes are worn, are normally wound round the . . . er, lower leg, as it were. The point being that the lady took care to tie her shoes together, presumably so that she could put them on again before leaving the beach, where I believe she was. Why should she remove her shoes before leaping to her death? And even if her fall were accidental, why take them off at all? I don’t believe she ever went up there, Miss Beaumont, and I’m afraid we’ll have to rule out suicide, for the prosecution certainly has.”

Arabella bit her thumbnail. “It might, as you say, have been an accidental fall. The body would still have been carried down the coast by the current, and might still have washed up beneath the Brighton pier.”

“Yes, but the fact is, we have no proof that Madame Zhenay ever
went
to Eastbourne
or
Beachy Head. When Lady Ribbonhat woke up that morning, she says she found a note, purportedly from the deceased, indicating her arrival there during the night. But the note was subsequently destroyed, so we cannot verify that it was in the victim’s handwriting. No one has been able to find the coachman who drove Zhenay from London to Eastbourne. Nor any driver who might have taken her from there to Brighton.”

“No,” agreed Sir Clifton. “Not as yet.”

“Madame Zhenay had many enemies. Nearly everyone who knew the woman wanted her dead, and somebody finally found the opportunity, it seems. But if we agree with the prosecution that it was
definitely
murder, then everyone will be looking, consciously or not, for the murder
er,
and Constance is the most convenient suspect, since she is already in custody.

“We shall stand a much better chance for acquittal if we contend that the death was an accident. After all, if Zhenay were carrying her shoes, and someone clubbed her to death, she would have dropped the shoes, or they would have dropped from her when she lifted her arms to defend herself. But, if she waded into the surf, with her shoes around her arm, she might have been caught up by a wave and dashed against the rocks, which would not necessarily have unwound the shoe ribbons from her wrist.”

“That
sounds
logical,” said Corydon-Figge, “but it isn’t, really.”

“No. It isn’t, really, but the only people you need to convince are those nincompoops in the House of Lords. And coming from you, with your unassailable oratorical style, the case for accidental death will sound perfectly rational. You can work out the details—say whatever you think best—but let us start from that premise, that there
was
no murder, only an accident. And that Miss Worthington just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrongest of times, innocently searching for gulls’ eggs.”

Sir Corydon-Figge regarded her for a moment with a penetrating stare. Then he began to smile. Arabella felt pleased. She detected, in the lifting of his mood, a ribbon of repressed ebullience, and another of cautious optimism. What could be more natural than to braid the two together, sling them at the facts, and launch the resultant theory into the chasm of the court?

Chapter 19

“Bla bla bla. Bla bla bla. Oh, blablablablablablabla!”

Arabella sighed. “And I had supposed that only papists believed in succubae,” she murmured. “What do you think, Bunny? I have had a letter from Reverend Clydesdale. He is clearly obsessed with me, and yet I only met him once.”

Belinda made a disgusted noise. “I have never met the man, and from what I have heard of him I hope I never shall.”

“He is odious,” Arabella agreed, “but sufficiently vocal to constitute a nuisance—he threatens to warn off all the proprietors in whose shops I currently enjoy credit, unless I subject myself to a course of ‘religious instruction’ at his hands. I am all too familiar with the type. Reverend Clydesdale’s methods are bound to include humiliation, flogging, and nudity.”

“The fiend!” cried Belinda. “What will you do?”

“Sleep with him, I suppose.”

“Oh, no, Bell! You can’t!”

“Yes, I can. It will dissipate the tension. And after he’s explored his base lusts and scourged himself, or whatever it is that men of his kidney do after they have sinned, he’ll reflect, and pray, and ultimately forswear me forever more.”

“Well, perhaps. But I am sorry you have to sleep with him.”

“So am I. However, I shall put him off, for the present, until I have dealt with the matter in hand.”

“Yes, put him off, by all means! Perhaps he will be exposed and defrocked in the meantime, and you won’t need to worry about him at all.”

“Defrocked and exposed? He would probably like that! You see? He is amusing me already! I am fairly certain, Bunny, that when I do have time to ‘rein in’ this Clydesdale, the adventure will prove an inexhaustible source for humorous stories.”

Arabella looked again at his letter, and read the closing aloud:

“What?” cried Bunny. “Is the man insane?”

Her sister did not answer her at once, and Belinda, looking round, saw that she was sitting up straight, with her eyes opened very wide.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Sorry,” said Arabella. “Will you excuse me for a moment?”

The desk in her boudoir contained a secret space at the back of the central drawer, and in this little chamber, our heroine was accustomed to storing small items that she was desirous of keeping to herself. From this private space, Arabella drew forth the letter, forgotten until now, which she had taken from Lady Ribbonhat’s file in Madame Zhenay’s strongbox. It was addressed to someone of whom she had never heard, in Blarney, Ireland, and Arabella recognized both the writing and the seal as Lady Ribbonhat’s. She held the letter up to the light, turning it now this way, now that, in an attempt to read the contents through the envelope.

 

The following morning was hazy, and smelt of smoldering garbage, which, as a matter of fact, was why it was hazy. Everyone in Brompton Park seemed to have had the idea to burn trash at the same time, and there was no breeze today. Consequently, Arabella had ordered that the windows be shut. Then the curtains had to be drawn, to keep the temperature down.

“This is what people have to do in the tropics,” she explained to Belinda. “Though I don’t suppose they have to contend with poisonous air unless there’s an active volcano in the vicinity.”

Her sister, who was reading about Madame Zhenay’s funeral in the paper, sat very still and tried not to breathe. Not because of the rank air, though: Puka-Puka was a tropical island, and if Arabella should make that connection, Bunny would have to listen to another litany about the man who got away.

But the association evidently failed to occur to her lovelorn sibling, who was busy constructing a riddle.

“Who do you think this is, Bunny? ‘Relieved of a great weight, he becomes more himself.’ ”

“I don’t know,” said Belinda, who was trying to read the paper. “I can’t think.”

“Peniston! If one removes the ‘ton,’ one is left with ‘penis’! Only . . . that doesn’t really describe Mr. Pollard, does it? He’s certainly very nice to Constance. In fact, if he weren’t so much
like
Constance, I might actually have considered him a friend.”

“That’s odd,” said Belinda.

“Why?”

“No, I mean the fact that Lady Ribbonhat’s name does not appear on the list of attendees, nor did she send a floral tribute in Madame Zhenay’s memory. I thought you said they were such great chums.”

“Hmm!” said Arabella. “Like Klunk and Stupid-Looking.”

“What?”

“Do you recall those turtles Neddy brought to the house two years ago?”

“What about them?”

“Eddie and I were talking about it recently. Listen, Bunny, I need to go out for a bit. Will you open the windows once the air clears outside?”

“Yes. Where are you going?”

“To Charburn House. I am going to have a chat with Lady Ribbonhat.”

“What? Are you mad?”

“Very possibly. I don’t know whether she actually murdered Madame Zhenay, and I don’t see how she could have, but I suspect that the duchess knows more than she has told the authorities.”

“She won’t talk to you.”

“I think she might,” said Arabella, producing the letter. “Provided I offer sufficient inducement.”

“What is that?”

“The letter by which Madame Zhenay was blackmailing her.”

“Blackmail!” Belinda exclaimed, dropping the paper. “What’s it say?”

“How would I know? It’s sealed, as you see. Sir Clifton will most likely prevail in the House of Loonies, but we cannot leave it to fate, Bunny. We simply
must
make certain of Constance’s acquittal.”

 

Henry Honeywood Seaholme, Duke of Glen
deen
and disappointed bridegroom, had been restless ever since his return from Brighton. Actually, “disappointed” might be overstating it a bit, as Glen
deen
had not even known of his impending nuptials until after his bride-to-be had expired. Nor would he ever know who Madame Zhenay had really been. All he
did
know, in fact, was that he wished to escape the depressing influence of his mother and pay a call upon Arabella, whom he’d been prevented from seeing at Brighton, and who was, at that moment, alighting from her carriage in front of his house. But that was merely another detail of which the duke was ignorant.

Arabella ascended Charburn’s front steps with great firmness of purpose, and stood impatiently by whilst her footman applied the door knocker.

“Again, Thomas! Harder!”

“I’m knockin’ ’s loud as I can, miss.”

When the creaking old butler or whatever he was finally opened the door, Arabella could not decide whether her wait had been occasioned by the man’s infirmities, or by the sheer arrogance and condescension for which this household was famous.

“What.”

Apparently, it had been too much trouble to add the “do you want?,” and the octogenarian servant stood blocking the door, reveling in his power and regarding Arabella with hostile insolence.

She pushed him aside and entered the house. “I must speak with your mistress!” she said, as the duke came down the stairs.

“Why, Sugar Pig!” he cried, “I was just coming to see you!”

“Hello, Puddles. Is your mother at home?”

“My moth . . . oh, I say!” he exclaimed, as it began to dawn upon him where she was, and where he was, and his mother and everything. “What in blazes are you doing here? And what do you want with Mama? Have you lost your mind?”

“No. And I should hope that you realize I should not be here, requesting to see her, except on a matter of the utmost urgency.”

“Hmmm. That’s true. Well, I shouldn’t think she will
want
to see you, but I’ll go and ask her.”

“No, Henry,” said Arabella, placing a hand on his arm. “I should be much obliged if you would shew me into some small parlor or other and bring her to me there, without informing her ladyship of my identity.”

“Why? You aren’t planning to shoot her, are you?”

“No. But I have brought something with me in which I suspect she will be deeply interested, and if you tell her who I am, she will miss the chance of—”

“Henry? Who is it? Piston said there was someone to see me.”

Lady Ribbonhat stood and gaped at her visitor. “You!” she managed, after a moment. “How dare you come here? Take yourself off, baggage! I have dispensed with charitable deeds, and have no intentions of renewing my previous addresses to you
or
your saucy servants!”

Arabella withdrew from her reticule the sealed letter taken from Madame Zhenay’s strongbox on that long-ago night of stormy passions.

“I wish to talk to you about this,” she said, waving the letter under the dowager’s nose, so that the woman might recognize both the addressee and her own script on the envelope. The visible effect on Lady Ribbonhat was everything Arabella might have wished.

“What . . . what is that?”

“I think you know. This letter originates from you, does it not? I found it in Madame Zhenay’s blackmail files. Where can we go and be assured of absolute privacy?”

“In here,” Lady Ribbonhat replied quickly, opening the door to a kind of study. “Henry, tell Piston that we are not to be disturbed.”

All of Charburn’s rooms were ostentatious, but this one topped the lot, as it was intended to intimidate visitors whilst they waited . . . and waited . . . and waited for an audience with the dowager duchess. The marble! The ormolu! The overbearing heaviness of the furnishings! The tasteless gaudiness of the paintings! Arabella was not so much overawed as overcome, and she pressed a handkerchief scented with eau de cologne to her nostrils to keep herself from fainting—stupidity and bad taste often took her this way.

“How long have you had my letter?” Lady Ribbonhat demanded.

“We haven’t the time for non-essentials. The point is, I am perfectly willing to return it to you, in exchange—”

“Whatever you want,” said Lady Ribbonhat quickly, turning her head away.

“ ’Pon my soul!” said Arabella. “As important as all that?”

The dowager’s head did not move, but the eyes slid back to regard her visitor.

“You must not be familiar with the contents, if you have to ask that question!”

“No. As you see, the seal is unbroken. And I am prepared to return it to you in that state, Lady Ribbonhat, provided you give truthful answers to the questions I shall put to you.”

“Very well,” said the dowager duchess, yanking the bell pull. “What will you have? Tea? Sherry?”

“Tea, I think.”

But Henry had told the butler that his mother was not to be disturbed on any account. So the bell was ignored.

“I want you to tell me,” said Arabella, “exactly what took place between you and Madame Zhenay on the day she died.”

“I did not see her that day. I’d gone to sleep . . .”

“Spare me your circumlocutions, Lady Ribbonhat. The two of you were seen together on Beachy Head early that morning.”

The dowager turned the color of clay. “Impossible! And . . . and untrue!”

“There was a certain woman, a widow Greely, who had been tailing Madame Zhenay for some time, intending to kill her when she got the chance. She saw what she saw, but I would rather hear it from your own lips.”

“She
was going to kill Zhenay? You mean, all I had to do was wait, and my problem would have been solved?”

“I have no wish to expose you to the authorities,” said Arabella. “You are my own, cherished nemesis, and no one shall take you from me, if I can help it. On the other hand, Constance Worthington is being held for Zhenay’s murder. If she pays the penalty, I shall be destitute. (Financially, that is. The loss of Constance herself is of little consequence, either to myself, or to the world.) It would not be fair, though. It would be monstrous unfair. And only you can put things right.”

“How, pray?”

“I won’t know that until you tell me the truth. Then we may between us concoct a believable lie. Now, I know that Zhenay was your dearest friend, but the facts simply do not add up. Had you quarreled?”

Lady Ribbonhat began to laugh. It started low and slow in her chest, becoming faster and higher in pitch as it moved up her trachea. By the time it reached her head it was a truly horrible sound, like the squealing of an hysterical puppet. Recalling the Punch and Judy show, Arabella gritted her teeth and put her hands over her ears, until at last her hostess subsided, with a kind of sob at the finish.

“My dearest friend!” she spat. “I hated her!”

“You did? But you were always together. Wasn’t she going to marry Henry?”

“Yes!” Lady Ribbonhat snarled. “Because I thought she had my letter! But
you
had it! You had it all along! Oh, when I think of how she made me grovel and slave for her, and threatened to expose me! I wish she were still alive, that I might have the pleasure of killing her, again!”