Drury Lane Darling (17 page)

She turned the page and gave a gasp of surprise.

FLAWLESS FLEUR MISSING, BELIEVED DEAD was printed in heavy black type. How had the papers learned of it? With Nigel looking over her shoulder, she read avidly.

The Marquise de Chamaude, famed Drury Lane actress, had disappeared from the home of Sir A. and Lady—, where she had gone to spend a two-day holiday.

The following paragraphs were familiar, having to do with escaping Paris in a cart of cabbages and eventually landing at Brighton, to be rescued by the prince.

The rest of the highly colored account was wildly inaccurate. About the only word of truth in it was that the marquise’s memoirs would soon be published by Colchester Press. Nigel frowned to see the editor’s name had been omitted entirely. They read with considerable surprise that the marquise had been troubled prior to and during her country visit. The intimation was that French spies were after her, and she had fled to the country to escape death. But death may have found her. She had been carried off from her bed while sleeping.

The writer concentrated on the grave—no mention of its being a badger sett—and the marquise’s favorite shawl. He omitted that a glove had been found as well. An illustrator had drawn the grave in the middle of a graveyard, surrounded by mourning yews and headstones. With artistic liberty, he sketched in a corpse covered with a paisley shawl.

A few paragraphs gave a resume of Fleur’s most popular roles, and a tantalizing hint that her life story was already being dramatized for Drury Lane. It was suggested that Rose Flanders, the marquise’s understudy and a talented performer in her own right, might play the role. “Tasteless!” Pamela frowned. The final item was a lugubrious question—would the Flawless Fleur be found alive? They read it twice, wondering aloud who had informed the papers.

“Breslau will be furious,” Nigel said.

“He didn’t seem furious. In fact, he was smiling while he was reading this at breakfast.”

“Was he, by Jove. It’d be the free publicity that cheered him. I hope no one knows Sir A. and Lady—are Mama and Papa. They will be far from smiling, I promise you.”

“Since your name is not mentioned no one will know who is meant. What bothers me is how the journals got the story. You don’t think—”

“That Breslau sent it in? It looks suspicious when you count up how often the words Drury Lane crop up. This will fill the seats.”

“No, it’s just that the words about her escaping from France are almost exactly as she said them to me at Belmont. Except that Fleur knew it was rutabagas in the cart, not cabbages.”

“It’s taken word for word from her memoirs, and any number of people have read them. How could Fleur have sent it in? She’s dead.”

“We don’t know that. Breslau doesn’t believe it. He isn’t worried enough. Maxwell is genuinely disturbed, though.”

“Of course he is. He’ll be doing the hangman’s jig once I get all this figured out. I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if he put Fleur up to gouging that diamond bracelet out of Papa to incriminate him. If I could find the bracelet in his possession, that would tell us something.”

“You’d have to return to Hatfield to do that.”

“He wouldn’t dare leave it at home where his mama might see it. He brought it to London with him. Since he hasn’t been to his flat yet, it must be in his carriage.”

“He and Breslau are using Breslau’s carriage.”

A sly gleam lit Nigel’s pale eyes. “Maxwell would have his driver stable his rig, but he’d drop the luggage off at his flat first. I believe we shall pay a call on old Maxwell, Pam.”

“We’d learn more if we followed Breslau and Max.”

“We can easily pick up their trail. They’ll be at the theater for hours. Wes virtually lives there, and there’s nothing Maxwell likes better than ogling the actresses. What bothers me is how I am to get into Maxwell’s bedroom to search for the bracelet.”

Pamela knew him well enough to realize she would save more time in the long run by going along with him. “I could rip my gown, and ask for a needle and thread. If his flat is small, they’ll have to let me use his bedchamber to fix the rent. You keep the servants occupied, and I’ll search.”

“That’s a capital idea! He lives on the way to Drury Lane, too, so we shan’t waste much time if he’s hidden the bracelet somewhere else.”

What did waste considerable time was deciding what transportation could be used. The general’s carriage had left. Nigel was leery of taking Wes’s curricle and bays. What he actually feared was that the groom wouldn’t let him have them, and he didn’t want the humiliation of being refused in front of Pamela. In the end, they went into the street and hired a cab.

From that point on, things went remarkably smoothly. Nigel had acting blood in his veins. He made a believable story of wanting to see the general, and of Miss Comstock having ripped her sleeve when she reached to a high shelf to select a bolt of worsted at a drapery shop. Before you could say Jack Robinson, she was alone in the general’s bedchamber, wasting her time by looking for a diamond bracelet which she knew perfectly well was not there. Her job was made easier by the presence of Maxwell’s unpacked luggage on the floor at the end of his bed.

She unfastened it and rifled quickly through the stacks of linen and stockings. There was no diamond bracelet, but she did find a ring in a small leather box. It was a rather fine sapphire, set all around in small diamonds. She didn’t remove the ring, but as soon as they left, she described it to Nigel.

“Max brought that home from India with him eons ago. His mama and his sisters are forever trying to get it from him, but he’s keeping it for his own wife, if he can ever find anyone indiscriminating enough to have him.”

“Since he brought it to London at this time he must plan to propose to Fleur. He can’t know she’s dead, Nigel. You must be mistaken about that.”

“Who’s to say he hadn’t given it to her before, and went to get it back from her at Belmont the night before last? It pretty well proves his guilt in my opinion.”

“There’s no point trying to convince you with facts. Your mind is made up.”

This was the side of Pamela he found least lovable. He remembered what a shrew she could be, and turned sulky. “What do you want to do then?”

“Go to Drury Lane.”

“We’d be better off checking out Newman’s Stables to see if the rig Halton hired is back yet.” As this was of some interest, Pamela agreed to go there first.

“What’s so important about that particular rig?” the stableman asked suspiciously. “Has it got something to do with Fleur’s murder? I already have orders from Lord Breslau to send word the minute it lands in, and let him know who was driving it. If you want a lad to notify you as well, it’ll cost you a crown.”

“Never mind,” Nigel said.

“Now may we go to Drury Lane?” Pamela asked, in exactly the tone of voice he liked least.

“Damme Fleur ain’t at Drury Lane. You heard the man say the rig ain’t back yet. I have half a mind to go to Belmont.”

“Then you will please drop me off at Drury Lane.”

“Yes, to roll your eyes at Breslau. Don’t think I don’t know what’s going on. I see you’ve been cranking your hair into ringlets. You’ll catch cold if you think to make any headway in that direction, my girl.”

A surge of suppressed anger rose up and engulfed Pamela. “You impertinent puppy!” It was the charge of chasing Breslau that hit home, but she had more ammunition to wound him in a different direction.

“I’ve wasted quite enough time pandering to your stupidity. Any fool can see General Maxwell is in love with Fleur and worried sick at her disappearance. Bear in mind it was your own father’s coat and galoshes that were covered in mud,
your
badger sett where her shawl was found,
your
father who gave her the diamond bracelet, and
your
house from which she disappeared. I hope for your sake Fleur is alive, for
if
she’s dead, it’s not General Maxwell who will dance on the end of a rope.”

Bereft of a sensible reply, Nigel said, “You sound for the world like Mama when you go into one of your rants. You might as well blame me as Papa.”

“Don’t think it hasn’t occurred to me. You only blame Maxwell because you’re jealous of him. Jealousy has led to murder before now. You were loathe to share the profits of your drama with Fleur, too. With her dead, you could keep all the money yourself.”

“If we’re talking about jealousy, don’t leave your old favorite out. Breslau’s in love with her, too, you know, which don’t prevent him from using her death for cheap publicity. And why is he so eager to know when the carriage gets back to Newman’s Stables? He wants to get hold of the driver and make sure he don’t talk. He probably plans to murder
him,
too. Papa saw him skulking around the corridor by her apartment the night she disappeared. What was Breslau doing there at one o’clock in the morning?”

“What was your father doing there?” she countered.

“Trying to get back the bracelet she bought.”

They glared at each other, then Pamela said, “If you’re returning to Belmont, pray leave me off at Drury Lane.”

“That I’ll not.”

“Then I shall walk,” she said, and turned to do just that.

Nigel sulkily agreed to deliver her. As the carriage progressed toward its destination, he began talking himself out of returning to Belmont.

“I think you should go,” Pamela told him. “It’s your neighborhood. You would know better than anyone else where Fleur might be. Are there any empty houses in the neighborhood?”

“No,” he answered, without even considering the matter.

A little later he continued. “If Fleur were alive, which she ain’t, don’t think she’d let Max hide her in some cold and lonely, old abandoned house. The place she’d hide is right here in London, where she could hear all the gossip about her disappearance.”

“Yes, if her kidnapper was that considerate,” she said ironically. “And in that case, the carriage would be back at Newman’s. You’re speaking as though she had kidnapped herself.” Pamela stopped and thought about what she had said. “Could she possibly be so conniving?”

After a judicious pause for mind-changing, Nigel allowed that she might. “The sliest woman in London. It was very cagey the way she got me to ask her to Belmont, now I think of it. And she only did it to be near Maxwell.”

“How did she convince you? I was amazed you ever asked her, Nigel, knowing how your mother would feel.”

“I dropped around her flat one afternoon—to work on the memoirs, you know. We were always interrupted a dozen times, but that day there wasn’t a minute’s peace. Her modiste came, and her hairdresser.”

“They wouldn’t come without an appointment.”

“She put them up to it, certainly. Two or three runners came from Drury Lane. Spiedel dropped in.”

“I wager he was invited, too.”

“And half a dozen other hangers on. She said how impossible it was to work there, and would it not be better if we went away somewhere. Truth to tell, I thought she meant just the two of us—I hardly knew which way to look. But it soon came out it was Belmont she meant. She was so enthusiastic about it, you know, and I could hardly tell her Mama would have me minced and fed to the carrion crows. I told her Belmont would be pretty well filled up, but she kept at me till I had to ask her, so I did, and got Wes to come along. He can handle her. But
she
put me up to it.”

Nigel fell into a fit of silent concentration. When he revived, he had completely switched his opinion of Fleur around. “And she asked the deuce of a lot of questions about Papa, too,” he said accusingly. “Letting on she was only interested in me. How much money would Papa leave me, and a dozen questions about his youth. Brighton, in particular. I say, Pam, you don’t suppose there was anything between them?”

“Possibly. Your father was handsome when he was young.”

“You wouldn’t know about it, for you’re not the type, but to tell the truth, he still has a streak of tomcat in him.”

“I do know it.”

“Pam, you don’t mean he’s been trying to get
you
into corners!”

“No! No, but I am aware of his—his reputation,” she said, softening the charge with a forgiving smile.

“Imagine Fleur dunning Papa. I should like to have witnessed that scene. He’d kill her.” Nigel’s eyes flew open at what had slipped out. “Only speaking metaphorically!”

“Of course. He wouldn’t have given her the bracelet if he meant to—to silence her more permanently. Let us not waste time discussing anything so ridiculous.”

Nigel had turned quite pale. “Perhaps Papa was in her apartment the night she disappeared, to try to get the bracelet back. He might have given it to her to keep her quiet till he had an opportunity to—silence her more permanently,” he said, borrowing Pamela’s phrase. The word
murder
stuck in his throat. “There’s no denying he has a wretched temper.”

“Breslau didn’t seem at all worried, Nigel. I am convinced he knows something. What he doesn’t know is where Fleur is hiding. That is what we must discover. Now think where she would go if she wanted to disappear for a few days.”

“She was pretty close with Spiedel.”

“We’ve been there, and to Henry Halton’s place as well. Is there someone else?”

“She has a bunch of French friends scattered around the city. And she knows actresses all over the country, from her days in the provinces. She calls actors her real family. I wouldn’t have a notion where to begin looking.”

They discussed possibilities till the carriage reached Drury Lane. The front door was locked, and Nigel had the pleasure of showing off his familiarity with the place by going to the rear door. At noon, the theater was practically deserted. A stagehand told them Breslau and General Maxwell had been there talking to Rose Flanders, but left an hour ago.

“The Drury Lane Restaurant!” Pamela exclaimed.

The place was in an uproar discussing Fleur’s disappearance. It took several minutes to scan the crowd and assure themselves Breslau and Max were not there. After a few questions, they learned they hadn’t been there. No one had seen them since they left the theater.