Let's Talk of Murder (14 page)

“Sorry about that, Prance. Irish potatoes, eh?”

“Yes, dripping with grease,” he tempted, “with onions and eggs and bacon disgustingly stirred up in the potatoes, just as you like.” He gave a shudder of revulsion to consider this culinary atrocity.

“They’ll keep a minute.” Torn between the Irish potatoes and the desire to have the more important matter settled, Coffen said, “You’ll mention it to Luten, Corrie, what I told you?”

Prance sat down and poured himself a cup of coffee. “Not one spoonful of the Irish potatoes do you get until you tell me what you’re talking about.”

“Dash it, you’re worse than a woman for gossip,” Coffen scowled. “And furthermore, something awful’s happened to your hair. Looks for the world like a cork screw hanging over your forehead.”

Prance pushed the offending lock back. It promptly bounced forward again. “I must have slept on it,” he said.

“Slept on a corkscrew is more like it,” Coffen sniffed.

“Never mind trying to divert me. What girl?”

Coffen told him the whole story, fully expecting a sound scolding. Prance had a tongue like a scalpel when he got going. He was pleasantly relieved at his friend’s mild response.

“That Fanny is a bad apple,” Prance said. “I knew to look at her she was a minx.”

“She took me in, lock, stock and sinker.”

“And barrel,” Prance corrected.

“That as well. What should we do about the retreat business?”

“That certainly wants looking into. I don’t see that it has anything to do with Fogg’s murder, though. We should tell Lord Clare. I daresay that harridan at the desk is the perpetrator. She has the steely eye and square-jawed phiz of the worst sort of bordello keeper. Clare will handle her. She’ll be turned off, and probably prosecuted as well.”

“That’s what I’ve been telling Coffen,” Corinne said. “I mean to speak to Lord Clare this very day. Will one of you come with me?”

Coffen squirmed in his chair. “I’d as lief not face him after last night. Mean to say, feel a bit of a fool.”

“You might well be ashamed of yourself,” Corinne said with an angry tsk.

“Dash it, I told you she was the one–”

“This, I believe, is where I came in,” Prance said, rising. “You have earned your Irish potatoes, Coffen. I shall accompany you to visit Lord Clare, Corinne, as Luten is
hors de combat
.”

“Actually we went out last evening,” she said and told them about the concert. “But I shan’t ask him to go with us, Prance. He’ll be busy with work from the House.”

“Or perhaps another visit from the prince,” Prance murmured, with a wince of envy. “At what hour shall I call for you? Let’s make it early, before Clare is up and out of the house. As it’s a matter of business, we needn’t keep social hours.”

“If we leave at nine-thirty, we can be at his house by ten,” she suggested.

The gentlemen left. Corinne didn’t go over to see Luten. Her butler, Black, who kept her closely informed as to his lordship’s doings, told her a page had arrived from Whitehall with a batch of folders. At nine-thirty Prance called, wearing his regular hair style.

“I see you’ve tamed that wayward lock,” she said, chewing back a grin.

“It was Coffen’s charming description that did it.”

“You didn’t wind enough hair into the paper when you were doing it up last night. That’s all.”

“Paper? We used rags.”

“No, no. Papers are better. Rags give those tight, jiggly curls you see on the country lasses.”

“Perhaps it doesn’t quite suit me,” he said, and they were off to visit Lord Clare.

“The Clare mansion is in Grosvenor Square, isn’t it?” Corinne asked.

“Yes, my coachman has directions. I gave Pattle a good scold for last night’s folly. I’ve convinced him he’s not to see the chit again. Think of the shame if all this blows up into a full-fledged scandal with Pattle caught in the middle of it. It would destroy his character, to say nothing of the credibility of the Berkeley Brigade.”

“I wanted to box his ears! But he can look so pathetic.”

“Aye, he grovels well. All the same, if Bruton is running a brothel under the aegis of the Morgate Home, it’s well he found it out. That’s the sort of thing that turns people off from donating to charity.”

The carriage soon drew up in front of a brown brick mansion with a pillared, fanlit doorway and a brass stirrup knocker the size of a small turnip. They were admitted by a saturnine butler who, after examining their toilettes and the waiting carriage, showed them to a grand but somewhat gloomy drawing room to wait and took their cards up to his lordship. He reappeared in five minutes with coffee, to inform them that his lordship was just rising, and would be down presently.

Half an hour later, a smiling and apologetic Lord Clare bowed himself into the drawing room. No detail of his toilette had been omitted, or even hurried. He looked pale, with purple smudges beneath his eyes and a worried light in them. This was hardly surprising, however. A call at such an early hour suggested a matter of some urgency.

“How delightful of you to call. I’m honored. I see you’ve been given coffee.” He had no sooner taken a seat than the butler appeared with fresh coffee and another cup.

“We’re keeping you from breakfast, milord,” Corinne said.

“I never take more than coffee in the morning.” He didn’t ask why they had come, but a certain nervousness in his manner suggested curiosity.

It had been agreed that Prance would be the better one to reveal Coffen’s folly, and his own suspicions. Clare listened, nodding and tsking and shaking his head.

“That was really too bad of Pattle,” he said, frowning. “It’s the reason I discourage male callers. Some of the girls are, shall we say, not immune to advances. I’ve had this trouble with Fanny before, which is why I was somewhat disconcerted to hear she had been speaking to you and Coffen. I gave her a scold for dunning you for your used gowns as well, Lady deCoventry. I won’t have them dunning callers, like common beggars.”

“I noticed the girls are temptingly young and pretty,” Prance mentioned.

“The pretty ones are more likely to fall into that particular sort of trouble, aren’t they?” Clare said with a shrug. “As to your friend’s suspicions that Mrs. Bruton is running a sort of brothel from a carriage, however, it’s patently ridiculous. It was my carriage, and it was here, to my house, that the girls were delivered, not for a night of debauchery I assure you.”

He gave a rather shy smile and continued, “I invited half a dozen of them who have already delivered their child and have been helping out at the Home until a position is found. They came for dinner, a glass of wine, and a little music. There were no gentlemen here except myself, and I assure you I did not molest them. You may imagine the emotional strains they’re under, having to give up their child, and worrying about their future. I even arranged for them to wear their own gowns, to give them an evening free of gray. They were home by eleven.” A troubled sigh escaped him. “Was it wrong of me to bring a brief moment of pleasure into their grim lives?” he asked.

“You make me feel a perfect sluggard,” Prance declared. “So thoughtful, so generous– so imaginative! That’s what is always lacking in institutional charity. The necessities are supplied, but I am of that school that would gladly forego a few necessities for a luxury or two. You’re a true philanthropist, Lord Clare, taking time from a busy life to arrange what I am sure those poor girls considered an evening of unparalled glamour. Wine, music, candlelight. They would never have had anything like it.”

“And may never again,” Clare said with a wistful shake of his head. “I’m glad you feel that way, Prance. The idea was to treat them like ladies, for once in their poor lives. I believe they enjoyed it. The difficulty is that I must keep it a deep, dark secret. While the Morgate Sect doesn’t explicitly prohibit music and wine, it does not encourage it. It’s permitted for such occasions as weddings, but then it’s by no means certain those poor girls will ever have a wedding. I had to sneak the girls out the back door of the annex. Unlike the dormitories, the annex isn’t checked by Mrs. Bruton after the girls retire. Reverend Harper and Mrs. Bruton would not have approved.”

“That sort never approve of anything that brings pleasure,” said Prance, with a dismissing wave of his hand. “I salute your ingenuity, Lord Clare.”

He gave a twinkling smile. “Then you won’t snitch on me? I’d be removed from my position at once if Harper or Mama found out.”

They discussed the evening and the misunderstanding for a few moments. As Corinne reached for her reticule, Clare noticed her diamond engagement ring and complimented her on it. “You’re engaged then, Lady deCoventry?” he asked.

“Yes, to Lord Luten.” She showed him her ring. To patch up one of their many quarrels, Luten had bought her a large diamond ring, so cumbersome that she seldom wore it. She couldn’t get most of her gloves on over it.

He took her hand in his and murmured, “Lovely.” As he was gazing into her eyes at the time, it was unclear whether he referred to the diamond or her eyes. When she withdrew her hand, he said to Prance, “Would you like to see where the auction ball is to be held? Perhaps you could suggest a theme for the ball, Prance. Your own parties are famous in that respect.”

Prance smiled like a cat who wallowed in cream. This was just his cup of tea, to devise an elaborate stage set that set society talking–and at someone else’s expense, for a change. “Perhaps just a peek, and I shall go home and think about it.”

Clare showed them to the ballroom, which was much like other ballrooms in the city. A long, rectangular room with heavy molding and three crystal chandeliers suspending from the ceiling at regular intervals. Two fireplaces along the long inner wall, a series of windows along the outer wall. A few dark paintings hung between the windows and fireplaces. Around the perimeter of the room two dozen bentwood chairs sat like wall flowers at the ball.

“It’s hard to come up with a theme, with the harvest festival just past and Christmas still some weeks away,” Prance said. “A Venetian style carnival masquerade party would be interesting, but that is more usually held just before Lent.”

He began pacing the room, muttering to himself. Clare turned to Corinne. “When is your wedding to be, ma’am?”

“Very soon. Within a month, I expect.”

“I, too, have been considering marriage.”

“Indeed! And who is the fortunate lady?”

“There is the problem. My mama has been busy arranging a match for me with Lady Cecilia Carruthers, the daughter of a friend of hers.”

“Oh yes, everyone knows Lady Cecilia. A charming girl.” What was generally known was that she was a plain looking girl of high morals and a large fortune.

“Yes, charming. But alas, I cannot feel we are suited.”

Prance joined them before more could be said. “Let me look through my files,” he said to Clare. “Perhaps the masquerade would do. I was thinking of having something of the sort myself a while ago, and have some designs drawn up somewhere.”

“I do like a masquerade,” Clare said, with some enthusiasm.

They discussed it for a few moments then left, with Prance promising to give it more thought.

“He’s really quite likable I think,” Corinne said, as they went to the carriage.

“A do-gooder without all the tedious religiosity that usually accompanies the type. I quite like young Clare. Come back to my place and help me choose something suitable for his auction. Or will you be visiting your fiancé?”

“Luten works in the morning. I do want a word with Coffen, though, to let him know his fears were in vain.”

The short trip was made in minutes, and Corinne went into Prance’s elegant little mansion to help him select his donation. He paced about his drawing room, where every surface was littered with precious bibelots.

“What about this?” she suggested, lifting an Italian crystal vase from Murano, holding one pale yellow rose. It had a bulbous base with a longish, narrow neck.

He snatched it from her and held it against his heart. “I could never part with this. It’s the vase in which I took a bouquet of roses to the Comtesse Chamaude. I always keep one yellow rose in it. Yellow roses, you know, mean goodbye.” He turned his head aside to indicate he was shedding a tear in memory of his late beloved, with whom he had had a one-sided romance for less than two weeks. As no tear came, he raised his handkerchief to pretend he was wiping it away.

“This little statuette?” she asked, turning it over to read the inscription on the bottom. “Perhaps it’s not valuable enough.”

Prance snatched it from her fingers.
“Au contraire!
It is too valuable, my little ignoramus. It’s Grecian. It isn’t marked, but I suspect it might be by Praxiteles himself, perhaps the model for one of his larger pieces. Pallas Athena, of course, comes to mind.”

They were interrupted by the door knocker. “That will be Coffen,” Corinne said. The dragging gait certainly sounded like him. But when the guest was announced, it was none other than Lord Byron. She flashed an accusing eye at Prance, thinking he had arranged this visit to annoy Luten. She remembered that he had mentioned having an appointment. But when she saw that Prance’s delight and surprise were obviously genuine, she had to acquit him.

“Lord Byron! What an honor! Come in, come in. I shall order hock and soda water.”

“Thank you, Prance. Er, tea would be fine.” He saw Corinne then, and turned to her to make a bow. “Lady deCoventry. Am I making a nuisance of myself, pouncing in unannounced on a tête-à-tête? You have only to say the word and I shall vanish like the morning dew.”

“No! No indeed. Actually I was just leaving.”

“You mustn’t go dashing off on my account. I promise to behave myself,” he added, with a reckless smile from those darkly dangerous orbs.

She disliked the intimation that she and Prance were enjoying an illicit tête-à-tête. She disliked even more the inference that she feared himself for any romantic reason. She turned to Prance. “Perhaps I have time for a cup of tea, if you’re serving it,” she said.

Prance called the butler and ordered tea. “Use the best china,” he added in a low voice. He peered out the window to see if Luten had company. Brougham’s carriage was standing in front of Luten’s house. Excellent! Now he need not feel guilty for not inviting Luten to join them.