Let's Talk of Murder (23 page)

“Let us go to your place,” Luten said. Corinne had not invited him to her house. He feared she might not agree to enter his portals, after the surly way he had refused her help, but she would go to Prance’s. Why had he refused? She only meant to be kind. Pity, in other words. Was that what he wanted from her, pity?

“Here, lean on my arm,” Prance said, and taking Corinne by one arm, Luten by the other, he propelled them both the few yards to his door.

The coachman returned to his box and the carriage was around the corner by the time they entered Prance’s bijou drawing room. Prance’s house, like his toilette, teetered on the edge of dandyism, yet each individual item was so fine that one could not really complain.

Lamps in every corner combined with the dancing flames from the grate to set the room aglow. The walls of his drawing room were hung in gold silk, which gave almost an effect of sunlight. Each chair and table, polished to within an inch of its life with turpentine and beeswax, was placed with exquisite care as to the general composition of the room. Spaces of just the right dimension intervened, to give a feeling of uncrowded ease in a small area.

Each bibelot on the table tops had been chosen and placed as carefully as the jewels in a diadem. One table held his collection of small Sèvres boxes, each with its own interesting history. On another, miniature vases of colored Murano crystal were arranged in an arch to cast a rainbow on the far wall, on those rare occasions when sunlight slanted through the window. A tumble of exotic cushions in jewel tones of velvet and satin had recently been added to the dainty striped sofa. They were merely visitors in the room. Prance thought they might be consigned to one of the spare bedrooms if they didn’t suit.

He was toying with the notion of replacing his Watteau with an eastern scene to make the pillows feel more at home—but would the rest of his English furnishings take to an eastern painting? They had adamantly refused to have anything to do with an Ottoman. He had composed four different arrangements on paper, each worse than the last. He might, after all, content himself by tossing a tiger skin on top of the carpet to lend the room that touch of diablerie he had been craving since seeing Byron’s apartment.

He shook himself to attention and reminded himself he was the host. “First a glass of something to help us recover from this dreadful shock. Brandy for you, Luten? I shall have a small tot. And you, Corrie– madeira?”

“Sherry will be fine,” she said.

“Sherry for me as well,” Luten said.

“Yes, you are right. We didn’t see the grizzly corpse after all. I shall have a glass of brandy standing by for Coffen when he comes. One feels instinctively that actually confronting a corpse calls for brandy.” He rattled on to make his guests, who sat like a pair of plaster statues, feel at ease.

He rang for the sherry, and to give word he wouldn’t be needing his carriage after all. “This is your maiden party since your accident, is it not, Luten? What lured you forth tonight, and in such weather, too?” he asked. His curiosity was boiling to hear the details.

“I became bored, cooped up in the house. As my ankle was feeling somewhat better, I decided to go out.”

“Where did you go?”

“To Lady Sefton’s do,” Luten replied, his icy glare a challenge to further quizzing.

Prance clamped his lips together to hide his smile. “Ah, just where I was headed myself. Was it a good do?”

“Quite a squeeze.” Not a breath about Byron being there with Corinne. How had they ditched him? He would hear all these intriguing details from Corinne later.

They discussed Fanny’s death, the perpetrator and the how and when and why of it until Coffen returned.

“It was her all right,” he said, accepting the brandy Prance handed him. “Thankee, Prance. This hits the spot.” He took a swallow, choked, coughed half of it up—mercifully on his jacket, not the Aubusson carpet, and took another gulp. “I only learned one good thing, and that is that she was drugged before she was shot. The doctor could tell from her eyes. He figures she was fed a wallop of some drug, probably laudanum, so at least the poor soul didn’t know what was happening to her.”

“I doubt it was done for humane reasons, but to make sure she didn’t cause a racket,” Prance said.

Coffen nodded. “Very likely you’re right, but I’m still glad. We ought to have been keeping an eye on Clare, once we got to suspecting he was the fellow who was calling on Fogg.”

Luten ground his teeth and said, “That’s my fault. I was so involved in the reward that I didn’t pay enough attention to catching the murderer– Lord Clare, if it was indeed Clare.”

“We know that English jurisprudence holds a man innocent until proven guilty, but really, who else could it have been?” Prance asked.

“Fogg may have had a lover. A jealous lover,” Luten said, remembering that murderous tide that had washed over him when he saw Corinne leaving with Byron. “He might have thought Clare’s friendship with Fogg was of a romantic nature.”

Prance considered this a moment, then said, “But would this hypothetical lover have a reason for killing Fanny?”

Coffen said, “He would if he thought Fanny was stealing Fogg from him. If Fogg told him about her being in the family way he might have feared Fogg would marry her. I daresay it could happen, one of those fellows liking ladies as well as gents. Ambidextrous, I believe they call it. The left hand not knowing what the right hand is up to.”

Prance shook his head at this assault upon the King’s English, opened his lips to attempt a correction, and closed it again without speaking.

Coffen concluded, “I’m going back to where Fogg worked and digging around some more. He did have one friend at the place. P’raps he was more than a friend.”

“Good,” Luten said. “Let’s cover all bases this time. We also have to find Clare and stick to him like a barnacle. How do we do it, without exciting his curiosity?”

Prance tapped his cheek with one finger. “He hinted at wanting my help with the arrangement of the ballroom for his auction ball. I shall bat my eyelashes at him, and discover if he’s inclined that way. Once inside his house, I can find a hundred excuses for running about, ferreting out his secrets, while ostensibly looking for things to decorate the ballroom.”

“We could all make a donation,” Coffen added. “It’d give us an excuse for visits with him.”

“That’s good,” Luten said. “I also want him watched when none of us is around. Someone inside the Morgate Home and the house in Lambeth would be helpful as well.”

“I could ask Sally to keep her eyes open,” Coffen said. “I have reason to think she might help.”

“What reason?” Prance asked, his eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“Arranged for her to pick up a little work at the theater. I’ll call on her tomorrow.”

“What did that cost you?” Prance asked.

“None of your business,” said Coffen, unoffended.

“What can I do to help?” Corinne asked.

“There’s no place for a lady in this jungle,” Luten informed her.

Corinne chose to interpret this as a slur on her competence, and decided on the spot that she would involve herself to the hilt. It was arranged that Luten would send one of his footmen to watch Clare’s house until morning. After a little more talk, Corinne rose to leave. She thought Luten would also leave, but he remained behind and just gave an abbreviated bow when she left.

He did not linger long, however. Within two minutes, Coffen offered to help him home, and they both left. As Prance had every intention of calling on Corinne before his head touched the pillow, he insisted on helping as well. After they had seen Luten in, Coffen said, “Well, goodnight, Reg.”

Prance paid no heed, but headed to Corinne’s door, with a look over his shoulder to make sure Luten wasn’t watching. When Coffen saw where he was going, he tagged along.

She was expecting them. “What happened?” Prance demanded, almost before he was in the drawing room.

“I nearly died of shock when Luten landed in at Lady Sefton’s,” she said. “What can have possessed him? I wonder if he knew I was going there.”

They both looked at Coffen, who looked at the wall. “Coincidence,” he lied firmly.

“Did you let Byron know you were leaving?” Prance asked Corinne.

“I couldn’t get near him. I left word with Lady Sefton.”

“Oh my dear! That was rather gauche.”

“I don’t care if it is. I had a horrid time, Reg. It was like going out with– I don’t know what. One of the wild animals at Exeter Exchange. I was squeezed to death, and didn’t have any interesting conversation with Byron at all.”

Coffen smiled.

“Did Luten ask you to leave with him?” Prance prodded.

“No, Coffen told me about Fanny, and I just left. But the strangest thing is, Luten walked up to Byron the minute he arrived, cool as a cucumber, and asked if he was interested in joining the Whig Cabinet, only Byron doesn’t think it will ever happen.”

“An excuse on Luten ‘s part, you think?”

“Nope,” Coffen said. “It’s real. He told me. They’re letting Byron into the cabinet, but they ain’t giving him a portfolio, nipcheeses.” When he saw Corinne ‘ s disappointment, he added, “Mind you, I doubt that’s the real reason he went pelting off to Lady Sefton’s as soon as he — that is to say —”

“So he did know Corinne would be there!” Prance cried.

“Dash it, I didn’t say that!”

“Don’t worry. We shan’t tell Luten we know,” Prance assured him.

“I hate imbroglios,” Coffen grumbled.

Prance just stared. “I adore them. And now that I know the whole, perhaps I shall sleep— though I very much doubt it when I think of poor Fanny.”

“She had on your lutestring gown, Corrie,” Coffen said, with a faraway, sad look on his face. “Gave me quite a turn. With her hair all sopping wet and dark, I thought for a minute there she was you…” He gave an involuntary shiver. “Creepy.”

“Thank you very much for murdering sleep, Macbeth. Now I know I shan’t sleep!” Prance said, and went to pour himself a tot of brandy.

“What’s he talking about?” Coffen demanded of Corinne.

“It’s Shakespeare,” she said vaguely.

“That explains it. He’s as bad as that William fellow he’s forever quoting at us.”

“What a coincidence,” Prance said, with heavy irony.

“I’m going home,” Coffen said. “You coming, Reg?”

They left together. Mrs. Ballard had arrived home from her evening of whist and the ladies had a cup of cocoa before retiring.

“What, Fanny Rowan dead?” Clare cried, his eyes wide in astonishment when Corinne told him the next morning. She and Prance had called on Clare, ostensibly to discuss the auction ball.

“Yes, shocking,” she said.

While she engaged Clare in some sympathetic formalities, Prance scrutinized his reaction. Prance prided himself on his ability to read people’s expressions and body posture. As a director of some of the most successful amateur plays in London, he felt he was a better than average judge of counterfeit emoting. He judged Clare to be genuinely shocked. His body tensed upon first hearing the news. The jaw fell slightly open, the eyes widened, but not too dramatically.

“But how did it happen? When?” Clare demanded. The questions, too, rang true. Would a guilty man not have blurted out, “How do you know? How did you find out?” Or if he had prepared his reaction, might he not have included a “Poor girl!”

“Her body was hauled from the Thames last night,” Corinne replied, wearing a suitably funereal mien. They had decided to tell Clare as little as possible, and see if he revealed knowledge of other details without being told.

“The fog was dense last night,” Clare said musingly. “She must have fallen into the river and drowned.”

“Actually, foul play is suspected,” Prance informed him. Not a word was said about a bullet wound. He continued in a casual way, “What was she doing out of the Morgate Home at all? Do you know, Lord Clare?”

“I did have a note from Mrs. Bruton this morning telling me Fanny had left us. She said her father had written inviting her home. She packed up her belongings and left with him— or some man. Someone called for her in a hired hackney in the afternoon. The man didn’t come in. Fanny had packed her belongings and was waiting, darted out to meet him. Mrs. Bruton had the notion he was an older man. Peeked through the window to get a look at him, I expect. It’s only natural. But how did she end up in the Thames? It’s incredible!”

Prance wondered if Mrs. Bruton had written all these close details. It seemed unlikely. A part of their agenda was to discover, in a subtle manner that didn’t reveal what they were about, whether Clare had an alibi.

He said, “Pity you hadn’t been there. I doubt Fanny could have pulled the wool over your eyes.”

“As it happens, I wasn’t in town yesterday. I left early in the morning and only returned from Drumquin this morning. It was Mama’s birthday. Her fiftieth. A gathering of the clan for a family celebration.”

Corinne wondered where his estate was, but didn’t ask. That could easily be looked into without quizzing Clare, and perhaps revealing their suspicions. “A big party, was it?” she asked.

“As I said, a family affair. A couple of dozen aunts and uncles and the usual number of pensioners. Dull stuff, but I played the dutiful son, which is to say I drank too many toasts, danced with all the ugliest ladies, and went to bed early. An early night now and again is good for the soul.”

“To say nothing of the body,” Prance added. Clare did look as if he had been indulging in a deal of drinking— or missing his sleep. His eyelids were heavy, and his eyes bloodshot.

Corinne understood that Prance wasn’t going to challenge him on his alibi. “We came to see if we could help you with the ball,” she said.

He gave her his charming, little boy smile. “That’s very kind of you. Actually I should see Mrs. Bruton this morning and decide what to tell the girls. They’ll be worried, poor things. I’ll have to call on Doctor Harper as well. He’ll be concerned about the repercussions. The scandal sheets have a field day with this sort of thing— young provincial getting her throat cut in the big city. Donations won’t so easily be forthcoming if our donors think we’re careless about the girls’ safety. I must speak to Bow Street, too, and see if they’ve discovered anything about the culprit. And if they’ve notified her father. I wonder what should be done about burial? Really there’s so much to do— I hate to be rude, but could you come back tomorrow morning?”