Maggie MacKeever (22 page)

Maurice looked stunned. “How did you know that? Mrs. Harrington-Smythe is both shy and retiring. No doubt she felt she would be out of place in such a magnificent assemblage.”

“Doubtless,” replied Dulcie, “she would have been. You would do much better to leave your sister to me.” Maurice opened his mouth but before he could protest the Baroness cried, “Monsieur Trouffant! My nephew has agreed to be your first subject.”

Aristotle Trouffant was a stout little man with cherubic features and a pince-nez. He surveyed Maurice, who was a staggering spectacle in what could only be described as a court habit, complete with lace wrist frills, white stockings, and black pumps with gold buckles. Aristotle allowed no hint of derision to appear on his features. He was a professional.

“Ah, so you entrust yourself to me!” Trouffant flexed plump and well-tended fingers. “You are most discerning! For I, along with Spurzheim, studied under the great Francis Joseph Gall. The skull being molded on the brain, you know, its surface reproduces the shape thereof.”

Maurice, rendered acutely uncomfortable by the gleam in Monsieur Trouffant’s eye, sank down in a chair. “Dulcie!” he protested weakly.

“You will find, Monsieur Trouffant,” said the Baroness, “that my nephew is a coward, among other things. Continue, please!”

“As the brain is the seat of our faculties,” explained the craniologist, “it has been noted that persons having a particular talent, vice or virtue, seem to have the same part of the skull particularly developed.” He smiled, revealing a gold tooth. “Craniology, monsieur, is the study of the individual based on the peculiarities of his skull.”

If not for his aunt’s restraining hand, Maurice would have leaped from his chair and taken to his heels. With a vague notion that Trouffant meant to somehow dissect his brain, perhaps in the manner of the surgeons who dismembered felons hanged at Newgate, he quailed as the Frenchman laid inquisitive hands on his head.

“Ah!” said Monsieur Trouffant. “Never have I seen a better-developed area of self-esteem. You see? It is situated at the intersection of the circumference of the skull and an imaginary straight line starting at the extreme tip of the chin and passing through the greater part of the exterior ear.” As he spoke, he traced that line. Maurice shuddered.

“Fascinating,” murmured Lady Bligh. “And that means?”

“If normal, excellent moral restraint. But this is excessive, indicating pride and disregard of others.”

The Baroness’s dark eyes were speculative. “I suspect you may prove invaluable, Monsieur Trouffant.”

Maurice was not the only one to derive little enjoyment from Lady Bligh’s rout. Mignon cast a harried look at the glittering company. Thus far she had managed to avoid conversation with either her brother or Jesse, but she had little faith that her luck would hold.

“You are looking positively blue-deviled,” murmured Lord Barrymore. “If I may offer a word of advice? Do not judge your brother too harshly. He has only your best interests at heart.”

Startled, Mignon glanced at her companion. Tolly looked very fine in his formal attire, a chocolate brown cloth frock coat with self buttons, beige drill breeches buttoned and tied, a white waistcoat. “You seem to know a great deal of our affairs. Maurice has confided in you, then?”

“Do not think ill of him,” Lord Barrymore repeated. “He was beside himself when he learned that you had left your aunt’s box, and disclosed to me the reason for his concern. I beg you will trust me, as your brother does! As I told Maurice, I have little fear that you will make the same mistake again. If I may be presumptuous, dear Miss Montague, it is not the first time that a young girl has been led astray by an unprincipled blackguard.” He frowned. “I cannot think what your aunt is about, providing you so little chaperonage.”

“You surprise me, Lord Barrymore!” retorted Mignon. “You announce that you are aware of my past indiscretions, which nearly ended in disaster, yet seem not in the least affected by the event.”

 Tolly’s gaze was warm. “Surely you cannot think I would harshly judge you for what was surely the mildest of flirtations? Rather, it is to your credit that you possess so trusting a nature and so innocent a heart. It is your mentors who are to blame for not better protecting you.”

 Viscount Jeffries paused behind Mignon. “A classic case, perhaps, of the wolf and the lamb? I believe, Miss Montague, that you have promised me this dance.”

Mignon had done no such thing, but she accepted his arm. Ivor doubtless meant to rip her character to shreds. Let him, then. It was no more than she deserved for having acted with foolish scorn of the consequence.

“Your brother,” observed Lord Jeffries, as he led her into a waltz, “is looking sulky as a bear. He is also making frequent assaults on the punch bowl. Perhaps you will forgive me, darling Mignon, if I say that, drunk or sober, Maurice has not the least semblance of being a clever man.”

“He is feeling thwarted,” Miss Montague replied absently. “Only his fear of scandal has prevented Maurice from reading me a thundering scold.” The impact of the Viscount’s words belatedly struck her.
“What
did you call me?”

Ivor smiled down into her stunned face. “It’s as crowded as the very devil in here,” he remarked, and whisked her skillfully into an anteroom where were displayed ancient coats of mail, Indian shields made of rhinoceros hide, and an occasional skull. The chamber ended in a rounded bay twenty feet across, and its walls were covered in a paper with details reminiscent of King Arthur’s castle. “This,” said Mignon unnecessarily, “is the Armory. My uncle is a wide traveler and has a taste for the macabre. The chimney piece was inspired by various tombs.”

“Your uncle,” retorted the Viscount, “is of scant interest to me, and this room of even less. My poor darling, you have truly landed yourself in a damnable fix.”

Mignon turned to pace the length of the room. “You don’t know the half of it. But you surprise me, Lord Jeffries. I had thought a high stickler like yourself would have only contempt for my foolishness.”

“I can see,” said Ivor, so close behind her that Mignon jumped, “that you have not altered your initial opinion of my character. I cannot blame you, I suppose. Nor can I condemn your behavior when I have been at least as foolish myself.” Startled, she stared at him. “It is a lowering reflection,” he added. “I was accustomed to thinking of myself as, er, a nonpareil, and now find myself condemned as the offspring of a murderess and suspected of various unspecified vile misdeeds by Bow Street. It is extremely deflating to one’s pride.”

“It is utter nonsense,” Mignon retorted heatedly. The Viscount smiled, and she flushed. “I must thank you for coming to my rescue. I don’t like to think what might have happened if you had not.”

“It wasn’t one of my happier moments,” Ivor admitted. Mignon dropped her eyes and he gently tipped up her chin. “I am, it seems, a jealous man! But it would be hardly reasonable of me to hold against you an indiscretion that happened even before we met.”

Mignon had an unwelcome and unpleasant suspicion that was speedily borne out. “Much as I would prefer to stay,” murmured the Viscount, drawing her closer, “I must take my leave of you. I will see you clear of this business. The task will prove a great deal easier now that I know the truth. When we are freed of this coil, I mean to set before you an arrangement for your future that I think will prove of mutual, er, convenience to both of us.” And then he enfolded her in a crushing, passionate embrace that was suitable only for one of those infamous creatures known commonly as light-skirts.

Miss Montague was finding in herself a remarkable capacity for violence. For the second time that evening she slapped a gentleman’s face. And then she fled the room in tears.

Chapter 23

While Monsieur Trouffant happily analyzed various illustrious brains, Willie Fitzwilliam underwent an examination of another sort, one that filled him with the deepest misgiving. “I swear I don’t know,” he said nervously, “what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t you?” Sir John paced about the Armory, so recently the setting for a very different kind of scene. “ It will go much easier for you if you confess.”

“Confess!” Willie averted his gaze from a grinning skull. “You are filling me with the liveliest apprehension, Sir John!”

The Chief Magistrate folded his arms, his weary face revealing none of his thoughts. It had been neither a particularly enlightening nor entertaining evening for he had been placed by the crafty Baroness in the position of seeming to condone the activities of a criminal—although, as she had pointed out, one might expect to encounter all sorts of people at the theatre. And, as Dulcie had further pointed out, though opinion was overwhelming as to the Viscount’s guilt, no one was certain of the exact nature of his crime. But it was not Ivor’s sins that currently occupied Sir John. “If not for Lady Bligh’s intervention,” he said severely, “I would have had you at Bow Street before now. Tell me about those forged banknotes.”

Willie, who looked almost unexceptionable in the formal garb that the Baroness had provided him, silently adjusted his monocle.

“I might add,” remarked Sir John, “that I already know you made the plates. There’s little use in denials. I urge you to cooperate.”

Willie sighed. “How fleeting is triumph!” he lamented. “Even while I wear the crown of laurels, a gallows rope is being slipped round my neck. Very well, if you must have it! Though it goes sorely against the grain to easily give myself over to the law. It was all for the sake of the play, of course. ‘Twas a prodigious undertaking, and I saw no other way to bring it about.”

“So you made and passed false banknotes.” Sir John was rather surprised that Willie was proving so cooperative. “How did they come into Warwick’s possession? You were acquainted with him?”

“Certainly not!” said Willie. “You’ve got the wrong horse by the tail— several of them, in fact.”

Sir John hefted a broadsword with an expertise that made Willie blanch. “Were the forged notes insufficient for your needs? Is that why you and your confederates embarked upon this series of robberies? I’ll have the truth from you.”

Willie, eyes fixed on that broad blade, collapsed onto a settee. “I’ll confess to anything!” he cried. “Only I beg you, do not decapitate me!”

“John!” With a gesture, the Baroness brought her Indian jugglers to toss up and catch their burning torches just outside the door. “There is always a way to insure one’s privacy, if one is sufficiently ingenious. Now you will explain to me why you are browbeating poor Willie. It isn’t like you to make a scene.”

“Poor Willie,” retorted the Chief Magistrate, as he carefully set aside the broadsword, “has just admitted his responsibility for the forged banknotes.”
He glared at that unhappy individual, who looked as though he would have very much liked to sink through the floor. “He was just on the verge of confessing to his complicity in murder and robbery.”

“Oh?” Willie squirmed under the Baroness’s thoughtful eye. “I had thought I might have to repent of my choice, but not quite so grievously. Well, Willie, what have you to say for yourself?”

“He might as well say it at Bow Street,” interjected Sir John. “I’m sorry this hasn’t fallen out as you might have wished, Dulcie, but I’m glad to have it so tidily tied up.” Carefully, he replaced the sword in its place on the wall. “Crump was right all along, it seems.”

“No, Crump was not,” retorted Lady Bligh crossly, while Willie moaned. “I had thought you possessed a superior understanding, John, but you have shown me little evidence of it. No more than Leda is Willie involved in your murders and your robberies.”

“Have you no regard for the evidence, Dulcie?” The Chief Magistrate was victim of a fleeting impulse to impale his Nemesis on a primitive spear. “How do you mean to explain it away?”

“I don’t care a button for your evidence,” replied Lady Bligh. “It would be to your benefit to listen—without further comment!—to Willie’s tale.”

Sir John thought he’d heard enough of Willie’s taradiddles for one evening, but he was not proof against Dulcie’s pleading glance. “Very well. I will listen, and
then
I’ll take him in.”

“Dear John!” Lady Bligh smiled. “I am persuaded, once you’ve heard the truth, that you will not behave so. Proceed, Willie! The stage is yours.”

Willie’s slender, gloved fingers clenched and entwined. “I thought the notes were to be used as a prop. A device to add verisimilitude. I had no notion the things would fool anyone when closely seen.” The Chief Magistrate made an annoyed gesture, and the playwright continued hastily. “I suppose I should have smelled a rat, but the fact is I did not! It seemed a straightforward request, and I needed the money that I was promised when the things were done.”

“You were fortunate,” murmured the Baroness, “not to be paid in your own coin. What a hobble! I don’t suppose you’d care to tell John who commissioned that pretty piece of forgery?”

Willie winced. “I must protest,
not
forgery! Merely an imitation of the real thing, only accurate enough to seem real when viewed from a distance, as on the stage.” He spread his hands. “What can I say? My only defense is that I abhor shoddy work. It seems I am a truer artist than I knew.”

Sir John reminded himself that Willie had already proven himself the possessor of an extremely fertile artistic imagination. “I’m waiting,” he said, though with little evidence of patience, “to hear who commissioned those notes. Perhaps, Leda Langtry?”

“Dear John,” sighed Dulcie, “that won’t fadge! Leda has more than enough money to support her peculiar mode of life, and she obtained it through perfectly legal means, though I won’t acquaint you with their precise nature, since it is none of your business.”

“Dulcie,” growled the Chief Magistrate, “do hush! I would like to hear the prisoner’s explanation from his own lips.”

“Prisoner!” gasped Willie. “Egad. But the Baroness is correct, Sir John. Leda had nothing to do with those notes—in truth, I doubt she even knew of their existence. They were requested of me by someone in the theatre whose name I have, alas, forgot, though perhaps it may come back to me. I have no idea what happened to them after that, or how they came into Warwick’s hands.”