Murder's Sad Tale (20 page)

It was her last thought before a thick oaken cane Mavis snatched from the Chinese jug in the hallway hit her head with great force. It felt as if a house had landed on her, then she felt nothing. She seemed to be floating in a black cloud, off into nothingness.

Coffen made his daily trip to Corinne’s house shortly after she left. “You’re late today, Mr. Pattle,” Black said. “Breakfast is over. She’s gone out.”

“I saw her leave,” he said. “They made me toast and coffee at home today. I dread to think what that means. They’ve smashed something for sure. It’s yourself I’ve come to see, Black. Any word on that Pen fellow?”

“I’m off to see him this morning.”

“I’ll tag along.” As this saved Black the price of a hackney, he didn’t object. “Just let me hop home and get the notes we want him to identify.”

During his absence Black called Hawken to attend to the door until he returned.

“Well, I found out why I was treated to breakfast this morning,” Pattle said, shoving the notes into his pocket as he joined Black again. “Raven wore my best jacket to some do last night and got blood all over it.”

“Your valet made you breakfast?” Black asked.

“Devil a bit of it. Cook made it. It was Raven’s blood on the jacket. They had a bit of a set-to in the kitchen last night after Raven returned. Drunk, I daresay. Cook tossed Raven out the window, Raven got cut. The jacket as well.”

Black just shook his head. “Drunk as lords, the pair of them. You’d ought to get rid of that lot, Mr. Pattle.”

“You’re right, I ought,” Pattle agreed, but knew he wouldn’t do it. “So where are we going?”

“Wild Street. Familiar territory to yourself, Mr. Pattle. The theater district.”

“To us both,” Coffen said. “You were there just this Christmas past during that affair at Byron’s place.”

They discussed that past case for a moment, then Black related his search for Pen the night before and said, “I hope he’s sober enough to make sense this morning. He must be a night-time toper or he’d never be able to earn his bread copying handwriting. That takes a steady fist.”

As the hackney wended its way from the better part of town to Wild Street, Black said, “Her ladyship is off on some mysterious errand this morning. Didn’t want me to know where she was going.”

“Where was she going?” Coffen asked, undeceived that Black had let her get away with it.

“Grosvenor Square. Has she friends there, other than Lady Dunn, I mean?”

“Not close ones. Some in-laws and an old great aunt of Luten’s, but she wouldn’t call on either of them unless Luten’s Aunt Bessie Sinclair was sick, and she wouldn’t hide that from you. Nossir, she’s off to see Lady Dunn. I’ll have a word with her when we get home.”

“Might be best.”

“And after she promised Luten she wouldn’t.”

“Ladies’ promises are writ on water,” Black said, with no air of disapproval.

“Aye, murky water.”

The carriage drew to a stop in front of a tall, narrow house of brick blackened with smoke and age. Its dilapidated condition and the variety of window treatments within suggested it had been turned into flats, like its neighbors. While Coffen paid off the hackney Black hurried in at the peeling door to discover where the Pen lived. “J.G. Monroe, letters written," one sign said in gothic script.

“That’ll be him,” Black said, pointing a stubby but surprisingly well manicured finger at the name.

They climbed two flights of dusty steps to his door. They knocked gently at first, then with increasing vigor. Black tried the knob and it opened. Coffen had a sinking feeling of having been through this before. They’d find him dead in a pool of blood. Fortunately, they were spared this horror.

“Come in, come in,” Monroe called. “Sorry I couldn’t let you in. I fell downstairs last night. Might’ve busted my ankle. I called for you to come in.”

“We heard you,” Black lied.

They went into his one large room with walls distempered in a vile yellow-green-gray color. A rumpled bed heaped with various blankets and a coat occupied one corner. The weak fire flickering in the grate scarcely took the edge of ice from the room. A tatter of aged gray lace blew in the breeze from the one ill-fitting window.

A large man with a fringe of rusty-colored hair, a red nose and a blanket wrapped around his shoulders sat at a table with a cup of tea beside him. He was practicing his penmanship. The name he was learning to copy was Alvin Edward Spicer. They did not enquire why he was practicing to forge this name. But a blank check sat at his elbow.

Black looked over his shoulder and said, “Not bad. A little more tail at the end of the words.”

Monroe looked up at them with blue, blood-shot eyes. “What can I do for you gentlemen?”

Coffen placed the notes found at Russell’s and Sykes’s flat on the table. “Did you write these?” he asked.

Monroe squinted at them a moment. “No, not my work, gentlemen,” he said with certainty. “Why?”

Black took over the conversation. “We thought you might have written them for her,” he said

“For who?” Monroe asked.

“This P. Friend of Russell and Sykes,” Black answered, as if he knew what he was talking about.

“Ah, you mean Pegeen,” he said. “Pegeen O’Reilly.”

“That’s her.”

“No, I jot a line home to her folks in the old country for her, usually on her ma’s birthday in January. She didn’t ask me this year. P’raps her new mistress does the writing for her now. They’re kin I believe, cousins or some such.”

“Who does she work for?” Black asked.

“Why do you want to know?” Monroe asked, with a suspicious squint. “Pegeen’s a good enough lass. If there’s trouble at Grosvenor Square, it ain’t her that’s causing it. It’s her cousin, that lady — “

Black and Coffen exchanged a look at the mention of this address. Black said, “Lady Dunn, you mean.”

“That’s her. She’s a rare one if you like. Started life as Polly Flood, from Cheapside. She lived here on Wild Street for a while — oh, ten, fifteen years ago. Wanted to be an actress but when she had no luck she took up with a fellow actor. Made the mistake of marrying him, but he roughed her up from time to time and Polly wasn’t the girl to put up with that.”

“That’s a caution,” Coffen said. “What did she do?”

“To be rid of him she answered an ad for a lady’s maid some place up north.”

“You wouldn’t know who for?” Coffen asked, hanging on every word.

“For a Lady Dunn. An older lady. Worked there for a year, then hit the jackpot. The old malkin stuck her fork in the wall and before you could say Jack Robinson, Polly Flood was Lady Dunn.”

“What about her other marriage?” Coffen asked.

Monroe shrugged, then sat back with his elbows on the table. “Divorced, I suppose. I don’t know what happened to her after that. Millie duBois, another lass who’ll never make an actress, claims she saw her on Bond Street a month ago, looking fine as nine pence. Got into a carriage with a lozenge on the door. That means a lord,” he informed them. “Polly didn’t speak to her, she says. Millie might be mistaken. She’s not the brightest light in town. Still, I wouldn’t put it past Polly to have landed herself a lord. She’s up to every rig and racket going. Oh she’ll have a fling out of Prinney yet. If she don’t end up on the throne it won’t be for lack of trying. Or nerve.”

“The fellow she married first, the one that roughed her up,” Coffen said. “What did you say his name was?”

Monroe gave an innocent smile. “I don’t believe I said.”

“But who was it?” he asked eagerly.

Monroe put down his pen and sighed. “Life is hard for some of us,” he said. “Take me, now. I spend my days hunched over this table, scribbling for shillings.”

In his eagerness, Coffen reached in his pocket and emptied a pile of coins on the table. Monroe scooped them up with a smile and put them in his pocket.

“Lad name of Russell Blair,” he said. “About five feet ten, dark hair, a good-looking fellow, but mean. A lot like Polly in that way. Two bad peas in a pod you might say.”

“Thankee kindly, Mr. Monroe,” Coffen said. He tossed his head at Black and they left.

As they scampered downstairs, Coffen said, “Russell Blair — that’s Fenwick’s Mr. Russell, or my name ain’t Coffen Pattle.”

“You’re right there,” Black said.

“And P is for Polly. Miss Barker said that’s what Russell called the lady he was pestering on Bond Street.”

“And what Polly was buying from him in that note was their marriage license,” Black continued. “The only question in my mind is whether she killed him herself or hired someone to do it.”

“Mickey, the link-boy, said it was a small man. Could have been a woman dressed up. I daresay it was her did for poor Sykes as well. He must have caught on to her. Either that or she used Sykes to kill Russell, then killed him herself.”

“Either way, she’s at the bottom of it.
Cherchez la femme,
Mr. Pattle.”

“We know where to find her.”

At the door of the hackney, Coffen said, “Corinne was going to Grosvenor Square. I know her, I’d wager my boots she’s gone to tell Dunn in person she can’t be running around with her any longer. You don’t suppose Dunn’ll cut up stiff?”

Black just stared in consternation. “Knowing what we know about Polly, we daren’t take the chance, Mr. Pattle. We’ll take a run by and ask for her ladyship. Say something important has come up at home.”

“Say Luten’s had an accident. That’ll bring her running,” Coffen suggested. “Dunn can’t very well argue with that.”

They were relieved to see Corinne’s green tilbury was not parked in front of Lady Dunn’s house. “She’s left. We’ll get along home and see if she’s there,” Coffen said, and called the route up to the coachman with a command to put a burr under the nags’ saddle and there was an extra half crown for him.

As the hackney clipped along at a fair pace, they both felt a nagging fear that all was not well. “Wait here,” Coffen called to the driver as they alit to
go pelting into the house. Hawken met them at the door. “Is something amiss, Black?” Hawken asked.

“Is her ladyship here?”

“No, she hasn’t come back yet.”

“Do you know where she went?”

“She was already gone when I took over, but — “

“Is her coachman here?”

“Yes, I was about to tell you he came back a quarter of an hour ago.”

“Without her ladyship?” Black howled.

“Her ladyship had told him she wouldn’t be long. He drove around the block a few times, then waited some time. He feared he’d missed her and went to the door to see if she was ready. The lady she was visiting told him she had left with another friend,” he said. “The lady said they were probably going shopping. It wasn’t Mrs. Ballard that called. She’s here.”

Coffen and Black exchanged a worried glance, and without a word being spoken returned to the hackney and ordered it to return to Grosvenor Square, and couldn’t those nags go faster than five miles an hour. A faster pace proved impossible for the nags, but the driver did his best, using the whip. They were out of the rig before it had quite stopped moving and raced to Lady Dunn’s door. Black knocked loudly.

Rankin answered the door and gave them the same story they had heard from Hawken. Coffen, with some traces of the gentleman still hanging about him, felt they were stumped. Black was made of sterner stuff. “I’ll have a word with Polly,” he said, and pushed his way in past Bernie.

“I’m sorry, sir — Polly? Who’s that?” He looked extremely ill at ease.

“Also goes by the name Lady Dunn,” Black informed him.

“Oh, it’s Lady Dunn you want. She’s not here,” Rankin said. He looked over his shoulder as if looking for her.

“Then we’ll wait.”

“I’m afraid I can’t allow that, Sir.”

“Try if you can stop us, mister,” was Black’s reply.

Rankin turned on his heel and ran to report to Lady Dunn, who was lurking nearby. “We can’t knock them both out and put them in the cellar,” he said. “One of them’s a rough-looking number. And he called you Polly. They know too much. There’ll be others after them. The law --"

Lady Dunn gave a sneering tsk. “Don’t snivel,” she ordered. “Give them a glass of wine, well doctored, tell them I’ll be back soon and ask them to wait till I return.”

Rankin darted back and soon entered the drawing room bearing the tray with a decanter of doctored wine and two glasses. “Something to help you pass the time,” he said, pouring and passing the glasses. Madam won’t be long.”

“Why thankee,” Coffen said and raised the glass. Rankin left. Black reached out his hand and stopped Coffen’s rash act. “I wager it’s laced with laudanum or worse,” he said in a low voice. He sniffed his glass. “I thought as much. Laudanum, a stiff dose. Thing to do, pour it into that planter, wait a few minutes, and let on we’re asleep. They’ll talk free in front of us. When we find out what they’ve done with her ladyship, then we’ll go for them.” They both emptied their drinks into a potted palm.

“Do you have a gun?” Coffen whispered.

“Do I need one?” Black snorted, and darted to the fireplace where he picked up a poker and rested it against the side of his chair away from the door. “You might avail yourself of one of them logs by the fireside,” he advised. Coffen jumped up and followed Black’s example. The man was a genius, that’s all. Couldn’t do better than Black when you were in a tight corner.

* * * *

Luten felt on edge. His first pleasure at Corinne’s easy capitulation over the matter of seeing Lady Dunn gave way to uncertainty, as he considered it. He had difficulty listening to the meeting that was going forth, and contributed nothing. As soon as it was over, he went to get his coat. On an impulse he went looking for Grafton and found him just as he was leaving.

“Ah, Lord Luten,” he said. “I feel I ought to apologize to you for my part in introducing Lady deCoventry to Lady Dunn. Shocking things I have learned about her. I oughtn’t to speak of it, but as your lady is involved ...”

“I have heard an occasional rumor,” Luten said, his tone inviting further confidences.

“I am ashamed to own up to it, but when I began hearing rumors I had her followed. She coaxed me into giving her the family’s entailed jewelry before the wedding. It’s valuable stuff. Hamlet, the jeweller, notified me she’d pawned one necklace. And she’s turned off Mrs. Hansen, the lady I hired to accompany her. Mrs. Hansen has informed me she has some very odd and unlikely friends. Gentlemen friends. A limping fellow named Sykes who lived in a flat on Baker Street. I discovered he’s done time in jail for common theft! What would a lady be doing with such friends? Gambling, I daresay. The jewelry’s entailed. I’ll be responsible if she loses it.”