Murder's Sad Tale (21 page)

Luten just stared. “Did you not hear that Sykes was murdered yesterday?”

“Murdered! Good God, no!” Grafton gasped. “I heard nothing of that. You don’t suppose — Oh no, I’m sure Mavis isn’t that bad. But you see the sort of people she consorts with. Common criminals. And she’s bound to sue me for breach of promise if I don’t marry her. I am at my wits’ end with worry.”

“So am I,” Luten said, and hurried away. He wanted to see for himself that his beloved was safe at home.

He jumped into his carriage, told the coachman to “Spring ‘em”, and sat on thorns until he reached Berkeley Square. He didn’t even knock on Corinne’s door, but just dashed in, catching Hawken unawares with his mouth full of a scone he had pilfered from the kitchen.

“Is her ladyship here?” Luten demanded.

Hawken swallowed convulsively. “Nossir, she hasn’t come back yet,” he said, sliding the scone into his pocket.

“Where did she go?”

“I — I don’t know, sir, but the carriage came back without her. Mr. Pattle and Black seemed very upset.”

Luten didn’t wait to hear more. If there was trouble, Lady Dunn was the cause of it, and he soon figured out that Corinne had decided to go in person to tell Mavis she wouldn’t be seeing her again. It was like her, to want to do it the kindest way. His coachman set a rapid pace to Grosvenor Square. He leapt out and went flying up the stairs, gave the knocker one loud bang and entered.

He caught Bernie and Lady Dunn in the drawing room, looking with satisfaction at the two inert forms, their glasses falling out of their fingers. Lady Dunn held a bunch of stout cords.

“Coffen! Black!” He turned to Lady Dunn. “What the devil’s going on here?”

Lady Dunn gave him a cool smile. “It seems your friends have overindulged.”

Black dropped his glass and jumped up. “Grab her, Luten, I’ll get the lad.”

Luten felt as if he had fallen into a nightmare. The two inert forms suddenly came to life, Lady Dunn hissing and scratching at him like an angry cat. Black made quicker work of Rankin. He lifted his hand and landed a sharp chop on the side of his neck. Rankin crumpled like a rag doll.

Coffen called, “She’s in the cellar,” to Luten, then scooted out of the room and headed for the kitchen. When she thought they were asleep, the hellcat had said to Rankin, “Dump them in the cellar with the other one,” so Corinne was in the cellar. Pray God she was only doped, and not dead.

With Black’s help, Lady Dunn was soon subdued. They used the cords intended for her victims to bind her and Rankin hand and foot. As they worked, Black said over his shoulder to Luten, “There, that’ll hold them. One of us ought to send for Bow Street.”

“Send my coachman,” Luten said, and went darting to the cellar while Black gave the order to the waiting coachman, then went back to enjoy himself by chastising the prisoners. Black had heard some foul language in his former life, but he had never heard anything to match what came out of Lady Dunn’s mouth.

Luten found the kitchen. A cowering maid just pointed to the cellar door Coffen had left open. By the dim light from the kitchen he saw Coffen bent over Corinne, talking to her. He had removed a gag from her mouth and untied her hands. Luten bolted downstairs with his heart in his throat. “Is she —" He couldn’t utter the dread words he feared might be true.

“Knocked on the back of the head, to judge by the lump,” Coffen told him. “She don’t seem drugged. She’s coming around I think. Murmuring a little. They tried to drug us, but Black didn’t fall for it.”

Luten bent down and lifted Corinne’s still body into his arms. She stirred, looked at him with blinking eyes and a small, bleary smile. “Luten,” is all she could murmur. Then she rested her head on his shoulder and sighed. Dear Luten. How had he found her?

 Coffen picked up her reticule and gloves and followed them upstairs.

As soon as Bow Street arrived, Luten took Corinne home. Black, torn between the equally tempting options of giving evidence against the criminals and returning to Berkeley Square to cosset her ladyship with shawls and possets, opted for the former. There would be no privacy with
her
with Luten hovering at her bedside. As it turned out, Black could have had her to himself. As soon as Luten turned Corinne over to a goggling and twittering Mrs. Ballard, he went to Bow Street. Corinne didn’t hear the details until that evening when the participants met in her drawing room.

Prance, all unaware of the Brigade’s exciting doings, went to his study where Villier was working on the final copy of the novel in his best copperplate hand. Prance had had an exciting day too. At Byron’s suggestion, Murray had written inviting him to bring his manuscript to the office. After reading only the first chapter and hearing the plot of the rest, he had made an offer. Prance couldn’t remember how he had got home. He rather thought he had flown.

He was on thorns to tell them all about the visit to Murray’s office. In his eagerness to look over his manuscript, he hadn’t even taken a proper dinner, but only a chicken wing and glass of wine in his dressing room. In fact, he hadn’t changed his toilette for the evening, which was of much more importance to him than food. To clear his mind he decided to nip over to Corinne’s house and astonish them with his dishabille and his big news. He assumed they would all be there.

Black met him at the door and stared at his blue jacket, fawn trousers and topboots. “Why, whatever is the matter, Sir Reginald?” he asked. “If I didn’t know you better, I’d say you was bosky.”

“Drunk with success, Black. Only one glass of wine all day,” Reg told him. “What you sense is the euphoria of a job well done.”

“Ah, you’ve heard the news, then. Who told you?”

“News? What news?” he asked, realizing it couldn’t refer to his novel.
He
was to be the bearer of those glad tidings.

“Why, the Brigade has solved the case. We wrapped it up this afternoon. All villains accounted for and incarcerated.”

“The case?” Prance said in confusion. He had forgotten all about it. “Oh, Russell you mean, Mrs. Ballard’s friend.” And they’d gone ahead and solved it without him! He was so chagrined he didn’t even notice that Black had included himself in the Brigade with that telling “we."

“Hardly a friend, Sir Reginald. An acquaintance,” he chided, although he had been twitting poor Mrs. Ballard mercilessly about the sort of company she kept. “May I make so bold as to ask what success you were talking about?”

“My book, Black. I’ve sold my gothic novel.”

Black, who liked to keep in the good graces of all her ladyship’s friends, even Sir Reginald, said, “Now there’s something that’ll be worth reading. I’ll announce you.”

He had no intention of leaving the room once he got a toe in the door. Prance was further humiliated when no one even noticed he hadn’t changed his clothes. None of them had. In fact, they all looked downright rumpled. He was chagrined, he had obviously missed out on vastly exciting doings. They were all smiling and proposing toasts and congratulating each other. But he was made welcome and no one mentioned his lack of help in the case.

“I hear congratulations are in order,” he said, forcing a smile. “I am all ears to hear the details. And before I hear a single word, you must allow me to tender my sincerest apologies for my lack of assistance. My novel — “

“That’s all right, Reg,” Coffen said. “We handled it between us. And managed to save Corrie’s life while we were at it.” He turned to her. “They would certainly have killed you, Corrie. They couldn’t let you go free after that knock on the pate and locking you in the cellar.”

Prance gasped and goggled to hear what exciting doings — the very stuff of fiction — he had missed. He threw himself on his knees at her chair, grabbed her two hands and said, “I shall have nightmares! And are you truly all right, my pet?”

“I’m fine, Reggie. Luten saved me.” She directed a doting smile on Luten. “And of course Coffen and Black,” she added hastily. “Do sit down, Black, and have a glass of wine. I owe you all a great debt.”

Black was not tardy to accept the offer.

She then turned to Luten. “And I owe you an apology, Luten. I only went to tell Lady Dunn I couldn’t see her again. It seemed the right thing to do.” Luten just smiled his forgiveness. She had already explained and apologized twice.

Reg rose to his feet and, lifting his coat tails, sat on the arm of her chair. “Tell me all. Every single detail. I should be thrashed for not being there. I shall never forgive myself.”

Corinne, accustomed to his outpourings, just smiled and described her visit to Lady Dunn.

“But how did the others all know you were there?” he asked.

When no one else spoke, Coffen said, “When the carriage came home without her, we got busy. Black had found out from the Pen that Lady Dunn was a wrong ‘un.”

“What pen?” Reg asked in confusion.

“The fellow that writes letters for folks that can’t write.”

“But surely Lady Dunn can write?”

“She can. It’s Pegeen O’Neill that can’t, so she had this Pen write for her.”

“But were those notes not from Lady Dunn?”

“They were but we didn’t know that at the time, you see. All we had to go on was the P. Anyhow, they call this fellow the Pen. It happens he didn’t write the notes we found, but he’s lived on Wild Street forever and knew all about Lady Dunn. Her name was Polly Flood when she was an actress, before she took up marrying as a career. She’s the P from the notes, not Pegeen O’Neill. Pegeen’s her niece that was working for her as a maid and doing a few shady errands on the side. Townsend thinks she’ll get off light. She’s a bit simple.”

“I don’t understand. What — “

“I’m trying to tell you. Lady Dunn was already married to Russell when she married Dunn, only he was Russell Blair at the time. Russell was weaseling money out of her with the marriage license, since she’d neglected to get a divorce. That’s what the “it” was from the note I found in Russell’s flat. Sykes knew Russell was taking her the note and wasn’t slow to figure out who killed him. So she killed him as well.”

Reginald listened to all this in forgivable confusion, then said, “So Lady Dunn was the lady who called on Russell at his flat?”

“Now you’ve got it.”

“And she put Russell’s hat in Cooper’s flat.”

“Devil a bit of it,” Coffen said, shaking his head. “She’s a coldblooded killer but it was Sykes that come up with that notion. When he accused Dunn of doing in Russell, she put the fear of the lord into him by convincing him he was the law’s number one suspect. It seems they argued a good deal, mostly about money. So he wanted to drag in someone else. He knew from Russell that Cooper was mad for Fenwick and jealous as a green cow. He had an old hat of Russell’s and got into Cooper’s flat and left it there. Thought Cooper wouldn’t notice it, shoved up on a high shelf. He figured Bow Street would get around to Cooper eventually and the hat’d tie him to Russell. Dunn swore up and down she didn’t know anything about that. Talk about swearing! She has a tongue in her head that would raise blisters. Sharper than a serpent’s tongue, as you’d say, Reg. Common as muck, but an actress. She knew how to talk proper.”

“Tooth, actually,” Reginald corrected automatically. “Sharper than a serpent’s tooth.”

“I wouldn’t be a bit surprised, though she didn’t bite anyone as far as I know. Did she get a nip at you, Luten?”

Luten just shook his head and said, “She was a thief to boot. She’d been pawning Grafton’s entailed family jewels to finance her doings, and even sold at least one necklace. Grafton is dealing with Bow Street to recover the rest of them. He told me about it this afternoon at the House, and when Corinne hadn’t come home, I dashed over to Grosvenor Square and found these two,” he smiled at Coffen and Black, “playing dead to learn all the secrets of the case.”

“Playing dead in Lady Dunn’s salon?” Reg asked, his head whirling in confusion. “Had she attacked them?”

“No, they were too scared of Black. She had Rankin give us doctored wine, planning to bind us and drag us to the cellar,” Coffen explained, “but Black was on to that dodge. While we were playing dead to find out where they’d put Corrie, Luten landed in, loaded for bear. Then me and Black hopped up and between the three of us, we got them all tied up right and tight and sent for Townsend.”

“Who is ‘all them’? Lady Dunn had an accomplice other than Pegeen?”

“Just the one other that we know about. A fellow she called Bernie Rankin that was a general manservant. Brother to Pegeen, according to Polly, despite the different names. They’ve probably all got a dozen names, like Stokes/Morton/Sykes. I believe, though they both deny it, that Dunn’s been carrying on with Rankin all along. They seemed to be on chummy terms. He’s a handsome scoundrel. Anyhow, we called in Bow Street, and there you are. Case solved.”

Reg shook his head. “I daresay I shall figure it all out eventually. Poor Grafton. How easy it is for a pretty woman to make fools of us.”

“You can read all about it in the journals tomorrow,” Coffen said. “Bow Street was swarming with fellows from the journals.”

Prance drew a sigh of regret. It sounded lovely, and he had missed it all. When the reports of the Berkeley Brigade’s latest affair were published, his name would be absent. He was desolate, until he remembered his own news.

After Luten had proposed a toast, Prance decided it was time to make his announcement. He managed to restrain his eagerness until the toast to the Brigade had been drunk, then he said, “and another wee sip to my success.”

“What success is that?” Corinne asked.

“You scarcely lifted a finger,” Coffen said. “You must’ve sold your book, is that it?”

Prance glared at having his thunder stolen in this cavalier fashion. The only bit of glory he could add was, “To Murray, no less. Surely the premier publisher of quality literature, don’t you think?” They all agreed, though Coffen had no idea who Murray was, and Corinne knew only that he was Bryon’s publisher.

“That’s great news, Reg,” Luten said. “When shall we be able to buy a copy?” He and Corinne exchanged a guilty smile. She hoped they would only have to buy one copy this time, unlike the
Rondeaux.
Luten had bought a hundred copies of that one to get the book into the book store windows.