Murder's Sad Tale (8 page)

“I don’t suppose you’d care to step in with me?” Coffen said.

“Why not? I have nothing in particular to do.” His post boy, like all his servants, was as well trained as a Guardsman . He was down from his perch with the door open and the steps let down before Coffen got his gloves picked up off the floor where he’d dropped them. Prance noticed he’d stepped on them, smearing the York tan leather with mud. “Is she expecting you?” he asked.

“No, but the whole whist club crowd know we’re on the case, so she’ll let us in.”

The butler who answered their knock looked so fine he made Coffen nervous, and sent Reg’s hope soaring. “I wonder if we might have a word with Miss Barker,” Coffen said.

The butler lifted an eyebrow, but before he could utter the setdown his expression hinted at, Reginald stepped forward, handed him a card and said in his iciest manner, “Sir Reginald Prance and Mr. Coffen, with regard to the matter Lord Luten is looking into for Miss Barker and her friends.”

“Ah, the Berkeley Brigade!” the butler said, and actually smiled. “Right this way, gentlemen.” He bowed and gestured them in with a wave of his hand. Reginald’s chest swelled in pleasure, as it always did when he was recognized by strangers.

Their coats and hats were taken, they were shown into a fine, lofty saloon whose only fault was a surfeit of age-dimmed gilt. They were given a glass of wine while awaiting Miss Barker. Very good wine too. His interest in Miss Barker rose higher.

“Pretty good set-up, eh?” Coffen said. “I wonder what she’s like.”

Before Reg could reply, a lady came trotting into the room. She seemed completely out of place amidst all this grandeur. Racking his brain for a simile, Reg mentally likened her to a dairymaid in a drawing room. He felt she would have been more at home in the establishment’s kitchen, perhaps baking bread, or sweeping the floor. But he arose, like the gentleman he was. Coffen also struggled to his feet.

She wasn’t actually wearing an apron or mobcap, but she wasn’t wearing silk either. An exceedingly plain navy blue woolen gown with a white collar held in place by a cameo brooch suggested an upper class servant. Housekeeper, perhaps. But no mistress would tolerate that mop of hair on a housekeeper. It wafted about her head, like a black cloud blown by a stiff breeze. The face beneath it was noticeably plump and rosy, with a pair of blue eyes that sparkled in excitement.

“Oh my!” she exclaimed in a rustic accent. “I had no idea you’d be calling on
me!
Mrs. Ballard told me Lord Luten would look into the matter for us, but — Oh my, this
is
a thrill. Just wait till I tell the others. Sit down, do.” They resumed their seats and after a few more exclamations of pleasure and the sorting out of their names, she too found a seat. “Now what is it you want to talk about?”

“Anything you can tell us about Mr. Russell,” Coffen said. He held out the hat. “This, for instance. Ever seen it on Russell?”

She took it and looked at in confusion. “Oh no, this isn’t the sort of hat Mr. Russell wore. He wouldn’t be caught dead in a hat like this. Where does it come from, and what’s it got to do with murder?”

“It was found in Russell’s flat,” Coffen said. “We didn’t think it was his, actually. We’re curious to learn whose hat it is. Did any of the other men in your group wear a hat like this?”

“Well, it’s not really a
bad hat,
is it?” she said, turning it around in her fingers. “It’s like a hat any gentleman might wear, but just worn and a bit out of shape. It’s not Mr. Cooper’s. He doesn’t use grease on his hair, and I see this one’s greasy along the band. Cooper’s hat is smaller, lower in the crown, I mean. This is higher, like Russell wears, only not nice enough. Mind you, he did use some sort of oil on his hair. Reverend Cousens and all the vicars always wear black. No, I can’t say as I’ve ever seen this hat before.” She handed it back to him.

“That’s all right,” Coffen said. “What can you tell us about Mr. Russell? Just your impression of him in general.”

She pursed her lips and made the necessary demur, “One doesn’t like to speak ill of the dead,” before getting down to business. “He was a smart lad, a good looker, but not quite — not a
real
gentleman, if you know what I mean. A real gent doesn’t broadcast his financial affairs. Mind you, he had
me
fooled at first. That’s all
I
can say,” she finished with a spirited nod that sent her hair reeling.

“Bit of a goer, was he?” Coffen asked. “With the ladies, I mean?”

“With one lady, at any rate,” she said, again nodding her head to emphasize her meaning. “I’ve given this a good deal of thought since he was shot, and what
I
think is, he was after Miss Fenwick’s money! There! I shouldn’t ought to say it, but it’s what I think, and that’s what you asked me. The first night he sat down for a hand with us, he insisted on accompanying me home. Miss Fenwick wasn’t there that night. She had one of her spells of the megrims. He seemed pretty impressed with Aunt Jane’s house when he saw where I lived. It
is
a grand place, isn’t it?” she said, gazing all around. “Then he took me out to tea the next day, and sent me a little bouquet of flowers.

“I admit my head was turned. I never had what you might call a gentleman friend. My father was a vicar in a small country parish. I have five sisters, so you can imagine we weren’t exactly high in the stirrups. When I got an offer to come here two years ago, I snapped at it. I’m Mrs. Armstrong’s companion. She’s some kind of cousin on my mother’s side, a widow now, and a lovely woman. I landed in the honey pot for sure. Mr. Russell asked me all about myself and Aunt Jane. I call her Aunt Jane, though she isn’t really an aunt. I figure he was angling to find out if I was her heir. When I told him she had three sons, he soon lost interest. Switched his attentions to Miss Fenwick the minute she showed up.
She
has money of her own. Still, that’s no excuse for Mr. Cooper to go and kill him.”

The callers had been listening closely to her story. At her outright accusation, they exchanged a startled look. “You think Cooper killed him?” Prance asked.

She shrugged her shoulders. “Who else? That was never woman’s work, shooting a man. The only other men in our group are retired clerics, and if you think any of them would know a gun from a gosling, you’re mistaken. No, if the deed was done by anyone in
our
group, it had to be Cooper. He was after Miss Fenwick as well. He had no more hope of winning her than winning the lottery but he couldn’t see that. Blinded by love. He really did care for her, I think.”

“You have no real reason to think Cooper did it?” Coffen asked. “Nothing in the way of a clue?”

“No, nothing like that. A fellow like Russell, there’s no saying who might have had a grudge against him. The only people I know who knew him are the ones in our whist group, you see, so I’ve been thinking along those lines. And of
our
group, Cooper’s the only one who might’ve done it.”

Prance gave her a coy smile. “Methinks you weren’t very fond of him yourself, Miss Barker.”

She blinked in astonishment.
“Me!
Don’t be daft. I got over my little crush long ago, when I figured out what he was after. What I know about the fellow for sure is that he had an eye for the ladies. Rich ladies, I mean. I ran into him once on Bond Street when I was out buying a birthday present for Aunt Jane — a little perfume bottle it was, ever so fine. She loved it. He was trying to chat up some lady who was making short shrift of him I can tell you. He was trying to make out he knew her, but she just said, 'I’m afraid you’re mistaken, my good man.' She gave him a look that would scald a cat and walked on.

“He saw me then, and looked as if he’d like to crown me. He couldn’t have realized I overheard her, for he called after her, ‘Fine, we’ll talk later, Polly.’ She didn’t even bother to turn around, but just walked on, stiff as a poker.”

“What did she look like?” Coffen asked.

“A proud looking lady. Very stylish. Quite pretty. Good figure too.”

“What age?”

“Oh, that age that’s still trying to look young.
You
know. On the sunny side of forty, I’d say at a guess. Maybe thirty-five. Black hair. I’ve seen her about before a few times but I have no idea who she is.”

“Where have you seen her before?” Coffen asked.

Reginald, becoming bored with it all, said, “Does this really matter, Coffen? It was just some lady he accosted on the street.”

“I was thinking it could be the lady that called on him at his flat. You remember the landlady called her a proud lady and mentioned the good figure.”

Miss Barker slapped her knee and cried, “You never mean it! He had a lady calling on him at his flat? I wager Miss Fenwick doesn’t know about
that!”

“So where have you seen her before?” Coffen repeated. “You mentioned you’d seen her a couple of times.”

“Oh lord, I don’t really remember. She’s never been to call on Aunt Jane and I don’t go out to the kind of places a lady like that would go. It must have been on Bond Street, or maybe here on Grosvenor Square. I sometimes go out for a walk in the fine weather.”

Coffen sat, digesting this. “If you see her again, it would be a real help if you could follow her, see where she goes.”

Miss Barker looked a little leery at this idea. “I suppose I could try,” she said.

“That’d be grand. I’ll leave my card. If you could just drop me a line.” He rooted through his pockets but no card was forthcoming among the assortment of coins, string, a rabbit’s foot and three dusty peppermint drops that he drew forth.

“The butler has my card,” Reg said. He turned to her. “Just drop me a line, in the unlikely event that you see the lady again and are able to follow her.” He rose and gave Coffen a commanding look.

“Surely you’ll stay for some refreshment!” Miss Barker said.

Coffen definitely looked interested. Before he could agree, Prance said, “We really must be off. So nice meeting you.”

“You’ve been a big help,” Coffen added. “We’ll be talking to you again soon.”

She followed them out to the door, where she and the butler fought over the privilege of seeing the gentlemen out. The butler won.

“Well?” Prance said, when they were in the carriage. “Did you get anything out of that?”

“I’m not sure. I’ll have to think about it.”

“Where can I drop you?”

“I’ll go along to Bond Street with you. Don’t worry I mean to tag along into the shops. I’ll just walk and think.”

He proceeded to sit and think while they drove along to Bond Street.

On Bond Street the luxury goods of the world were on display in shop windows and Prance, who doted on finery, could have afforded more than one man’s share of them. Yet in all the vast array of silks and silver, snuff boxes, china and crystal, jewels and bibelots of all sorts, nothing tempted him to buy.

In frustration, he was driven home to sulk. He spent a fruitless afternoon with Lady Lorraine but got no farther with her than he did in discovering whether Byron was attending Lady Dunn’s party. Frustration put him in a foul mood.

When he had a note from Byron asking whether he would see him that evening at Lady Dunn’s, his misery was complete. Who, after all, was Lady Dunn to snub him? Who was she before she was Lady Dunn? Where did she come from? He had never heard of her until last week, ergo she was no one.

Was he sunk to spending an evening with Coffen Pattle? Damned if he would. He would take to his bed and claim a sick headache. It was an excuse not to reply to Byron’s note, and a pretext for calling on him the next morning to explain the lapse. And of course find out about the rout party. If folks assumed he had been invited, he needn’t enlighten them.

Luten would gladly have given Prance his invitation, if it had been possible. He attended the party purely as a duty. He knew Corinne liked parties, and he felt he should become a little acquainted with the lady a cabinet minister was planning to make his wife. She might prove a friend for Corinne as so many of the political wives were older ladies.

The party was every bit as boring as he knew it would be. Fiddlers making a racket in the largest parlor, which was still too small to accommodate the three squares performing there. The other guests crowded into a drawing room that had been emptied of comfortable seats so that one had to stand. Champagne and orgeat in the refreshment parlor. He met and chatted to the same gentlemen he worked with every day, and danced with some of their wives. He made a special point to be friendly to Lady Dunn. When he saw Corinne talking to her in the refreshment parlor, he joined them.

“A lovely party, Lady Dunn,” he said, smiling as if he were having a marvelous time. The lady was wearing rouge and a too elaborate gown for a small party, and in a too vivid shade of green. Those diamonds, if he was not mistaken, were the Grafton diamonds, which she should not have been wearing until she wore Grafton’s title.

“You are too kind,” she replied. “Just a little last minute affair to repay some of our many social obligations. Grafton, you must know, is a shocking hermit. He would never go out if I didn’t push him. We shall have much nicer do’s after we are married, for I can’t entertain more than a handful of guests in this little doll house.”

“It’s a charming house,” Corinne assured her. “My own place on Berkeley Square is no larger.”

When the ladies began talking house management, Luten just stood, pretending to listen while thinking of other things.

“Then we are in the same boat, you and I,” Lady Dunn said, “but you, of course, were married to Lord deCoventry and would have a much better idea how to go on than I. I shall take you as my mentor when it is time to entertain Grafton’s guests properly.”

“When are you being married?” Corinne asked.

“In a month’s time. Just a quiet do at Mersey Hall, Grafton’s estate in Kent. Only his family and a few friends.”

“Where is your own family from? Are they not coming?” Corinne asked.

“Oh I come from way up north. I have only an ancient aunt and uncle there now, and they shan’t be coming. My parents passed away some years ago. Papa raised sheep in Northumberland. I shan’t invite my late husband’s family. They will think it very rash of me to remarry only five years after my husband’s death. And of course it would be a long trip for them, all the way from Northumberland.”