Petty Treason (14 page)

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Authors: Madeleine E. Robins

BOOK: Petty Treason
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“It appears that the kitchen door was unlocked when the cook arrived on the morning after the murder.”
“
Un
locked when the cook arrived?” he repeated.
“Yes, sir. All the servants swear they did not unbolt it. Which suggests that someone else did.” Miss Tolerance did not want to point out that if the servants had not done so, that left Mrs. d’Aubigny and the chevalier as the likely culprits. She did not like the possibility that could suggest to Heddison.
“The old man, Beak, may have forgot to bolt it in the first place, or may have forgot that he unbolted it in the morning.” Heddison turned to Anne d‘Aubigny again. “Do you know how that door came to be unlocked, ma’am?”
“I, sir? No, I could not say.”
“Could not say? Someone in your household may have let a murderer in and you cannot say? You expect that I will believe that?”
Anne d’Aubigny’s lips trembled. “I do, sir. I am afraid—” she attempted a joking tone. “I am afraid I do not even know what sort of lock the kitchen door has. I could not swear to its mechanism.”
The magistrate may have doubted this, but Miss Tolerance, having seen the staff’s protectiveness, found it credible if unfortunate.
Heddison cleared his throat. “What of your door, ma’am?”
“My door?”
Heddison nodded. “Was your chamber kept locked at night, ma’am?”
Mrs. d’Aubigny shook her head. “My door has no lock, sir.”
“No lock?”
“No lock, sir. My husband had it removed. He said such a thing was—had no place in the household of a gentleman.”
In the light of what she had learned of d’Aubigny’s character, Miss Tolerance thought this a very sinister piece of information. Mr. Heddison seemed to regard it only as proof of gentlemanly
eccentricity. He did ask a few pointed questions about the state of the d’Aubignys’ marriage—never quite asking if it had been a happy match. Mrs. d’Aubigny twisted her kerchief and looked from time to time at Miss Tolerance, who could only smile encouragingly.
At last Heddison rose to his feet.
“I will talk to your manservant. Thank you, ma’am.” He bowed curtly in Mrs. d’Aubigny’s direction, ignored Miss Tolerance, and left the room with Mr. Boyse, sniffing, just behind him.
Anne d’Aubigny turned to Miss Tolerance as if to finish a conversation only just interrupted. “You see? What is one to make of such treatment? One would think they believed I had left the door unbolted.”
Miss Tolerance shook her head sadly, wondering how best to make Anne d’Aubigny understand her peril. Plain speaking was surely her best course.
“‘Tis worse than that, ma’am,” she said quietly. “They think you may be the murderer.”
“
B
elieve me the murderer?”
Miss Tolerance closed her eyes and took a breath.
She is an innocent,
she thought
. No one has ever thought worse of her than that she drank up all the nursery cream or took two sweetmeats from the dish instead of one.
She opened her eyes and spoke quietly.
“I had hoped you understood, ma’am. You are threatened, not only by the real murderer, but by the chance that you may be the Crown’s best suspect. The law considers the murder of a man by his wife worse than mere homicide—the punishment is a terrible one. It is why I beg that you take your situation seriously. Your brother believes your greatest danger is from an attacker; my fear is that Mr. Heddison may decide that you had cause and opportunity to kill your husband yourself.”
Mrs. d’Aubigny stared at her hands, curled in her lap. “Do you think I could do such a thing?” she asked. In the black mourning dress and cap, in this ill-lit room, her pallor was almost luminous. She appeared even smaller than Miss Tolerance knew her to be. “Do you think I overpowered my husband?” Her voice shook. Another moment and she would likely be in full hysterics.
Miss Tolerance knelt by the widow’s chair and took her hand.
“Please believe, ma’am, that I do not think you are the murderer. But you are best served by the truth with no varnish upon it: Mr. Heddison very likely considers you a suspect in your husband’s death.”
“And what—what is this terrible punishment? Are not murderers hanged? What could be worse than that?”
“Burning,” Miss Tolerance said baldly. She let this intelligence sink in for a moment before she went on. “You understand now why it is imperative that you tell me anything which may be helpful in my investigation.”
Madame d’Aubigny nodded and allowed herself to be seated again.
“You were going to explain Mrs. Vose’s presence in your house, ma’am. Since I have recently seen her at the
salon
of Madame Camille Touvois, you may imagine that my curiosity is considerable upon this point.”
Anne d’Aubigny began to twist her handkerchief.
“Miss Tolerance.” Her voice was very low. “In order to explain, I must confide in you certain things I do not want—I had rather die than see spread.”
“Rather die?” Again Miss Tolerance felt a pang of impatience. “That is too easily said. Please believe I will do my best to see that the secrets of your marriage are not broadcast. However, if it is a choice between upending those secrets or, by my silence, conspiring in your execution, you will understand that I have been hired to keep you alive. Please, ma’am, who is Mrs. Vose?”
“She was my husband’s mistress.” Mrs. d’Aubigny twisted her handkerchief until it was a hard gray line between her fingers. “You had probably guessed that. But—how am I to make you understand her true role here, Miss Tolerance? My husband meant her to be a humiliation to me, but she was often a friend. A protector.”
“A protector?”
Anne d’Aubigny pursed her lips as if to contain strong emotion. “Yes. I am not so foolish—no longer so foolish—as to believe her actions were entirely disinterested. I’m sure she had some benefit in taking my husband’s attention from me; I only know that when she came to him he did not—”
“He did not come to
you.”
Miss Tolerance nodded soberly. “Please forgive my plain speaking. I have learnt a little of your husband’s tastes—and that he made himself unwelcome with them, in the very houses that cater to such interests. If they, who are accustomed to a measure of brutality, would not tolerate him, I can only imagine his behavior to you. But you say he brought her
here
?”
Mrs. d’Aubigny nodded. “She said her lodgings were not suitable.”
Miss Tolerance could well imagine what Josette Vose’s lodgings were like. “I can certainly understand your loyalty to her while your husband lived. I am less able to fathom why I found her here, the first morning that I called. You were not come together to mourn the chevalier, surely?”
“Mourn? No.” Mrs. d’Aubigny sniffed at the absurdity of the idea. “But Josette came to condole with me, and asked if I would like her to stay for a day or so. She was kind to me, Miss Tolerance; I had come to depend upon her. You saw how she protected me—even from you! But after a few days she left us—said it was better that way.”
“I see.” Miss Tolerance reflected upon Anne d’Aubigny’s peculiar knack for awakening sympathy and protectiveness. She herself had felt it; why should not Josette Vose, to whom she was more intimately connected? Still, that woman who had dismissed her from the house, and whom she had seen paying court to the Duke of Cumberland, did not much accord with the image of a tender mother hen.
“When was the last time Mrs. Vose was in your house before the murder?”
The widow shrugged. “A day or two before, I think.”
“She was not in the house on the night of the murder?”
Anne d’Aubigny looked at Miss Tolerance blankly. “She did not tell me so.”
A peculiar answer, Miss Tolerance thought. Then she recalled that the widow had taken a sleeping draught on the night of the murder, and had even slept through the discovery of the body.
“Did your servants mention her?” she asked.
Madame d’Aubigny shook her head.
The Coroner’s Court had not mentioned the presence of Mrs. Vose either, Miss Tolerance thought. She was left with the sense that there was a question she had not yet asked. Unable to frame that question, she went on.
“You understand that this information will change my investigation. Did you tell Mr. Heddison of the chevalier’s relationship with Mrs. Vose?”
Anne d’Aubigny shook her head, her eyes very wide. “She was here the first day he called—we said she was my cousin. How could I tell Mr. Heddison what she—what she is?”
“How could you
not
?”
“But why should it matter? Josette said—”
Miss Tolerance bit her lip. She could well imagine any number of things Mrs. Vose might have said. “I understand your gratitude to Mrs. Vose—I’m sure she is blameless.” In fact, she was sure of no such thing. “But those around her might not be. If she had an admirer—or a pimp, or a brother who resented the chevalier’s attentions? You must write Mr. Heddison and tell him of Mrs. Vose’s true relationship to your husband.”
The widow’s lip trembled. Miss Tolerance leaned forward in her chair and took the other woman’s hand, holding it in a strong grasp. “I would not say you must do this if I did not believe it necessary to your safety,” she said. “I will go and speak to Mrs. Vose myself. Do you know where she lodges?”
Mrs. d’Aubigny pulled her hand from Miss Tolerance’s. “I believe she said she lived near Marylebone Road. It might be Knox Street, but I am not certain. Please, Miss Tolerance, it distresses me to trouble Mrs. Vose, who has been so good to me—” Her breath was coming fast, and the handkerchief in her hands was impossibly twisted.
“All I intend is to talk with her, just as I did with Beak and Mrs. Sadgett and the rest,” Miss Tolerance said soothingly. She permitted a few minutes of silence to pass in hope that the widow would recover herself. When Anne d’Aubigny’s breathing had slowed and her pallor was tinged with pink, Miss Tolerance said, “I have two more questions and then I will leave you. Are
you acquainted with a friend of your husband’s, a Mr. Beauville?”
Miss Tolerance had the sense that Mrs. d’Aubigny had braced herself for a more difficult question. “I know his name, and I believe my husband was often in his company, gaming and at sport, but we never met. I understand Mr. Beauville is an émigré, like my husband.”
It was no more than Mrs. Lasher of Green Street had said.
“You would not know his direction?”
Mrs. d’Aubigny shook her head. “I knew that Beauville was his intimate. And that they shared a fondness for the same amusements.” Her tone was bitter. “Otherwise, I cannot help you.”
“I’ll run him to the ground one way or another. Perhaps Mrs. Lasher—she keeps the establishment I mentioned to you—can be persuaded to be more forthcoming.”
“Mrs. Lasher knew my husband well?”
“Well enough to describe him and his habits tolerably well. She said he was so devoted to his amusements that he was accustomed to bring his own kit of—” Here Miss Tolerance stopped, unable to define what such a kit would have contained. “It is my understanding that the chevalier had a collection of implements for use with women like Mrs. Vose.”
“The box.” Mrs. d’Aubigny’s eyes had closed. She nodded.
Miss Tolerance looked at the widow, shuddered and damned her own stupidity. A blow was one thing; but somehow she had not believed d’Aubigny could practice the worst of his cruelty upon his wife. Had she thought Anne d’Aubigny was naive? She swallowed bile and asked as gently as she could, “Can you tell me anything about it?”
Anne d’Aubigny spoke without inflection. “The box was made of rosewood, I think. It had come over from France with the family. It was lined with red silk. In it he had …” She shook her head. “I do not know where the box is.”
“Is there any reason you know of that the box might be material to my investigation?”
Mrs. d’Aubigny shook her head. Her eyes were still closed. Miss Tolerance waited in silence while the widow regained her composure.
“Perhaps that is all I need trouble you with today, ma’am,” she said at last. “It is only my real concern for your safety that made it necessary to speak of such distressing things.”
“I understand, Miss Tolerance. I appreciate your kindness.” She ran her hands over her cheeks to wipe away any evidence of tears and rose to make her farewell. “You must come to me with any other questions you have.”
Miss Tolerance curtsied. “I will, ma’am. Thank you.”
A last glance as she left the room showed her the widow seated again, staring thoughtfully at the fire. The book of sermons lay forgotten at her feet. As she went down the stairs Miss Tolerance reflected, not for the first time, that whoever had killed the Chevalier d’Aubigny had done the world a considerable service.
 
 
T
here was still enough light left to admit of a visit to the area of Marylebone to seek out Mrs. Vose. Miss Tolerance pulled the collar of the Gunnard coat closer to her face against the rising wind and hailed a hackney carriage. She gave the jarvey the direction of a tavern she remembered in that area. Miss Tolerance liked taverns; they were hotbeds of useful gossip, often with keepers who were not particular with whom they shared this largesse. She settled back in the carriage, an old, ill-sprung specimen smelling of piss and chypre, and tried to piece together what she had learned.
She was frankly curious to meet Mrs. Vose again. On the first meeting the woman had made little impression upon her except as a barrier to her task. In a sober gown and close-dressed hair she had looked more like the housekeeper Miss Tolerance had taken her to be than a courtesan specializing in the more exotic branches of Eros. The woman she had seen at Camille Touvois’ was more in that line, gowned and jeweled and glowing in the golden candlelight, coming forward to curtsy to the Duke of Cumberland with an expression half salacious and half speculative.
There is a considerable distance between an émigré civil servant and a royal duke. Mrs. Vose had certainly set her sights high since taking leave of the Chevalier d’Aubigny.
Miss Tolerance considered.
Anne d’Aubigny had said that Mrs. Vose’s last visit to the Half Moon Street house had been a day or two before d’Aubigny’s murder. But Mrs. Lasher had said that a woman called Josie, lately d‘Aubigny’s mistress, had split with him some weeks before his death. If Josie and Josette Vose were one and the same, which seemed to Miss Tolerance’s mind a logical assumption, then what had brought Mrs. Vose to Half Moon Street a fortnight after the relation between herself and d’Aubigny had been severed? And why would the woman come back to the house after the murder? Anne d’Aubigny might believe it to be disinterested kindness on Mrs. Vose’s part, but professionally Miss Tolerance did not place much reliance upon disinterested kindness.
Mrs. Vose was not known at the first alehouse Miss Tolerance tried. At the second, a small, dark room lit by a sullen fire, a few lanterns hung up too high to do much good, and a quantity of greasy yellow candles, the barman agreed that he did know a working woman by name of Josie Vose, who lived with two others in a similar line of work in rooms on Balcombe Street, near Boston Place. Miss Tolerance gratefully slid a coin across the bar and left the Queen’s Head. It had been warmer in the alehouse, but only slightly so.
A crowd of boys hovered on the corner of Boston Place. A few held brooms and looked hopeful as Miss Tolerance passed; the others were content to dance in the cold, beating their arms against their sides and commenting loudly upon passersby. Miss Tolerance beckoned to the nearest of the crossing-sweeps, a fair, grubby, red-nosed boy of about seven years, and asked him her question.
“Do I know ’er, sir?” the boy croaked.
“Know’oo?” one of mates asked, crowding in. In a second Miss Tolerance was surrounded by the boys—seven or eight of them—all offering to give directions, sweep the street, call a chair for the “gentleman.”

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