The Dark Enquiry (23 page)

Her eyes bored into me and it was quite like staring down a hawk. I had no doubt she would curse my very bones if I disappointed her, and in that moment, I was more than a little afraid of her.

“I shall remember it,” I promised her.

“See that you do.”

We walked on, saying nothing for a moment, and it was companionable, the silence that lay between us. But I felt compelled to confide in her, and we were still some distance from her
vardo
when I spoke.

“I worry for him,” I said in such a low, small voice I was startled when she made me a reply.

“He was an old man even in his cradle,” she said. “He knew what he wanted and he meant to have it. He has always been so.”

I nodded. “I understand what you mean. It’s that determination in him that frightens me sometimes. He will not accept himself for what he is, and the means he takes to forget…”

I broke off, remembering things I would happily have banished from my memory forever. Brisbane, crouching like a wounded animal, shielding his eyes from the light and the pain of the headaches that tormented him.

“I know he does not want the visions, but I wonder if the alternatives are worse,” I burst out. “The things he doses himself with, the absinthe and the hashish and the opium.”

She looked at me sharply. “He touches opium? Keep him away from it. He has had troubles with it in the past.”

I hastened to reassure her. “He does not use it now, but I know he has in the past, and I know it was not good for him.” I did not mention the hypocrisy of my joining him in an occasional languid smoke from the hookah pipe.

Granny Bones was watching me out of the tail of her eye, her attention seemingly fixed upon a little bird pecking at thistle seeds upon the ground.

“Hey, nonny, little bird, peck, peck, peck,” she said softly.

I pursed my lips in impatience. Granny had been sharp as a new pin for the whole of our visit until I had need of her advice.

“Be calm,” she said soothingly, and I realised she was not talking to the bird.

“How am I supposed to be calm? I worry,” I retorted.

She gave a snort. “Then you are more stupid than I supposed. Worry, what is that? A pointless thing is Master Worry—an intruder. He steals into your house and creeps into your bed and what do you do, child? Do you push him away and tell him to be gone and bolt the door fast against him? No, you move over and let him have the good pillow and the best quilt to warm himself.” She flapped a hand in disgust. “Worry never did a man a bit of good. All he does is rob one’s peace and make lines on the face.” She peered at my skin then, scrutinising the corners of my eyes. “Myrrh. Throw a handful onto the fire and bathe your face in the vapours. It will soften those wrinkles.”

“I do not have wrinkles.”

She laughed—a rusty, wheezing sound—and slapped me soundly upon the back. “And now you worry again. Don’t. It is bad for the digestion, too.”

We walked on and I tried once more to make her understand my troubles. “Telling someone not to worry is a rather specious bit of advice, don’t you think?”

She shrugged. “You are not Roma. I give good advice to Roma. You are a
gorgio.
I do not understand your ways.”

“But I am asking about Brisbane, and he is a Rom,” I pointed out triumphantly.

Granny paused again, crossing her arms over her low breasts and giving me a sigh. “You want an answer to a man who is not a problem to be solved. He is no equation of mathematics, child. He is a man and a complicated one. I will give you a willow-bark tonic that will help with the headaches, but besides this, there is nothing I can do. He chases shadows. He is haunted by what he cannot see, ghosts that are as fleeting as moonlight or smoke. There is nothing to be done for him unless he wishes it,” she added, and as she finished, she set her jaw in a way that I had seen Brisbane do only too often. It meant finality, and I knew better than to press the issue further.

“Very well,” I murmured.

Granny peered at me. “And don’t sulk. It, too, is bad for the complexion. Remind me to give you a tonic.”

There was a feast that night, a celebration of sorts for the child recalled to his senses, and much merriment ensued. Flasks of pear brandy were passed from hand to hand, and although I was offered mine in a cup—for my
gorgio
blood was unclean to them and would taint the shared bottle—it was kept full. There were stories told in a tongue I did not speak, but Brisbane murmured interpretations to me. There was dancing and music, violins scraping as skirts flew and feet stamped. Even the dancing bears came out, for Ludo brought them on gilded leather leashes, wearing their scarlet waistcoats and stepping as neatly as opera dancers at his commands. I longed to photograph them, and I was bitterly disappointed that I had come away without my camera. I wanted to capture them all, and I promised myself I would return as soon as possible to take photographs. In the meanwhile, I ate plateful after plateful of delicious things and drank a quantity of very good wine, which I suspected had been pilfered from a rather excellent cellar, and if anyone noticed that I occasionally passed little titbits inside my blouse they were polite enough not to remark upon it. The dormouse took each offering daintily as a princess, wiping each whisker carefully afterwards and blinking those wide black eyes as it stared up at me. Rook sulked a little until I found him another great bone to gnaw upon, and then he settled down happily. At one point, I noticed Brisbane was absent, but it was not out of the ordinary for the men to form groups of their own to gossip and tell stories, so I dismissed the thought and accepted another cup of pear brandy.

After I had eaten, Lala pressed her youngest child upon me, and the infant sat in my lap, clapping its sticky hands until I passed it along to someone else. But the precedent had been set, and from that moment on, I was seldom without a child in my lap or at my feet, particularly the girls, who seemed vastly interested in my pale skin and green eyes. The older girls scrutinised my clothes, which they considered hopelessly drab and dull, and pitied me my jewels. I had come away with few, only my wedding ring and the silver Medusa pendant that I accounted more precious than any of the emeralds and diamonds in my collection. But it was an unworthy thing to these girls, accustomed as they were to the warm seduction of gold. I was a curiosity to them, for although they often moved amongst the English for purposes of commerce, they had seldom if ever held a lengthy conversation with one. They had heard I was rich and that my father had a title, but they had expected better of me, I realised. They wanted pearls and satin and a great carriage with horses trimmed in plumes. Instead, I wore a tweed country suit and had arrived on foot with a carpetbag. I was a sore disappointment, I think, but they asked many questions and I was happy to answer them. They were particularly interested in the plumbing arrangements at our house, and turned shocked faces when I described the water closet.

“But it is unclean!” they cried, horrified at the notion of attending to nature in any proximity to where one slept, and if there was one thing I learned from my time amongst the Roma, it was how devotedly hygienic they were. There was a scrupulous system dictating where one washed, where one retrieved cooking water, where one’s horses drank. They did not permit their horses to take water from the municipal troughs, for they found them dirty and stagnant, and their beasts were given only the same fresh running water that they themselves drank, although from farther downstream. For all their reputation for filth, they were cleaner and tidier than many aristocrats I have known, and I wondered briefly if that was where Brisbane had acquired his fastidious bent along with his musical talents.

“Penny for your thoughts,” he murmured into my ear at one point in the evening.

“I was wishing you would play tonight,” I told him. “It is seldom that you pick up your violin anymore.”

Those witch-black eyes stared into mine, and he lifted my hand. Without taking his gaze from my face, he pressed a kiss to the palm, smiling a little at my sharp intake of breath.

“Brisbane,” I murmured.

“I am yours to command,” he said, dropping my hand and striding easily to where one of his cousins was tuning a violin. Brisbane said something to him, and his cousin surrendered the instrument with a smile and a slap to his back. Brisbane ran his hands over the silken curves of the wood, his brow furrowed as he applied his deft touch to every inch of the instrument. He plucked a string, sounding a note as plaintive as a sob, and then he picked up the bow. A hush fell over the crowd, and I saw the smiles of anticipation.

He waited a moment more, heightening the longing of every soul who waited, winding the tension higher and hotter until at last he touched the bow to the string. The first note was a cry of yearning. He conjured the voice of the violin, and it was as fluent as any human voice. It spoke, it sobbed, it wailed in anguish. And then, when it seemed as if no further agony could be wrung from it, the voice began to change subtly. At first it was the merest note slipping sinuously between the lamentations. But soon the notes came faster and closer together, strung together like pearls on a thread, each one round and ripe and luminous. He kept his eyes closed as he played, his fingers moving in a fashion I knew only too well. The melody was a seductive one, calling forth desires for dark pleasures and unshriven sins. The shadows hid my blushes, but I was deeply aware of the trembling that had taken hold of me.

Brisbane played on, tormenting me deliciously with the demands of that voice. It seemed to come from everywhere, surrounding me, whispering in my blood as the music flew on the night air. It was as if he meant to play for the moon itself and the stars bent near to listen. My lips parted and my thighs shook, and I was not surprised to see a few of the men take their womenfolk by the hand and disappear into the shadows. One or two of the girls rose and began to dance, stamping and clapping, and in the midst of it stood Brisbane, playing with such complete abandon he seemed not to see them at all.

Suddenly, the feverish melody seemed to scream its ecstasy, ending in a long, profound wail of satisfaction, the note spinning out until Brisbane could sustain it no further. He dropped the bow and the crowd erupted in cheers, passing him a bottle of pear brandy and calling for an encore. He played another piece then, this one a simple, beautiful bit of melody that conjured tranquillity with a touch of melancholy. It was a wistful lullaby from antiquity, haunting and unforgettable, but gently so. I was glad of the respite, and I fanned my heated cheeks as Lala leaned near.

“We have a saying, you know. When a musician plays like that, it’s because the Devil is in him.”

Her manner was arch and sly, and I suspected she knew precisely how affected I had been by Brisbane’s music.

“Then I have nothing to fear,” I said lightly. “Everyone knows the Devil takes care of his own.”

It was some time before Brisbane was permitted to put the violin aside, and I had sufficiently recovered my composure when he rejoined me.

“So, wife,” he said, “how like you the Gypsy life?”

“I find it astonishingly relaxing,” I told him truthfully. “What simplicity! No house to worry over, no vast wardrobe to keep. No investments or property or staff to manage.” I threw out my arms, growing expansive. “Only the sky and the stars and the earth itself.”

Brisbane plucked the cup from my hand. “That is quite enough brandy for you.”

“I mean it,” I told him. “It is entirely unfettered.”

“And wholly unstable,” he added. “You have succumbed to the lure of Gypsy romance. Understandable,” he hastened to add. “Most folk do if they spend a few days with them. But it is barely autumn now. Imagine this life when it grows cold, when the snow is so thick upon the ground you can find nothing to eat and the ice must be broken before the horses can drink. Or when it is high summer and the grass is burnt dry and there is no respite from the searing sun.”

“Well, that does not sound very nice,” I admitted.

“Or when there is only enough food for half the tribe and you have to fight with your own cousins to see who gets to eat that day,” he went on, his eyes deeply shadowed. “When you have outgrown your only coat and you have to steal a newspaper to put inside your shirt to keep the cold out. When you pick a pocket and your mother whips you because your fingers were clumsy.”

His voice had taken on a faraway quality, and I said nothing as he went on, half to himself. “Or the men come,
gorgio
men, with dogs and torches, turning out the
vardos
and throwing your only food upon the fire because the law will let them, and their children spit on you and call you names while their mothers smile. That is what it is to be a Gypsy,” he finished.

“Sometimes I am very stupid,” I said, my hand stealing into his. He lifted it, suddenly, pressing a hard kiss to the palm.

“Never stupid. You simply find the best in everything. I cannot comprehend how to do that,” he added, shaking his head in wonder. “It is enough to be near it.”

I turned my head, deeply moved by what he said, and gave a hard sniff. I turned back after a moment. “Yes, well, thinking the best of people is not going to solve Madame’s murder or find our blackmailer,” I reminded him.

He gave me a nudge. “Come, back to the tent. It is time to talk.”

We slipped away to our tent and Brisbane dropped the flap, cocooning us into our own little world. It was cosy, and I rather liked it, but Brisbane had nothing but business upon his mind. He moved the bedding aside to reveal a patch of dirt and began to scratch it with his penknife.

“We have two points of enquiry in this investigation. First,” he said, drawing a slash with the blade, “is the blackmailer’s money. I brought five thousand pounds with me to Highgate, and yet there was no opportunity to leave it. The blackmailer was content to draw me out and equally content to leave without his purported goal—money. Why?”

“Because he had a greater purpose,” I returned promptly.

“So it would seem. But why was the opportunity to attack you worth more than five thousand pounds?” He fell silent, musing a moment. “It tells us one thing,” he said finally. “That he has no accomplice in whom he can place his trust. If he had, one of them could have collected the money whilst the other set the fire. He must be acting alone.”

He made a second mark in the dirt. “The second point is Monk’s enquiries into the finances of the guests of the Spirit Club. If they are in difficulty, it would prove a motive to blackmail.”

“But not if the funds were never collected,” I said, taking the blade to scratch a question mark next to his slash.

“And why attempt to break into the house when they believed you to be there? It would have made far more sense to do it when they knew both of us to be out.”

He took the knife back and traced the outline of the ground floor of our house. Apart from the silver, all of our real valuables were kept upstairs, either in my dressing room or his. There was no profit to be had in setting fire to the house, only damage.

“I cannot see it,” he muttered. “Why can I not see it?”

He closed his eyes. He remained quiet a long moment, then suddenly opened his eyes and hurled the knife towards the ground where the taut blade stuck fast, the handle quivering slightly.

“I cannot see it,” he said again, his voice tight with frustration. “It must be revenge or manipulation. Either the blackmailer cares more about destroying Bellmont and you than money, or he wanted to ensure that I would stay to play his game by involving you. There is no other explanation.”

“And no way to know which at present,” I soothed. I took the knife again and made a fresh mark in the earth. “But there is another point I realised after our discussion with Ludo today. He said Agathe was a fraud as a medium, that she knew clever tricks, but nothing more. Yet when I left her, she mentioned my mother.”

Brisbane’s brows rose. “The Countess March?”

“She mentioned her by name, Charlotte. And she spoke of her perfume. Agathe knew who she was.”

Brisbane gave a smothered roar of frustration. “Did you not think it might be significant to mention this to me at some point?”

“I just did,” I pointed out.

He thrust his hands through his hair. “Julia, if she knew who your mother was, she knew who you were. That means she had to have made enquiries into your past
before you came
.”

I stared at him, suddenly quite cold. “That is not possible. She could not have guessed my identity. I was very careful.”

“Did you sign the guestbook?” he demanded.

I pulled a face. “Of course not! At least not in my own name. I used an alias. Honestly, Brisbane, how stupid do you think me?”

He ignored the question. “Did you give her your hat?”

“Naturally. It is impolite for a gentleman to keep his hat once inside.”

He said nothing, but merely waited for me to reach the proper conclusion myself. I gave a groan. “Oh, God, that is how she does it! Every gentleman must give up something—a hat, a coat, gloves, a walking stick. She takes them and examines them for clues, for information to pass to Madame to use in the séance. And the label in my hat says J. Brisbane,” I related miserably.

“And she would have seen the label in your hat and noted it for the future.”

“But why go to the trouble of investigating me?”

“The others she likely already knew. They were either clients Madame had seen before or they made appointments in advance to give Agathe time to learn as much as she could about them and relate those facts to Madame.”

“But I was unknown,” I mused. “An unknown who had given her a false name. That must have piqued her curiosity. From there, she would have noted the connection between my real surname and Bellmont. But wait—” I broke off, puzzling it over. “Would she have connected the Comte de Roselende with Lord Bellmont’s
sister?
”

Brisbane mused a moment. “She would have at least noted the coincidence. And she would have been entirely prepared for your next visit in either guise. She would have spent hours researching your history, memorising just enough detail to be artfully dropped into conversation to persuade you of her talents. It is a classic medium’s trick and vastly easier when one’s clientele comes from a particular class whose movements are chronicled in the daily newspapers and society columns,” he observed.