The Grenadillo Box: A Novel (37 page)

“Well enough, sir.”

“I believe it is identical to Lord Bradfield’s?”

“That is because it is his. Are you acquainted with Lord Bradfield?”

“Slightly. I was at his entertainment last evening. I’ve met him in Cambridge once or twice, at Lord Foley’s.”

This explanation reassured him further. His face relaxed. Time to broach the subject for which I’d come.

“Does Lord Bradfield take it out frequently for airings?”

“Not so often. He prefers the comfort of the town coach. ’Tis more usually his son, George, that likes to take turns in the park in it.”

“Does he drive alone?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes with his friends. And ’e says it gives the ladies a thrill to race round the trees and nearly crash into them.”

“What of gentleman acquaintances?”

“Robert Montfort takes his turn. You might be acquainted with him?”

I nodded to show that I was. “I believe I saw the two of them out yesterday morning.”

“Aye, I’d guess ’tis for the two of them we’re preparing it now.”

“D’you not know who takes it then?”

“Not always. We drive the carriage round to the house. Sometimes they might come immediately, other times they might not, and if we have orders to get ready another vehicle, we leave it with the footman.”

I felt a slight twinge of disappointment. “And yesterday?”

The wariness returned. “What’s all this for, sir? Nothing to do with buying a carriage, I’m thinking.”

“I’m interested, that’s all,” I said, with an affable smile. I took a shilling from Foley’s purse and slipped it in his pocket.

He shook his head as if I was taking a terrible liberty but answered me nonetheless. “Yesterday I saw the two gentlemen go in the carriage at their usual hour.”

“At what time was that?”

He answered without hesitation. “Ten, ten-thirty.” This was as I expected.

“There was nothing out of the ordinary?”

“What d’you mean, ‘out of the ordinary’?”

“Had the carriage been used earlier?”

He cast another curious glance in my direction. “I don’t know how you’ve become so well acquainted with their comings and goings, or what it is to you, but yes, as I recall, it was taken out early, before the two gentlemen drove it.”

“By whom?”

“By a lady. Miss Alleyn.”

“Miss Alleyn?”

The reply left me speechless as a baby.

“Was she alone?” I persisted.

“She was alone in the mews, but I fancy there was someone waiting nearby to drive her.”

I breathed again; this was more probable. “Did you see this other person?”

“No, but she mentioned her nephew’s name. And one of the grooms arriving late that morning said he saw the carriage cross the square driven by a gentleman in a dark green coat.”

“Did Miss Alleyn return with the carriage later?”

“No, she said she’d take it straight to the house for her nephew and George.”

Finally I comprehended the extent of the murderer’s guile. Hadn’t I seen Robert wearing a gentleman’s green coat? Until this moment I’d mistakenly thought it was merely the painted stripe I remembered, but now I knew that the hunched figure within had been wearing a coat of the same hue. The figure had been Robert Montfort. Miss Alleyn’s complicity was easily explained. When she told me of her history, she had disclosed that she lavished affection on Robert. She had become a surrogate mother to him. Had I not observed how she protected him from anything that might cause him disturbance, how she forever ascribed to him the noblest of sentiments?

And so I unscrambled the orchestration of Madame Trenti’s murder. With such a devoted aunt at his beck and call, it would have been easy for Robert to persuade her to order the carriage and then hand it over to him. Thus Robert had completed his gruesome scheme safe in the knowledge that if the carriage were seen and questions asked it would be she who was identified, not him. He could be certain Miss Alleyn would never betray him; certain that her loyalty would blind her to his deviousness.

The very unexpectedness of the groom’s information made me skeptical, made me question it, and spurred me to reach my judgment. And so, as if a beam of light had suddenly illuminated a dark room I’d always wanted to see, I looked in through the open door and observed what I wanted to be there, what until then I had only imagined.

All along I had correctly divined that the evil that had sparked this vicious sequence of events emanated from Horseheath Hall. Now I saw I’d have to make one final visit there if I was to curtail it, for it was only within those desolate, unhappy walls that I would be able to reconsider and comprehend all the perplexing details we’d found at the deaths of Montfort and Partridge—the grenadillo box, the pistol, the leeches, the footprints. There would be logical explanations for all of them, of this I was in no doubt. Furthermore, although I knew how Madame Trenti was killed, I had yet to comprehend
why.

Despite my resolution, certain of my anxieties remained unaltered. I hadn’t forgotten Robert Montfort’s malice towards me, nor that he was due to return to Horseheath the next day. Alice herself was due to accompany him and stay there at his invitation. Although I was more tremulous than ever when I thought of Robert, a new purpose infused me. I would slip into the house unseen; Robert Montfort wouldn’t discover my presence until I was ready to reveal it and have him apprehended.

I pondered Robert’s strange invitation to Alice. Why had she, rather than I, become a focus for his intentions? For what reason other than an evil one would a vicious murderer invite a lady he scarcely knew to his home? Something she had let slip in her conversation with him must have made him suspect she was closer than I to discovering the truth. What could this be? The answer came with dreadful certainty. Doubtless she had viewed her conversation with Robert as an opportunity to gather more information. Possibly she had tried to discover the driver of the carriage. It was, after all, the reason we had gone together to Bradfield’s party. Perhaps (and this thought filled me with dread) she had innocently asked him if he had been out driving that morning. In any event, once he had divined how much she knew, it could be no coincidence that Robert had asked her to Horseheath. The invitation had been tendered not because he wished to hear her opinion of his projected works
but because he wished to silence her.
Afterwards, presumably, it would be my turn, and then perhaps Foley’s, for I was convinced that Robert Montfort was the demented maniac behind all these deaths, and that he would kill and kill again to avoid detection.

I recalled the hideous images of Montfort’s blasted head, Madame Trenti’s broken body; of the dog laid out on the table and Partridge’s fingers crammed in the box. It was clear as a looking glass that if Alice went to Horseheath she would be placing herself in the clutches of Robert, and the shadow of inconceivable danger would fall upon her.

And so, having reached this great conclusion, I realized that it was paramount to protect Alice, to prevent her from leaving for Cambridge. She had mentioned that Robert planned to call on her that morning. If I happened to appear at her home at the same time, she might accuse me of overprotective jealousy and go off with him in a fit of pique. Thus I returned directly to the workshop and scrawled this hasty note.

As I wrote this line I heard footsteps ascending the stair. I knew I’d have to finish quickly.

The door opened and I broke off.

C
hippendale burst through the workshop door, sending wood shavings flying like autumn leaves in a gale. “Hopson,” he bellowed, without any preamble whatsoever, “you’re nowt but a trifler. And I don’t take kindly to your waywardness. I’ll tell you plain, I’ve had my fill of you.”

I tried not to feel flustered, but my heart began to pound. Here was the anger I’d anticipated at Madame Trenti’s establishment, only he’d unaccountably decided to unleash it now, a day late. And I hadn’t time for it.

“I am sorry for your displeasure, master. If you’ll allow me leave to explain—”

I might as well have said nothing, for the torrent surged on with barely an interval. “When I encountered you yesterday morning, I presumed two things. First, you’d returned from Cambridge having accomplished the task I set you—to retrieve my drawings; second, you’d come back to your duties directly. On both counts you’ve deceived me. This greatly displeases me, and I conclude you no longer value your position here.”

“Master,” I protested, “there can be no question of that. I am dedicated as ever to your enterprise. Why, I—”

Again he brusquely cut me off. “Enough. I won’t listen to your babble a moment longer. There are just two things I want to know from you, Hopson, and then you may leave. Where were you yesterday afternoon? And what has become of my drawings?”

“It is that I intended to explain. Events in Cambridge took an unexpected turn—”

His face ripened to an even deeper shade of purple. “Do you dare to ignore my questions, Hopson?
Where are my drawings?
”

I hesitated just long enough to concoct a response to suit my purpose. “Still at Horseheath as far as I know.”

Chippendale shook his head. “As far as you know,” he echoed incredulously. “Of what use is such a lukewarm assurance?”

I looked sheepishly back, saying nothing, which only annoyed him further.

“There is little influences an employer more in favor of his workman, when he wants something awkward, than if the workman is able to deliver it. You, however, have done the very opposite. Knowing what I wanted, you have repeatedly
failed
to deliver it. Ask yourself, Hopson, were I a patron employing you to furnish my house, would I continue to use you?”

I forced a penitent sigh and looked at my feet, hoping the meeker I appeared, the quicker the storm would blow itself out, and he’d leave me to get on with my pressing business.

“You know the terms upon which you entered my service?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Yet you deliberately flout them?”

“Not deliberately, sir. If I could ask you again, permit me to explain—”

“Damn you, Hopson! Who are
you
to make such demands of
me
? Nothing but a slip-slopping dawdler without an ounce of spirit. When I was your age I’d sooner have hanged myself than carried on in such a manner.”

I looked about the room, and my eye came to rest on Chippendale’s vast cabinet standing in the corner. The inner compartments and complex interior were complete, and the veneers had been applied. But although I could appreciate it as a masterpiece of craftsmanship, it struck me suddenly that it was utterly frivolous. What was the point of the hours lavished over the creation of something whose purpose was merely to amuse for a few minutes, before its novelty paled and some other entertainment beckoned? It was then that my temporarily suppressed temper got the better of me. Why should I endure such insults from a man who revered such frippery, who had treated Partridge so cruelly, whose ramblings were preventing me from assuring Alice’s safety?

I stood up and faced him defiantly. “Sir,” said I, “I’ve listened to your complaints and cannot disagree that you have it in your power to dismiss me. But if you do so without first hearing my explanation, I guarantee you’ll stand
no chance at all
of retrieving your precious drawings.”

The shaft hit home. Thunderstruck by the sudden change in my demeanor—my expression now bordered on contemptuous—he viewed me in incredulous silence. Sensing my advantage, I continued in the same belligerent tone. “I sorted your drawings as I agreed when I was last at Horseheath, and had secured Miss Alleyn and Lord Foley’s permission to remove them.” (This was untrue, but I’d abandoned all scruples in my quest to be rid of him.) “When Robert Montfort returned unexpectedly to the house, he took against me, and I found myself evicted before I could take them. After I saw you yesterday, at Madame Trenti’s house, I went in search of Lord Foley, in order to suggest that he should accompany me to the house to claim them, whereupon they will be immediately returned. I would have told you this yesterday, only you vanished after speaking to the justice and I didn’t wish to compromise the account you gave him of our arriving at her house together.”

My fabrication did not hold him at bay for long. He was unabashed by my reference to his untruthful record of the circumstances surrounding Madame Trenti’s death. “So the nub of what you propose is that I must continue to endure your disobedience; for if I don’t I’ll never retrieve my drawings?”

I nodded gravely. I could see he was still smoldering and that everything hung in the balance.

“I swear if you do not bring them to me you shall certainly starve. This is your final chance to acquit yourself of the task set you. If you fail, have no doubt I’ll have you carried to the watch house and tried by the justice for fraud.”

Knowing the threats were far from idle, I made no reply. Was not this similar to the way he had dealt with Partridge? Fortunately, however, he read my silence as meekness and it seemed to satisfy him. He stalked away without a further word.

As soon as he’d gone I finished the letter to Alice, stuffed it in my pocket, and grabbed my surtout, ready to dispatch the letter before any further hindrances presented themselves. Alas, I was too late. An apprentice darted in, saying Lord Foley had arrived in the shop and was asking for me. I sighed but went directly, knowing the sooner I spoke to him the sooner I’d be free to leave.

Foley was dressed in his usual finery—a pale blue velvet coat with curious silver buttons in the form of frogs. “Hopson. Good day to you, sir,” he drawled as ceremoniously as if I were a duke.

His civilities infuriated me. “Forgive me, my lord, there is a matter of some urgency. I am obliged to leave immediately. Perhaps we may postpone this conversation for some other time?”

But Foley obtusely refused to comprehend my desperation. Rather he seemed intent on detaining me. The minute I had entered the room where he was waiting, he had closed the door and stood in front of it.

“Very well,” he said after a maddening pause, “let us be brief then. I came to discover what you learned from Bradfield’s grooms at the mews. I had hoped to meet you there, but you had already departed by the time I arrived, and I confess the stench and the puddles were enough to deter me from questioning the men myself.”

“It is for that reason I must leave you,” I blurted. “I must send this letter at once to Miss Goodchild, or I fear her life will be in danger. And then I must return forthwith to Cambridge.”

Foley smiled and fingered the door handle. “In which case, my dear fellow, it is fortuitous that we are having this conversation. I have saved you time as far as Miss Goodchild is concerned. I passed Bradfield’s chaise galloping along the Western Road some half hour ago. In it were Robert Montfort and your Miss Goodchild.”

I started with alarm. “What the devil was she doing going today, when she told me it was tomorrow she was leaving? Are you quite certain, my lord?”

“Unquestionably. But gently, gently, Hopson, what’s the reason for your urgency? Is it a young man’s whimsy or something graver?”

I shot him a withering look. “Then it’s even more urgent that I travel to Cambridge this instant. For I am convinced that Miss Goodchild has inadvertently put her life in great peril, and that Robert Montfort murdered not only Partridge and Madame Trenti but his own father as well.”

I fancied a flicker of anxiety crossed his face, although his voice remained unruffled as ever. “In which case we shall travel together, in my carriage. On the way you will tell me all you know, for it seems there have been considerable advances since yesterday evening.”

A
nd so for the second time in a month I found myself coaching in comfort to Cambridge with Foley. Once we’d passed the Hatton turnpike I’d told him all I’d gleaned and what I’d made of it. He gave no sign whether he concurred with my opinions, gazing out of the window, lost in silent contemplation, turning back only occasionally to take a large pinch of snuff. After several hours’ traveling, as we thundered through Royston, he seemed to recall my presence.

“I think it best, Hopson, if for tonight at least you stay with me at Whitely Court. Bearing in mind your suspicions, and Robert Montfort’s threats, it would be unwise of you to present yourself there unexpectedly, even in my company.”

“But what of Alice? It is her safety that concerns me, not my own,” I blustered, incensed that he still refused to acknowledge the danger she was in.

“If Robert Montfort apprehends you, your presence will only excite his suspicions that the net is closing round him, and might spur him to take drastic action. In any event, Bradfield’s coach is a lumbering vehicle. Miss Goodchild will not have reached Horseheath until late this evening. I wager, however demented our quarry may be, she won’t be in any immediate danger.”

“What makes you believe so?”

“Another sudden death with no one else in the house would point the finger of suspicion in his direction. However crazed, I hazard our bird is also a wily one.”

I was exasperated by his casualness. “Lord Foley, it’s her safety you are gambling with, not a hand of cards. By what right do you treat her life so lightly?”

His eyebrows shot up, but it was in half mockery;I hadn’t riled him, for his face remained as tranquil as it always appeared. “For one so young you have an audacious line in argument, Hopson. Perhaps that is why you so often fall foul of those above you.”

“I speak as I see fit, my lord, and make no apologies for that. You have always bade me address you frankly.”

The corner of his mouth twitched. “Very well, if you persist in your concern, I give you my word I’ll visit Horseheath myself this evening on some pretext. I’ll have a word with her, give her your letter, warn her of the danger she’s in, and insist she’ll be safer if she comes and stays at Whitely.”

“I urge you not to press too forcefully,” said I. “All I have learned of Miss Goodchild in recent days has taught me she is not a lady to be ridden roughshod over.”

He smiled at this and concurred. He too had observed a certain rebelliousness in her character and concluded she required gentle handling.

“May I make one other request, my lord?”

“Name it.”

“Would you let the maidservant, Connie, know that I’m here? There’s some matter she wishes to discuss with me. She sent me a letter, and mentioned it once before when I was at Hindlesham, so it must have preyed on her mind. Tell her I’ll speak with her tomorrow.”

I
t was already past seven o’clock by the time we reached Whitely Court and I caught my first glimpse of Foley’s mansion, a gracious two-story Queen Anne house with none of the pedimented pretensions of Horseheath. Lady Foley, a tall woman with a serene expression, greeted her husband with a brisk but affectionate peck on the cheek and professed herself ashamed. She hadn’t expected him till the morrow and had nothing to offer but a bit of cold mutton for supper. Foley waved away her concerns with an airy assurance that we’d eaten already on the road. My spirits sank to hear him, for I’d taken nothing since breakfast and had been craving a good meal for the past hour. Lady Foley must have suspected something of the kind, for she amiably reproached him. Even if he were not hungry I must be, she said, for young men were always in need of nourishment, and she would hear no objections to her offer of a plate of something cold and a glass of wine.

Foley was now impatient to pay his call to Horseheath. While his wife sent instructions to the kitchens, he escorted me to his library, directing me to entertain myself as I wished until his return, which he expected to be within an hour or two.

I ate my supper by the fireside, staring at the walls around me as I munched, trying halfheartedly to distract myself from my fears for Alice. It occurred to me then that there was more to Foley than frog buttons and velvet finery. This was the room of a true connoisseur of wide-ranging taste. Ranks of leather-lined volumes filled the shelves, some broken and cracked, others newly bound with gold tooling on their spines; a large library table overflowed with papers, pamphlets, and correspondence, and a microscope with various slides in a box sat among them. Above the fire hung a canvas depicting antlike gentlemen surveying a vast building I recognized as the Pantheon in Rome. In a collector’s cabinet various antiquities were ranged—a piece of mosaic, a few ancient coins, cameos, and an old silver buckle. Many of the objects were chipped and cracked, but each had an idiosyncratic appeal, as if flaws were irrelevant; each item had been chosen from a true understanding and appreciation rather than a desire to impress.

But all the while I’d gazed about the room my anxieties had not diminished. Far from it: I kept thinking of Foley, wondering if I’d been wise to agree to let him go to Horseheath Hall alone to speak to Alice. Should I have braved Robert’s wrath and gone with him? Sitting here I felt a sense of inexpressible helplessness. What would I do if Foley arrived too late? Suppose, horror of horrors, Alice was already dead?