To Mourn a Murder (6 page)

At Newman's stable, the fastidious Prance wrinkled his nose as it was assaulted by the pungent aroma of two dozen horses in close proximity. He picked his way gingerly past the stalls, lifting his feet high over the hay and holding his coat tails to protect them from damage. Coffen stopped two or three times to pat a velvet nose and add a few new stains to his jacket.

They ran Mr. Warner, the clerk, to ground in an austere office at the back of the stable. It boasted a battered desk, three chairs and a soiled oil cloth on the floor. Its only adornments were some horse brasses and one horse shoe on the wall behind his desk. After glancing through a ledger, he informed them that Lord Horner's carriage had been sold for fifty pounds one month previously to a Mr. Hummer, from the Oaks, Maida Vale Road, St. John's Wood.

"He planned to use it as a hackney. I advised him against it. A hackney gets rough usage and truth to tell, the rig was on its last legs," he confided. "But the lad was new at the game and didn't listen to me. The carriage was a showpiece in its day, but the buyer won't get a year's work out of it as a hack With a new coat of paint it would look flashy, I daresay, and the price was right."

"This Hummer fellow, could you describe him?" Coffen asked and listened closely to the answer.

"He was a rough fellow. Early thirties I'd say. I don't recall his face. There couldn't have been anything unusual about it."

"Not a gentleman?" Prance asked.

"No, sir. A hack driver, as I said. He came in a hired hack, drawing another team that he hitched to the rig he bought and drove it home."

"I expect he paid you in cash?"

"He did. He paid cash for everything."

As they were returning to their carriage, Prance spotted a familiar form across the road. "There's Mr. Danby," he said.

"Lady Jergen's nevvie?" Coffen said in some excitement. "There's a coincidence!" Anything in the way of a coincidence was highly suspicious to Coffen. "What the deuce is he doing here?"

"Let's ask him," Prance said and waved across the street.

Mr. Danby immediately returned the greeting and crossed the street. "Sir Reginald," he said, smiling. Prance introduced Coffen and they stood chatting a moment. "Have you had an accident with your carriage as well?" Danby asked.

"No, no, just looking."

"It's me that wants to hire a rig," Coffen said. "I have to make a little trip out of town. Thought it might be handier than taking the stage. You had an accident yourself then, did you?"

"Yes, the other night on Edgeware Road. Some drunken sot took a corner at sixteen miles an hour and crashed into my landau. Demmed annoying. The coachmaker tells me he can repair it, however, so I'm hiring a rig for the nonce."

"Didn't injure your team, I hope?" Prance asked. Horses ranked very close below family amongst young gentlemen.

"Fortunately the nags were unharmed."

"Who's making the repairs for you?" Coffen asked.

After a frowning pause, Danby said, "I don't recall the name. Actually my groom is looking after it. Is there someone you recommend, Mr. Pattle?"

"I hear Samson, out Paddington way, is good.”

"I'll mention it to my groom."

"How is your aunt?" was Prance's next question.

"I haven't seen Lady Jergen for a few days. I thought she seemed a little upset, but she assures me she's fine. Probably outrun the grocer," he said in a confiding manner. "You know the ladies. Highly susceptible to new bonnets. I've told her often enough I would be happy to help her out in that regard."

"She's fortunate to have such an understanding nephew," Prance said.

Danby shrugged. "It's only money, and she was kind to me when I returned from India. I haven't heard Auntie mention you before, Sir Reginald. Are you old friends?"

"Brand new friends. I never formally met your aunt until the day I met you there. It is Byron who's her friend. I tagged along with him as we were spending the day together."

"I know she's a great admirer of Lord Byron. She is forever singing his praises."

"As we all are," Prance said, and with a parting bow, he and Coffen were off.

"The reason I let on I was hiring a rig," Coffen said, "he'd believe from the looks of me I couldn't afford to buy one." This was said with no air of humility, but simply stated as a self-evident fact. Coffen was actually well off but, unlike Prance, he didn't wear his fortune on his back. "Did you notice he couldn't come up with a name for who was fixing his rig? That's pretty odd. He was afraid I'd check up on him and find out his rig wasn't there."

"It's not unusual to leave those matters to one's groom. Providing one has a competent groom," he added with a meaningful look at his friend.

"I mean to replace Fitz one of these days. You must own it's suspicious, Danby being at Newmans. Do you figure he followed you?"

"No one was following us," Prance said. "Mr. Danby doesn't have to steal money. He's extremely well inlaid. A nabob, in fact, back from India with his pockets jingling."

Coffen shook his head at such naiveté. "Who says so?"

"Tout le monde."

"Then how come he ain't better known? He may have no more money than a dog has fleas."

"That's quite a lot."

"That's not what I meant."

"I know. It would make conversation easier if you said what you mean."

"The trouble with you, Reg, you think you're smart but you're gullible as a gudgeon. You believe anything a stylish looking fellow tells you. If he's the Bee, he could be worrying you're looking into the hackney cab business, and asking if anyone's been asking about Horner's rig. Which we have. He could be the man who bought it. He's the right age with a forgettable face."

"But unmistakably a gentleman," Prance pointed out.

"That's just clothes and talk. Easy to change. He'll have got a jolt at seeing us there if he's guilty. I wonder what he'll do."

"Why don't you follow him and find out?"

"Why don't you? I'm going to take a run out to Hummer's place, sniff around for clues."

Prance considered this a moment, then said, "I'll do better than that, I'll offer him a lift home, since he doesn't have his carriage here."

"Dandy. I'll take a hackney home and jog on out to St. John's Wood. How would I get there?"

"It's really very simple. You drive north on Edgeware Road. At St. John's Wood Road, Edgeware Road becomes Maida Vale Road."

Coffen looked completely bewildered. "No wonder I get lost, roads changing their names for no reason." Prance repeated the directions two or three times, finally wrote them down and Coffen wandered off in search of a hackney.

Mr. Danby outwitted Prance. He refused a lift home, but was suitably grateful to be dropped off on New Bond Street. Prance watched him for fifteen minutes, but when it seemed Mr. Danby planned to shop the day away, he went home.

Lady deCoventry was becoming bored with her own company. Luten was busy at Whitehall finishing up some business so that he could accompany her to Ireland for their wedding with a free conscience. Although it would be her second marriage, it was his first and they wanted some ritual to the affair.

As far as Corinne was concerned, she felt it was her first real marriage. She had not been in love with Lord deCoventry when her papa sold her to him seven years before for five thousand pounds. She had been barely seventeen years at the time, Lord deCoventry exactly three times her age. He had wanted a son to inherit his title and estate. He took the blame for not achieving his goal on his own shoulders, like the gentleman he was, and had been happy with his bride despite the failure. For four years they had lived in peace and harmony, during which time the Irish hoyden's rough edges were honed to a stylish town bronze.

Her elderly husband demanded little of her time. Lord deCoventry's cousin, Lord Luten, often accompanied her about town. Her own cousin, Coffen Pattle, was a part of the group and Sir Reginald a friend and neighbour of both gentlemen. Within a year of deCoventry's death Luten offered for her. The offer caught her completely off her guard and in her astonishment she had uttered a nervous laugh and refused him. The extremely eligible Marquess of Luten was not accustomed to being laughed at, especially when he was making an offer of marriage.

Her refusal left him so stunned and angry he spent the next three years snipping and sniping at the lady. When he finally came down off his high horse and repeated the offer, she accepted. One of these days they would get around to the marriage ceremony, if murder didn't get in their way.

It was during a case at Prance's estate, Granmaison, that Luten had busted his ankle, which delayed the trip down the aisle. His ankle was healing now and Sir Reginald was supposed to be working on the wedding arrangements. He always put himself in charge of anything in the way of a party or celebration.

When she saw Coffen coming out of his house, she assumed he was coming to visit her and was disappointed when he crossed the street and headed to Prance's house. She decided to join him and see how the wedding plans were coming along.

Entering Sir Reginald's bijou house was like stepping into a jewelry box. Though small, everything was of the finest without being garish. He spurned red window coverings and gilt furnishings, choosing instead a subdued gold brocade silk for the window hangings and a Persian carpet with traces of dusty blue and rose, which he gave them to know was priceless. The tables gleamed from frequent applications of beeswax and turpentine, but it was in the minor decorative touches that he really shone.

Each bibelot that graced the tabletops had been chosen with care: delicate Sèvres boxes, Murano crystal vases in front of the window to form a rainbow on the far wall when the sun shone through them, and two exquisitely arranged vases of flowers. On the walls hung airy French paintings by Watteau and Fragonard. On a cushion beside Prance with one paw placed possessively on his master's knee sat the new addition to the decor.

"Oh, you've got a new kitten, Reg," she said. "How pretty she is. What do you call her?"

"Actually this is a fully grown miniature cat," Prance explained. "One of those lovely freaks of nature that some benign deity occasionally throws up to delight us, like the mute albino peacock I was fortunate enough to find for Granmaison."

"It ain't a her, it's a him," Coffen added. "Prance called him after Shakespeare."

"So his name is William, or do you call him Willie?" she asked Prance. He was on such familiar terms with all the literary giants that he usually called them by their first names.

"Petruchio is his name. I call him Pet for short. It's a boring story. Come and sit thee down, my dear. You will pardon me if I don't rise as I ought. Petruchio doesn't like it." He darted a warning glance at Coffen, to prevent him from discussing what he had actually come to discuss. "Let us begin to make plans for our wedding. What will the weather be like in Ireland in December?"

"Wretched," she said. "It must be an indoors affair entirely. Luten can't be standing about in the damp chill with his sore ankle."

"Pity. I could have done something handsome with those hundred shades of green one hears so much about. But there, I daresay I shall contrive to bring enough of the outdoors in to satisfy you."

"You don't have to go bringing trees and bushes and things inside, Reg," she said hastily, knowing his lavish way. "Ardmore Hall is not a huge place, you know."

He gave her a smile of great condescension. "Fear not, my dear. I do not plan to bring Great Birnam Wood into Ardmore Hall, but I must insist on some significant token of green in an Irish wedding."

"Marry in green, ashamed to be seen," Coffen recited.

Prance said mischievously, "We can hardly expect the bride to wear white. I mean to say, white has a symbolic meaning which does not apply to a widow."

She gave him a sharp look. "I hope you don't expect me to wear black."

"Marry in black, you'll ride in a hack," Coffen said.

Prance glared. "What colour do the ignorant and superstitious approve of?” he asked.

"Marry in white, you've chosen white."

"Obviously. I expect you mean chosen right."

"Well I can't wear white," Corinne said. Then to Prance, "What about a pale yellow?"

Coffen shook his head. "Marry in yellow, ashamed of the fellow. Marry in red, you're better off dead. I say go with the white and to hell with it."

"Blue?" she asked, but with very little hope and waning interest.

Coffen furrowed his brow a moment then said, "It's safe. Marry in blue, your lover is true."

"Blue, with the green background I envisage to highlight Corinne's famous emerald eyes? Oh dear, now who is that?" Prance said with a tsk of annoyance when the door knocker sounded.

"Cheer up, it might be Byron," Coffen said. "That sounds like a limp dragging along the hall."

"Really, Coffen!" Prance scolded.

His scowl disappeared when it was indeed the famous poet who came into the room. He had met the others and made a series of bows, coming forward to take Corinne’s hand. He was half convinced he was in love with the Irish beauty. But then who would not love a perfect oval cameo of a face, surrounded by a halo of raven curls? And the eyes! As green as his envy of Luten. The figure, too, was good. He hated a dumpy woman.

When Prance gave a warning cough, Byron realized he had been gazing at Lady deCoventry too long and shook himself to attention–but not before noticing the pretty flush of pink that suffused the lady's cheeks. "Have I come at a bad time?" he asked, when the greetings were over.

"Not at all, we were just discussing Lady deCoventry's wedding."

Byron gave her his famous underlook, achieved by lowering his head and peering soulfully up through his inch long lashes. "Then the dreadful rumour is true, milady? We are about to lose you. On behalf of London's bachelors, I object—and offer my compliments." He lifted her fingers and touched them to his lips. Prance watched, noticing that, as usual, Byron dared to go that inch too far, and get away with it. Etiquette decreed that the lady's hand should stop in inch from the gentleman's lips. Prance was eager to try this new contact kiss on some dashing lady who wouldn't slap his face. Lady Callwood came to mind.