Death and the Courtesan (4 page)

Today, the sisters had decided to take their walk in Queen’s Garden. They took the carriage from Brompton Park, but the weather was so fine that Arabella insisted upon getting out and walking the last bit. Perhaps it
was
the weather, but perhaps she also wished to see whether the public’s attitude toward herself had altered since the murder. As the Beaumonts walked down Lower Grosvenor Place, people passed them by without a glance. Arabella was stung, but Belinda wasn’t.

“It isn’t us, Bell. Look—everyone’s headed toward the Chelsea Road. Something must be happening there. Let us go and see.”

Sure enough, as they turned onto the Chelsea Road they unexpectedly encountered a vast crowd lining the street on both sides. Heads craned, eyes strained . . . all attention was focused in the direction of the waterworks. And here was the odd thing; everyone was silent. The rumble of a carriage could be heard approaching, and the next moment eight magnificent white horses appeared, pulling the ornate golden coach of the prince regent himself.

The crowd stood mute, with their hands at their sides. Nobody cheered or waved a hat. As the coach neared the sisters, Arabella shouted, “Get stuffed, you fat git!”

“Who is that person?” snarled the prince regent.

“Arabella Beaumont, Your Majesty,” Lord Worcester replied. But his words were nearly drowned out by a swelling crescendo of boos from the populace, for Arabella’s insult had acted like a clarion call on a company of soldiers. More insults were hurled. So were eggs, and vegetables.

A turnip struck the carriage window just as Lord Worcester shut it.

“By heaven, Worcester! I miss the old days!” observed the regent.

“Old days, sir? Which ones, in particular?”

“When monarchs could chop off the heads of anyone they liked!”

“And what did they do to people they
didn’t
like?”

“Oh, stop it, Worcester; you know what I mean.”

“Your Highness is desirous of decapitation for persons who shout insults, or throw turnips, no doubt.”

“No—that is only for anyone who displeases me in a
small
way. For those who dare to offer insulting remarks I should insist upon drawing and quartering, preceded by semi-evisceration and partial burning. Decapitation’s much too good for ’em!”

E
arly the following afternoon, Arabella was on the point of entering her carriage when she recognized the two Bow Street Runners of the previous morning, approaching with their hats off.

“Beg pardon, miss,” said the dark one. “I wonder if we might have a word?”

“Certainly, Constable. What is it?”

He bowed. “The name’s Frank Dysart, miss; and this is Thomas Hacker. We’ve been officially assigned to your case.”

Constable Hacker was trying not to leer, but he evidently remembered Arabella’s invitation to come and see her when this matter was over and couldn’t help thinking about that. Thus it was the suspect herself who was obliged to set the professional tone.

“I see,” she said coldly. “And this concerns me, how?”

“We have been instructed to keep a watch on your house when you’re in it, miss, and follow you whenever you go out of it.”

Arabella was on the brink of losing her temper when Belinda put her head out of the carriage window.

“Show them your letter, Bell!”

“My what?”

“Your
letter
. The one from Lord Sidmouth. Perhaps these fellows may be of service to us.”

At the end of ten minutes, it was established that the officers could watch Arabella’s house and follow her about as much as they liked, but that she might also employ them in running case-related errands, as needed.

“I am about to leave for the auction now,” said the suspect. “How do you propose to follow me? On foot?”

“Yes, miss. They don’t call us Runners for nothing!”

“Of all the idiotic arrangements,” she muttered as the coach passed down the drive. “How can I possibly concentrate with those two hanging about, waiting to drag me off to prison? It’s ghoulish! I feel like Faust, with his devil escort ready to drag him to hell!”

Just now, Arabella was more annoyed than anything else, but her unflappable sister was more anything else than annoyed.

“That’s one way of looking at it,” said Belinda. “However, you will also be able to accomplish more, with four additional legs and, who knows, perhaps two additional minds, as well.”

“I very much doubt that! Although I must admit I am rather out of my depth. I have absolutely no idea how one goes about solving a murder. The usual thing is to question witnesses, I believe. But in this case, it would appear that there weren’t any.”

“Keep calm, Bell,” Belinda advised her. “You must allow events to unfold naturally.”

“You’re not worried at all, are you?”

“Well, yes, I am, as a matter of fact. We are getting off to a very late start. Suppose someone has already bought it?”

“Bought what?”

“You said you might find a clew at this auction, but we have no idea what it could be, and now it might be gone before we get there.”

“Yes, but if we don’t know what it is, we shan’t miss it, shall we?”

“Speaking of missing things,” said Belinda, who had a fine instinct for avoiding confrontations, “will you miss the duke, do you think?”

“Not as long as I have Lustings.”

“What . . . ? Oh! The house, of course! For a moment, I thought you meant—”

“I did. I meant it both ways. It’s what’s called a double entendre, dear.” The act of one-upping her sibling seemed to put Arabella into a better mood. “I don’t suppose I mind so very much about his engagement—though Julia van Diggle
is
an awful prig—but Puddles and I could scarcely be termed ‘soul mates.’ ”

Indeed, they could not! The duke had been prepared to let her hang, rather than offend his stupid fiancée. Arabella was determined not to do so, of course, but she certainly could not be counting on his support. No, she would not miss the duke. In fact, she had already forgotten what he looked like.

“Besides,” she added, “after six months of marriage to Julia, he’ll be knocking at my door. I won’t have the slightest idea who he is by that time, and he will have to court me all over again.”

“It’s just so inconvenient about the alibi,” ventured Belinda.

“It certainly is! And Lady Ribbonhat has sent me a letter.”

“That dreadful woman! What does she want?”

“What she always wants. Lustings. She’s given me notice to quit.”

“Has she grounds?”

“Not the slightest. But she seems to think she can make Puddles take the house back, once he has officially given me up.”

“Oh, Bell! I think maybe she can! The duke is bound to be swayed by his mother, now that he no longer has you as a welterweight!”

“What?”

“No, I mean a sash weight.”

“Darling, you’re not making sense.”

“What do they call it, when there’s a balance? And something, like a gold nugget or a handful of diamonds, rests on one side, and then you put a pound of butter on the other side?”

“A counter-weight?”

“That’s it!”

“Well, yes. I am fairly certain that Lady Ribbonhat
would
prevail, if everything depended upon the duke’s decision. Fortunately, that is not the case, though; Lustings is legally mine. No, the only reason I mentioned her is that I fear she will be poking her nose into everything we try to do, and thwarting us in any way she can. So we shall need to keep an eye out.”

“Do you mean like this?” asked Belinda, sticking half her face out of the carriage window. (She could be deucedly silly sometimes.) “Oh! Look, Bell!” she called, still keeping one of her eyes “out.” “It’s Constance!”

Constance Worthington, London’s most frivolous demirep, and perhaps Europe’s, too, was jumping up and down and waving her handkerchief furiously at them from the kerb. Outlandishly attired as she was in a gauzy white gown of several filmy layers, which fell only as far as her upper calves, and crowned with a close-fitting bonnet, lavishly overdressed with lace, she was quite impossible to miss, and no one should have believed the Beaumonts had they claimed to have done so. Arabella reluctantly told her coachman to stop.

“What luck, my dears!” cried Constance as the footman handed her in. “Newton’s has got in a new shipment of cashmeres! I’ve only just found out about it so there was no time to come round to you which is just as well because I shouldn’t have found you at home in any case although I’m sure Fielding would have told me where you’d gone but that would have done me no good as I am on foot as you see, having once again run out of ready. We must go to Newton’s at once!”

“But, Constance,” Arabella said when she was finally able to get a word in. “Won’t you miss the ball?”

“What ball?”

“Aren’t you on your way to a fancy dress ball? You look as though you were got up like a baby destined for the Christening font.”

“
I
happen to think I look very sweet!”

“Hmm. I suppose you do, at that,” said Belinda. “But your accessories are all wrong, in any case.”

“Are they?”

“Yes. There is no time to go back and change them now, of course, but the next time you wear this sweet little
tout ensemble,
rather than carry a reticule and a fan, I should try a stick of barley sugar and a rattle.”

The Beaumont sisters watched with amusement whilst the impertinence of this remark dawned upon Miss Worthington’s odd little mind and gradually began to reflect itself upon her countenance.

“Belinda Beaumont,” said she, once it had, shaking her finger in the face of the young lady, “you would be well advised to keep a civil tongue in your head when addressing your elders! Especially those who are born women!”

“One is not
born
a woman, Constance,” said Arabella. “One
becomes
one. And judging from your habits, speech, and apparel, you haven’t.”

Before Constance had time to feel this, Arabella added: “I shall be happy to drop you at Newton’s, if you like, but Belinda and I have business elsewhere.”

“Yes,” said Belinda. “We are on our way to Euphemia’s auction—it’s today, you know, Constance, and we have to go, because Arabella might hang if we don’t.”

In a society where nicknames were the norm, no one ever referred to Miss Worthington as “Connie.” It was too close to the improper sobriquet she’d been called as a child, which was, she said, responsible for her having taken up her current profession. A homely woman, with a prominent chin and ridiculous, little-girl chestnut curls, Constance generally dressed as if she were nine and always spoke in a voice of breathless excitement.

“Well, but they won’t hang her
today,
” she said. “Surely you’d rather go to Newton’s, darling? Euphemia sold off all of her good things long ago! She couldn’t have anything left that you’d want, unless—Oh! are you going to bid on your old paper knife, Arabella?”

“What?”

“Your paper knife! The one that sailor stole from your desk.”

“What?”
cried Arabella and Belinda together.

“What sailor are you talking about, Constance?” Arabella demanded. “Who was he, and why have you never told me this?”

“Well, I didn’t
know
who he was, then, did I? When I saw him take your paper knife, I assumed he needed to open a letter or something!”

“Why would anyone suddenly need to open a letter in the middle of a party?” asked Belinda severely. “Did you think the postman, finding this sailor not at home, was directed to deliver his mail to him at Lustings? At night?”

“I don’t know! I did not think about that.... It never occurred to me that he was actually going to
steal
the knife! Then later, of course, I assumed that he had, when I read that Euphemia was stabbed with it.”

“For heaven’s sake, Constance! What did he look like?”

“Who?”

“The
sailor!
”

“I don’t know!”

“Was he tall? Short?”

“He might have been. I just didn’t notice!”

“Can you recall anything about him at all?”

“I think . . . he had a pigtail.”

“
Constance!! All
sailors have pigtails!”

“Don’t be cross with me, Bell! That’s extremely unjust of you! After all, I have not done so badly. I remembered that he was a
sailor,
didn’t I?”

“We don’t even know
that,
” groaned Arabella after they’d dropped their friend at the shops. “Constance might just as easily have imagined the whole thing, or dreamt something similar five years ago.”

Belinda was torn between loyalty to her sister and her love of fine fabrics. She sat wrestling quietly with her disappointment and was barely listening.

“All we know for certain is that on the night of my party for Bob Southey somebody stole my paper knife, and three days later Euphemia was stabbed with it.”

“Mmm-hmm,” said Belinda.

“It is probably someone who knew and hated both of us. But not necessarily. There were lots of people at the house that night: friends, and friends of friends’ friends. The thief might have been a complete stranger to me, who knew, nevertheless, of the enmity existing between his intended victim and myself. Lord knows
that
was no secret. But the whole thing might just as easily be an unfortunate series of coincidences.”

“Hmm?”

“Well, it
could
be. For instance, supposing somebody steals my knife intending to sell it. The handle is sterling, after all. On his (or her) way to the dolly shop to hock it, this person stops to see Euphemia. They quarrel; Euphemia dies. And that is only one of any number of possible scenarios. Oh, Bunny, I begin to despair.”

Belinda shook herself from her reverie.

“You mustn’t give up, Bell,” she said with quiet emphasis. “Take this one piece at a time, like that skillful dressmaker at Newton’s. Keep it plain, yet artful. After all, when it comes to human nature, the simplest explanation is usually the right one.”

“You want to go to Newton’s, don’t you?”

“Not if you need me.”

“I need you.”

“Then I shan’t go to Newton’s.”

“But I shouldn’t like you to feel deprived.”

Belinda sighed. “When one must choose between being noble and gratifying one’s immediate desires, it is sometimes difficult to know what to do.”

“Yes,” agreed Arabella. “When I find myself in such a position, I generally imagine my life as a book. And then I decide whether I would rather have it written: ‘. . . and so I went to Newton’s and bought everything that I wanted there’ or ‘. . . I accompanied my unfortunate sister on her errand, and provided her with such comfort as it was in my power to bestow.’ ”

“Mmm,” said Belinda distractedly. “I wonder if Newton’s has got in more of that lavender-colored cashmere, with the chevron pattern?”

The auction was being held in Soho Square, by permission, owing to both the fine weather and the close, unsavory atmosphere of the late Miss Ramsey’s former residence. As Constance had said, Euphemia hadn’t had much that was salable, but the auction was well attended just the same, owing to the extreme sensationalism of the murder. To the human species, the possession of something, however insignificant, that has once belonged to the victim of a famous homicide, or even a not-so-famous one, has great appeal. Once, long ago, a disgruntled gentleman attempted to blow up the house of his neighbor and blew himself up instead. The populace scrambled to collect the pieces of him that had rained down upon the neighborhood, and fought bitterly over the recognizable scraps, such as ears and fingers. This was not a famous event. In fact, most of my readers won’t have heard of it. Yet the remains of the would-be arsonist were as valuable to his collectors as are the fragments of a saint to the priests who guard them. The secular morsels were widely supposed to work miracles, too, just like the blessed bits, and I am certain that they were every bit as effective.