The Counterfeit Heiress (14 page)

“Unfortunately, Monsieur Worth, your client did not wear the costume. It is unlikely she even knew of its existence,” I said. “So far as anyone knows, she is in Siam. The address to which the gown was delivered belonged to a Mrs. Mary Darby, who wore it to the ball while pretending to be Mademoiselle Lamar.”

“How very strange.”

“Even worse, Mrs. Darby turned up murdered some hours after she left the ball.”

“Did the killer believe he had attacked Mademoiselle Lamar?” Mr. Worth asked.

“I had contemplated the same question,” Colin said. “The only person at the ball who could reliably claim to be able to recognize Miss Lamar spotted the fraud at once, so unless someone hired an assassin and failed to give this individual any means of recognizing his target, I must believe Mrs. Darby was the intended victim. We suspect someone—a man—hired Mrs. Darby to play a part at the ball, and hope that you would be willing to share with us any and all correspondence you had concerning Miss Lamar’s costume. There may lie within your records something to point us toward the identity of the villain.”

Mr. Worth shot to his feet. “Consider it done. I am most distressed to have participated, even without knowing, in any sort of fraud. You are certain Mademoiselle Lamar did not order the gown? I seem to recall that her telegrams did arrive from some far-flung location, although I do not think it was Siam.”

Within a quarter of an hour, he had gathered for us a packet of information that included all the sketches and notes for the costume, the initial letter and subsequent telegrams from his client, his replies, the company’s copy of the invoice, and even the canceled cheque that had paid the bill.

“Did anyone ever come into the shop regarding this order?” Colin said.

“I do not believe so. There is no record of such an occurrence, and we would have made note had she, or anyone else, made a personal visit. Please take as much time as you require going through all this. I must return downstairs as a client will be arriving to see me. If you require anything else, do not hesitate to let me or my brother know.”

We started with the letter. There was no envelope, so we could not determine the location from which it had been posted, but Estella—if it was Estella who had written it—stated quite plainly that she was writing from Bombay, where she had broken her journey en route to London. She requested that the House of Worth design a costume for the Devonshire House ball, and that it be classical in design so that she might represent the goddess Diana.

“So you see she was Roman, not Greek. I much prefer the original.”

“Do you suggest Artemis was the original goddess of the moon?” My husband looked at me with a puzzled expression. “I am quite certain the ancient Egyptians would have something to say on the matter.”

“I believe the Egyptians worshipped a god of the moon, possibly Khonsu, but it is not my area of expertise. Regardless, I stand by my statement that Artemis is a superior choice to Diana.” I returned my attention to the letter. Estella had authorized a budget of up to £5000—an astronomical sum, even for someone of her wealth—and listed a hotel in Constantinople as the next place at which she could be reached. She also promised to have her regular dressmaker send detailed measurements as soon as possible. Next, we studied the dressmaker’s note. The woman’s name and details matched those given to us by Estella’s maid. Beyond that, the correspondence consisted of telegrams: Mr. Worth agreeing to the commission and asking for clarification on some of Mademoiselle Lamar’s requirements, and so forth. The specifics of these were not important. More interesting were the locations from which Estella’s subsequent telegrams had been sent.

The first came from the hotel in Constantinople she had mentioned, the next from Athens, then two from Rome, one from Sines, in Portugal, and a final one from London, confirming the receipt of the costume. I copied down the precise details of each, including dates. I tapped my pencil against my chin.

“There is something decidedly off about all of this. If these wires are to be believed, Estella managed to travel all the way from Bombay to Constantinople in little more than a fortnight. Is that even theoretically possible?”

Colin considered the question. “She could have taken a ship from Bombay to Suez, through the canal, and on to Port Said. From there, she could have gone anywhere. I am not certain as to the amount of time required for the journey, but my question is this: why, if London were her ultimate goal, would she have gone first to Constantinople?”

I picked up where he stopped. “And then on to Athens, Rome, and Portugal? The dates place her in London only four days before the ball. The initial letter was mailed only a few weeks after the duchess had sent her invitations and the gossips had started discussing the event in earnest. The newspapers had reported it almost at once, and had even followed the stories of some of the costumes being designed for the evening. To be in London on time, Estella would have had to move with extreme speed. She would not have been able to dally across the Continent. Furthermore, given the timetable before her, it makes no sense at all that she would have done anything in Port Said other than board a ship headed directly to London.”

“I disagree with you there, Emily. It would have been more efficient to go to Marseille and get the train. Boats are much slower.”

“I concede the point. Regardless, this itinerary doesn’t fit. She could not have gone from Port Said to Constantinople to Athens, then to Rome and Portugal, and then to London, in the span of ten days.”

“Agreed, but do remember that, so far as we know, she never made it to London—she may never have so much as intended to make the trip.”

“Her intentions are not relevant at the moment. One person could not have sent all of these wires from each of these locations in the allotted time. I am beginning to suspect that Mary Darby is not the only person to have posed as Estella Lamar.”

Estella

ix

When Estella woke up in her prison, her entire body ached. Her muscles were tense, her right hip felt bruised—no doubt a side effect from sleeping on a stone slab—and her head pounded. She fumbled for her matches, lit two candles, and cringed when she saw the nearly empty bottle of wine on the floor. That it so repulsed her confirmed her suspicion that she had consumed far too much of it before she had fallen asleep. She drank nearly an entire flask of water and picked at the stale remains of her baguette, wondering when her captor would return. Surely it would not take long for him to get the funds he required.

A dark thought began to fester in her mind. What if he had no intention of returning for her? The promise of so obviously corrupt a man could hardly be sincere, and she had no reason to believe his insistence that he had no desire to bring her to harm. She swallowed hard and blinked, wanting to hold at bay the tears she could feel once again pooling in her eyes. How foolish to have agreed to write the cheque! He would never come back, and she would die here, alone and forgot, with no one to miss her, and all because she had stupidly done exactly what a maniac kidnapper had demanded of her.

She cried for a good long time and then stopped. If he had meant to starve her, why had he brought food in the first place? She had not left her house with a candle and matches in her reticule; he had placed them there, so that she would not be left alone in the dark, and had brought more candles with the food. No, this line of thinking was too optimistic. He had needed her to go along with his plan, and cajoling her gently, with sustenance and light offered as incentive, would have been easier than any sort of physical confrontation. Or was it? He could have left her alone in the dark, refused her all comforts—such as they were—and told her she would never again eat or drink or breathe fresh air until she signed the cheque. Estella pressed her palms against her temples. She had no way of knowing what this man would do.

She huddled into a corner, sitting on the floor, and pulled her cloak around her against the chilly damp of her room. After what seemed like an eternity, she fell asleep again, almost without realizing it. When she awoke, the two candles she had lit had burned themselves out. She rose stiffly from the ground and felt her way back to the slab. This time, she lit four of the wax tapers, and picked at the grapes she had rejected before, wondering how much time had passed since he had grabbed her in the street and how much longer she would have to wait for him to open the door in the ceiling.

Hunger gnawed at her again. Had she slept for another full night? Her addled mind could tell her nothing. She ate the cheese and the rest of the baguette, fruitlessly contemplating whether it was possible for one to measure time by careful analysis of the progression of staleness in bread. Whatever the number of hours that had passed, they were enough that the wine no longer repulsed her, and she emptied the rest of the bottle. Soon enough, fatigue again overcame her. She curled up on her improvised pillow, blew out the candles, and fell fast asleep.

When the creak of the trapdoor startled her from the depths of a dream, she jumped, but did not bother to light any candles. He had a lamp with him, dangling from his hand as he made his way down the ladder. “Did I wake you? I shouldn’t have thought to find you asleep at this hour.”

“How am I to know what time it is? How long have you been away?”

“You saw me yesterday.” He opened his satchel and she could see it was full of food.

“More food? You cannot mean to keep me down here longer! Surely you have your money by now. Please, you must let me go!”

“There has been a slight complication. Evidently I removed from your desk a cheque from your father’s account, not your own. The bank could not honor it.”

“That is not my fault.”

“You must tell me where to find your cheques. I will go to your house tonight, retrieve one, and bring it to you in the morning.”

“Why would I continue to help you?”

He grasped her firmly on both shoulders. “Do not make me revisit this, Mademoiselle Lamar. You have no choice, do you remember? You will tell me what I need to know, and we will carry out our plan from there.”

“It is not our plan, it is yours.”

“I have brought you sliced ham, apples, and another baguette. I see you finished the wine. I had not anticipated that and will have to refresh your supply tomorrow.”

“Why should you wait until tomorrow? Bring it to me after you have collected the cheque.”

“I cannot risk being seen coming in and out of here at all hours of the day and night. It would do you well to stop behaving as if you are the one in control of this situation!” He slumped against the edge of the slab. “Forgive me. I have no right to be angry with you. If you only could understand the sadistic nature of the men with whom I am involved, you would do what I wish without question.”

“Had you explained to me your predicament rather than attempting to trick me into a worthless investment, I might have given you the money and expected nothing in return.”

“Mademoiselle Lamar, you have misunderstood me. Dr. Maynard’s Formula was no con. It is an excellent product and I am confident that had you invested, we would have reaped enormous rewards. I never intended to make off with your money, only to divert a certain amount of it to paying my debt. The rest would have funded our enterprise.”

“It hardly matters now.” Estella picked up the baguette and examined it, wrinkling her nose. “Brioche would be nice. And if you are coming with wine before you plan to release me, you could at least bring me something to read. It is maddening sitting down here with nothing to do but worry that you have no intention of returning and are going to leave me to die—” A sob escaped from her throat and her captor’s heart caught in his.

“You cannot think I would do such a thing!”

“You have drugged me, kidnapped me, and flung me into some awful sort of prison. How could I not expect the worst?”

“I swear to you, Mademoiselle Lamar, I have been nothing but honest when expressing my intentions to you, at least since the time I brought you here. I would never have taken such radical action had I not been forced into such a desperate situation.”

Estella opened her mouth to say that he had no one but himself to blame for his current situation, but reckoned that goading him was unlikely to result in a positive outcome. “How long until you have your money?”

“I shall take the cheque to my bank the moment I leave you tomorrow. With any luck, they will verify your funds and give me my payment by the following morning.”

“Could you not take it to my bank instead of yours? Then there would be no delay for verification.”

“That is an excellent suggestion. I shall do just that.”

“Brioche,” Estella said. “Please remember brioche as well as a clock of some sort. I must be able to know how much time is passing. And you must leave the lamp with me. Candles are cumbersome.”

Estella and her captor had struck their first bargain. All things considered, she slept exceptionally well that night.

10

After we left Worth, Colin and I called on Estella’s seamstress, a stooped gray woman whose arthritic hands had forced her to stop sewing five years earlier. She remembered very little about the clothes she had made for Estella’s travels abroad, other than that the man who brought the trunks—brand-new and purchased from Galeries Lafayette, the most exclusive department store in Paris—had chipped the paint on her doorjamb with the largest of them when he had carried them into her shop. Mademoiselle Lamar, she explained, had only the barest interest in clothing, and wanted nothing beyond the most basic garments, often refusing even to come in for a fitting. So far as she knew, a maid was called on to perform any alterations required. She showed us the message she had received by telegram requesting the forwarding of her measurements to the House of Worth and assuring the dressmaker that her figure had not changed in the slightest in the intervening years. I pressed the woman on this—whose measurements do not change at all in more than a decade?—but she only shrugged with superb Gallic nonchalance, saying she had no reason to doubt Mademoiselle Lamar, and that she had complied with the request. Other than that solitary telegram, sent from Bombay, she had had no word from Mademoiselle Lamar since she had left Paris so many years ago.