The Counterfeit Heiress (25 page)

“I had to do something—”

“I understand your anger, and I do not mean to suggest that you have set us back by having written it. You have, however, put him on notice, and he is likely afraid of being caught. This may serve to our benefit, in the manner of flushing him out. We must take extreme caution to ensure neither you nor Cécile is vulnerable to him. Monsieur Pinard’s cheque is going to lure him, eventually, to the post office. Do remember that we have no evidence that anything has happened to Estella—”

“But the doll!” Cécile exclaimed. “No bachelor would have such a thing.”

“He may have a niece of whom he is extremely fond,” Colin said.

“It is possible,” I agreed. “But is it likely? I have the deepest suspicions concerning Mr. Swiveller. We know someone has been lying as to Estella’s whereabouts, but we do not know what would have motivated the action. When I look at the route she supposedly took from Siam to London, it is as if a person with no knowledge of travel whatsoever had a quick look at a world map and plotted what he—or she—thought seemed to be a reasonable path.”

“Estella had almost no experience traveling before her parents died,” Cécile said.

“So it could be she who is behind all this. We believe she is currently in Paris—”

“I am certain she was at Père-Lachaise either today or yesterday,” Cécile said.

“Anyone could have put that wreath in the tomb,” Colin said.

“No.” I thought back carefully over our visit to the cemetery. “The Lamar tomb was locked, was it not? Your husband’s wasn’t, Cécile—is it usual to lock them?”

“Some people do, others feel the precaution unnecessary.”

“Perhaps Estella’s steward has a key to the tomb,” Jeremy said. “Then she wouldn’t have to bother with it at all. Or the florist—why wouldn’t she send her man there directly?”

“Estella was devoted to her parents,” I said. “She would not have considered taking a wreath to their grave an inconvenience.”

“Be that as it may, Bainbridge raises an interesting point. The only piece of firm evidence we have to suggest Mademoiselle Lamar is in Paris is the letter she sent Cécile. We know the handwriting is correct—at least so far as we can tell—and we know it was mailed from Paris. What we do not know is when it was written.”

I nodded. “An interesting point. Estella—or someone else—has likely staged any number of communications, in the form of letters, telegrams, and photographs in the newspaper. Swiveller-Magwitch could have arranged every one of these things, but he could not write the letters.”

“He might have forced Estella to write a stack of them before killing her.” Cécile’s voice was flat.

“Estella Lamar has been away from Paris for many, many years,” Colin said. “It stretches credulity to suggest that this man—or someone else—has been embezzling money by using, for all that time, letters written under duress.”

“I have studied further the notes I took at Monsieur Pinard’s,” I said. “The payments to Swiveller are the only ones the attorney has made on his client’s behalf that seem wildly out of line. The rest of the expenses for the household are ordinary enough. No one in their right mind would spend so much on flowers, even for three houses, and I do not recall seeing a single blossom at Estella’s house in Belgravia. Part of Swiveller’s money may go for flowers here, but Swiveller’s apartment does not suggest he is keeping the rest. Perhaps Monsieur Pinard has a vested interest in paying Swiveller’s bills without question.”

“Pinard?” Colin’s brow crinkled. “He is a well-respected, successful solicitor who does not appear to be living above his means. Furthermore, he could not have killed Mary Darby. He was dining with the American ambassador and a large party the night of the murder. I have confirmed his alibi. Let us do be careful to remember that Mary Darby’s death is our primary concern.”

“Monsieur Pinard may have been in Paris, but that does not preclude the possibility of his having hired Mr. Swiveller to do the job for him.”

Colin threw his hands in the air. “Theoretically possible, of course, but we would need more evidence—no, not more,
some
.”

“If neither the solicitor nor this wretched Swiveller isn’t keeping the money, where does it go?” Jeremy asked.

Our lively discussion did not continue, being interrupted by a footman who entered and handed me a small parcel. Almost before my hands were on it, Colin had raced from the room. I heard the front door slam behind him and knew he was doing his best to catch the delivery boy. I tugged at the string wrapping the box until I loosened the knot enough to remove it, and opened the lid, recoiling at what I saw: a fine linen handkerchief, edged with Belgian lace, soaked in a dark, sticky substance that could only be blood. A folded sheet of paper, also damp with blood, had typed on it only a single word:

STOP

Cécile gasped, and Jeremy held her firmly by the shoulders. “This does not mean a thing,” he said. “That blood could be anyone’s.”

“I think we must assume it is not just anyone’s,” I said.

“I do not know what it means, other than that we have no choice but to obey. How can we continue this investigation if, by doing so, we are putting Estella at risk?”

“Cécile, darling, if Estella is in the hands of some madman, the only chance she has to escape from his clutches is for us to continue our work. We have to find her.” My friend, visibly shattered, did not wait for Colin to return before retiring upstairs for a bath. I promised to come to her with any news.

Jeremy and I sat together on a settee, the box and its foul contents on a table in front of us. “Do you think she is alive?” he asked.

“I believe she is, and I would stake my life on a bet that Estella Lamar is not booked on a passage to the Ivory Coast or anywhere else. If she is in Paris, and she is alive, why would Swiveller, or whoever is benefiting from her money, want her dead?”

“Why would he have kept her alive this long?” Colin had just returned, and was breathing heavily from his chase. He poured a glass of whisky before he sat down and raised it to the identical one already in Jeremy’s hand. “I caught the boy. He was paid in advance with a gold coin and given strict instructions to deliver the box and flee.”

“Paid in advance,” I said. “What a disappointment.”

“Risky as well,” Jeremy said.

“Not really.” Colin picked up the box containing the bloody handkerchief. “He scared the boy into thinking he would come to great harm if he didn’t complete the task as directed, and said he would be watching from afar.”

“Was the boy able to describe him?” I asked.

“Yes. It is our old friend, the auburn-haired man. His prominent mustaches make identifying him rather simple—and that is something of which he surely is aware.” He held the box up to me. “I presume we are meant to believe this blood is Estella’s?”

“I can’t imagine what else we would think,” I said. “Let us return to Swiveller’s apartment at once. I realize he is unlikely to be there, but surely with our accumulated evidence, we can justify using your credentials to make that horrible concierge at least give us the man’s real name. French bureaucracy does not allow for taking an apartment using a
nom de guerre
.”

“You are quite right, Emily, the French are notoriously strict about such matters. If you only knew what one must do to obtain a bank account here. It is a good plan. I shall set off at once.”

I rose to his side. “I shall accompany you.”

“No, Cécile is upset and you should remain with her. Bainbridge, can I trust you to guard the ladies?”

“We do not require guarding,” I said.

“I will derive considerably more pleasure from watching them than from watching the post office,” Jeremy said.

Colin gave him a wry look. “Perhaps it would be better for you to come with me, Bainbridge, on the off chance our friend, if I may call him that, is still in residence.”

“You think I can’t handle the ladies?”

“I’m more afraid that you’ll be too adept at the task.” Colin glowered, but the amusement in his dark eyes belied the expression. “You, Emily, take care of Cécile.”

He gave me no further instructions—a wise decision, as I have never taken well to direction—and left with Jeremy. I went upstairs to Cécile, who was still submerged in her tub, and spoke to her through the bathroom door. “I cannot think of a single reason that Estella, regardless of where she is in the world, would want Mary Darby dead. There can be no doubt that Swiveller killed her—and most likely because she did not succeed in the job for which he had hired her, playing Estella. Swiveller does not live like a criminal mastermind, but more like an ill-used henchman, so we must deduce that he is acting on behalf of someone else, and who else could that be but Monsieur Pinard?”

I heard the sound of dripping water. “I am coming out, Kallista. It was wrong—and cowardly—of me to say we should heed this awful man’s warning. Let us go see Monsieur Pinard. I have realized also that we made a grave error at Swiveller’s today. We did not search the attic room that would be assigned to his apartment for a servant. He could have any number of things stashed up there, including Estella.”

I had forgot that Parisian apartments generally included space for, at the very least, a maid, and Colin was unlikely to think of it, either. “We must go there at once and catch up with the gentlemen. Monsieur Pinard can wait until we are finished there.”

Cécile dressed in near record time, and soon we were in the carriage. When we reached the building, we had to ring repeatedly before the concierge shuffled to the door. “Back so soon, Frau Hohensteinbauergrunewald? Two gentlemen have already been here. Am I to presume they, too, are in search of your niece?” My friend did not dignify this inane question with a response. She shoved past the woman and stomped up the stairs, ignoring the piercing shrieks demanding that she stop. I followed, avoiding eye contact as I passed.

From the fourth-floor landing, I could see that the door to Swiveller’s apartment stood open. I called out to my husband as we crossed the threshold, but he did not answer. Inside, there was no sign either of him or of Jeremy. The scene that greeted me set my heart racing. The dining chairs had been overturned, the lamp in the sitting room lay shattered on the floor, and there was a hole crashed through the front window that could only be described as head-shaped. Blood stained the shards beneath it on the carpet. Cécile gripped my hand.

“Come, let us see what is in the bedroom.”

That room, as well as the kitchen, appeared in every way wholly undisturbed. Whatever action had transpired, it had been limited to the sitting and dining rooms. My lips quivered. “We should check the attic room first and then go back to the concierge.”

“I will go up,” Cécile said. “There is no need for two of us—”

“No.” I pulled myself up to my full height. “I am coming with you, no matter what is to be found.” I followed my friend through the back door off the kitchen and up a narrow set of stairs that wound up to the eaves. Cécile found the room whose number matched the one on Swiveller’s apartment, and rapped on the door. There was no answer. She turned the handle.

“It is locked.”

I had the set of picks in my reticule, but did not want to waste time using them. I flung myself against the door, confident that the force of the strike would break it down. My aspirations, however, fell somewhat short of reality. I picked myself up from the floor where I had fallen after bouncing off the door, retrieved my tools, and picked the lock with shaking hands. I closed my eyes as I pushed on the door, terrified of what I might see.

A sigh escaped Cécile’s lips.
“Mon Dieu.”

I forced my eyes open. The light from the corridor spilled into the small room. The bloodied bodies of neither Colin nor Jeremy were inside, only a desk heaped with voluminous amounts of paper, a filing cabinet, and an enormous rat, chewing on an unidentified but unarguably motley object. That the rodent did not scurry off the moment we entered the room suggested it was all too familiar with humans, so I stamped on the floor as hard as I could. He looked up at me with his beady eyes and slunk into a hole in the knotty wood of the floor. The room, unlike the corridor, did not have electric lights, but there was an old-fashioned oil lamp on the desk, and a box of matches next to it. I entered the room and struck a match. Once illuminated, the lamp’s light spread over the surface of the desk, but not much beyond.

A cursory glance at the papers sent a shiver through me. There were notes about hotels in Bombay and Constantinople and more other places than I could count, as well as contact details for Mary Darby. I picked up the paper that listed her address and her banking details. “He killed her. There can be no doubting that now. As for Estella … I am afraid, Cécile, that we need to try to find Colin and Jeremy before we peruse these papers in detail. The blood on the glass downstairs—”

“I understand.” Without having to be asked, Cécile started to gather up the papers in her arms, carrying as much as she could. We could not take everything. The filing cabinet was locked, and I did not want to waste time on it when the most precious— But I could not think of that now. We carried the papers down to the concierge’s loge.

The Parisian part of Cécile—to be fair, that was all of her—could no longer tolerate dealing with the concierge as she had up until now. She abandoned her pretense of being German as she shoved the collected papers at the woman and spoke in a tone that would have chilled the blood of the most vicious reprobate. “You will guard these papers with your life. Hide them in your little hovel and give them to no one but us when we return. Where did the gentlemen go?”

“They were drunk and disgusting.” The concierge sneered. “Monsieur Jones’s friend could barely hold himself upright. It was a spectacle I hope never to see repeated in this building.”

“What about the other man?” I asked.

“Monsieur Jones was holding him up. Was I not clear enough for you?”

“And the third man?” Truly, this woman was infuriating. I felt a most inappropriate urge to fling her on the floor and stomp on her until she told me what I needed to know.