Whom the Gods Love (38 page)

"He said strangers upset her," Ridley explained. "She has delusions of persecution, thinks enemies are plotting to imprison and abuse her. Curious, is it not?"

"Unaccountable," said Julian grimly. "So my assumptions are correct?"

"As correct as if you had witnessed it all yourself, sir." 

"Mr. Ridley, I have come to collect that young lady. Be so good as to bring me to her at once."

"My dear sir!—"

"I warn you, if I leave without her, I shall return with a magistrate."

Ridley rubbed his hands together rapidly. "I've done nothing wrong. I took the poor creature in—"

"For a handsome sum, no doubt."

"That's my profession, sir—the care of those whose derangement will not allow them to care for themselves."

"By whose authority was she committed to your care?" Julian asked sharply. "Did any physician confirm that she was mad? Had you even any proof that this so-called Mr. Desmond was any relation to her at all?"

"I had no reason to doubt his word." Ridley's yellowish tongue darted out and ran around his lips. "He was a gentleman."

"I take leave to tell you that the gentleman you speak of is dead. No one will pay you anything further for Marianne Desmond's keep. The best you can hope for now is to have her taken off your hands discreetly. I am willing to do that. If you force me to go and return again, I shan't be so generous. Decide, Mr. Ridley. Which is it to be?"

Ridley beat on the desk with the flat of his hands, thinking hard. At last he rose, gathering the shreds of his equanimity about him. "Be so good as to follow me, sir, and I shall take you to the young lady."

"I should warn you, Mr. Ridley: my presence here is known. If I should chance not to return, my friends will know where to look for me."

"My dear sir! What can you be implying?"

"I think you take my meaning tolerably well."

Ridley came around the desk resignedly and took up a ring of keys. Lighting a candle at the grate, he ushered Julian out. They went down the winding stair and into a long, dark hall. Julian guessed it must run along the outside of the house, where there were no windows to light it.

The hall made a right-angle turn and continued along the side of the house. By the flickering light of Ridley's candle, Julian saw a row of heavy oak doors in the right-hand wall. Each was painted with a number, one through six. Sounds came from behind the doors: restless walking, banging, the clanking of chains. Voices laughed, muttered gibberish, sang songs. One woman wailed piteously.

Another right-angle turn, another dark corridor with numbered doors. Six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven. They stopped before Number Twelve.

Ridley drew aside a little wooden flap and squinted through the eye-hole behind it. "She's quiet today, but that may change at any moment. You're certain you wish to take responsibility for her?"

"Quite certain."

Ridley shrugged, selected a key from the bunch in his hand, and unlocked the door. Julian went in, Ridley following.

The cell was about ten by fifteen feet. It was lit only by one small window, too high to look out. There was a pallet bed against one wall and an earth-closet in the far corner. A damp, fetid smell hung in the air, though the floor was tolerably clean and covered with fresh straw. A young woman lay face down in the straw. When the two men entered, she lifted her head dazedly.

She was in her early twenties, with china-blue eyes and fair hair falling in a tangle over her shoulders. Her skin was chalk-white, her eyes ringed with shadows. Little bird-like bones stood out in her cheeks and the hollow of her neck. There was straw in her hair and a smut of dirt on her nose. She was wrapped in a grey woollen cloak, from which the tips of her feet protruded, clad in grimy white-satin slippers trimmed with the remnants of gold braid.

She sat up, staring at Julian. The next instant she flung herself at him and clasped him round the legs, nearly toppling
him
into the straw. "Oh, sir! I beg you, take me away! I'll go anywhere with you, I'll be your slave, only take me away, please, please—"

"Yes, Mrs. Desmond!" He tried to raise her. "I'll take you away. I've come for that very purpose—"

"No!"
she shrieked. "You've come from
him!
He locked me up like this, and now he means to kill me!" She beat on his legs with her fists. "I won't go with you! No! No!"

"I did warn you, sir," said Ridley complacently. "She's in no fit state to be removed."

Julian turned on him, his voice dangerously quiet. "I should think anyone who'd spent a month immured in this cell with little hope of release would be in the same state. It seems you not only receive mad people—you create them."

He got hold of Mrs. Desmond's wrists, then dropped on his haunches so that his face was on a level with hers. "Mrs. Desmond! Listen to me. I've come here as your friend, in your service. Let me remove you from this place and offer you such protection as I can give, and you can honourably accept." She blinked at him, torn between hope and fear.

"You don't wish to stay here, do you?" he urged gently.

"No," she whispered.

"Will you do me the honour to trust me and let me see you safely away?"

She caught her lower lip between her teeth and nodded jerkily.

He helped her to her feet. Her cloak parted, revealing a white silk evening dress, now grey with grime. The transparent tulle sleeves hung in tatters, and the flounce on the bottom of the skirt trailed hanks of dust, straw, and dead spiders.

Julian weighed the satisfaction of knocking Ridley down against the trouble and delay that would result, and reluctantly decided against it. Let the law deal with him and find out what other sane people he might have conveniently agreed to lock away. Julian's business was to look after Mrs. Desmond—and, of course, to find out what light she could shed on the life and death of Alexander Falkland.

26: Behind the Mask

Alfred gaped in amazement as Ridley's servant let Julian and Mrs. Desmond out at the gate of the madhouse. It was raining hard now, and the dirt road was dissolving into mud. Mrs. Desmond instinctively held up the hem of her skirt and trod delicately around the puddles, though it was hard to see what damage was left to be done to her gown and slippers.

When she saw the cabriolet, her eyes lit up, and she gazed at Julian with new respect. "It belongs to a friend," he explained.

"You've very fine friends, sir!" She ran her hand admiringly over the cab's sleek body.

"I ought to have introduced myself. Julian Kestrel, at your service."

"La, sir, it's I that should be at
your
service, after all you've done for me!"

Julian did not quite like the implications of this. "Hadn't we better go? The sooner we're away from this place, the safer you'll be."

"Oh, yes!" She caught his arm, glancing fearfully back at the madhouse. "Take me away, please, at once!"

He handed her into the cabriolet and jumped lightly up beside her. Alfred mounted his little seat at the back, and they set off.

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"I thought we'd stop at an inn not far from here called the Jolly Filly. The landlord's daughter can look after you and perhaps lend you a frock till you can find new clothes."

"I've ever so many clothes in town—gowns as fine as this one was." She plucked regretfully at her ravaged dress.

"Forgive me, but the circumstances of your disappearance obliged me to look into your wardrobe. Your clothes are missing."

"But not my jewels? He's never taken my jewels?"

"I'm afraid so."

"The bastard! The dirty, sneaking sod! I'll have the law of him, I will! I don't care a pin who he is, or what swells his friends are! He gave me the jewels, but that don't give him the right to take them back, does it? I earned them, Lord knows! Nobody'll ever know what I went through to get them! That son of a whore!—"

"I beg you, Mrs. Desmond, don't distress yourself. Your jewelry may turn up. Here." He gave her his handkerchief.

"Thank you, sir." She blew her nose, then cast him a sidelong look and dabbed daintily at her eyes. Her accent took on a nasal, dubious gentility. "You must forgive me, sir, for the language I used just now. It's not my usual way of talking, indeed it's not. But after being in that dreadful place for days and days, with no hope of ever getting out again—"

"Of course. Anyone who'd been through what you have would be thoroughly overwrought."

"Oh, you do have a pretty way of putting things, sir! I
am
overwrought, something shocking. And when I heard my jewelry was gone—all I have in the world!—why, there was no bearing of it!" She added wistfully, "I don't suppose I'll ever get it back. The law won't help the likes of me—not against
him.
'Spite of what he done—did—to me, shutting me up in that place, he's still Alexander Falkland, Esquire, son of a baronet, and what am I?"

"Mrs. Desmond, Alexander is beyond the law's reach, but not for the reasons you suppose. He's dead."

"Dead?" Joy blazed up in her eyes. "How did he die?" 

"He was murdered."

She caught her breath, then clutched eagerly at his arm, causing him to jerk on the reins. "Who did it? How was it done? I hope it was painful!"

Julian explained briefly how Alexander had been murdered, and how he himself had become involved in the investigation. She hung on his every word. He told himself that her hatred of Alexander was understandable after what he had done to her, but even so, her unabashed delight was ghoulish. He suspended the conversation. She was buoyed up by nervous energy, but she needed rest and food before she could be questioned to good effect. He also wanted to be rid of Alfred, who had been listening avidly. So he drove on in silence. Mrs. Desmond soon succumbed to exhaustion, and her head drooped on his shoulder.

They reached the Jolly Filly at about half past three. Julian took Ruth aside and told her that Mrs. Desmond was an unfortunate young woman who had been wrongfully confined in a madhouse, and who had valuable evidence to give in the investigation. Ruth was obviously curious to know more, but she took her cue from Julian and asked no questions. An admirable girl, he thought—as capable as she was pretty. It crossed his mind that Dipper would have liked her immensely. He was glad, for the sake of her virtue and peace of mind, that he had not brought him.

While she took charge of Mrs. Desmond, Julian was shown to a private parlour, where he rang for a waiter and ordered dinner to be ready in an hour. Meantime, he refreshed himself with coffee and brandy and pondered what arrangements to make for Mrs. Desmond. He must certainly bring her to London: Sir Malcolm would want to meet her, and Bow Street would require her to swear out evidence. But where was she to spend the night? No respectable inn would take a young woman who had neither maid nor luggage. Bow Street would have no accommodation for her. She could not go to Sir Malcolm's house—not with Mrs. Falkland there. And Julian's landlady would not take kindly to her staying with him. She had once let Dipper's sister Sally sleep in her spare room, but Julian did not think she would extend the same courtesy to Mrs. Desmond. Sally, after all, was charming, warm-hearted—but this was no time to lose himself in reminiscing about Sally.

He could think of only one place where Mrs. Desmond would be comfortable and secluded, and where responsible servants could keep her under their eye. He did not trust her not to run away with the first man who dangled jewelry under her nose. David Adams, for one, could well afford to deck her out in diamonds, and he might have good reason to want her out of the way.

Julian rang for the waiter again and asked for a messenger to take a note to Hampstead. Then he sent for pen and paper and wrote a note to Sir Malcolm. He told him he had found Mrs. Desmond and proposed to bring her to stay at Alexander's house in London. He said they would arrive at about seven and asked Sir Malcolm to meet them there and to forewarn the servants.

Ben Foley, the ostler, appeared, saying he had got leave to carry the note. Julian guessed he had begged hard for the privilege. Boys his age tended to be fascinated by criminal investigations, and the clever ones made good allies. Julian gave him the note, together with directions and a generous tip, and sent him on his way.

Ruth brought Mrs. Desmond back after an absence of about an hour. She looked much improved. Her face still looked wasted, but at least it was clean, and hot water or assiduous pinching had coaxed a trace of colour into her cheeks. Her hair, though limp, had been induced to curl a little at the front and sides; the rest was twisted into a Grecian knot high at the back. Ruth had lent her the flowered muslin frock Julian had seen her in yesterday—surely her Sunday best.

"Thank you, Miss Piper," he said warmly. "You've been more than kind."

"I'm sure I was glad to do it for
you,
sir." She darted a scathing glance at Mrs. Desmond, who was admiring herself in the looking-glass over the mantelpiece. Julian guessed Mrs. Desmond seldom endeared herself to her own sex.

After Ruth had gone, Mrs. Desmond turned to Julian, patting her hair complacently. "I feel ever so much more myself now. 'Course, this trumpery frock ain't what I'm used to, though I s'pose it's good enough for the likes of
her."
She came up close to him, her china-blue eyes wide and melting. "I hate you to see me like this, sir—so pale and scarecrowish. Why, I'm just a wraith of my old self. You'd hardly believe it, but some men used to say I was good-looking."

"I can readily believe that."

"You
are
kind. I'll mend, I'm sure, now I'm out of that hellhole—now that you've rescued me, I mean. I'm ever so grateful to you."

"There's no need to feel under the least obligation. I beg you won't think of it again."

"How can I help but think of it? When I was so cold and wretched and practically dying in that hateful place, and the most elegant man in London—in all England, I'm sure!—braves no end of danger to come and save me! There's nothing I wouldn't do for you—positively
nothing.
You've only to ask."