Strange Capers Page 10

“That is what I’m endeavoring to find out,” he replied.

  “You’ve been to her house, then?”

  “I dropped in for a few minutes with Mickey one evening. She doesn’t trust me yet. She served us tea,” he said.

  “I see.” I disliked the prissy sound of my own voice.

  “Now don’t be like that, Constance,” he wheedled, taking my hand and squeezing it. “It won’t be for long, you know. Why don’t you plan a picnic for us tomorrow afternoon? We’ll have another lesson with the grays.”

  This was some consolation. “All right. Where would you like to go?”

  “Surprise me,” he suggested. His eyes glowed, and his lips parted in a smile, revealing a flash of white teeth. “The destination is not important; it’s the company I look forward to. A demain, ma fleur petite. “ On this outburst of French, he lifted my hand to his lips and kissed the knuckles.

  “It is the current style in London to offer the open hand for osculation, Constance, not the fist,” he informed me, biting back a laugh. “Like so.” He pried my fingers loose and kissed the palm of my hand, holding it a moment against his face. His chin and cheeks were perfectly smooth. At these close quarters, I noticed a pleasant scent of cologne emanating from him. I didn’t think these were preparations to seduce the gentlemen at the White Hart.

  This done, he cocked his curled beaver at a rakish angle over his eye and left, with a flourish of cane and walking stick. I looked out the window, noticing that he entered his traveling carriage, not the curricle. I was unhappy to think of him going off, possibly to visit Madame Bieler, but I consoled myself with tomorrow’s picnic.

  I went to the kitchen to speak to Meg about a lunch. We always took roast squab on our picnics at home. I imagined myself with Aiglon under the trees at some picturesque spot, perhaps the grounds of one of the local castles that were open to the public. We would have wine, cheese, bread, and some of Cook’s wonderful sweets. The subject of Madame Bieler would not arise. He would tell me about his brother, Nicholas, and I’d tell him about Prissy and my other sisters and brothers. Perhaps a discreet mention that Prissy, my younger sister, was on the verge of marriage...

  “There’s no squabs in the house,” Meg said in her surly way. “What you’ve got is ham and mutton. There’s an end of Stilton, not too dry and hard. It’s not my day for making bread. What I made yesterday will have to do. Do you want some of the wizened apples put into the basket?”

  “No, thank you, Meg. But do you think you could make some cream buns or perhaps your delicious apple tart?”

  “I’ve just made a plum cake. Who’s to eat that if I go making up apple tarts?” she demanded. “I’ve got a dozen mouths to feed, with all his lordship’s fine servants ordering up gammon and eggs all hours of the day. I’ve only got ten fingers, miss. It’s eight by the clock, and not a dish is in the water yet from dinner. I’m a servant, not a slave!”

  “You’re right, Meg. The plum cake will be fine. Where’s Willard? I’ll want some wine from the cellar.”

  “He’s up with the mistress. And he’s ragged as well, poor soul.”

  “I’ll get the wine,” I said to appease her, for I could see that she was up to her elbows in work.

  I took a tallow candle, lit it, and opened the door to the cellar. It was as black as midnight down there, but I left the door open behind me. Before I descended one step, Meg banged it shut, complaining of a draft. I descended into the bowels of the cellar, not afraid, for I’d been there dozens of times and knew the wine racks were close to the bottom of the stairs. I wanted a claret for the meat and a Madeira for afterward.

  I found the claret with no trouble and proceeded along the racks toward the end, where the sweet wines were kept. My candle flame was unsteady in the damp, drafty cellar. Its acrid odor was in my nose, and I knew the smoke from the tallow was blacker than it was from beeswax, though I couldn’t see it. The top racks were empty, and I crouched down, lowering my candle to read the labels. I didn’t want a Marsala, only a good Madeira.

  Something peculiar struck my ear as I crouched in the darkness. It sounded fearfully like the rustle of a rodent just behind the racks. I set down the bottle of claret, held the candle higher, and peered around the end of the racks. There was a suspicious feeling of motion, but in the shadows I couldn’t actually see anything. It was only a sound and perhaps a movement of air. The sound was heavier than what a rat or a mouse would make, however. I thought it must be Bijou, Meg’s cat, who is occasionally put down to chase the mice.

  Meg had been so busy the past few days that it was possible she had forgotten all about Bijou. The poor thing might be thirsty and lonesome. “Here, kitty. Come, Bijou,” I called, taking a step forward. The motion was repeated, retreating now. I looked around the little puddle of lighted area, moving my candle to and fro, wondering why Bijou should be afraid of me. I saw a black leather bag, not unlike a doctor’s satchel, on the floor. I had never seen it before and was curious enough to lift it. It was very heavy.

  From within, a metallic sound could be distinguished, possibly a doctor’s instruments. It was an unusual thing to come across in a cellar, particularly since no doctor had ever inhabited Thornbury as far as I knew. I tried the fastener and found that it was not rusted as I thought it would be. It slid open fairly easily. I was just about to open it wide when a pair of black arms flashed out at me. From somewhere above the arms came a ferocious growling sound.

  I dropped both satchel and candle and ran for my life. All I could think of was a bogeyman, that imaginary character invented to frighten children. Unreal, that was how it seemed to me. But the single golden coin that fell out of the satchel was not imagined. It plinked with the sound of metal money and rolled in a circle. I ran, screaming, up the stairs into the unwelcoming presence of Meg.

  “What’s the matter then, rats?” she asked, scowling. “I’ll put Bijou down there tomorrow, see if I don’t.”

  “A man!” I managed to squeak out. “There’s a man down there, Meg.”

  “Woosha,” she said, unbelieving. “How would a man get past me in the kitchen? There’s nobody down there but a shadow.”

  Still, she called Willard before returning below. Emboldened by their presence, I went with them, telling my story as I went. My guttered candle was on the floor behind the wine racks to substantiate my tale, but of the satchel there was no trace. The possibility of one sole coin still being somewhere on the floor, however, induced Meg to make a thorough search, and there, just under the edge of the wine rack, was the guinea.

  “Well, as I live and breathe!” she exclaimed, delighted with her find. “Take a look at this, Willard.” She bit it and declared it to be genuine. The most complete search of the cellar did not discover the mother lode from which it had come, but it did reveal that the outside cellar door was unlocked. It locked from the inside, and was always kept locked. A stranger’s entrance by that means required a cohort in the house.

  “God love us, I hope his lordship didn’t have his gold hidden down here, to be stolen out from under our noses!” she exclaimed, and sequestered the coin in the bosom of her dress.

  “That’s what it is!” Willard said. “His servants have been in and out of this cellar a dozen times, choosing wines for Lord Aiglon. One of them opened that door and went slipping in from the outside so we’d not see him. It’s not on our heads, Meg. I’ll speak to her ladyship.”

  “Lock the door first, gudgeon!” she ordered, and he did.

  Then we all went back upstairs and Willard went to Rachel. I was sure she would join us to discuss this major event, but she only sent Willard back down with word that she knew nothing about the matter, and if Aiglon was foolish enough to carry such sums about with him and to employ larcenous servants, it had nothing to do with her.

  “Why was he talking of selling our house if he was as rich as a nabob?” Meg asked me.

  “Maybe he sold it already, and that was the purchase price,” Willard suggested, and was roundly cond
emned for a cloth head.

  “We don’t know that it was Aiglon’s money,” I pointed out.

  “We know it wasn’t mine or yours or Willard’s,” Meg retorted sharply. “And if it belonged to the mistress, she wouldn’t be calmly sitting upstairs reading that everlasting book. She’d be off hollering to the constable,”

  This irrefutable logic did indeed point back to Aiglon as the possessor of the money. Shiftwell was summoned, and he turned a blank face to us all.

  “His lordship did not travel with any large sum of money,” he stated firmly. And added, “Quite the contrary,” in a way that suggested pockets to let.

  “There’s a riddle wrapped up in a mystery then,” Meg declared, and drew out her coin.

  It was newly minted, which set my mind at rest on one bothersome question. When Meg mentioned Rachel reading that “everlasting book,” I feared Rachel had outsmarted me and gone on to find some buried treasure after all. But the coin Meg held was not more than a few months old, to judge by its sheen.

  I went upstairs to speak to Rachel and found her lying on her bed, though fully dressed. She was too far from the lamp to have been reading.

  “Rachel, what should we do about the man in the cellar?” I asked.

  “You’d best mention it to Aiglon when he returns.”

  “It’s important enough that we should send someone into town to get him!”

  “No, he won’t want any publicity,” she said. It was unusual that she didn’t even bother sitting up to talk to me, but remained lying down.

  “Are you not feeling well? Would you like a headache powder?” I asked.

  “I’m just a little tired. I haven’t been sleeping well. I’m very worried about Aiglon’s goings-on here. You know where that money came from, of course?”

  “No, I have no idea.”

  “It’s the money he got for selling those arms to the Frenchies. That’s why he was careful to hide it in the cellar. And it is also why he wouldn’t thank us for raising any alarm at its loss. He can’t even report the theft. It serves him right,” she said grimly.

  “That can’t be it, Rachel!” I objected, but I remembered his extraordinary ability with a lie and found myself in great doubt.

  We discussed it for a few moments. We were still doing so when Willard knocked at the door and was told to come in.

  “There’s company downstairs looking for his lordship,” Willard said.

  “Is it the law?” I asked, my bones turning to ice.

  “Oh, no, miss. It’s nothing like the law” was Willard’s strange reply.

  “Well, who is it?” Rachel demanded, finally lifting herself to an upright position.

  “He says the name’s Sir Edward Retchling, but folks call him Beau. Have you ever heard of him at all?”

  “No, but it sounds like a name worth investigating. The Retchlings are more than respectable. We’ll be down presently, Willard. Give Sir Edward a glass of wine and make him comfortable,” she said.

  “He’s already given himself a glass,” Willard replied, and shuffled out, his poor shoulders stooping.

  “Don’t speak of the man in the cellar or the satchel of gold in front of Retchling, Constance. Let me talk to Aiglon about it first,” Rachel instructed.

  She also suggested I make myself presentable, employing her rouge pot if necessary, for I looked like a ghost. The tallow had also stained my gown, so by the time I changed and went below, Sir Edward was comfortably ensconced. His clear, fluting voice struck my ears from halfway down the staircase, but his physical presence was more striking by far. I had never seen such a pretty gentleman.

  * * *

  Chapter 9

  Sir Edward was at least six feet tall with broad shoulders, so it is strange that the overall impression when first laying eyes on him was that he ought, by rights, to be wearing a bonnet. I don’t know whether it was his languid, die-away air or his fine-featured face that first put the notion into my head, but, once there, I could hardly look at him without smiling.

  He had baby blue eyes, heavily fringed, a pouting set of lips, and a weak chin, but to counteract these adornments, he also had a nose of considerable proportions. He arose to make a ludicrously graceful bow when Rachel and I entered. I observed at once that I had another elegant person to contend with. There were no wrinkles in his well-fitted jacket, no tarnish on its large brass buttons, no dust on his boots, no intimation that he had traveled any distance since leaving his dressing room.

  “Ladies, your servant,” he said, scraping a leg most artfully.

  “Sir Edward, I’m Aiglon’s cousin, Lady Savage. Allow me to make you welcome at Thornbury,” Rachel said, and went on to make me acquainted with him.

  We all sat down before the desultory embers in the grate and stared at one another. “I’m afraid Aiglon is out for the evening,” Rachel explained. “He may not come home for a few hours. If you are anxious to see him, you’ll find him at the White Hart in Folkestone. It’s only ...”

  “Your excellent butler was kind enough to tell me so, ma’am. I have taken the liberty of having Shiftwell sent off to fetch him. He should be here soon,” Retchling replied.

  The casual use of Shiftwell’s name, along with the rather encroaching way of using Aiglon’s servants, suggested that Sir Edward and Aiglon were close friends. Rachel had soon made inquiries in this direction.

  “Bosom bows,” he confirmed, “I come with tidings of great joy. You heard of the Kirkwell fracas?”

  “Yes,” Rachel replied, nose sliding chinward.

  “I have the honor to be Aiglon’s second in all his duels. I am happy to be able to inform you that your cousin acquitted himself admirably. A good but not fatal hit, and Aiglon was three sheets to the wind at the time, too. But to be defending the honor of a lightskirt! ‘Twas farce, not drama. Still, all’s well that ends well. The fellow has recovered sufficiently to inflict himself on society once more. I immediately dashed forward to tell Lance.”

  “He has already heard it,” Rachel told him. “Someone else wrote the news to him. You shouldn’t have bothered driving so far, Sir Edward.”

  “I spare no exertion where my true friends are concerned,” he professed nobly, then ran on as frankly as if he sat alone. “I wonder if Lance will know I knew Riddell wrote. I must come up with a better excuse, as that one has evaporated like dew in the morning sun.”

  “Why don’t you tell him the reason instead?” Rachel suggested, and her curious glance added that she wouldn’t mind hearing it herself.

  “One will end up doing so in the end. Pockets to let,” he mentioned. “Bailiff roosting at Watley Hall—my own country place. He’s counting the silver to see I don’t pawn or sell it. Entailed, of course. Still, Lance won’t cavil at that. He’s in much the same boat himself.”

  I had come to accept that Aiglon was an accomplished liar. I now had to swallow either that Retchling was equally accomplished or that Aiglon was, in fact, in the basket. And if he had lied to me about that, what confidence could be placed on any of his other explanations? Most of all, I was chagrined to hear that the duel had involved a lightskirt, and that it was, apparently, one of a series of such disgraceful exhibitions. He had never denied the duel or explained it to me.

  “You have come to stay a while then, Sir Edward?” Rachel asked, trying to conceal the wrath that I knew must be roiling in her breast.

  “For a petit sojourn by the sea, but I shan’t be any trouble to you, Lady Savage. I shall quietly inhabit the library. In my more cerebral or at any rate less physical moments, I enjoy to brush minds with other geniuses.”

  “I see,” Rachel answered, biting back a smile. “And are you a genius as well, Sir Edward?

  “It troubles my modesty to say so, but I have at last submitted to popular clamor and acknowledge it. My collection of Pensées was well-received. Rather in the manner of Blaise Pascal, but less theological. Pascal with muscles, the critics said. Rather clever of them. I slipped the phrase to Hazlitt but
can’t claim credit for the bon mot that was circulating at court. ‘Twas said I set Pascal ablaze. Blaise Pascal, you see. A pun. A lowly joke, and not even my own.”

  Sir Edward soon admitted that he was feeling peckish, so Rachel ordered him some cold food, and no sooner was it consumed than Aiglon arrived.

  Sir Edward jumped up from his chair, where he had been eating with a plate on his lap. “Lance, dear boy, what a world of good it does these tired eyes to see you!” he exclaimed, and paced forward to shake Aiglon’s hand.

  I compared the two, marveling that despite the similarity in build, they looked so very different. Retchling was perhaps eight or ten years older, but the greater disparity was in their air. Retchling was an affected fop, and it seemed strange to me that the pair could be intimate friends.

  “What a surprise, R—”

  “No, don’t call me Retchling!” Sir Edward interrupted, shaking a playful finger under his host’s nose. “It is the style since your departure to call me Beau. I am locked in mortal combat with Brummell for the title of greatest dandy in all of England. Tell me truthfully, now, Lance, what think you of this jacket?” he asked, performing a pirouette for Aiglon’s benefit. “It may not sit quite so well between the shoulder blades as Brummell’s, but it shows to better advantage in the sleeves, don’t you agree?”

  “It is no worse than Brummell’s,” Aiglon decided after careful consideration. Retchling looked quite crushed. I thought Aiglon could have added one harmless little lie to his total since it was obviously a matter of such importance to his friend.

  “Ah, to the quick! You strike me to the quick,” Retchling said sadly.

  “What calamity has forced you beyond London, Beau?” Aiglon asked, walking in and taking a seat. Perhaps he read the eagerness in my face, for he sat beside me. I was on thorns to tell him of my experience in the cellar and to learn if he was involved.

  “My old chronic complaint,” Retchling admitted. His financial troubles were apparently well-enough known that no further elucidation was required. “But I’m not here to beg, old bean. Never fear it. I know you are not well-to-grass yourself at the moment. I am almost on the point of taking your advice and marrying myself a plump heiress. Plump in the pocket, I mean. Ça va sans dire. I could never tolerate a squabby woman.” He looked hopefully toward myself at this speech. Aiglon just shook his head to denote my lack of funds. Next Rachel was examined as a possible bride. She was, I think, two or three years older than Retchling, but in the dim lamplight she passed for a little younger.