Murder While I Smile Page 16

  “It’s beginning to look as if Corinne’s right,” Coffen said. “The bounder has taken Chamaude off to a love nest somewhere.”

  “I console myself that she went for the title and, of course, the greater fortune.”

  “It ain’t you I’m worried about. You’re always thinking of yourself.”

  “Someone must think of poor me,” he said with a sniff. “Men have hearts, too, Pattle.”

  “Well, they don’t talk about ‘em, unless they have heartburn. If you was sick, it would be all right.”

  “Oh, I am sick at heart and would lie down.”

  “Then go on home.”

  Through it all, Corinne smiled gaily and said she thought it a wonderful idea to have supper at the Clarendon after the play. Half a dozen eligible melords, any one of whom would have been happy to replace Luten in her affection, stopped at her table. She flirted outrageously with every one of them. But when she was at home in her bed, the tears Prance had prophesied came gushing out to scald her cheeks, as the imagined intimacies of Luten and Chamaude scalded her heart.

  She knew it was only Luten she wanted, yet she wouldn’t lift a finger to fight for him. Pride prevented it. There was a rumor in her family that the Clares were descended from Spaniards who got ashore to Ireland during the sinking of the Armada. Her coloring suggested it, and her pride was of the best Spanish quality, strong and rigid and sharp as a Spanish blade of tempered steel.

  If he treated her like this, she would ignore him. She would not betray by so much as a blink that her heart sat like a ton of lead in her chest. When they met, and of course, they were bound to meet, she would act as if their engagement had never existed. She would not mention the words engagement or comtesse, or ask where he had been. She would be civil but cool. Meanwhile, she would go on the strut tomorrow and smile at everyone she met—and come home again and cry alone in her room.

  Around four o’clock, emotional exhaustion lulled her into a restless sleep. She awoke at eight, to see pencils of light shimmering around the edges of her window blinds. A green glow came through the green lutestring hangings, giving her room the appearance of being underwater. She had no instant’s reprieve of not remembering all her troubles. They came storming over her the moment she opened her eyes. She was tempted to stay in bed for the next few weeks but again pride was her goad. She reached out and pulled the cord by her bed.

  Within minutes, the maid was at the door with her morning cocoa, served in a delicate white china pot with a matching cup and saucer. She thought of the tea set with shamrocks Luten had bought for her—it seemed a year ago. She’d send it back this very day, without a word of explanation.

  “Shall I open the curtains, milady?” the maid asked.

  “Thank you, Mary.” She glanced at the tray, hoping to see a note from Luten. There was none. “Send Mrs. Ballard up in ten minutes, if you please.”

  Mary bobbed and left.

  Corinne drank up her cocoa hastily. She usually admired her pretty bedchamber with the elegant white furnishings trimmed in gilt while she enjoyed this morning treat. On that day her eyes stared unseeingly at the far wall. When Mrs. Ballard came, Corinne selected her outfit for going on the strut on Bond Street. The violet worsted suit she had had made for half mourning after George’s death suited her mood and the autumn weather, and still looked well on her. The waist pinched in to the same twenty inches of her girlhood. The feminine swell above and below had increased a little, however.

  When she went belowstairs, Black stood waiting for her. He held no note in his hand but a flash of keen interest lit his obsidian eye.

  “He got home at six this morning,” he announced. Not “his lordship,” not even the more familiar “Lord Luten,” but “he.” Black knew there was only one man of interest to his beloved at this time.

  Corinne’s heart began to palpitate. Not even to Black would she reveal her eagerness. She didn’t ask if there was a message for her. If the flush on her cheeks betrayed her, that was nature’s fault.

  “What were you doing up so early, Black?” she asked.

  “I had trouble sleeping, milady,” he replied, with an arch smile that told her he had been on guard all night. “He had changed his team. It wasn’t his own nags drawing the carriage. He was alone,” he added, piercing her with a meaningful look. “Wearing his blue jacket and fawn trousers. Driving all night, it looked like.”

  “Gracious, Black,” she said, blushing at her duplicity, “one would think I had set you to spy on Lord Luten.”

  “I’ll keep you informed, milady,” he said with a leer that he imagined to be the soul of discretion.

  “I shall be going out at eleven with Sir Reginald and Mr. Pattle, if anyone calls for me.”

  “Home for lunch?”

  “I’m not sure. Something cold will do, if I return.”

  “You must keep up your strength, milady. We don’t want you going into a decline.”

  Again she found it impossible to discipline Black. “Will you bring me the morning journal, if you please. Oh, and you might return that tea set to him, the one with the shamrocks. I shan’t be needing it,” she said, and walked quickly into the saloon.

  Chapter Nineteen

  When Luten called on Lady Chamaude, he had no intention of spending so many hours with her. She said she was in mortal danger, and it was his job, as well as his instinct, to protect her. Brougham had suggested it.

  “She’s our only hope of getting Yarrow,” he had said, when Luten took the news of Boisvert’s death to him, immediately after reporting it to Bow Street. Brougham, a thoroughly political animal, considered the murder in light of how it affected party politics.

  “She’ll not bite the hand that feeds her—or fed her, in any case,” Luten objected. “It would only incriminate herself. And Yarrow is a spiteful old bird. She’d feel his wrath.”

  “She was not the one who really profited on the Gresham deal, Luten. I have a ‘source’ at the Royal Exchange who has reported some havey-cavey goings-on there with regard to Yarrow’s financial dealings. To call them Byzantine doesn’t begin to describe his chicanery. He is senior partner in a real estate company that recently bought a large share of the copper mine that will provide the tubes used for directional guidance of Gresham’s rockets—but not Congreve’s. Congreve uses a different supplier.”

  Luten lifted his eyebrows. “I see!”

  “That’s only the beginning. A rocket has many ingredients, and Yarrow owns a healthy share of companies that provide most of them. Chile saltpeter, for example, features largely in the production of the rocket. You get the idea.”

  “Yarrow would arrange for Gresham’s tender to win, providing Gresham used the materials from Yarrow’s companies.”

  “That’s it. No money actually changed hands, so far as we know. It was not a direct bribe, nor does Yarrow have any share in the Gresham Armaments Works. I wasted a deal of time tracing bank accounts, but that is not the way it was done. Yarrow’s investments look innocent enough on the surface. He is wealthy; it’s natural that he would be investing in various commodities. It was only when I began to look into the production of the rocket that I realized the significance of his recent investments. All since the beginning of the year, when he began to talk up the need for rockets in the Peninsula.”

  “I think we’ve got him, Henry,” Luten said, and looked for Brougham’s opinion.

  “It is certainly a conflict of interest, but then there is so much of that sort of thing going on in the House that it will be difficult to round up support to go after him. Even our own members’ hands are not entirely clean.”

  “Is Gresham’s rocket reliable?”

  “I could find no glaring flaw in the design. It should work.”

  “You mean to say it’s never been tried!”

  “Thus far, he’s still working on the prototype. No one has seen it in action.”

  “Is it supposed to be superior to Congreve’s? We know it is more expensive.”
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  “Not half as good, but try to prove it. The Tories can rally a quorum of scientists to say it is better. You recall Lord Peck, another good Tory, got the contract to provide poor woolen uniforms for the army sweltering under the Spanish sun, and at a vastly inflated price. No fuss was made of it, even by the Grits. I daresay this Yarrow business is more of the same but with the potential for disaster if the rocket doesn’t work. My science is a little rusty, but even I could suggest some improvements. Putting on my other cap, as a lawyer, I can tell you that without something in writing to prove Yarrow’s intention, we shan’t get far with hounding him.”

  “He’s too cagey to have anything in writing.”

  Brougham hunched his shoulders. “A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Gresham is less experienced in double-dealing. He never left Colchester for the first half of the year. I’ve had men there looking into it. So how was the deal arranged?”

  “Yarrow must have gone to Colchester.”

  “He’s more cunning that that, I think. If he went, he covered his tracks well. Of course, the initial approach was made by Yarrow. Such a large undertaking would be outside Gresham’s thinking, but I doubt it was done in person. Yarrow would not want to run the risk of being seen in Gresham’s company.”

  “If not by letter, and not in person, then how— Ah, Chamaude!”

  “Chamaude’s daughter is being raised by a woman in Colchester, a Mrs. Yonge, on Wrye Street. Chamaude is there, from time to time. We know she is acquainted with Gresham. I believe she was used as intermediary. She might be the one who made the initial approach to Yarrow. Gresham is not well known. I don’t see how Yarrow would ever have heard of him otherwise. She is up to all the rigs. If any proof exists, she is the one with the wits to hang on to it. We have her in a tight corner now, with this murdered-artist affair. Go to her, and see if she’s willing to bargain.”

  “We have no proof she arranged Boisvert’s murder.”

  “She can’t be sure of that. We’ll pick up the handsome young Frenchie who calls on her, the one you think killed Boisvert for her. His name is François Lachange, by the way. No visible means of support, but he lives fairly high off the hog. Doesn’t have a carriage. He and his mama share a flat on Upper Grosvenor Square. Townsend has been keeping an eye on him. I’ll ask Townsend to arrest him on some charge or other. Tell Chamaude we have him in custody, and he has told us some interesting things. See what she says.”

  “It’s worth a try.”

  “If she’s willing to cooperate, see that nothing happens to her. Yarrow would put a knife through her as quick as he’d blink—and through you, too. For God’s sake, be careful of yourself. We don’t want to lose you, Luten. We know she’s murdered once already to save her skin.”

  All thoughts of his social life and obligations fell from Luten’s mind as he anticipated the triumph of catching Yarrow.

  Yarrow had been a thorn in his side from the first day he became active in the House. He was one of the Tory stalwarts who profited hugely from his position at Westminster and held a dozen sinecures at court. He blocked any Whig attempt at reform of Parliament. If he could be publicly branded with corruption, it would go a long way toward discrediting Mouldy and Company.

  The common Englishman might not have a direct say in running his country, but by sheer force of numbers, he had considerable power, and that power was focused in London. In a city of one million souls with no real police but only the Horse and three regiments of Foot Guards to maintain law and order, a mob could instill terror in the heart of any politician who displeased it. Even the Prince Regent had felt its wrath. Yarrow’s carriage would be overturned in the street, and its owner pelted and pummeled. If he made it home in one piece, brickbats flung through the windows, a torch to his front door, and a screaming mob thousands strong in the street would be enough to turn him into an honest man. And nothing was more likely to incite the mob than a suggestion of skullduggery in supplying their lads in Wellington’s army.

  Luten did remember that Prance was visiting Yvonne that afternoon. It even occurred to him that Prance could help him sequester Yvonne in some quiet country cottage, safe from Yarrow’s wrath. Murder, he assumed, would cool Prance’s ardor for the wench. But when he stopped for a word with Winkle, he was told that Sir Reginald had not called. The comtesse had received a note delivered by hand by a servant, but the man was not wearing Yarrow’s red livery. The comtesse had sent her footman off to deliver a note. Winkle had thought it was a reply to her message, but it now seemed it was to Prance, canceling her meeting with him.

  Luten found Yvonne alone, trembling and frightened to death, or trying to give that impression. She clutched her hands to her breast and said in accents worthy of the Comédie Française, “Dear God, if Yarrow ever suspected me of helping you, he would kill her.”

  “Her?”

  A tremolo entered her voice. “Do you think I have put up with the beast all these years for my own sake? It is my daughter, Sylvie, who must be protected.”

  Luten decided to quiz her about her daughter, to see if she told the truth about anything.

  “Where is she?”

  “In Colchester, with a Mrs. Yonge. A friend of Yarrow’s. Yarrow arranged it for me some years ago, when we were ... friends.”

  “Some years ago” suggested to Luten that Yvonne had had plenty of time to remove her daughter elsewhere, but at least she told the truth about where Sylvie was quartered.

  “Do you have information that could help us indict Yarrow?” he asked.

  “A few notes and letters I purloined from his wallet one night he stayed here. He had been out carousing and came here drunk. I had Boisvert make copies of the letters—and kept the originals. Boisvert is—was a very good forger. Not checks! Just personal letters. He did a profitable business in forging personal letters supposedly from Bonaparte to Josephine. Surprising what people will pay for that sort of thing. Boisvert no longer did his forgeries, since he was becoming a little known as an artist.”

  “Pity you had to murder him,” Luten said, fighting down the anger.

  Her eyes turned to fire. “I? You think I had him killed? He was my friend. It was that fat fiend—Yarrow.”

  Luten pretended to believe her. “I doubt Yarrow did the job himself. Who would he use?”

  “One of his servants. He has a few who would do anything for money.”

  “Is François Lachange one of them?”

  Her shoulders squared and her eyes flashed dangerously. “Certainly not! François is my friend. Why do you mention him?”

  “I understand Bow Street picked him up in connection with Boisvert’s death. They’ll get the truth out of him,” he said blandly, and watched for her reaction. She was certainly worried.

  “Poor François,” she said. “But they can’t prove he did anything wrong when he is innocent.”

  “You have no need to fear—if he is innocent.” Luten adopted a sympathetic pose to put Yvonne in humor with him. He could see no reason for Yarrow to have the artist murdered. It was Yvonne who was having her paintings copied. “If he has an alibi, for instance...”

  “I’ll say he was with me, if needs be.”

  Luten pinched back the sneer that came so easily to his proud face. “Let me see the letters,” he said.

  After a moment’s hesitation, she drew them out of her pocket and allowed him a quick glance, but she didn’t let him hold them.

  “When I have got Sylvie safely out of Yarrow’s clutches, then I will give them to you. Word of a lady—and an old friend,” she said, and returned them to her pocket.

  “What do they say? I didn’t have time to read them.”

  “Notes from Gresham outlining what materials were required for the rockets. Quotations in Yarrow’s hand from various companies that supplied the materials, with notations of how much profit he would make on each. Also an apologetic little note from Inwood stating that Yarrow’s offer was tempting, but he could not agree that Gresham was the
better manufacturer. Inwood had discovered some flaw in the design. He was interested in science. His letter was written the afternoon of Inwood’s attack by ‘footpads.’ Unfortunately, it does not say what the ‘offer’ consisted of, but Marchant was just made an equerry. His occasional attendance on the prince pays a rather handsome emolument. Yarrow let slip that Inwood was so unwise as to use the word ‘bribe’ when the offer was made.” She gave a dismissing shrug. “He was very naive, Inwood.”

  The glimpse of the letters Luten had been allowed seemed to jibe with her story. “How did he get on to Gresham?” he asked, with an air of innocence.

  “I expect Mrs. Yonge approached him. She and Gresham are old friends. I have met him at her house a few times. Dreadfully common little man.”

  Luten considered this. There was really little point in quizzing Yvonne. She had a plausible answer for everything. She might even be telling the truth.

  “Pack up what you need, and I’ll provide footmen to escort you to Colchester to get your daughter.”

  “Yarrow doesn’t let me keep a carriage. I’m practically a prisoner here. I wouldn’t be safe on the public coach.”

  “I’ll lend you my unmarked carriage.”

  “Come with me. You want to publicly prove Yarrow is a villain as badly as I do. Therefore, I can trust you. It might prove a hazardous journey, Luten. Yarrow is having me watched.”

  “I didn’t see anyone lurking about.”

  “Yarrow owns that brown brick house across the street. A Mr. Willet occupies it. He seldom goes out. Only when I do. Interesting, is it not? If we leave at once, he won’t have time to get his rig here to follow us. He’s already sent his footman off to call it. He recognizes you from the other day, when we escaped for a few minutes. I have a small trunk packed, ready to take advantage of the first opportunity that offered. I feared I would have to wait until after dark. As I shan’t be coming back, I could not leave without taking the few valuables I have collected.”