To Mourn a Murder Page 4

  After a moment she shook herself to attention and continued. "When I went to call her in, she was lying on the doorstep, dead, with a dozen bees scattered around her. Callwood thought she had been stung to death, but I knew better. What would so many bees be doing out in the cold autumn, and in London, where there are no flowers to speak of at that time? The bees were all dead. I'm sure Queen Mab had been poisoned. He left those bees as a warning to me. The next morning I received another demand, and I paid. I assume the Bee kept his word as Callwood has said nothing to me, nor changed in any way. I haven't heard from the Bee since. But if there is anything–anything at all–I can do to help catch him, I will happily do it."

  Prance shuddered. "What a ghastly story," he whispered.

  She wiped a tear from the corner of her eye with one finger. "It would have been better if I had told Callwood," she said, "but on the other hand he's somewhat narrow minded, as older people tend to be. I daresay he wouldn't have kicked me out because of the scandal, but things would have been quite different between us. Is Adele going to make the payment tonight? I know she asked you to help."

  "There was a change of plan," Byron said, and explained what had happened. "Sadly, her note didn't reach me in time. I was out and didn't learn of the new plan until this morning."

  "What a pity! We were quite counting on you to rescue her. So unless he strikes again and the lady informs you of it beforehand, the only clue we have is Horner's carriage." She thought a moment, then continued. "If we could discover who bought it, then the driver might remember who hired it that night. I don't suppose the same rig was used last night?"

  "I've no idea. Adele's description is not as detailed as yours," Byron replied. "She noticed only that it was an old rig with a team of bays."

  "Yes, the one I met had bays in harness as well, but then most of the hackneys do. I shouldn't think the Bee would hire the same rig twice. Another approach would be to determine who knew the sum both Adele and I could pay, and who was familiar enough with our routines to know about putting out our pets at night. The servants knew, of course. I don't believe I ever actually told anyone. But then all my friends knew how I doted on Queen Mab, and of course a dog has to be put out at night to do her business."

  "Actually that is not the only clue," Byron pointed out. "That unfortunate business with Carter occurred in Shepton. No one in London knew of it. Doesn't that suggest someone from your hometown or that area is behind this?"

  She shook her head. "I thought of that. There's no one from Shepton in London. It's a small place with few genteel families. The Carters don't come to town and I doubt they would broadcast it in any case. She knew what was going on with Carter and myself. They were both ashamed of it, as I was. It must be someone who just discovered it by chance. Impossible to know who. And Adele is from a different part of the country entirely, the south east. Her affair with Brunei occurred in Brighton."

  "Did Adele know of your trouble in Shepton?" Prance asked. "The lady's tongue does run away on her."

  "Oh dear, you're right. She knows I left Shepton under a cloud, but you may be sure I didn't tell her exactly what sort of cloud. If she had mentioned it, I daresay it wouldn't be impossible for the Bee to search through old journals or records and discover my scarlet past. Adele wouldn't do it on purpose, you know, but she does rattle on without thinking."

  "Where is Brunei now, do you know?" Byron asked.

  "He married some Irish heiress and moved to Ireland. Adele hasn't seen or heard from him in years. She doesn't feel he would be so scaley as to do this. He returned her letters when they broke up. He was a real gentleman, or so she says."

  Prance listened, then said, "Surely what leaps to the eye is that it must be someone in dire need of money. If Brunei married an heiress, that leaves him out. Whom do you know who is short of funds, Lady Callwood?"

  "Isn't everyone?" she asked, and laughed. "Except Mr. Danby, of course. He's rich as Croesus."

  "The list of impoverished would certainly include me," Byron said, in the same joking spirit. "Newstead is mortgaged up to its leaking roof."

  Lady Callwood turned her flashing eyes on him. "You must find yourself an heiress, milord, or write another poem."

  "Ah but a lord isn't allowed to spend money earned by the sweat of his brow–or pen. He's expected to donate that to charity."

  "Then let us setup a charity for impoverished poets," she suggested. "I would be happy to contribute to such a cause."

  Prance, who resented their flirting in front of him, said, "Pity you lost your three thousand, Lady Callwood."

  She turned her smile on him. "I expect the Berkeley Brigade will solve the little mystery for us. Are your friends on the case?"

  "No, but if this continues, I shall ask them to help."

  "You can rely on me to do anything I can to help you. I would love to catch the man who killed Queen Mab."

  Prance's opinion of her improved when she didn't state recovering her money as her main concern. The gentlemen thanked her, she thanked them, and they took their leave.

  "The lady is certainly awake on all suits," Prance said, as they went to the carriage. "A gold mine of information compared to Lady Jergen. What did you think of her?"

  "An adultery waiting to happen. Delightful! The lady has the eyes of a hawk and the soul of a Magdalene."

  "And we are not angels either, eh?"

  "Speak for yourself, Prance. I certainly consider myself an angel. A fallen angel, that is. One of Lucifer's tribe."

  "Speaking of angels, her face belongs in a Renaissance painting. The figure is more robust, though."

  "Botticelli's Venus would curl up in her shell and pull the top down if she ever got a glimpse of that figure. She would make a most enchanting mistress. Of course she is already that, in all but name. Bought and paid for by Callwood, the lucky bounder." He sighed. "It seems our little excitement for the evening is canceled, Prance. Pity."

  "It will give us more time to look over what you're writing."

  "Oh, I tossed that into the fire last night."

  Prance emitted a stifled shriek. "Byron! That is too bad of you."

  "The poem was wretched. At one point I found myself rhyming lewd and food, and knew it was beyond redemption. I'm not in a scribbling mood. I'll call on Lady Melbourne this afternoon. She always cheers me up. Do you want to be dropped at Berkeley Square, or elsewhere?"

  "Home, if you don't mind. I have a hundred things I should be doing." Prance was disappointed that he wouldn't be spending the day with Byron, but at least his neighbours might see him alight from Byron's rig.

  As they parted, Byron said, "If I hear any more buzz from the Bee, I shall let you know."

  "Please do," Prance said, peering to see if any moving curtains hinted at a watcher. None did. He waved and went into his house, to inform Villier the black outfit would not be required after all.

  * * *

  Chapter 5

  Prance heard nothing further from Byron, Lady Jergen or Lady Callwood over the next few days. As he hadn't distinguished himself in the matter, he didn't reveal to his friends on Berkeley Square what had passed. Thus far, Luten had feigned indifference to the doings with Byron, Corinne had hinted to find out, but only Coffen had asked outright.

  Prance said vaguely, "He was writing a new poem on which he wanted my opinion, but in a fit of pique he tossed it into the grate. Twenty pages! A sacrilege, and so I told him." This had enough genuine regret in it that it passed for the whole truth.

  The arrival of a white cat so small it looked at first glance like a kitten created a minor excitement in their lives. Prance's Aunt Phoebe, who was his housekeeper at Granmaison, knew as soon as she saw it that it would just please Reggie, who was a great admirer of rarities.

  "I shall call her Bianca," he said to Coffen, who had come to cadge lunch from him that day, and had been playing with the cat as an excuse to linger. "It's Italian for white, you know." With a memory of Byron's dog, Abu, he wanted some exotic
name.

  "Ain't that a girl's name?" Coffen asked, slathering mustard on his ham, while Prance's fork desultorily chased an olive around his plate.

  "It is. If you knew your Shakespeare you would realize Bianca was Kate's sister in The Taming of the Shrew."

  "Yes and if you knew anything about cats you'd know that's a tom."

  "What! How do you know?"

  "Cause he ain't a girl," was Coffen's scornful answer. "Count your blessings. You don't want a dozen Bianca's fowling up your nice house. Male cats are more fun too, less sly. Only you'd best find another name for him."

  "I shall call him Petruchio. Pet for short. Don't ask, Coffen. It involves Shakespeare."

  "I wasn't going to. If he was mine, which he ain't and glad of it–give me a dog any time–anyhow I'd call him Whitey." A blob of mustard fell on his cravat as he lifted his overloaded fork to his mouth.

  Prance saw it and winced. "If he were yours, Spot would seem a more appropriate name."

  "That's a dog's name, Reg. Everybody knows that."

  Prance opened his mouth, then closed it again in frustration.

  "Well, go on," Coffen said. "When you puff up like an adder, I know you have something nasty to say. Born with a silver knife in your mouth, that's your trouble."

  "Spoon," Prance said with a grimace. Coffen handed him a spoon. "I'll need that back for my dessert. I smelled a syllabub."

  "When I said Spot was a more appropriate name, I meant in honour of your cravat."

  "At least it ain't purple with yellow spots. A demmed odd-looking kerchief you're sporting, Prance. Ashamed to be seen with you. I heard a couple of fellows snickering when we was on the strut on Bond Street t'other day."

  Prance was by no means displeased with this charge. To be noticed and smiled at was better than not to be noticed at all. "Perhaps they were snickering at you," he suggested.

  "No, they was pointing at that kerchief and mincing along behind you, making faces. If you must imitate Byron, you might at least wear a navy spotted one like him."

  "This has nothing to do with Byron, though he did, in fact, admire my kerchief." He reached up and flicked the corner of it. "I wear it for comfort and convenience. No more epic battles with the length of white linen."

  Coffen nodded. "You're breaking Villier's heart, I expect. Still, there's something to be said for comfort. Them Hindoo slippers you gave me are comfortable as a feather tick."

  The slippers were a relic from Prance's Japanese phase, when he destroyed the garden at Granmaison in an effort to establish a Japanese garden, which he called a nina. Like many of his phases, his mania for the orient was mercifully short-lived.

  Prance, in a fit of boredom the next morning, called on Coffen and confided his recent doings to him. Coffen quizzed him until he had every detail by heart. He was incensed at having been left out of the excitement. "Tarsome fellow. You know how good I am with clues," he scolded.

  "Sorry to be tiresome, but unfortunately there are no clues," Prance informed him.

  Coffen looked at him as if he were a moonling. "No clues? Are you blind, man? You don't call Lord Horner's carriage with a hole in the seat a clue?"

  "It was a hired hackney. The driver wouldn't remember who hired it."

  "With such strange goings-on? Of course he would. And who says it was hired for that matter? The driver could very well be in on it, part of a gang. I'm going to call on Horner's head groom this minute to find out who he sold it to. Where does Horner live, do you know?"

  "On Grosvenor Hill, just off Bourdon Street, the near end. That fine brown brick mansion that Lady Horner has hideously defaced by cobbling a couple of bow windows on to a Palladian facade."

  "You'd best take me. Fitz will never find it when I don't know where it is myself."

  "How can you live for years in London and not know where anything is?" When Coffen opened his mouth to reply, Prance said, "That is a rhetorical question, Pattle."

  "Good. One of them you don't have to answer."

  "You're learning. Very well, I'll take you," Prance said, as he had nothing more amusing to do.

  This involved Coffen bribing a footman to dart to the mews and order Prance's carriage. His servants expected a pourboire on top of their generous salaries if they ever actually did any work.

  "What is this Lady Callwood like?" Coffen asked, as they jogged along to Lord Horner's mansion.

  "An Incomparable. Blond, blue-eyed, dashing."

  "From that besotted grin I'd say she was dashing enough to have pulled the wool over your eyes."

  "I am not so easily gulled,” Prance sniffed. "She engenders no fever in the blood. Mind you, she is extremely pretty. I would be misleading you if I pretended to feel nothing for her."

  "No, you wouldn't, for I wouldn't believe a word of it. Did you keep your wits about you enough to realize she could have made up this story out of whole cloth? Mean to say, pretty suspicious that she landed in on Lady Jergen the day before she was to pay up, and the time was pushed ahead when she heard you were on the case. Her description of the Bee don't match Lady Jergen's either. Lady Jergen said the Bee was small. If it wasn't for that story about Queen Mab, Lady Jergen would have waited until you and Byron were there to pay up. And that's not to mention her seeing the fellow's slippers in the dark."

  Prance was constantly amazed at the devious twists of logic that occurred behind Coffen's innocent face. "You mean–"

  "You should never trust a pretty woman," Coffen said.

  "Hmm, unless of course she's an actress." Actresses were well known to be Coffen's weakness. He was afraid of ladies of his own class but felt right at home with actresses, who made a great fuss over him.

  "They're different. They have to work for a living. You know what they want–money. With ladies, there's no telling what they're up to."

  They didn't call on Horner but sent Prance's groom around to the mews to speak to the head groom, who informed him that the carriage in questions had been sold to Newman's stable, which dealt in used carriages as a sideline.

  At Newman's stable, the fastidious Prance wrinkled his nose as it was assaulted by the pungent aroma of two dozen horses in close proximity. He picked his way gingerly past the stalls, lifting his feet high over the hay and holding his coat tails to protect them from damage. Coffen stopped two or three times to pat a velvet nose and add a few new stains to his jacket.

  They ran Mr. Warner, the clerk, to ground in an austere office at the back of the stable. It boasted a battered desk, three chairs and a soiled oil cloth on the floor. Its only adornments were some horse brasses and one horse shoe on the wall behind his desk. After glancing through a ledger, he informed them that Lord Horner's carriage had been sold for fifty pounds one month previously to a Mr. Hummer, from the Oaks, Maida Vale Road, St. John's Wood.

  "He planned to use it as a hackney. I advised him against it. A hackney gets rough usage and truth to tell, the rig was on its last legs," he confided. "But the lad was new at the game and didn't listen to me. The carriage was a showpiece in its day, but the buyer won't get a year's work out of it as a hack With a new coat of paint it would look flashy, I daresay, and the price was right."

  "This Hummer fellow, could you describe him?" Coffen asked and listened closely to the answer.

  "He was a rough fellow. Early thirties I'd say. I don't recall his face. There couldn't have been anything unusual about it."

  "Not a gentleman?" Prance asked.

  "No, sir. A hack driver, as I said. He came in a hired hack, drawing another team that he hitched to the rig he bought and drove it home."

  "I expect he paid you in cash?"

  "He did. He paid cash for everything."

  As they were returning to their carriage, Prance spotted a familiar form across the road. "There's Mr. Danby," he said.

  "Lady Jergen's nevvie?" Coffen said in some excitement. "There's a coincidence!" Anything in the way of a coincidence was highly suspicious to Coffen. "What the deuce is he doing here?"<
br />
  "Let's ask him," Prance said and waved across the street.

  Mr. Danby immediately returned the greeting and crossed the street. "Sir Reginald," he said, smiling. Prance introduced Coffen and they stood chatting a moment. "Have you had an accident with your carriage as well?" Danby asked.

  "No, no, just looking."

  "It's me that wants to hire a rig," Coffen said. "I have to make a little trip out of town. Thought it might be handier than taking the stage. You had an accident yourself then, did you?"

  "Yes, the other night on Edgeware Road. Some drunken sot took a corner at sixteen miles an hour and crashed into my landau. Demmed annoying. The coachmaker tells me he can repair it, however, so I'm hiring a rig for the nonce."

  "Didn't injure your team, I hope?" Prance asked. Horses ranked very close below family amongst young gentlemen.

  "Fortunately the nags were unharmed."

  "Who's making the repairs for you?" Coffen asked.

  After a frowning pause, Danby said, "I don't recall the name. Actually my groom is looking after it. Is there someone you recommend, Mr. Pattle?"

  "I hear Samson, out Paddington way, is good.”

  "I'll mention it to my groom."

  "How is your aunt?" was Prance's next question.

  "I haven't seen Lady Jergen for a few days. I thought she seemed a little upset, but she assures me she's fine. Probably outrun the grocer," he said in a confiding manner. "You know the ladies. Highly susceptible to new bonnets. I've told her often enough I would be happy to help her out in that regard."

  "She's fortunate to have such an understanding nephew," Prance said.

  Danby shrugged. "It's only money, and she was kind to me when I returned from India. I haven't heard Auntie mention you before, Sir Reginald. Are you old friends?"

  "Brand new friends. I never formally met your aunt until the day I met you there. It is Byron who's her friend. I tagged along with him as we were spending the day together."

  "I know she's a great admirer of Lord Byron. She is forever singing his praises."