A Suspicious Affair (2 page)

“So if you couldn’t fight an honorable duel…?” Dimm had prompted.

“I prayed some other poor bastard would do it for me. I did
not
shoot an unarmed man in a closed carriage, no matter how much I hated him.”

Dimm tended to believe the young toff’s high-minded attitude toward honor. But the volatile marquis could have argued with the duke, Dimm reasoned, threatened him with that whip until Denning pulled his own weapon. Another struggle over the hair-triggered pistol, the same dead duke. The young fool’s own words even put him riding back to the mews from the park at just the right time. Alone.

“So you think your sister did him in?” Dimm had asked just to see the young man’s reaction, after wisely taking a step out of range.

“Damn you to hell!” Foster snapped the whip in half in his hands and tossed both parts to the ground at the Runner’s feet. “My sister is a lady, besides being one of the kindest, most generous females in all of London, and I don’t care if you’re the Lord High Magistrate himself, you shan’t say otherwise in my presence. Why, she married that villain just to save me from debtors’ prison.”

“And he reneged on his promises.”

“And that’s enough to convict her? I promise you this, you put my sister on trial—you even charge her with such a crime—and I’ll confess to killing the bastard. I followed him and Lady Armbruster home from the park, ran inside where I knew he kept his pistols, waited for my sister to leave, then shot him. You cannot charge two people with the same crime. I’ll be more convincing.”

*

Dimm underlined his notation about finding if Denning had the pistol with him in the carriage. Then he tapped out his pipe, got up, and toweled off his feet. He padded over and threw a blanket over Gabriel, hoping his own boy never felt such a need to prove his manhood, hoping, too, that Gabe would have such a brave, loyal heart if he did.

As he placed another log on the fire, Mr. Dimm wondered if the new widow could really be such a saint. According to her aunt, who was next on his list, Marisol Pendenning,
nee
Laughton, was ready to be canonized. His Cherry, bless her soul, would never have stood for him raising his hand to her, much less him smiling at another woman. Not that Jeremiah ever would have done either, of course. But what kind of woman tolerated such abuse? Poor downtrodden wretches he saw every day, broken-spirited wraiths whose husbands considered them chattel. But ladies of the ton? Leading hostesses of the
beau monde
who held intellectual soirees? He shook his head. Perhaps Duchess Denning swallowed her own pride for the sake of a dependent younger brother and an impoverished old auntie. On the other hand, perhaps one day, this day, she happened to choke on that swallowed pride.

Chapter Two

Another log on the fire, another page in Officer Dimm’s book, another suspect. Miss Theresa Laughton, spinster aunt to Foster and Marisol, was a lady of a certain age and a definite refinement. She even offered Dimm tea during their uncomfortable interview. Miss Laughton was also ready to confess to murder rather than see either of her chicks face charges. Of course, her hand was shaking so badly she could hardly hold her cup, and she frequently had to dab at her eyes with a tiny scrap of linen and lace.

“Not that I am crying for Denning, I hope you know,” she’d confided to the Runner. “The man was a…a dirty dish. There, I’ve said it, even though one should not speak ill of the dead. Poor, poor Marisol.”

“On account of Denning’s being dead, or on account of her being one of the suspects in his murder?”

She rummaged through a work basket next to her and began stitching on a tiny knitted sweater. “What’s that?”

“You said ‘poor Marisol.’ I wanted to know why.”

“Because that awful man made her life such a hell, with his temper and his women and his nipfarthing ways. And now this awful scandal, just when the baby is coming, and the uncertainty of it all.”

“What uncertainty might that be, ma’am?” Dimm wanted to know.

Aunt Tess waved a plump little hand around, trailing a skein of wool. “Oh, the settlements and things. Such a mess.”

“Surely the widow is provided for?” He hadn’t been to see Denning’s man of business yet.

“What’s that?”

“I said, Denning was known to be deep in the pocket. There cannot be any financial worries, can there?”

“Who’s to say? The scoundrel had the terms of the marriage contract worded so that he agreed to ‘provide’ for us all, after paying Laughton’s debts. Dear Foster was too young to understand, and Marisol was already making such a sacrifice for the rest of us, and I… well, I confess I have no head for business. The solicitor said there was so much money, not to worry. None of us ever saw a farthing of Denning’s fortune. If dear Marisol ever complained that I was to have an annuity, Denning threatened to send me to a cottage in Wales. Provision enough, he said. And he withdrew Foster from university because the boy was a dunderhead anyway, he swore. I pray the Lord will provide for us now, for that sad excuse of a nobleman cannot be trusted to do so even from the grave.”

“So you were entirely dependent on him?”

“What’s that? Oh, the money. Yes, I cashed in my consols to give Marisol her Season. It was our only chance, you see.” Miss Laughton set aside the knitting to wipe her eyes again. Then she squared her shoulders and raised her chin. “No matter if we are thrown on the parish, I am glad the duke is dead. So you can put the manacles on me now, Mr. Dimm.”

“Uh, Miss Laughton, do you know how to fire a pistol?”

“Of course I do. You aim the round part away from you and pull the little metal thing where your finger goes.”

Dimm rubbed his chin. “And where did you say you were that hour or two before dinner?”

“Why, right here, in this little back parlor. Denning never comes near it, don’t you know, but it has the prettiest view of the gardens.”

Dimm opened the drapes, which were pulled for the night. He could see the roof of the stable complex, but not the alleyway. “Did you see anyone running through the gardens? Anyone suspicious loitering about or acting oddly?”

“Oh no, I was working on my knitting. The baby is coming soon, you know.”

“Then did you hear anything? Quarrels, carriage doors slamming, gunshots?”

“What’s that?”

*

So much for Lady Denning’s family. Dimm relighted his pipe from a spill at the hearth, thinking of Gabe’s brothers and sisters sleeping upstairs, all the nieces and nephews in nooks, cousins and inlaws nigh to bursting the rafters of this little house in Kensington. There was that huge Denning mansion, the ballroom bigger than Dimm’s whole place, yard and all, for just four people. And one of them was dead. Dimm puffed and sighed, and went back to his notes.

The duke wasn’t much for family either, it seemed. His mother was fixed in Berkshire, two married sisters lived in Wales and Scotland, and the only brother had rooms at the Albany.

Dimm had found Lord Boynton Pendenning there, trying out gray waistcoats, black arm bands, mourning boutonnieres.

“Such a decision, don’t you know?” the pale, thin man had drawled, gesturing the Bow Street officer into his dressing room. “I mean, one wouldn’t wish to appear the hypocrite, would one, with sackcloth and ashes? On the other hand, one must consider the proper degree of respect before paying a call on the grieving widow. Such a dilemma.” He tied a black stock under the white cravat at his thin neck, then turned to ask his valet’s opinion. “I tell you, I’ve been fretting over it ever since I heard the news.”

Dimm blinked when the valet clapped his hands together in approval, but proceeded with his questions: “Where might that have been, milord—where you got the word of your brother’s death?”

Pendenning waved a long-fingered, beringed hand. “Murder, you mean. The news is everywhere, don’t you know. I suppose I was in some gaming hall or other; that’s where I spend the afternoons. Before coming home to dress for the evening, of course.”

“Mightn’t you be a tad more specific, milord? Like, do you start dressing at four? Five? Six?”

“That depends entirely on the cards, my man. Let me think. Ah yes, the dice were cold at Pimstoke’s, so I went on to the Pitpat.” Dimm noted that Lord Boynton named less reputable gaming parlors, where the stakes were often higher than at the gentlemen’s clubs, the company less select, and the games often rigged.

“The cards were against me at Danver’s place,” his lordship continued.

“But you got lucky in the carriageway at Portman Square?”

Pendenning turned from the mirror. “What, pray, can you be insinuating? That
I
shot old Arvid?”

“Begging your pardon, milord, for being blunt, but word is you’re pockets to let.”

His lordship nodded without disturbing his carefully arranged curls. “Dressing properly is not an inexpensive hobby. Ask Prinny. Then again, gaming is not a steady income. I make no secret of either pastime.”

“And greed do be a powerful motive in these here circumstances. Jealousy, too.”

“What, jealous of Arvid’s title? I never thought to step into m’father’s shoes. Heavy old things, no sense of fashion, don’t you know. I do admit the fortune is more tempting. But think, my good man. Why would I wait this long to do in old Arvid? Everyone knew we were at loggerheads since childhood. He never shared his toys, not even back then. It was no shock that he could never see his way clear to increasing my allowance now. Or make the occasional loan, not old Arvid.”

“Then you two brothers were not close?”

“About as close as two gamecocks in a pit. He was a bastard, may my dear mother forgive me for the slur to her virtue. Still, I could have arranged for highwaymen, you know, or thugs to follow him home one night any time these past ten, fifteen years that I’ve been on the town and up River Tick. There are any number of ways to succeed to a title.”

“Without getting your own hands dirty.”

“Naturellement non,
my dear sir. But again, I ask, why would I do the thing now?”

“Pressing debts he wouldn’t honor?”

“But my so-charming sister-in-law has a pressing date with the
accoucheur,
as my loving brother delighted in reminding me. M’brother’s heir is even now supplanting me from the womb.”

“The babe could be a girl.”

“With my luck? Not even I am laying money on that bet.”

*

Next Dimm had trekked up and down St. James’s to the men’s clubs. His big toe started throbbing again just at the thought. He’d been going from White’s to Brooks’s to Boodle’s, chatting up the various doormen and majordomos, trying to locate any of the recently deceased’s friends. He’d have found the lost continent of Atlantis sooner.

Arvid Pendenning was one unpopular bloke. If he wasn’t a shade too lucky at the tables, he was a mite too familiar with wives and daughters. He was arrogant, rude, or downright cruel to anyone below his rank, anyone less deadly with a pistol, or anyone unfortunate enough to play cards with him. Most club members seemed amazed the killer had managed to get a pistol ball into his heart, so small and shriveled that organ must have been.

Wagering in the betting books was heavily in the duchess’s favor, if you could call it a favor to be the one considered most likely to hang for the crime. The bucks were already calling her the Coach Widow, drinking toasts to her aim. There was even, in one club, talk of taking up a collection to hire Her Grace the finest lawyer in the land in return for the favor she’d done them all. Boynton Pendenning ran a distant second in the race to the gibbet in the betting book, with young Foster Laughton trailing badly. It was the long shot, however, who caught the Runner’s attention.

One gambler had put his money, a considerable sum, too, on Carlinn Kimberly, Earl Kimbrough. Dimm whistled. The Elusive Earl, they called Kimbrough, because he rarely came to Town, never took part in ton gatherings when he did, and refused to be feted as one of the past heroes of the Peninsular campaign. He’d sold out, what? Three, four years ago, Dimm recollected, when he came into the title. Then Kimbrough seemed to disappear from the gossip columns as well as the dispatches. Now, it seemed, the earl had traveled to London for the express purpose of confronting the Duke of Denning about a parcel of land that separated their Berkshire properties. By all reports this confrontation was acrimonious,
ad hominem,
and an education in the high art of name-calling without issuing a challenge.

“Absentee landlord” degenerated into “leech,” “lecher,” and “boil on the butt of humanity.” “Bumpkin” became “manuremind” and “mold spore that should crawl back under its rock.”

Kimbrough outright refused to duel, not when men were dying for better causes in Spain. He announced this right there at White’s, looking down from his greater height into the duke’s empurpled face. And Denning, according to the waiter on duty two nights ago, was fully mindful of the earl’s reputation as being one of the cavalry’s finest swordsmen. He was not about to throw down the gauntlet and let Kimbrough have choice of weapon. With footmen hovering, the proprietor wringing his hands, and wagers being entered in the book as fast as ink could flow, the two men nearly came to cuffs. Then Kimbrough stormed off, muttering curses that would have made his troopers proud.

He was still cursing when Officer Dimm had tracked him down at Pulteney’s Hotel, just a few hours ago.

“Of course I heard about the bastard getting caught with his pants down. I’m sure everyone in London has heard by now. That’s all the people here do anyway, isn’t it—snicker and snort like pigs at the trough, then go repeat their filth to the next hog on line?”

The army lost a good officer when Kimbrough resigned, Dimm reflected, and society had gained an Original. Loud, forceful, a man of action, he was impatient with the claptrap of the polite world. As Dimm’s dear Cherry would have said, may the angels bear her company, the earl was also a fine broth of a man. Big, broad, well muscled, and with a healthy tan, he had hands that were callused with honest labor. His eyes were a dark brown that looked through pretension, piercing eyes that, by force of will alone, would not miss their mark.

“Well, happen I’m here, milord, mind if I asks a few questions?”

“Of course not. You are only doing your job.” Kimbrough stopped his pacing and took a seat, indicating his caller should do likewise. He lit a cheroot, after Dimm refused one. “But I’m afraid I cannot be of much help. I never even met the jade.”

“The, ah, jade?”

“The duchess. The Coach Widow. Black widow, more like.”

“Then you are convinced Her Grace was the perpetrator?” Dimm took out his pad and licked the point of his pencil. “My sore feet bless you for whatever evidence you have.”

“Evidence? I have no evidence. I told you, I never had two words with the woman.”

“You mean you didn’t see her bring the gun out of Denning House, or hear the gunshot? I thought you must of called there to continue your argle-bargle with Denning and seen something.”

Kimbrough stubbed out his cheroot onto a saucer. “Why would I call on Denning when he flat out refused to sell me the land the night before? The man’s as hardheaded as a jackass and as useless to have an intelligent discussion with.”

Dimm closed his notebook. “Then why, begging your pardon, milord, if you weren’t there and you don’t know the woman, are you so sure she killed the duke?”

“Because I know her kind. Spoiled, feted by the ton, society’s darling has to give up her own empty pleasures to bear the son of a bitch an heir. Then she goes off her looks and the duke strays. So she blows a hole through him, figuring that if she cries incompetence or some thing, she’ll have all the money, all the power, and none of the inconvenience of a husband.”

Dimm scratched his head. “A mite hard on her, don’t you think? A’ course, I ain’t met Her Grace yet myself. How does it happen that you don’t know her, being neighbors and all?”

“I was in the Peninsula during her come-out Season and in mourning at the time of the marriage. I chose not to accept Denning’s invitations the first time they spent Christmas at Denning Castle, so I suppose she dropped me from her list. I doubt she spent a month of her marriage in the country altogether. When I am in London on business, you can be assured I do not frequent the routs and revels where the likes of Duchess Denning will be found.”

“Hmm. Well, can you tell me about that piece of land that Denning wouldn’t sell?”

“What do you want to know? How Denning re-channeled a stream through the property line, changing the boundaries? How the new stream overflows its banks every hard rain and destroys my tenants’ crops, or how their old wells go dry in the summer? Or perhaps you want to hear how I offered to buy the blasted land that should be mine by rights, and the limb of Satan refused. I came to London to try again, so work could be done over the winter before the spring rains. I have men with no income, and jobs that need doing, such as getting that deuced stream back to its proper flow, damn him. May he rot in Hell.”