A Useful Woman (13 page)

“Not for love or money maybe.” George smiled. “But how about for information?”

A Comfortable Pint

. . . the dramatic element always was supplied by the “Bow Street Runner,” popularly supposed to be a miracle of detective skill.

—
Percy Hetherington Fitzgerald,
Chronicles of the Bow Street Police Office

The Staff and Bell public house was full to overflowing with noisy, convivial men pushing up to the bar and coming away with tankards of beer. The landlady and her daughters shouldered their way between the tables and benches, bestowing trays of cheese and bread and bowls of mutton stew on the waiting customers. Not a few of the men raised a pint in salute to Harkness as he and Littlefield doffed their hats and shook the snow off their shoulders. One or two, however, pulled their own hat brims down low and hustled out the door.

Harkness claimed a spot on the bench by the fire, and waited while Littlefield acquired two pints of the Bell's dark, rich beer from the innkeeper. They toasted each other's health and drank.

“Thanks, Littlefield.” Harkness wiped the foam from his mouth. “Now, what have you got for me?”

George contemplated the depths of his beer, as if he had a
choice to make. “By now you'll have heard the name ‘Rosalind Thorne.'”

“I have,” Harkness acknowledged. “Do you know Miss Thorne?”

“She's a friend of my sister's. She's also a source for the gossip pages, and usually a good one. But today . . . well, she tried handing me and Alice some false coin about this business of Jasper Aimesworth.”

“Any idea why?” A reliable friend deciding to lie, that was interesting. Even more interesting than a gentlewoman who also had dealings with a newspaperman such as Littlefield.

“Two possibilities.” George took another swallow of beer. “I think she's protecting someone. Alice, though, thinks she really wants to get us looking toward the possibility of some nefarious deed regarding Jasper Aimesworth, but can't tell us so directly.”

Harkness felt himself go still, a reflex he'd acquired while hunting highwaymen with the horse patrol.

“What sort of nefarious deed would that be?” he asked.

“No idea,” said George. “But Rosalind knows everybody, and everything, about society. She just might know more about this business than she can say out loud.”

Harkness rubbed his chin. “You said she might be protecting someone. Who might that be?”

“Well, herself, for starters, as well as Lady Blanchard. Lady B is Miss Thorne's godmother, and a fair way of being all the family she has. Lady Edmund Aimesworth's another. She might also be protecting Almack's itself, although Alice says not and Alice usually knows best.”

“What about the duke who was there?”

Littlefield lowered his tankard. “A duke?” he said. “Not the Duke of Casselmain, by any chance?”

“The same.”

The newsman pulled a face as if his beer had turned to water on him. Then he whistled. “Well, well. All my pretty chicks and their dam, and she said not a word . . .”

“Then, I take it Miss Thorne does know the duke as well?”

“Oh, yes.” Littlefield drained his pint. “They were secretly engaged once.”

“Says Alice?”

George nodded. “Less secretly, Alice says that Lord Casselmain's about to become engaged to Honoria Aimesworth, sister of the dead man.”

“Then I may take it Miss Thorne knew Aimesworth as well?”

“As it happens. They weren't friends, but she's on visiting terms with the family.”

Harkness took another swallow of beer. Miss Thorne was changing in his estimation from an undefined gentlewoman to a remarkably prominent figure in this strange and gaudy incident. Not only did she seem to know every member of the crowd around the dead man, but she was setting her friends out to run her errands, and failing to mention the presence of the prominent man for whom she once cherished a regard.

“Tell me about Miss Thorne. How is it she knows so much?”

George considered his empty tankard. Then, he considered Harkness. “Back in the old days, our parents sent Alice to school to gain the usual set of ladies' accomplishments. Once she got there, she met the Thorne sisters.”

“Sisters?”

“Rosalind, and her older sister, Charlotte. They became good friends—or at least Alice and Rosalind did. Alice was at her coming out at Almack's and all.”

Harkness frowned. “So Miss Thorne's another one out of the first circles?”

“Oh, she isn't now. But she was. Her father is Sir Reginald Thorne and the family was once welcome in all the best houses. Then—” George snapped his fingers. “There's a crash in the markets, and we all fall down. It turns out Sir Reginald had been living beyond his means for a good long while. He scarpered, and took Charlotte with him. Rosalind stayed with her mother to face the music.”

“Why did she stay? Why not leave with her father?”

George shook his head. “Not even Alice knows that much. She says that Rosalind never got on with her mother, but it's possible she stayed out of simple decency when Sir Reginald scarpered.”

Harkness very carefully kept the doubt out of his face. “So, her father's vanished, and she's not married. Her mother?”

“Dead.”

“How does she manage?”

“Carefully. When you fall, everything depends on who's there to help you land. With me, it was some school chums who remembered I won a few prizes for essays and were able to put me in the way of some newspaper work. With Rosalind, it was Lady Blanchard. Lady Blanchard helped set her up as a sort of private secretary to society ladies. She helps out with their guest lists and parties and that sort of thing, and they invite her to dinner and to stay and give her little presents, and so on.”

“Why doesn't she marry?”

“No money and no title,” said George. “None of the tonnish mamas will let her near their fair-haired boys.”

“And yet you think enough of her to be running errands for her,” said Harkness.

Littlefield set the tankard on the floor beside the bench. “Miss Thorne's a good sort, but she's in a tough spot, being a
woman alone trying to keep up with all the demands of gentility. When her father and sister left, it hurt her, and that's made her very loyal to the people who stayed by her side. So loyal, in fact, she sometimes gets caught up in trying to protect the wrong people.” A muscle in his cheek twitched. “We're not just after the story on this one, you see?”

Harkness did see. George and Alice Littlefield wanted him to find out the truth so they could pull their friend out before she sank under the weight of trying to protect some criminal who had the good fortune to be well born. That also was very, very interesting.

“I'll need an address for Miss Thorne, if you please.”

Littlefield gave him the number of a house in Little Russell Street. “All right then, Harkness. I've shown you mine. What about yours?”

Harkness considered the man beside him. George Littlefield was honest, by the standards of his profession. He wanted his story, and he wasn't above embellishing the facts to add color to the page, but unlike some others Harkness dealt with, he never outright invented his news. He'd also as much as said he was willing to help on this Almack's matter, provided it would also help this Miss Thorne.

“Littlefield, you can tell your readers that the principal officer of Bow Street has thoroughly and exhaustively questioned all the staff of Almack's Assembly Rooms who were on hand at the time of this dreadful incident. He is pleased to report they all are honest and hardworking and answered his questions in a forthright manner.” Which included a lot of slurs about what a Tartar old Mrs. Willis was, how miserable it was to try to get blood out of the boards, complaints about the cousins of the Irish carters brought in to help with the new chairs, not to
mention some asides about the famous Lady Jersey and her constant schemes for improvements, which generally meant more work for persons other than herself.

“How very reassuring,” said Littlefield blandly. “My editor will be delighted.”

Harkness nodded as if he'd been thanked, and took a last swallow of beer. “Call around Bow Street in the next couple of days. I'll know more than I do now.”

“Come on, Harkness. That's less use to me than reassurances about the honesty of the working classes.”

“Tell your readers Watchdog Harkness is on the scent, and closing in on the true facts of this dreadful and mysterious case.”

Harkness met Littlefield's gaze and held it. Littlefield whistled low.

“You think it was murder.”

Harkness made no answer. Littlefield leaned closer. “You do! Why? What's tipped you?”

“Call 'round in a couple days,” Harkness repeated, firmly and finally.

Littlefield raised both hands in surrender. “All right, Harkness, you win. You've got your two days, and then . . .” He leveled his ink-stained finger at Harkness's chest. “I'm coming for you.”

“Fair enough,” Harkness agreed. “Oh, and don't tell your Miss Thorne you talked to me, all right?”

“Why?”

“Because I want to talk to her myself, but after I've talked to the Aimesworth household. You tip her the wink, and you'll get nothing from me for the rest of this case. Understand?”

Littlefield's mouth twitched as a bitter battle between conscience and profession churned inside him. Harkness found
himself wondering if Littlefield cherished a soft spot for Miss Thorne.

He was certainly right about falls. But it wasn't just about who was there to help you up, was it? It was also all about who'd been there to help put you down.

The Uneasiness of a House in Mourning

Gentlemen, I'll tell you the plain truth. Every day of the year we take up a paper; we read the opening of a murder.

—
Thomas De Quincey,
On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts

BLOOD IN THE BALLROOM!

EXCLUSIVE DETAILS!

The drear calm of February was suddenly and brutally shattered last Monday by the discovery of a death in that haven of exclusivity and gentility—the Almack's ballroom. While the lady patronesses pored over their lists of candidates, determining which new young misses and first circle families would this month be favored with a coveted Almack's voucher, the terrible and the inexplicable were occurring beneath their delicate slippers, in the very heart of the
sanctum sanctorum
.

Mr. Jasper Aimesworth, only son of Lord Edmund Aimesworth, was found dead in the hallowed hall of
the
haut ton
, apparently having fallen from the musicians' gallery. The mysterious circumstances of this accident, if an accident it should prove to be, have not yet been revealed.

The most worthy Mr. William Willis, manager of Almack's Assembly Rooms, did not let a moment lapse before displaying prompt and sound judgment. As soon as the tragedy was discovered, Mr. Willis sent to the Bow Street Magistrate's Court to procure the services of Principal Officer Adam Harkness, known to his colleagues as “the Watchdog.” Faithful Readers of the
Chronicle
will be familiar with that name from several years ago when we reported how the same Mr. Harkness, then a member of Bow Street's horse patrol, proved instrumental in tracking down the vicious highwayman Peter “The Red Hand” Lowell . . .

“And that's done,” Rosalind murmured as she read over George and Alice's hurried, and sensational, work spread across the front page of the
London Chronicle
's special edition. At least if any of the lady patronesses asked, she could honestly say she'd tried to tell all and sundry that there was nothing to find out. She had failed, and she would apologize. Initially, it would cost her in terms of their goodwill and trust. She would have difficulty regaining that lost ground, but she would think of something. In the meantime, she had calls to pay, and she knew she must start by answering this extraordinary summons from Honoria Aimesworth.

It had been some time since Rosalind had been in a house of mourning. Not that the Aimesworth house was quite there yet. Like any public occasion, mourning required a great deal of
preparation. Rosalind's hired hack drew up behind the funeral furnishers' black carriage. A dark-skinned groom dressed in a long black coat and white wig watched solemnly as Rosalind stepped down. The footman who opened the door wore a black band on his arm, black stockings on his legs, and black ribbon on his powdered wig.

“I'm sorry, Miss Thorne,” he said. “Lady Edmund is not at home to anyone.”

Rosalind showed the man Honoria's note. He hesitated, but then bowed her inside. While the downstairs maid helped her off with her coat and bonnet, Rosalind had a fine view of the activity in the front parlor. Inside, more men in black coats and trousers hung lengths of black cloth around the walls. A maid carried a mirror out.

That would be where Jasper would be laid in his coffin. The undertaker would be upstairs even now, taking Jasper's measure with his rod and quietly discussing the appropriate woods, finishes, and linings for his coffin with Lady Aimesworth. He would lie in the box in the parlor for two or three days, with candles burning continuously at his head and feet. If the family did not care to hold vigil themselves, the funeral man would supply professional mourners to take on the chore. That way, not only would Jasper be properly mourned, but the family could also be confident that their son truly was dead, not just sleeping.

Rosalind did not think there was much possibility of Jasper waking from the sleep he had been sent to.

When Rosalind entered Honoria's apartment, she found her sitting at her dressing table and staring into the mirror. She didn't turn, but the reflection showed Rosalind how pinched and pale her face had become. The circles under her eyes might have been drawn with kohl. Her black crepe dress was of an older cut that strained across her bosom and shoulders.

She tried to remember the last time she'd spoken directly with Honoria. Surely it was during her second season. Yes, at Beryl Wentworth's wedding breakfast. Charlotte had been a bridesmaid. Everyone had been talking about how the lovely older Thorne girl was sure to be betrothed before the year was out.

Which only went to show how little anyone knew about the future.

“Hello, Honoria,” Rosalind said.

Honoria didn't answer. Rosalind looked at her pale reflection and saw the way her hand rested beside her brush and comb, as if she'd forgotten what to do with such objects.

“They won't let me see him,” Honoria snapped. “They want the mortuary men to be finished with him first.”

“I'm sorry,” said Rosalind, both because it was true and because she had no idea what other answer she could make.

“Lord Casselmain says you found him.”

“I did, yes.”

“Did he . . . did he look like he suffered?”

Rosalind found her throat had gone dry. She had been prepared for many different possibilities, but Honoria Aimesworth's genuine distress was not one of them. The Honoria she knew was quick with a barb and didn't just profess disdain for the fashionable world, she genuinely meant it. Rosalind felt a bit ashamed.

“No, I don't think he suffered. I think it was very quick.”

“Jasper was a coward,” Honoria told her. “He wouldn't have managed it well if it had hurt.”

Rosalind made no answer. Honoria was watching her in the mirror. They made a strange pair in this luxurious and tasteful boudoir—Rosalind in her plain dark blue dress, and Honoria in outmoded, ill-fitting black, both of them wan and hesitant. Well, perhaps not both hesitant. Honoria seldom hesitated.

“I imagine you're wondering what I want with you.” Honoria
finally turned around. As she looked up, Rosalind watched her face struggle. Pride, confusion, and anger all warred for their place. Her dark eyes blazed with fury and with tears, but her voice was as steady and cold as stone.

“I want you to find out who killed my brother.”

The words were shocking and the request outrageous, even ludicrous. It was a long moment before Rosalind could even begin to formulate a response. “No one killed your brother, Honoria. It was an accident.”

“Don't be stupid,” Honoria snapped. “He was killed. I know he was.”

“How do you know?”

“Because he was hiding something from me. He never hid anything from me. But when I saw him yesterday . . . he was burning papers in the hearth.”

“Papers?” A blunt and brutal memory assaulted Rosalind—the smell of burning paper, the ashen remains of ledgers and letters, a single note on an empty desk . . .

Stop it, Rosalind Thorne. Concentrate!

Honoria frowned at Rosalind's evident inattention. “He was in the card room off the conservatory. When I found him, he was sitting there half-drunk although it wasn't yet noon.” She paused. “Before you say it, no, that was not normal for him. Anyway, there was a smell. It took me a while to recognize it, but it was burning paper. I'm certain of it.” She took a deep, steadying breath. “He was troubled and burning papers in the morning, missing at lunchtime, and dead before nightfall. Do you still expect me to believe it was an accident?”

Again, Rosalind found she had no answer. “May I sit down?” she asked instead.

Honoria waved her to the overstuffed white satin chair by the fireplace. Rosalind sat carefully and smoothed her skirts.

“Honoria, why would you ask this of me? If there is anything to be discovered, surely your parents will hire a man . . .”

Honoria barked out a laugh. “My parents! My father is drunk. He will be for the next three days. After that, it's likely he'll forget he ever had a son. My mother . . . my mother wants Jasper buried as quietly as possible so she can get on with her return to society.”

“Then why—” Rosalind cut the sentence off.

“Why do I care?” The question fairly dripped with scorn.

“I was not going to say that.” But she was going to say something close to it, and the embarrassment reddened Rosalind's cheeks.

“I care because Jasper cared,” said Honoria. “The rest of the family sees me as a pawn or a distraction, depending on the day of the week and whether we are in season or out of it. Jasper was an idiot and a romantic and a drunk. He was bored and he was dissolute, but he actually gave a damn about
me
, his sister—the real girl, not the Aimesworth daughter. I want whoever did this found!” The fury in Honoria's words pulled her to her feet.

“I understand, Honoria,” Rosalind said, but the way Honoria's face twisted said the other woman very much doubted that. “And it is possible that Jasper surprised a burglar.”

“Nonsense. Who is going to burgle Almack's, and for what? There's no silver plate or money in the place. Did they mean to steal the new chairs out of the card room?”

“I don't know,” Rosalind admitted. “The one is as likely as the other. A burglar might just be acting in hopes of luck and on the reputation of the rooms.”

“One would think if a man was risking the gallows, he'd know what he was after.”

That Honoria would have such an elevated opinion of London's criminal classes was yet another surprise, but Rosalind also kept this to herself.

“Mr. Willis has hired a Bow Street runner to look into—”

“Oh, yes, I've read all about the runner!” sneered Honoria. “With a dramatic pet name and I know not what else. How grand! Just how far do you think such a man will get? No lady of quality will talk to someone from Bow Street, and you know it. They'll see him as a sordid thief taker and shut up like oysters. The
gentlemen
will do their best to protect their houses and their names, and they'll be utterly insulted if the fellow presumes to look anywhere above the servants' quarters for his answers!”

It finally sank in to Rosalind what Honoria was truly suggesting. Her first reaction was dismay at having taken so long to understand. Her second was surprise.

“You think Jasper was killed by . . .”

“By someone he knew. One of us. The
haut ton
.
Society
.”

Rosalind would have sworn she harbored no illusion that any sort of inherent moral superiority clung to the members of the “first circle.” She knew the sorts of things they did, and the sort they paid to do. Young men destined to lead the kingdom regularly paid to enjoy their vices, or made a blood sport of each other over the turn of a card or the fall of a pair of dice. Ladies turned, laughing, from their marriage vows almost as soon as they'd made them, or at least as soon as they'd made a legitimate heir and a spare. But this . . . every fiber of her being screamed out that this was different.

And yet Jasper had known something was wrong. And Mr. Whelks, who never left Lady Jersey's side, had been absent on this all-important morning. And Lord Blanchard was being forced out of London, and Lady Blanchard, at least, did not intend ever to come back.

And Devon was in the ballroom.

“It does not have to have been a friend,” Rosalind offered. “Perhaps Jasper met with a gambler or a money lender, someone of that stripe.”

“Why would he meet such a person in Almack's? They'd meet in a tavern, a club, a gambling hall. Do you even
hear
yourself?”

Rosalind swallowed. “I do, Honoria, and I hear you. There's something else.” She reached into her reticule. “I hear Jasper.” She laid the letter onto the tea table.

Honoria all but dove for the paper. Rosalind would not have thought it possible for the other woman to turn any whiter, but as she scanned the words her brother had left behind, the last drop of blood drained from her hollow cheeks.

“You cannot ignore this,” she whispered. “You have to help me.”

“I don't want to ignore it, but neither do I know how to proceed. Honoria . . .” She hesitated. “Honoria, I organize guest lists. I decorate ballrooms and leave visiting cards at houses for women who want to be seen as doing the right thing, but who can't be bothered to go themselves. I find tickets and talk to newspaper writers. That's all.” Her cheeks were burning. Why should this make her blush? There was nothing wrong in it. It enabled her to keep her place in the only world she knew. “Discovering a criminal act, a murderer, is something else entirely.”

“You could do it if you tried.”

“Why would you think so?”
You, who never believed one good thing about me. Who saw before anyone else I was born to be nothing but another's servant.