Affair (6 page)

“We? I seem to find myself alone in this endeavor.”

“Do not mince words with me. You know very well what I mean.”

“I have told you from the start that I have doubts,” Baxter said. “Grave doubts. For starters, you have absolutely no proof that Charlotte Arkendale was blackmailing Drusilla Heskett, let alone that she murdered her.”

“Drusilla herself confided to me one night after we had gone through a bottle of port, that she had paid Miss Arkendale a considerable sum. When I inquired as to why she had done such a thing, she suddenly changed the topic. I did not think much about it until after she was killed. Then I recalled how mysterious she had been about the matter. It is all too much of a coincidence, Baxter.”

“Mrs. Heskett was a close friend of yours. Surely she would have told you if she was being blackmailed,” Baxter said.

“Not necessarily. By its very nature, blackmail must touch on some extremely intimate and personal secret. It must threaten to reveal something the victim would not want anyone, perhaps most especially her closest friends, to know.”

“If Mrs. Heskett was willing to pay, why would the blackmailer murder her? Rather defeats the purpose, don’t you think?”

“Who knows how a blackmailer thinks?” Rosalind got to her feet with regal grace and started toward the door. “Perhaps Drusilla stopped the payments. I expect you to discover the truth about her death, Baxter. I have made it my goal to see that justice is done. Keep me informed.”

“Hmm.”

“By the bye.” Rosalind paused in the doorway and lowered her voice. “I really do think that you are going to have to pension off poor old Lambert. It takes him forever to answer the door these days. I vow, I waited on your front step for nearly ten minutes.”

“I consider his slowness in opening the door to be one of his greatest assets. Most people who come to call give up and go away without ever discovering that I am at home. Saves me a great deal of trouble.”

He waited until Rosalind had left the laboratory. Then he walked slowly to the window and examined the three pots that sat on the sill.

The pots were part of an ongoing experiment in agricultural chemistry. Each contained some sweet pea seeds buried in barren soil that had been laced with his most recent blend of minerals and chemicals.

So far there was no sign of life.

T
he ticking of the study clock seemed inordinately loud. Charlotte composed herself and gazed across her desk at Baxter with what she hoped was an air of professional competence. She had been dreading this meeting all day.

Dreading it and yet anticipating it with an inexplicable sense of what could only be termed morbid excitement.

“Before I give you instructions regarding your initial duties, Mr. St. Ives, I shall have to tell you something that I never found it necessary to reveal to Mr. Marcle.”

Baxter studied her with an expression of polite inquiry. “Indeed.”

“I must tell you precisely how I make my living.”

Baxter took off his spectacles and began to polish the lenses with a large white handkerchief. “That would certainly be of some interest to your man-of-affairs, Miss Arkendale.”

“Yes, I suppose so. But it is a little difficult to explain.”

“I see.”

“Some would say my career borders on the scandalous but I feel it is more in the nature of a calling.”

“Rather like becoming a nun, would you say?” Baxter held his eyeglasses up to the light, apparently checking for smudges.

“Yes.” Charlotte cheered slightly. “That is an excellent analogy. You see, Mr. St. Ives, I operate a very exclusive service. I cater solely to women who have come into a bit of money. An inheritance, perhaps, or an unusually large pension from a grateful employer.”

“I see.”

“Respectable ladies of a certain age who find themselves alone in the world, possessed of an income and who are considering marriage.”

Baxter placed his spectacles on his nose with grave precision. His alchemist’s eyes gleamed. “And just what sort of services do you provide for these ladies?”

“I conduct inquiries for them. Very discreet inquiries.”

“Inquiries into what?”

She cleared her throat. “Into the backgrounds of the gentlemen who wish to marry them.”

He gazed at her for a long moment. “Their backgrounds?”

“It is my task, sir, indeed, my calling, to assist such ladies in ascertaining that the men who express a desire to marry them are not fortune hunters, opportunists, or rakehells. I help them avoid the perils and pitfalls such women inevitably face.”

An acute silence fell on the study. Baxter stared at her.

“Good God,” he said eventually.

Charlotte bristled. So much for hoping that he would
be favorably impressed by her unique career. “I perform a valuable service, sir.”

“What on earth are you playing at? Surely you do not imagine yourself to be some sort of female Bow Street Runner.”

“Not at all. I make the sort of extremely delicate inquiries that no Runner could possibly conduct. And I am proud to say that I have been personally responsible for saving several ladies from forming disastrous connections with men who would have ruined their finances.”

“Bloody hell. I begin to see why you might require the services of a bodyguard, Miss Arkendale. You must have acquired any number of enemies in your time.”

“Nonsense. I conduct my business affairs with complete confidentiality. My clients are cautioned to discuss my services only with other ladies who might be in need of them.”

“This is astounding, Miss Arkendale. How the devil do you proceed with your work?”

“In addition to dispatching my man-of-affairs to collect certain types of information, I also have the assistance of my sister and my housekeeper.”

Baxter gazed at her, bemused. “Your housekeeper?”

“Mrs. Witty is very helpful when it comes to making inquiries among servants and staff. Such people often know more about their employers than anyone else. It has all worked very well until now.” Charlotte got to her feet and went to stand at the window. She contemplated the small garden. “But something dreadful has happened.”

“Something that makes you think that you need a bodyguard as well as a new man-of-affairs?” Baxter asked bluntly.

“Yes. Until recently, my clients have all been women of a certain station in life. Respectable but not wealthy.
Governesses, spinsters, and widows from the gentry. But two months ago, I acquired a new client, one who moved in Polite Circles. I was extremely excited because it meant that I might be able to extend my business to a wealthier clientele.”

“Bloody hell,” Baxter said very softly.

She pretended not to have heard him. There was no turning back now. She had already said too much. She must press on and hope for the best. “Her name was Mrs. Drusilla Heskett. I conducted the inquiries she requested and gave her my report. She paid me and I assumed that was the end of the matter. I hoped she would recommend me to some of her friends.”

“What happened?”

“Last week she was found murdered in her own bedchamber. Shot dead by a housebreaker, the authorities said. All of her servants had been dismissed for the evening. I have some cause to believe that the person who killed her was one of the men whom I had investigated on her behalf.”

“Good God.”

She turned to face him. “I must learn the truth, sir.”

“Why? What business is it of yours?”

“Don’t you see? If the man who murdered her was one of those whom I had investigated and perhaps recommended as honest and sincere, then, in a sense, I bear part of the responsibility for her murder. I must determine the truth of the situation.”

“Just what is it that makes you think the killer was one of her suitors?” Baxter asked swiftly.

“I received a note from Mrs. Heskett on the very day of her death. In it she stated that she had been nearly run down twice in recent days, once on the street and once in a park. In both instances, the vehicle was a black phaeton.
She feared that the incidents were not mere accidents, but actual attempts on her life.”

“Bloody hell.”

“She did not see the driver’s face but she came to the logical conclusion that one of her rejected suitors was so enraged by her refusal to wed, he was trying to murder her. The next morning I learned of her death. Hardly a coincidence, sir. I must discover the truth.”

“And you expect me to assist you in this crazed quest?”

“Yes, I most certainly do.” She was beginning to grow annoyed. “You agreed to accept the post and I am paying you an excellent salary, sir. I expect you to fulfill your duties as my man-of-affairs and as a bodyguard. It all seems quite simple and straightforward to me.”

“About as simple and straightforward as the phlogiston theory of combustion,” Baxter retorted.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Nothing, Miss Arkendale. I merely made a passing reference to that old nonsense the Germans came up with concerning the substance phlogiston. The theory was said to explain the combustion of materials. It relates to chemistry. I doubt that you are familiar with it.”

She raised her brows. “On the contrary, Mr. St. Ives, I am well aware that a few years ago Lavoisier conducted several exceedingly clever experiments that disproved the old theory of phlogiston.”

It took Baxter a moment to digest that. “You have an interest in chemistry, Miss Arkendale?”

“No.” She made a face. “But I was required to read Mr. Basil Valentine’s
Conversations on Chemistry
in the schoolroom, just as is virtually every other young person in England. Some of the information managed to stick in my brain.”

“I see.” Baxter’s gaze was inscrutable. “I take it you found Valentine’s book exceedingly dull?”

“Chemistry is not a favorite subject of mine.” She gave him an apologetic smile. “I have other interests.”

“I can well believe that.”

“Perhaps we should return to the subject of Mrs. Heskett’s murder,” Charlotte said grimly.

“Indeed. Tell me, Miss Arkendale, just how do you propose to go about finding the killer?”

“Mrs. Heskett rejected four men during the past month. One, a Mr. Charles Dill, died of a heart seizure two weeks ago, so he can be discounted as a suspect. The other three are Lords Lennox, Randeleigh, and Esly. I intend to interview all of them. But first we must start with an examination of the scene of the crime.”

Baxter blinked owlishly. “An examination?”

“I intend to search Drusilla Heskett’s town house for clues.”

“You intend to do
what?
”

“Really, Mr. St. Ives, you must try to pay closer attention. You cannot expect me to repeat everything. I wish to search the premises of Mrs. Heskett’s town house. I have ascertained that the place is vacant. You will accompany me and make yourself useful.”

Baxter gazed at her as if she were a creature from some supernatural realm. “Bloody hell.”

Three

She had read
Conversations on Chemistry
and was familiar with the discredited theory of phlogiston. She could drop Lavoisier’s name into casual conversation. There were a number of excellent books in her study on a variety of other subjects that she presumably had read as well. What of it? Baxter thought. The evidence of an intellectual bent did not prove that she was not a blackmailer and a murderess.

Any number of well-educated upper-class villains could spout scientific facts, he reminded himself. A good education did not indicate a pure heart and an honest soul. Morgan Judd, for example, had been one of the most intelligent, well-read men he had ever met.

Baxter surveyed the fog-shrouded street with a sense of foreboding. The neighborhood was quiet and sedate. Eminently respectable. There were no great mansions but
the houses obviously belonged to those possessed of comfortable incomes.

He still could not believe that he had allowed himself to be dragged out on such a miserable night to search for clues relating to a case of murder.

Charlotte was either quite sincere or quite mad, or she was using him to assist her and protect her person while she advanced her own schemes. A lady involved in blackmail and murder would certainly have need of a man-of-affairs-cum-bodyguard.

Baxter stifled a sigh. He really was not cut out for this sort of thing. Life was so much simpler, so much more logical and orderly back in his laboratory.

“We are fortunate to have the fog tonight, are we not, Mr. St. Ives?” Charlotte’s voice was muffled by the hood of her cloak and a thick, woolen scarf. “It will serve to conceal our presence in this neighborhood. Even if someone were to notice us, he would not be able to see us clearly enough to make out our identities.”

Baxter was annoyed by her optimistic spirits. He glanced at her as she stood beside him in front of the darkened Heskett house. Her cloak rendered her anonymous. He knew himself to be equally well covered. He had turned up the wide collar of his greatcoat and pulled down the brim of his hat to ensure that his features were drenched in dense shadows.

The weak gas lights that had recently been installed in this part of town could not penetrate far into the fog. So long as he and Charlotte stayed out of the short range of the lamplight, they would be reasonably safe from detection. Nevertheless, Baxter thought it best to make one more stab at discouraging his new employer from her risky activities.