Lady in the Stray (20 page)

Nonetheless, she must make some effort to save Minette and herself. Vashti licked her dry lips. “This memorandum is prodigious important. Why?”

Minette answered for her kinsman, sardonically. “Edouard wishes to ingratiate himself with Bonaparte. He believes this memorandum will insure him an open-armed welcome once he returns to France.” She shrugged. “Me, I do not think even Bonaparte would wish to clasp to his bosom a
vipère.
I know I do not!”

Though Edouard did not want Minette, he did not appreciate her constant assertions that she returned the sentiment.
“
You wish instead to embrace a certain solicitor,
n’est-çe pas?
It is a great pity you will not be granted the opportunity,
ma cocotte.
You cannot say you were not fairly warned. I told you how it would be if you dared oppose me.” Minette, staring down the barrel of her kinsman’s pistol, for once found nothing to say.

Lest Minette be shot down before Vashti’s very eyes—and Edouard’s inimicable expression indicated that possibility was imminent—Vashti cleared her throat. “What makes this memorandum so important that everyone is desperate to lay hands on it?”

“Everyone?” Edouard’s pistol swung toward Vashti. “Who is ‘everyone,’ mademoiselle?”

Vashti tried to swallow the lump that had obstructed her throat. “Why, Stirling and yourself, primarily. I suppose it was in your behalf that Minette searched.”

“Not really,” remarked that intrepid damsel. “It was Marmaduke’s treasure that I wanted, so that I might share it with Orphanstrange and—er! Marmaduke made no provision for us, the cabbagehead.
Naturellement,
he did not expect to break his neck, so one should not be too severe. But we were forced to contrive, because we had no place else to go. I only pretended to assist Edouard, because he assured me if I didn’t he would break
my
neck!”

“Marmaduke’s treasure?” echoed Vashti. “Do you
know what it is?” In this same instant, Edouard, who had no interest whatsoever in hypothetical treasures, announced that he still might well do his kinswoman bodily harm. “And to you as well, Mademoiselle Beaufils. And I could accomplish it without
rousing the household.”

Minette’s green eyes sparkled angrily. “As on a previous occasion, when you knocked poor Vashti over the head.
Oui, chérie,
it was Edouard who assaulted you. Always, I have suspected it, but there was nothing I could do.”

Nor was Vashti, in that moment, capable of any action save to try and clench her chattering teeth. So darkened and enraged were Edouard’s features that she dared not even beg to exchange her sodden towel for the dressing gown that lay beneath Calliope upon the bed.

Minette was notably braver, or more foolish. “You dare not shoot us, Edouard,
or
break our necks. Even if you escaped the house undetected, suspicion would still fall on you.”

Edouard’s eyes narrowed. “And why is that, petite?”

Minette tapped her fingers on the arm of her chair and smiled.
“Mon cher
Edouard, you must know I am indiscreet. I cannot keept a secret. Several people know of your interest in the memorandum, I fear.”

Time hung briefly suspended in the late Marmaduke Mountjoy’s opulent bedchamber. Even the shadows ceased to dance. No sound broke the silence, save for the crackling of the fire and the now-familiar rustlings in the wall. Vashti thought despairingly that Edouard would surely kill them now. Consequences would not weigh with him, so consuming was his rage. She could not bear to look at him, at the contorted features, the mad eyes, the pistol that was doubtless destined to shortly end her life.

Her fugitive gaze brushed the carved mantelpiece. So distrait was Vashti that it seemed one of the carved mandarins returned her stare. They remained that way for what seemed a small eternity: Edouard, snarling, his pistol cocked; Vashti clutching at her towel and staring despairingly at the fireplace behind him; Minette sitting somberly in her mock-bamboo chair.

Then the moment was shattered, by a great commotion in the huge tent bed, Edouard swung toward it, swearing, pistol aimed. Calliope emerged from amid the bed hangings, murmuring sleepy queries.

Edouard’s finger tightened on the trigger. “No!” cried Vashti, and scooped up Calliope, irregardless of her slipping towel. “Don’t you dare shoot my cat, you—you blackguard!” Minette, whose composure was not half so great as she pretended, burst into nervous giggles. Vashti cast her an angry glance— and in so doing saw a section of the carved mantel swing out. Through the opening emerged the raddled old woman whom Vashti had last glimpsed in the secret room. If a ghost, then a ghost with a substantial wardrobe, Vashti thought inconsequentially. On this occasion, the old woman wore a long-sleeved gown, the pale green skirts looped up to reveal Chinese slippers with turned-up toes. Around her shoulders was a white cotton fichu, and atop her powdered curls was a butterfly cap of ribbon and lace. A parchment fan hung on a gold chain around her waist. The old woman grimaced terribly at Vashti and picked up a heavy vase.

Edouard was also staring, but at Vashti, who did present a compelling spectacle, clad in nothing but an angry cat. Daintily, Delphine advanced.

“A pox on the lot of you!” uttered the old woman, and felled Edouard with a mighty crash. Vashti’s sensibilities could withstand no further shock; she slid to the floor in a dead faint. Delphine briskly brushed fragments of broken vase from her skirts and returned to the fireplace Behind her, the mantelpiece swung shut. It all took place so quickly Minette had not even stirred from her chair.

Now she did so, first removing the pistol from Edouard’s inert hand, then rescuing Calliope from beneath Vashti. Spitting, the cat darted beneath the bed. Minette retrieved Vashti’s towel and draped it over the unconscious girl. Then she sank back on her heels and contemplated Edouard. Blood pooled on the pottery-strewn carpet beneath his head. What a very awkward business this was, Minette thought. She supposed she should tell some what had happened— but how was she to answer the questions that must result?

As matters arranged themselves, however, Minette had no chance to raise the alarm. Once more, the bedroom door was flung open, and Charlot ran into the room. “Vashti! I must speak with you! We have decided—” The sight of Minette crouched beside Edouard’s body brought him up short. He dropped to his knees beside her, staring at the bloody head.

“Crickey!” said Charlot, awed. “You’ve done for him, Minette!
Now
what shall we do?”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The conspirators decided to hide the unfortunate Edouard’s remains in the secret room, a feat accomplished with the assistance of a scandalized Orphanstrange. Such goings-on were not at all what he was accustomed to, the valet made known, nor had ever been, even in the service of the late Marmaduke. Having aired these disapproving sentiments, Orphanstrange then tottered off to the gaming rooms, lest any of the gamblers become aware that something distinctly fishy was in the wind. The conspirators repaired to the library, there to broach a bottle of the late Marmaduke’s excellent port.

“Mon dieu!”
Minette sank down wearily in a high-backed reading chair. “I don’t mind admitting to you that this has given me a very nasty turn. I did not think we would get Edouard out of sight before we were discovered—and wouldn’t
that
have caused a contretemps?” She frowned at her glass. “Still, one doesn’t like to toss about a kinsman as if he were no more than a sack of oats, even if one can’t bring oneself to regret the fact that he is dead.”

Charlot similarly suffered no regrets. “Jupiter!” he said, not for the first time, as he settled with his menagerie upon an apple-green couch. “You tipped him a proper rum ‘un, Minette! How did you come to do so? And why was Vashti wearing a towel?”

“Er.” Minette surveyed Charlot over the rim of her glass. Though Minette was feeling considerably relieved that her kinsman would no longer torment her, she was not sufficiently composed to embark upon an explanation of the facts of life. She had just witnessed a murder, after all, and was in the unenviable position of being cast as murderess. “Edouard was convinced your sister had the memorandum, and was attempting to persuade her to give it to him.”

“Oh.” Charlot was precocious enough to need no explanation of certain facts. “If I'd been there, I daresay I’d have carved his liver out. But what are we to do now? We can’t leave him indefinitely in the secret room, because he’ll start to smell
.
Why are you looking so green, Minette? Are you going to cast up your accounts?”

It was a distinct possibility. Minette swallowed, hard. “We
could
say he stumbled into the room by accident and tripped and hit his head, and then could not get out.”

Charlot stroked Bacchus, who had emerged from his pocket to gaze inquisitively about. “We could, but we’ve already said that about Vashti, and no one believed it.
I
think we should dump him in the Thames.”

“Parfait!
If we can contrive to transport him to the river without being seen.” Minette soothed her queasy stomach with another sip of port.

“That is a problem.” Charlot screwed up his face in thought.

The problem was destined to remain unsolved just then. The library door opened. Vashti, pale as death, entered the room. “Crickey, sis!” said Charlot. “First you entertain a gentleman in your bedchamber, clad only in a towel, and now you wander through the house in your dressing gown. I think you must be all about in the head!”

Without so much as a glance at her censorious brother, Vashti approached the library table, on which stood the port bottle. With shaking hands she splashed wine into a glass, and drank.

“Chérie!”
Minette set down her own glass, guided Vashti to the reading chair. “You are supposed to be abed. Look at you, shaking as with the ague!” She removed her own shawl and wrapped it around Vashti’s shoulders. “Try to compose yourself. You have had a dreadful experience—but the trouble is behind us now,
n’est-çe pas?”

“Behind us?” Vashti’s hands were so unsteady that wine spilled from her glass. “With a corpse hidden in the house? I think I shall go mad!”

“Clunch!” Charlot deemed it very poor-spirited of his sister to be affected so extremely by the minor problem of an inconvenient corpse. “You’re not going to make a kick-up
now,
are you, Vashti? We’ll never be able to decide what to do with Edouard if you’re raising a dust.”

Vashti set aside her empty glass and absentmindedly patted Mohammed, whose head rested in her lap. “Do with him?” she echoed. “What
can
one do with a corpse?”

“That is precisely what we ask ourselves,
ma chère!”
Minette perched, somewhat uncomfortably, on the arm of Vashti’s chair. “Clearly, Edouard cannot remain long where he is. He must be disposed of, but we are not certain how. Perhaps you may suggest a solution! We shall all put our heads together, eh?”

“You seem monstrous unconcerned about this business.” Vashti gazed appalled upon Minette. “Gracious God, your only kinsman is dead!”

“Oui,
and I am very sorry for it, but that does not alter the fact.” Minette wrinkled her nose.
“Du vrai,
I shall be honest: I am not sorry at all! It pleases me beyond measure that I shall no longer be plagued by Edouard. Now I have shocked you, but you would feel no differently had Edouard been
your
kinsman, and you had spent a large portion of your life with him worrying you to death!”

Recalling her own recent encounter with the villainous Edouard, Vashti was not so shocked by this viewpoint as she should have been. She sighed deeply, and sneezed.

Eh bien!
” cried Minette. “You have taken a chill. That too must be laid at Edouard’s door, because he kept you standing about an unconscionable long time in that damp towel.”

Charlot scowled. “About that towel—it’s not the thing, sis! Even I know that! What was Edouard doing in your bedroom, anyway?”

Vashti had not spirits just then to appreciate her brother’s suddenly developed concern for the proprieties. “I’m damned if I know!” she snapped. “I’m sure I locked the door.”

Without a great deal of humor, Minette laughed. “Edouard would not be deterred by so simple a thing as a locked door. But this is fair and far off. We must determine what is to be done with Edouard.”

“I think you might be a little more grateful, Vashti!” scolded Charlot. “Minette did save your life. Had she not bashed Edouard over the head, there’s no telling what he might have done.”

Vashti greeted this advice with a visible shudder. “But it wasn’t Minette! It was the ghost.”

Charlot’s eyes widened. “Jupiter! Was it, Minette?”

“In a point of fact, she’s
not—”
Minette paused. With a corpse abovestairs awaiting discovery, the moment was not propitious for a lengthy discussion of Delphine. “It was the old woman, yes.”

“Crickey!” Charlot was agog for further explanations. Vashti forestalled his questions by inviting Mohammed up into her lap. “If we’re caught with a corpse in our keeping, it won’t be a ghost who’s called to account for it,” she said. “I don’t know precisely what is done to murderers, but I doubt that it is nice.”

“Murderers!” In his excitement, Charlot fairly bounced on the couch. “I say, Vashti, do you think we shall be hanged?”

Vashti put her arms around Mohammed, and rested her cheek against the hound’s warm back. “I shouldn’t be surprised!”

“Pfui!” Minette removed herself from the chair arm and the hound, which evidenced a determination to wash her face. “Me, I have no intention of being hanged, I assure you! It wants only a little contrivance on our part.” In search of inspiration, she approached the port.

Came a period of reflection, during which the conspirators pondered mightily, aided by the wine. Even Charlot was permitted by his sister to partake of a glass.

“What did you do with Edouard’s pistol?” Vashti suddenly inquired.

Minette tried to remember. “I left it in your room,
chérie—
I think. All was such a confusion, and you were of no assistance, with your vaporing and having to be revived with smelling salts. I thought at one point that you would hide with your cat beneath the bed!
Tout de même,
I do not mean to scold you. My affection for you remains undiminished, Vashti, even if you are not so very brave.”