Wiles of a Stranger (16 page)

It was not until I got into bed and reviewed our talk that one rather important fact occurred to me. If he were to actually buy the Jaipur, he must be a very wealthy man. He had mentioned a fiendishly clever plan, but it would have to be very clever indeed to make the banks honor such a large check, if he hadn’t the money.

Chapter Twelve

Mr. Beaudel came back the next day shortly after lunch. Wiggins returned to being a punctilious butler; Mrs. Beaudel to being a dissatisfied young wife; and I to being a governess. Beaudel spent the afternoon in his office. Just as I picked up my pelisse to go to the meadow with Lucien, Mrs. Beaudel stuck her head into my room. “Could I borrow you for a moment, Miss Stacey?” she asked. She looked excited. Her eyes were sparkling, and her color high.

“Certainly,” I replied.

“Come along to my room,” she ordered. I followed her down the hallway, curious.

“I am just finishing up a note to be delivered, and as you and Lucien are going out, you can deliver it for me.” She sat at her desk to seal up her letter, while my heart sank in dismay. I looked around the chamber while she was busy. It was tidy. I noticed nothing amiss until I happened to look at an upholstered chair in the corner. She had a silken scarf laid out on it, with a small pile of clean linens on top, and a toothbrush. Were it not for the toothbrush, I would hardly have glanced at it. It was not enough clothing to suggest a trip—no gowns, no shoes, no trunk or bag for that matter. Unless she meant to roll those few linens up in a scarf like an itinerant worker, she was not preparing for flight.

“Where did you want us to take the note?” I asked, hoping it was to a close neighbor.

“Into the village.”

“I was going to take Lucien to the meadow, for his daily ride,” I ventured.

“If you are like Miss Little, you would prefer to do your walking in the village to anywhere else. Take the carriage if you prefer, and have your walk after you get there.”

I didn’t say anything, but she saw the dismay in my face. “I’ll give you a little pourboire, to make it worth your while,” she added. “Just drop this note off at the milliner’s shop for me. The new one at the edge of town, Mrs. Cantor—not the old-fashioned shop across from the inn. I swear they have nothing but round bonnets. You don’t have to wait for a reply. Just hand it to the housekeeper. I want the feathers on my new bonnet changed to white.” She lifted the sealed note from the desk, rooted a shilling from a porcelain tray holding loose change, and handed them both to me. “You won’t forget.”

“No, I won’t. Thank you,” I said, accepting both, as I was not ingenious enough to think of a reason for refusing.

Back in my room, my next thought was to get a message to Major Morrison, but there was no one in the house I knew well enough to ask. I would have to stand him up. My second thought was to try to discover what was in the note. Such was my distrust of Madam that even a note to her milliner fell under suspicion.

The single sheet was sealed with a plain wafer, but by compressing the folded end, it was possible to peer in and see part of the message. There was no mention of bonnets or feathers in the bit I could see, nor was the message long enough that this might have been included in another passage. The few words visible from the sides were “hire the place,” “name of Mr. Wel.. .” and “Wiggins will.” The remainder of the message could not be seen, but her signature at the bottom was “Stella”—not Mrs. Beaudel, as one would expect in a note to ones milliner.

Lucien came to the door, impatient to be off. He was not troubled to have the outing changed. He was bubbling with different news.

“Major Morrison is coming this afternoon. I hope we are back in time to see him,” he told me. “Uncle Charles said he is coming to see the rose Jaipur. If he likes it, he will buy it from me. I will be a wealthy young man,” he added, obviously quoting his uncle.

I was stunned with the speed of Morrison’s offer. “What time is he coming?” I asked, wondering if he had planned to stand me up in the meadow, and I worrying about doing the same to him.

“At four o’clock. We can be back, if we hurry.”

There was no dallying after hearing this. I threw my bonnet on my head and hastened to the stairs. I was not the only one in a hurry. Mrs. Beaudel had the carriage harnessed and waiting for us. Mrs. Cantor’s millinery shop was not so much a shop as a cottage with a discreet hand-painted cardboard sign in the window. There was no excess of traffic. In fact, there was none at all except ourselves.

A young female servant in a mobcap answered the door. Her mistress was two steps behind her. She was a big-boned dame in her forties, with black hair that ill-suited her pale face. She wore a decent dark gown, but managed to look like a trollop despite it.

“What do you want?” she asked me, in a very common accent.

One would think a milliner would assume I wanted a bonnet, but this did not seem to occur to her. The servant handed her the note, which she grabbed anxiously, then she slammed the door in my face. The trip was accomplished so quickly that I took Lucien to the meadow after we returned, in case the major should be so patient as to wait until three o’clock.

From across the meadow I saw him, sitting on a rock with his chin in his hands, like Patience on a monument. “You had better have a very good excuse!” was his opening salvo.

“We have been to the village.”

“Not good enough,” he said, arising to look belligerently down his nose at us.

I explained how it had come about, as Lucien rode his pony in large circles around us, looking to see that we admired his seat.

“Does she know I am coming to look at the diamond this afternoon?” he asked.

“I imagine so. Beaudel told Lucien, so it is no secret.”

“Let us assume she does, and be prepared for the worst.”

“She won’t just steal the diamond at gunpoint. She could have had it any time, if it is in the safe as we think. You should have checked, to be certain.”

“Is it possible she’s stupid enough to think I’ll pay cash? They’ve hired a place; she has clothes packed—isn’t that what you said? She and Wiggins plan to grab the money and run.”

“Not many clothes. Just a few linens and a toothbrush.”

“She could hardly load a carriage down with trunks. If she knows I’m coming at four, she may plan to steal the money tonight, before he gets it into a bank. She’d count on his infatuation with her to delay his calling in the authorities, I expect.”

“You’ll be paying by cheque?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have enough money—fifty thousand pounds, is it?”

“The sum is not settled until I examine the gem. As to the money, yes, I can afford it. That sets you to wondering, I see.”

“They won’t trust a stranger’s cheque for such a sum.”

“I am not a stranger, but a good friend of Sacheverel. Furthermore, I took the precaution of getting a cheque certified for fifty thousand. If any little extra is required to close the deal, that could be uncertified.”

“It’s hard to believe they count on your paying cash. And where does Mrs. Cantor come into it?”

“Mrs. Beaudel was a milliner herself, before coming here. It might be an old colleague. I shall discover whether the woman is a new addition to the village. Or you could do that, from the girls at the Park.”

“I wonder if they worked together before, on that kidnapping of Kersey’s son.”

“Very likely. There was some older couple in on it. It was they who had arranged to hire a place.” He stopped at that telling phrase, to tug at his beard. “Kidnapping!” he exclaimed.

“Precisely my own thought!”

“Criminals will stick with the same sort of crime, same method of executing it, and so on.”

“That’s true. I’ve often heard my father say so, when discussing jewel robberies. They’re going to kidnap Lucien. Oh, my God, Major, we have to let Beaudel know.”

“Just a minute,” he said, holding up his hands. “They’re not going to do anything till Beaudel has my money. Yes, this is more sensible. Beaudel banks the money, and then has to get cash to pay them off to get Lucien back. Did Lucien see Mrs. Cantor?”

“Yes, he came with me to her shop.”

“And Stella knew he was going with you, so she didn’t care if he saw the woman. That’s odd. I mean, you’d think she would use someone unknown to him. Unless they plan to kill the boy

“Surely not!”

“They’re really getting in deep if that’s the plan. But how can they let him go home, if he can identify her? I’m assuming, of course, that neither Stella nor Wiggins take an active part in the kidnapping, but only engineer it.”

“There must be more people involved.”

“There are already four. They wouldn’t want to split it up any more than necessary. The neater plan would be for Stella and Wiggins to sit tight at the Park till the money was handed over, then after a few months, she could have a riproaring fight with Beaudel and leave without attaching any suspicion she was involved in the kidnapping. And she wouldn’t have any reason to have her linens and toothbrush packed up for that course, would she?”

“No. Bad as she is, I’m sure she wouldn’t plan to murder Lucien. She rather likes him. She’s greedy, but she’s not vicious,” I said, always harking back in my mind to this dreadful possibility. “Maybe they’re not planning to kidnap him at all. We have no reason to suppose it’s to be a kidnapping.”

“They kidnapped before. That’s their racket. Maybe they don’t plan to kidnap Lucien. Maybe it’s old Beaudel.... No, he has to be home to arrange the funds. Who else is there? Who would Beaudel fork over fifty thousand for? There’s only his nephew and—his wife.” he finished, with a curious little smile.

“What—Stella kidnaps herself?” I asked, with an incredulous laugh.

“Why not?” he asked reasonably. “She wouldn’t meet much resistance, would she? You may be sure after she was let free, she would not put the finger on the Cantors. It would be some Frenchmen or Irishmen who did it. The remainder of the plan still holds. She goes home for a reasonable time, then has her falling out with Charles and goes to join the conspirators. The four of them are off and running—anywhere they choose. It would be logical for Wiggins to leave at the same time She hired him. He might even be the reason for the fight with Charles, to give him an unexceptionable excuse to resign his position. I think that covers all bases. A pretty clever scheme.”

I went over it mentally for loopholes, and found none. In fact, I liked the scheme, as it left out all danger of a physical sort to Lucien. Only his fortune was at jeopardy. “So what should we do?” was my next question.

“An ounce of prevention. You’ll see.”

“Please tell me. I’m dying to know.”

“There isn’t time. I have the details to work out. I have to nip into the village and have a word with the expert who is going to authenticate the Jaipur for me. Mills is his name.”

“Albert Mills? I know him, and he knows me. I must stay out of sight.”

“I’ll tip him the clue he’s never seen you before.”

“When did you arrange for him to come?” I asked, trailing after him as he hastened toward his mount, tethered near the stream.

“My man followed Beaudel to London. He toured the jewel merchants, inquiring about possible markets and price for the Jaipur, indicating it was for sale. My man had instructions to ask Mills to come, if that was Beaudel’s errand. Love and Wirgmans indicated to him that fifty thousand was a fair price, so that will be my offer. I think he’d take it. A bird in the hand. He’ll want the money before Algernon comes home, asking questions. He’ll tell him he took forty-five, which is not a
bad
price, not low enough to cause instant suspicion.”

“I don’t suppose your man had time to enquire after Mr. Kirby, in London?” I remembered to ask.

“As a matter of fact, he did,” he answered, which surprised me. “I have a note of his address here. He lives nearby, in a cottage about five miles from the town. Here, I’ll jot down the direction.”

He scribbled them out very quickly and handed them to me.

“Oh, thank you. I’ll write him this very day. Because you know, if we aren’t going to prove Stella stole those diamonds, it doesn’t do Papa any good at all. He is still languishing in that prison.”

“Yes, but I sent him a bottle of the very best brandy, and all the latest papers. Later I shall take Mills around to see him. That will prove a pleasant diversion, to have an old colleague to talk to.”

“It will break his heart that he isn’t to get to see the Jaipur.”

“I may be able to arrange that too,” he said, and laughed, a reckless, excited laugh.

I mistrusted the mood he was in. Amidst all the confusion of stealing and kidnapping and hiring a place by the Cantors, we had lost track of freeing Papa. It was clearly not a top priority of the major’s, but how had I allowed myself to be led so far astray?

“What is the matter, Anna?” he asked suddenly. Glancing up from my fit of distraction, I saw he regarded me with troubled, gentle eyes, and felt guilty at my ill thoughts of him.

“I’m worried about my father, of course.”

“Don’t. He’ll be free very soon. That’s a promise.”

I felt an instinctive urge to trust him, when he looked at me in that way. “Should you prevent the kidnapping? Wouldn’t it be better to let them go ahead with it, catch them in the act, I mean? How else can we prove anything?”

“Trust me.”

“Couldn’t I help in some way? I’ll be there, in the house. I can spy, see if she leaves. There ought to be someone set to watch the Cantors too, and—oh, any number of things,” I said, as he impatiently mounted his gelding, wanting to leave. “We need a whole army.”

“You don’t need anyone but me. I will handle it,” he insisted. “There is no counting on any of them to behave as ladies and gentlemen, my dear. They might take it very much amiss if they found you lurking at keyholes, or in the back of carriages. God only knows what shocking things your beautiful eyes would be exposed to. We don’t want you quite disenchanted with relations between the sexes. You’re timid enough already. Or was it the beard?” he asked, bending down and taking my hands in his.