Point of Honour (8 page)

Miss Tolerance swore.

She had seen death before, been its cause, even. But she did not like finding the corpse of an elderly woman who had apparently died by violence; a blow to the face that had sent her crashing into the knobby arm of the sofa. The bruise was full and purple; Miss Tolerance surmised that the old woman had taken some little while to die. Had she been conscious? Afraid? Miss Tolerance shivered at the thought.

After a moment, the hardheaded concerns of commerce asserted themselves. Miss Tolerance considered what to do, and in the end decided there was no point in becoming further involved in Mrs. Smith’s tragedy. Leaving matters as they were was cowardly, but reporting the death would inevitably lead to interviews with the authorities, perhaps even the magistrates of Bow Street. (Miss Tolerance had made it a practice to steer clear of the Bow Street Runners, feeling that contact with the civil investigative force would only draw attention to herself which was professionally and personally unwelcome.) Much better, if possible, to retreat immediately. Someone else would find Mrs. Smith before long, surely. Gingerly, Miss Tolerance drew the crop from under the old woman’s body, tucked it under her arm, and left the room.

She was untying her horse when she realized she was being observed. Across the lane, standing on the lawn of a pretty brick house, a small child was watching curiously; behind her a woman stood, eyeing Miss Tolerance with familiar hostility. The woman was several years older than Miss Tolerance, heavyset and in the dove gray of half mourning. The child was no more than four or five, and fidgeted with a hoop and stick as she watched. Their silent observation forced Miss Tolerance to change her plans. Better to report Mrs. Smith’s death than be remembered later as the person who had not reported it but had departed under suspicious circumstances.

“I beg your pardon, ma’am. Can you direct me to the justice of the peace or magistrate?” Miss Tolerance called.

The woman frowned. “Why do you need one?” Her accent was genteel. A navy widow, perhaps, Miss Tolerance thought. There had been enough battles in the endless war with Bonaparte’s forces to widow half the nation. This woman clearly did not approve of young women who traveled about the countryside in breeches any more than her neighbor had.

“Mrs. Smith—” Miss Tolerance stopped, not wanting to voice her suspicions before the child. “I’m afraid Mrs. Smith has died.” She gave the woman a look as full of meaning as she dared. The woman drew back, eyes wide, and turned to the child.

“Anne, you go inside.
Now,
if you please.”

The child went reluctantly, gawking at Miss Tolerance. When she was gone, the woman turned back. “You’re one of her sort,” she stated.

Miss Tolerance bit back her first denial. “I am not—what she was.”

“Then what are you doing here? Like
that?”
the woman asked.

Miss Tolerance felt the threads of her patience fraying badly. “I am looking for direction to the magistrate,” she said again. “It is my belief that Mrs. Smith died by force, sometime last night or early this morning. A report must be made. Perhaps you would prefer to send a servant to inform the authorities, ma’am?”

The woman took another step back, as if violence might be contagious, and appeared to consider what was to be done and whether her own involvement was necessary. “Robbery?” she asked.

“I honestly could not tell you, madam. Which is why I would appreciate it if you could direct me to the justice or magistrate.”

The woman turned back to the house. Miss Tolerance watched her in the doorway in brief conversation with a maidservant. Then the maid came out and directed Miss Tolerance to the justice of the peace. The woman herself had gone into the house without another word.

T
he justice of the peace was a heavy, dull-eyed gentleman farmer with no other apparent business than to sit at a desk surrounded by numbers of the sporting gazettes. The books that lined the wall behind him were all on agriculture; Miss Tolerance wondered if he had read them, or merely kept them there to give himself the appearance of industry. The house was a stolid cube in the middle of a cropped lawn; the office a small, chilly chamber with a desk, the bookshelf, an undusted globe, and an inkstand. The justice listened to Miss Tolerance’s tale without enthusiasm, his eyes trained on the front of her double-breasted riding coat as if trying to imagine what it concealed and thus to reassure himself of her gender. At last, after Miss Tolerance had finished speaking and the room had been silent for several minutes, Mr. Gilkes heaved himself from his chair and demanded that she return to the house with him.

There was, of course, nothing to be done for it. Damning the whole business, Miss Tolerance went.

They found the house as Miss Tolerance had left it. Now that the shock of finding the body had abated somewhat, her curiosity was strongly in play. Mr. Gilkes made disapproving noises at the sight of Mrs. Smith’s body while Miss Tolerance looked into the other room on that floor: a kitchen, which overlooked the river. On the table she found the basket she had sent from the Queen’s Arms, with the cheese and the bottle of wine still in it. A loaf of bread had been cut in two, and Miss Tolerance found the charred remains of one half fallen from the fender onto the hearth, with a blackened slice of ham next to it. The ham itself lay on the floor, scarred with the small, dainty marks of cat teeth and cat claws. There was barely anything else in the larder: several bottles of Mrs. Smith’s dreadful cordial, a few eggs in a rush basket, and a packet of tea leaves. As she turned to leave, Miss Tolerance saw the card she had given the innkeeper with her own name and Mrs. Smith’s direction on it. She pocketed it and returned to the hallway.

She had her foot on the first step of the narrow stairway when the justice emerged from the sitting room. He held his handkerchief to his nose, which gave him the look of a mourner, and he had clearly had his fill. “Tragic, tragic,” he said in monotone. “But we can do no good here. I’ll have the parish clerk arrange a funeral.”

Miss Tolerance gestured toward the staircase. “Perhaps we should look abovestairs?”

Mr. Gilkes frowned heavily. “For God’s sake, Miss—” he faltered over her name. “You’re in the presence of death! Show a little respect.”

“I meant no disrespect at all, sir. But I was hoping—”

“Whatever your hopes were, the old woman’s death has put paid to them neatly, eh? There’s nothing more for you here.”

“Perhaps not, sir. Will I be needed for the inquest?”

He looked past Miss Tolerance to the door, clearly wishing he were on its other side.

“Will not the coroner have to rule upon the death?” Miss Tolerance persisted. “She was clearly struck down.”

“I see no evidence of that.”

“The bruise on her face. She was struck down and left to die.”

“She could have got that bruise at any time. All that concerns us is that she fell and hit her head.” He frowned. “She was old, these things happen. I consider it death by misadventure, with nothing suspicious about it. There is no need for the coroner to put himself to the trouble of saying so. A sad business, but consider her life, ma’am. Consider her life. Surely such an end was inevitable.” The justice looked meaningfully at Miss Tolerance, as if prophesying just such an end for her. He clearly hoped not to pursue the matter himself and saw no profit in encouraging Miss Tolerance to do so. It seemed that a small consideration such as his obligation under law meant little to him, and he could conceive of no reason other than money for Miss Tolerance to care. Miss Tolerance had not wanted to become involved. She should be blessing this imbecile for his lack of interest, but Mrs. Smith’s eager, monkeyish face played in her memory and she found herself reluctant to let the matter go.

Mr. Gilkes firmly led Miss Tolerance out of the house. He promised again to have the parish clerk see to a funeral. There were, he was certain, no relatives who would wish to be privy to the arrangements. There was no reason for Miss Tolerance to stay in Leyton, he thanked her very much for her attention, but strongly recommended that she be on her way.

Had it not been for the justice’s utter lack of imagination and drive, she might have suspected him of some suspicious motive in suppressing inquiry into the death. However, it was plain to her that the inconvenience, and a squeamish dislike of what Mrs. Smith had once been, had ruled Mr. Gilkes’s decision. With little choice, Miss Tolerance mounted her horse and started back to Manchester Square. There was nothing she could do for Mrs. Smith; although Miss Tolerance doubted that Gilkes would put himself to the trouble of seeking out Mrs. Smith’s true name and family, she was equally persuaded that any family Mrs. Smith owned would prefer not to hear of her death from another Fallen Woman. Common sense dictated that she return to London and the matter of the Italian fan, and yet she was unable to erase from her memory the image of Mrs. Smith, sprawled without dignity across her sofa, reaching out for help.

Why would anyone offer violence to an elderly female of decayed morals, long retired from her profession and living in pressed circumstances? The motive had surely not been robbery, at least not by any common thief. The foot that had ground the lavender into the rug had not worn a heavy workman’s boot but a narrow, more fashionable one, perhaps one made for riding. A gentleman’s footwear. And the state of the parlor spoke to her of sudden rage, not the planned cruelty of a burglar. As her horse jogged along the lanes, Miss Tolerance returned again and again to a single conviction: that her own visit to Mrs. Smith had somehow precipitated the old woman’s death. Almost, Miss Tolerance turned the horse back to Leyton to ask at the Queen’s Arms if anyone had inquired as to her own movements the day before. But there was the matter of the damned fan to be resolved, and seeking Mrs. Smith’s killer would not pay her rent.

W
hen Miss Tolerance returned to Manchester Square, it was a little after three. She handed the horse to her aunt’s groom to be returned to the stables from which it had been hired, and retired to her cottage to think. The day was nearly gone; she could not in justice charge Lord Trux the entire day’s fee, but perhaps she could salvage some little part of it in considering the next steps to be taken in the matter of the Italian fan. Her luck appeared to turn, for she had not been home for above half an hour when Cole arrived with a letter which had been that moment delivered to her—and a look betokening a burden of gossip.

“What’s the matter, Cole? You look …” She searched for the correct word. “Full of news.” Miss Tolerance took the letter from him, and looked at it briefly: not inscribed in a hand familiar to her. “I wish no more than you to breech my aunt’s promise of discretion to her clients, but if you can say—”

Cole shook his head. “Ain’t one of the clients, miss. Not the meat of it, anyway. But one of ’em-I shan’t say which, it’s as much as my job’s worth—he says … it’s the Queen Regent, miss.”

Miss Tolerance raised her eyebrows. “Take me with you, Cole.
Queen Charlotte
is one of my aunt’s clients?”

The footman blanched. “God save me, no, miss.” He appeared to boggle at the thought for a moment, as Miss Tolerance did herself. “No, miss. Only that one of the gentlemen told—and was overheard, and the maid—” The footman grew more and more confounded, trying to authenticate the story without implicating anyone in the house.

“I need not hear who overheard what, or told whom. But what is this news of yours?”

“The Queen’s took sick, miss. Might be like to dying, an apoplexy, Lor—the gentleman said. He’d been up all night at Kew Palace, and ridden back at dawn to meet at Whitehall—then come here for a bit, for the release, if you take my meaning.”

“I do, thank you.” Miss Tolerance let out a long, low whistle. “If the Queen Regent dies, it’ll be a nasty scrum, won’t it? Old Mad George may live on for another twenty years while his sons scramble to rule the country.” She shook her head. “Well, we must pray for her recovery. There’s certainly nothing you or I can cure ourselves. Thank you, Cole.” She smiled in dismissal and the footman bowed himself out the door. Miss Tolerance’s ruminations on the subject lasted only a few moments more, long enough to wonder whether the “Lord” was of the royal party or opposition. The political maneuverings of the Whig and Tory factions and their puppet princes might bring her business in the future, but for the moment her concern must be for Lord Trux and his fan.

She opened the letter and found it was, as she had hoped, from one of the shop clerks she had spoken to the day before.

I believe the person your seeking goes now by the name of Cook, not Carter. Mrs. Cook lives in considable reduced circumstances, and sends the broidery she does for us from Greenwich, by a messenger comes from an inn there, the Great Charlote. I have reason to believe she is the person you axed after. One of the clerks has been here for five-and-twenty years says Mrs. Cook was once a patron of our establishment in her better days, and a notable Beauty.

Hoping this will be sufficient, I remain, etc.

Miss Tolerance sighed. It would have been pleasant to discover that Mrs. Cunning, now Mrs. Cook, lived close enough by that she would not need to hire another hack. It would have been pleasanter still to discover that Mrs. Cook was absolutely Mrs. Cunning and no other, before she went through the trouble and expense of the ride. She looked at the clock and decided that by the time she had procured another horse and ridden out to Greenwich, it would be early evening—not the best time to be in an unfamiliar town looking for an unknown woman, particularly as Greenwich, home to the Royal Naval College, was often thick with seamen home on leave and ripe for the happy prank of chasing down an unaccompanied woman.

Regretfully, Miss Tolerance decided the day must be written off. In the wake of her brief interview with Lord Trux the night before, she was more than a little conscious of the fact that this day had yielded nothing remarkable in the way of progress. Still, there were sometimes such days; tomorrow would doubtless be better.