The Lady Julia Grey Bundle (19 page)

Aquinas shrugged. “There are places…”

I did not press him, but simply made a note to tell Brisbane of my discovery and pressed on. There was a small viewer, of rather good quality wood, inset with a disk of glass to magnify the cards mounted behind it. It was grouped with a pack of cards, their subject matter much the same as the pictures in the album. I shoved them aside. There was nothing else of interest in the chest, and I was grateful when we moved on, closing the door behind us. The atmosphere in that room at the top of the house had grown close and airless. The hall seemed a little cooler and I breathed deeply for a moment before we moved into Morag’s room.

If Henry’s things had been a shock, Morag’s were a revelation. The small room was packed with items as a magpie’s nest, some things I had discarded, others bought with her modest wages. I recognized a vase that had been chipped slightly when one of the new maids had handled it carelessly. I had told Aquinas to dispose of it, but Morag had interceded, asking if she might keep it. I had shrugged, sublimely disinterested in what became of it. I saw now that Morag had filled it with dried grasses and placed it almost reverently on a starched mat of Brussels lace that had once been a shawl of mine. She had turned the vase so that the chipped edge did not show and tucked the snagged threads of the shawl out of sight. Everywhere I looked in that room I saw care and thrift and an almost painful determination to make good use of whatever came her way.

“I think our Morag is the proverbial thrifty Scot,” I said with a smile. “She throws nothing away.”

Aquinas was studying a framed sketch that I had come across months before. It was a courtyard, thick with fallen leaves and broken statuary. Edward had sketched it himself, before we married. It was well done, but melancholy, I always thought, and we had hung it in a back hallway and forgotten about it. I noticed it one morning, shortly after Edward died and had taken it down. I had been ready to consign it to the dustbin when Morag snatched it, saying she had a frame that needed a picture. I recognized the frame as well. It was a gaudy, heavy, scrolled thing that once belonged to Edward’s mother. I had never liked it, and when the corner had broken off, I had been delighted. Now it hung paired with the sketch, wildly inappropriate for such a humble subject, but Morag must have liked it. It took pride of place over her bed.

“She came to us with only the clothes on her back and a sewing basket,” Aquinas reminded me.

I said nothing and busied myself with her chest of drawers, feeling rather abashed. I had known what Morag’s life was like—Aunt Hermia had made certain of that. She had described for me the existence of an East End prostitute in terms that could only be described as brutally frank. I had known that Morag once lived largely on the street, sleeping in a bed only on the nights when she made enough money to pay for a doss. All of her possessions were carried on her person, tucked into pockets and sewn into hems. I had thought it would seem like paradise to her to have her own furnished room at the top of the house.

But why had I never thought to hang proper pictures on the wall or give her an unbroken vase or frame? Immediately I thought of a dozen things in Edward’s room that I could pass on to her. A few were valuable, but not wildly so, and I did not need the money they would bring. Why not give them to Morag, who would enjoy them? I turned to Aquinas, shrugging to indicate that I had found nothing.

He nodded. “All I found was a half-empty box of barley sugar sweets, for her sins.”

I preceded him out of the room, making up my mind to give her a large box of the best candy I could find. In spite of her ragged edges, Morag had been a comfort to me through my widowhood. I should make rather more of an effort to tell her so, I thought.

Next we ventured into Renard’s room, a task I was not anticipating with any great joy. His room was untidy as a lord’s, strewn with soiled clothing and discarded footwear. There were newspapers and cigar ash underfoot and a plate that had been sitting around long enough for the remains of the food to become truly revolting.

“I thought the French were supposed to be fastidious,” I complained, waving a handkerchief over my nose.

“I never thought he was French,” Aquinas replied. He had taken up an umbrella and was using it to tentatively shift the dirty garments.

“Really?” I whirled to face him, my hands full of magazines.

“The accent is too affected,
too
French, if you take my meaning, my lady. If you will forgive the observation, he sounds very much like your ladyship’s dressmakers.”

I laughed, thinking of the Riche brothers and their exaggerated accents, their conspicuous use of simple French words in every conversation. “Of course! Where do you suppose he comes from?”

Aquinas wrinkled his nose at a particularly malodorous stocking. “Kent. I never trust a Kentish man.”

“I am sure there is a very good reason why, but I will not ask you now. I suppose his real name must be Fox, and that is why he uses that ridiculous sobriquet,” I mused, flipping quickly through the magazines. They were old ones, Edward’s castoffs. There was nothing more interesting in them than a mildly scandalous article regarding the Chancellor of the Ex
chequer. Aquinas had given up on the clothes and was poking about under the bed with an umbrella.

After a moment he gave a grunt and reached as far as his arm would stretch, hooking the handle of the umbrella around something. He crabbed backward, collecting a fair amount of dust and cobweb, pulling a small portmanteau with him.

I dove after it, although I cannot imagine why. Did I think I would find scissors and a glue pot secreted inside? Actually, I rather liked the idea of Renard as villain. I had always found him distasteful, and the notion of dismissing him without either pay or character was wildly appealing.

The portmanteau was locked, but it was a moment’s work to find the key, hanging on a hook behind the mirror over his washstand. Aquinas stepped back and allowed me to fit the key myself. It turned easily and I threw back the lid, feeling a surge of profound disappointment. There were only books, old ones by the look of them, with moldy, crumbling covers and the choking smell of dust and mildew.

Aquinas lifted one out and opened it. We stared at the illustration for a long moment.

“Well, I suppose that explains where Henry managed to find such filth,” I said finally.

Aquinas nodded thoughtfully. “Renard must strip the pages and sell them to him, perhaps to others as well.”

I picked up another book, noting the French title and the owner’s coat of arms embossed on the leather cover.

“Are they valuable, do you think?”

Aquinas made a little moue. “Perhaps. There are collectors—a comte I once served in Paris, for example. They would pay rather a lot for a volume such as this from an illustrious library. But to cut the pictures and sell them alone, either he is eager for the money—too eager to find a dealer, or he does not recognize the value.”

“I do not think Renard is the sort who would overlook
the possible value of anything,” I said slowly. “Where do you think he got them?”

“France,” he said firmly. “He probably worked for this gentleman, or his family, and took them when he left. One would think he took them because they were easy to steal, easy to sell off—a few pictures whenever he wanted a little money.”

“But why pretend to us that he was French?”

Aquinas smiled at me, a little sadly. “Because there is a prejudice about French servants, a notion that they are superior to Italians, even better than English ones. Better pay to pretend you are French.”

“But that is ludicrous. If he were a good valet, it would not have mattered to Edward if he were a Chinaman.”

“To Sir Edward, no. But there are others to whom it matters very much.”

“Nonsense. All that matters is that one does a good job and can speak the language well enough to be understood. I should not care if my staff were Albanians.”

“You are different, my lady.” I must have looked doubtful, because he went on. “Do you remember the dinner here, a few weeks before Sir Edward’s death? You hosted Lady Thorncroft? Yes, well, as I was bringing in the roast, I clearly heard her ask if you counted the silver after I had polished it to make certain it was all still there.”

I looked away, squirming a little. “I had hoped you did not hear that.”

“But I did, and I heard your ladyship’s reply. I do not think you will be invited again to Thorncroft Hall, by the way.”

I looked up at him, and his eyes were twinkling in his sad face. “Well, what else could I say to her? She was insulting and rude.”

“She only said what many other guests at Grey House have thought. How can you trust your valuables to an Italian?”

I closed the book and put it back into the portmanteau.

“I do not know why everyone persists in thinking of you as Italian, you are half English. You don’t even have an accent. Most of the time,” I amended, thinking of the rare fits of anger that rendered him incapable of communicating except in passionate Italian.

“Come, I want to get out of this room and wash my hands,” I said. He shoved the portmanteau into its hiding place and replaced the umbrella.

At the door, I paused. “Aquinas, has Mr. Brisbane ever said anything to you? Ever made any sort of remark about the fact that you are not English?”

Aquinas smiled. “Yes, my lady. The first time he called at Grey House, when I showed him to the door. He told me how much he admired Italian acrobats and asked me if I had ever seen the Giobertis perform in Milan.”

I stared at him, openmouthed in astonishment. His smile widened.

“I know, my lady. That was precisely the reaction I had to him. A very remarkable gentleman, Mr. Brisbane.”

“Remarkable indeed, Aquinas.”

By three o’clock, we were tired and dusty and had turned up almost nothing. No diaries with heartfelt, murderous confessions, no glue pots except where they belonged. And I had found no poison in my surreptitious searches when Aquinas’ back was turned. We had tiptoed past Simon’s room, although I had given the room a cursory glance the night before. It was not entirely impossible that the culprit had hidden something away in Simon’s room, Brisbane had warned me. It was almost as neat a solution as hiding something in mine, and he had instructed me to take note of anything that might seem out of the ordinary. I had peered into corners under the guise of looking for an earring I had dropped, but I found nothing and Simon had begun to look at me peculiarly. It was on the tip of my tongue to take him into my confidence, as well, but in
the end I decided against it. Brisbane would be annoyed enough that I had told Aquinas as much as I had; explaining that Simon also knew would leave him apoplectic.

Aquinas brought Simon’s luncheon tray while I prodded the skirting boards outside his room. They proved sound, and Aquinas joined me shortly to finish our search. To my relief, my own rooms turned up nothing. It was irrational, really,
I
knew that there was nothing there. But it made me feel immeasurably better, and I decided that I would tell Brisbane I had enlisted Aquinas to act as an impartial observer during my search of my own things. He would not believe it for a minute, but I thought it sounded very professional.

The public rooms on the main floor took very little time. They had been furnished by Edward in his favorite Empire style—all cleanly designed and uncluttered. No hiding places among all those bare legs and stripped floors. That left only the belowstairs—kitchens, offices and the private rooms I had not yet searched. The kitchens were pristine, with perfectly ordered utensils and graduated copper pots ranged on hooks. There was not a fork out of place, and I was not surprised. Cook was more ferocious than any battlefield general; no one would have dared leave her kitchen until every last saucer was stowed in its place.

The laundry was marginally less tidy. It was under Cook’s nominal authority, but it was Magda’s actual responsibility. She had left a cake of soap melting in a puddle of water and a brass can of water standing nearly in the doorway, so awkwardly placed that I nearly fell over it. I muttered, shoving it aside with my foot. The rest of the room yielded nothing, no cupboards or trunks where something suspicious might be lurking. There was only the bucket under the window where I had left Val’s shirt several nights before. I moved toward it, surprised to find the water again reddened, as if someone had stuffed something bloody into it.

And they had, I realized, peering into the bucket. I asked Aquinas for a stick and he found me a bit of long, thin pipe that Magda used to stir the boiler. I levered it under the water and heaved. A lump of sodden linen tumbled to the floor with a splash.

Aquinas was on top of it before I could stop him. He was not so fastidious as I. He unfolded the dripping garment with his hands. It was a man’s shirt, as I had known it would be, stained streakily across the cuffs with blood. There was a handkerchief this time as well—a woman’s, from the look of the pansies embroidered garishly in the corner.

I stared at the bloody, soaking mess, wondering how I could have been stupid enough to believe Val’s story about a fight at the opera. He was a medical student, not permitted to practice. It was apparent that he had found somewhere to continue his studies, somewhere he could not speak of, somewhere that would provide him access to people who were profoundly in need of his attentions, I thought as I fingered the handkerchief. It was slashed in places, the edges of the cheap cotton curling back on themselves like the petals of a gruesome flower.

I shoved the handkerchief back into the shirt and rolled the bundle back into the gory bucket.

“This has nothing to do with what we are about. I will deal with it myself,” I told Aquinas firmly.

He said nothing but simply threw fresh water onto the pinkened puddle and took up a mop, swabbing at it until it was gone.

But it lingered in our minds, and I knew we were both thinking of it as we made our way to Cook’s room. There the mood lightened. We both smiled at her harmless indulgence in cherry brandy and fashion magazines. But even as we neatly tucked her bottles back under the bed, I found myself wondering about Magda. As the laundress, she could hardly have
overlooked Val’s bloody shirts. I had rinsed the first bloody one clean for him, but I had little doubt now that there had been others. He had not bothered to rinse this one, and yet he had to know she would see it. Did he pay for her silence? This possibility worried me. Val never had much money. Father’s allowance was generous, but Val was, too, always giving money to causes he deemed worthy and friends who were not. I found myself rushing to search Magda’s room. I felt certain that I would find something there that tied her to my brother, and I was very much afraid of what that might be.