The Mask of Night (10 page)

The countess leaned forward to refill the teacups from the silver samovar. "Charles Fraser is a clever man. Too clever for his own good. Or for other people's. He makes the mistake of thinking others are as ruled by compassion as he is himself and that one can rely on the masses to behave rationally.” She returned his cup to him. "And of course you know Mrs. Fraser as well."

"The Frasers have been kind enough to have me to dine on occasion."

"A fascinating woman Mélanie Fraser. Underneath all that charm I suspect she has a ruthlessness her husband quite lacks."

Roth fished his notebook from his pocket and consulted a page. "Mrs. Fraser said you were seated by the French windows with the Comtesse de Flahaut."

"For a time. M. de Flahaut fetched us champagne."

"The Comte de Flahaut?"

"Former aide-de-camp to Napoleon Bonaparte. I may deplore M. de Flahaut's political alliances, but he's excellent at fetching champagne. After we finished the champagne, he and his wife returned to the dance floor. I spoke with Princess Esterhazy and Lord Castlereagh and several others including Lord John Russell and Mrs. Fraser herself. I wasn't paying a great deal of attention to who came on or off the terrace."

"Did you notice this gentleman?” Roth pulled a sketch from his pocket. Mélanie Fraser, who had a knack for such things, had drawn it of the dead man as he might have appeared in life, masked and costumed.

The only other person he had managed to question this morning had stared at it blankly, but the countess's eyes flashed with recognition. "This is the dead man?"

"You saw him?"

"He brushed past me on his way to the French windows. The cloth of silver caught the candlelight. It occurred to me that I couldn't put a name to him. But I never guessed—” She shook her head and continued to stare at the picture. "Odd."

"What?"

She lifted her cool dark gaze to his. "I daresay it doesn't mean anything. But two other gentlemen went onto the terrace a few minutes later. I noticed because I'd had an—exchange—with one of them earlier in the evening. Mr. Simon Tanner, the playwright."

The lad named Nat conducted Charles and Mélanie through a maze of streets, yards, and courts. The close-set brick buildings, smoke mottled and unleavened by greenery or ornamental white moldings, seemed to swallow them up. Once or twice a hand snatched at Charles’s greatcoat, but thanks to the rain few people were abroad. Mélanie held the umbrella. Charles gripped her elbow, partly for protection, partly to steer her round the rain-swollen gutter that ran down the center of the street, though he knew she was quite capable of managing both without his help.

Nat paused in a narrow court, beside public house with a faded sign proclaiming The Dolphin. The grimy glass of the windows was so thick that the scene inside wavered, like a charcoal drawing smudged with water. A scattering of early-morning customers were visible, but Nat ducked through a gap between the public house and the next building over and pointed to a side door with peeling varnish. “Through there and up the stairs. Mind, you’re daft to try to see him.”

Charles pressed two crowns into the boy’s hand. “Our thanks.”

Nat stared at the coins, grinned, and shook his head. “Dafter than a door nail.” He cast another glance between the two of them and then darted off the way they had come. “Good luck to you,” he called over his shoulder.

Charles glanced at his wife. She was folding up the umbrella as though they stood in a Mayfair portico. “It occurs to me that given the fact that we have two children, it might have been wise for one of us to remain behind,” he said.

Mélanie tucked the umbrella beneath her arm. “But we’d never have been able to agree on which one of us that should be.”

He opened the door, which sagged on its hinges. A narrow passage with patches of damp on the peeling wallpaper stretched before them. The only illumination was the fitful light from the open door, which showed the outline of a staircase. The murmur of voices and clunk of tankards came through the wall from the common room next door. Charles stepped inside and flattened himself against the wall. Nothing moved in the shadows. He nodded at Mélanie.

They climbed the splintery windowless staircase, testing the treads for rotted boards, and eased open a door onto a small room that smelled of mildew, gin, and tobacco. A man seated over a game of solitaire spun round and pointed a pistol at them.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“We’re here to see Mr. Lucan,” Charles said.

The man gave a coarse laugh. “He’s not here.”

“You’re just guarding the door on general principles?”

The guard got to his feet and walked toward them, pistol extended. He had a round, determined face, and while he was not overly tall, his shoulders were broad and he carried himself with the air of a man accustomed to using his fives. “Stand still,” he said. “Arms out. No funny business.”

Charles cast a brief glance at Mélanie and they both complied.

The guard went through the pockets of Charles’s greatcoat and pulled out a pistol with a grunt of triumph. “You’re armed.”

“It seemed prudent,” Charles said. “You’re welcome to check my coat as well, though I didn’t think to bring a spare.”

The guard checked the pockets of his coat and made him take off his boots, then turned to Mélanie, who was standing by patiently, arms extended, silver and silk reticule dangling from one gloved wrist, umbrella abandoned at her feet. The guard stared at her as though she were a rare tropical bird, equally likely to break or bite him.

“It’s all right,” Mélanie said. “I’m not vicious when handled with care.”

He gave a grunt that might have been annoyance or apology, took her reticule, and snapped it open. A scent bottle tumbled to the floor and rolled into a corner.

“Oh, dear,” Mélanie said. “I’m afraid I have a shocking tendency to try to carry too many things at once.”

The guard backed toward the corner, pistol still pointed at them, retrieved the scent bottle, took her silver nail scissors from the reticule and tested his finger on them, then returned the lot to the reticule, closed the clasp, and returned the reticule to Mélanie. He regarded her a moment longer, then patted his hands gingerly over her pelisse.

“Very politely done,” Mélanie said. “Now will you be so good as to tell Mr. Lucan that Juana Murez is here to see him.”

“Who the devil—“

“Tell him.”

The guard disappeared into the inner room. Thirty seconds later he returned, scratching his head, and nodded toward the room beyond. “He says you’re to go in.”

The inner room was larger and the smell of mildew less pronounced. Perhaps the latter was due to the smoke from the tarnished brass lamp on the gateleg table in the center of the room. A man with thick side-whiskers and a lady with a cascade of curly dark hair were bent over papers on the table. The man pushed back his chair and got to his feet, gaze on Mélanie.

“
Hola
, Sancho,” Mélanie said.

Chapter 8

Don't listen to my sister's foolish exaggeration, old fellow. Nine-tenths of what I do is push papers across a desk and pen letters full of diplomatic protocol.

Charles Fraser to David Mallinson, Viscount Worsley,

13 November 1811

Roth strode along Picadilly, hands jammed in his greatcoat pockets, collar turned up against the wind. Two months ago he’d known where he stood in relation to the
beau monde
. It was a different world, into which he was only asked to step (most likely through the back door) to recover someone’s lost jewels or to collect information to be used in a divorce action. Its members had viewed him as a set of attributes, not a human being, and he’d felt quite at liberty to think the same of them.

The investigation into Colin Fraser’s abduction had changed that, at least as far as Mélanie and Charles Fraser went. It had been impossible not to share the Frasers’ concern for their son, not to admire their courage and resourcefulness. He had discovered he had a surprising amount in common with both of them, from reading tastes to political views. He had suspected they were keeping something from him but had not been able to determine what it was. Not until the end of the investigation when he received the letter betraying that Mélanie Fraser had once been a French agent.

He had not struggled long over what to do with the information. The investigation was over, and Mrs. Fraser’s past was in the past. If she and her husband had come to terms with it, he saw no need to interfere. Or so it had seemed two months ago. The dead body of a foreign agent changed the picture. He was quite sure Mr. and Mrs. Fraser hadn’t told him the whole story about Julien St. Juste. He knew they were damnably good at keeping secrets. He had no doubt they’d lie to protect each other. Not to mention their friends.

Roth turned into the forecourt of the Albany and stared up at the brown stone building. He liked the Frasers. He also liked Lord Worsley and Simon Tanner. But he was going to do his damnedest not to let that liking cloud his judgment.

A porter directed him to Worsley and Tanner’s rooms. The door was opened by a manservant whose dark twilled coat was cut far better than Roth’s own but whose gaze was less starchy than those of the liveried footmen at the houses he had visited earlier in the day. The manservant apparently had orders to admit Roth, for he took his water-stained beaver and grimy greatcoat and conducted him to a book-lined sitting room filled with furniture of graceful English oak and the smell of good ink and better sherry. Simon Tanner was seated at a Pembroke table strewn with papers while Lord Worsley stood at one of the windows.

“Roth.” Worsley strode forward as the manservant announced him. “Is there news? I had a note from Charles this morning saying he and Mélanie were going out to pursue a lead and he’d call later to explain.”

“I haven’t seen Mr. and Mrs. Fraser since early this morning. I’ve come to have a word with Mr. Tanner.”

Tanner had got to his feet when Roth came into the room. Now he too walked forward. Unlike Worsley, who wore an immaculate dark gray coat and a perfectly-tied cravat, Tanner was in his shirtsleeves, his neckcloth loosened and his sleeves rolled up to avoid ink stains. “You want to talk to me about the murder? Of course.”

Roth surveyed the playwright’s sharp-boned face and seemingly open dark eyes. Though he had gone to Oxford with Worsley and Fraser and Lydgate, Tanner was something of an outsider in their world. His father, the younger son of a wealthy Northumbrian brewer, had run off to Paris to study painting and married an artist’s model. Simon Tanner had grown up in the tumult of revolutionary Paris until he’d been packed home at the age of ten after his parents’ deaths. He had told the story to Roth at their first meeting, as though to make it clear that Roth was not the only guest at the Frasers’ dinner party not born to the
beau monde
. “I thought you might prefer to talk in private.”

“We are priv—Oh, I see.” Tanner grinned. “Anything you need to ask me you can say in front of David. He’s bound to hear about it sooner or later in any event.”

Worsley shot a quick glance at Tanner. “Won’t you sit down, Roth? Can we offer you anything? Coffee? Sherry?”

Roth shook his head. He dropped into a carved armchair and spoke without preamble, always the best way to catch someone off guard. “Who was the gentleman who accompanied you onto the terrace last night, Mr. Tanner?”

Tanner was perched on the bronze-velvet sofa arm, refastening his cuffs. His fingers didn’t so much as falter. “I don’t believe I said that anyone accompanied me onto the terrace, Mr. Roth.”

“No, you indicated that you hadn’t been on the terrace at all. You didn’t, I now realize, state absolutely that you hadn’t, but you certainly gave that impression.”

Tanner smoothed a crease from one of his sleeves. “I saw no reason to give any other impression.”

“We can forego the verbal fencing, Mr. Tanner. The Countess Lieven saw you go through one of the French windows accompanied by another gentleman at about half past eleven.”

Worsley was sitting very still at the other end of the sofa, but Roth caught the start in his eyes.

“Who was your companion, Mr. Tanner?” Roth asked.

Tanner fixed Roth with a gaze as sharp as a newly mended pen. “We’d barely stepped onto the terrace when we realized a lady and gentleman were conversing in the garden below. We ducked back inside and spoke in one of the anterooms.”

“You
knew
someone else was in the garden?”

“Any number of couples were probably in the garden during the course of the evening. I could hardly add anything that would help you identify them."

"Countess Lieven saw the man we now know as Julien St. Juste go onto the terrace a few minutes before you did."

Tanner went still. "Good Lord. I should have listened more closely."

"Could the gentleman of this couple you overheard have been St. Juste?"

"He could have been anyone. We couldn’t hear enough to make out their words or to recognize their voices and we didn’t actually see anything.”

“You can’t answer for your companion.”

“He wouldn’t have noticed anything I didn’t.”

“You’ll have to let me question him and judge for myself, Mr. Tanner. Surely as a writer you understand how two people can perceive the same event differently.”

Tanner rested one hand on the sofa back and flexed his fingers. “You’re entirely too good at your job, Mr. Roth.”

“Simon,” Worsley said.

“Yes, all right. It was Pendarves.”

“Pendarves? Lord Pendarves?” Roth had vague associations of an old title and a name that appeared occasionally in Parliamentary transcripts, usually associated with long, intricate speeches on subjects such as crop drainage

“Quite,” Tanner said. “We were at Winchester together.”

Roth leaned back against the intricate lattice work of his chair. “Forgive me, Mr. Tanner, but I fail to see why you couldn’t have informed us last night that you went out onto the terrace for some conversation with your old school friend.”