The Mask of Night (27 page)

“Do you know about Mr. and Mrs. Fraser’s investigation of the murder at the Lydgates’ last night?” he asked.

Laura picked up a tinderbox and lit the candelabrum on the library table. “I know something of the matter.”

“This morning, their investigation took them to a young lady of my acquaintance. Apparently her brother had been employed by the murdered man. Bet—Miss Simcox was very much concerned for her brother’s safety but did not know where to find him. As there was reason to believe she might be in danger herself owing to her relationship with her brother, I insisted that she come home with me. But this evening she disappeared after receiving a mysterious message. I suspect the message was from her brother. I fear she may be walking into great danger.”

“But you aren’t sure where to look for her?”

He shook his head. “The devil of it is, she left the message behind. It must have been smuggled in with the laundry or the order from my bootmaker. But I can’t make head or tail of it. I hoped the Frasers—“

“May I see?”

“What? Oh, yes. Of course.” He reached into his greatcoat pocket and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. Laura held it to the candlelight. The note was brief, written in a scrawled hand with a smeary pencil.

Betty—

Cunning Dare.

B.

“I think it’s in rhyming slang,” Laura said. “Unfortunately, I can’t make sense of the rhyme. But I think I know someone who might be able to help.”

“Fraser? You said he won’t be back—“

“No, not Mr. Fraser, someone else. Someone we should be able to find at Bow Street.”

Trenor took the note from her fingers, his gaze wary.

“Jeremy Roth is a friend of the Frasers,” Laura said. “You can trust him.” Odd how to find herself using the word “trust” so glibly, considering what cause she had to know how hollow it was.

Trenor folded the paper and gave a slow nod.

“You brought your carriage?” Laura asked. “Good. Let me get a cloak and we can be on our way.”

Chapter 19

I think you'll like the new actor I've engaged. He can think for himself, which some playwrights might consider a drawback, but I find quite refreshing.

Simon Tanner to Charles Fraser,

5 December, 1816

Charles felt Will Gordon’s gaze on him as they settled themselves on the sofa in the Bartletts' parlor. Will had crisply-cut features, intelligent dark eyes presently hidden by his spectacles, and dark hair worn fashionably long. It hung about his face in Corsair-like disorder in many performances but was combed severely back tonight. “I’m happy to be of help,” he said. “But I wasn’t at the Lydgates’. A bit above my touch.”

“Hardly that, Gordon. You have a knack for fitting in to most society.” Charles returned Will’s frank regard. The young actor was almost as much of an enigma as Julien St. Juste. He had appeared one day at the Tavistock and asked for an audition. The doorman had laughed in his face, as had the stage manager. But then Simon had strolled in and agreed to hear him. An hour later, Will had a role in Simon’s next play. A year later, he was on his way to becoming one of the most talked about young actors in London. He was clearly educated, but whether the education was self-acquired or university taught remained unclear. Charles had never heard him mention his family, his childhood, or any other detail of his life prior to the moment he had walked through the door of the Tavistock. Nor, until Mélanie had touched his arm just now at the sight of Will and Pendarves, had Charles seen or heard the least hint of Will’s being involved with anyone of either sex.

“Perhaps,” Will said. “But I wasn’t invited to the Lydgates’. More’s the pity as things turned out, though in general society balls aren’t to my taste.”

“How did you fit in at the jail in Lancaster?”

Will’s back stiffened. Then he relaxed against the sofa cushions. “What does that have to do with what happened last night at the Lydgates’?”

“Why don’t you tell me?”

“Do you want me to make up a story? I could come up with a damned good one if I put my mind to it, but I don’t see how a farago of lies would be of much help to either of us.”

Charles dived a hand into his pocket and pulled out the list he and Roth had found in St. Juste’s rooms. “Do these dates mean anything to you?”

Will scanned the list. “They’re dates of Radical disturbances. I was involved in several. On one occasion, as you alluded, I spent a few nights in jail in Lancaster. I owe my release to the kind offices of your friend Worsley. Don’t think I’m not grateful. But what the hell does that list have to do with last night’s murder? Don’t tell me you believe the idiots who say the man was killed by bloody-thirsty Jacobins.”

The puzzlement in Will’s face appeared utterly genuine, but Charles was not sure. In a lot of ways, Will reminded him of himself at two-and-twenty. And Will was an actor. A very, very good actor.

“We found the list in the rooms in which the dead man had been staying,” Charles said.

“So you think he was one of us?”

“One of whom?”

“Radicals, Jacobins, Sans-Coulottes—“

“Those names are a bit French Revolution, aren’t they?”

“A lot of people can’t get past the French Revolution. Who is the dead man?”

“I’m not sure,” Charles said. That was the truth. No one appeared to know who Julien St. Juste really was or where he had come from.

“But you think he may have been working with my friends.”

“I think there’s an explanation for what he was doing with that list. I’m not in the least sure what the explanation is.”

“You’re starting to talk like someone at the Home Office, Fraser. Seeing conspiracies everywhere. Imagining we’re all connected. Look about you.” His gaze swept the parlor and the open doors to the drawing room. “Do you see ten people who could find a half-dozen topics to agree on, let alone plan a conspiracy? Lack of agreement has been the curse of Radicals back to the United Irish Uprising.”

“Why the United Irish Uprising in particular?”

“Because it seems less obvious than saying the French Revolution.” Will regarded him for a moment. “Aren’t you going to give me the lecture?”

“What lecture?”

“About how you were just like me when you were my age, but now you see the dangers of too much agitation, and if I were sensible I’d stand for Parliament like you and work for reform through legal channels.”

Someone was singing
Dove Sono
in the drawing room. Whoever it was had a pretty voice, but lacked the passion Mélanie brought to the aria. “When I was your age,” Charles said, “I spoke and wrote a bit, largely for an audience who already shared my beliefs. I hardly think I had your flair.”

“That’s not the way I hear it. You and your friends—Tanner and Worsley and Lydgate—caused quite a bit of consternation among Government types like Carfax and Castlereagh and Sidmouth.”

“I’d take that as proof of their paranoia rather than of any power on our side.”

“And then when your reckless undergraduate days were behind you—“

“I ran off to the Continent, mostly because I couldn’t face the demons at home. I met my wife and got quite good at picking locks and decoding documents. But as far as living up to the ideals I’d espoused in my undergraduate days, I can’t claim I made a very wise choice. For what it’s worth I do think you’d be quite effective in Parliament.”

“Yes, well we can’t all afford to buy our way in. Sorry, that was a low blow.”

“No,” Charles said, “I’d call that above the belt.”

“I like you, Fraser. More important, I admire you. But you’re never going to get Parliament to reform a system that favors its own members to so great a degree.”

“So what’s your alternative?”

“I don’t know. At this point, I wouldn’t rule anything out, though.”

“On a number of issues of the day—capital punishment, abolition, suffrage—the official positions of the Whigs and Tories are so close as to be almost indistinguishable. Yet the fact that we have two parties gives us the illusion of debate, while neatly excluding from the discussion any opinions that fall outside that narrow spectrum.”

“That’s quite well put. Are you trying to mimic something I’d write?”

“No, I’m quoting something I wrote myself.”

“When you were a heedless undergraduate?”

“Last week.”

“One can argue that anyone who doesn’t actively oppose an unjust system is complicit in the tyranny,” Will said.

“So one can. Have you read Cagano?”

“A former slave. He claimed every man in Great Britain was responsible in some degree for slavery. I wonder what Hetty Bartlett would say.”

“You’ll have to ask her. I certainly wouldn’t disagree with him.”

“So what’s your solution?”

“I don’t know,” Charles said. “I haven’t ruled anything out either. But as a former diplomat I incline to compromise rather than confrontation.”

“Diplomacy can become a quagmire.”

“So can war.”

“But it offers the possibility of victory.”

“Violence can have unintended consequences.”

“In other words if you let the ends justify the means the ends become warped?”

“Whom do you identify with in
Julius Caesar
?” Charles asked.

“The plebians. They’re pawns whoever’s in power. But I feel a certain sympathy for Brutus’s fear of tyranny.”

“And yet in the end Brutus and his companions assassinate Caesar and Rome still ends up with an emperor. A colder, more calculating emperor as Shakespeare portrays him. Morality aside, violence tends to convince those in the middle that any sort of reform will lead to blood in the streets. Which in turns lends support to tyranny.”

“Very well done, Fraser. That’s one of the best arguments for inactivity I’ve heard in an age.”

Charles regarded Will. Even were it not for the spectacle lenses, his eyes would be difficult to read. “So you don’t know of any connections among these events?” he asked, gesturing toward the list.

“They all caused a lot of consternation at Whitehall and in Mayfair drawing rooms. A lot of the same people were present at all of them. None was as well organized as it should have been. Other than that— No.”

Charles folded the paper. “Does the name Julien St. Juste mean anything to you?”

“It sounds French. In fact it sounds like a French alias. Is that the name of the dead man?”

“I was hoping you could tell me. What about Raoul O'Roarke?"

"I've read a number of his pamphlets, both in French and Spanish and some from his days in Ireland. We've never met more's the pity."

Charles returned the folded paper to his pocket. Despite Will's skills as an actor, he was quite sure that last had been a lie.

Mélanie accepted a glass of sherry from Lord Pendarves and sank down on a petit-point settee. “Sit down, my lord.”

Pendarves hesitated, but once again inbred good manners won out. He dropped down beside her.

Mélanie smoothed her skirt. “I didn’t realize you were acquainted with Mr. Gordon.”

“We met in the Tavistock’s Green Room after a performance.”

“You’re fond of the theatre?”

“I find it amusing from time to time.”

Mélanie smiled across the room at Cecily Summers, now in conversation with the publisher John Murray. “Did you see Mr. Gordon and Mrs. Summers in
The Unlikely Marriage
? It’s one of my favorites of Simon’s plays.”

“Tanner’s always had a way with words.”

“And Mr. Gordon brought the hero to life quite splendidly.” Mélanie took a sip of sherry. “So it was Mr. Gordon who brought you to the Bartletts’ tonight?”

“Not at all. I simply ran across him in the parlor and stopped to exchange a few words.”

“I didn’t realize you were acquainted with the Bartletts.”

“One may be friends with people without sharing their politics, Mrs. Fraser.”

“Thank goodness or I fear my husband and I would have a sadly restricted social circle.” She set her glass down. “Lady St. Ives overheard you and Simon quarreling on the terrace last night.” She waited for a moment, but his gaze remained a cold blank. “She said you were insisting Simon tell you the truth. You were talking about Will, weren’t you? You were worried about what Simon was leading him into.”

“You presume too much, Mrs. Fraser.”

She laid a hand on his arm. He stiffened but did not pull away. “Lord Pendarves. Simon is one of the people I love best in the world. I’m very fond of Will. I want to help.”

“Help who?” The words were a harsh rasp.

“Simon. Will. You, if you’ll let me.”

“Tanner’s been beyond help for a long time.”

“No one is beyond help or life would be pointless.”

“My dear Mrs. Fraser—“

“Believe me, Lord Pendarves, I speak from experience, not naiveté.”

He stared down at her fingers resting on the midnight blue cassimere of his sleeve then lifted his gaze to her face. “Simon's always thought he could turn rules upside down. He doesn’t consider what else he may turn upside down with them.”