Point of Honour (36 page)

“The poor, the working folk, are the plinth on which society stands. England could survive without the peerage, but without farmers or millers or weavers? Not likely.”

“And so you pursue criminals to protect the poor and working classes?” Miss Tolerance was fascinated. “Do I still number among your suspects?”

Sir Walter’s expression was thoughtful. “Until Fortune presents me with a more likely one, or you present me with absolute evidence that you could not have done it, I must with regret consider you so. In point of fact, I have no other.”

“What a very uncomfortable position I am in.” Miss Tolerance considered what she might safely say. To accuse Folle without proof—and presently she had almost none—was dangerous. But she did not relish the thought of being called to meet with Bow Street at every turn.

“I have learned a few things which might be of help to you,” she said finally. “I suspect you and your assistants would do well to find and speak to a Mr. Hart.” She described him. “I have reason to believe that he knows something of this business. You might also set one of your dogs upon the trail of Sir Henry Folle, to see what he can sniff up.”

Sir Walter’s eyebrows raised and his bland fox-face became suddenly sharp. Miss Tolerance found the change unnerving.

“Aiming rather high in your suspicions, ma’am. Have you evidence to back your accusation?”

Miss Tolerance was aware that she was in danger. She was a woman alone, Fallen, known to live by the sword, making vague accusations about a member of a distinguished political family. She saw the chasm open at her feet and stepped across it as carefully as she could.

“I have not accused anyone of anything, Sir Walter. But this morning, at my aunt’s house, Folle said something which led me to believe that he knew Mr. Hart and was not unacquainted with the matter of Mrs. Smith. Pray believe me, if I had anything more specific to offer you, I would.”

Sir Walter leaned back in his chair.

“Are you certain I cannot procure a cup of coffee for you, Miss Tolerance?” he asked at last. “Or perhaps some ale? They brew their own.” He looked into his tankard without pleasure. “Very badly.”

Miss Tolerance was startled into a laugh. “You make an inviting offer, sir, but thank you, no.”

“As you wish.” Sir Walter leaned forward again, elbows upon his newspaper. “Miss Tolerance, I realize that you feel some sort of professional obligation to be discreet, but I urge you—do not pit yourself against me, or against Bow Street. If you know anything that will help me in finding the killer of Mrs. Smith, please tell me.”

He seemed entirely sincere. Miss Tolerance could only match his sincerity with her own. “Sir Walter, what I could offer you now is only supposition and vague notions. I have given you the little I can; I know what I believe, but I cannot prove it.”

Mandif nodded. “I do not mean to bully you. Indeed, you do not strike me as the sort of woman who can be bullied.”

“Perhaps not, sir, but I am fully sensible of how little position I have to defend in this business. Sir Walter, if you will take my word, I will promise you that when I can demonstrate any of my suspicions to you, I will do so. It will be considerably easier if I do not need to fear tripping over Mr. Penryn and his partner at every turn.”

The magistrate nodded. He raised a finger and Penryn, watching over the rim of his tankard, nodded and joined them.

“See if you and Hook can turn up a Mr. Hart,” Mandif ordered. “A spice and cracksman, from the sound of him. Miss Tolerance, where did you last encounter Mr. Hart?”

Miss Tolerance grinned. “In Penfold Street.” She explained the circumstances of their meeting.

Penryn was incredulous. “You ‘eld a rapparee like that up w’ a mirror?”

Sir Walter waved that question away. “And the last you saw of him?”

“Running from a crowd of gentlemen who intended to teach him a lesson for setting upon a helpless female.”

Mr. Penryn shook his head in appreciation, running his grubby hand from nose to chin and back again. “‘Elpless!”

“Mr. Penryn, if you find this Mr. Hart, I would suggest that you take anything he says with regard to this lady with a grain of salt,” Sir Walter said mildly. “I commend your resourcefulness, Miss Tolerance, but I suspect you have made an enemy.”

Miss Tolerance concurred. “My object at the time was to extract information while securing my own safety, Sir Walter. I confess I was not thinking of Mr. Hart’s dignity.”

“You will understand, Miss Tolerance, that until such time as Mr. Hart’s role in the death of Mrs. Smith is confirmed, I must, with regret, continue to regard you a possible suspect.”

“I never doubted that would be the case, sir. Now, if you need nothing more from me, I was about business when Mr. Penryn found me. May I go?”

Sir Walter rose and bowed over her hand. “Thank you for your assistance, Miss Tolerance. We will doubtless meet again.”

Miss Tolerance said all that was polite and took her leave. While she liked the magistrate, it was not difficult to hope that such a meeting would never take place.

S
he had lost the train of thought which had occupied her earlier. Miss Tolerance hired a hackney and directed it to Cheapside, then leaned back, revisiting her plans for Mrs. Virtue. It was hot and stuffy in the carriage, and she felt a headache growing in the back of her head, likely because she had broken her fast with nothing more than her aunt’s chocolate several hours earlier. When she dismounted at Cheapside, she first stopped at a pie shop and bought a pork pie, eating it quickly, taking time only to swat away the hand of a child pickpocket.

Feeling better for her luncheon, Miss Tolerance picked her way through the crowd and turned in to the familiar, unpleasant precincts of Bow Lane. Drunkards of both sexes slept in the doorways, but the narrow street was otherwise almost empty. From somewhere above her head came the sound of a child weeping. Miss Tolerance found the door to Blackbottle’s and rapped upon it smartly. Joe, the porter, appeared at once with a face that said she was not whom he had expected.

“You!” The man looked worried; no, more than worried. His skin was ashy, his brows drawn together in a grimace of anxiety, and his voice was hoarse. “What the hell do you want?”

Miss Tolerance stepped carefully. “Good afternoon. I need to speak to Mrs. Virtue. I know it may be early for her, but—”

“You can’t. Shove away.” He started to close the door, but Miss Tolerance shouldered in just far enough to keep him from doing so.

“Wait!” Miss Tolerance reached for her wallet. “She will want to see me, I promise. And I can make you—”

“Push off, you quean!” The doorman’s face was congested with rage. “Keep your fuckin’ money! Won’t buy your way in ’ere no more.”

Warily, Miss Tolerance tried one more time. “Mrs. Virtue will want—”

“Nothing!” the man roared. “She’s dead. For all I know, it’s a-counta you coming and going ’ere. Christ knows what’s going to happen now!”

At the news, Miss Tolerance took a step back and stared at Joe. Of all the things she might have expected, she had not imagined this. “Dead how?” she asked. “When?”

Perhaps seeing the effect his news had upon her helped the porter to regain himself. Joe took a breath and said, somewhat more calmly, that the body had been found perhaps two hours earlier, when the maid went up to bring Mrs. Virtue her chocolate.

“How did she die?” Recalling her aunt’s comment that morning about the Chinese vice, and her own vague impressions of sweet smoke on the air, she imagined the woman drifting away on a cloud of opium.

“Beaten.” Joe dropped the word as if it were a weight he could not bear to carry. “Some bastard got past me somehow. Beat ’er brains out proper—maid had right hysterics at the sight. I sent a man to Blackbottle to tell ’em, ’e’ll know what to do. But Christ Jesus, the bastard got past me—”

Miss Tolerance stood very still. “Beaten? I must see her.”

The corner of Joe’s mouth turned down. “I told you, she—”

“No, let me look at her now.”

“Why? You going to gawk at the poor ol’ thing? What call you got—”

“Let me see her,” Miss Tolerance repeated. She was suddenly filled with impatience. “For the love of God, I may see something that will help find the killer.”

“‘Zat what you do, miss? Catch killers? Rather uncommon line a work for a female.” Joe stood, arms crossed, filling the doorway. “You was catching killers the last time you come, too?” The doorman smiled unpleasantly. “Or maybe you brung ’em along of you, showed ’em right to the door, like—”

She could not knock the man down and force her way past him; Miss Tolerance held on to her temper and spoke so quietly she knew Joe would have to strain to hear her. “I no more led killers to your mistress’s door than you let a killer in that door. If we have both been used, then let me do what I can to right the wrong and find Mrs. Virtue’s killer.”

Joe bowed his head, as if the effort of thinking all of this through were very great. Finally he stood aside, wordlessly, and let her pass. Miss Tolerance passed the little salon, where a half dozen women in grubby robes and dresses sat weeping; only as she ascended the stair did Joe call after her, “Make sure you’re gone before Blackbottle gets here!”

The first floor was uncharacteristically quiet. Most of the doors, including the one to Mrs. Virtue’s apartment, stood open. Miss Tolerance was struck, as she entered the room, by how undisturbed it first seemed; the furniture and knickknacks were in their accustomed places, the door to the farther chamber was ajar. The fire had burnt to embers, the candles had guttered out, and as neither the maid nor Mrs. Virtue had drawn the drapes to admit sunlight, it was quite dark. Miss Tolerance went at once to the windows and pulled the drapes back, the better to examine the body that lay in an unnatural attitude on the sofa.

The pie she had eaten earlier rose in Miss Tolerance’s throat. It was an effort to perform her examination coolly. Mrs. Virtue lay with her shoulders and head flung over the back of the sofa and her arms splayed backward, almost touching the floor. She wore an elegant dress of red and gold tissue that strained at the awkward position she lay in; one of her breasts had slid half out of the bodice. An embroidered slipper had fallen off, or perhaps been kicked off in an attempt to defend herself, Miss Tolerance thought. She had been struck across the face, but the blows that had killed her were to her head: temple and crown bore the impressions of the blows in blood, skin, and shattered bone. Because of the angle at which she had fallen, blood had flowed downward, matted her fiery hair, and puddled on the floor, where it was half dried now. Looking more closely at the body, Miss Tolerance saw bruises on the woman’s neck and shoulder from which she gathered the weapon had been hard, heavy, and wielded with much force. From the bruise that purpled one cheek, she also gathered another thing: whatever had struck the madam across the face had been carved or engraved.

An intaglio signet, perhaps.

Miss Tolerance inspected the vicinity of the sofa, noting the order everywhere except on the person of the victim. Had Mrs. Virtue’s assailant put things back after a struggle? She suspected that the killer had taken away his weapon—in the shape, she could not help but think, of a gold-crowned walking stick inset with a carved signet—but perhaps there was evidence of why the struggle had taken place. No, nothing of the sort. But on a second glance she realized that one of the candlesticks by the sofa bore the smears of quick polishing, as if someone had wiped away the marks of gore from its surface. When she lifted the thing, she noticed, with a sickening turn to her stomach, a few long strands of red hair clinging to the bottom of the candlestick.

Two murder weapons? Had Mrs. Virtue been killed by two men?

Miss Tolerance completed her inspection and returned downstairs.

Joe looked up at her. “‘Ad enough?” His tone was bitter.

“I think so. When was she last seen alive?”

The man shrugged as if he could not see the point of the question.

“Dunno. In the course a business, people was always in and out. It was maybe five of clock this morning. Maid didn’t go in until near noon. Mrs. V don’t like people coming in to chat, pass the time.
Didn’t
like.”

“Did you have brisk custom last night? Anyone not known to you? Anyone who seemed to be hiding his identity?”

Joe looked at Miss Tolerance as though she were an idiot. “Half the men come ’ere don’t want—”

“If you want the killer found,
think,”
Miss Tolerance said. “You have regular custom, I’ve heard the girls greet them by name. Any men who were not familiar? Did Mrs. Virtue have any callers? Can you give me anything—”

“There was a couple of gents—sort as could buy better but like our girls. But there’s always a few of that sort in an evening—or a morning, come to it.” The doorman paused. “There was a man wore his hat down low, wore a greatcoat—”

“A greatcoat in June? And you didn’t think this remarkable enough to mention?”

“Christ, miss. Some gents come here don’t want to be known. Some as don’t care, some as think it gives ’em a rep as a hellboy and a goer, but we get some few don’t want their precious names linked to Blackbottle’s. Anyway, this cove didn’t ask for Mrs. V, just went into the parlor and took his choice of the girls.”

“What time did this shy fellow arrive?”

Joe’s face was red, his mouth working. Clearly his conscience was suggesting a complicity in Mrs. Virtue’s death which he could not bear. “Sometime after dawn. But he didn’t ask for her … .”

Miss Tolerance saw no point in pressing further. She had her own idea of what might have happened. If she pushed the doorman too far, she might lose him. “I’m sorry, Joe,” she said at last. “She was a great lady in her way.” Again, she took out her pocketbook, and this time extracted a note. “You’ll want to put up a hatchment and other mourning gear,” she said. “If Mr. Blackbottle forgets, this should pay for them.”

Joe nodded, took the note, and crumpled it in his hand. “That’s decent of you, miss.”

As neither one could think of anything further to say, Miss Tolerance nodded in farewell and left the doorman standing there, rolling the note in his hand absently.