The Debutante's Code, page 15
A crime of opportunity, or a carefully planned and executed raid?
“Who was the woman with the dogs?”
“A guest from the Russian embassy. We sent an invitation for the ambassador and five guests, and she was part of his party.”
“You don’t know her name?”
“No, but she was with the Russian ambassador.”
As if that made her of sterling character.
French doors flanked an empty pedestal, and Daniel had to wonder at the brazenness of the thief or thieves. Why not wait until the dead of night, pick the lock on one of the doors, and steal the statue with no fanfare or danger? It was a matter of a few steps at best, in, out, and gone. Though if it were a crime of opportunity, snatching the statue during the fauna fray made sense.
“Is the statue always kept here?”
Lady Bickford snorted. “No. This is what pride gets you. I told him when he bought it that the only place for it was in his safe. It was too valuable to leave lying about. But he had to bring it out for the party so people could tell him how impressed they were. Which is silly, since most people wouldn’t know fine art if they tripped over it in the street.” She flipped her wrist. “And now it’s gone. A fortune wasted on a hunk of bronze. All we have to show for his extravagance is empty air.”
“That’s not true. I insured the piece against theft.” Lord Bickford straightened. “Mr. Selby recommended it, especially as I had told him I wanted the piece on display at this party. And when Montgomery’s painting went missing, I went right to Lloyd’s that next morning and insured the statue against damage or loss.”
“Praise be, you did something right. We can get our money back at least.” Lady Bickford raised her hands.
Daniel added “insurance fraud” to his list of motives, but unless the Bickfords were better actors than they seemed, he couldn’t make himself believe it. Still, it would bear checking out.
“The doors were open during the party?” In spite of the chill outside?
“It got very warm. Gloriana ordered them opened.” Lord Bickford touched the pedestal with a longing expression in his eyes.
“I did not order them opened,” Lady Bickford snapped. “I thought you did. You were standing right here most of the night, ignoring your duties as host and hoping someone would come by and ask you about your precious statue.”
His neck reddened, and for a moment his eyes blazed. The old fellow had some fight in him after all. “I never told anyone to open the doors.”
“Who did?” Daniel asked. “Would your butler do it on his own?”
“Of course not. He’s too well trained.” Lady Bickford looked as if she’d just kissed a lemon. “My staff does not get above its station.”
Gritting his teeth, Daniel took a moment to inhale and keep his composure. “Did anyone attend the party that you weren’t expecting? Did anyone bring a guest?
“No one would show up without an invitation.” Lady Bickford puckered. “None of our friends would be so uncouth. Why are you asking such crude questions? Though I suppose it is to be expected. Police work not only infringes upon the liberties of the people, but it is undertaken by such common people.”
“My dear, please. We want him to do his best to find the statue. He won’t do that if you insult him.”
“I don’t want him to find the statue. I want the insurance money,” she snapped.
“Was anyone expected to attend but didn’t?” Daniel kept his voice neutral. Lady Bickford had jumped to the top of the suspect list by her own admission.
“Almost everyone who was invited attended. There was only one couple who sent their regrets. The Earl and Countess of Thorndike were called back to their estate for some reason.” Lady Bickford shook her head. “I cannot imagine. Why employ an estate steward at all if you have to go haring back to the country at the drop of a hat? It speaks to poor management, that’s what.”
Daniel knew nothing about estate management from the owner’s perspective. He’d spent his early years on an estate, but it had been as a boot boy in the main house, or mucking out and exercising the earl’s horses, or carrying bushel baskets of potatoes into the root cellar for the head gardener. His mother had been domestic help, seamstress, maid, assistant to the cook, sometimes baby nurse, anything the family wanted or needed. From the day he realized he was not like other children, that his lack of a father made him somehow less, a burden, an embarrassment where others were concerned, he did his best to earn his keep, to help out however he could so that people would like him and perhaps forget that his mother was never married.
“Well? What are you going to do? Stand there woolgathering, or find out who did this? Or better yet, tell Lloyds there is no hope of getting that wretched thing back and that they must pay out our claim.” Lady Bickford put her hands on her hips, staring at him expectantly.
Jerked back to the present, Daniel tried to appear as if he hadn’t been daydreaming. “I will need those lists of guests and employees as quickly as possible. If you have a secretary who can provide them while I am here, that would be optimal. If not, please compile them tonight and have them delivered to the Bow Street Magistrate’s Court first thing in the morning. Now, I would like to look outside.” He went to the closest set of French doors and grabbed the knobs, but the doors wouldn’t open.
“A bit like tipping the pitcher upright again when all the water has run out, isn’t it?” Lady Bickford shrugged. “My husband ordered the doors locked after the statue was stolen.”
The butler was summoned with the keys.
“These doors need a key even on the inside? Are all the doors in the house that way?”
“Yes. I want the house to be very secure at all times.” Lord Bickford puffed up his chest, took one look at his wife, and deflated. “I didn’t order the doors to be opened, and I only had the statue out of the safe for a few hours. This isn’t my fault.”
“If you will accompany me?” Daniel asked the butler. Once they were outside and out of earshot, he asked, “Did you open the doors during the party?”
“No, sir. I was delayed seeing to a guest who had spilled a drink on his shirt. The doors were closed when I left the ballroom.”
“Who has access to the keys?”
“All the keys for the house are hung on a board in the servants’ dining room.”
Where anyone could get at them. What passed for security in some houses was laughable.
“How long were you gone from the ballroom?”
“Perhaps ten minutes or so? I took the gentleman upstairs to milord’s valet to see what could be done and returned as soon as I could. When I arrived back, the doors were all opened, which I thought a bit odd considering how chilled it was outside.”
Daniel took a quick gander at the small terrace, the stone steps, and the walled backyard. If someone stole the statue and climbed over the wall with it by himself, he would have to be equal parts agile and strong.
Perhaps he wasn’t looking for one individual, but a gang? A quick search of the files at Bow Street had turned up nothing in the way of gangs dealing in fine art, but there had been some houses broken into last fall that were purported to be the work of a gang operating out of the St. Giles rookery. But their thefts had been limited to small items like jewelry and coins. Had they graduated to larger crimes?
He entered the house again. “Lord Bickford, did anyone show any undue interest in the statue?”
The aristocrat shook his gray head slowly, his shoulders bowed. “Not a soul seemed to care except Sir Bertrand Thorndike. He asked if he might examine it up close. I was so pleased he was interested, but before I could tell him about it, that infernal cat got into the room and the evening was destroyed.”
“Sir Bertrand was here?”
“Yes, and his niece, Lady Juliette,” Lady Bickford said. “Such a nice young woman. A debutante. Viscount Coatsworth seemed most taken with her. He was attentive during their dance, and I had a chance to speak with my good friend the Dowager Duchess of Haverly, who is acting as Lady Juliette’s chaperone in her mother’s absence, and she was very pleased at the number of suitors asking for an introduction to Lady Juliette. Even Duke Heinrich von Lowe seemed interested.” Lady Bickford bit her lip, as if her speculations and gossip tasted sweet.
A flare of something uncomfortable, but which Daniel refused to name, lit his chest. Coatsworth dancing with Lady Juliette. The man rubbed him the wrong way, but Daniel couldn’t exactly say why. He’d only met the viscount briefly a few nights ago, and not under the best of circumstances.
“What condition was Sir Bertrand in?”
“Condition? He was immaculate.” Lady Bickford drew herself up, her neck stiff. “Why do you ask?”
“He wasn’t the worse for drink?”
“Certainly not. There were spirits on offer in the card room, but I can assure you, no other alcohol was served. I don’t host those kinds of parties.”
Chapter 8
“THE TROUBLE IS, EVERYBODY SEEMS to know everybody.” Daniel compared the guest list of the Montgomery and Bickford parties. “More than a quarter of the names are duplicates. I’ve interviewed party guests until my head aches, and no one saw anything. They were all watching the dog and cat show.”
“Anybody know where the cat came from?”
“Burst in through the open door. Bad timing that it happened right in front of two large dogs.”
“Bad timing or good? A diversion created to spirit the statue away, or an opportunist who saw his chance?”
“No way to tell just yet.” Daniel tossed the papers onto his desk. Pages and boxes and files had piled up around his work area, and it was driving him mad. He liked order, needed it to keep his thoughts clear.
“What about the servants’ list?” Ed asked.
“That’s no help either, because there are no commonalities there. Not one of the temporary servants hired by Mr. Montgomery also worked during the Bickford party.”
Ed leaned back in his chair, tapping his finger against his lips. “Are you sure? Is there a way to check that the temporary servants actually gave their real names when applying for the position? Is it possible that the same person, using a different name, was at both residences?”
Daniel paused. “They were supplied through a hiring agency. Different agencies. If they lied to the agency about their name, how would we go about proving it or finding them?”
“Maybe bring the butler and housekeeper from Montgomery’s house to the station and get the temporary workers from the agency who supplied them to Bickford’s and see if anyone recognizes anyone?”
“Can you arrange that?” Daniel asked.
“I can try to track people down, but what will you be doing in the meantime?”
“I’m heading over to the opera house to talk to the manager. The only item Mr. Rickets managed to stammer out that he bought for sure on this trip was a set of tapestries that are supposed to hang in the opera house hallway that leads to the Royal Box.”
“That’s a good idea. Perhaps the manager’s paperwork can shed some light on the case.”
“More than Bickford’s did. He had a copy of the invoice, though he didn’t want to show it to me at first. I think his wife is right. He paid a ridiculous amount for the maquette. Beyond that, he had no other information. He fetched the statue himself from the gallery when he’d been notified by Mr. Selby that it had arrived, and nothing seemed out of the ordinary to Lord Bickford. Selby wasn’t behaving unusually, the gallery was as it should be, and nothing indicated anyone was in danger.”
Owen strolled into the office, dropping a sheaf of papers onto Daniel’s desk and placing a paper-wrapped bundle on Ed’s. “Evening, gents.”
Ed unwrapped his parcel to find a hot pie. “Did you bring one for Mr. Swann?” he asked the retreating back of the office boy.
“He never asked me to,” Owen shot back before disappearing into the hall.
Pursing his lips, Ed broke the pie in half and handed part across the gap between the desks. “That youngster is in for a rude awakening someday.”
Daniel took the offering, letting Owen’s poor manners roll off. “If he was nice to me, I might die from the shock. How did you fare questioning those in the neighborhood of the art gallery?”
“Nobody saw anything.” Ed bit into the meat pie, closing his eyes in pleasure, chewing and swallowing before going on. “Either they are deaf and blind, or no one wants to get involved. The only bit of information I could get out of anyone was that a wagon blocked the entrance to the mews for half an hour that morning, and no one could find the driver.”
“There was no wagon blocking access when we arrived. Do you think it had anything to do with the murder?” Daniel tasted the pie, inhaling the meaty aroma. He hadn’t eaten for hours, too busy gathering information to think about a meal. He should take better care of himself, or he would run out of strength when he might need it.
“The publican across the street said he looked out and it was there, and he looked out a bit later and it was gone. Thought the driver might have been loading barrels, maybe from the butcher’s shop around the corner?” Ed shrugged. “It might be something. It might be nothing. If there was nothing stolen from the gallery, why would you need a wagon?”
Daniel thought back. “There was a wagon pulling out at the far end of the mews when we arrived on the scene.” But they had been too far away to make out any details on the driver, the team, or the contents of the dray. And it had been moving at a child’s pace, hardly fleeing the scene of a murder. “With no inventory books to look through and Mr. Selby deceased, we can’t tell if anything is missing from the gallery. Mr. Rickets is supposed to come in early tomorrow morning. Hopefully, he has gathered his wits enough to be coherent.”
Having tried twice to interview the art buyer over the last forty-eight hours, Daniel fought frustration that Mr. Rickets had been “too upset” to respond. Daniel was out of patience and would have to demand answers. For now, he had other clues to chase.
As he gathered his cloak and hat for the quick trip across the street, a lithe youngster with a dirt smudge on his nose bounded into the office. “There a Mr. Swann here?”
“That would be me.”
The boy dug in his pocket and pulled out a well-creased envelope, holding it in one hand while extending his other palm. “Letter for ya.”
Daniel tossed a penny his way, which was deftly caught and secreted into a pocket before he could blink. The letter jutted out, and the minute Daniel took it, the boy was away.
“Love letter?” Ed asked, finishing the last of his pie and chuckling.
“Lawyer letter.” Daniel read the terse note. The solicitors Coles, Franks & Moody, serving in their role as mediator between himself and his patron, instructed him to attend the Ash Valley Hunt one week from now to ride Beauden’s Best, a thoroughbred for sale. Prospective buyers would be at the hunt, and his patron, as a favor to the horse’s owner, wanted Daniel to ride the animal to show it off. He’d performed the service many times, for many different owners, all brokered by his patron through the solicitors.
How was he supposed to fit in jockey-for-hire duties with his investigation? Yet he would have to find a way. Though it wasn’t written in the “rules,” it was understood that Daniel would do as his patron asked whenever possible.
Though he was forbidden from searching for his patron’s identity, he couldn’t help but try, passively, to put together the clues. But he’d not yet been able to suss out the identity of his patron through the jobs he required Daniel to do. The horses he rode to order always belonged to different owners, and no trail of information ever led back to a single repeated source.
Frustrating for an investigator to be so stymied.
Like he was on this case.
“Sir Michael will want a report on his desk at sunup. I’d best see about those tapestries.”
“If we don’t find a solid lead soon, the press will be baying for our blood.” Ed returned to his witness statements.
“And on that cheerful note, I’ll see you for the Rickets interview on the morrow.”
Juliette enjoyed the opera, unlike so many of her friends who went only to be seen and because it was the cultured thing to do. This would be her first visit to the Royal Opera House, and in spite of her evening’s mission, she was looking forward to the performances.
She smiled as she climbed into the dowager’s carriage. “Good evening, Your Grace.”
The dowager eyed her critically before her stern expression broke into more pleasurable lines. “Good evening, Lady Juliette. I have had a letter from your mother at last, thanking me for taking you under my wing in her absence.”
Juliette’s heart should have soared at the news, but she had, at Uncle Bertie’s urging, penned the note herself, pretending to be the countess so the dowager would spread it abroad that the Thorndikes were indeed at their country estate.
“Your mother is such a gracious woman, and so stylish. She pens a very nice letter as well, most precise and accurate in her penmanship. And punctilious as to her manners. Her remarks about my chaperonage were most gratifying, I can assure you.”
Juliette’s conscience pricked. Though stern and outspoken with her views, the dowager had been kind, and Juliette, who believed in integrity and truthfulness, chafed at the new role she’d adopted.
Was it right to lie if your motives were good? Would God look favorably upon their endeavors if they lied and stole and deceived to accomplish them?
What wouldn’t she give for a long conversation with her parents about these struggles? Their advice would be invaluable and perhaps give her wavering conscience somewhere to stand. If only she truly knew where they were.
They rode in silence to Agatha’s house, but that was where the silence stopped. Agatha climbed into the carriage like an awkward colt, dropping onto her seat beside Juliette with a giggle.
