The Debutante's Code, page 17
“No, no, you will save me a trip. This gentleman and lady have asked to see the tapestries as well. You can come with us.” The manager beamed, sweat standing out on his scalp through his sparse hair. “It has been such a successful opening night, and we’re so very proud of the tapestries. It will be a pleasure to show you.”
Neither Lady Juliette nor the duke appeared to think it a pleasure, but they didn’t demure. How could Daniel ask the manager about murder and thievery in front of a lady? Perhaps he could bide his time. The aristocrats would look their fill of the tapestries, and he could get about his business with the manager after they’d gone.
They were led up the left-hand staircase from the foyer, where many of tonight’s audience lingered, sounding like a flock of seagulls on the mudflats at low tide.
“We’ve only just gotten them hung up in time for the performance tonight. Imported from Belgium. They were most expensive, but so beautiful,” the manager prattled over his shoulder as he went up the plush carpeted stairs. “Originally we thought to hang them in the private hallway that leads to the Royal Box, but then so few people would be able to view them. So we put them in the anteroom here on the second floor, where people mingle during the intermissions.”
They walked through a curtained doorway, Daniel in the rear, and viewed for the first time the four tapestries.
Rectangular, taller than they were wide, with muted colors. Around the borders, spaced evenly between bars of ribbons and greenery, different crested shields marched. Cherubs, each covered discreetly with flowing ribbons for clothes, climbed boughs, perched on drums, and floated in the air around a large coat of arms in the middle of each tapestry.
The duke stood back, one elbow perched on his crossed arm, his hand at his chin, studying them all. Lady Juliette, however, walked right up to the first one, stopping only inches away.
“They were created in Brussels, in the great tradition of Belgian weaving, originally commissioned for a Spanish family in the sixteenth century.” The manager’s chest swelled. “The directors are most proud to have such artistry on display. They are publishing a booklet that will be for sale over all of London for those who are not fortunate enough to be able to see them for themselves.”
The manager went on, speaking to the duke about the opera house, tonight’s performance, and the many pieces of art that decorated the building’s walls.
Lady Juliette’s dress rustled as she moved, and when Daniel joined her before the first tapestry, he caught the scent of roses.
It took him back to his childhood, working in the gardens at the estate. The head gardener had a fondness for roses, and he’d taught Daniel how to prune and fertilize and water, but mostly how to enjoy the blooms.
Daniel learned the valuable lesson that one could appreciate beauty no matter how poor you were. There were things that no man could take away from you, be you king or servant, and an appreciation of creation was one of them. It was something Daniel tried to remember each day, though finding creation to appreciate was more difficult in the city than when living on the estate.
“Why are you interested in the tapestries, Lady Juliette, if I may be so bold as to ask? Had you heard of them before coming tonight?” Daniel kept his voice low, pitching it under the speech of the manager. He studied her profile as he waited for her answer. Her skin was darker than most English maids. Not that he minded the richness of her complexion. No, it only served to intrigue him.
“I did know of them prior to this evening. I made the acquaintance of Mr. Selby, an art dealer, and he mentioned the tapestries to me in passing. I only learned today that he was tragically killed. Such a shame. But it was Duke Heinrich’s idea to ask to see them tonight, as he had heard of them as well and wondered how they compared to tapestries hanging in some of his family’s castles in Brandenburg.” She moved on to the next hanging.
Daniel glanced at the duke, but he was still talking with the manager, barely looking at the artwork. His family had more than one castle?
“Are you making any progress on those thefts? Agatha said Sir Michael Biddle visited her father about the matter today, and poor Lord Bickford was beside himself about that little statue that was stolen. Surely something like that can’t have much value. It was so small.”
She had spoken rather coolly of Selby’s murder. Weren’t women of the ton supposed to be susceptible to fainting or a fit of the vapors when learning of distressing things? “Value is not set by size. If so, boulders would be exorbitant in price and diamonds would be negligible. Value is set by the worth of an item to someone who cares about it. A child values a penny more than a king values a guinea.”
“Lady Juliette, the dowager will be waiting for us. I don’t like to hurry you, but she is not a woman who appreciates waiting, I do not think,” the duke said.
“Just a few minutes more. These are so beautiful. And the weaving is so close. It stops the mind to think of how many thousands of threads and the planning that must have been done to create such a depth of color and such lifelike expressions.”
She stood close to the fabric, as if counting the individual threads of which she spoke. When she neared the center coat of arms, she paused, her hand coming up to almost touch the wool and silk.
“Aren’t you too close to enjoy the tapestries? You cannot see the picture if you stand so near.” The duke put his hand on her elbow.
She resisted for a moment and then relented. “Of course. And you are right—we should be on our way. The dowager will be growing impatient.”
“Do you not wish to study the fourth tapestry?” the manager asked. “It is my favorite. The stags and unicorns are so beautiful.”
“Perhaps another time.” She put her arm through the duke’s. “Thank you so much for the private peek. They’re truly wonderful. I shall have to tell my parents about them when they return to the city.”
With a short nod to Daniel, she let the duke lead her away.
Left alone with the manager, Daniel suggested they return to his office. Once there, he addressed the reason for his visit.
“The thefts Lady Juliette mentioned are why I am here. I want to caution you that two items from the same shipment of art as these tapestries were stolen this week. I would encourage you to remain vigilant and inform your night guards to do the same. I do not know what the connection is between the thefts, but it is beyond the realm of likelihood that they are coincidences.”
“I heard of the robberies, but I had no idea there was any connection to our tapestries.” The manager pulled his chair out from his desk and sat down heavily. “Do you think someone might want to steal our new artwork?”
“I don’t know. I came out of an abundance of caution and to ask if you could tell me what you know about the buying process, the shipment, or anything related to the purchase. Did you approach Mr. Selby, or did he approach you? Do you have any of the paperwork connected to the sale?”
The manager was already turning to a file drawer behind him. “I believe it was someone on the board who first mentioned the tapestries. Where he got the information, I am not sure. I only attend the beginnings of board meetings in order to give my reports, you see, and then I am excused. Perhaps, though …” He paused in his rummaging. “Yes, here we are. Minutes of board meetings for this year.”
Pages of closely written script thumped on the desk. “When was that?” He rifled through them. “Ah, maybe this is the one.” He held up a long sheet of foolscap to the lamp. “Yes. Here it is. The idea was first proposed by Lord Gravesend. He’s a collector himself, and I understand he had commissioned Turner and Rathbone to purchase some items for himself on an upcoming buying tour. The representative from the art dealership had mentioned the tapestries and suggested them as a possible acquisition for the opera house.” He looked up from the paper. “The motion was made, discussion followed, a price was set, and the motion carried.”
The representative from the art dealership who was now dead.
“Do you have an invoice or provenance or other paperwork about the tapestries themselves?”
“Yes, of course.” More rummaging. He produced a dark-brown folder. “It’s all in here.”
Daniel looked at the papers inside. Everything seemed in order. Mr. Selby’s signature on the invoice. The price, which, like the maquette, boggled the mind. The letter of provenance from the dealer in Brussels.
“Who arranged the transport?”
“Turner and Rathbone. They agreed to terms with the board, and when the tapestries arrived, they were delivered here. We weren’t sure when they would come. Shipping hasn’t been easy for many years, but with the defeat of the French, things have opened up again. I wasn’t hopeful they would arrive before opening night of the Season, but I was pleased to be wrong. I sent round a thank-you note to Mr. Selby personally at the gallery when they were delivered.”
Daniel hadn’t come across that note yet in all the office paperwork. But who would steal something as innocuous as a thank-you note? It must be in the boxes yet to be sieved.
He thanked the manager for his time and left feeling he’d gone up a blind alley once more. The tapestries must not have anything to do with the thefts, though he was glad he had warned the manager to be on his guard.
More questions than answers had arisen from his visit.
But foremost in his mind was why Lady Juliette Thorndike had been interested in three of the four tapestries.
“It was right there. Tiny but unmistakable. My heart was pounding so loud, I’m surprised the detective couldn’t hear it.” As Juliette made her report and copied from memory the symbols from the tapestry onto her worksheet, her pulse skipped in her veins. She dipped her quill in the inkwell on the battered desk in the War Room, concentrating on reproducing the code correctly.
“I don’t know whether you are brave or idiotic. What possessed you to invite the detective along for the inspection?” Uncle Bertie paced before the desk, his hands behind his back.
“I wasn’t the one who invited him. It was the manager. He showed off those tapestries like they were his newborn children. The detective arrived in the office as we were going upstairs to see them. I was prepared to wait until most of the people had left, claim to have forgotten my reticule, and then slip upstairs, but Duke Heinrich intervened. He said he’d heard about the new artwork and suggested we see the manager about viewing them.”
Bertie’s head came up, and he stopped pacing. “The duke suggested the viewing?”
Juliette nodded. “Look, some of the symbols are repeated.” She held up the paper, tapping her chin with the feather quill. “Now we’re making progress. Repetition and patterns are the keys to breaking a code.”
“Well done, but go back. It was Duke Heinrich’s idea to see the tapestries?”
“Yes. He excused the two of us from our party, with the dowager’s permission, to ask the manager about seeing them. No one else in the group wanted to go, though the duke invited everyone.”
“Did he examine them with you?”
“He stood back to observe them, and he spoke with the manager while I got close to the tapestries. Mr. Swann stood beside me, but he seemed to be looking …” She ducked her chin, her cheeks warming.
“Yes?”
Glancing up, she tried to put on a cloak of casualness. “He seemed to be looking at me more than at the tapestries.” Her chin came up.
Bertie pinched his upper lip, his eyes clouded. “You’d do best to avoid the detective. He’s sharp brained and not your average plodding night watchman. He’s making inroads on the case, though he isn’t aware of that just yet. If we aren’t careful, he’ll slot enough pieces together to uncover what we need kept secret.” He straightened, consulted the list pinned to the post with the letter opener, and pointed to one line.
“The next item won’t be difficult to obtain, and it won’t be clandestine either. But it will need to be procured by you.”
She leaned forward. “What is it and how?” Anticipation feathered across her skin.
“It’s a jade dragon. Rare enough, and it is up for public auction. Tomorrow afternoon at Barrett and Company Auction House. I want you to go there, purchase it, and bring it back here. Your cover story is that your father’s birthday is coming up soon, and he is interested in anything he can find coming from the Orient. You think the jade dragon will make the perfect gift.” He waved his hand. “And it’s more than plausible, since my brother has given a lecture at the Lyceum on Chinese art, and he wrote a monograph on the subject not long ago as well.”
“Not that I mind going, but why me? Wouldn’t it be more appropriate for you to buy it or to accompany me? Where will you be?”
“I have another brief mission for my superiors. I shouldn’t be gone more than three days, but if I am, do not worry, and do not attempt to locate or acquire any other pieces from the list.” His voice sharpened. “Promise me. You’ve had some success here early on, but that is no reason to think you’re an accomplished agent.”
Knowing he was correct, but still feeling taken down a peg or two, she fought a tinge of rebellion. “I promise. But I’ve never been to an auction before. What should I do?”
He spent the next little while going over the procedures and cautioning her again not to draw undue attention, to use her cover story, and to come straight home again with the dragon.
“How much am I supposed to spend?” she asked. “I mean, how high should I bid?”
“As high as it takes to win.” He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a long, narrow envelope. “This is a letter from our solicitors, Coles, Franks, and Moody, instructing the auctioneer to send the bill to their offices for payment. It’s a letter of credit that should far exceed the price of the dragon.” He handed it to her. “When it comes time to pay for your item, show it to the auctioneer’s clerk.”
“Do you think we’ll be able to find all the pieces on the list?”
“I don’t know. We’ll try. We need enough, anyway, to break the code they include. The more we find out and the more code we have to work from, the better our chances are. Information is the key. And the more pieces we have, the fewer our enemy will. And the less code he will have in order to try to break it. The stakes are very high.”
The question that had hovered in her mind all evening rose to her lips, but it wouldn’t come out. How did one ask one’s uncle if he had committed murder to obtain much-needed information?
Uncle Bertie, dressed impeccably, with elegant manners and an insouciant manner, couldn’t possibly have killed anyone. It was unthinkable.
Or was it just unbearable to think about?
Chapter 9
“TELL ME ONCE AGAIN, HOW did you decide which pieces to purchase?” Daniel pinched the bridge of his nose, wishing he had another cup of coffee. After a late night, he’d been up before dawn to go over his interview questions for Mr. Rickets, who had appeared promptly at seven at the Bow Street Magistrate’s Court for his overdue interview. A Mr. Rickets who was most loquacious but seemed to circle his answers for a long time before revealing them. The interview was already into the second hour.
The art buyer was more composed than the last time Daniel had seen him but still nervous as a feral cat. He swallowed and fidgeted, picked imaginary lint off his coat, fingered his watch chain, and shifted his feet under his chair. Was this his habitual manner, or was he disconcerted by being questioned by detectives?
“Mr. Selby, God rest his soul, has—had—contacts on the Continent who told him when certain pieces were coming up for sale, and he had customers here who were sometimes looking for specific items. It was his practice to go round his best customers before going to the Continent and asking if there was anything on his list they might be interested in, or if there was something they were looking for particularly. These might be individuals, like Mr. Montgomery, who wanted the Lotto painting, or Mr. Bickford, who wanted the statue, but it might also be an organization, like the Royal Opera, who asked us to purchase the tapestries. But there might be something in an auction catalog that Mr. Selby didn’t have a buyer for just yet but thought he could sell, so he would agree on a limit price with Mr. Turner and would buy it on speculation, as it were.”
“But this time, rather than go himself, Mr. Selby sent you?”
“Yes. He and Mr. Turner thought it best that I get the experience, especially now that the war is over and travel is easier. I’ve been to the Continent before, with the army. And I speak French, Italian, and Spanish, though my Spanish isn’t the most flash. Mr. Selby was most impressed with my linguistic ability. He thought it would be an asset in negotiating. I was honored and, if I’m honest, anxious to do a good job and please Mr. Selby. Becoming one of the buyers for Turner and Rathbone comes with not only a raise in pay but a considerable cache of prestige in the art world.” He smoothed his lapels. “Much more impressive than being a shop assistant in a gallery, you see?”
Daniel looked over at Ed, who had his elbows on the table and his laced fingers propping up his chin.
“Where did you travel on this trip?” Ed asked.
“Oh, many places. I was gone for months. Spain, Italy, Belgium. I never spent the night in the same place. Mr. Selby had a rigorous schedule laid out for me. It was another reason he said he was sending me in his stead. He disliked travel at the best of times, but he’d wrenched his back one day moving things in the storeroom, and the thought of all that coach travel made his bones ache.”
“Did you keep much money in the art gallery?”
“Oh no, most of our transactions happened at the Bank of England. The sale would be agreed upon at the shop, but Mr. Selby would accompany the customer to his bank for the actual transaction. There was a bit of petty cash in a box in the office, but only enough to purchase things for the day-to-day running of the gallery or to pay a delivery driver when we needed to transport an item to its new home.”
Owen sat at a small table in the corner, writing notes on the interview. His pen scratched lightly on the pages, but otherwise he sat still. Daniel had to give him credit. He was fast and legible, and his records were impeccable. It was his impudence that grated, not his skill.
