The Debutante's Code, page 8
If her parents were here, they would sort out that young man. Her father was blameless in the matter. He had a tremendous sense of right and wrong, of fair play and justice, and he’d taught his daughter to feel the same. She wanted the detective to find Mr. Montgomery’s painting and for the miscreant who stole it to be properly punished according to the law, but she also wanted Mr. Swann to do it the right way. Not throwing out wild accusations about innocent people, trying to elicit a reaction.
If only she could enlist her father’s help. Instead, her parents and God had abandoned her to the meager assistance of Uncle Bertie. Not even at boarding school, so many hundreds of miles away from her family, had she ever felt so alone.
In her room, she flung herself facedown across the counterpane. What did it matter that her behavior wasn’t ladylike? There was no one to see, no one to care. Her father told her God counted every hair on her head, but it certainly didn’t seem He noticed her now. Burying her head in the brocade bedcover, she tried to relax her muscles. The fragile strings binding her self-control pinged and snapped one by one until the tears threatened to escape.
She hated to cry.
How was she to navigate the next little while without her parents? And how long was a little while? What if they remained in the country for weeks? Or months? Her entire Season? Her mother was supposed to be here to guide her. They were supposed to become friends and confidantes, allies, and cohorts.
Her father was supposed to be here to support and protect her, to tease and amuse, to give his wisdom and insight as she made choices that could very well affect the rest of her life.
And they were ensconced at the country estate, oblivious to her wants and needs, putting duty ahead of her.
Or was she wrong to judge them so harshly? She had never had the responsibility of an estate. Bertie couldn’t even reliably tell her what the issue that arose had been. If it really was a catastrophe that only they could head off, then it was right that they had gone, and she was being selfish to wish them here.
But she still wished it.
Juliette rolled over and opened the bedside table drawer, withdrawing two packets of letters. One had been tied with a pink bit of lacy ribbon, and the other with string.
Her mother’s letters were full of advice and tidbits of life. She had shared the latest dress trends and snippets of news amongst her wide circle of friends, of her experiences at the opera, plays, and house parties. They were lighthearted and fun, but tucked amongst the more frivolous orts were serious passages about growing up and how to balance emotions with facts, how to recognize sincerity in a friend, and how to protect oneself from those who would take advantage. Motherly chats that filled in small measure the lonely places in Juliette’s heart. Chats dispensed by letter that Juliette had hoped to relive in person the minute they were reunited.
Juliette’s father’s letters were a far different proposition. From the time she could read, her father had written her weekly. Always in a different code that she must first decipher, his letters growing more complex as she grew older. At first they were pictures strung together, then mixed up letters, then symbols and ciphers. How eagerly she had anticipated his newest epistles. Once she had become adept at cracking his codes, she had begun to write back to him in codes of her own. It was a delightful secret world shared only by the two of them.
His letters had been full of his favorite things, horses, dogs, fishing, boating, the latest scientific progress, interesting bits he’d learned in his various studies. And stories of what they would do when her schooling was over and they would be together. How he would buy her the best horse in the country so she could accompany them fox hunting each fall. The people he wanted her to meet, the places he wanted to take her. They would go fishing in Scotland and walk the beaches of Brighton, explore a Roman ruin in Cumbria, and set up a friendly competition against one another at archery when they all returned to the family home in Worcestershire.
While most of the girls at the exclusive finishing school in Switzerland had bemoaned parents they felt were too old to understand, too overbearing, too … everything, Juliette had never felt that way. Her parents were the epitome of all she hoped to become—elegant, intelligent, kind, interesting.
If she ever got to be with them, that is.
She ran her thumb along the edges of the letters as tears blurred her vision. She blinked hard and took a few deep breaths to beat them back.
God, why? Why are You asking me to delay my dreams? I haven’t asked for anything extravagant. I just want to be with my parents. If Uncle Bertie wasn’t so stubborn, I would have gotten on a coach and headed to Heild Manor right away. Guilt trickled through her. She had been given instructions through Bertie from her parents, and they would expect her to obey, to be a credit to the Thorndike family, and to await their return with patience and grace. This whining alone in her room was unseemly and letting down the family.
She replaced the letters in the drawer and pushed herself up from the bed, shoving her disheveled hair out of her eyes, ignoring the hairpins that fell onto the spread. She hugged her arms across her middle. Outside, sleet clicked against the windowpanes. At least the weather matched her mood.
Her eyes fell on the row of music boxes on the carved shelf over her writing desk, cherished gifts from her parents, one for each birthday. Porcelain, enamel, wood, brass, each different in construction. Each beautiful and delicate, just like her mother. Curiously, each music box played the same song, a portion of Mozart’s “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik: A Little Night Music.”
It was her mother’s favorite piece. Though Juliette knew she would never play as well as the countess, she had worked long hours at the pianoforte learning the piece to surprise her parents.
Would she have the chance to perform it for them?
The walls of her bedchamber began to close in, and she flung open the door, storming down the hallway with no destination in mind. She couldn’t deal with Uncle Bertie at the moment, wherever he had gotten off to, and she absolutely knew she couldn’t face her parents’ suite at the back of the house.
An upstairs maid, carrying a stack of folded linens, passed Juliette, and a footman followed her with a coal hod in each hand. The staff were strangers to her, which only made Juliette feel all the more lonely.
She turned away from the stairs and crossed the landing to the double doors behind her, opening them and slipping into her mother’s favorite room in the house, the music room.
Soft rose-colored walls, white wainscoting, and delicate plasterwork on the ceilings. Yards of highly polished oak floors scattered with oriental carpets, and settees and chairs in muted gold upholstery. A harp, a pianoforte, a violin, a flute. Her mother was proficient at all, and especially gifted at the harp. She also possessed a fine singing voice. Juliette’s earliest memories were of her mother singing as she entered the nursery each morning.
Juliette sat at the piano, fingers resting on the keys, eyes staring at the fallboard, which had been painted with a spray of flowers. Everything about the instrument spoke of her mother’s taste and style. The keys were smooth and cold, and when she pressed them, they felt stiff and nonresponsive.
The chord echoed in the empty room. She pressed her lips together and let her hands drop into her lap.
Using only her index finger, Juliette slowly played the opening notes of the Mozart tune. One measure, two, three, and at the end of the fourth, a barely audible click came, sending a vibration through her fingers, and a small door opened on the side of the pianoforte. A weak thump sounded as a fabric-wrapped parcel fell out of the now open compartment onto the rug.
“How many blind alleys can one man go up?” Daniel climbed into Cadogan’s carriage after yet another failure to get information from a receiver’s shop. None of the receivers had caught even a whisper of who might have taken the painting, nor could any of Daniel’s informants speculate who would want to steal it. None of the pawnbrokers he’d questioned even dealt in artwork. Their shops were filled with basic household goods, pocket watches, painted fans, shoe buckles, and the like. Practical things pawned by desperate people or pickpockets and petty thieves, not fine art. The shops bordered the territories known in London as rookeries, warrens of shacks, tenement buildings, and hovels where the poor crowded in and tried to survive. Not a hospitable environment for a piece of fine art … or a Bow Street runner.
“No luck, then?” Ed moved his feet as Daniel took the bench opposite.
“Not a speck. What did you find? Did Mr. Montgomery insure the painting?”
Ed had gone to the Montgomery house to question the staff and look into their backgrounds.
Ed shook his head. “He said he intended to go to his broker to increase the policy on his collection, but he hadn’t arranged the new addition yet.”
“Too bad. Wouldn’t that be a tidy end to the case? Insurance fraud? Clap on the darbies and carry him off to Newgate.” Daniel sighed. “I can’t seem to envision a model of our criminal. Who had access to the painting? Who had the ability to steal it and either get it out of the house or hide it sufficiently that a search wouldn’t reveal it? And who had the contacts to move it and shift it on for profit?”
Consulting his notebook, Ed scratched his gray side-whiskers. “I’ve gotten no results looking into the backgrounds of Montgomery’s staff, both permanent and temporary. I did get an earful from Mr. Montgomery, however, about how we were less than useless, disrupting his staff, chasing our tails, and more of that ilk. I kept my head and ‘yes, sir’-ed him a lot. He seems the type to like that.”
“I don’t know how you held your tongue. It’s not as if we stole the painting. It’s his property, and he couldn’t manage to hold onto it for more than a few hours.” Daniel scowled. He abhorred the way some aristocrats treated the Bow Street officers like common trash but then set up a hue and cry the moment they needed something or felt they had been wronged. Most of London, in fact, seemed to distrust the police, seeing them as some sort of deterrent to their freedoms rather than a protector of them.
The window behind Daniel’s head slid open. “Where to, guv?” Cadogan asked from his perch on the driver’s seat.
“Clerkenwell. Turner and Rathbone Dealers in Fine Arts.” He handed a slip of paper with the address through the window over his shoulder. “Perhaps”—he shrugged—“we can learn something of the painting’s current whereabouts through its origins. And two birds with one stone, since the man who procured the painting for Montgomery was also a guest at the party.” The carriage lurched, and he braced his palms on the seat.
“Anything you studied up there at university teach you about what we’re looking for? I can just about tell a portrait from a landscape, but after that, one painting looks much the same to me.” Ed grinned. “Not like you young rascals with the gowns and tassels and the like, stuffing your heads full of book teachings. Us old relics learned through doing, not reading.”
Daniel raised one eyebrow. “I might be glad to have all that education behind me when I apply for a job as a clerk or personal secretary once Sir Michael finally boots me out of Bow Street. I fear he’s marking the days on his desk diary until he can finally rid himself of my presence.”
“Seems a rum thing to do to you, lad. Dunno why your guardian set up such a daft scheme.”
Ed was the only one Daniel had told about the structure of his guardian’s wishes, though not the identity of said guardian. He himself didn’t even know who his patron was, nor why he had taken an interest in Daniel’s life. He only knew the man … or men … had governed his life since he was old enough to go to boarding school.
And his mother had gone along with their wishes. In spite of his pleading, begging her not to send him away. She had been firm. It was for his own good. They’d both get on better apart. She wanted him to go.
So at the tender age of twelve, he’d been taken from his home and his only family and deposited in a boarding school amongst the sons of the aristocracy and wealthy, ostracized, sometimes bullied, mostly ignored. He’d turned to books and athletics, pouring himself into both to assuage his loneliness.
The stipulations of the agreement were clear, and he’d been told them from the outset. He’d gone over them so many times in his mind, he could quote them verbatim.
All communication would be handled through the London solicitors Coles, Franks & Moody.
He would never seek to discover his patron’s name.
He would conduct himself well at all times and never give his patron reason to regret the agreement.
He would never join the military.
He would sever all ties with his mother and become the ward of his patron.
In return, he would be educated, clothed, housed, and employed in the career of his choice up to his twenty-fifth birthday. On that date, all patronage would cease.
It had been the stipulation that he must cut off contact with his mother that had angered Daniel the most, both that this mysterious patron would demand it and that his mother would agree to it. She must have been glad for the opportunity. As an unmarried woman, having an illegitimate son hanging about had held her back in life.
Seeing her at the Thorndike house had been a shock. She went by Mrs. Dunstan now? Had she married? And now that he knew where she was, and he was so near the end of his patronage, would it be permissible for him to contact her? Did he want to, knowing she had sent him away?
Was this something he was obliged to report to Mr. Coles? He was due to see the solicitor in the coming week to receive his quarterly stipend. Would meeting his mother, however accidental or unintended, jeopardize his employment at Bow Street?
To this day, Daniel wasn’t certain why he chose to become a Bow Street officer. Perhaps it was a bit of rebellion, a desire to shock his unknown patron? But not that solely. He also wanted to do something good with his life, something important.
During his last year at university, he had been unsure of which direction to take, what occupation to propose to his patron, but then Edward Beck had come to Oxford to investigate a suspicious death. Daniel, whose lodgings were near the canal where the body was found, observed the investigator, befriended him, and was intrigued by the position. He followed the case from beginning to end, even attending the trial at the magistrate’s court rather than his lectures in order to see the killer brought to justice.
He didn’t know what promises or payments or threats had happened behind the scenes to get him the job of his choice, but once he had chosen his path, his mysterious patron had seen to it that Daniel was employed at Bow Street a mere week after earning his degree in history and art from Pembroke College.
And he’d been the thorn in Sir Michael’s side ever since.
The carriage bowled up to Turner and Rathbone, a broad brick building situated between a watchmaker and a lace shop. Across the street were a bookbinder, a wine shop, and the Horn and Hound pub.
“All a far cry from the rookeries, isn’t it? Upscaled commerce.” Ed took the measure of the street, looking up at the art dealer’s sign swinging in the cold air. He doffed his tall hat to a pair of young ladies coming out of the lace shop.
“I wouldn’t mind finding lodgings in a neighborhood like this.” Daniel noted the publican sweeping his stoop. “I’ll be looking for new rooms soon enough. Perhaps the bookbinder needs a clerk.”
“Nonsense. You should set yourself up as a private inquiry agent if Sir Michael gives you the boot. You were made to keep the peace and unravel puzzles, son. You have a knack for this job. Many times you’ve seen something I haven’t, or thought of a different approach that wound up cracking a case. I’ll admit, when you first arrived on the job, you were as green as spring grass, but you’ve grown into the work.”
A private inquiry agent? Daniel paused. He’d never thought of that. Could he support himself thus? It might bear looking into. Though his heart was in Bow Street. If only he could solve this case and earn Sir Michael’s respect.
Stepping up to the art dealer’s door, Ed tried the handle. The door didn’t budge. Locked. “Shades on the door and windows. Can’t tell if anyone’s in there or not.”
“Perhaps they’ve stepped out?” Daniel looked down the street. Every other business on the avenue was open for trade. “Tea break?” It was midafternoon, after all.
Ed rapped on the glass, but no one answered his summons. “Maybe there’s someone around back? Do these places have storerooms or offices? I’ve never been inside an art dealer’s shop before.”
They rounded the end of the block and entered the alley behind the shops. At the far end, a hunched teamster drove his wagon away from them, canvas tarps covering a tied-down load of goods. Over the rattle of the wheels on the cobbles, Daniel said, “Narrow space for such a big wagon. He must be a good driver to wend his way through here.”
They found the back door of the art dealer’s, and it stood open a few inches. Ed put the flat of his hand on the panel and pushed it back. “Is anyone here?” He stepped inside, and Daniel followed.
They were in a large room with high windows up near the eaves, which let in narrow bars of light. The room smelled of wood shavings and dust.
It didn’t take much light to note that something was terribly amiss. Crates were knocked over, packing material spilling everywhere. Daniel’s boots crunched on broken shards of china and porcelain. A painting leaned against the left-hand wall, slashed to ribbons.
He caught Ed’s eye. Ed put his finger to his lips and jerked his chin toward the doorway on the far side of the storage area. Faint light crept through the crack beneath the door, but no sound came from the room beyond.
Daniel nodded, tightness creeping over his muscles. Was the vandal still here? His truncheon slipped from his belt into his hand in a way he’d practiced many times.
Picking their way through the detritus as quietly as possible, they crossed the cluttered room. Each took up a position on either side of the door, and Ed drew his truncheon from beneath his cloak.
