Death at Dawn: A Liberty Lane Thriller. Caro Peacock
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little bit of my mind, not daydreaming at all, said, ‘At least a thousand guineas at Tattersalls.’ There was no ignoring it. I was quite sure that my father – having nothing in the way of property – would have left no will. Therefore all his possessions would go to his only son, Thomas Fraternity Lane. Only Tom was many thousands of miles away, not yet twenty-one, so I was, in effect, his agent. (A lawyer would probably have told me otherwise, but I did not intend to consult one.) Therefore I could solve some of my problems at a stroke by instructing Amos to take the mare for sale at Tattersalls, along with her papers and the note transferring ownership. Once sold, I could give Amos something handsome for his trouble and he could return to his county of red cattle, hops and apples. Most of the money would go into the bank. (Would it be enough for Tom to come home? No, don’t even think about that, yet.) But some of it – fifty pounds, say – I’d keep to find out the truth about my father.
Having decided that, my mind felt clearer. The thing to do was talk to Daniel Suter, the last friend I knew of to see him alive. I’d return to Paris and, if necessary, inquire at every opera house or theatre until I found him. I took my father’s letter out of my bag to re-read.
My dearest Daughter,
I am glad to report that I have just said farewell to my two noble but tedious charges … I had business here in Paris …
That was not surprising. One of the ways in which my father earned enough money to keep us was by acting as a go-between for objects of art. His excellent taste, wide travels and many friends meant that he was often in a position to know who needed to sell and who was aching to buy. Some classical statue or portrait of a Versailles beauty was probably his additional business in Paris
… also friends to meet. To be candid, I value the chance of some intelligent conversation with like-minded fellows after these months of asses braying.
He’d been long enough in Paris to pick up some gossip:
… I have heard one most capital story which I promise will set you roaring with laughter and even perhaps a little indignation. You know ‘the dregs of their dull race …’
It had puzzled me when I first read it, and still did. Why indignation as well as laughter? As for the quotation from Shelley, I knew it, of course. It came from the poet’s tirade of justified indignation against His Majesty George III and his unpopular brood of royal duke sons: Old, mad, blind despis’d and dying King, Princes, the dregs of their dull race … mud from a muddy spring. A fine insult, but King George was seventeen years dead. I might never hear the story, unless Daniel knew it. Still, I was making some progress. The mare to Tattersalls and I to Paris. I should have to set about it carefully though, sail from somewhere other than Dover and avoid Calais. I had no wish to see ever again the gentleman in black, or the toad-like monster, or the person who called himself Trumper. (Unless, I thought, side by side on the gallows for killing my father.)
Soon after that, I fell asleep. The decision had been made and I was mortally tired. For the first time since hearing that my father was dead I slept deeply and dreamlessly. When I opened my eyes, the jug and ewer were making a long shadow up a wall that had turned copper-coloured in the light from the setting sun. The buzz and clinking of people at dinner and drinking came up from the floor below. The strange thing was that – although I woke unhappy – there was a little island of warmth in my mind, where before there had only been cold greyness. I saw, as vividly as if they had been in the room with me, the generous eye of Esperance, Amos Legge’s kind but puzzled look, even the golden stare of Lucy the cat. I had family of a kind after all, three beings who in some fashion depended on me.
And I was going to sell them. I’d decided that quite clearly before going to sleep. Now, quite as clearly, the thing was impossible. Sell my father’s last gift to me, for a hatful of greasy guineas? Use as my agent in this betrayal the good giant who’d brought her to me so faithfully (and so far at no profit to himself)? Even the cat had shown more loyalty than that.
I jumped out of bed and opened my purse. My small store was now seven shillings and four pence, not even enough to pay the rest of my score at the Heart of Oak. And yet here was I, proposing to make a trip to Paris and pay board and lodging indefinitely for an equine aristocrat. I heard myself laughing out loud.
Somebody else heard too. I froze, aware of a board creaking just outside the door. But there had been no footsteps since I woke up, so whoever it was must have been there while I was sleeping, quite probably looking in at me through the keyhole. I seized my travelling mantle and wrapped it round me. There was a knock at the door, knuckle against wood; quite polite sounding, if I hadn’t guessed. The landlord, I thought, come to make sure of his money and, in addition, spying on me in my chemise and stockings.
‘You’ll have to wait,’ I said.
I moved to be out of sight of the keyhole and dressed, taking my time, then put back the money in my purse. No need to let the fellow spy out the nakedness of the land in every sense. Then I went to the door and opened it, expecting to be looking into boot-button eyes and a pudgy face above a stained apron. Instead there was the gentleman in black, as straight and severe as when I’d last seen him at the Calais burial ground, although this time he was vertical, not horizontal. You might have taken him for his own spectre, except that he spoke like a living man, though not a happy one.
‘Good evening, Miss Lane. I have a proposition to put to you …’
His high white cravat was the brightest thing in the shadowy passageway, the face above it grey as moonlight on slate. He held his hat in hand, as if making a social call.
‘I thought you might be dead,’ I said.
Admittedly it was hardly a cordial greeting, but when I’d last seen him he was barely breathing. In the half light, I could see no sign on his temple of the blow that had felled him, so perhaps there was not enough flesh and blood in him to bruise.
‘It might be best if you would permit me to come in,’ he said.
I came close to slamming the door in his face. My reputation was low enough with the landlord, without entertaining gentlemen in my room. But something told me that my virtue was in no danger, though everything else might be. The man had as much carnality as a frozen dish-clout. Even though he had been spying on me through the keyhole, it was for something colder than my charms en chemise. I opened the door wider. He walked in, looking round. I might have invited him to sit down, but with only one chair in the room, that meant I should have to perch on the bed. We stayed on our feet. He put his hat on the wash-stand.
‘Our last conversation was interrupted,’ I said. ‘I was asking you what you knew about my father’s death.’
‘And I believe I counselled you to have patience.’
As before, his voice was low and level.
‘An over-rated virtue. Were you present when he died?’
‘No.’
‘But you know what happened?’
He raised a narrow black-gloved hand in protest.
‘Miss Lane, that is not what I have come to speak to you about.’
‘Do you know what happened?’
He looked straight at me, as if he wanted to stare me down. Anybody with a brother has practice in that trick. I held his look. He sighed and walked towards the window, sliding a hand into his coat pocket.
‘Miss Lane, do you recognise this?’
He was holding something small in the palm of his hand. I walked over to him and picked it up. When I saw it close, I felt as if somebody had caught me a blow.
‘It’s his ring.’
A signet with a curious design of an eye and a pyramid. The one that should have