Other Tales: Stories from The Ballad of Gregoire Darcy Read online

  Sir DuBois had problems stifling his chuckle.

  “You may ask me about any evidence you wish to discover. You may interview anyone in the room about what they might have seen, and they may not lie – unless they are the murderer. Do you find this suitable?”

  “Very,” said Audley. Without hesitation, he immediately walked over to the stand and picked up the goblet, which he smelled. It contained ordinary wine. Willing to play along with the scenario, he tipped his last finger in and tasted a drop on his tongue. “Do I detect poison?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fast-acting or slow? Surely you know that poisons are specifically designed to act on the body so that the person responds at a certain time after ingestion.”

  “Of course,” said the marquis. “Very fast. He must have drunk the poison in the last five minutes.”

  “So, something akin to cyanide. Very well. It is easy enough to obtain.” Audley set the goblet down and looked around the room. There were four people at the card table, engaged in a game of whist. “I will inquire of you all – did anyone rise for any reason in the last five minutes?”

  Lady Rousseau giggled and said, “No, Inspector.”

  “Then I must rule out all four participants.” He turned around and looked at Lord Rousseau, who was on the couch with his own glass in hand and his feet upon a footrest. “I must also rule out His Lordship.”

  “Why should you do that?” Rousseau said, almost offended. “I am quite close to Sir DuBois – certainly close enough to poison his drink.”

  “But you are facing him. Even if he was distracted, or called up from his seat long enough, how long would it take you to get up from your current position, slip something in his drink, and return to your position without being noticed? For the sake of argument, I will time it.” He withdrew his pocket watch. “If you would, my Lord.”

  Rousseau realized he was serious, and with a nod from the marquis, set down his glass, took down his feet, got up, and walked over to the stand with the goblet, put his hand over the goblet, and then did the reverse of all of his actions. He was a broad, lumbering man, and when he was finally finished, Audley announced, “Nearly a minute. Forty-nine seconds, to be precise. Far too long to go unnoticed. Did anyone in this room notice it? I recall the rules of the game are that only the murderer is allowed to lie.”

  There was a chorus of denials.

  “Very well then. That leaves only three.” He turned to the marquis. “Sir, where were you during the past five minutes?”

  “Inspector, you will recall, I am the master of this game.”

  “And I will also recall that you never once mentioned that the master cannot be the murderer.” He studied the marquis very carefully. As simple and amusing as the game seemed to be, he knew the marquis did nothing lightly, and would not put himself into suspicion for anything, especially because he was the only suspect on the current list, even if it required more nocturnal activities than normal nobles participated in. “But it is, of course, not you.” He turned away without an explanation. “That leaves Lady Littlefield and Miss Bingley. And, as you said, there is no motive, so I do not need to begin to speculate if either of them wished to kill Sir DuBois. So I must only consider the circumstances and use my investigative abilities.” He decided to approach Lady Littlefield, who smiled shyly as she rose. She had been sitting at the pianoforte, as if she was intending to play soon. There was even a sheet book in front of her, but it was still unopened. He bowed politely and said to her, “Lady Littlefield, are you the murderer?”

  “You will recall once again, the murderer may lie,” said the marquis from behind.

  “Yes,” Audley countered, his gaze never wavering from the lady, “but lying does not mean one is telling the truth. Often there is a quickening of the heartbeat – which I am not now close enough to hear – or rapid blinking of the eyes when lying. That I can see, and though she is nervous by my stare and my questioning, I ask again – Lady Littlefield, are you the murderer?”

  “No,” she said quietly.

  “She is not lying,” he pronounced. “That leaves only one suspect: Miss Bingley.” The woman in question was by the bookcase, holding up a book. “You will notice two things. One, she is standing while reading, something people rarely do. Second, she is nearly halfway through her book, but she did not bring it with her, because there is an empty slot right behind her on the bookshelf. Either she is a very quick reader or wished to appear engaged in an activity. And she is close enough to poison the drink.”

  Miss Bingley turned to him for the first time, closing her book, and curtseyed, rather impudently, he thought. “Congratulations, Inspector. You have caught me.”

  There was a round of clapping and raising of glasses to the inspector, who was grateful for it. He did not seek their praise, but he had been offered information that gave him questions – and questions were the beginning of the search for answers.

  Why wasn’t the marquis willing to play the murderer? And why was Miss Bingley willing?

  ~~~

  The inspector’s work was just beginning as the guests left. He only had time to scribble a few names and notes of the evening in his book before he headed upstairs to meet the butler, Monsieur Durand, who was awaiting him as the marquis said the final good-byes to his guests. “You will see,” said Durand as he escorted him into the private chambers of the count. Old wealth was in every fixture, every tapestry, every false pillar, but Audley could sense a sort of darkness here. Maybe it was the dust of a house not being in use for almost two generations, metaphorical instead of literal, but the place seemed old in every sense of the word. He was escorted to the wardrobe full of coats, vests, shirts – everything a marquis or count or duke would need for every occasion, a shop with no bill.

  “Here,” said Mr. Durand, indicating the empty hanger.

  “There was something here that was removed recently? Like a coat?”

  “I do not know, Inspector Audley, to be sure, but the valet knows the marquis’s wardrobe extremely well. He had a very grand red waistcoat with silver buttons, and there was certainly not an empty hanger here. We put those in a special box.”

  “When did he wear it last?”

  “I do not know, sir. Not since I have worked here.”

  “How long have you worked here, Monsieur Durand?”

  “Five months.”

  Audley raised his eyebrows. “Five months?” It was a short amount of time for a man in so great a position. Even though Mr. Durand was old and wizened, he must have proved his mettle on smaller jobs, surely?

  “Yes, Inspector Audley. I previously worked for the Count de LaFebre in his southern estate, but he passed away recently.”

  “But the marquis has been living here since the Restoration. Who was your predecessor?”

  “I met him only once. A Mr. Arnold. I do not know his location now, if you wish to find him.”

  “Who else would know?”

  “No one,” Durand said. “I was hired amidst a massive change of staff at the time. There is no one here now from when Mr. Arnold was butler.”

  “Why did he change his staff?”

  “I don’t know, sir.”

  Audley made a note of it. “So this was – October?”

  “Late October, Inspector.”

  He nodded. “Is anything else missing? Jewelry? A watch? Artwork?”

  “Nothing that we have discovered. We will continue the inventory, but we have exhausted all of the major possibilities.”

  Audley paced the floor in front of the wardrobe. Doesn’t creak, he noted. “Tell me – is there anyone here who would have issue with the marquis?”

  “Of the staff?”

  “Yes. How does he treat them?” He stopped his pacing and gave Durand a reassuring look. “You have my word that I will keep your confidence.” He knew Durand was in the marquis’s confidence, and if there would be any admission, it would only be slight. “I am merely looking for a suspect.”

>   “There is no one I can think of who would ... concoct such a plot. Steal a coat, maybe, but not use it in the manner that has been suggested.”

  Audley tried a different tack. “How does the marquis treat his servants? Again, this will be kept in confidence.”

  “He pays everyone on time,” Durand said. “Beyond that, I can not be helpful. He has been very kind to me.”

  Clearly, this man would be of no help in this regard. “Are there any servants who have been dismissed still living in the area?”

  “A few, I believe. Not many. You can ask at the Verrat – someone there will surely know.”

  The Taverne Principale Du Verrat was beneath the inn where Audley was temporarily installed. “Very good. One last question – Did you know Simon Roux?”

  “I did not, Inspector. I know few people beyond these grounds.”

  “So he was never employed here?”

  “Never, sir.”

  “Very good.” He closed his book. “I will need to speak to every servant in this household – tonight.”

  “Some of them have retired, sir.”

  Audley turned back to him. “Then you had best get them up.”

  ~~~

  Because of the hour, he made the process as quick as possible. He only needed a few questions to narrow down the list of servants to those who were suspects or with whom he wanted a longer conversation, and those who needed to be watched over in case of escape. No one seemed to know much about Simon Roux beyond what he had already learned in town – that Roux was a womanizer and general troublemaker, but had never been employed by the marquis. It was the frazzled cook who solved the mystery of the staff changeover – “It was when term began at the seminary. Or, shortly before it.”

  “So when Lady Littlefield arrived?”

  “Yes. I was hired because I used to work for the British officers during the occupation, and have knowledge of English cuisine.”

  “So he wanted to impress his betrothed.”

  “He made that clear, Inspector.”

  That did not quite explain why he would change the entire staff, down to the under gardener and the laundress, but he made no mention of that to the cook.

  Audley hit a verbal wall with the subject of the marquis himself. The servants would not discuss his behavior – a sign that it was bad and they had been actively silenced. It was understandable that the marquis, seeking the approval of the Littlefields, would not want vile rumors circulating around about his behavior and would silence his staff, but it was no help to an inspector trying to root out a thief and possible murderer. The connection was not clear in his mind. If someone wanted to smear the reputation of the marquis, there were easier ways to do it than to steal his coat, dress up like a wolf, and kill what appeared now to be a random townsperson. What is the connection between the marquis and Roux? It remained most tenuous. Did Roux know something the marquis didn’t want known? Then why would he incriminate himself? Had he over-thought the situation?

  There was one interview that was particularly disconcerting. One of the upstairs maids, Sophie, responded quietly and numbly to all of his questions, her hands shaking as he watched. No matter how much he assured her – and he usually could be quite assuring if he wished to be – she would not say what she was so clearly thinking. He probably beat her, Audley noted. At least once. Another connection or another false lead?

  The marquis had not killed Simon Roux. Of this he was sure. Not as a werewolf or dressed as one. Someone else had done it to some end, and it may have been unrelated. And maybe it was made relevant later – the spreading of rumors about a fancy coat, then the coat being stolen in the aftermath to confirm the rumors – he did not have enough information.

  But he would get it.

  CHAPTER 2

  Inspector Robert Audley was an early riser. He supposed it was the militarism in his blood. His father was a kind man, but he was a soldier, and rose early, before breakfast was ready, for exercise, and his son followed in his habit. In fact, Robert Audley nearly terrified a passing maid by appearing fully-dressed so early in the morning as he descended the steps to the tavern below, where last night’s drunks were still being tossed out.

  “Oh, Inspector Audley! My apologies, your breakfast is not ready yet!”

  “That is fine,” he was quick to assure. “I only require some directions, if you would. And perhaps a biscuit for the road.”

  An hour later he was down the road some miles, his legs well-stretched as he passed through the village, filled with the sounds of people waking. On the other side of the road was the forest, its trees tall and foreboding, even on this beautiful sunny day.

  He found the site of the crime easily enough, marked by a small wooden cross, barely more than two planks of wood nailed together and quickly shoved into the ground. No one left flowers for Simon Roux at the site of his death – or, at least, the dumping of his body – but someone had felt some Christian compulsion to mark it while he awaited burial.

  As Audley suspected, there was no other evidence. Days had passed, and even the morning dew – especially from a forest – would have helped any blood stains to sink into the soil. There was only an indentation where his body had fallen – or where he had been dropped. The inspector knelt before it, and ran his hands across the mark in the dirt. Such a strong indentation meant Roux either fell or was tossed awkwardly on the ground, but he had been found, by the mortician’s description, lying on his back quite neatly. Thrown, he decided, then rearranged so the wound was visible. He had been told the outlying area had been searched, but he stepped towards the woods anyway. There were human footprints everywhere, from the initial crowd of would-be investigators, but no obvious paths from any direction.

  Had the body been carried to the woods or from it? Simon Roux had no business being in the woods, unless he was hunting, and he would need permission from the marquis’s huntsman for that. Audley made another note in his book. But hunting at night? And some gear would have been found on him, or would still be at the murder site – or had it been cleaned up?

  This was not the time to go wandering. He stopped by a large boulder in a particularly pretty area and ate some of the hard cheese and bread he’d taken from the inn. By now it was a more reasonable hour, and he had an appointment to keep.

  ~~~

  The Robinson School for Women was no shanty operation, nor a grand university. It seemed to be, at least from the exterior, a quiet place for the rich and titled of England to send their daughters for additional education, and its white paneling and multiple-winged single structure spoke of a subtle, tasteful British elegance, especially after all of the houses and shacks he had passed on the way. The seminary was like a nunnery without the religion, though he was sure there was a chapel. His own presence was obviously an intrusion, but he was accustomed to feeling that way about his presence in different places. He climbed the front steps and was received by a very strict-looking door-woman. “Inspector Audley,” he said in English, handing her his card. “I am here to speak with two of the students concerning the death of Simon Roux.”

  She appeared offended. “There is no one here that would be involved in such a matter, Inspector.”

  “I have questions related to it that they may be able to answer. Now, I must speak with the Headmaster. Am I to be admitted?”

  She hesitantly opened the door further, allowing him to enter. She offered to take his hat, realized he was not wearing one, and escorted him down a plain, undecorated hallway to the office.

  There was nothing exceptional about the office of the Headmaster, who rose to greet him with irritated eyes. “I am Mr. Stafford, the Headmaster of this school.” His accent was clipped, obviously aristocratic stock of the stuffiest kind.

  “Inspector Robert Audley,” he said with a bow. “Excuse my appearance. I’ve been walking for some time.” For his coat and pants were still wet from the morning dew. “I will take no more of your time than is necessary. I am here to speak t
o Lady Littlefield and her companion, Miss Bingley, concerning the murder of Simon Roux.”

  “Yes, yes, that was why you were called here, no?” Reseated, the headmaster picked his pipe back up from its resting stand. “I can assure you, the ladies here would have nothing to do with someone of the likes of Monsieur Roux.”

  “So you knew him?”

  The headmaster was startled.

  He said something he shouldn’t have said.

  “...Well, of him. Sir, it is my business as protector of these girls to see that I know the name of every wandering ruffian who occupies these lands and comes within a day’s travel of our grounds. For safety reasons, you understand.” When Audley was silent, he was forced to go on. “The monsieur had a reputation of being ... flirtatious with the women in town. So you can see how that would be a concern to someone like me.”

  “Indeed, I can.”

  “I never met the man, no. But as I said, I knew of him. But you wish to speak to my students?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  Audley couldn’t bring himself to be surprised by the question. The headmaster would of course be distrustful of someone who went about asking questions, some of which would no doubt be improper and speak of unladylike things. Like murder. “I met both of them last night, at the marquis’s manor. I understand Lady Littlefield is engaged to the marquis.”

  “She is.” Comprehension finally dawned on Headmaster Stafford. “You can’t be taking this werewolf nonsense seriously?”

  “Of course not,” he said. “That said, I cannot rule out that the incident had something to do with the marquis, or was intended to look like it did, and they know the marquis on a level I do not. So I wish to question them both.” He added, “I am an officer of the law and have full authority to question whomever I wish. If you have a problem with it, you may send a letter to the general inspector in Paris, but know that the sooner I find the person who killed Simon Roux, the sooner we will all be safer. Surely you cannot disagree with that.”

  “No,” the Headmaster said with a swallow. “I cannot.”

  ~~~

  Inspector Audley was ushered into an empty classroom, and given a seat at the desk. He opened his notebook, inked his pen, and looked over his notes, waiting until Lady Littlefield entered, escorted by Mr. Stafford. “Inspector Audley.”