Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Barque of Frailty

“Clean?”he repeated, staring.

We were unlikely to discover anything of value, but I leaned within and sniffed expectantly. The odour of old leather, dust, and mould from yesterday’s rain met my nostrils — but no lingering note of an animal nature, the curdling smell of blood.

“Mr. Chizzlewit, have you a lantern?”

While he went in search of one, I unfolded the lap-robe and surveyed it narrowly. The faded wool exhibited a quantity of brownish stains, but these I adjudged to be dried mud — hardly capable of exciting interest.

“Here you are, Miss Austen,” Mr. Chizzlewit said behind me, and handed over a square-paned lantern. “Allow me to help you inside.”

I took his proffered hand and mounted the single step. The light shone brightly on the smudged and raddled interior, illuminating a score of years’ adventures in traversing the streets of London — with bandboxes, giggling girls, foxed gentlemen and women of the streets all packed within — but I could not discern a blood-stain anywhere.

It must be impossible that a throat so torn as the Princess’s — which the watchman, old Bends, had declared to be still wet with blood when discovered at five o’clock — should fail to daub everything it encountered. I was forced to conclude that Princess Tscholikova had entered the hackney alive.

“What do you make of it, Miss Austen?” Mr. Chizzlewit enquired.

“Very little,” I admitted. I set down the lantern on the floor of the chariot, drew off my gloves, and felt with bare hands between the cushions of the seat.

My fingertips encountered a scrap of paper. I snatched at it eagerly, and drew it forth.

“A fragment of correspondence,” I said. “The sheet has been torn in pieces.”

“Princess Tscholikova’s?” Mr. Chizzlewit thrust his head into the coach.

“No,” I admitted. “This hand is strange to me. I have read the Princess’s words before, you know, in the private journal I spoke of—”

“Stay,” Sylvester Chizzlewit ordered, his voice taut with excitement. “I may name the author. I saw his hand almost daily, during my years at Oxford.”

“Charles Malverley,” I concluded. “It was, I suppose, to be expected. But I confess, Mr. Chizzlewit, that having spoken with your jarvey, I understand this affair even less than before. Why should this scrap, alone among its fellows, be thrust down into the seat cushions? Why should d’Entraigues have carried the Princess to Berkeley Square? And most puzzling of all — why did she exit the coach alive, only to be found dead by the watchman?”

“Because d’Entraigues chose to do murder?”

I shook my head in perplexity. “We shall have to confront the gentleman.”

“Which gentleman? D’Entraigues — or Malverley?”

“I cannot tell. The former was in possession of the Princess’s jewels, and her person; the latter, merely of her heart.”

“Perhaps it is Miss Radcliffe we should interrogate.” He spoke the words unhappily; I recollected too late that there was an interest there — Mr. Chizzlewit was susceptible, as I own myself to have been, to the Barque’s charm.

“Are you willing to play escort?” I enquired. “I should feel less of a traitor to the poor child, did I have you to bear me company.”

“I should be most happy.” He reached into his smart coat, and drew forth a purse of coins. Handing the jarvey a guinea, he said, “Thank you, Clayton. That will be all for now. I may find you, I suppose, in Portman Square?”

“At any hour, any day but Sunday,” the hackney driver said cheerfully, and bobbing his head in my direction, took himself off.

“We shall have need of that fellow, to give evidence,” Mr. Chizzlewit said thoughtfully. “I ought, perhaps, to have invited Bill Skroggs to listen to the man — but that I was desirous you should be before him, Miss Austen. I wished to learn the construction you should place upon his information; tho’ Skroggs is cunning, he lacks your subtlety of mind.”

“You have spoken with him?”

“Indeed. I sought him where one must always seek the Bow Street Runners — in his cups, at the Brown Bear.” Mr. Chizzlewit smiled, and I reflected that despite his youth, he had a remarkable gift for inspiring trust.

“Mr. Skroggs admitted that he was, indeed, in Hans Town observing No. 64 when Mrs. Henry Austen was struck from behind with a cobblestone. Her attacker fled, with Skroggs in pursuit; but the Runner was at a distance, and the lady escaped his clutches, by hastening down Cadogan Street and mounting into a carriage kept waiting there for the purpose. He never saw her face.”

“A lady,” I mused. “That might be anyone — but at a guess, I should call her Anne de St.-Huberti, Comtesse d’Entraigues. Julia Radcliffe should have attempted to murder me, not my sister.”

“I am happy to hear it. That is one less painful episode we must address in Russell Square.”

“Shall we go there immediately? We ought to have retained Clayton — and had the jarvey drive us to the door!”

Mr. Chizzlewit hesitated. “I should not advise it. The hour is already advanced — nearly two o’clock — and the day is hardly auspicious for paying calls.”

I stared at him. “Whatever can you mean?”

The solicitor’s smile deepened becomingly. “I collect that for all your worldliness, you are yet in ignorance of the significance of the First of May, my dear Miss Austen. Among certain circles, it is most notable for being the annual date of a glittering event never patronised by the most elegant ladies of the ton, but to which every male member of Society is sure to be invited. We refer to it as the anti-Almack’s.”

“Anti-Almack’s?” I repeated, bewildered. “But Almack’s is the most exclusive private assembly in London! Would you mean that this is a publick rout?”

“Hardly. But just as Almack’s is called, by the knowledgeable, The Marriage Mart, so the Cyprians Ball must be acknowledged as Almack’s opposite — the very death of respectability, in fact!”

“The Cyprians Ball … An assembly presided over by … ”

“ … The Muslin Company,” he returned cordially. “They will have engaged the publick rooms of Limmer’s; it is the dirtiest hotel in London, to be sure, but also the most sporting — and the Demi-reps shall feel entirely at home there. Among the members of White’s and Watier’s, Brooks’s and Boodle’s, no other event is anticipated with such enjoyment as the Cyprians Ball. Miss Wilson and her sisters, Mrs. Johnstone and Moll Raffles, Julia Radcliffe and Desirée Moore — all shall be in attendance. I must believe Julia Radcliffe to be recruiting her strength, before such an evening — she will certainly not be at home to visitors. We must endeavour to call upon her tomorrow, Miss Austen — well after one o’clock.”

“The Cyprians Ball,” I murmured. “The Comte d’Entraigues shall certainly be at Limmer’s this evening.”

“—And firmly under my eye. I hold a card of invitation, and shall certainly dance.”

“Will Charles Malverley be there?”

“I should be greatly surprised, were he not. Castlereagh must certainly be in attendance, and George Canning — there is not a gentleman who would risk offending the Patronesses, any more than they should snub Lady Jersey at Almack’s.”

“But Malverley, Mr. Chizzlewit — that buck of the first stare, who is up to every rig, the greatest go in the ton— Have you ever chanced to meet him in Russell Square?”

“Never,” he replied.

“And yet … and yet … we presume Princess Tscholikova to have sought him at Julia Radcliffe’s on the night of her death. Why, Mr. Chizzlewit?”

“He was undoubtedly absent. The Princess certainly did not meet him there, no matter how long she waited.”