Chapter Eight
LILY HAD A FULL BREAKFAST arrayed in the dining room when I came down, to Lady Dorothy’s consternation. Having eaten little of my dinner the previous night, I was glad enough for the solidity of the offering, and her mild protests faded as she watched the trays empty.
Afterwards, we took Lily up to the missing woman’s rooms, and asked what she had found after the occupant departed on Friday.
“What do you mean, what did I find?”
Her wariness suggested that we might be accusing her of stealing, but Lady Dorothy reassured her otherwise. “We’re only interested in how the rooms looked, Lily. Had Lady Vivian left anything behind? Or perhaps she took some of her things with her?”
“It looked pretty much like it does now—except for the camp bed, of course, that we’d set up for the nurse. Once we cleared that away, this is what it looked like—though naturally I cleaned everything, stripped and re-made Lady Vivian’s bed, dusted all over.”
“Re-made?” I asked.
“Yes. It was tidy, but she’d slept in it, so—”
“Do you mean to say that Vivian was making her own bed?” Ronnie’s mother was surprised.
“Either she or the nurse did.”
“Odd.”
“It was like that most days. I’d thought it was maybe something she’d been made to do in…there.”
“What about the clothing?” I asked. Vivian Beaconsfield went into Bedlam in 1921. The things I’d found in the wardrobe and drawers showed clear evidence, in odour and appearance, of having spent the intervening years packed away against the moths.
Lily looked sideways at her employer. “Mum, I didn’t know if you wanted it all put away. I was going to ask you in a few days.”
“That’s fine, Lily. But did my sister-in-law take anything with her? There are empty spaces on the bar in the wardrobe.”
“I left three extra coat-hangers, since I wasn’t sure where the nurse would want to put her things.”
“There are four here now,” I pointed out, and stood back to let her hunt through the garments and identify what was not among them. Meantime, I looked again at the display-wall behind the dressing table, and drew the two empty spaces to Lady Dorothy’s attention. She puzzled over them, agreeing that there had been something in each, but she could not tell me how long those particular nails had been unoccupied.
“She had ever so many little treasures hanging here. Some of them, like the masks, she’d mostly leave in the same place, but others she’d change all the time. I say treasures: some of them were pretty—her own little drawings, or an envelope with an exotic stamp, once a square of maroon velvet she’d found at the hat-maker’s. But others were very peculiar, indeed. A dirty twig. A scrap of paper from a street-corner. Once I found the wing of a little bird she’d come across on one of her walks, all dried-up and gruesome. I made her take that one down, it was unhygienic. And some of the masks were very odd, too. Look at that thing—it’s the shell of a turtle, if you can believe that, all stuck about with hairs and heaven-knows-what. And that African object! Would you want to sleep with that watching over you? Give a person night—”
“The mask!” Lily’s exclamation cut off Lady Dorothy’s litany, and we turned to her. “That’s what’s missing! That horrid half-mask with the moustache!”
“Oh heavens, you’re right—how could I have forgot that?”
“There’s a mask missing?” I asked.
“A most peculiar wall decoration, made by this woman in Paris who’d build realistic masks for soldiers who were wounded in the face. So the poor things could hug their children and go out in public without people staring.”
“I’ve heard of them, though I don’t know that I’ve ever seen such a thing.” Even the concealment in Le Fant?me de l’Opéra looks like a mask, not an artificial face.
“It had a little moustache on it—heaven only knows where Vivian got the thing, but it’s been up here for years, since…well, around when she began to get ill. Lily, you didn’t take it down?”
“No, Mum. Though I was tempted to. Oh, but Mum? There are some things missing from here, after all. I’d put out one or two of her boys’ outfits, in case she’d still want to go for one of her walks. That empty hanger held a pair of trousers and a coat.”
That might explain how Vivian got away without being noticed: if one asked a ticket agent whether he’d seen a nurse and a small, blonde woman, he was not likely to talk about a dark-haired one and her moustachioed son.
Perhaps I could touch up that picture Ronnie had given me, to add a grease-pencil moustache?
Which reminded me: “This picture of Vivian—is that the missing jewellery?”
Ronnie’s mother came over to see. It was a formal, posed photo of Lady Vivian at nineteen, her pale hair gathered behind a sparkling tiara, her low-necked gown framing the heavy necklace, a matching piece around the wrist of her long kid glove. All three looked too heavy for her delicate frame. From the fresh and hopeful expression on her face, I knew the picture had been taken early in her Season, before she realised that the only way the significance of those diamonds could be any clearer would be if her dowry were piled beside her in gold sovereigns.
“Yes, they were her mother’s pieces. The Selwick jewels are, I’m afraid, mostly paste—good paste, and pretty, but still. My husband’s grandfather was something of a gambler,” Lady Dorothy explained, sounding apologetic.
“Ah, yes: Vivian’s inherited money. Was there much of it?”
But that was going too far. “Oh, I wouldn’t know,” she said quickly.
Both of us were conscious of Lily standing across the room. Well, I could always track the mother’s fortunes through Debrett’s. “Did Vivian’s mother have much of a family?”
“I’m afraid not; in fact, I believe the name has pretty well died off. There’s a second cousin from one of the Colonies, New Zealand or perhaps Australia.”
“That’s too bad. Do you mind if I borrow this photograph? So we know what we’re looking for?”
“Certainly. I have a copy in one of the albums downstairs.”
I removed the picture, leaving the silver frame on the dressing table: three gaps in the wall now.
“And Vivian broke into the safe, I understand?” Only after I said it did I think this might also be something Lady Dorothy would not care to talk about in front of the maid, but she did not hesitate to reply.
“Yes, Edward was furious. It was—well, he was angry. Far more angry than he’d been about the jewels themselves. Perhaps he never thought of those as his. We don’t know how Vivian found the combination, although since it’s never been changed she might have known it all this time—or Edward might have it written down somewhere. He’s not good with numbers.”
“What did she take?”
“Well, that’s what’s odd, it doesn’t sound like much. A hundred pounds or so, which is considerable but not compared to the necklace. And two or three small things that belonged to her mother and to Thomas—a Fabergé egg, a Medieval locket, a funny little Roman creature that was dug up on the estate years ago. Knick-knacks, really, but just valuable enough that Edward didn’t like leaving them around, in case they tempted strangers.” Or servants, I thought, without looking at Lily.
“Was he fond of them, perhaps?”
“Edward? No, though Thomas loved the little Roman thing—probably a dog. Edward’s just as happy to have the insurance.”
“So why is he angry?”
“I don’t know. She may have taken something else that he doesn’t want to tell me about.”
Now I did look at Lily, but could see that she did not know, either. Interesting.
“Lady Dorothy, is there anyone I should be sure to talk to? Anyone on the estate who was a particular favourite of your sister-in-law when she lived here? The cook, stable hand, one of the housemaids?”