The Mask of Night

Melly mine, by all means go to Scotland after Christmas, much as we’ll miss you. I can’t imagine what excitement is to be had in London in January.

Simon Tanner to Mélanie Fraser,

15 December 1819

Nat Threxall couldn’t believe his luck. The lady’s gown gleamed the way only expensive fabric did (like the dress Moll Patchett wore in the tap room of the Pig & Whistle for her special customers). The strap on her reticule shone like real silver and he caught the flash of a pearl earring beneath her bonnet.

The gentleman’s greatcoat alone—heavy black cloth with a velvet collar and three capes—would fetch a fortune from the second hand clothes dealers in Petticoat Lane. So would his topboots and silk plush hat, and even the umbrella he held over the lady’s head had a fancy carved handle.

Nat flattened himself against the doorjamb where he was hiding. The soft, damp wood squished beneath his cheek. The lady and gentlemen weren’t even hurrying, the way any sensible folk would in Seven Dials. They had stopped midway down Queen Street and were staring up at the smoke-blackened walls of the overhanging houses. Nat spared a moment wondering what the devil they were doing, but he wasn’t about to question his good fortune.

The lady had her reticule strap round her wrist. The silver was too thick to snip. But the gentleman’s greatcoat flapped in the wind. When a crowd of morts hurried by seeking shelter from the rain, he seized his chance. He darted from his hiding place, slipped his fingers into the gentleman’s greatcoat pocket, lightly tugged the silk of his purse, and—

“I believe that’s mine.” The gentleman gripped Nat’s arm. Nat twisted in a move that had broken more than one constable’s hold, but the man had a vice-like grip.

Nat scrunched his shoulders down and opened his eyes as wide as he could. “I didn’t do nothing.”

“Not for want of trying.” The gentleman dragged him through a gap into Beale’s Passage and pushed him against the wall.

Nat stared up through the rain dripping off his hair. The gentleman’s eyes were the color of storm clouds. His nose and cheekbones and chin made sharp, angry lines. “I didn’t take nothing. You can’t prove I did.”

“And I’m not going to try to do so, lad.” The gentleman’s mouth curved in an unexpected smile. “It’s all right, we aren’t going to turn you in to Bow Street.”

Nat shifted his shoulders against the slimy stones at his back. If he could catch the gentleman off guard, he might be able to break his hold. “What the devil do you want, then?”

“Take us to Sam Lucan.”

Despite his plight Nat nearly let out a shout of laughter. “Don’t know who you mean.”

“I think you do.” The gentleman’s voice was pleasant, but his hands tightened on Nat’s corduroy jacket.

Nat glanced from the gentleman to the lady standing just behind him, the umbrella tilted over her shoulder like a parasol. “You’ll never get near him. His men’ll kill you first.”

“That’s our look out,” the gentleman said.

“You’re barmy.”

“Quite possibly.” The lady reached into her shiny silk reticule and moved to Nat’s side. “Nevertheless.”

Bloody hell. She had a knife pressed against his ribs. Nat stared up at her face, framed by the white lace that lined her bonnet like snowflakes. The sort of face that could earn a guinea a night with the right custom. “Who the hell are you?” he asked.

The lady exchanged a look with the gentleman. “I some times wonder,” she said.

The Countess Lieven returned her gilt-edged teacup to its saucer. ‘Mr. Roth, are you saying you came to question me because you consider me a gossip?’

‘Hardly, Countess. But you were sitting near the French windows to the terrace for some time during the ball. And you are known to be a skilled observer of your fellows.’

The countess lifted her thin, finely-plucked brows. For a moment Roth thought he had gone too far. Then she gave the sort of faint smile a queen might give to a court jester. ‘I assume Mélanie Fraser told you as much. I understand that Charles Fraser is assisting you with the investigation. My dear, Mr. Roth, I too have my sources of information.’

Roth regarded the countess across the glossy surface of the table. Precise dark ringlets framing a high white forehead, eyes with an unmistakably eastern tilt, a firm mouth. Her husband was the Russian Ambassador. She counted both Tsar Alexander and the Duke of Wellington as confidants, and Prince Metternich, the Austrian Chancellor, was rumored to be her lover. Roth been surprised when she agreed to see him—he’d been denied at two of the other three houses he’d tried this morning and had been replied to in monosyllables at the third. Now it occurred to him that the countess might hope to get information from him as much as he hoped to get it from her.

The countess leaned forward to refill the teacups from the silver samovar. ‘Charles Fraser is a clever man. Too clever for his own good. Or for other people’s. He makes the mistake of thinking others are as ruled by compassion as he is himself and that one can rely on the masses to behave rationally.” She returned his cup to him. ‘And of course you know Mrs. Fraser as well.’

‘The Frasers have been kind enough to have me to dine on occasion.’

‘A fascinating woman Mélanie Fraser. Underneath all that charm I suspect she has a ruthlessness her husband quite lacks.’

Roth fished his notebook from his pocket and consulted a page. ‘Mrs. Fraser said you were seated by the French windows with the Comtesse de Flahaut.’

‘For a time. M. de Flahaut fetched us champagne.’

‘The Comte de Flahaut?’

‘Former aide-de-camp to Napoleon Bonaparte. I may deplore M. de Flahaut’s political alliances, but he’s excellent at fetching champagne. After we finished the champagne, he and his wife returned to the dance floor. I spoke with Princess Esterhazy and Lord Castlereagh and several others including Lord John Russell and Mrs. Fraser herself. I wasn’t paying a great deal of attention to who came on or off the terrace.’

‘Did you notice this gentleman?” Roth pulled a sketch from his pocket. Mélanie Fraser, who had a knack for such things, had drawn it of the dead man as he might have appeared in life, masked and costumed.

The only other person he had managed to question this morning had stared at it blankly, but the countess’s eyes flashed with recognition. ‘This is the dead man?’

‘You saw him?’

‘He brushed past me on his way to the French windows. The cloth of silver caught the candlelight. It occurred to me that I couldn’t put a name to him. But I never guessed—” She shook her head and continued to stare at the picture. ‘Odd.’

‘What?’

She lifted her cool dark gaze to his. ‘I daresay it doesn’t mean anything. But two other gentlemen went onto the terrace a few minutes later. I noticed because I’d had an—exchange—with one of them earlier in the evening. Mr. Simon Tanner, the playwright.’

The lad named Nat conducted Charles and Mélanie through a maze of streets, yards, and courts. The close-set brick buildings, smoke mottled and unleavened by greenery or ornamental white moldings, seemed to swallow them up. Once or twice a hand snatched at Charles’s greatcoat, but thanks to the rain few people were abroad. Mélanie held the umbrella. Charles gripped her elbow, partly for protection, partly to steer her round the rain-swollen gutter that ran down the center of the street, though he knew she was quite capable of managing both without his help.

Nat paused in a narrow court, beside public house with a faded sign proclaiming The Dolphin. The grimy glass of the windows was so thick that the scene inside wavered, like a charcoal drawing smudged with water. A scattering of early-morning customers were visible, but Nat ducked through a gap between the public house and the next building over and pointed to a side door with peeling varnish. “Through there and up the stairs. Mind, you’re daft to try to see him.”

Charles pressed two crowns into the boy’s hand. “Our thanks.”

Nat stared at the coins, grinned, and shook his head. “Dafter than a door nail.” He cast another glance between the two of them and then darted off the way they had come. “Good luck to you,” he called over his shoulder.

Charles glanced at his wife. She was folding up the umbrella as though they stood in a Mayfair portico. “It occurs to me that given the fact that we have two children, it might have been wise for one of us to remain behind,” he said.

Mélanie tucked the umbrella beneath her arm. “But we’d never have been able to agree on which one of us that should be.”

He opened the door, which sagged on its hinges. A narrow passage with patches of damp on the peeling wallpaper stretched before them. The only illumination was the fitful light from the open door, which showed the outline of a staircase. The murmur of voices and clunk of tankards came through the wall from the common room next door. Charles stepped inside and flattened himself against the wall. Nothing moved in the shadows. He nodded at Mélanie.

They climbed the splintery windowless staircase, testing the treads for rotted boards, and eased open a door onto a small room that smelled of mildew, gin, and tobacco. A man seated over a game of solitaire spun round and pointed a pistol at them.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“We’re here to see Mr. Lucan,” Charles said.

The man gave a coarse laugh. “He’s not here.”

“You’re just guarding the door on general principles?”

The guard got to his feet and walked toward them, pistol extended. He had a round, determined face, and while he was not overly tall, his shoulders were broad and he carried himself with the air of a man accustomed to using his fives. “Stand still,” he said. “Arms out. No funny business.”

Charles cast a brief glance at Mélanie and they both complied.

The guard went through the pockets of Charles’s greatcoat and pulled out a pistol with a grunt of triumph. “You’re armed.”

“It seemed prudent,” Charles said. “You’re welcome to check my coat as well, though I didn’t think to bring a spare.”

The guard checked the pockets of his coat and made him take off his boots, then turned to Mélanie, who was standing by patiently, arms extended, silver and silk reticule dangling from one gloved wrist, umbrella abandoned at her feet. The guard stared at her as though she were a rare tropical bird, equally likely to break or bite him.

“It’s all right,” Mélanie said. “I’m not vicious when handled with care.”

He gave a grunt that might have been annoyance or apology, took her reticule, and snapped it open. A scent bottle tumbled to the floor and rolled into a corner.

“Oh, dear,” Mélanie said. “I’m afraid I have a shocking tendency to try to carry too many things at once.”

The guard backed toward the corner, pistol still pointed at them, retrieved the scent bottle, took her silver nail scissors from the reticule and tested his finger on them, then returned the lot to the reticule, closed the clasp, and returned the reticule to Mélanie. He regarded her a moment longer, then patted his hands gingerly over her pelisse.

“Very politely done,” Mélanie said. “Now will you be so good as to tell Mr. Lucan that Juana Murez is here to see him.”

“Who the devil—“

“Tell him.”

The guard disappeared into the inner room. Thirty seconds later he returned, scratching his head, and nodded toward the room beyond. “He says you’re to go in.”

The inner room was larger and the smell of mildew less pronounced. Perhaps the latter was due to the smoke from the tarnished brass lamp on the gateleg table in the center of the room. A man with thick side-whiskers and a lady with a cascade of curly dark hair were bent over papers on the table. The man pushed back his chair and got to his feet, gaze on Mélanie.

“Hola, Sancho,” Mélanie said.