Death and the Cyprian Society Page 11

  Her listeners broke into applause, and Marguerite curtsied to them, out of habit perhaps, with lowered eyes and a finger under her chin.

  “In that case,” said Arabella, “the news that Madame Zhenay is blackmailing one of our members probably won’t surprise anyone.”

  “Why should it?” Dido replied. “She runs the most lucrative blackmailing business in London. Amongst other things.”

  “What other things?”

  “Well, I couldn’t say for certain, but I’ve heard that she goes in for baby snatching, burglary, and murder-for-hire.”

  “Don’t forget bribery,” said May.

  “That goes without saying. Wherever there’s an illegal penny to be made, you’ll find Madame Zhenay at the front of the queue.”

  “She’s got thugs and pickpockets working for her all over London,” said Amy.

  “Why is she not in prison?” Arabella asked.

  “Too sharp. She’s always one step ahead of the law.”

  “Well, I must meet with her, and stop her from blackmailing our Cyprian sister. Would one of you be so good as to accompany me to La Palais de Beautay tomorrow, and effect an introduction?”

  “Why wait till tomorrow?” asked Victorine. “I can take you now.”

  “But it’s Sunday,” said Arabella.

  “That makes no difference to Madame! She is open every day, including Christmas! Anyhow, I pass right by her shop, and I am almost out of Aphrodi-tease Elegant Extract Balm.”

  “Here’s a fiver,” said Dido. “Buy me a bottle of Milk of Paradise Satin Carressment Serum, there’s a darling, and you may keep the change.”

  Arabella winced. “Other outrages aside,” said she, “I think this Madame Zhenay should be hanged for what she is doing to the language!”

  But nobody minded her.

  “Victorine,” said Marguerite, “would you mind getting me some Dewy Buttock Veneer?”

  There followed an interlude of sundry verbal requests, a plethora of little notations, and the handing over of rather a lot of money. But all was accomplished in short order, and a list of who wanted what drawn up, because the library, even at this early stage, was plentifully supplied with note paper, and it will be remembered that Arabella always kept a pencil behind her ear.

  “I cannot comprehend this,” she remarked to Victorine as they made their way to Bond Street, “Madame Zhenay doesn’t need to be a criminal. Her cosmeticks business is doing very well, I hear.”

  Victorine shrugged. “For some people,” she said, “there is never enough.”

  “What’s she like, then?” asked Arabella.

  “What! Have you never seen her?”

  “No, but I can just imagine what she must—”

  “Oh! It’s Miss Cobb! The very person I was hopin’ to meet!” cried a young woman, coming up to them.

  “I’m sorry,” said Victorine. “I’m afraid you have the advantage.”

  “It’s me!” said the young lady. “’Arriet! You know; the shop assistant what worked at Madame Zhenay’s! I’m not s’prised you didn’t know me. Nobody never does recognize shop girls outside the shops, do they?”

  Victorine visibly recoiled. For a shop assistant to hail a customer in public, boldly claiming familiarity through having served her from behind the counter, was a breach of decorum meriting immediate dismissal. But the girl seemed fully aware of this, for she apologized, and explained herself at once.

  “I just wanted to let you know,” said she, “that I’ve been given the sack. So you’ll ’ave to deal with the old witch ’erself from now on, ’stead of me waitin’ on you. I’m sorry for coming up to you on the street like this, but I know ’ow you feel about ’er, and I wanted to spare you from a nasty shock when you went in.”

  Victorine made a gracious recovery.

  “Why, thank you, Harriet! That is most kind of you. But why on Earth should you be sacked?”

  The girl shrugged. “She said it’s on account of the way I speak. You know, not genteel enough for ’er fancy kly-on-tell. But she knew ’ow I talked when she took me on, didn’t she? The word is, Madame gets rid of all ’er girls after they been there six months. It’s ’er policy like, only she won’t admit it. Thinks we’ll discover ’er sidelines, I shouldn’t wonder. Actchully, miss, I’m that relieved not to be workin’ there anymore. She’s a menace in a mobcap, that’s what she is; the very sight of ’er fair gives me the collywobbles.”

  Arabella felt a sudden coldness at the base of her spine, as she saw, in her mind’s eye, a tall figure, bulky rather than willowy, with enormous, knot-knuckled hands dangling from a pair of sinewy arms, and reaching almost to her knees; a hideous face, pop-eyed, with a vast expanse of white eyeball showing all around the black irises, the way they do with mad persons. Warts surrounded the eyes, which surmounted a pendant nose and nether lip. There were also the dark beginnings of a mustache. So vivid and startling was this vision, that Arabella wondered whether it were some sort of psychic warning. But a moment’s reflection yielded the source: an illustration of a female ogre, from the fairy-tale book she was reading to Eddie.

  Whilst Victorine and the shop girl stood commiserating with one another, Arabella gazed across the street at La Palais de Beautay, where even now a hand was placing a HELP WANTED, ENQUIRE WITHIN sign in the window.

  “Will you excuse me, Victorine?” she asked. “I have just remembered something which requires my urgent attention at home.”

  “Oh!” shrieked the other in sudden alarm. “Surely you cannot mean to abandon me! When you know how I feel about . . . about her! How can I possibly go in there alone?”

  “I am sorry, my dear,” Arabella replied, hastening away. “But I shall have to save you another time!”

  Eddie had been taking her naps and eating her meals as instructed, and was now enjoying the promised reward: a visit to the downstairs divan, which the servants had bolstered with ten thousand cushions after wrapping their charge in a wool shawl. The day was too warm for this, and Eddie was perspiring freely, but it was better than staying upstairs with only the four walls for company. Here, at least, Doyle and Fielding were sitting nearby with their mending, though actually they were not much better than the upstairs walls, for neither had the slightest idea how to talk to children. They spoke quietly to each other as though Eddie were not present, so that she had frequently to obtrude herself.

  “I wish Aunt Belinda were here,” she said to the ceiling. “What did she want to go to Scotland for, anyway?”

  “She was given a c’mission to work on a model of Sir Birdwood-Fizzer’s family castle,” said Fielding. “It’s got to be perfect, down to the last detail, and Miss Belinda is decorating the little rooms.”

  “By herself?” asked Eddie.

  “Not ’ardly, miss! There’s a staff of ten for the decorations alone! And Miss Belinda’s in charge! We’re all ever so proud of ’er!”

  “Well, now,” said Doyle. “Oy’d almost fergot; yer aunt sent word that we was to give you somet’in’ when ye were strong enough t’ sit up. So, seein’ as how yer doin’ that now . . .”

  “Oh, but she ain’t yet,” Fielding broke in. “She’s only propped up wif cushions! Besides, the mistress said we wasn’t supposed to excite the child.”

  “Fiddlesticks!” said Doyle. “Jist lookit her! We’ll not be doin’ the child any favor by withholdin’ the gift now it’s been mentioned! Besoyds, no one as Oy’ve heard of ever suffered no harm from receivin’ a present!” And she left to fetch it.

  Belinda had only learned of Eddie’s arrival when she herself was on the point of departure, so there had been no time to make up one of her famous billy-boxes. But there was a “box for a little girl” amongst her general stock, which was decorated with such feminine touches as ribbons and velvet scraps, and which contained a string of beads, a tiny doll, seashells, a paper fan, some pretty stones, a little pinecone, sea glass, a silver pencil, a notebook, some foreign coins, and a child-sized spyglass.

&nbs
p; Eddie was enchanted with her box, and joyfully exclaimed over each item as she drew it forth, holding it up for Doyle and Fielding to see and then setting it down on the table next to the divan. When she was through, she put them all carefully back again, except for the notebook, the pencil, and the telescope.

  “These are my favorites,” she said decisively.

  “Oh, yes?” Fielding asked. “Why those, in particular?”

  “Because I want to be a detective, like—”

  The front door slammed, and Arabella rushed into the room. Without stopping to explain herself, she began tearing off her clothes as though they were on fire.

  “Fielding, I must ask a favor, and am in a dreadful hurry. I need to borrow one of your frocks. And shoes, stockings, a hat . . . everything.”

  “Yes, miss. Any particular frock? I ’ave three.”

  “Just get me whatever you would wear to an interview with a prospective employer.”

  “Right you are, miss! I’ll fetch you down a outfit in two shakes of a dice box!”

  The faithful Fielding was still upstairs when somebody knocked at the front door, so Doyle had to answer it.

  “How do you do?” said Feben Desta politely. “I shan’t come in; I have just stopped by to deliver the meeting minutes to Miss Beaumont.”

  “Miss Desta?” said Arabella, emerging from the drawing room in her shift. “Please stop a while! I should be ever so grateful for your critical eye.”

  “Well,” said the visitor, looking her over, “it’s a good-ish sort of shift, in its way, but I know a seamstress who, despite her excellent work and lavish hand with lace, charges very reasonable rates for underclothing.”

  “No, I meant that I want your opinion on . . . really? Lavish with lace, yet reasonable? Remind me to ask you about her, later. Just now I am dressing myself as a humble member of the working class, and I must look absolutely convincing.”

  Feben followed Arabella into the drawing room, just as Fielding arrived with the clothing. The frock was fuller and the fabric coarser than Arabella was used to, but she would only be wearing it for a short while. Today, anyway.

  “Wait, miss,” said Doyle. “You’ve fergot the pockets, so ye have!”

  “Damn!” said Arabella, lifting her skirts. “That’s right! I cannot have a reticule, can I?”

  “No, indeed,” said Feben, as Doyle tied the pockets round her mistress’s waist. “Not if you intend to pass for working class. People will assume you have stolen it from a lady, or out of a shop window.”

  “But I shall require some means of carrying the goods, and I may not always be in a position to hike up my skirts and search for the pocket openings!”

  “These pockets’ll do ye just fine, miss,” said Doyle firmly. “See? There’s a slit in the skirt’s either side. An’ if they’re tied on just so, you can slip anything ye fancy straight into ’em!”

  Put to rights at last, Arabella reached for her hat.

  “No,” said Feben, taking it from her. “Let’s try a soft cap, shall we?”

  “But those are only worn indoors,” Arabella protested. “I have seen respectable working-class women in hats.”

  “Not hats like this,” Feben replied, holding up Arabella’s expensive little watered-silk number. “Poor women cannot afford such expensive trifles. Borrow a mobcap from your maid.”

  “Saints alive!” said Doyle after the ladies had left in Miss Desta’s carriage. “Whatever in the world is the mistress up to now?”

  “I ’aven’t a clue,” Fielding replied.

  “Well, I have!” said Eddie, her eyes sparkling with excitement. “Aunt Bell is back on the case!”

  At a quarter past three precisely, a quiet, young woman rang the rear bell at La Palais de Beautay, and informed the shoe-faced servant who answered that she was come to apply for the position.

  “Name?” asked the servant disinterestedly.

  “Bella Daltry,” Arabella replied. That would be easy enough to remember, she thought: “Bell Adultery.”

  “Wait ’ere,” said Boot Face, and went off to find the mistress.

  From where she stood, Arabella caught a glimpse through an open door of a small, windowless room, with walls covered in Hessian cloth and an unmade bed. She wondered again what Madame Zhenay would look like, and to her initial image, Arabella now added veritable tusks and a head scarf, tied peasant fashion under the chin. She was therefore surprised and relieved when a rather average-looking woman of middle age appeared and beckoned her through to the shop proper. She was about Arabella’s height, but considerably heavier, with olive skin and very fierce eyebrows. No, Arabella decided—not average, after all. There was something frightening, and at the same time compelling, about those black eyes of hers. You didn’t want to look into them, but all the same, you could not quite look away, either: They held you there, without blinking, their watchful stillness like a cobra’s that has marked its prey from a distance. The former shop assistant had got it right: She was a menace in a mobcap. And yet, Madame might have been a sensation in her youth, if only she had kept her eyebrows plucked.

  “ ‘Bella,’ ” she said. “That’s a nickname, I take it. Your real name would be Arabella?”

  The utterance of her real name was so unexpected that the applicant blushed, and began to babble, somewhat in the manner of Constance.

  “Why . . . yes! Yes, it is! So common, really—every other female in London is an Arabella—poor Mother wasn’t very imaginative but she was a dear; you should have tasted her pork pies—that’s how we survived after Papa drank himself to death, you know—they were the best pork pies in Holborn! At least everyone said they were . . .”

  “Hmm,” said Madame. “Ever worked in shop before?”

  “Yes! That is, not exactly a shop . . . Mother and I sold our pies on the street, from a basket, and I can remember—”

  “Have you any references, girl?”

  “I can get some, if you’d like me to, but I thought I had better come to you directly I saw your sign in the window, lest you should hire somebody else.”

  “I like your initiative,” said Madame. “And you know how to sell, if you’re telling the truth. But do you know how to sell to gentry? This is a high-class shop.”

  Arabella detected the barest suggestion of an accent. Not foreign, though: Cheapside, perhaps.

  “High class!” simpered Arabella. “Well, I should think so! One could scarcely imagine a lady like yourself selling to . . . to just anyone!”

  Madame grunted again, but seemed pleased. “Tell me, how is selling to the gentry different from selling to the poor?”

  “I believe the best way,” Arabella replied, “is to seem not to be selling so much as describing the merits of a product. It should feel as though the two of you were having a quiet cup of tea together and discussing a topic of mutual interest.”

  Madame Zhenay raised her eyebrows in surprise. “You speak very prettily, girl! And you seem to know a lot about the gentry.”

  That was what she said, but her eyes, her gestures—everything else about her told Arabella, whose business it was to notice such things, a very different story. This woman found her attractive. In a particular way.

  “Well, naturally I don’t like to talk about it, ma’m,” said Arabella, “but I used to move in higher circles than those to which I have grown accustomed of late. You see, my father was a baronet, in Durham. He speculated and lost everything, and—”

  “I thought you said he drank himself to death.”

  “Yes. He took to drink after losing all our houses. Poor Papa was so ashamed that he couldn’t face us sober. That’s why Mother took to selling p-p-pork p-p—” Here Arabella broke off to bury her face in her handkerchief, overcome by the hopeless abyss into which fate had cast her.

  “There, there,” said Madame, stroking the applicant’s cheek and squeezing her round the waist. “They say God never sends us more than we can bear.”

  “Yes,” sniffed Arabella. “The
y do say that!”

  “And you don’t think it would upset you to wait upon ladies who might have been your friends under happier circumstances?”

  “Oh, no; quite the contrary! For I shall sometimes be able to pretend, without presuming, of course, that I am back in dear old Durham House once more, holding an at-home day.”

  “In that case, I have made up my mind. Miss Daltry, the position is yours!”

  “Mr. Tyke wasn’t the blackmailer after all, was he?” Eddie asked, when Arabella came up to see her that evening. “It’s someone else, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, I am afraid so.”

  “Do you know who it is, then?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do. It is Madame Zhenay, proprietor of La Palais de Beautay, and I have just procured employment there as her shop assistant!”

  “Oh, brilliant, Aunt Bell! Now what?”

  “I shall take every opportunity to search the premises for Constance’s correspondence with that blasted footman. Once I have got the letters, I shall denounce Madame to the police and have her arrested.”

  Arabella expected to hear more accolades upon her cleverness, but Eddie lay very still, looking pale and pensive amongst the pillows.

  “Arrested? On what charge?” she asked. (For it will be remembered that her stepfather was a policeman.)

  “Blackmail, of course!”

  “But how will you prove it? You’re not planning to show the letters to anybody, are you, Aunt Bell? That would defeat your purpose.”

  “I . . . no, of course not . . . but I am certain that Madame Zhenay is up to more than blackmail. I expect I shall find proof of all sorts of dark doings!”

  “Well, I hope you are right. Because I fear that you will have a hard time securing her arrest, otherwise.”

  “One has to take these things a step at a time, Eddie,” said Arabella, who was starting to feel rather cross. “First I must find the letters. Then I shall worry about how to dispose of Madame Zhenay.”