Death and the Courtesan (5 page)

Euphemia’s auction had turned out the sort of crowd that would gladly have bid upon the poor woman’s pickled ears had they been on offer, and here a reader might imagine the spectators to have belonged exclusively to a certain lowborn section of the population: unwashed, unschooled, and uncivilized. But that would be most inaccurate! People from
all
walks of life had come to Euphemia’s auction. Frock coats and summer brocades mingled freely with simple broadcloth and verminous rags. Here one might see faces of that pure type of English beauty, the sort that puts one in mind of morning dew upon roses, but here, too, were toothless gums in wrinkled faces; fat, florid countenances; flap ears, sunken chests, and huge, hairy nostrils. Such a profusion of features! There were people who looked like princes, people who looked like pirates, walking corpses and balloons with legs—and that was just the women! In short, Euphemia’s auction was like a masked ball held out of doors in the daytime. For there is greater diversity in the London populace than exists among all other types of creatures in the world!

It was a proper summer’s day, very sunny and very warm. Nay, it was
hot,
and the ladies had all to put up their parasols. Some people were standing in the shadow of that great lump of ectoplasm that is supposed to be Charles II, a statue that looks as though it has been gnawed upon by mice and probably has been. Others sought relief in the scanty shade afforded by the stunted little trees. A few limber young men had clambered up the poles of the new streetlights and peered down at the girls from there with the aid of spyglasses, whilst mothers and nursemaids clung to children in an effort to keep them from wandering off. The square had been converted to a spontaneous kind of funfair, with food and drink stalls, jugglers, a fiddler, and an Irishman, who, using nothing but his own knee and a fistful of teaspoons, provided a lively percussive accompaniment to the bidding upon the stage. And weaving through the crowd like sharks through herring, the ever-present pickpockets and cutpurses were going about their usual business.

In London, this type of unplanned carnival is apt to spring up wherever there is a public event of any kind, and Arabella shuddered, remembering the same sort of scene at Jerry Aber-shawe’s execution. She had been eleven, Charles fifteen, when their father had taken them to see the famous highwayman pay his dues to society, for Charles Beaumont Sr. was always keen to see a good hanging. He was also suspected of necrophilia, but that is neither here nor there.

“Let that be a lesson to you, Charlie,” he had said afterward. “For if you cannot learn to stay out of trouble, you will end up just like Jerry there.”

Mr. Beaumont had not included his daughter in his address, for who could imagine such a sensible young lady standing up on the gallows platform, facing the crowd with her hands bound behind her?

“Murder weapons! Genu-wine replicas of the knife what killed the courtesan!” cried a hawker with a tray suspended from his neck. The knives on offer even bore Arabella’s initials. No one had yet recognized Arabella herself, who had wisely left her distinctive landau a few streets away and had walked over. Her protective bonnet and parasol provided further anonymity.

“It’s just as well that Constance isn’t here,” murmured Belinda. “She would probably have bought one of those knives.”

“Quite,” answered Arabella. “With money she’d borrowed from
me
.”

The crowds! The noise! The air of excitement! And all over the pitiful possessions of a poor dead woman, who had once owned jewels and carriages far beyond the means of her audience. But all these had gone years ago. Most of what remained was now corralled together in the “sold” area, having been purchased before Arabella’s arrival: a bed with dusty hangings; two chairs with moth-eaten needlepoint seat covers; an old dining table, much scarred and stained; and some articles of apparel that had seen better days. One enterprising debtor had even cut the bloodstained bedclothes into six-inch squares and was charging a shilling apiece for them.

“Look ’ere, miss!” he said to Arabella, thrusting one such scrap, stiff with dried gore, under her very nose. “Slap that there a’tween two glass plates, frame it, ’ang it on the wall! Wot a conversation piece, hey?”

He had managed to sell all but two of them in a matter of minutes.

The remaining items had been laid out atop several de-hinged doors, which looked as though they had once been kicked in. Arabella walked up and down the rows, examining the sad little artifacts, but she failed to find any diaries or other writings that might have provided a clew to the killer’s identity. At the far end of the last “table” were a few smaller lots, things like a powder box and hairpins, an ink pot and quills, and . . . a ruby glass elephant. Arabella’s elephant. The sole survivor of Euphemia’s ornament collection.

“Good efternoon, byoodivul leddies. May I be of service to your good selves?”

A foreign gentleman in richly striped robes, probably from the Levant, bowed low before the Beaumont sisters. He was carrying a paddle with the number 89 painted on it.

“Yes. Lot Thirty-Seven, if you please,” said Arabella quietly. He bowed again and moved off into the crowd.

“I must have that elephant in my life,” said Arabella firmly. “Did you see that man I was talking to, Bunny? He’s a proxy bidder. When the elephant comes up, he’ll raise his placard, and do the bidding for me.”

“Why don’t you just do it yourself?”

“Discretion, dearest. Imagine what will happen if the crowd finds out that Euphemia’s supposed killer is here.”

“He
is?
” cried Belinda in alarm. “Where?”

“Darling,
do
try to use that nice little brain that God gave you once in a while. I was referring to myself.”

“Oh. I see. Look, Bell! It’s Mr. Kendrick! Yoo-hoo! Mr. Kendrick!” Belinda waved her arm, inadvertently bidding two shillings five pence as she did so.

“Mind what you’re about there,” cautioned her sister. “Unless you really mean to buy Euphemia’s curling tongs.”

A pleasant-looking young man, in wire-rimmed spectacles and the garb of a country parson, began making his way through the crush toward them, his face lit up with a becoming smile.

“Miss Beaumont! Miss Belinda! What a pleasure! I have just come from Lustings. Your housekeeper said I might find you here.”

He shook each of them by the hand in turn but maintained his hold of Arabella’s fingers a trifle longer than necessary. And here the reader may wonder at the improbability of the Beaumont sisters knowing a man of the cloth. But the Reverend John Kendrick had gone to school with Charlie Beaumont and used to spend his school holidays with the family. On the very first of these visits, he had become smitten with Arabella, and in the intervening years had discovered, somewhat to his own surprise, that the youthful attraction had not only persisted but intensified.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Kendrick,” said Arabella, smiling. “What news of our wayward brother?”

“I’ve neither seen nor heard of him for the past two weeks. Rumor has it he’s gone to Southampton.”

“Whatever for?” asked Belinda.

“Free food and lodging with the Bartletts, I’ll be bound. But that is not the reason I was calling upon you.” Here he lowered his voice, and Arabella instinctively adjusted her parasol, to create a more private and acoustically enhanced area in which to hear him. “I know something of your . . . present difficulties, and wish to . . . to put myself at your service. If there is anything I may do to help you, please name it. The sooner we absolve you of this despicable crime, the better I shall be pleased.”

“As shall
I,
” said Arabella. “It is too good of you, Mr. Kendrick. As a matter of fact, I hope to bid upon one of the lots here, and after that, I was thinking of calling at Euphemia’s former lodgings.”

Kendrick was scandalized. “The White House Brothel?” he asked, with an involuntary glance at the derelict building.

“Well, it’s not a brothel anymore, you know. All the same, it looks rather forbidding, does it not? If you would be good enough to take us over there, my sister and I should be very glad of your company.”

“By all means! You should not even have come
here,
you know, unescorted. If anyone should recognize you, there is no telling what might not happen! I really don’t like the look of some of these foreign ruffians!”

Arabella laughed. “It’s the English ones that worry
me,
” she said. “But if by chance you’re referring to the fellow in the red-striped robes, I have just engaged him to bid on an elephant.”

She looked toward her proxy bidder and noticed a tall man near the pie stall who was regarding her with frank admiration. Another time, perhaps . . . but just now she was busy. Arabella turned away, that her parasol might deflect his gaze.

“An elephant?” asked Kendrick. “Whatever next? Shall this person undertake to be mahout, as well, and guide the beast, with you on its back, all the way to Brompton Park? I should say the fellow looks much fitter for the company of elephants than for the society of ladies.”

“I consider every well-mannered man fit for my society, Mr. Kendrick. You shouldn’t judge too much on outward appearances, you know.”

She peeped over her shoulder and under her parasol. That man was still watching her. There was something exciting about him. Even at this distance.

“. . . And as for mahouts,” she continued, “I doubt I shall require one.
If
I get the elephant, which I mightn’t, you know, I shall carry
it,
rather than the reverse. It can’t weigh more than five pounds.”

Kendrick continued as though he hadn’t heard her: “. . . and I should be wary of that fellow over there, as well, the one in the pearl-gray hat, who keeps looking over at you. He is not—”

“Mr. Kendrick, I wonder if you would be good enough to get me a glass of lemonade?”

“Oh! And me, too!” cried Belinda eagerly.

Kendrick’s expression resembled that of a man who has been made to
swallow
a lemon. Without peeling it. Naturally, he wished to oblige the ladies, but he was also loath to leave them unprotected in this throng. Of course, he was unaware of their official escort—the two constables, who stood drinking beer at a discreet distance.

“By all means,” said Kendrick. “But I must ask that you remain on this spot, and not engage in conversation with any strangers.” So saying, he left them.

“Now we shall have a breather,” said Arabella to her sister. “My lot is coming up next, and it would have been just like Mr. Kendrick to stand here, quizzing the audience whilst I was trying to concentrate.”

Up on the makeshift platform, the auctioneer took a last drink from the tankard at his elbow and banged his little ivory hammer, as a judge would, for silence. “Now, ladies and gents,” he said. “Lot Thirty-Seven is a collection of stuffs taken from the bedside table of the late famous courtesan herself! I’m given to hunderstand that Miss Ramsey kept a collection of lost an’ found hobjects in the drawer of this table, inhadvertently left on the premises by her customers. Hm! And curious things they are, too! Hold ’em up, Poole, has I calls ’em out: spectacles, a set hof upper false teeth, a gentleman’s pocket handkerchief—hm! Looks hexpensive—with the initial
G
on it, a pocket watch, doesn’t work, though, I’ve tried it, a naughty cameo ring, a miniature of a gentleman unknown, and . . . this is by far the gem of the collection, a large glass helephant. Made in China. Careful with that, Poole. Lift it up high so’s they can all have a good look at it. It’s exquisite, ladies and gents, is it not? Made for a Chinese sultan, that was. So what am I bid for this grand collection of things from the bedroom of the murder victim? Who’ll give a pound?”

“A ‘
Chinese sultan
’? Arabella murmured. “I didn’t know there were any left!”

“Shh! Don’t be horrid, Bell,” whispered Belinda. “Not everyone’s had your education!”

“No, indeed!” replied her sister. “I’ll wager that the auctioneer doesn’t know the first thing about pleasing wealthy perverts!”

Arabella’s would-be mahout glanced over, and she held up ten fingers. He could now bid as high as ten pounds without the need of consulting her further.

“I’ll open the bidding at one pound. Do I hear one pound?”

To Arabella’s consternation, three other placards besides her own were raised by foreign gentlemen and waggled about.

“I hope you will pardon me, madam. But have I the honor of addressing Miss Arabella Beaumont?”

The voice was deep, cultivated, and seemingly rich with the promise of both intimacy and wild abandon. Arabella turned just as the pearl-gray topper was swept off and an elegant bow effected, so that her first impression was of the top of the hat owner’s head: lustrous thick brown locks, with not a hint of baldness. Then he straightened, and she had a good look at his countenance for the first time. It was a
face.
A
real
one, with character, humor, and intelligence—not some bland mask that might serve just as well for a tailor’s window mannequin as for a man.

“And, if you have, sir,” said she, “what is your business?”

“Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Wedge. Here is my card.”

Arabella read the pasteboard rectangle that he handed her:

“Hmm,” she said. “What does the
O
stand for?”

“Oliver. As in, ‘Have you seen all of her, Wedge?’ But my . . . intimate associates call me ‘O.’ It gives me rather a thrill to lie abed nights, knowing that women all over London are crying out my name in their transports: ‘Oh! Oh!
Oh!
’ ”