Fool's Gold (A Lord Ambrose Mystery) Read online

  “There,” said Daubeny. “Now let me pour some brandy into it.”

  The liquid swirled into the jug. The ampoule remained obediently attached to the side of the vessel. “Of course, if the neck of the flask were very narrow, then one would have to use a piece of wire or something similar to hold the ampoule, instead of tongs, while one was maneuvering it into place—but that is really a minor matter. The wax would hold it in place for a while, at any rate. Depends on how thick it was.”

  Peering into the jug some fifteen minutes later, we saw the silvery bubble of glass come floating up amid the amber liquid. The trace of wax that had stoppered it had come out. If it had contained poison instead of a harmless drop of water, that would have drifted into the brandy. The glass was so thin that a jolt or a blow would have broken it before that happened, in any event. In which case, there would have been a few splinters of glass left in the ring of wax that had secured the ampoule to the side of the jug.

  Exactly as had been the case with Cyriack Jesmond’s hip-flask.

  I returned to Christ Church to find that events had moved on since I had left the college. The porter was guarded, but managed to convey an extraordinary range of insinuations. His heavy eyebrows worked frantically up and down like signal-flags as he gave me the news.

  “My lord, a personage has been inquiring for you—well, I suppose I must say two personages, only one…”

  “Yes, man, out with it!”

  “My lord, one was a woman!”

  This word was whispered, but somehow it seemed to echo all the way round under Wren’s great gateway.

  “I’m suitably horrified. And the other, er…person?”

  “Your lordship’s butler, or so he says, though I never before heard of a butler who strode around like a gentleman!”

  “Like an actor, if the truth be known.”

  “I beg your lordship’s pardon?”

  “Never mind, never mind. Tell me, where is this ill-assorted pair of creatures?”

  “My lord, I requested them to wait in the Doctors’ Parlor.”

  This was a little room near the entrance where the occasional female visitor was temporarily lodged in a kind of quarantine, so that she might not infect the rarefied world beyond with any nasty disease of reality. Hurrying through to it, I found Elisabeth and Belos, both with expressions of anxiety upon their faces, sitting uncomfortably upon a pair of worn old velvet chairs.

  “Ambrose, Belos has learned something from his friend—”

  “The actor, my lord, whom I mentioned to you, the old acquaintance whom I met at Kean’s funeral. He has written to me now with news of such import…”

  I recalled Belos’ mention of his old friend. There had been some undercurrent to his tone, and I had interpreted it as a longing to return to the stage, but perhaps there had been more to it.

  “We can take lunch in a private room over the Bear, just a few minutes away. Tell me over a meal, Belos. I’m quite famished by experimentation!”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  Within a very short time, we were ensconced, as the sounds of rowdy undergraduates calling for ale drifted up the staircase of the inn, and a cold chicken was set before us, Elisabeth requesting a dish of young peas to be served with it. I gave the order for some accompaniments.

  “Some hock, I fancy. And ice, landlord, if you have it.”

  “I’ll send out for it, my lord.”

  “Excellent. Now, Belos!”

  “The gist of the letter, my lord, concerns the Jesmond household. When Daniel—my acquaintance—when he returned to Bristol, he recollected some gossip and made inquiries. It seems that it was old news in the Theatre Royal at Bristol, but not entirely forgotten.”

  Belos leaned forward and his magnificent stage whisper shivered through the inn.

  “My lady Jesmond is the daughter of Melpomene!”

  “Whatever are you talking about, Belos? It’s your damned literary education again!”

  “Her mother, it seems, was a thespian. A mistress of Roscius. She trod the boards. She was of my former profession. An actress, my lord, her mother was an actress!”

  “Damn me, Belos, that would cause a stir among the turnips if it were known. I fancy they must have been at pains to keep it quiet at Jesmond Place. Folks are so censorious nowadays. There was a time when the daughter of an actress would have been considered an adornment to a gentleman’s household, but times, I fear, are changing.”

  “Who would have thought it of that dry stick, Sir Antony?” put in Elisabeth. “Tell us, Belos, what happened to the actress?”

  “Nobody knows, Miss. She retired from the stage, and nothing more was heard of her. Of course, it is usual to make some sort of financial arrangement; if Lady Jesmond’s father was a gentleman, as is so often the case…”

  “Sir Antony would doubtless wish in any event to make some discreet provision for his wife’s mother.”

  “So we do not know the whereabouts of the lady?”

  As a matter of fact, we could take a very good guess. “There is one obvious candidate, don’t you agree?” said I, and then as Elisabeth was opening her mouth to utter a name, “but I do not think it can affect recent events, and as the lady presumably wishes to keep her identity a secret, let us assist her to do so. It can do no harm and has no bearing on the present. We have no interest, surely, in exposing a private episode in the past history of the Jesmond family.”

  “Very well, Ambrose. I think we are of a like mind on this. Belos, you will know of whom we are speaking, perhaps?”

  “I have not met any of the parties at Jesmond Place, so I cannot really give an opinion, but there is no need to open old wounds. Let the lady keep her secret. We all have things in our lives which we would not wish to be held up to the light of day.”

  His face was serious suddenly, and he was looking at his plate as he spoke, as if the mundane pile of chicken bones in front of him were some ancient Roman sacred entrails in which he saw the future. I got us back on to the subject in hand.

  “But it certainly casts an interesting light on life at Jesmond Place, does it not?”

  “Ambrose, do you think this can be somehow related to the terrible deaths of those two young men?”

  I considered carefully, a forkful of tender new peas halfway to my lips. “I do not see why it should be so; after all, it cannot for example affect the legitimacy of the Jesmond marriage or have any bearing on legal matters. But nevertheless, it makes me uneasy, I must confess. The notion that there is one secret buried in that household that has come to light only by chance…what else may be hidden there?”

  “And what feelings may have been aroused by Sir Antony’s second marriage, to the daughter of an actress?” added Elisabeth. “Her parentage might still cause a scandal, were it to become known. You are right about that—let us say nothing on the matter for the present. Ambrose, I am very uneasy for Lady Jesmond’s sake. I would like to leave for Jesmond Place straight away. Consider her position, in that house where two sudden deaths have occurred, and her husband does not seem over-affectionate toward her.”

  I too felt there might be impending danger, that the murderous events at Jesmond Place had not yet run out their course. But I did not wish to expose Elisabeth to them.

  “Remember that Dr. Sandys is still there, and a Scottish sawbones of sobriety and good sense may be considered protection against most of the world’s evils. Your Lady Jesmond will be quite safe under his guardianship. But Murdoch is not a man of action, I admit. He is not a rash fool-headed hero like myself, and it may be that a man of action is needed on the spot. Very well, I promise you I will betake myself to the Jesmonds’ as soon as may be possible. But let us return first to Malfine: I asked Sandys to send a message if there should be any news, by a stable-lad at Jesmond Place to whom I slipped a guinea or two while I was instructing him as to Zaraband’s wishes.”

  “No messenger had arrived before we left. But something may have arrived since then.”
r />   Elisabeth and Belos left by coach, to be dragged up Titup Hill and thence over Shotover. I returned to Christ Church to fetch Zaraband and departed from Oxford, rejoicing in the soft warm glow of the afternoon, looking back over a city that floated in the green and misty valley. Before leaving, I had settled my account with Christ Church, for the occupancy of their guest-room and the accommodation of my horse.

  In a sense, also, I had settled an account with my younger self.

  Part Three

  CHAPTER 14

  There is something about Oxford, lovely though it be, that makes me long for fresh air. The fogs and miasmas of topography and mind give me an irresistible urge to proclaim instant revolution, and in my hot youth I did that very thing, but not in England, where it would have been wasted breath. Here, the servility of the people makes talk of revolution a fantasy.

  Yet I shall not succumb to the conventional wisdom that threatens to engulf us: that I and those few survivors of the band who fought with me grow older and wiser. We are simply older, that is all. Within, we are unchanged. Liberty and justice are still worth the fight, against all the dreary weight that this present era brings to press down upon them now that the age of moralizing has begun, and the country is over-run with damned parsons and preachers.

  However profound my reflections upon the dullness of the present, I wished to lose no time in getting back to Jesmond Place. Of that I was certain, but I did not wish to return directly to the house itself and confront its master—not yet, at any rate. The landlord of the inn at Combwich had a room, whence I could send over a request to Sandys, asking him to join me without saying anything to the household. The landlord’s boy undertook to get this message to him, having been warned that it was for the eyes of the doctor alone.

  “Ambrose, I am still most fearful for Lady Jesmond,” were Elisabeth’s words, when we had returned to Malfine and were seated again on the terrace, as was our wont on these pleasant evenings.

  “For her safety in that household?”

  “Partly, but there is something beyond that. Jesmond Place is so enclosed, so preoccupied are the inhabitants with their own concerns, that somehow the place seems cut off from the real world.”

  “Yes, I sensed that too. It is more than the mere physical isolation of the house.”

  “Sir Antony apparently has no interests beyond whatever it is that occupies him in his private quarters; they have no visitors, see nothing of anyone outside. Mrs. Romey was telling me that Sir Antony no longer even cares for anything on the Jesmond estate. I remember her words. ‘He used to be dead agin poachers, Sir Antony. When old Cotteslow from Combwich was caught there with his pocket full of rabbits, he went up before Sir Edward Knellys—the coldest devil you ever did see.’ Those were her very words. I believe the old man was transported, and it killed him at his age.”

  Greed blinds some men to everything, as indolence blinds me. For all I know or care, cavalcades of merry poachers may hold pheasant-shooting festivals on the grounds of Malfine.

  In the distance, the woods were darkening as dusk descended. Once or twice, the cries of night creatures echoed toward the house. The air was very still. Elisabeth’s voice came again through the soft evening.

  “Although Lady Jesmond may have something to hide, I cannot believe that she herself is guilty of any crime. I think she would be a victim—not a murderess!”

  “From whom is she in danger? Mrs. Romey appears devoted to her mistress. Charnock—we barely know anything of him, but what possible reason could he have to murder Clara Jesmond? Assuming that Lady Jesmond would be in danger from the person who has committed the previous murders, I suppose that Charnock might have killed Kelsoe for reasons of his own—say he wanted to replace him in Sir Antony’s favor. But why should he have any reason for encompassing the death of Cyriack Jesmond? Charnock would surely have nothing to gain by that. So that leaves Sir Antony, unlikely to have been the killer of his own son, even if for some reason he had disposed of Kelsoe. Do you think Sir Antony could encompass the death of his own wife? Is that what you fear?”

  “It is possible, is it not? But somehow, I think we are missing the watchspring in this puzzle. I mean, the mechanism which drives the whole thing forward. What motives lay behind the deaths of Kelsoe and Cyriack Jesmond, think you?”

  “In the case of Kelsoe,” I returned, “I thought at first it must be a case of murder. But my conversations in Oxford have convinced me that is not necessarily the case—it could, after all, have been suicide. Yet, in the case of Cyriack Jesmond, I cannot believe from all that I know of the young man’s character that he also committed suicide. Master Cyriack would never have thought the world a better place without him, nor had such a hopeless opinion of himself and his future in life. And even if he had, even let us suppose him somehow plunged in the depths of despair, why choose such an extraordinary course as placing the prussic acid in his hip-flask and then drinking it down on horseback?”

  “So we have one case of possible suicide and one of murder?”

  “Yes. But although Cyriack was, I grant you, a most unlovely character, it is hard to see why he should be killed in that deliberate fashion, for poison requires forethought. It is not usually the result of sudden passion—for example, if the late Master Jesmond had provoked tempestuous anger or precipitated an attack by some insulted opponent. I can imagine that he might have died in a duel or a fist-fight, caused by his own hasty temper, but not of slow, planned cunning murder.”

  She agreed with me, but pointed out that Mrs. Romey had prepared the flask, and might have been motivated by affection for Lady Jesmond.

  “Both she and Lady Jesmond might indeed be suspected. We should not lose sight of the possibility, yet we have no evidence on which to act. But it looks black, I must agree.”

  I should have known what was coming next.

  “Ambrose, the blacker it looks for her, the more she needs friends. I am convinced of her innocence and I am persuaded her husband will not take her part. Before the death of his son he seemed utterly preoccupied with some other secret business—some matters concerning that fellow Charnock. He has no time for his wife, that is plain to see.”

  “Elisabeth, Murdoch Sandys is still there at Jesmond Place and in any case we have scarcely known the woman for any length of time…”

  “Dr. Sandys is very well, but he is a prudent man and likely to be too cautious. And besides, he will not have your influence. There is no point in beating about the bush. You are a wealthy aristocrat and he is a poor country doctor. You may command respect: he could only request it, and I somehow do not think it would be accorded him, even if he did intervene on behalf of Lady Jesmond. And who else is there? Oh, Mrs. Romey is devoted enough, but what can she achieve to protect her mistress? There have been two deaths: is not Clara Jesmond the most likely of that household to fall victim if there should be a third?”

  “Well…I see you cannot abandon your concern for her. Certainly, there have been two deaths in that house—and that is why I cannot allow you to endanger yourself. I shall ride over there in the morning and do what I can for the lady. In any case, I must go and talk to our watchdog Sandys and fetch him back with me to his other patients and his beloved Florence at their charming Lute House. There is probably little more he can do at Jesmond Place. But I insist on one thing—you yourself must not go again to Jesmond Place. It is too dangerous an enterprise.”

  Elisabeth did not reply. She rose, swinging her skirts, and stepped indoors. Of a lesser woman, it might have been said, she flounced.

  CHAPTER 15

  I soon found a cause for Cyriack’s murder—and one which could have been long festering away. Sandys gave me the news, almost as he shook the summer shower from his cloak in the doorway of the parlor of the Green Lion.

  “Ah, Lord Ambrose, I got your message. I agree, it is better for us to have some private conversation here; somehow I have a feeling that at Jesmond Place one is always being overheard—I do not know wh
y. Perhaps it is because that Charnock fellow appears without warning sometimes, or perhaps it is merely because the house is so old that it seems to have a life of its own. Dear me, I grow fanciful!”

  “Why, Murdoch Sandys, I had never supposed you so imaginative! But let me call for some ale—or cider. The local perry is excellent, but I do not trust the wine.”

  A stone flagon of their perry arrived, and Sandys took a deep pull.

  “Ah, my mouth was dry!”

  It was necessary to broach a rather delicate subject: that his scientific superiors in chemistry considered that it was quite possible, in some cases, for a person to survive long enough after taking prussic acid to perform a few actions such as re-corking the poison bottle. To my relief, Sandys took it with great generosity of spirit.

  “Well, I am but a country physician with no time to experiment. If that is what Professor Daubeny says, then I will most happily accept it and be overruled. People imagine that any scientific statement must be an absolute law, but it depends entirely on the state of knowledge of the person who makes it. Let us therefore imagine that it was possible that John Kelsoe committed suicide—but we still have the cause of his wretchedness to discover, do we not?”

  I assented, and Sandys continued, “Lord Ambrose, I have been talking to the housekeeper, Mrs. Romey. She let slip that there is a good reason, after all, for her ladyship to wish Master Cyriack off the face of the earth. After her husband’s death, any relationship with another man would mean the possible loss of all her inheritance; Cyriack would have gained everything. She and her stepson must have been mortal enemies the moment that infamous will was signed. If he could prove her guilty of some illicit connection, she would forfeit all claims over the estate and her stepson would immediately come into his own. No money need be spared from the Jesmond estate for the provision of his stepmother. He would enjoy all the revenues—every penny. She might have wished to ensure her stepson could not curtail her pleasures when she became a widow!”