Death at the Emerald Read online

  The drawing room was no different, with an attention-grabbing porcelain Buddha dominating a corner and a lacquered Japanese screen, decorated with fanciful pictures of mountains, stretched along the opposite wall.

  “Lady Frances Ffolkes,” announced the butler, which brought Frances’s eyes to her hostess. Lady Torrence sat in a deep leather chair that was more comfortable than fashionable. Her dress was good, but a little old-fashioned, and she held the same elegant cane that she had had at the reception. They had only spoken a few minutes the other evening, and the lights had been dim, but now Frances saw that, although she was quite elderly, Lady Torrence possessed a clear eye and amused smile.

  “Lady Torrence, a pleasure to see you again. And my apologies for my vulgar curiosity about your lovely artwork. My mother would’ve been appalled.”

  Lady Torrence just laughed. “Yes, my dear. I knew your mother, as I said, and she would’ve been appalled indeed. But I am flattered that you like the lovely objects we collected in Sir Arnold’s postings over the years. They are reminders of other places . . .” Frances thought she could see a shadow pass across her face for just a moment. And then a maid came in with tea and cakes, and conversation stopped as she set up the tray.

  “Will that be all, my lady?” asked the butler.

  “Yes. And I am not at home to anyone else,” said Lady Torrence. Frances raised an eyebrow at that.

  “Very good, my lady,” he said, and a moment later they were alone in the drawing room as Lady Torrence poured for them.

  “A girl as curious as you is no doubt wondering furiously why I asked her to call on me,” she said with the same amused smile. Her movements were slow but steady, and Frances could see her mind working, trying to find the words. “I seemed so sure the other night about what I would say. And here we are, having an ordinary tea. I fear that when you hear what I am going to say, you are going to laugh at me.” She looked a little uncertainly at Frances.

  “No. Nothing you could say would make me laugh at you,” Frances said with great solemnity, staring intently at her hostess with her large gray eyes.

  “Very well then. I don’t know what you have heard, but I had two daughters. The older one was named Louisa. When she was twenty . . .” She shook her head. “I’m starting badly. I rehearsed this, but it’s harder than I thought. A little background, I think, will better explain it. My husband was a very traditional man, very much a man of his time. But his one . . . frivolity, I should say, was theatre. He enjoyed plays very much, and we frequently attended. His people, and mine too, in fact, are from near Shrewsbury. His cousin inherited a title, a great manor, and land up there, and several times Arnold even arranged for plays on the estate when we visited. When our daughters became old enough, we brought them along too. Louisa loved theatre as much as her father did. She even entertained the family. She was a lively girl with a gift for mimicry, and she loved the attention she got at family events . . .” Lady Torrence had to pause for a few moments to gather herself. Frances drank more tea and ate a little cake to give her a little privacy.

  “It became an obsession, I’m afraid, as she got older. There was no performance that she didn’t want to see. I know I’m her mother, but she was very beautiful.” She gave Frances a wry smile. “Young men who wanted her attention would arrange theatre parties—properly chaperoned, of course—to gain her company.”

  “Did any of those men ask for her hand?” asked Frances.

  Lady Torrence shook her head. “No. I don’t think any man really engaged her heart, despite all the attention she received. Oh, she did the season—dutifully went to the right parties to meet the right people. Maybe I’m imagining things now, looking back. But she seemed dissatisfied, somehow, eager for something else. My husband said that she just needed to get married and settled down. I thought maybe all those plays had turned her somehow, put her into a fantasy world.”

  Frances watched Lady Torrence’s eyes lose their focus. She was back in time now, remembering Louisa as she was, and Frances knew from her tone that this story was heading toward a tragedy.

  “My husband decided that she needed a change of scene. He had an older friend in India, a retired general, who died and left his widow out there. He thought to send Louisa as a sort of companion, with an idea of finding a husband among the officers there. She had talked about wanting to travel, but she had no wish to be tied to an irritable old woman, as she put it, until she was auctioned off to some major. She and my husband had a terrible row, and I . . . you will lose all respect for me, Lady Frances, but I did little to intervene. Arnold felt very strongly, and he was not an easy man to refuse. But nothing you could say would be worse than what I’ve said to myself.”

  Frances felt her heart ache for this woman. She knew more than her share of tyrants, men for whom their word was law, who commanded their families like they commanded their regiments, their government departments, their tenant farmers. This would have to change . . . but for now, she just listened to this woman reach into old memories.

  “I understand and sympathize. Your position was impossible.”

  “Thank you,” Lady Torrence said softly. “Where was I? Oh, yes. Arnold called a maid and told her to start packing for the trip to India. Louisa burst into tears and ran into her room, locking the door. She wouldn’t speak to anyone . . . and that night . . .” There was no pretending anymore. Lady Torrence produced a handkerchief and wiped away the tears that flowed down her face.

  “That night, she left the house. We found a note on her bed saying that she was going to become an actress. Arnold went into a rage, and I nearly fell apart with the horror of it all.” Frances understood. Sir Arnold may have enjoyed the theatre, but for a man like him, an actress wasn’t much higher on the social scale than a prostitute.

  “And I never saw her again.” All self-control disappeared now, and Lady Torrence sobbed uncontrollably into her hands. My God, thought Frances, she probably hasn’t been able to talk to anyone about this in years—in decades—keeping in the hurt because of the shame of it all. She found herself full of pity and angry at how powerless Lady Torrence had been to prevent this. All the poor woman wanted was a sympathetic ear. Perhaps she was too embarrassed even to discuss this with her younger daughter.

  Frances saw a sideboard with decanters. She got up and poured some sherry for Lady Torrence, then sat down on the couch next to her.

  “This will steady you,” she said, pressing the glass into her shaking hands. Lady Torrence drank slowly.

  “You’re very kind.”

  “Whatever I can do,” Frances said, “even if it’s just to listen.”

  “Oh, but there is,” said Lady Torrence. She wiped her tears and mastered herself like ladies of quality were taught. She smiled through the final tears. “I’ve recounted this all very badly, I’m afraid. It isn’t that I don’t want your sympathy or value your kindness, but that is not why I asked you here.” She finished her drink, then took Frances’s hands in hers and looked her in the eye.

  “My daughter, Louisa, disappeared more than thirty years ago, in 1875. I called you here to ask such a huge favor that I don’t know how I can even say it.” She took a deep breath. “Lady Frances, I want you to find my daughter. Or”—her voice broke—“proof of her death.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Frances sat back down in her chair and thought before saying anything.

  “I know—it’s ridiculous,” said Lady Torrence, perhaps thinking that she had overwhelmed her guest. “I’m so sorry for putting you in such an awkward position. Please forgive me.” She looked diminished, Frances saw, as if she had experienced a final blow.

  But Frances shook her head. “No, Lady Torrence; I’m not saying no. I’m simply surprised. I would have thought that you would engage someone who does this as a profession, a retired detective police officer, for example.”

  “Can you imagine, Lady Frances?” She smiled wryly. “A silly old lady calling on a private detective?”


  “Of course. You might find yourself being bundled off to a rest home by the sea to soothe your nerves.” Few would take her seriously, looking for a daughter who ran off after all these years.

  “Exactly. My daughter and son-in-law are protective of me.”

  “I understand. But why me?” asked Frances. But she knew the answer the moment she spoke.

  “You are not unknown, Lady Frances. There has been talk about you—how can I say it?—your involvement with the constabulary.”

  Frances grinned at that. She should be embarrassed, she knew, but she was rather proud of her growing notoriety. Her brother, Charles, would be horrified, as would most of her family, but Frances said, “My reputation precedes me. Very well, Lady Torrence; let me see what I can do. But before I make any promises, tell me what you know. It’s a big country, and it has been a long time. Are you sure that she ran away to the theatre?”

  Lady Torrence nodded. “Yes. Her note not only said that—it said she ran away to the Green Players, who make their home, as you might imagine, in the Emerald Theatre. As if she dared us to follow her. I wanted to, Lady Frances, I truly did, but Arnold said that she’d come back with her tail between her legs and that that would be better than dragging her back. I thought . . . I hoped that he was right. But the days went by, and finally Arnold approached them, but it was too late. They swore at the theatre that they knew no one by her name, and they had meanwhile sent touring companies out of town, so there was no telling where she was. She had obviously taken a new name.”

  The whole awful story came out. By the time they realized that Louisa was not coming back of her own accord, Sir Arnold had become concerned that his daughter might have been “compromised.” They spread it around that Louisa had become ill and had been sent to the south of France to recuperate. Then to a clinic in America. Months went by, and they heard nothing.

  “Did you visit the Emerald Theatre in the hopes of seeing her there after the touring company returned?” asked Frances.

  “My husband said no—if that’s what had happened, he wasn’t going to see his daughter on the stage. I kept my ears open for gossip, to hear if any of my friends said something like, ‘Remarkable coincidence—saw an actress on the stage that could’ve been your Louisa.’ But it never happened. And I know with costumes and makeup, even if she became an actress, she might not be easily recognizable. Anyway, neither of us felt we could stay in London, so Arnold took a foreign posting. We were mostly abroad for thirty years. We let it be known quietly that Louisa had died abroad after a long illness. Then we finally retired back here, and Arnold passed away. I did do one thing, though . . .” She sounded proud of that. “I know it was too little, too late, but about half a year ago, I approached the company manager of the Green Players, a man named Gilbert Rusk. I told him that I was a great lover of theatre and was thinking of writing a book in my retirement, a sort of guide to the theatre for ladies, and I asked if I could look through his company records.”

  Lady Frances perked up at that. “My word, Lady Torrence! You’re on your way to becoming a detective yourself. That was very clever. Shall we start our own women-run detective agency?”

  Lady Torrence turned pink. “Lady Frances, you flatter me. But I was a diplomat’s wife for many years. A certain amount of . . . prevarication was part of the job. However, it was all for naught. I had only spent a week poring over their rather careless personnel records when Mr. Rusk said that the company had a new owner and there were new rules. He was afraid he could no longer open his records to me. He was very apologetic about it but firm.”

  Frances frowned. “That’s odd. How would someone know? And why would they care?”

  Lady Torrence shrugged. “I didn’t make a secret of it. The actors in the company, the clerk who kept their books—all saw me there. Other than that, I mentioned it to my younger daughter, Sarah, but still kept up the fiction that I was writing a book.”

  Frances nodded, deep in thought. “Sarah . . . Were the sisters close?”

  “Sarah adored Louisa, who doted on her baby sister. They were nearly six years apart. Sarah was brokenhearted when Louisa left. She was only fourteen.”

  “Did you ever tell her the true story?”

  “When she married, we told her and her fiancé. We felt it was important that they knew.”

  “I heard your son-in-law was something in the City?” asked Frances.

  Now Lady Torrence turned a sharp eye on Frances. For a few moments, Frances saw not a tired old woman but a sharp-witted political wife who had navigated through countless dinners, luncheons, and receptions with great aplomb.

  “So you asked about me after you got my note. I was wise to choose you.”

  Frances gave a mock bow. “A consulting detective must be sure of all her facts beforehand,” said Frances.

  “Indeed. And yes, my son-in-law is ‘something’ in the City. What, exactly, I don’t know. It’s all a mystery to me. He was a rising young man when he asked for Sarah’s hand. My husband was a little dubious, but the man was already making a name for himself. He made himself very wealthy and became Lord Freemantle some years back. He and Sarah move in more . . . commercial circles now, which is why they were not with me last night.”

  Of course. Lord Freemantle may have a title and vast wealth, but he was not of the old nobility. Perhaps Sarah, in choosing such a man, was also a little rebellious. That would bear looking into. And that was when Frances realized that she planned to take the challenge.

  “I think you now know everything I can tell you. Please tell me—am I being ridiculous?” Lady Torrence looked both fearful and hopeful. She was not young and clearly realized that this was going to be her last chance to find out what had happened to her daughter.

  “You are not being ridiculous at all. The real question is whether I am ridiculous to even try—but try I will, Lady Torrence. I can’t promise results, but I will do my very best.”

  Lady Torrence closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them, she looked serene. “I have hope, and that is something. Now tell me, what do you need?”

  “Do you have a photograph of her?”

  “Not a very good one, just a few of her with other people, not easy to recognize. But we have a magnificent portrait of her, done just a year before she left. It’s in a spare room upstairs. I never go in there.” And see the reminder, was the implication.

  “Excellent. I can arrange for a photographer to take a picture of the portrait and use that.”

  “I will bear that cost, of course. Which leads me to one more issue—your fee, Lady Frances?”

  Frances blinked. A fee? It hadn’t occurred to her. What did consulting detectives charge? Or was she just doing this to make a point about women entering the detective profession?

  “I haven’t really thought about that,” she admitted.

  Again, she saw a sharp gleam in Lady Torrence’s eye. “Correct me if I’m wrong, Lady Frances, but don’t you suffragist girls want to be treated like men? A man would charge a fee.”

  Frances laughed. “Splendid! You’re absolutely right. Very well. I am treasurer of the Ladies’ Christian Relief Guild. Perhaps a substantial donation if I give satisfactory service?”

  “That I will, in addition to covering your expenses. And if you are successful, I will give a matching donation to your suffrage group—and deliver it personally at your next meeting.”

  “Wonderful! Now if you could show me this portrait.”

  “Of course. I’ll have my maid direct you. She’s the only servant I have from those days—everyone else in the house has only been in my employ since we returned to London. But Simpkins was a housemaid here before . . . before all that. She became my lady’s maid, coming with us in all our overseas postings.”

  Frances smiled. “I haven’t been to the East, but I’ve heard that English servants often have trouble adapting.”

  Lady Torrence laughed at that. “Simpkins thought it would be easier to make the entire su
bcontinent adapt to her ways, rather than for her to adapt to theirs. It’s a testament to her that she came close to succeeding.”

  She rang for the butler, who came a moment later.

  “A photographer will be coming in the next few days to take a picture of the portrait in the blue bedroom. He is to be admitted immediately and given all assistance.”

  The butler was too well-trained to show any surprise. “Very good, my lady.”

  “Now send Simpkins to me.”

  The butler bowed out, and a few minutes later, Simpkins entered. She instantly reminded Frances of Pritchard, her mother’s maid—a formidable, even frightening woman, whom the junior maids had secretly dubbed “the tigress.” Simpkins no doubt inspired a similar sobriquet downstairs. She was around sixty, Frances guessed, with hard black eyes that matched her dress. Her mouth was pursed as if she had been sucking on a lemon, thought Frances with some amusement.

  “Simpkins. Lady Frances Ffolkes is assisting me with some personal affairs. I wish her to see the portrait of Miss Louisa. Please escort her.”

  Simpkins did what the butler hadn’t—gave Frances a very quick review with those deep-set eyes, and Frances could practically see the gears turning in the maid’s mind as she tried to sort this out. “Very good, my lady,” she said in the end, just like the butler. She turned to Frances. “If you would follow me, my lady.”

  Frances followed Simpkins up the stairs, past walls lined with more artwork from far-off places. She made a note to request a visit at another time to take it all in. Hal, with his interest in art, would be fascinated. Perhaps they would have a celebratory dinner if she were successful . . . but she was getting too far ahead of herself, she realized. One step at a time.

  For now, she turned her attention to following Simpkins, who had a ramrod back that would do credit to a sergeant major. Frances’s brother had wanted her to engage such a maid to watch over her when she went out on her own, but instead she chose June Mallow, only nineteen at the time. She had never regretted it.