Free Maggie MacKeever by The Baroness of Bow Street Page B

them, beyond noting that Viscount Jeffries was bang up to the mark in a cloth coat with clawhammer tails and tasseled hussar boots, and that Dulcie’s niece wore a pleated dotted lingerie dress with several frills. His not inconsiderable intellect was focused on Lady Bligh. “Sir John has sent me to ask you a few questions about Leda Langtry, Baroness.” This announcement had the effect of diverting the Viscount’s attention from Mignon, though he still retained possession of her hand. She wondered at herself, for she was less regretful than relieved.
    “Leda Langtry?” repeated Dulcie vaguely. “Ah, yes, the Apocalypse. I recently did her a favor, I believe, though it is difficult to recall. Was it yesterday or the day before? Why I did it, I cannot say.”
    “You arranged for her release from Newgate,” retorted Crump, his cautious gaze returning to the crouching cat. “There’s no use denying it, Lady Bligh.”
    “Deny it?” echoed Dulcie, as she draped the elegant shawl over her head. “Of course I do not. I deny nothing, my dear Crump. There, does that make you happy?”
    Crump stared unhappily at his hostess. With only her elegant nose in evidence, the Baroness looked like nothing more than an animated shroud. This set-back was all of a piece with the rest of his day; the Runner’s efforts to trace the chimney sweeps who had been at White’s Club had resulted in the discovery that these individuals, alas, had been legitimate sweeps after all, sent by the firm responsible for White’s noble chimneys. Crump, however, was tenacious, and he knew well the smell of a rat. He would eat his hat if those two sweeps didn’t bear watching.
    He tried a different approach. “Leda Langtry has been committed to Newgate to await her trial for the murder of Lord Warwick. The evidence against her is overwhelming. If you have possession of any information that may help Mrs. Langtry, Baroness, I urge you to reveal it to me now.”
    “Miss Langtry,” murmured the Baroness, and sneezed so emphatically that the shawl fell further forward, completely covering her face. “And I don’t believe a word of it.”
    Crump wiped his suddenly moist palms on his waistcoat. “There’s no question of her guilt. The murder weapon has been identified as hers, and Warwick’s valet admitted her to the apartments. Or maybe you want me to tell Sir John you’ve been uncooperative.”
    “To threaten an old woman!” gasped the Baroness, and tumbled sideways in a heap, which unnerved Crump so greatly that he cast a nervous look at Mignon.
    “We fear it is the onset of senility,” helpfully observed that damsel, who was, with a dampened cloth and a perverse pleasure, wiping the Viscount’s battered face. “I’m afraid that neither Lord Jeffries nor I can help you, both of us being all at sea.”
    Crump doubted the truth of this, having had prior and unpleasant experience with Lady Bligh’s duplicitous relations, but a moan from the Baroness recalled his attention to her prone figure. “Murder!” she uttered. “Leda? Unthinkable! You might as well tell me the world is coming to an end.”
    The Runner had an impulse to thwack the sofa’s inert burden with his baton, but the parrot chose that moment to swoop through the air. Crump ducked, and knocked his chin smartly against the chair’s wooden arm.
    “I begin to think,” murmured Ivor to Mignon, “that your aunt is totally unprincipled.”
    “That is an opinion with which I can only agree.” Mignon did not meet his gaze, but leaned forward to drop the damp cloth over Casanova, who was engaged in battling the handsome tassels that swung from Ivor’s boots. The cat streaked across the room, up the side of Crump’s chair and over his bent back, before ridding himself of the cloth. Mignon could not help herself; she dissolved into giggles, which brought from her companion an answering and thoroughly enchanting smile.
    “Devil take it!” spat the Runner, thoroughly unnerved.