Free To Mourn a Murder by Joan Smith Page B

started it."
    "Oh very well, if you're afraid of him."
    "I ain't afraid. I just don't like it when he stares at me with them steely eyes. Makes me feel like a dashed truant."
    "Shall we ask Corrie along with us? She'll be interested as well."
    "A good idea. He won't cut up too stiff in front of her. And he'll be pleased she didn't tag along with Byron."
    While they were still discussing their strategy, Corinne's door opened and her butler, Black, came darting out. His black hair, dark visage and black suit always reminded Coffen of an undertaker. What he lacked in looks he more than made up in ingenuity and service to his mistress. His one aim in life was to please her. To this end he scrutinized every move of her associates on Berkeley Square. No caller or carriage arrived or left without his knowing it and informing her ladyship if it might conceivably be of interest to her. He was also an ardent eavesdropper, so that he might foresee and provide what she required without her asking.
    "He's in here with her," was Black's manner of informing them that Lord Luten was with Lady deCoventry. He had, of course, been listening in on her conversation with Luten and knew as much about the Bee as she did. "You might as well come in. She's told him where you were, and all about it." This, at least, was good news as it relieved Prance of one unpleasant duty.
    "Thank you, Black," Prance said meekly, and they went in.
    Lady deCoventry had had to leave her husband's entailed mansion on Grosvenor Square at the time of his death. Knowing the nip-cheese way of his younger brother and heir, deCoventry had made financial arrangements for his widow before dying. He had left her the elegant little house in which she now resided, along with a house in the country and twenty-five thousand pounds. Wisely invested, the interest on her capital provided her a respectable but not lavish allowance.
    With Prance's help she had contrived a pretty drawing room with fine furnishings scaled to match the room's dimensions. Prance and Coffen entered together, wearing ill-at-ease smiles that froze to rictus stiffness when Luten turned his icy gaze on them.
    "So, I hear you have gone into business for yourself, Prance," was his greeting, but uttered in a bantering tone.
    "You were so busy I didn't want to bother you," Prance said. "I thought at the beginning, you see, that it was an isolated case, but now–"
    "Corinne has filled me in on the background," he said. "Let us hear what happened today."
    Corinne's companion, Mrs. Ballard, came pattering in to say good day, and wasn't it chilly for the time of year, though the grate took the nip off, and would they care for some coffee. Corinne had been shy of the servants when she first married. To make her comfortable, her husband had imported his mousiest relative, the relict of a country vicar, to keep her company. Mrs. Ballard remained on after deCoventry's death to lend the young widow propriety. It was understood that she would likewise remain with Corinne when she was elevated to Lady Luten.
    Corinne said coffee would be lovely, and Mrs. Ballard scampered out, her duty done. It would be for Black to deliver the coffee. The new arrivals found seats.
    "Well?" Luten said, fixing Prance with a hard stare.
    "There's been another demand," Prance said. "That makes three, and there's no saying it won't become an epidemic."
    He gave all the details, assisted, or at lest interrupted at frequent intervals, by comments from Coffen. When they had emptied their budgets, Luten astonished them by saying, "It's obviously a French plot."
    Prance just stared. Coffen said what he always said when he didn't understand something. "Eh?"
    "It's perfectly obvious," Luten continued. "Lord Jergen is highly placed in the Horse Guards, which is handling the war in the Peninsula with such disastrous results. The best that can be said of the gang at the Horse Guards is that they're totally incompetent. And Lord Callwood is one of the top