“I shall never receive her,” Eliza declared mutinously. “I shall offer her the cut direct, when next we meet!”

“Begging your pardon, Comtesse,” Bill Skroggs broke in, “but I’m afraid it will not do.”

I stared at him. “Will it not? Whatever can you mean? It must be evident that we speak nothing but the truth! Indeed, sir, we are as much victims of this rapacious scoundrel as the Princess Tscholikova!”

“But you have no proof.” He looked from Eliza to me. “One mort’s story is very much like another’s: part Devil’s own malice, part fear of the nubbing cheat. If I was to take any of it as gospel, I’d be the laughingstock of Bow Street.”

“Nubbing cheat?”

Skroggs lifted his hand close to his ear, head lolling in a horrible caricature of a broken neck. “Hangman’s rope. You’d say anything to escape it, I reckon.”

He rose regretfully. “I’ll have to lay charges. This tale’s all very well, but there’s an old saying about the bird in hand being worth two in a bush — and I’ve got you both to hand, so to speak. Come along, now.”

“Mr. Skroggs,” I said firmly — Eliza had gone white, her handkerchief pressed once more against her mouth — “what if you were to grant us a measure of liberty, so that we might obtain certain … proofs?”

He laughed brusquely. “As a sort of side-show to your flight to the Continent, ma’am? I do not believe there is any proof you could discover that would interest William Skroggs.”

“—Not even if we were to learn how the Princess ended on Lord Castlereagh’s doorstep? And who, exactly, put her there?”

The Bow Street Runner went still, and shot me a rapier look through narrowed eyes.

“Come, come, Mr. Skroggs,” I said smoothly. “You cannot be interested merely in the recovery of the stones — for those you have. If it were only prize money you held in view, your end should be satisfied, thanks to Mr. Rundell. Something else draws your interest. You were hired, I collect, not by the Princess’s connexions — but by Lord Castlereagh himself, were you not?”

Eliza hiccupped with suppressed excitement.

Skroggs cast a venomous glance at his colleague, Clem Black, as tho’ accusing that unfortunate man of betraying him.

“It seems quite obvious,” I continued, “from the few words you have let slip, that Princess Tscholikova did not die by her own hand.”

The Runner smiled thinly. “Forgive me, ma’am — but you cannot possibly know that.”

I shrugged. “No murder weapon has been mentioned in the newspapers. I collect that none was found by the lady. Do you think it was a knife, Mr. Skroggs, or a gentleman’s razor that slit the wretched Princess’s throat?”

“Either would serve,” Skroggs replied with ruthless precision, “but I will not be led into an admission I am enjoined not to make prior to the convening of the coroner’s panel. I cannot allow you to spread rumours in this way, Miss Austen. — Being but a suspect criminal, prattling for her life.”

“If indeed the poor creature was deliberately and coldly taken,” I continued, oblivious to his scruples, “then her killer chose to place her directly on Lord Castlereagh’s doorstep. The scandal that has followed is everything an enemy of his lordship could desire. I do not for a moment entertain the notion that Castlereagh was himself responsible for striking the Princess down, and leaving her where she fell; such careless disregard for convention is not in his character. Therefore, he was the object of a plot. I have an idea that Castlereagh would wish to know who was the party that set out to destroy his reputation and career.”

“Naturally!” Eliza cried, “So that he might challenge the fellow to a duel, and put a ball through his heart!”

“Mr. Skroggs refuses to say yea or nay,” I mused. “And in his very silence we may read a fatal admission. He is in Lord Castlereagh’s hire, and the Princess’s jewels are merely a foothold on the greater slope he must climb. But how, indeed, shall such a man as a Bow Street Runner penetrate the holy of holies — the inner sanctum of the British ton — where, without doubt, Lord Castlereagh’s enemy hides?”

I paused for effect. The countenance of William Skroggs was slowly flushing scarlet.

“I hold myself as good as any of them,” he said hoarsely.

“No doubt you do.” I ran my eyes the length of his figure. “But I fear, my good sir, you will never come within an inch of your killer. You do not possess the air or address — or forgive me, the birth — that distinguish a Bond Street lounger. His native ground will be barred to you. Whereas my sister — that jumped-up countess … is everywhere received.”

Clem Black snorted derisively. I observed Bill Skroggs’s hands to clench.

“You require our help as much as we require your mercy,” I declared. “Come, Mr. Skroggs — shall we strike a bargain?”

Chapter 11

Lord Castlereagh Condescends

Friday, 26 April 1811

THE MORNING OF THE PRINCESS’S INQUEST DAWNED fair and bright, more May than April, with a frivolous breeze that set the horse chestnut leaves to fluttering. I had no share in the innocence of the day, however; I was wrapped around in deceit, the chief object of it my brother.

Upon Henry’s return from his bank, Eliza and I had said nothing of the Bow Street Runners’ calamitous call. We had enjoined poor Madame Bigeon and Manon to secrecy, and their love for Eliza was so great, that at length they acquiesced — tho’ Madame was all for recruiting Henry’s wit and stoutness in foiling the brutal intent of the Law. The Frenchwomen’s experiences in their native country, and the troubles that occasioned their flight to England, had taught them to trust neither in plots nor constabulary — but to avoid all such authority as might sever their heads from their necks. In this I detected good sense and hard courage, and resolved to employ the two ladies’ talents whenever my own should fail me.

I had managed, in the end, to bring Bill Skroggs neatly round my thumb. The Runner had been taught to see the sense of my argument — that Eliza and I should penetrate where he should be barred— and had agreed to accord us our liberty for the space of one week: a mere seven days to defeat the object of a most cunning and subtle killer. I found the constraint of the brief period immaterial; I had always intended to quit London by the end of the month in any case. The imperative to clear my name in the interim merely added a fillip of interest to the waning days of my Season. I had much to do, if I were not to hang.

While Manon ushered the two men to the door, and Skroggs issued his final cold-blooded warnings, I was busy enumerating in my mind the chief points that must be addressed, in an undertaking such as this:

Firstly, did Anne, Comtesse d’Entraigues, know to whom her jewellery in fact belonged, or was it a treasure that had fallen into her lap as chancily as she deposited it in ours?

Secondly, had the Comtesse participated in either the theft of the Princess Tscholikova’s jewels, or her murder?

Thirdly, if the Princess had been killed — or her dead body deposited — on Castlereagh’s doorstep, who should most benefit from the ruin of his lordship’s reputation?

And fourthly, were that person and the Princess’s murderer in league — unknown to each other — or were they one and the same?

Eliza went up to her room directly the outer door was closed on the offending emissaries of Bow Street. She pled her tiresome cold — and when at length Henry returned, he forbore to disturb her. I uttered falsehood after falsehood as we two sat down to a cold supper, furnished without apology or explanation by Madame Bigeon. Henry drank his wine, enquiring idly of my afternoon, and I was free to divert my anxiety by imparting every detail of Chizzlewit’s chambers — for my brother had known of Lord Harold’s Bengal chest nearly as long as I.