Garden of Lies(64)

Evangeline hesitated. “I know I owe you a favor, sir, but I never thought you’d ask to settle accounts this way.”

Slater slipped more coins into her hand. “For your trouble, Evangeline. Please hurry.”

Evangeline did not argue. She disappeared. When she was gone, Ursula lowered the veil.

“You did not have to reveal yourself to her,” Slater said without inflection.

“Of course I did.”

Slater smiled slightly but he did not say anything else on the subject.

Evangeline returned with an older woman. Charlotte was suspicious at first and genuinely shocked by the news of her employer’s death. But when Slater produced still more money a great transformation came over her. She led the way to a suite of private rooms.

“Why would anyone murder Mrs. Wyatt?” she asked, fitting a key into the lock of a door.

“We don’t know.” Slater ushered Ursula ahead of him into a lavishly decorated parlor. “We were rather hoping you might be able to tell us.”

Charlotte eyed him and then looked at Ursula. “Why would the likes of you two care about the death of a brothel madam?”

“Because Mrs. Wyatt is not the first person to die in this case,” Ursula said. “A woman who worked for me was also murdered. She was a friend of mine. I want to find out who killed her.”

“There is one other fact you may wish to consider,” Slater added.

“What’s that?” Charlotte asked.

“It’s quite possible that your colleague who supposedly jumped into the river was murdered either because her client was dangerously intoxicated or because, like Mrs. Wyatt and the others, she knew too much about the ambrosia trade,” Slater said.

“Nicole,” Charlotte said, her voice very grim. “We all know she did not jump off that bridge, at least not willingly.” She gestured toward the parlor. “I will wait in the hall while you have your look around. Be quick about it. I don’t think it is a good idea for you to be here.”

“Thank you,” Ursula said. She looked at Slater. “I will examine the bedroom while you investigate this room.”

Slater nodded and went swiftly to the desk near the window. Ursula hurried into the adjoining room.

Mrs. Wyatt’s bedroom was another surprise. Like the other parts of the big house that Ursula had viewed, the décor was a tasteful mix of yellow and peacock blue. The four-poster bed was draped with white netting and decorated with an attractive yellow quilt. The carpet featured gold flowers against an azure background. The wallpaper was set off with yellow and blue stripes.

There was, Ursula thought, no hint that the former occupant had been involved in the brothel business. Perhaps that was the intent.

She went to the wardrobe first. Ignoring the array of fashionable gowns, she opened the drawers at the bottom and worked her way through the neat pile of freshly laundered and crisply ironed underclothes.

Finding nothing of note, she crossed to the dressing table.

She discovered the perfume bottle tucked away in the back of a drawer. The little porcelain jar looked almost identical to the one she had found among Anne’s things. Unlike that one, however, Mrs. Wyatt’s bottle was not quite empty. There were a few drops at the bottom.

Cautiously, Ursula removed the stopper. The scent that wafted out held the familiar taint of a dark herb.

“Find something?” Slater asked from the doorway.

Ursula turned quickly and saw that he had a leather-bound volume in one hand.

“A perfume bottle,” she said. “Just like the one I found at Anne’s house. There are a few drops left and they smell like the dried herbs at Rosemont’s shop.”

“Both Mrs. Wyatt and Anne were using the drug.”

“Evidently.”

Slater moved, radiating impatience. “Come, we must leave.”

She glanced at the notebook he held. “What did you find?”

“Wyatt’s journal of accounts.”

“What can that tell you?”

“Possibly nothing. But I have found that money is rather like blood. It leaves a stain.”





THIRTY-FIVE




Brice Torrence descended the front steps of his club shortly before midnight. He was dressed in the black-and-white formal attire he had worn to a ball that evening. He raised a silver-handled walking stick to signal the first cab in the line of vehicles that waited in the street.

Slater moved out of the deep shadows cast by a nearby doorway vestibule.

“I’d like a word with you, Brice,” Slater said.

Brice tensed and turned halfway around. His initial start of surprise was transmuted into anger.

“Roxton,” he said. “What in blazes do you want?”

“Some brief conversation. You owe me that much, don’t you agree?”

“Do you want me to apologize for what happened on Fever Island? To tell you that I’m sorry I left you for dead in those damned temple caves? How was I to know that you were still alive? Hell and damnation, man, I thought you were dead.”

Slater was stunned by the way the words spilled out of Brice. It was not the response he had expected. For a moment he was not sure how to handle it.

“I know you thought that I had been killed by that fall of rock,” he said. “I don’t hold you responsible.”