Page 33 of Murder at Madame Chambon's
There was also the fact that home was the most unlikely place Lily could add to the dossier she’d started on Lord Dunstable.The police investigation was, of course, continuing, but there had still been no mention in the newspapers of the precise location of Lord Dunstable’s death, nor the name of Madame Chambon.Of course, it was only a matter of time, but Lily found the matter curious.
It wasn’t long after settling herself behind her desk and pulling out the file of young girls without a ‘character’ desperate to find work that she learned the answer to what had been puzzling her.
“’Appens that it were more ’n one of our esteemed madame’s girls who were entertaining the copper wot’s ‘eading this operation,” Archie cheerfully informed her, putting his head around the door and clearly angling for an invitation to enlarge upon the matter.“There were, in fact, three of them—and photographs to boot!Girls wearin’ the coppers’ headware, no less!And wiv not a stitch o’ clothing besides.Now, wouldn’t that make a good front page?”
Lily was glad Hamish was ensconced in his office with the door closed.He’d not consider Lily’s interest in Dunstable’s murder necessary, ladylike, or likely to yield answers.
“Good lord, how do you know that, Archie?”Lily asked, waving him to the seat across from her.Then she gave a short laugh, for nothing embarrassed her these days.She felt as comfortable in Archie’s company as she did in Hamish’s.And, perhaps more so when Hamish was joined by his friends, for of course Lily, with her colorful background, was more than just a curiosity.She verged on being on the other side of that indelible but savagely scored line between ‘respectable’ and ‘not respectable’.
“I presume it was Gracie who told you,” she said, dipping her pen in the inkwell and adding with a grin, “I daresay there’s not much she misses, flitting from room to room to serve the girls—or, rather—their… gentlemen admirers.”She sent another quick glance towards the door, suddenly embarrassed by such vulgarity.No lady ought to know what Lily had learned during her time sharing a roof with the fallen unfortunates at Madame’s.
Archie settled himself comfortably in the chair on the other side of the desk and laced his hands over his belly.“Not that Gracie’s been asked by the police to furnish them wiv the answers to the questions wot they ought to be asking.”He looked a little smug, but Lily was scandalized.
“Of course, Gracie has a duty to tell the constabulary everything that might be of interest or help discover Lord Dunstable’s killer.”
“Not when it might compromise the girls.Or breach a trust.”Archie raised his hands, palms out.“Gracie reckons her duty is to the girls before it is to Lord Dunstable—cos he’s dead, so nothing ain’t goin’ to bring him back.And since ‘is lordship weren’t liked by the girls at Madame’s—specially not Miss LuLubelle—Gracie reckons it’s the right thing to keep mum.”
Lily put down her pen and leaned forward.“Archie, do you know exactly how many times Lord Dunstable visited Madame Chambon’s?Does Gracie have any thoughts on why someone would want to kill Lord Dunstable—other than Madame Chambon since he was blackmailing her?Who else was there at the house at the same time as of his visits?Maybe Gracie knows.Could you ask her?”
“I know that already.You jest got to ask me the questions, m’lady, and Archie’ll find the answers.Lord Dunstable first visited Madame Chambon’s about two years ago.Just occasionally, like, in the beginning.Then suddenly he started to visit more and more, not just to see the girls but to talk business to Madame.”Archie began to clean beneath his fingernails with a pocket knife and Lily bit her tongue.She’d rather know whatever he could tell her than risk his deciding to leave if she pointed out the impropriety of a personal manicure in her presence.
“So, Lord Dunstable was … unkind to LuLubelle?”Lily shuddered, though it didn’t surprise her.In fact, it was almost a relief to confirm that Miss Tarot had had a lucky escape.
“Yes.‘Cos she wouldn’t tell him where Miss Celeste’s particulars were kept.Cos he were with Miss Celeste the first time he came to Madame’s an’ he learned LuLubelle shared a room with Celeste, so he reckoned LuLubelle would know.That’s why he came back to make her tell him, but she wouldn’t.And that’s why he came back to see Madame.To make Madame force LuLubelle to hand over the papers or whatever it was wot proved who Celeste really were.”
Lily tried to breathe evenly.Celeste again—even though this was about Lord Dunstable with the most likely reason he was killed revolving around what he knew about Evelina Tarot’s relationship to Madame.
But could the murderer’s motive, in fact, be what Dunstable knew about Celeste?
Could someone who knew the mysterious Celeste’s background have a reason for killing Dunstable so that he wouldn’t reveal what he perhaps had discovered?
The very first time Lily had rushed into Madame Chambon’s establishment two years before, having jumped from Mr.Montpelier’s carriage after he’d kidnapped her from the lunatic asylum to which her late husband had confined her, she’d been confronted by Celeste, Madame Chambon’s most beautiful ‘fair cyprian’.
Later, Lily had shared a room with Celeste after Mr.Montpelier had made an agreement with Madame to feed and house Lily for the months it would take to nourish her in order for Lily’s beauty to return.
Like so many of the girls at Madame’s, poise, grace, and charm, together with a knowledge of the arts, had been a pre-requisite.But Lily had always sensed Celeste was not simply pretending to be a lady.
Many of Madame’s girls adopted pretensions but, as Lily knew, having been born into the upper classes, there was always some small oversight that gave them away.Celeste had never made a single misstep in the six months Lily had known her.
But after Celeste had been murdered, her identity had remained shrouded in mystery.
And although the case had been sensationalized when the Russian diplomat Ivor Novichov was convicted of murdering a woman in a brothel, Celeste’s identity as a supposed prostitute seemed to have been of little importance.
Or rather, it had been eclipsed by Lily’s sudden celebrity status when it was learned that the spiritualist who had taken London by storm was, in fact, the natural-born daughter of Lord Lambton.
Yet it had been Celeste who had alerted Hamish to the threat that Novichov posed to Lily.
It was Celeste who had paid the price, and Lily would feel forever bound to the unfortunate young woman.
Now Celeste’s name had resurfaced, this time in relation to Dunstable, who had visited Madame Chambon’s, been entertained by Celeste, then returned, and, later, blackmailed Madame Chambon over material that would identify the young woman?
As a prostitute, Celeste had gone unrecognized and unmourned.A fallen woman deserved her fate, or so that’s what much of the public would appear to believe.
Lily tapped her fingers on the desk while she thought feverishly.
“Are you suggesting Lord Dunstable blackmailed Celeste because he knew who she really was?And that he wanted to find proof so he could blackmail her family after she was murdered?”
Archie shrugged.“You got it in one, m’lady.”He put down his pocket knife.“In fact, you’re a step ahead of me.”He pursed his lips and squinted.“I didn’t think of blackmail, but that’d be why Dunstable got Madame to crack in the end, and why she went off to fetch Celeste’s things just before Dunstable were done for.”
