The Mask of Night by Tracy Grant Read Free Book Online Page A

to remain calm but not leave the premises."
    "A Bow Street Runner's on his way here. They'll be questioning the guests and taking statements.” Mélanie scanned the garden, the hedges and shrubs and bits of statuary, the high walls, the single vine-covered gate. "Go through the back gate. The mews opens onto St. James’s Street. You can find a hackney there or in Piccadilly."
    "But—"
    "You have money? Here.” Mélanie snatched her reticule from the wrought iron table and fished out her coin purse.
    Hortense searched her face. "Where will I find you?"
    "The Grosvenor Gate in Hyde Park. Tomorrow at three.” Mélanie closed Hortense's fingers round the purse and drew her friend along the hedged path to the gate.
    "But—"
    "There's no time, chérie .” Mélanie unlatched the gate. The vines rustled beneath her fingers. She could smell saddle soap and harness oil and horse dung. The moonlight gleamed blue-black on the cracked cobblestones. A horse whickered from one of the stalls, but she could hear no human sound. "Turn left at St. James’s Street. There'll be carriages waiting for the ball guests and hackneys looking for customers."
    Hortense turned back to her, eyes dark with concern behind her pasteboard mask. "What will you tell your husband?"
    "I don't know yet.” Mélanie pushed the Empress's daughter through the gate. "I'm making it up as I go along."
     

     
    Charles stepped back onto the terrace. Someone had put a blue enamel lamp on the wrought iron table near the fountain. It cast a wash of warm light over two figures kneeling on the flagstones beside the corpse. One was Jeremy Roth. The other, black velvet skirts spread about her, white shoulders emerging from beaded black silk, was his wife.
    "Fraser.” Roth helped Mélanie up and walked toward Charles, hand extended, greatcoat flapping in the wind. “When I said on Tuesday last that I hoped to see you again soon I was thinking more of a reciprocal dinner invitation than the scene of a crime.”
    Roth's thin face was alight with friendship despite the circumstances. When they had met two months ago, due to the abduction of Charles and Mélanie’s son, Roth had treated them with the wariness of one who came from a different world and had no desire to bridge the gap. The investigation into Colin’s disappearance had changed all of them in a number of ways. And yet beneath the burgeoning friendship lurked the fact that Roth had the power to destroy him and Mélanie and all three of them knew it. Two months ago, at the conclusion of the investigation of Colin’s abduction, Roth had come into possession of a letter that revealed Mélanie’s past. He had returned the letter to Mélanie with the seal unbroken, but closer investigation had revealed that the seal had been steamed open.
    Charles shook Roth’s hand. “This isn’t exactly how any of us expected to spend the evening. What have you learned?”
    Roth moved to the table and picked up his notebook. Charles crossed the flagstones and took Mélanie’s hand. Her fingers closed hard about his own. He raised his brows. She shook her head slightly, a quick code for I’ll tell you later .
    "He's been dead two to three hours, I'd judge,” Roth said, flipping through the pages of his notebook, "which means half an hour to an hour and a half before Lady Lucinda discovered him. Mrs. Fraser found a couple of threads of red fabric on his shoes that look as though they come from the carpet in the entrance hall. I'm quite sure he came into the house through the front door and I suspect the killer did as well. Mrs. Fraser and I couldn't find any hint of the victim's identity."
    “His name is Julien St. Juste,” Charles said and proceeded to recount what he had learned from the Foreign Secretary and Lord Carfax.
    Mélanie's expression remained beautifully neutral, as though she had never heard of Julien St. Juste.
    Roth let out a low whistle. “I’m surprised I wasn’t packed back to Bow Street. They want