The Hanover Square Affair (Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries #1)

  I'd received another letter from her today about her damned supper party with the admonition that I attend. I would have to disappoint her. I was in no mood to make inane small talk at a gathering that would include her husband. I contemplated rushing out and shooting Denis at once, so as to have an excuse to avoid Louisa's dinner.

  The joke relieved neither black humor nor my need to speak to her. I left my rooms and walked to Covent Garden theatre on the chance Louisa had attended tonight, but I did not see the Brandon carriage among those milling nearby. I did not see Nance either. I cringed at the thought of journeying to the Brandon house in Mayfair and refused to dash about town looking for her.

  In the end, I paid a visit to the Thorntons, and I found Louisa there.

  "I thought you'd be deep in whist at Lady Aline's," I said, sitting down in the Thorntons' bare front parlor. Alice returned to a footstool before Mrs. Thornton, pale and worn, who was nodding off over a skein of wool.

  "I wasn't in the mood for cards tonight," Louisa answered.

  The red and blue and gold wool she was winding made bright splashes on her brown cotton gown. Her gray eyes and the thin bandeau winding through her hair were her only adornments tonight.

  "How is Mr. Thornton?" I asked.

  Alice glanced at me. "The same, sir."

  I knew then I should not have come. Looking at them only made my heart harder. I caught Louisa's cool hand.

  "Talk to me."

  She looked up, frowning, but what she saw in my face made her still. She'd known me for a long time, and she knew what I was capable of.

  She gently pushed my hand away, and then she began to talk of things small and unimportant. I closed my eyes and let her voice trickle through my anger, dissolving my despair, loosening the knot in my heart. I remained there while she and Alice spoke of the small things that made up everyday life, until I was able to trust myself to return alone to my rooms and so to bed.

  *** *** ***

  I felt slightly better the next morning. The post brought me a letter from Grenville saying he was starting home at once and that Somerset had proved interesting. He did not elaborate.

  I tossed his letter aside and opened my reply from Master Philip Preston of number 23, Hanover Square. I'd written him the previous day before I'd set out for Denis's, asking formally for an appointment. He'd answered:

  Dear Captain Lacey: I received your letter and thought it frightfully decent of you to write. I've been laid up since the end of Michaelmas term, and they let me see no one, but if you'd call at one o'clock today, I will ensure that you are admitted. I know you have been investigating the murder next door, because I've watched you out the window. You also faced the cavalrymen who quelled the rioters, by yourself, which I thought very brave. I'd much like to meet you and talk about the murder. Your respectful servant, Philip Preston.

  The slanted juvenile handwriting and the scattered ink blots made me smile a little. I tucked the letter into my pocket.

  At one, I emerged from a hackney in Hanover Square. The weather had turned, and a hint of May and warmer spring lay on the breeze that broke the clouds. May would also bring the wedding of the Prince Regent's daughter, Charlotte, to her Prince Leopold. The festivities were already the talk of London. After that, June would arrive with its long days of light. I looked forward to summer, though I knew it would be gone all too soon. The dreariness of most of the year did my melancholia little good.

  I knocked at number 23, managing to avoid looking at number 22. A butler, who might have been cast from the same mold as that of number 21, answered the door. He began to tell me that Mr. Preston was out, but I handed him my card and told him my appointment was with the young master.

  An indulgent look touched his face that made him almost human. "Of course, sir. Please follow me."

  * * * * *

  Chapter Nineteen

  The butler led me through an echoing, elegantly furnished house with many pseudo-Greek pilasters and Doric columns and to the upper floors. At the end of one hall, he stopped, knocked, and opened the door when a young voice bade us enter.

  The room behind the double doors was stifling. A fire roared high on the hearth and the windows were shut tight. Books littered the room, as did papers, broken pens, the remains of a microscope, and various other scientific-looking instruments.

  Philip Preston himself hopped up from a divan. He was a tall, spindly lad of about fourteen, and his voice had already dropped from childish shrill to pre-manly baritone. I couldn't tell if his thinness came from his illness, or if he simply hadn't grown into the fullness of his body. He moved jerkily, as though someone controlled him with strings, and he executed an awkward bow.

  "You aren't wearing your regimentals," he said in a disappointed tone after the butler had gone. "John next door, said you were in the cavalry. The Thirty-Fifth Light."

  "I was. I only wear my regimentals on formal occasions."

  He seemed to find this reasonable. "You are investigating the murder, aren't you? Like a Runner."

  I moved newspapers aside and deposited myself on a chair. "Not precisely like a Runner." Runners got the reward money when a criminal was captured and convicted. I would get nothing for my efforts but the satisfaction of preventing a man from being wrongly hanged.

  "I saw you talking to one. Big blond chap."

  I inclined my head. "Pomeroy. Yes, he is a Runner. He was one of my sergeants on the Peninsula."

  "Really? Bloody marvelous. Who do you think did the murder?"

  "I came here to get your opinion on that. I believe you watch out the window a good deal."

  Philip plopped himself on the divan. "I must. I'm not well, you see. I came home last Michaelmas with a fever and had it for a month. I'm still too weak to go back to school, Mama's doctor says."

  I looked him up and down. Thin, yes, but his eyes moved restlessly, and the mess in the room did not speak of weakness.

  "You spend much time alone," I said.

  "I do. Mama is not well, either. She stays most days shut up in her rooms and doesn't come down. She will go out with Papa sometimes, but most days she will not. Papa stays out much of the time. He has business. He's in the Cabinet, you know."

  Ah. That Preston. Right hand to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. A man like that would not have time to indulge a valetudinarian wife and a bored and lonely son.

  "Do you ride at all?" I asked.

  Philip's eyes lit up, then dimmed. "I have my own pony. But I don't ride. Mama's doctor said it would tire me."

  I suspected Mama's doctor had discovered how to keep his fees rolling in from his wealthy patients. "We'll take you and your pony to Hyde Park and I'll teach to you ride like a cavalryman. That means how to ride long distances without tiring yourself."

  His face blossomed a wide grin. "Would you, sir? I'd be free Monday. That is--oh, I see, sir. You are being polite to me. I'm sorry."

  I shook my head. "Not at all. Good riding is a skill much admired in all gentlemen. I will show you how even an ill lad can do it."

  He nearly danced in his seat, then shot a doubtful look at my walking stick. "Do you still ride?"

  "I can," I answered. "I will meet you on Monday for a riding lesson, if you will tell me what happened out of the window the day Mr. Horne next door died."

  Philip waved his hand. "I can tell you all that. My tutor was supposed to come that day, but Papa dismissed him because he got into a disgrace--the tutor, I mean--and I didn't have anything to do. I sat at the window and looked out. Really not much happened that day at all. The maid, Grace, went out in the morning, and then John, the footman. He waved to me. He talks to me sometimes."

  "What time was this?"

  "Oh, very early. About nine o'clock. They regularly go out then. Grace comes back with a basket full of things, and John generally brings back parcels. Grace went out again, around one. She was in a tearing hurry, and kept looking behind her as though afraid someone would see her. She didn't look up at me. She ne
ver does."

  "Which way did she walk?"

  He motioned. "Off that way, toward Oxford Street. She stopped to talk to a bloke at the turning."

  "Did she? Did you see what he looked like?"

  He flushed. "I'm afraid I didn't."

  I waited. A young man who knew the servants next door by name and knew all their routines should be able to describe a stranger to perfection. But he looked at me shamefacedly. "The truth is, Captain, I wasn't looking just then."

  "Perhaps you were looking at something else," I suggested.

  He stood up and paced, hands behind his back, a perfect imitation of a gentleman owning up to his friends about a flaw in his character. "There's a young lady who lives three houses down. Miss Amanda Osborne. She came out and got into a carriage with her mother."

  I hid a smile. "And she is very pretty, I expect."

  His flush deepened. "I plan to marry her, you see--when I am much older, of course."

  I wondered if he referred to a marriage already arranged between their families, or if he'd simply decided his course of life--and hers--already.

  "Young ladies can distract us from our more rational purposes," I said.

  He shot me a look that said he was grateful that we, both men of the world, understood. "The next thing that happened is that about a quarter past one, a fine carriage pulled up and stopped in front of number 22. I was supposed to go down to dinner, but I couldn't take my eyes off the carriage. It was polished wood, with gilding on the corners and on the door. The wheels were black with gold spokes. There wasn't a crest on the door, and I'd never seen the carriage before, so I couldn't tell who it belonged to. The horses were finer than my papa's, finer than Lord Berring's--he lives on the other side of Mr. Horne. They were bay horses, and each had one white foot. It must have taken some doing to match them like that."

  I leaned forward, my interest heightening. "And who got out of this carriage?"

  "A gentleman, sir, and his servant. The servant was large and beefy, and had a red face. The man that got out was tall and had dark hair. I couldn't make out his face well, because he didn't look up, but he was dressed fine. All in black with a white neckcloth and a black cloak with a dark blue lining. He looked like he could step right out to Carleton House. He sent his servant up to the door, then followed. He was angry."

  I drummed my fingers on my trousered leg. "How do you know? You said you couldn't see his face."

  "Well--by the way he walked. You know, moving quick, and stomping his feet. Impatient and annoyed, like he didn't want to be there."

  "How long did he stay?"

  Philip stared at the ceiling a moment. "About an hour or so. They made me come down to dinner then, and when I finished and came back upstairs, the gentleman was just leaving. That must have been about half past two."

  "Was he still angry?"

  Philip tapped his cheek with his forefinger. "I don't know. I only glimpsed him that time. He went to the carriage with his cloak swirling, and climbed inside. But he moved different. I might almost say he seemed satisfied."

  Interesting. I went on. "After this gentleman departed, did anyone else come to the house?"

  "No one all afternoon. They had deliveries, as usual, but they went down to the kitchen. Two chaps with a cart and a lady with a basket."

  "Were these the usual people who delivered?"

  He shook his head. "They have different ones off and on. The lady has been delivering for about a month, and I recognized one of the chaps, but not the other chap."

  They would have gone to the kitchen, and all of the staff would have seen them. Only Mr. Denis, the fine gentleman with the fine carriage, had stopped to visit Mr. Horne through the front door.

  "And no one else?"

  "You came just as it was getting dark. And then their boy legged it away fast and came back later with the Runner. I recognized you from the day before, when you stood up to the cavalrymen. Did you know the cavalry chaps?"

  "I knew the lieutenant."

  "You stopped them from hurting the lady. And then you took the man and lady away. Did you cart them off to gaol?"

  "Of course not. I took them home. The man, he'd had much grief. Did he frighten you?"

  Philip shrugged. "I'm not certain. I watched him come and start beating on Mr. Horne's door. I could tell he was very angry and very unhappy. He started screaming and pulling at his hair. He certainly stirred the crowd, though. I expected them to start breaking windows and charging into the houses, but they didn't."

  He sounded disappointed.

  "They hadn't much heart in them," I said. "The horsemen easily frightened them off." I hesitated. "Do you watch out the window at night as well?"

  He weighed his answer, as though deciding what he should admit, then at last, he chose to trust me. "I don't sleep much. I watch people go out and then come back from their parties and the theatre. When I grow up, I won't be ill, and I'll go to balls and theatres and clubs all the time."

  "Did much ever happen at number 22 at night?"

  "No, sir. Mr. Horne hardly went out at all."

  I pondered. "Did anything out of the ordinary happen on a particular night, say three or four weeks ago?"

  Philip's eyes lit with admiration. "How'd you know, sir? That was the night the dark carriage came. No lights on it at all. I thought it was foolish and dangerous for it to go about like that. It sat in front of Mr. Horne's house for about a quarter of an hour."

  "Did anyone get out of this carriage?"

  "No. But someone got in. It wasn't Mr. Horne; the man was too tall and bulky for him. And he was carrying something over his shoulder, a carpet it looked like. He got in, and the coach just went away."

  A carpet. Or a bundled-up girl, unconscious or dead. Had Horne killed her, or found some other means to rid himself of her?

  "Does it have something to do with the murder?" Philip asked eagerly.

  I spread my hands. "It may have."

  "Do you think the fine gentleman who arrived that afternoon was the murderer, then?"

  I pursed my lips. "He certainly was in the right place at the right time." I imagined again Denis flicking his little finger and his large manservant jumping to the task of stabbing Horne to death. I still thought it unlikely. And the mutilation of the body did not fit. I doubted that Denis, with his emotionless eyes, would bother lopping off Horne's genitals. It was almost as though that had been done by a different person entirely.

  Alertness streaked through my body as the thought came and went. I reached for it again, turned it over slowly. Two different people. Threads wove and matched and fitted together.

  "I know Bremer didn't murder him," Philip was saying. "He's too old, and he's frightened of everything. Even a spider frightens him."

  "He is frightened," I said slowly. "But fear can be a very powerful motivation."

  "Can it, sir?"

  I nodded once, then rose and made a military bow. "It can. I thank you for your candor, Mr. Preston. It has helped me immensely."

  *** *** ***

  I left Philip then, reassuring him that I would not forget my promise to give him a riding lesson on Monday.

  I stopped at the newspaper office to inquire about further answers to Jane's whereabouts and found nothing. I returned home, ate one of Mrs. Beltan's buns without currants, and went upstairs. Later that day, I went to Bow Street and asked Pomeroy if he knew of any new developments. Pomeroy replied in the negative and seemed surprised that I wasn't satisfied with letting Bremer hang for the crime. Bremer's trial was Monday, he told me. It was Saturday now.

  I thought about what Philip Preston had told me about the dark carriage in the middle of the night and the bundle they had taken from number 22. That bundle had likely been Jane. But had she been dead or alive? Had they taken her to a brothel or thrown her into the river?

  A coach needed a coachman. From my inquiries about Horne and his household, I knew he'd kept no coach of his own, which meant he would have hired any he n
eeded. So he would have had to hire a carriage and a man to drive it.

  I thought of the coachman Nancy had found for me, Jemmy--who, in truth, worked for Denis. Denis had put him in place with the Carstairs, and I believed now that Denis had removed him as well. No doubt Jemmy had reported my inquisitiveness to Denis, his true employer.

  I began making inquiries at coach yards, asking whether any remembered hiring out a coach to a gentry-cove in Hanover Square about a month previously. None did. I returned home as the sky darkened, and settled in to a cold supper of yesterday's roast from the pub and a loaf of my landlady's bread.

  I returned to the subject of Denis. He had known all about me and what I wanted. Horne might have written him of my questions about Jane Thornton, but I doubted it. The only people who had known of my interest in Jane's abduction other than Horne had been Jemmy and Grenville.

  I let my mind wander. Grenville had been eager to help, at his own expense. He'd been strangely interested in Charlotte Morrison's disappearance and had dragged me to Hampstead to investigate. Then he'd volunteered to travel all the way to Somerset to make further inquiries.

  The night we'd spent in Hampstead, he'd disappeared from the inn, and he'd offered no explanation as to his whereabouts. He might have only met an acquaintance, of course, or enjoyed walking about by himself, and he had no reason to inform me of his movements. And his night wanderings in Hampstead did not necessarily have anything to do with James Denis. But I still wondered why he'd tried to keep what he did secret.

  A knock on my door startled me out of my contemplations. I had stared into the flames while I thought, and when I turned away, my eyes were dazzled, and I could barely see to cross the room.

  A boy stood on the threshold with a letter and a hopeful look. I took the letter and gave him tuppence.

  The note was from Grenville. "I traveled hard to reach home, and then I heard you had gone to see Denis without me. It was too bad of you. I imagine you learned nothing on your own. Call 'round at my club tonight. I have something to tell you and plans to make. I'll send my carriage at nine."

  I pitched the crumpled ball of the letter into the fire. I was tired of Grenville summoning me like his errand boy. I had displeased him; he wanted me to grovel. To hang on his every word and order as the rest of London did.