Fleet Street was the haunt of barristers and journalists, the latter of which were never my favorite sort of people. We fortunately saw none of them tonight. I supposed they had retreated to pubs like the one I'd just left, their day's work finished. Still I kept a wary eye out for one starved-looking journalist called Billings, who last summer had taken to roasting me in the newspapers for my involvement in the affair of Colonel Westin.
We walked all the way down the Fleet to New Bridge Street, then to Blackfriar's Bridge and a slippery staircase that led to the shore of the Thames. As we descended away from the stone houses, the wind took on a new chill.
The river lay cold and vast at the bottom of the steps, lapping softly at its banks and smelling of rotting cabbage. Lights roved the middle of the river, barges and small craft strolling upriver or back down to the ships moored at the Isle of Dogs or farther east in Blackwall and Gravesend.
A circle of lanterns huddled about ten yards from the staircase. "Saw her bobbing there," a thin voice was saying. "Told young John to help me fish her out. Dead as a toad and all bloated up."
As Pomeroy and I crunched over the shingle toward them, a man on the gravel bank turned. "Pomeroy."
"Thompson," Pomeroy boomed. "This is Captain Lacey, the chap I told you about. Captain, Peter Thompson of the Thames River Patrol."
I shook hands with a tall man who had graying hair and a sunken face, long nose, and thin mouth. He was muffled in a greatcoat that hung on his bony frame, and his gloves were frayed. But though his features were cadaverous, his eyes were strong and clear.
The Thames River Patrol skimmed up and down the river from the City to Greenwich, watching over the great merchant ships that docked along the waterway. Their watermen picked up flotsam from the river, either turning it in for reward or selling it. When they found bodies, they sent for the Thames River officers, although I suspected that some of the less scrupulous sold the poor drowned victims to resurrectionists, unsavory gentlemen who collected bodies any way they could to sell to surgeons and anatomists for dissection.
Thompson asked me, "Pomeroy said the woman might be an acquaintance of yours."
"Perhaps." I steeled myself for the possibility. "May I see her?"
"Over here." Thompson pointed a finger in his shabby glove to the thin gathering of men and lanterns.
I stepped past the waterman who smelled of mud and unwashed clothes into the circle of light. They had laid the woman out on a strip of canvas. Her gown, a light pink muslin, was pasted to her limbs, the sodden cloth outlining her thighs and curve of waist, her round breasts. Her face was gray, bloated with water. A wet fall of golden hair, coated with mud, covered the stones beside her.
She had been small and slim, with a girlish prettiness. Her hands were tiny in shredded gloves, and her feet were still laced into beaded slippers. Although her coloring and build were similar, she was not Marianne Simmons.
I exhaled in some relief. "I do not know her. She isn’t Miss Simmons."
"Hmph," Pomeroy said. "Thought it was her. Ah well."
Thompson said nothing, looking neither disappointed nor elated.
I went down on one knee, supporting my weight on my walking stick. "She had no reticule, or other bag?"
"Not a thing, Captain," Thompson replied. "Although a reticule might have been washed down river. No cards, nothing on her clothes. I imagine she was a courtesan."
I lifted the hem of her skirt and examined the fabric. "Fine work. This is a lady's dress."
"Might have stolen it," Pomeroy suggested.
"It fits her too well." I dropped the skirt and ran my gaze over the gown. "It was made for her."
"Or her lover sent her to a dressmaker," Thompson said.
I looked at the young woman’s neck and wrists, which were bare. "No jewels. If she had a protector, she would wear the jewels he bought her."
"Someone could have taken them," Pomeroy continued his theme.
I touched the woman's throat. "There is no sign of bruising or force on her neck, nor on her arms. I do not believe she was wearing any jewels before she fell in. She was not robbed."
Thompson leaned down with me. "No," he said. "But she was murdered."
He turned the woman's head to one side. I recoiled, my hand tightening on my walking stick.
The entire back of the woman's head and been caved in, rendering her skull and hair a black and bloody mess.
About the Author
Award-winning Ashley Gardner is a pseudonym for New York Times bestselling author Jennifer Ashley. Under both names--and a third, Allyson James--Ashley has written more than 30 published novels and novellas in mystery and romance. Her books have won several RTBook Reviews Reviewers Choice awards (including Best Historical Mystery for The Sudbury School Murders), and Romance Writers of America's RITA (given for the best romance novels and novellas of the year). Ashley's books have been translated into a dozen different languages and have earned favorable reviews in Publisher's Weekly and Booklist.
More about the Captain Lacey series can be found at:
http://www.gardnermysteries.com.
Or email Ashley Gardner at
[email protected] Books in the series
The Hanover Square Affair
A Regimental Murder
The Glass House
The Sudbury School Murders
The Necklace Affair
A Body in Berkeley Square
A Covent Garden Mystery
And more to come!
Jennifer Ashley, A Regimental Murder
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