A Disappearance in Drury Lane (20 page)

“I intend to.” Mr. Conant let out a long breath, wiped his pen, and laid it down. “I will do you a favor, Captain. I do not feel I have enough evidence yet to keep you for trial, but I must request that you remain in London and return to me if I summon you. Will you give me your word that you will do that?”

“I give you my word.” I could barely say the response in my anger, but I knew he was being lenient when he did not have to be.

“Sir,” Spendlove broke in, his face reddening. “Are you certain? The witness . . .”

“Will remain anonymous, and I will be ascertaining whether Captain Lacey was at his house as he claims. This hearing will remain open until I am satisfied one way or the other. Is that clear?”

Spendlove did not look happy. Pomeroy got to his feet with his usual energy. “I’ll go round to South Audley Street and question the staff, shall I?”

“No, I will,” Spendlove said.

“Pomeroy will do it,” Conant said with a frown. “You, Mr. Spendlove, are too adamant to obtain the conviction. I want someone less eager to prove the captain guilty.”

“Pomeroy used to be his sergeant,” Spendlove said. “He’s hardly a neutral party.”

Pomeroy answered, still sounding cheerful. “I resent you thinking I’d let sentiment stand in the way of me job. But if you think I’ll let the captain off because he used to scream at me in the mud of the battlefield, then we’ll send another Runner.”

“I will decide,” Conant said. He stood up. “Please leave me, gentlemen. I have many more cases to hear today.”

Beneath my anger and exhaustion, I let out a breath of relief. I’d not see the inside of Newgate today.

“Wait for me downstairs, Captain,” Sir Montague said. “I might be a few minutes getting out of this chair, and I want to speak to Sir Nathaniel.”

I agreed, and departed, passing a grinning Pomeroy and glowering Spendlove.

Downstairs, I stepped out of the fetid air of the house to cold, brisk winter wind along Bow Street. It was mid-afternoon, sunshine trying to break through scurrying clouds. A coach—I assumed Sir Montague’s—waited in front of the house, so I waited with it.

Spendlove exited behind me, putting on his tall hat. He paused when he saw me, and came close. “Mr. Denis won’t protect you forever,” he said, not bothering to lower his voice. “He might wriggle you out of this, but I vow to see the pair of you where you ought to be—dangling from nooses side by side.” Without giving me time to respond, he turned his back and walked away.

“Have a care of him.” Sir Montague limped out of the magistrate’s house, his face twisting as he came down on his bad leg. “A word in your ear, my boy.”

I waited. One of the foot patrollers came out to help Sir Montague into the carriage, but Sir Montague waved him off.

“Spendlove has a bone to pick,” Sir Montague said. “He usually does. But he is dogged in his pursuit of Mr. Denis, even more so than you are. You have compassion. Spendlove has none. Do not stand in his way.”

I hadn’t intended to, but Spendlove seemed bent upon standing in
my
way. “You sound as though you speak from experience.”

Sir Montague’s usually good-natured countenance became serious. “A few years ago the Queen’s Square magistrate lent Spendlove to me to assist on a case. Spendlove arrested the culprit I had in mind, who was suspected of a few murders. Before I could question the man—I believed he had not acted alone—Spendlove had beaten him almost to death. Spendlove said he believed the man worked for Mr. Denis, and he’d been trying to get information about Denis out of him. The suspect died of his injuries before he could be brought before me. To this day, that case remains unsolved.”

“Good Lord. Was the man connected with Denis?”

“Who knows?” Sir Montague gestured with his large hand. “Spendlove has embarked upon a crusade against Mr. Denis, and he’s ruthless in his pursuit. All others must fall before his obsession. I’ve suggested Spendlove be dismissed, but unfortunately, the other magistrates say he’s a very good thief-taker, which is true. He lives well on his rewards for convictions. However, I would not put it past Spendlove to kill Perry himself and leave him in your rooms for you to be blamed.” He shrugged and let out a sigh. “But perhaps I go too far. If Spendlove had killed him, I believe he’d have made certain Perry was found sooner and you arrested right away. And so, I repeat, have a care.”

“I will. Thank you, sir.”

“Besides,” Sir Montague said, his cheerful twinkle returning as he signaled the patroller to come help him, “
I
want to have the joy of catching Mr. Denis. It must be carefully done. Spendlove will blunder, and any charges against Denis will not stick. Nice to have seen you, Captain.”

Sir Montague let a patroller push him up into the carriage, and then he touched his hat to me and settled back into the seat. The carriage jerked forward into the traffic of Bow Street, Sir Montague raising his hand in farewell.

*** *** ***

I decided to walk to Grimpen Lane myself and see what I could see. Before I did, I went back into the Bow Street house to find Pomeroy and ask what had become of my walking stick.

“Sir Nathaniel has it locked up tight,” Pomeroy said when I finally ran him to ground. “If it turns out not to be the murder weapon, I’ll bring it back to you.” He strode off again, and I had to be content with his answer.

I walked the short way around the corner to Russel Street and into Grimpen Lane. I tapped my way along, the wind tugging at my coat and hat. It occurred to me that, bundled in my coat with my hat pulled down, I was as anonymous as the next man who passed me. I was tall, but I was not the only tall man in London, and many gentlemen used walking sticks. Whoever had professed to see me might have spied any man in a greatcoat bundled up against the cold. Unless the witness had stood directly in front of me and spoken to me, she could not possibly have known whether I was the gentleman she’d seen.

I stepped into the bakeshop, breathing a sigh of relief to be out of the wind, and removed my hat. Behind her counter, Mrs. Beltan slid formed loaves into the bread oven of her fireplace, wiped her hands, and came out to see me.

“Bad business, Captain,” she said. “What nonsense, accusing you of murder. I told that Runner, Mr. Spendlove, you wouldn’t have done such a thing, and that you were gone to Bath, but he had a bee in his bonnet.
I
never saw you near that night, and I usually notice your comings and goings.”

I leaned on the counter, soaking up the warmth of the place. “Do you know who told them I entered my rooms? One of your customers, perhaps?”

Mrs. Beltan shook her head. “I doubt very much it was one of
my
customers. The ladies come in, they know what bread they want, they tuck it into their baskets, and out they go. They usually are in far too much a hurry to be watching who’s going up to the rooms above. Someone’s telling lies, I’m certain. Now then, Captain, before you go—your new wife wouldn’t turn up her nose at fresh-baked bread or a cruller or two, even if she is an aristocrat. A gift from me?”

“
I
certainly wouldn’t say no, Mrs. Beltan, but my wife is still in Bath.”

“Never you mind. I’ll give you something to take with you, and you come back when she’s here for more.”

So saying, Mrs. Beltan went behind the counter to her kitchen and filled a cloth-lined basket filled with good-smelling baked breads. I would feast tonight.

As I left the shop, my gaze went across the street to the house opposite and its upstairs window, with the curtains open the exact width they were every day.

I stopped. A woman who claimed she knew me by sight, who swore it was me going into my rooms. Sir Nathaniel never could have meant Mrs. Carfax, could he?

Despite living across from the woman for years, I barely knew Mrs. Carfax. We nodded at each other in passing, occasionally exchanging greetings and remarks about the weather, but that was all.

Mrs. Carfax was widowed and had lived in this cul-de-sac for ten years, so Mrs. Beltan had told me. She and her companion were thin and spare, with narrow faces and graying hair under large bonnets. Mrs. Carfax and Miss Winston dressed similarly, bowing to fashion only in the most cursory way, forgoing the braid, lace, netting, ribbons, or feathers so loved by Donata that made her gowns works of art.

I thought I saw a movement behind the curtain upstairs. On impulse, I crossed the narrow street and knocked on the door of the house.

And knocked. I backed a step and looked up again. There went the curtain, with the face of Mrs. Carfax peering around it. I waved at her and pointed at the door.

The curtains snapped all the way closed. For the first time since I’d lived in Grimpen Lane, Mrs. Carfax had muffled her window during the hours of daylight.

I knocked on the door again, annoyed. And again. At long last, the bolt was drawn back, the door opened a crack, and Mrs. Carfax’s companion peered out.

Though the two women were similar in looks and build, I saw the differences between them as I studied Miss Winston a foot away from me. Miss Winston had large brown eyes and the regular features of a once-pretty woman. She’d suppressed the prettiness by scraping her hair into a severe bun and wearing a frock of drab brown that washed any color from her face.

“Good afternoon, Captain,” Miss Winston said. “Mrs. Carfax does not want to see you.”

She shut the door. Or tried to. I put my foot inside it and forced the door open. Miss Winston looked at me in pure terror as I grabbed the door handle and held on.

“Miss Winston, I assure you I did not harm that man,” I said. “Mrs. Carfax was mistaken.”

“She made no mistake.” Miss Winston tried to shut the door again.

I clung to it. “Let me speak to her.”

“She don’t want to.”

“Please, Miss Winston.” I heard the desperation in my voice. “The magistrate is ready to charge me for a crime I did not commit. Let me convince her I was nowhere near Grimpen Lane that night.”

Miss Winston debated, her eyes narrowing, intelligence trying to overcome her fear. Something in me must have been persuasive, because she at last gave a nod. “Wait here.”

I was reluctant to move my foot and let her shut the door, but I conceded, released the door handle, and backed a step. The door closed, but Miss Winston did not shoot the bolt. I heard her ascend the stairs inside, and after a time, voices raised above.

The door was too thick for me to discern what was said, but after about a quarter of an hour, footsteps sounded again. Miss Winston opened the door then reached behind her and dragged an unhappy Mrs. Carfax outside with her.

Mrs. Carfax was the plainer of the two women, her eyes like faded blue sky. She kept her head ducked, her shawl pulled tight, as though appalled Miss Winston had made her come out without a bonnet and concealing coat.

“We should speak inside,” I said. “The day is too cold.”

Miss Winston shook her head. “No, you must say your piece. She’ll not let you in.”

I doubted anything male had entered their rooms in a decade. “Mrs. Carfax,” I said as gently as I could. “You could not have seen me here the night of Mr. Perry’s death. It was the fifth of January; do you remember? I was at home with Mrs. Lacey, packing to remove to Bath. I was in sight of my wife or her servants, or my daughter and my daughter’s aunt and uncle the entire evening. So you see, it could not have been me you saw.”

Mrs. Carfax shot me a quick glance, blue eyes the only color in her face. “It was you, Captain. I know it.”

“I take it you saw me from your window?” I asked, looking up at it.

Mrs. Carfax pulled her shawl closer. “That is correct. From the window.”

“Mrs. Carfax, in the years I’ve known you, you have always closed your curtains as soon as the daylight fades. You keep them closed until dawn, never varying. In winter, the darkness comes early, not much past four. How then, were your curtains open for you to look out at eight in the evening?”

“I on occasion crack them open to look out into the street. Such as when I hear a noise.”

She was lying. Her face was flushed, her gaze everywhere but on mine.

“Have we not been neighbors and acquaintances for years?” I asked her. “You know that man wasn’t me, Mrs. Carfax. If you saw any man at all.”

“It was you.” Mrs. Carfax’s voice grew more firm as the words came out. “I have told the magistrate.”

I tried to speak patiently, but my words had an edge to them. “Has someone put you up to this? Told you to say these things? Mr. Spendlove, perhaps?”

Her eyes flickered, but I could not tell if she feared the name of Spendlove or her fright came from me towering over her, demanding she answer.

“If he has threatened you, I will stop him,” I said. “Forgive me for upsetting you, but I might be fighting for my life. I’ve only just gotten married.”

I realized at that moment exactly how much I wanted a long, happy life with Donata. Wanted it, longed for it with everything in me. The preparations for the wedding, the ceremony, and the shortened wedding journey had all rather obscured the realization that I had done the deed.

At this moment, in the street, cold wind cutting through me, my thoughts coalesced to one incandescent point—I had married my lover, a woman who’d challenged me from the moment I’d met her. I wanted to embrace every moment I had with her.

Mrs. Carfax remained rigid, not looking at me, but Miss Winston softened a little. “The Runner, Mr. Spendlove, did question us. He had poor Henny in quite a state.”

This was the first time I’d heard Mrs. Carfax’s Christian name, or at least her pet name. “Did he instruct you to tell the magistrates you’d seen me?”

Mrs. Carfax broke away from Miss Winston. “I
saw
you, Captain. That is all.” She gathered her shawl about her and ran back inside the house, slamming the door behind her.

Miss Winston remained with me, her look troubled.

“I am correct, am I not?” I asked her. “Mr. Spendlove made her say these things.”

“I believe so. Mr. Spendlove spoke to her in Mrs. Beltan’s parlor. He sent me out, quite forcibly, and shut the door. When he’d finished and emerged, Henny was pale and sick, and she had to be taken home and put to bed. She never would tell me what he’d said.”