A Regimental Murder (32 page)

Authors: Ashley Gardner

Tags: #mystery, #murder mystery, #england, #historical, #cozy mystery, #london, #regency, #peninsular war, #captain lacey

BOOK: A Regimental Murder

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"Happily met, Captain."

I recognized the strident tones of Milton
Pomeroy, once my sergeant, now one of the famous Bow Street
Runners. The light from windows in the house opposite shone on his
pale blond hair and battered hat, the dark suit on his broad
shoulders, and his round and healthy face.

In the Thirty-Fifth Light Dragoons during the
Peninsular War, Pomeroy had been my sergeant. In civilian life,
he'd retained his booming sergeant's voice, his brisk sergeant's
attitude, and his utter ruthlessness in pursuit of the enemy. The
enemy now were not the French, but the pickpockets, house-breakers,
murderers, prostitutes, and other denizens of London.

"A piss of an evening," he said jovially.
"Not like the Peninsula, eh?"

Weather in Iberia had been both hot and cold,
but usually dry, and the summers could be fine. Tonight especially,
I longed for those summer days under the sweltering sun. "Indeed,
Sergeant," I said.

"Well, I've not come to jaw about the
weather. I've come to ask you about that little actress what lives
upstairs from you."

I regarded him in surprise. "Miss
Simmons?"

"Aye, that's the one. Seen her about?"

"Not for a week or so."

Marianne Simmons, a blond young woman with a
deceptively childlike face and large blue eyes, eked out a living
playing small parts at Drury Lane theatre. She lived in the rooms
above mine and stretched her meager income by helping herself to my
candles, coal, snuff, and other commodities. I let her, knowing she
might go without otherwise.

Marianne often disappeared for long stretches
at a time. I had once tried to inquire where she went on her
sojourns, but she only fixed me with a cold stare and told me it
was none of my business. I assumed Marianne found a protector
during these absences, temporarily at least. In the past, she'd
always returned within a month, proclaiming her general disgust at
men and asking whether she could share my supper.

"Well, then, sir," Pomeroy went on
cheerfully. "Can you come along with me and look at a corpse from
the river? It might very well be hers."

I stopped in shock. "What? Good God."

"Pulled out of the Thames not half hour ago
by a waterman," Pomeroy said. "She looked like your actress, so I
thought I'd fetch you to make sure."

My blood went cold. Marianne and I had our
differences, but I counted her among my friends. I certainly didn’t
wish so terrible a death on her. "There's nothing to tell you who
she is?"

"Not a thing, so the Thames River gent says.
She's not been dead long. A few hours or more, I should say.
Officer of the Thames River Patrol sent for the magistrate, who
sent for me."

So explaining, Pomeroy led me out of Grimpen
Lane and Russel Street and down to the Strand. My walking stick
rang on the cobbles as I strove to match Pomeroy's long stride and
tried to stem my rising worry.

I doubted Marianne would try to do away with
herself; she had a brisk attitude toward life, no matter that it
had not dealt her very high cards. She was not a brilliant actress,
but she did well enough and was always popular with the gentlemen
of the audience.

But accidents happened, and people fell into
the river and drowned all too often. I wondered, if the dead woman
proved to be Marianne, how on earth I would break the news to
Grenville.

We walked east on the Strand and entered
Fleet Street through one of the pedestrian arches of Temple Bar.
The road curved with the river that flowed a few streets away,
though the high buildings hid any aspect of it.

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.