Death and the Cyprian Society (9 page)

“No?” asked Arabella. “With her dead husband lying there in state? What could possibly take precedence over that? Where is Mrs. Greely?”

“At home, miss. Having her twelfth child.”

“Oh, the poor woman! How will she care for her family alone?”

“I shouldn’t worry about that, either, miss,” said Frank. “Greely was something of a legend in these parts. You saw the way those ruffians treated his supposed widow!”

“Yes,” said Arabella. “And I am accustomed to celebrity, as you know. Usually people crowd around, vying for a chance to talk to me. But this lot didn’t even dare! I felt like a queen!”

“Mrs. Greely
is
a sort of queen, down here,” said Frank. “The criminal community will take good care of her family, and see to it that the kiddies all grow up to be first-class smugglers, like their pa!”

Arabella stared meditatively at the toes of her shoes as they walked toward the bridge, the carriage following at a discreet distance. This was a terrible part of town. The Ratcliff Highway murders had happened near here only two years ago: a young family, and their apprentice, slaughtered like hogs in a pen. The case was never solved. Not really. But she didn’t want to think about that just now.

“Frank,” said Arabella, “what would you have done if Mr. Tyke had appeared?”

“Stood him to a drink and invited him to our table,” said Frank.

“No! Would you really?”

“Oh, yes. Then I’d have introduced him to Mrs. Greely, the most powerful person in that room, and told him to produce Miss Worthington’s letters or face the consequences.”

“Brilliant!” breathed Arabella. “Oh, damn! Why didn’t he come? I could have had the case solved tonight!”

By this time, Frank and the suppositional Widow Greely had arrived at London Bridge, and they decided to walk out upon it for a little way. The clammy mist engulfed them like wet smoke.

“You see, miss,” Frank was saying, “the most vicious crimes always occur near the river, because the gangs are all based here. It’s the ideal setup for them: tiny, crooked little streets, derelict warehouses, ships moored so close together you can leap from one deck to another when being pursued. Your Mr. Tyke stays here when he’s at home, but he’s a solo operator, not a gang member; what you might call a henchman for hire.”

“Not
my
Mr. Tyke!” Arabella protested. “I don’t know the first thing about him!”

“Ah,” said Frank. “Well, he’s a man of many talents. Routinely hires himself out for ‘protective services,’ if you know what I mean.”

“No, I’m afraid I—”

“He roughs people up, for a price. I can’t say if he’s ever murdered anybody, but he’s certainly been in a position to do so. We’re searching for him now, as a matter of fact, in connection with a little matter involving a missing person.”

“Oh!” said Arabella. “You wouldn’t by any chance be referring to Mr. Savory-Pratt, would you?”

“Bless my soul! How did you come to know that?” Frank pulled out a notepad and a pencil from his breast pocket. “What can you tell me about this matter, miss?”

“Nothing that the police don’t already know, I’m afraid; I had it from a couple of bailiffs who were watching his house.”

“Oh,” said Frank, masking his disappointment and putting his notepad away again. “Yes. We’ve already spoken to those two.”

The idea of tracking Tyke to his lair had little appeal for Arabella now. She suddenly wanted to go home, but they were halfway across the bridge, and her carriage waited behind them, at the end of it. She tried to tell herself that it was not so bad as all that. New gas fixtures had recently been installed along the parapet here, and their light was somewhat reassuring when one stood directly beneath them, but for the most part, they only served to heighten the effect of the deep shadows that gathered and pooled in the spaces between the poles: They were more eerie than cheery. Watery moonlight, fighting its way through the miasma, lit up the water in uncanny patches, as sinister personages materialized ahead of them, or brushed past them from behind, their features indistinct in the fog.

“I should have liked to see this bridge in its heyday,” Arabella said, resting her arms on the parapet and affecting a heartiness that she did not feel, “when it was all covered over in shops and houses.”

“I doubt you’d have liked it, miss. It was filthy, crowded, and stinking in those days, worse even than now. Imagine all those blokes up at the Prospect, brought to this bridge with cartloads more, and herded along till they completely covered it over. That’s your old London Bridge.”

Despite her avocation, Arabella was averse to crime as a subject for study, except for highway robbery, of course, which she and everybody else considered dashing and romantic. That profession had all but died out now, though. The other sorts of crime were generally associated with garbage, violence, and unattractive locales. Why would anyone want to go to such places voluntarily, when they might stay comfortably at home? Why should
she?
Well, there was the danger, of course. And danger had an attraction all its own, for some people.

“I wish it were possible to arrest all the criminals—every last one—and send them to Tasmania,” she said.

“It
isn’t
possible, I’m afraid. What we really want is a strategy to prevent the commission of crimes in the first place.”

“You’re right, Frank. That would make far more sense. But it would also take a long time to see any results, and something should be done immediately. Law-abiding citizens are virtual prisoners after dark, cowering in their houses, afraid to go out. It’s not even safe to visit the theater or the opera, despite the presence of so many other people.”

“What do they expect?” Frank asked her. “People refuse to vote for a police force, because they’re afraid it’ll be a government spy system like the one they have in France. Londoners don’t want their liberty threatened.”

“Ridiculous!” snorted Arabella.

“Not at all—it
will
be threatened! We have good laws here, that no one pays any attention to, at present. It’s unlawful to wander about drunk and disorderly; illegal to pick up a girl on a street corner for salacious doings. Half the practical jokes the bucks and dandies play on each other should by rights earn them a pleasant holiday in the stone jug! (Newgate, miss.) Nobody wants to be nicked for those things. Particularly the nobs, and they would be, if the laws were enforced.”

“Well,” said Arabella, “things would definitely be different if women had the vote.”

“Yes,” said her escort, who had always harbored a private respect for the fair sex. “No doubt, no doubt. Life would be safer if cooler heads prevailed.”

A rowboat was pulling silently along the river toward them, its red and green lights winking in the darkness.

“That’ll be the River Patrol,” said Frank quietly, as they watched the boat draw nearer. “I’m thinking of going over to them.”

“What! You’d leave the Runners?”

“I’m considering it. They’ve passed me over for promotion twice now, and the River Patrol has offered me a captaincy.”

“Well,” said Arabella uncertainly, “that is something, isn’t it? What is it these fellows do, exactly?”

“They patrol the river by night, miss.”

“No, I know that, but why? What are they looking for?”

“Thieves, mostly. Because there’s no effective way to lock up a boat, you see.”

Arabella’s mind was racing: Would Frank really leave the Runners? He was such a useful connection! A river patrol captain would not be nearly as valuable to her, but Frank was prattling on as though he’d already accepted the post:

“Just imagine what it would be like if all the merchants on Bond Street were to leave their shop doors wide open behind them when they went home at night. That’s what the Thames is like after dark.”

“I should think you’d be bored, Frank, spending your nights rowing up and down, looking for thieves.”

“The job also requires body retrieval, miss. Occasionally the river police are able to save suicides before they drown. Seems a waste of time, though, as they just have to hand them over to the hangman.”

“How beastly! It seems to me that a person should have the right to take his own life if he wants to.”

Frank was shocked. “Oh, by no means, miss! That’s a crime against God!”

“Oh, well; put it out of your mind, then,” said Arabella, whose views on the subject were somewhat unorthodox.

“Yes, miss; that I will!”

By now, the patrol boat was almost directly beneath them, and Frank, spotting an officer he knew, waved his arms. “Hoy!” he cried. “Up here!”

The man in the bow raised his lantern.

“Cap’n Dysart,” he called, cupping his free hand around his mouth. “Something here for you, sir! Can you come down?”

“Why is he calling you ‘captain’ already?” Arabella asked, suspiciously. “I thought you were just thinking it over.”

“Yes. Well, I
am.
But they’re quite keen to bring me on board, as it were.” He coughed, diffidently. “I’m just going to nip down there and see what they’ve found.” He moved to the head of the stairs. “Come along, if you please, miss. I can’t risk leaving you alone up here.”

Arabella was not looking forward to whatever it was the river police had pulled out of the water, but she saw the folly in remaining on the bridge alone, and reluctantly followed Frank down the stairs.

“It’s deuced hard hauling a corpse into a boat from the river,” Frank was saying. “All dead weight, you see. I’m working on patenting an attachment for the stern, whereby bodies can be seized and hauled aboard over a roller device.”

They descended the steps and stood in the ooze at the river’s edge whilst the oarsmen brought the boat ashore. Inside, a sodden white corpse lay curled on the burden boards like an outsized shrimp. Its hands were tied behind it, and the throat had been slashed. There was no blood, though. It must have all drained out after the victim was dumped in the river. Arabella turned her head away, pulled down her veil, and shut her eyes.

“Where’d you find him?” Frank asked with genuine interest.

“Just here, sir; near Wapping Steps. He’s been dead a few hours.”

“I thought as much. Fellow up the pub as good as confessed to this. Miss Beaumont,” he said, “may I present the late Mr. Jerry Tyke?”

She whipt round, and saw the beam from the lantern sparking off a pink jewel in the corpse’s ear.

Arabella was something of an expert when it came to gemstones, and was capable of making instant identifications, even in poor lighting.

“Tourmaline!” she exclaimed. “Of
course!
Why didn’t
I
think of that?”

Chapter 6

W
hen she woke the next morning, the sun was streaming through her windows, as if inviting Arabella to enjoy life again, and chiding her for sleeping so late. But she ignored the summons, and sat up only to draw the pineapple bed curtains closer together.

Well, she thought, turning her face to the wall, at least I shall have my money now. And for some minutes she lay reveling in the luxury of her silken pillows, her lace-edged sheets, and the warm, rich, floral scents wafting through her window from the garden. Thus, laved in the atmosphere of a summer morning, she could almost have fancied the previous night’s sinister adventure a bad dream . . . except for the corpses, of course. There could be no question that
those
were real—Tyke in the bottom of the patrol boat, with his slashed throat and maggot-white face. And Greely, his probable victim. Greely hadn’t deserved that death, whatever he may have done, and the ghosts that haunted Tyburn Gallows would be surprised to find his shade among their number—a newcomer, after so many years. No doubt they would end by snubbing him. After all,
they
had been lawfully executed; Greely didn’t belong there.

But this was not what Arabella wanted to think about on her first trouble-free day since Costanze’s last visit. She should have been able to go back to sleep. She should have been happy . . . relieved . . . a lot of things. Instead, Arabella felt as if she had swallowed a heavy, chilled stone the size of her own stomach. The case, such as it was, had been too quickly solved. Now she would have nothing to do until Belinda returned.

That reminded her of Belinda’s letter, which had arrived yesterday when Arabella had not had time to read it, and she rolled over to pluck the missive from her nightstand.

Belinda’s letter was a trifle unsettling, but in the company of Peter Gentry and his gun, Arabella decided that Bunny could be in no real danger.

At that point, the door creaked, and Rooney pushed it open wide enough to admit his head. Then he leapt onto the bed, where he began smiling and kneading the coverlet even before Arabella had begun to stroke him.

“Well, I am glad that
you
don’t have fangs like scimitars,” she said, scratching his ears. “Feeding you half a stag a day would be far too expensive!”

She reflected that even Belinda was having adventures now, whilst her own had clearly come to an end. Of course, it was a vast relief to be free from monetary worries, but the case had provided a welcome distraction from loneliness, and from those obtrusive reflections concerning Mr. Kendrick, whose face kept popping into her mind at odd moments. Like now.

“Oh! What am I doing?” cried Arabella, throwing back the covers and slipping into her satin slippers. “I have the Cyprian Society to think about!”

She floated down her spiral staircase, in the rosy glow produced from the round skylight and the softly tinted walls, imagining herself inside a nautilus shell and at one with the universe. She tried to tell herself that she was happy, but in the pit of her stomach, the heavy, empty sensation persisted.

And it only oppressed her more when she saw that her morning post contained a reply from the heretofore missing Cuthbert Savory-Pratt. He had “concluded his business abroad,” he said, and was most eager to meet with her. This was not surprising: Arsy-Varsey was a voracious womanizer.

“Well, finally!” said Mrs. Janks, with whom Arabella was having breakfast.
⁸
“Now you can interview the last of your brother’s gnat-brained friends, and have done with them, once and for all!”

“Well, this comes a bit late, I fear. The blackmailer was murdered last night.”

“Murdered! There now; what did I tell you? That’s what comes of you traipsin’ about Putney at all hours!”

“It was Wapping, Mrs. J.”

“I’m sure it was! And it might have been you that got murdered, ’stead of the blackmailer! I don’t suppose you ever thought of
that,
did you?”

“Not for a moment. Because Constable Dysart was with me all evening,” said Arabella, sipping her coffee. “Anyway, don’t you want to hear about it? Somebody trussed the fellow like a chicken, cut his throat, and threw him into the Thames.”

“You don’t say so?” said the housekeeper with genuine interest. “Now, there’s a to-do, if you like!”

“Quite,” agreed Arabella, ripping the end off her croissant. “It seems to have been a vengeance killing: the murdered man committed a murder himself early yesterday morning, and I’m told his victim was quite popular, in certain sinister circles.”

“Hmm. They done him the same way, I expect,” murmured Mrs. Janks.

“No, actually they didn’t. The first victim was hanged at the old Tyburn Gallows.”

“At Tyburn! Bless my soul! Why they don’t tear that place down is beyond me, so it is! Maybe now they will, seeing as it’s been christened as an official health hazard!” She paused to sprinkle pepper on her egg. “Well, leastways now you know that Mr. Savory-Pratt wasn’t killed.”

“Yes,” said Arabella, “but as he’s a friend of Charles’s, that can scarcely matter to
me.”
She tore the letter in two and dropped it back onto the tray. “Between ourselves, Mrs. Janks, I am only too glad to wash my hands of this business!”

The housekeeper wiped her buttery fingers on her napkin. “Well, I think you ought to see the gentleman anyways, miss. Just to tie up all them loose ends and what have you.”

“What loose ends?”

“Didn’t you say this Snivelly-Pratt was the one who paid for the peep show?”

“Half of it.”

“Then why not hear what he has to say? Either he’ll confirm your suspicions about this Mr. Tyke or he won’t. And perhaps he’ll have something more to tell you. Then you’ll be able to finish your CIN.”

“That is sound advice, Mrs. Janks,” said Arabella, retrieving the letter halves from the postal tray. “Thank you. I shall write to him and request an interview for this afternoon.”

A quarter of an hour later she was dripping sealing wax upon her letter when Fielding announced the arrival of Miss Worthington and Mr. Pollard.

“So, Costanze has ‘forgiven’ me, has she?” asked Arabella with a grim smile. “Tell her I am not at home! . . . but stay a moment, Fielding; what is Mr. Pollard like?”

“I couldn’t say, miss,” replied the maid. “ ’E
looks
all right. But that don’t mean ’e
is.”

“Hmm, I confess I am curious to know what sort of man, with so many other options available to him, would voluntarily take up with Costanze. Very well. Shew the visitors into the morning room, if you please.”

“Don’t ’ave to,” said the maid. “Miss Worthington’s already dragged ’im in there ’erself and ordered tea, bold as you please! You’d think
she
was mistress ’ere, if you didn’t know better!”

“Don’t fuss, Fielding. I’d have given them tea, anyhow.”

“Yes, but, seein’ as ’ow she’s bankrupted you, I thought you might want to make an exception in ’er case.”

“That’s all taken care of, now,” said Arabella. “I am happy to report that we are once again ‘in the chinks,’ as they say.”

“I’m pleased to ’ear it, miss. Oh, and Mr. Davies is come, too.”

“Scrope Davies has arrived with
Costanze?”

“No, he come on ’is own. But they was all three standing on the step together when I opened the door, and so when Miss Worthington and ’er gentleman went into the morning room, I put Mr. Davies in there with ’em.”

“Oh, dear! Poor Davies!” cried Arabella. “I had better rescue him at once!”

“I think you’d better, miss.”

Scrope Davies was a particular friend of Arabella’s, and too rare a wit to be wasting his time with what Costanze herself referred to as “feathered brains.” But when the hostess arrived at the morning room, she found to her surprise that Mr. Davies was already acquainted with Miss Worthington, through having been a longtime gambling companion of her protector’s. Therefore, it was Scrope, rather than Costanze, who undertook the introductions between Arabella and Pigeon Pollard.

Mr. Pollard seemed pleasant enough. He had a fat under lip, and a good-natured, dullish sort of face, framed by a receding hairline and a small double chin. His hair, such as it was, was brown, silvered with gray, and he put Arabella in mind of an avuncular butcher. He was exactly the same height as Costanze, and did not appear to be in any way deranged or mentally deficient. Their introduction left Arabella none the wiser as to the source of his attachment to Miss Worthington.

“Bell!” Costanze burst out, once everyone had curtsied and bowed and curtsied and bowed. “What d’you think? Mr. Brinsley Sheridan has given me a part in his new comedy! I’m to play a roll!”

“Really?” asked Arabella in some surprise. “I should have thought Mr. Sheridan would know better than to tax you with a speaking part, Costanze! What sort of role is it?”

“Oh, any sort. A yeasty white one, I daresay.”

“Well, he could scarcely have cast you as an African. Your eyes are too blue.”

“Rolls don’t have eyes!”

“No; but characters do. What part will you play? The heroine? The villainess? The village idiot?”

“Potatoes have eyes,” said Pigeon helpfully.

And with that single remark, Arabella had her answer: Pigeon and Costanze were two of a kind.

“Yes, thank you, Mr. Pollard,” she said dismissively. “Whatever should we do without you?”

“No, Bell; I
told
you,” Costanze insisted. “I’m to play a
roll!”

Mr. Davies, who had listened to the foregoing with amusement, now felt it time to weigh in.

“If the ladies will permit me? Mr. Sheridan’s play is about a coffeehouse. Most of the parts are rolls or buns or meat pies. It’s a parody, you see. Young Faraday is to be a Cornish pasty; Major Scott plays a crusty roll . . .”

“And what sort of roll is Costanze supposed to be?”

“I believe Miss Worthington is a
stale.”

Davies and Arabella shared a knowing smile.

“There!” said Costanze, “I am glad that you are here, Mr. Davies, for
I
should never in a thousand years have been able to make Arabella understand me!”

“That is very true,” said the hostess mildly. “Ignorance and the inability to make oneself understood are generally considered undesirable traits, but I cannot imagine you without them, Costanze.”

Miss Worthington looked gratified, as though she had just received a compliment, and moved her chair closer to Arabella’s. “Listen,” she said, winking grotesquely, “I’ve been telling Pigeon what a splendid billiard table you have! Mayn’t he go see it? And perhaps play a game or two with Mr. Davies?”

“By all means.”

“Come along, Pigeon,” said Scrope. “The ladies evidently wish to discuss something in private.”

“They do?” Pigeon asked. “But how can they? We’ve only just arrived! I have not yet had time to do anything that they could possibly need to talk about!”

“Nevertheless . . .” said Scrope. And bowing to the courtesans, he made himself scarce, drawing the vaguely protesting Mr. Pollard after him.

“Costanze,” said Arabella swiftly, before the other had a chance to spout any more of her absurd rigmarole. “You knew about the peepholes, didn’t you?”

“Peepholes?”

“That day, when you and Lady Ribbonhat’s footman were—”

Costanze put her hands over her ears. “Stop! Stop! Pigeon will hear you!”

“You should have thought of that before you decided to perform for the public!”

“What?”

“You knew that those men were up there, spying on you, because afterwards . . . and I have this on good authority . . . afterwards, you took an envelope from Jerry Tyke, with money in it!”

“What a disgusting mind you have!” Costanze exclaimed. “Peepholes! Performing for the public! I don’t know any Jerry Tyke and the only envelope I saw was the one with the blackmailer’s letter inside it that I found pushed under the door after I got home from . . . after I got home!”

Arabella considered this. Could the envelope that Bumpy had seen—the one with Costanze’s name on it, that he assumed contained payment for her performance—actually have held the blackmail threat? Bumpy had seemed very sure of his facts, and yet, Arabella felt sure that Costanze was too stupid to lie to her. She decided to change her approach.

“Costanze, do you suppose that Mr. Pollard would actually be angry to learn of your illicit amour? He seems a very amiable, easygoing sort of man. Perhaps he would forgive you, if, God forbid, this matter should ever come to light.”

“Oh, no, Pigeon would throw me out at once—he said as much only last week—because he’s actually a very jealous man though you would not think so to look at him so naturally I was horolized and scandified when I read that letter and realized what might have happened!”