Death in the Peerless Pool (22 page)

‘That Petronelle was terrified, Sir. It was fear of Hannah that drove her crazy in the end. If that woman hadn't come to us, Dr Crow would have been able to find the child a place in society.'

‘Christ's wounds! Are you saying that Petronelle had met Hannah before?'

‘I'd give an oath that she had, Sir.'

‘Then what I feared must be true,' said the Apothecary, shaking his head. ‘Dear God, what sink of darkness is about to be revealed?'

It was in sombre mood that John entered The Old Fountain and ordered himself a glass of brandy wine. A mood so dark indeed that when Samuel pummelled a fist into his shoulder and he turned to see Mother Hamp's toothless grin, the Apothecary could barely raise a smile.

‘She's here,' said the Goldsmith, but his eyes were already narrowing at his friend's lack of response.

‘So I see,' answered John, and made a tremendous and half-successful attempt to rally.

‘Greetings, lovely boy,' said Mother Hamp, drunk as a fiddler's bitch and jolly into the bargain.

Knowing that he would probably never again find her so affable, John responded in kind.

‘May I say how bonny you look this evening, Ma'am?'

She simpered, a terrible sight indeed. ‘I'm too old for you, young gentleman.'

Heaven forbid! thought the Apothecary, but still he maintained his charming smile.

‘Ma'am, I have one more question to ask you regarding Hannah Rankin.'

‘And what might that be?' Under the table she fondled his knee.

‘It's about the coachman; the one who called on her, the one she was afraid of.'

‘What about him?'

‘Did you ever get a good look at his face? Could you describe him to me?'

‘Well, like I said, he was a big man. Tall and broad and rather set of appearance.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘He seemed stern to me.'

‘What sort of age was he?'

The old woman shook her head. ‘That I couldn't say. He kept his hat pulled well down. He could have been anything between twenty and fifty.'

‘Can you not be a little more specific?'

Mother Hamp downed her gin and turned to Samuel. ‘He uses long words, don't he.'

‘He means have you no idea of the coachman's exact age.'

‘No I ain't,' the old woman answered crossly.

‘Very well,' said the Apothecary, knowing a lost cause when he saw one. But then his attention was caught by Toby Wills, coming into the ale-house as if all the troubles of the world rested on his shoulders.

‘Toby,' John called, and the waiter looked up.

‘Yes, Sir?'

‘Would it be possible to have a word with you?'

The man's entire visage changed and he looked as fierce as daggers. ‘No, Sir, it wouldn't. I thought you and I said all there was to say when we spoke yesterday.'

John got to his feet. ‘I thank you for the help you gave me then. All I wanted to find out further was how you knew about the ancient Frenchman and his association with Hannah Rankin.'

‘It was common knowledge round St Luke's. Mother Richard, the old midwife who worked there from time to time, gossiped of it constantly.'

‘And what about Hannah's other friend, the coachman? Was he the subject of gossip too?'

Toby returned a completely blank stare. ‘What coachman might that be, Sir?' he said. Then he turned away to hide the fact that once more he was lying.

Early the next morning, after, for him, a very modest breakfast, John set out to walk to Bow Street, having first sent Nicholas Dawkins round with a note to say he was on his way. As the Apothecary trod the familiar route, he frowned in concentration, his mind teeming with all the facts with which it had been filled since he had last spoken to John Fielding. Uppermost was the vital information that poor dead Petronelle had recognised and been terrified of Hannah Rankin, followed by the extraordinary fact that the Marquis de Saint Ombre had been Hannah's lover. All this, together with John's certainty that the mysterious coachman who had visited her was none other than Jack from Bath, made the Apothecary long to hear the Blind Beak's opinion.

However, in the event, the pieces of intelligence had already been passed on. The Magistrate and his clerk were breakfasting together and the subject under discussion was the Frenchman. Joining them and taking a large slice of ham and bread at Mr Fielding's insistence, John entered the conversation.

‘He really is a disgusting creature. Let me tell you about the painting on his bedroom wall.'

‘'Zauns!' exclaimed Joe, when he had listened. ‘I reckon he must be a lecherous old goat.'

‘The child in the picture is interesting,' said the Blind Beak thoughtfully.

‘In what way?'

‘Because wherever we turn in this case some poor benighted youngster seems to come to the surface.'

‘What do you think about Forbes's statement that Petronelle lived in dread of Hannah Rankin?'

‘It does not necessarily prove that the child had known her before.'

‘That may well be true, Sir. But none the less I find it very significant.'

The Blind Beak nodded and steepled his fingers. He turned his head towards his clerk. ‘What did you find out from the Marquis's friends?'

‘Well,' said Joe, ‘unless the beastly old bastard has mastered the art of being in two places at once he is certainly not our killer.'

‘He was where he said he was?'

‘All the evening until late, long beyond the time when Toby saw the extraordinary apparition in the bird mask.'

‘Talking of Toby,' John put in, ‘he has taken to lying again.' And he explained how the waiter had reacted to his question about the coachman. ‘But I have a theory,' the Apothecary continued.

‘Which is?'

‘That Hannah's mysterious visitor was the young man I met in Bath.'

‘Orlando?'

‘No. Jack.' And John set out in detail his precise reasons for thinking so.

Mr Fielding became very still, a sure sign that he was absorbing everything, while Joe Jago nodded as the various points were made.

‘Do you think Jack's motive was blackmail?'

John shook his head. ‘He isn't that type somehow. Too honest a soul. No, I think he wanted revenge for all that had happened to him in the past.'

‘But that is just the point,' boomed the Blind Beak. ‘We don't know what happened in the past. We are only surmising that Sir Vivian Sweeting was engaged in something unsavoury as regards those children. Perhaps he looked after them out of the kindness of his heart.'

‘Well, I shall be returning to Bath within the next few days and this time I am not leaving until I have discovered the truth: the truth about him, about Hannah, about Orlando, about them all.'

‘Perhaps you will get there to find that Miss Clive has already done so.'

‘I just hope she doesn't put herself in any danger while she's about it,' John repeated for the hundredth time.

‘Miss Clive is more than capable of looking after herself,' the Magistrate reassured him, then rumbled his deep and tuneful chuckle, just as if he could see the look on the Apothecary's discomfited face.

The shop was unusually quiet that day, and John was just thinking that he would be quite justified in leaving early in order to attend his dinner engagement with Lord Anthony and Lady Dysart, an invitation issued to him via Sir Gabriel when he had returned home late the previous evening, when the doorbell rang. Coming round from the compounding room where he and Nicholas were working, the Apothecary was irritated to see the pert and pretty Mary Ann Whittingham, accompanied by a miserable-looking maid. come hobbling across the threshold, her face contorted as if every step hurt. Instantly suspecting a ruse, John went to meet her.

‘You seem in some distress, young lady. What is the nature of your injury?'

‘Oh, I've sprained my ankle,' she answered in a loud voice, obviously so that Nicholas could hear her at the back. ‘Please can you, or Nicholas if you are too busy, treat it for me?'

Treating her to a glacial stare instead, John answered, ‘Then be so kind as to remove your shoe and stocking. I will have to examine you.'

The little wretch had the temerity to reply, ‘Is that quite proper?'

‘You can take your choice,' John stated tartly. ‘Either you go elsewhere for treatment or you allow me to look at the injury.'

Nicholas appeared, scarlet-faced. ‘Do as Mr Rawlings says, Mary Ann. He cannot possibly help you unless you cooperate.'

She shot him a look from beneath a dark fringe of lashes. ‘Oh, Nick, you took me by surprise. I didn't realise that you were in the shop.'

‘And where did you think he would be?' John asked crossly. ‘It is usual for an apprentice to be with his Master.

‘I thought he might be running errands.'

‘Well, he isn't. Now, let me see what you have done.'

Crouching down beside her, the Apothecary took the young but shapely limb in his hands, feeling round the delicate ankle for any indication of breakage. Needless to say there were none, nor indeed was there any sign of bruising. The maid averted her gaze, as if he were doing something intimate.

‘So where is the pain?'

‘There.' She pointed to an invisible injury.

‘Well, I can't find anything wrong. Now, does this hurt?'

He gave her ankle a tight squeeze, watching her reaction carefully. Tears of apparent pain appeared in Mary Ann's eyes.

‘Yes, it does. Very much.'

‘I see.'

She was a clever little actress, the Apothecary had to grant her that. Totally convinced that she was faking, he stood considering what to do next. And it was then that Nicholas intervened and showed exactly the nature of the man that he was rapidly becoming.

‘Mary Ann,' he said, his voice quiet and forbearing but extremely firm, ‘you are not to try Mr Rawlings's patience nor waste his time any longer. I am sorry, but I do not believe that you have hurt yourself. I think you have come here to talk to me. And why? Because last night I told you that, for both our sakes, it would be better if our courtship were, temporarily at least, to end. As a mere apprentice I am not in a position to settle down and take care of you as you deserve. You must understand that, surely.'

The pretty little thing distorted her features into a terrible scowl and stamped her so-called injured foot hard upon the floor.

‘It is because you don't love me that you finished with me. That's the truth of the matter.'

‘No, it isn't. You know how I feel. It is just that at this stage of my career my hands are tied.'

‘Of course they are,' put in John. ‘As an apprentice, Nicholas is not allowed to marry until his indentures are at an end.'

Mary Ann wept genuine tears of distress. She was only a child, after all, albeit a precocious and advanced one.

‘I wanted to be his sweetheart, not his wife.'

‘Worse and worse. You are far too young for such things.'

‘I am fourteen years of age.'

‘Still not old enough.'

Mary Ann glared at the Muscovite from suddenly pouring eyes. ‘How could you show me up like this in front of Mr Rawlings? I hate you for it.'

‘I had to stop you making a spectacle of yourself. Don't you understand that?'

She shot to her feet. ‘No, I don't, you disgusting wretch. I wish that I had never set eyes on you. I've a good mind to go into town and find myself a proper man. Come, Lizzie, let us go.'

‘Don't you dare …' Nicholas began, but to deaf ears. Without a backward glance, Mary Ann hurtled from the shop at the speed of a greyhound, the downtrodden maid trundling behind, and disappeared down Shug Lane.

‘I'll go after her.'

‘No, don't,' answered John, physically blocking his apprentrice's path. ‘The sight of you will make her even angrier.' And he hurried off after the girl himself, ignoring the fact that he was still wearing his long apron.

There was no sign of her in any direction, and after fifteen minutes of searching John could only presume that she had hailed a chair and gone home. Perturbed and anxious, he went back to the shop.

‘Was I too cruel?' said Nicholas, his face suspiciously peaky.

‘You weren't cruel at all. You did what had to be done.'

The Muscovite looked serious. ‘I hope Mary Ann doesn't do anything foolish. I would hate Mr and Mrs Fielding to know how naughty she really is.'

‘Well, I shall keep my own counsel on that score,' John answered, and wondered why a distinct chill of unease swept over him.

Forgetting the inauspicious events of the early afternoon, the Apothecary could not have enjoyed the dinner party, held at a fashionable four o'clock, more. Striving to widen their circle of London friends, the Dysarts had invited not only Sir Gabriel and his son, together with Louis and Serafina and the redoubtable Dr Drake and Matilda, but also half a dozen sparkling people, all of whom had something to contribute to the evening's success. Seated next to a charming young lady who turned out to be the daughter of one of Lord Anthony's old friends, John was both flattered and attracted by the brilliance of her eyes, and had to remind himself quite severely that he was currently engaged in a relationship with Coralie, albeit a somewhat unconventional one.

Yet despite the attractions of his dinner partner and the fact that general conversation never waned, the Apothecary was constantly aware of Lady Dysart's gaze upon him, and could almost feel her willing him to have a private word with her. The moment came as they made their way in to cards.

Drawing close to him, his hostess whispered, ‘Can you spare me a moment, Mr Rawlings?'

He gave a slight bow. ‘Gladly, Madam.'

‘Have you by chance heard anything of Meredith?'

John shook his head. ‘Of him himself, no. Yet strangely, when I was in Bath recently, I was told a story that was so similar to his it gave me quite a shock.'