Death in the Valley of Shadows (2 page)

“Yes, though now the method of it has changed.”

“In what way?”

“Bussell became less active in his firm, handing his more onerous tasks to younger members. Suddenly he was at home more often and so, to cover her tracks, Ariadne adopted the guise of friendship.”

“She didn’t seem very friendly just now.”

Fenchurch shook his head sorrowfully. “That is because she didn’t know you and therefore allowed her true self to show. But with her husband present so much, she nowadays showers me with invitations and blinds me with great smiles.”

Remembering Ariadne’s set of alarmingly large teeth, the Apothecary gave the slightest of shudders. Nicholas spoke up.

“Did you marry Mrs. Trewellan, Sir?”

“Alas, no. Her son, a spoilt, precocious youth of unpleasant mien, took a dislike to me and interfered in the match. She and I are still friendly, however.”

“And what does she make of your shadow?” John asked.

Fenchurch paused, staring at the Apothecary intently. “What an excellent description. The Shadow. Yes, that is exactly what she is: a huntress, a pursuer, a grinning evil eminence.” He relapsed into silence, contemplating the new soubriquet, and John found himself thinking that he did not altogether like Mr. Fenchurch, finding his eyes a little too small and his countenance a little too shifty. His mind roved on to the idea of he and Mrs. Bussell making sexual connection and stopped short, aghast.

Aidan was speaking once more. “I realise I was wrong to dally with a married woman in the first place but, rest assured, I have paid my penance and am still paying; witness today’s events.”

The Apothecary decided that, little eyes or no, he felt genuinely sorry for the man. “I do not envy you your position, Sir. And as to your affair with Mrs. Bussell, which of us has not been involved in intrigue at some time or other in our lives?”

Fenchurch sighed for the umpteenth time and at that moment the shop doorbell rang again.

He looked sick. “Do you think it is her come back?”

“I doubt it very much but, Nicholas, if it is, just call for me.”

“Yes, Sir.”

And the apprentice made his way into the front of the shop.

Aidan thrust his head between his hands, slightly dislodging his wig, displaying rather long grey hair beneath. “She’ll do for me one day. I’m certain of it.”

“What do you mean?” asked John, pouring out the last of the brandy and including a glass for himself.

“Ariadne. I’m sure her cruel nature will not be satisfied until she sees me dead.”

“But you are not old, Mr. Fenchurch.”

“Past fifty-five, Sir, alas. But that is not exactly what I implied.” He leant forward, twirling the brandy glass in his fingers. “No, I believe that if nature does not accomplish her purpose for her, she will do it herself.”

“You don’t mean…?”

“Murder? Yes, that is precisely what I do mean.”

“But surely…”

“She is capable of it, believe you me. Though it is her ploy to mask her loathing with grins, she continues to hate me deeply and bitterly.”

“Then she is probably still in love with you,” the Apothecary said wryly. “Wasn’t it Shakespeare who said something about ‘the lady doth protest too much’?”

Aidan Fenchurch nodded. “It was indeed. But if that is a form of love, God spare me from it.” He drained his brandy, then said, “For no reason that I can think of I have confessed more about myself to you than any other man alive.”

“What about Mrs. Trewellan? Do you not confide in her?”

“Most certainly not. She would be upset beyond measure. Remember that I wanted to set up home with her and still nurture hopes. So, Mr. Rawlings, I have made you my confidant. I trust that you do not object.”

John smiled crookedly. “Sir, as a man who tends the sick I hear a great many of the world’s secrets. Without wishing to sound cynical, I have grown quite accustomed to it.”

The shift of Aidan’s features changed before the Apothecary’s eyes and he suddenly became a sad and bedraggled fox. “Then, Sir, may I entrust you with something further?” he asked, his voice tentative.

Loathing people who answered ‘it depends on what it is’, John said, “Yes, of course.”

Without warning, Mr. Fenchurch’s little eyes filled with tears. “As I told you, she’ll finish me yet. I swear it.”

“Do you mean what you say? Do you truly believe the Shadow wants to kill you?”

“Yes. And to that effect I have left papers - sealed documents revealing the whole sad story - that I wish to entrust to an honest citizen to take to Sir John Fielding of the Public Office in Bow Street in the event of my sudden demise.”

“I see,” said John, thinking what extraordinary cards fate was capable of dealing out, for how could this man have had any inkling that the Apothecary and Sir John were close friends?

He fingered his chin. “About Mrs. Bussell. If she is pretending friendship with you, trying to deceive her husband and the world on that score, why should she suddenly kill you?”

“Because,” said Aidan Fenchurch very simply, “she is quite, quite mad and capable of turning on me for no clear reason. So, Mr. Rawlings, even though we have been acquainted a mere thirty minutes, I would ask if you might be custodian of the papers I intend to leave.”

“But wouldn’t your family lawyer be a better person?”

“That old fool. No, I would not trust him not to take a peek inside.”

“Then Mrs. Trewellan.”

“Likewise.” Mr. Fenchurch stood up. “But I can see I have presumed too much. We’ll say no more of it.”

John felt immensely guilty. There could be no doubt that the man was deeply distressed. “I’m sorry, Sir. I was only trying to be sensible. I shall gladly guard your papers for you.”

The crab eyes bulged with sudden relief. “Then I shall bring them to the shop tomorrow.”

“Better still, come to my house. For that is where I intend to store them, under lock and key with my own personal documents. I live at number two, Nassau Street, Soho. I shall be at home after six o’clock.”

“I shall attend you there, bringing some of my choicest wines as a gift.”

“How very kind of you,” said John, and escorted his visitor through the shop.

Aidan Fenchurch bowed deeply to his host, inclined his head to the apprentice, then having looked closely up and down the street, scuttled off fast in a way most reminiscent of a crustacean heading for the sea.

“It occurs to me,” said John, looking at his wife with both a professional and husbandly eye, “that you could well benefit from a few days in the country. You are very pale.” And also very enormous, he thought but did not add.

Emilia Rawlings, not a tall girl and at the best of times quite small in physique, now resembled a grape ready for the wine harvest. The child that she was carrying had dropped low, so much so that the Apothecary’s wife had taken to waddling rather than walking, an unattractive mode of gait of which she was more than painfully aware, being naturally rather graceful.

“I would love to get away but could your father cope with a woman in my condition?”

“He’s seen it all before. My mother was pregnant with his child, remember.”

“The one that died?”

“Yes.” John could have added, ‘As did she,’ but held his peace, considering his wife’s condition and not believing for a moment in deliberately frightening women who were about to give birth.

“Should we not write and ask his permission?”

“I’ll do that tonight and send Irish Tom with the letter first thing tomorrow morning. He is immensely idle at the moment as you are not going out and about.”

“He’s thoroughly enjoying himself, though.”

“That is not what I pay for him,” the Apothecary answered primly, only to hear Emilia peal with laughter.

“Don’t put that face on. Trying to be respectable simply doesn’t become you.”

“But I
am
respectable, very respectable indeed. People trust me with their life stories. Which reminds me…” And John told her of the extraordinary incident in his shop earlier that day.

Emilia listened, round-eyed. “You mean that this woman, this stalker, this shadow, continues to follow him about?”

“Yes.”

“How cheap. What does she look like? Is she handsome?”

“I suppose she was once. But now she relies on a powerful personality, which would be perfectly fine if it were pleasant.”

“And what about him? Is he worth all this attention?”

John leant back in his chair and laughed. “Frankly, no. He is small of eye, large of gut, and with a suspicious, florid countenance that can look quite crabby, in every sense of the word.”

“A fine couple indeed.”

“As you say. Apparently they once mated in the bath.”

“Difficult,” said Emilia, “given his physical attributes.”

The Apothecary laughed again. “You might see him if you leave for Kensington the day after tomorrow.”

“I think I will forgo the pleasure. As soon as Sir Gabriel invites me, I shall take my leave of London. Thank God it isn’t hot. Oh John, I don’t know how a woman could bear to be
enceinte
in the summer.”

“How long will you stay away?”

“Only a week. The baby is due in a fortnight remember.”

“How could I forget? You have been marking off the days.”

“Is it very boring of me?”

“On the contrary, it is very, very exciting.”

“Then I’ll hurry back. I don’t want you to miss anything.”

“Of course,” said the Apothecary, but his mind was not with his words. Much as he loved Emilia and was looking forward to the birth of their first child, his thoughts were going down other paths. He saw again the stricken face of Aidan Fenchurch, the faded mirthlessness of Mrs. Bussell’s smile. Was she a potential killer? John wondered, contemplating those he had known who had committed that most heinous of crimes. Without doubt the answer came back with a crystal and unnerving clarity. Ariadne Bussell would be more than capable of taking the life of anyone who in her belief had thwarted her wishes.

At daybreak Irish Tom, John Rawlings’s idiosyncratic coachman, left for Kensington, the home village of Sir Gabriel Kent, the Apothecary’s adoptive father. Within three hours he was back with an invitation for Emilia to remove herself to the fresh country air and not endanger her child by breathing in stinks.

“I shall be down on Saturday to dine,” John said, as he assisted her to clamber awkwardly into the coach.

“I shall miss you and would stay if I didn’t feel quite so heavy.”

“Make sure you eat and rest well. Labour is hard work.”

“I shall be ready for it,” Emilia answered with a definite look of panic in her eye.

“You’ll sail through,” her husband answered reassuringly, and kissed her as she leant her head out of the coach’s window, then waved farewell as Irish Tom cracked his whip, called to the animals, and the carriage set off in the direction of Kensington.

Still preoccupied with thoughts of Aidan Fenchurch and the Shadow, half wondering whether the man had exaggerated the position and was only imagining the threat that Mrs. Bussell posed, John set off to visit various patients, particularly enjoying a visit to a young woman much plagued with the illness red-eye. After trying various remedies, the Apothecary had finally decided to use bruised leaves of that most dangerous of plants, hemlock. Well aware of its deadly quality as a poison, John had insisted that his patient had put the substance nowhere near her mouth and now after a week of laying the bruised leaves on her forehead, results could be seen. The redness of the eyes had vanished and the swelling round the woman’s lids had gone.

“Well, Apothecary, you have cured me,” she said, much pleased.

John shook his head. “Let us be careful. Red-eye has a nasty habit of returning if you stop the treatment too soon. Another week of applying the leaves, I think. I’ve brought you some fresh and I want you to continue using them until I call again. Not for internal consumption, remember.”

“What would happen if I did?”

“You would be very ill and might well die. Hemlock and some of the members of its family are amongst the most deadly poisons known.”

“What are the others?”

“That,” said John, grinning at her, “would be telling. Now, I shall see you next week and expect to pronounce you recovered.”

“It will be my pleasure,” the young woman answered demurely, and dropped a somewhat flirtatious curtsey as she escorted him to the door.

The Apothecary worked on, carrying his bag himself and leaving Nicholas in charge of the shop, finally stopping and walking back to Nassau Street long after the hour to dine had officially arrived. The house was quiet with Emilia gone and John felt pleased that he had invited Aidan Fenchurch to join him for the evening. Accordingly, he had the library prepared for receiving and went to sit by the fire and read the newspaper until six o’clock came.

Sir Gabriel’s longcase clock, which played a tune upon every quarter of an hour, had been removed to Kensington, but his adopted son, missing the sound, had bought another one to replace it. Though not nearly as fine, only chiming the time rather than a melody, the Apothecary listened to it with a small part of his brain while he read, and was quite surprised when it sounded half-past the hour and there was still no sign of his guest. He rang the bell.