Die I Will Not (7 page)

“You haven't answered my question,” Chase said when he was finished.

Abruptly, her eyes met his. “I'm not sure I should tell you, Mr. Chase—not when your first loyalty must be to Mr. Gander. There is someone involved besides me, you see. Someone I must protect.”

“You called me friend last night,” he reminded her. So she had chosen to judge him based on the reputation of the Runners as grasping thief-takers for hire, and the knowledge stung. “I owe no loyalty to Gander beyond giving him my professional services. I am under no obligation to tell him what I know and certainly under no obligation to share my personal business. 'Twould be easy enough to return his retainer and be done with him altogether.”

“I won't ask you to do that.”

She had made up her mind to keep her knowledge from him, and, in typical Penelope fashion, told him so instead of dissembling. A bitterness that utterly destroyed the more charitable mood he had awakened with this morning grew in him. He put down his cup and rose.

“Mr. Chase!”

As his surge of anger subsided, he saw she now looked thoughtful, as her mind seemed to take up possibilities and evaluate them, one-by-one. After a minute of consideration, she came to a decision. She reached for the newspaper on the table and folded back a page; then she put the paper in his hand. “I do trust you. I need to know the identity of this Collatinus. Will you help me?”

He listened carefully to her story and read the letter. “How many of these have been published?”

“This is the third.”

“Interesting. Collatinus promises to reveal the identity of N.D.'s killer but first tantalizes his readers with hints about her death and the people she knew.”

“Yes, along with charges of corruption in high places.”

“But who is N.D.? It shouldn't be too difficult to discover her identity if she was murdered.” He looked down at the page and tapped it with one finger. “Collatinus quotes her here: ‘
Lord _____ pinned his gaze on me as I sat in my opera box. He too became my devoted slave.
' No initials this time, I see, though Collatinus notes that the besotted lover was a gentleman of rank. I'll tell you one thing about her, Mrs. Wolfe. She was a courtesan. She displayed herself in an opera box to attract her protectors.”

Penelope smiled at him. “I had thought of that myself. The letter goes on to describe N.D.'s other admirers. I don't recognize anyone, do you?”

“No, but others might. Even twenty years later.”

“I met a man called George Kester at Mr. Rex's party. He asked his friend Mr. Hewitt for information. Mr. Kester seemed concerned about what these letters might contain.”

“Any idea why?”

“None at all. Mr. Hewitt made a joke I don't think was appreciated, but they both seemed interested in Collatinus.”

Chase returned his attention to the newspaper in his hand. “What of this allusion to a ‘contemptible hireling scribe' who would sooner serve the great than stand up for truth and justice? The reference sounds a bit more contemporary. From what Gander told me, I assume Collatinus refers to Dryden Leach. You say it was Leach's father-in-law who told your husband about the masked man? Were Wolfe and Rex together the entire evening?”

She shook her head. “Jeremy encountered Mr. Rex at a gambling hell quite late, and Mr. Rex invited him to come home with him for a drink. The message about Mr. Leach arrived while Jeremy was there.”

“So Rex has no alibi for the attack,” murmured Chase.

Chapter VI

Chase and Penelope emerged from the house on Greek Street to find an empty hackney coach that chanced to be passing. When the jarvey observed them hesitating on the flagway, he pulled up his horses to wait. Chase glanced at the coach number and gave the driver the measuring look habitual with him. As Chase let down the steps to help Penelope get in, he noticed that this vehicle seemed in better repair than was typical with hacks, and its horses were not the ill-bred, broken-down brutes one usually encountered. Inside, the upholstery was clean, the side-glasses free of London soot, the glass intact.

As they drove to the office of the
Daily Intelligencer
, Chase was busy with his own thoughts. Shaking his head at his own folly, he wondered why he had agreed to allow Penelope to accompany him. “A lady does not show herself in a newspaper office,” he'd told her.

“I went before,” she had replied unanswerably. “And fully intend to go again.”

Because Chase thought her presence might serve as a useful blind to his own activities, he'd acquiesced, and, besides, he was strangely loath to disturb their newly reestablished harmony. Now, as the coach inched toward the Strand in heavy traffic, he said, “Gander told me to inquire for him. He's taken an office there for the time being. If he can manage it, he'll take us up to Leach's room and let me have a look around. But there's to be no bustle about it. Anyone challenges us, Gander will claim we bluffed our way in with a tale about having a story to sell.”

“I could say I'm a lady's maid who's been dismissed and wants to sell her mistress' secrets for revenge. I always wondered how the newspapers obtain fresh material for their paragraphs. Their sources must be either servants or perhaps the ladies' rivals.” She said this demurely from under her plain straw bonnet.

Chase raised his eyes to the ceiling of the coach. “You don't look the part of lady's maid, Mrs. Wolfe, not nearly lofty enough. They are more likely to think you a schoolgirl escaped from her governess. We must be careful. A Bow Street Runner will not be welcome since Leach's attack remains largely a secret.”

But why? he asked himself. The Tory press would have seized upon the story of a masked man wielding a knife. It made Leach's point about the danger of radical elements in society more eloquently than any words the man could pen. If the tale were true, it seemed incredible that the editor of a major London newspaper had suffered a brutal assault in his office with no one the wiser. Witnesses must have seen this masked man, yet somehow their tongues had been stopped. Chase also considered what Penelope had told him of Eustace Sandford. Clearly, Sandford had involved himself in some sort of low treachery. It was possible he had betrayed a young woman to her death and someone seeking hush-money was still interested in this crime—or this person might wish to resurrect old secrets for reasons of his own. But how could Sandford, far away in Sicily, still be involved?

When they entered the lobby of
The Daily Intelligencer
, they found themselves in a hall, with several doors bearing plaques that announced the letter and inquiry department as well as the advertising office. A staircase rose to the floors above, and Chase glimpsed a second staircase at the rear. A man sitting in a hard chair glanced up as the bell jingled. Laying aside the sporting magazine he'd been reading, he unfolded awkwardly from his chair. “Help you, sir and madam?” With his shiny, shabby coat, long face, and eager eyes, he looked hungry, thought Chase, like a dog too long abandoned by its master.

“John Chase to see Mr. Dryden Leach, if you please.” On an impulse, Chase had decided to ask for the editor to see how the porter would respond.

“Mr. Leach is not available at present.”

“You recall this lady who was here two days ago? Mr. Leach was not at liberty then either. Do you expect him soon?”

“Can't say, sir.”

“Not ill, is he?”

The man seized upon this. “He
is
ill, and I dunno when he'll be back.”

“A pity. I gather the illness was sudden?”

“It was.” The porter wet his lips and stared at his boots.

Penelope spoke. “Was Mr. Leach fortunate enough to take ill at home where his wife may care for him?”

A furtive expression flickered. “Can't say, madam.”

Slowly, Chase retrieved his purse. Opening it, he pulled out a coin and dropped the money in the man's waiting hand. “For your trouble. Were you here when Mr. Leach took ill?”

The porter took the money, secreting it somewhere on his person so quickly that Chase did not see the pocket into which it disappeared. The man gave several rapid glances up and down the corridor. “Maybe I was; maybe I wasn't. Not for me to speak further. Now, sir, is there something I can do for you?”

Chase's instincts told him Gander had been right. This man would be willing to sell his knowledge at the right price. “What's your name, porter? Maybe there's a tavern close by, a favorite of yours?”

“Could be.” A gleam of interest enlivened his stolid stupidity. “The name's Peter Malone, sir.”

“You live nearby, Malone?”

“Place called Feathers Court, sir. There's a pub there too. You know it?”

“I can find it, Malone.” Chase exchanged a long look with him. Then he said in an authoritative tone that brooked no argument, “If you can't fetch Mr. Leach for me, I'll speak to Mr. Gander. Is he in?”

Nodding, the man took himself up the stairs, and they heard him knocking at a door on the next floor. Chase said to Penelope, “If the attacker came through the front entrance, the porter would have seen him enter and depart.”

“Do you think he knows something?”

“Maybe.”

Soon Gander himself appeared, Peter Malone at his heels. When the journalist saw Penelope, his ferret face brightened, and he gave her a wide grin. “Mrs. Wolfe? Well now, come this way, the pair of you. I see it's up to me to introduce you to my domain.” For Malone's benefit, he added, “We'll just step upstairs and discuss the morsel of news you've promised me, shall we?”

They followed Gander up the staircase. “You've come at a good time,” he said to Chase quietly. “In an hour or so, the beast will stir from its slumbers. Some of the men are still home sleeping off last night's labors.”

“How have you been producing the paper without Leach?”

“The sub-editor Mr. Blagley has stepped into his shoes. He even had to write the leading article at the last minute the other night, as Leach's could not be found. I take it you went to Rex's party. What news?”

“Nothing yet. Where is Leach's appointment book?”

“Blagley took it, but I've already checked it: nothing out of the ordinary there. When can I expect a report?”

“Be patient. Let me speak to Blagley.”

“Best not. I got something for you, Chase. You recall that Leach had bragged about getting ready to unmask Collatinus? According to Blagley, it wasn't just talk. Leach had stumbled on a big story. He told Blagley there might be trouble for the paper if he published, but he was determined. See if you can get a word with his wife. She might know something. She used to write the odd paragraph or poem for the paper. He might have confided in her.”

Gander led them into a spacious chamber that overlooked the bustling thoroughfare outside. Sunlight poured through large windows to pool on the carpet, illuminating the rosewood desk, leather chairs, and tall bookshelves lined with expensive volumes. The journalist nodded to Chase. “Leave you to it, shall I? I'll stand guard, but you'll need to be quick.” He went out, closing the door behind him.

Penelope looked around with interest. She pointed at Leach's imposing, high-backed chair. “Mr. Leach would see anyone who entered. If a masked man broke in, why didn't he give the alarm?”

Chase approached the desk. “The assailant rushed in on him too quickly, or possibly Leach recognized him and felt no fear. Or maybe he called out and nobody heard.”

Donning his spectacles, he began opening drawers and sifting through papers. The neat stacks of correspondence revealed Leach as a convivial man who, in his capacity as editor, had received many invitations. Some were addressed to him and his wife at their home in the Adelphi Terrace, some to him at his Strand office. Chase perused a chatty note from one of Leach's acquaintances as well as a handbill for a debating society at a coffeehouse. He next unearthed a steep bill from Leach's tailor, an effusive report in someone else's hand describing the guests at a Venetian breakfast, and a gilt-edged card bidding the editor to attend a dinner in St. James's Square. Leach's connections to the current administration were numerous, and he was likely paid for his loyalty in social advantages as well as bribes to swell the newspaper's profits.

The only discordant note in the picture of Leach as gentleman and
bon vivant
was a hysterical plea from a woman called Mrs. Montclair begging him not to publish a paragraph in his newspaper, and across the bottom of this letter he had scrawled the single word “PAID.” Chase knew it was common practice for newspapers to earn revenue through publishing puffs, essentially purchased public praise allowing politicians and other notables to receive favorable press, but the process worked the other way too. Newspapers often extorted suppression fees to halt the publication of private, embarrassing “anecdotes” or to contradict one already printed.

He lifted his eyes from the stack. “Any number of people had a motive to attack Leach. In addition to his political pandering, he traded in secrets and information. I doubt he had any scruples about ruining anyone.” He set Mrs. Montclair's letter aside and slid open another drawer.

“You see nothing about Collatinus?”

“Nothing. Did you say Leach wrote of having received threats? You would think he'd be ready to defend himself.”

Penelope had been walking slowly around the room, arms behind her back. She now paused in the center of the Axminster carpet and bent lower for a closer inspection. “I've found something.” He closed the drawer he'd been examining. Joining her, he got down on his haunches to examine the medallion.

“Good eye, Mrs. Wolfe.”

Lightly, she ran a hand over the pile, then rubbed her fingers and thumb together. “I suppose I'm used to checking for paint spatters on the floorboards that the maid has missed. This carpet has had time to dry. It won't be easy to remove the marks.”

Together they contemplated the floral design, and Chase drew in a breath of satisfaction, for he had begun to think they might be chasing a fantasy. Like the rest of Leach's chamber, the carpet struck a note of restrained elegance and good taste. But mixed in with the greens and pinks of the bouquet were several reddish-brown smears that might have gone unnoticed, blending as they did with the lighter rose tints.

“That looks like blood, Mr. Chase. The stabbing occurred just here. Mr. Leach must have risen to meet the assailant. If he knew the man, he might not have observed the knife in his hand in time to ward him off.”

“Not a great deal of blood, if blood it is. But you may be right.”

“I'm sure I am. He stood here a moment”—her eyes went distant as she envisaged the scene—“and then retreated to his desk. Was he defending the article he was writing or looking for a weapon?”

She took a few steps backwards, but, turning her head, caught sight of something resting in one corner of the desk's gleaming expanse. She pulled out a book lying in the middle of a stack of other volumes. It was a finely bound copy of a work entitled
Thoughts on English Liberties in the Present Day
—by Eustace Sandford.

Chase removed the volume from her hands. Leach had marked a page in the text with a small slip of paper. Opening the book carefully so as not to dislodge the marker, he read the page. It meant nothing in particular to him; the passage seemed to be about the lengths to which any freeborn Englishman should go to preserve his political liberties. He examined the marker, which was blank, and set the volume aside.

“Leach's reference material for his missing article?” he said musingly, then looked sharply at Penelope. “Don't jump to conclusions, Mrs. Wolfe. Wait until we know more.”

***

John Chase would readily admit to being a suspicious man. In his work as a Runner, he had learned to trace the lines revealing a design, the hidden motivation behind a particular crime. He knew this watchfulness set him apart from his fellow man, for most people seemed to live comfortably enough on the surface of things. But he could not. So when, for the second time that day, he was presented with a strangely convenient hackney coach, drawn by an unusually sound and spirited team, he took Penelope's arm and drew her away. “There's a coach-stand around the corner. We'll go there.”

“This one displeases you for some reason?”

He didn't answer since he was too busy memorizing the number on the coach's plate and stealing a glance at the driver, who looked harmless enough: a typical London jarvey, wearing a many-caped benjamin and a wide-brimmed hat. When the driver saw he had lost his fare, he merely picked up the ribbons and set his horses in motion as soon as a break in the traffic allowed.

As they moved down the pavement, Chase's senses were alive to every detail of the familiar scene: shoppers flowing in and out of the cutlers, wax-chandlers, hatters, bookstalls, mapmakers, tobacconists, and tailors that lined the street. A man wearing a signboard that advertised a lotion for loose teeth stumped by, and a street hawker selling oysters struggled to be heard over the din. But, after a minute or two, Chase noted that they had picked up another interested party. This was a man in a brown felt hat, who had been standing outside the newspaper office when they emerged. The fellow had carefully kept his face turned in the other direction, apparently absorbed in reading a bill pasted to the wall, but Chase had felt the watchful attention on his back during their brief flirtation with the hackney. Observing that the man in the brown felt hat slouched down the street in their wake, he cursed under his breath.