Murder in Grosvenor Square (25 page)

Brewster said nothing at all. He was staring at Freddie in something like awe, far more respectful with him that I’d ever see him be of any other gentleman.

“Marianne told me about your problem,” Freddie said. He sat back comfortably, giving the coach’s luxurious interior an admiring once-over. Then he sighed in genuine sorrow. “Those poor lads. I was happy to nose around the Bull to discover if anyone there did for them. I intended to cosh them myself if I found them. Leland Derwent is a gentle soul.”

“You’ve met him?” I asked.

“Only briefly. At a gathering, introduced by a mutual acquaintance. Mr. Derwent did not like the little soiree, I can tell you. He is a shy young man, not much liking how boisterous gentlemen can be. He prefers to be private—Mr. Travers was a bit more adventurous. But Mr. Derwent, no matter how upset he becomes, never loses his ability to be compassionate. It is a rare gentleman who is concerned for others regardless of how he feels himself.”

“I agree,” I said. “I take it from your words that you did not find anyone to cosh at the Bull and Hen?”

Freddie’s grin returned. “No, indeed. Once I convinced Marianne to leave the place—trust me when I say, Captain, that I did my best to dissuade her coming at all, but she is severely stubborn—I was able to get others to talk to me. Mr. Derwent and Mr. Travers did indeed arrive at the Bull last night. They were arguing as they came in, so my new friends told me. Mr. Derwent did
not
want to be there, and Mr. Travers was trying to reassure him.
We’ll just meet with him and have it done with,
Mr. Travers apparently said, or something like it.”

“Meet him?” I pounced on the word. “Meet who?”

“They did not say, unfortunately. Though I see by the glint in your eye that you have an idea who he was.”

Mackay.
But why was still a mystery.

“Go on,” I said, warming to the man.

“Mr. Derwent was so unhappy in the common rooms that Mr. Travers asked for a private parlor. Mr. Derwent had the blunt to pay for it, I know. No one went into the parlor with them; and I was given much wild speculation about what they got up to in there. But this speculation was given to me by drunken and randy men, so I took no notice of it.”

“Did the gentleman they’d made the appointment with turn up?” I asked.

“Apparently not. After about an hour or so, the two young men left the room.
I knew he would not come
, Mr. Derwent said, or so the barman told me. Mr. Travers looked angry; Mr. Derwent, gleeful. Smug, the barman said, as though he’d won a point over Mr. Travers. Mr. Travers was scowling as he put on his hat and departed the house with Mr. Derwent. I put a bit more credit into what the barman said, because he was the least drunken fellow in the place. Careful about sampling the wares. Likes to keep himself alert, so he told me.”

I took a moment to digest the information. Freddie’s report tallied with Denis’s man’s—that Leland and Gareth entered the Bull, went into a private room, then departed.

“Did anyone follow them out?” I asked. “Did they leave alone, or in a crowd?”

Freddie shrugged his broad shoulders. “There’s much coming and going in that place. Even in the short few hours I sat there, men came in and out, either paring up with those they met inside, or having an ale, going out, and coming back in again later. Made me rather dizzy to watch. It is unusual for a gentleman to simply sit and enjoy his brandy, I gathered. I had many requests for my person and several proposals of marriage before I departed.”

“I see you emerged unscathed,” Marianne said.

Freddie turned a serious face to her. “Not without difficulty. I am happy I persuaded you to leave. If I had been less robust, I’d have been dragged off and gone at.”

I broke in. “But nothing of that sort happened to Leland?”

“No, indeed. Mr. Travers was protective of him, bless him. Didn’t let the rough boys near him. When the two departed, they did so without impediment. But as I say, many go in and out the door at the same time. They could have been followed.”

“Or someone lay in wait for them outside,” I said.

Why had Mackay missed the appointment? I wondered. Had he simply been late? Or had
he
arranged to have Leland and Gareth waylaid? And what the devil for?

“Did anyone overhear what the meeting might have been about?” I asked, without much hope.

“Not that I could discern,” Freddie replied. “Speculation ran from them waiting for a so-called vicar to marry them to waiting for someone to return a book.”

“Book?” I asked.

“Yes, an odd thing to go on about there. A French book they said, which, I imagine, means one full of enticing pictures and stories. Of the bawdy sort, if I am not being plain enough for you, Captain.”

“I have read French books,” I said. I had been in the army, fighting Frenchmen, and I’d lived in France during the Peace of Amiens. Plenty of books of drawings and erotic stories had circulated among the officers. I remembered one story in particular, about a gentleman at a gathering in Paris where ladies and gentlemen of society masked themselves and chose partners at random. The gentleman described himself and the robust lady he’d paired up with disporting themselves on a sofa with such exuberance that they’d bounced off the cushions six feet into the air. The exaggeration had made me laugh. I’d tried to share the silly story with my first wife, and shocked her senseless. She hadn’t spoken to me for days and regarded me in trepidation, as though fearing I wished to recreate the tale with her. If I told Donata that story, she’d laugh with me and then say something disparaging about French imagination.

“Not books like these, I’d wager,” Freddie said, a wicked sparkle in his eyes. “But as I say, I could only get anything clear from the barman, and he heard very little. I find that when gentlemen reach a place where the forbidden is no longer forbidden, they rather lose their self-control. Why they feel themselves safe, I have no idea. I would hate to be in that place when the Runners closed in. The owner, apparently, has an agreement with the magistrates, but such arrangements are fickle.”

“Thank you,” I said. “It was good of you to go. You did not know me—you had no reason to put yourself in danger at my request.”

“Not at all.” Freddie waved my thanks away. “Like any actor, I enjoy a chance to perform. And Mr. Derwent is a good lad. I was very upset when Marianne told me what happened to him. He did not deserve that, and neither did Mr. Travers.”

“You do not know a man called Nelson Mackay, by chance?” I asked.

Freddie leaned back and studied the ceiling. “Mackay … No, I cannot recall such a gentleman.”

“Curly black hair, blue eyes, soft face. A City man.”

Freddie’s brows drew together as he thought, but he shook his head. “I am sorry, but no.”

“Never mind,” I said quickly. “You have done me a good turn. Thank you.”

“Again, it was entirely my choice. I hope it has been of some help.”

I assured him it had. Though he had not jerked the killer from the shadows and presented him to me, I had more to think about, and who knew where that would lead?

Freddie asked to be let out in Great Wild Street, where he had lodgings. He shook my hand when the carriage stopped, and held out his hand to Brewster as well.

“I am always pleased to meet a patron of comedy,” Freddie told Brewster. “I have a gift for it, yes, but alas, the public only takes seriously the tragedians. Delighted to have met you, Captain. Please give my kind regards to Mr. Grenville, if I can make so bold. He is a fine figure of a man, but I know he only has eyes for our Miss Simmons. Good night, dear Marianne. Thank you for the adventure.”

So speaking, he pressed a kiss to Marianne’s cheek, climbed nimbly out of the carriage, shut the door himself, and lifted his hand in farewell. The coach rolled forward, and Freddie was lost into the night and rising mist.

“Well,” Marianne said, as she sat back, crossing her booted ankles. “You have met the famous Frederick Hilliard. What do you think?”

“Quite the gentleman,” Brewster said at once. “In spite of him being an unnatural.”

“He seems personable enough,” I said.

“He is one of the most kind-hearted gentlemen I know,” Marianne said. “A lovely man. Unless you step on his lines, and then he will destroy you. With his rapier wit, of course. More than one actor has found this out, to his detriment.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Marianne declared she was exhausted and went home to her rooms in Grimpen Lane—more likely mine, but I made no objection. Brewster remained with me after we dropped her at the corner of Grimpen Lane and Russel Street, and we returned to Grosvenor Square. I knew Spendlove would not want me back, but I intended to be there when he questioned Sir Gideon and the others.

Another carriage waited in the square near the Derwent mansion. I did not recognize it, but discovered quickly, once the footman had admitted us, that Sir Montague Harris had arrived.

I had not expected him until morning, but I was very pleased he’d come. The imminent arrest of so well-known a gentleman as Sir Gideon must have spurred him to race here from Whitechapel.

“Lacey, my boy,” Sir Montague said, puffing his way from the drawing room as I entered the house. “A pretty problem you’ve brought to my attention.” He bent an eye on the two Runners who followed him. “Mr. Spendlove and Mr. Pomeroy are going over the details of the murder with me. I am lucky to have two of the best investigators in London on the spot, and I look forward to them impressing me.”

Pomeroy barked a laugh, but Spendlove scowled. He and Sir Montague had tangled in the past, with Spendlove emerging the loser.

Under the watchful eye of Sir Montague, Pomeroy and Spendlove questioned every member of staff, none of whom had gone to bed this night, again. I followed Spendlove and asked questions of my own, much to his annoyance. He tolerated me hanging at his elbow, but only just.

The trouble was, though the servants below stairs responded with truth in their eyes, it became clear that a determined person could have gotten past them into the house. No break-in would be necessary. Every night, before the house was shut up, a stream of the poor and hungry flowed down the outside stairs to receive the scraps the kitchen threw away. They never lingered, lest the neighbors complain, only took their food and left. The kitchen staff knew most of them by sight, but strangers came from time to time as well.

Leftovers had amassed since dear Mr. Derwent’s injury, the cook told us, because the family wasn’t eating much, so more of the hungry had been coming. The cook had continued producing the abundant meals she usually did, not being instructed to cease, and she liked the family’s practice of giving the unused portions to those who could use them.

“I grew up hungry,” the cook told us. She was an ample woman now, with plenty of flesh on her bones. “I understand what it is not to have enough in the belly, and many of those who queue up have hungry mouths to feed at home. We’d just throw away the lot or let it spoil, so why not give to those as need it?”

Spendlove listened without sympathy. “Well, one of those as need it got in here and did a murder, didn’t they?”

“Could they have?” I asked her in more friendly tones. “Slipped past you, I mean?” The cook liked me—I often came down here or sent Bartholomew with compliments for her meals. Now that I had a few more coins to rub together, I’d begun giving her substantial tips as well.

The cook directed her answer to me. “I’m sorry to say, they could have, sir. We’ve been at sixes and sevens below stairs—you can’t know the chaos before and after meals. And while we have our own supper in the hall, none of us are minding the back door.”

“You make it easy for the criminally minded then,” Spendlove growled. “A horde of burglars could come in that door and clean out your master and mistress, and you’d be none the wiser.”

“No, sir,” the cook said firmly. “There’s nothing much to steal and everyone knows it. The family gives away everything they have, poor lambs. They send it out as fast as the master rakes it in. The only thing of value is the silver, and Mr. Bridges has charge of that. No one gets past Mr. Bridges.”

Mr. Bridges was the butler, who did keep a sharp eye on the silver plate, locked up after it was cleaned every night in the butler’s pantry. The plate came from Mrs. Derwent’s family, handed down to her through her mother’s line, and Mr. Bridges kept it jealously guarded. No silver had ever gone missing, he said proudly, and none was missing now. I thought about the lesser pieces in the drawing room, and the porcelain figurines, but none of that was missing either. Denis had said the Derwent artwork was not worth much, and his judgment was expert.

We asked the staff to think about which persons they hadn’t seen before last night and give a description. They did their best, and we came away with the particulars on three men and two women, who had lingered after they’d taken their handouts. They’d gone by the time the house was shut up, but as the cook emphasized, in the chaos of clearing up and settling in for the night, anyone could have been missed.

“He’d have been able to walk right out the front door,” Spendlove said as we returned above stairs. “The lad in the foyer isn’t there all the time.”

True, the footman was called upon by members of the family and other servants to run errands, plus he would have to relieve himself once in a while.

“Surprised the lot of them aren’t murdered in their beds,” Spendlove said sourly. “Thanks to you, Captain, I don’t have a suspect to bring to Sir Nathaniel in the morning. And it was bad of you to bring in Sir Montague Harris. He has no business this far from Whitechapel.”

“You were going to arrest an innocent man,” I said. “I won’t have it.”

“Don’t tell me what you will and won’t have, sir. I’ll have
you
in irons for something, along with Mr. Denis, see if I don’t. You’ll hang right beside him.”

“As long as I’ve truly done the deed,” I said coolly, “you’re welcome to me.”

*

I don’t know when I fell asleep. I must have been so relieved that I’d turned Spendlove’s attentions from Sir Gideon and the Derwent family that I finally succumbed to exhaustion and sank into a chair somewhere.