A Dangerous Madness (12 page)

“We do, but I’m afraid you find us a little in disarray today. A new tea tray is coming.”

Phoebe caught her aunt’s eye and made sure she knew Phoebe would not countenance a single word about Sheldrake as she sat down, herself.

“I’m sure disarray is an understatement, Mrs. Patterson, although why just today? Surely since Sunday evening?” Lady Halliford smiled, eyes gleaming.

Phoebe stared at her, and Lady Halliford held the look for a moment before looking down, modestly, at her clasped hands in her lap. Her smile remained fixed in place.

“I beg your pardon?” Phoebe saw her aunt wince at the aggressive edge to her question.

Eyes shining even brighter, Lady Halliford lifted her head. “You and Sheldrake, of course.” She gave a little frown, as if confused.

“What about Sheldrake and I?”

“Oh, my dear girl.” Lady Halliford gave a little cluck, like a contented hen. “When I heard about how he threw you over and left the country, I was horrified. I felt it my duty to come and speak to you, and extend my commiserations. I would have come sooner, but this dreadful business with the prime minister delayed me until today.”

Phoebe could do nothing but sit mute.

Lady Halliford presided, plump and elegantly dressed in pink silk, artful ringlets framing her face; a perfectly sweet bonbon with a poison centre. “And from what a little bird told me this morning, you haven’t let the grass grow under your feet.” She lifted her eyebrows at Phoebe’s blank stare. “You and the Duke of Wittaker? I scarce think he’s been to a single respectable gathering this season, so I can’t imagine how you are acquainted enough for an early morning visit. But word is you are.” She gave a sugary smile.

Aunt Dorothy made a noise beside her. A little animal groan that she swallowed as soon as the sound emerged.

“I’d very much like to know how you came by your information.” At last her jaw loosened enough for speech, although her words were stilted. Phoebe had the small satisfaction of seeing Lady Halliford lose a little of the pink of excitement in her cheeks when she caught sight of Phoebe’s face.

“Why, it is all over town.”

“No, it isn’t.” Phoebe was quite sure of that.

“But…” Lady Halliford frowned again, although this time in genuine confusion. “I heard…”

“You find us unsettled because Lord Sheldrake is dead. He died yesterday. The Duke of Wittaker kindly took the time to inform me of the news this morning.”

For the first time, Lady Halliford looked out of her depth. “Dead…” She fiddled nervously with the rings on her fingers. “I wasn’t aware—”

“Weren’t you?” Phoebe kept her gaze fixed on Lady Halliford, but she would not look at her, now.

“No. How perfectly rude of you to suggest I would—”

“Who told you Sheldrake broke off our betrothal?” Phoebe’s question was sharp, cutting through the bluster.

“Why, it was…” She paused, then rose to her feet, her cheeks flushed with anger, now, not excitement. “Your attitude is hardly appropriate, Miss Hillier. I will excuse it in light of the shock you must be in, but I’m sure my source was accurate, he hasn’t ever been wrong in these matters before. Which puts you in an awkward position. You are neither the grieving financée, nor the disinterested acquaintance.” At last, all pretense was gone, all artifice. She looked down on them both with a supercilious expression.

“Why did you come here?” Phoebe rose to her own feet.

“I…” Lady Halliford hesitated, and Phoebe guessed her purpose had been derailed by news of Sheldrake’s death.

“I don’t think it’s appropriate of me to impose myself on you further, given the tragedy of the moment.” Lady Halliford took up her reticule and straightened her gloves.

Aunt Dorothy rose, almost swaying on her feet at the prospect of the scandal about to hit them.

Sheldrake. Wittaker.

One or the other would be bad enough. It looked like they would have to contend with both.

Phoebe’s temper spiked even higher.

She looked directly into Lady Halliford’s eyes. Let her see she had made an enemy for life. She pulled the cord for Lewis and he appeared almost instantly.

“Lady Halliford is going, Lewis. Please see her out.”

They exchanged stiff, polite nods, and then her ladyship swept out of the room.

In the quiet that followed in her wake, Aunt Dorothy began to weep.

Chapter Eighteen

B
ow Street Officer John Vickery was a large man, but with a surprisingly gentle face. His blue eyes fixed on James with interest as he stood from his desk and made a formal bow.

“Good afternoon, Your Grace.” His gaze flicked to the clock on the wall behind James’s shoulder. “The magistrate says you’ve come here straight from the Attorney General’s office.” There was a suspicious lack of inflection in Vickery’s voice.

“Yes, the Attorney General kindly allowed me to read through the transcripts of the proceedings, and I have a few questions for you, if you don’t mind.” James kept his voice neutral, as well.

Their thoughts on Vinegar Gibbs went unspoken, although James sensed their views would probably align quite nicely.

“The Attorney General is most insistent that I have something for him by tonight, Your Grace, and if I don’t get going very soon, I’ll miss an important appointment.” Vickery glanced at the clock again.

“I’m more than happy to walk with you and talk, if it will make things easier.” James stepped to the side and indicated the door, and with a reluctant nod, Vickery walked out of the station, with James following behind.

Vickery wanted to ask him what his interest was, James could see it in the way he hesitated on the pavement, but he couldn’t bring himself to question a duke.

“If Sir Vicary has sent you because he’s getting anxious, you can tell him I will be round with Sir Harry Combe, the magistrate, tonight.” Vickery stood, stoic and unmoving.

James shook his head. “This has nothing to do with the Attorney General. I’m interested for my own reasons, and as I say, I’m happy to walk with you, so as not to impede your progress.”

Vickery hesitated another moment more, then accepted he would have the company of a duke for some of his afternoon and began to walk.

“I saw from the transcript you found a great deal of evidence against Bellingham in the room where he was lodging?” James kept up easily with Vickery’s long stride.

“A cast to make bullets. Gun powder. Papers and pamphlets.” Vickery kept his eyes ahead.

“That all cost money.”

Vickery slowed, and gave him a sideways look. “It did.”

“And I also read his landlady is holding a promissory note for twenty pounds for him.”

Vickery grunted in assent.

“The pistols would have cost money, too, unless he already had them—”

Vickery made a sound at the back of his throat, then stopped.

“What? You don’t think he did?”

Vickery hesitated, then shook his head. “The guns were special. Designed to be concealed and broken down into smaller pieces. They looked custom-made and I wouldn’t have thought someone like Bellingham would have had pistols like that lying about.”

“Something like that would be expensive.” James was forced to walk behind Vickery as they edged past a fruit seller taking up most of the pavement. “I wonder where he got them?”

Vickery looked over at him suspiciously. “You seem caught up in the cost o’ things. You know something I don’t?”

James shook his head. “As I said, I’ve just come from reading the transcript, and in Bellingham’s own words, he was destitute by the end of February. How did he support himself?”

Vickery shrugged. “Something worth looking into, I’ll grant you, but I’ve got no time for that. Might have had some money sent down to him from Liverpool, maybe? It’s all we can do to get the facts straight in the time we have. Sir Vicary wants an open-and-shut case, he says. No room for doubt.”

“Will you be able to give it to him?” James’s sense of Vickery was that he was straight. And thorough.

The big man gave a nod. “No doubt he did it. Made the bullets, even if he didn’t buy the gun. He’s well-known to everyone, even some clerks at Bow Street have spoken to him. He’s been all over with those pamphlets, demanding justice. Took justice into his own hands, looks like.”

His voice was calm, but something in the tone told James he was angry at the thought of Bellingham taking the law into his own hands. If that was what he had done.

He hadn’t known what to expect of the Bow Street officer, but so far this big, steady man impressed him. He didn’t want James with him, but he’d taken his presence with good grace.

“Where are we walking to?” James noticed they were in the commercial district now, coming up to High Holborn.

“A Mr. Taylor sent a note round. Has some information.” Vickery didn’t say anything else, but James guessed the note said more than that, to have gotten the head investigator’s attention with so little time at his disposal.

“Do you mind if I accompany you to the interview?”

Vickery’s face tightened.

“I won’t introduce myself, or talk.”

Vickery waited for a carriage to pass, and then crossed the road before he finally gave a nod.

James liked him all the more for his obvious reluctance.

Vickery slowed his pace as they approached a tailor’s shop. He gave James a last look, as if willing him to change his mind, and when James looked back at him with a smile, he sighed and pushed the door open.

A small bell rang to announce them, and a thin man with receding blond hair in shirt sleeves and a waistcoat stepped out from the back room. He was using his sleeves as pin cushions, with silver pins woven into the fabric all along the cuff.

“Mr. Taylor?” Vickery stepped forward and shook the tailor’s hand. “I’m Vickery, from the Bow Street Magistrate’s Office.”

He didn’t introduce James and James took his cue, standing quietly to one side, as if only an observer.

Taylor peered at him in the gloomy light, and then faced Vickery, fiddling nervously with the pins at his wrists. “Saw what they said in the paper. About who killed the prime minister. My Mary, she tells me to send round a note to you. We knew him. Or, I did. From the tavern down the road a little ways, near Red Lion Square. And I did some work for him, though now I know what it was used in, maybe I shouldn’t admit to that.” His words tumbled over each other, like water down a steep mountain stream.

“No harm will come to you.” Vickery looked like every word he said could be trusted.

James wondered if it could.

“Well.” Taylor looked cautiously at James again, nervous not knowing who he was. “Bellingham caught me a few weeks ago, by chance, I think. We bumped into one another up on Guilford Rd, and he asked me if I could do a sewing job for him, seeing as I’d made a few other things for him. Right away, he wanted it. A small pocket sewn into the inside of his jacket. He ran to his lodgings to draw the size and shape of it for me, and brought the pattern down to the shop.”

“What jacket was this?” Vickery made it sound like it didn’t really matter, but James noticed he looked sharper than he had. More aware.

“Dark brown jacket. Very good fabric and the most up-to-date style.”

“And what was the pocket for?”

Taylor flicked a look at him, then away. “He didn’t say, but given the shape and size, I’d say to conceal a pistol. ’Twas a pistol, wasn’t it? That he used on the prime minister?”

Vickery rocked back on his heels and ignored the question. “Do you have a record of the transaction? A receipt for payment?”

Taylor nodded. He reached behind him, to the counter, and took up a ledger. He lifted it up for Vickery to see, running his finger along an entry.

Vickery leaned in to look. Gave a sharp nod. “Appreciate your help, Taylor. Most likely, I’ll have to call you as a witness. I’ll let you know when the trial is scheduled.”

Taylor did not look happy about it, but he murmured his assent.

James stepped in a little closer. “Can you tell me the name of the tavern where you became acquainted with Mr. Bellingham?”

Taylor’s gaze jerked up to him, and then to Vickery, who was staring at James with no little annoyance on his face.

“Legge’s.” Taylor’s gaze shifted between the two of them.

“Thank you.” Vickery spoke as if it were he who had asked the question, gave Taylor a small bow in farewell and led them outside.

He kept his silence, but when they were a few doors away from the shop, heading back to Bow Street, he looked across at James.

“I know I said I wouldn’t speak.” James kept his tone mild and apologetic. “I’m sorry, but I wanted to know the name of the tavern, and couldn’t think of a way to get you to ask it for me.”

Vickery sighed. “No harm done. I suppose.” He focused on the pavement ahead of them. “This is the final nail for Bellingham, you know. He’s going to swing.”

James frowned. “Why do you say that?”

“We have his confession. And the pamphlets. And the weeks of badgering officials for his blessed compensation. And asking reporters in the gallery at the Houses of Parliament over the last month to point Mr. Perceval out to him. But more than that, now, we have Mr. Taylor telling us Bellingham arranged in advance to have a hidden pocket sewn into his coat, so he didn’t have to put the gun together at the scene. He screwed it together beforehand and hid it inside his jacket.”