Deadly Affair: A Georgian Historical Mystery (Alec Halsey Crimance) (10 page)

Molyneux pushed a coffee toward Tam and waved the waiter away. For what seemed like minutes he merely sipped at the bittersweet brew, regarding Tam over the rim of the mug. Then he winked and said very quietly, “Stick to your instincts, boy.”

Tam permitted himself a small smile. He felt a huge relief, as if he had been permitted to cross over to Molyneux’s side of the river. They drank their coffee in silence for a moment, conscious that the coffee house was filling up and that they had been sitting together long enough to cause more than one head to turn in their direction. Fortunately, there was enough noisy chatter to cover their conversation.

“Sir. Do
you
think Mr. Blackwell was poisoned?”

This time Molyneux did not sneer. “Why would anyone want to poison an old vicar who spent his days helping the poorest wretches in the City?”

Tam sighed. “Precisely, sir. It does seem fantastical. But don’t you think it strange he should up and have a heart attack just like that at a dinner party?”

“Why? If a king can collapse while sitting on his
pot de chambre
, I don’t see why a vicar can’t keel over in the middle of dinner.”

Tam was not convinced. “I suppose that’s true, but it don’t seem at all right, sir. I have this awful feeling he was poisoned.”

“Only you might know if that is so,” reasoned Molyneux. “You tell me if he had any enemies. You were his friend.”

“Friends or enemies, sir, I doubt they’d have earned a place at Sir Charles Weir’s table.”

“Listen to me, Master Fisher: Take care what you’re about. If anyone can have the finger pointed at him, it’s
your
master. Think about it. Seven months ago he was accused of murdering his own brother. That the charge was dropped don’t mean a groat to anyone wanting to apportion blame. Nor does the fact His Majesty saw fit to elevate your pretty-boy master to a Marquessate. As if a title can somehow make us forget his brother had his brains blown out! It don’t. We think it only makes it worse for him. And you don’t make it any easier either.”

“
Me
, sir?” Tam was surprised.

Molyneux laughed softly. “You really are a greenhorn! You were an apothecary’s apprentice before your master took you in,
and
he’s let you continue on making up your lotions and potions. You prepare and dispense medicines. You have access to all sorts of drugs and poisons and you know how to use them. Whose to say you didn’t supply your master with the poison that killed old Blackwell?”

Tam was horrified. “But Mr. Blackwell was Lord Halsey’s friend too.”

Molyneux shrugged. “No one knows that, do they?”

“Why would his lordship want to murder him?”

“Same reason as anyone else at that dinner party, although we don’t know the reason, do we?”

“Does
your
master think—”

“We have no idea,” Molyneux answered curtly and looked out the window.

“I understand, sir,” Tam said quietly. “I didn’t expect you to break any confidences. I just need to know where to go from here. Whatever you thought of Mr. Blackwell, I knew him to be a kind and caring man who meant no harm. To think someone poisoned him makes me sick in the gut. Here,” he said and placed the blue glass bottle before Molyneux and stood. “Remember, just a few drops in warm water.” He gave a quaint little bow of the head. “Thank you for the coffee, sir.”

He turned to go but the valet grabbed his wrist and jerked him back. “Don’t get mixed up in this, lad. Your Reverend Blackwell wasn’t all he seemed. He tried to right his wrongs but some wrongs just can’t be undone. That’s all I can tell you. And you didn’t hear that from me. Understand, lad?” He squeezed Tam’s wrist. “
Understand?
”

Tam nodded and his wrist was released. “Yes, Mr. Molyneux. Upon my honor.”

“Fisher? Thomas
Fisher
? Where’s Thomas Fisher?”

Several men crowded the entrance to the coffee house and a great deal of arguing was going on amongst them. A waiter tried to stop two men from coming further into the establishment, but they pressed on regardless. Between them they carried a gentleman above the elbows who looked for the all the world to be dead drunk. They propped him up against the nearest wall and slid him down to sit on the floorboards, upsetting the leg of a table where three men were playing at whist.

Playing cards fluttered everywhere.

As soon as he was let go the gentleman slumped forward so his chin came to rest on his chest. From this angle the semi-circle of onlookers had a good view of his bare head. In the candlelight, blood glistened wet in the grey grizzled hair above his left ear. There was speculation as to the reason why an old man had been attacked. One of the waiters called out to his fellows to bring hot water and rags. Another volunteered to run up to the local tavern for some brandy, knowing full well there was a bottle under the counter, but could not say so because coffee houses were, by law, not permitted to have alcohol on the premises. An astute customer was quick to point out the expensive cloth to the old man’s back. Perhaps he’d been set upon for his purse? said another. What an old man of means was doing in a filthy laneway was anyone’s guess. Another wondered if he had gone into the laneway to relieve himself. Perhaps he had been propositioning a whore? At this there was general laughter.

“
Fisher
? Thomas Fisher!”

“He’s with ‘the Duke’!” came a shout by the fireplace.

A waiter grabbed Tam’s elbow and hurriedly led him across the room, saying, “There’s been a scuffle in the lane, lad. A couple of thugs set-to on an old gent. Got a great gash to his head. Can you do anything for him? Come on, you fellows! Give way! Give way, before the blood ruins the floorboards!”

The crowd shouldered apart and began to disperse. Now that the young lad had everything in order there was no need to stand about gawking. Besides, the coffee was getting cold.

The old man lifted his head with an effort and blinked as Tam knelt beside him.

“Damn glad it’s you, m’boy,” Plantagenet Halsey mumbled and promptly fainted.

Alec threw open the door to his uncle’s bedchamber with such violence that the door handle punctured the Chinese wallpaper. Plantagenet Halsey was lying in his four-poster bed, propped up on a mountain of pillows, head swathed in bandages and arms lifeless at his sides. A physician and his assistant were conferring by the bedside. The assistant took from a large black leather medical bag a jar swimming with leeches. Plantagenet Halsey’s valet and Tam stood grim-faced and silent at the foot of the bed.

“Well? How is he?” Alec demanded, sitting on the edge of the mattress and taking his uncle’s limp cold hand in his. He looked around at all four men. “What happened? Did he take a fall? Will he be all right?”

“My lord, if Mr. Halsey would only be bled and take the medicinal—”

“I’ve lost enough blood already, so don’t you be worryin’ his lordship,” the old man interrupted with a grumble. He turned his bandaged head slowly on the pillow. “But I’ll take your foul-tastin’ brew if you’ll just get out of m’sight. The lad here can give me what I need.”

The physician sucked in his fat cheeks, a glance of disapproval at Tam, and waved away his assistant, who meekly replaced the jar in the black bag, before pointedly handing the measured dose of laudanum, not to Tam but to the old man’s valet.

“I need hardly remind your lordship that it is unlawful for anyone but a qualified physician to prescribe medicinals, and that I have previously warned Mr. Halsey on
several
occasions that should it come to my attention that Thomas Fisher is practicing his unqualified apothecary skills on the populace of my parish, I will be forced to report such a grievous matter to the proper authorit—”

“You
dare
, you miserable sawbones,” Plantagenet Halsey growled through his teeth and half rose off the pillows.

“Yes, I am well aware of your threats, Miller. Thank you,” Alec said curtly and turned his shoulder in dismissal, the physician and his assistant bowing silently to his back before departing. Alec squeezed his uncle’s hand. “I see a knock to the head hasn’t dulled your senses,” he said with a lopsided grin, greatly relieved knowing the old man wasn’t seriously hurt. He pretended not to see the grimace of pain that crossed his uncle’s lined face as he lay back amongst the pillows, adding quietly, “All the same, for my sake, and I’m sure Tam will agree, take the laudanum merely as a precautionary measure.”

The old man opened his eyes. “Not yet. Got somethin’ to show you first. Thomas, those papers Barlow found in my frockcoat pocket, give ’em to his lordship. By the way, I did thank you for patchin’ me up, didn’t I, lad?”

“Yes, sir. You did. Twice,” said Tam as he handed Alec a dog-eared, yellowed pamphlet. He then retreated, as requested, with the old man’s valet to the dressing room; the valet with the dose of laudanum held covetously to his chest.

“Just before I was knocked on the head, a ridiculous fellow in canary yellow silks who’d been followin’ me since I left me meetin’, shoved his hand in m’waistcoat pocket,” Plantagenet Halsey explained. “I thought he was tryin’ to steal m’watch, but when he ran off just as everythin’ around me went black, I put m’hand in m’pocket and realized the fellow had put somethin’ in there, not takin’ somethin’ out.”

Alec nodded absently as he put on his gold-rimmed spectacles and flicked through the closely printed yellowed pages of a weathered pamphlet denouncing slavery. There were arithmetic jottings in a number of the margins. There was also a dark circular stain, such as that left by a chocolate or coffee mug. But what really caught Alec’s interest was two thin sheets of parchment, folded neatly in half and slipped between the pages of the pamphlet. “Did you know these were here?” he asked over his gold rims as he unfolded the thin pages. “Have you read them?”

“Took a quick look while the lad was bandagin’ m’head,” replied the old man. “You’ll find it plain and to the point, like the man himself.”

The pages proved to be the last will and testament of the Reverend Kenneth Blackwell Dempsey-Weir, late of the parish of St. Judes in the City of London; second son of the late Viscount Dempsey-Weir of Hawkhurst in Kent. It was signed, witnessed, sealed and dated the day before Blackwell’s death. The will had been witnessed by Justinian, Duke of Cleveley and signed off by Thaddeus Fanshawe Esq., lawyer. The main beneficiary was one Catherine Sophia Elizabeth Bourdon of Ellick Farm in Somerset, bequeathed Blackwell’s entire estate, consisting of two sugar plantations in Barbados, a townhouse in Mount Street leased to the Cornwallis family for a further ten years, and ten thousand pounds plus accrued interest, deposited in the Bank of England over twenty years ago. A further five thousand pounds was bequeathed to Sir Charles Weir, past private secretary to his Grace the most Noble Duke of Cleveley. Blackwell’s bible, gold pocket watch and a thousand pounds were willed to Thomas Fisher, apothecary and valet to Lord Halsey; a gold snuffbox and a small miniature of the Duchess of Clevely in a gold frame were to go to Lord George Stanton. Blackwell asked that he be laid to rest in the family vault at Hawkhurst.

From amongst the down-filled pillows, Plantagenet Halsey regarded his nephew with a smile of satisfaction, the relentless throbbing pain in his head momentarily forgotten. “Makes you sit up and wonder, don’t it? I mean, here we were thinkin’ Blackwell eeked out an existence in the poorest parish of the City because he was a penniless vicar, and one who couldn’t possibly have an enemy in the world, yet the man who made out that will was wealthy and well-connected. So who’s to say he didn’t have enemies? You’ve got to admit, it’s a damned intriguin’ business.”

“Very,” agreed Alec and returned the will between the pages of the pamphlet. “Two plantations in Barbados and ten thousand with the Bank of England… And yet he devoted his life to those less fortunate than himself. What a remarkable gentleman.”

“But somethin’ or someone in his past must’ve come back to haunt him because the man was murdered at Weir’s dinner party.”

“But why was he murdered? For his money? No one at the dinner party except Cleveley knew Blackwell was a wealthy man. And who amongst the diners stood to gain from his death? Charles? I doubt he poisoned Blackwell for five thousand pounds. Charles’s sinecures from Cleveley alone must be worth that per annum. As for George Stanton, he is a drunk and a parasitic dullard but even he wouldn’t stoop to murdering a vicar for a gold snuffbox and a miniature of his mother.” Alec removed his spectacles. “It’s Catherine Bourdon we need to find out about, and by virtue of being signatories to the will, Cleveley and the lawyer Fanshawe must know this woman and her whereabouts.”

“Blackwell’s death has made her a rich woman,” stated the old man, closing his eyes and secretly wishing he had taken the laudanum when it was first offered. The pain in his head was becoming unbearable. “And you said it yourself, Cleveley knew Blackwell was wealthy…”

“And he was signatory to Blackwell’s will. But he didn’t need to poison him for his money,” reasoned Alec. Adding as he crossed to the dressing room, “If you’re going to accuse Cleveley, you’ll have to come up with another explanation for why he wanted the vicar dead.” He signaled for his uncle’s valet to take his place at the bed then closed over the door, saying to Tam in the dressing room,” Where did my uncle come by that knock to his head?”

“In the lane beside The Stock and Buckle, sir.”

“Stock and Buckle? That isn’t far from here, is it?”

“Just up King Street, sir.”

“He should’ve taken his chair. He knows he isn’t steady on his feet. Will he be all right?”

“Yes, sir. Mr. Halsey is remarkably healthy for a gentleman of his age. He’ll heal in no time. His skull isn’t fractured, so there’s no reason to think his brain is bruised. And so I told Dr. Miller, but he didn’t believe me and had his assistant remove the bandages so he could make a proper
informed
diagnosis.”

“I would’ve been most disappointed had Miller not done so, Tam,” Alec stated, and watched the boy drop his gaze with a frown. “Miller means well, but he’s prejudiced like all his kind against the growing expertise of the apothecaries. The physicians feel their unique position in the world is under threat.” He smiled. “And no small wonder is it, when a lad of nineteen is just as expert as our good doctor at making a diagnosis. Now tell me: Do you know what induced my uncle to stroll into a laneway to be accosted by some fool dressed in canary yellow?”