Hanover Square Affair, The (9 page)

I shook out the quilt that lay at the bottom of the bed and draped it over the girl. She lay in a swoon, but her breathing was better, her chest rising and falling evenly, as though she were simply asleep. The footman watched her, a mixture of pity and fascination in his eyes.

“Stoke the fire well,” I told him. “And tell the other maid to come up and sit here with her. Not Grace.”

The footman dragged his gaze from Aimee. “You want Hetty, sir? I’ll fetch her.”

“In a moment.”

I limped out of the room and back to the study. I closed the door on the grisly scene and locked it with Bremer’s keys. When I returned to the bedroom, the footman was tossing heaping shovelfuls of coal onto the grate one-handed. He’d built the fire to roaring, and heat seeped into the room.

For a moment, I wanted to sink to my knees and, like Bremer, press my hands to my head. I had come here to get the truth from Horne, by violence if necessary, but someone had beaten me to it. Someone had stabbed him through the heart, cheerfully perhaps. And then, not satisfied with that, the killer had mutilated him.

I could almost understand the murder. Horne was disgusting and self-satisfied, and by all evidence, he’d beaten this young woman and kept her tied and locked in a wardrobe. But what the murderer had done afterward lodged bile in my throat. That had been an act of anger, of vengeance, an act as disgusting as Horne had been himself.

Behind my disgust, my clear thoughts kept working to piece together what had happened. I felt a sudden need to order everything in my mind before Pomeroy arrived, though I couldn’t have told myself why. It was Pomeroy’s job to discover the culprit and arrest him, not mine.

I looked at the footman. “What is your name?”

He turned from the fireplace, still on his knees. “John, sir. I was christened Daniel, but gents mostly want a John or a Henry on their doors.”

“If your master told Bremer he was not to be disturbed, why was Grace there?”

John thought a moment. “Sometimes he had Grace wait on him. When he wouldn’t have us.”

I remembered Grace kneeling in the doorway, staring in anguish at Horne’s body in the stain of brown blood. “Was she there before or after Bremer opened the door?”

He looked confused. “I don’t know, sir. I was with you.”

I let that drop. “What is your job here? To stand by the front door?”

“Aye, sir. From the morning until I locks it last thing of the day. If a gent comes to the door what has business with the master, I put him in the reception room and give his card to Mr. Bremer. If it’s someone as has no right to be here, I chuck him out.”

“But you are not on the door all the time, are you?”

He looked confused. “Yes, I am.”

“When I arrived yesterday, Mr. Bremer let me in. Not you.”

“Oh. Well, I’m really the only man here, ain’t I? Except Mr. Bremer, and he’s too old. I help Hetty and Gracie carry the coal buckets up and down the stairs. Or a load of wood, or a tub of water to the scullery. No one else is big enough.”

“So all day you or Mr. Bremer opens the door to visitors. No one comes in without you knowing it.”

“No, sir.”

“Who came today?”

His eyes widened. “Do you mean someone who came today might have stuck the master?”

“It is possible. Think back. Who came to visit?”

John’s face screwed up with effort. “Well, there was one gent, thin, dark haired. You’ll have to ask Mr. Bremer who he was. I was helping cook lug in the potatoes for dinner. I let the gent out.”

“When was that?”

John wiped his sweating forehead on his arm, dislodging his footman’s white wig and revealing cropped dark hair beneath. “Oh, maybe half past two.”

“Was he the only visitor the entire day?”

“Excepting yourself, sir.”

“What about the girl, Aimee? You said you’d thought she’d gone.”

His gaze strayed to the bed. “Aye, sir. Weeks ago now. Her and Lily, they went.”

“You saw them go?”

He thought. “No. The master said they were gone. Gracie was that glad. She had to wait on them. She didn’t like them.”

“The girl, Lily. Are you certain that was her name?”

“The master said it was.”

“What did she say it was?”

He looked worried. “She never said. I never went nigh her. Wasn’t allowed, was I?”

“Did he tell you why they went away?”

John shook his head. “They just went.”

I leaned on my walking stick. John watched me with an anxious expression on his shiny face. I didn’t know if his worry meant that he lied or whether he anticipated another difficult question.

“Go fetch Hetty. If you remember anything else, please tell me.”

“Yes, sir.”

John rose to his towering height and lumbered from the room.

The air had warmed, and the cold tension eased from my muscles a bit. I pulled a chair close to the bed and sat down. I itched to rouse the girl to ask her questions, but she was breathing evenly, sleeping well. Had Horne tied her and put her in the wardrobe before the murderer came, or had the murderer done that? Either way, Aimee might have seen something, heard something, enough to tell us who had killed the man in the library.

Pity moved me to let her rest. I had found at least one of the girls, and she still lived. Bruises, dark and angry, threaded the translucent skin on her face, throat and chest. Fury beat through me at the sight of them, fury at Horne and the murderer both. Dead, Horne could made no recompense for what he’d done, and I had a deep and aching need to make him pay. The murder had robbed me of that satisfaction.

The door opened and a maid I had seen in the servants’ hall came in. Dark hair showed through the white cotton of her cap, but her face was not young. It was an intelligent face, with a sharp nose and rather narrow eyes.

She looked at the pale, sleeping girl on the bed, and her nostrils pinched.

“You sent for me, sir.”

“Yes. Hetty, is it?”

“Yes, sir. I’m downstairs maid. And I help cook.”

I gestured to the bed and kept my voice low. “Did you know that this young lady was in the house?”

“She’s not a young lady, sir. And I didn’t know until John told me a moment ago. I thought she’d gone.”

I clamped down on my anger at her self-righteousness. “Do you remember when she first came here? She came with another girl, the girl Mr. Horne called Lily.”

“Oh, yes, I remember.”

“Was Lily the girl’s real name?”

“How should I know, sir? They give themselves names, don’t they?”

My fingers curled around the head of my walking stick. “How did they arrive here in the first place, Hetty? In a carriage?”

“I don’t know, sir, I never saw. I was out shopping for cook the day they came. When I came home, cook was in a foul temper and said we had to make up for more people. She sent me right out again for more vegetables. She was that glad when they left again. What do you want to know, for?”

I held on to my patience. “Did you see them go?”

“I never did. But the master said they’d gone. Both of them.”

“You knew why they’d come in the first place.”

Hetty flushed. “Of course I did, sir. But it’s not my place to say anything, is it? If the master wants to keep young ladies about, it’s not my business.”

“But you didn’t like it,” I prodded.

“No, sir. John laughs and says the master has lively appetites. But it’s wrong, isn’t it? John says I read too many pamphlets.”

“Yet you stay,” I pointed out.

Her eyes flickered. “It’s a good place, sir. Hard to get another place with wages so good. And Lily spoke kind, for what she was.”

“Would it surprise you to learn that Lily was in truth a respectable gentleman’s daughter, brought here against her will?”

Hetty looked doubtful. “Indeed, sir, it would surprise me very much. I thought she was an actress or dancer or some such. Are you sure? She never tried to run away.”

No, I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure of anything.

“Would you have stayed if you had known she was really a respectable young lady?”

Her voice dropped a notch. “I’m ashamed to say I don’t know, sir. The wages is high.”

I tapped my fingers on my walking stick. “If Mr. Horne was so generous, and this is such a large house, why aren’t there more of you? You said you have to double as the cook’s assistant.”

Hetty shrugged. “Sometimes there’s more. They come and go. Cook and Mr. Bremer, they’ve been here forever. I’ve been here the longest after that, then John, then Grace, then Mr. Horne’s valet, Marcel. He’s French. Henry—he’s the boot boy—has only been here a sixmonth. He’ll not last long, though. He doesn’t like it.” Her face grew mournful. “But we’re all out of a place, aren’t we, sir? Now that the master is gone. He’s truly dead?”

I gave a short nod. “He is most definitely dead. Did anyone go upstairs to the master’s chambers today, Hetty? After he gave orders not to be disturbed?”

She thought a moment. “Mr. Bremer and Grace. They’re the only ones he lets in. No one else. But most of the afternoon I was in the kitchens with cook and Henry, so I don’t know who all went up and down in the front.”

So Bremer had already lied. He’d told me he hadn’t seen Horne since Horne gave orders not to be disturbed.

I said, “But there was a visitor earlier in the day. A thin gentleman. Bremer let him in.”

Hetty nodded. “Oh yes, sir. I served him port in the downstairs sitting room. Mr. Bremer took him upstairs.”

“Do you know who this gentleman was?”

“Yes, Mr. Bremer told me. He was a gentleman called Mr. Denis. A friend of the master’s, Mr. Bremer said.”

Chapter Eight

“Bury me cold,” the constable breathed. “Look what they done to the poor bugger.”

The constable for the parish, a round-faced young man, blacksmith by trade, stood in the doorway of the study and stared at the carnage within.

I sat at the kneehole desk near the window, leafing through Horne’s collection of calling cards. Pomeroy planted his fists on his hips and surveyed the dead body, the pool of blood, and me rifling the desk.

“Did you find him, Captain?”

I didn’t look up. “The butler found him. I was in the reception room. Bremer rushed down and fetched me.”

“He’s the gent you were asking me about, ain’t he? Friend of yours? “

I chose my words with care. “He is a friend of a friend. I called to pay my respects.”

“To be sure. And you found him like this.”

“The butler found him,” I repeated. “He fetched me, and I followed him upstairs. Horne was lying as you see him now.”

Pomeroy advanced to the edge of the stain, pudgy fingers stroking his chin. “Bled like a pig, didn’t he? Took a while for that lot to dry, though, wouldn’t you say? Crows would be at him by now.”

I said, “The butler and footman say Mr. Horne came into this room this morning and asked not to be disturbed. After that—” I spread my hands, indicating anything could have happened after that.

“Well, I’ll be questioning the butler and footman, to be sure. Now, if you don’t mind, sir, the constable and I will be at it.”

I palmed the card of Mr. James Denis, slid it into my pocket, and closed the card box. “Carry on, Sergeant.”

I crossed the room to the door and went out. The constable remained in the hall, staring at the body, his pasty face shiny with sweat.

I said kindly, “The footman can fetch you brandy or port.”

“Them are the devil’s drinks, sir.”

Dear God, A London constable who was a Methodist. I silently wished him luck.

As I neared the staircase, Hetty put her mob-capped head out of the bedroom. “She’s awake, sir. I told her the master was dead. She’s a bit bewildered by it all.”

I glanced back at the study, but Pomeroy and the constable were not watching me. Pomeroy’s loud and cheerful tones floated down the hall. I motioned Hetty back inside the room, then stepped in quietly and shut the door.

The yellow-haired girl watched me from the bed, her dark eyes pools of confusion.

“Aimee?”

Her voice was a shallow whisper. “Yes.”

I sat down in the chair I’d pulled close to the bed, and she flinched and closed her eyes.

“I’ll not hurt you, Aimee,” I said in the gentlest voice I could. “I’ve come from the Thorntons.”

Aimee’s face relaxed, and after a moment or two, her eyes drifted open. She had brown eyes, but the brown was swallowed up by the black of her pupils. I read shock there, and hurt so deep I could not reach it.

“My name is Captain Lacey,” I said. “I’ve come to find you and Jane. Do you know where Jane is?”

Tears filled her eyes and streaked silently down her cheeks. “No, sir. She’s gone. He sent her away.”

“Do you mean Horne? Where did he send her?”

Aimee shook her head against the pillow. “He wouldn’t tell me, sir, no matter how much I begged.”