The Painted Lady (17 page)

“Aye,” Mr. Dimm said, bobbing his head and flipping through his daybook. “That’s what one Alfred Ayers, late of His Majesty’s Navy, told us. He drove her home and saw her go in the door. Next day or so, he brung her a pouch.” Dimm reread his notes and whistled. “Right generous you were, too, according to Mr. Ayers. The mother was at church that morning, so never saw him. And she never saw her daughter again. Nor the money.”

“Ayers must have told you that I was already out of Town. So—
”

“Aye, but he wouldn’t let us look in the upper rooms at Lonsdale Street. Show an old dog a bone, Your Grace, and he’s going to go looking for the stew.”

Oh, Lud, Kasey groaned to himself, never letting his expression reveal his dismay. He did not want this tenacious thief-taker in his attic studio, not by half. He steepled his fingers, pretending to think while he gathered his thoughts. “Do you know what I think?” he finally asked.

“No, but I’d be right honored if you was to impart those notions, sir, you being a duke and all.”

Kasey eyed the kindly looking old gent again, wondering if the man was being sarcastic. He got a smile in return, telling him nothing. “Well, I think the money was too much for Dolly to share with her mother. The vicar’s widow would likely make her daughter give half of it to the church anyway, in atonement. I’d wager Dolly took the purse and hired the first coachman she could find to carry her away, far away.”

“We did check all the posting houses. No one recalls a female of her description.”

“Then she had another lover, and ran off with him in his carriage to spend my blunt.”

“And left her clothes behind, besides her old mum?”

“Not likely,” Kasey conceded. “Unless she was intending to return as soon as the money was gone. That’s it, she’ll be home any day. Maybe she even convinced the poor sod lo take her to Gretna to get married, and she’ll return an honest woman. Her mother will be delighted, I’m sure.”

Dimm flipped to another page of his notebook. “T’only chap she spoke to since you and she took up together was the curate at St. Divine’s, and he’s still there.”

“A previous lover, then. Dash it, someone had to have helped her leave Town, and it was not me.”

“You didn’t decide you wanted company on your jaunt and come back t’get the mort?”

“No!”

“Can I ask where it was you went, for the records, you see?”

“No.”

The hall clock struck the hour, and that was the only sound in the room. Dimm cleared his throat, but he did not stand to leave, not yet. Kasey realized he should never have invited the officer to sit down, not in such a comfortable chair, at any rate. “Do you have any other questions, then, Mr. Dimm, or are we done?”

“Oh, life is full of questions. I was telling the lad that just this morning. When a bloke is done asking, I ‘spect he’s ready to cock up his toes, just to ask what happens on t’other side. Do you trust your man Ayers, Your Grace?”

Kasey trusted him with his deepest secrets. “Of course I do. He’s been with me for years. And yes, I know about his difficulties with the Navy. That does not make him a criminal, in my book.”

“No, but makes him powerfully grateful, in mine. Maybe grateful enough to lie for the man what saved him from hanging.”

“That’s absurd. Ayers would not lie to cover a crime—if there had been a crime, which there was not, unless some robber found out about Dolly’s windfall and tried to take it from her.”

Dimm nodded. “Money’s the prime motive for most mayhem, in my experience, which is more’n most folks have. Some unknown cutpurse could of killed Miss Malton for the brass and dragged her body away. The Thames is filled with folks no one misses. Only this one has a mother.”

“My God, that’s a horrid thought. I’d much rather believe Dolly ran off.”

“So would her mum, naturally. I’ve been thinking we should ask at the docks, in case she took a ship.”

“That’s good. Perhaps she decided to start a fresh life somewhere, without the burden of her reputation.”

“Stranger things have happened,” Dimm agreed. “Would you mind if one of our chaps comes by, to get a description so we can make up a drawing to show around? I hate to upset the mother worse, don’t you know. A picture might jog some minds, though.”

“I can do a drawing of Dolly,” Kasey volunteered without thinking. “That is, I have a fair hand at sketching.” Lud, he had a fair amount of paintings of Dolly in the studio, not that the nudes were what you’d show on posters.

“Aye, your brother mentioned something about that.”

His brother was going to be sent to the army, Kasey swore to himself, which was what he should have done a year ago, when the nodcock refused to return to university, if Kasey could have bribed them enough to take Jason back. He pulled a sheet of thick vellum from a drawer and drew a few quick lines. He’d done so many pictures of Dolly he knew the shape of her face by heart, and the tilt of her eyes, the placement of her cheekbones.

“Pretty gal,” Dimm said when he was finished, showing the picture to his nephew, who looked at it and swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “Didn’t suppose otherwise, a’course, not with a man of your stamp.”

The Bow Street man studied the drawing again and shook his head. “To think you did this as easy as writing your name, and you a duke.”

“We are not a totally incompetent bunch, you know.”

Dimm did not comment. “My wife, God rest her soul, used to cut out silhouettes. Perfect likenesses, they were too. I wish I had such a skill, then I wouldn’t be traipsing my poor feet up and down London town.”

Thinking that the sooner this mare’s nest was solved, the better, Kasey offered the use of his own coach and driver, to take the men to the shipping docks.

“That would be right kind of you. Fond of the girl, were you?”

“Not fond enough to keep her on, if that was what you are asking. I was not unhappy enough with Dolly to do away with her. We had a business arrangement, nothing more.”

“And you didn’t regret parting with your blunt?”

“She’d earned it. Women like Dolly live a hard-enough life.”

“That it is, that it is. Just a few questions more, Your Grace, and we’ll be toddling off. You are certain Miss Malton didn’t leave anything of hers behind at your residence on Lonsdale Street?”

“Ayers would have found it.”

“And you trust him, you already said. What about Mr. Charles Warberry, your secretary?”

“Warberry is also my cousin. I trust him implicitly. And no, if that is what you are thinking, he never met Dolly, to my knowledge, neither is he in line for the dukedom if I am hung for murder.”

“Well, I guess that will be all, Your Grace, except for one last question. If I was to come back with a warrant to search the premises of your place in Kew, what do you suppose I would find?”

Kasey took a breath of air, knowing the man was challenging him. If he weren’t a duke, Runners would already be tearing the walls down, looking for Dolly’s body. “Why, the usual things found in houses: beds, chairs, tables.”

“And in the attics, where the neighbors say lights shine all night?”

Kasey damned the man and his dogged thoroughness. “The usual things people store in attics: some old clothes, a few old paintings and books I like to look at when I can’t sleep, nothing of interest. I simply see no reason to have strangers trespassing on my privacy. But here is a question for you, sir: Why are you so suspicious of me? You seem determined to pursue the matter past all reason. Badgering a duke over a missing member of the demimondaine might be unhealthy for your career, no matter how well her mother cooks. So why are you threatening me with search warrants when I was not in Town at the time Dolly went missing?”

Dimm removed his spectacles, wiping them before putting the glasses back in his pocket. “That’s two questions, Your Grace, so I’ll give you two answers. First, I don’t like secrets. Bother me in my old bones, they do. My blessed wife, may she rest in peace, always said I had more curiosity than ten tabby cats. Had a houseful of the little beasties, she did. Second, I recalled we had a similar case some months back, another young woman gone missing, a pretty gal what made her living pleasing the toffs.” He flipped to the back of his notebook,  then  had  to  squint at the writing.  “Mademoiselle Veronique Lesourne was the name she used on stage, before she discovered where her real talents lay.”

“Veronica Ownsworthy? Why, she was—”

“Another of your ex-mistresses, Your Grace.”

Chapter Eighteen

“A deuced coincidence,” Kasey swore, knowing his face had paled despite himself. “Nothing but a deuced coincidence. I’ve had many mistresses in my keeping over the years—I never said I was a monk—and simple odds could favor one or two suffering some misfortune. I know three have married, and I paid the funeral expenses of another, months after we parted company. She died of a lung congestion, incidentally. I am certain many more of them have moved away. It’s inherent in their occupation, the fickleness of men’s tastes, the passage of time and beauty.”

Dimm took a pipe out of another pocket. He didn’t ask if he could light it, and Kasey did not offer. The officer chewed on the stem a bit, then said, “Funny things, coincidences. In my line of work they’re nasty, naggy nuisances, they are. Don’t let a man sleep of nights, you see.” He tapped the pipe against his knee. “Now I’ve got two missing ladies what pleasured the same man, a man what won’t tell us where he’s been and won’t let us see for ourselves. Coincidence? I couldn’t sleep a wink, I’m sure, thinking of telling that to the governor over to Bow Street.”

Kasey had no answer. He was furious his name might be mentioned at the Runners’ office in the first place. Let the gossip columns get one whiff of this stench and his life would be unbearable, his reputation dragged through every bit of slime the slanderers could dredge or devise. Decent women would be afraid of him. Men would mistrust him. Things got worse when Dimm told his nephew to wait outside.

When young Thomas had left the room, Dimm moved his chair a bit closer to the desk, so he did not have to speak as loudly. “No reason for the boy to learn the worst side of human nature his first week on the job,” he confided. Before continuing, he tapped the pipe against the fine cherrywood desk, causing the duke to wince. “Now was you to open that house in Kew to us, just so as we could see for ourselves you had no Hellfire Club nor one of those dungeons what cater to a man’s baser instincts, we—”

“What?” Kasey pounded on the desk himself. “You think I was holding orgies there, or ... or sacrifices? I don’t care if your superior is the King himself. Get out!”

“Now hold on, Your Grace. Sometimes the girls what work in certain houses have been known to complain that the guests are too rough. What if such a thing happened—or worse, the girls died? Wouldn’t a fine lord like yourself want to get rid of the evidence afore anyone missed the morts? And keep anyone from looking, in case there was a bloodstain or something?”

“You have gone so far beyond the pale, sirrah, that I will personally see that you are dismissed from your post and your nephew too. I have never, ever, misused a female in my life. The idea of harming the least one of them is sickening. That you would think me a beast who gets pleasure inflicting pain on those less powerful is not only revolting, but ridiculous. You can ask scores of women who are alive and well, and all the richer for my attentions. Now take your filth and get out of my house before I decide to remove you from London, not merely Bow Street.”

Dimm lumbered to his feet. “My apologies, Your Grace. I wanted to see your reactions, is all. I never said I thought that’s what transpired in your love nest, just what some might be considering, on account of your being so tight-lipped about things. I already spoke to some of your other ladybirds, and nary a one had a complaint. In fact, some’d be willing to visit you again, for free. Spoke that highly of you, they did, impressed the boy no end. Is it true you can—no, that ain’t none of my business, for sure.”

He took one step closer to the door. “I don’t hold with fornication myself, Your Grace, but if we was to arrest every man what hired a doxy now and again, we’d have a lot of empty pews in church, and too few Runners to make the arrests, asides. So no one is faulting you for liking the ladies. It’s just that I’ve got to answer to the governor, and he’s going to want to know. He’ll likely have me and some of the fellows standing guard outside that little house, too, day and night, cold or rain, he don’t care which, to make sure nothing gets taken out, you see.”

“Yes, I hear your warning,” Kasey said through clenched jaws. Now he could not have Charles and Ayers crate the paintings up to be sent away.

“On the other hand, was you to give me the name of the lady you just spent the week with, and she could corroborate your whereabouts, that might go a long way to satisfying the governor’s curiosity, and mine.”

“I was not visiting a lady.”

“Now, sir, I don’t hold with adultery even more than the other. My dear wife, the good Lord keep her, would of had my liver and lights if I ever looked sideways at another woman, not that I would have wanted to, mind. Nevertheless, I can appreciate your wanting to protect the lady’s name, and I swear her husband will never find out. I can swear to my superior all’s right and tight with you, and that’ll be that. No one wants to go head-to-head with a rich man what’s friends with the Prince, asides. Like you said, that’s not good for a body’s career. Few years yet to go till I can collect my pension, Your Grace, and I sure would like to make it.”

“Now you believe I was having an illicit affair with a married woman somewhere out of Town?”

Dimm shrugged. “Why else wouldn’t you say where you were? A’course, we know you headed south. Shouldn’t be too much trouble to find out where. A lot of coming and going, but the governor’ll just have to approve expenses for a hired coach. He won’t like it, a’course.”

Damn, Kasey cursed to himself. The fellow was like a blasted bulldog. He’d never let go, either. And Kasey had taken his own curricle to Lytchfield, his own shining black and red curricle, the one with his family’s crest on the side. He’d taken his famous bays, and stopped to rest them midway at a respectable inn. Then he’d stopped for directions at a tavern in Maidstone. No, Mr. Dimm would not have any problem tracing his whereabouts straight to Bannister’s Bat Hospital. Blast him!