The Sans Pareil Mystery (The Detective Lavender Mysteries Book 2) (15 page)

‘To find what?’ Lady Caroline shuffled to the edge of her seat.

‘This.’ April pulled out a sheaf of paper from amongst the pile and offered it to him. He saw at once that the paper was a different quality to the others in the pile. ‘I didn’t think it was anything unusual at first . . .’

Lavender scrutinised the page of writing. It contained a handwritten column of random numbers. There was only one word at the bottom of the page:
Victor
. It had a line drawn through it. He frowned. ‘What is this?’

‘I don’t know exactly,’ Miss Clare said. ‘I just found it amongst my script, which I’d placed in Captain Willoughby’s bureau. I assumed it belonged to him and had become mixed up with my own papers.’

‘Why did you think it was Captain Willoughby’s?’

She gave him a brilliant smile, leant forward and pointed to the word
Victor
. ‘Because, Detective Lavender, that was the name of one of the ships in the fleet. They captured it from the French and renamed it. Captain Willoughby wrote and told my sister about it. The ship was only a few years old and it was a great prize. He enjoyed the irony that the British navy were now using a French ship against the French.’

‘Why is there a line through the ship’s name?’ Lavender asked.

The actress shrugged. ‘I have no idea.’

Lavender stared back down at the paper in his hand.
Are those columns of numbers degrees of latitude and longitude?
he wondered.

‘If this is not one of Captain Willoughby’s papers, then how on earth did it end up with your play script?’ he asked.

‘I have no idea,’ she replied.

Lady Caroline’s face flashed with irritation. ‘Think harder, April,’ she said. ‘We need to get to the bottom of this.’

‘I keep my scripts safe in my lodgings when they’re not with me in the theatre,’ Miss Clare said.

‘So this pile of papers travels with you to the theatre sometimes?’ Lavender asked.

‘But of course! I took it with me on Thursday when I last performed,’ said the actress. ‘I left it in the green room for a while.’

Lavender had to think for a moment. The green room. Often used, as he observed the other night, as a reception room for visiting dignitaries. ‘Whereabouts in the green room at the Sans Pareil did you leave the script?’

‘On a table beneath the window.’

‘Was there anything else on the table?’

She smiled again. ‘There’s always something on that table, Detective. Actors are messy creatures. It’s cluttered with old props, discarded grease paint sticks – and random papers and news-sheets.’ Her eyes widened. ‘Why I do believe that may be where I picked up this piece of paper. Do you think it is significant, Detective? Is that what the kidnappers wanted from me?’

He frowned and glanced back down at the paper in his hand.
Victor
. HMS
Victor
. Why did the name of this ship seem familiar to him? Where had he heard it before?

Suddenly he remembered. A dreadful realisation flooded over him. He glanced back down at the innocuous piece of paper. Captain Willoughby was not responsible for the neat line drawn through the words HMS
Victor
. This list did not belong to him.

‘Good God,’ he exclaimed.

‘What’s the matter, Detective?’ asked Lady Caroline.

Lavender stared at the crackling fire in the hearth as his mind raced to try and make sense of this latest discovery and connect it to the brutal kidnapping of Harriet Willoughby. The two women waited patiently for his reply, their faces etched with concern.

If his suspicions about that slip of paper were correct, then April Clare was in far greater danger than either he, or she, had ever imagined. Other lives may also be in grave danger. And the significance of this discovery could have national repercussions. Any lingering annoyance at the woman’s earlier deception now disappeared from his mind and was replaced with nothing but concern for her immediate safety. He must return to Bow Street as soon as possible and seek out James Read.

‘I have no idea what it is at present,’ he lied. ‘But I do know where I can find some answers to this mystery. I need to take this paper with me. In the meantime, Miss Clare and Lady Caroline, you must stay indoors and take the utmost care of yourselves. I shall send down some constables from Bow Street to watch the house. I think it is best that you have some extra protection until we know what we’re dealing with.’

Both women sat back, startled. April Clare turned pale. ‘Are we in danger, Detective?’ she asked.

‘You may be,’ he said. ‘The gang of men who kidnapped your sister may have now given up their search for this document, now that they think that April Clare is dead. Alternatively, they may try to gain entrance here to continue their search.’

‘Is this why poor Harriet died?’ Lady Caroline demanded. ‘For a piece of paper?’

‘It may well be.’

Miss Clare leapt to her feet and threw her hands over her mouth in horror. ‘What have I done?’ she asked dramatically.

Lavender and Lady Caroline also rose to their feet. Lady Caroline walked swiftly across the carpet and put a comforting arm around her stepdaughter. ‘Don’t worry, April, I shall move in here with you to protect you – and I’ll send for Solomon and Duddles to come and stay, too. We must trust in Detective Lavender.’

Despite his anxiety for the women’s safety, the corners of Lavender’s mouth twitched at the thought of Duddles trying to fend off a gang of determined criminals intent on ransacking the Willoughby household. ‘The Bow Street constables will be on the street within an hour,’ he said as he reached for his gloves.

‘Thank you, Detective.’ Miss Clare was visibly relieved.

‘I will also arrange to have the body of Mrs Willoughby returned to you, so that you may organise a quiet and discreet funeral.’

‘What should April do?’ asked Lady Caroline.

‘Keep on with the deception,’ he advised. ‘Tell nobody who you really are; keep up the pretence that you are your sister. I will return as soon as I have some news and I will instruct you about how we’re to proceed at that point. I will see myself out.’

‘Thank you, Detective Lavender,’ said Lady Caroline as he gave them a short bow. ‘But before you go, please tell me how you worked out that April was pretending to be Harriet.’

He paused and stared back at the beautiful young actress. Black suited her, he realised – it gave her creamy complexion a luminous quality. Was there a hint of unease behind those dark eyes? Perhaps his brusque questioning about her former lover had unnerved her? But this wasn’t the time to expose all of her deceptions. He had a gang of murdering villains to catch.

‘When Sir Richard Allison discovered the full extent of Mrs Willoughby’s frail health, I realised that it was impossible for the dead woman to have conducted such a lively and successful career on the stage.’ With that, he bowed again and left the house before they questioned him further.

Chapter Eighteen

It was raining softly when Magdalena and Teresa returned to their lodgings but Magdalena barely noticed the drizzle. She couldn’t stop thinking about the passionate kiss she had shared with Stephen. She was shocked at her own reaction. She lowered herself down into one of the chairs by the window and stared out at her favourite view of the street, trying to calm her reeling mind.
I have been without a man for too long
, she told herself. But deep down she knew that this was more than just carnal desire: she had feelings for Stephen Lavender.

Stephen’s spontaneous burst of passion had startled her out of her naïve complacency and she knew it. His physical magnetism was indisputable. Her mind relived every nuance of his closeness, his masculine scent, the warmth of his lips on hers and the faint brush of the stubble re-emerging on his close-shaven chin. Since their first meeting last November, she had enjoyed his company, basked in his kindness and relished his humour and intellect. Their ‘friendship’, as she called it, had been a welcome distraction from the loneliness and isolation of her exile. His influence, knowledge and advice had helped her adapt to her new life in London and made her plight bearable. But she was a young widow, not a virgin, and she could no longer deny the excitement and heightened passion that was coursing through her veins at the thought of him.

Behind her, Teresa clattered around making coffee, but Magdalena didn’t hear her. She removed her gloves and ran a hand over her still tingling lips. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine what kind of lover Stephen would be. She was sure that he would lavish far more attention on her than her late husband, Antonio, had. Her imagination whirled in wicked delight and she struggled to shut out the fantasies of steamy love-making with Stephen that leapt unbidden into her head.

But with the excitement also came caution. Marriage was out of the question, of course. She would ruin his life if she married him. Perhaps she should take Stephen as a lover while she was in London? Why not? Other women took lovers, she told herself. She went through the list of her acquaintances who would either notice or care about such a lapse into depravity. It was deplorably small.

‘Doña Magdalena, there is a message from Señor Read at Bow Street.’ Teresa’s voice cut through her fantasies like a pail of cold water.

‘Thank you.’ Magdalena took the note from her maid and tore it open. She hadn’t even heard the knock at the door when their landlady had brought up the note and passed it to Teresa. Magistrate Read was brief and to the point:

Doña Magdalena,

You have been engaged to deliver lessons in the Spanish language at the language school on Hart Street, each afternoon at 2 o’clock, commencing tomorrow. Your remuneration shall be four shillings per week. Please call on me at Bow Street an hour before your first lesson as I have another confidential matter I wish to discuss with you.

James Read

Magdalena couldn’t restrain her satisfaction. Four shillings a week wasn’t much but it would feed her and Teresa and pay their rent. The teaching and preparation would relieve some of the interminable boredom of her life, while she waited for her son to come home from school each term. Yes, there was still the money to find for Sebastián’s school fees next year but Magdalena had become adept at dismissing that problem and was happy to believe that somehow it would resolve itself. Magistrate Read’s final sentence intrigued her, but before she had time to ponder on its meaning, Teresa interrupted her thoughts again.

‘We have visitors.’ Teresa pointed out of the window.

Magdalena glanced up. Through the streaming rainwater on the window she could just see the glint of black bombazine and tortoiseshell hair combs, as Juana and Olaya Menendez alighted from a carriage on the street below.

‘
Dios mío
!
’ she exclaimed. ‘We’re popular today, Teresa.’

Five minutes later, the two Menendez sisters sat stiffly on hardback chairs around the spluttering fire in the grate. It was still chilly in the room and the sisters retained their high-necked cloaks, which were damp from the rain outside. Magdalena compared their severe hairstyles and dark, foreign clothing with the lighter colours and softer, more feminine styles preferred by English women like Lady Caroline and Dorothy Jordan.

To distract them from the poverty of her surroundings and to fill in the time while Teresa prepared more coffee, Magdalena showed off her new boots and praised the generosity of the Duke of Clarence. The sisters made appreciative noises about her choice of footwear but her ploy to distract her guests only partially succeeded. The sisters’ sharp eyes still took in every detail of her lodgings: the draughty floorboards, the shabby furnishings and the limp and faded curtain that divided the room and hid from sight the bed Magdalena shared with Teresa.

‘It was a pleasure to see you again at the theatre, Doña Magdalena,’ said Juana. ‘We weren’t aware that you had settled in this part of London.’

‘Or that you had emerged from your mourning so soon,’ said Olaya. There was a short pause while Magdalena tried to decide whether the woman’s comment was designed to be critical or had just been tactless. Juana frowned and gave her sibling a withering glance. Olaya seemed to shrink inside herself for a moment.

‘As you saw, it was a melancholy play.’ Magdalena fought back the sudden flash of anger that consumed her and she kept her tone measured. ‘I felt that it suited my mood and my situation.’

‘Quite so, quite so,’ said Juana. ‘Although some may believe that widows should shun public gatherings for two years, there is perhaps a case for partaking of such solemn entertainment.’

Teresa finally brought the coffee in their mismatched china cups. She had also arranged small pieces of seed cake on a tiny plate.

‘Ahh,’ Juana said. ‘This is good. I far prefer coffee. The English preference for tea is a mystery to me.’

Magdalena smiled. At least in this, she and Juana had something in common.

‘I understand that tea is a good remedy for stomach upsets,’ Magdalena said. ‘However, I am also baffled about why they drink so much of it here.’ Thankfully, Stephen preferred coffee.

‘They must suffer a lot of gut-ache,’ said Olaya. She helped herself to a second piece of cake.
Thank goodness their brother didn’t accompany them
, Magdalena thought.
We don’t have enough crockery or cake for more guests.

They made her recount the incident with the silk-snatcher and the duke.

‘Of course, it’s scandalous the way the English lords parade their concubines in public,’ Juana pronounced, ‘such a poor example to set the lower orders. They say Mrs Jordan is a woman of the basest origins who made her living strutting across the stage in men’s clothing and has moved from the bed of one man to another all her life.’

Magdalena shrugged. ‘Our Spanish nobles are no better. During the early years of my marriage, before Sebastián was born, Antonio and I spent some time with my relatives in Madrid. They introduced us to life at court and I was a frequent visitor to the vast palace of El Escorial. I quickly became aware of the scandalous and the illicit liaisons that carried on behind the gilt bedroom doors of the palace.’

Olaya’s eyes widened and both women leant forward to hear more. It gave Magdalena great pleasure to let them wait. She was no huge admirer of Mrs Jordan after her unpleasant little trick, but if there was one thing she hated more than anything it was the sense of superiority that many of her fellow émigrés displayed over the English, whom they felt were godless and sinful.

‘You’re referring, of course, to the affair between Queen Marie Luisa and Prime Minister Godoy?’ Juana suggested in a breathless whisper. ‘Was it true? Were they lovers?’

‘Would you like more coffee, Olaya, or perhaps some bread and honey?’ Magdalena asked. The younger sister nodded and smiled. Olaya was easily distracted, Magdalena realised, especially with food. The girl was plain but not quite as sour-faced as her older sibling. However, her corsets were struggling to restrain her expanding waistline.

Juana finally sat back in her chair when she realised that Magdalena wasn’t going to enlighten them further. Irritation flashed across her face. ‘It must be quite a disappointment for a woman who has spent time in the palace of El Escorial to find herself living here,’ she snapped.

Touché
, thought Magdalena.

‘I must confess, Doña Magdalena, that I don’t like this area and the people within it – especially the trading men on the street. When we alighted from the carriage I smelt their rank underclothes and walked in fear of their hands reaching out for me. I feared their touch.’

Magdalena almost choked on her coffee and struggled to hide her laughter. This dried-up old spinster must have a nose like a ferret if she could smell the men’s underclothes. And Juana was spending more time thinking about their smalls than they ever would spend thinking about hers. Juana was quite safe from groping hands.

‘Felipe has found us a lovely house in which we can wait out the war,’ Juana continued. ‘It’s in a pleasant area. The house is tall and elegant, with more bedchambers than we require. We also have a cook and several servants. Despite the dismal weather in this country, we’re quite comfortable in our exile.’

‘That’s nice,’ said Magdalena.

‘Sometimes Felipe assists other émigrés who have also found themselves in difficult circumstances by letting them stay with us. He’s so considerate and kind to help those less fortunate than us. He’s a true Christian, a true Catholic. Perhaps I will ask him to let you stay with us.’

‘You can’t imagine how distressed we were to hear of Don Antonio’s death,’ Olaya suddenly blurted out. She drained her cup and passed it to Teresa for a refill. ‘Our brother, Felipe, was particularly upset.’

‘May God guard the souls of the departed.’ Juana crossed herself as she spoke.

‘Amen,’ said Magdalena. She was grateful for the interruption provided by the younger woman. It gave her a moment to recover from the shock of Juana’s suggestion. Is that why they were here? To offer her charity? Yet only two nights ago, Juana and her siblings had snubbed her at the theatre.

‘Felipe had always felt close to Antonio, he regarded him as the brother he never had,’ Juana continued.

Again, Magdalena bit back her urge to laugh. Despite his faults – and he had many – the energetic Antonio had been a good judge of character. He despised Don Felipe, whom he considered as lazy and hedonistic. Antonio always referred to the sisters as a pair of twisted old geckos. In a society where men stuck together, her husband had spurned the company of Felipe Menendez and ignored his overtures of friendship.

The Menendez family were never part of the ancient
hidalguía
to which Magdalena and Antonio belonged. The Menendez were the new rich, who had grown wealthy and idle on the gold stolen from the natives of the Americas. ‘
His rings won’t fall of
f
,’ Antonio had said many times about Felipe Menendez and his idleness. The family treated their servants badly and took only a self-serving part in politics. They had no social conscience, made no effort to improve their land for the benefit of the community or to adopt modern agricultural practices that might improve the lives of their illiterate peasants. Thanks to the languid attitude of families like that of Felipe Menendez, Spain had become a fractious, underdeveloped, economic backwater. No wonder Bonaparte and his French pigs had walked all over them.

‘Antonio and I were always very fond of Don Felipe,’ she said.

‘I’m sure that he will be pleased to hear that,’ Juana said. ‘But I think that your late husband would have been distressed to have seen you fallen so low in fortune. You and Teresa must come and stay with us for a while. You would enjoy the comfort – and the warmth. It would save you some money.’

‘Thank you for your kindness,’ Magdalena said graciously. A few months ago she would have leapt at the opportunity to live off the charity of this wealthy family, no matter how much she disliked or distrusted them. ‘However, I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘But I must decline your kind invitation. I’m about to commence some employment which I hope will improve my circumstances.’

‘Employment?’ Juana looked like she had been struck.

‘Yes, I will be giving Spanish lessons to the staff of the British government.’

‘Teaching?’ Olaya spluttered crumbs across the table.

‘Yes, Detective Lavender helped me gain this employment.’

‘Ah, this Detective Lavender,’ Juana said slowly. Her eyes narrowed. ‘He’s the policeman, yes?’

‘He’s a highly respected principal officer at Bow Street Magistrates’ Court,’ Magdalena corrected her. ‘You saw the familiar ease with which the Duke of Clarence addressed him? Well, Detective Lavender is a man of influence.’

Teresa placed a plate stacked with bread and honey in front of Olaya. ‘He also likes to kiss,’ her maid said suddenly.

Magdalena gave the startled sisters a beaming smile. ‘Yes, he’s forever kissing my hand – and Teresa’s,’ she said. ‘His manners are impeccable.’ She really must have a word with Teresa as soon as possible. For someone who didn’t speak much in either Spanish or English, her maid chose the most inappropriate moments to suddenly become articulate. The sisters lowered their eyelids. Magdalena knew that they didn’t believe her.

‘Does he come to your window at night?’ Olaya asked, her mouth once more crammed full of food.

Magdalena smiled at the thought of Stephen up a ladder at her first-floor window, wooing her in the traditional Spanish custom. That would raise a few eyebrows in the neighbourhood. ‘Detective Lavender is a good friend. He found out what had happened to Antonio. Without his help I would never have known of my husband’s death at Talavera.’

‘A friend like that must be valued,’ Juana said. ‘Come, Olaya, we have taken up far too much of Doña Magdalena’s time and encroached for long enough on her hospitality. We must return in time for evening prayers.’