The Sans Pareil Mystery (The Detective Lavender Mysteries Book 2) (9 page)

Lady Caroline gave a short strangled laugh. ‘I was far too tolerant,’ she said. ‘Both girls were out of control when I married their father. April was the worst. Harriet has had poor health since she was a child and was the more malleable of the pair.’

‘Do they have any other family?’

‘No. I am all they have – apart from each other, of course. Anyway, when Baron Clare died, April cultivated a friendship with Mrs Jordan—’

‘Dorothy Jordan, the actress?’

‘Yes. Mrs Jordan must have seen some talent in April because she became her patron and introduced her to the manager of Drury Lane Theatre. At that point I withdrew any opposition I had to her ambition, but I did insist that she use a stage name to protect her sister from malicious tongues. Harriet has made a respectable marriage to Captain Nesbit Willoughby and lives quietly in Wandsworth. I was quite surprised that April agreed to my request. She wasn’t always that agreeable.’

‘Did you hope to see her at the theatre last night?’

Lady Caroline shook her head. Several red curls were now plastered to the side of her face with wet tears. ‘I knew she wasn’t in
Mary: Maid of the Inn
.’

‘We had heard good reviews of the show,’ Duddles explained. ‘Caro wanted to see it.’

‘Lady Caroline, when did you last see Miss Clare?’ Lavender asked.

She blew her nose on her lawn handkerchief and stared thoughtfully ahead. ‘It must have been a few weeks ago,’ she said. ‘Both she and Harriet were invited to my soirée last Friday night – but neither of them turned up.’

Lavender felt the hairs stand up on the back of his neck. The surgeon had said that April Clare had possibly died on Friday night.

‘Where is Mrs Willoughby now?’ he asked. ‘Did either of your stepdaughters send an apology or an explanation for their absence? Have you seen Mrs Willoughby since Friday?’

Caroline Clare’s forehead creased and her lower lip trembled. ‘Such a lot of questions, Detective!’ she exclaimed in distress.

‘I’m sorry, Lady Caroline.’ He softened his voice. ‘I appreciate that this must be very difficult for you. I can always come back later, when you feel more composed.’

‘No, no,’ she said. ‘I want to help you in any way I can. We must find out who is responsible for this – this – this atrocity.’

He waited a moment for her to clear her throat and her thoughts. ‘Are you aware if Miss Clare had any enemies, Lady Caroline? Or a beau?’

‘No, neither,’ she said. ‘Although I would have been the last to know: the girls were always close and secretive. Neither of them let me know that they weren’t coming to my gathering.’

‘Have they been in contact with you since then?’

She sighed and leant back against the daybed. ‘No, they haven’t. An apology or an explanation would never have crossed their minds. You have to understand, Lavender, that when I was married off to Baron Clare, the girls had been motherless for quite a few years. At first, they hated me. But I gave them a lot of freedom and put up with their mean little pranks and eventually we settled into a mutual understanding. I didn’t interfere with their lives; and they kept out of mine.’

‘I see,’ Lavender said.

‘This arrangement has worked quite well for some years now,’ Lady Caroline told him. ‘I don’t see much of them but I always add the girls to my guest list when I throw a soirée. There were a lot of people here. To be quite frank, I didn’t notice they were missing until the next morning when Solomon commented on their absence.’

‘Thomas Lawrence, the outstanding British portrait painter was amongst the guests,’ Duddles volunteered, his voice rising with excitement. ‘Along with various peers and their wives and that new chap who does interesting things with glazes – John Constable, I think he’s called.’

‘Same name as me then,’ Constable Woods said suddenly.

The other men glanced up at Woods curiously but Lady Caroline didn’t notice the awkward pause.

‘It was odd though,’ she said. ‘The girls sent a note that said they would arrive together in Harriet’s carriage; their invitations had definitely been accepted.’

‘And you have not heard from Mrs Willoughby since Friday night?’

‘No. Oh, my goodness!’ Suddenly she reached out and grabbed his arm. Her watery eyes widened with shock. ‘You don’t think that anything has happened to Harriet, do you? She’s not also lying murdered in an abandoned building, is she?’ He heard the panic in her voice.

‘No,’ he soothed. This thought had crossed his mind. ‘I’m quite sure that Mrs Willoughby is safe. But Constable Woods and I will go straight to see her and we will send you word that she’s well.’

‘Yes, yes – please do. And please be gentle when you tell Harriet about April. They were close. Harriet has never had a robust constitution and is very delicate. Tell her that I will be along as soon as I can.’ Large tears rolled down her pale cheeks.

Lavender picked up his gloves and rose to leave. ‘Again, please accept my condolences, Lady Caroline, and if there is anything we can do to help, don’t hesitate to ask.’

‘Just find the evil fiend who did this, Detective Lavender,’ she said. Her voice cracked with anger. ‘And make sure he swings for it at the next assizes.’

Chapter Ten

‘Are you thinkin’ that we may have two murdered women on our hands?’ Woods asked as they walked back onto the chilly, crowded streets of Covent Garden.

Lavender frowned and his jaw tightened. ‘I’m alarmed to discover that April Clare was in the company of her sister on Friday,’ he confessed. ‘And that Mrs Willoughby hasn’t been seen since. I propose that we saddle up and go straight to Wandsworth. If she’s there, then at least she will be able to shed some light on the events of Friday night.’

Lavender grabbed Woods and managed to push him into the doorway of a shop just in time to avoid a spray of muddy water as a fast-moving carriage raced by. There were yells of anger from less fortunate pedestrians who had not been as alert and quick-thinking.

‘This case is becomin’ a real mystery,’ Woods said, as they resumed their steady pace. ‘We’ve got the dead daughter of a baron buried beneath the floorboards of a rotten buildin’ in one of the seediest parts of London – and the body of the pimp who used the same buildin’ for a snoozin’-ken for the Covent Garden Nuns. Both of them are on a slab in our morgue. I still think that the dead gal and the buttock-broker were connected in some way. What do you think?’

‘I don’t know,’ Lavender admitted. ‘But I doubt they knew each other. My suspicion is that both Miss Clare and Darius Jones were somehow in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

‘And in the wrong shoes,’ Woods interrupted. ‘Don’t forget those ruddy shoes.’

‘Ah, yes – shoes,’ said Lavender. ‘And boots.’

‘Boots?’

‘Yes. I promised to go to Bushy House and collect Magdalena’s reward from the Duke of Clarence. This may be a fortuitous arrangement. I would welcome the opportunity to question Dorothy Jordan about April Clare. Lady Caroline said that the Duke’s mistress had become the young woman’s patron.’

Woods grinned. ‘That were a clever little trick your Spanish widow pulled on the Sailor Prince and his floozy.’

The sides of Lavender’s mouth twitched in amusement. ‘Once again, Ned, she’s not my Spanish widow. And it may be her last little money-earning ruse,’ he added. ‘She has threatened to take up honest employment now.’

Woods’ greying eyebrows rose. ‘Lord help us!’ he said. ‘She weren’t thinkin’ of becoming a school ma’am, were she? I’d pity any nippers in her schoolroom. I still have bad dreams about how she cuffed that tobyman she helped us capture on the road to Barnby Moor.’

‘I don’t know what she’s planning,’ Lavender said. ‘But I find the thought rather disconcerting. Oh, by the way, please tell Betsy that we will take up her kind invitation to supper for tomorrow night.’

‘She’ll be delighted,’ said Woods.

‘And ask her if she knows of a shoemaker called Kinghorn and Naylor.’

‘I will do.’

Lavender frowned as he was jabbed in the side by a wicker pannier carried by a plump shopper. Ever wary of thieves, he kept his hands over his pockets. His mind returned to their case. ‘It would help us if we knew exactly how April Clare had died. Damn—’ He stopped abruptly in his tracks and pulled out his pocket watch.

‘What’s the matter?’ Woods asked.

‘Sir Richard Allison said he would have completed the autopsy by noon. It is already half past midday. I suspect we may have missed him. We had better return immediately to Bow Street before we go to Wandsworth, in case he’s still there.’

‘Fair enough.’ Woods good-natured face darkened. ‘Although I doubt that cocky little sawbones would wait around for us.’

Woods was right. The Bow Street clerks informed them that Sir Richard had finished his autopsy several hours earlier and had expressed great displeasure that Detective Lavender had failed to turn up for the results. He had left instructions for Lavender to visit him at Guy’s Hospital the next day.

‘He could have just left a report on your desk,’ Woods said. ‘Does the fellah not respect the fact that we also have a job to do?’

Lavender sighed. It was an inconvenient and an unnecessary delay but his priority was to continue straight to Wandsworth. He was very concerned about the safety of Mrs Harriet Willoughby. ‘Saddle us a couple of horses, Ned. I’ll just report to Magistrate Read before we set off.’

‘By the way, sir,’ the clerk added as Lavender passed. ‘There were a foreign woman looking for you earlier.’

‘A foreign woman?’
Magdalena?

‘Yes, quite a looker she is,’ the clerk said. ‘And charming. She’s upstairs now with Magistrate Read.’

Magdalena is with Read?

Lavender took the stairs up to the magistrate’s office two at a time. He heard the silvery peal of Magdalena’s laughter as he pushed open the door. She was seated elegantly in the old chair opposite Read’s desk, smiling and gesticulating elegantly as she elaborated on a story. Teresa sat at the back of the room. He smiled at her as he strode across the floorboards. On the wall above Read were two soot-blackened oil paintings of the Fielding brothers. Sir Henry and Sir John glowered down from their heavy frames. Was it Lavender’s imagination or were the founders of the Bow Street Runners scowling even more than normal at the intrusion of the two foreign women into that hallowed office?

James Read was clearly enraptured with Magdalena. Pink spots glowed on his usually pallid cheeks and he didn’t take his eyes from his visitor in order to acknowledge his principal officer. Lavender bit back a smile.

‘Ah, Lavender!’ said Read, eventually. ‘Glad you can join us.’ He sounded anything but glad, Lavender realised. In fact, Read looked annoyed at the disturbance. ‘Doña Magdalena has presented me with an interesting proposition that I’m to place before our colleagues at the Home Department.’

‘Really?’ Lavender said as he took the seat next to Magdalena.

‘Yes.’ He heard the excitement in Magdalena’s voice. ‘I have offered my services to teach Spanish to your operatives who go to work in my native country. You have told me yourself that you have sometimes been sent to Spain on police business and I know that someone has taught you excellent Spanish. I hope that the Home Department may have a use for my skills. I thought that Magistrate Read would know about this.’

Lavender smiled. She had chosen wisely. Although nominally only the magistrate at Bow Street, James Read had a finger on the pulse of most Whitehall departments and the language school was one of them. Lavender remembered the hours he had spent in a cramped, dusty, airless room in the old palace battling with Iberian verbs and grammar. His teacher, Professor Quincy, had been an old, wizened fellow with a moth-eaten wig.

‘I have explained to Doña Magdalena that we may not have a vacancy,’ Read said cautiously.

‘I’m sure you will do your best to help me, Magistrate,’ Magdalena said, as she rose gracefully to her feet. The two men also stood. ‘I will leave you now as I’m sure that Detective Lavender has business to conduct with you.’ She gave both men a beautiful smile and held out her hand. Read pressed it to his lips.

‘It has been a pleasure to meet you, Doña Magdalena,’ he said.

‘Likewise, Magistrate Read,’ she replied.

‘I will escort you out,’ Lavender said. ‘There are some drunkards downstairs in the hallway who maybe a nuisance.’

‘I trust you’re not referring to our clerks?’ Read said jocularly, and then bowed his head once more over his paperwork.

Lavender escorted the women down the stairs. This new development had caught him unawares. Magdalena obviously didn’t let the grass grow beneath her feet when a notion lodged in her mind.

Magdalena stopped halfway down the stairs. Sir Lawrence Forsyth, the duke’s aide, blocked the way. He bowed his head. ‘We meet again, Doña Magdalena,’ he said. ‘How delightful, although I’m surprised to find a lady of your breeding in this den of iniquity.’

Magdalena flashed him a confused glance; she didn’t remember Forsyth from the night before. It wasn’t surprising. Forsyth was the kind of man who would always disappear into the wall hangings of a room.

‘Good morning, Detective.’

Lavender nodded curtly at him. ‘Doña Magdalena, may I present Sir Lawrence Forsyth, aide to the Duke of Clarence.’

‘Ahh.’ Realisation dawned on Magdalena’s face. ‘You were at the Sans Pareil last night,’ she said. ‘Did you enjoy the show?’

Forsyth smirked. ‘Which one, madam? The one on the stage or the more dramatic performance you gave in the foyer?’

Lavender felt his hackles rise but Magdalena took it as a compliment. She smiled. ‘I was glad to be of assistance to the duke.’

‘Quite so,’ said Forsyth. ‘I take it that your injured knee has fully recovered from the incident? The silk-snatcher fell over your leg with some force.’

‘Yes, thank you. My knee has quite recovered.’

‘Well, if you will excuse me,’ Forsyth said, ‘I have business with Magistrate Read.’ He stood to one side of the stairwell and let the women and Lavender pass. ‘Lavender, if you care to call at Bushy House later today, Mrs Jordan has passed on to me a reward for Doña Magdalena.’

Lavender nodded and continued down the stairs after the women. He was annoyed by Forsyth’s manner and irritated by the fact that he would now have to wait until Forsyth had finished his business with Read before he could have a few minutes of his own with the magistrate. He was desperate to travel on to Wandsworth. But Magdalena’s excitement as he flagged down a cab soon brought a smile to his face. ‘See Stephen,’ she said, her eyes gleaming. ‘I too have the skills to become an independent woman.’

Whatever Forsyth’s business with James Read, it didn’t take long to conclude, and Lavender was able to gain an audience with the magistrate within five minutes. However, a few moments inside Read’s office were enough to reveal that Read wasn’t in a good mood. Nor was Lavender’s ongoing case about the dead actress now his main concern. Read wanted to talk about Magdalena. He fixed Lavender with a quizzical stare and bombarded him with questions.

‘Is this the woman you met when you went up to Northumberland to look for that missing heiress last year? Wasn’t she involved when your coach was attacked by highwaymen? Didn’t her husband die at Talavera?’

‘Yes, to everything,’ Lavender replied. ‘Doña Magdalena was instrumental in helping Constable Woods and I overcome that band of tobymen.’ He didn’t mention that she had also saved his life in the ensuing gun battle.

‘She’s also the one who fled Spain after she shot dead several of Joseph Napoleon’s officers, isn’t she?’ Read’s voice rose as he delivered the accusation. Lavender sensed his antipathy towards Magdalena and wondered what had brought about the change in his attitude. She seemed to have him eating out of her hand only a few minutes ago.

‘Allegedly. I’ve never been told the details of that incident.’

‘Did you put her up to this?’ Read asked suddenly. ‘Is this “Spanish teaching” your idea?’

‘No. She has come up with this little scheme by herself.’

‘Well, I don’t know what the Home Department will think about a woman teaching Spanish to our foreign operatives. It is a most irregular suggestion and bound to raise a few eyebrows. Do you intend to marry her?’

Lavender glanced up sharply and saw that Read was watching him for a reaction. ‘Doña Magdalena is a good friend of mine,’ he said. ‘She’s not in a position to remarry at the moment and is still grieving for her late husband. But she does need an income; everything she owns is currently in the hands of the French and she has a child to support. The world is changing, sir. Last night I met three different but intelligent women at the theatre. All of whom work to support themselves – and Dorothy Jordan keeps a prince and ten children at Bushy House.’

Magistrate Read shrugged. ‘Dorothy Jordan is a strumpet; respectable women don’t work for a living. What Doña Magdalena suggests would still be an irregular arrangement. And you haven’t answered my question.’

Lavender remained silent. He had no intention of answering it.

Read threw up his hands in frustration and sighed. ‘Look Stephen, I’m just a simple man of the law and I know little to nothing about women, or the shifting mores of society – as Mrs Read will confirm. In fact, I tend to leave matters of that nature to Mrs Read’s discretion; I find her guidance in such matters invaluable.’

‘I have no doubt that Magdalena’s language skills will be a great asset to the British government,’ Lavender replied. ‘She’s very intelligent, has an excellent ear for languages – and sharp eyes as well.’

‘On top of this she’s a Catholic.’ Read frowned.

‘Oddly enough, the best speakers of the Spanish language tend be Catholics.’ Lavender could barely keep the frustration out of his voice.

‘Touché,’ said Read. ‘You have me there, Stephen. But perhaps championing this woman is something you should think about more carefully. Prejudice against Catholics is rife in England at every level, from the street hawkers down in Covent Garden to the politicians on the benches of Parliament.’

‘Yes,’ snapped Lavender. ‘Yet the Prince Regent of our country married a Catholic.’

‘Not officially.’ Read narrowed his eyes and frowned. ‘You would be well advised not to mention that in public. Prince George could never present Mrs FitzHerbert to the country as his wife.’

‘So he bigamously married Princess Caroline instead?’

Read’s frown deepened. ‘Are you deliberately trying to provoke me, Lavender? You know damned well that his marriage to Mrs FitzHerbert was banned under the Royal Marriages’ Act.’ His voice hardened. ‘You also know that there is a world of difference between how a Hanoverian prince can behave and how you yourself need to conduct your life. Your association with this woman, charming though she is, may do irreparable damage to your career.’

Lavender froze.
Was Read threatening him?
‘As a principal officer at Bow Street I’d assumed that I had reached the pinnacle of my career.’ The icy tone in his own voice matched Read’s.

‘Yes, but such an association, no matter how platonic, gives rise to gossip and speculation. You may find yourself sidelined by various clients and barred from carrying out some investigations.’

Realisation dawned on Lavender with a flash. ‘This has come from that weasel, Forsyth, hasn’t it?’ Lavender snapped. ‘He’s made a trip up to town especially to tell you about the theatre last night and let you know that one of your officers is escorting a Catholic widow about town.’