Murder in Park Lane

by Karen Charlton

  Lady Tyndall rose to her feet. The young girl helped her into her cloak and tied the ribbons of her bonnet. The young girl was of African descent and she seemed a nervous little thing. Her frizzy hair was scraped into a bun but wiry black curls escaped from beneath her cap.

  ‘Not so tight, Harriet!’ the old harridan complained. The girl murmured an apology. ‘And before we leave, go and tidy your own hair – you look like a tavern slut.’

  Woods shuffled uncomfortably from foot to foot and decided there was nothing further to be gained by staying any longer. ‘If you don’t mind, ma’am, I’ll leave you to your visit.’

  ‘Yes, you may go.’ She dismissed him with a short wave of her hand. ‘Make sure you return when you’ve more information about the case. I need to be informed.’

  Woods bit his lip and backed out of the room, silently cursing the imperious old woman. The butler showed him out through the servants’ entrance.

  Woods was glad to be back out in the fresh air and sunshine. He pulled out his pocket watch and realised with relief that it was time to join Lavender at Bow Street. He retrieved his horse from the watchful care of young Will, tossed the ragged little road sweeper another halfpenny for his trouble and pulled himself up into the saddle. The exertion pained his injured shoulder and left him breathing heavily again.

  Gathering the reins into his hands, another thought crossed his mind. ‘Will? What time do you go home in an evenin’? Were you here about nine o’clock last night?’

  The boy looked up, surprised. ‘No, guvnor, that’s too late for me.’

  Woods nodded and tried another line of questioning. ‘Did you see much of the man who lived at number ninety-three? Did you know him?’

  ‘Which geezer were that? There’s several of ’em lives there.’

  ‘Mr MacAdam – a tall fellah, fair-haired.’

  ‘What, the fat geezer like you?’

  Woods’ mouth opened wide in protest but he froze, bit back the sharp retort that sprang to his lips and said coldly: ‘D’you know what, son? Forget I asked. It don’t matter.’

  Digging his heels in the flank of his horse, he mustered as much dignity as he could and set off at a brisk trot down the street.

  Magdalena Lavender was resting on the blue velvet sofa in their sunny drawing room when her husband unexpectedly arrived. She twisted round awkwardly towards the door and smiled. ‘Stephen! You’re home for luncheon again – how lovely.’

  He kissed the sleek raven hair on the top of her head and his hand reached out to stroke her stomach gently. The baby was just beginning to show. ‘Are you both well?’

  ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘I felt her move this morning. It was only the faintest flutter but it was definitely her, stretching and wriggling.’

  He froze in surprise, his hand still resting on the red, patterned dimity of the gown over her stomach. ‘Her?’

  ‘Yes, “her”. I dreamed about her last night. It’s definitely a girl – and a beautiful one too.’

  A slow smile crept across his handsome face. She knew he secretly hoped for a daughter to complete their family. He looked far younger than his thirty-three years when he smiled. She loved to see him smile.

  But it didn’t take long for the rational part of Stephen’s mind to come to the fore. ‘Dreaming of your child? This is a pregnant woman’s superstition, surely?’ He sat down in the chair opposite hers and brushed a speck of dust from his breeches.

  ‘Ah, you English have no imagination. I dreamed of Sebastián when I carried him and he turned out to be exactly as I’d imagined.’

  ‘I shall have to take more notice of my dreams,’ he said. ‘If they can predict the future with such accuracy, they may help me with this latest murder investigation.’

  ‘You have a new mystery to solve?’

  ‘Yes, I have to go to Chelmsford this afternoon and may need to stay there overnight. I came home to collect a few things and to get a book about heraldry from my study.’

  She pouted, tossed her head until her ringlets wobbled and pretended to be cross. ‘Hmmph! And I thought you’d come home to enjoy my dazzling company!’

  ‘That was my main reason, of course,’ he said, smiling. ‘I need little excuse to rush back to the side of my beautiful wife.’

  ‘Your fat wife,’ she corrected him, patting her stomach.

  ‘You’re barely showing.’

  ‘My waistline is thickening. I have already asked Teresa to start letting out my gowns.’

  He stood up. ‘Come. I’ll tell you about my latest perplexing case over lunch. I came in through the kitchen and Mrs Hobart has prepared us a cold collation.’ He held out his hand to help Magdalena up from the sofa. ‘Shall we go through?’

  She eased herself to her feet, took his arm and walked with him to the dining room, enjoying the warmth and the firmness of the muscles beneath his coat sleeve. Despite his slender frame, Stephen was surprisingly strong. His dark eyes were frowning with concentration and she recognised this sombre expression. It was the look of intensity he often wore when he pondered an intriguing new murder case.

  Mrs Hobart had left them a simple meal of cheese, cold meats, game pie and blancmange left over from their dinner the night before. Magdalena picked at her food and sipped a small glass of Madeira while Stephen recounted the morning’s events in Mayfair.

  The early months of her pregnancy had been dominated by appalling nausea and although it had now eased, she still hadn’t regained her full appetite, nor her energy. It was twelve years since her last pregnancy but she’d been startled by how exhausted she felt all the time – and frustrated. An energetic and passionate woman, she now napped more than a household cat. With Sebastián away at school and not here to distract her, she sometimes felt she was living vicariously through Stephen’s life because she was too exhausted to have one of her own. But it was a small price to pay for the child they both desperately wanted.

  The murder of David MacAdam certainly sounded unusual. She was always saddened to hear of a man struck down in the prime of his life but she giggled when Stephen told her about MacAdam’s corset and Sir Richard’s suggestion that Ned Woods needed one too.

  ‘Ned was deeply offended.’

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ she replied. ‘Betsy tells me Ned’s very conscious of his weight at the moment. He’s gained quite a few stone.’

  Stephen shrugged. ‘It’s middle age. Everything about the body slows down when we age, including the digestive tract. He’s still the fittest, strongest man in the horse patrol and has the strength and energy of a man half his age.’

  ‘Betsy has tried feeding him smaller portions and watering down his ale,’ she said, ‘but it doesn’t work. When Ned gets hungry he simply raids her larder – and complains loudly if she feeds their sons larger portions than his.’

  Stephen smiled. ‘Ned feels insulted by Sir Richard’s comment about his weight and is now after his blood.’

  Magdalena nodded. ‘It doesn’t take much to ignite Ned’s prejudice against Sir Richard.’

  ‘He’s sure our eminent surgeon is connected to MacAdam’s murder in some way,’ Stephen continued. ‘He even suggested Mrs Palmer is Sir Richard’s mistress.’

  Magdalena dropped her spoon in her blancmange dish and laughed. ‘Sir Richard Allison is the last man I would expect to keep a mistress. He’s so enthusiastic and revolting about his work, I can’t imagine any woman would want him to come near her.’

  ‘Well, Lady Allison obviously doesn’t mind. It would help if I knew a little more about them. While Ned is distracted with this suspicion, he won’t think clearly and I need him to be more objective. He behaved strangely today . . .’

  She held up her hand to interrupt him. ‘Was that Ned or Sir Richard?’

  ‘Sir Richard. He even sat down in the woman’s parlour in his shirt sleeves.’

  Magdalena’s eyebrows rose in surprise.

  ‘I need to eliminate him from any involvement in the case, in order to focus Ned�
��s attention on the evidence,’ Stephen continued.

  ‘I may be able to help you with this,’ she said. ‘I’m visiting Charity Read this afternoon and she knows everything about everyone in London and is an incurable gossip. I can make discreet enquiries about Sir Richard and Lady Allison, if you would like me to?’

  Stephen hesitated while he thought over her suggestion. She knew he was pleased about her recent friendship with the wife of his employer, Magistrate John Read. Staunch Anglicans, the Reads had initially been wary of forming a close acquaintance with her because of her religion, but things had changed over the last few months and her friendship with Charity Read had blossomed. Magdalena suspected Stephen was battling with his conscience over her suggestion that she should fish for scandal about the surgeon and his marriage. Despite the occasional bout of friction, there was a close bond between all of the lawmen who worked through Bow Street Police Office, including Sir Richard. It was essential for their jobs – and sometimes for their lives – that they trusted each other.

  Eventually he nodded: ‘Very well, but please be as discreet as possible – and take care of yourself while you’re out of the house. Make sure you take Teresa with you. I think sometimes you forget your condition, my darling. I do wonder if you should go out so often?’ The concern in his eyes was genuine.

  She smiled. ‘You forget, Stephen – this is my second child. I know what to do.’

  ‘Magdalena, please take care – I worry about you when I’m not here and you’re out in the city – or alone in the house.’

  ‘But I’m never alone! I have my maid, Teresa, and Mrs Hobart. And Lady Caroline visits almost daily.’

  ‘None of whom have ever had a child.’

  She leaned forward, smiled and covered his hand with her own. ‘And neither have you, my darling – until now. Do you really think it would help me to stay cooped up in the house, with three or four childless people fussing around me? I would go insane and you would have to admit me to Bedlam.’ She squeezed his hand and let it go. ‘You must trust me to take care of myself and our baby. There will be plenty of time for me to sit like a fat sow on the sofa when I enter my confinement. Now, hurry along. You mustn’t be late for your coach to Essex. Ned will wonder where you’ve got to.’

  He wiped his chin with his napkin and pushed back his chair. Reassured by her words, his mind returned to his case. ‘To be honest,’ he said when he bent down to kiss her goodbye, ‘MacAdam is an enigma. I don’t know where we’re going in Essex. Do we seek the family of a baronet’s son in Colchester? Or look for a tradesman from Chelmsford?’

  ‘Do what you always do, Stephen,’ she said as she returned his kiss. ‘Follow the evidence you have in your hands.’

  Chapter Seven

  Lavender and Woods walked to The Saracen’s Head in Holborn to board their coach. They exchanged information about their separate inquiries while they pushed through the crowds of pedestrians on Snow Hill.

  ‘Lady Tyndall is a tart old harridan,’ Woods complained. ‘By now, she’ll have told Mrs Palmer and that sly fox, Allison, that we’ve alerted all their neighbours to the murder.’

  Lavender nodded in sympathy but Sir Richard Allison’s outrage was the least of his worries right now. ‘And you said MacAdam was in the habit of using the back door of the house?’

  ‘Yes. It’s the quickest route to the carriage house and mews.’

  ‘Maybe he was stabbed round the back of the house,’ Lavender said thoughtfully.

  ‘The mews may be where he kept that bone-rattlin’ old carriage the nabob, Mr Howard, told you about,’ Woods suggested.

  They approached the spacious arched gateway of the coaching inn. A pair of menacing and turbaned Saracens were painted on large boards that projected from the walls, swinging gently in the breeze. The inn stood next to the Newgate gaol, one of many mean buildings that crowded around and dwarfed the historic spire of St Sepulchre’s church.

  ‘So where are we goin’ to search for MacAdam’s family?’ Woods asked. ‘Chelmsford or Colchester?’

  ‘Chelmsford,’ Lavender said. ‘Magdalena has advised me to follow the evidence in my hands. At the moment, this consists of a ledger and a set of clothing labels that link MacAdam to a company called Drake’s Tailors in Chelmsford. If we’ve no luck there, we’ll take the next coach on to Colchester and try to track down the family of this mysterious Baron MacAdam.’

  The gateway opened into a large, cobbled courtyard full of sweating horses harnessed to dusty coaches. The carriages swayed as the passengers clambered out. Blinking against the strong sunlight, many wrinkled their noses in disgust against the rank smell of the nearby gaol, which mingled with the stink of blood and offal wafting on the breeze from Smithfield meat market. The inn towered four storeys high around them, with external wooden staircases and long balconies leading to the bedchambers.

  ‘We may have a long day ahead of us,’ Lavender continued. ‘To be honest, it would help if I had a copy of Debrett’s Peerage. I wonder if there’s a circulating or subscription library in Chelmsford? Did you manage to get something to eat?’

  ‘No,’ Woods said abruptly.

  They bought tickets for the two o’clock coach but Woods gave up his seat for a young woman with a child. ‘It’ll get stiflin’ inside soon,’ he said as he disappeared to travel on the outside of the vehicle.

  Crammed between the window and a buxom housewife with a large, scratchy wicker basket full of groceries on her lap, Lavender silently agreed with him. On the seat opposite, a corpulent gentleman ran his finger around his neck to loosen his cravat and mopped his brow with his handkerchief. Following one of the wettest springs and summers England had ever known, the capricious British weather had given them a gloriously balmy September in which to harvest their ruined crops. Once the coach began its ponderous journey through the crowded streets out of the city, Lavender forced open the stiff sash window to let in a breeze.

  He settled back in his seat and took out his notebook and a pencil. He searched his memory and did a rough sketch of the coat of arms with the rampant stags he’d seen on the side of the coach that had whisked Bentley away from the house on Park Lane. Next to it, he drew another coat of arms with the shield, coronet and stallions that, according to Mr Jackson, belonged to MacAdam’s titled family. Then he pulled out the book on heraldry he’d taken from his library and spent a frustrating half hour reading about mottos, shield elements, crests and supporters. The book confirmed his suspicion that there were thousands of families in England with coats of arms but it gave him no clue about who had the hereditary right to use either of the crude drawings in his notebook. It did, however, confirm that the coronet on MacAdam’s coach signified that the vehicle was owned by a baronet.

  They picked up speed when the coach left the city and flew through the gently rolling and fertile Essex countryside. Chickens flew squawking off the dusty road as the hooves of the horses thundered through tiny hamlets of thatched cottages. Fattened pigs rooted amongst the stubble in the harvested fields while hundreds of migrating birds gathered and wheeled in the sky above.

  Finally, they crossed the elegant arched stone bridge over the River Can and reached The Great Black Boy coaching inn in Chelmsford. The broad, paved High Street bustled with shoppers, a flock of sheep and red-coated officers from the local barracks. The smell of hops from the riverside brewery sweetened the stench of manure that lingered in the air close to the penned livestock. On the way to Moulsham Street, they passed tallow chandlers and soap boilers, bootmakers and clockmakers, glovers and hatters. The market town’s close proximity to London and the Essex ports had ignited an explosion in manufacturing.

  Drake’s Tailors was a large flat-fronted two-storey building with tall windows. A smart selection of creamy white shirts, men’s coats and silk waistcoats were displayed in one of the windows at street level. One waistcoat, exquisitely sewn, with thin, pale gold and white stripes, caught Lavender’s eye in particular.

  Was it to
o ostentatious, he wondered, to wear at his child’s baptism? His little infant stranger would need carrying to the christening font and all eyes would be on the proud father. A new waistcoat would probably be needed . . .

  But he dismissed the idea as soon as it entered his mind. Ever since the death of his former fiancée, Vivienne, he’d refused to tempt fate with wild dreams and hopes. Childbirth was dangerous for both a woman and a child and his future happiness was once again in the hands of God. It was best not to tempt fate.

  He still couldn’t believe he’d managed to attract a wife as vivacious, accomplished and beautiful as Magdalena. In the early months of their marriage, he’d harboured an irrational fear that she and Sebastián would leave him to return to their estates in Spain once Wellington had finally ejected the French from her homeland. He’d been less fearful of that since her pregnancy; he knew the child would bind her to him for life. Madrid had been liberated in August but the French still held out in isolated pockets in the rest of Spain and the fighting dragged on. Magdalena had been unable to find out any news about the fate of their former home. Sooner or later, they would have to travel to Spain to reclaim Sebastián’s inheritance – but not yet. Not until the baby was old enough to travel.

  He glanced at the waistcoat again and despite himself, a tingle of excitement and pride fluttered in his heart when he thought of the baby once more. Was it so wrong, he wondered, to allow himself to hope?

  ‘Have you got indigestion again?’ Woods’ voice cut through his daydream.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, you’ve got a funny look on your face. Come on.’

  A short flight of steps took them into the wood-panelled shop and a jingling bell announced their arrival. They were greeted by a white-haired man with round spectacles and a measuring tape draped around his shoulders. He left them to wait while he took their request for an interview to the proprietor of the company.