‘No, of course you didn’t.’
‘Howard liked MacAdam. He would listen to him.’
‘But MacAdam’s sudden and unexpected death spoilt your plans, didn’t it? And you decided to elope anyway. Miss Matilda stole Miss Howard’s expensive ring to finance your trip to Scotland. To whom did you sell it, by the way?’
Matilda and Bentley exchanged a furtive glance. ‘Matty heard you mention some fellow called Summersgill when you were talking with her grandfather.’
‘Yes, I thought she was listening at the keyhole,’ Lavender said drily. ‘It’s not an attractive trait in a young lady.’ Matilda scowled at him.
‘I tracked Summersgill down yesterday morning after Matty passed the ring on to me. The damned fellow would only give me ten pounds for it.’
Lavender gave a short laugh. Billy Summersgill knew the true value of that ring. He’d make nearly all of his money back when he sold it on.
‘Look, I’m helping you out here, sir, Lavender – is there any chance you can soften the charges against me?’
Lavender ignored Bentley’s request. ‘You also knew we were about to exhume Collins’ body. You knew that because Miss Matilda also listened in to my conversation with her grandfather on the night of the fake robbery.’
Bentley’s face suddenly flushed with anger. ‘I should never have let her persuade me into this madness. I should have taken the money and made a run for it yesterday while I had a chance.’
‘Alfie!’ Matilda wailed.
‘What kept you from running?’ Lavender asked, smiling. ‘Was it love?’
Bentley scowled. ‘She said you’d never be able to identify the body after such a long time.’
Lavender laughed. ‘And you believed a sixteen-year-old girl? More fool you, Bentley.’
There was a short pause. ‘She said she’d seen something . . . something horrible . . . in India.’
‘I’m sure she has,’ Lavender interrupted sharply. ‘But do you know what gave the game away, Bentley? What led us to identify Collins?’
Bentley shook his head and his metal handcuffs rattled behind him.
‘It was the bag of Raitt’s tea we found in the coffin. The one you’d hidden in there when you cleaned up the room after the fight.’
‘I didn’t put any tea in the coffin!’
Lavender laughed again. ‘Then I guess it was MacAdam who placed it there while you were distracted. MacAdam wanted everyone to believe Collins had left for Yorkshire with his samples, didn’t he? He couldn’t leave them lying around.’
‘The bloody fool,’ Bentley muttered beneath his breath.
‘Yes, your dead friend, your partner in crime, sealed your fate for you. He helped us identify Collins. He’s ensured that you’ll soon be joining him in hell.’
Chapter Thirty-Four
Bentley turned pale at Lavender’s comment but he didn’t get chance to respond. He jerked forward and almost fell off the edge of the seat again as the coach suddenly slowed and came to an abrupt stop. Mr Howard and his servants had finally met up with them.
Lavender opened the door and climbed down. A refreshing breeze brought the sweet scent of the long grass in the fields. He relished the fresh air after the stuffiness and tension inside the carriage.
A red-faced Mr Howard climbed out of his own vehicle and strode towards him. ‘Where is she? Is she hurt?’
‘She’s fine – but she’s under arrest . . .’
Howard pushed past him, climbed into the coach and hauled his squealing granddaughter down the steps.
‘Grandfather! Grandfather – you must save Alfie – I love him!’
Howard ignored her. ‘I’ll take over from here,’ he said to Lavender. ‘She travels back with me.’
Lavender grabbed his arm. ‘She stole your phaeton and her sister’s ring.’
For a split second, Howard hesitated. Then his blind love for the writhing girl in his grasp won over. ‘I won’t press charges against her. She’s my granddaughter, for Christ’s sake. Remove the handcuffs, please.’
Lavender bit back his disappointment and pulled out his key. There was nothing he could do if the troublesome girl had her grandfather’s support.
The cuffs snapped open and she glared at Lavender in triumph. ‘Now rescue Alfie, Grandfather! Please!’
Howard frowned and glanced at the phaeton. ‘What about him? Is he a killer?’
‘Please, Grandfather – I love him!’
‘He claims MacAdam murdered Frank Collins – the body in the coffin in Chelmsford,’ Lavender said. ‘But he helped MacAdam fake his own death and hide Collins’ body.’
‘Do you believe him – about the murder?’
‘I’m not sure yet. We need your vehicle to transport him to Bow Street for further questioning.’
‘Do you have enough to hang him?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘Good.’
‘Grandfather!’ For the first time, the young girl’s arrogant belief in her infallibility crumpled. She burst into tears and hung on to Howard’s arm, desperately pleading with him to help Bentley. It was a pitiful sight. Howard beckoned over one of his servants. The Indian peeled the distraught girl off Howard’s arm, dragged her over to the landau and bundled her inside.
Howard sighed with relief when the landau door shut on his wailing granddaughter. ‘She’s young. She’ll get over him. If you’ve enough evidence to arrest and charge Bentley for his other crimes, then you don’t need to charge him with abducting Matilda. We can keep her name out of this and preserve her reputation.’
‘Not necessarily,’ Lavender warned. ‘MacAdam used your rich granddaughter as bait to persuade Bentley to help him with the fraud. This might come out in court. It was his motive.’
For a moment, Howard looked like he might argue; then his face softened. ‘Do you have a daughter, Detective?’
‘No – at least, not yet.’ Lavender’s mind leapt to Magdalena and his unborn child.
‘Well, when you do have one – you’ll understand. Girls are precious. They can be misguided sometimes but they are always . . . precious. Just do what you can, Lavender, please. Keep her name out of this sordid affair.’
Howard turned and gestured to the other silk-liveried coachman to join them. ‘I’ll leave you one of my coachmen. He can return the phaeton to Bruton Street after you’ve finished with it.’
Howard returned to his landau, climbed inside and yelled through the open window for the coachman to drive on. The carriage turned back to London, then drew away briskly, leaving Lavender and the phaeton standing in a cloud of swirling dust.
Lavender was thoughtful as he watched the rumbling vehicle disappear round a bend. Peace descended on to the road, disturbed only by birdsong and the whisper of the breeze. He had a premonition this was the last time he would see Howard.
If a grandparent could love such a foul young woman so strongly, so blindly, what chance did parents have against the wiles and manipulation of such an immoral youngster? He thought of his own mysterious, half-formed child and his stomach knotted with his sense of his own inadequacy. How would he ever cope if the child turned out like Matilda Howard?
Woods handed over the reins of the horses to Howard’s coachman and climbed down from the box to join him. ‘Well! He could have thanked us for gettin’ her back!’
Lavender managed a small smile. ‘I think he’s too embarrassed to remember his manners. Did you hear everything?’
‘Yes, and it’s disappointin’. He were foolish to take her away – a night in a Bow Street police cell would have done that little madam the world of good.’
Despite his black mood, Lavender gave a short laugh. ‘That’s an interesting approach to parenthood, Ned. Somehow I can’t see you willing to let Rachel or Tabitha spend a night with the prostitutes and drunks in one of our cells.’
‘Ah, that’ll never happen. My little gals are both takin’ the veil when they’re old enough – before they get into trouble with the fellahs.�
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Lavender’s smile broadened. ‘You’re not a Catholic.’
‘It don’t matter. There’s too many cads out there wantin’ to whisk away our daughters and dangle with them. I’ll find a nunnery to take Rachel and little Tabby, you see if I don’t.’
Their return trip to Bow Street was far less frenetic than their mad dash up the Great North Road and the journey was far more comfortable for Lavender inside the carriage and Woods up on the box next to Howard’s coachman.
The first time they stopped to change horses, Lavender took his officers inside the low-beamed, smoky tavern and treated them to a hearty meal. They left Bentley securely attached with a second set of handcuffs to the interior of the carriage.
Lavender raised his tankard and toasted and praised his men, young Eddie included.
‘Yes,’ Woods said to Barnaby. ‘That were a spectacular dismount from a gallopin’ horse. I ain’t seen anythin’ like that since the gypsies put on a horse show at the Vauxhall Gardens. Are you sure you don’t have Romany blood?’
Barnaby grinned at the praise and ignored the teasing. ‘I knew I’d have a soft landin’.’
Lavender laughed. ‘I’m surprised you didn’t knock Bentley’s teeth out.’
‘That’d have spoilt his goods looks,’ Woods said drily.
Lavender turned to Eddie. ‘And you rode well, too, Eddie. Once you’re old enough I won’t have any reservations about recommending you for the horse patrol.’ Two pink spots of joy appeared on the young lad’s round cheeks. Beside him, Woods’ chest swelled with pride and he raised his tankard of ale. ‘To another Woods in the family business!’ The men all tapped their drinking vessels together.
Young Eddie got carried away and continued to drain his tankard long after the others had finished the toast. He belched loudly and wiped the froth from his face with his sleeve as he banged his empty vessel down on the table.
Woods laughed. ‘Steady on, son, you don’t want to be foxed on the ride back – you’ll fall off your horse and we’ll have to pull you out of a ditch.’
Their lamb cutlets arrived and for a while they were silent while they devoured the food.
Woods finished first. He gave a satisfied belch, put down his cutlery and turned to Lavender. ‘So Bentley claims he didn’t kill Collins and MacAdam were responsible for his death. Do you believe him?’
Lavender nodded. ‘Yes. And it’ll be hard to prove anything else now MacAdam is dead.’
‘That’s convenient for Bentley. What about MacAdam’s murder? We said at the start that Bentley had the opportunity to kill him. MacAdam walked right past his bedchamber on his way to his own room.’
Lavender swallowed his last mouthful and chewed it thoughtfully. ‘He had the opportunity but he doesn’t have a motive. From what he’s told me, he needed MacAdam alive to smooth his way with Howard after his elopement with the girl. Besides which, he didn’t have the opportunity to put the farrier’s knife into MacAdam’s coffin. He was out with Lady Louisa Fitzgerald at the races when the undertakers brought the coffin to Park Lane. As far as we know, he didn’t go near the Bow Street morgue.’
‘Then we’re back to Ike Rawlings as MacAdam’s killer?’
‘Yes. Or the two mysterious women who turned up at Bow Street the morning after his murder.’
Woods sat back in his chair. ‘We need to find out who they were.’ The fingers of his right hand tapped his tankard and his greying eyebrows gathered close together as he pondered the mystery. It was good to have him back to his normal self. ‘Have you ruled out both the Howard sisters? That young filly we chased today is a wild one. I wouldn’t put anything past her.’
‘Neither of them had a motive to murder MacAdam.’ Lavender shook his head and sighed. ‘And Matilda needed him alive.’
‘Mrs Palmer? Lady Louisa Fitzgerald?’
‘I just can’t see either of them murdering MacAdam with a farrier’s knife. Neither of them appears to have a motive and Lady Louisa Fitzgerald strongly denied visiting MacAdam’s corpse.’
‘They’re all denyin’ it,’ Woods reminded him. ‘Lady Tyndall denied it too.’
The two men sat quietly thinking for a moment. The two young men watched them in respectful silence.
‘Wait a minute,’ Woods finally said. ‘Eddie, did you say that you thought the younger woman of the two were dark?’
His son nodded his head vigorously. ‘It were difficult to tell with the veil and the shadows, Da – but she had very dark eyes and I thought she were dark-skinned as well.’
‘Is that significant, Ned?’ Lavender asked.
‘Well, it could be nothin’ but Lady Tyndall’s maid is a little darkie. I think her grandaddy were probably an African.’
Lavender frowned. ‘But the girl we saw in the house yesterday . . .’
‘Was called Sarah. That weren’t her personal maid – she’s called Harriet. I’ll go back to Lady Tyndall’s first thing in the mornin’ if you want me to?’
‘Yes, please, Ned. And don’t take any nonsense from that household. Clap the whole lot of them in irons and drag them to Bow Street if they won’t cooperate. Speak to the girl and find out if she accompanied her mistress to Bow Street.’
Woods grinned. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘Meanwhile, I need to go back to Park Lane and have another look at Collins’ bedchamber. Bentley claims that’s where the fight took place. I’ll see if they left any clues to verify his story. Come on, let’s go home.’
The men rose from the table and returned to their fresh horses and the carriage containing their prisoner.
It was dark when the weary police officers finally drew up outside Bow Street. Their faces and uniforms were streaked with dust from the road and they dismounted stiffly. Despite the relative comfort of the coach, every bone in Lavender’s body ached; it had been a long and bruising day.
Lavender said goodnight and Woods, Eddie and Barnaby took the horses round to the stables. Lavender hauled Bentley out from the carriage and pushed him up the steps into the grimy hallway. Behind him, Howard’s coachman urged the horses forward and the phaeton disappeared down the street.
Oswald Grey stood behind the desk and one of the gaolers sat nonchalantly on a nearby chair. Grey was bent over a document on the desk, straining to read it by the weak light of a lantern and the smoking tallow candles in the wall sconces. A cold and unwelcoming place in daylight, at night it was downright dismal.
Lavender felt Bentley stiffen with fear when he pushed him forward. The young man had been silent since Howard dragged his granddaughter away. This had suited Lavender. Bentley sickened him.
‘You’re working late, Mr Grey.’
The Chief Clerk looked scathingly at Lavender over the top of his spectacles. ‘Yes, Lavender. I’m still doing the records for your cases.’
‘Oh? How so?’
‘Well, the prisoner Rawlings arrived about an hour ago from Essex. I’ve had to organise his incarceration in one of the cells. Are we charging him with the murder of MacAdam?’
‘I’m not sure yet.’
Grey’s frown deepened. ‘You’re never too sure these days, are you, Detective?’
Lavender shrugged and gave a weak smile.
‘Then your fellow Summersgill was finally dragged in, protesting his innocence.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. It was nonsense, of course. We found the stolen ring in his possession – but bizarrely he claims he bought it yesterday morning from the owner, Miss Howard. Anyway, I’ve charged him with receiving stolen goods.’
‘Ah, he probably did.’
‘What? Receive stolen goods?’
‘No. He did buy the ring from a Miss Howard. Miss Matilda Howard – she’s the sister of the owner and the one who stole it. Knowing Summersgill, he probably didn’t know the difference between two Indian girls with the same name.’
‘Are we charging the girl with theft?’ Grey asked hopefully.
‘No, her grandfather won’t bring c
harges against her, which means we can’t charge Summersgill either. We might as well let him go.’
Grey paused dramatically with his quill in midair. ‘What, again?’
‘Yes.’
‘Earlier this week you arrested Summersgill – then released him. Two days ago, you asked us to catch him again – but now you want to let him go – again.’
‘Yes.’
Grey drew a long line across the paper. The quill scratched so loudly that Lavender winced.
‘Well, that was a waste of our time, wasn’t it, Detective? I’ve had officers looking all over London for him for the last two days.’
‘Sorry,’ Lavender said.
‘Who’s this?’ Grey jabbed his quill in Bentley’s direction. The young man’s shoulders were slumped and his head bowed.
‘This is Alfred Bentley.’
‘Ah, the child kidnapper. At last you’ve brought me a villain I can charge, imprison and take into court.’ Hope gleamed in Grey’s eyes behind his spectacles. He pulled out a fresh sheet of paper and raised his quill.
‘The girl’s grandfather doesn’t want him charging with the abduction.’
Grey sighed heavily. ‘Detective, I feel obliged to remind you this is a police office. Here, we bring in arrested men, charge them and imprison them until their trial. We don’t just haul in random men off the streets, keep them for a bit and then let them go.’
A smile twitched at the corner of Lavender’s mouth. ‘You can charge Alfred Bentley with helping MacAdam to fake his own death.’
Grey’s eyebrows shot up and he suddenly looked interested. ’Ah, so he’s the body-snatcher as well as a child abductor.’
‘I didn’t rob any graves!’ Bentley exclaimed.
Grey ignored him. ‘I thought you were after a man called Frank Collins for that crime?’ he said.
‘We were, but it turns out Collins was the dead body in the coffin. This fellow was involved in his death.’
‘Is he a murderer?’
‘Possibly.’
‘Possibly?’
‘I need more evidence before we can charge him with murder. But he’s definitely impeded a lawful burial.’
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