A Body in Berkeley Square

by Ashley Gardner

  "I believe you should oblige him," I said.

  Bartholomew winked. "Right you are, sir. You would like to come along?"

  "Please," I rose, took up my walking stick, and let the lads lead the way out.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Six

  We took a hackney coach around St. James's Street to Piccadilly. Mr. Turner had lived in rooms near Burlington House and the Albany. The Albany was the former residence of the Duke of York, which had been sold and converted into flats for the very rich man-about-town. I noted that Henry Turner had taken lodgings as close as he could to the house without having to pay the exorbitant rent to live there.

  Turner's rooms consisted of a sitting room and a bedchamber, one room in the front, one room in the rear. I lived in similar accommodations, but Mr. Turner's rooms held a comfort and warmth that mine would always lack.

  Mr. Turner, in fact, lived in a bit of decadence. His furniture was either made of costly satinwood or had been thickly gilded. I noticed Bartholomew and Matthias look around in some distaste. Working for Lucius Grenville had given the two of them experience with the best that money could buy, plus the taste and moderation that made a thing worth having. Mr. Turner seemed to have been the sort of young man more interested in what a thing cost than in taste or moderation.

  We found Mr. Turner's valet, Bill Hazelton, in the bedchamber, where he'd had emptied the armoire and spread Turner's clothes over the bed, chairs, and every other available surface. Hazelton wore drab black pantaloons that bagged around his knees and ankles in preposterous wrinkles. His coat was of good cut in last year's style, probably one of Turner's castoffs. His long chin was covered with stubble, and his brown eyes were morose.

  "Oh dear," he said upon seeing us. "What now?"

  Matthias reminded him that they'd had a chin-wag at the Gillises' ball, and that he and his brother worked for none other than Lucius Grenville. He introduced the man to me.

  Hazleton glanced at me, categorized me, and dismissed me. I would not be likely to hire an out-of-work valet, and he knew it.

  "I would like to ask you a few questions about your master, if I may," I began.

  Hazleton looked sorrowful. "Why? I never killed him, and I don't know who did."

  "Mr. Grenville and I are simply curious," I said.

  Hazleton regarded me dubiously, but he nodded as he continued folded linen cravats.

  "How long were you Mr. Turner's manservant?" I asked.

  "Seven years." Hazelton sounded depressed. "All through his long Oxford years I looked after him. It was me what had to lie to the proctor when Mr. Turner had been out all night, me what had to roll him out of bed in the mornings and get him to lectures. And what did he do? Wagered my pay on horses, he did. And any other thing he could think of. Always kept good drink, though."

  He trailed off wistfully. Servants' posts were difficult to obtain, and no matter how irritating the master, most preferred employment to the prospect of having to look for work.

  "And then," Hazleton continued, "he went and got himself done in and left me high and dry. Typical."

  "Getting himself killed is typical?" I asked.

  "Leaving me to bear the brunt of his problems is. After all I've done for him."

  I pondered my next questions with care. A manservant could know more about his master than his master did himself. But a manservant could also have fierce loyalty to his gentleman and never reveal that man's secrets.

  "Was Mr. Turner ever hurting for money? If he had to wager your pay on the horses, that must mean he was short of blunt from time to time."

  "He got an allowance from his pater, but he was always in need of more funds. Had to be, hadn't he? He had to dress and keep rooms and go to White's and Tattersall's. Spent all his pater's money, but he would win on his wagers. Sometimes quite a lot, but then the money would be gone again, to high living." Hazelton glanced at his master's clothes strewn about the room. "Little good it's done him now, though, eh?"

  I ran my hand over one of the coats. The cloth was fine; the coat as costly and elegant as what Grenville might wear. Indeed, Turner probably had many of his clothes made to imitate Grenville's. Most young men-about-town did.

  "His father continued to give him money?" I asked. "He did not cut him off with a shilling over his gaming, as angry fathers sometimes do?"

  "No, no. Mr. Turner's family are quiet people. Too respectable for the likes of my master. Must have been an embarrassment to them, he was. His father kept up the allowance but sent him pleading paternal letters to mend his ways."

  I wondered whether Hazleton knew this because he'd read his master's mail. Or perhaps he'd known Turner well enough to guess exactly what the man's father would say to him.

  "Had he recently received more money than usual?" I looked out of the window as I asked the question, as though only half-interested in the answer.

  "Not that I know of, sir. Leastwise, I saw no sign of it. Of course, Mr. Turner would not be likely to give anything spare to me."

  I wondered what Turner would have done with any money Brandon or Mrs. Harper had given him. Would he hoard it or pay his tailor and his gambling debts? Was he experienced at blackmail, or had he simply seized upon an opportunity?

  I sent Bartholomew a meaningful look. I wanted to have a look at Turner's rooms without Hazleton hovering over me.

  Bartholomew took the hint. "Well then, Hazleton, what about this claret?"

  Hazleton perked up, at least as much as Hazleton would ever perk up. His mournful mouth smoothed the slightest bit. "Ah, yes. His pa told me to put his things together and send them home. But a bottle of claret wouldn't travel very well now, would it?"

  I thought it would make no difference to the bottle, but I welcomed the chance to clear Hazleton out of the way for a few minutes. Bartholomew told him to lead the way, and he and Hazleton and Matthias clattered out.

  Left alone, I searched the bedchamber but found very little. I went through the pockets of the coats strewn on the bed and chairs and then checked the cupboards. I found nothing but shirts and undergarments and other accoutrements of a gentleman's wardrobe in the armoire, but nothing tucked inside any of them. Turner, or perhaps Hazleton, had kept his things very neatly.

  I left the bedchamber and entered the front room, where I went through the small writing table. Remembering Brandon's secret drawer, I went carefully through the desk, but I found no hidden drawers and nothing very helpful in the ordinary ones.

  Turner had kept no correspondence, no dunning notices from his creditors, and none of the tearful letters from his father Hazelton had mentioned. In short, Mr. Turner seemed to have no personal papers in his rooms at all.

  As I closed the last drawer, I was startled by the sound of the front door opening behind me. I knew how long Bartholomew and Matthias could linger over a glass, and they'd both understood that I'd wanted time to search the rooms.

  But when I looked around I found neither the tall footmen nor the long-faced Hazleton. Instead, a woman I did not know entered the room. She did not see me until she'd walked well inside, then she froze, the color draining from her face.

  She swung around and reached for the door. Moving with a speed I'd not known I had, I made it to the door and pressed my hand against it. The woman looked up at me with startled brown eyes that were rather too small and sparsely lashed.

  We stared at one another for a full, silent minute. The room was chill, because Hazleton had not bothered to start a fire. The woman had wrapped a cashmere shawl around her, but the skin on her neck stood out in gooseflesh, and her lips were thin and almost bloodless.

  "I beg your pardon," she said stiffly. "I seem to have entered the wrong room."

  I did not think so. In wild surmise I said, "Mrs. Harper."

  Her eyes widened, but to her credit, she did not faint or grow hysterical. Her assessment was one of surprise, not fear.

  "Who are you?" she asked.

  "My name is Gabriel Lacey."
/>   If she'd heard of me, she hid it well. "Yes, I am Mrs. Harper. Mr. Turner . . . " She broke off. Perhaps she'd prepared a story for the servants but not one for the likes of me.

  I answered for her. "You were looking for a letter or paper that belonged to you that you thought Mr. Turner had."

  Now, some fear did enter her eyes. "Why do you say so? Exactly who are you?"

  "I am a friend to Colonel Brandon."

  She looked me up and down with new scrutiny, her lips tightening. I saw that she was not sure whether to categorize me as friend or foe. A friend of Colonel Brandon could be for him and against her.

  I returned her look with the same curiosity. Brandon might have been having an affair with this woman; indeed, he might well have tried to leave Louisa for her, but she was not beautiful. Her brown dress was trimmed in black braid, with black buttons making a neat line down the bodice, and the cashmere shawl was also a rich brown. She knew how to dress tastefully, and her bonnet, brown straw trimmed with cream silk ribbons, was of a very late fashion.

  The hair that straggled from under the bonnet was brownish yellow, the color to which some blond women find their hair turning as they grow older, much to their despair. Her face was round, her nose straight, and her eyes, as I had observed, were small, though a pleasing shade of brown. She was not by any means a radiant beauty, although she was not ugly. I would describe her overall as pleasant.

  I gestured to a rather gaudy crimson damask sofa. "Shall we sit down, Mrs. Harper, and talk about Mr. Turner?"

  Mrs. Harper searched my face, her eyes wary, but at last she inclined her head and moved to the sofa. She sat down, adjusting her skirt and her gloves, not looking at me as I limped across the room.

  "You knew Colonel Brandon," I said, sitting next to her, "on the Peninsula."

  Mrs. Harper nodded. "He was very helpful to my husband and to me."

  A gratitude any woman might express toward a friend who once had lent assistance. "Your husband was killed at Vitoria, I believe," I said. "I was there. The battle was devastating. We lost many."

  "Yes, my husband had often been praised for his valor. He died trying to save others." She made the statement flatly, as though she had said it so many times it no longer had meaning.

  "Quite heroic of him. Brandon had been a friend of his?"

  "Yes." Mrs. Harper had a quiet confidence about her, something I might admire under other circumstances. Her apparent ease at dealing with me, someone she had not expected, made me wonder. If she were this cool-headed, why had she become so overwrought at the sight of Turner's blood?

  "If you are a very close friend of Colonel Brandon, Mr. Lacey . . ."

  "Captain. And yes, I am quite close to the Brandon family."

  "Captain," she said. "Then you must know more about me than you appear to at present."

  "I do not wish to be rude, Mrs. Harper, but it will help me if you tell me exactly what your relation was and is to Colonel Brandon."

  Mrs. Harper regarded me with calm eyes. "I believe you've already guessed. We had a brief liaison when we were on the Peninsula. When my husband died, I was alone and afraid, and Aloysius helped me. Small wonder that I turned to him." Again her voice held that flat indifference.

  "Not surprising under the circumstances. I know from your recent letters to Brandon that Turner somehow found out about the affair and threatened to expose you."

  She flushed. "You are quite well informed, Captain."

  "You came to London and wrote to Brandon for help. Turner told you to meet him at Lady Gillis's ball, and you asked Brandon what to do. What did he suggest?"

  "That we meet him. That we try to persuade him that it was all in the past and did not matter anymore."

  "Then I take it that you had no intention of resuming the affair?"

  She hesitated. "I'm not certain what my intentions were. At the moment I was worried about Turner and his revelations."

  "What did you fear? That Turner would go to Brandon's wife with the information? She already knew. Brandon's manner when he received your letters at home shouted it loud and clear, not to mention his obvious actions at the ball. He has been most tactless."

  "I cannot help Colonel Brandon's behavior," Mrs. Harper said, tight-lipped. "I'm afraid I was quite agitated last night, or I might have noticed that we were making cakes of ourselves. My only concern was speaking to Mr. Turner."

  "And Turner, very conveniently, turned up dead."

  At last, Mrs. Harper looked distressed. "I do not know why you say convenient. It was the most horrifying thing that has ever happened to me."

  "More horrifying than the casualties of the battlefields?"

  "Yes," she said defiantly. "I followed the drum long enough to expect the carnage. Even when my husband died, I cannot remember feeling terribly surprised. I think I knew it was only a matter of time before his body was brought back from a battle. But last night was different. You certainly do not expect to find a corpse sitting in a chair in your friend's house. It frightened me. More than that, it appalled me. London is supposed to be civilization. To see something like that in such an elegant little room was unnerving."

  "More than unnerving," I said. "In fact, witnesses say you screamed quite a lot. You were so upset you had to be taken home--leaving Brandon to face arrest by himself."

  She reddened. "I am not stupid, Captain. You believe that I killed Mr. Turner then feigned hysteria in order to gain sympathy and let Aloysius take the blame. But I assure you, I did not murder Turner. He was dead when I entered the anteroom."

  "How quickly did you realize he was dead?" I asked.

  "I didn't right away. I thought him drunk. He'd been quite foxed when he'd spoken to us earlier, so I was not surprised to find him unconscious. But when I touched his shoulder, I saw that his face was gray. It was quite horrible. Then I saw the knife, and lost my head. I did scream. I cannot remember much after that."

  "How did the blood come to be on your glove?"

  She looked startled. "On my glove?"

  "Mr. Grenville told me that you stared at your glove in horror, and that it was crimson with blood. But if you touched Turner's shoulder, you could not have gotten blood on your glove. You could have done so only if you'd touched the knife or the wound."

  Mrs. Harper stared at me, her lips parted. I sensed her thinking rapidly, considering arguments and discarding them before she chose her answer. "I believe that I touched the back of the chair, where he'd been leaning," she said at last. "I rested my hand on it. The blood must have been there."

  I had not seen blood on the chair, dried or otherwise. She lied, but I was not certain why.

  One thing I did notice was that she'd not suggested that Brandon did not murder Turner. I said, "Colonel Brandon was committed to trial for killing Turner, and now he is in Newgate prison."

  "I know."

  Mrs. Harper looked neither angry nor distressed. She spoke in the same calm voice and looked at me in the same resignation.

  "You do not defend him?"

  She made a gesture that was almost a shrug. "What would you have me say? Colonel Brandon was quite upset last night. He was livid with Turner. I had never known him to be in so much of a temper."

  "But you had not seen him in a long time."

  "No, not I since I left Spain four years ago. Do you believe me?"

  "More unsettling to me is that you believe he killed Turner."

  "I really have no idea what happened," Mrs. Harper said in a hard voice. "When I walked into that room, Turner was dead. I did not see Colonel Brandon actually kill him, but I have no idea who else would want to."

  "Colonel Brandon seems to believe that you killed him."

  She flushed. "He said that?"

  "No, he has done his best to incriminate himself and spare you. Which makes me realize that he believes you killed Turner. If he'd thought a passing footman had done the deed, he would have said so loudly and expressed outrage to be arrested. Instead, he let Pomeroy's patrolle
rs take him away without much fuss."

  Mrs. Harper looked astonished. "He truly believes I would do such a thing?"

  "You believe that he would. In either case, it will be Brandon who pays. He is being gallant, and you are condemning him to hang."

  She pressed her hands together, gloves sliding over very thin fingers. "You have not told me what you believe, Captain Lacey."

  "I believe the colonel is innocent. I have not yet decided who else would want Turner dead. There were quite a few people at that ball. One of them may have been Turner's mortal enemy, who knows? I only know that you are ready to send Brandon to the gallows, and I do not want him to go there."

  For the first time since she'd entered the room, Mrs. Harper looked at me in real fear. Her lips trembled, and I saw her strive to keep them steady. "Do you plan to give me to the magistrates? Without knowing me, without proof that I went into that room and stabbed Mr. Turner?"

  "There is the blood on your glove," I said.

  "Which I have explained. I touched the back of the chair."

  "What I think you actually did, Mrs. Harper, was put your hand inside Mr. Turner's coat. You checked his pockets, did you not? You were looking for the letter or whatever evidence he had of your affair with Colonel Brandon. I conclude that you did not find it, because you came here today to look for it. So did I."

  She stared at me, eyes wide, and I saw her reassess my character. She must have first thought me simply a hanger-on of Colonel Brandon's, an acquaintance left over from the war. Colonel Brandon was a man who did not always think before he acted. He was brisk and determined but sometimes did not bother with critical thought. Imogene Harper must have thought I would be much the same.

  "You have found me out, Captain." She met my gaze, her voice steady. "Yes, I looked for the letter. I must have gotten the blood on my glove when I did so. I searched Mr. Turner's pockets, but I found nothing. At least, not the letter. He had a snuffbox, a few coins, and a scrap of lace, but no letter." She opened her hands. "You are correct that I came here to look for it."