An Artless Demise

by Anna Lee Huber

  “Is Newbury much of a gambler?” Gage asked.

  “Less than average. He would rather be out riding, or boxing, or dancing. Just about anything other than sitting at a table shuffling cards about. If he does, it’s to oblige a friend or because there’s a set in need of another player.”

  “When did you see him last?”

  “Early this morning. We walked to Hollingsworth House, and he came inside to have a drink with me and James,” he explained, mentioning his older brother. “Left just before four.” His eyes dimmed with pain. “I should have insisted he take the carriage.”

  “You couldn’t have known,” I protested. “It was only the distance of a few short blocks.”

  “Yes, but I still keep thinking I should have known. After all, Feckenham was killed by the same rogue.”

  “True. But I don’t think any of us suspected the culprit was after more than revenge against Feckenham for some foul deed or another.” Gage arched his eyebrows. “Did you?”

  “Well, no. Though if his second victim had been someone like Wilmot or Acklen, it would have been less shocking,” he said, naming two other young gentlemen of low reputation.

  “Shouldn’t my name be on that list?”

  I turned to face the Marquess of Marsdale’s unrepentant grin. Only he would be eager to appear on such a list. Though while he was a scoundrel and an unconscionable flirt, he wasn’t truly malicious, merely careless.

  He took hold of my hand and bowed over it, gazing upward through his lashes at me with mischief in his eyes. “Lady Darby, I’m pleased to see you are looking radiant with health. Your husband must be paying you marked attention.”

  That this was a double entendre and a comment on my expectant state, there was no doubt. I flushed with color even as Lord Damien bristled at such an indelicate comment.

  But Gage took the rascal’s comments in stride. “When did you arrive in London?”

  “A few nights ago.”

  “How is the duke?” I asked, knowing he had been called to his father’s bedside.

  “Recovering, confound it.”

  I arched a single eyebrow at this inconsiderate comment, fully aware that he wasn’t so sanguine about the matter. I’d seen how concerned he was when he received the urgent letter several weeks earlier about the duke’s poor health.

  Lord Damien, however, had not. “Reprehensible, Marsdale,” he snapped, his hands fisted at his sides.

  Marsdale glanced at the younger man, but rather than deliver him a setdown, his eyes seemed to take in his drawn countenance. “My apologies, Marlowe. I’d forgotten Newbury is a friend of yours. He’s a good chap.”

  Lord Damien’s face scrunched, and for a moment it seemed his emotions might get the better of him, but he sought refuge in anger. “Better than you.”

  “Oh, undoubtedly,” Marsdale replied mildly.

  “Excuse me.” He swiveled on his heel and disappeared through the door. I hoped he found someone to confide his worry and grief in. I was sure there were any number of debutantes who would welcome the chance to comfort him.

  “So you’ve embroiled yourself in another mess,” Marsdale remarked.

  I considered refuting this insulting choice of words but instead sighed wearily. He had described the matter quite succinctly. “Yes.”

  His eyes trailed over my features. “Well, if you should need my assistance in any way, you know where to find me.” He nodded to Gage and then departed.

  I watched him go, somewhat flummoxed by his failure to capitalize on further opportunities to tease or fluster me. “What just happened?”

  “I do believe Marsdale has finally learned a bit of restraint.”

  “I’m not sure I believed I would ever see the day.”

  We strolled from the parlor back toward the stairs, now filled with guests moving about the Mayfair mansion in a prism of colors.

  “What did you think of Lord Damien’s assertions about David Newbury and gambling?” I murmured after we nodded to a pair of ladies on the stairs.

  “I thought it very credible. He would be in a position to know.”

  “I thought so, too.” I exhaled in relief. “So perhaps I needn’t broach such an awkward subject with Trevor again.”

  His eyes were kind. “I shouldn’t worry about it for now.”

  I offered him a grateful smile in return, hoping perhaps we might take a break from our toils to dance a waltz or two. But before the suggestion could even pass my lips, I felt tension course through him. When I lifted my eyes to the head of the stairs, I understood why.

  Lord Gage stood staring down at us. Though his posture appeared languid, his face unconcerned, I saw something flash in his eyes that told me our meeting would not be a pleasant one.

  “Good evening, sir,” Gage told him as we reached the top.

  “Good evening,” he replied courteously, purely for appearances, I was sure. “Might I have a word alone with you and your charming wife?”

  The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end at the uttering of this false compliment, and I realized just how furious my father-in-law was.

  “Of course,” Gage answered, though my instincts told me to run in the other direction. I had to steel my nerves to follow him down the corridor, even with my husband’s arm linked with mine in support.

  We continued down the hall past the ballroom to a door on the left, which Lord Gage held open for us to enter before him. It was a sitting room of some kind, decorated in delicate rose wallpaper. I had a brief moment to wonder whether he had learned of Mayer’s intentions to publish Sir Anthony’s private journals before he rounded on us.

  “Dash it all, Sebastian! I told you to keep this Mayfair matter contained, but now rather than one dead body, we have two! And this time, someone has blabbed about the sticking plaster.”

  “And what precisely should we have done?” Gage retorted, releasing my arm to move closer to his father. My insides quivered as they always did when faced with such vehemence from a man.

  “There was no indication the first crime had anything to do with anyone other than Feckenham. We couldn’t have predicted there would be another attack. Especially not on someone like Newbury.”

  “Then you must have missed something,” he jeered. “We cannot afford to have the entire city in a panic. Why, just now I had several ladies asking me if they were safe. If they should be afraid to leave their homes at night.” His eyes glinted at me. “And I had one waspish matron suggest we might all be better off if my daughter-in-law entered her confinement early.”

  “What nonsense,” Gage snapped. “As if they ever leave their homes without a full complement of servants. They’re a bunch of busybodies interested in stirring up trouble.”

  “Maybe so, but nonetheless, it is trouble we do not need!” He propped his hands on his hips and turned away, shaking his head. “I told you your choice in a wife and her sordid past would cause us difficulties one day, but you wouldn’t listen. You said I was being arrogant and overbearing. That there would be no future scandal. I’d like to hear you tell me that again, knowing that she . . .” he flung his finger out to point at me “. . . is associated with bodysnatchers through her late husband!”

  I flinched as his hand swung out toward me. It was a reaction I couldn’t suppress, a response learned during my three years of marriage to Sir Anthony. My heart kicked in my chest, racing madly, my nerves tingling in anticipation, even when the strike didn’t fall.

  Both men fell silent, staring at me. It was Gage who moved first, crossing the few steps to slide his arm around me protectively while I met his father’s gaze. I felt naked before him, as if all my secrets lay bared. Unable to continue to face the shock and something else written in his eyes, I dropped my gaze to the floor, wishing it would open and swallow me up.

  “Perhaps we should take a calming breath and lowe
r our voices,” Gage hissed before doing just that. “Father, we’re no more pleased by this development than you are. But we’ll find the answers.” His voice hardened. “As for the rest, I will not discuss my wife’s past with you again. It is not her fault, and if you cannot accept that, then perhaps we no longer need to see one another.”

  Lord Gage gazed steadily back at his son, as if Gage had not just threatened to cut ties with him, but I noticed how his right hand clenched and unclenched at his side, revealing he wasn’t wholly unaffected.

  “I saw Anderley at the Bow Street Magistrates Court today,” he intoned in a level voice.

  “Yes, I was busy investigating Newbury’s attack,” Gage bit out.

  “He informed you of the proceedings?”

  “Yes.”

  He turned to glare out the window. “If Superintendent Thomas doesn’t make a hash of this, it will be a stroke of luck.”

  Gage didn’t reply at first. “The tortoise was a bit ridiculous.”

  Lord Gage groaned. “That blasted tortoise! He flourished it like it was the Holy Grail, all while the witnesses who say the Italian Boy was outside the resurrectionists’ home describe him exhibiting a mouse in a box slung around his neck.”

  “I understand they’re searching the home tomorrow.”

  “Yes. Though heaven knows what the wives already destroyed before being arrested themselves. Someone reported one of them scattering ashes in their garden.”

  “I take it Melbourne isn’t happy.”

  “I never knew you were so gifted at making understatements,” his father drawled. “Melbourne is livid. He’s desperate to have this case convicted, and he’s become convinced the only way of that happening is if one of the prisoners turns King’s evidence. It’s the only way justice could be attained in the Burke and Hare case.”

  That was true. Without Hare’s testimony, the jury probably would have come back with the Scottish verdict—“not proven”—and both men would have gone free.

  “Are any of the prisoners interested?” Gage asked.

  “Not yet, though the King’s pardon has been offered to whoever talks. Melbourne is also offering a £200 reward for evidence to secure the conviction.”

  Gage whistled.

  “The entire nation is following these proceedings. That boy was murdered by those men, and then they attempted to sell his body for profit. They can’t be allowed to go free, or we’ll have large-scale rioting on our hands, if not an insurrection.”

  We fell silent at the horrifying thought. Countless lives lost or injured, property destroyed and looted. And if the city were set on fire like during the recent Bristol riots, well, the devastation could be catastrophic.

  Gage pulled me tighter to his side, as if that would keep me safe. “We’ll continue to do what we can,” he assured him.

  Lord Gage nodded. “I know you will.”

  I supposed that was as close to an apology as he was going to offer. But how long would this truce last if he learned about those journals and Dr. Mayer’s intentions for them? How long before his animosity returned with a vengeance?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  I lowered the broadsheet with a huff of aggravation, crumpling the coarse paper in my lap. “Can no one sketch these bodysnatchers with any accuracy?” I picked up the newspaper I’d set to my left and held them up for comparison. “Look here. They look nothing alike.”

  Gage showed me another paper. “This one’s different, too.”

  I scowled, lifting a hand to brace myself as the carriage swerved around something in the street. As it was, we nearly had to shout to be heard over the cacophony of noises that filled the thoroughfares in the heart of The City—the square mile administrative enclave at more or less the center of London. Peddlers selling everything from huge trays of silk and paper flowers to pots and pans vied for the attention of passersby, along with Italian image boys, street musicians, and chaunters singing the first few lines of the broadsheets they sold.

  “Clearly the artists allowed their impressions of the prisoners to affect their drawings. In some cases, they’ve even altered their features to exaggerated proportions, like a caricature.” In one image Bishop’s nose was long and slender under a sullen expression; in another it appeared quite unremarkable. Williams was so ordinary looking he was bordering on nondescript. While May—the handsomest of the lot—seemed to be portrayed more consistently, his image had been mislabeled as Bishop and vice versa in one of the papers. For a portrait artist such as myself, it was exasperating. I could have dashed off a fairly accurate sketch of each of them in minutes.

  “They’re not interested in accuracy,” Anderley remarked from his seat across from us. His mouth twisted in scorn as he stared out through the window. “Only selling newspapers.”

  “Well, which is the closest?” I asked, thrusting the pages at him. “If I don’t know what they look like, how can I tell whether I might have seen them before, lurking about Sir Anthony’s home? How can I know if they might be behind that blackmail letter?”

  I knew it was only a matter of time before another arrived, or they tried an even more horrifying tactic to convince me to pay. Whoever they were, they would not remain patient for long.

  “Probably this one,” he decided after some debate, which gave me little hope of its precision.

  I scoured the sketch, but nothing about the men seemed familiar.

  Gage pressed a hand to my arm. “Darling, don’t alarm yourself. You said yourself that the chances you ever saw their faces were slim.”

  “I know. But I hoped maybe something about them would jog a memory.” After everything his father had said the night before, everything that was true, I couldn’t help feeling anxious. It crawled along my skin, making my muscles twitch with the need to do something. I had to figure out who was blackmailing me before it was too late. “Perhaps I’ll see someone familiar today loitering outside Nova Scotia Gardens.”

  It was the only reason Gage had allowed me to join them on their trip to Bethnal Green to the northeast of the city, out beyond Shoreditch. I’d hoped I might catch a glimpse of someone who sparked a memory. After all, I never forgot a face. Unlikely it might be, but it was all I could think to do. We hadn’t received word yet from Mr. Goddard, the Bow Street Runner investigating the matter for us, though he’d promised to report to Gage with an update on Monday.

  Bree’s evening spent in the lady’s retiring room at my aunt’s soiree had not been fruitful, beyond hearing a few ladies express concerns about possible burkings in Mayfair. The single interesting conversation begun in her presence had been abruptly silenced when one of the women recognized her as my maid. So in that regard, there was nothing for me to pursue.

  We still hadn’t uncovered the link between Feckenham and Newbury, if there even was one. But as of this morning, Newbury still clung to life. Maybe, hope against hope, he would recover. And maybe he’d seen something that could help us find his attacker, no matter how slim the chance.

  The banks and businesses of The City gave way to the grimier vicinity of Shoreditch. The buildings there looked tired and dirty, and the streets were littered with refuse and other unmentionables. People plodded along the lanes, their forms shrunken, and their faces hollow-eyed. Life was hard in this part of London, and the farther we traveled northeast, the worse it grew. Just when I thought the circumstances couldn’t appear more wretched, I would be proven wrong.

  Anderley explained that Bethnal Green was populated by the very poor working class. It had once been a prosperous brickfield, but the clay had been exhausted, and the area had been filled in with waste. There were no great drains like in other areas of the city to remove water and refuse, and Nova Scotia Gardens—the colony of odd-looking cottages where Bishop and Williams had lived—was prone to flooding. As such, these abodes were highly undesirable and attracted naught but criminals and the most desperate
.

  Our carriage halted outside the entrance to this neighborhood, across from the Birdcage pub, which even at midday seemed to be doing a bustling trade. Though that might have been due to the spectacle across the street. From my vantage through the carriage window, I could see into Nova Scotia Gardens, as well as survey any onlookers gathered at the gate to watch the police search cottage Number 3, all without being seen. However, nothing could block the stench which permeated this part of the city. I pressed one of the handkerchiefs Bree had dowsed with lavender water to my nose, swallowing hard against the urge to retch as Gage and Anderley opened the door to exit.

  “Stay inside the carriage,” Gage reminded me, quite unnecessarily.

  I nodded my head and urged him out before he let any more of the bad air in.

  The entire scene horrified me. That people should be forced to live in such conditions—filthy children in ragged clothing running through piles of rotten things, women drawing water from wells that must be contaminated—was insupportable. The government had set up a system of workhouses for those too poor to have anywhere else to go—not that they were a much better alternative—but what about the rest? What about those who barely muddled through? Or the thousands who moved to London to obtain work, found themselves far from their home parish, and now could not rely on even that grim form of relief?

  Pushing the troubling thoughts from my mind for the moment, I turned to watch as Gage shook the hand of a gentleman I later learned was James Corder and a bluff, taller man who was Superintendent Thomas. They led Gage and Anderley around the side of the buildings into the gardens extending behind each of the cottages. The cottages had once been the homes and workshops of weavers and boasted unusual sloping roofs, which ended in squat single rooms that projected into the deep garden. Each of these plots was separated by low palings, easily stepped over.

  Gage stood with his hands on his hips surveying the area before pointing out a few features—the privies, a well, a washhouse—and then he gestured toward the other gardens. If the men on trial had burked other victims, who knew how many of the thirty gardens they might find evidence concealed in. They could have accessed any of them in the pitch black of night. The thought sent a shiver down my spine.