‘What are you doing here, Mr Fleet?’ he asked.
‘I was hoping to speak to you, sir.’
Mundy turned to his wife. ‘You should have called me.’
‘I didn’t want to wake you up,’ she said.
‘I can’t sleep at a time like this. Sit down, Mr Fleet.’
‘Thank you,’ said the manager, lowering himself into a chair.
‘Do you wish me to stay, Abel?’ asked his wife.
‘Perhaps not, my dear,’ said Mundy. Waiting until she’d left the room, he looked warily at Fleet. ‘I hope that you’ve brought an apology.’
‘I’ve showered both you and Miss Granville with a hundred apologies.’
‘It’s not your apology that I seek.’
‘Let us not ask for the impossible. There are times, as you’ve now found out, when working in the theatre is like a descent into hell. It’s a place of fire, fury and suffering. As a God-fearing man, you’ll know all about the Devil’s kingdom.’
‘I’ve met the lady in person,’ growled Mundy.
‘Come, come, sir, let’s not be vindictive.’
‘You are right, Mr Fleet. Please forgive me.’
‘I have just visited Miss Granville.’
‘I knew that you’d go to her first,’ complained Mundy, ‘because you always do. She is always given priority over me.’
‘I didn’t go in order to spite you,’ said Fleet. ‘It just happens that the house where she is staying is on the way here. Had you lived closer to the theatre, my first call would have been to you.’
‘What has Miss Granville said?’
‘She simply thanked me for the gift I took.’
‘Has she made any fresh demands?’
‘No, Mr Mundy, I fancy that she regrets some of the ones she’s already made. I didn’t even raise the question of her attitude towards your play. I went there solely to give her a song written by Benjamin Tregarne.’
Mundy bridled. ‘Why – was it destined for my play?’
‘No, sir – as things stand, there is no play. You and she saw to that. Miss Granville has only had sight of one song. I’m bringing you something far more important.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Mr Tregarne would like to meet you,’ said Fleet. ‘He finds your play both individual and interesting. If you accept, I’m to take you to his house.’
‘What about Miss Granville?’
‘She will not be there.’
‘Won’t she protest at being excluded?’
‘Only if she gets to hear of the meeting and I’m certainly not going to tell her.’ He gave him a confidential wink. ‘Nor are you, I suspect.’
The brothers met outside a tavern as arranged and discussed what had happened. Both had met with the stout denials they expected and left without the address they sought. Stephen Hamer and Laetitia Somerville were trying to shield Rawdon Carr from them. It was a sign of how important he was in devising their machinations. Peter was amused that his brother had been expelled with a pistol at his back.
‘At least I was able to leave of my own accord,’ he said, ‘though there was a moment when I thought I might have to fight for my life.’
‘Leave part of him for me, Peter.’
‘Your quarry is Miss Somerville.’
‘I can see why she appealed to Mr Bowerman,’ said Paul. ‘He was enraptured by her because she curled up in his lap like a favourite cat. All that I was shown today were those vicious claws of hers.’
They were holding their horses as they talked. The sound of running feet made them look down the street and they saw Huckvale haring towards them at the kind of speed for which he was renowned. When he reached them, he was able to tell them where Carr lived. Mounting his horse, Peter offered his hand.
‘Ride behind me, Jem,’ he said.
Huckvale shook his head. ‘Follow me – it’s not far to run.’
They let him lead the way and trotted along behind him. Situated in a quiet side street, the house was smaller and less ostentatious than those occupied by Hamer and Laetitia. The brothers tethered their horses. Paul crept furtively around to the rear of the house to prevent an escape that way. Peter and Huckvale went to the front door and rang the bell. After a while, the summons was answered by a flat-faced servant with an unwelcoming scowl.
‘We’d like to see Mr Carr, please,’ said Peter.
‘May I ask your name, sir?’
‘I’m Peter Skillen and this is my good friend, Jem Huckvale.’
‘Then I’m afraid that I can’t help you,’ said the man.
‘In other words, you’ve been told to keep us at bay. Please take a message to your master: if he doesn’t have the grace to invite us in, we’ll enter by force.’
‘That would be quite unnecessary.’
‘Convey the message to him.’
‘It’s one thing I can’t do,’ said the man, standing back from the door. ‘Come in, if you must, Mr Skillen. There’s no need to use force. You’ll find that your journey here was in vain.’
‘Why is that?’
‘Mr Carr has gone away for some time.’
‘Has he left London?’
‘He didn’t tell me where his destination was, sir. My orders are to close the house up. Mr Carr’s lease is due to expire. The one thing I can tell you is that he will not be coming back to this property.’
‘Are you sure he’s not skulking inside somewhere?’
‘I’m absolutely certain,’ replied the servant, opening the door to its fullest extent, ‘but you don’t have to take my word for it. I can see that you’re very anxious to speak to Mr Carr. But I’ve told you the truth. He’s no longer here.’
Laetitia was so rocked by the information that she flopped into a chair as if she’d been given a firm push. Hamer had called to tell her what his manservant had learnt at the erstwhile home of Rawdon Carr. Without warning either of them, Carr had quit London for some unspecified destination.
‘He’s run out on us,’ gasped Laetitia.
‘Rawdon would never do that. He must have heard of the arrests and made himself scarce before the Skillen brothers could catch up with him. I didn’t sanction the kidnap of that friend of theirs,’ said Hamer. ‘It was his idea. Rawdon swore that he’d divert them somehow and that’s what he did.’
‘But it was only for a short length of time.’
‘They must have found Huckvale.’
‘Paul Skillen came to ask for Rawdon’s address. I refused to give it to him. He knows far too much, Stephen,’ she said, twisting her necklace with one hand. ‘He even taunted me about being the beneficiary of Mark Bowerman’s will.’
Hamer was taken aback. ‘How, in the name of God, did he hear about that?’
‘Mark must have told him.’
‘But you swore him to silence, Laetitia.’
‘It must have slipped out.’
‘This is serious,’ he said, pacing the room. ‘It’s one thing to use a decoy against those maddening twins, but it only creates a short space of time for us. If they know about the will, they may have to be removed altogether.’
She was hesitant. ‘You’d kill both of them?’
‘If it’s the only way to protect our interests, I certainly will. As for Rawdon, I can’t understand why he didn’t warn me that he was about to fly the coop. We’ve been in constant touch until now.’
‘That’s what worries me, Stephen. He came to see me a while ago.’
‘I know. I sent him. I didn’t want to be caught here again.’
‘He told me about the search he’s instituted for that mistress of yours, Eleanor Gold. I’ve been thinking about her. Can she really be the scheming creature of report? Does she hate you that much, Stephen?’
‘Oh, yes,’ he said with feeling.
‘What did you do to her?’
‘I sent her packing, Laetitia. No woman likes to be discarded. Eleanor disliked it far more than I’d imagined. The others merely called me names and
stormed out. Eleanor did much more than that. Of course,’ he went on, ‘that could be the other reason for Rawdon’s sudden departure. He’s discovered where she is. He told me that he had men looking for her. They must have picked up a trail.’
‘Then why didn’t he write to tell you that?’
‘I don’t know,’ he admitted.
‘And why did he leave orders to close the house up?’
‘That was always in the offing. The lease was close to expiring and he’d been looking for accommodation elsewhere.’
She wrinkled her nose. ‘Something is beginning to smell fishy, Stephen.’
‘I refuse to believe that Rawdon has let us down in any way. He’s been like an elder brother to me. In fact, there was a time when I’d hoped we might get even closer. I thought he might become my brother-in-law.’
‘That was never a possibility,’ she said, crisply. ‘He understood that. It’s ancient history. Please don’t bring it up again.’
‘I’m sorry, Laetitia. You shouldn’t be so sensitive about it.’
‘That period of my life is best forgotten.’ She gave a sudden laugh. ‘I’ve just remembered what I told the Bow Street Runners. I said that it was impossible for me to marry you. They didn’t realise that any union between us would be a case of incest.’ Hamer laughed as well. ‘You make such a convincing former beau of mine, Stephen. Nobody would guess that we were brother and sister.’ She became serious. ‘But I’m still deeply upset about the latest turn of events. Vanishing like that without a word of explanation is so unlike Rawdon Carr.’
‘I stand by my judgement of him,’ he said, confidently. ‘Look back on all the things he’s done for us. We’d never have succeeded without his help and ability to organise everything. Rawdon is the most trustworthy man I know. Have faith in him.’
When the carriage drew up outside the hotel, she came out at once. She was followed by a man carrying her luggage. The door of the vehicle was opened from the inside and she clambered into it, falling into the arms of the other passenger.
‘We did it,’ said Carr, kissing her. ‘We did it and we got away with it.’
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Charlotte Skillen was a competent pianist who could read a score and play it with feeling. The song given to Hannah Granville had never been played before by anyone but the composer. Since she was the first person after him to bring it to life, Charlotte was very nervous and she had to wipe away perspiration from her hands before she touched the keys. Hannah was equally in thrall to the achievements of Benjamin Tregarne, a man who could write plays and music with equal facility. What she’d been given by Lemuel Fleet was a haunting love song that would fit with ease into the last act of The Piccadilly Opera. Even when reading the lyrics, she was moved. When she actually sang them to Charlotte’s accompaniment, they made her glow.
‘I must sing this,’ she declared.
‘You just did, Hannah.’
‘I got nowhere near the essence of the song. It will take days of rehearsal before I can do that. But it’s a work of genius. Someday, and somewhere, I simply must sing it in public.’
‘Why not delight the audience for Mr Mundy’s play?’
‘That’s no longer a possibility.’
‘The final decision has still not been made.’
‘Yes, it has.’
‘Only Mr Fleet can call it off, Hannah, and he seemed to be in no mood to do that when he came here earlier.’
‘That’s a matter of opinion.’
‘I thought I detected a faint whiff of optimism in him.’
‘Then you are deluding yourself. When you have a worthless play and a stubborn playwright who abuses the one actress who might actually redeem it, you have a recipe for abject failure. In its present form, The Piccadilly Opera doesn’t deserve performance.’
‘What about Mr Tregarne’s song?’
‘That does merit a wider audience.’
‘Sing it for me again.’
‘I daren’t do so, Charlotte. It will grow on me.’
‘Then I will sing it to you. I don’t have a trained voice like you but I can sing in tune.’ She played a few bars. ‘It’s such an evocative melody.’
After clearing her throat, Charlotte began to sing to her own accompaniment. Hannah stood behind her and looked at the music over her shoulder. Though she tried hard to resist the temptation to join in, she soon capitulated and sang in a beautiful soprano voice that gave the song more clarity and resonance. Indeed, she took it over so completely that Charlotte was able to lapse into silence and simply enjoy her friend’s rendition. When it was all over, Hannah was exhilarated.
‘It gets better each time I sing it.’
‘It was a joy to hear you.’
‘Mr Tregarne is such a clever man.’
‘In his own way,’ Charlotte thought, ‘Mr Fleet is rather clever as well.’
After their setback at Rawdon Carr’s house, they adjourned to a nearby tavern to discuss their next move. Peter and Paul were disappointed by the man’s sudden departure but Huckvale felt cheated.
‘I wanted to leave him tied up in that cellar,’ he said, bitterly, ‘so that he can see what it was like.’
‘The law would have to take its course, Jem,’ said Peter. ‘We have no right to inflict punishment. I just wanted the pleasure of arresting Carr.’
‘We should arrest Hamer and Miss Somerville instead,’ suggested Paul. ‘They must have condoned what happened to Jem.’
‘I don’t believe that Hamer did. When we told him of the kidnap, it was clearly news to him. I’m sure that he incited Carr to do something to mislead us but he had no knowledge of the details.’
‘What about Miss Somerville?’
‘She’s too busy pretending to mourn Mr Bowerman’s death.’
‘All three of them are as guilty as hell, if you ask me,’ said Huckvale.
‘There’s no doubt about that,’ said Peter. ‘The way that they planned to get rid of Mr Bowerman was despicable. Their plot worked so well at first that one is bound to wonder if it’s the first time they’ve used it.’
‘I’m certain it isn’t,’ decided Paul, ‘and I’m even more convinced that the person who first devised it was Mr Carr. He has the guile that Hamer and Miss Somerville lack. Without him, they might never have dreamt up such a cunning way to acquire property and wealth.’
‘Why has he run away?’ asked Huckvale.
Paul chuckled. ‘He heard that you were looking for him, Jem.’
‘I’m serious, Paul.’
‘Then the serious answer is that we don’t rightly know. It may be that he was aware of the two arrests we helped to make or it may be that he decided to quit London for a holiday somewhere. There are all kinds of other reasons as well.’
‘He’s a deeper man than we thought,’ said Peter. ‘If he’s bolted, we need to track him down, though I can’t imagine how we’d do that.’
‘Can I make a suggestion?’ Huckvale piped up.
‘Yes – go ahead, Jem.’
‘Why not ask Hamer?’
‘We’ve no guarantee that he’ll know where Carr is. Didn’t you say you watched his messenger arrive with that letter from Hamer?’
‘Yes, he held it out but they wouldn’t take it.’
‘There you are, then,’ concluded Paul. ‘Hamer didn’t know that his friend had left the house or he wouldn’t have dispatched a letter to him. He may be as surprised as the rest of us by Carr’s sudden departure.’ He downed his drink. ‘I’ll go back to the house and question his servant more closely.’
‘He doesn’t know where his master went,’ warned Peter.
‘That’s not what I was going to ask him.’
‘What else can he tell you?’
‘I’d like to know a little more about the kind of life that Carr has been leading. Clues are bound to emerge,’ said Paul. ‘Mr Bowerman’s destiny was effectively settled at the dinner party where he met Miss Somerville. I’m sure that Rawdon Carr was
involved in that somehow.’
Yeomans and Hale were sickened by the lack of appreciation shown for their work in making two arrests. It was true that they had to be led to The Black Horse by the Skillen brothers but they then came into their own. Their reward was to be berated by the chief magistrate yet again.
‘He’s always praising those twins at our expense,’ said Hale.
‘It annoys me, too, Alfred.’
‘They only take an interest if a murder is committed and a large reward is on offer. We handle all sorts of crime.’
‘We manage to make a profit out of them,’ Yeomans reminded him. ‘Some of it is spent on our informers but that’s a cost we have to bear.’
‘Our informers have been of no use in this case, Micah.’
‘That’s why I’ve been kicking their backsides.’
‘What did Mr Kirkwood mean when he said that Peter Skillen was ahead of us in the race to catch the killer?’
‘Forget about him and his brother. Concentrate on our investigation.’
Feeling that there was more intelligence to be gathered there, they were on their way to Laetitia Somerville’s house. Their earlier call on her had resulted in an ignominious departure. Yeomans was determined that they would not be sent on their way so easily again. The Runners had a stroke of good fortune. When they reached the house, Stephen Hamer was about to leave and was holding Laetitia’s hand. The newcomers moved in quickly.
‘We’ve caught you,’ said Yeomans, triumphantly. ‘Last time we found you together, you swore that Captain Hamer had only come to apologise, yet here you are showing every sign of affection for each other.’
‘Our private life is our own,’ insisted Hamer. ‘Miss Somerville and I have come to composition. That’s all I’m prepared to say.’
‘The captain has stated my position as well,’ said Laetitia. ‘May I ask what brought you to my door again?’
‘You’ve aroused our suspicions,’ replied Yeomans.
A Date with the Executioner Page 26