Mystery Loves Company

by Sheri Cobb South

  MYSTERY LOVES COMPANY

  Another John Pickett Mystery

  Sheri Cobb South

  A thankless task . . .

  By the time he returned to Curzon Street that evening, Pickett was more than ready to surrender his burden. He withdrew the velvet box from his coat pocket and handed it to Julia.

  “I wish you would take this,” he said without preamble. “I’ve been as nervous as a cat in a bath, carrying it around all afternoon.”

  Regarding him with raised eyebrows, she took the box and opened it. A dozen red stones winked up at her in the light. “John, you darling!” she breathed, awestruck. “How did you ever—”

  “It isn’t yours to keep,” he put in hastily, realizing too late how this presentation must appear. “I’m afraid it isn’t even yours to wear. It belongs to Lady Washbourn. I need you to put it somewhere for safekeeping.”

  For the second time that day, he recounted the story of his visit to Grosvenor Square, concluding, “So I have to investigate a murder that hasn’t happened, while pretending to investigate a jewel theft that hasn’t happened, either.”

  1

  A Tale of Two Marriages

  A gentleman strode up Curzon Street, a gentleman clearly laboring under some strong emotion, as evidenced by the swift pace of his steps, as well as the muscle twitching in his jaw and the rolled-up paper clenched in his hand, the latter slapping rhythmically against the fine buckskin breeches sheathing his thighs. Upon reaching Number 22, he stepped up onto the front portico and, eschewing the brass knocker, pounded on the door with his fist.

  “Rogers,” he addressed the butler who answered the summons, giving the man a brusque nod, “a word with Lady Fieldhurst, if you please.”

  “Very good, your lordship,” the butler replied woodenly. “I shall inquire if her ladyship—er, if madame is receiving.”

  “The devil you will!” Lord Rupert Latham shoved his hat and gloves at Rogers and pushed past him into the marble-tiled hall. “I’ll announce myself.”

  Ignoring the butler’s faint noise of protest, he crossed the hall with the directness of one long familiar with the house and its primary resident, and made straight for the drawing room. Just as he expected, a lady sat within, a lovely fair-haired woman who looked up with startled blue eyes at his entrance.

  “Why, Rupert! What brings you here?”

  “Well you might ask!” he retorted. “Have you seen this?” He opened the broadsheet with a snap of his wrist, and shoved it in her direction.

  She laid aside the book she was reading and reached for the bell pull. “Yes, Rogers, it’s quite all right,” she told the butler when he entered the room in response to the summons. “I thought it would not be long before I had the pleasure of Lord Rupert’s company. We’ll have the tea tray, if you please.”

  Not until after the butler had departed on his errand did she take the broadsheet from his lordship’s trembling hand. “Aunt Mildred’s Parlour,” she read aloud. “Why, Rupert, I didn’t know you were a follower of Aunt Mildred.”

  “I’m not,” he informed her bluntly. “But it appears I don’t have to be. No fewer than three members of my club were kind enough to bring this little tidbit to my attention, after their wives pointed it out to them.”

  She made no comment, for she was silently perusing the column that made its readers privy to the information that Lady F—, whose husband had been violently done to death only last spring, had apparently not mourned his loss for long before contracting a marriage to the person most instrumental in bringing her first husband’s killer to justice; consequently, her ladyship was now to be known by the less exalted title of Mrs. P—. After a brief honeymoon in Drury Lane (of all places!) followed by a trip to the West Country for the purpose of introducing the bridegroom to her family (really, one would have loved to have been a fly on the wall!), the happy couple had taken up residence in the bride’s house in C— Street. Having reached the end of this scrap of gossip, she handed the newspaper back to his lordship.

  “Well, Rupert, what of it?”

  “What of it?” he echoed incredulously. “Why, it’s an insult! I stopped by the publisher’s offices in Fleet Street and demanded that they print a retraction, and the editor flatly refused! If I were you—”

  He was obliged to break off here, as Rogers returned with the tea tray, followed by Thomas the footman bearing a second tray piled with cakes. Lord Rupert was forced to bide his time in silence, his impatience betrayed by the twitch in his jaw. As soon as the door closed behind them, however, he lost no time in picking up where he had left off.

  “If I were you, Julia, I would turn this over to Lord Fieldhurst. Yes, I know there’s no love lost between you and your late husband’s heir, but do him the justice to admit that he will not swallow this insult to the family name. Depend upon it, he’ll have his solicitor slap ‘Aunt Mildred,’ whoever she is, with a libel suit before she knows what hit her.”

  “Oh, that we may certainly depend on,” she agreed dryly. “Still, I don’t believe there is any need for—”

  She broke off abruptly, her face lighting up in a radiant smile at some point beyond her visitor’s left shoulder. Lord Rupert turned and saw that another man had entered the room—not the butler nor the footman this time, but a tall young man of about five-and-twenty, with curly brown hair tied at the nape of his neck in an old-fashioned queue.

  “Well, this is a surprise!” Julia exclaimed, and there was a note in her voice which, combined with the smile, caused Lord Rupert’s eyebrows to draw together in a thoughtful frown. “I hadn’t expected to see you at this hour.”

  “I was in Mayfair on a case, and thought I would drop by to see if you could spare a crust of bread for a starving man.” The newcomer’s gaze fell on the tray of cakes. “Are those the ones with the raspberries?” Without waiting for an answer, he snagged one of them and sank his teeth into it. In the next instant he noticed Lord Rupert glowering at him. “Your lordship,” he said around a mouthful of cake, acknowledging him with a nod.

  “Mr. Pickett,” Lord Rupert said coolly, returning the nod. “You would appear to make yourself very free with her ladyship’s hospitality.”

  Pickett paused in mid-bite. “Is there any reason why I shouldn’t?”

  By this time Julia had crossed the room to greet him, and now laid a hand on the sleeve of his brown serge coat. “Lord Rupert was kind enough to bring me the latest issue of Aunt Mildred’s Parlour,” she said, offering the broadsheet to Pickett. “It appears we’ve been given more than a mention. I hope you don’t mind it.”

  “I suppose it was bound to happen,” he said with a rueful smile. “Does it bother you?”

  She shook her head. “Not so very much. If I am going to be gossiped about in any case, I had much rather it be for marriage than murder.”

  Lord Rupert had been vaguely disturbed by the smile with which she had greeted the visitor, and the dawning sense that he himself had somehow become invisible had added to his unease. Now he listened to this exchange with growing incredulity. “Good God!” he exclaimed. “Do you mean to tell me it’s true?”

  Julia blinked at him as if she had only that moment remembered his presence. “But of course it’s true! You’ve known about it—oh, for months now!”

  “I knew you had accidentally contracted a marriage by declaration while in Scotland, but it was my understanding that you were in the process of having it annulled.”

  “Yes, well, we changed our minds.” Her eyes met John Pickett’s, and if Lord Rupert had any lingering doubts as to their relationship, that look would have settled them.

  “But the fellow’s impotent!” his lordship exclaimed, with a sweeping gesture in the direction of Pi
ckett’s nether parts.

  “Oh, he is not,” Julia said with unconcealed scorn.

  “I tell you, he is,” Lord Rupert insisted. “He all but admitted it last November.”

  “Do we have to talk about this?” put in Pickett, blushing scarlet.

  “He was prepared to let my solicitor make such a claim, I’ll grant you that,” Julia acknowledged. “But the dear man was only trying to free me from a marriage he was persuaded I did not want. There was never any question of his capability, however.”

  Unconvinced, Lord Rupert pressed on. “It isn’t enough for your solicitor to say so, no matter how noble Mr. Pickett’s motives. I read for the law some years ago, Julia, and I distinctly remember that, for the purposes of obtaining an annulment, proof of impotence is required, in the form of a physician’s verification.”

  “Is it?” Julia glanced at her crimson-faced husband, then back at his vanquished rival. “I daresay George bribed a doctor—as you said yourself, he is very careful of the family’s honor—but you must allow that in this particular case, I am in a better position to know than any number of physicians.”

  “Julia—” Pickett protested faintly.

  “Inexperience is not at all the same thing as incapacity, you know,” she concluded with unassailable logic.

  “You aren’t helping, Julia,” said Pickett.

  “You realize, of course, that Lord Fieldhurst will never stand for this,” Lord Rupert pointed out. “If he doesn’t challenge the marriage in court, I shall own myself much surprised.”

  Julia nodded. “Yes, we thought so, too, which is why we did the thing properly, by special license, as soon as could be arranged.”

  “I see.” Apparently recognizing a lost cause, Lord Rupert looked from Julia to her husband, and back again. “Well, Julia—”

  “Mrs. Pickett, if you please,” she corrected him.

  “Mrs. Pickett, then, it appears you’ve made your choice,” he said with great dignity. “I wish you joy of it. But when you suddenly find yourself a social pariah—and you will, I make no doubt of it—don’t expect me to lift a finger to ease your way.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” she assured him sweetly. She gave the bell pull a tug, and when the butler answered, said, “Rogers, I believe his lordship is leaving us now. Have the goodness to show him out.”

  Tight-lipped with helpless fury and wounded pride, Lord Rupert turned on his heel and quitted the room without saying goodbye. Pickett, alone with his bride, put his half-eaten cake back on the tray.

  “I’m sorry,” he began. “I didn’t know—I shouldn’t have come—it was a bad time—”

  “Nonsense!” She sidestepped the tea table that separated them, and wrapped her arms around his waist. “You don’t need anyone’s permission—least of all Lord Rupert’s!—to enter your own home. I am delighted you stopped by, for I didn’t expect to see you until dinner.”

  She lifted her face to be kissed, and he was happy to oblige. At the completion of this pleasant exercise, she withdrew from his arms and sat down on the sofa, patting the place beside her.

  “Now then, sit down and let me pour you some tea, and you can tell me what brings you to Mayfair. What is this new case you’re on?”

  “I don’t know yet,” he confessed, taking the cup from her hand. “I only know that Lady Washbourn sent a note to the Bow Street office, asking for me by name and requesting that I call ‘regarding a matter of the utmost discretion.’ ”

  “That sounds intriguing,” Julia remarked, passing him a small plate containing two more of the raspberry cakes that she had discovered were his favorites.

  “Not necessarily. Every case involving the aristocracy is a matter of utmost discretion, at least in their own minds. But maybe you can at least give me some idea of what I’m walking into. Do you know anything about Lady Washbourn?”

  “Washbourn, Washbourn,” she murmured, her smooth brow creased in concentration. “The name sounds familiar, but I—oh, wait! Now I remember! Lord Washbourn married her two years ago—or was it three? It was quite the on-dit of the Season, for she was a mere Miss Eliza Mucklow at the time, and the daughter of a brewer. Her father was enormously wealthy, and everyone knew that the Washbourns had been at point non plus for generations. Her dowry was rumored to be in the neighborhood of fifty thousand pounds, all of it in the Funds. Naturally, ‘Aunt Mildred’ had something highly unflattering to say about the marriage—and whoever she is, she can be quite poisonous when she chooses; in fact, we got off rather lightly, you and I, all things considered. But in Lord and Lady Washbourn’s case, Aunt Mildred didn’t say anything that the rest of the ton wasn’t already thinking: that the match had more to do with legal tender than the tender passion.”

  Pickett withdrew his occurrence book from the inside pocket of his coat, and made a quick notation. “That might be useful to know. Still, I must point out that not every poor man who marries a rich woman is only after her money,” he added, with such a speaking look that she had no difficulty understanding to which poor man he was referring.

  “Very true—and I only hope Lady Washbourn is even half as happy with her impecunious husband as I am with mine.” Setting aside her empty cup, she rose from the sofa and held out her hand to him. “Have you finished? If you will come with me upstairs, I have something for you.”

  He looked up at her with an arrested expression. “Julia, I—I can’t—” he stammered. “I’m on a case—”

  “Not that,” she assured him hastily, “although I expect it would be interesting to hear you trying to explain to your magistrate your tardiness in returning to Bow Street. In fact, I did not realize you had turned five-and-twenty until you said so during the inquest in Somersetshire. I have a birthday gift for you.”

  “Oh,” said Pickett, not quite certain whether to be sorry or glad. “I’ll look forward to it after dinner, then—that, and the other, too,” he added with a mischievous grin. He took her proffered hand and allowed her to pull him to his feet, then gave her a lingering kiss before collecting his hat and gloves from Rogers and setting out for the Washbourn residence in Grosvenor Square.

  Like so many of the houses in Mayfair, this proved to be a tall, narrow structure connected with its neighbors on both sides. Pickett lifted the knocker and let it fall, and a moment later the door was opened by the butler, a balding individual as short and stout as the house was tall and narrow, who looked askance at Pickett’s brown serge coat and inquired as to the nature of his business. Pickett found himself wondering how, given the fact that he himself was the taller of the two by a head, the man still contrived to look down his nose at him.

  “John Pickett, of—” He paused, recalling Lady Washbourn’s note with its heavily underscored request for the utmost discretion. “John Pickett, to see her ladyship. I believe I am expected,” he added, seeing by the butler’s expression that he was disinclined to admit the caller.

  “I shall inquire,” the butler said, making this simple statement sound vaguely like a threat. He returned a moment later with the information that Lady Washbourn would receive him, and Pickett fancied that the butler seemed rather disappointed to admit it. He surrendered his hat and gloves, then followed the man down across a tiled hall to an elegantly appointed drawing room whose windows looked down onto the fashionable square. A lady seated on a crimson brocade sofa sat waiting to receive him, and although she hardly fit the popular conception of a countess, any doubts Pickett might have entertained as to her identity were answered by the large gilt-framed portrait centered over the mantelpiece, for here on canvas was portrayed this same female in all the trappings of aristocracy. Pickett was certainly no expert on art, but eyes far less knowledgeable than his could not have failed to notice the wealth of detail in the painting. The dark blue satin of the subject’s Court dress pooled about her feet in folds that looked as if they would have been soft to the viewer’s touch, and Pickett suspected that if he took a few steps closer, he could have counted the pearls in
her strawberry-leafed coronet.

  The lady herself, by contrast, appeared rather ordinary, a young woman whose mouse-brown hair and rather squat figure were redeemed by intelligent grey eyes and a complexion as rosy and clear as a milkmaid’s.

  “Mr. Pickett,” she said, rising to greet him. “Thank you for coming so quickly.”

  Lady Washbourn dismissed the butler, and invited Pickett to take a seat on the crimson brocade sofa. She sat down on the chair facing him then bent upon him a look no less appraising than the one with which he had considered her. “I must say, you’re a bit younger than I had expected,” she observed.

  “I’m twenty-five,” Pickett said, suppressing a sigh at the now-familiar references to his age, or lack thereof. “But I’ve been with Bow Street since I was nineteen, so I’m not without experience.”

  “Yes, and you solved the Fieldhurst murder last spring, did you not? And recently married his lordship’s widow, if rumor doesn’t lie.” She glanced toward a broadsheet lying on a side table, and Pickett did not have to guess that Aunt Mildred had another guest in her Parlour.

  “I did,” he acknowledged with a nod. “But surely you didn’t summon me for the purpose of discussing my marriage.”

  “No, I summoned you for the purpose of discussing mine.” She took a deep breath. “Mr. Pickett, I think my husband is trying to kill me.”

  2

  Which Recounts the Sad History

  of My Lord and Lady Washbourn

  ‘Utmost discretion,’ indeed, thought Pickett, extracting his occurrence book from his coat pocket. “Trying to kill you?” he echoed aloud. “What makes you say such a thing?”

  “There have been—accidents,” said the lady, choosing her words with care. “And they might well have been no more than accidents, but taken together—well, I can’t help wondering.”

  “I think you had best start from the beginning,” Pickett said, settling himself more comfortably on the sofa and readying his pencil to take down her words.