Mystery Loves Company

by Sheri Cobb South

  “Yes, sir,” concurred Pickett with a sigh. “But in the meantime, what am I to do with them?”

  “Come, man, your lady wife must have at least a few such baubles of her own; surely she can be entrusted with one more for a few days—weeks—months—however long it takes to reach a ‘satisfactory conclusion.’ ”

  Pickett considered the alternative with a thoughtful frown. “And if, in spite of my efforts, there is an unsatisfactory conclusion? What am I to do with them then?”

  “In such an event, the rubies being in your possession might strengthen the Crown’s case against Lord Washbourn, as they would serve as evidence of his wife’s suspicions—although they would hardly be a testimony to your professional competence,” he added darkly.

  “Yes, sir,” said Pickett, recognizing a lost cause when he saw one.

  “Now, if there is nothing else, Mr. Pickett,” continued the magistrate, glancing over his shoulder at the clock mounted on the wall above his bench, “I intend to seek my dinner, and I suggest you do the same.”

  “There is one more thing—” Pickett began.

  With an air of resignation, Mr. Colquhoun raked stubby fingers through his thick, snow-white hair. “Why am I not surprised?” he wondered aloud. “Very well, Mr. Pickett, what is it?”

  “It’s this masquerade, sir. With your permission, I would like to be able to come in late on the morning after. I believe these functions may last into the wee hours.”

  “And if I know anything at all about women, Mrs. Pickett will not want to leave until the unmasking,” predicted the magistrate.

  “If I am to protect Lady Washbourn, I must stay until the end of the ball in any case,” Pickett pointed out.

  “True. Very well, then, you have my permission, provided nothing happens that evening which necessitates your presence here in Bow Street, but I’m sure I need not tell you that. Tell me, what do you intend to do for a costume?”

  “Why, nothing, sir,” said Pickett, taken aback by the question. “I’ll be working, not attending for pleasure.”

  “Not if Mrs. Pickett has anything to say to the matter,” Mr. Colquhoun prophesied with grim certainty.

  “Forgive me, sir, but why should she?”

  “Because even the most rational women lose all sense at the prospect of capering about in fancy dress. Of course, you might attempt a compromise by offering to wear the blue coat and red waistcoat of the foot patrol, but if your wife doesn’t have you tricked out as Galahad or Harlequin or some such nonsense, you may call me a Dutchman.”

  There had been a time when nineteen-year-old Pickett, apprenticed to a coal merchant for five long years, had been awestruck at the magistrate’s invitation to trade his coal-blackened work clothes for the uniform of the Bow Street foot patrol. But he had been equally pleased, four years later, to surrender the familiar red waistcoats upon his promotion to principal officer—those elite half-dozen men known colloquially as Runners—even though this advancement meant that a sizeable portion of his twenty-five shillings a week had to go toward supplementing his wardrobe, for the Runners were a plainclothes force. No, to appear once more in uniform as a member of the foot patrol would be, at least in his own eyes, an enormous step backwards. He would make his case for regular evening attire, and trust his Julia to possess a more rational mind than that with which Mr. Colquhoun credited her.

  3

  In Which John Pickett

  Looks a Gift Horse in the Mouth

  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.”

  “You’ll do it,” she predicted confidently.

  He grimaced. “I wish I could be so sure.”

  “You’ll do it because you’re brilliant—and everyone seems to know it but you.” She punctuated this statement with a quick kiss, and he took her in his arms and finished the job properly.

  “Of course, there may be nothing to investigate,” he said at last, when they finally drew apart. “It may be nothing more than two unrelated accidents.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know about the chandelier, darling, but I can assure you the pearls were no accident.”

  “Weren’t they?” he asked, puzzled. “What makes you say so?”

  “Because when pearls are strung—good ones, anyway—the thread is knotted between each pearl, so that if the string breaks, the things don’t go bouncing and rolling about all over the place. One would certainly come off, and I suppose two might, if the knot came undone at the point of the break, but I can’t imagine how three might have done so—not without help, anyway.”

  He regarded her intently. “And you’re sure of this?”

  “I’m quite certain.” She glanced down at the box in her hand. “I must take these upstairs and put them away. If you’ll come with me, I can show you my own pearls, and you can see for yourself.”

  He followed her up the stairs and waited while she stored the Washbourn rubies safely in her jewel case. When she turned back toward him, she held a strand of creamy white pearls.

  “Here they are. If you look closely, you can tell they don’t rest against one another.”

  He took the necklace and carried it to the window, examining it in the afternoon sunlight. Just as she had said, there was a small but unmistakable space between each pearl where the string was knotted.

  “Will you need to snap the thread to make sure?” she asked, moving to the window to look over his shoulder. “I don’t mind making certain sacrifices in a worthy cause, but since they were a gift from Mama and Papa, I should insist on their being restrung, and at Bow Street’s expense.”

  If they had been a gift from her first husband, Pickett might have been tempted. “That won’t be necessary,” he assured her, returning the pearls to her. “I think even Mr. Colquhoun would consider destroying my wife’s jewelry to be going beyond the call of duty. There is something else I am going to ask of you, though. Would you be willing to accompany me to Lord and Lady Washbourn’s masquerade ball?”

  “A masquerade?” Her face lit up in joyful anticipation, and Pickett’s hackles rose as he recalled his magistrate’s prediction. “I’ve always wanted to attend a masquerade, but was never able to do so! Before I was married, Mama was persuaded they encouraged licentious behavior, and afterwards Frederick—well, I suppose Frederick merely wished to be disagreeable. Lord Rupert offered to escort me to a masquerade at the Argyle Rooms once, but I knew it was licentious behavior he had in mind, and so I was obliged to decline the invitation. But to attend such a function with you sounds delightful!”

  “Delightful for you, maybe, but not for me,” Pickett said. “I’ll be working. Lady Washbourn is afraid her husband might take advantage of the occasion to make another attempt on her life.”

  Her blue eyes grew wide. “Surely donning a disguise in order to murder one’s wife is taking licentiousness to extremes!”

  “Yes, well, you can hardly deny that being in fancy dress might afford one opportunities that would be too chancy to attempt otherwise.”

  “I suppose it depends on what sort of costume the would-be murderer chooses. An
ything too remarkable would only attract unwanted attention. But speaking of fancy dress, what should we wear?”

  “I’ll be working, Julia,” he said again. “There’s no need for me to don fancy dress at all.”

  “Nonsense! If you were to attend in plain clothes, you would be far too conspicuous to be any help to Lady Washbourn at all. What do you think of Romeo and Juliet?”

  “What am I supposed to think of them?” Pickett asked, blinking at the sudden non sequitur.

  “As costumes for you and me,” she said with exaggerated patience. “I can be Juliet, and you can be Romeo.”

  “I’m sure you would make a very fetching Juliet, my lady, but much as I love you, I’m not capering about in doublet and hose for your sake!”

  Her face fell. “I suppose you’re right,” she acknowledged with a sigh of regret for what might have been. “Since there is no time to have anything made up, we will be obliged to hire costumes, and I daresay your legs are too long for anything that might be available in the shops.”

  “Thank God for that, anyway,” Pickett muttered under his breath.

  “Still,” continued Julia, not to be deterred, “I am persuaded you would make a very dashing cavalier, and such a costume would have the advantage of allowing you to make do with your own boots, besides merely leaving your hair loose instead of wearing a wig. And,” she added, warming to this theme, “you could wear a sword, which might be useful in case you should surprise Lord Washbourn in the act, and be obliged to defend Lady Washbourn—or yourself.”

  Much as Pickett hated to admit it, she did have a point. Of course, he did own a pistol—had even used it, on occasion—but it would be difficult to invent a compelling reason for carrying a firearm into a ballroom.

  “Very well,” he conceded with obvious reluctance, “you have my permission to turn me out as a cavalier, and I’ll try not to disgrace you.”

  “As if you could!” she retorted, smiling. “But in the meantime, I promised you a birthday gift. Close your eyes.”

  He did, and she took his hand and led him across the room, pausing before the place where, he estimated, the tall mahogany clothes-press stood against the wall. This theory was confirmed a moment later, when a faint creak suggested the opening of the wardrobe’s doors.

  “You can open them now,” she announced.

  Blinking in the afternoon sunlight after the self-imposed darkness, he found himself staring into the open clothes-press, where her gowns had been moved to one side to accommodate half a dozen new garments, none of which appeared to be meant for the adornment of the female form.

  “You went to a tailor’s shop?” he asked in some consternation, recalling the decidedly masculine environs of Mr. Meyer’s establishment in Conduit Street.

  “Of course not! I had only to send round a note, and Mr. Meyer was so obliging as to call upon me here.”

  “Oh, of course,” he agreed in a flat voice.

  She pulled one of the garments free and held it to her bosom so that he might admire a double-breasted tailcoat of fine bottle-green wool. “Try it on,” she urged. “Or would you prefer the mulberry? Or perhaps the russet?” She reached toward the clothes-press as if to extract another garment.

  “How—how many are there?” he asked, eyeing them with misgiving.

  “Five coats, and as many waistcoats, three pairs of breeches and one of pantaloons, half a dozen fine cambric shirts, a full dozen cravats, and an equal number of stockings—pairs, that is—and two pairs of Limerick gloves. Oh, and this.” She draped the green coat over her arm so that her hands might be free to withdraw from the wardrobe a crimson-and-gold brocade dressing-gown of Oriental design.

  “Julia, how much did all this cost?”

  “It is very bad form to inquire as to the cost of a gift,” she informed him. “Suffice it to say that we can well afford it.”

  “You can well afford it, perhaps, but I doubt you’ll find many other Bow Street Runners with so lavish a wardrobe.”

  “John, you cannot deny that you needed new clothes! Recall, if you please, that I’ve darned your stockings; I know quite well the sad state of your attire. You possess three coats to your name! Why, Frederick was used to go through as many in a day.”

  He stiffened. “I wasn’t aware that I was to pattern myself after your first husband.”

  “Oh, John, of course you aren’t,” she said impatiently. “But still—”

  “Julia, no one at Bow Street dresses so fine as this, except perhaps for Mr. Colquhoun, and even he—”

  “So fine as what?” she demanded. “It isn’t as if they came from the hand of Weston in Old Bond Street, you know.”

  “No, I don’t know. In fact, I wouldn’t know Weston from a hole in the wall, which is rather the point, isn’t it? It’s bad enough that some of the men on the foot patrol have taken to calling me ‘Lord John,’ without me starting to dress as if I thought I were better than the rest of them.”

  She dumped the garments onto the bed. “Oh, John, I didn’t know! Has it been so very dreadful for you? Forgive me—I never meant—”

  “There’s nothing to forgive,” he said with a sigh, drawing her into his arms and pressing his lips to her hair. “As for the foot patrol, well, they don’t mean any harm, not really, so let’s consign them to the devil, shall we? You only meant to do something nice, and I ripped up at you. I’m an ungrateful brute, Julia. It’s you who should forgive me.”

  “Is it so wrong of me to want to show off my handsome husband? Well, except for the dressing-gown. I shall take it very ill if anyone sees you in that besides me.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Pickett said, looking over her head to regard this gorgeous garment with a speculative gleam in his eye. “If I’m to look like the Grand Turk, I might decide I need the harem to go with it.”

  “That settles it,” she declared. “That thing is going back to the tailor’s tomorrow!”

  “No, no,” he protested, laughing. “You bought it, my lady, and you shall have to suffer the consequences. Come, I’ll make you a bargain: I’ll try it on, if you’ll have dinner served up here.” His smile faded, and when he spoke again, it was with unwonted seriousness. “What do you say, Julia? It’ll be almost like we were back in Drury Lane.”

  He saw the color that rose to her cheeks, and knew he did not have to elaborate further. She had told Lord Rupert Latham that they had changed their minds about the annulment, but that had not been the whole truth. In fact, he had been seriously injured during the course of an investigation, and it was while she was staying in his shabby little Drury Lane flat and nursing him back to health that they had consummated their marriage. It had been a strange way to begin married life, perhaps, but they had been happy—far happier, in some ways, than he was now, living in luxury in her Curzon Street town house.

  “Very well, John,” she said breathlessly. “You take off your coat, and I’ll ring for Rogers.”

  It was not until several hours later, lying next to her in the big canopied bed, that he remembered one last bit of unfinished business.

  “My lady?” he whispered into the darkness. “Are you awake?”

  “I am now,” she said sleepily. “What is it?”

  “Julia, I—I’m sorry about the rubies.”

  A rustle of bed linens gave him to understand that she had turned over in the bed.

  “I don’t mind, John, truly I don’t,” she assured him. “It will be no trouble to keep them, at least for the nonce. Unless, of course, Lord Washbourn grows suspicious and comes looking for them. That might be a bit difficult to explain.”

  Pickett, lying on his back and staring upward in the direction of the canopy overhead, paid no attention to this attempt at humor. “No, not that. I made you think—I know you were disappointed—”

  “Pray don’t dwell on it, darling. It was entirely my own fault, for leaping to conclusions.”

  “You married a man who will never be able to give you gems.”

 
; Another rustle of sheets, and suddenly he was enveloped in soft, warm woman, her fingers pushing back a tangle of brown curls so that she might drop a feather-light kiss on his forehead.

  “I married a man who is a gem,” she said tenderly. “Anything more would be superfluous.”

  He did not for one minute believe it, but as he rolled over in order to answer this claim as it deserved, he resolved never to give her reason to change her mind.

  4

  In Which John Pickett

  Dons Fancy Dress in a Worthy Cause

  “I look ridiculous,” pronounced Pickett, eyeing with disfavor the masked figure who regarded him disapprovingly from the looking-glass. His own brown curls were allowed to fall free to his shoulders, where they spilled over the white lace of his wide collar and onto the back of his red velvet coat. His breeches were cut very full, and were gathered at each knee with a knot of ribbons. Studying his reflection, he could understand why the cavaliers had worn swords; they had probably spent a lot of their time defending themselves against ridicule. “My only consolation is that no one will know who I am.”

  “I think you look rather delicious.”

  His eyes met Julia’s in the glass, and he turned to admire in person the vision she presented. Like him, she was masked, but where his was made of black satin, hers was white, and covered with silver spangles. Eschewing the high-waisted fashions that had been favored by ladies for the past decade, she wore a blue gown made in the style of a hundred and fifty years earlier, with a bell-shaped skirt falling from the natural waistline, billowing sleeves gathered at the elbows with ribbons, and a wide, round neckline revealing an expanse of creamy bosom. Her blonde hair had been parted in the middle, and over each ear a cluster of curls fell from a tiny bunch of forget-me-nots. If all seventeenth-century ladies had looked like this, Pickett decided, and if they had found his own rather effeminate costume attractive, he could see why the courtiers of Charles’s court were happy to oblige them, whatever the cost to their own dignity.