“Perhaps not, but I dismissed your very real concerns as nothing more than foolish megrims, and you might well have paid for my obstinacy with your life. I will not soon forgive myself for that.”
“If you will pardon the interruption,” Pickett put in, “may I suggest that the coroner be sent for?”
“What? Yes, I suppose there is no way around it,” the earl said with a sigh, recalled to his responsibilities. “But how Mama would have hated it!”
Pickett glanced down at the woman’s body. Her face had assumed an unnaturally rosy hue, and he had no doubt that, if he were to bend over the body, he would catch the scent of bitter almonds. But he remained determinedly upright. While he had been set on obtaining justice for Annie Barton, he felt no such compulsion where the dowager countess was concerned. Her troubles had been of her own making, and in his opinion, the sooner her son and daughter-in-law could begin to repair the damage she’d done to their marriage, the better off they would be. Lord Washbourn’s appointment to the British embassy at Constantinople seemed a good place to start.
“It is not uncommon for persons of the dowager’s age to go off in an apoplexy,” Pickett observed blandly. “After all, she was facing the prospect of being left alone in England while her beloved son and his family spent the next few years abroad. If you point this out to the coroner, I’m sure you’ll get no argument from Mr. Bagley.”
“But you know it isn’t true, Mr. Pickett,” objected Lady Washbourn.
Pickett shrugged. “I won’t be here to protest any such conclusion. Aside from the fact that Mr. Bagley would not be pleased to find me here, I believe I’ve trespassed on your hospitality quite enough already.”
“I see,” the earl said, and the creases in his forehead lessened somewhat. “Thank you, Mr. Pickett. My wife and I are much obliged to you.”
“Oh, I almost forgot,” exclaimed her ladyship, recalling the pretense by which she had first engaged his services, “what about the rubies, Mr. Pickett?”
“I’ll send them—” He broke off abruptly. With the resolution of the case, the death of the dowager, and the reconciliation of Lord and Lady Washbourn, he had been able to forget, if only for a little while, the shambles that was his own marriage. He could not send a footman to Grosvenor Square with the rubies, or even return them himself; he would not be going back to Curzon Street, not ever again. He wondered if, in the midst of all the preparations for burying the dowager and then going abroad, either of the Wash-bourns would remember the reward he had been promised, and realized he really didn’t care. Through his own incompetence, he had lost something worth far more than fifty pounds. Nothing else seemed to matter anymore. “If you’ll call on—on my wife—in the morning, she will restore them to you.”
The Washbourns thanked him again and bade him farewell. Pickett said all that was proper (at least he hoped he did; he could never afterwards remember) and stumbled out into the night, unsure where to go or what to do with himself. Reminding himself that he had, after all, just solved a troublesome case, he resolved to inform Mr. Colquhoun of his findings, and with this end in view, set out for the magistrate’s residence.
Mr. Colquhoun was rather surprised to receive a visit from his most junior Runner at so late an hour, but he instructed the butler to admit the caller, and listened attentively to Pickett’s account of his visit to Washbourn Abbey and its aftermath. At the end of this recital, he shook his head.
“I don’t like it, Mr. Pickett,” he growled. “You should have waited until morning, got an arrest warrant, and followed the proper procedure. The dowager should have had to stand trial. Instead she managed to cheat the hangman, and that with your assistance. It was badly done of you.”
“Begging your pardon, sir, but I can’t agree. Who is to say she might not have had another go at killing Lady Washbourn—and a more successful one—overnight, while I was waiting to go through the proper channels? As for the lack of a trial, well, she’s dead either way, so does it really matter how? Besides, his lordship is to take up a diplomatic post in Constantinople; surely such a blemish on his family’s reputation could do nothing to strengthen national relations with the Turks. I’m sorry to disappoint you, sir—I’m well aware of how much I stand in your debt—but if I had it to do over, I can’t honestly say I wouldn’t do the same thing.”
The magistrate regarded him appraisingly for a long moment. “You’ve grown up, John,” he said at last. “To tell you the truth, I’m not quite sure how I feel about that. Ah well, it’s getting late, and we both have to be back at Bow Street in the morning.”
Mr. Colquhoun heaved himself out of his chair as he spoke, giving Pickett to understand that the interview was at an end. Unable to think of any reason for delaying his departure, he took his leave of the magistrate and stepped from the warmth of the house into the dark and unwelcoming night. He turned his steps eastward with no particular destination in mind, and soon found himself in the vicinity of Covent Garden, where he had once picked pockets as a boy. The theatre had apparently let out only a short time earlier, for a throng of well-dressed patrons milled about the streets, their presence a jarring contrast to those members of the lower classes who hawked flowers, hired themselves out as chair men, or eked out a living by less legal means. It was hard to believe that only a few days ago he might have been found amongst the former group, after having spent his formative years as one of the latter. Now, he reflected morosely, he belonged to neither. The aristocrats ignored him, and the flower women and chair men, several of whom were old acquaintances, no longer seemed to recognize him. The habit of years reasserted itself, and he found himself watching the people lingering about the street even at so late an hour, appraising which ones would make the easiest mark for a practitioner of his former trade. Suddenly a boy barreled into him, a skinny lad with curly brown hair stuffed beneath a shapeless cap.
“Sorry, gov’nor.” The youth gave him a cheeky grin and tugged his forelock. “My mistake.”
“Yes, it was,” Pickett agreed, grabbing him by the wrist and twisting his arm behind his back. “I’ll thank you to give back whatever it was that you just pinched from my pocket.”
The boy raised limpid brown eyes to his. “I didn’t take nuffink! I’m innocent, I tell you!”
“And I’m the tsar of all the Russias,” Pickett scoffed. “Next time you decide to lighten someone’s pockets, you might do well to choose someone besides a Bow Street Runner. Now, are you going to give me back what’s mine, or do I haul you before the magistrate?”
Reluctantly, the boy opened his hand. Three ha’pence and a farthing lay within his grimy palm. “How did you know?” he asked in grudging admiration.
“Because I was on the budge myself long before you were ever born,” replied Pickett, slipping easily back into the language of his youth. “And making a better job of it, too. I had three guineas on me, and yet you come up with nothing but a handful of copper.”
“Well, how was I supposed to know?” retorted the boy. “It’s not like you was gonna stand still while I turned out your pockets, is it?”
“You learn by feel,” Pickett answered impatiently. “I can tell you never had my father for instructor! He made me practice blindfolded until I could tell one coin from another with just the tips of my fingers—and he rapped my knuckles for me if I guessed wrong. You’re going to end up dancing at the end of a rope someday if you don’t improve your technique.”
It occurred to him that Mr. Colquhoun would hardly approve of him giving professional advice to a fledgling member of his erstwhile profession, but then, he knew better than most that the boy’s illegal activities most likely owed less to moral deficiency than they did to the simple need to put food in his belly. He himself had been lucky; for most young criminals, there was no Mr. Colquhoun to take an interest in setting their feet on a better path.
“On second thought, here.” He took the boy’s arm and poured the coins back into his hand. “Go and get yourself something to eat. N
ot Blue Ruin, mind, but something good—something filling.”
The boy regarded him suspiciously. “Why? So’s you can haul me into Bow Street and tell the magistrate I stole it?”
“No, so you don’t have to pick any more pockets, at least not tonight.” His expression softened, and he added more gently, “I remember what it’s like, you know—being hungry.”
His words fell on empty air, for the boy had taken to his heels as if afraid his unexpected benefactor might change his mind. He need not have worried. Pickett had seen something of himself in the young pickpocket, something of the boy he had once been. Ten years ago, he reflected, it might have been him, right down to the curly brown hair and the big brown eyes trying their best to look innocent.
Ten years ago . . . It had been almost eleven years since his father had been transported to Botany Bay, but if Moll—Da’s woman and his own de facto stepmother—had conceived shortly before he’d been shipped off . . .
Pickett shook his head as if to dismiss the unproductive train of thought, and set his mind to the more urgent task of finding a place to stay. It was perhaps inevitable that his steps should lead him eventually to Drury Lane, where he had once resided in a two-room flat over a chandler’s shop. In fact, it had been in these unprepossessing surroundings that he and Julia had consummated their irregular Scottish marriage, putting an end to the plans that had already been made for an annulment. At the bittersweet memory, a dull ache settled somewhere in his chest, and his gaze drifted down the lane, past the Cock and Magpie to the chandler’s shop beyond, and then upward to the flat above, where a light burned in the window like a beacon.
He froze. A light! She had come for him! He ran down the lane to the shop, groped for the key hidden over the doorframe, then unlocked the door and took the stairs two at a time until he reached the door at the top. He would have flung it open, but this, too, was locked. He was glad of it; these were hardly the most salubrious of surroundings for a lady alone. He pounded on the door until he heard the click of the key turning in the lock, and a moment later it opened. There in the doorway stood a worn-looking woman with a baby on her hip and a toddler clinging to her skirts. Pickett had never seen her before in his life.
“Well?” she asked impatiently. “What do you want?”
“I—I’m sorry,” Pickett stammered. “I thought you were—I hoped—I beg your—my—my mistake.”
The baby began to wail, and she turned her attention to it, closing the door on Pickett. He turned and staggered back down the stairs, the pain of blighted hopes lancing his belly like a knife. He had thought it would be Julia, had believed for one brief, shining moment that she’d been as miserable as he was, and was waiting for him in the flat where they’d once been so happy. He plodded his way down to the Strand and stood on the corner, lost as to where to go or what to do in this city he knew so well. The air was heavy and damp with the promise of rain and the fishy smell of the Thames, just out of sight beyond Somerset House.
He had not been aware of following the familiar odor, but eventually he found himself standing on the quay looking out over the water. The darkness was broken at intervals by the lanterns of boats riding at anchor, their faint lights tipping each tiny wave with gold. Soon, he knew, the lighters of coal would be arriving from Newcastle, and at dawn the heavers would swarm aboard with their shovels and sacks, ready to fill the wagons that would deliver the fuel to warm London’s homes. He should know; he had spent five years of his life at the grueling work, and might have been there still, had not Mr. Colquhoun seen some potential in him and taken an interest.
Perhaps, he thought bitterly, he would have been better off if Mr. Colquhoun had left him there. He had been only too willing to leave the Granger household at the time, but the pain of Sophy’s rejection had been mere child’s play next to what he felt now. Surely it would have been better never to have known Julia at all than to—
He realized with a start that if he had never come to Bow Street, Julia—Lady Fieldhurst, as she was then—might well have been hanged for the murder of her husband. She would be dead now, would have been dead for almost a year, and he would never have been the wiser. No, he could not regret knowing her, not regret loving her, even knowing how it must end.
He looked down at the black water at his feet. The tide was just beginning to ebb, and by dawn the muddy riverbank would be visible. Some of his earliest memories were of mudlarking along the banks of the Thames at low tide, scavenging for any scrap of bone or metal that might be exchanged for coin. It would be fitting in a way, for his life to end here, where so much of it had been spent. And Julia would be free of him, but on his own terms, with no need for pettifogging by the Fieldhursts’ solicitor.
He frowned at the thought of Julia. However unsatisfactory she found him as a husband, he had to believe that she had loved him once. He would have to make the thing look like an accident, for her sake. His magistrate, however, would be more difficult to deceive. Julia might wonder, but Mr. Colquhoun would know, or quickly deduce, what had happened, and would blame Julia for it, however unfairly. Pickett had no desire for his death to become a bone of contention between the two people he loved most in the world. He let out a ragged sigh. It appeared that even this final door was closed to him.
And then, just when he thought things could not possibly get any worse, the heavens opened and the floods descended. He pulled his hat forward to keep the rain out of his eyes, and shuddered as the cold water trickled down the back of his neck where his queue used to be. Head down, he concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, scarcely knowing or caring where he was going until he found himself standing on a familiar front stoop. He rang the bell, and a moment later was shown into the drawing room.
The master of the house sat before the fire in his slippers, reading a journal, but upon the entrance of a creature more closely resembling a drowned rat than a human being, he flung down his magazine and shot to his feet. “John? Good God, man, what’s happened?”
The look Pickett gave him was one of utter desolation. “I think—I think I’ve left my wife.”
18
In Which Julia Fieldhurst Pickett
Takes Matters into Her Own Hands
Scolding like a mother hen, Mr. Colquhoun soon had Pickett out of his sodden coat and steered him to a chair drawn up before the fire, where he might warm himself and dry off.
“Now,” he said at last, having dispatched the butler for brandy, “what’s all this nonsense about you and Mrs. Pickett?”
Pickett shook his head. “I’m sure you did your best, sir, but it looks like I’m still my father’s son, after all.” Except, of course, that the elder Pickett’s faithlessness stemmed from his being too appealing to women; the younger, it seemed, could not even please the one woman he loved, and who had professed to love him in return. Even love, it seemed, had its limits.
“Nonsense!” his mentor repeated briskly. “Even the most devoted couples have lovers’ quarrels now and again. It’s not the end of the world.”
“No,” Pickett said bleakly. “Just the end of a marriage.”
The magistrate forbore to comment. He had seen this rift approaching ever since the couple’s wedding day, when he’d discovered, quite by accident, that John Pickett labored under the mistaken belief that his wife’s jointure would end with her remarriage, and that he fully intended to support her as best he could on his own meager wages. Mr. Colquhoun’s misgivings had increased exponentially when he had spoken to the lady herself and realized she hadn’t the slightest notion as to the blow the reality had dealt to her young husband’s pride, much less the need for softening it as much as possible. When the inevitable confrontation had come, it had apparently come with a vengeance.
“But where is your bag?” he asked bracingly. “Surely you didn’t travel to Croydon with nothing but the clothes on your back!”
“No, sir,” Pickett said, staring morosely into the flames. “I had a valise, but I left it at th
e Swan and promised to call for it later. They had no more rooms, and I—I didn’t know where else to go.”
“I’ll send a footman to fetch it, and have the housekeeper make up a room for you.”
“Thank you, sir. I’m sorry—”
His apologies fell on deaf ears. Mr. Colquhoun betook himself from the room, but made no visible effort to summon his housekeeper. Instead, he went across the hall to his study, where he composed a short note that made no mention of Pickett’s bag at all. Having shaken sand over this missive, folded it, and sealed it with a wafer, he rang for a footman and surrendered this correspondence into his keeping, with very specific instructions as to its delivery.
“You want me to take the carriage, sir?” the footman asked stupidly, experience—as well as the name of his position—having long since taught him that such errands usually entailed trudging across Town, even in the midst of such a rainstorm as this one.
His employer lifted one bushy white eyebrow. “Didn’t I just say so?”
“Yes, sir. But—am I to wait for a reply?”
“Unless I miss my guess,” the magistrate predicted, “you will need to wait for a passenger.”
* * *
He was not coming back. As she stared out the window onto the darkness that was Curzon Street at midnight, Julia finally admitted to herself what she had feared ever since he had departed the previous morning. She had not dared to leave the house all day for fear of being absent when he returned, and she had listened for his footsteps in the hall long before she had any realistic expectation of hearing them. But afternoon had turned to evening and evening to night with still no sign of him, and she had finally pushed her dinner plate away untouched and sent Thomas to Cheapside to inquire whether the stagecoach from Croydon and points south had arrived yet. Thomas had returned some time later with the information that the stagecoach had indeed reached London three hours earlier (“safe and on time,” the booking agent had reported proudly), and that a passenger fitting Mr. Pickett’s description had disembarked just before nightfall, leaving his bag at the inn until such a time as he should call for it.
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