A Covent Garden Mystery

by Jennifer Ashley

  After my declaration, I had taken her hand and led her into her bedchamber. We'd spent the rest of the afternoon learning each other's bodies in her bed and letting the warmth between us grow.

  I'd not had opportunity to see much of her since, her life during the height of the Season being a whirlwind of social gatherings and obligations. Even so, gossip coupled our names, somewhat disapprovingly. Lady Breckenridge, daughter of an earl and widow of a viscount, was worlds above a half-pay captain, son of an untitled nobody, albeit my father had been a landed gentleman of Norfolk.

  "This is awkward for you," Marianne said.

  The plain statement from anyone but Marianne might imply glee at my plight. From Marianne, it meant compassion.

  "Divorce is a difficult thing," I said. "I've looked into the matter in some detail. To divorce Carlotta, I must accuse her of adultery and drag her through several courts, then ask for a private Act of Parliament to dissolve the marriage. A long, expensive, embarrassing process."

  "Has she committed adultery?"

  "Oh, yes. She left me in France and has lived there ever since with the French officer who stole her away. They dwell idyllically near Lyon, and she's borne him several children."

  "There you are, then, rush her to trial. I imagine he would help you with the expense. He does so like to arrange people's lives for them."

  I remembered something Carlotta had said when I'd stood there staring at her: He would make the appointment. Who? Grenville? Her French officer? James Denis, who'd discovered her whereabouts in the first place?

  "Grenville would likely assist with the cost if asked," I conceded. "But Mrs. Lacey was never a strong woman. Making her face hostile juries who will condemn her as an adulteress might break her. I no longer love her, but I cannot wish such an ordeal on her."

  "You are far too kindhearted, Lacey."

  "Not really. There is my daughter to consider. Though I will fight to get her back, a divorce would hurt Gabriella as well. Any taint on her family will be a taint on her." I paused. "She does not know that I am her father."

  Marianne's eyes widened. "Your wife never told her?"

  "It would appear not."

  Marianne gave me a look of deep sympathy. "How awful. Are you going to tell her?"

  I took a long drink of brandy. "Yes, but not yet." I traced the facets of Grenville's heavy crystal goblet. "My life, as usual, is a tangle."

  "As is mine."

  I looked up, remembering that she had not sought me out to discuss my troubles. "You wanted to speak to me about something? Grenville, I assume. I thought he had loosened the leash a bit."

  Marianne poured herself another helping of brandy. "I want to go to Berkshire."

  "Ah." I had discovered, earlier this spring, that Marianne Simmons had a son, a halfwit boy she'd borne years ago and kept in a cottage in the Berkshire countryside. A kindly woman looked after both cottage and son, and Marianne traveled to see them when she could. She'd spent almost everything she'd earned as an actress plus any money or trinkets she could coerce gentlemen into giving her on the keeping of the boy, David.

  When Grenville had first met Marianne, he'd handed her twenty guineas. She'd promptly and secretly sent the money to Berkshire, and Grenville had gone slightly mad trying to decide what had happened to his gift.

  I had learned Marianne's secret by chance when I'd stayed in Berkshire at the Sudbury School in March. She'd made me swear to tell no one, especially not Grenville. I had no desire to interfere between Grenville and Marianne, and so kept my silence.

  "You have not spoken to him of David, yet," I said.

  "No, and you know why. As I've just declared, he enjoys arranging people's lives for them. He would try to take David away from the home he's always known to lock him away somewhere, however plush, and hire hordes of people to look after him. David would be frightened. I cannot let that happen."

  She spoke determinedly, but her eyes held worry.

  I could not reassure her that Grenville would do no such thing, because though I'd known him a few years now, I could not predict the things that Grenville might do. Lucius Grenville was one of the wealthiest and popular men in England. He was intelligent, generous, gossipy, curious, friendly, and frank--although he could turn his cool, sardonic man-about-town personality on those of whom he disapproved and destroy them socially with one quirk of his eyebrow. Gentlemen in clubs all over London feared the cold scrutiny of his black eyes, trembled when he raised a quizzing glass, and went pale when he dismissed them in his chill voice.

  It was telling that the two people he claimed to like best, myself and Marianne, were the two people who did not stand in awe of his power. Both of us, coming from very different walks of life, had seen too much and experienced too much to fear Grenville's scorn. He found us baffling, and therefore, fascinating.

  But that assessment was unjust. Grenville did have a generous heart and truly wished to help, although he could be heavy-handed about it. He did not know how not to be.

  "You need to tell him," I said gently. "Give him a chance."

  "I came to ask you to tell him, while I am away in Berkshire. And then send me word whether to bother to come home or not."

  "It is no business of mine," I said quickly. Ever since Grenville had taken Marianne to live with him, I had strived to stay out of their lives, but in vain. Both of them liked to confide their frustrations about the other to me--at length.

  "I have considered this well, you know," Marianne said. "If I tell him before I go, he will try to prevent me. If I am in Berkshire when he finds out, and he reacts as I predict, I can simply stay there with David. I do not want his disapprobation to keep me from my son. I have saved enough of the money he's given me, plus the bits of jewelry he's given me, to live on for a good while. Unless he sets the magistrates on me . . . Although I do not think he would. Too embarrassing for him."

  While I agreed with her assessment of Grenville's character, I could not let her simply run off and try to live on Grenville's gifts. "Tell him, for God's sake. I can be present when you do, and do my best to stop him disrupting David's life."

  She looked stubborn. "You have just told me that you were prevented seeing your daughter for fifteen years. I thought you would have more sympathy."

  "Sympathy, yes. But I am not your conspirator against Grenville. You are fond of Grenville; I know you are. Can you not show him that?"

  "Heavens, Lacey, I know better than to let on to a gentleman that I like him. They take advantage, you know."

  I rose to my feet. "Your ideas on how ladies and gentlemen behave to one another are your own. I cannot agree with them, but I know I cannot change your mind. You may finish the brandy if you like. I must go to Bow Street."

  "Consulting with the magistrates again, are you?" Marianne reached for the bottle.

  "An errand."

  She was too shrewd for me. "If you hire a Runner to watch that your wife does not slip away, you will be as bad as Grenville. He threatened to do the same to me, remember?"

  I well recalled the incident. When I had taken the post at the Sudbury School, Marianne had disappeared from Grenville's house, and he'd wanted to take England apart to find her. I had dissuaded him from this action only because I happened to know where Marianne had gone.

  "I thought Grenville unwise, but I could not blame him. You tease him and plague him, and I am surprised he does not keep you on a tether."

  She made a face at me as I prepared to leave. "Gentlemen always stand together," she said. "Especially those of your class. Rich and poor, if you went to the same school and came from the same sort of family, you band together against the downtrodden."

  I shot her an ironic look. "I could never think of you as downtrodden, Marianne. You are the least downtrodden woman I know."

  Her answer was to put out her tongue, then I shut the door on her as she raised her goblet again.

  I left the house and walked to Bow Street. I made this trip often, strolling out of G
rimpen Lane to Russel Street and around the corner to the left to Bow Street. Today I made it under the June sun, which had at last chased away the drear of winter. I preferred warmer climes, having grown used to the stifling heat of India and the warm summers of Spain. Grenville had recently invited me to accompany him to Egypt when next he went.

  I wondered, as I perfunctorily tipped my hat to a passing housewife, whether Grenville had told Marianne he wanted to leave England for several months, and what her reaction would be when he did. He believed Marianne cared not a fig for where he went, but I knew better. I hoped they settled things between them soon, because both were driving me mad.

  I approached the Bow Street magistrate's house, a tall, narrow edifice that comprised numbers 3 and 4. The chief magistrate lived upstairs, and the unfortunates dragged in to appear before him in the large room downstairs spent the night in buildings behind the house as well as the cellar of the tavern opposite. These unfortunates consisted of pickpockets, prostitutes, the drunk and disorderly, thieves, illegal gamers, housebreakers, brawlers, and murderers. Those accused of more serious crimes, like murder or rape, generally saw the magistrate in isolation. The petty criminals tumbled together in a mass of unwashed and surprisingly good-humored humanity.

  "Mornin,' Cap'n," slurred a man who was brought in for drunkenness nearly every night. He did not simply drink himself into a stupor--many a man did that and went home and slept--but Bottle Bill, as he was called, could become quite frenzied when he was drunk.

  In the light of day, Bill was a quiet creature, ashamed of himself, smiling gently and apologizing to those he might have hurt the night before. He could not help himself, he said. If he did not have drink, he became wretchedly ill, near to death. A few glasses of gin, and he was right as rain. But then he could not stop drinking the gin, and so he went round again to losing his senses, starting fights, breaking furniture, and ending up at Bow Street.

  "Good morning, Bill," I said as I stepped past him.

  "How are you this fine day?" Bill asked. He leaned against the wall, his red eyes screwed shut against the bright sunshine without. "I like it a bit gloomier, meself."

  "I'm well, Bill. What did you do this time?"

  "No idea, Cap'n. They say I broke a fellow's arm, but I don't remember. I'm not very big, am I, to be breaking another man's arm?" He put a shaky, thin hand to his brow. "Feel like the elephant at the 'Change is a-dancing on my head."

  "You'll likely go home soon," I said. "Is Pomeroy about?"

  "Aye, that he is. Hupstairs. With one of those Thames River blokes."

  "Thank you." I put a shilling in his hand that was not quite outstretched and made for the stairs.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Three

  Mr. Thompson of the Thames River Police was a lanky man whose clothes hung on his bony shoulders. He belonged to the body of patrollers who moved up and down the river, protecting the huge cargo ships at the London docks and beyond. The organization of patrollers had been formed years ago by those appalled by the number of thefts they endured while their ships moored in London. Eventually, the Thames River Police, as we now knew it, had come under the same authority as the Bow Street Runners, foot patrollers, and runners from other magistrates' houses.

  I liked Thompson, who had a sharp mind and quick intelligence. Usually, I enjoyed a chat with him, but today I wanted to talk to Pomeroy about my wife, not a conversation I wanted to share with Thompson. Therefore, I was a bit dismayed to not find Pomeroy in his room alone.

  Pomeroy had known my wife and about her desertion. I wanted to ask him to find out in what house in King Street Carlotta had taken rooms and to have one of his foot patrollers watch her. I did not trust her not to run away again, taking Gabriella with her.

  "Good morning, Captain," Thompson said. His countenance, as usual, was smooth and bland, but he had a definite spark in his eyes. Something had happened.

  "Was going to come round to see you later today," Pomeroy said. He got up from his writing table and saluted me, just as he'd done when he'd been my sergeant in the army. Milton Pomeroy was thick-bodied, tall, and athletic, had a shock of blond hair that he kept slicked down with pomade, and blue eyes that eyes were twinkling, eager, and good-humored.

  "Why?" I asked. I wondered whether he already knew that Carlotta had returned to England.

  "Crime, of course," Pomeroy said cheerfully. "A missing gel, specifically."

  "Oh?" I had looked for missing girls before, because unfortunately, girls and young women disappeared in London all the time. Procuresses met country coaches and lured girls to bawdy houses where they were forced to work. Sadly, some parents sold their daughters to these same houses for needed money. Reformers strove to put an end to this trafficking, and they had some success but not enough.

  "Yes, Captain," Pomeroy went on. "No respectable man's daughter this time, just a game girl. Her young man is worried about her because she hasn't come home. Went out to Covent Garden one night, he says, then vanished."

  "How long ago?" I asked, growing curious.

  "Week," Pomeroy said. "I thought at first she'd simply found herself a softer bed and a richer man. But the young man is worried she's been hurt by one of her customers or kept with him against her will. He's been round to all the workhouses and reforming houses, and asked all her pals, but he's not found her."

  "Perhaps she left London altogether," I said.

  "Maybe so, maybe so. But Mr. Thompson, here, he read my report over in Wapping and came to see me. Seems he's heard of one or two game girls a'disappearing from his part of London as well."

  Thompson broke in. "Two girls--neither knew each other as far as I can tell. One turned up in the river. She was with child, and so she might have done away with herself. The other was from Wapping. Lived with a sailor there when he was in port. He reported her missing after he'd gone to her usual haunts and heard from her friends that she hadn't been seen. She went to Covent Garden one night, to meet a chap, he claimed, and never returned. Her friends thought that perhaps she'd taken up with this fellow and become his ladybird, but they've not heard from her or seen her, and now they're worried as well."

  "None of these occurrences may mean something wrong," I said. On the other hand, Thompson, a careful man and not likely to chase shadows, had thought enough of it to come to Bow Street and speak to Pomeroy. "The girls could have gone to work in bawdy houses, although if they had protectors concerned enough to report them missing, I think it unlikely they did." I looked at Thompson. "What is your theory?"

  He shook his head. "No theories yet, Captain. Or rather, too many. The girls might be dead, by their hand or another's, they might be held against their will, they might have found new gents to take care of them, they might have returned to their mothers or fathers, they might have reformed and joined a crusade against prostitution. They might have done any number of things."

  He was right--too many possibilities as yet. I looked from Thompson to Pomeroy, both of whom watched me intently. "What are you asking of me?"

  "Well," Pomeroy said, "the girls I arrest and bring in here speak highly of you. Quite the gentleman, they think you. I told Thompson that if anyone could pry secrets from the game girls, it was my captain."

  I gave him a sardonic look. "You are tarnishing my reputation, Sergeant."

  Pomeroy grinned, loving to tease and pleased that he could. "You do have a way with them, Captain."

  Thompson looked slightly amused, betraying himself with no more than a twitch of lips. "The magistrates are not worried about these missing women, as yet," he said. "They are only street girls, after all."

  "Meaning it's unlikely that a large reward will be offered for their return," I finished.

  "Exactly," Pomeroy said. "But if a gent like you was to take a poke around and make sure no man what should be in Bedlam has decided to start offing game girls, well then, that's a different thing."

  I knew how my former sergeant thought--I would investigate, and if a tru
e crime were involved, I would report it to him so that he might find the criminal, get said criminal convicted, and reap the reward money. A gentleman did not accept a reward; this was considered beneath him, so Pomeroy's thoughts went. I'd brought him a few good convictions already, and he'd started to consider me a potential source of income.

  Thompson, on the other hand, was more interested in the crime itself, though he'd not turn down any reward money that came his way. He did not often express emotion, but I had seen his passionate anger at the men of the world who perpetrated crimes against the helpless. He would worry about missing game girls where his magistrate would not. Likely he'd come here without his magistrate knowing a thing about it.

  I was at present most distracted by Carlotta's sudden return and the vision of my daughter, grown and so beautiful, but I could not turn my back on a matter that Thompson, a man I respected, believed serious.

  "I do have a few resources," I said.

  "Knew you'd understand, Captain," Pomeroy said. "You have a gab with the girls and tell us what you discover, eh?"

  Thompson looked less optimistic. "The sailor might be willing to speak to you, to tell you about his girl and her usual routine. He's leery of magistrates, though. He can meet you at a tavern, and I'm sure he'd be forthcoming to you if you purchased him some ale."

  "The Rearing Pony in Maiden Lane," I said. "It's a congenial house."

  "Then I will send him round there tomorrow, if it is convenient."

  Pomeroy and Thompson could tell me little more. The young man who had approached Pomeroy was called Tom Marcus and did odd deliveries in and around Covent Garden. I might be able to find him if I looked.

  "By the bye, Captain," Pomeroy said when I started to take my leave. "Why did you look me up today?"

  I still did not want to discuss things in front of Thompson, and I'd changed my mind about asking for the exuberant Pomeroy's help. Carlotta's actions--deserting me and taking my daughter, who, by law, belonged to me--could land her in the dock to be tried for abduction and abandonment. While I respected Thompson and stood in awe of Pomeroy's ability to catch even the most slippery thief, I scarcely wanted either of these men to arrest the delicate Carlotta on a point of law. Pomeroy and Thompson had to be sticklers for the rules, while I considered this a purely private matter. I could discover Carlotta's lodgings in King Street if I looked hard enough, and I'd deal with the problem myself.