by D. M. Quincy
“Did he tell you anything else about her?” Atlas pressed. “Anything at all? Are you certain she really existed?”
“Oh, yes.” She nodded her head vigorously. “Gordon was uncommonly handsome. All the girls were drawn to him. Young and old. High and low. He lost a position in a fine house once when the young lady of the house became too familiar with him.”
“What house was this?” Atlas asked.
“Lord Merton’s.”
“Viscount Merton?” Lilliana asked.
The maid nodded in sharp, indignant motions. “Gordy was let go without reference. As if it was his fault the young lady behaved in a forward manner.”
“I see.” Atlas forced an expression of polite impassivity even though Tacy’s brother struck him as an unsavory character. “One of your brother’s acquaintances tells me that Mr. Davis was once betrothed to a wealthy young woman who jilted him.”
Tacy blinked. “No, sir. He must be mistaken. My brother was never betrothed before.”
“You mentioned to Lady Roslyn that your brother had enemies?”
She nodded vigorously. “Gordy told me as much. He said people resented him on account of his charm and good looks.”
Gordon Davis had certainly thought highly of himself. “Did he mention anyone in particular who might have wanted to harm him?”
Tacy sniffled. “No, sir.”
He asked the maid a few more questions. When he was done, Lilliana dismissed the woman and turned to him. “I presume you will wish to speak with Lord Merton.”
“I would, yes.” He grimaced. He had only a passing acquaintance with Jermyn Fenton, the Viscount of Merton. “But I can hardly ask the man about a servant who might have dallied with his daughter.”
She sipped her tea. “Especially not now, with the Season getting under way in earnest.”
“How does that signify?” He was not familiar with the particulars of the Season, a period of months when London’s finest families engaged in a whirlwind of festivities and social engagements to entertain themselves while parliament was in session.
The Catesbys were not deeply entrenched in the upper echelons of society. Although they could trace their roots back to King Edward III—as Charlton was so fond of pointing out—the family had been untitled until about twenty years ago when Atlas’s father, a celebrated poet, had been awarded a barony.
“What does the Season have to do with my speaking with Lord Merton?” he asked her.
“Lord Merton only has one daughter—Lavinia,” she explained. “The girl is in her second Season and no doubt hopes to land a husband this year.”
Now he understood. “Any rumors of her dallying with a servant would not assist in that endeavor.”
“Precisely,” she said with a sharp nod. “Therefore, you may speak with Lord Merton here.”
“Where here?” he asked blankly.
“Somerville is hosting his main entertainment for the Season in a few days’ time.” She raised her teacup from its saucer, pausing just before it reached her lips. “He prefers to get it over with before the Season begins in earnest, now that Easter has come and gone. Naturally, you must attend.”
“Naturally.” He began to see where she meant to lead him. It took him a moment longer than it should have because he was unused to viewing Lilliana as part of the aristocracy, which was ridiculous considering their sumptuous surroundings. Apart from the plush furnishings, priceless paintings adorned the walls, and equally precious artifacts graced the gleaming tabletops.
Lilliana gave every appearance of being at ease in this imposing space, inhabiting it all as easily as he slipped into his comfortable old dressing gown. It was no wonder. She was the sister of a duke and, as Somerville was unwed, no doubt served as the ducal hostess as well.
“Lord Merton is to be one of your guests,” he said. It was not a question.
“Precisely. And while you speak with him, I shall have a friendly chat with his daughter, Lady Lavinia, in an attempt to ascertain if there is any truth to what Tacy says about her brother and the young lady.”
“It certainly seems as though Mr. Davis made a habit of dallying with young ladies who were above his station. That could certainly earn one enemies.”
“More than one young lady?” She sipped her tea. “Maybe Lord Merton’s daughter and the mysterious woman Mr. Davis intended to marry are one and the same.”
He shifted in his seat. “I would be surprised if that were the case.”
“Would you?” She regarded him with open curiosity. “Why? It makes perfect sense for the two to be the same woman.”
He puffed out his cheeks and then exhaled. “It is my understanding that Mr. Davis was rather . . . erm . . . rather well acquainted . . . extremely so . . . intimately . . . with the mystery woman he hoped to marry.”
“I see.” She took a moment to consider his revelation. “How scandalous.”
“Indeed.” He gulped his tea. “I rather doubt the daughter of a peer would be left without a chaperone long enough to engage in . . .”
Her lips twitched with amusement. “Really, Atlas, you hardly have to protect me from the indecent aspects of the case. I am a widow after all.” She regarded him over the rim of her porcelain cup. “Besides, the unseemly details tend to be the most intriguing. Please be frank, and do stop trying to protect my sensibilities.”
He released a breath. “As you wish.”
“So was Mr. Davis taking arsenic or not?” she asked. “Tacy said he didn’t suffer any lung ailments.”
“Yes, I do believe he was taking it. He was caught stealing the poison at the factory.”
“Why would he do that?” she asked. “What was he taking arsenic for?”
He looked away, breaking eye contact. “For amorous reasons.”
“Amorous reasons? I don’t understand.”
He stood, still avoiding her gaze. “That is just as well.” The words were rather sharp. “Rest assured, I don’t plan to explain it to you in any great detail. I have my limits while in polite company.”
She came to her feet as well. “Are you leaving?”
“Has Tacy collected her brother’s things from his boardinghouse? I’d like to have a look at them.”
“No. As a matter of fact, she has asked for some time off tomorrow afternoon to go and collect them.”
“I should like to go and have a look around before she packs everything up.”
“Certainly,” Lilliana said. “I’ll come too.”
Chapter Four
The lodging house where Gordon Davis had lived and died was located on a narrow lane off Great Russell Street in Bloomsbury. The neighborhood was no longer fashionable, but the size and quality of the homes—despite their definite air of decay—assured that Bloomsbury would never fall into complete disrepair in the manner of Seven Dials to the south.
A testament to the area’s respectability was the fact that Atlas’s sister lived several streets away. Thea, a mathematician who was always grappling with one equation or the other, preferred to reside among the upper-middle-class doctors, lawyers, and architects who inhabited some of the quarter’s finer homes rather than in very fashionable Mayfair, where her husband, Charles Palmer, had wanted to take a house.
The lodging house was old-fashioned in appearance, the carpets threadbare, the curtains worn and faded from decades of use. The residence was clean and tidy, with an upright and conservative air, not unlike the landlady who greeted Atlas and Lilliana before leading them up the stairs to Davis’s room.
“A terrible shock it was,” said Mrs. Norman when they reached the landing. “He’d been ill for a few days, complaining of terrible stomach pains.”
“Did you summon a doctor?” Lilliana asked. She looked incredibly elegant and expensive. From the first, Lilliana had always been flawless in her dress and appearance, but her husband had not provided her with gowns made of the finest fabrics, as her brother now did.
“I didn’t call for the doctor until that l
ast evening,” the landlady replied. “I had been out all day, staying out much later than is my usual habit. When I did arrive home, I found Mr. Gordon had become much worse, so I insisted on summoning the doctor.”
“What happened when the doctor came?” Atlas stepped onto the landing behind the women. “Was he able to provide any relief?”
“He administered morphine.” The landlady led them down the wide corridor of the once-grand home, where the soft green paint was cracked and faded. Her voice became more hushed. “But it did no good. By morning, Mr. Davis was gone. I have always thought that if I’d come home earlier, as I usually did, then perhaps that agreeable young man might have been saved.”
“You cannot blame yourself,” Lilliana said kindly.
Atlas hesitated before asking the question that had been on the tip of his tongue since they’d arrived. “Did Mr. Davis receive many visitors? A young lady, perhaps, who might have visited Mr. Davis’s room?”
The older woman pinned him with a sharp look. “Absolutely not. I run a respectable house. No ladies are ever allowed abovestairs. Unless, of course, they are married residents. We have couples here, but we do not allow children. The couples live down a separate hall.”
Lilliana patted the woman’s arm. “It is obvious to anyone who visits here that this is a respectable house.”
Mrs. Norman appeared somewhat mollified. “Mr. Davis did not have visitors, but he was in the habit of receiving letters. A great many of them, all in the same hand.”
“Did he ever mention who they were from?” Atlas inquired.
“No, not that I recall. Toward the end, those last few weeks, the correspondence slowed down considerably, which seemed to upset Mr. Davis.”
Lilliana, who’d been listening intently, said, “We have heard that Mr. Davis had a special friend, a lady he hoped to marry.”
“He did mention a young lady.” Mrs. Norman’s expression softened. “He cared for her a great deal. So much so that Mr. Davis said he would forgive her if she tried to poison him.”
Atlas and Lilliana exchanged a startled look. “I beg your pardon,” Lilliana said. “Did Mr. Davis believe his beloved was trying to kill him?”
Mrs. Norman pressed her thin lips together until they all but vanished. “He said he couldn’t imagine why he felt so ill after drinking the chocolate she’d served him. That was when he said he loved her so much that he would forgive her even if she’d poisoned him.”
“When was this?” Atlas said.
“About a fortnight before he passed.”
Lilliana’s delicate brow furrowed. “But why would she try to kill him if they were in love?”
Mrs. Norman clasped her hands together in front of her thick waist. “I didn’t credit it at the time. I thought perhaps the illness was making him feverish and confused.” She stopped before a closed door. “I cannot imagine any young woman turning Mr. Davis away. He was such a handsome and agreeable man. Charmed everyone who knew him.” She paused. “Except perhaps Mr. Perry.”
“Who is Mr. Perry?” Atlas wanted to know.
“One of my tenants. He lives on the east hall with his wife, where my married couples reside. The rooms are a little bit bigger there.” She pushed the door open. “Here it is, Mr. Davis’s room.”
The landlady stepped aside to let them enter, which Lilliana did, while Atlas paused in the doorframe. The house might have been old, but it had stately bones and generously sized chambers. A neatly made four-poster bed dominated the space. The carpet was ragged but clean. The room was also furnished with a dresser and small scratched-up escritoire with a hard chair that had seen better days. Books, papers, and notebooks were neatly stacked on the table. An old stuffed chair was positioned before the empty fireplace. For a man of his station and resources, Mr. Davis had lived in relative comfort.
Lilliana crossed over to the desk for a closer look at the books and papers, but Atlas held in place, eager to learn more about the man who had found Mr. Davis less than charming. “Did this Mr. Perry have a quarrel with Mr. Davis?”
Mrs. Norman sighed. “He accused Mr. Davis of untoward behavior toward Mrs. Perry. It was all nonsense, of course. Mr. Perry is a terribly jealous man. Mr. Davis intended to marry his young lady. He would not look at another woman.”
Lilliana looked up from the notebook she was thumbing through. “Mr. Davis told you that he hoped to wed. Did he say when?”
“He did not.”
“Do you know if he visited his betrothed?” Atlas asked.
She wrinkled her nose. “He often went out late at night. Since he carried on a private correspondence and I knew he expected to wed soon, I never inquired too closely as to where he went in the late hours.”
Atlas wanted to ask more about Mr. Perry, the jealous upstairs neighbor; however, before he could question her further, the landlady excused herself, saying she had to attend to matters in the kitchen. After she’d gone, Atlas turned to find Lilliana regarding him with twinkling eyes. “He was certainly popular with the ladies, our Mr. Davis.”
He couldn’t help but agree. “We may have no end of suspects at this rate.”
“Indeed.” She reached for a notebook and thumbed through it, methodically going through the things on Davis’s table as she spoke. “Jealous husbands, angry fathers. The list of suspects could go on and on.”
Atlas wondered how many women Davis had been courting at the same time. He began to see why the dead man had felt he needed to take arsenic to enhance his stamina. “Thus far, there are at least three, maybe four women we know him to possibly have been involved with.”
“Four women?”
He counted them off on his fingers. “The upstairs neighbor, Lord Merton’s daughter, the mystery woman he was seeing when he died, and the wealthy woman Davis’s colleague said was once his betrothed but jilted him before the wedding.”
“But Tacy said he hadn’t been betrothed before.”
“Maybe he never told her.”
“Possibly five women.” She looked up from the open notebook in her hand. “I believe I’ve found Mr. Davis’s journal.”
He went immediately to her side. The notebook was of surprisingly good quality, with a red morocco binding and white vellum pages trimmed in what appeared to be gold leaf.
“That’s a fine notebook for a lowly clerk,” he observed.
“It seems our Mr. Davis had a taste for the better things in life.”
“And possibly aimed to marry money so that he could indulge those tastes.” He peered down at the notebook in her hands. “What does it say?”
She thumbed through the log. “There are only a few entries. It looks like he started it shortly before he died.”
He read over her shoulder, standing close enough for the fleeting scent of jasmine and cloves to tease his nostrils. There were only eleven entries, which primarily catalogued Davis’s declining health in the three weeks leading up to his death. Davis wrote of suffering bouts of illness twice immediately after visiting his beloved, referred to only as Lady L. The last entry was dated the evening before Davis’s death:
This evening I took chocolate with my beloved and reveled in what little time we can spend in each other’s company . . .
“Well,” Lilliana said. “This certainly corroborates what the landlady said.”
He nodded gravely. “That Mr. Davis suspected the woman he loved was poisoning him.” He surveyed the chamber. “Now we must see if there is anything here that will help lead us to her.”
They proceeded to go through all of the dead man’s personal effects, everything in his wardrobe or stored under the bed. Unfortunately, the desk drawers were locked.
“No letters,” Lilliana observed.
“And no arsenic. If he took such a large quantity of the poison, we should find it somewhere in this room.”
“Do you think he locked it up in his escritoire?”
“It makes perfect sense,” Atlas said. “Now all we must do is find the key.”
While Lilliana went in search of the landlady to ask after the keys to the desk, Atlas seized the opportunity to seek out the dead man’s jealous neighbor. He wandered through the corridor until he came upon a male boarder who directed him to the area of the lodging house where the married couples resided.
He found Mrs. Perry alone in the rented room she shared with her husband. The space was larger than Davis’s accommodations, but the condition of the furnishings was similar.
“I am sorry,” she said after he had introduced himself, “but my husband has gone out.”
Although he had hoped to speak with Mr. Perry, Atlas welcomed the opportunity to question the man’s wife. The landlady had said Davis and Mr. Perry had fallen out over the latter’s wife. Mrs. Perry did not look like a woman who ignited men’s passions. She was a little thing, somewhat homely, very thin, with faded features except for the curved pointed nose that dominated her narrow face.
“I am assisting Mr. Davis’s sister in sorting through her late brother’s belongings,” he told her, hoping to strike up a conversation.
“It’s a very sad thing,” she said. “He was such a young man.”
“Were you well acquainted with Mr. Davis?”
“We spoke on occasion.”
“May I ask about what?”
She tilted her head to the side as she studied him. “What is your interest in my association with Mr. Davis?”
He decided to speak honestly. “Mr. Davis’s sister believes her brother’s death was no accident.”
Her eyes widened slightly. “Oh, I see.” With a motion of her hand, she invited him to sit. He took one of the ladder-back chairs tucked neatly under the small scarred table while she slipped into the other. “I do not know if I can be of any help to you, but I shall try.”
“Perhaps we could begin with you telling me what you thought of Mr. Davis?”
“He was a very agreeable young man.”
Mr. Davis had certainly had a way with women. Atlas could not think of an acceptable way to ask her how agreeable she had found the dead man, so he tried a different approach. “And did your husband think well of your fellow boarder?”