Murder in Bloomsbury

by D. M. Quincy

  “Mr. Perry mistakenly assumed that Mr. Davis had designs on me.” She spoke with calm certainty. “But he could not have been more wrong.”

  “How can you be so certain?”

  She gave a slight closemouthed smile. “Because Mr. Davis was betrothed. He had no interest in someone like me.”

  Davis certainly hadn’t been shy about sharing his romantic hopes with people. “What did he tell you about the young woman he hoped to marry?”

  “Very little, but it was apparent that Mr. Davis was very attached to her.”

  “Do you have any idea who she is?”

  “No, none.” She paused. “Though, in the last fortnight before he died, there was a change in him.”

  “How so?”

  “Mr. Davis felt he detected a cooling in her ardor for him, and it upset him greatly.”

  The door swung open. “What is this?” a rough male voice asked.

  Atlas stood to greet the grizzled middle-aged man who appeared to be at least a decade older than his wife. “Mr. Perry, I presume?”

  “That’s right.” The man shut the door with a noisy bang behind him. “You’re a stranger to me. Why are you alone with my wife?”

  “This is Mr. Catesby.” Mrs. Perry came to her feet as well. “He is looking into Mr. Davis’s death.”

  Perry’s nose wrinkled. “He was a snake, that one. Always sniffing after things that didn’t belong to him.”

  His wife exhaled quietly, wearily. “I have told my husband that Mr. Davis was not interested in me.”

  “Why wouldn’t he be?” her husband returned gruffly, sounding indignant on his wife’s behalf. “You’re the finest woman I know.”

  She blushed prettily at the compliment. “Mr. Perry knows he is the only man for me,” she told Atlas. “As for Mr. Davis, he was looking to marry high. He said his betrothed was a gently raised young woman from a family of social standing.”

  “But it was probably her handsome dowry the cur found most appealing.” Mr. Perry made a rude sound. “Davis was always looking above himself. He thought he could woo a woman with his pretty face and prettier manners. I suspect the fathers were not as easy to win over.”

  “That is true,” his wife agreed. “Mr. Davis said his betrothal must be kept secret until his lady’s father could be made amenable to the match.”

  Atlas considered her words. If Davis had been bedding his betrothed, perhaps he’d hoped to get her with child in order to force the union upon her reluctant family. “Did you ever see a young lady visit him here?”

  “No,” said Mrs. Perry. “Mrs. Norman is very strict about unwed boarders entertaining visitors in their bedchambers.”

  “I will walk you out,” Mr. Perry said abruptly. Atlas thanked the man’s wife for her time before following her husband out the door.

  Perry remained quiet until they reached the stairs. “I saw Davis once with a young lady.”

  “She visited him here?”

  The other man shook his head. “I saw them just the one time, walking near the Strand. It was before we had words about my wife. Davis pretended not to see me and steered the young woman in the opposite direction.”

  Atlas’s skin tingled. Here was a possible clue as to the mystery woman’s identity. “What did she look like?”

  “Average. Perhaps even a little plain. But she was finely dressed and carried herself like a prize.”

  “Her hair color?”

  “I don’t recall. She wore a hat.”

  “If you saw her again, do you think you’d recognize her?”

  “Possibly.” Perry considered for a moment. “Yes, I think I could. I never forget a face. Even an unremarkable one.”

  Atlas asked a few more questions about the mystery lady’s appearance but learned nothing more. After thanking Perry for his help, Atlas went down to meet up with Lilliana. He found her waiting for him in the front hall. “Any luck with the keys?” he asked.

  “None. I hope Tacy has them. Did you have any luck with Mr. Perry?”

  He shot her a surprised look. “How did you know that I went to speak with him?”

  “Please. It is the obvious next step in the investigation.” She practically rolled her eyes at him but was too much of a lady to actually do so. “Shall we go and see if Tacy has the keys? And you can tell me what you have learned.”

  * * *

  Tacy did have the keys to her brother’s escritoire, so Atlas and Lilliana returned the following afternoon to resume their search of Gordon Davis’s things.

  There were two locked drawers, and Atlas discovered a stack of letters bound together by a ribbon. He pulled at the ribbon, untying it so that the letters separated. He noted that they were written by a different hand than Davis’s journal.

  My dearest beloved pet, began one of them. He rifled quickly through the others and saw they also began with intimate endearments: Dearest and beloved, I hope you are well and My dear sweet Gordon, I am sorry I cannot see you this week.

  Anticipation coursed through his blood. “I do believe we have found our mystery lady’s letters to Mr. Davis.”

  Lilliana, who’d been searching the drawer on the opposite side of the escritoire, straightened, abandoning her task. “Who is she?”

  He continued to go through the letters. “She hasn’t signed any of them with her full name.” He paused at one. “Now this is intriguing.”

  She came up next to him. “What is?”

  He handed her the letter. “She signs it ‘Mrs. Davis.’”

  She studied the signature. “Do you think they married in secret?”

  “Perhaps.” They each took one of the hard chairs at the battered table and began to read through the letters. Each was signed either as Your beloved wife, Mrs. Davis, or simply, intriguingly, just with the single letter L.

  Lilliana looked up. “Lord Merton’s daughter is called Lavinia. She could be the mysterious Lady L.”

  “It makes sense. Davis certainly claimed an association with the young lady, to his sister at least. But then again, there are many names that begin with L.” He smiled. “Lilliana, for instance.”

  She arched a brow. “Am I to be a suspect yet again?”

  “I’ll be certain not to make any mention of this to Endicott,” he said with dark humor. He held up the letter he’d been reading. “This could be a secret code. L might be a private name Davis and his young lady shared only between themselves that no one else knew of.”

  “Do you think if we discover who Lady L is that we will have found Mr. Davis’s killer?”

  Atlas didn’t look up from the letter in his hand. “I think she is our most likely suspect at the moment.”

  “Then I suppose we should keep reading and see what clues there are to be found.” They read quietly for several minutes until Lilliana broke the silence.

  “Oh, my.” She put a hand to her chest.

  Atlas glanced up from the letter he was reading. “What is it?”

  She swallowed, her color high, the delicate cords in her neck sliding under porcelain skin. “Some of the letters are rather . . . amorous.”

  He took the missive from her, his attention going directly to the passage she pointed out to him:

  Our intimacy is not wrong, my dear love, as I am your wife in the eyes of God—so it has been no sin our loving of each other . . . I ache for the day when we will always be together . . .

  “Well.” He felt his face warming. “This seems to confirm reports of great intimacy between them, which suggests that maybe they did marry.”

  She was already reading another letter. “Or perhaps not.” She handed it to him.

  I am as much your wife as if we’d been wed a year . . . your visit last night was astonishing . . . how I longed for you. Only you can answer the ache in me. I can never be the wife of another after our intimacy.

  “It does not make sense for her to be the murderer.” Lilliana’s finely arched brows drew together. “If she loved him so, why would she kill him?”
>
  He thought of what Mrs. Perry had said, that Davis worried his betrothed’s feelings had changed. “Some love affairs cool.”

  Their eyes met for a moment before he rose and paced away. “These letters are ruinous to the girl, should they become public.”

  “Perhaps that is why she did not sign them with her true name.”

  He faced her. “You think she did not trust him to keep their secret?”

  “I think it is possible. A woman’s good reputation is all she has.” Lilliana reached for another letter and focused on it. “Let’s see what else there is to learn.” Atlas retook his seat, and after several minutes, Lilliana found what she was looking for.

  “Now this,” she said, “could be a motive for murder.”

  Chapter Five

  Atlas set aside the letter in his hands. “What have you found?”

  Lilliana’s eyes sparkled with excitement. “It seems Mr. Davis was keen to end the affair.”

  “Truly?” Atlas felt a jolt of contempt for Davis. For a man to take a young girl’s innocence with the full intention of taking her to wife was one thing. To take her maidenhood and then jilt her was quite another. “If so, he was a scoundrel of the lowest sort.”

  “She detects that his feelings are no longer engaged.” Lilliana looked to the letter and began reading Lady L’s missive out loud:

  I am truly astonished that you returned your letter to me. It will be your last opportunity to do so. Since you are displeased with my letters, our correspondence should cease immediately. You may have detected a coolness in me, and that is because my love for you has ceased.

  “It seems to have ended badly,” Atlas said, stating the obvious. “On both parts.”

  Lilliana’s eyes met his. “Even more badly than you think.” She continued reading:

  I trust your honor as a gentleman that you will never reveal what has passed between us. I shall be obliged if you would return all of my letters to me. Please bring them to the gate Tuesday evening at seven. I know you will comply with what I ask.

  Atlas sat back in the chair, considering the implications of the letter. “It appears our mysterious Lady L was fully aware of the ruin that awaited her should these missives become public.”

  “Perhaps Mr. Davis intended to return them as she asked. Maybe he died before he had the chance.” She turned the letter over, examining it. “There is no date on this.”

  “If Mr. Davis refused to return the missives, I do believe, as you have said, that the lady had a strong motive to kill him.”

  Skepticism filled Lilliana’s refined face. “It seems a very poor plan indeed. If she were to kill him, someone else was bound to find the letters . . . as we have done.”

  “We are, presumably, talking about a very young girl. Perhaps an inexperienced one until her association with Davis.”

  “And young girls can make very foolish decisions.” She shot him a wry look. “I am certainly proof of that.” She no doubt referred to her unfortunate marriage at the tender age of sixteen.

  “I disagree.” He spoke with feeling. “You were barely more than a girl when you found yourself in a most precarious situation. Not many sheltered orphaned daughters of dukes would be enterprising enough to retain a position as a shopgirl. You knew nothing of the outside world, yet you found a respectable way to survive.”

  Surprise lit her eyes, perhaps because he’d spoken so vehemently in her defense. “Still my champion.” She smiled softly. “As ever.”

  He stared at the letter in her hand. “I wonder if our mysterious Lady L has a champion. Someone who would be determined to protect her honor.”

  “Someone who learned she’d been ruined and was outraged, who might be driven to kill for her?” She rested her chin in her hand, her gaze far off as she contemplated. “But would such a person have left the letters behind?”

  “What if this person didn’t know of their existence?” He absently straightened the papers scattered on the worn table as he considered the possibilities. “What if he—or she, for that matter—believes that by killing the offender, all traces of the offense itself have been wiped out?”

  “She?” Lilliana mused. “Do you truly think the killer could be a woman?”

  “It was death by arsenic,” he said. “Poison is said to be a woman’s weapon.”

  “I wonder if it is men who say that,” Lilliana replied, her tone as tart as a lemon pasty.

  He cracked a smile. “It is more than likely.”

  Lilliana wasn’t one to allow dubious assertions to go unchallenged. Her experience with her late husband—and the laws that had given him all right over her and their two children—seemed to have sharpened her sensitivity to the lot of women in society.

  Atlas felt the need to defend himself in order to keep her good opinion. “I suppose, given the brutish nature of men, I assumed we would most naturally respond to provocation by resorting to physicality and violence, say with a good throttling or a bullet.”

  “And if the man is a coward who prefers not to come face-to-face with his adversary?”

  He laughed out loud then, recalling how much he’d admired her keen intellect and quick wit when they’d first met. “Point taken. I stand corrected. Our killer could be a man or a woman.”

  * * *

  Noel Archer, controlling owner of the Gunther & Archer Dye Company where Gordon Davis had worked, lived in Clapham, in the southwest part of the city. The district was perhaps best known as an enclave for social reformers—well-to-do residents who fought to abolish slavery and child labor in England.

  Clapham was also favored by wealthier merchants. Over the past twenty years or so, they’d built gracious houses that fit snugly around the common. The Archer home, a large modern brick structure set behind a hedged front garden, was one of these newer additions.

  Atlas alighted from the hackney, pulling his dark greatcoat more tightly around him. The unusually late spring chill had persisted, and dampness filled the air. As he approached the iron front gate, a feminine voice called out to greet him.

  “Good day, sir.”

  He turned to find two well-dressed young women strolling toward him with their arms linked, their cheeks healthy with color brought on by the brisk weather. A black-clad maid trailed behind them.

  “Have you come to call on Papa?” the shorter of the two girls asked cheerfully. He saw that a slingshot dangled from her free hand.

  “If your father is Mr. Archer, then yes, I have.”

  “He is,” the girl responded. Atlas guessed her to be around fifteen years of age. “I am Harriet, and this is my sister, Elizabeth.”

  “Harriet!” her sister hissed with a visible tug of the younger girl’s arm. “You mustn’t talk to strangers in the street.” Elizabeth—clearly the older of the two—was a plainer, less vibrant version of her sister.

  “Pish.” The censure from her elder sibling didn’t appear to bother young Harriet, an energetic pixie of a girl, who apparently had a tendency to be outspoken. “He’s obviously a gentleman, and he’s come to call on Papa, so he’s hardly a stranger.”

  He drew off his hat to introduce himself. “Atlas Catesby.”

  Elizabeth paused for a moment, studying him. She appeared to be several years older than her sister, perhaps around twenty. The girls shared fair complexions with rosy cheeks and strawberry-blonde hair. “Catesby?”

  “At your service,” he affirmed.

  “Are you . . . per chance . . . any relation to Silas Catesby?”

  “He was my father.”

  Her gray eyes lit up, enlivening an otherwise unremarkable visage. “My goodness. What an honor it is to meet you.”

  “I’m afraid I cannot claim any credit for my father’s talent. Our connection was a fortunate accident of birth.” He’d become accustomed to effusive reactions at the mention of his father. Silas Catesby had been a brilliant, talented man whose poetry was among the greatest England had ever produced.

  Harriet aimed her slings
hot across the common. “There’s Old Man Miller. I wager I could hit him right in the backside.”

  “Harriet!” Elizabeth exclaimed.

  “What?” Harriet protested. “I’m an excellent shot, and you know it.”

  “That is quite beside the point,” her sister admonished. “Put that thing away. Everyone will think you’re an uncivilized hoyden.”

  Harriet lifted her chin. “I would take that as a compliment. Being ladylike is ever so tiresome.”

  Atlas suppressed a smile. He liked the younger girl’s spirit.

  Elizabeth cast him an apologetic look. “Please do come in.” She sidled past him to push the gate open. “I believe Papa is at home to visitors.”

  Amusement danced in Harriet’s eyes as she lowered her weapon. “I thought we are not supposed to talk with strangers.”

  Elizabeth shot her younger sister a daggered look. “This is Mr. Catesby. His father was one of England’s greatest poets.”

  “Truly?” Harriet looked only half interested. “Are you a great poet as well, Mr. Catesby?”

  “Unfortunately not.” Atlas did write long letters to his sister Thea when he was abroad; he also kept a meandering journal of his travels, but he was no Silas Catesby. Few people were. “My father did not pass his talents on to his children,” he said with a smile. “Though I would not have minded if he had.”

  They went past the gate to the curved Doric front porch. He followed the young ladies through the glazed burgundy front door, entering perhaps the newest home he’d ever visited. Elizabeth directed the servant who greeted them to bring in a tea tray and dispatched young Harriet to go and tell their father he had a caller.

  Elizabeth showed Atlas to a drawing room with large sash windows, gleaming paneled flooring, and shiny new furnishings. After inviting him to sit, she asked a few questions about his father. People were generally curious about his father, and Atlas had come to repeat the answers almost by rote. He did not mind people’s interest. In a way, it kept his father alive.

  “Do you know Papa?” Elizabeth asked as a servant arrived with the tea tray.

  “I have not had the pleasure as of yet.”