She disappeared for a bag of salt and basin of water. Wyre studied the grated skin, struggling to understand how such a light injury could produce so much claret. He felt a pang of sympathy for the Duke . . . If his wounds weren’t fictional – a big ‘if’, he felt – what agonies they must have caused him!
Miss Crawford returned with her accoutrements. “After Robert’s arrest,” she said, kneeling down, tipping the salt into the basin, “my father presented me with an ultimatum.” The salt sliding into water made a hissing, cracking sound that reminded him of St Mary’s. “Either I abandoned Robert, or my father’s house.” She dipped the sponge, offering it to the raw flesh. (Wyre flinched.) “As you can see, I elected for the latter.” She wrung out the sponge; his blood clouded the water in little brown expansions. “For propriety’s sake, Robert took a room in Primrose Hill. Our plan was to found a retreat for the psychically afflicted. A childish fantasy,” she added, with downcast eyes. “I see that now.”
Her breath on his wet skin was electrifying. Feeling his shirt tails twitch, Wyre willed his mind to empty. If she noticed the curious folds, she betrayed no sign. How could she not have seen?
“Memories fade,” he said, swallowing hard. “The public will forget his disgrace.”
“They won’t be allowed to forget,” she said, dabbing the graze dry. Producing a court-plaister, she dampened the adhesive backing with wetted fingers. “My father – ” she lifted her head, her eyes meeting his “ – taught me never to attempt a union of lips with a dog wound. Better to leave it gaping. That way it won’t fester.” She smoothed the plaister out, pressing hard at the edges. “All done, Mr Wyre.”
A fishy smell rose from the sticky square of silk and cotton.
She pointed at the torn breeches, which lay discarded in a ragged heap on the floor. “You can’t return to the Palace in those. Robert’s about your size.”
She disappeared again. While he waited, his eyes moved over the bubbling wall-paper, the dark blooms of ceiling mould. She deserved better. Much better. He also thought idly about Leighton’s running machine, lying in the blind alley. In all likelihood, some enterprising young street ruffians had found it and sold it on.
Miss Crawford appeared with a pair of brown-and-yellow checked trousers folded over her arm. “Robert won’t mind.”
Wyre rose stiffly. Turning aside, he pulled them on. They fit well enough; a touch baggy at the front.
58. The Patron of Lepers
Miss Crawford’s Montego salt did the trick. After a cup of strong Jamaican coffee, Wyre felt well enough to walk back to the Palace. He’d be cutting things fine. Read wouldn’t wait. Or the Duke wouldn’t.
The city’s clocks had already struck five before he passed under St James’s echoing arch. Walking along the endlessly intersecting corridors, he longed for Paulet to appear to show him the most direct route. Wyre stopped at a glossy door that stood a little ajar. His name, whispered. His first name, shortened familiarly to one syllable . . .
Warily, heart racing, he placed his hand against the finger-plate; the door swung inwards on well-balanced hinges, revealing a long room of dark cut-outs. The gloom seemed to have been sieved through itself. Heavy drapes blocked the light from the windows. Slowly, areas of detail materialized. Someone was at a wide desk, slumped in a high-backed chair holding a handkerchief to his mouth. Like the patron of lepers himself, freshly hauled from the tomb, the man had undergone an appalling transformation since Wyre had last seen him, his cheeks sunken and yellowish, the eyes cold, relentless lumps.
“Soz, Kit,” the words came in rasps. “I couldn’t see any other way.”
Fists clenched, Wyre took a step forward. “I saw your body!” he said angrily. “Cline was there. The smell . . . Was that someone’s idea of a joke?”
“It may have been a touch theatrical, I concede.” Leighton spluttered, wiping his mouth. “In my game, you make style a means to an end. The stink came courtesy of some bits and pieces Cline brought from the morgue.”
“But the stretcher bearers. You were rigid to the touch.”
“Not actual stretcher bearers. Which isn’t to say the rogues aren’t used to conveying dead bodies about the city. As for rigid, that was down to one of Cline’s preparations. Induced the cold rigour of death. Tasted like shit, but it was enough to fool Solomon.” Leighton drew evidently painful breath. “I was out of it, Kit. Cline told me afterwards you’d turned up. You weren’t meant to see all that. It wasn’t for your benefit.”
“Then for whose?”
“Bow Street’s.”
That explanation might do for a jilted taproom trull, but Wyre needed more. “How did you get past the Palace guards?”
“Oh,” Leighton said vaguely, “plenty of ways through the pampas. There are a good deal more undocumented comings and goings here than you might think.” He wiped his brow. Was that one of Rose’s handkerchiefs? “You wanted to know where I kept disappearing these last months. Intelligencing – ” He coughed again. “Right up the arse of the enigma. I had my sights trained on the Palace long before that love letter to Sellis turned up in Crispin Street.” He winced again as if something deep within had unknit. “The story began months ago with the death of a footman.”
“Tranter . . .”
“Bravo.” The Runner doffed an imaginary hat. “Ventilated his own skull one bright morning. At least the Palace said he did. Bow Street went along with that, logged it as suicide. Read himself was there to oversee the investigation. Asked for especially. You see a pattern building?” Leighton tugged at his collar. “But one by one, my noses on the street started whispering.” His face was desolate. “They whispered, Kit – and it was always the same name.”
“Mr Parlez-Vous. I found your torn-out page of notebook.”
Leighton looked admiringly. “We’ll make a Runner of you yet.” He doubled over as a spasm of coughs wracked his body. “It was Parlez-Vous who brought me to the Palace. I got myself taken on as valet to the Duke of York. Wasn’t as hard as you’d imagine, or as hard as it should be. I reinvented myself as Mr Gew.”
That was good as far as it went, but it didn’t explain everything. “You knew the whole time what Sellis was planning?”
“What Sellis was planning? Come on, Kit, you saw the poor sap’s hands. They were clean. Not so much as a smear of blood.”
“Read says he must have washed them.”
“How could a man who’d just cut his own throat calmly rise and wash his hands?” The Runner’s eyes slid to the side. “It wasn’t long before Cumberland picked me out for special attention.” His smile twisted, till it was perfectly grotesque. “Everything you’ve dared to imagine about the Duke, multiply it by the worse felon you’ve ever prosecuted. Didn’t bother him in the least that I was his brother’s man. The evening of the attack, I accompanied Cumberland to the opera. Did you know he makes model soldiers? He casts them in lead himself. Lines of pretty men, all poised to charge.”
“Was Sellis one of his pretty men?”
“Sellis, Tranter. I believe there were others.”
“Others?”
“He’s done this before, Kit. When he’s finished with them, he slaughters them like tin men.”
Wyre shook his head slowly. “I need proof. My career’s at stake, Leighton. More than that. This is my last chance to get Rose back.” He frowned again at the handkerchief Leighton was using to mop his brow.
“And you’ll have it. We returned from the opera, and I turned in for the night. On the way to my chamber, I met Paulet in the corridors. He told me Neale had made a private arrangement with Sellis. Something to do with accompanying the Duke to Windsor first thing in the morning. Sellis had agreed to ride in Neale’s place. The quid pro quo was for Neale to take Sellis’s shift that evening in the Valet’s Room. It wasn’t unusual for the valets to come to such accommodations among themselves. I was tired from all that yodelling and soon nodded off. Next thing I knew, Neale was shaking my shoulder. He told me to get up.
Cumberland was asking for me.”
“Neale woke you?” Not so much as a syllable of this had appeared in Neale’s deposition. Then again, there’d been no mention of a Mr Gew, either.
Leighton nodded. “I sprinted to the Duke’s bedchamber, where I found his Highness standing calmly in the middle of the room. His shirt was bloody, but otherwise he was well. His regimental sword lay on the floor. Let me say that again, Kit. Cumberland was standing calmly in the middle of the room.”
“People who’ve suffered terrible shocks can appear quite serene,” Wyre said slowly. He wished for a modicum of that calm himself.
“Neale went off to fetch the Duke’s surgeon.”
“Mr Jackson . . .” Wyre said, picturing the smug physician. “It was supposed to be Neale’s wife who went on that little errand. According to her own deposition.”
“Mrs Neale was in the Duke’s chamber when I arrived, huddled in a corner, staring straight ahead as if she were about to be turned off the scaffold.”
“She shouldn’t be there,” Wyre said, feeling he ought to understand, but not being able to. “Cumberland and Neale are supposed to have met her in the corridors.”
Leighton kept his gaze on him. “She wasn’t there for long. She was sent off to fetch Sellis. It was Mrs Neale who returned with the news of his death.”
That much, at least, chimed with The Chronicle’s account. Mrs Neale, all alone in the winding ways, charged with raising the dead Sellis.
“Jackson arrived next, but on his own. Neale didn’t slink back for another quarter of an hour.”
“What was he doing all that time?” Wyre imagined the valet crouched over Sellis, dragging the pearl-handled blade in a deep straight line. Yardley had all but said it.
“I can guess. But it hardly matters what I think, Kit. I’m persona non grata.” The Runner sucked a scraping breath into his lungs. “But you could make people believe.” Leighton pressed a hand to his side, face contorting. “I was present throughout Jackson’s examination,” he went on through clenched teeth, “and saw nothing to match the account of the wounds in the papers. The cut to the Duke’s hand was easily the worst of it.”
“Jackson claimed the vessels of Cumberland’s brain were exposed.” Wyre stopped abruptly. Before he went any further, there was something he had to know. “According to Read, Gew fled the Palace a week before the attack, suspected of pilfering jewels belonging to some half-royal pintail.” He hesitated. “Why did you really leave, Leighton? Why promote your own death?”
He had never seen his friend look so old. When Leighton began, his voice was raw, but strangely subdued. “I sneaked out of the Palace, the old bird’s right on that. But I wasn’t fleeing, Kit.” A spark of the old fire returned. “My plan was to return first thing in the morning with a picket of officers, and make the snatch. Arrest the whole fucking nest. But it was already too late for that. Or rather, it was always too late.” His breath came in rasps that Wyre felt in his own throat. “I made it home, but just before dawn someone paid me a visit. A nightmare man, known in the field as Shadworth. He’s about a hundred years old, but you’d better pray you never meet him.” Another coughing fit. “I can thank the girls who hang around there for my existence. They sleep on the stairs. One of them must have taken exception to being ignored. Called him a ‘quean’. Set up a right racket.” Leighton smiled thinly. “I watched him through the keyhole as he came along the landing. While he was picking the lock, I was leaving by the window. But no one tips Shadworth the pikes twice. The Palace had me by the jacobs. With Bow Street in their pocket, there was nowhere for me to hide. Short of something spectacular, I’d have been strolling the old Elysian by supper time.” His breath juddered. “That’s where Cline came in. He and I go back.” He gave Wyre a lopsided smile, a hint of the old Leighton. “As you’ve probably gathered,” he added ruefully, “I appear to have taken a drop too much of his nasty.”
“That letter about the stolen soap and toothpicks . . .” The words sounded absurd. “You put it on the table. You’ve been there all along, guiding me towards Neale.”
“To his paymaster. Don’t lose sight of Cumberland. I believe you’ll be interviewing him shortly.”
Wyre looked at him in bewilderment. “Why didn’t you tell me everything from the beginning? I could have been trusted.”
“I wanted to, Kit. Under the bridge, I nearly did. You were asking the right questions.” He paused. “The fly wasn’t looking into Vere Street. Not directly.”
“Into what, then?”
“He was investigating Tranter’s death. He got close, too. Shadworth ended him. I knew it instantly. It had all that bastard’s hallmarks.”
“You could have trusted me,” Wyre repeated.
“I reasoned if the bee didn’t know about the flower, the bee wouldn’t pay it a visit.”
Wyre regarded him, his unease building again. Risen from the dead, or the flames? “That name. Gew . . .” His mouth was suddenly dry.
“Spelled with a gee, pronounced like the heathen.” Leighton’s eyes met Wyre’s, and held them.
“Why that particular name?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Must have been something about it.”
Wyre tried to burrow beneath the single syllable. Something lay hidden there. A French etymon, a Joux perhaps? “Who are you working for?” He took a step backwards.
Leighton pushed himself stiffly to his feet, his eyes still not leaving Wyre. “You have to understand, a lot of it was done impromptu. Very little was worked out beforehand.” He edged around the desk. “Cumberland’s a murderer, alright, but I wanted you to discover it for yourself.” His tone was suddenly plaintive. “They regard us as an inferior species, Kit. The Duke played us valets off against each other in a royal shirt dance.” His expression was savage now. “The Palace is at war. Cunt-lovers against buggers. Can you be sure where you stand?”
“You’re Mr Parlez-Vous,” Wyre said in a quiet voice. “You’re the Tyrant’s agent. The second assassin.”
A few loose-jointed steps, and Leighton was behind him, cradling his head. No time to cry out.
“The Vallon business . . .” Wyre’s voice was made strange by the angle. “My God, you murdered your own partner, you traitorous – ”
The crook of Leighton’s elbow tightened. Wyre choked, his eyes bulging. Two thick, black lines began to close from the sides. Then the pressure released.
“I could keep squeezing. But what would Rose think?”
“Rose?” Wyre gasped. “What’s she got to do with this?”
Leighton let him fall. Then he was at the window, sweeping back the drapes. He stepped out onto the sill, dropped.
The lawyer stared stupidly for a moment, then scrabbled to his feet. By the time he’d staggered to the window, Leighton was already a tiny figure in the pear orchard. Wyre yelled his name, both of his names, into the trees until his shouts turned into impotent calls for the guards, who did not come.
59. House Calls
Cross Row. Both parts of the address were apt. Sarah watched with foreboding as James climbed the steps one up from Belcher & Son. Grinning at her over his shoulder, he banged on the door.
A neatly oiled head appeared around the jamb. “You . . .” Parson Church’s face dropped.
“Aye. Fancy that.”
The clergyman quickly recovered from the surprise. Sarah doubted it was the first time enemies had arrived knocking.
“I’m glad to see you recovered, James. I prayed for you. For Sarah, too.” He bowed his head piously.
“Course yer did, Parson. An’ it looks like yer prayers ’av been answered.” Her husband spread his arms wide; a showman’s pose, but the sixpence sewn into his skull made everything look ridiculous.
“I’d invite you in . . .”
Her husband wasn’t easily put off. “That’s kind of yer.”
A prolonged pause. “But I’m afraid I have company.” He sighed. “Look, James, the old days, the old arrangements . . . wel
l, things are different now.” The door started to close on him, but her husband was quicker, wedging his foot inside.
“Listen, you molly shit-stamper,” he spat, no pretence at civility now. “I’ve seen you up to yer stones in a soldier. I’ve seen you marrying men to each other – administering the sacrament, reeling from gin – ”
From somewhere within the house, a voice could be heard. Parson glanced nervously over his shoulder.
“I’ve lost everything ’cos of you and your kind,” her husband went on. “Look at my head!” He made an absurd fingerpost, and aimed it at the stitched-in sixpence. “You made more than enough coin off my back. I ran all the risks. All I’m asking is for some gratitude. Ten pounds, that’s not asking for impossibilities.”
Parson stepped neatly aside as a death’s head ring came hurtling from the blackness. It struck Cooke squarely under the eye, knocking him off the steps, sending him backwards into the baking road. He lay there, mumbling curses, limbs flopping weakly like a landed fish.
The man Sarah knew as Yardley came rushing out, leaping bare-chested from the doorstep. Taking a run-up, he drove a brutal shod foot into her husband’s belly.
“Hee-haw, Cookey!” Yardley cried, stamping on the landlord’s fingers, producing a strangled yelp. He crouched, raising his fist high.
Sarah flung herself at him, clawing and biting, gouging flesh from Yardley’s cheeks. Elbowing her off, bellowing, he turned and delivered a punch that felled her.
She sat on the road, swaying, the world oddly away. Gradually, she became aware of Parson looking down at her, smiling that sweet smile of his. Sarah crawled groaning through the dust to her husband. His stitched-up hole had begun to weep again. She draped a protective arm over him.
They remained in that position when the Poultry Compter magistrate arrived to charge them both with extortion.
60. Spoiling the Strop
When Wyre finally arrived in the Cupola Office, the Chief Magistrate was tapping a devil’s tattoo with his feet.
“Where the hell have you been?” He jerked his thumb at the window. “His nibs is already in the gardens. I told you I wasn’t going to wait.” He noticed Wyre’s yellow check trousers. “Have the fashions altered again, or did you have an accident?” He scowled. “Come on! Santa Maria. This heat.”
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