Murder at the Opera

by D. M. Quincy

  MURDER AT THE OPERA

  AN ATLAS CATESBY MYSTERY

  D. M. Quincy

  For Sameer, who possesses Atlas’s finest attributes

  CHAPTER 1

  They emerged from the Covent Garden theater just as the black sky erupted again, spewing cold rain onto the mud-slogged streets like a frigid volcano.

  Atlas Catesby had neglected to button his overcoat and regretted the oversight the moment the icy dampness sliced through him. It felt as though it had been raining for a year.

  Hunching against the elements, he hoisted his black umbrella high above Lady Lilliana Sterling Warwick’s hooded form to shield her from the downpour. Fat rivulets of rain clung precariously to the umbrella’s edge before dripping onto the rim of Atlas’s black beaver top hat, dangling momentarily and then plopping onto his cheeks and racing down to his chin as he hastened Lilliana to the waiting carriage.

  Around them, hundreds of fellow theatergoers poured out of the building. Figures with bowed heads scurried toward waiting carriages and hackneys cramming the street. Other patrons streamed away on foot, an army of black umbrellas moving with the urgency and purpose of soldiers rushing toward a battle.

  There was far more jostling among the throngs at the public entrances than at the exits set aside for wealthy patrons. A recent enlargement at the entrance vestibule for the well-to-do assured that he and Lilliana could depart in relative comfort after enjoying the luxurious hospitality of the Duke of Somerville’s private box.

  The ducal accommodation located to the side of the stage had provided an excellent view of that evening’s performance. The star, the acclaimed singer Juliet Jennings, was Covent Garden’s shining light. She was also a woman with whom Atlas had once been rather well acquainted.

  But that felt like another life to him now.

  When they reached the Earl of Charlton’s rain-glistened town coach, a handsome vehicle pulled by matching grays, Atlas quickly handed Lilliana up himself rather than pausing to allow the waiting footman to do it. She settled into the forward-facing seat while he climbed in to sit opposite her on the matching tufted velvet bench. He took care to keep his long legs from crowding her.

  Her face was a glimmer in the shadows of the carriage. Family obligations had contrived to keep them out of each other’s company for several months—until this evening. He’d been eager to have this moment alone with her.

  Her red silk evening gown contrasted favorably with her dark hair and pearl-like skin. In the theater, he’d noticed how the shade of the fabric highlighted the unique copper tinge of her magnificent eyes.

  She shivered. “Will it ever stop raining?”

  “This autumn has been unusually wet and cold. Windy as well,” he replied, wondering when their interactions had been reduced to idle comments about the weather.

  She gazed out the window into the storm. “I cannot imagine why Somerville and Charlton would care to stay out on an evening such as this.” The duke and the Earl of Charlton had been among their party earlier that evening, but the two men had gone off after the performance in Somerville’s coach, bound for St. James Street.

  “Gentleman’s clubs hold a great allure for many.” Atlas had declined to join the other men, much preferring to see Lilliana home in Charlton’s conveyance.

  She looked away from the window. “But not for you?”

  He held her gaze. “What is most alluring to me cannot be found in a gentlemen’s club.”

  Her eyes softened. “Is that so?”

  He found it difficult to hear her through the unrelenting rat-tat-tat of the rain striking the metal carriage roof. At first, he assumed the sonorous bang that cut through the clatter on the roof was thunder. But then the screaming started.

  The hairs on the back of Atlas’s neck rose. He couldn’t immediately make sense of the spine-tingling cries, but after a moment the panicked utterings took the form of a word he could discern only too well. And there was no mistaking its meaning.

  “Murder! Help! Murder!”

  * * *

  Atlas threw open the carriage door and leaped into the street, his feet splash-landing in a puddle, the icy dampness immediately soaking through his leather dress slippers.

  “Atlas!” Lilliana’s concerned voice called out from behind him. “Have a care!”

  Slamming the carriage door hard behind him, he battled his way through the swirl of people and weaved through the snarled traffic. The carriageway was clogged with conveyances parked close to the theater, awaiting the return of their employers.

  He moved toward a crowd gathered near the portico, where cries of distress could still be heard, pushing through the crush of elegant ladies and fashionable men, soldiers on furlough, and fruit women carrying baskets laden with oranges.

  When he reached the front, Atlas peered down at the prone figure sprawled on the ground before him. The rain pouring off the rim of his top hat impeded his view while the crude oil lamps suspended from the arches overhead provided minimal light.

  It was a woman. He could tell that much from her fine evening clothes. Silk and of the latest fashion. Expensive. He could not see what she looked like. In the rainy darkness, her face was lost in black shadows.

  “She’s been shot!” one of the soldiers exclaimed.

  Shock stamped the face of a middle-aged gentleman kneeling next to the woman. He suddenly scooped her up and staggered to his feet carrying his burden. The woman’s arm dangled lifelessly at her side. “Make way! Make way!” he commanded.

  “I saw the one that done it.” A woman’s excited cry distracted Atlas from the grim scene before him. “I seen it all. The man was kneelin’ beside ’er with a pistol in ’is ’and.”

  Atlas turned toward the voice, a fruit vendor carrying oranges in a sling around her neck. “Did you get a good look at him?”

  “I saw ’im, the one that done it, wearin’ black ’e is.” Damp, silver-streaked hair framed a narrow, lived-in face, and she was even more rain soaked than he felt. “Almost as tall as yer lordship, but skinnier than a Seven Dials beggar compared ta ye.” She pointed toward Hart Street. “’e ran that way.”

  Atlas scanned the crowd. It wasn’t much to go on. Singling out the killer in this throng of people would be nearly impossible. But few men possessed Atlas’s stature, and that was something at least.

  He started in the direction of Hart Street, nudging his way through the crowd, continually searching for a tall, thin figure clad in black. The darkness, umbrellas, and relentless rain contrived to make his task all the more difficult. After about fifteen minutes of searching, by which time he was completely soaked to the skin, Atlas conceded defeat.

  He made his way back to the scene of the crime, but there was little left to see. The body was gone, as were the spectators who’d swarmed around the poor woman’s corpse. Atlas stood there, hands planted on his hips, still stunned by what had just occurred, considering what to do next.

  “The gentry cove took ’er away.” The speaker emerged from the building’s shadows. Despite the rain, Atlas could discern the fruit vendor who claimed to have witnessed the murder. Something glinted in her hand. “But ’e left this behind.”

  Under the cloudy lighting from the oil lamps overhead, he could just make out the outline of a slender stock and a silver-encased barrel. “A pistol? Where did you find that?”

  “The cull who done ’er in dropped it.”

  “The killer?” He stepped closer for a better look.

  She retreated. “’Tis mine now, if ye take my meanin’.”

  He drew a few silver tokens from his pocket, enough to buy her a hot meal on this wet evening—and a few more besides that—and dropped them into her open palm. The money disappeared somewhere in her cloth
ing before she handed her prize over.

  The pistol was cold against Atlas’s skin, and a chill rippled through him, knowing it had recently been used to take a life. “What is your name?”

  “Mary White.”

  Shoving the pistol into his pocket to shield it from the rain, he raised his eyes to meet the fruit woman’s gaze. “Tell me, Mary, the gentleman who carried the lady away—did you see where he took her?”

  “Ta the tavern on the corner. Said ’e was goin’ ta call for the doctor.”

  Atlas exhaled. Summoning medical help would be a pointless exercise. The poor woman had in all likelihood been dead before she’d fallen to the ground. Earlier, when the man had gathered the victim in his arms, Atlas had realized why he’d initially been unable to see most of her face.

  It was no longer there.

  * * *

  Unsurprisingly, Lilliana was full of questions when Atlas returned to Charlton’s coach to accompany her home.

  He promised to call upon her on the morrow to fully apprise her of what had occurred outside the theater. But at the moment he was anxious to return to the Covent Garden tavern, where the body had been taken.

  When he entered the Blue Star Tavern some thirty minutes later, he found the Westminster coroner in the taproom, busily gathering a jury for the inquest. The air smelled of roasting meat and spirits. Spotting a familiar rumpled figure in conversation near the entrance to one of the private rooms, Atlas waded through the assembled jurors who were milling about awaiting the start of the official proceeding.

  “Endicott.” He greeted the man.

  “Mr. Catesby.” Interest glimmered in the portly Bow Street runner’s narrow eyes. “Do not tell me you are caught up in this murder as well.”

  “Unfortunately,” Atlas answered grimly, still shaken by what he’d witnessed. He pulled the pistol from his pocket. In the light, he could see the weapon more clearly. It was trim and light, polished walnut with silver inlay. Not a poor man’s weapon. The particularly distinctive barrel was sheathed in silver. “I was in attendance at the opera this evening.”

  Ambrose Endicott’s bemused expression traveled from the pistol to Atlas’s face. “Are you confessing to the crime?”

  “I recovered this from a fruit woman on the piazza. She says the killer dropped it before he escaped. I gave chase, but to no avail.”

  The Bow Street runner took the pistol from Atlas, turning it over in his fleshy hands as he examined it. A disheveled appearance and distracted air made it tempting to underestimate the man, but Atlas had learned that beneath that unassuming demeanor lay a keen observer with a perceptive mind.

  “This fruit woman claims to have witnessed the crime?” the runner asked.

  “She does. She described the man as being about my height but very slender.”

  “Did you happen to catch her name?”

  “She called herself Mary White. I imagine she can be found in Covent Garden most evenings.” He went on to describe the woman in greater detail.

  “If she is a witness, this Mary White should be present for the inquest.” Endicott turned to his companion, a junior runner from the looks of it, given his youth and eager countenance, and instructed him to find the fruit vendor and return with her posthaste.

  “I gather the inquest shall be held this evening?” Atlas asked after the boy had been dispatched.

  Endicott nodded. “The surgeons have just completed their examination of the corpse. I expect we’ll begin shortly.”

  Corpse. The ghastliness of it burrowed deep inside Atlas’s gut. Just an hour ago, she’d been a vibrant woman enjoying an evening at the theater. And now she was no more. “Have you identified her yet?”

  “Oh, yes. Yes, we have. The victim is Mrs. Wendela Pike.”

  “She was married then. Has her husband been notified?”

  Endicott stared at him with small black eyes that appeared even more meager among the beefy folds of his face. “Surely you have heard of Wendela Pike.”

  “Should I have?” Atlas passed more time away from London than he actually spent in the metropolis. He seized every opportunity to leap aboard any accommodating vessel bound for a foreign land. His most recent adventure, last year, had taken him to Jamaica, and before that he’d explored Constantinople.

  “Wendela Pike was no innocent. She was the queen of London’s demimonde.”

  An unrespectable woman then. More than likely the mistress of a wealthy nobleman. “Who was her protector?”

  A hush descended upon the tavern, the air tightening with expectation. Endicott looked past Atlas. “There is Mrs. Pike’s protector now.”

  Atlas turned and stared across the taproom into the grief-ravaged face of the person he despised most in the world.

  “Where is she?” Ashen-faced, Malcolm Lennox, Marquess of Vessey, stumbled into the taproom like a lost little boy. “Where is Mrs. Pike?”

  The air left Atlas’s lungs. He hadn’t seen Vessey in more than twenty years. This wild-eyed, windblown man in a rain-splattered greatcoat bore no resemblance to the fearsome monster imprinted upon Atlas’s mind, a memory stored by a frightened and distraught young boy.

  With his shock of white hair and grooved face, the marquess must be past sixty now. The last time they’d met, he’d towered over the boy Atlas had been, but now the two men were of a height.

  Endicott stepped toward the marquess. “My lord, we have laid Mrs. Pike out in a private room.”

  Every gaze in the suddenly silent tavern fixed on Vessey. Perhaps mindful of this, the man seemed to pause for a moment to gather himself before assuming command of the situation. “Take me to her this instant.”

  Endicott led him to the parlor. “This way, my lord.”

  As Vessey followed, the fascinated spectators stepped out of his way like the Red Sea parting for Moses. To be in company with a peer of the realm was rare indeed for the likes of them. Many would dine out on the tales they would tell after witnessing this dramatic spectacle.

  Endicott paused before a closed door and gestured to the marquess. Vessey stepped forward and pushed it open. From his vantage point, Atlas could see a sliver of the private chamber and the lifeless figure laid out on the table. When Vessey reached his mistress’s side, he crumpled. Shoulders hunched, his tall form collapsed over the body.

  “Oh, Wendy,” he choked out in a voice laden with emotion. “What has he done to you?” A harsh, feral sob escaped the marquess before he bent over the body and wept.

  CHAPTER 2

  It was almost dawn before Atlas returned to his bachelor’s lodgings above a tobacconist shop on Bond Street.

  Drenched and weary, he peeled off his rain-saturated vestments, dropping them to the floor as soon as he stepped into the front hall. Divested of the wet outer garments and soaked leather slippers, he continued barefoot into his sitting room and sank with great relief into his favorite stuffed chair. The lively blaze crackling in the hearth enveloped him in cozy warmth. Jamie, his young manservant, must already be about somewhere.

  He inhaled the pleasant scent of the burning firewood, surprised at the comfort these lodgings brought him. It had been many years since any place had felt like home. A never-ending restlessness had plagued Atlas since his sister Phoebe’s death. As soon as he’d been old enough, Atlas had begun his travels, going from country to country, exploring new lands and cultures, never settling anywhere for long.

  He’d been forced to take these apartments two years ago while recovering from a carriage accident and had grown partial to the slightly shabby surroundings since then, despite often being away from Town. His friend the Earl of Charlton often lamented the garish decoration that came with the apartments—bright orange wallpaper, crimson carpets, and blue chintz furnishings—but it had all begun to have the feel of home to Atlas.

  Prior to securing these accommodations, Atlas had not kept lodgings in London. He lived modestly on a limited annual income derived from a piece of property his father had bequeathed to him,
while a moderate sum of money inherited from a favored bachelor uncle remained untouched.

  Soaking up the fire’s nourishing heat, he closed his eyes and rested his head back against the chair, his mind still absorbing the shocking events of the past several hours. He’d sat through the inquest and all of its grim details about Wendela Pike’s final moments.

  The bullet had practically sliced her brain in half before exiting approximately an inch behind her right ear. Several witnesses spoke, including the fruit woman, Mary White. Vessey had not stayed for the inquest. About twenty minutes after arriving at the tavern, he’d departed, leaving a footman behind to watch over the body.

  Although Atlas still felt mostly numb, anger began to percolate in his gut. Vessey hadn’t shed a single tear after killing Atlas’s sister all those years ago, and yet the violent murder of his mistress had left the man bereft. Vessey’s verbal lament the moment he laid eyes on the body clung to Atlas’s memory.

  “Oh, Wendy. What has he done to you?”

  * * *

  “Sir? I am sorry to wake you, sir.” The voice of his young valet pierced Atlas’s consciousness, dragging him reluctantly from a deep slumber.

  Atlas’s eyelids fluttered open, and he found himself staring into Jamie Sutton’s large brown eyes and wide, boyish face. Through his sluggishness, Atlas tried to recall what day it was and where he was. And then he remembered. The opera. The murder. Wendela Pike. Vessey.

  “I must have fallen asleep.” The words were croaky and muffled. He cleared his throat. “What time is it?”

  “Eleven o’clock, sir.”

  Atlas straightened in his chair, and pain shot up his neck. “Damnation.” He kneaded the offending muscle. Everything ached, most especially his left foot.

  He’d broken several bones in his foot in a blasted accident involving a drunken hackney driver who’d become insensible while manning the vehicle, forcing Atlas to jump to safety from the runaway carriage. That was two years past, and although doctors assured him his foot would completely heal, Atlas sometimes wondered. The injury still pained him on occasion, particularly when it was damp outside, and he remained reluctant to put his full weight on his left foot.