A Purely Private Matter

by Darcie Wilde

  Bertram Seymore

  Rosalind laid this ugly missive onto the desk and opened the other note, the one she had written to herself, recalling the captain’s speech.

  You’re laying traps for me now! You knew I’d go looking for you, at Hoffman’s, at the theater, at the . . . hotel . . .

  I meant to catch you there. But I only snared your proxy. Been having a good laugh, have you two? All about how you so cleverly deceived the one who should be your lord and master? Made me parade myself about the town, let as many people see the cuckold raging as . . .

  You went . . . you saw . . .

  You betray me, you shame me, and now you . . . you . . .

  You cannot . . . you did not . . . I would not have hurt you, I swear, I swear. I never gave a damn about what Bertram wanted. All I wanted was for you to stop. For you to be all mine again.

  Rosalind sat at the pretty, useful, organized desk, reading and rereading both pages for a long, cold time.

  CHAPTER 14

  A Careful Inquiry

  All wounds ought to be viewed, the length, breadth and deepness, and with what weapons, and in what part of the body the wound or hurt is and how many be culpable and how many wounds there be.

  —John Impey of the Inner Temple,

  The Practice of the Office of Coroner

  When Adam Harkness was still a boy, a house on his street had caught fire. He’d lined up with the rest of the neighborhood, passing buckets of water from hand to hand to try to douse the flames. He remembered looking up through the stinging smoke to see a flurry of sparks shower down, seemingly from the clouds, onto the next house. Before he could blink, the whole roof went up in flame. It was that fast.

  It was nothing compared to the speed of rumor through the streets of London.

  By the time Harkness emerged from the Theatre Royal, the cobbles were clogged with staring idlers. The few men he’d brought with him were shouting over the heads of the mass of persons, waving their arms and ordering them to keep back, to move along, to clear the streets. The battle was not lost yet, but it wouldn’t be long. Adam cursed himself for not thinking to order a couple of the men to bring the horses here to help keep the mob back. He just had to hope Goutier had gotten the cart with Cavendish’s body away safe.

  “Park,” Harkness said to Dr. Arnold’s man. “Tell your employer he better lock his doors.”

  “Too right, sir,” said the young man as he retreated back into the theater. Harkness stood beside Ned, who glanced at him nervously.

  “Do your best, Barstow, but no brave last stands. I’ll get a patrol of special constables over as quick as may be.”

  “Goutier’s already sent word ahead,” answered Barstow. “Hope they hurry.”

  Harkness patted his arm and privately hoped so, too. “All right, all right,” he bellowed to the spectators. “Clear the way! Clear the way! You’ve no business here! Clear the way!”

  Not one of them budged.

  “Oy! You’re Watchdog Harkness, ain’ cha?” shouted some man. “Is it true then? ’As Fletcher Cavendish been done for?”

  “Clear the streets!” Harkness called in answer. “The papers’ll have all the news soon enough!”

  “True then!” called somebody else.

  “No! No!” wailed a woman’s voice. “It can’t be!”

  “Who done it?” shouted another. “Who’s the fiend!”

  The crowd gathered itself to surge forward. Harkness grabbed Barstow, prepared to link arms either to try to form some kind of barricade, or drag the younger man out of the way. Before he had to decide, though, the theater doors flew open, and Edmund Kean emerged into the watery sunlight.

  “Good people of London!” Kean threw up his hands and moved forward slowly. “I beg you stand silent and hear what I have to say!” He’d gotten a black cloak from somewhere and the wind caused it to billow like a sail about his shoulders.

  “’At’s Edmund Kean!” cried somebody at the front of the crowd and the name rippled out among them.

  “Mr. Kean! Is it true? Is it?” called half a dozen voices. Someone was sobbing already.

  Kean had put on a black doublet with the black cloak. Both were probably dug out from the theater’s costume warehouse. He should have looked ridiculous, but somehow did not. In fact, Harkness’s first instinct was to fall back a respectful step and let the man pass.

  “Silence!” Kean boomed. “Silence, good people, pray you! Hark and hear me!”

  That pose and that voice ringing out without shame or irony mingled with the vivid presence radiating from this single man. The combined effect did what a host of Bow Street runners could not do. Stillness spread across the agitated crowd.

  “My friends, for all of you here today are my friends.” Kean spread both arms as if to embrace the gathering. “It is with a broken heart that I must speak these words. Fletcher Cavendish, the best and greatest man to ever grace the English stage, is dead.”

  Kean clapped his hands over his face as a howl went up from the crowd. Harkness cursed inwardly and got ready to yank the actor and Barstow both back inside before they were trampled in the surge of the mob, but Kean already had his hands raised again.

  “Hark now! Hear me! We must stand together in awe, not in anger. Each of us must examine his conscience and ask, am I ready to meet my Maker should the dreadful hour befall me? Friends!” Kean’s voice dropped low, and the crowd leaned forward as a single body, intent on catching each word. “Let us bow our heads and thank God in His infinite wisdom for allowing such a great man as Fletcher Cavendish to have walked among us. Let us pray that Our Lord receives him in such kindness and divine mercy as we—knowing ourselves to be so much less worthy—would hope to be received in our turn.” Kean lifted his face toward the heavens, and Harkness could see the tears streaming down the man’s face.

  To Harkness’s surprise, the people transformed from a crowd to an audience, to a congregation. There was no surge, no breaking for the stairs or the doors. Hats were removed, eyes closed, and palms pressed together as voices murmured the Lord’s Prayer. A few persons knelt on the cobbles, and then a few more, and still more.

  Harkness, who no one would accuse of being slow on the uptake, removed his hat. Barstow stared for a minute, but took his off as well.

  Kean glanced sideways at Harkness and winked. “Make your exit, sir,” the actor murmured. “Stage left is your best chance.”

  Hat in hand, Harkness slipped down the steps with Ned right beside him. “Hold the line as best you can, I’m sending reinforcements.” He slapped Ned on the shoulder, sending him back to his fellow patrolmen.

  But it wasn’t until he’d got a good ways down the street that Harkness jammed his hat back on his head and took off at a run.

  Behind him, he heard the faint echo of Edmund Kean calling, “Amen!”

  • • •

  Harkness first went to the station. There, he found Stafford, Bow Street’s chief clerk, surrounded by a clutch of patrolmen and constables and a few hale but gray-haired fellows Harkness recognized from the night watch. Stafford was briefly and briskly issuing orders for them to get to the theater. Satisfied all was in hand, Harkness only tipped his hat to the clerk and took himself off across the street to the Brown Bear.

  The Brown Bear public house held an unusual status. Situated directly opposite the public offices, the low, venerable house had functioned as a sort of adjunct to the police office since Bow Street first opened. The officers and runners who wished for a quiet drink found it over at the Staff and Bell, but they did business at the Brown Bear—whether it was arranging for a chance for a witness to pick out a wanted man from a crowd without being observed or holding an inquest. Because of this long tradition, the pub’s cellar had a table where the coroner could have a look at a body in case of sudden death.

  When Harkness reached the bottom of the stair
s, it was to see Sir David Royce folding a stained sheet back across the corpse. Light slanted through the barred windows, and three lamps burned on the shelves behind him, rendering the cellar bright enough to make Harkness blink.

  “Harkness,” Sir David hailed him. “I was told to expect you.”

  Sir David was a portly, unflappable man. Unlike some coroners, he had training as a physician to go with the family connections that got him his position. He was coatless, with his shirtsleeves rolled up to the elbows, exposing his hairy, brawny forearms.

  “It was a straightforward business at any rate.” Sir David caught up a towel and rubbed his hands vigorously with it. “I could only see the one blow, straight to the heart. He would have barely felt a thing, poor devil. They tell me he was found with his shirt open to the waist and his coat off?”

  Harkness confirmed this, and Sir David sighed. “So either he felt the need for a sudden change of costume, or more likely, our Mr. Cavendish was thinking to engage in a little private entertainment.”

  “Perhaps the lady was not willing,” suggested Harkness.

  “Pshaw. He was Fletcher Cavendish. They were falling at his feet. Did you ever see him onstage? Took Lady David once.” Sir David shook his head. “Never again. Thought she was going to faint on the spot, and my wife’s as steady a woman as you’ll find.”

  “I took this from him.” Harkness pulled the blade from his pocket and handed it to Sir David. The coroner unwrapped it, and whistled.

  “Well now, well now, that’s a pretty little thing, isn’t it?” He held up the knife to examine its chased silver hilt. Then he tested the edge and the tip of the blade with his thumb. “Sharp as a razor. Go right through him, if whoever held it were lucky and missed the ribs. But it would not be a clean deed. They’d be covered in blood afterwards.”

  Harkness, unwillingly, remembered the state of the dressing room and nodded his agreement. If either the captain or Mrs. Seymore had been close enough to commit the murder, they’d have been badly stained by it. A fact which would surely have been remarked on by Stanislas Ulbrecht, or anyone else in the theater at the time.

  “Have his family been told?” asked Sir David.

  “Dr. Arnold, from the theater, says there is none. I need to interview the manager of the hotel where he took his rooms. He might know more. That is, assuming you’ll want Bow Street in on the chase?” In a case of sudden death, it was the business of the coroner’s office to conduct the inquiry. It was not, however, unusual for Bow Street to be called to assist, especially when murder was suspected.

  “Oh, to be sure. This looks like a nasty piece of work, and given who our man is, it’s better it be cleared up quickly. I’ll speak with Conant and Townsend.”

  “No need, no need!” cried a man’s cheerful voice.

  A stout man stomped down the cellar stairs. He wore a white coat and a broad-brimmed white hat more suited to the garden than the street. He took in the scene at once and clapped his meaty hands together. “Well now, Mr. Harkness, what have you fallen into this time?”

  John Townsend was the chief among the principal officers at Bow Street. He was the darling of the haut ton, dined out on his friendship with the Prince Regent, and was widely consulted by wealthy families desirous of keeping themselves and their belongings secure. In addition to all these honors, he had been given oversight of those special patrols that kept watch over the palaces of London whenever the royal family was in residence. All these matters were of the greatest importance to him, something his fellow officers learned quickly, and took seriously.

  While Sir David and Adam explained all that had occurred, Townsend lifted up the corner of the sheet that wrapped the corpse. He whistled long and low, and promptly covered the dead man over again.

  “A most unfortunate business, and no mistake. No question, I suppose, about the blow that killed him, Sir David?”

  “None, Mr. Townsend. And Mr. Harkness secured the weapon for us.” Sir David handed Townsend the elegant little knife.

  “Well, well.” Townsend turned the slender weapon over in his fat fingers. “Harkness, you’ll circulate the description of this, of course. Check with the dealers in antiquities. In the meantime . . .” He pulled a letter from out of his pocket. “I’ve had a note from Mrs. William Seymore. You know the name, of course?”

  “The poetess?” said Sir David before Harkness had to confess he did not. “You don’t mean to say she had a connection to Cavendish?”

  “Now, Sir David, you will not infer any impropriety. Mrs. Seymore is a lady of grace, intelligence, and tact. And of course, she moves in literary circles, so it should be of no surprise that she might form an acquaintance among the theatricals as well.”

  “Of course,” said Sir David blandly. “I wouldn’t suggest otherwise. Since you have some acquaintance with the lady, Mr. Townsend, perhaps you’d do me the favor of conducting the interview to hear what she has to say.”

  “Thank you, Sir David, that was just what I was going to suggest.” Townsend replaced the letter in his coat pocket. “Don’t want to step over the bounds, of course, but if she should know something of the matter, we must treat it delicately. Harkness, the same hand brought something for you as well.” Townsend pulled a second letter from his pocket. “Fellow was extremely reluctant to let go of it, but I swore I’d see it delivered safely and he eventually did believe me.”

  Harkness broke the seal on the letter and read:

  Dear Mr. Harkness,

  I must ask you to come at once. I am at the home of Captain William Seymore, and you will want to speak with us all about the death of Fletcher Cavendish.

  Yrs.

  Rosalind Thorne

  Rosalind Thorne. Harkness felt himself go still as he remembered the tall, golden woman he’d met only a few months before. He’d been impressed then by her intelligence, her humor, and her sheer nerve. All had struck him again when he’d seen her last night at the theater. She’d been pale and distraught, and he had not wanted to let her go until he found out what was the matter. In the end, though, she’d walked away from him on the arm of a lordly gentleman who looked at her with longing in his eyes.

  It could not possibly be jealousy that welled up in him now, Harkness told himself. Neither could it be a vague anticipation at the possibility of looking into Miss Thorne’s clear blue eyes again. Except he was also remembering a moment in a darkened room, when he’d almost kissed her, and she’d almost allowed it.

  “What do we have, Harkness, eh?” Townsend clapped him on the shoulder. “Something from one of your lady loves?”

  “No, sir.” Harkness hastily folded the note. “But it is from Miss Thorne. She writes she is at the Seymores’ house and says she also has some information to communicate.”

  “Miss Thorne, eh?” Townsend rubbed the side of his nose. “I remember the woman, I think. Well, well. Since she writes to you so particularly, Harkness, you’d better come along, hadn’t you?”

  Townsend was watching him closely, waiting for him to betray any partiality. “Of course, sir,” said Harkness. “I’m assuming we’ll go at once?” Townsend affirmed this and Harkness turned to the coroner. “Do you want to keep the knife, Sir David, or shall I?”

  “You keep it. You’ll need to circulate those descriptions and the rest of it. I’ll be calling on you as soon as we’re ready for the inquest.” Sir David wiped his hands on his towel once more. “Sad thing, all that fame and here he is alone.”

  “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” Townsend cocked his head toward Harkness. “Something for us all to remember, eh, Mr. Harkness?”

  “Yes, sir,” Harkness agreed, and he followed his superior out of the cellar and into the public room and wondered about that look in Townsend’s eye, the knife he carried, and the notes they’d both received.

  He also remembered that when he had seen Rosalind Thorne rush from the theate
r the night before, she had very clearly been looking for somebody she could not find.

  CHAPTER 15

  An Entirely New Story

  It has sometimes happened, on occasion of a murder not sufficiently accounted for, that . . . some person has forged and the public accredited a story representing the murderer as having moved under some loftier excitement . . .

  —Thomas De Quincey,

  On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts

  As it transpired, Rosalind was left to her own devices in Mrs. Seymore’s study for some little time. Servants went to and fro in the hallway outside, bearing trays and bottles and cloths. Mrs. Nott came into the room once to ask if Rosalind needed anything. Mrs. Kendricks came in to deliver Alice’s reply to Rosalind’s note and say she would return home and tend to matters there, if Miss Thorne preferred. Miss Thorne did.

  Alice’s letter was brief.

  Major has me writing up the details. Come as soon as you can.

  AWFUL!!

  A.L.

  “Yes,” murmured Rosalind. “I have to agree.”

  No note arrived from Mr. Harkness.

  Rosalind took the time to make a more thorough perusal of the desk, and the books on it, but she found nothing she recognized to be of immediate use or interest. She noted that the servants were diligent in the general way at least, and that the grate had been recently swept and polished, so there were no convenient traces of papers or letters having been burnt.