Deadly Affair: A Georgian Historical Mystery (Alec Halsey Crimance)

by Lucinda Brant

  “May I know Lord George’s crime?”

  Sir Charles couldn’t help a smile of embarrassment. “About five years ago he—er—forced his attentions on a young lady of good family: the female in Vesey’s portrait that was subsequently mutilated. Unfortunately she was impregnated—”

  “Jesu…”

  “—and gave birth, most unfortunately, to a healthy female child. Her family was persuaded not to press charges and the female was bundled off to an undisclosed direction. No more was thought of her until letters of a threatening nature arrived on Lord George’s doorstep. It is not known how he found out, but Talgarth Vesey is now championing the woman’s cause for monetary compensation from the Duke or he will expose Lord George’s folly to the world.”

  Alec was skeptical. “What trump could Vesey possibly have in his possession that could out-maneuver the likes of Cleveley?”

  Sir Charles followed Alec out onto the landing where they were met by the butler coming up the stairs.

  “In a moment of guilt-ridden drunken weakness, that fool Lord George replied to one of those letters and wrote the girl a sniveling apology; Vesey now holds this damming piece as evidence.”

  “Wantage,” said Alec, suppressing the urge to rearrange the politician’s neckcloth, “show Sir Charles the street door.”

  “I should think, given your—um—influence with the sister, persuading the brother to give up such a trifling letter will be a simple task,” Sir Charles concluded with a condescending smile and passed the butler to walk down the stairs before him.

  Wantage remained fixed on the top step.

  “Wantage,” Alec said through his teeth, “get rid of him.”

  The butler bowed. “Certainly, my lord. I shall do so immediately. It’s just that, it’s Mr. Halsey, my lord. He’s up in his rooms with a nasty knock to his head. The physician says it’s a concussion and wants to blood him…” His voice trailed off.

  His master had turned and was running along the passageway to his uncle’s rooms.

  Earlier that same morning, while Alec was going through his paces with the fencing master, Tam was visiting The Stock and Buckle, a crowded coffee house in St. James’s on the corner of Berry and King Streets. The Stock and Buckle, like most coffee houses in London, was identified by its regular clientele who spent their few idle hours drinking coffee, tea, or chocolate, playing at cards, and enjoying the freedom of speech within its comfortable surroundings. If one was not inclined to conversation then newspapers could be rented and read on the premises.

  Tam often enjoyed an hour within the cozy rooms of this establishment amongst his fellow upper servants. Being valet to a Marquess afforded him the respect due his master’s rank, begrudgingly so because of his youth, and with suspicion because he was well versed in the secret arts of the apothecary and was known to dispense medicines to the needy.

  It was in his role as apothecary that he shouldered past a group of valets gathered in the foyer, making noisy preparations for their departure, and slid onto the chair at the table in the bay window. He ordered a coffee. He should have been studying for his exams. He felt a great sense of guilt wasting the valuable time so generously given to him by his lordship, but the summons had come from ‘the Duke’ himself and so could not be ignored. Besides, there were a number of questions he wished to put to ‘the Duke’ and if the answers were not forthcoming he planned to withhold the small glass bottle of oil he carried in a deep pocket of his frockcoat.

  Since his first visit to The Stock and Buckle Tam had been warned that the table in the bay window with its view of the street was reserved exclusively for Robert Molyneux, valet to the Duke of Cleveley. Known as ‘the Duke’, a term used with derision because he carried himself as if he was indeed of that rank and even spoke with the same arrogant inflection peculiar to his master, Molyneux had been valet to the Duke of Cleveley for twenty-two years. He always drank his coffee while perusing the latest newssheets, coldly oblivious to those about him. Most of his fellows avoided him, not only because he was insufferably arrogant but also because his face and neck were hideously scared from the smallpox.

  The coffee came and Tam waited.

  Molyneux continued to read the London Gazette, hidden from view behind its upheld pages. Ordinarily such rudeness would not have bothered Tam, who was used to ‘the Duke’s’ ways, but he did not have the leisure to wait to be acknowledged. He sipped his coffee and put the little blue glass jar on the table, careful to keep his fingers curled about its stem.

  “I’ve brought the oil, as you requested, Mr. Molyneux. Bathe your knee with it at night before you retire and you should have some relief by morning. If not, I suggest—”

  “What’s it made of?” came the blunt question from behind the spread-out newssheets.

  “An ounce each of Friar’s balsam and tincture of myrrh; two ounces of spirits of turpentine—”

  The newssheet came down and was folded away. “I didn’t ask for the recipe, Thomas Fisher.” Molyneux put out a hand to take the bottle but slowly withdrew it when Tam kept his fingers closed around it. He was so taken aback that at first he did not know what to say. He was not used to being denied. “Is it payment you want, boy?” he spat out in a whisper.

  Tam shook his head. His intestines churned with nervousness, yet his eyes did not waver from the man’s face. “No, Mr. Molyneux. I don’t take payment. You know that. What I want is the answers to a few questions.”

  “Questions? Answers? You presume a damn lot.”

  Tam swallowed. Now was not the time to be tongue-tied. “Yes, sir, I do,” he said politely. “But only you can answer them for me.”

  Molyneux stared at the freckled-faced youth with his mop of carrot-red hair and clear green eyes, weighing up whether he was being deliberately insolent or stupidly naive. He decided the latter. He threw several pennies on the table and made to rise. But Tam’s next sentence put his stiff knees back under the table.

  “It’s about the death of the Reverend Blackwell, Mr. Molyneux. Thank you, sir,” he said when the man resumed his chair. “I appreciate you taking the time to speak with me.”

  Molyneux leaned across the table. “If you think we have anything to say to you about a scruffy man of God, you’re much mistaken!”

  “His Grace didn’t like him, sir?” Tam asked innocently. He knew he was treading on hallowed ground; it was an unwritten rule that one’s employer was never discussed within the walls of The Stock and Buckle. So it was no surprise when Molyneux visibly stiffened. “Then again, sir, he must’ve had some consideration for him. After all, it was at his invitation that Mr. Blackwell came to stay in St. James’s Square, wasn’t it, sir?”

  “What do you know about that?”

  So it was true. The Duke had invited the cleric to his house. Why? Tam looked at the liquid in the blue bottle. “Mr. Blackwell was my friend, Mr. Molyneux.”

  Molyneux sniffed contemptuously. “A pity then that he didn’t come begging at your master’s door. It would’ve saved us a great deal of trouble!”

  “When he died so unexpectedly, Mr. Molyneux?” asked Tam, all wide-eyed innocence. “Or was it expected?”

  “Listen, boy. I don’t care for your insolent tone. How could we have known the old fool would up and die like that? He had a heart attack. And very inconvenient it was for us too.”

  “I know the physician said it was a heart attack,” Tam said calmly. “I also know what is being whispered around town, Mr. Molyneux.”

  “Whispered?” The valet looked confused. “Why would anyone be interested in the death of a nobody vicar?”

  Tam sipped the last of his coffee. It was cold and very bitter. “Servant gossip, Mr. Molyneux.”

  Molyneux drew himself to sit up. “Not in our house,” he enunciated.

  Tam took a gamble. “Sir Charles Weir’s servants don’t possess the same loyalty, Mr. Molyneux,” he said with apology.

  This hit the mark.

  Molyneux frowned. To hide the fac
t he was rattled he gestured for a waiter. The waiter knew what to bring without asking.

  “You know not to listen to servant gossip, lad.” Molyneux said, focusing on Tam with something of a sneering smile. “If I listened to servant gossip I’d say you needed the wind taken out of your sails. Too cocky by half, that’s what’s said about you. Valet to a pretty-faced Marquess, and you such an infant. Whoever heard of the like. What did you do to earn it, aye? I’ll tell you what they say around here: That you’re his catamite.”

  Tam felt the heat rise in his face and cursed himself, but he wasn’t about to let ‘the Duke’ get the better of him. “You know that isn’t true, sir,” he said quietly. “And I’m not half as cocky as people make out. Every day I count my good fortune.” He leaned toward the valet. “You and I have something in common, don’t we, sir? I mean, people are just as jealous of you, what with you taking care of such a powerful nobleman and for so long. They say you’re a papist plotter for the Jacobites, and that his Grace hasn’t a clue. What do they know? I don’t believe for a moment you’re a traitor to King and country; not being as devoted to his Grace as you are. And I don’t care in the least if you’re a papist. When all’s said and done we’re all Englishman, one and all, aren’t we, sir?”

  Molyneux pushed a coffee toward Tam and waved the waiter away. For what seemed like minutes he merely sipped at the bittersweet brew, regarding Tam over the rim of the mug. Then he winked and said very quietly, “Stick to your instincts, boy.”

  Tam permitted himself a small smile. He felt a huge relief, as if he had been permitted to cross over to Molyneux’s side of the river. They drank their coffee in silence for a moment, conscious that the coffee house was filling up and that they had been sitting together long enough to cause more than one head to turn in their direction. Fortunately, there was enough noisy chatter to cover their conversation.

  “Sir. Do you think Mr. Blackwell was poisoned?”

  This time Molyneux did not sneer. “Why would anyone want to poison an old vicar who spent his days helping the poorest wretches in the City?”

  Tam sighed. “Precisely, sir. It does seem fantastical. But don’t you think it strange he should up and have a heart attack just like that at a dinner party?”

  “Why? If a king can collapse while sitting on his pot de chambre, I don’t see why a vicar can’t keel over in the middle of dinner.”

  Tam was not convinced. “I suppose that’s true, but it don’t seem at all right, sir. I have this awful feeling he was poisoned.”

  “Only you might know if that is so,” reasoned Molyneux. “You tell me if he had any enemies. You were his friend.”

  “Friends or enemies, sir, I doubt they’d have earned a place at Sir Charles Weir’s table.”

  “Listen to me, Master Fisher: Take care what you’re about. If anyone can have the finger pointed at him, it’s your master. Think about it. Seven months ago he was accused of murdering his own brother. That the charge was dropped don’t mean a groat to anyone wanting to apportion blame. Nor does the fact His Majesty saw fit to elevate your pretty-boy master to a Marquessate. As if a title can somehow make us forget his brother had his brains blown out! It don’t. We think it only makes it worse for him. And you don’t make it any easier either.”

  “Me, sir?” Tam was surprised.

  Molyneux laughed softly. “You really are a greenhorn! You were an apothecary’s apprentice before your master took you in, and he’s let you continue on making up your lotions and potions. You prepare and dispense medicines. You have access to all sorts of drugs and poisons and you know how to use them. Whose to say you didn’t supply your master with the poison that killed old Blackwell?”

  Tam was horrified. “But Mr. Blackwell was Lord Halsey’s friend too.”

  Molyneux shrugged. “No one knows that, do they?”

  “Why would his lordship want to murder him?”

  “Same reason as anyone else at that dinner party, although we don’t know the reason, do we?”

  “Does your master think—”

  “We have no idea,” Molyneux answered curtly and looked out the window.

  “I understand, sir,” Tam said quietly. “I didn’t expect you to break any confidences. I just need to know where to go from here. Whatever you thought of Mr. Blackwell, I knew him to be a kind and caring man who meant no harm. To think someone poisoned him makes me sick in the gut. Here,” he said and placed the blue glass bottle before Molyneux and stood. “Remember, just a few drops in warm water.” He gave a quaint little bow of the head. “Thank you for the coffee, sir.”

  He turned to go but the valet grabbed his wrist and jerked him back. “Don’t get mixed up in this, lad. Your Reverend Blackwell wasn’t all he seemed. He tried to right his wrongs but some wrongs just can’t be undone. That’s all I can tell you. And you didn’t hear that from me. Understand, lad?” He squeezed Tam’s wrist. “Understand?”

  Tam nodded and his wrist was released. “Yes, Mr. Molyneux. Upon my honor.”

  “Fisher? Thomas Fisher? Where’s Thomas Fisher?”

  Several men crowded the entrance to the coffee house and a great deal of arguing was going on amongst them. A waiter tried to stop two men from coming further into the establishment, but they pressed on regardless. Between them they carried a gentleman above the elbows who looked for the all the world to be dead drunk. They propped him up against the nearest wall and slid him down to sit on the floorboards, upsetting the leg of a table where three men were playing at whist.

  Playing cards fluttered everywhere.

  As soon as he was let go the gentleman slumped forward so his chin came to rest on his chest. From this angle the semi-circle of onlookers had a good view of his bare head. In the candlelight, blood glistened wet in the grey grizzled hair above his left ear. There was speculation as to the reason why an old man had been attacked. One of the waiters called out to his fellows to bring hot water and rags. Another volunteered to run up to the local tavern for some brandy, knowing full well there was a bottle under the counter, but could not say so because coffee houses were, by law, not permitted to have alcohol on the premises. An astute customer was quick to point out the expensive cloth to the old man’s back. Perhaps he’d been set upon for his purse? said another. What an old man of means was doing in a filthy laneway was anyone’s guess. Another wondered if he had gone into the laneway to relieve himself. Perhaps he had been propositioning a whore? At this there was general laughter.

  “Fisher? Thomas Fisher!”

  “He’s with ‘the Duke’!” came a shout by the fireplace.

  A waiter grabbed Tam’s elbow and hurriedly led him across the room, saying, “There’s been a scuffle in the lane, lad. A couple of thugs set-to on an old gent. Got a great gash to his head. Can you do anything for him? Come on, you fellows! Give way! Give way, before the blood ruins the floorboards!”

  The crowd shouldered apart and began to disperse. Now that the young lad had everything in order there was no need to stand about gawking. Besides, the coffee was getting cold.

  The old man lifted his head with an effort and blinked as Tam knelt beside him.

  “Damn glad it’s you, m’boy,” Plantagenet Halsey mumbled and promptly fainted.

  Alec threw open the door to his uncle’s bedchamber with such violence that the door handle punctured the Chinese wallpaper. Plantagenet Halsey was lying in his four-poster bed, propped up on a mountain of pillows, head swathed in bandages and arms lifeless at his sides. A physician and his assistant were conferring by the bedside. The assistant took from a large black leather medical bag a jar swimming with leeches. Plantagenet Halsey’s valet and Tam stood grim-faced and silent at the foot of the bed.

  “Well? How is he?” Alec demanded, sitting on the edge of the mattress and taking his uncle’s limp cold hand in his. He looked around at all four men. “What happened? Did he take a fall? Will he be all right?”

  “My lord, if Mr. Halsey would only be bled and take the medicinal�
��”

  “I’ve lost enough blood already, so don’t you be worryin’ his lordship,” the old man interrupted with a grumble. He turned his bandaged head slowly on the pillow. “But I’ll take your foul-tastin’ brew if you’ll just get out of m’sight. The lad here can give me what I need.”

  The physician sucked in his fat cheeks, a glance of disapproval at Tam, and waved away his assistant, who meekly replaced the jar in the black bag, before pointedly handing the measured dose of laudanum, not to Tam but to the old man’s valet.

  “I need hardly remind your lordship that it is unlawful for anyone but a qualified physician to prescribe medicinals, and that I have previously warned Mr. Halsey on several occasions that should it come to my attention that Thomas Fisher is practicing his unqualified apothecary skills on the populace of my parish, I will be forced to report such a grievous matter to the proper authorit—”

  “You dare, you miserable sawbones,” Plantagenet Halsey growled through his teeth and half rose off the pillows.

  “Yes, I am well aware of your threats, Miller. Thank you,” Alec said curtly and turned his shoulder in dismissal, the physician and his assistant bowing silently to his back before departing. Alec squeezed his uncle’s hand. “I see a knock to the head hasn’t dulled your senses,” he said with a lopsided grin, greatly relieved knowing the old man wasn’t seriously hurt. He pretended not to see the grimace of pain that crossed his uncle’s lined face as he lay back amongst the pillows, adding quietly, “All the same, for my sake, and I’m sure Tam will agree, take the laudanum merely as a precautionary measure.”

  The old man opened his eyes. “Not yet. Got somethin’ to show you first. Thomas, those papers Barlow found in my frockcoat pocket, give ’em to his lordship. By the way, I did thank you for patchin’ me up, didn’t I, lad?”

  “Yes, sir. You did. Twice,” said Tam as he handed Alec a dog-eared, yellowed pamphlet. He then retreated, as requested, with the old man’s valet to the dressing room; the valet with the dose of laudanum held covetously to his chest.