by Deryn Lake
“I presume the constable for the parish is dealing with the matter,” said Sir John after a considerable pause.
“I imagine so.”
“Then we must speak with him. For the whole thing stinks, does it not, Mr. Rawlings?”
“Meaning, Sir?”
“That it seems to me the so-called cutpurses could well have been hired assassins.”
“There is nothing to prove that.”
“Except that the victim had a vengeful Shadow. A fact, my friend, that you witnessed for yourself.”
“Yes. Poor Fenchurch did not exaggerate. She is a frightening woman.”
“It’s a pity that the papers ultimately intended for the Public Office never got to you.”
“I doubt, Sir John, that they said much more than the facts I have already told you. The victim truly opened his heart that day.”
The Magistrate nodded slowly, then relapsed into silence, a sure sign that he was deep in thought. Indeed, John imagined that he could almost hear the great man’s brain whirring in his head. Eventually Sir John’s features changed and he looked extremely crafty.
“Of course, there is no one to say that they didn’t, is there?”
The Apothecary was startled. “What do you mean?”
“Who’s to tell whether the papers arrived or not. Only your good self. For if they had been delivered into my hands and contained the story of Mrs. Bussell’s lunatic pursuit of Fenchurch, as you believe they did, then I would have every reason to question her about her ex-lover’s death.”
John laughed. “Well considered, Sir.”
“It would not be the first time that the Public Office had used a little deception in order to achieve its ends.”
“Nor will it be the last, I don’t suppose. Do you want me to visit the Shadow, Sir John?”
“Mr. Rawlings, I couldn’t presume.”
“As a matter of fact it would give me a great deal of satisfaction, provided that I was carrying a letter of authorisation from yourself. It would be nice to see her in a position where for once she did not have the upper hand.”
“You really took a dislike to her, didn’t you?”
“Profoundly so.”
Elizabeth Fielding appeared in the doorway. “Mr. Rawlings, what a pleasure. I trust John has invited you to dine with us.”
The Apothecary rose and bowed. “He has indeed. Lady Fielding.”
“Then I shall order another cover laid.” Elizabeth wrinkled her nose. “I am still not used to being called that. I almost look round for somebody else when that name is spoken.”
Her husband laughed. “You must try, my dear. There’s no going back to plain Mrs. now.”
Elizabeth sighed, nodding her head. “I know, I know. It’s just that I have never been one for airs and graces.”
“Nor ever will be,” her husband said affectionately as he rose to his feet and took her outstretched hand.
It was a pleasant evening, ending long after darkness fell. Hiring a linkman, the Apothecary walked to the place where the hackneys plied for passengers, then was driven home, planning on retiring to bed early. But in this he was to be disappointed for no sooner had he gone into the hall than he was presented with a card on a tray.
“A lady has called to see you, Sir,” murmured the footman who handed it to him.
“A lady?” John repeated. “Who is it? Anyone I know?”
“According to her visiting ticket it is a Mrs. Rayner and her face is not familiar to me.”
John stared at the card, seeing that its owner had a fashionable address in the newly developed Mayfair.
“Where is the visitor?”
“I have shown her into the drawing room, Sir. She said she would wait an half hour for you but after that must return home.”
“Then I’m glad I came back in time.” And John crossed the hall to the room little used in Sir Gabriel’s day but now, since the arrival of Emilia, the main reception room for the family and guests.
A woman stood by the fireplace, holding her hands out to the flames, a woman who turned as she heard John enter and fixed him with a cool stare. That she was Aidan Fenchurch’s daughter he had no doubt, for the same, slightly small, crab-like eyes were looking at him, made somewhat more attractive by their feminine setting but not sufficiently so to render the woman a beauty. She was in her early thirties, John thought; a tall, thin, bony creature, at present clad from head to toe in black and even paler because of it.
“Miss Evalina?” he ventured.
“Mrs. Rayner,” she answered haughtily. “Jocasta Rayner. And you are John Rawlings, I take it?”
The Apothecary bowed, very handsomely. “Yes, Madam. How did you know of me?”
“Because of this,” she answered, and thrust towards him a packet which she had placed on the mantelpiece while she warmed herself.
John took it and went cold as he saw that it had his name and address written on it in a hand he did not recognise.
“How did you come by it?” he asked, but knew the answer even before she spoke. It was obviously the collection of papers that her father had been going to take to Nassau Street had he not so brutally been done to death.
“It was in my father’s coach,” Jocasta answered abruptly. “It was not discovered until earlier today. I thought I would bring it to you and find out a little more about its contents and about you yourself.”
John motioned her towards a chair. “Please sit down and let me get you some refreshment. Would you like a glass of canary?”
The woman shook her head, her face and lips drained of colour. “No. I doubt I could stomach it. Since my father’s savage murder last evening I have not been able to touch a thing.”
“Then allow me to give you some physick. I am an Apothecary and would suggest that you take some at once to help steady yourself. After that a drop of brandy would not go amiss.”
Jocasta stared at him. “I had not put you down as a man of medicine.”
“Oh? What had you thought me to be?”
“A nothing. A fop of fashion with plenty of money and no sense.”
“Alas, no. Such a pleasurable life has been denied me. Though, on second thoughts, I believe I would hate to idle away meaningless days uttering silly oaths and sniffing snuff.”
She barked a humourless laugh. “So there’s mere to you than meets the eye.”
“So it would appear. Now, let me fetch you some restorative physick. Believe me, it will be of help to you throughout the days that lie ahead.”
Jocasta seemed suddenly drained of energy. “Oh, very well. It would be impossible for anything to make me feel more wretched than I do now.”
She closed her eyes and John hurried from the room and upstairs to a small cupboard in his bedroom in which he kept his pills and physicks. There he poured some powdered Feverfew into a glass, added some Oxymel and, taking the glass downstairs, mixed the whole with white wine.
“Here,” he said, handing the concoction to Mrs. Rayner, “this should help you.”
She eyed it with suspicion, looking extraordinarily like her father as she did so. “What is it?”
“A mixture to relieve melancholy and heaviness of spirits. If you send a servant to my shop in Shug Lane tomorrow I’ll prepare some bottles for you.”
She appeared to be finally reassured that John was actually what he claimed to be and downed the glassful in one deep swallow, then pulled a face.
“It has a bitter aftertaste.”
“Things that are good for you often do,” he answered wryly.
She smiled for the first time, looking quite attractive in her bony way. “A parallel with life, perhaps.”
“Indeed.” He took a seat opposite hers. “About these papers. Where did you say they were found?”
“In my father’s coach. He had left the house and was just stepping inside when two robbers came out of the shadows and set about him.”
“They were definitely thieves?”
Jocasta shot h
im a penetrating look. “What do you mean?”
“Did they rob him of his money and jewels or merely attack him?”
She frowned. “The watch disturbed them and they ran away, leaving him to die in the street.”
“So nothing was actually stolen?”
“No.”
The Apothecary looked thoughtful. “I wonder…”
“What?”
“Whether these men were actually hired assassins and theft was not their motive at all.”
Jocasta Rayner looked utterly astonished. “But why? Why should anyone want to hurt my father? The very idea is beyond comprehension.”
So she knows nothing of the Shadow, John realised. Aidan Fenchurch had confided none of his troubles to his children.
He looked vague. “One can never be sure of these things. However good a man one can never rule out the possibility of a jealous business rival or someone who imagines themselves slighted. Hardly anyone goes through life without upsetting somebody at some stage.”
Jocasta nodded. “I suppose you’re right. But personally I don’t believe it. As far as I am concerned - and I am sure that I speak for the rest of the family as well - my father was killed by two footpads, chosen at random.”
A slight colour had come into her cheeks as a result of the physick and she accepted the brandy that John now offered her. After a moment’s silence, Jocasta said, “Mr. Rawlings…”
“Yes?”
“What was in those papers and why should my father pick you to give them to? Have you known him for some while in fact?”
The Apothecary weighed the situation carefully. To reveal everything about Ariadne Bussell to a daughter so recently and so brutally bereaved would be the height of cruelty. On the other hand, in view of the investigation that was about to start, most of the truth, if not all of it, would be bound to come out. He decided to be diplomatic.
“I haven’t read them, of course, as you have only just now delivered them to me, but I have reason to believe that they might contain information of a nature very personal to your late father.”
Jocasta looked immensely puzzled. “But why should he give them to you?”
John decided on a half-truth. “He came into my shop yesterday and said he thought me to be an honest citizen.”
“Why on earth should he do that? Was it a joke?”
“Mrs. Rayner,” the Apothecary answered firmly, “it was said in all seriousness. Your father asked me to take these very papers to Sir John Fielding of Bow Street in the event of anything untoward happening to him.”
Jocasta seemed to shrink to half her size, crouching back in her chair as if she had been physically attacked. “What exactly do you mean by that?”
It had come and not at all as John had wanted it. Yet discretion must be paramount at this stage.
“Simply what I say. I think your father feared that someone had a grudge against him and might, just possibly, carry that grudge too far. So he had prepared a statement for the Principal Magistrate in the event of an accident befalling him. That is all I can tell you.”
“So he was expecting an attack,” Jocasta said, her voice very low.
“I think he was, yes.”
“But from whom? He didn’t have an enemy in the world.”
“We have covered this ground, Mrs. Rayner. In the morning it will be my duty to take Mr. Fenchurch’s statement to Sir John Fielding. It will then become his obligation to track down your father’s killers and to discover the facts behind his death.”
Jocasta was very quiet, slowly sipping her brandy, gazing into the fire. Then she shook her head. “Poor Father. I hope that this is all a horrible coincidence. That he imagined someone hated him enough to kill him.”
“Perhaps it is just that. Perhaps he was done to death by cut- purses after all. Personally I think you should stop speculating until Sir John has made his decision.”
She was silent again, then drained her glass and got to her feet.
“You are right, of course. No amount of conjecture can bring my father back. Incidentally, Mr. Rawlings, I shall be staying at Bloomsbury Square for the time being. My unmarried sister and my cousin are both in residence there and have asked me to remain until after the funeral. Millicent, of course, is coping but Evalina is completely hysterical.”
“And which sisters are they? Older or younger?”
“Millicent is a cousin who lives with us. Evalina is the eldest of us three girls; my younger sister, Louisa, is … out of town at present.”
Why had there been a slight hesitation in Jocasta’s voice? John wondered. “Then she will not have heard the grievous news?” he asked.
“No. She is… touring… and I am not sure exactly where she is at present.”
Again that hesitation. “Is she married?” John asked pleasantly. “Yes. Yes, indeed.” Mrs. Rayner started to move towards the door.
“You came by coach?”
“I did. It is presently round in Dolphin’s Yard.”
“I’ll send a footman to fetch it.”
They went into the hall together, listening to the sound of the equipage coming to the front door.
“You have been very kind, Mr. Rawlings. Pray will you call in person bringing some more of that excellent physick.”
He bowed and took her hand. “Of course I will. I shall arrive about noon.”
“And if you have anything even stronger for Evalina I am sure the whole household will be mightily relieved.”
He smiled irregularly. “I’ll do my best.”
Her coach had drawn up outside and a servant went to open the front door for her. Jocasta turned in the entrance.
“I wonder if Mrs. Bussell knows?” she said, more to herself than to her host.
John remained silent, determined to keep all secret until Sir John Fielding decided it was time to do otherwise.
“Do you think I should write to Father’s friends?” Jocasta continued.
The Apothecary shook his head. “I think you will find that such a dramatic story concerning a well-known merchant will be reported in the newspapers tomorrow.”
She smiled, very wryly. “I suppose we will then be overwhelmed by callers.”
John gave an answering smile. “It is the way of the world, alas.”
Jocasta Rayner curtseyed. “Goodbye, Sir. Thank you for your hospitality.”
“It has been most interesting to meet you,” he said, and accompanied her into the street where he handed her inside her carriage before going within to read the last words that her father had ever written.
Chapter Three
The papers, which John read and re-read once his visitor had gone, revealed little new. They simply recounted the tale of Mrs. Bussell and her obsessive love for Aidan Fenchurch which had turned to a dangerous hatred. But had it, John wondered as he finally resealed the dead man’s statement. As he had said to the victim himself, it seemed to him that Ariadne was still besotted with the object of her affections. Would this, the Apothecary considered as he put on his nightshirt and got into bed, make her more or less likely to order an attack on her former lover.
He recalled her face; how affable she had tried to look when she realised that her fury was getting her nowhere. Yet the smile flashed by the overpowering set of teeth had been entirely without humour or humanity. Yes, John thought, blowing out the bedside candle, that woman could be a truly dangerous member of her sex, capable of handing out hurt to anyone whom she believed either stood in her way or had rejected her.
It seemed that Sir John Fielding was of a like mind. Having sat in total silence while his clerk, Joe Jago, read Aidan Fenchurch’s statement aloud, his first comment was, “Poor fellow. I would not care for a harpy of that stamp to shadow me.”
“Do you think she hired ruffians to take care of him, as it were, Sir?”
“If we are to believe all that he says, then yes, she would be prepared to do so if something upset her. But whether she did or not has yet to be discovered. Howev
er, on the evidence presented to us so far I would not hesitate to say that at the moment Ariadne Bussell is our principal suspect.”
John spoke. “My offer to go and see her still stands.”
The Magistrate drew in his breath, then relapsed into a further silence, clearly thinking things through. Finally he said, “I believe the only way to approach a woman like that is with bristling officialdom. I suggest, therefore, that you and Joe both go. If she refuses to cooperate, my clerk can order her to Bow Street where I will question her personally. Now, do we know where she lives?”
“No. But today I have to call on Mrs. Rayner, the victim’s daughter, to take her some physick. She is bound to have her father’s friend’s address.”
“Did you not say that she knows nothing of the scandal?”
“Nothing at all, Sir John,” the Apothecary answered.
The Magistrate leant back in his chair, folded his fingers over his chest and allowed himself a smile. “I will despatch Runners Ham and Raven to see the constable examining Mr. Fenchurch’s murder. They can offer their services in tracking down the assailants.”
“Which they never will,” put in Joe Jago grimly. “Be they cut- purses or hired assassins, either way they will vanish into the shadows, never to be seen again.”
“Our only hope is that one of the peachers knows who they are.”
“Do you want me to ask around, Sir?”
“If you would, Jago. Word is bound to be about by now.”
It was an odd thing, John considered, that a man so mighty as Sir John Fielding, the principal upholder of the law in the teeming metropolis, should still use the peachers, those members of the criminal class prepared to inform upon their fellows, as sources of information. Yet he was realistic. Without the peachers - the term came from the word impeachment - there were certain cases that would not move forward at all. And this was one of them. Robbers or professional killers, whichever had ended Aidan Fenchurch’s life, were both members of the same delinquent brotherhood. Therefore, to track them down, enquiries must be made amongst that brotherhood. There was no other way.
“I’ve a mind,” said Sir John Fielding, a propos of nothing in particular, “to finish this case quickly. Joe and Mr. Rawlings, if you can interview Mrs. Bussell tomorrow and if Runners Ham and Raven can simultaneously follow any trails that the peachers might give us, it might well be over in a matter of days.”