Death in the Peerless Pool

by Deryn Lake

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  At eight o’clock the following morning, John walked briskly from the house of the Clive sisters in Cecil Street, then made his way via The Strand, St Martins Lane and Castle Street towards Leicester Fields and home. There he changed into sombre black, suitable for the task that lay before him, and collected Jack, who had been staying at number two Nassau Street ever since Orlando’s funeral. The Apothecary then spent some while in choosing which of his many suits he should lend the coachman, and finally decided on violet satin, a shade that strongly enhanced the colour of Jack’s unusual eyes.

  ‘But what is all this finery for?’ the young man asked.

  ‘Just so that you look your best,’ the Apothecary answered enigmatically, then they set off together in Sir Gabriel’s coach, especially borrowed for the occasion.

  The driver took them through Piccadilly to Berkeley Square, behind which lay the new development of Mayfair. And there they stopped outside the home of Lord Anthony and Lady Dysart.

  ‘Jack, can you amuse yourself for an hour?’ John asked, presenting his card to the footman who answered the door.

  ‘You don’t want me to come in with you?’

  ‘Not at the moment. Return at noon, by which time my business will be concluded.’

  ‘Very well.’ And the young man went off, a handsome figure in his borrowed clothing, looking very slightly bemused by the secrecy of everything that was taking place.

  Inside the house, a normal day progressed; servants about their duties, the master in his library, reading the newspaper, the mistress out shopping with her maid.

  ‘Lord Anthony will receive you now, Sir,’ said the footman, who had shown John into an anteroom. ‘Would you follow me?’ And they went from the reception hall to the book-lined room where the Apothecary had sat with his host and first met that stolid figure, Gregg the steward: in the company of, though he had not know it at the time, the two grandfathers of that saddest of young men, the beau known as Orlando Sweeting.

  Lord Anthony looked up from his copy of The Spectator and gestured to John to take a seat.

  ‘My dear Mr Rawlings, do sit down. Would you care for a glass of sherry?’

  ‘Very much indeed,’ the Apothecary answered with feeling, and took the glass offered to him on a silver tray by the footman.

  ‘Now how may I help you?’

  John waited until the servant had left the room, then he leant forward in his chair. ‘Lord Anthony, it is hard to know where to begin. On the face of it you know nothing of the death of a woman called Hannah Rankin who worked at St Luke’s Hospital for Poor Lunatics, and who was found in the Fish Pond close to the Peerless Pool, severely beaten then thrown in alive to drown.’

  The nobleman folded his paper meticulously and put it down on the table beside him.

  ‘No, you are quite right. I had not heard of such an incident until this moment.’

  ‘Yet you knew of Sir Vivian Sweeting. Knew that when your daughter Alice was struggling to make ends meet after marrying Gregg’s son Richard, against your wishes, she took in washing from Welham House, Sir Vivian’s home.’

  ‘Yes, I knew that.’

  ‘Well, Hannah Rankin also worked there at that time. Did your paid informants not tell you that?’

  ‘I repeat, I had never heard of Hannah Rankin until just now.’

  ‘Did you not also discover, years later, that Sir Vivian masterminded a child abduction ring and that his creature in this hellish trade was the very same Hannah?’

  Lord Anthony looked down his long, patrician nose. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, young man. Believe me, if you were anyone other than Gabriel’s son, I should ask you to leave forthwith.’

  ‘Please, Sir, give me a hearing. A man has already admitted to killing Hannah, then bitterly paid the penalty by taking his own life. There is nothing to fear from the law. It is only my desire to learn the truth that makes me say what I do.’

  His host did not reply, which the Apothecary took as a sign that he should continue. He hurried on.

  ‘I do not know how you made the connection between Hannah and Meredith, but make it I believe you eventually did. Gregg was in this country when the boy vanished, and he may have hit on something before he joined you in Paris, something which did not make sense till many years later. Alternatively, one of your informants in France could have pointed you in the right direction. Whatever transpired, it clearly took you a very long time to catch up with her. But then Toby Wills, the waiter at the Peerless Pool, suddenly provided you with the information you needed, I think.’

  Lord Anthony drew in his breath but said nothing.

  ‘He worked for you as a boy. In fact he’s one of the children in your family portrait. I didn’t recognise him at first, but once I had done, everything slotted into place. It is my belief that as a childhood friend of Richard’s, he always kept in touch with Gregg, whom he probably looked on as a father figure. He knew the anguish you all went through, knew the names of the people you were looking for. Then one day, by chance, a strange woman appeared in The Old Fountain and Toby asked who she was. Probably no one could have been more surprised than he to learn that her name was Hannah Rankin and that she worked close by at St Luke’s Hospital. An easy step from there to find out where she lived, then to write to his old associate Gregg and tell him that the search was over. Then Gregg called on her, no doubt to check that it was the same woman. He drove your coach with the coat of arms on the door, and she grew so afraid that she packed her bags and was ready to leave had not you, Lord Anthony, stopped her doing so.’

  ‘You are accusing me of this woman’s murder?’

  John hesitated. ‘I believe the final link in the chain was when the truth was learned about her association with the Marquis de Saint Ombre, whom you had met in Paris. I think then you felt you had enough proof to proceed.’

  ‘Are you saying I killed her?’ Lord Anthony repeated.

  ‘No, it was probably your steward who did so, but I believe you and Toby cooperated. I think Gregg waylaid her crossing the fields to Ratcliff Row on the way home from St Luke’s. Then I imagine he took her to a remote spot and beat her to a pulp, then put on the disguise he had brought with him and waited while Toby brought the wheelbarrow from the Pleasure Gardens and left the gate open for him.’

  ‘You’re right,’ said a voice from the doorway. ‘That is exactly how I did it, Just as I intended to finish them all.’

  ‘No,’ interjected Lord Anthony, his tone commanding. ‘Don’t listen to him. It was I who killed her. I was the one who threw her in. I was the one who put the death sentence on her. Just as she once put it on my grandson, Meredith.’

  ‘I have heard enough,’ John declared decisively, “and I have also heard nothing. Gentlemen, be advised that I do not want you to tell me such a story again. A gallant young man, a young man whom destiny brought low but who achieved splendour in his final moments, confessed to the murders before he put an end to his own short life. That is good enough for me.’ He cleared his throat, then said cautiously, ‘You know that Meredith is dead?’

  ‘My grandson died while he was the Marquis’s prisoner in France. The odious creature held several children in a house in Calais. Some perished from his mistreatment. Meredith was one of them. I was shown his grave. I never spoke of it to Ambrosine for she lived in hope, and I could not bring myself to shatter that.’

  John shook his head. ‘No, my Lord, you are wrong. Despite what you think, two of the boys did survive and were brought to England. It is my belief that Meredith did not die in France.’

  He spoke carefully, neither saying too much nor too little.

  Lord Anthony drew himself up. ‘If only that were true.’

  ‘My Lord, I took the liberty of bringing with me the sole survivor of those two boys whom the Marquis held captive. He thinks he once was given the French name Jacques, he can remember a garden and being brought to this country across the sea. He is a very remar
kable young person and I would like you to meet him.’

  ‘Is he … is it …?’ Lord Anthony asked hoarsely.

  But before John could say another word there were sounds of confusion from the hall. Ambrosine’s voice was raised loud and clear.

  ‘Oh, Simmons, be careful. You always try to carry too much and end up dropping the parcels.’

  John heard Jack’s voice. ‘Allow me to help pick them up, my Lady.’

  ‘Oh, good gracious, and who might you be?’

  ‘I am here to see Mr John Rawlings, Ma’am. I have arranged to meet him at noon.’

  ‘What very unusual eyes you have,’ John heard Lady Dysart say, and there was a strange note in her voice. ‘Simmons, whose eyes do this young man’s remind you of?’

  ‘Why, yours, my Lady. And Miss Alice’s, of course.’

  The door flew open and Ambrosine appeared, her face a picture of wonder.

  ‘Oh, Anthony, Anthony,’ she called out. ‘Mr Rawlings gave me his word and he has kept it. He’s come back to us! Oh, my darling, Meredith is here at last!’

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  ‘So there’s a thing,’ said Sir Gabriel, carefully pouring four glasses of champagne despite the rocking and bumping of the hired coach taking them to the grand ball at Westerfield Place, at which Jack the former coachman was being presented to the entire county as the missing grandson of Lord Anthony and Lady Dysart.

  ‘A wonderful story,’ said Coralie, green eyes abrim. ‘How touching. La, it would make a good play.’

  Samuel gave an extremely jolly wink. ‘The Dysarts have found their grandson, Jack has found a family home. All’s well that ends well, say I.’

  ‘Shakespeare said it before you,’ Coralie answered, smiling.

  Sir Gabriel, who looked stunning in a mélange of black and silver fit to dazzle the gaze of mortal man, raised his brows. ‘Bear with me. The boy who died was really their grandson, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, if the birthmark was anything to go by. But then Dr Drake was the first to assure Ambrosine that such marks are not uncommon and also can fade with the passing of the years.’

  ‘But the Dysarts claimed to recognise Jack by the colour of his eyes, is that correct?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘And how do you account for that?’

  ‘Happy coincidence, I imagine,’ said John, and, draining his. glass, held it out for a refill. Sir Gabriel looked thoughtful. ‘It is certainly a truism that people see what they want to see and believe likewise.’

  ‘As many a wife has done when she has gone into marriage,’ said Coralie, and was somewhat put out when all three men grinned at her instead of taking up the cudgels.

  ‘D’ye know,’ said John’s father, raising an elegant brow, ‘Anthony wrote me that even the ghost of Westerfield Place, poor little Alice, has departed.’

  ‘She wept for her missing child and now, I suppose, she feels he has returned,’ Samuel answered.

  ‘And in a way, he has,’ said Coralie.

  John was silent, and in the darkness raised his glass in an unspoken toast to Orlando, who had given up his terrible young life so that others might be free to live without fear. And who, with his ultimate sacrifice, had at long last become the person he was truly destined to be.

  Historical Note

  John Rawlings, Apothecary, was born circa 1731, though his actual parentage is somewhat shrouded in mystery. However, by 1754 he had emerged from obscurity when on 22 August he applied to be made Free of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries. He became a Yeoman of the Society in March, 1755 – the reasons for the delay are interesting but not to be told here – giving his address as number two Nassau Street. Well over a hundred years later, this was the address of H.D. Rawlings Ltd, Soda Water Manufacturers, proving conclusively that John Rawlings was probably the first apothecary to manufacture carbonated waters in this country. His ebullient personality has haunted me for years and now, at last, I am bringing him out of the shadows and into the spotlight.

  Footnote

  Chapter Three

  1 Eighteenth-century spelling.