by Mike Ashley
Which brought my thoughts back to Wroth.
Wroth! A sudden thrill passed down my spine. Why had such an important fact escaped my notice before?
Pelham had made no mention of Lord Wroth. Or even young Wroth. He had simply said “Wroth”. Could he have meant the cousin? Could it have been Oliver Wroth that he had thought he saw?
There was a commotion from the servants as the surgeon prepared to leave. I went forward and stood by the footpost of the bed, waiting to put my question to Sir Harry. As the surgeon turned away, he laid an admonishing finger to his lips, as if to say: “No more excitation today, please.”
“I have given Sir Harry a draught,” he said, self-importantly. “He should sleep quite soundly now.”
Pelham already slept extremely soundly.
XV
I spent the rest of the day in deep thought, equally divided between the pros and cons of the business and the wrongs and the rights of it.
My mood was an uneasy one, for it was growing increasingly apparent to me that I could not continue to act contrary to the Law in this affair for much longer. I ought, at the very least, to report my finding to the Bow Street Office. Two men, both closely connected with this case, had been done to death, and one more had come near to death. That was a matter for the official authorities of the Law, and could I, at this stage of my new career, afford to ignore it?
On the other hand, I had an employer to protect and a living to earn. How could I go to the police with my story, relevant in all its details, without involving her? I had been granted a licence to act as an auxiliary to the police, but how could I count upon future patronage if I were to deliver my employers into the hands of those they most sought to avoid?
No, before I approached the police, or even my cousin Scrope in the Commissioners’ Office, I must be able to present them with sufficient evidence to enable them to carry out their duties, yet without involving my employer. (The extortionary aspect had to be suppressed, at least as far as the names of the parties were concerned.)
My spirits sank beneath the weight of this legal incubus. How could I disassociate the Wroth family from these crimes? They were too deeply implicated, if not at the very centre of the matter. How could I possibly keep the two killings separate, and Lady Wroth’s name out of both of them, without sacrificing myself in the process?
At five o’clock in the afternoon with the shadows creeping over my worn carpet, I was not exactly in an optimistic frame of mind.
But at six thirty that same evening, I felt slightly improved in my condition.
The door bell rang and I answered it to find Pelham’s saucy footman standing on the step. He regarded me with considerably less contempt than he had shown at his own door.
“Yes?” I asked.
He had a message for me from Sir Harry. Could I return with him at once?
“On what business?” I asked tersely.
“Sir Harry’s business,” he answered jauntily.
“Touché,” I said. “One moment.”
I left him on the step whilst I returned to my rooms to dress for the street. When I set out with him ten minutes later, my sword hung at my side and I carried the extra protection of a light pistol.
Sir Harry was, apparently, fully conscious and in a hurry to see me. He had very considerately sent his carriage. I took my seat in its elegant interior and the footman hoisted himself aloft beside the coachman. Fifteen minutes later I was being ushered into Pelham’s bedroom. Sir Harry eyed me sourly. He was in full possession of his faculties and, but for the bandage showing at his throat, seemed in remarkably good health.
He held out a massive hand.
“I have to thank ’ee, Captain Nash,” he said.
“I did nothing, Sir,” I replied.
A glimmer of sardonic amusement showed deep in his glutinous eyes. “I have to be assured yet on that point,” he said with a wry twist to his mouth.
“Sir?”
“How do I know that I don’t have you to thank for leading me into an ambush?” he asked. “I don’t know ’ee from Adam, man.”
“You know my name, Sir,” I said. “And it was you that chose the path we took.”
“And it was you that suggested a walk in the park.”
There was a nasty pause. He regarded me keenly. If eyes can boil, then Pelham’s did.
“You have only my word for it, Sir Harry,” I said. “But if I had sought your death, why should I have brought you back to safety? It is not in my interest to do away with such an important connection as yourself.”
A look of baffled impatience came into his face.
“Who are you, man? And what’s your interest in this business?”
I thought hard for a moment. Would it be best, at this stage, to declare my real interest, or should I continue with my deception? If Pelham had been in league with Murrell then he would know about the Wroth papers and if there was money to be made out of the situation, I could scarcely expect him to ally himself to my cause. On the other hand, I held the code-book, without which he could not act further. If he would not vouchsafe me their return, I had the means to cut him off from a much larger fortune. He was not the man to lose a mackerel for the sake of a sprat.
Perhaps I could bargain with him?
I decided on candour.
“It’s as I told you in the park, Sir. I’m interested only in the Wroth receipts.”
His eyebrows rose superciliously.
“I am employed by Lady Wroth to obtain certain embarrassing papers concerning her grandson – ”
“Which grandson?” he asked sharply.
“The young Lord Wroth.”
He frowned. The brown, syrupy eyes looked cunning.
“Oh?”
“These papers were held by Murrell,” I said. “Once I am able to place them in her ladyship’s hands, my interest in this business is at an end.”
He mused on this for a while.
“If Murrell died on account of these papers, they were undoubtedly worth a fortune,” he said, at length, flashing a calculating look at me. “And you presumably want them for nothing?”
“No. I am prepared to pay a price.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know the exact amount . . . yet.”
He looked at me in astonishment.
“What do you mean, Sir?”
“I am prepared to exchange the code-book for the papers.”
He laughed into his pillows, seemingly diverted by some thought. He recovered himself eventually and said:
“Well, Sir! We shall see about that!” He reached for the bell. I stopped his hand as it touched.
“One moment, Sir Harry.”
He looked up at me.
“Yes?”
“You said this afternoon that your assailant was Wroth.”
“Yes.”
“Did you see him?”
His hand stroked the bell thoughtfully.
“Or did you only imagine that you had?” I asked.
The heavy eyes looked up at me from beneath weary lids.
“Why should I imagine it?”
“If you expected an attack from that quarter,” I said with meaning.
A startled gleam showed in his eyes. He looked at me with respect.
“And why should I expect an attack from that quarter?” he asked softly.
“You would know the answer to that, Sir Harry. If you were truly Murrell’s partner . . .”
He snuffled into his pillows again, convulsed with silent laughter.
“Ah!” he said. “You thought I meant that Wroth.”
His shoulders shaking, he rang the bell before I could question him further.
A manservant opened the door.
“Captain Nash is ready to leave now, Griddle,” Pelham said.
“And my offer, Sir Harry?” I asked.
He laughed shortly. “Well, Captain, if I had the papers in question, I’d undoubtedly trade them with you,” he said. “But, unfor
tunately, I don’t have them, you see.”
He bowed from the bed, his shoulders still shaking weakly. I wondered at the nature of the joke. It must be an uncommonly strong one.
Pelham had no intention of enlightening me, it seemed. He dismissed me with an airy wave of the hand. I turned and left the room, his unconfined laughter following me clear out into the hall.
I had to forgo the luxury of the carriage on my return journey, since the offer was denied me. As I walked back to my rooms, I pondered this new development. Why should Pelham think that Oliver Wroth was his assailant? What reason could he have to revenge himself upon Sir Harry? Did Wroth believe that Pelham owned the receipts? Or was there yet another reason? Prior to calling on me at my rooms, young Wroth’s main preoccupation appeared to have been the disappearance of his female cousin.
I stopped with my hand upon the door-knob of my room.
His female cousin. The cousin who had so mysteriously disappeared. Was Pelham in some way involved in her disappearance. Was her disappearance in any way connected with the receipts? It might pay looking into. In the meantime, a sound night’s sleep would do me no great harm.
I opened the door and stood astonished on the threshold. My rooms looked as though a horde of ruffians had passed through them. Drawers were opened, cupboards unlocked, curtains torn from their rods, upholstery slashed. Even the stuffing in my mattress oozed upon the bed.
I now knew why Sir Harry had found the joke so amusing. The interview with him had been a meaningless rigmarole, empty talk merely. His sole purpose in sending for me had been to make sure that I was out of my rooms when his men came to ransack them.
But the jest was on him. The code-book was not even on the premises. It was safely tucked away elsewhere.
XVI
Clarety shifted comfortably and spread her legs. She took the coin I gave her and idly stroked herself with it between her breasts, over her smooth white belly and between her thighs. Clarety has a lewd way with hard cash.
“Catherine Wroth?” she said. “Why, her disappearance was no secret. All the world knew of it at the time.”
“I never heard of it.”
“You could not have been in England then. It was a great scandal in its day. Every coffee-house in London hummed with it.”
“What happened?”
“God Himself can tell you, I can’t. It remains a mystery.”
“But what did folk say had happened?”
“A multitude of things. Most of them the wildest fancies, I’ve no doubt on it! – facts being in such short supply. But there’s one element they all did suppose that’s remained evergreen.”
“What?”
“They were all of the opinion that she’s Pelham’s mistress, though her manner of becoming so is open to doubt and rumour ran its full gamut. Some said she ran away of her own free will, some that she had been forced into joining him, and others that she had been coarsely abducted. But all agree that she’s now kept by him – in close seclusion, somewhere deep in the heart of the country.”
“How do they think she was forced?”
“He blackguarded her.”
“How?”
Clarety shrugged.
“Nobody knows,” she said.
“But they think she is his mistress now?”
“Oh yes. Why else should she live with him – in the depths of the country? Miles away from civilized folk!”
She shuddered at this doleful prospect, her glorious breasts quivering.
Her performance with the coin had had its usual effect upon me. I was once again ready for the sport. My questions ceased while we kissed and toyed. Her hair, which she had let down about her body, crackled beneath her as we rode upon the bed. It was a very paradise of pleasure and in a short while I got into her and abated my passion.
Then, pleasantly sated, all my questions answered (and all my small change taken), I left the house and walked home, pondering on all she had told me.
Pelham was intimately connected with the Wroth family by two separate scandals, it appeared. I wondered if they could be in any way connected? What could he know of their family history that could both force Miss Wroth into compromising her honour and also feed Murrell’s demands? And, if either of the Wroths had attempted to kill him in Green Park yesterday, were they trying to settle two separate scores, or were the two situations dependent on each other?
I kept my mind busy with these conjectures whilst I waited for Pelham to contact me again with regard to the codebook. One thing puzzled me especially. If Pelham had seduced Miss Wroth, why had he not gone on to wed her? She was in every way a prospect – young, beautiful, well-born, and tolerably wealthy in her own right. For a man in Pelham’s position it seemed strange that he should neglect such an opportunity to increase his fortune. Nothing stood in his way, as far as one could see. He was a bachelor of equal station in life, and even owned his own parson! Yet he had not tied her to him in a legal way.
Another puzzling aspect of the case was the business of Miss Wroth’s horse. For Miss Wroth, like any other redblooded English girl, was passionately fond of her horse Zubaydah. Yet on the day that she had disappeared, she had ridden off from the Hall on her beloved mare and Zubaydah had been found grazing peacefully some ten miles distant to the west of Stukeley. There had been no signs of foul play, or of an accident. The saddle was intact, the horse was calm, unsweated and unmarked. Why she had left this valuable and well-loved animal behind was another mystery. The mare had years of good riding in her still.
Another fact, which I had discovered, was perhaps less surprising. Miss Wroth had taken her jewel-box with her, an heirloom inherited from her mother. At least, it was never seen after her strange departure. The value of the jewellery was not inconsiderable but, oddly enough, she had made no further claim on her fortune. So, whatever Pelham’s reasons for seducing the girl away from her family, money had been no great object.
There was, I found, no absolute proof in the rumour that Miss Wroth lived with Pelham, either in captivity or at liberty. Her name had been linked with his during a London season and that was the only basis for it. With a reputation such as Pelham sported, it was natural to suppose that he had, in some way, enticed her away from respectability. But she could, in truth, simply have disappeared of her own free will.
Another disturbing certainty was that the Wroth family had made no official enquiry into her disappearance, which suggested, to my mind, that they knew where she was at least, and even tolerated her situation. That is, in public. For whatever reason, and I largely suspected pride, the Wroths had decided to ignore her disaffection. And Oliver Wroth had feared (or pretended to fear?) that I was hired to bring her home!
All this led to one very important point – a point that was becoming increasingly apparent to me. There was considerably more behind this business of the receipts than I had been told. The receipts were only a lure. Had Lady Wroth met Murrell’s demands, she would have found herself faced with a larger demand for his suppression of a more criminal exposure – more incriminating even than the nastiness I had read in the paper brought to me by Oliver Wroth. And she, too, I was convinced knew of this, or else why take such trouble?
If there was an unspeakable skeleton in the Wroth closet, who better to rattle it than a man like Pelham? If it was true that the grand-daughter was his mistress, then he could undoubtedly have learned of this secret.
Miss Wroth might well repay investigation. If she was alive, she must have left a trace of her existence somewhere. If she was living with Pelham however remotely, she could be flushed out. If she was alone and independent, then she must have left a trail from Stukeley to wherever she now resided – a bed slept in, a meal taken, a jewel sold or pawned.
The Wroth affair was at a standstill. To search in another direction might reawaken those tell-tale echoes which, returning to one’s ears, guide one like a bat to the light of reality.
It seemed logical to begin my search at Stukeley. Beside
s, I owed my employer a report on my progress.
XVII
I followed Chives’ magisterial back up the oaken staircase, examining the family portraits more carefully than before.
I paused before the portraits of Lord Wroth and Mr. Oliver. To the left of the latter, a faint discoloration on the wall showed where another picture might possibly have hung. The remaining two pictures had been slightly rearranged to cover the omission. Miss Wroth, I surmised, had been banished from the gallery.
Chives, aware that I was no longer immediately behind him, had turned at the door of the “solar”.
“Did the lady carry away her own portrait, Chives?” I asked.
He stared at me with his Olympian eyes.
“Her ladyship is waiting, Sir,” he said reprovingly, and opened the door. I passed through into that sparkling room. Her ladyship waited for me in her great chair, more resplendent than ever, a veritable sunburst of diamonds. A large cap worn over monstrous high hair, crossed beneath her chin and was tied at the back of her neck. She wore a morning gown of dazzling hue.
I bowed and she replied with a gracious inclination of her extraordinary head.
The door closed softly behind us and she asked impatiently: “Well, Captain Nash? Do you have the receipts?”
“No, my lady,” I said. “Nor do I know who has.”
She snapped her fan viciously on the side of her chair, her eyes glittering frostily.
“Sir?”
I explained the situation carefully. She listened with a growing rancour.
“Well, Sir,” she said, as I finished the tale, “stinking fish don’t grow any fresher for lying idle.”
She glared at me, seeming almost to accuse me of negligence in the matter; suggesting almost that I was in some way to blame for what had happened.
“I was not asked to protect Murrell’s life, Ma’am,” I admonished her gently. “Nor d’Urfey’s.”
She laughed abruptly, without merriment, showing her startlingly grey teeth.
“And what do you deduce from all this, Sir? What do you ‘detect’?” she asked sharply.
I regarded her steadily. “I deduce, Ma’am, that Murrell was murdered by someone with an interest in his demise. There are innumerable people interested in that condition. At a guess, I’d say about half London society.”