A Disappearance in Drury Lane

by Ashley Gardner

  “And while we’re placating the local populace, someone might do her harm,” I growled. I took a drink of coffee, trying to still my temper. “I promised Marianne I would look into the matter, and so far, I’ve done damn all.”

  “Not entirely.” Grenville calmly went on cutting his sausages. “You’ve discovered Mr. Perry, who has a strange interest in Mrs. Collins. He married Mrs. Wolff, a great actress who is now blind. Why did he marry her? Because he admires great actresses? Or to make her do something for him? And what? We have established from David’s Maddie that Mrs. Collins has a few hiding places—one here, where she has not been, though Mr. Perry arrived there and paid her rent. Why did he? Motive sinister, or motive benevolent? Did Mrs. Collins get wind of Mr. Perry coming to her rooms and took others, perhaps under an assumed name? She is an actress, as Marianne has pointed out. Marianne has been out on her own looking for her, talking to people at the theatres, though she’s found nothing so far.”

  “Miss Simmons has even taken a part in a play here,” Gabriella said.

  Grenville ceased talking and stared at her. So did I and Donata. “How did you know that?” Grenville asked, keeping his voice even.

  “She told me. She came to the door while you were out last evening to leave a message for you, Father. I thought it silly I shouldn’t speak to her myself, so I did. We had a nice chat in the sitting room. Miss Simmons told me that she’d asked if the local theatres had any parts for her while she was in town, for verisimilitude, she said. One company did give her a part, and in fact, she’s on tonight. I assumed she’d tell Mr. Grenville when he visited her. I do like Miss Simmons. I wish I did not have to pretend not to know her. It’s ridiculous.”

  Finished, Gabriella picked up a piece of buttered bread and munched it.

  We all regarded her in surprise a moment. “Miss Simmons did not bother to mention this,” Grenville said in some irritation.

  “May we go to the play, Father?” Gabriella asked. “A nice day out, I’d think—the Pump Rooms tomorrow morning, tea at the Upper Assembly Rooms, the theatre in the evening? If you and Mrs. Lacey haven’t already made our plans, of course.”

  Polite, deferential, and still managed to tell me exactly what she wanted. She was certainly my daughter.

  I ought to admonish Gabriella for not only allowing Marianne the house but speaking so frankly about Marianne’s arrangement with Grenville, but I felt a flush of pride instead. Gabriella had a clear-eyed view of the world, judging individuals in it by their own merits. I could not scold her for that.

  “The Pump Rooms, of course,” Donata said before I could answer. “I had planned for the subscription ball at the Upper Assembly Rooms tomorrow, but a theatre jaunt would not be a bad idea. We can always wander into the ball later.”

  “I’ll not be for the Pump Rooms,” Grenville said with a grimace. “Never could understand putting on an odd-looking suit to walk into a bath full of other people. Not to mention the waters taste of rotten eggs. I will take my exercise walking the city.”

  “Hmm,” I said. “Perhaps I will forego the Pump Rooms as well.”

  “Nonsense,” Donata said. “The waters are quite healing. They will be good for your injured leg.” She had a gleam in her eyes, a teasing one. She would herd me, half undressed in waistcoat and close-fitting drawers, into a pool full of water peopled with the denizens of the town, and she’d enjoy it.

  “And I’ve never been to a spa,” Gabriella said. “I long to see a mineral bath.”

  “But I have no wish to smell one,” Grenville said. He gave us a salute with his claret. “Enjoy yourselves, my friends.”

  *** *** ***

  The Pump Rooms caught my interest once we arrived, despite Grenville’s aversion and my misgivings. The building of golden stone stood on the site of Roman ruins, some of which had been unearthed when the place had been renovated some twenty or so years before. Grenville had obtained a few curios from that excavation, which I admitted interested me more than the parade of ladies and gentlemen we found there the next morning.

  We entered a grand room with a sort of counter I’d find in a public house, behind which ladies were dispensing drinks straight from what was known as the King’s Pump. I’d been assured by Grenville that the pipes had been arranged so the water came directly from the fountain and did not pass through the pool in which bathers immersed themselves. Still, I understood his aversion when I lifted the glass of foul-looking water. It stank of a bog, and I had to hold my breath before I could drink it.

  Gabriella made a face when she drank hers, but Donata emptied her glass without a qualm. “Excellent for the humors,” she said. “Come along, Gabriella. We’ll ready ourselves for a dip.”

  Bathing in public had never appealed to me. As a boy, I’d stripped off my clothes and played in the sea in the summer, or in the waters of the Broads. Dangerous, but I’d known no fear. In the army, modesty had often vanished in the face of necessity, but today I felt a bit uneasy as I donned a linen waistcoat and pantaloons and went out to what was known as the Hot Bath.

  I had to admit that the water, pleasantly warm, did bite into my limbs and start to soothe them at once. My knee became looser, more relaxed, and the lingering pain in my ribs flowed away. The water, though it came up only to my chest, made me buoyant enough that leaving my stick on shore did not cause me disquiet.

  Both men and women filled the bath this morning, from gouty gentlemen lowered in chairs, to ladies still wearing their bonnets. Heads turned when my wife entered with Gabriella—a lofty dowager viscountess was a sensation.

  Donata retained her elegance in the thin dress that soaked through quickly. Gabriella splashed in after her, looking happy. Gabriella swam rather than walked, which earned her disapproving stares, but Donata did not admonish her.

  When Donata reached me, I could not stop looking my wife over, she wet and draped with soaked material, her face flushed, her hair curling in the damp. She saw my look and gave me an arch one in return.

  The company was mixed, old and young, healthy and infirm, wealthy and middle class. Donata greeted her acquaintances as Gabriella paddled or walked about the bath, enjoying herself.

  The odor of the waters curled in my nose, and I did not much like being in the same pool as a man with open sores. But I had to admit my body felt warm, loose, and rested.

  Our visit to the Pump Rooms earned us little more than a hot bath and a bad-tasting drink, and no new information on Mrs. Collins. Donata insisted we stay for tea, which we took while the small orchestra, above us in an iron-railed gallery, played tunes.

  Later in the evening, after a light supper, we went to the theatre to see Marianne. The theatre was not the one in Orchard Street, where the famous Mrs. Siddons had begun. This one was on a side street, a bit smaller, but filled with spectators nonetheless.

  I had not seen Marianne do much onstage before this, even when she was still in the company at Drury Lane. In those plays she’d been so thoroughly in the background I hadn’t much noticed her behind the might of principal players such as Mr. Kean and Mrs. Collins.

  We did not sit in the stalls—that would never do—but in a box high above the stage, rented by Grenville. Grenville sat at the front of the box, not disguising the fact that he’d come to watch his mistress on the stage. He gave Marianne a nod when she came out in her costume, and she acknowledged it with a nod in return. The entire house saw the exchange, and whispers began.

  Marianne had been given a role in the melodrama as sister to the heroine, with more lines than I’d ever heard her speak. To my surprise, she was quite good. She so often referred to herself disparagingly as a “second-rate actress” that I’d assumed her talent to be indifferent. But while she did not have the rolling voice and grand delivery of a Hannah Wolff or Abigail Collins, she quietly became the role she played.

  I believed wholeheartedly that she was young Miss Wight, worried about her future but plucky enough to do something about it. I laughed at her quips, bec
ame sad for her when she saw her plans crash, and applauded heartily when she came to take her bow. Grenville called, Brava! and had Matthias ready at the foot of the stage to hand her a bouquet of hothouse flowers.

  “Is she not splendid?” Gabriella said, clapping. “Please tell her from me, Mr. Grenville, that I thought she was wonderful.”

  Grenville was pleased with her approbation and left us to visit Marianne backstage. The virtuous Lacey family, on the other hand, departed with the crowd via the front entrance.

  “Captain Lacey,” a man said.

  I turned and found myself facing Spendlove’s man, his face now bruised under his expensive hat. Behind him stood two men I did not recognize, but they had the bearing of parish constables. Behind those stood Spendlove himself, mist beading on his thick red hair. Even more astonishing, Pomeroy stood with him.

  Pomeroy, a large man with a shock of thick blond hair, removed his hat and made me an apologetic bow. “Captain. Sir. Will you come with us, please?”

  “No,” I answered. “If you wish to speak to me, you may call on me at my house.”

  “Afraid not,” Spendlove said. While Pomeroy strove to be respectful, Spendlove did not bother. “You may send your lady wife home, of course.”

  “His lady wife is going nowhere,” Donata said frostily. “What is this, Mr. . . . Spendlove, is it? And Mr. Pomeroy? Please explain why you are accosting us in the street.”

  “Count your blessings, Madame, that Pomeroy here talked me into waiting until you emerged from the theatre at all,” Spendlove said. “Now, I will speak with Captain Lacey.”

  “Indeed?” Donata fixed him with her chill gaze. “Please step aside, sir. Give your address to my footman, and my solicitor will call upon you tomorrow.”

  “I am afraid not.” Spendlove repeated, rocking back on his heels. Pomeroy looked annoyed, but he had no intention of quieting Spendlove or leaving. Spendlove was commanding this expedition, Pomeroy’s stance said, even if Pomeroy did not like it.

  “Father?” Gabriella turned to me, her eyes wide, her slender body huddled into her coat. The wind was brisk, our breaths heavy in the icy air. If my daughter caught a chill because of Spendlove, I would happily strangle him.

  “Let him speak,” I said to Donata. “Be quick about it,” I snapped at Spendlove. “And then go.”

  Spendlove looked positively cheerful, in no way intimidated by either my abruptness or Donata’s haughtiness. “Captain Gabriel Lacey, I arrest you for the murder of one Mr. John Perry, of the parish of St. Giles in London. Found dead yesterday evening, starting to decay too, in your rooms above the bakeshop at Number 5 Grimpen Lane.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  They at least let me take my family home, though it was only Pomeroy’s insistence that allowed it. Spendlove had wanted to haul me into a coach with guards then and there and carry me straight back to London. He at last agreed I could return home and pack a valise, but this concession came because he was confident of my guilt, not for any thought of courtesy or regard for my comfort.

  Pomeroy preceded me into the dining room of our splendid house, where we would wait while Bartholomew gathered my things. Spendlove came close behind me. The parish constables waited in the hall, and Spendlove’s man stationed himself at the front door in case I made a mad dash for freedom.

  Spendlove tried to keep Donata out after she sent Gabriella upstairs. “Not a place for you, I think, Madame,” he said, his hand on the door handle.

  “Nonsense,” Donata said, pushing past him. “Gabriel is my husband, and I demand to know why the devil you are arresting him.”

  Spendlove’s light blue eyes glinted. “For murder, as I said.”

  “Supposed murder,” Donata snapped. “We departed London on Tuesday last and have not returned since. How is Captain Lacey to have murdered a man in London from the Crescent? I believe I would have noticed his absence for enough time to journey up to Town, kill a man, and return. The entire society of Bath would have noted it.”

  “Madame . . .”

  “I am Lady Donata Pembroke, Mr. Spendlove, and you will address me as such.”

  Spendlove turned to me. “Can you curb your wife, please, Captain?”

  “No,” I said. I leaned against the edge of the table to watch.

  “Perhaps I will arrest her with you,” Spendlove said. “She can join you in the cells until the magistrate sorts things out. A happy honeymoon for you, eh?”

  Pomeroy broke in with a growl. “Have some respect, man.”

  “I have given Captain and Mrs. Lacey plenty of respect. I allowed them to return to this comfortable house, haven’t I? A bit posh for my taste.” Spendlove glanced around at the inlaid Hepplewhite sideboard, chairs, and table as though they offended him.

  “You don’t outrank me, Spendlove,” Pomeroy said. “Let the captain defend himself.”

  Pomeroy’s attitude made a change from his instant assumption of my guilt, as was his wont. He did not like Spendlove pushing in on his territory, it was apparent.

  “We left London, as my wife told you, on the sixth of this month,” I said. “Tuesday last, more than a week ago. Since then, I have been making my rounds at the assembly rooms, bathing for my health, and immersing myself in insipid gossip, as one does at watering places.”

  Spendlove, instead of looking disappointed, smiled anew. “Interesting you should say so, Captain. The coroner believes Mr. Perry has been dead a bit longer than a week, killed on the evening of the fifth of January. The night before you set off on your journey, in fact. Leaving London to come to Bath, which I’m told is not a fashionable thing this time of year.”

  “I’m on honeymoon, as you pointed out,” I said. “Our journey was not as sudden as you make it. We prepared our leaving several days beforehand. I did not visit Grimpen Lane that evening. How did the man get into my rooms at all?”

  “That is a mystery,” Spendlove said. “Perhaps someone was there to let him in. He wasn’t found for days, and the door was locked and all, or so your landlady says. She went up there last evening because she noticed a peculiar odor coming from above her shop. It’s been cold, so I’m sure it took some time for Perry to start to stink. She thought maybe a cat had gotten caught up there. She takes her keys, goes upstairs, unlocks the door to your front room, and there he is. Sprawled in the middle of the floor, his head beaten in. Gave the poor woman a turn. She comes running out for the Watch, I got wind of it, and I came ’round. This gentleman, Mr. Perry, I understand, threatened you and had you beaten, didn’t he, Captain? I imagine that made you angry.”

  “Of course it did,” I said. “But I did not retaliate.”

  “One more thing,” Spendlove said. He opened a little notebook and leafed through pages until he found what he wanted. “Lying next to the dead man was a walking stick with a gold head. On that head was engraved the words Captain G. Lacey, 1817.”

  I heard Donata’s intake of breath, and I clutched the walking stick I’d bought at the shop in the Strand. “It was the murder weapon?”

  Pomeroy answered before Spendlove could. “Don’t know for certain. Could have been, but there was no blood on it.”

  “Blood can be wiped off,” Spendlove said.

  “For God’s sake,” I said. “Why would I wipe the blood from a walking stick that obviously belongs to me and then leave the stick next to the body? I believe I would be wise enough to take it away with me.”

  “Not if you were interrupted,” Spendlove said. “I see you have a new stick to replace the old. Perhaps you left it behind in your agitation to get away, perhaps you left it to throw us off the scent. After all, what man would leave a weapon with his name on it at the scene of a crime?”

  “That walking stick has a sword inside it,” I said. “A much quicker weapon, especially for a man with a weak leg, than trying to beat a strong, healthy man to death.”

  Spendlove shrugged. “You can, of course, tell all that to the magistrate. It is my job, and Pomeroy’s, to run you t
o ground and bring you in. And gather evidence. We don’t get paid until there’s a conviction.” His tone implied he did not worry that he’d miss out on his reward.

  “I did not go to Grimpen Lane that day,” I repeated. “I have not seen Mr. Perry since he interrogated me after he had me beaten and tied to a cot. I admit no love for the man, and I am convinced he either killed Mrs. Collins the actress, or has hidden her away somewhere, or has terrified her into hiding. But I did not kill him. You can ask up and down Grimpen Lane whether I came there, and you can ask Lady Breckenridge’s household about my comings and goings that day. And why on earth would I leave the man in my own rooms to be found?”

  “From what I’ve heard tell, you’re not the cleverest of gentlemen,” Spendlove said. “I mean no offense. You are thorough and come to conclusions, but usually through dogged stubbornness rather than keenness of mind. You stumble over what others miss, but by chance. Oh, yes, I enjoyed reading about your investigations in those little journals of yours. But you would be the sort of man to kill another in a foul temper then storm away and leave town, forgetting the little details of cleaning up after yourself. You might not be the only suspect in this murder, but you are a very good one, and we are taking you to London to the magistrate.”

  “Very well,” I said, coldly angry. Spendlove had already decided my guilt, but the Bow Street magistrate might see reason. I’d dealt with him before, and he was no fool.

  Donata put herself in front of me. “No, Gabriel. They cannot come and snatch you in the middle of the night, like police do on the Continent. I have solicitors; I have means. They must leave you be until they can gather enough evidence for an arrest.”

  Pomeroy cleared his throat. “I’m afraid that finding the man dead after the captain had an altercation with him was enough evidence for the coroner and the magistrates. Sir Nathaniel told us to bring you, sir. With reluctance, but it points to you.”

  “You still had the keys to your rooms,” Spendlove put in. “Mrs. Beltan told me you’d decided, at the last minute, not to give up the rooms but continue to let them. Now why did you want to do that, eh? When you were moving into a posh Mayfair home?”