A Disappearance in Drury Lane

by Ashley Gardner

  Bartholomew was becoming quite the snob, the perfect valet in the making. I was in a foul temper, so to dismay him, I said, “Yes, I’ll go up,” and walked to the theatre’s front entrance before he could answer.

  By the time I reached the Breckenridge box, the play was well underway. Donata’s box in this theatre was not as large as the one at Covent Garden, but still plenty opulent. The box’s small foyer contained two gilded chairs with soft seats and an ebony table holding a decanter of wine and glasses. Double doors with panels picked out in gold led to the box itself.

  Donata was already in her seat, Lady Aline next to her, Grenville beyond. I breathed a sigh of relief. Friends only, no cold glances of ladies and gentlemen I barely knew.

  Donata rose to meet me, the bandeau in her hair glittering with diamonds. She touched my unshaved chin. “Did you find her?”

  No pleasantries, no asking how my journey was, or if I were well. Donata was a woman who went straight to the point.

  “I did,” I said.

  The three looked at me expectantly as Donata sat me down and resumed her seat, but exhaustion overcame me. Mr. Kean stepped onstage to loud applause, covering any conversation I might make. By the time he launched into his first speech, I was drooping on Donata’s shoulder, and then I snored through the better part of Kean’s brilliant performance as Othello.

  *** *** ***

  I slept through my usual early rising time and did not wake until Donata herself was up. I had spent the night in my own chamber, not wanting to go to Donata in my road-stained state, and too tired to wait for Bartholomew to bring a bath.

  Barnstable had ordered one drawn by the time I rolled, groaning, out of bed in the afternoon, and Bartholomew hovered near to shave and dress me. I was ashamed of my assessment of Bartholomew as a snob last night; he was a godsend, and I was lucky he’d agreed to work for me.

  Both he and Barnstable looked over my bruises from my fight with Coleman, but I said nothing, and they seemed to sense they should not ask, not at the moment.

  Washed, shaved, and dressed in clean clothing, I entered Donata’s boudoir. She looked up at me from where she sat at a small table, a newspaper open in her hands. Silver trays bearing plenty of food waited for us.

  “You will take breakfast with me, will you not?” Donata asked returning to her newspaper. “You have had a long journey, and it is already two. The others will not mind if you do not go down yet.”

  “And you wish me to tell you everything,” I said, taking the seat Bartholomew drew out for me.

  “Exactly,” my wife said, the paper still in front of her. “You were insensible last night, and I was kind and let you sleep. Grenville was most worried, but I told him that if something had gone amiss, you’d have said at least that before you nodded off.”

  “I would have attempted it.” I let Bartholomew pile my plate high with meat, eggs, and toast. The long journey had made me hungry, and I only now realized I’d eaten very little during it.

  “Still, it was most maddening of you to sleep through the entire play.” Donata lowered her paper long enough to give me a severe look over it. “And the entertainment after it, and the short play after that.”

  None of which I remembered. How I’d come to be in her carriage on the way home, I had no idea.

  I could have gone on teasing her, taking my breakfast in silence until I’d eaten my fill, but I decided to take pity on her. I gave her the tale, beginning with my arrival at the cottage outside Froxfield, my astonishment to find Mrs. Collins there, then my realization that made me rush back to London to question Mrs. Wolff and Coleman.

  “I thought I had the answer,” I said, running a finger around the rim of a thin porcelain coffee cup. “But they seemed truly bewildered by my questions. Still, Mrs. Wolff is the only one I can see to benefit the most from Mrs. Collins’ departure. If Mrs. Collins is gone for good, or is so rattled she decides not to invest in the theatre, Mrs. Wolff’s position is safe for the moment. At least, she and Coleman believe so.”

  “What about Mr. Kean?” Donata asked and took a sip from her cup of chocolate. The chocolate left a dark smear on her upper lip. I wanted nothing more than to taste it, but she licked it away and continued. “He might have been angry that Mrs. Collins wanted to come into the running of the theatre, perhaps for the same reasons Mrs. Wolff feared. Mr. Kean has the reputation for liking his drink a little too much, and for being difficult.”

  I shook my head. “I cannot see the theatre’s committee readily letting Mr. Kean leave. He fills seats, and they know it.”

  “Perhaps,” Donata conceded. She laid aside her newspaper and took up the first letter of her pile of post, lifting her knife to slit the seal. “Then it must be another actress, as you suspected before, for reasons of her own.”

  I sighed and sat back. “I believe I know nothing anymore. All my ideas have gone wrong. Perhaps marriage has muddled me.”

  She did not look up from her letter. “Do not be daft. If you are muddled, it is because so much is unclear. You have found Mrs. Collins, and she is well, which is the best thing.”

  “But not safe until I run her detractor to ground,” I said, unhappy. I took a sip of coffee, allowing myself to enjoy it.

  I could sit in this room forever, I decided. Drinking fine coffee, bathing in Donata’s light scent, and watching her sleek head bend as she read her letters. She was a lovely woman, with a loveliness that went all the way through her. I thought of my encounter with Lydia Westin in Bath. Lydia had dazzled me two summers ago, making me believe I’d lost my heart to her, thoroughly and forever. My dear friend Louisa Brandon had told me that, in time, my heart would heal. I had not believed her.

  I believed her now. Donata had eased her way into my life, and now I could not imagine myself without her.

  She had a pile of correspondence to go through, my wife ever popular, which Barnstable had piled on a little table behind her. Quite a stack of letters, and one box.

  I froze, my coffee slopping as my cup jerked. “Donata,” I said. “What is the package?”

  “Hmm?” Donata glanced at it. “Tea cakes from Gunter’s. I ordered them as a little treat for when you returned. Do not worry so, Gabriel.”

  Perfectly reasonable. I ought to laugh shakily in relief and say that my fears were getting the better of me. But I remembered Ridgley and the evil of him.

  “Would you like one now?” Donata asked. She took up her knife again and inserted it under the seal, ready to pull the paper free.

  “No!” I was up and over the table before the shout left my mouth. I grabbed Donata by the shoulders and jerked her to the floor.

  I heard a scratch, smelled the foul odor of burning and gunpowder, and then a loud bam ricocheted through the room. Heat touched me, sparks, and fire. I rolled with Donata, pinning her beneath me, coughing from the smoke.

  “Gabriel!” Donata’s voice was harsh with terror. I felt great pain, heard Bartholomew’s cry of alarm, and then something very heavy hit my back.

  As I fell, Donata’s warm body there to surround and catch me, my thoughts sharpened into astonishing clarity. In one moment, like a shimmering drop of suspended water, I saw who had driven away Mrs. Collins, murdered Perry, and now had tried to kill me.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  At four o’clock that afternoon, I stood at the front door of Hannah Wolff’s house, where she lived with her sister and brother-in-law. Pomeroy and Spendlove were with me.

  I hadn’t wanted Spendlove there, but he’d insisted on joining us when I’d gone to fetch Pomeroy. Sir Nathaniel, the magistrate, had agreed. Pomeroy had expressed his aggravation loudly, but Spendlove had won.

  I rapped upon the door, wincing at the pain in my singed knuckles. I also ached from where Bartholomew had tackled me, shoving me down and hitting me with a carpet to put out the fire that had caught my coat. The clothes had been ruined, but fortunately, the man inside had been spared.

  The plain maid who’d answered the door
the last time opened it again, looking askance at me and the two Runners. She did not want to admit us, and I had to stand in front of Pomeroy and Spendlove to keep them from simply barreling their way in. This maid had done nothing, and I could at least be polite.

  We went into the foyer and then the front hall. The walls were plain dark wood, with framed panels of wallpaper at neat intervals, each rectangle holding a painting. The paintings were not very good, at least, not compared to the artwork I’d seen at Grenville’s or Denis’s. They were competent and pretty, what a cit could afford.

  The Holts were both at home, the maid said, and would be down directly. When they entered, I again wondered at my thoughts. Hannah’s sister and her husband regarded us with timid puzzlement, and Mrs. Holt asked the maid to send in refreshments.

  “We’ll not stay,” I said. “I came to tell you that Mrs. Collins has been found. She is well, and she is eager to return to Drury Lane for the remainder of the season.”

  “What did he say?” Hannah herself stood in a doorway that connected with the next room, holding herself steady on the doorframe. “Captain Lacey, you found Abby?”

  “I did,” I said. “She will be back in London soon. Are you alone here? Where is Coleman?”

  “Hasn’t come for me. I was tired today, and my head hurts. And I am not alone. My sister and Mr. Holt are here.”

  I turned to the rheumatic maid who’d come in with the tea tray, which again I took out of her crooked hands and set on a table. “Please send for Mr. Coleman,” I told her. “Mrs. Wolff will need him.”

  The maid turned to Mrs. Holt for confirmation. Mrs. Holt nodded, then started for her sister. “Dear Hannah, you should not be out of bed. You’ll take a chill.”

  I stepped between them. “Not yet, Mrs. Holt.”

  Spendlove, who had been standing by with his beefy arms folded, finally exploded into impatience. “May we get on with this? That is, if you aren’t about to sit down for tea and cakes. Perhaps we should wait until a royal duchess comes to call.”

  Mrs. Holt ignored him, while her husband’s mouth popped open. “Excuse me, Captain Lacey,” Mrs. Holt said. “My sister needs me.”

  “She does not,” I said. “She needs Coleman.”

  “I’m not waiting for him,” Spendlove rumbled behind me.

  “Neither am I,” Pomeroy said. “Sorry, Captain. Mr. Benjamin Holt and Mrs. Holt, you are being arrested for the murder of Mr. John Perry, and for procuring a device meant to maim or kill from one Mr. Thomas Ridgley. I will be taking you to a magistrate where he will hear my evidence and decide whether there is enough to hold you for trial.”

  Mrs. Holt stopped. She looked, not at the Runners, but at me, her eyes widening in amazement. “I cannot leave this house, gentlemen. I must take care of Hannah.”

  “Mr. Coleman will,” I said. “Luckily for her, he’s been looking after her all this time. I shudder to think what might have happened to her had he not.”

  “I do not know what you mean,” Mrs. Holt said in indignation. “Everything I have done has been for my sister. I gave up my life on the stage so I could make certain she always had a decent place to live. She is one of the great ones. I have always known that.”

  Mr. Holt had remained in place and silent, but he’d straightened from his stoop, which made his stomach look immediately less puffy. His head came up, and now he appeared to be a foot taller, almost as tall as I was.

  “What is happening?” Hannah asked into the silence. “Martha, tell me.”

  “It was all for you,” Mrs. Holt said, her voice firm. “Abigail Collins would have ruined you, cast you out, and you the best in the world. You took that woman to your bosom, taught her everything she knew, made her everything she is. She came here, pathetic and poor from the little traveling players, keen to make a go on the London stage. And what did she do in the end? She turned on you, she did. Mrs. Collins made you into her dresser and her teacher, keeping you as a drudge when once you’d been great, far better than she ever was. And she was going to give you the push. She could not do that. I would not let her do that.”

  Hannah’s eyes were wide, her lips trembling. Her hand slid from its propping position, and she started to fall.

  I sprang forward and caught her. This woman, who had seemed such a pillar of strength on the stage, was nothing more than a collection of frail bones. She was so light I barely felt her weight as I held her upright.

  Spendlove looked belligerent at my rescue, but Pomeroy merely moved so neither of the Holts could run for it out the front door.

  “I don’t understand,” Hannah said, tears in her eyes. “I never wanted this.”

  “I did not want this for you either,” I said. “But they tried to kill Mrs. Collins, and this morning, they tried to kill me. My wife opened that package.”

  The incident had made the fury in me rise in red incandescence. If they’d tossed an incendiary device at me as I’d made my way through a deserted passage or some such, I could have understood. I’d have blamed myself for not taking more care.

  But they’d endangered Donata, and everyone in my house, and that was beyond forgiveness. Barnstable, who’d brought in the post, might have been hurt or killed by that package if it had gone off too soon. And dear God, my daughter might have seen the box, thought it innocent iced cakes, and snatched it up in playful eagerness.

  “Your wife?” Hannah turned her face up to mine. “Oh, Lord. Is she well?”

  “She is. But it was a near thing.”

  It made me sick to think how near. A harmless parcel from Gunter’s, Donata had assumed it. I was keeping myself from contemplating the full of it, or else I’d fall here with Hannah and degenerate into a gibbering fool.

  “Handy little devices,” Mr. Holt said, no longer the dithering middle-aged gentleman. His voice was clear, filled with pride. “We had several made. Mr. Ridgley was obliging.”

  Good God. “Make a search of the house,” I said to Pomeroy. “Carefully. Mrs. Wolff, you will come with me.”

  “You leave my sister alone,” Mrs. Holt said. “She’s not to be touched by the likes of you.”

  I ignored her. Without a word, I led Hannah swiftly back through the room from which she’d come, into the hall, and thence out of the house. As we went, I heard Pomeroy’s voice rise cheerily, reminding the Holts that they were under arrest. Spendlove curtly called in the patrollers who’d waited without, and they flowed through the front door as I took Hannah out of it.

  She looked up at me, the once great lady of the stage, now faded, tired, and grieving. “What have I done?”

  “Not you,” I said. “Not you, Mrs. Wolff. This is not your fault.”

  “Yes, it is.” She rested against me, closing her eyes against the glare of winter sun she could not see. “I was always such a prideful creature. I took credit for shaping Abby, but she has the gift. She could have done it without me. But I suppose I poured all my troubles out to my sister, and she took it much too serious. Martha has always been protective of me, proud she sacrificed her career to look after me, the great actress. And God forgive me, I thought she was right.”

  Tears trickled down her cheeks. I dared press a kiss to her forehead. “You were the best of all, Mrs. Wolff. You were, in truth. I’ll never forget you. Here is Coleman. He’ll look after you now. I wager he always will.”

  *** *** ***

  Life was not tidy, with every problem put away into neat boxes when all was done. I felt as I had when I’d packed up the pieces of my old life in Grimpen Lane—as though I’d emptied everything hodge-podge into a crate and nailed it shut.

  The danger was gone, Abigail free to return to Drury Lane. Pomeroy and Spendlove had searched the Holts’ house and found several more of the incendiary devices, which Mr. Holt had kept locked in a strong metal box in a cupboard.

  Both the Holts had confessed to hiring Ridgley, and Mr. Holt confessed to killing Mr. Perry. The man and wife were in Newgate now, awaiting their fate. Because Holt was a
successful businessman, he had the money to pay for private accommodations for himself and his wife. But they’d hang.

  Pomeroy complained that Spendlove would horn in on the conviction reward, though he admitted Spendlove had been helpful in obtaining the confession. I did not like to think how Spendlove had done so.

  Spendlove was, of course, forced to drop the idea that I’d killed Perry. He still had his eye on me, though, he said, and on Denis. He promised to pot the both of us with one blow someday. I had no doubt he would, but in the first days after the investigation was over, I scarcely cared.

  I never did discover why Mrs. Carfax had so readily told the magistrate she’d seen me entering my rooms the night of Perry’s death. Whatever knowledge Spendlove held over her, Mrs. Carfax was not telling. Miss Winston had been unable to discover the secret, and I dropped the matter.

  As for Grenville, I did not see him for a few days after the arrests. When he finally invited me to his house to take a midmorning meal with him—a creation of Anton’s—he was despondent.

  “How did you know?” Grenville asked me. “I’ll never forgive you for not sending for me when you made the arrest, but perhaps that was best. They had more incendiary devices, you say, in their house? Were they mad?”

  “I believe they were,” I said, scraping up the sauce of orange liqueur that Anton had poured, flaming, over my crepe stuffed with cheese. “They’d convinced themselves they were Mrs. Wolff’s protectors, that they had to look after her at all costs.”

  “At all costs.” Grenville blew out his breath. “Good Lord. But how did you discover what they’d done? I never thought of them, to tell the truth.”

  “I hadn’t thought of them either. When I met them they seemed pleasant but not very clever. But when the device went off in Donata’s chamber, all the pieces seemed to rise and form together in my head. I had a flash of how Mr. Kean can transform himself from a small, hunched nobody into a great orator in the space of a moment. He’s excellent at it. When I met Mr. Holt, I remembered thinking him a small, hunched nobody—but what would happen if he straightened up and changed his manner entirely? In the next second, it occurred to me that Mrs. Holt had been an actress—she’d know about donning costumes and changing her appearance, and perhaps her husband knew something about acting as well.”