She showed Child the necklace she’d found in the alley. ‘Lord March and the lieutenant seemed to be arguing over it. It made me wonder if it had belonged to Pamela or Lucy.’
Child examined it. ‘I’ll show this to Cecily. And if she doesn’t recognize it, then I’ll take it to Lucy’s landlord.’
‘It’s rather exotic: that odd little hand and the beads. I wondered if it was old, like the jewellery in Stone’s collection?’
‘I could ask Solomon Loredo. He would know.’ Child slipped the necklace into his pocket. ‘The lieutenant certainly has questions to answer. The owner of the supper house he gave for an alibi says he wasn’t there – he doesn’t remember seeing Simon either. But the lamplighter, Von Siegel, places a gentleman matching the lieutenant’s description in the bowers at the time of the murder.’ He told Caro his theory that the woman Von Siegel had seen with the gentleman – the one who’d left the bowers in tears – was Agnetti’s assistant, Cassandra Willougby. ‘Cecily told me that Pamela had a fancy for the lieutenant, but that she had a rival for his attention, another woman. I thought it must be Miss Willoughby, but according to the newspapers, she didn’t come to London until the spring.’
‘That’s right,’ Caro said, recalling all she’d read and heard about Agnetti’s scandals. ‘It was an elopement gone awry. Her lover abandoned her. She’d not been in London long when Agnetti took her in.’
‘Then Pamela’s rival must have been someone else. You did say the lieutenant was something of a rake. Did you talk to Agnetti about the ring?’
‘Yes, he confirmed the lieutenant’s story that Lucy had stolen it. But then I suppose Agnetti could be lying too – if he is involved, as you suspect. Why would Lucy steal the ring? To what purpose?’
‘I can’t think of one. Von Siegel remembered seeing a letter in the bower, by the way. I think we can safely presume that it’s now in the hands of the Home Office. And my rooms were searched the other night. They must still be looking for this second document, whatever it is.’
They had come to a halt in Broad St Giles’s, caught up in a herd of sooty sheep being driven to slaughter. The animals jostled against the carriage, and the feral smell of their fleeces only heightened Caro’s nausea. She closed the window, sucking on a ginger comfit.
‘I think all four of them know what happened to Pamela,’ Child said. ‘Stone, the Dodd-Bellingham brothers and Lord March. Perhaps they’re all involved. Or the other three are scared of Stone. Loredo said that he likes to learn his debtors’ secrets.’
‘I hate to think what else they might have been up to. As for Stone, he is cavalier about his reputation, but even he’d struggle to shrug off the murder of a fifteen-year-old prostitute at his estate.’
‘He certainly has no shortage of enemies who would like to see him brought low. Loredo told me that some City aldermen recently tried to have him investigated for dealing in illegal loans, but the Home Office wanted no part in it. I wonder if that was Cavill-Lawrence’s doing too.’
‘Stone put a nasty story about me in the newspapers, and threatened to do more.’ Caro sounded more light-hearted about it than she felt. ‘I received this in the post too.’ She showed him the puzzle purse.
Child unfolded it to examine the paintings and the message inside. ‘Could this be Agnetti’s work?’
‘Whoever painted it has talent, but why would Agnetti have sent it? It only points suspicion his way.’
Child grunted, conceding the point. ‘Well, it wasn’t an idle threat. I ask you once again, madam, to leave this business to me. Let me talk to Mr Dodd-Bellingham alone.’
‘We have been over this, Mr Child. I know these men – the way they think. Besides, the killer already knows that you’re working for me.’
‘At least promise me you won’t put yourself in danger again. I don’t want you talking to any of our suspects alone. No more situations like last night.’
‘Very well. I’ll keep my footman close.’
They turned into Bloomsbury Square and the carriage rattled to a halt outside the Dodd-Bellingham residence. Child opened the door and jumped out, holding up a hand to assist her down.
Caro looked up at the house. ‘I can hardly believe they went along with it. The buying and selling of a fifteen-year-old child at auction. I wouldn’t have put anything past Stone or the lieutenant, but I thought better of Simon and Lord March.’
From Child’s expression, he had no such reservations. ‘I wonder which one of them did the deed. Took Pamela’s virginity, I mean. The lieutenant? He was the one who bought her.’
Caro’s voice was quiet and hard. ‘Let us find out.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
GRIMMOND, THE DODD-BELLINGHAMS’ elderly manservant, stood back to allow Child and Mrs Corsham through the scullery door. The mews yard was weed-strewn, with high, lichened walls on either side and a dilapidated coach house. A young man of about twenty-five, whom Child presumed to be Simon Dodd-Bellingham, was standing in front of the open coach-house doors, applying some sort of paste to a marble statue of a naked woman. She was pointing into the distance, her extended arm held in a clamping device.
He straightened when he saw them. ‘Mrs Corsham, good heavens. Grimmond, what were you thinking? This is no place to receive a lady.’
‘Don’t blame poor Grimmond,’ Mrs Corsham said. ‘I insisted.’
She made the introductions, and Simon eyed Child warily. With his horn-rimmed spectacles and bad teeth, he was a sorry specimen indeed compared to his brother. Child recalled Mrs Corsham saying that his mother had been a celebrated beauty. Not much evidence of it here.
‘I am relieved to see you looking so well, madam,’ Simon said. ‘I heard there was an incident at Carlisle House last night.’
‘Thank you for your concern, but I survived unscathed, as you see.’ Mrs Corsham studied the statue. ‘She’s rather fine. Who is she?’
He smiled uneasily. ‘Persephone, my older woman – by about two thousand years. One of my agents in Athens dug her out of the ground at Delphi. Mr Stone has a new fountain at a Berkshire estate which will suit her perfectly.’
‘The arm was broken?’
‘In transit. Greek porters are perfect vandals, but I have secured the arm by knocking in a pin. Once I’ve filled the gaps and sanded her down, no one will know.’
‘We’re also looking to fill some gaps,’ Mrs Corsham said. ‘We’d like to talk to you, if we may, about Lucy Loveless.’
Simon glanced from one to the other, his face slick with sweat. Mrs Corsham hadn’t been lying about his nerves.
‘My brother told me that you called the other day. I’m afraid I can add little to what he told you. I was in the Rotunda until just after nine, when Neddy and I left to dine at the Prince of Wales supper house in Covent Garden.’
Mrs Corsham gave him a flinty look. ‘Lucy Loveless believed a fifteen-year-old girl named Pamela was murdered six months ago. She had several suspects in mind for that murder, and you were one of them. We know you and your brother collected Pamela from a tableaux house in Soho, and took her to a masquerade at Stone’s estate on the first of March. Nobody has seen her since. The owner of the Prince of Wales doesn’t remember seeing you on the night of Lucy’s murder and he is certain that your brother wasn’t there. Which means you’ve already lied to us once. So if you want us to believe you had nothing to do with any of this, I suggest veracity, Mr Dodd-Bellingham – and much of it.’
Child shot her an admiring glance. It was like having Torquemada on your team.
Simon blinked his dismay. ‘Then you’d better come inside.’
The coach-house walls were lined with shelves, a chaos of paint pots, glass bottles, and jars of coloured powders. More clutter filled the room: racks of chisels, brushes and knives; coils of rope and spools of string; a barrel of nails; another of sawdust; and more clamping devices. Several tables were scattered with bits of broken statue: disembodied arms, feet, heads, as well as fragments of mosaic and broken pots. A desk groaned un
der the weight of papers and leather-bound volumes. The air smelled of paint, a welcome respite from Mrs Corsham’s ginger comfits, which reminded Child, all too painfully, of his dead wife. In the centre of the dusty floor stood a large pottery urn.
‘Don’t touch it,’ Simon exclaimed, as Child wandered over to take a look. ‘The paint’s not yet dry.’
The urn was decorated with a frieze of glossy black figures. A man poised to penetrate a woman, who was writhing against the buttocks of a second man; he, in turn, poised to enter another man from behind, who was kissing a woman between her open legs.
Child grinned. ‘Looks like quite a party.’
‘My apologies, Mrs Corsham.’ Simon closed his eyes. ‘The Athenians could be rather indecorous.’
‘Is that piece for Mr Stone?’ she asked. ‘It looks to his taste.’
‘I hope to sell it to him, yes, once it’s restored. Such pieces are highly collectable, with prices to match.’
He pulled out a chair for Mrs Corsham – the only one in the room – and she sat, arranging her skirts around her.
‘Let’s start with Lucy Loveless,’ Child said. ‘Did you know her?’
Simon’s gaze flicked between them. ‘My brother says I must have met her at Agnetti’s house, though I don’t recall doing so. I don’t consort with his sitters as a rule. But I certainly met her in May. She came to see me.’
‘To ask you about Pamela’s disappearance?’
‘Yes. I told her I knew nothing untoward, which is the truth.’
‘Do you deny that your brother bought Pamela at auction, and that you were with him when he collected her from the tableaux house?’
‘No, why should I? We did nothing wrong.’
‘A fifteen-year-old girl,’ Mrs Corsham said. ‘Traded at auction like horsemeat.’
His voice faltered. ‘It was her choice to sell herself. The age of consent is twelve.’
‘It shouldn’t be.’
‘Your brother and Lord March said nothing of this when we questioned them the other day,’ Child said. ‘Why do you think that was, if you did nothing wrong?’
‘For the same reason I didn’t mention knowing Lucy when I saw Mrs Corsham at Mr Stone’s the other day. I had no desire to set hares running again. Lucy, as you say, had constructed certain notions about us. Pointing fingers, crying murder – and no truth to it at all.’
‘So where’s Pamela now?’
‘I haven’t the first idea. My brother dropped the girls back in Soho the morning after the masquerade. He says Pamela seemed perfectly content, and was looking forward to getting her money. You can ask him.’
‘I’d rather ask the girls.’
‘They’ll tell you exactly what they told Lucy. Neddy brought her back safely to London. Nothing happened.’
‘Who else was there that night at Stone’s estate?’ Child said. ‘Apart from you, your brother and the girls?’
‘Just Mr Stone and Lord March.’
‘How about the fifth man?’
His Adam’s apple bobbed. ‘What fifth man?’
‘Five girls for five men. That’s what Lucy said.’
‘She was wrong. There were only four of us. One girl is – forgive me, madam – rarely enough to satisfy Stone.’
The trouble with nervous men was that they looked as guilty when telling the truth as they did when they were lying. Which made them hard to judge. Child watched the sweat roll off him, gathering his thoughts. ‘Doesn’t the club have over a dozen members? Why so few of you on that night?’
‘This meeting was just for the founders. We discussed some administrative matters that would have bored the wider club, and then had dinner with the girls.’
‘Had you ever met Pamela before that night?’
‘Yes, once at Mrs Havilland’s, and then a few times at Agnetti’s. She was a bold little piece for her age. Always stopping to talk. I could hardly avoid her.’
‘Where did your brother get the money to buy her virginity? Two hundred and fifty guineas, wasn’t it? From Stone?’
‘I presumed so. Neddy is always bringing him girls. When you owe Stone money you can’t repay, he finds a use for you.’
‘You bring him antiquities. Your brother brings him girls. What does Lord March bring him?’
‘Nothing any more. His father settled his debts upon his engagement. But previously he introduced Mr Stone to many gentlemen of his acquaintance: noblemen like himself, seeking to borrow money against their expectations. Or men who might otherwise advance Stone’s business interests. A name like Amberley opens many doors.’
‘Do these gentlemen ever come to the Priapus Club?’
‘Some of them are members, yes. But I’ve told you – it was only the four of us who were there that night.’
‘So you did. Tell us about your club, if you will. What does it mean, Priapus?’
Looking extremely reluctant, Simon took a box down from a shelf and rummaged through it. He set a small bronze figurine on the desk. A little man with a beard and an ugly, leering face. In his hands he held his enormous, erect penis.
‘Priapus was a fertility god to the ancient Greeks and Romans. A son of Aphrodite, he was cursed by Hera in revenge after his mother won the golden apple. Shunned by normal society, he joined Pan and the satyrs in bacchanalian revels.’
‘Satyrs like the one on Stone’s invitations? The cards your brother hands out to the girls?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Satyrs are rapists, are they not?’
Simon shook his head. ‘There are many different myths, most in conflict with one another. But if you mean to make an inference about our club, then you couldn’t be more wrong. All the women who come to our masquerades do so willingly. They are more akin to muses than whores.’
‘I heard they are paid well for their time. That sounds like whores to me.’
‘Naturally they are paid, but Stone insists the girls are treated with respect. Equality between the sexes is one of the foremost principles of our club.’
‘Your brother mentioned the club’s philosophy. Can you tell us more about it?’
‘We revere the natural condition,’ Simon said. ‘Man as God intended: tolerant, free, given full liberty to his desires. I have made an extensive study of the cult of Priapus, from artefacts found at the sites of Pompeii and Isernia, and they suggest these beliefs were once commonplace in ancient Rome. As club members, we try to uphold these same principles in our daily existence.’
‘By fornicating with harlots?’ Child pointed to the urn. ‘Something like that?’
Simon took off his glasses and wiped them on the sleeve of his shirt. ‘There is a physical expression of the club’s beliefs, I don’t deny it. We call it the generative principle.’
‘I can think of a few other names for it,’ Child said.
‘Many of the great men of Athens visited the temple prostitutes. The women were said to bring enlightenment through ecstasy. Socrates himself is known to have frequented the brothels.’
‘What is that gesture Stone makes with his hand in his painting of the Priapus Club?’ Mrs Corsham asked.
Simon bowed his head. ‘Please don’t make me say it in front of you, madam.’
‘I thought you believed in equality between the sexes?’
He screwed up his eyes, looking utterly miserable. ‘It is supposed to represent the private parts of a lady. Mr Stone believes that women – in their natural condition, freed from the bondage of marriage – have the same appetites for pleasure as do men. The Church has always feared female desire and shamed women for it.’
‘And Mr Stone is to be our liberator?’ Mrs Corsham said dryly. ‘My sex is fortunate indeed to have such a champion.’
‘Pamela certainly had desires,’ Child said. ‘For your brother – that’s what we heard. Was it Neddy who took her virginity that night?’
He sighed. ‘I don’t know. I wasn’t there.’
Child frowned. ‘You just said that you were.
’
‘I was, at first. But when the debauchery began, I went for a walk.’ Simon’s gaze fell on his statue of Priapus. ‘It is an odd thing, desire, is it not? As red-blooded men, we are supposed to want every woman we meet, the younger the better. But I often wonder how much of that performance is a fear of looking foolish in front of one’s friends?’
‘You don’t like women?’
‘I like them very much. Virtuous, kind women. Not whores with their wanton humour and bawdy tricks. I rarely touch the girls at the masquerades – and I certainly didn’t touch Pamela. If you must know, I also thought she was too young. After I left the masquerade, I wandered around Stone’s estate, until I thought they’d all be asleep. Then I returned to the house. The place was in darkness, but I roused a servant and went to bed. When I awoke, Neddy and the girls had already gone.’
‘From what you’ve told us,’ Mrs Corsham said, ‘the physical side of the club is largely the point. If you dislike it so much, then why not leave?’
‘Because I owe Stone money I cannot repay, and I have no desire to end up in the Fleet Prison. As long as I am useful to him, I have value. I fit out his houses with antiquities, I seek out writings to support his philosophy, I attend his club and, to my shame, sometimes I demean myself with his whores. Perhaps in time, I’ll get out from under this wretched debt. Until then, I go wherever Mr Stone points.’
‘Then you don’t believe in it? The club’s philosophy?’
‘I believe in tolerance and difference. How could I not, given my background? I am interested in the study of the fertility cults and early religion, but that doesn’t mean we should adopt their practices ourselves. The Church can be dogmatic, certainly, but marriage, when it is founded upon mutual regard, is the highest expression of God’s love.’ He gazed at them, a picture of anxious sincerity.
‘There was little mutual regard in the Agnetti marriage,’ Child said. ‘Mrs Agnetti disappeared on the same day as Pamela. Do you know anything about that?’
He looked surprised by the change of subject. ‘No, I barely knew Agnetti’s wife.’
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