‘Did she know Pamela?’
‘I presume so. Pamela was sitting for Agnetti, and he maintains a liberal household. I believe Mrs Agnetti often spent time with his sitters.’
‘Did you ever hear any talk about where she might have gone?’
‘Only the usual unkind rumours – lovers and so forth. My mother was the subject of gossip all her life, and so I try to pay it little heed.’
Child grunted. ‘Your lie about being with your brother at the supper house on the night of the Vauxhall murder: was that to protect you or him?’
‘We may have lied, but our intentions were entirely honourable. Neddy was with a lady at Vauxhall that night. He didn’t wish to compromise her reputation, but given his history with Lucy, he was worried about not having an alibi.’
‘He was right to be worried.’
‘Look, Neddy is hot-headed sometimes. He likes women, as our father did. Sometimes he can be an ass when in drink. But he is good-hearted beneath it all, not a killer.’
‘Do you know who this lady was? His companion?’
‘No, he didn’t say, and I didn’t ask.’
‘So where were you that night, if not with your brother?’
‘In the Prince of Wales dining alone. I can’t help it if they don’t remember me.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘I have a forgettable face.’
The earnest, blinking scholar. As an act, it did well to convince. But looking at Mrs Corsham, Child judged they’d reached the same conclusion: Simon Dodd-Bellingham was still lying through his teeth.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
THEIR INQUIRY WAS becoming a many-headed Hydra, writhing and dangerous in its multiplicity. Back home in Mayfair that afternoon, Caro felt a need to impose order on her thoughts. Her nausea had passed, but her back ached like Tartarus, so rather than sit at her escritoire, she took her ledger and inkpot to the wingchair in Harry’s bookroom. A small square chamber, fitted out in walnut and painted panels; the smells of leather and beeswax reminded her of her husband.
What would he say if he could see her now? Embroiled in a sensational murder – after she’d reacted with such anger last year, when he’d embarked upon his own murder inquiry in Deptford. His friend, Tad, had been killed, and Harry had refused to stand aside. Call it justice, call it vengeance. Now she understood a little better.
Thinking about her husband and the past, old resentments slid into her mind like needles. Every lie. Every memory of her trusting foolish self.
Ambrose would have told her to forget, if she couldn’t forgive. You’re a Craven – we don’t give a damn, remember? Lord knows she’d tried, but her anger had proved impervious to reason. Now she’d need to be a new Caro: humble, contrite. Could Harry ever forget? Could he forgive?
As terror at her situation threatened to creep back into her soul, she forced herself to concentrate upon her inquiry. Picking up the card from the Magdalen Hospital, the one that Mr Child had found in Lucy’s rooms, she examined it again. The cryptic jotting on the reverse: 50–60 pineapples, 2s 1d.
She shared Mr Child’s opinion that it could not be a receipt – not at those prices. Could it be a reference from a book? A note of a conversation? Some sort of cipher? Could it have a connection to the Magdalen Hospital – given it was on the reverse of the card? Or did it have nothing to do with their inquiry at all?
Coming up with no good answers, she put it to one side, and picked up the puzzle purse. No ambiguities there. Caro studied the paintings again: the rutting couple, the plague doctor, Lucy’s bleeding corpse. She read the threat inside, unable to suppress a shiver.
Opening her ledger, dipping pen in ink, she made a list of all those connected to their inquiry whom she knew could paint. Jacobus Agnetti was the obvious place to start, though she still thought it unlikely that he’d have implicated himself in such a fashion. Then there was Simon Dodd-Bellingham – she recalled the vase with the copulating figures he’d been restoring in his workshop that afternoon. Lord March had dabbled in all the artistic pursuits – as had Kitty Carefree, whose entry in Harris’s List had praised her accomplishment at watercolours. Caro hadn’t the first idea about Jonathan Stone, nor Lieutenant Dodd-Bellingham, though the latter seemed unlikely.
Pomfret knocked and entered the bookroom. ‘A Miss Willoughby is here to see you, madam. Something about a contract and a painting? Oh, and Mr Cavill-Lawrence called earlier. He waited for a time, but when you didn’t return by two, he had to leave.’
What had Cavill-Lawrence wanted? To chastise her again? To question her about her inquiry? Or had he taken the opportunity of his visit here to have a poke around her things – just as his agents had poked around Mr Child’s rooms, looking for this mysterious missing document?
Why were the Home Office protecting a killer of prostitutes? Why did Jonathan Stone have Cavill-Lawrence looking so troubled? Was he the fifth man at Muswell Rise on the night of the masquerade, or was he simply protecting his influential friends?
Mulling over these questions, she walked into the drawing room to find Miles standing over Miss Willoughby. The pair were talking, though they broke off when they noticed her in the doorway. The girl rose, and they shook hands.
‘Do sit down, Miss Willoughby. Would you care for tea? No? Miles, be so good as to wait in the hall.’
Cassandra Willoughby cut a boyish figure with her height and flat chest and close-cropped fair hair, blue eyes stark against her porcelain skin like Delft china. A wide canary-yellow sash brightened her muslin gown, yellow slippers peeping beneath the hem. She produced some papers from a calfskin case.
‘Mr Agnetti asked me to tell you how much he is looking forward to beginning work on your portrait. All you need to do is sign this document and return it, along with your deposit of forty guineas.’
‘I will have my lawyer look at it and, assuming everything is in order, I will bring the deposit to Leicester Fields tomorrow. But if you don’t mind, I do have one or two questions first. Mr Agnetti said you were an authority on his work.’
She smiled. ‘He flatters me. But I will endeavour to answer any questions that you have.’
‘Do you assist him with his painting, as well as with his clients?’
‘I prepare his canvases. And sometimes I work on the drapery and landscapes. Though please be assured that Mr Agnetti does all the figurative work himself.’
‘Where did you learn to paint?’
‘I had a drawing master. He saw I had ability – as did Mr Agnetti.’
‘I am glad of it. A woman should be able to fulfil her talents.’ Caro paused. ‘Miss Willoughby, I wish to discuss a delicate matter. I am sure you heard about the woman lately murdered at Vauxhall Gardens? It was I who found the body, and consequently I have an interest in seeing the killer caught – as I hope all right-thinking people would. Can I ask if you left the Rotunda at all that night?’
‘That is a very strange question, given the context.’
‘Strange, but also important. A woman matching your description was seen entering the bowers not long before the murder, together with a gentleman in an officer’s redcoat. My thief-taker and I believe that officer to be Lieutenant Edward Dodd-Bellingham. You are acquainted with him, are you not? From Agnetti’s house?’
Miss Willoughby flushed. ‘I never left the Rotunda.’
Caro spoke gently. ‘I would never normally pry into a personal matter, you understand. But there can have been few other women present at Vauxhall that night matching such a striking description. The witness who saw you said that when you left the bower, you looked upset.’
As she did now, her fingers twisting the fabric of her dress.
‘Perhaps you are afraid that Mr Agnetti will find out? I give you my word that he will not. I ask you only to trust me. More lives might depend on it.’
Miss Willoughby could be no more than twenty years of age, but sitting there like that, her long limbs constrained by tension, she looked younger. ‘You think more people could get hurt?’
‘I thi
nk it’s possible, yes. We believe Lucy was not the killer’s only victim.’
She drew a sharp breath.
‘Was it you my witness saw?’ Caro pressed again. ‘And Lieutenant Dodd-Bellingham?’
Miss Willoughby gave a swift nod, staring down at her hands. Her voice, when she spoke, was little more than a whisper. ‘I am sure you have heard the stories of how I came to London. How I was duped by a man I thought I loved. Had Mr Agnetti not taken me in and offered me employment, I cannot say to what depths I might have sunk. Through that act of generosity, he gave me a reason to trust again – which led to a mistake almost as grave as the first. The name of that mistake, as you have correctly conceived, is Lieutenant Dodd-Bellingham.’
Caro smiled sympathetically. ‘Do I take it that he, too, deceived you in some fashion?’
‘Perhaps I also deceived myself.’ She bit her lip. ‘The lieutenant comes often to Leicester Fields on business for Mr Stone, who is an important patron of my master. Over the past three months, I have had many dealings with him concerning Mr Stone’s commissions. I confess that at first I found him charming. Eager to stay and talk once our business was concluded, considerate in conversation, ready to laugh at himself. In short, an intimacy formed. I was not so naïve, given his debts and my own situation, as to think that the lieutenant was in any position to act upon his feelings. Yet I had no doubt that those feelings were sincerely held.
‘On the opening night of the exhibition, he came to the back room of the Rotunda, where I had been working, to ask if I would take a walk with him in the gardens. I should have refused, but I have few enough other friends in London, and as I said, I enjoyed his company very much.’ She drew another long breath and her words came out in an angry flood. ‘We strolled and talked, until I found myself in an unfamiliar part of the gardens. Drawing me into one of the bowers, he tried to kiss me. I slapped him and he grew angry. His attentions became more forceful, but I managed to push him away, and in drink, he stumbled. I ran back to the Rotunda, and I have not seen or spoken to him since.’
Caro shared the girl’s anger, and placed a hand on her arm. An attempted rape would explain why the lieutenant had asked his brother to lie about his whereabouts on the night of the murder. Especially when that incident placed him in the bowers – alone, angry, his blood up – at precisely the time Lucy was killed. If he made a habit of such attacks, then it also gave him a motive for Pamela’s murder. She might have had a fancy for him, but a woman could change her mind. And even with a willing woman, certain men could turn violent.
‘I am sorry,’ she said. ‘What the lieutenant did to you was unforgiveable. It makes me wonder what else he might be capable of. Did you see anyone acting suspiciously as you ran away? A man in a plague doctor’s mask?’
‘Not that I remember.’
‘Did you ever see the lieutenant with such a costume?’
‘No, never.’
‘Or recall if he carried a bag that night?’
‘I don’t. I am sorry.’
‘Was Mr Agnetti in the Rotunda when you returned?’
‘Yes, I’m sure he was.’
‘How about Mr Stone?’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘How did Mr Agnetti seem that night?’
‘Preoccupied with the exhibition. Concerned about how his work would be received.’ Miss Willoughby smiled through her tears. ‘There was no need for him to worry. These paintings are his finest to date.’
‘You admire him?’ Enough to lie to protect him?
‘Of course. He is a great artist.’
‘The man I have hired to look into the murder heard him speaking to you in anger yesterday at Vauxhall. You were upset on that occasion too.’
‘Oh, that.’ Her gaze slid to the floor. ‘Someone saw the lieutenant and I together as we were walking in the gardens that night and reported it to Mr Agnetti. He was very angry, which distressed me. Normally he addresses me with every courtesy.’
‘Mr Agnetti never struck me as a moralizing sort of man. Quite the reverse.’
‘That’s why I was so upset. I didn’t understand his fury. If he found out that we’d gone to the bowers, I think he’d dismiss me.’
‘Well, he won’t hear it from me. Do you think it possible that Mr Agnetti was jealous?’
‘Of the lieutenant? Why would he be?’
Did she need it spelled out? ‘Your residence in his house has given rise to speculation.’
Her eyes blazed. ‘First you ask if I am the lieutenant’s whore, now you ask if I am Mr Agnetti’s. You dishonour me, and you dishonour him with these questions. He has offered me only kindness since I met him.’
Caro studied her heated face with a mixture of curiosity and pity at her predicament. Some might call her a gullible fool – to be taken advantage of twice – but some men were adept at preying on sad, lonely women. So much sadness there, she felt. So much anger too – at Caro, at the lieutenant, at all the world save Mr Agnetti.
‘I only meant that Mr Agnetti might have feelings that he himself cannot acknowledge. If the question was indelicate, then I apologize. I simply seek the truth about this murder.’
‘Then you are talking to the wrong person, for I know nothing that can enlighten you, save that Mr Agnetti is an honourable man, and Lieutenant Dodd-Bellingham is a liar and a brute.’
*
Miles escorted Miss Willoughby to the door. Again, Caro heard them talking in the hall. When the footman returned, she gave him an inquiring look. ‘You and Miss Willoughby seemed to have much to discuss.’
He raised his russet eyebrows. ‘The other day, while you were upstairs at Agnetti’s house, she asked me my opinion on his paintings. She showed me one of her own too. I was just asking her if she’d finished it.’
‘Why did she care what you thought about her painting?’
‘I have eyes, madam.’ He grinned. ‘It was just a ruse to get me talking. She wanted to know about you.’
Caro frowned. ‘What about me?’
‘Whether you might commission any more paintings, and whether you used other artists. She has an eye for Agnetti’s business, I suppose.’
‘I don’t want you talking to her about my private matters.’
‘I never would, madam.’ He looked offended. ‘She asked me about myself too. Now there’s a rarity.’
Caro gave him a look. ‘Is there something you wish to tell me about yourself, Miles?’
‘Not really. My mother’s been sick. But it’s nice to be asked.’
‘Talk to Pomfret, if you need time to visit, or an advance upon your wages.’ She closed her eyes, overwhelmed by weariness, and Miles took the hint.
A little later, when she felt rested, she returned to Harry’s bookroom. Looking again at her list, she thought about adding Cassandra Willoughby, but decided against it. The girl hadn’t even been in London when Pamela had disappeared, and her connection to Lucy’s murder seemed purely peripheral.
Jacobus Agnetti
Simon Dodd-Bellingham
Lord March
Kitty Carefree
She added the names of Jonathan Stone and Lieutenant Dodd-Bellingham to her list, resolving to find out if either man was skilled at painting.
A long list. Too long. Too many people with motives opaque. The truth concealed by lies and obfuscation, like the folds of the puzzle purse.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CEYLON SALLY, ONE of the four girls on the list that Child had been given by Cecily, was the same pretty lascar who’d spoken out against Lucy at the Whores’ Club. A hard-eyed, hard-bitten little meretrix, about eighteen years old, her arms jingled with silver bracelets, signalling her irritation with Child’s questions. He had already spoken to two of the other whores on the list, Rosy Sims and Becky Greengrass, tracking them down in Soho and Covent Garden respectively with Harris’s List as his guide. Sally’s replies were proving depressingly familiar.
‘Pamela?’ she said, in soft, accented English. ‘I
remember her. She came with us to a masquerade. Virgin.’ Her finger traced ancient graffiti in the tavern tabletop. Around them young gentlemen diced and drank and sang bawdy songs.
‘Did Lucy Loveless come to speak to you about that night?’
‘Three times.’ She yawned. ‘Dull questions on a dull subject.’ Her black eyes flashed. ‘Must be contagious.’
‘Then you’ll know that Pamela hasn’t been seen since. Do you know what happened to her there?’
‘She cracked her pipkin. Sold it for two hundred and fifty guineas. Then she slept with the smile of Venus, as did we all. One of the gentlemen dropped us back in Soho the following morning. Last time I saw Pamela, she was off to collect her money. She’s probably in the arms of a handsome swain, sipping the finest Lisbon by the sea.’
‘You’re sure that’s all that happened?’
Another fierce jangle of her bracelets. ‘Quite sure.’
‘I know that the lieutenant and his brother picked you up in Soho and that the masquerade took place at Mr Stone’s estate. Lord March was there too. Which one of them took Pamela’s virginity?’
‘I don’t recall. There was wine, hashish.’ She made a vague gesture. ‘You pay attention to the man you’re with if you want to be invited back.’
‘So who were you with?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t recall.’
Child sighed. ‘Tell me about the fifth man. Could he have been the one with Pamela?’
Her eyes were unreadable, the pupils dilated, perhaps with laudanum. ‘What fifth man?’
The other girls had given him much the same story, and Child didn’t believe a word of it. They hadn’t asked for money to answer his questions – that was the first clue they were lying. And their stories were too similar, often word for word. They’d been paid off, was his best bet. Either that, or they were scared. Perhaps both.
Yet he still wanted to find Kitty Carefree, the fourth woman on the list. Until a few months ago, she had been Lucy’s dearest friend. Even if she’d also been paid for her silence, Lucy’s murder might be enough to prick her conscience.
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