‘How are you feeling now, Dorothea?’ she asked, breaking off.
‘I feel exhilarated.’
‘That’s as it should be. Music uplifts the soul.’
‘It didn’t work completely, though,’ confessed Dorothea. ‘When we read from Measure for Measure, I was in a different world where nothing else mattered. This time it was different. An image of Orsino kept floating past my eyes.’
‘Was it a pleasing image?’
‘It was both pleasing and disturbing. I was momentarily glad to see him again, yet relieved when he went away.’
‘Did you dream about him last night?’
‘No, and that was odd. Ever since I met Orsino, I’ve dreamt about him and the life we’d have together. I always awoke refreshed and happy.’
‘And now?’
‘Something has changed in me, Miss Granville. Since the moment when I remembered what he said about dedicating his life to the theatre, I felt used. Was he really as sincere as he seemed to be?’
‘Only you can answer that question, Dorothea.’
‘I know.’ She walked away, then swung round to face Hannah. ‘When are you going to Brighton Pavilion?’
‘The date has yet to be set.’
‘Oh, I thought you were invited to a ball.’
‘No, it was simply an open invitation to meet the Prince Regent in Brighton. I’m to name the day that’s most convenient.’
‘Just think,’ said Dorothea, excitedly, ‘a letter that you write will actually be read by His Royal Highness.’
‘It will be very formal.’
‘Yes, but it’s yours. I’m sure that he’ll treasure it.’
‘The Prince Regent must get dozens of letters every day.’
‘They don’t all come from a famous actress. Oh, it will be a magical experience for you, Miss Granville. I’m so jealous. You will tell me what the Pavilion is like, won’t you?’
Hannah smiled. ‘I’ll bore you to death with excessive detail.’
‘Orsino promised to take me to Brighton one day. He said that it’s the ideal place for actors to promenade. I used to dream of walking along on his arm and turning heads. Sadly, that will never happen now.’
‘There’ll be other opportunities, Dorothea … with someone else.’
‘I’m not ready to believe that yet.’
Hannah got up from the piano and crossed to her. She could see the doubt whirling in the other’s eyes. Dorothea was still torn between believing the fantasies that she and Price had created and accepting fully that she’d been a victim of his wiles. There seemed to be no chance of her ever finding out the truth.
Dorothea suddenly became animated. ‘Do it now,’ she urged. ‘Reply to that royal invitation and say that you’d love to accept it. What’s holding you back?’
Hannah shrugged. ‘I wish I knew.’
When the Prince Regent walked slowly into his study, the first thing he did was to look at the pile of correspondence on his desk. He turned to his secretary.
‘Has Miss Granville replied to my invitation yet?’
‘No, Your Majesty.’
‘Then send someone to make sure that she does.’
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The assassin was becoming restive. Instead of being in France and enjoying the large amount of money he’d earned, he was stuck in England still being sought by the Bow Street Runners and by those excited by the size of the reward offered for his capture. Sooner or later, somebody would catch up with him. He realised that he simply couldn’t go on killing people indefinitely. Three had already been shot dead and a fourth had been dispatched with his dagger. The last of his autographed bullets had been intended for the person who had concocted the plot to assassinate Sir Roger Mellanby. The problem was that he couldn’t decipher the signature on the letter he’d stolen. Also, the letter bore no address. He’d come up against a blank wall.
In the safety of the room he’d rented, he counted out all the money he’d so far acquired. The haul from Robert Vane was supplemented by the takings from the man who’d hired the assassin then – when Mellanby was dead – engaged Vane to shoot him in St James’s Park. Though there was a substantial amount of money, the assassin felt that he deserved more. The only way he could get it was by confronting the person whose name he’d found after breaking into that study. So far, his luck had held but he couldn’t count on it doing so for ever. After his next strike, he’d have to flee the country. London was becoming too uncomfortable a city in which to stay. Paris would be far safer and allow him the freedom for which he yearned.
Taking out his pistol, he used a cloth to clean it. Then he selected a bullet.
On his own initiative, Peter Skillen decided to call on one of their suspects. His brother had given him the home address of Oswald Ferriday and Peter was pleased to learn that the President of the Board of Trade was there that morning. Getting to speak to him was another matter. When the servant answered the door, he said that his master was not receiving any visitors.
‘He might receive me,’ said Peter. ‘At least, give him my card.’
‘I’m sorry, Mr Skillen,’ said the servant, refusing the card offered to him. ‘I have my orders. You are to be turned away.’
‘There must be some mistake.’
‘The decision was made after your first visit here.’
‘Ah,’ said Peter, ‘I see what’s happened. You’re confusing me with my brother, Paul, who did ruffle Mr Ferriday’s feathers somewhat. That’s the last thing I intend to do.’ He flashed a smile. ‘I’m a much more agreeable individual.’
‘The answer remains the same, sir.’
‘Your master might change his name if he realises I am a friend of the Home Secretary.’ The servant dithered. ‘Go and tell him, man. Turn me away and you might come in for reproach.’
‘I’m only obeying orders.’
He tried to close the door, but Peter got a firm hand to it, deliberately raising his voice so that it might be heard by Ferriday himself. His strategy yielded the desired result. The Cabinet minister came out of his study to see what the noise was.
‘Our conversation is ended, Mr Skillen,’ he snapped.
‘That’s what you might say to my brother, Paul, but I’m Peter Skillen and I have some rather different questions to ask you.’
‘I’m too busy.’
‘Viscount Sidmouth told me that you’d be more accessible.’
‘Did he send you?’
‘No, but he realised how eager I was to speak to you.’
‘It will be on the same subject that your brother raised.’
‘Not quite,’ said Peter.
‘I had nothing whatsoever to do with Sir Roger’s death,’ said Ferriday.
‘I accept that, sir. I wish to talk to you on a related matter.’
The older man eyed him up and down. Inclined to shun him, he remembered that Peter had worked as an agent in France during the war. That was worthy of respect. It swayed Ferriday’s judgement.
‘Oh, very well,’ he said, reluctantly, ‘but I can only give you fifteen minutes.’
‘That will be more than enough.’
Peter stepped into the house and followed him down the passageway to the study. He sat in the chair that Paul had occupied the previous day. Ferriday was behind his desk. He squinted at his visitor.
‘You look remarkably like your brother,’ he decided, ‘but you lack his air of ostentation. I should have remembered that when I saw you at the Home Office. I wouldn’t have confused you with your brother then.’
‘Paul and I have taken different paths in life.’
‘Yet I understand that you work together.’
‘We do indeed, sir.’
‘Someone, I believe, asked you to investigate the murder. Sir Roger was unique in many ways, though I can’t say that I’ll miss that booming voice.’
‘He had important things to say and made sure that he was heard.’
‘I was deaf to his entreaties,�
� said Ferriday, coldly. ‘So please don’t spend any more of your fifteen minutes by extolling his virtues.’
‘You, I hear, were critical of his vices.’
‘I’m a family man who lives by Christian principles. I disapprove of those who pretend to do the same until they are away from home.’
‘Would you say that the government’s policy of denying people basic rights was in line with Christian principles?’
‘I’m not interested in a theological discussion, Mr Skillen.’
‘You’ve seen what the Home Secretary has done.’
‘I’ve seen what he’s been forced to do,’ said Ferriday, pointedly, ‘and I support him to the hilt. Since the war ended, floods of discharged soldiers have returned here to find that they have no jobs. Bands of them roam around this city and cause endless problems.’
‘I’m more concerned with factory workers and people on low pay.’
‘Don’t tell me you’re a Luddite.’
‘I have sympathy for anyone unemployed.’
‘The march of progress must go on, even if it entails the loss of jobs. New machines can do the work of human beings so they had to give way. And what was their response?’
‘They wrecked the machines.’
‘And they were duly punished for their crime.’
‘Was that when it started, Mr Ferriday?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘This vast network of spies that’s been set up,’ said Peter. ‘The Luddite riots were at their height five years ago. Since then, manufacturing towns have been infiltrated by government agents who report directly back to the Home Office.’
‘I shouldn’t have thought you’d object to that,’ said Ferriday. ‘You were a government agent yourself at one time and sent your reports to the same source.’
‘In my own small way, I was helping to win the war.’
‘That’s exactly what these alleged spies are doing – fighting to save this country from another kind of war. If such revolutionaries are not suppressed effectively, the whole country will suffer.’
‘Would you call Sir Roger Mellanby a revolutionary?’
‘He had the same hot blood in his veins.’
‘That comes from having passion and commitment.’
‘How would you know? You never met the man.’
‘I’ve met those who were closest to him,’ said Peter, ‘and I’ve spoken to both of his sons. Neither of them, incidentally, wishes to follow in his footsteps.’
‘That’s a relief.’
‘Edmund has political ambitions but they are of a very different hue from those of Sir Roger.’
‘Who do you think might have killed him, Mr Ferriday?’
Peter’s question caught him unawares and there was a stony silence. When he spoke, Ferriday’s voice was much more measured. He rose to his feet so that it would have more force.
‘I don’t know, Mr Skillen,’ he said, ‘but I resent the fact that you and your brother have selected me as a potential suspect. What was my motive – hatred, fear, envy of the Radical Dandy’s compulsion to show off his new waistcoats in the House? I daresay you can dream up half a dozen other reasons why I would contrive his death. Your efforts, however, would be futile. The truth is that I never took Sir Roger seriously enough to consider him anything more than a confounded pest. Please tell that to your brother.’ He glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. ‘Your fifteen minutes has expired,’ he said, icily. ‘A man with your proven expertise will surely be able to find his way to the front door.’
Having gone to the coroner’s office to discuss the terms of the inquest, Edmund Mellanby and Barrington Oxley came out to a windswept morning. There was a fundamental disagreement between them.
‘I don’t want him involved in the inquest,’ said Mellanby.
‘But he was there at the time,’ Oxley pointed out.
‘So were the Runners and so is that man who wishes to claim the reward.’
‘Giles Clearwater?’
‘That makes three witnesses. If we dared to ask the Prince Regent to attend that would push the number up to four,’ said Mellanby. ‘We simply don’t need Paul Skillen to be there as well.’
‘But he’s put his name forward.’
‘Contrive a way to have it removed.’
‘It may be difficult.’
‘That’s what my father paid you for, wasn’t it?’ said the other, sharply. ‘You were retained to smooth out any difficulties. Start earning your fee.’
Oxley was offended. ‘Sir Roger wouldn’t have spoken to me like that.’
‘I’m in charge now, Oxley.’
‘He always called me by my first name,’ protested the other.
‘That’s changed.’
Hailing a cab, they asked to be taken back to the Clarendon Hotel. As the vehicle set off, Mellanby was decisive.
‘And I want to avoid any more meetings with Peter Skillen,’ said Mellanby. ‘The fellow is beneath contempt.’
‘Why did he wish to speak to you?’
‘Why do you think?’
‘Since you refused to let me stay,’ said Oxley, ‘I haven’t a clue.’
‘He taunted me about the fact that I don’t believe in my father’s radical agenda. I never did and I never will. What this country needs most is peace and stability. If it means stamping on a few toes to achieve those objectives,’ continued Mellanby, ‘then I’m all in favour of it happening. My father was an extraordinary man but he had a fatal softness of heart. He cared for people I regard as good-for-nothings. Peter Skillen is the same. He takes nonentities like Seth Hooper seriously.’
‘Hooper thought your father was a kind of god.’
Mellanby was harsh. ‘That’s not a mistake I’d ever make.’
‘You … didn’t really get on with him, did you?’
‘I saw the defects that he so cleverly hid from everyone else. You spent all that time trotting at his heels. What’s your opinion, Oxley? Did you really think that Sir Roger Mellanby was the Messiah he strove to be?’
‘Well,’ said the lawyer, weighing his words before uttering them, ‘your father was a gifted politician, but he was not without his foibles.’
Mellanby laughed. ‘Foibles?’
‘We have to make allowances for them.’
‘You can do that, if you wish, but I won’t. My mother is far too ill to be told the truth but it’s one I’ll never forget. Obituaries will praise my father to the skies,’ he said, ‘and omit the embarrassing fact that he was shot dead while hoping to ogle a beautiful actress as she left the theatre. The Radical Dandy was a disgrace,’ he went on with vehemence. ‘When he was away from home, he rarely slept alone and took advantage of an unknown number of women. I know this because I had suspected it for some time and hired someone to follow him to London. The report I received shook me rigid. My father, whom I’d loved and respected, turned out to be nothing more than an incorrigible lecher.’
‘He loved female company, that’s all,’ said Oxley.
Mellanby was fuming. ‘Don’t you dare try to excuse him,’ he snarled. ‘He was a monster. That’s why I was so determined to stop Peter Skillen from prying into his life. I know the hideous truth about my father and wanted to keep it to myself. Let the world remember him as a resolute politician that he became. I know, to my cost, what his true measure was.’
Chevy Ruddock arrived at the Peacock to find a pleasant surprise awaiting him. Alfred Hale was there alone for once. The younger man seized his opportunity to win him over.
‘You believe what I told you yesterday, don’t you?’ he asked.
‘I’m afraid not, Chevy.’
‘At least you had the kindness to hear me out. As soon as I told Mr Yeomans what I’d found out, he jumped on me as if I’d committed a crime.’
‘In a sense, that’s what you did. You raised our hopes before dashing them.’
‘I did exactly what you asked me to do, Mr Hale.’
‘We trusted
you and you let us down.’
‘But I didn’t – don’t you see that? I discovered that you and Mr Yeomans had been duped by this man.’
Hale gave him a push. ‘Say that again and I’ll hit you.’
‘I meant no disrespect,’ said Ruddock. ‘We all make mistakes – even the chief magistrate. When I first joined a foot patrol, what did you keep telling me?’
‘I said that there were times when you had to act on instinct.’
‘That’s what I did. In talking to Mr Howlett, I was relying on my instinct for telling the truth from arrant lies, and I found out something that’s very important. Giles Clearwater is an impostor.’
‘And which Giles Clearwater are you talking about?’ asked Hale, sarcastically. ‘The one in a long-forgotten play or the man Mr Yeomans and I have both met?’
‘There is only one. He stole his name from The Provok’d Husband.’
‘That’s only wild guesswork, Chevy.’
‘My instinct tells me that I’m right.’
‘Then I admire you for sticking to your guns. But let me give you a word of advice. Don’t try to convince Mr Yeomans. He’s not as tolerant as I am. And if you dare to suggest again that he was tricked – along with me and the chief magistrate – he’ll seal you in a barrel of herrings and throw it into the Thames. Besides,’ he went on, sharpening his voice, ‘what are you doing here when you should be continuing your search for Clearwater?’
‘I’ve already found him for you,’ insisted Ruddock.
‘We’d like the real one this time.’
‘Don’t you understand? There is no real one. The name is an alias that someone is hiding behind.’
He was about to develop his argument when the door was flung open to admit Yeomans. The Runner was even more intimidating than usual, and he made Ruddock quiver inwardly. Yeomans gave him a prod.
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