A Body in Berkeley Square

by Ashley Gardner

  Denis lifted his slim shoulders. "If you wish, but you will bring it to me and not give it to the magistrates."

  His gaze, if anything, had become colder. I remembered what had happened to a young coachman who'd once disobeyed Denis. Denis never discussed the matter, but I knew that one of Denis's lackeys had murdered the young man.

  "I searched Turner's rooms thoroughly," I said. "I also paid a visit to his father in Surrey and looked over his rooms there. I found nothing. No documents, no letters of any sort. What makes you believe I can find it?"

  "Because you have an uncanny knack for turning up things that need to be found. You will do this."

  I promised nothing. Denis watched me steadily, but damned if I'd bow my head and obey.

  I pushed away my now cold sausages and rose to my feet. The butler appeared in an instant, understanding that I was going.

  "I have no doubt that the man you have following me will report my every action to you," I said.

  Denis's face was expressionless. "Yes."

  "Then I need make no vows to you that I will find and return the paper. You will know what I do."

  Denis inclined his head. He had no need to answer.

  Colonel Naveau looked blustery, but I ignored him. I departed the room without taking leave or saying goodbye, and followed the butler down the stairs again to the street.

  *** *** ***

  Still seething, I walked the length of Curzon Street through Clarges Street to Piccadilly. As I walked, I again went over the extraordinary conversation I'd just had. A document, written by Brandon and Mrs. Harper to Colonel Naveau, in French.

  My temper began to cool as worry took over. James Denis had been strangely insistent that I pursue this. Why? So he could make me do a job for him? Or for some other reason?

  And why the devil should Brandon care about the document? What was he trying so hard to keep from me? The only thing certain was that there was more to this than any party let on. Denis had not asked me to find the paper to please Colonel Naveau, no matter how much the man had promised to pay. Denis did things for his own reasons, and not all his reasons involved money.

  I wiped rain from my face. I had searched Turner's rooms and found nothing. But I might as well do so again. I must have overlooked something.

  As I passed through Clarges Street, I wondered whether Grenville was in his house there with Marianne. I deliberately turned my gaze away from the windows, as though to give Grenville his privacy, even from the street.

  Grenville was another person I was not happy with. Why had he gone to Mrs. Bennington and berated her so? I might be able to accuse Mrs. Bennington of exaggerating his behavior, overdramatizing it, but then her plain and very sensible maid had said the same thing.

  My friends, I reflected, were busily driving me mad.

  I turned onto Piccadilly, making my way past Berkeley Street, Dover Street, Albemarle Street, and Old Bond Street. I passed Burlington House, a huge edifice that had dominated Piccadilly since the reign of Charles II. Owned now by Lord George Cavendish, the interior was lavish, I'd been told, with no expense spared on decoration. Grenville had pronounced it excessive.

  Turner's landlord looked puzzled when I said I wanted to see Turner's rooms again, but he led me upstairs. The sitting room was a mess. Open crates stood about half-filled. The furniture had been lined up along one wall, apparently waiting for men to load it into a wagon and drive it to Epsom.

  In the bedroom, I found similar disarray, along with Hazleton, Turner's valet. The man lay across Turner's bed, fully clothed, snoring loudly. Two empty bottles, which had likely held more of Turner's claret, stood on the night table.

  I approached the bed and shook Hazleton's booted foot.

  The man snorted. He fumbled his hand to his face and rubbed one eye. "Wha-- ? Devil take it, man."

  "Hazleton," I said, shaking the foot more firmly.

  Hazleton blinked, trying to focus on me at the foot of the bed. He sat up, then groaned and pressed his hand to his forehead.

  "What a head I have," he mumbled.

  "Emptying bottles of claret by yourself will do that." I dragged a chair from a corner and sat down. "While you are recovering, I want you to tell me everything you know about a Colonel Naveau, and Turner's last visit to Paris."

  "Ah. You know about that, do you?"

  "Not as much as I'd like. I have met Naveau. These bruises on my face are courtesy of him. You would have saved me much trouble if you'd told me about him from the start."

  Hazleton gave me a belligerent look. "Well, you didn't ask, did you?"

  "Did he come here the same day I did, looking for something?"

  "That he did. Not two minutes after you departed."

  "And you helpfully told him that I had already been here, and anything the colonel needed to find, I no doubt had?"

  "Yes," Hazleton said defiantly. "I didn't know he would crack your face. I couldn't, could I?"

  "What was he looking for?"

  Hazleton looked surprised. "Well, now, you'd know about that."

  "No. I looked, and I found nothing. Naveau has found nothing. I know the document is a paper written in French, but I do not know what it is."

  He shrugged. "I don't know either. I can't read Frog-speak."

  "Tell me why Turner went to Paris, what he did there, and why he came home."

  "Persistent, aren't you, Captain?" Hazelton pressed his hand to his head again and climbed down from the bed. "I'll need a bit of something to settle my head. So I can remember."

  I watched impatiently as he opened the armoire and drew out another bottle. He uncorked it and poured ruby liquid into a glass. "Have some, Captain?"

  I declined. I craved coffee, not claret, and I would reward myself with some after I finished with Hazleton.

  Hazleton drank then let out a satisfied sigh. "That's good, that is. I'm knackered from straightening out my master's affairs. And then, once I'm finished, that is the end for old Bill Hazleton. Mr. Turner--senior, that is--said he'd look after me, but a man needs only one valet. So what is to become of old Bill?"

  "Perhaps Colonel Naveau can avail himself of your services," I said, wanting him to get on with it.

  Hazleton took another long gulp and sat on the bed. "Oh, no, never him. That man frightens me, and not just because he's a Frenchie. And anyway, he was a spy. You did know that, didn't you? That he was an exploring officer during the war? For the Frogs?"

  * * * * *

  Chapter Thirteen

  No, I had not known that. Both Denis and Colonel Naveau had omitted that interesting detail.

  Exploring officers had been those men sent off in the night to do covert missions for Wellington or for Bonaparte's generals. They'd crept across lands held by the enemy and spied out troop movements, intercepted papers, or infiltrated the enemy camp itself. Men who could speak fluent French were prized by the English; likewise those fluent in English were prized by the French. So many Englishmen and Frenchmen had mixed blood, mothers from London and fathers from Paris, that it was difficult to decide sometimes who fought for whom.

  Exploring officers had done a dangerous job, I knew, but they'd been more or less despised. Instead of standing and fighting in the open, they skulked about in darkness and lied and cheated their way into defeating the enemy. Commanders prized their exploring officers and found them distasteful at the same time.

  Naveau had a fairly thick accent, so I doubted he'd ever infiltrated English lines, but he might have been a receiver of information.

  My heart grew cold. The fact that Brandon and Mrs. Harper had written to Naveau during the Peninsular War filled me with foreboding. Why the devil should they have? That Colonel Brandon, a high stickler for loyalty, would send a document to a French exploring officer for any reason seemed ludicrous.

  Something was wrong here, very, very wrong.

  "Tell me about your master's visit to Paris," I said. "Now."

  Hazleton rubbed his face and took another fo
rtifying drink. "Well now, we went out to the Continent about a year ago. Mr. Turner likes to travel. Don't know why. The food is rotten, and I can't understand a word no one says, even excepting that some of the ladies in Milan and Paris are sweet as honey. Not that they wash as much as I'd like, but they're friendly. Mr. Turner met this fellow Naveau in Milan. After that, he tells me that we're packing up to go with Colonel Naveau to his home in Paris."

  "What was the purpose of the visit to Naveau?" I asked. "Business?"

  Hazleton barked a laugh. "Naw, Captain. It was sordid lust. My master was bent the wrong way, you know. Started when he was a lad, and he never gave it up. So long as he wasn't bent for me, I said, I didn't care what he did. He starts a fascination for this colonel, and there's nothing for it but we must go to Paris with him."

  "They were lovers, then."

  Hazleton gave me a glassy stare. "Never went that far. My master was keen for the colonel, but I do not think it went the other way. My master threw himself at him for nothing. The Frenchies, you know, they don't care when a fellow is bent. They just pass on by. But here now, you go to the stocks quick enough. But my master never got what he wanted from the colonel. The two of them argued much, never could agree about anything. One night, my master wakes me up and says we're going back to England. 'Why?' I asks. 'Tired of plying your charms?' He boxed my ears for impertinence, but I got up and packed his duds, and we fled back to England." He drained his glass and upended the bottle for more.

  "What was Naveau like? Did you speak to him much?"

  "Not I. Didn't have much to say to him, did I? But his own man, name of Jacot, had no complaints about him. Told me about the colonel being an exploring officer and what they did in the war. Naveau was decorated for services to the French army, he said. Very intelligent man, Jacot claimed. Good at soldiering. A bit at a loss in civilian life."

  Such a thing had happened to many, including me. "Napoleon was deposed and the French king restored. Did Naveau remain a good republican?"

  "Jacot said it seemed like he was glad all the fighting was over, no matter who was at the helm. I heard Naveau himself say that war was bad for France, that so many men had died for so little. But Mr. Turner didn't like to hear about the war and the colonel's career. Every time Colonel Naveau started going on about life in the army, Mr. Turner would change the subject."

  I thought of Turner, young and fresh-faced with his soft curls of brown hair. I imagined that listening to stories of an old war horse had wearied him.

  "About this paper Naveau was looking for," I began.

  Hazleton shrugged. "Don't know much about it. Naveau came bursting in here and started going on about Mr. Turner being a thief and ruining him. He demanded I return a paper what Mr. Turner stole. I said I didn't know nothing about it, but that you had been up here for a time by yourself, so maybe you'd taken it. Then he ran off after you." Hazleton glanced at my fading bruises again. "Didn't know he'd pummel you."

  "I would like to know why that document was worth pummeling me for."

  "No idea, Captain. No idea at all. At any rate, it's not here."

  "It seems it is not. You never saw it?"

  Hazleton burped. "If I did, I wouldn't have paid it much mind, if it were in Frenchie talk, 'cause I don't know it, as I said."

  "Then how did you communicate with your ladies in Paris?"

  "Oh, I know enough for that." He grinned. "You don't need much language to tell a lady you fancy her, now do you?"

  "No, I suppose you do not."

  I asked him a few more questions, but it was clear that Hazleton did not know what the document was or where it could be found. I left him to finish imbibing the last of his master's claret.

  Outside, I bought a bit of bread from one vendor and coffee from another. I chewed through my repast and thought about what to do.

  The likeliest person to have that document, if it had not been destroyed, was Mrs. Harper. If Brandon had told me the truth, if he'd met with Turner at eleven o'clock and made the exchange--a bank draft for the document--and left the room again with Turner still alive, then he must have rid himself of the document between eleven o'clock and about one, when Pomeroy's patroller took him to Bow Street and made him turn out his pockets.

  After meeting with Turner, Brandon had taken Imogene Harper aside in one of the alcoves in the ballroom. Had he passed her the paper and told her to hide or destroy it? Or had he strolled to a nearby fireplace and burned it himself?

  It would have taken some time to push it into a fireplace and watch until it burned to ash. Brandon would have had to ensure that the paper actually did burn and didn't fall behind a log or into the ash grate. I could not fathom that no one would notice him doing this.

  No, he must have passed it to Imogene Harper. But then, if Mrs. Harper had it, why had she come to search Turner's rooms? Either she did not have it, or she'd been looking for something else.

  I ground my teeth in frustration. Nothing made sense.

  Piccadilly ran before me, misty in the rain, skirting St. James's, the abode of clubs and hotels, as well as gaming hells where fortunes were lost on a single throw of dice. As I walked again in the direction of Green Park, I reflected on Mr. Turner's propensity for wagers and his keen luck.

  Leland had told me that Turner would wager on whether a cat would walk a certain direction or whether a maid would be sick or well. Arbitrary events. I wondered if his machinations with the document were part of a wager--can Mr. Turner procure a document from a French colonel and blackmail an English colonel with it?

  I found this farfetched, but I wondered how Turner knew that the document would be important to Colonel Brandon and Imogene Harper.

  It was only ten o'clock, and few of the haut ton were up and about. The streets were busy with servants and working people scurrying about to make ready for when their masters rose that afternoon. I strolled into Green Park, observing nannies with children who'd been brought to London with fathers and mothers for the Season.

  Seeing them made me think about my own daughter running about the army camps with little regard for danger, and her frantic mother railing at me to stop her. Carlotta had been raised by a nanny and a governess and had expected her daughter to be looked after in the same manner. I had hired a wet nurse, naturally, but after that, Carlotta was dismayed to find that she'd have to take care of the baby herself.

  I had not minded looking after Gabriella and had not understood my wife's distress. Louisa, too, had lavished attention on the child. But Carlotta had been miserable, and I had not been patient with her.

  I wanted to see Gabriella again. I could taste the wanting in my mouth. I wanted to see Carlotta as well. I wanted to end things cleanly with divorce or annulment or whatever solicitors could cook up in their canny brains. I wanted to be free so that I could turn to the rest of my life.

  Lady Breckenridge had told me that any victory she would have with me would be hollow. I did not want that to be true. I was an impetuous man and liked to rush into affairs of the heart, but this time, I wanted to ensure that what I had with Donata Breckenridge was real.

  She'd thought the reason for my hesitation was that my heart was engaged elsewhere. The truth was that I wanted to go to her a free man, so that if I offered her my heart, it would come with no impediments.

  The surprising thing was that Lady Breckenridge seemed not to mind that I had nothing to offer her. She asked nothing from me but myself, and I knew better than to sneer at such an offer.

  I stood watching the nannies herd the children for a while longer, then turned my steps toward a hackney stand. I needed to consult Pomeroy, discover where Mrs. Harper lived, and then pay her a visit.

  *** *** ***

  When I left Bow Street after speaking to Pomeroy, a lad in the street tried to pick my pocket. My hand closed around a bone-thin wrist, and the small, dirty-faced boy attached to it cursed at me.

  I released him and gave him a thump on the shoulder. "Clear off and go home."
>
  He jumped and fled as fast as he could, no doubt thinking me stupid for not marching him off to the magistrate on the spot. He must have been desperate--or else highly confident--to try to rob me just outside the Bow Street office.

  Mrs. Harper, I'd learned from Pomeroy's clerk, had lodgings in a small court north of Oxford Street, near Portman Square. I decided to take care of another errand on the way, and took a hackney back to Mayfair and South Audley Street. At one o'clock, I was knocking on the door of Lady Breckenridge's townhouse. Barnstable opened the door to me.

  "Has her ladyship arisen yet?" I asked.

  "She has indeed, sir." He looked critically at my face. "Healing nicely, sir. Always swear by my herbal bath. If you'll come this way, sir."

  He led me upstairs to Lady Breckenridge's sitting room and left me there while he ascended to her rooms to inform her I'd called. I steeled myself for Lady Breckenridge to send me away, but before long, I heard her light footsteps approach.

  I turned as Lady Breckenridge entered the room. She looked awake and alert, but she did not smile at me. Today she wore a light green morning gown and lace shawl and had pinned her hair under a white lace cap.

  "I apologize for visiting you at such an appalling hour," I said.

  She lifted her brows. "I would have called it a beastly hour myself, but never mind. My cook informs me that she has prepared tea for me. I can offer that and cakes if you like."

  "I am full of bread and coffee, thank you. I have been wandering about London eating from vendors' trays."

  She gave a slight shrug as though she did not care one way or the other. "I assume you had some reason for this call."

  "I did." I hesitated. I'd thought it a good idea to come when I'd made the decision, but Lady Breckenridge did not seem happy to see me. After the manner in which we had parted the last time, I could hardly blame her.

  "I came to ask if you might give me an introduction to Lady Gillis," I said. "I would like to speak to her about the night Turner died, and I would like to look over the ballroom again."