Die I Will Not

by S K Rizzolo

  Penelope was taken aback. “I heard Mr. Leach was gravely injured. Will he recover?”

  “Little chance of that, I’m afraid. His death is hourly expected. You must be surprised to find us entertaining guests under the circumstances, but I do not choose to trumpet our affairs to the multitude. Besides, these little entertainments are expected of me.” His cynical gaze took in the long windows hung with gold-embroidered damask, the matching gold brocade furnishings, and the array of richly dressed guests who looked as if they hadn’t a care in the world.

  “Is it known who did such a horrible thing?”

  “Leach is not an easy man to like—he has made many enemies in his career. Of course, the Countess and I are distressed for my poor Mary.” He gave another smile she found difficult to interpret. “You remind me of Mary. She is years older than you are, of course, but there’s the same…vulnerability. And something of the same ambition? Before her marriage, she published a volume of poetry and several Gothic romances, though she has since turned her talents to the composition of paragraphs for her husband’s newspaper.” At this reference to Leach’s Tory agenda, he did not bother to hide his contempt. After a pause he said, “Jeremy tells me you are also a writer?”

  Why did every word out of this man’s mouth seem to carry a double meaning? She replied lightly, “I’ve had occasional work, Mr. Rex. Perhaps one day when my life is more settled I will try to achieve more in that line. You must be very proud of your daughter’s accomplishments.”

  He sighed, melancholy descending again. “We’ve not been on easy terms. She blames me, with good reason, for abandoning her mother when she was a mere child, but I hate to think I drove her into the arms of a man like Leach. She must have thought he offered a kind of safety, a haven from the dangers of holding views at odds with society.” Stretching his arm along the back of the sofa, he assumed a careless pose. “At all events, I am the more ready to come to her assistance in this emergency. I shall help Mary manage the parish authorities and the funeral arrangements when the time comes. She’s had a sad time of it in the past year. She lost her eldest son to a sudden fever and now this business with her husband. We thought it safer, until we know more, to put it out that Leach is ill.”

  “How truly dreadful. Will you employ a Bow Street Runner to investigate the crime?”

  His lip curled. “I have no love for Bow Street.”

  “May I ask why, sir?”

  “The Bow Street banditti once bribed two women to say I had assaulted them. While I stood in the very court, my hat was stolen, my pockets rifled. The magistrate only laughed and refused to prosecute my accusers for perjury. No, I have no use for Bow Street. Magistrates, police, lawyers, the justices in Westminster Hall, the journalists who ruin a man’s reputation for gain…They are all the same. Villains who seek, in one way or another, to gratify a cankered heart.”

  “Is the attack on Mr. Leach connected to the recent letters in the papers? If we could only understand—”

  She broke off, nonplussed, to find him smiling again—it seemed she amused him. Horatio Rex was a man who looked for hidden motives in everyone he met. In his battle against a prejudiced English society that viewed him as an outsider and an interloper, even as it fawned over him for his power and wealth, he was justified, she thought. But she had the strangest feeling they played a game only he understood.

  “I cannot tell you what role the Collatinus letters played in Leach’s fate, Mrs. Wolfe. A dangerous business from the start. Profit is one thing, but one has to know when retreat is in order. A lesson I have learned the hard way.”

  “How could there be profit, sir? I thought the intent political.”

  “Political, no doubt, but other motives may come into play. Blackmail, for instance. Hush money. If this Collatinus had information someone would prefer be kept secret, writing to the newspapers might seem rather clever. Write one or two letters, then make it known in the proper quarter that a certain sum will ward off further revelations.”

  “But why attack Mr. Leach?”

  “He made himself quite insulting to Collatinus, and I suspect he was about to unmask him. Did he not promise such a revelation? He was stopped before his final reply could be published.”

  Hearing again a note of warning in his tone, she was at a loss. Then she gathered her courage. “Collatinus mentions a woman referred to as N.D. I wonder if you or my father once knew someone with those initials?”

  Rex reached over to take her chin in his hands, turning her toward him, one white finger stroking her cheek. “Oh, my dear. What am I to say to you on that subject? She was a beautiful woman, that’s all.” He released her, saying harshly, “Leave it alone. You don’t know the harm you might do. Your father would not thank you for bringing ruin upon your family.”

  “I am sure my father is innocent of any real wrongdoing.”

  He let his hand drop from her cheek. “The evidence against him was persuasive, my dear.”

  Before Penelope could respond, a movement drew his attention. He frowned. Rising to his feet, he excused himself to hurry toward a late arrival. Mr. Rex stepped around the people who stood in his path with only a brief word of apology and bore down on the newcomer.

  This was a man over forty who carried an ebony baton in one hand, the symbol of his authority to search and seize malefactors. Hair tied in an untidy graying queue, he wore a truculent expression and boots too scuffed for Mr. Rex’s gleaming floorboards. He advanced among the guests, his keen-eyed gaze scanning the drawing room, seeking someone. His eyes fastened on Penelope—and held. It was John Chase.

  Chase started to move in her direction, but Mr. Rex grasped his arm. “You trespass in a private dwelling, sir.”

  The Countess hurried forward to join her husband, and several broad-shouldered footmen now flanked their master. As the footmen began to maneuver Chase back toward the door, a buzz of gossip broke out among the observers. Seeing him wince in pain, Penelope realized they had jarred the old knee injury he suffered while fighting for his country. Indignant, she swept across the room to confront her host, ignoring the Countess’ basilisk stare.

  “This man is a friend of mine, sir. He came to speak to me.”

  Astonishment widened Rex’s eyes, but he resumed his polished mask. “You call a Bow Street Runner friend, Mrs. Wolfe?” He motioned to the footmen, and they let Chase’s arms drop.

  “I do.” Penelope held out her hand, which disappeared into the Runner’s grasp. “I am pleased to see you again, Mr. Chase.”

  Chapter V

  John Chase awakened in good spirits despite a noisy neighbor having disturbed him several times in the night. His landlady, Mrs. Beeks, had recently rented the room behind his to a seamstress named Sybil Fakenham, and Chase would often hear her muttering to herself or slamming her drawers shut. Once or twice he had glimpsed her on the stairs: a gaunt young woman with wispy, brown hair, a sullen mouth, and glassy eyes that made her seem not quite present in the world. When he’d asked Mrs. Beeks about her, she folded her lips in disapproval. “She bothers you, Mr. Chase, you have only to say the word. I’m that close to showing her the door. Try to offer a little Christian charity, and there’s the thanks I get.”

  “Never fear. I’ll say the word if necessary. Why is she in need of charity?” After some years as Mrs. Beeks’ only lodger, he was jealous of his hard-won peace and privacy—such as it was for the resident of a district filled with gin shops, coffee-rooms, and brothels that never slept. But in reply, Mrs. Beeks had only shaken her head and lumbered off to her kitchen in the nether regions.

  Again today after breakfast, Chase encountered the young woman in the entrance hall. Dressed in the same faded gown and bonnet she’d worn the last time he saw her, she carried a large box and was on the point of going out.

  Chase moved to open the front door for her. “Good morning, Miss Fakenham.”

  His
reward was a freezing glare accompanied by a disdainful elevation of her chin. Without returning his greeting, she swept out the door and walked away without a backward glance.

  Leo Beeks, observing the exchange, spoke from behind him. “Your courtesy is wasted on her, sir. She doesn’t like anyone.” He sounded aggrieved, and Chase, amused, thought the seamstress must have rebuffed his puppy overtures of friendship.

  “Courtesy hurts no one, Leo.”

  The boy gazed up at him out of fearless, deceptively angelic blue eyes that missed nothing. “Yes, sir,” he said a little scornfully. Then, moving on to more important matters, he added, “Any word from Jonathan?”

  Inwardly, Chase groaned. He had made the mistake of telling Leo about his son in America and as a result had to endure persistent questioning about his correspondence. Mrs. Beeks would not thank him if he told her son about Jonathan having joined a privateer, for such news would only fire the boy with renewed determination to seek his own fortune at sea. But his landlady had other ambitions in view for both her sons: William with the scholarly bent to become a secretary or a tutor, Leo to be safely apprenticed in some worthy trade as a printer or an apothecary’s assistant. At least Leo had stopped talking about becoming a Runner, to Chase’s great relief.

  “No word since the last time you inquired.” Chase nodded in dismissal.

  Retrieving his hat and coat, he walked from his lodgings in King Street through Covent Garden Market to the public office. Though the air remained chill, a stiff breeze had blown away the clouds. He felt the occasional twinge in his bad knee, but he was reasonably whole and rested. With the ease of long practice, he weaved through the market, avoiding the refuse, animal droppings, cabbage leaves, and general muck that littered the pavement, barely registering the raucous cries of the aproned stall-keepers as they strove to attract customers.

  After fetching his prisoner from the basement cell at the Brown Bear, Chase marched him across the street to join the assorted thieves and vagrants waiting a turn for their committal hearing. In the airless, grimy courtroom, Chase and Farley lounged at a table in the well below the magistrate’s bench along with the clerks and shorthand reporters. On the opposite wall was the elevated dock where each prisoner would face the magistrate. Adkins and a new Runner called Victor Kirby, who had recently been promoted from conductor of the patrol, guarded the prisoners.

  Farley spoke out of the corner of his mouth. “Word is Kirby’s been summoned to Great Marlborough Street.” This was the location of one of the other public offices.

  “For what purpose?”

  “Magistrate there wants to pull him into a delicate inquiry. Instructions from on high. They say it’s something to do with the Princess of Wales. I reckon they’re after more dirt, if they can find it.”

  Chase’s professional pride stirred. “Why Kirby? He was a good patrolman, but he’s too green a principal officer as yet.”

  “Maybe that’s the point,” said Farley shrewdly. “No time to have formed his loyalties among us. He’ll keep it quieter.”

  That made sense, Chase reflected. He thought of Gander and his pamphlet designed to capitalize on the Princess’ growing popularity. It seemed Carlton House had formed new plans to discredit her, no doubt with her vengeful husband lurking in the background, instructing his minions to send anonymous paragraphs to the papers. But Chase had little pity to spare for the Princess since, like everyone else, he had heard the persistent rumors about her many scandalous liaisons. Everyone knew that the commissioners of the Delicate Investigation, while acquitting her of outright infidelity, had nonetheless admonished her to conduct herself more circumspectly in future.

  The case of the linen-draper Scoldwell and the shoplifter was soon over. Scoldwell and his boy were called to give their evidence, and, to no one’s surprise, the shoplifter was remanded for trial and sent to Newgate. As they left the office, Farley asked, “What did Gander want last night?” His round, red face wore a look of curiosity.

  “A small matter he wants me to look into.” Chase liked Dugger Farley; however, he was never sure of the man’s allegiances. Thus, he tended to keep his own counsel with Farley and everyone at Bow Street. Chase might have confided in Mr. Graham, the magistrate who had helped him obtain his position, but Graham was in failing health, and Chief Magistrate James Read was far less approachable.

  Farley grinned at him. “Make Gander pay for your trouble, John. Your chance to get a bit of your own back at the gentlemen of the press.”

  Bidding good-bye to his colleague, Chase was free to turn his attention to Penelope Wolfe. Their brief encounter the prior evening was responsible for the lightening of his mood. This man is my friend, she had said as she held out her hand, ignoring the cold stares her unconventional behavior provoked. He had not been encouraged to loiter in Rex’s reception rooms after she came to his defense, but he and Mrs. Wolfe had stepped aside for a moment to fix their meeting. Even in the costly gown, far grander than anything he’d ever seen her wear, she did not shun him but greeted him like an old and valued friend. He hoped the gown indicated that Mrs. Wolfe had found her way to prosperity—the last time he’d seen her she was employed as a lady’s companion and a very unsuitable one at that. He had no knowledge of her present circumstances beyond the address on Greek Street, which she hurriedly recited for him before Rex’s footmen escorted him out.

  Today he intended to ask about her visit to the Daily Intelligencer and get her impressions of Leach and his father-in-law Mr. Horatio Rex. He stood for a moment examining the typical London row house with basement, three stories, and garret. Knocking at the door, he waited until a neatly dressed, impassive maid opened the door. “The mistress told me you would call, sir. She is with the master in the painting room,” she said when he gave his name.

  He followed the maid up the stairs and down the passage to a room at the rear where, announcing him, she moved aside for him to enter. He stepped over the threshold to find Jeremy Wolfe pacing, brush in hand, while Penelope reclined on a divan at the opposite end of the room. Her dark hair draped across one half-exposed shoulder, she wore a white linen tunic, tied at the waist, and sandals on her slender feet. The brilliance of her tunic gleamed against the heavy folds of scarlet drapery on which she lay, this drapery sweeping up from the divan to form a sort of canopy over her head. A jeweled butterfly dangled from a golden cord at her waist, and in her palm rested a small padlock in the shape of a heart. But, as Chase approached, he saw that her arms and shoulders were prickled in gooseflesh, for the room was cold, and a meager fire on the hearth offered little in the way of warmth. Still, she seemed to come from another world, one brighter and more beautiful.

  Penelope pushed back her hair and jumped to her feet, a blush covering her cheeks. “Mr. Chase! I beg your pardon. Jeremy has kept me beyond my time.”

  “No hurry, Mrs. Wolfe. I await your convenience.”

  Chase had noticed the artist’s flash of irritation at the interruption, but Wolfe came forward with a pleasant enough smile. “John Chase? I missed your entrance last night at Rex’s party. I am pleased to make your acquaintance, sir. My wife has told me of the assistance you’ve given her in the past. Allow me to express my gratitude.”

  So this was the elusive Jeremy Wolfe. Despite everything Chase had heard of him during the Constance Tyrone inquiry when he first met Penelope, this was the first time he had actually met her husband: a man at least fifteen years Chase’s junior with a face that, by all rights, should be stamped on a Greek coin. The artist displayed a practiced charm and a willful spirit revealing itself in restless movement. In all of Chase’s dealings with Penelope Wolfe, he had often imagined her perennially absent, ever-troublesome husband. He now found that his imaginings had not been far off the mark.

  Chase bowed. “Thank you, sir.” His gaze took in the easels; the stretching frames; the color palette on a stand; the low dresser bursting with clothing and cos
tuming accessories; the canvases stacked against the walls, four and five deep; and the wooden lay-man next to the window. Most of the canvases seemed to show only heads in various stages of composition. He turned to Penelope. “I have interrupted your sitting.”

  She had recovered her complexion. “We are finished, Mr. Chase. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go change. I’ll have Lydia bring tea to my sitting room if you would join me there in quarter-of-an-hour?” She didn’t wait for his response but let the heart-shaped padlock drop from her fingers onto a low table before quitting the room. He picked it up to examine it, a piece of inexpensive brass wrought in cunning design with a tiny key attached.

  Pacing again, Wolfe studied his painting for a moment before drifting away to examine it again from a different perspective. He had forgotten Chase’s presence.

  “The butterfly and the heart padlock. What do they signify?”

  Wolfe looked surprised. “Penelope poses for me in the guise of Psyche—the soul. The butterfly, her symbol, indicates transformative powers. Psyche also suggests fidelity because she remained true to her Eros in all her trials. The padlock suggests a similar meaning. You have the key to my heart, and only you can unlock it. That sort of thing is popular, especially among the ladies.” He smiled engagingly at Chase. “I mean to make my fortune with this portrait, sir. My wife says I must consider our short-term advantage and fulfill commissions that do not appeal to my imagination.” He gestured vaguely in the direction of the half-finished canvases. “I prefer to take the longer view. If I can cause a stir among the critics with one important painting, my career will be made.”

  Ah, now that sounds promising, Chase thought wryly. But Jeremy Wolfe seemed to believe in his own prophecy. Too bad he had not observed the expression on his wife’s face as she put aside the cheap trinket.