by S K Rizzolo
Chase said no more but made a motion for Buckler to precede him into the corridor, then accompanied him down the stairs. He ignored Leo Beeks, who had contrived to be on hand.
At the door Buckler shook hands with something less than his usual cordiality. “You’ll let me know what else I can do?”
“As soon as I know myself,” said Chase.
***
Chase had scarcely settled down to parse each one of the Collatinus letters for the third time when Leo knocked at the door and put in his head. “Mr. Farley has called, sir,” he said, his voice vibrating with excitement. After closely questioning Chase about his Bow Street colleagues, Leo had learned all their names. And if Farley’s purple-veined cheeks and unkempt side-whiskers now proved a disappointment, the boy gave no sign of it as he ceremoniously ushered him into the room.
“Shall I ask my mother to make coffee?”
Chase knew his friend too well for that. “We’ll have brandy.” He went to the sideboard to pour two glasses. Observing that Leo still hesitated in the doorway, Chase straightened his spectacles and directed a quelling look in his direction. Reluctantly, he withdrew.
Farley relaxed in his chair with a sigh of relief. “Got news you’ll want to hear, though I can hardly square it with my conscience to tell you. We ain’t supposed to be on speaking terms, you and me. I know you, Chase. You’ll be after him before I can say Jack Robinson.” He gave his brandy an appreciative sniff. “How do you like being a gentleman of leisure?”
“Cut line, Farley. What news?”
“You remember Kirby? The green Runner getting above himself because the Home Office tapped him for some secret business? He was in his cups at the Brown Bear and boasting to Vickery, as was kind enough to drop a word in my ear. Bow Street’s been called in to help nab Collatinus. Now what are you going to do?”
“Get there first.”
Farley smiled. “I heard you was interested.”
Chase sat up straighter, setting aside his glass. “Go on.”
“The printer of the Free Albion, man called Gibbs, has turned crown witness to escape an information laid against him for seditious libel. He’ll put Collatinus under hatches, you mark my words. The authorities have got Gibbs in their eye and won’t thank you for spoiling their game.”
“How do I find the printer?”
“Can’t say. They’re hiding him until it’s time for the show. They’re using him to bait the trap, and he’ll cooperate to save his skin. When Collatinus comes to deliver his next letter, they’ll clap the Jacobin in irons before he knows what’s what.” Farley held out his own heavy wrists in demonstration, the buttons on his waistcoat bulging.
Chase stared into the fire. “This Collatinus, what can you tell me about him?”
Farley appeared to debate his next words. “Here’s an interesting thing,” he said finally. “He’s an educated fellow. Gibbs says Collatinus looks and talks quite the gentleman, though his clothes are well darned. And young, not more than twenty.”
“What else?”
“He’s the bastard son of a courtesan.”
So the rumor Ralph Hewitt’s wife had heard was true, thought Chase. “When and where will they take him?”
“Damn it. I’m not sure I should tell you. Bound to do something stupid.” The Runner gulped the rest of his brandy, tapped his thick fingers on the table, and sighed. “Well, you’ve been decent to me in your way, Chase, and I ain’t a man to forget that. All right then. Just don’t say it come from me. Tomorrow night. The Crown and Anchor tavern. The radicals are holding a banquet. We’ll get Collatinus there.”
Chase was already at his writing desk, dipping his pen in the ink to write a hurried message for Packet. When he had sealed this document, he strode to the door and bellowed for Leo. “Deliver this into the hands of the barkeeper at the Brown Bear,” he said when the boy had dashed up the stairs to meet him on the landing.
“Yes, sir!”
***
The message had instructed Noah Packet to keep watch on the office of the Free Albion in the Dials. Chase didn’t think the Home Office would suspect a common pickpocket of any interference in its plans, and Packet could be extricated should he find himself in difficulties. In the meantime, Chase had other urgent business. Nell Durant had lived in Marylebone, so he would first go there in search of her and then seek an interview with her sister Amelia Ecclestone.
When Chase entered St. Marylebone parish church, a brick edifice that struck him as unusually cramped and primitive, he found a chaotic scene presided over by a beleaguered young curate, flitting from one ceremony to the next. Two mildly odiferous corpses requiring burial were laid out in the pews near several new mothers, who waited in another pew to be churched or blessed for having survived childbirth. There was no font. Huddled around a basin on the communion table were a half-dozen baptismal sponsors, rocking wailing infants in their arms. No one, not even the curate, paid the slightest attention to the sponsors’ responses to the traditional questions of the service.
Moving methodically, Chase examined the tablets and monumental inscriptions, though he didn’t really expect to find evidence of Nell or her child. Churches always reminded him of his own family. In his childhood he had spent many uncomfortable hours listening to his father preach in the drafty village church. He was reminded, too, of the churchyard, where he used to stand over the graves of his tiny brothers and sisters and rail against his father for putting his mother through another ordeal of bearing and losing a child. His father hadn’t approved of him either, then or later when Chase had lowered himself to join the police.
But he did locate Nell’s tablet on the south wall, and as he read the inscription, the din in the church seemed to fade from his ears: In Memory of Eleanor Durant. Her afflicted Sister Judith Ecclestone has placed this marble as a pledge of her affection. Born March 27, 1765. Died June 6, 1794. Open me the Gates of Righteousness that I may go into them and Give Thanks unto the Lord.
A gentle voice spoke. “Good day, sir. I have come to Mr. Stapleforth’s assistance. We are quite busy today, as you see. I am Augustus Lively, parish clerk. May I assist you?”
A prim, old gentleman stood smiling at him. After greeting him, Chase pointed at the memorial. “Did you know this woman, Mr. Lively?”
The clerk lifted a frail hand to finger the lettering. “Sad, she died young. I’m afraid I do not recall her, sir. Is she a member of your family?”
“No, but I am very anxious to discover word of her or her son. Will you check the parish books for me?”
A gleam of interest stole into the clerk’s faded eyes. “An inheritance in dispute, perhaps?”
“On the contrary. A murder—or rather murders.”
“Indeed?” Lively elevated his white brows. “You surprise me. What is your name and your interest in the matter, if I may inquire?”
Chase started to reach for his gilt-crowned tipstaff; then he remembered that, of course, it wasn’t there. “My name is John Chase. I am investigating three deaths, Nell Durant’s among them. She was one of the murder victims I mentioned. My interest is purely personal, Mr. Lively. I wish to uncover the malefactor.”
The clerk studied him as if attempting to read his character and motives in his face. After a pause, he said, “Come with me, sir, and we will see whether our christening record can offer any illumination.”
Lively led Chase toward the back of the church and through an oak door into the small vestry. This was a damp, low-ceilinged room ringed with aged wooden presses. The clerk went to one of these cupboards and opened it with a rusted key he took from a ring at his waist. “What month and year would you like me to check?”
“The spring of 1794.” Penelope had told Chase that Eustace Sandford had departed England in June of that year to elude arrest for the courtesan’s murder. Nell’s son would have been a few months old, he assumed.
Lively retrieved one of the registers, a heavy volume bound in dark leather, and placed it on the long deal table that ran across the room. “You wish me to look for a child born of Nell Durant?”
“If you would, yes.”
Silence fell as the clerk painstakingly perused every entry in the ledger until Chase was ready to tear it out of his hands. The only sounds in the room were the old man’s breathing and the rustling as he turned each page. “Nothing in March, April, or May.”
Chase felt a tired disappointment. This inquiry seemed like the hydra to him: a monster with heads of wriggling snakes that grew new heads to baffle and taunt him every time he thought he might have chopped one off for good. “Check June,” he suggested, not really expecting any result since Nell had died early in that month.
“Ah, here we are.” Lively flipped the ledger around, pushing it across the table. “You didn’t tell me the child was illegitimate,” he added with a note of condemnation.
Chase reached for the book and hunched over to read the spidery hand. About halfway down the page, he found the following entry dated the 9th of June: Lewis, son of Eleanor Durant and putative father Eustace Sandford, by the report of the child’s mother base begotten. Born 27th April.
“According to the memorial, Mrs. Durant was dead by then,” said Chase hoarsely. If he had thought this situation was bad for Penelope before, it had just got much, much worse. Nell Durant and Eustace Sandford. Why should he be surprised? It seemed the woman had pursued affairs with most of the gentlemen in London. Penelope had been worried about her father’s role in the courtesan’s death, and unfortunately they had found no evidence to prove him innocent of this crime. But now she must face that Sandford had abandoned his own child, escaping to live a comfortable life abroad. And he had left behind his only son, Penelope’s younger brother.
Lively interrupted these reflections. “It matters not that the mother had died, sir. Sponsors may bring a child to be baptized. Christians who have a babe’s best interests at heart.” The old gentleman peered at the record. “See here. There’s an annotation in the margin. The sponsors were Edith Cantrell and Mary Rex. Does that help you, Mr. Chase?”
***
When Chase stepped into the crowded tobacconist’s shop, he was obliged to wait his turn. Several patrons stood at the long glass counters, either sampling snuff mixtures or chatting animatedly with the proprietress. The proprietor, a hulking fellow with arms that strained at his coat, hovered nearby. He rarely addressed the customers himself but instead fetched and carried at his wife’s smiling command. Often the tobacconist seemed to anticipate her needs and pop up with just the right variety as she made a recommendation to a customer.
For some minutes Chase pretended to study a pamphlet explaining the relative merits of snuff that had been rasped to a texture of “fin, demigros, or gros” and informing him that papier-mâché was the best receptacle to keep the snuff moist, though one was never to cram too much of the mixture in any container. Keeping his eyes planted on the pamphlet, he listened to Amelia Ecclestone (for he was sure this was Nell Durant’s sister) converse earnestly with a dandy sporting impossibly high shirt points about the virtues of such sorts as the Prince’s Mixture, Martinique, and Bolongaro. This gentleman, who took his snuff with nary a sneeze in prospect, sampled these and many more before finally making his purchases. Probably the most important decision the man would make all day, thought Chase. When the other patrons had completed their business, Mrs. Ecclestone approached him.
“Good day, sir.” Her smile seemed to stretch her thin lips in a polite grimace. “I apologize for the delay. May I help you?”
“Not at all. You have a pleasant establishment here.”
She curtsied. “Thank you, sir. I am Mrs. Ecclestone, wife of the proprietor.”
“Is there a Mr. Hanson too? I saw his name on the sign outside.”
“Passed on, I’m afraid. It’s just the two of us and a shopboy.”
Standing closer to her, Chase saw that she had never been a beauty even in her youth, which was long past. Her chin was too weak, her brow too heavy over smallish blue eyes, her nose too pronounced. And yet he thought her face compelling in its mercurial movement, its constantly shifting emotions. “I’ll ask you to show me some of your snuff. The gentleman who just left seemed highly knowledgeable, but you’ll need to offer me more advice.”
A faint contempt communicated itself in the downward sweep of her eyelashes, but it was gone so fast Chase might have imagined it. “If you are a beginner, sir, you will want something rather mild. I can also show you some snuffboxes.”
As the proprietor moved away in quest of the snuff, Chase said, “A gentleman recommended your shop to me, ma’am. A Mr. George Kester.”
She looked surprised. “Oh, indeed? I’ve not seen Mr. Kester in years. He is well?”
“Quite well. He mentioned that he was once acquainted with you and your sister.”
Ecclestone’s bustling hands stilled, and he shot a warning look at his wife. After a pause, she answered in a high-pitched voice. “Yes, Nell had many friends among the ton.”
“Your sister’s death was a tragedy, ma’am.”
Passing a hand across her forehead, she stepped back from the counter, putting distance between them. “Why do you ask about Nell?”
“Because I mean to know who killed her. I’m sure you’ve heard that another woman, Mrs. Dryden Leach, has recently been murdered. The two crimes are connected.”
The proprietor stumped forward to place several jars of snuff on the counter, pouring out a small amount of each variety on a cloth and pushing a handkerchief at Chase. “You wish to try the snuff or not? Use the wipe to protect your neck-cloth.” His accent was considerably less refined than his wife’s.
“Certainly.” As Chase had seen the dandy do, he took a pinch from one of the piles, brought it to his nose, and inhaled—an entirely disagreeable sensation in his opinion. He dusted his upper lip with the handkerchief. “I need to talk to you about Nell Durant,” he told Mrs. Ecclestone.
“You a journalist?” demanded Ecclestone.
“No. I have a friend concerned in the matter. Her father is Eustace Sandford.” He watched them both carefully to see if they recognized the name and was rewarded when he observed Mrs. Ecclestone’s slight stiffening.
“All that is long buried. There’s no call to resurrect it.”
“I’m afraid there is, ma’am.” He removed the knife from his pocket and showed it to her. “This was found in Mary Leach’s bedroom. It belonged to Nell, didn’t it?”
They stared at the knife but made no move to touch it. “It was Nell’s,” admitted Mrs. Ecclestone. “She must have given it to Mary after—”
“After the Prince abandoned her?”
“He never met his obligations to her, and she had debts. Perhaps she sold it to Mary. Lord knows, they always had their heads together, those two.”
An angry flush mottled the proprietor’s cheeks. Before he could interrupt, Amelia Ecclestone said quickly, “A day doesn’t go by that I don’t grieve for my sister, but we don’t want any trouble. It’s bad enough that monster never paid for what he did to her.”
“Who, ma’am?”
“Your friend’s father, Eustace Sandford. He was the one. That I always said and will go to my grave saying. I would have been a witness against him in court, but he turned tail and ran.”
Chase felt his pulse accelerate. Could this woman be telling the truth? “What evidence do you have?”
“Why, I was in the house the night she died. I heard Mr. Sandford’s knock and saw him in the hall. I went to bed, but I heard them shouting at each other. I found Nell the next morning, stabbed to the heart…the blood, you can’t imagine what it did to me to see that sight.”
“You lived with your sister?”
“I was Nell’s houseke
eper. Oh, she lived a fine life while it lasted, but she’d have been better off without her fancy liveried servants and her silly opera box hung in pink satin. Nell thought she could turn everyone up sweet. She thought no one could resist her.” Mrs. Ecclestone was practically spitting her words, her voice rising higher. “Better to dine on a single joint of mutton at home and live in peace, I always said. Money ran through her fingers like sand. She was always in debt, always worried about being put out in her shift one day. She was spared that much at least.”
Jealousy and rancor and rage had passed in quick succession over her mobile features rather like a summer squall at sea, but now her mouth drooped in sadness. Glancing at Ecclestone, Chase saw that he stood with fists clenched, not looking at either of them. Did the tobacconist resent his wife’s preoccupation with Nell Durant? It seemed that Nell was a third person in their marriage.
Amelia Ecclestone added more quietly, “She used to say she’d never be wholly at any man’s disposal. But they owned her, body and soul, every one of them.”
“What happened on the night of the murder?”
“She’d gone to a masquerade ball dressed as a shepherdess, and I knew the gentlemen would be after her in droves. Still, she came home early just before midnight. She went into her sitting room, told me to go away. All she would say was she’d had a quarrel.”
“She didn’t tell you what it was about?”
She regarded Chase coldly. “She kept her own counsel. It was no good my asking her to confide in me.”
Ecclestone reached out to slam his hand on the counter, and the two little piles of snuff went flying. “That’s enough. Have you made your selection, sir?”
Chase remembered Kester’s remark about Amelia Ecclestone prying and listening at doors. He ignored her husband. “You must have some notion of what Eustace Sandford wanted that night. Midnight seems a strange time to visit a lady.”
An odd smile lit her face. “Not for them two.”
“They were lovers?”
