The Tavistock Plot

by Tracy Grant

  "Bow Street?" The young man's eyes darted round the room. He had a round face and curling dark hair that gave him the look of a schoolboy. Malcolm doubted he was more than five-and-twenty, if that.

  "Yes. Why don't you sit down, Mr.—?"

  "Cranley. Where's Mr. Thornsby—"

  Malcolm pressed Cranley into a straight-backed chair. Roth poured a glass of brandy from a set of decanters on a table across the room. They told Cranley about his master's death as quickly as possible. He stared at them. Roth pressed the glass into his hand. When Cranley nearly dropped it, Roth guided it to his lips. Cranley took a long drink and stared into the depths of the glass as though searching for answers. "But I just saw Mr. Thornsby—"

  "It's a great shock," Malcolm said. "But the more you can tell us, the sooner we can learn what happened to him. When precisely did you last see Mr. Thornsby?"

  "This morning. Afternoon, that is. A bit past two. He left to go the theatre. He did most afternoons."

  "He didn't return here?"

  "Not before I left. It's my evening off, you see. I tidied the flat"—he glanced round at the chaos—"then went round to the King's Arms and met some mates. Had supper at a coffeehouse. The Dark Horse in Piccadilly. Mr. Thornsby always told me to stay out as late as I liked on my nights off—" He drew a sharp breath, took another swallow of brandy. "He is—was—a kind master."

  "Do you know what his plans were for the evening?" Roth asked.

  Cranley shook his head. "He often went out with some of the actors after rehearsals. He is—was—much attached to one of the actresses. Miss Blanchard." He paused, as though afraid he'd said too much.

  "Yes, we know," Malcolm said. "Did she come here?"

  "Oh, no." Cranley looked horrified. "Mr. Thornsby would never have gone beyond the line with Miss Blanchard."

  What line gentlemen drew with actresses could vary widely and often allowed behavior not different from that accorded to courtesans. Malcolm wasn't sure whether this remark showed Thornsby's feelings for Letty Blanchard, or Cranley's perhaps naive belief in his master, or both.

  Kit, who had been hanging back, met Cranley's gaze, then glanced at Malcolm. "I agree. Thornsby's intentions towards Letty were entirely honorable."

  That was interesting. But Kit, though clear-sighted, was also quite a romantic and inclined to idealize women, which could be both a positive and a negative.

  "Had Mr. Thornsby seemed concerned about anything of late?" Roth asked.

  Cranley took a quick drink of brandy, stared into his glass, shifted in his chair.

  "You're naturally protective of your master," Malcolm said. "And I applaud your discretion. My own valet has been with me since I was at Oxford and is the same." Leaving aside the fact that Addison was also a very accomplished agent. "For which I am very grateful. But should any harm befall me, I would want him to confide the truth to those investigating."

  Cranley gave a quick nod. "Mr. Thornsby was a very cheerful gentleman." He swallowed, perhaps at the realization that he'd used "was" this time without correcting himself. "But he'd been a bit preoccupied of late." He cast a glance at Kit.

  "There's been a great deal going on with the Levellers," Kit said. "It's all right. Mr. Rannoch and Mr. Roth know about them."

  "Was there anyone in particular he seemed concerned about?" Roth asked. "Or whom he'd quarreled with?"

  "Mr. Thornsby always seemed to get on well with people. But—" Cranley dragged his toe over the floorboards. "He had a visitor yesterday. Mr. Carmarthen. One of the actors," he added, just in case they didn't know.

  "They were friends?" Malcolm couldn't remember seeing them together much. Carmarthen, a rather intense, sardonic type, seemed quite different from the open, sunny-tempered Thornsby.

  "I wouldn't say so particularly." Cranley glanced at Kit again.

  "They're both—were, in Thornsby's case—Levellers," Kit said. "But aside from their attending some of the same meetings, I wasn't aware of any particular friendship."

  "Do you know why Mr. Carmarthen called?" Malcolm asked Cranley.

  "No. Not precisely. I left soon after he arrived to collect some new gloves for Mr. Thornsby. When I came back into the flat, I heard raised voices. I wouldn't have listened normally but I was outside the doors and didn't have a lot of choice. Mr. Thornsby was saying 'I can't believe you'd accuse me of such a thing.' And Mr. Carmarthen said 'It's difficult to assume otherwise.' After that I retreated down the stairs and went round to the King's Arms until I saw Mr. Carmarthen in the street outside. When I went back up to the rooms, Mr. Thornsby seemed—I suppose preoccupied is the best way to put it. But also oddly focused. As though he'd come to a decision. Though about what, I couldn't say."

  "You're insightful, Mr. Cranley."

  Cranley shook his head. "I know Mr. Thornsby, that's all. But I can't begin to make sense of what's happened."

  "None of us can." Malcolm touched his hand. "Did you notice anything else unusual about Mr. Thornsby in recent days?"

  "No—that is, I daresay it may mean nothing, but a few days ago—Monday last, I think—I was tidying some papers on Mr. Thornsby's writing desk. I saw a letter with a direction on it I didn't recognize. 19 Rosemary Lane, which surprised me, because it was an odd place for Mr. Thornsby to have an acquaintance. Also, it wasn't in Mr. Thornsby's hand so it wasn't a letter he was sending, but it also hadn't been sent to him, which seemed odd. Not my place to think too much of it, but I couldn't but wonder. Then Mr. Thornsby came in as I was tidying the papers. I felt him staring at me, if you know what I mean."

  "Quite," Malcolm said.

  "Yes, well I looked up and for a moment I thought he was going to yell at me, which he almost never did. Then he just said, 'It's all right, Cranley, I'll see to it.' I took that as my cue to leave the room. But I heard the poker against the grate and when I next passed the desk, the paper was gone." Cranley looked from Malcolm to Roth. "I think Mr. Thornsby burned the paper. There could be a lot of different reasons."

  Malcolm glanced at Roth. "So there could."

  On the pavement, Roth looked at Malcolm. "A complicated case on a number of levels."

  Malcolm turned up the collar of his greatcoat. The temperature had dropped while they were in Thornsby's rooms. Piccadilly bustled with evening life. Candles and lamps blazed in windows, carriages clattered by, silk-hatted gentlemen and velvet-cloaked ladies moved up and down well-swept steps. Hard to believe the night still wasn't that far advanced. "Yes."

  Roth settled his hat against the wind. "It goes without saying that I'd welcome your assistance."

  "Which I'm glad to give. In truth, I feel a strong need to discover what happened. But—"

  "Thornsby was a member of a Radical group to which other friends of yours belong."

  "Who have been targeted by the home office to whom the chief magistrate of Bow Street reports."

  "And I, at least in theory, report my findings to the chief magistrate. Then there's the fact that the murder took place at the Tavistock, of which your friend Tanner is an owner. Not to mention being one of the Levellers himself. And the theatre is about to premiere Mélanie's play."

  "Quite." Malcolm slid his hands into his greatcoat pockets. "All of which makes for rather more of a tangle than we usually confront in investigations."

  "Meaning you may not be able to share everything you discover with me."

  "And I imagine you may not wish to share everything you discover with me. Or with Mélanie."

  Roth released a breath that frosted in the night air. "It's a fair point. And it won't be the first time we've worked together on those terms."

  Malcolm met Roth's gaze and grinned. "So we share what we can—and no blaming the other for holding anything back?"

  "Sounds reasonable. I would think by now you'd be used to working with divided loyalties, Rannoch."

  Malcolm managed another smile, though a number of unsettling possibilities chased themselves through his mind. "Getting there. But I don't think
it's ever really easy."

  Roth nodded, though his gaze held a touch of what Malcolm was quite sure was sympathy. "I imagine it isn't."

  "Dead?" Letty Blanchard's Dresden-blue eyes, which had already shown a remarkable ability to hold an audience to the rafters, went wide not so much with grief or horror as with confusion. "Lewis can't be dead. I was drinking ale with him just a few hours ago."

  "Is that the last time you saw him?" Mélanie asked.

  "Yes." Letty put a hand to her head, sending two hair pins tumbling to the Turkey rug in her small sitting room. "We went to the White Rose after the rehearsal. While you and Manon and Simon were still talking. Not just Lewis and me, a whole lot of us——Oh, my God. He's really dead?"

  "I'm so sorry." Mélanie moved from her straight-backed chair to the frayed petit point settee where Letty sat and put an arm round the younger woman. "I'd have a hard time believing it myself if I hadn't seen him."

  Letty looked up at her, eyes filled with tears. Not the luminous sort of the stage but a stark torrent that would destroy her eye blacking and leave her nose red and her throat raw. "Was it—did he suffer?"

  "I don't think so. It would have been very quick."

  Letty gave a strangled sob and clung to Mélanie as though she were a lifeline to normality, then drew back, wiped her handkerchief across her eyes, and blew her nose with defiance. "You want to know what happened tonight."

  "When you feel able to tell me."

  "Better to talk than to be alone with my thoughts." Letty blew her nose again and dashed a hand across her eyes, leaving a trail of blacking on her fingers. "A lot of us went to the White Rose in a group, but Lewis sat beside me. He usually did. He insisted on fetching me a second pint. And on walking me back to my lodgings."

  "Did he stay?"

  "Of course not."

  Mélanie returned Letty's gaze, keeping her own steady. She couldn't but feel for Letty, but she also knew this was their best chance to get information. "There isn't necessarily any 'of course' about it."

  "I wasn't—" Letty swallowed hard, hands fisted in her lap. "I liked Lewis. I knew he was important to the Tavistock. I knew what his notice meant for me. But—oh, poison, I sound the worst sort of witch."

  "On the contrary. You sound like a woman who's made calculations about how to survive in the world. You liked Lewis but you weren't in love with him. But you didn't want to discourage his support of the theatre. Or of you."

  "That's not—" Letty glanced away, then dragged her gaze back to Mélanie. "I don't mean to sound missish, but I had no desire to become a man's mistress. Not on moral grounds. Not precisely. My family's already scandalized enough by my going on the stage. But I didn't need to add complications to my life. Manon's managed splendidly, but it's difficult enough to survive as an actress without raising bastard children in the midst of it. I know what I want and it's to be a leading lady, not some rich man's trollop." She wadded her handkerchief in her hand. "Dear God, I can't believe he's dead."

  "Did he ask you to be his mistress?"

  "Not in so many words." She stared at the crumpled linen, the embroidered blue flowers now streaked with eye blacking. "But it was clear that was what he wanted. At least I thought it was. I thought I could dance him along and keep him happy without going beyond the line, but without angering him so much the Tavistock lost his support. Then tonight when he walked me home, he—" Her face crumpled. She glanced away, tears prickling her lashes, fingers white round the handkerchief.

  "What? Letty—" Mélanie put a hand on her arm. "Did he try to force himself on you?"

  "No." Letty swung her gaze back to Mélanie's face, eyes red but surprisingly clear. "He asked me to marry him."

  Despite the actresses she'd seen marry gentlemen, Mélanie hadn't seen that coming. "And you didn't want to do that either."

  Letty bit her lip. "I never thought he'd take such a risk. It's not that I was holding out for marriage. It's not that I ever contemplated it at all. But once he asked me—"

  "You said you didn't love him."

  "No. Not in that way. But look at Manon and Lord Harleton. And Jennifer and Sir Horace."

  "Manon's rather madly in love with Crispin. As is Jennfier with Sir Horace, for all I know they're old enough to be your parents."

  "I know Manon and Jennifer love their husbands, I'm not blind." Letty twisted the handkerchief between her fingers. "But you can't claim love is the only consideration in marriage, however romantic your own marriage is. I grew up on a sheep farm. Can you imagine what the life Lewis offered me seemed like?"

  Mélanie thought of her life with Malcolm. Featherbeds. Fresh fruit in winter. Café-au-lait in bed. Plentiful hot water whenever she wanted it. Well-sprung carriages. Exquisite gowns. A staff to cater to every need. Luxury compared to the brothel she'd once been employed in, of course, but even compared to her childhood in her parents' theatre company or her years as an agent. "I can imagine it." She studied Letty's strained, blotched face. "Are you saying you accepted him?"

  "No. He said I could continue on the stage, but I wasn't sure. And however hardheaded and practical I am"—her mouth curved as though she'd heard this description from someone else—"I wasn't blind to what I'd be giving up. Not just perhaps the theatre. The chance to ever—"

  "Marry a man you loved?"

  Letty's gaze shot away again in a manner that made Mélanie wonder if this man was someone more specific than the general idea of marrying the man one loved. "I told Lewis I needed time to think. I sent him away. I—" She dragged her gaze back to Mélanie's face. "I don't think his family would have approved. Do you think that's why he was killed?"

  Until a few minutes ago it would never have occurred to Mélanie as a motive, but now they couldn't discount it. "There are a number of reasons Lewis might have been killed. A betrothal that wasn't even official doesn't seem at all the likeliest. What time did Lewis leave you?"

  Letty frowned. "About six-thirty. Perhaps a few minutes after. I remember looking at the clock when I went upstairs to make a cup of tea."

  "Did he say where he was going?"

  "No. I assume he was going home or to dine with friends or to see his family."

  "He didn't mention going back to the Tavistock?"

  "No, why would he have done that?"

  Mélanie studied the girl Lewis Thornsby had loved. "Did Lewis ever talk about the Levellers?"

  Letty drew back slightly on the frayed settee. Wariness shot over her gaze.

  "I know about the Levellers," Mélanie said. "I could hardly fail to do so. Surely you realize my husband and I are in sympathy with them."

  "Mr. Rannoch is in Parliament."

  "So is Roger Smythe, who's a Leveller."

  Letty released her breath. "I knew. How can one be about the Tavistock and not know, as you say, for all their pretense to secrecy? To tell the truth, I tried to know as little as possible. Not that I wouldn't like the world to change, but it's enough of a challenge just trying to survive, isn't it?"

  "There was a time I felt that way myself." When she'd been holding on to her sanity by her fingernails in the brothel. Before Raoul found her.

  "To own the truth, that was another reason I hesitated to agree to marry Lewis. I knew he was involved in something dangerous. Knew it better than he did himself, I think." Letty hesitated, fingered the handkerchief, pushed her fingers through her hair.

  "More dangerous than their general activities?"

  Letty chewed her lip. "One night a week ago I came back to the theatre to fetch my gloves—I'd left them in my dressing room. I heard Lewis and another man talking. I couldn't make out who the other man was, and I couldn't understand all their words. But I heard Lewis say, 'This is different. This seems like treason.' And the other man laughed. I think he said, 'What did you think you signed up for?'"

  The sketch of the rifle trajectory shot into Mélanie's memory. "Did you ask Lewis about it?"

  "No." Letty rubbed her arms. "I thought I was better off kn
owing as little as possible about it. Now I can't but wonder—If I'd told Simon or you or someone—"

  "We don't know that that's why Lewis was killed."

  "No, but it might be."

  "Letty." Mélanie leaned forwards and laid a hand over the younger woman's own. "When there's been a tragedy it's very common to ask these sorts of questions. To play 'what if?' and imagine all the ways one might have changed things. The truth is, it's impossible to know if anything would have been different. And it's definitely folly to blame yourself."

  Letty gave a lopsided smile. "That sounds eminently sensible, Mrs. Rannoch. But it's not so easy to do."

  Mélanie found herself smiling in return, heart heavy with memories. "No," she agreed, "it isn't. But at least it can help to try."

  Letty nodded.

  "Did Lewis have any enemies you know of?" Mélanie asked.

  Letty chewed her lower lip. "One doesn't generally think about enemies. I mean, one doesn't expect bad things to happen to one's friends. That is, I suppose one does if—"

  "It's a bit different when one is an agent," Mélanie said. "That's true."

  Letty nodded. "I never met Lewis's family, but from things he said, I know they disapproved of the Levellers and of how much time he spent about the theatre. I can't imagine they'd have been happy about his involvement with me. At least not about his proposing." She twisted her hands together. "But you're right, much as it worries me, I can't imagine their killing him. They'd be more likely to kill me." Her eyes widened slightly.

  "There's no reason to think you're in danger," Mélanie said. "But be extra careful to lock your door for the next few days. And don't walk home from the theatre alone after dark. I'll talk to Simon. I'm sure we can find someone to walk with you."

  Letty nodded, gaze steady with practicality. She was a girl used to facing difficult circumstances.

  "What else do you know about Mr. Thornsby's family?" Mélanie asked.

  "He has an elder brother who's interested in classics. And two sisters. The younger sister just made her debut." Letty shook her head. "Funny what a debut means for a girl in society and what it means for an actress. His family is comfortably situated. Far more comfortably than I can imagine. But the father has debts, I believe. And the country house and most of what fortune there is go to Lewis's elder brother. But Lewis has—had"—her voice caught—"an aunt—a great-aunt, actually— who was very fond of him. Lady Shroppington. Aunt Shrops he used to call her. It was common knowledge that Lewis was her heir. But of course, there wasn't an entail or anything. She could easily decide to change her will. And though Lewis said she loved theatre and she'd love me, I can't imagine she'd have been happy about his marrying an actress, however much she enjoyed watching the stage from her box. Lewis would have said we could be happy without her money. But then he didn't know what it meant to be poor. I do. And yes, I know that sounds beastly, but it wouldn't have been fair to him either."