A Covent Garden Mystery

by Jennifer Ashley

  She was a Lacey, all right. "She might have wanted to have a look at the river," I said. "There are many confusing lanes south of the Strand. Look there if you do not find her shopping." I hoped she'd not gone to the winding lanes on the river, an area which had an unsavory reputation.

  Grenville nodded. I shut the door for him and stepped back as the coachman slapped the grays with the reins. As the coach rattled away through traffic, I strode back to Covent Garden, skirting it to James Street, its outlet leading north, and around the bulk of the theatre to Bow Street.

  Pomeroy was not in, but he was expected soon. I did not care for this information, and I managed to bully the direction of Pomeroy's digs from one of his patrollers. I realized that in the two years Pomeroy had been back in London, I had not known where he lived. I'd always been able to find him at Bow Street or one of the taverns near it.

  I told the patrollers of my problem. The one I'd bullied said he could do little until Pomeroy's return, but he promised to send out a few lads.

  As I emerged from Bow Street, ready to find the house off Long Acre that Pomeroy called home, I saw Black Nancy and Felicity coming from the direction of the theatre.

  "Captain," Nancy called cheerfully. "You ran off so fast and never said goodbye."

  I caught up to them and seized Nancy by the shoulders. "Where have you been walking? Did you see the girl I took away to my rooms?"

  Nancy stared at me in amazement. "No. You looking for her?"

  "She's gotten lost. Perhaps lost," I amended. She could still turn up in King Street, surprised at our concern, but as the minutes passed, I grew less and less certain.

  Felicity's silken black brows rose. "That one? She's a young miss, Captain. She won't do well around here."

  "Precisely why I am trying to find her. It could be she's simply taken a wrong turn, gone the wrong direction trying to fetch up in King Street and the boardinghouse."

  I tried to speak calmly, as though Gabriella were an ordinary girl who might have wandered away and would be back soon. But the tremor in my voice betrayed me. Nancy looked worried, and Felicity put a calming hand on my arm.

  "We'll look out for her, Captain," Felicity said. "You come with us now."

  "I do not want to go anywhere with you. I want to find my daughter."

  Nancy and Felicity exchanged an amazed glance. "Coo," Nancy said. "I didn't know that was your daughter."

  Felicity's grip on my arm firmed. "Now, you come with us. I know when a man needs a gin."

  So saying, she steered me across the busy street and into a tavern. I had not come into this public house before, preferring the Rearing Pony or the Gull. Heads turned as I entered in the company of so obvious a game girl as Felicity, but after one curious glance, the clientele, most of them well into their cups, looked the other way without rancor.

  Felicity and Nancy sat me down at an empty end of a long table, and Felicity sidled to the landlord and asked for three glasses of gin.

  Nancy gave me a sympathetic glance. "You're worrit that she got snatched by the same man who's taking the game girls, ain't you?"

  "I don't know." I drew a breath, resting my hands flat on the table. "Gabriella is obviously a girl from a respectable family, and we still do not know whether the game girls were snatched. They might have decided to find work in a house, or they might have been taken up by protectors."

  "Well, they ain't in any houses round here," Nancy said. "Felicity and me had a look into all the bawdy houses, and neither Black Bess nor this Mary Chester has been in any of 'em."

  "You can be certain?" I asked. My entire being was focused on finding Gabriella, and at this moment, I couldn't keep much interest in girls who'd wandered away from their regular lovers, likely in search of better money. The two events might be connected, yes, but I did not want them to be. I could search for game girls, feeling a stranger's sympathy for their plight, but I did not want my daughter and her disappearance to be lumped with theirs. Their world was too dangerous.

  "Fair certain," Nancy said. "They treat Felicity with some respect, and I don't think they'd lie to her."

  Unless the house were keeping the girls secretly, for some unknown purpose.

  Felicity sat down and shoved a glass of clear, noisome liquid under my nose. "You drink that, Captain. It'll stop your shaking."

  I hadn't realized I was shaking. But I saw that I had pressed my hands tightly against the table to still their trembling, and I was having difficulty catching my breath. I obediently raised the glass and gulped the gin.

  The liquid burned fire into my gullet, and I wanted to cough. Foul stuff, but it warmed my blood and calmed my tremors a little. Felicity sipped her gin as though it were a delicate glass of champagne. Nancy took one drink, made a face, and set it down. "Foul stuff. I like ale, meself."

  I took a long breath, my mouth tingling from the gin. "I need to organize a search. We are all running about half-cocked at present, and might miss her coming or going. I did reconnaissance in the army; I can certainly do it in London."

  "What do we do?" Nancy asked, eager.

  "Find Grenville for me. I sent him to the Strand. Tell him I will need a map. One of Horwood's will do--the man must have marked every house and every privy in London. I'll round up Grenville's footman and get Pomeroy to lend me his foot patrollers. I will look in every house in every street in this damn city if I have to."

  "She might have already found her way home," Nancy pointed out.

  "True. Then our effort will be for nothing." I paused. "I hope so."

  I could see that Felicity was not as sanguine as Nancy. Felicity was a little older, perhaps a little wiser. Nancy had been lucky; Louisa had saved her before Nancy's life selling her body had broken her or even killed her. Felicity had already spent years on the streets and knew what a very harsh place they could be.

  Felicity laid her hand on my arm. Her skin was not really that much darker than Nancy's, but the essence of the color was different; olive and bronzed tones shone through whereas the tone of Nancy's skin was pink. My own tanned hand was more yellow.

  "We'll find Mr. Grenville for you," Felicity said. "I know his fancy carriage." She ran her fingers up my arm, her touch suggestive, though she said nothing. The unspoken offer was there, however. There was no desire in her eyes, only pity, as she offered comfort in her own way.

  "Thank you," I said, answering both her words and her silent gesture. "Send anyone you see on the way to Grimpen Lane, and I will await you there."

  If Nancy noticed the exchange, she said nothing. Felicity smiled at me, a look of understanding, and withdrew her hand.

  I sent them off and continued to Long Acre, hoping that every corner I turned would reveal Gabriella. None did.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Nine

  To my annoyance, I found Pomeroy not at home. His landlady, a woman of about thirty, her three small daughters busily cleaning the downstairs hall, told me he was looking into a death in Marylebone, trying to decide whether to put it down as suicide or murder. She seemed proud to have a Runner staying in her house.

  I left my card with a note on the back to Pomeroy to look me up at Grimpen Lane immediately on his return.

  My leg aching with all my walking, I hired a hackney to return me home. The hackney moved through the crowd about as fast as I could walk, and I spent my time gazing across people and horses and down passages between tall slabs of houses to see if I could spy my daughter.

  I pictured in my head that Gabriella would be at the bake shop when I returned, with Carlotta there, scolding her. Everything would be all right, and we'd laugh at the fright she'd given us.

  I held on to this vision, so certain of it, that I knew that it would be true.

  But when I arrived at the bake shop, it was shut and dark, Mrs. Beltan gone home. The disappointment of that cut me near to despair. Upstairs, empty rooms awaited me, with no Gabriella.

  To keep myself from thinking of dire scenarios, I retrieved paper
and sharpened a pen, and began making a list of likely places I could check and people I could call upon to help me.

  My list grew lengthy, and I looked in surprise at all of the people with whom I'd forged ties since arriving in London: Sir Gideon Derwent; Leland Derwent and his friend Gareth Travers; Lady Aline Carrington; Sir Montague Harris, magistrate at the Whitechapel house; Thompson of the Thames River patrollers; Lady Breckenridge; Louisa Brandon and the many people she knew; Grenville, of course; and James Denis.

  I looked at the last name and felt my mouth go dry, the gin having left a foul taste behind. If Gabriella were truly missing, I would be a fool not to go to Denis. If any man could turn the city inside out, it was he, a man with resources I could not begin to match. And, I thought with dawning hope, if he'd had a man watching me as usual, that man might have noted Gabriella and where she had gone.

  I could not fathom what price Denis would ask of me for this favor. He wanted me to be under his obligation, so that I would not be a threat, and he had more than once hinted that he wanted to employ me outright. If Gabriella had truly disappeared, would enslaving myself to Denis be worth her return?

  It would be.

  Grenville arrived not long after I'd finished my list. Bartholomew and Matthias came upstairs with him, as did Major Auberge. By the grim looks on faces all around, none of them had found Gabriella.

  Nancy and Felicity arrived soon after, with two of Pomeroy's patrollers in tow. "First time I ever told Bow Street to come with me," Nancy cackled as they ran up the stairs and into my sitting room.

  Fortunately, my rooms, while sparsely furnished, were large, the architects of the house over a century ago having a liking for grand salons. My makeshift army fitted comfortably, though we would have been hard pressed had more joined us.

  Grenville unrolled a map sheet of Covent Garden and surrounding areas on my writing table. He had not bothered to send home for one; he'd simply walked into a shop on the Strand and purchased it. That particular shop had just closed for the evening, but the proprietor had opened it again for Grenville.

  I leaned on the table, looking at the streets I had walked not an hour ago, laid out in neat lines and squares. London looked so clean from this bird's-eye view, but the map could show nothing of the tall buildings, each with its own characteristic, streets that could narrow into crooked medieval lanes in three steps, the smell of unwashed people and dogs, the startling snorts of horses or pigs tucked into unseen yards, the noises of cart and carriage wheels, the clopping of hooves on cobblestones, shouting men, laughter and anger, joy and heartache.

  With a sketching pencil Grenville had also provided, I squared off a part of the map, from Lincoln's Inn Fields in the east to St. Martin's Lane in the west, High Holborn in the north to the river in the south. It was a large slice of the city, but easy enough for a healthy young woman to walk.

  "I am dividing up this area," I said. "In pairs, we will each take a part of the grid, where we will walk every street and check every alley and ask everyone we see if Gabriella has been seen. I plan to recruit more patrollers and Pomeroy and send word to Thompson. If you find Gabriella, you will latch on to her, bring her back here immediately, and stay with her. We will check back here every hour to see if any of the others have made progress. Do you understand?"

  "Aye, Captain," Matthias said, touching his forelock.

  "Bartholomew and Matthias, I want one of you with Nancy, the other with Felicity. They know people, and they know the streets. Listen to them if they think of a place to look. Grenville, you take a foot patroller, for the same reason."

  "Jackson, my coachman, is willing to help," Grenville put in. "He can speak to other coachmen who might report something."

  "Excellent. Have him pair up with this fellow," I said, pointing to the other patroller. I folded the expensive map and tore the sheet into pieces around my gridlines, handing one to each pair. "Leave no stone unturned. I want to find Gabriella before some unscrupulous person does. Bartholomew and Felicity, since you will be taking the southwestern part of the grid, check the boardinghouse in King Street every once in a while to see whether she has returned."

  "Understood, sir," Bartholomew said.

  I stood up, my stance unconsciously becoming like the one I'd taken when readying my men for an upcoming battle. "Go to it, then."

  They dispersed and departed, very much like my soldiers when I dismissed them. They squared shoulders and stood straight as though determined to obey orders to the best of their abilities.

  Major Auberge did not follow them. "You did not give me a map," he said.

  "Because you should go back to the boardinghouse and wait. Gabriella might return there, and I am certain Carlotta will be at her wits' end."

  In truth, I was as angry as I could be at Carlotta and did not care much about her anxiousness. She should have watched Gabriella and not let her out alone. But I used her worry as an excuse to send Auberge away, because I wanted nothing to do with him. Also, if Carlotta had upset Gabriella enough for her to dash off, there was nothing to say that she would not do so a second time.

  Auberge gave me a stubborn look. "She is my daughter. And I suspect, like you, that harm has befallen her. I cannot sit like an old woman and wait for her to be found. You have no second person. I will go with you."

  I opened my mouth to tell him to go away, then I stopped. His eyes mirrored my own anguish. He had known Gabriella all her life, had raised her from babyhood, had held her hand when she walked. I was furious with jealousy because of it, but I had to concede that his fear was as sharp as my own.

  "Very well. But do not talk to the people we meet. The Londoners around here are suspicious of foreigners, especially Frenchmen. I do not want to waste time extricating you from a brawl."

  He nodded once, his face set. "I understand."

  "Let us be off, then." I snatched up my corner of the map and ushered him out the door.

  By the time we reached Russel Street, a hard lump had formed in the pit of my stomach, which would increase to full-blown panic if I let it. But damn it all, Gabriella was not a fool. She should come to her senses and return home. She must know that London was not safe for her, and she'd heard Bartholomew talk about the missing girls. If she found herself lost, she'd seek out a trustworthy person and ask the way to King Street.

  Even this logical thought could not comfort me. She was lost, and London was large and dangerous, and we had to find her.

  I had chosen the northwest corner of the map, where Broad Street cut through the warren of St. Giles to High Holborn. I had chosen it because it was close to Pomeroy's lodgings, and I still wanted to lay my hands on him. Also, the area was a bit dangerous, and I hadn't wanted to send my friends into the rookeries where they would be ripe for plucking. I had little to pluck, and Auberge, like me, had been a soldier. We could hold our own.

  We rode in a hackney to where Broad Street met High Street, and we began the search there. We walked through crooked alleys on dirty cobbles, passing closed shops and houses that had stood in the narrow lanes for hundreds of years. Walls had been shored up and repaired as necessary, and the different colors of bricks and plaster gave them a piebald look. In one lane, the upper stories of the houses leaned to each other over the street, closing out the sky.

  Nowhere did we find a sign of a girl in a sensible cotton frock, lost and trying to find her way home.

  We walked slowly but purposefully, looking into every passage and every darkened doorway. In one lane, a young woman with a soiled apron held a boy of about five in her arms. He was naked but for a shirt that exposed his backside and spindly legs. She held her hand out for coin, and Major Auberge stopped and dropped some to her palm. She thanked him in a weak voice.

  Auberge and I had spoken little since leaving Grimpen Lane, except for me to tell him where we'd begin. Now, we walked in silence, saving our energy for our search.

  We angled south from Broad Street to another King Street, my idea being that perhaps
Gabriella had confused this King Street with the one that led off Covent Garden. Auberge followed my lead without argument. As I had instructed, he said nothing to the people I questioned, only listened to my conversation, observing without offering comment.

  As we continued toward Little Earl Street and Seven Dials, he said to me quietly, "Gabriella likes so much to explore. When she was a little girl, she would go to the stream below our farm and follow its course as far she could. She said she wanted to learn where it came from. I explained that it started in mountains far away, but she was certain that around the next bend she would find a fountain that spilled the entire stream into the valley. One day she had walked five miles, and a farm hand had to carry her home. She was asleep in his arms, as you say, soundly."

  I imagined my golden-haired daughter trudging sturdily along the bank of the stream, determined to find its source. "She showed the propensity even at two years old," I said. "She always wanted to come with me when I talked to my men, to see what her papa did as a soldier. One day, she crawled under the canvas of the tent to follow me to where I was meeting with one of the generals. I explained to the general when she popped up that she was eager to learn to be an exploring officer. Fortunately, she amused him, and he simply ordered his batman to carry her home. Carlotta, on the other hand, was not amused. She was quite hysterical about the incident, certain the general would throw me out of the army in disgrace."

  "Yes, Carlotta becomes very worried."

  I closed my mouth on my reply, not wanting to grow too comfortable with the fact that I shared a wife and child with this man. Perhaps that was why divorce had been made so difficult to obtain, so we'd be spared these sorts of strange conversations.

  We continued the search, slowly moving in a circle through the streets, heading south. When we turned to Long Acre, I stopped at the house in a lane opening from it where Pomeroy had rooms.

  This time, I caught Pomeroy readying himself to go to Bow Street.

  "Well then, Captain," he said cheerfully. "My landlady said you had come to call. Couldn't think why, unless it was to do with the game girls."