A Covent Garden Mystery

by Jennifer Ashley

  Auberge looked slightly confused, not understanding the expression game girls. "No, no, we are looking for my daughter. She is seventeen, and lost."

  Pomeroy looked at Auberge in sympathy but resignation. "Not a good thing to hear, a respectable girl gone missing. Any number of procuresses wander up and down the streets, looking for such an innocent. It's a sad fact, but virgins fetch a nice price in the bawdy houses."

  Auberge's face went white as Pomeroy's flat words made the awful possibility that much more real.

  "I want to borrow your patrollers," I said. "Put every man you've got to searching the streets."

  He gave me a dubious look. "Can't spare that many, that's a fact, Captain. There are more crimes all over London than one missing girl."

  I stepped close to him, the fruitless search having raised all my fears. "The girl's name is Gabriella Lacey."

  Pomeroy's eyes widened. He remembered Gabriella and Carlotta. "'Struth, sir. Your little Gabriella?"

  "Yes," I said tightly. "She is not so little now. She's about the same age as your Black Bess, I would guess."

  I thought I detected a flicker of uneasiness in his eyes, but with Pomeroy, it was difficult to tell. "You think the disappearances are connected?"

  "I do not know what to think. And I want to have a discussion with you about this Black Bess, including the fact that you did not tell me that you knew her, nor that she was paying you in kind to look the other way."

  He bristled visibly this time. "Now, as to that, sir, I'd say it was my business."

  "I'd say it might have had something to do with her disappearance, and if you want me to find her, you will be frank with me. But first, go to Bow Street and send out your patrollers. I have people working already, but the more the better."

  "Have to check with the magistrate first," he began.

  "Send them, Sergeant. I do not want to call in James Denis, but I will if necessary. I'd rather use Bow Street, but I might not have a choice."

  "Are you threatening me, sir?"

  "I am happy to threaten anyone who does not assist us in finding Gabriella. You said yourself she hadn't much chance. Instead of bleating about a dismal future, do something to ensure it is not dismal."

  He stared at me a long moment. On the Peninsula, Pomeroy had argued with me when he thought my orders daft, and a few times, he'd been right. The times I'd known I was right, however, I'd stared him down until he wilted and did what I wanted. He seemed to remember those days, because his bravado deflated. He saluted. "As you say, Captain. I'll get on it." He let his hand drop and gave me a serious look, the usual bonhomie gone from his eyes. "I won't let you down, sir."

  He trotted off toward Long Acre and turned in the direction of Bow Street.

  "Will he do it?" Auberge asked me.

  "He will," I answered, my mouth set. "Shall we resume?"

  After another hour of walking, we had uncovered nothing. If Gabriella had come this way, no one had seen her. We took another hackney back to Grimpen Lane, Auberge generously counting out shillings for the fare. I met Grenville and the foot patroller in my lodgings. Both shook their heads unhappily. They had found nothing.

  The others that straggled in as the four of us left again had nothing to report. Black Nancy touched my arm. "I'm that sorry, Captain. None of the girls I passed the time with had seen her, or the other missing girls either. But we'll keep trying. I swear to you."

  They were giving up. I heard it in their voices when they promised to continue. They were beginning to fear the worst.

  Outside, in darkening Russel Street, I sent a street sweep running off to the boardinghouse with news we had not found her. Auberge and I returned to the streets north of Long Acre and tediously trudged down every lane again.

  "I am a stranger in London," Auberge said. "Tell me what can have happened." He stopped me near the wall of a shabby house. "Tell me in plain words."

  I did not want to tell him, because telling him might make it real, but I drew a breath. "She might have fetched up in the river. Either fallen in or thrown in after she was robbed. As Pomeroy said, a procuress could have taken her to a bawdy house. Or a gentleman could have coerced her into his coach and be far away by now." I stopped, and Auberge nodded, trying, as I was, to make himself face these possibilities. "I was involved in a case a little over a year ago," I went on. "A gentleman had asked for young, respectable girls to be brought to him. He had an expensive house in Hanover Square."

  Auberge looked grim. "Should we go to Hanover Square?"

  "The man involved was killed. I could not be terribly sorry about his death." I did not explain what had become of the particular young woman I had sought, and I did not like thinking on her fate.

  "We must keep looking, then," Auberge said.

  "Yes," I agreed.

  We fell into step, resuming the search.

  At eleven o'clock, we returned to Grimpen Lane to news. Bartholomew, Matthias, Nancy and Felicity were waiting, the latter eating strawberries she'd bought cheap from a strawberry girl who'd wanted to rid herself of her last wares for the day.

  "We found something, Captain," Bartholomew said, his blue eyes subdued. "Not your daughter. By the new bridge, near to Somerset House. A young woman, dead."

  "Not Gabriella?" I asked, my voice strained. "You are certain?"

  "I saw her clear, sir. Wasn't the same girl. She had golden hair, but not natural."

  "I think," Felicity said, "from what you and Nancy said, it could be Mary Chester."

  *** *** ***

  I sent Matthias bolting off to fetch Pomeroy. Bartholomew told me that they'd left Grenville's coachman and his patroller to guard the spot. When Grenville came in, we took lanterns he had filched from his coach and made our way down to the Strand.

  The new bridge rose near Somerset House, arched and lighted with flickering lamps. Bartholomew led us through the darkness to a passage near stairs that led down to the water. Pomeroy had joined us, his tow-colored hair bright in the moonlight. The stink of the river was strong here--fish, mud, and human waste.

  The ground was hard-packed dirt; the cobbles did not extend here. Grenville's coachman, Jackson, a tall, muscular man with hard eyes, waited near a pile of debris, holding a lantern that was a bright pinpoint of light in the gloom. The patroller stood by him, somewhat more nervously.

  Bartholomew bent down and moved a wet and grime-covered board. Beneath was the torso of a young woman, her hips and legs still covered by rubbish.

  Grenville lifted his lantern high, shining the light on her. She was dead without doubt. Her face was blue-white, and was wound loosely about her neck. Her hair, now dirt-streaked, had been golden-blond, but Bartholomew had been right about it not being natural. The roots of the hair that swept back from her forehead and temples was mostly dark brown, her own color starting to grow again.

  I crouched next to her, looking at another life too soon snuffed out. "We need Thompson," I said. "I want him to see her."

  "And a coroner," Pomeroy put in.

  I switched my glance to the foot patrollers. They looked to Pomeroy, and at his nod, they loped off.

  I remained on one knee next to the woman, bracing myself on my walking stick. Gingerly, I hooked one finger around the sash and eased it an inch downward. Her neck was covered with bruises.

  Nancy hissed through her teeth. "That how she died? Strangled with her own sash?"

  I looked at the girl's face, which was straight and serene, and shook my head. "She didn't struggle." I studied the bruises, which were in the exact pattern of human fingers. My own fingers fitted over them easily. "A man did this. One with large hands. But I'm not sure that's what killed her."

  "Then why the sash?" Grenville asked.

  I eased the cloth back over her neck. "Perhaps she was in a struggle with a man and got away, and wore the sash around her neck to cover the bruises until they healed."

  "In that case, how did she die?"

  "Coroner will tell us," Pomeroy said
confidently. "They're amazing at that sort of thing." He sighed and scratched his head. "Will have to be an inquest, her dead back here, injuries like that."

  I got stiffly to my feet. Felicity was standing at my elbow, looking down at the corpse with an odd expression on her face. "Are you all right?" I asked her.

  She looked up at me quickly, as though surprised at the question. "Wasn't expecting to find her dead, is all."

  A shiver ran through me. I prayed with all my strength that Gabriella wasn't lying under another pile of rotting boards, cold and blue and dead. God, please let her be all right. Let her be waiting in a tavern for someone to find her, with a kindly landlord's wife feeding her thick soup and coffee.

  "Looks like I should be asking whether you're all right, Captain," Felicity said softly. She touched my hand, again with the unspoken offer of bodily comfort should I need it. The gesture did not disgust me; she meant it from kindness, like Mrs. Beltan might offer me a cup of tea. I gave her a faint smile and shook my head.

  "Jackson," Grenville addressed his coachman. "Take the lads and the two young ladies and find yourselves a steadying pot of ale. You've earned it."

  "So have you," I told him.

  Grenville shook his head. "I'll wait for the coroner and Thompson with you. I'm curious what he has to say." He withdrew his watch and looked at it in the light of his lantern. "Eleven thirty. Ah, well, I was not looking forward to Lady Featherstone's ball in the slightest. I will be the talk of Mayfair for not appearing." He sounded rather pleased with the prospect.

  Auberge, who had been watching from the back of the alley, said, "I will resume the hunt for my daughter."

  "I'd rather you didn't," I said. "Not alone. Or we'll be hunting for you, as well."

  He smiled faintly. "Perhaps you would not be so troubled to have me go missing, eh?" He met my gaze, his hazel eyes flickering in the light of Grenville's lantern.

  "Not so," I said. "I want your help. I know that you are the only other man who will be as adamant as I am about finding Gabriella."

  Auberge hesitated a moment, then he nodded. "As you say, I have no knowledge of these streets. I will wait."

  Grenville sensed that the exchange had been personal. As though ignoring us, he tucked his watch away and straightened his frock coat, which he'd been wearing since early evening.

  It was unusual for Grenville not to change his clothes at least twice in the course of an evening, sometimes three times. He seemed more interested, however, at the prospect of investigating a murder. He made to lean against the wall behind him, then looked at the smears of mud on it and thought better of it.

  I turned to Pomeroy, who was gazing down at the girl. "While we are waiting," I said to him. "Tell me why the last time Felicity saw Black Bess, you were with Bess in a passage like this one, kissing her."

  * * * * *

  Chapter Ten

  Grenville looked up, interested. Pomeroy flushed. "I believe I told you that that was my business, Captain."

  "You did, but the girl is missing. A second missing girl has just turned up dead. I'd like to know everything you know about Bess so that we might find her before she suffers a similar fate. Am I right? Was she paying you in kind?"

  "I wouldn't say that, sir."

  "What would you say, Sergeant?"

  He bathed me in a light blue glare. "I would say we wasn't in the army any more and you can leave off bullying me. But I know that will do no good." He ran his hand through his already slick hair, pushing it behind his ears. "The thing with Bess, Captain, is she weren't paying me to look the other way. We're sweet on each other."

  "She has a lover," I said. "He lives with her near Great Wild Street. I plan to interview him."

  "I know that. Tom Marcus. But Bess didn't like him. He didn't treat her well enough, she said, and he clung to her something fierce. Like having a child about, she said."

  "Did she want to leave him?"

  "Don't think so, not yet. She wanted to have something fixed for sure before she left him. He has some brass from working in a brickyard, and he's good at stretching the money both of 'em made."

  "I wish you had told me of this before," I said. "She might have threatened to leave him, and he might have grown angry with her, do you not think? Enough to harm her or at least to make her run away?"

  Pomeroy's brows lowered. "Bess wouldn't have run away without coming to me. She knew where to find me. Tom didn't hurt her, because when he came and reported her missing, I shook him up a bit, to find out whether he'd hit her. I'm satisfied he hadn't. Besides, if he'd done her in, he like as not wouldn't come to Bow Street, now, would he?"

  "Unless he wanted to direct your attention elsewhere," Grenville suggested. "Perhaps he killed Bess as well as Mary, then reported Bess missing to make it look as though he had concern for her. He killed Mary as a blind for the death of Bess, perhaps trying to make it seem as though a madman had decided to start killing game girls."

  "You are reasoning ahead of yourself," I said. "We haven't found Bess, and there is no reason to believe the two incidents are connected. Besides, Thompson told us that Mary had gone to Covent Garden to meet a man."

  Pomeroy held up his hands. "Well, it weren't me."

  I looked at him. "If you say Bess was sweet on you, why did she not decide to leave Tom Marcus and live with you, instead?"

  "Would look fine, wouldn't it, Captain, a game girl living with a Bow Street Runner? She wanted to give up her trade first, find a proper job and become a proper girl."

  I traced the head of my walking stick. "Felicity told me that Bess allowed you privileges without paying in order to keep you from arresting her."

  I thought that would anger him. I thought Pomeroy would puff himself up, offended, and tell me to go to hell and dance with the devil. Instead, to my surprise, his grin flashed, teeth white in the darkness. "Thing is about Felicity, Captain, you can't always trust what she says. She's a clever one. Has to be, don't she? But she'll tell a tale, wind a chap around her finger, so to speak. I'm not calling her a liar, but you have to question her version of the truth."

  I mulled this over, realizing that I had been ready to believe Felicity, probably because I felt sorry for her. She exuded confidence in herself and her ability to please men, but because she was a game girl and had black skin, the world thought nothing of exploiting her. She must have come up with plenty of defenses against that.

  "What is the truth, then?" I asked.

  "What I said. Me and Bess, we like each other. She was working to leave her man and take up with me. I last saw her when your Felicity spied us. I was a-kissing her goodbye."

  "Goodbye? Where was she going?"

  "Good night, I ought to have said. She was off home, and I went to Bow Street. Last I ever saw her." For the first time, he looked troubled. "So I would thank you, Captain, if you could help find her. I never want to see her like this." He looked back down at the corpse.

  I understood. I did not want to find Gabriella like this either, and by the look on Auberge's face, he shared my fear.

  We waited in the warm night for Thompson and the coroner. Grenville had brandy in a flask, which he shared around. After midnight, one patroller returned with a plump man wearing an expression of curiosity, followed not much later by the second patroller and Thompson.

  The coroner of the parish seemed in no way distraught that he'd been dragged from his comfortable home to examine a young woman's corpse in a back lane near the river. He spread a cloth on the ground and knelt on it, asking the patrollers to move the rest of the boards out of the way.

  Thompson stood looking down at the young woman, his tattered-gloved fingers at his mouth. "Yes, that is Mary Chester. I'll have to have her Sam tell us for certain, but I am sure it's her."

  The coroner gently untied the sash and removed it from her neck. "Her initials are on the dress," the coroner said, pulling back a fold of bodice. "M.C., embroidered on the seam, nice as you please."

  "Was she strangled?"
I asked, leaning down.

  "Not a bit of it." The coroner turned her head, examining the bruises. "This was done before she died. Maybe a day or two. She's been dead I'd say a few days, but she can't have lain here all that time. Someone would have found her, at least the dogs and the rats."

  "How pleasant." Grenville took a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed his lips.

  "So she was killed elsewhere and brought here," I said. "If that's so, why wait so long to move her here?"

  "Perhaps the gent had hidden the body in one place," Pomeroy said, "then had to move it or risk it being discovered."

  Grenville patted his lips again. "Then why not tip her into the river? He'd carried her this far; the stairs to the river are only a street away."

  "Perhaps he was seen, or thought he was seen," I said. "He leaves her at the first place he can find and flees." I turned back to the coroner. "Can you see how she died?"

  "Well," the man answered, taking his time. He turned Mary's head again, lifting the hair from the back of her neck. "So far, I've seen no sign of injury, but I'll have to examine her more thoroughly in better light. She might have suffocated, or been poisoned, or perhaps died naturally. I cannot say until I take her elsewhere."

  "My carriage is at your disposal," Grenville said.

  The coroner climbed to his feet. His hand went to his back, and his face creased in pain. "Get a bit stiff on the hard ground." He grinned. "There's not many a gentleman that would offer his fine carriage to a corpse, Mr. Grenville, but there's no need. I brought my own conveyance. I just need a strong man to lift her."

  The patrollers, with Pomeroy watching, did the job. They moved the rotted boards, hoisted the girl between them, and carried her out of the passage, Her gown trailed to the ground, and neither of the three thought to lift the skirt out of the mud.

  Thompson looked about the lane after the coroner had gone, his face somber. "I believe he is right that she was killed elsewhere and left here. That poor sailor of hers will take it hard. I don't think he murdered her."