Past Crimes: A Compendium of Historical Mysteries

by Jennifer Ashley

  I said none of these things to Lady Clifford.

  “You see, Captain, I know quite well who stole my diamonds.” Lady Clifford applied the tiny handkerchief once more. “It was that viper I nursed at my bosom. She took them.”

  I knew from gossip which viper she meant. Annabelle Dale, a gently born widow, had once been Lady Clifford’s companion and dearest friend. Now the woman was Earl Clifford’s mistress. Mrs. Dale still lived in the Clifford home and, from all accounts, continued to refer to Lady Clifford as her “adored Marguerite.”

  But all of London knew that Lord Clifford spent nights in Mrs. Dale’s bed. They formed a curious ménage, with Mrs. Dale professing fierce attachment to her old friend Lady Clifford, and Lord Clifford paying duty to both mistress and wife.

  “Do you have evidence that Mrs. Dale took it?” I asked.

  “The Runner asked just the same. He could produce no evidence that Waters stole the necklace, yet he arrested her.”

  The arresting Runner had been my former sergeant, Milton Pomeroy, who had returned from Waterloo and managed to work his way into the elite body of investigators who answered to the Bow Street magistrate.

  Pomeroy was far more interested in arresting a culprit than in slow investigation. He was reasonably careful, because he’d not reap a reward for the arrest if he obtained no conviction. But getting someone to trial could be enough. Juries tended to believe that the person in the dock was guilty, and a maid stealing from an employer would make the gentlemen of the jury righteously angry.

  However, I conceded that Lady Clifford would know a maid she’d lived with for years better than would Milton Pomeroy. Interest stirred beneath my port-laden state.

  “As I understand the story,” I said, “your maid was upstairs in your rooms the afternoon the necklace disappeared. Before you and your husband and Mrs. Dale went out for the day, the necklace was in place. Gone when you, Lady Clifford, returned home.”

  Her lip curled. “Likely Mrs. Dale was nowhere near Egyptian House as she claims. She could have come back and stolen it.”

  My injured leg gave a throb. I rose and paced toward the windows to loosen it, stopping in front of one of Grenville’s curio shelves. According to the newspaper, the other Clifford servants had sworn that Mrs. Dale and Lord Clifford hadn’t returned to the house all afternoon. “You want very much for Mrs. Dale to have stolen your necklace.”

  “Perhaps I do. What of it?”

  I touched a piece of jade carved into the shape of a baboon. “You must know that however much you want Mrs. Dale to have taken it, someone else entirely might be guilty.”

  “Well, Waters is not.”

  I studied the jade. Thousands of years old, Grenville had told me. The carving was intricate and detailed, done with remarkable workmanship. I rested the delicate thing on my palm. “You might be wrong,” I said. “Are you prepared to be?”

  “Mr. Grenville promised you would help me,” Lady Clifford said, tears in her voice. “Waters is a good girl. She doesn’t deserve to be in a gaol cell with common criminals. Oh, I cannot bear to think what she is suffering.”

  She broke into another flood of weeping. Some ladies could cry daintily, even prettily, but not Lady Clifford. Her large body heaved, her sobs choked her, and she blew her nose with a snorting sound.

  I set the miniature beast back on its shelf. Lady Clifford might be wrong that the solution was simple, but she was in genuine distress. The fact that some of this distress was pity for her poor maid made up my mind.

  Lady Clifford sniffled again into the abused handkerchief. “Mr. Grenville said I could rely on you utterly.”

  The little baboon smiled at me, knowing I was caught. “Very well, my lady,” I said. “I will see what I can do.”

  “I did not exactly say that,” Grenville protested.

  I eyed him from the opposite seat in his splendid carriage. I had awakened with the very devil of a headache, but I felt slightly better this afternoon, thanks to the concoction that my landlady, Mrs. Beltan, had stirred for me upon seeing my state. Grenville had arrived at my rooms not long later, and now we rolled across London in pursuit of the truth.

  In his suit of finest cashmere and expensive kid gloves, Grenville’s slim form was a tailor’s delight. I bought my clothes secondhand, though I had a coat from Grenville’s tailor that he’d insisted on gifting to me when my best coat had been ruined on one of our adventures.

  I said, “Lady Clifford strikes me as a woman who so much wishes a thing to be true, that it is true. To her. But this does not mean she is mistaken. If the maid did not steal the necklace, I have no wish to see her hang.”

  “Nor do I,” Grenville said. “Her predicament played on my sympathy. Lady Clifford might have exploited that, but I sensed she genuinely cares for poor Waters.” He gazed out at the tall houses of Piccadilly then back at me, a sparkle in his eyes I’d not seen since before he’d been injured. “So, my friend, we are off on another adventure. Where do we begin?”

  “I should speak to Pomeroy,” I said.

  I imagined my old sergeant’s dismay when I turned up to muck about in what he’d believed a straightforward arrest. “And I’d like to speak to the maid Waters if I can. And we can try to discover what became of the necklace—whether anyone purchased it, and from where, and trace backward from there, perhaps to the culprit.”

  Grenville grimaced and glanced again at the city rolling by outside. “A needle in a haystack I would say.”

  “Not necessarily.” I had pondered this all night, at least, as far as my inebriation would let me. “A master thief would try to get the necklace to the Continent, to be reset and sold. In that case the necklace is gone forever, and the maid obviously did not escape with it. At most, she was an accomplice. As highly as Lady Clifford speaks of her, we cannot rule out the possibility that Waters was coerced by a lover to steal the jewels. A petty thief, on the other hand, might try to dispose of the necklace quickly, close to home, which means London. If I were the thief, I’d find a pawnbroker not much worried about where the merchandise came from, one who knew he could reset and sell the thing with no one being the wiser.”

  “Your knowledge of the criminal mind is astonishing,” Grenville said.

  I gave him a half smile. “Sergeant Pomeroy likes to tell me about it over a pint now and again. And Sir Gideon Derwent has worked to reform criminals most of his life. He’s told me many interesting tales.”

  “Very well, then, a petty thief who seized an opportunity might sell it to a shady London pawnbroker. But what if you were Mrs. Dale? A gently born lady, who likely has no knowledge of unsavory pawnbrokers?”

  I shrugged. “If she is the evil viper Lady Clifford paints her, she either passed it to a confederate to dispose of it for her, or she is hiding it to pin the blame on the maid and upset Lady Clifford.”

  “A dangerous proposition. Would Mrs. Dale risk hanging to gloat over her rival?”

  “I have no idea,” I said. “The ways of lady rivals are unknown to me. But if the maid or other servants stole the necklace, we will find it at a pawnbroker’s.”

  “Yes, but which one?”

  “We check them all,” I said.

  Grenville gave me a look of dismay. I had always wondered how Grenville would respond when my adventures turned into dogged work, but to his credit, he did not try to wriggle out of his offer to help. “It will take less time if we recruit Bartholomew and Matthias and divide the search.”

  “Some areas are more likely than others,” I assured him. “Not every corner in London sports an unsavory pawnbroker. And the theft will be talked about. We might be able to pry loose some information, at the very least.”

  Grenville squared his shoulders, wincing a little because the wound he’d received during our last investigation still pained him. “Very well. I will change my boots and soldier on.”

  The carriage listed around the corner, and I braced my walking stick against the floor to steady myself. The handle wa
s shaped like a the head of a goose and bore the inscription, Captain G. Lacey, 1817. A gift, and a fine one, and it gave me an idea.

  “I know someone who does understand the ways of lady rivals,” I said.

  Grenville knew exactly whom I meant. He shot me a grin. “Ah, but will she help?”

  “Who can say? She will either be interested or show me the door.” Lady Breckenridge was nothing if not unpredictable.

  “Her observations are usually directly on the mark,” Grenville said. “I saw her last week at a garden party, where she told me that if I’d hurt myself during the Sudbury affair, it was my own fault for not taking proper care when it came to you. Any friend of Captain Lacey, she said, was bound to come to some kind of danger, and that I was a fool to take what you did lightly.”

  My fingers twitched on the walking stick. “Considering I almost got the poor woman roasted alive, that remark was almost kind.”

  “And probably true, with regard to me. I tend to believe myself untouchable.”

  I still hadn’t quite recovered my guilt over the incident, though Grenville had cheerfully taken the entire blame himself.

  “I will write to her,” I said. “And discover whether she will condescend to see me. If she does not think it too dangerous to associate with me.”

  “She would be an excellent person to ask for the lady’s point of view.”

  “I hesitate to mention it,” I said. “But so would Marianne. She’s been an actress for some time, so she’d have seen female rivalry, as well as, I’m sorry to say, petty theft.”

  Grenville’s expression went still, even blank, which I’d come to learn was his way of stemming his anger. Marianne Simmons, who had lived upstairs from me before Grenville had spirited her away to a fine house in Clarges Street, was a bit of a sore point between us.

  Marianne, as poor as she was, did not like cages, no matter how luxurious, and she’d flown from Grenville’s almost at once. I knew why, and the reason was a good one, but I suspected she’d not yet told Grenville. She’d softened toward him when he’d been injured, but I hadn’t spoken to her since his recovery.

  “I am afraid I’ve not seen much of Miss Simmons of late,” Grenville said in a cold voice. “But please, do ask her advice if you think it would be helpful.”

  “I’ve not seen her either. I wondered if you had.”

  “Not since shortly after our return from Sudbury.” His frown held frustration, anger, and concern.

  “I would not worry about her. Marianne is resilient and will turn up when she feels it necessary.”

  “Indeed.”

  Grenville glanced out the window again, and though he’d never admit it, even under torture, I knew he was struggling to regain his composure. The closest we’d come to a permanent falling out had been over Marianne. He knew that I knew her secret, and that I had given her my word not to tell him. Grenville and I had made an agreement not to speak of the matter, but I knew it grated on him.

  Grenville at last turned back to me, his lips tight but his equanimity restored. “I will obtain a map and ask Gautier about pawnbrokers,” he said. “If we divide the task between us and Matthias and Bartholomew, we can make short work of the search. And while they put lists together, you and I shall take a repast. Anton is experimenting again, and I need someone to help me eat his creations. If he continues on this bent, I shall grow too stout for my clothes, and my reputation will be at an end.”

  The troubles of the very rich, I thought dryly. Not that I would refuse a lavish meal prepared by Anton, Grenville’s French chef. My pride ran only so deep.

  Chapter 3

  Anton did not like us to talk about business while we dined, especially when he was in a creative mood, so I endured the lobster brioche, asparagus soup, squabs stuffed with mushrooms, and a large and tender sole drowning in butter to please him. After each dish, the chef hovered at Grenville’s elbow to wait for his precise opinion and hear what might be improved.

  To me it was all ambrosia, but Grenville thoughtfully tasted each dish then critiqued its texture, flavor, piquancy, and presentation. I simply ate, while Bartholomew and Matthias, Grenville’s two large, Teutonic-looking footman, kept our glasses topped with finest hock. Being Grenville’s friend had decided advantages.

  Once the final dish—a chocolate soup—had been taken away, Grenville bade Matthias bring out the map of London. Mathias laid out the leaves of it on the table, and the four of us bent over it. I was always fascinated by maps and resisted tracing the route to my own street, Grimpen Lane, off Russel Street near Covent Garden.

  I tapped the area that showed Bond Street, Hanover Square, Oxford Street, and north and east up into Marylebone. The necklace had been stolen from the Clifford house in Mayfair. The areas I’d indicated could be reached fairly quickly from there and were rife with small shops and pawnbrokers, though those in Bond Street were less likely to purchase a strand of diamonds tossed at them by a serving maid or known thief. But one never knew. A Bond Street merchant had only last year been arrested for selling stolen goods brought over from France and Italy.

  Bartholomew and Matthias turned eager eyes to me as they received their assignments. The brothers enjoyed helping investigate these little problems, and I often envied them their exuberance. Bartholomew had become my valet-cum-errand runner in order to train himself to be a gentleman’s gentleman, but while he now held himself above other footmen, including his own brother, he’d never forgo the chance to help on one of my inquiries.

  Grenville provided the shillings for hackneys to each of us, and we went our separate ways, agreeing to meet at a coffee house in Pall Mall that evening.

  Grenville had been given the Bond Street area, because the proprietors there knew him well. Grenville was a Bond Street shop owner’s greatest treasure. Not only did he have exquisite taste, but he paid his bills.

  Matthias and Bartholomew hastened north toward Marylebone, and I turned to Conduit Street and Hanover Square.

  I found that pawnbrokers were less willing to speak to me unless I made the pretense of wanting to purchase something. Questions were not welcome, and clients kept in confidence.

  I let them infer that I shopped for a gift for a friend and had difficulty choosing. The proprietors thawed a bit as I looked over bracelets that had once adorned the wrists of debutants and earrings pawned by wealthy matrons. That the jewelry now lay in trays for me to pick over meant that they’d been sold to pay off the ladies’ gaming debts. In a world in which highborn women had little to do but gamble and gossip, ruin lay very close to the surface.

  I found earrings encrusted with tiny diamonds, emerald brooches, and strands of sleek pearls. One shop carried a comb made of ebony with a sprinkling of sapphires that made me imagine it against Lady Breckenridge’s dark hair. I eyed it regretfully and longed to be deeper in pocket than I was.

  Nowhere did I spy a strand of diamonds that matched the description Lady Clifford had given me.

  North of St. George’s, just off Hanover Square, I found a possible candidate in a dark and dusty little shop. When I professed to the short, gray-haired proprietor with a protruding belly that I was looking for just the right string of diamonds for my lady, he admitted to recently having purchased such a thing. I tried not to hope too much as he fetched it from the back room and laid it out for me on the counter that it was the necklace I sought.

  The diamonds lay against a black velvet cloth like stars against the night. The necklace winked even in the dim light, brilliance in the drab shop.

  “Beautiful,” I said.

  “At a fair price. Fifty guineas.”

  Too dear for me, but far too low for Lady Clifford’s diamonds. Her husband had valued them at three thousand guineas, Lady Clifford had told me. Even if the proprietor suspected the necklace to be stolen, he’d likely try for a higher price than fifty.

  “Who would part with such a lovely thing?” I asked him.

  “A lady down on her luck. What lady, I did not as
k. A servant brought it, a respectable-looking lady’s maid. Sad, she was. It was a wrench for her mistress to let the necklace go, she said, but she had debts to pay. It happens, sir. The way of the world.”

  My heart beat faster. “An unhappy tale,” I said.

  The pawnbroker nodded. “Pretty little thing, the maid. Probably worried she’d lose her place if the mistress had pockets to let. Felt sorry for her. Gave her more than I should have by rights.”

  I decided to approach the thing head on. I looked the proprietor in the eye. “You must have heard that Countess Clifford had a diamond necklace stolen. Her lady’s maid was arrested for the deed. Can you be certain that the lady’s maid who brought this in was not the thief in question?”

  The man did not blink. “I read the newspaper account, of course. But these are not Lady Clifford’s diamonds, sir. I saw her ladyship’s necklace once, and I’d not forget a piece like that. The Clifford necklace was set in Paris and is much larger, the diamonds more numerous. And see here.” He lifted the strand and pointed to one of the stones. “Cut is not quite exact, is it?”

  I peered at it. The diamond, as beautiful as it was, had been cut slightly askew, the facets not straight.

  “Lady Clifford’s would be of higher quality, that is a fact,” the proprietor said. “This bauble was intended for lesser gentry; possibly a country squire had it made for his wife. This would never be fobbed off on Earl Clifford. And I assure you, sir, were someone to bring me Lady Clifford’s necklace, I would send word to a magistrate at once.”

  He said this with a virtuous air. I could not be certain whether he truly would send for a magistrate, but I saw no guilt in his eyes, no nervousness of a man who had stolen goods hidden behind his counter. If he were a very good criminal, of course, he would have mastered hiding his complicity, but short of forcing him at sword point to prove he did not have the necklace, there was not much I could do.