Death of a Fop (Bow Street Consultant series Book 1)

by Sarah Waldock

  Death of a Fop

  Sarah J. Waldock

  Copyright 2011 © Sarah J. Waldock

  Dedication:

  Dedicated to all my fans on various fanfiction sites who have read, reviewed and been supportive. This is the revised and upgraded version – enjoy!

  Chapter 1

  Mrs Jane Churchill knew she should not feel relieved that her husband was dead.

  She should definitely not feel relieved when she was being told that he was not only dead but that he had been murdered. She stared at the man who had brought the news, who seemed to fill the whole room with his presence. Maybe it was just the news that was filling the room.

  “My husband is dead?” she repeated the words, trying to take it in; hoping perhaps that by saying it out loud it would really make it so. . She clenched and unclenched her fists in the folds of her golden brown kerseymere morning gown.

  “Yes ma’am; I’m sorry for your loss.”

  He was remarkably well spoken for a Bow Street Runner; she had heard they could be rough men.

  He was clean too.

  The indeterminate blondish hair had no grease to it; the colour not quite pale enough to be blonde was natural, not a patina of dirt on naturally lighter hair.

  He was tall and looked faintly uncomfortable, as though he felt too big for her little parlour, standing there, favouring one leg. Yes, he had limped as he came in.

  “Won’t – won’t you sit down and tell me all about it?” she indicated a chair.

  He looked surprised.

  “Well…. It is remarkably civil of you Ma’am” he said, sitting gingerly on the edge of the chair. There was a passing flicker of relief across his face.

  His aquiline nose had been broken at some point and his eyes were very blue, she noticed, now he was at a level for her to see better.

  “Does it not impede your work?” she asked “Your leg?”

  He grimaced.

  “Only when it’s been a long day, ma’am; it’s a little reminder of Corunna.”

  “You were a soldier?”

  “Yes ma’am; invalided out. They said I’d never walk without crutches again” there was pride in his voice that he had proved them wrong. “About your husband….”

  “Who killed him? Why? How did it happen?” the questions came tumbling out.

  “Ah. That’s why I’ve been sent to talk to you, ma’am; to see if you knew any enemies he had” he said.

  Jane stared.

  “My husband was a charming man; I believe everyone he knew liked him very well” she said.

  “One of them didn’t” said the runner, dryly.

  She flushed.

  “No. Apparently not” she stared at her hands, clasped in her lap. “I suppose if you see violent death regularly you learn to treat it with a degree of levity.”

  He flushed.

  “I beg your pardon Mrs Churchill” he said.

  She nodded.

  “I understand that it makes your task easier to look upon it lightly. I have not taken offence; some might.”

  “Begging your pardon ma’am, few would have picked up the slight levity of my reply.”

  She considered.

  “Perhaps you are correct; my reading of nuances of tone has always been acute….. in most cases. I can think of no enemies my husband has made; I know that one of his father’s friends does not like him; but that had a degree of reason now defunct.”

  “Perhaps you will tell me about it Mrs Churchill?”

  She gave a slight shrug.

  “My husband was raised by his aunt and uncle since his father was widowed when Frank – Mr Churchill – was a baby. He took their name. His aunt was opposed to him marrying; we held to a secret engagement. To cover our intimacy he flirted with a girl living in the same village as his father, and where I had grown up for some of my life. The man who disliked him is now married to that girl; a straightforward story.”

  “I see. That seems hardly relevant; but thank you for your candid explanation” he said.

  “Are you in charge of finding out who killed him? What is your name? And should I not ask to see your occurrence book?” asked Jane.

  “I am; my name is Caleb Armitage; and you are indeed a peevy mort – I mean an astute lady – to ask” said Mr Armitage, removing a notebook from his pocket and showing her his name on it.

  She nodded. The words ‘Occurrence Book’ were printed on; possible for someone to duplicate but hardly worth bothering. His name was filled in with block capitals and a signature beneath them. The brief description ‘height: six feet three inches; hair: light brown; eyes: blue; complexion: fair’ described him well enough. There were no comments under ‘any other remarks’; presumably his leg was not noticeable enough unless he was tired. It would be a lot of trouble to go to for anyone to match so tall a young man with a stolen occurrence book; and what would be the point? It was wrong to be suspicious; though Mr Armitage seemed to approve as she checked the details with care.

  “Anyone after all might say they were from Bow Street; and anyone might then ask for access to the house when they could pilfer in the guise of searching” said Armitage as he retrieved his small notebook from her “As well to always check. Did you want me to sign my name to compare signatures?”

  “”That won’t be necessary” said Jane “I think it would be hard for anyone to forge your inches.”

  “I am a distinctive height” he admitted. “I expect you have questions for me too?”

  “Where was my husband found and how had he been killed?” she asked.

  “In the Serpentine miss – uh, Mrs Churchill; and at first it was thought suicide, as so many drownings there are; excepting he was not drowned; and very few suicides hit themselves on the back of the neck first.”

  “How do you know he was not drowned? Might he not have been assaulted for his purse and fell into the Serpentine where insensibility caused him to drown?” asked Jane. “There are so many desperate lawless people with these dreadful Corn Laws forcing the price of bread up; why one cannot get a quartern loaf for less than two and sixpence…. I am sorry, I did not mean to babble. But is it possible?”

  Caleb Armitage scratched the back of his neck.

  “Well I don’t say that he might not have finished up the job of dying with a spot of drowning after the blow, Ma’am, but the surgeon as looked at the body said that such a blow would have finished him off in any case. Excuse me ma’am, I ain’t never broke news to nobody before and I don’t mean to use words as cause offence.”

  She gave him a thin smile.

  “I am not offended; you have to tell me as it is. Frank is – was – tall; so that means a tall strong man must have been his assailant. Do you not think that robbery is a motive then that you ask about enemies?”

  A man as tall and strong as this runner.

  “As his purse was still on him and a roll of rather damp soft in it I believe that precludes the motive” said Armitage dryly “For no thief would hesitate, even if he fell in accidentally, to fish about for a purse. Besides he did not fall accidentally; the drag marks tell that he was pulled unconscious or dead to the side of the lake and pitched in.”

  “How extremely curious” said Jane, frowning. “Mr Armitage, I can only suggest that I shall have to go through my husband’s papers and see if there is any clue in them.”

  “I could go through them for you, ma’am” said Armitage.

  A curious look crossed her face; it looked like shame. Colour rose to her pale face.

  “I would prefer that you did not” she said. “I believe there may be …..personal correspondence ….
.in his papers that it would be unseemly for anyone else to read.”

  “Ma’am, I have to say this” said Armitage. “If you believe he was keeping a light o’ love, and she was seeing anybody else, that is a possible reason for a quarrel.”

  Jane stiffened.

  “I see” she said quietly. “Then if I furnish you with the name of any such, will that do? I do not wish to be humiliated by having a stranger read any intimate letters my husband may have received.”

  “That will do very nicely ma’am” said Armitage, relieved. She had taken it very well. Too well? Might SHE have hired someone? Yet the quiet dignity of the woman impressed him; he did not want to believe that. “Might I call again tomorrow morning? Will that give you time to examine his papers?”

  “Indeed yes; at ten. That will give me ample time. I should like something to keep me occupied” said Jane.

  When Armitage had left she stared at her hands. What did she feel? Primarily a numbness; and that relief. She and Frank had not been married long before the little attentions started to be eroded; before the year was out he was ordering her about, often shouting at her for being clumsy, not as svelte as she had been before the weight of pregnancy robbed her of her lithe step and worked upon her indifferent health. He had been jealous too as soon as the baby was born; little Frances. And angry that Jane had been sorely pulled by the birth.

  She had worked hard to get her figure back though it had tired her, to try to regain his regard; but when she found the letter from the Female that Frank was maintaining, and discovered by a reference in the letter that he had been seeing her at least since they had been married but three months she had stopped bothering; and took a perverse pleasure in answering Frank in as few words as possible in the colourless tone she had used to others to cover their secret engagement.

  He had suspected an affaire and had beaten her; which in light of his own infidelity Jane considered unfair in the extreme.

  But one was not supposed to be glad that one’s husband was dead.

  It must indeed have been someone big and strong to fell him. There could not be many tall enough to make such a blow; did one suspect the one who broke the news? Somehow Jane could not see the straight-looking Mr Armitage as an assassin with a false blow from behind; there was that to him that recalled to her Mr George Knightley, the man who had married Emma, with whom Frank had flirted. Mr Knightley could never do anything underhanded like hit a man from behind; and somehow instinct said nor could the runner. There were plenty of tall men in London who had been in the army until it was disbanded.

  She must therefore do all she might to help this Caleb Armitage to uncover who had killed Frank, and why, in order to assuage the guilt she felt for being grateful that someone had freed her from a petty and unkind husband whose charming façade was as false as some of the handsome Georgian façades on sixteenth century buildings.

  And the sooner she got down to work the sooner the shame and humiliation of reading any letters would be over.

  Chapter 2

  Jane regarded the five documents she considered most significant; her thin hands shook slightly as she straightened the creases nervously, arranging them on the table. Mr Armitage really needed to see these; and he would need to see Frank’s account book written in his own hand. None of the documents was very pleasant to contemplate and together they told a sordid story that did not reflect well on Frank at all

  The whole business was revolting and humiliating. However better to have found these things for herself than have some stranger do so. Jane sighed and looked them over again to see what inferences she could draw; and what things still remained unfathomable.

  The first letter was from Mr Churchill, Frank’s uncle and was written some four months into their marriage. It read,

  “My very dear Frank,

  It is with sadness that I read your request to have more of your capital forwarded to you; I am sorry indeed that you find yourself unable to manage on a very generous income as well as the wages you receive as clerk at Chorleigh, Wright and Jekyll’s where Mr Wright has been so kind as to find you a position. It surprises me that dear Jane should be such a poor manager as to fail to manage a household on what must be around twenty pounds a week; a sum on which many families manage yearly. It appears to me that if you are exceeding your income perhaps you should do better to practise economy; surely you do not need more than three servants, a maid, a man for yourself and a cook-housekeeper? And I concede a nursery maid in the future when you begin a family.

  Yet I know that you keep in addition another maid and a groom and a footman. It is quite impossible for me to break the entail on Enscombe; the allowance of one thousand pounds a year that I pay you and your wage should be more than sufficient.

  There is moreover the legacy of your Aunt; you surely did not spend it all in purchasing a house? Had you been satisfied with a less fashionable part of London than Kensington, or had rented rather than buying it would have been far more economical. I fear you show signs of being as financially unsteady as your father and your poor mama, my sister, who lived above their means. It is for your own good, my dear Frank, that I must refuse your outrageous request for such a sum as two thousand guineas.

  I remain your most affectionate uncle, Jasper Churchill.”

  Jane sighed. She loved their tall narrow white terrace house on the south side of Pembridge Square; though she had questioned Frank’s wisdom in purchasing such a place. It was on the less expensive side of the Square for facing north, but with the extensive servants’ quarters in the half-basement, four floors above that and the attic level for the maidservants to sleep in, it was a big house. And they employed a footman, Fowler, a housekeeper, Mrs Ketch, her own abigail Ella, Frank’s man Emerson, a maid called Juliet, Annie the young nursemaid to little Frances and Annie’s young sister Molly, the tweenstairs maid. In addition there was Palmer the groom who saw to Frank’s horse. It was too much; and really Ella and Emerson had been quite unnecessary as they were not society people needing to dress in a hurry and requiring aid. But Frank had his own ideas of what was due to what he saw as his own consequence. Sometimes Jane had wondered if half the reason he had encouraged her to play the part of being disinterested while they were engaged was because he found playacting more exciting than reality, and perhaps even had difficulty distinguishing between the two.

  Jane had already written that morning to Mr Jasper Churchill, who had returned long since to his estates of Enscombe in Yorkshire, apprising him of the death of his nephew; and to Mr John Weston in Highbury who would be devastated at the death of his son.

  She needed to see Mr Chorleigh who was the family solicitor to find out what her own financial situation might be; and perhaps Mr Armitage might accompany her as doubtless he would also wish to question Frank’s nominal employer. Frank went most days to the office but Jane strongly suspected that he did very little work.

  Mr Churchill had desired Frank to take a position in some respectable business since he married and had found this position as clerk at some seventy pounds a year; a good wage for a clerk just starting out, though Frank was older than most clerks at the bottom of the profession. Frank turned this wage over to Jane and a further allowance of ten pounds weekly on which she must pay for the servants’ wages and have food purchased by Mrs Ketch the cook-housekeeper. It was a struggle. Twelve pounds seven and sixpence did not run to lavish dinners; for which Frank blamed her too. She had suggested timidly turning off Ella, her abigail; and Frank had shouted at her, asking if she wanted people to think that they could not afford an abigail to give his wife respectability. When Jane equally timidly suggested that actually they could not, he had struck her and told her to find better ways to economise without compromising their standard of living. It should be easy to live on his allowance and this extra seventy pounds; the servants’ wages were a little more than his clerkly wages, coming to eighty seven pounds a year; but why did he only give her half of his allowance? True he paid for hi
s horse out of that; some sixty pounds a year; and he must have money for diversions; but more than four hundred pounds? Jane had thought that his – what had Mr Armitage called the woman – light o’ love, must be very expensive. She had not then found the worst of it which now lay before her with the proof that he had tried to raise money with begging letters to all his relatives.

  The next letter was from Frank’s father; and was dated a few days later than the one from his uncle.

  It was terse as one might expect from a man who had been a captain of the militia.

  “Frank; what is this nonsense? Where am I to raise a sum such as you ask? You have a generous allowance from your uncle; this request is preposterous. If you and Jane have been living above your means, I suggest you sell the house in London and come and live with us at Randalls for a time to recoup your finances. Your loving father, John Weston.

  PS Anna blows a kiss to her big brother and your loving stepmamma sends you and Jane all her affection.”

  Jane sighed. She was very fond of Mr and Mrs Weston; it hurt to think that they might believe that she would be a party to living beyond their means; as they would not be if she had only been given all the housekeeping she needed from Frank’s income. However it was like the generosity of the Westons to suggest that Frank and Jane should rusticate at Randalls for a while to recoup their fortunes; and a sensible suggestion to sell the house and do so, or at least rent it out. Had she known of this letter she would have urged Frank to take this sensible course; because renting out meant that the investment of the property remained intact.

  Unfortunately it was Frank who had been living beyond his means and was not apprising her of this fact; and she had found out where such money as did not go on the mistress had been spent. She laid out the next document.

  It was not strictly a letter that Jane laid down; but a scrap of paper containing her husband’s vowels to that preposterous sum of two thousand guineas, with the word ‘redeemed’ and some initials scrawled over them.