Murder in Grosvenor Square (Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries Book 9)

by Ashley Gardner

  “If I talk to you, they’ll kill me,” she said, blinking rapidly until tears wet her eyes.

  “Huh,” Brewster said, not impressed. “But you don’t know what we’ll do, do ya? Open yon gate, Captain.”

  I did not know what he had in mind, but I pushed open the gate the young woman had unlatched. Beyond was a passage that ran parallel to Jermyn Street toward St. James’s Street, where traffic rumbled by.

  The woman didn’t fight much as Brewster pulled her down the lane toward the main road. If she expected help to come from the Nines, she did not get it.

  When we emerged into St. James’s Street, Brewster split the air with a whistle. Moments later, a coach, one I did not recognize, stopped for us.

  “In we go,” Brewster said. “You first, Captain, to make sure she don’t dash out the other side.”

  I had no idea who this coach belonged to—if Denis, it would be the least opulent vehicle he owned—and I did not relish climbing into it with my leg now aching from the cold rain and my pursuit of the woman. But curiosity overcame hesitance, and I scrambled up, clenching my teeth against pain.

  I settled myself where I could block the lady from hurtling herself out the opposite door, and Brewster lifted her in. He followed her inside the coach so quickly she’d have had no chance of escape. The coach lurched forward and the open door banged shut with the momentum.

  Brewster gave no direction to the coachman, but the horses picked up speed and turned us east onto Piccadilly. We were going who-knew-where and moving toward it at a rapid pace.

  I at first assumed Brewster was taking us to Denis, but we began heading quite the wrong direction. Any chance of turning north and west to Curzon Street quickly fell behind us.

  The lady in the coach had collapsed into the seat, her eyes filled with bright fear. The fight seemed to have gone out of her, but I did not relax my guard, and neither did Brewster.

  We rolled through Leicester Square and went north and east, past the roads that led in to Seven Dials, and so on to St. Giles. In a narrow street here, one almost too small to admit the coach, the driver stopped.

  Brewster immediately had the door open and was dropping out of the coach, hauling the woman after him. I climbed down, the coach rolling a bit as the horses moved nervously in their traces. I nearly lost my footing and had to slam my stick to the dirty cobbles to keep my balance.

  Brewster had already entered one of the crammed houses on the street. I went through the open front door after him, and found myself in a musty hall with a staircase. Brewster was climbing the stairs with the woman, who’d regained her spirit enough to start trying to fight him. Brewster, unbothered by her, pulled her up past the first floor and started toward the second. I followed as quickly as I was able.

  The landing at the top of the second flight of stairs had been scrubbed clean. The other two floors were grimy, but not so this one, still damp from whoever had labored to wash it.

  Brewster’s boots left muddy tracks as he approached the door, which jerked open before he reached it.

  “’Ere,” a woman’s voice rang out. “Watch what you’re about, Tommy. I’ve just done that bit.”

  “Sorry, love,” Brewster answered. “I’m bringing the captain in.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  A curse sliced into the hall and then the woman the voice belonged to charged past Brewster as he hauled his hostage inside.

  I found myself looking down at a woman of medium height, thin but given to plumpness in arms and hips, her face narrow and lined. Her brown hair, which was peppered with gray, was done up in a loose knot. She gazed up at me with brown eyes that held fire and also strength.

  “You should have sent word,” she said, not to me, but to Brewster. “I’d have tidied the place.” She shook her head. “Never learns, does he? Well, you’d better come in, love.”

  I was ushered into a sitting room that was low ceilinged and dim but scrupulously clean. The mismatched furniture, some of it cobbled together from scraps, was free of dust, the threadbare upholstery on the old sofa, spotless. A small fire burned in the grate behind gleaming andirons. The sole decorations in the room were pictures cut from ladies’ magazines and artfully pinned to the faded wallpaper. The place was worn but homey, clean, and smelled of soap.

  Brewster had dragged the courtesan to the sofa to unceremoniously plop her onto it. The woman moved to them and stood over the courtesan, hands on hips. “Who’s she, then?” she asked Brewster.

  “Ladybird what fleeces at the Nines,” Brewster answered. “I thought maybe you’d know her.”

  The woman leaned down and peered into the young woman’s face before pronouncing her verdict. “Nah, never seen her. Who’s your mum, girl?”

  The young woman gave her a sulky look. “Sally Pryce.”

  “Ah, Sally.” The woman nodded, enlightened. “Old Sal is a mate of mine. You must be the daughter she worries herself to death over.”

  “Nothing wrong with me,” the butterfly said churlishly.

  “Can’t be right, or my Tommy wouldn’t have dragged you home with him.”

  Brewster leaned against the mantelpiece and tugged off his thick gloves. “She knows something about the murder last night. The captain here starts asking her questions, and off she goes.”

  The woman questioning the butterfly straightened up and turned to me, where I’d remained, nonplussed, by the front door. “You should sit down, love, and I’ll fetch you some coffee. I’m Tommy’s missus.”

  I glanced at Brewster, who shrugged. Mrs. Brewster pointed at the nearest chair as she strode out a door at the far end of the room. Presently we heard the clatter of crockery. I took myself to the chair and eased into it.

  I supposed I shouldn’t be astonished that Brewster was married. I knew so little about him—the men who worked for Denis remained rather faceless, rarely revealing themselves to be human beings at all, which was likely part of the job. Brewster had grown more talkative with me, but he’d made no mention of his private circumstances. He might have been married several times and had thirteen children tucked away in rooms upstairs for all I knew.

  Mrs. Brewster came back in bearing a tray with a coffeepot and cups on it. She poured, handed me a steaming cup and her husband another. She didn’t take one herself and offered nothing to the sullen young woman.

  “This here is Bertha Pryce,” Mrs. Brewster announced once Brewster and I had our coffee—Brewster’s thick with cream and sugar, mine plain and bitter. “Her mum, Sal, was on the game, just like she is, but her mum never tried to help a house cheat money from fancy gentlemen.” Mrs. Brewster sent Bertha a disapproving look. “They get a cut there, the butterflies at the Nines, don’t they Bertha?”

  “Yeah,” Bertha said, scowling.

  “Is that what happened with Mr. Derwent?” I asked sharply. “Did they try and cheat him?”

  “That one was a right fool,” Bertha said. “Like a babe in the woods. I tried to stop them …”

  “Don’t lie,” Mrs. Brewster said without heat. “You helped, like they told you to, for some of the profit. Now, why don’t you tell the captain all about it?”

  I took a sip of the coffee. It was very good, rich and full. I suspected Denis supplied it, perhaps as part of Brewster’s wages.

  Bertha picked at the fingers of her gloves, pulling at the stitching. She seemed far more cowed by Mrs. Brewster’s admonishments than Brewster’s strength. “He was supposed to be easy,” Bertha said. “Rich and not knowing a blessed thing. But the bloody lad wouldn’t sit down to cards or take up the dice. He kept going on about how he promised his dad and mum he wouldn’t wager, not like they do at the Nines, anyway. He’d brought his friend in to prove to him how low the place was, that’s what he said.”

  “And his friend,” I broke in. “Was he as reluctant to wager?”

  “No, but I could see he wasn’t going to do much with the pious blond lad hanging about him.” Bertha scowled. “I tried to steer Mr. Derwent to another
room, where we could chat by ourselves, but he said he promised his mum not to have anything to do with low women like me either.”

  “Mr. Derwent would never have said that, not in those words,” I protested. Leland never insulted anyone—he saw women like Bertha as downtrodden and deserving of compassion. If anything, he’d have tried to reform her.

  “Of course he didn’t say that,” Bertha went on. “Butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. He was polite as anything, but he wouldn’t leave his friend’s side. Plastered there, trying to talk him out of tossing down the dice and laying his bets. Mr. Travers won at first, then he lost—a pile of coin, it was. Then Mr. Derwent starts saying how the croupier is cheating, and Mr. Travers shouldn’t a’ lost all that money. He talks about marching out of there and informing a magistrate he knows. Mr. Travers and some others tried to make him be quiet, but Mr. Derwent was very upset.” Bertha drew a breath. “And so the owner, Mr. Forge, says I need to bring him upstairs.”

  My hand was tight on my cup. “And Leland went to him?”

  “Eager to.” Bertha looked the slightest bit pleased with herself. “I led him in, with Mr. Travers trying to stop him and urging him to run out the front door. Mr. Forge apologized for the misunderstanding, and offered to return Mr. Travers’s money. Very prettily he said it too, I thought. But Mr. Derwent, he’d have none of it. He kept saying how the Nines was a bad place, and he was going to bring his father to it, and the magistrates, to shut it down. Well, Mr. Forge couldn’t be having that, could he? He told his men to take Mr. Derwent and Mr. Travers out into the yard and teach ’em a lesson. And promise more if they went to a magistrate.” Bertha wiped her lips with her fingers, a nervous gesture. “But I swear to you, I never thought they’d hurt ’em bad. They were supposed to scare ’em a little, that’s all. Nothing Mr. Forge hasn’t done before. Works a charm.”

  That could explain everything. I pictured the scene, Leland and Travers struggling, both alarmed, as they were strong-armed into the dirty yard behind the house.

  Perhaps the ruffians had enjoyed the beating too much and hadn’t stopped in time. Mr. Forge could have instructed them to take the two far away, to someplace like Seven Dials, where crime was rampant, so the murder wouldn’t be traced back to the Nines. Perhaps, knowing that the two were lovers, and molly houses were nearby, they’d half undressed them to give the idea they’d been bludgeoned by while in the act. Easy to picture street toughs doing that.

  But why steal Leland’s clothes? Or had that been done by another? And what did Mr. Mackay have to do with any of this?

  “Did they have another friend with them?” I asked Bertha. “One with black hair, a little older? Name of Mackay.”

  Bertha gave me a blank stare. “No. It were the two of them, no one else. They came in with another bloke, an aristo, but he soon left them alone, like he wanted nothing to do with them. He didn’t bother helping out when Mr. Forge sent for them.”

  I believed she told the truth. Lord Percy had likely washed his hands of Leland and Travers as soon as Leland began crusading.

  “Where did Mr. Forge’s men take them afterward?” I asked.

  “I dunno, do I? I didn’t go out into the yard with them. But Mr. Forge’s men didn’t look worried or anything when they came back in, like they’d accidentally killed the two gents. No blood on them, or anything.”

  I wondered how she could remember so specifically if she hadn’t followed them to the yard. “How long were the men outside?”

  Bertha blinked, again perplexed by the question. “Quarter of an hour, maybe. Long enough to thrash ’em a little.”

  Not enough time to trundle two young men across London and back, although Forge could have assigned other lackeys to do that.

  “If that was all that happened,” I said after a casual sip of coffee, giving Bertha time to grow nervous again. “Why did you try to run away when I talked to you?”

  She wet her lips. “Well, Mr. Forge would have my hide if I told you there was cheating going on in his rooms, wouldn’t he?”

  “But you have told me,” I pointed out.

  “I know. But I’m afraid of them.” Bertha glanced at Mr. Brewster and his wife, then gave me a look of appeal. “You won’t tell on me, will ya? You won’t tell Mr. Forge nothing? I need that place, and he don’t turn a hair about hitting a woman.”

  “Then you should not return there,” I began sternly, but Mrs. Brewster cut off my words.

  “You don’t need ’im,” she said. “Go home, Bertha. You mum wants to see you.”

  Bertha gave her a scornful look. “She’s got six others. I’d just be drudging to look after them, wouldn’t I?”

  I imagined she was correct. I recognized that Bertha was a liar who would fleece a mark in a trice, but I couldn’t condemn her too much for choosing to work for Mr. Forge. Likely she got more money from him than she would laboring in a factory, and would be safer at the Nines than walking the streets. Life in London was easy only for a few.

  Brewster, who’d listened without a word, drained his cup and pushed himself up from where he leaned on the fireplace. “Give her tea or something, love, and shove her back out the door. I’ve got to take the captain to his nibs.”

  Mrs. Brewster nodded at her husband, not moving, her position blocking Bertha’s way out. Bertha did not seem inclined to rush away and escape, however. She sat slumped on the sofa, her arms folded. Her sultry softness was gone, and she looked young, sullen, and unhappy.

  In contrast, Mrs. Brewster turned to me with a sunny smile on her plain face. “Nice to have met you, Captain. You keep warm now, and watch your game leg. It’s turning into a raw sort of day.”

  *

  “She’s a good creature, is my wife,” Brewster said once we were settled in the coach again. Grenville must be wondering wildly where I’d disappeared to, but I’d have to wait to find him again after I discovered what Denis wished to discuss with me.

  “I know what you’re wanting to know, Captain,” Brewster went on. “My Em used to be on the game herself, but didn’t mind giving it up for a softer life.”

  Which she had with Brewster. Mr. Denis paid his employees well. “How did you meet her?” I asked.

  Brewster gave a short laugh. “On the game. Where’d ya think? She was in a house, I went in for the night, and we took a fancy to each other. I had to pay the madam to let her go, and then we married. Right and proper, with a parson, and all.”

  “Congratulations to you,” I said sincerely. “Have you been married long?”

  “Ten years. We never had no young ’uns, if that’s what you’ll be asking next, but maybe it’s better. My sort of life would be hard on ’em.”

  Working for Denis was dangerous, and Brewster was part of the danger. The fact that he understood that said much about him. My estimation of Brewster’s character had changed today.

  I’d assumed Denis would meet me in Curzon Street, as usual, but Brewster took me to the house in which I’d sat with Leland the night before.

  By daylight, the place was not as sinister, I saw as we went inside. The undraped windows showed me that the paneled walls were white, the furniture, what little there was of it, whole and well crafted. No holes in upholstery, no nicks on tables.

  Brewster led me up the stairs to a front sitting room, where James Denis waited for me.

  He stood near a window looking out, but not so close that anyone from the street, or even the nearby houses, would see him. He had one other pugilist in the room with him, but that was all. Denis, who usually surrounded himself with guards, was almost alone.

  “I sent word to Mr. Grenville that I had detained you,” Denis said without turning around. “I did not need him rushing to the nearest magistrate to report you missing. I wanted to speak to you. Right away.” He at last turned his head and looked, not at me, but at Brewster.

  Brewster paled slightly. “The captain was questioning one of the ladybirds at the Nines. I thought my Em would loosen her tongue, is all. And
she did.”

  Denis looked him over and gave him a nod. Brewster relaxed again, and Denis turned his attention to me.

  “Captain, I brought you here to ask you to assist me.” He held up a hand, his old eyes in his young face intent upon me. “Do not worry that it will compromise your principles or break the law. In fact, you might even approve.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Denis did not invite me to sit down, but I did anyway. My leg was hurting, and the Greek-style divan looked comfortable. I did not bother to ask Denis what he wanted me to do. His ideas of staying on the correct side of the law and mine were never the same.

  “You visited the Nines,” he said in his cool way as I rubbed my bad knee. “What did you make of it?”

  “I made very little of it, to be honest,” I said. I gave the back of my knee a last knead and stretched the leg out in front of me. “Respectable front hall upstairs, den of iniquity below. The ladies entice players to bet recklessly while the blacklegs fleece the marks. Toughs standing by to take anyone out who makes a fuss, which they did with Leland.”

  Denis gave me nod. While never moving from his spot in the barebones room, he commanded it. “The running of the Nines is inefficient. It is a house with potential to bring in plenty of money, but they squander their opportunities by blatant cheating. They risk not only being shut down but offending their wealthiest clients.”

  “But wealthy gentlemen still go there,” I pointed out, thinking of Lord Percy.

  “Yes, but not often twice. Mr. Grenville has made the place unfashionable with his disapproval.”

  He fell silent. I waited, but he was no more forthcoming.

  “Was that all you wanted?” I asked. “My opinion of the Nines? If so, I would like to return to Grosvenor Square and look in on young Mr. Derwent. I put it to you that the Derwents need more help than you do at this moment.”

  Denis did not change expression. “I sent the best surgeon in London to see to him last night and lent you this house. If necessary, I will provide more care to ensure that Mr. Derwent recovers his health, and that Mr. Travers is given a decent burial.”