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

by Ashley Gardner

  I directed my next words at Pomeroy. “If you do find that Mr. Forge is responsible, please direct him a good kick with your large boot.”

  Pomeroy laughed again. The room seemed to flinch at his boisterousness while a man lay dead not ten feet from him. “I’ll be sure to, sir. But what about who did for this bloke?” He jerked a thumb at Mackay. “The toughs at the Nines had nothing to do with this.”

  “Servants say the doors and windows were closed and locked for the night,” Spendlove said. “No sign of anyone breaking in. What do you make of that, Captain?”

  I studied Mackay on the floor, forlorn, so alone. “Had he come to see Sir Gideon? Or ask about Leland?”

  Spendlove shrugged. “Seems to be a mystery. Footman says he never admitted the man. Sir Gideon claims he didn’t know him. So, if no one broke in, but no one came to visit, however did he come to be here?”

  The spark in his eyes told me he believed someone in the house was lying. He suspected Sir Gideon, I was certain, who’d found the body and was the only one downstairs.

  I did not think Sir Gideon had it in him to commit murder, especially not to so young and fit a man like Mackay. But then, if Mackay had angered him, or Sir Gideon had thought he was defending ones he loved …

  I needed to divert Spendlove’s attention from him, but I had no plausible suggestions, wouldn’t until I asked questions of the household myself. They’d be less likely to close ranks against me, a friend of the family, than two hearty Bow Street Runners who made their living on rewards for convictions. I praised the foresight of the Fielding brothers for not paying their Runners per arrest. Half of London would be in the Bow Street nick by now.

  Pomeroy rendered his opinion. “Could be this Mr. Mackay slipped in with someone else who was admitted, maybe when the footman’s back was turned. Mrs. Brandon came here tonight. Maybe while the footman was taking Mrs. Brandon’s wraps, Mr. Mackay dashed inside.”

  Spendlove did not look convinced. “Damned unobservant footman then. Why should Mrs. Brandon call so late, Captain? Surely she has a husband to go home to.”

  His words and knowing look made me bristle. “Mrs. Brandon is a good friend to the family. She called to minister to Lady Derwent and Leland.”

  Spendlove’s eyes glinted, seeing he’d found a weak spot in me. “Seems the only ones in the house while Mr. Mackay was being killed were the Derwent family, Mrs. Danbury, and Mrs. Brandon. No break-ins, and most of the servants in their beds. An interesting puzzle.”

  “There is nothing to say when Mackay arrived, is there?” I asked, irritated. “He could have come in at any time during the day and hidden somewhere. This is a large house.”

  “So I’d noticed. Sir Gideon is a very wealthy man.” Spendlove ran a practiced eye around the room, noting the multitude of books, the silver vases, porcelain figurines, and gilded candelabra, stopping his gaze at the dead man. “Why would he bother to hide in here? So he could rob the place? He doesn’t look the sort. A City clerk or some such. And he brought no large bag to carry off the swag.”

  Pomeroy chuckled. “He’d never carry off all the silver. Soft gent like that? I’d wager he never lifts anything heavier than his pocket watch. Unless he planned to pass it to a confederate.”

  A rustling of skirts and a firm step announced that Donata had returned to the room. “Gentlemen, your loudness and laughter are upsetting Sir Gideon. Please cease it.” She fixed Spendlove with her dark blue gaze, her head at its most haughty angle. “I and his valet are taking him upstairs. Do finish and go as soon as you can. And take Mr. Mackay somewhere, not in this house.”

  Delivering her commands in a tone that didn’t expect to be disobeyed, her ladyship swept back into the smaller sitting room.

  “That is a point,” Pomeroy said to Spendlove. “These people ain’t the criminal classes. Depend upon it, this bloke sneaked in here when someone else was admitted, maybe followed by an accomplice, who crashed him over the head and ran off. Maybe they disputed about what to steal and how to split it up.”

  “A neat and simple explanation,” Spendlove said, his skepticism apparent. “Not the right one, but simple enough. Depend upon it, Pomeroy, this household had something to do with it.”

  “Maybe so,” Pomeroy said. He tapped the side of his nose. “But Sir Gideon has friends in very high places.”

  Spendlove did not like Pomeroy’s insinuation one bit, but he shrugged. I could almost read his thoughts—Spendlove would continue needling everyone in the house until he convinced himself he had enough evidence to arrest Sir Gideon.

  “As a point of fact,” Spendlove said, turning to me, “where were you tonight, Captain?”

  “At a musicale in Upper Brook Street,” I answered readily. “Then to bed.” I let him decide what I’d been doing there.

  “Upper Brook Street is just around the corner from here,” Spendlove said. “So is South Audley Street. And where is that tame pugilist who follows you about?”

  “At home, I imagine,” I said. “He cannot stay awake all the time.”

  But I wondered. Whether culprit or witness, Mackay had known something about the attack on Gareth and Leland. Brewster could have followed Mackay here to question him, perhaps threaten him, perhaps started to rough him up if he wouldn’t answer questions. Brewster was a strong man and a bully. He could easily have killed a weaker man like Mackay.

  But Brewster was also a professional, I’d come to understand. I doubted he would have left Mackay lying in a pool of blood in the Derwents’ drawing room. He’d have gotten the body out of the house and disposed of and the room cleaned up, erasing all trace that anything had occurred there, and he wouldn’t have let the man bleed all over the rug. Or Brewster would have taken him out of the house altogether before beginning violence. If Brewster had killed Mackay, it would likely have been a long time before anyone discovered he’d died.

  Spendlove watched me. “Do you have a witness to being home in bed, Captain? Your lady wife, perhaps?”

  “My lady wife went on to a supper ball while I retired,” I said. “You may, of course, question my entire household, from her ladyship’s butler all the way to the scullery maid. I went to bed directly after returning from the musicale, and everyone in the house knows it. The beds are soft at South Audley Street. I stay in them as much as possible.”

  Spendlove gave me a wintery smile. “I have no doubt her ladyship’s servants would say anything her ladyship ordered them to. You would have had plenty of time to leave your musicale, as you call it, tramp up here, smack this man over the head, and go about your merry way. You’d be snug in your bed by the time your wife returned home.”

  “That is possible, of course,” I said. “But I had no reason to kill Mr. Mackay. In fact, I very much wanted to question him about the night Mr. Travers died. And even if I took it into my head to murder him, I would never have killed him in the home of dear friends.”

  “Perhaps not, unless you had no choice.” Spendlove stared at me a moment longer, a hard light in his eyes. “As much as I would enjoy arresting you, Captain, I will not tonight. I’ll do as her ladyship directs, and let them all go to bed, but tomorrow I will question the household again. These people know more than they’re saying. I will want to question Mrs. Brandon as well.” He waited, certain I would object.

  “Mrs. Brandon will be happy to help in any way she can,” I said coolly. And I’d make bloody certain I was with her when Spendlove spoke to her.

  Pomeroy, who’d been listening, gave a nod—everything settled—and said he’d have the foot patrollers trundle Mackay off.

  I left the sitting room for the house’s grand hall, its staircase winding upward into shadows. Mrs. Danbury had vanished, and someone had extinguished all the lights in the upper reaches.

  Spendlove followed me. “I’d like it if you departed, Captain. I see Sir Gideon for this crime, and I don’t want you here to cover things up for him or spirit him away in the night.”

  I had known he’d
return to blaming Sir Gideon. “He had nothing to do with this,” I said quickly.

  Spendlove’s eyes were flinty. “This is his house, and the man was found in his drawing room. I imagine Mr. Mackay came here on purpose to see Sir Gideon and said or did something Sir Gideon didn’t like. Suppose Mr. Mackay told Sir Gideon he’d killed Mr. Travers, or that he knew young Mr. Derwent and his friend were unnaturals? Do not look surprised—it is no secret to me. Sir Gideon, enraged, takes up the poker and strikes him down.”

  I listened in growing uneasiness, not liking that such a scenario was possible. But I could not let Spendlove make such an accusation. “First,” I said, “I cannot imagine Sir Gideon, the most harmless of men, growing angry enough to kill, even if he did not mean the blows to be fatal.”

  Spendlove only watched me. “I’ve been chasing criminals a long time, Captain. You would be amazed at what the mildest men can get up to when provoked. That is your first objection. What is the next?”

  “That anyone who struck Mr. Mackay would be bloody. Sir Gideon’s clothes are quite clean.”

  “Plenty of time to change them and dispose of the soiled ones,” Spendlove said.

  “Which you can always check.”

  “Oh, no doubt he or his loyal valet got rid of the damning clothes.” Spendlove shrugged. “You might be right and he didn’t do it, but that remains to be seen. You can be assured I won’t arrest him now. The Bow Street lockup is a nasty place. He can stay here until morning, and then we’ll escort him to the magistrate where he can tell his story. I will sleep in his dressing room, in case he decides to bolt during the night.” He spoke with finality, convinced he had the right of it.

  “It’s nonsense,” I said swiftly. “You cannot believe that of him.”

  “I can,” Spendlove said. “If no one broke in, and yet, this gentleman was dead on the floor, then either Sir Gideon or another member of this house struck him down. Sir Gideon will go to the gallows, or he’ll give up the real culprit to save his neck. Murder is a crime, Captain, and no one is above the law.”

  Anger had replaced his amusement. He pinned me with a flat stare, and I knew I would have to work hard to prove that none of the Derwents had anything to do with this.

  He obviously wanted me to leave right away, but I turned my back on him and walked into the dining room, asked the butler to provide me pen and paper, and wrote a letter to Sir Montague Harris, magistrate of Whitechapel.

  *

  I instructed one of the footmen to deliver the letter—Spendlove let him with poor grace, but he seemed to decide he couldn’t stop me writing to a magistrate—and then Spendlove told Pomeroy to throw me out. My former sergeant pointedly opened the door for me, grinning widely. I knew he truly would assist me from the house if I did not go, so I departed, but I would be back.

  Brewster was lying in wait for me as soon as I stepped outside. “He wants to see you,” he informed me.

  “By all means,” I said, my energy returning. “Let us not keep Mr. Denis waiting.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I started to walk toward South Audley Street, which would take me along to Curzon Street. The rain had ceased, but the air was brisk. After the closeness of the Derwents’ house, huge as it was, I found the night refreshing.

  Brewster gave me an irritated look, then whistled to a carriage that came along the square and pulled up beside us. “In you go, Captain.”

  We rode without speaking to Denis’s understated but elegant house. I lowered the carriage’s window, letting the air flow over me, knowing I’d be shut up in another stifling interior soon.

  I did not mean that Denis kept his house roasting hot. When I entered, the air was a pleasant temperature, not too harsh a change from the outside. I meant the atmosphere—at the Derwents’, there was bewilderment. The harsh world had been thrust at them, breaking their sanctuary, and they had no idea how to combat it.

  Denis’s house was hushed, even serene, but it was overlaid with a breath of tension. This was the heart of Denis’s empire, and those brought here, at his sufferance, did not always know if they’d be able to leave again.

  Not long ago, a man had tried to kill Denis in his own study. Denis was alive because I’d detected a whiff of gunpowder and known what was afoot. As I climbed the stairs this night, I saw that most of the damage the explosion caused had been repaired. The painting I’d admired in the past, of a young woman standing in a sunlit room, pouring water from a gleaming jug, was again hanging in its place.

  Even in the middle of the night, Denis’s house ran efficiently. One of his footmen took my coat, hat, and gloves, and the stiff butler led me up the stairs. The butler reminded me of the surgeon who had looked after Leland—cold-faced with nothing behind his eyes.

  Denis was sitting at his desk when I entered. The repaired and repainted walls were a different shade of pale green, but other than that, nothing had changed. The incident with the incendiary device might never have occurred.

  I’d wondered from time to time what had become of the man, Ridgley, who’d made the devices. Denis had been furious with him, but Denis was not a man to throw away a resource. Whether Ridgley lived or not, I had no idea.

  “Good evening, Captain,” Denis said. “Mr. Mackay is truly dead?”

  I remained on my feet, though the butler had indicated my usual chair with a glass of brandy set on the table beside it. “Yes, he is,” I answered. “Did you know him?”

  Denis inclined his head. “Mr. Mackay was one of mine. He worked for me.”

  I stopped. “Good Lord.” I swung on Brewster, who had followed me in. “Why the devil did you not tell me so?”

  Brewster met my gaze, unrepentant. “I didn’t know, did I? Not until I reported what had happened in the Derwents’ drawing room tonight. Then he tells me who Mackay was.”

  Brewster sounded vastly annoyed, but Denis did not admonish him. “Not everyone who works for me knows everyone else,” Denis told me. “I see no reason to post a list. If you had come to me and told me everything right away, Captain, I might have been able to clear this up.” His tone was terse, irritated, the closest he came to emotion.

  I was not as prone to hiding my temper. “Am I to assume that everyone I meet in London is in your employ?”

  Denis gave me a curt nod. “It would be wise to do so. Things happen to you. Fewer things would if you confided in me from the start.”

  I made a noise of disbelief. “I see. The first time we met, I told you I’d not be under your thumb, and I repeat the statement. I refuse to run to you every time I stub my toe.”

  “Your feet would be less sore if you did,” Denis said. “I am not in the mood for your rages, Captain. I have lost a valuable resource tonight. I would be more pleased if you told me all that has happened, from the beginning.”

  “Brewster has not kept you informed?”

  “He has, but I would like to hear the tale from you. I know you well enough to realize you can keep things from even my best informants. Sit down.”

  Denis’s voice sharpened as he spoke, and the final two words were like ice. I had only seen Denis fully enraged once, and the consequences had been dire.

  Brewster had moved behind me, and I knew that any moment, he’d shove me down into the chair with his big hands on my shoulders. I gave Denis a conceding gesture and sank into the chair myself, pretending it was not a relief to take the weight off my sore leg.

  “Nelson Mackay worked in the City and was an expert on art,” Denis said as I propped my walking stick before me, resting my hand on it. “I employed him to keep an eye out for artwork for me, for my own pleasure, as well as to sell on. He had an eye for it, and I will be sorry to lose it. Now, tell me what you know about him.”

  “Very little,” I said, still out of temper. But I told him the events that had occurred from the time Mackay knocked on my door to finding him lying dead in the Derwents’ drawing room.

  “I have been trying to discover who Mackay is,” I said,
“and what he had to do with Travers’s death, if anything. So far I’ve found him to be elusive.”

  “Because he kept himself to himself.” Denis laid his hands flat on the desk. “I too know little of his origins. He claimed to come from somewhere in Kent, but no inquiry there can find his family. He has rooms near Lincoln’s Inn, and frequents a public house two doors down for his food and drink. He was excellent at discovering things for me—who had paintings they wished to sell and what art objects had come on the market, both legitimately and not so legitimately.”

  “He’d keep you informed about stolen art?” I asked, too tired to be diplomatic.

  Denis made an untroubled gesture. “Housebreakers steal things and do not know what they have. I know you admire the painting in my stairwell, the Dutch picture of the woman with the jug—Mackay found that for me, in Holland, on a market stall full of useless junk. He paid the equivalent of two pounds for it, and the vendor was delighted. Mackay had a talent for recognizing worth.”

  I heard the regret in Denis’s voice, and I wondered, uncharitably, if it were only regret for the loss of that talent.

  “What was he doing in Seven Dials?” I asked. “I cannot conceive he’d find much art there.”

  “I have no idea,” Denis said, his tone again turning chilly. “He did not work only for me. He made his living selling knowledge. That of artwork to me, and I assume knowledge of other things to others.”

  “Knowledge?” My hand tightened on my walking stick. “Was he a blackmailer?”

  “It is a possibility. I never delved into any other aspect of his life, though he did offer me information on people from time to time. I purchased what I thought would be useful.”

  I fell silent, my anger easing as my thoughts turned over. If Mackay had made a living finding out secrets, perhaps he’d discovered Leland’s and Gareth’s. Perhaps he’d threatened to expose them.

  But what motive would Mackay have for killing them? If he had convinced Gareth or Leland to pay him or otherwise compensate him, why should he rid himself of them? Mackay would have been the more likely victim, killed by a man tired of paying blackmail. But the question remained—why had Mackay been near enough to find Leland and Gareth? Or was it only coincidence that he’d been on that street at that time? Had he witnessed the attack and then been killed because of it?