A Mystery at Carlton House_Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries_Book 12

by Ashley Gardner

  “Not what I’d want in my front room,” Brewster said decidedly. “This will be more to my Em’s taste.”

  I leaned forward to peer at the bowl he turned around in his fingers. “May I look?”

  Brewster gave me a sudden grin and handed it over. The bowl was small, shallow, and well formed, if covered with grime. I rubbed at the dirt encrusting its rim until a translucent glow of porcelain greeted me. Rubbing a little more showed me the green tail of a stylized dragon.

  “Brewster,” I said half in admiration, half in exasperation.

  Brewster had a knowing sparkle in his eyes. With the expertise of a man who’d learned the worth of everything he touched, he’d found what was likely the most valuable object kicking about the marché ouvert.

  “Tuppence, you paid for this?” I said, turning it around in my hands.

  “Aye.” Brewster reached for the bowl, and I reluctantly gave it back.

  I’d seen a bowl very like this one in a collection of the Duke of Devonshire when I’d viewed a display of ancient Chinese porcelain at Chatsworth with Grenville. I wasn’t certain what period the bowl Brewster held came from, but I knew it was old. I hoped this was not one of those I’d seen in the duke’s house.

  Even if so, it belonged to Brewster now under the odd laws of the marché ouvert. I reconciled my conscience with the thought that the bowl had likely been stolen from China itself, probably long ago.

  Likewise, I was the proud possessor of a piece of silk and a painted-over bronze from the sixteenth century. I would take it to Mr. Higgs to confirm it was the prince’s, but I was certain it would be.

  The most interesting thing about me finding the Theseus and Antiope statue is that it hadn’t been listed as missing. I’d seen it yesterday evening, sitting on a table in the prince’s library. So how had it journeyed from there to the marché ouvert in the few hours since I’d seen it last?

  * * *

  When I returned home, Donata was still abed. It was her habit not to rise until noon and sometimes later. I was tired yet my body knew it was meant to be awake at this hour and it had no desire to sleep.

  I instead deposited my statue in my dressing room and left for Hyde Park to ride, exercising the excellent horse Donata kept for my use. He was a hunter of about sixteen hands, a large gelding, quite powerful. I had missed any hunting this autumn by running off to Egypt, but I looked forward to taking him out across country in Oxfordshire.

  It was so early that I was the only gentleman riding, almost the only person on the Row at all. I found it refreshing.

  I rode back to the mews and dismounted, taking my walking stick from the groom and giving the horse a pat. He was a good animal.

  I had persuaded Brewster to go home, telling him I would be returning to bed, but that had been before I’d decided to ride instead. He’d be incensed that I’d gone to the park alone, but I would point out that even he had to sleep sometime. Besides, riding through Hyde Park was not as dangerous as strolling through St. Giles—usually.

  Barnstable looked sour when I clattered back into the house, removing my muddy boots for the shoes Bartholomew always made certain were waiting when I finished riding.

  “He’s here again, sir,” Barnstable said, his face so stiff I thought it might crack.

  “Who is?” I planted my heel in the boot jack and dragged the boot from my leg.

  “The Runner, sir. I tried to tell him you were out, but he insisted on waiting. He’s in the reception room. Sir.”

  Chapter 12

  “Bloody hell.” I did not care if Spendlove heard my words. “Thank you, Barnstable. Make certain her ladyship does not come down until he’s gone.”

  “Of course, sir.” Barnstable looked surprised I thought I had to tell him this.

  Growling to myself, I shoved my feet into the sturdy shoes I liked to wear inside the house. Bartholomew was always trying to persuade me into a pair of pumps, low-cut slippers for indoor wear, but I told him that with my large feet and hard legs I’d look a damned fool in them.

  Spendlove wore a pair of thick-soled boots that he’d thrust toward the grate in the reception room, as he lounged back in one of the gilded, leopard print chairs. He unfolded to his feet as I tramped in, the big man dwarfing the room.

  “Well, Captain,” he boomed. “What have you found out? You went to Carlton House and tore about London all night, did you not? Can you prove Mr. Floyd guilty?”

  “By no means,” I said, my jaw tight. “I have had hardly any time to pursue the matter.”

  “You must have learned something,” Spendlove returned impatiently. “You’re an inquisitive gent, Captain. What have people told you? How did he spirit the things out, what did he take, and how—?”

  “What I did learn of interest,” I said, cutting through his words, “was that small pieces in the prince’s collection are transporting themselves about the house. What is meant to be in one room ends up in another and no one knows how or why.”

  Spendlove waved a large, black-gloved hand. “Servants. So many things about they can’t remember where it all should be. I’m not concerned with things that haven’t been nicked.”

  “You ought to be. There is something odd going on here. I can tell you that I did find a piece that might be the prince’s on a market stall in Southwark.”

  “Ah, so that’s where you went. Well, give it to me, Captain. I need evidence.”

  Without hurry, I went to the door and instructed the disapproving Barnstable, when he came to me, to bring the statuette from my dressing room.

  “While we wait,” I said after Barnstable had bowed and closed the door. “Tell me, do you know anything of the Duke of Dunmarron?”

  Spendlove’s brows rose. “Dunmarron? Why?”

  “I met him last night at the theatre,” I extemporized. “I take it he rarely comes to town. I wondered, that is all. Runners hear so much.”

  “True.” Spendlove shrugged with false modesty. “From all accounts, his dad were a fine gentleman, but the son—the man what’s duke now—was a bad ’un in his youth. Did daft things like stand on the streets with his friends and turn up ladies’ skirts with his walking stick, trap watchmen in their boxes, that sort of thing. He also beat one of his servants near to death and wasn’t above a spot of blackmail. Couldn’t touch him, him being son of a peer. His da’ always got him off. He ran with another bloke, name of Peterson, bad lot, the devil who tempted him into sin. Then Peterson died—broke his neck falling off a horse—and Dunmarron married, inherited a year later when his da’ finally fell off the twig, and has been quiet since. Lives to ride hunters and revel in dross he buys and nothing more.” Spendlove bent me a wise look. “You want to know because Mr. Grenville’s ladybird ran off to him. It was in the newspaper this morning, a rag Pomeroy reads.”

  “Yes, unfortunately,” I said. “I was trying to discover why, is all.”

  Spendlove gave me a sharp look. “If I find Dunmarron dead, a bullet through his heart, I’ll know where to start looking for his murderer. Tell Mr. Grenville to keep his head, will you?”

  “Thank you for the warning,” I said without changing expression. “And the information.”

  “I give it to you to show you I am not ungenerous. But I expect information in return. Soon.”

  The door opened for the arrival of the statuette, borne by Bartholomew instead of Barnstable, large hands to carry the heavy bronze. Bartholomew set it on an octagonal table in the middle of the room and departed. I noted that the latch on the door did not click all the way closed.

  Spendlove flicked his finger over the peeling white paint. “You sure this is one of the prince’s?”

  “Not entirely. He has one very like it, in his library. At least it was there last night. If a thief managed to get it out of Carlton House, slap a coat of paint on it, and take it down to Southwark to be sold to me at five this morning, then that should indicate Mr. Floyd had nothing to do with it.”

  “Unless he has an accomplice,�
� Spendlove said at once. “And yes, a thief can work that quickly. Them markets are notorious for getting goods out in a flash.” He closed his hand around Theseus’s head. “Thank you, Captain. I’ll let you know if it does any good. But I want more.”

  I grasped the statuette by Antiope and the base. “I believe this is my property now,” I said. “By the right of the marché ouvert.”

  Spendlove didn’t move. “It’s evidence for a trial.”

  “That remains to be seen. I might be mistaken that this is from Carlton House. In any case, it belongs to me, no matter what its provenance. I paid ten shillings for it.”

  Spendlove scowled at me, his anger mounting. “You walk a thin line with me, Captain. You don’t want your little daughter growing up knowing her dad was hanged for conspiracy in heinous crimes, do you?”

  “I have not said I refused to find evidence for you,” I said. “I will continue to look for the answer to this puzzle if only to help Mr. Floyd. But we don’t know if this bronze is the prince’s or not. I will take it to his curator, Mr. Higgs, and ask him. If it was stolen last night, then we will advance in our investigation.”

  Spendlove released the statue but gave me a scowl. “A fair point, Captain. Tell you what—you keep this indecent piece of art and take it to Mr. Higgs. In fact, I’ll come with you. Save you the trouble of journeying all the way to Bow Street to report to me later.”

  * * *

  Barnstable insisted that I return to Carlton House in Donata’s coach with the Breckenridge arms on the door and hinted that Spendlove should sit with the coachman. I overruled him and motioned for Spendlove to ride inside with me.

  Bartholomew, on the other hand, climbed to the box after he’d assisted me in, not about to let me journey through London alone with Spendlove. Bartholomew had deposited the statue, wrapped in paper, on the seat by my side, and I rested my hand on it as we rode.

  Spendlove said nothing about the sumptuous carriage with its well-cushioned seats and marquetry walls, velvet curtains to shut out the cold and prying eyes. He sat quietly, his large feet planted opposite mine as we rolled to St. James’s and Carlton House.

  I had no appointment, and the doorman at Carlton House did not want to let me in. He did not want to admit Spendlove either, even when that man descended from the coach and demanded entrance.

  “I will inquire, sir,” the footman said. He was a different man from the one on the door last evening, but he wore similar knee breeches and blue coat, his hair covered with a powdered wig. “Please have your coachman drive you ’round to the side.”

  The tradesman’s entrance. I wanted to laugh. Spendlove scowled at the footman. “The door’s right there.” He jabbed his finger at the wide entrance beyond the columns. “Just move, lad.”

  “I will inquire, sir,” the footman said with stubborn rigidity. Spendlove stepped forward, but the footman moved to block his way.

  A footman to a member of the royal family clearly outranked a Bow Street Runner. However, Spendlove was not above arresting anyone who got in his way, and this young man would not do well in the common room at Newgate in his wig and satin breeches.

  I planted my walking stick with a loud thump. “We are here to see Mr. Higgs,” I said to the footman. “No need to trouble His Highness. We are happy to wait in the coach.”

  The footman turned a relieved look upon me. At least I knew how to behave, that look said.

  “We found one of his bloody statues,” Spendlove growled. “Fetch Higgs. Now.”

  The footman’s expression did not change. He gave me a bow and Spendlove a frigid look, and walked into the house, leaving us under the grim guard of several larger footmen.

  We waited. The footman was a long time in returning, then even longer. A half hour passed. Forty-five minutes. I had returned to the carriage and its tin box of coal to get warm, though Spendlove remained pacing outside. The coachman, Hagen, descended to see that the horses were all right. I saw him through the window as he moved about, warming himself with nips from a flask.

  Just as Spendlove threatened to push past the burly men at the door and shove his way inside, another footman came out to us. He headed straight for Spendlove, agitation on his face.

  I couldn’t hear what the footman babbled at him, as the coach windows were shut. I did catch the phrase sent for you at once, sir, and a moment later, Bartholomew was flinging open the carriage door.

  I had been reaching for the handle at the same time, and it burned my fingers as Bartholomew wrenched the door open. Bartholomew helped me down so hastily I lost my balance and had to clutch at him.

  “What the devil happened?” I demanded.

  “Mr. Higgs has been hurt, sir,” Bartholomew said rapidly. “That’s what the footman says anyway. He’d been sent to fetch Mr. Spendlove.”

  Bartholomew took a few quick steps to the house then turned back as though waiting for me to approve. I motioned him on with my stick.

  “See what you can. I will be right behind you.”

  Hagen watched sharply as I took the statue from the seat, tucked it under my arm, and hobbled along in Bartholomew’s wake. I was glad now that Barnstable had insisted Hagen drive us—he would fetch help if it was needed.

  The ostentatious interior of Carlton House swallowed me into itself as I entered. Its light and decor guided me through the house to the vestibule and staircase.

  This time I did not descend the stairs but followed the sounds of voices to an anteroom in the rear of the house. The anteroom’s windows overlooked the park and gardens, pleasant on this sunny day. I turned to my left, continuing through another room with an oriental design—green wallpaper covered with bamboo-like plants, cabinets of black lacquer, and chinoiserie vases perched on top of the cabinets.

  The room beyond this was decorated in rich blue, the color most evident in the massive velvet draperies at the long windows and the silk of the divans. Gilded molding marched around the top of the room, framing paintings within it, the entire frieze enclosing a broad ceiling with a painted sky.

  A gigantic chandelier hung from the exact center of the ceiling, glittering with what must be a thousand and more crystals that caught the midmorning sunshine. A large painting on the wall depicted a man and woman in the dress of the Low Countries two centuries past—the white ruffs around their necks a stark contrast to their black clothes. The man was glancing up from a paper on which was a drawing that looked like a ship’s hull, his pen in hand, while the woman bent to him with another paper.

  I noted every detail of the room in abstraction, as though I stood inside a painting myself, every facet etched upon my mind.

  Spendlove, Bartholomew, and the palace footmen were grouped below the painting. At a desk in the middle of the floor was Mr. Higgs, who sat in a gilded Bergere chair with a rounded back and silk upholstery. Higgs had fallen forward to the desktop, which now bore a large stain of blackish-red—blood and ink. The substance had dried, its spread arrested, though the ink in the middle of it still glistened.

  Higgs was dead, his body unmoving, the hands that were clenched on the desktop gray. He was facedown, his pomaded black hair unmoving. On the desk, next to his hand, was an elegant equestrian bronze statuette with a match of the black stain coating the hindquarters of the horse and its unfortunate rider.

  Chapter 13

  “Don’t touch him, Captain,” Spendlove commanded.

  I had no intention of doing so. Not answering, I set the paper-wrapped statue on a table and moved to the desk and Higgs.

  The poor man had a large dent in the back of his neck, courtesy of the bronze next to him, but there was nothing else on the desk. Not a scrap of paper to show he’d been writing or reading, not a pen, no bottle of ink to account for the puddle of it amidst the blood, no books. Nothing. He’d simply sat down and was killed.

  His fists were clenched so hard his nails had driven themselves into his skin. A tiny bit of blood had leaked to the desk and also dried.

  “He’s
cold,” Spendlove said, his words abrupt.

  “It is a cold room,” I remarked. No fire had been lit, the chamber obviously not intended for use today.

  “Means he was bashed on the head some hours ago.” Spendlove focused a sharp eye on me. “Where did you get to this morning? I had to wait for you to return.”

  “Riding,” I answered, impatient. “I always ride early in the day.”

  “Anyone see you?”

  I thought of how empty Hyde Park had been, stretches of wilted grass under cold winter sky. “No,” I said. “I was quite alone.”

  “You sound proud of it.”

  “Look here,” Bartholomew broke in, indignant. “You can’t accuse the captain of killing this man. He never did. Why should he?”

  Spendlove shrugged. “I never worry about why, lad. I only know the who and the how. Why don’t come into it. You were out most of the night, Captain, weren’t you? I lost track of you—or my patrollers did. When I arrived at your house this morning, your butler says you came in very late and left again very early. He told me, because he was explaining why he didn’t want you disturbed. He didn’t know he was helping me keep track of you.” He sounded smug.

  “I told you where I’d been,” I said without heat. “South of the river looking for stolen property. I’m used to rising early, no matter how late I retire, so upon my return I was fully awake and went riding. As usual. Instead of interrogating me, perhaps you should roam the house making certain nothing else is missing. Mr. Higgs was the curator for the collection.”

  “You’re quick to speak of him in the past tense, Captain,” Spendlove said, his blue eyes hard.

  “The poor man is dead,” I said, though I was numb. I’d liked Higgs, found his cluttered office interesting and oddly cozy. I’d observed that he’d been quite organized in spite of the seeming disorder.

  Why the devil should someone wish to kill him? Answer, because with all his lists and knowledge of the collection, he must have discovered who had been making the thefts. Perhaps he’d come into this room to confront the thief, or perhaps he’d been checking the whereabouts of an object and surprised the thief in question. For whatever reason, that person had murdered him.