A Mystery at Carlton House_Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries_Book 12

by Ashley Gardner

  As I descended, I saw that Spendlove’s patrollers had arrived, driven by Hagen, who apparently had insisted they ride on the outside. There were three men, two young and strong of limb, rather like Bartholomew, and a hard-faced, middle-aged man who looked like an army sergeant and probably had been one in the recent wars.

  The sergeant scowled fiercely when Denis emerged from his carriage, carefully timed so that his guards would already be on the ground before he descended. The tails of Denis’s greatcoat swept around him as wind blew down the tunnel made by the house and columned screen, and he walked past the sergeant without so much as glancing at him.

  I fell into step with Denis, and Brewster came along close beside me.

  We went up the steps into the house. Denis walked on through the vestibules and anterooms without pausing, as though he’d been here before and was not impressed with their opulence. I could imagine Denis striding through the Louvre without turning his head to admire the splendid paintings Napoleon had looted from the far corners of the world, at the same time calculating their exact worth and how he could obtain them.

  We went down the staircase and through to the library, me striding along and pretending my knee didn’t hurt like hell. Spendlove brought up the rear with his patrollers. If Denis was unnerved by having the law of Bow Street behind him, he made no sign.

  It was now past noon, and the day was as bright as it ever would be. Bands of sunlight made warm patterns on the carpet and shone on the library’s gilded walls.

  Denis made his way to the table I indicated. Brewster stripped the paper from my statue and set the two side by side.

  Denis dipped his hand into his pocket and brought out a knife. Immediately Spendlove and the sergeant started forward, but Denis only showed us that it was a short-bladed thing with a mother-of-pearl handle, something that might be used to open letters.

  He touched the blade to the statue and delicately scraped white paint from Theseus’s shoulder. A beautiful bronze sheen came through.

  Denis stood back to study my statue then touched his gloved hand to the one next to it. He turned that statue the slightest bit so that it aligned perfectly with the painted one and leaned down to study them both.

  I saw his interest pique. Like Grenville, Denis was a connoisseur of art, acquiring pieces for his private collection not so much because of their price as for their beauty. Unlike Grenville, however, Denis procured his artwork by any means possible and often obtained it for others, again by methods that I did not want to examine too closely.

  Denis had once justified his means to me by stating that all artwork was stolen, often from the original artist who was promised payment but never received it. Monarchs, aristocrats, and military men went through the world taking what they wanted, never compensating anyone for it. Denis claimed that he at least made sure the things were appreciated for their own sakes.

  I had not argued with him. Denis’s idea of right and mine were different and always would be, but I could sometimes see his point.

  Denis slid his knife back into his pocket and circled the table, his quick eyes taking in every facet of each statue. He completed the circuit and returned to stand in front of the bronzes, his hands now at his sides.

  When he turned to look at me, I tensed, as I noticed did Spendlove. All eyes were on Denis, awaiting his pronouncement.

  “It is interesting,” he said. He gazed down at the clock with the gilded sphinxes guarding the clock face. “As is this.”

  “Why?” I asked sharply, my patience never the best. “Which bronze is the real one?”

  Denis faced me again. He looked solely at me, not Spendlove, or the sergeant or his patrollers, as though only he and I stood in the room.

  “Neither of them, Captain,” he said, his voice clear. “They are both copies.”

  As I stared at him, stunned, Denis moved his gloved hand to the clock. “As is this,” he said.

  “Bloody hell,” I managed.

  “What?” Spendlove asked abruptly. “What are you talking about? These things weren’t even nicked.”

  “No,” I said slowly, beginning to understand. “They were stolen, and copies returned. That is why they were in the wrong places. Whoever was sent to replace them didn’t know their exact location and assumed anywhere was fine. Or the pieces were put into the wrong rooms to make it look as though they’d been mislaid by careless staff, if anyone had worried when they’d gone missing.”

  “Then where are the real ones?” Spendlove demanded, as close to panic as I’d ever seen him.

  Denis answered. “Likely with new owners, probably on the Continent.” He returned his focus to the items on the table. “Exquisitely done. A master talent made these.”

  “A master forging talent,” Spendlove snapped. “And why two copies? Ain’t one enough?”

  Denis lifted his shoulders in a shrug. “Perhaps the copier wanted to make a few bob on the side. Perhaps he decided to tell two different people they’d purchased the original, and so double his profits.”

  “Why stop at two?” I put in. “The forger might have made three, or four.”

  Spendlove glared at the statues. “Bloody cheek.”

  “A miscalculation,” Denis said. He gave me a nod. “I have an appointment. Good day, gentlemen.”

  “You are not leaving yet.” Spendlove’s color was high. “Come upstairs with me.”

  Denis’s eyes flashed a deep anger, which he quickly masked. He made no move to obey or disobey, only gave Spendlove his cold look.

  Spendlove, as though there was no question, stormed from the room, heading for the stairs. I followed, saying nothing, giving Denis no indication as to my own feelings on Spendlove’s orders. After a moment, I heard the heavy footfalls of Denis’s men on the carpet behind me, and the lighter steps of Denis himself.

  We went up to the rooms above us, making for the Blue Velvet Room. Higgs’s body had been removed from it while I’d been gone—where Spendlove had put it, I could not know. I hoped Higgs’s family, if he had one, had been told. The blood was still there with the ink, the stain now black and dry. Denis glanced at it in some disapproval.

  Spendlove waved his arm to indicate the room. “Are these copies? Is that?” He pointed to the smaller statue that had struck Higgs, still reposing on the desk. “That?” His finger went to the large painting on the wall.

  Denis bent to study the equestrian statue, King Louis of old upright and proud on the steed’s back. “No,” Denis said. “See how the bronze has darkened with time, the glint of it almost red?” His hand hovered just above the statue’s surface. “The Theseus statues gleam gold, a new casting. That is also real.” He jabbed his forefinger at the painting of the man and wife in black, with ruffs about their necks. “A Rembrandt van Rijn. Far too large for a man to carry off and have copied—even the dullest servant would note its absence.”

  Denis gave the painting an almost fond look before turning away. “And now I am quite late.” He bowed in his detached manner. “Good afternoon.” Without waiting for Spendlove to try to stop him, he turned and walked to the open door, again paying his opulent surroundings no heed.

  Before he departed, Denis turned aside to Brewster, who had remained near the doorway. They exchanged a few sentences, speaking too quietly for me to hear, then Denis turned and glided out. I watched his slim back in his elegant tailcoat move through the anterooms and then turn and disappear into the vestibule.

  Spendlove watched him too, his stance rigid. I knew the man would like nothing better than to arrest Denis for something—anything—just to get him before a magistrate and then shut into Newgate. He’d find it difficult to keep him there, however. Denis had too many gentlemen among the magistrates and law courts cowed.

  I lifted my statue again, wrapped in its paper. Was I a little more careless knowing it was not four hundred years old?

  “You can leave that, Captain,” Spendlove said in a churlish tone.

  “Why?” I tucked the statue u
nder my arm, the paper crackling, its weight now familiar. “It’s a worthless copy—or at least it is worth ten shillings.”

  I had nothing more to say to him, so I made for the door. Donata would be waking now, and I wanted to return home and impart to her all that had happened.

  Truth to tell, I wanted to go home and hold on to her until I no longer saw poor Higgs slumped over the desk or the terrible look death had imprinted on his face.

  Spendlove followed me but his next demand was to Brewster. “What did he say to you? Your master? As he went?”

  Brewster gave Spendlove his best bland stare. “I don’t work for his nibs no more, guv. He was giving his best to me wife. Being polite.”

  Lies came easily to Brewster—he could swear the sun was dark all the while it shone brightly, and look innocent as a babe while saying it.

  Spendlove growled. “If you killed this man, Captain, I’ll have you. You too, Mr. Brewster.”

  Brewster held out his very broad hands. “I might be a villain, guv, but I ain’t a killer. Neither is the captain.”

  Spendlove’s eyes glinted. “Ah, you were with the captain while this man died? Wandering about London and then riding in the park, was it? You can vouch for him?”

  “Of course.” Brewster’s gaze didn’t waver. “We looked for the stolen things, he went home to bed with his wife, we went to Southwark and bought our statue this morning, then the captain went riding and I went to bed with me wife. Ask Mr. Denis. He always has a man watching the captain, even if it ain’t me now.”

  Spendlove listened, skepticism in every line of his body. He gave me a knowing stare. “Be where I can find you, Captain,” he said, then he turned away, bellowing to his sergeant.

  Brewster was quiet as we made our way through the house and out into the afternoon. The air was crisp but the sun felt good on my face, and I was glad to be outside. The Regent’s house was beautiful, but there was too much of it. The soaring, glittering grandeur pressed too much on my senses.

  The hackney was still waiting—the driver probably decided he could get a heftier tip from a gent who walked straight into Carlton House than from a casual fare on the road.

  I sank wearily to the hackney’s hard seat, facing Brewster who had climbed in with me. But I was not to rest for long, it seemed.

  “His nibs has a message for ye,” Brewster said.

  “Indeed.” I closed my eyes, trying to ignore him. My long night and short sleep had begun to take its toll. I needed to go home and let Barnstable fuss over me. Donata never fussed—she came straight to the point.

  “It’s that surgeon.” Brewster sounded uneasy. “He wants a word with ye. I didn’t like to say in front of Mr. Spendlove.”

  I abruptly opened my eyes. “The surgeon? Why?”

  “If he told Mr. Denis why, Mr. Denis did not tell me. His nibs only said the surgeon wants to see you and told me where that gent was.”

  I sighed. I was tired and wanted my bed, preferably with my wife in it, though I knew she would have her own events to attend this afternoon and evening. Donata was seldom idle. The glow I’d carried with me from being with her in the night had died swiftly when we’d found Higgs, and I desperately wanted to renew it.

  “Direct me to him,” I said, resigned. I did not particularly want to see the surgeon at the moment, but I was certain he would not ask for me were it not important. If I refused to meet him, he might vanish into the mist again, and I’d never know what he needed to tell me.

  I worried it was something about Donata’s or Anne’s health, though I told myself he would not wait three months to convey something like that. But my niggling fear would not leave me.

  “I’ll go with you,” Brewster said stubbornly. “I already gave the driver the direction.”

  I nodded, leaning back in my seat and closing my eyes again, trying not to speculate. Speculating and worrying led to nothing and only lost me sleep.

  Brewster spoke again awhile later. “I’ll take that off your hands if you want.”

  I did not open my eyes but knew he meant the statue. “No,” I said. “I rather like it. It will look nice in the library, once we scrape the paint off.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  I had no doubt that Brewster, getting his hands on the thing, would clean it up and then turn around and try to sell it as the original. I believed Brewster when he’d told Spendlove stoutly that he was no killer. He was a thief, though, and what he didn’t know about stealing things and selling them on wasn’t worth the trouble.

  I opened my eyes a slit. “How would you steal things from Carlton House if you wanted to? And make copies and return them?”

  Brewster stared off into space a moment, his lips pursed, but his answer came quickly. “Get a post in the place,” he said. “Do what you said—switch things around for a while so that when I smuggled something out to have the forger copy it, they’d assume a stupid servant moved it to another room. Return the copy to the wrong place—and everyone finks, aha, stupid servant put it here.”

  “How would you get the original out of the house at all?” I asked. “Some of the things are small, but this is too big to slip into your pocket.” I patted the paper-wrapped bronze.

  “Down the stairs in the night, out a back window. They lead right out to the park. Have a confederate—if I could find one I’d trust—waiting under the trees. Hand it off to him. Have that confederate return the copy when it’s ready in the same way.”

  “The trees you were lurking under yesterday evening?”

  Brewster’s lips twitched. “The same. But I can’t think of a man I’d trust to take the original and not run off with it to the Continent. Except maybe you.”

  “Thank you,” I said, unsmiling. “You could trust Denis. He’d carry through the plan and pay you well.”

  Brewster shook his head. “Mr. Denis didn’t do this thieving. Not his way.”

  I agreed. If Mr. Denis robbed Carlton House, the inhabitants would never know anything had been taken. He’d stated as much to me when I’d asked him.

  I glanced out the window to see that we were deep into London, rolling along Holborn. I was not surprised to see us turn to a narrow lane off Holborn to a small but respectable house at its end.

  I’d been here before, on a terrible night nearly a year ago, and I knew the house belonged to Denis. I was a little surprised he’d tucked the surgeon here, as several people, including me and a few of my friends, knew of the place. I reasoned, though, that if Denis hadn’t thought it safe, he’d not have offered it.

  I descended from the coach while Brewster handed the patient driver extra coin to wait again, and approached the door to knock upon it. Brewster, with the statue in his firm grip, pushed past me and opened the door himself.

  “He’ll know we’re here,” he told me in a low voice.

  The surgeon was making his way down the stairs, his stride neither brisk nor slow. He looked us over, noted we were alone, and motioned for me to enter the front room.

  Brewster gave us a nod. “I’ll just go have a cup of tea. Shout when you’re ready, guv.”

  “Please don’t run off and sell my worthless artwork,” I told him. “I like it.”

  Brewster looked hurt. “As if I would, guv.” He shut the front door and strode heavily toward the back stairs.

  The surgeon had already entered the sitting room, not one for ceremony. I followed and closed the door, finding him standing near the fireplace, holding his hands toward the blaze. He looked neither nervous nor content, but was simply warming himself while he waited for me.

  His utter lack of emotion always puzzled me, although I supposed it helped him in his profession. Surgeons lost patients all the time, which could either make them hard or break their hearts. A man who knew how to keep his emotions suppressed could get on with his work.

  “You asked to see me,” I reminded the man when he didn’t speak for a time.

  The surgeon rubbed his hands, which were long fingered, almost
delicate, like a musician’s, and turned to me.

  “I’ve been in the Low Countries,” he said. “Amsterdam, mostly, for the last few months.”

  I did not know how he wanted me to respond to that, so I said nothing.

  “I have only just returned,” he went on. “This is why I have not had the opportunity to tell you before, though I probably would not have anyway, in case it hampered her convalescence.”

  “Tell me what?” I asked, my voice going hard as coldness flowed over me. “Explain yourself at once, if you please.”

  The surgeon took in my threatening tone without a blink. “Your wife might have recovered from her ordeal,” he said. “But she will bear you no more children.”

  Chapter 15

  I have no recollection of what I did. I seem to remember standing, stupefied, in the middle of the dark room—dark because the curtains had been drawn, the only light the red-orange glow from the fire.

  The surgeon continued in his inflectionless manner. “I had to remove part of her womb to save her. I cauterized and cleaned her, so she’d heal without taking sick. Mr. Denis tells me she has recovered as well as can be expected, but if I had not acted as I’d done, she would have died.”

  His words were even and neutral, no apology and no superiority behind them. He stated facts. He hadn’t paused before he’d broken the news or tried to prepare me gently. The man showed no emotions at all. None. He’d moved beyond stoicism to something I didn’t understand.

  I swallowed, my throat so tight I could scarcely breathe. “Does she know?”

  “I told her, but she was half insensible with pain and my tonic. She might not have understood me.”

  If Donata had heard, she’d not said one word to me. In my relief that both she and Anne were alive and thriving, I hadn’t taken time to note her composure, or lack of it, during her recovery. Both of us had been taken up with Anne, and still were, bursting with pride every time the tiny girl so much as twitched a finger.