The Rose in the Wheel: A Regency Mystery (Regency Mysteries Book 1)

by S K Rizzolo

  “How can I know, sir? But you must tell the truth.”

  Damned interfering woman. What did she mean by gazing fondly upon the man like she was the bloody Virgin Mary and he a sinner seeking absolution? Chase pulled the pamphlet from his pocket and tossed it at Partridge. “Have a look at that. Perhaps you’ll see why we have paid you a visit.”

  With shaking hands, Partridge pulled out the note at the back. There was a long silence as he read it, his face inscrutable.

  Chase plucked both pamphlet and note from his fingers and returned them to his pocket. “Evidence, I’m afraid. You may perceive, Mr. Partridge, why one might misconstrue your motives.” Then as the M.P. still didn’t move, he said, “Look, perhaps this can remain a private matter between us. That is, if you’ll make a clean breast of it.”

  Partridge ducked his head, staring at the carpeting at his feet. “I see I have no alternative, but I want to know something first.” He addressed Penelope. “Who are you, ma’am? I should appreciate an introduction.”

  “She’s Mrs. Jeremy Wolfe. I am persuaded you remember him. He’s the man you had released from Newgate.”

  In other circumstances, he might almost have felt sorry for Partridge, who was being dealt one blow after another. First, his indiscreet letter had surfaced, and now he was confronted by the wife of the man who had made him the mark of an extortion scheme. Or so Chase believed. To test his theory, he said, “Arthur Bennington told me he recently did a favor for a friend, someone in a bit of a scrape who could not afford the glare of unpleasant publicity.”

  Partridge met Chase’s eyes frankly. “Anyone might have need of such a friend.” He pointed at a grouping of chairs in front of the desk. “Why don’t we sit, since it seems this is to be a lengthy conversation? Though I must warn you, I have an appointment in an hour’s time.” After they each took a chair, Partridge leaned forward. “I did ask Bennington to provide the alibi for Mr. Wolfe, but only because I knew Wolfe to be innocent and didn’t wish to expose my own interest in the affair. We have an important measure pending at our next session. I would not risk the outcome.”

  Penelope nodded. “I am grateful to you for helping Jeremy. I suppose it was you who sent Mr. Merkle with the money?”

  “Yes. I thought you might be in difficulties.”

  “Kind of you,” said Chase flatly. “But the truth is, you asked—or bribed—Bennington to perjure himself. How do you know Wolfe is innocent?”

  “I was with him that evening. We shared a supper at a local chophouse; then I left him for a few minutes at a lodging house in St. Martin’s Lane while he fetched something from Mrs. Wolfe. We went on to another establishment to have a few drinks and didn’t part until well after four in the morning. I understand from the testimony at the inquest that Miss Tyrone died sometime after midnight?” When Partridge mentioned the dead woman’s name, a horror came over him, but he stifled it quickly.

  Penelope turned to Chase in triumph. “My husband did say he had an engagement.” Her face glowed with relief. As much as she had denied Jeremy Wolfe’s guilt, clearly some shadow had lurked in her mind.

  “You can prove this, I take it?” said Chase.

  “I’ve no doubt any number of people would have noticed us. I am rather well known.” This was said without conceit. He swept an unruly piece of hair away from his brow and sat back in his chair.

  “Are you telling us you and Wolfe were friends?”

  “Well, acquaintances perhaps.”

  He appeared uncomfortable, as if trying to convey some warning. It took Chase a moment to realize what it was, and when he did he almost laughed aloud. Like a true gentleman, Partridge wished to spare Penelope Wolfe any embarrassment.

  “Shall I make this easier?” said Chase. “The fact is Wolfe thought to feather his nest in exchange for keeping quiet about your relationship with Constance Tyrone, and you met with him to placate him, or maybe to stand the nonsense. Is that it, Mr. Partridge?”

  The M.P. glared with real dislike, but Penelope said, “He’s right, you know sir. You must tell us.”

  Partridge sighed. “Wolfe sent Miss Tyrone those sketches as well as a letter requesting a private interview. When she confided in me, I told her I’d attend to the matter.

  “I saw him the next day. He talked of how a man in my position could be of enormous assistance to a young artist and said he would value our friendship, always striving to be of service to me in a discreet fashion.”

  “Hush-hire.”

  Penelope looked wretched. “He wouldn’t call it that himself, Mr. Chase. He’d see it as a mutually satisfying arrangement.”

  Partridge began to launch into elaborate apologies which Chase thought would only increase her distress. He headed him off with another question. “Have you any idea where Jeremy Wolfe is now?”

  “None.” Partridge smiled regretfully at Penelope. “I imagine he is quite safe, ma’am, and will return when the furor dies down.”

  “You’d better tell us the rest,” she said. “Exactly what was your relationship to Constance Tyrone?”

  “I met Miss Tyrone some months ago when I toured the St. Catherine Society…”

  As the words came faster, Partridge seemed to find a release in speaking. Clearly, he hadn’t been able to share his grief with anyone. Listening to him, Chase had to admit he appeared sincere, but he knew that many murderers were able to force their guilt into a little compartment of the mind, fooling themselves and the rest of the world in the process.

  “I wish you might have known her,” Partridge was saying. “Any words I use to describe her seem so ineffectual, so paltry. She had a miserable childhood. Lost her mother young and was left to the tender ministrations of a series of prudish governesses and a father with ice in his blood. For all that she emerged with a spirit so strong it made one weep.

  “I am not a sentimental man. I have learned that practicality and decisive action are the qualities most needed in a world so filthily unjust. That’s the mistake many reformers make, I think. Who can afford sentiment? It only gives the enemy ammunition. I’m married, you know, and married well to a woman who furthers my career and manages our home with diplomacy and grace. God knows, I never asked to have my life turned topsy-turvy by a contrary spinster who didn’t have a circumspect bone in her body.”

  Chase nodded, feeling a grin tug at his lips. “Fate has a way of playing inconvenient tricks. But you’ve told us very little, sir. Where did you meet? Did you see her often?”

  The M.P. shook his head as if trying to slough off an unpleasant dream. “We used to meet for tea in the private parlor of a pub. Sometimes we went out together to investigate conditions in the poorer parishes. Or we just talked, made plans.”

  “Plans?”

  He gave a bleak smile. “She wanted to open a school for poor women and children, Mr. Chase. She believed they ought to receive more learning than just their letters and the Bible—Milton or Shakespeare, for instance. A ‘march of intellect,’ she called it, to add meaning to lives of unceasing drudgery.” His smile widened at their evident amazement. “Not very pragmatic, I grant you, for where would the poor find the means? Their coin comes too dear to spend on books instead of bread even if an hour of leisure can be found. And such learning would only breed discontent. Miss Tyrone’s notions were hardly calculated to win her many friends.”

  “I confess I find it hard to imagine the lower orders developing a taste for the Bard,” Chase said.

  “It’s a marvelous idea,” said Penelope. “So she awaited her inheritance to put her design into practice?”

  He nodded. “The allowance her father made her out of the trust wasn’t nearly sufficient, a fact of which he was well aware. Even her brother, whom she had always thought an ally, was not above undermining her behind her back.”

  “What precisely did Mr. Bertram Tyrone do?” Penelope asked.

  Partridge frowned. “She didn’t tell me all, but she mentioned he had consulted her physician without her
knowledge, then discussed the matter with Sir Giles. I imagine they sought ammunition to convince her to abandon her work.”

  “Perhaps they were merely concerned,” said Chase. “I heard that Miss Tyrone had been courting fatigue. Possibly she needed some inducement to curtail her exertions.”

  Partridge merely looked at him. “She would never have allowed frail health to stop her, sir. Anyone who truly loved and understood her could not expect it.”

  “Anyone—meaning you?”

  “Yes, though our relationship remained that of friend and colleague. I cannot tell you, Mr. Chase, what I would have done had she been willing for more, though I like to think I should have resisted temptation.”

  “Did she return your regard?”

  “Yes. There was one time, only once, she told me so.” His expression softened at the memory.

  So Chase was supposed to accept that Partridge had carried on some sort of high-minded friendship with a beautiful young woman in the private parlor of a public house? Nonsense.

  “If this relationship was so innocent, why did you find it necessary to send someone to steal back the letters and papers you had given to Miss Tyrone? Or perhaps you performed that little task yourself?”

  Consternation distorted Partridge’s handsome features. “Well…well, I thought it best to have them retrieved.”

  “And had your man bribe the doorkeeper.”

  “There’s no end to your perspicacity, sir,” he said, stretching out his arms in a gesture of defeat. “You must also know then that I did not murder anyone.”

  “Well, I ask you once again, sir. When was the last time you saw Constance Tyrone?”

  Face guileless, Partridge replied, “About a fortnight before she died. The last part of October. We met at the Bull’s Head in Gerrard Street.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “Eh, your ladyship,” called a jeering voice. “Your carriage is waiting.” A raucous burst of cheers and laughter went up around the street outside Bow Street office.

  “Careful, me lovely,” screeched a woman standing near the back. “You don’t want to ruin them fine togs.”

  Observing from the edge of the crowd, John Chase watched as the young girl shielded her eyes with one hand. The light was perhaps too bright after the dim interior from which she and the others had emerged, or the crowd had frightened her. Dressed better than most, she stepped over the pavement, delicately avoiding the muck. By the time she reached the shelter of the prison van, the tears ran down her cheeks.

  Probably a maid fresh from the country, thought Chase, yet another come to London to seek her fortune. She would have done better to spit insults right back, for that they could understand. It was an everyday affair: a motley group of the usual thieves and whores on their way to gaol. And the street rubbish watching the show were themselves likely to make one of the prisoners’ number before long.

  Chase had stopped by after the meeting with Partridge to see if any more arrests had been made in the Tyrone matter. Already four or five people had been rounded up for questioning with no results. But they were brought up before the magistrates if only to show due diligence in the public interest.

  He pushed his way through the herd and entered the building, ignoring the grumbling that erupted behind him. Inside, with court in session, another crowd had gathered to watch the proceedings in the begrimed, stuffy chamber. Well screened from the populace, the magistrate and his clerk sat behind the bar. Guarded by two officers, prisoners languished in the dock. The rancid odor of unwashed bodies filled the air.

  “Chase.” A man suddenly faced him.

  “Good day to you, Farley.”

  “Glad you’re here,” said Dugger Farley. “Step outside.” He drew Chase into the corridor. “New development in the Tyrone matter. The Old Man is sending us to make an arrest. Wants it done quick and quiet like.”

  Farley leaned against the wall, his florid face lit with excitement. He clutched a blunderbuss in one hand and his hat and coat in the other.

  Chase said, “That is progress indeed. Who is it?”

  “I know precious little myself, and what I do know says we may be heading for trouble.” He met Chase’s eyes. “It’s Strickland’s game.”

  Chase scowled. “Strickland, eh?” He doubted whether the arrest would be either quick or quiet.

  “A pawnbroker in the Dials laid information this morning. Seems he was approached by a bloke wanting to peddle the little rose from the Tyrone woman’s slipper. And stroke of luck, the dealer had the handbill what described it.”

  Not luck. It was supposed to work that way.

  “Pawnbroker knew the chap too,” Farley added. “He’s a dangerous ’un: Irish and a Papist to boot. Strickland’s taking in some special constables.”

  As if conjured by name, the Runner appeared. In his thick hand was the Bow Street ensign of office: a tipstaff, hollowed to provide storage for the warrant and topped with a removable brass crown. “So, Chase, you’re joining us common folk for once,” he said, grinning.

  Barrel-chested with rounded shoulders and an overlarge head, Strickland was born ready to charge. Though he possessed the rudiments of a cunning intelligence, he was often defeated by his own belligerent impulses. Behind him stood a half-dozen men, armed with pikes and cudgels.

  “I see you favor the discreet approach,” said Chase. “You’d best hope they don’t take you for a press gang. Just where is your man hiding?”

  Strickland stepped closer, expelling the reek of onions. “We’re going into Bethnal Green. I need a proper force at my back.” He started to walk away, then turned back. “I know you’ve an interest in this. You’ll get a piece of the blood money.”

  “We need a conviction first,” Chase said skeptically. “But I’ll see you through anyway.”

  Outside, the crowd had thinned. The prison van had rattled off to deliver its charges, and there were only a few stragglers left to see the second wagon roll up. The wind brought a sharp chill to Chase’s bones which he attempted to ignore. God, he was tired. In younger days he could have had a jolly round in a pub, stayed up late, and been about his work the next morning without so much as a yawn. No more. And with Strickland in charge, it was bound to be a long day. He felt for the brace of pistols, one in each of his greatcoat pockets, and climbed up after Farley into the wagon.

  The driver immediately whipped up the horses. They swung up Long Acre to Drury Lane and continued to High Holborn, proceeding east over increasingly shabby streets to come eventually to Bethnal Green. The parish, once rural, had been overrun with the spillover population of weavers from Spitalfields. Augmented by unskilled poor seeking employment in the silk trade, the area now consisted largely of choked alleys populated by inhabitants who could only escape their misery through drunkenness and riotous amusements.

  Strickland addressed the men. “The man we’re after is called Kevin Donovan. Wife’s a weaver, and he works her trade too when times is good. When times is bad, he takes up another line or turns to thievery. We know where he lives, but I warn you, he’s not likely to come like a lamb.”

  The men listened attentively, holding their weapons at the ready. Farley looked over at Chase and rolled his eyes.

  “The way I reckon,” Strickland continued, “Donovan was out to line his pockets that night, and maybe he decides to kill her so no questions asked. Then the hackney come along as he was stripping her. He run off with almost no gain.”

  His logic failed to impress. For one thing, it didn’t explain what Constance Tyrone had been doing in the street. Also, the livid finger bruises on her neck suggested passion, a loss of control. Wouldn’t a petty thief like Donovan be more likely to sneak up on her from behind, bludgeon her, snatch the goods, and run?

  “You’ll need to get Joan Snowden in to see if she can identify him,” Chase said. “She saw an uncommonly big man bending over the victim. That fit Donovan?”

  Strickland gave him a dismissive glance. “Ah, she’s a whore and a
sot. Who cares what she’s got to say? Like as not she couldn’t set one foot before t’other.”

  The sky had darkened in a low cloud cover. As the party pushed on, Chase grimaced at his surroundings. Dark buildings in filth-strewn lanes, the odor of stagnant sewage overwhelming. People milled about, men and women lurching drunk, children dejected and undernourished.

  The wagon halted, able to progress no farther as their way lay though a passage into a warren of narrow courts beyond. As the men climbed down to form a ragged band, Strickland designated the driver and one other to stay with the vehicle while the rest moved ahead on foot. Chase could feel furtive eyes upon them, peering from windows and doorways and around corners.

  “Spread them out, Strickland,” he said as he joined them. “This ain’t a parade. Why cause more of a stir than you need?”

  Strickland smiled unpleasantly. “These people like a good show. I don’t aim to disappoint.”

  The men gave nervous laughs and followed with Chase and Farley in the rear trying to look at least somewhat disinterested, Farley keeping his blunderbuss hidden beneath his greatcoat. Slowly they penetrated deeper into Bethnal Green. It began to rain, a thick drizzle that quickly turned the ground to a quagmire.

  Here was a labyrinth of obscure streets and alleys terminating in tenebrous courts. Every five buildings or so housed either gin house or pawnbroker. Less frequently they passed butcher shop, chandler, or grocer, some with whey-faced proprietors standing guard in front of decaying façades. Chase yanked Farley away from a particularly unappealing puddle in the road and walked on, stepping gingerly. Ahead Strickland had finally sighted his goal: a dilapidated building, which probably housed three or four families and which was indistinguishable from a hundred others they had passed.

  Now the rain pelted down. Strickland elbowed toward the doorway, shoving aside a costermonger and his wheelbarrow packed with tiny metal odds and ends. Cursing, the coster shook one fist and bent to fumble with his wares. By the time Chase and Farley caught up, a circle of onlookers had materialized.