by Deryn Lake
It seemed that the beau monde had gathered in force at Vaux Hall this night, for amongst the throng John recognised the Duke of Richmond, notorious young man about town and the idol of his contemporaries. Lost in admiration, John saw that the nobleman was wearing a blue coat of quite stunning splendour and wondered if the day would ever come when he would be able to afford such a fabulous garment. Standing beside the Duke was his brother-in-law, Henry Fox, older than Richmond by far, and one of the most celebrated politicians of the day. He was also wearing blue, though a far more sober cut.
Next to them, part of the melée and yet somehow alone, there hovered an extravagant being, a female of both mystery and fascination, whom John had glimpsed earlier sitting in a booth with a rouleau of rakehells, part of a small group all bent forward eagerly as the dice box rattled. Though there were no gaming tables at Vaux Hall, what people did in their private booths was their own affair, but that a member of her sex had been seen gambling in public would have been intriguing enough, without the fact that this one was also masked. John studied the extraordinary creature closely, wishing he knew her identity.
She was quite tall for a woman, in fact not a great deal shorter than he, yet supple for all that, a delicate racehorse of a female. Her facial bones, too, looked as if they might well be good, what John could see of them behind the concealing scarlet mask. Yet the full mouth with its lovely tilt of amusement was superb, its owner’s sense of fun impossible to hide. Staring at her, wondering what colour her hair might be, for that, too, was concealed, swept aloft into a wire turban set with glittering brooches, John longed to know more about this elegant denizen of the town.
And he was obviously not the only one, for the Masked Lady was catching the attention of a tall man of foreign appearance, dressed from head to toe in a black cloak, only a hint of blue at the throat revealing the colour he wore beneath. John’s eyes wandered on and took in the fact that two old harpies, dressed in identical blue gowns in a horrid pastiche of young female twins, were also jealously regarding the exotic being who lingered so close to them. Wondering why everyone in the Pleasure Gardens seemed to be wearing the same colour, and feeling hopelessly out of fashion in his new mulberry satin, John continued to observe.
An apprentice lad, too small to see over the heads of the crowd, had crept forward and was crouching in front of the circle of onlookers in order to get a better view. He looked so tiny, a rascally little fellow in a coat of such fine stuff, inevitably a dazzling shade of blue, that John immediately wondered if he had stolen the garment, for how else could a poor ‘prentice manage to be so smartly clad. The Apothecary watched him with amusement, seeing the boy’s youthful profile turned in wonder towards the shining waterfall and its fanciful aquatic attendants. Then he forgot all about the apprentice as he saw who stood behind him: the Beauty, her escort gone and now quite alone, had joined the throng.
The scene took on the frozen quality of a painting; the crowd intent upon the Cascade, their faces glowing in its reflected light, the loveliness of the girl dominating all. Then the moment passed. The lights dimmed on the spectacle and the great curtain fell. The throng, with nothing to look at, began to move away, and John turned to find that Samuel was no longer standing beside him. Gazing in all directions, the Apothecary saw that most people were milling towards the bandstand where the concert and supper were about to resume, though others who had already eaten or wished to take the air were starting to promenade down the two great avenues. With no idea where Samuel could have gone to, John eventually decided to traverse the Gardens in search of him.
It was a quivering night of argent moonshine and purplish shadows, the breeze bustling in the leaves, the smells and sounds of the black satin Thames drifting on its breath. The sky was dark as a cloak, yet spangled with a million sequinned stars, while the big indolent moon bathed in milk, throwing a shower of white about itself. There was a stirring everywhere, a nervousness abroad, as though a splinter of lightning might at any moment crack across the heavens and transform the evening’s gaudy beauty into something fierce and uncertain.
Feeling slightly uneasy, the Apothecary strode on and, having reached the point where the Grand Walk and the Grand Cross Walk met, John turned into the crossing avenue and walked determinedly along, staring all about him, particularly when he reached the South Walk, at which point he stopped beneath one of the vast archways and peered up and down its length. Still there was no sign of that familiar windmill figure, and John had no option but to go on towards The Dark Walk, whose inky depths lay before him. It was then, just as he stood hesitating, not knowing whether to turn left or right, that he heard the sound of a scream, a momentary anguished cry which ended abruptly, as if a hand had been clapped over the mouth of the woman calling out.
John waited uncertainly, poised like an animal ready to race, wondering whether he had merely heard sweethearts at play or whether that choking cry denoted something far more sinister. Then came another noise, a dull thud as though something had fallen to the earth. It was enough to spur him into action and John hurtled into that dark cavernous avenue, turning left, the direction from which the sound had come.
He had entered a pit where the tall trees blotted out the moonshine and there was nothing but the high hedge on one side and dense woodland on the other. Hardly able to see, John rushed on, regardless of the fact that his hat had fallen off, that his fine stockings were tearing, his one purpose to find the woman who had cried out in despair. And it was then that he glimpsed a figure rushing out of the trees and speeding away as he approached. Just for a second he saw an oval of a face turn in his direction, saw a dim flash of blue as the creature hastened off. Then, charging into the clump of trees from which the figure had run, John Rawlings tripped over the other occupant of The Dark Walk and found himself lying prostrate beside the Beauty.
She lay sprawled upon the grass like a shattered doll, her strawberry hair streaming out about her, the flowers that had so recently bedecked its curls trampled and broken where they had fallen. In a second the Apothecary was on his feet, stooping to lift the inert form, then delicately turning it over. The glorious eyes stared into his sightlessly, but still he felt for her heart, kneeling and leaning low to the lips to catch any sign of breath. Then a shaft of moonlight came slanting through the trees and John saw that the roses in her cheeks had turned to snowdrops, that there was a blueness about her mouth, and round her neck, twisted like an obscene serpent, was the thing that had choked the life out of her.
Very gently, almost with reverence, John laid the Beauty back on the ground and straightened out her clothing, which had become torn and disarrayed as she had helplessly fought her attacker. One of her legs was bare, he noticed, the other covered with a black stocking held up by a garter. Her stays and small clothes seemed undisturbed, suggesting that this was no common rape, that sexual molestation had not been the reason for this killing. Leaning over the body once more, John stared hard at the thing drawn tightly round the girl’s neck and recognised it for what it was. This most lovely of creatures had been brutally strangled with her own dark stocking.
‘Is she dead?’ asked a tremulous voice, making the Apothecary leap in fright.
A wide-eyed girl, clinging to her sweetheart’s arm as if it were an anchor, was approaching him through the trees.
‘I fear so,’ John answered, standing up and brushing his knees.
The girl went paler than the moon, staring at the body in horror.
‘What’s that around her neck?’
‘A stocking. She’s been strangled.’
‘Oh God’s faith!’ ‘she exclaimed, clapping a hand over her mouth, while her lover, a burly boy if ever there was one, turned his eyes up in his head and fell to the earth without a sound.
‘’Zounds!’ said John irritably, dragging the young man into a sitting position and thrusting his head between his knees. ‘What next I ask?’
‘Oh Giles, Giles!’ cried the girl, dropping to the ground be
side her sweetheart and grabbing his hand. ‘Speak to me!’
‘He’ll speak to you quicker if we can cool his head. Go and soak your handkerchief in one of the cascades,’ John ordered, then realising how high-handed he must sound gave her a smile. She stared at him, sighing a little, then sped off, returning some minutes later with a dripping scarf which she wove round her lover’s head like a turban. John saw the colour come back into the young man’s cheeks.
‘I think it might be best if the two of you go for help,’ said the Apothecary firmly as Giles’s eyes swivelled once more in the direction of the dead girl. ‘Try to find one of the beadles and ask him to tell Mr Tyers, the Proprietor, that there’s been a fatality in The Dark Walk and that a constable must be sent for. Can you manage that?’
‘Certainly,’ answered the boy, standing up, clutching at the threads of his dignity.
‘Good. Now there’s no time to waste. I’ll stay with the body until someone comes.’ Realising that he was giving orders to people only a year or so younger than he was, John added contritely, ‘Do you think that’s the most sensible plan?’
‘Indeed I do,’ answered the girl, dimpling at him despite the ghastly circumstances. ‘Should we tell the beadles to raise a hue and cry?’
John shook his head. ‘Whoever did this is well away by now. I think it might be wiser to say nothing until the authorities have been informed.’
‘Then let’s make haste,’ Giles put in, with a huge attempt at being decisive.
‘Indeed,’ John replied solemnly.
The couple needed no further bidding, hastening off through the trees as quickly as they could, and just at that moment the shaft of moonlight grew more intense, enabling John to take a clear look at the scene.
It seemed to him from the way she had fallen that the girl must have been sitting down and that her attacker had sprung on her from behind. There was no doubt that she had put up a brave fight for her life, for her fingernails were torn and bleeding where she had clawed and scratched her assailant, while her sleeves were ripped from the wild thrashing of her arms. But obviously the struggle had proved too much and her loveliness had passed from the world face-down in the grass, with no-one to save her. Sadly, John Rawlings dropped a kiss on the cooling forehead, paying his last respects to one who, in life, must certainly have been one of the most beautiful women of her day. It was then that he noticed something held in one of the battered white hands. Bending low, he carefully removed it and held it up to the moon: a piece of blue brocade material.
‘Torn from her murderer’s coat!’ John exclaimed softly, and with deft fingers wrapped it in his handkerchief for safe-keeping.
Any hopes he had cherished of keeping the news of the death in The Dark Walk secret, were most rudely dashed. Within a few minutes a crowd had gathered, gaping and pushing avidly, and it was only the appearance of the entire troop of beadles employed to preserve order in the Pleasure Gardens, together with Samuel Swann, looming large and somehow giving the impression of possessing a giant’s proportions, that kept sightseers from coming irreverently close.
‘I can’t believe it,’ Sam kept repeating as he was allowed through the cordon to join his friend. ‘Barely an hour ago we were ogling her.’
‘And wondering whether she be whore or Duchess. Well, it doesn’t matter much now, does it?’
‘Only in the eyes of God, I suppose.’
‘I suppose,’ John echoed softly.
It was at that moment that a beadle approached with a cloth, probably from one of the tables the Apothecary couldn’t help thinking as he placed it over the body, closing the girl’s eyes as he did so. He had not wanted to touch her again, feeling that everything should be left for the constable to observe as accurately as when he had first found her. But the sight of that beautiful blind gaze was too much for him and he drew down her lids.
‘Your Master trained you well,’ Samuel remarked quietly.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You’ve no fear of the dead.’
John shook his head, his blank face not revealing his seething emotions. ‘He taught me that they can do no harm. He said only the living are capable of that.’
The friends stared at one another sombrely and then a distant sound broke into their consciousness. Judging by the reaction of the crowd, the constable was approaching, and John thankfully stepped aside as two men came into his line of vision, one quite small and black-haired, the other very lively and loud.
Without saying a word, the dark one knelt by the body, drew back the cloth and made a quick and expert examination. There was something about the way he set about the task that made the Apothecary think that here was no ordinary constable, chosen reluctantly by rote to fulfil the office for a year. It seemed to John Rawlings that Mr Tyers, the Proprietor of Vaux Hall, had, perhaps in order to protect the reputation of his Pleasure Gardens, sent a rider to Bow Street; that he was now watching one of Mr Henry Fielding’s expert Thief Takers, ‘all men of known and approved fidelity and intrepidity’, latterly nicknamed the Beak Runners – so called after Henry’s half-brother John, who had succeeded him as Metropolitan Magistrate.
The man stood up and shook his head at his companion who promptly turned to look John squarely in the face, his bright eyes suddenly hard as flint.
‘Was it you, Sir, who found the body of the murdered woman?’
‘Yes.’
‘And can you tell me who you are?’
‘I’m John Rawlings, apothecary, of number two Nassau Street.’
‘I see. And how did you come to discover her?’
‘I was looking for my friend here. We became separated after the lighting of the Cascade. I had just reached The Dark Walk when I heard a scream. I waited a moment lest it was simply a lovers’ tiff, then heard the sound of a thud. It was that which made me decide to investigate.’
‘And what did you find exactly?’
‘Nothing at first, it really was damnably dark. And then I glimpsed someone who ran away as I approached.’
‘Did you behold the person clearly enough to know them again?’
‘No, it was too black. I could only make out a pair of breeches and a flash of blue coat.’
John reached into his pocket to fetch out the piece of torn brocade but was cut short by the dark fellow who asked abruptly, ‘Why did you not go in pursuit, Sir?’
‘Because I fell over the dead girl, landed lying in the grass beside her, in fact. I am a trained apothecary and as dedicated to saving life as a physician, therefore my instinct was to help her for I did not know whether she might merely be stunned.’
Mr Fielding’s men exchanged a glance but said nothing. ‘By the time I discovered she was dead,’ John went on, ‘I knew it would be hopeless to search. Her killer would have rejoined the crowd. It would have been like looking for a needle in a haystack.’
‘Ah!’ said the dark man, and gave him a long hard stare which left John in no doubt that his story was not altogether believed.
‘The young couple there can vouch for me,’ he added, just a shade too quickly. And pointed at the hovering pair whom he had sent to get assistance.
‘We most certainly saw him,’ the girl put in at once.
‘Kneeling by the body?’
‘Just getting up.’
‘Ah,’ said the Beak Runner again, and the Apothecary was filled with dread, realising that he was under suspicion of murder.
‘I had nothing to do with her death,’ he protested vehemently, dropping his lids, aware that his eyes would reveal how nervous he felt even though his features remained composed. ‘I did not even know the girl.’
‘As you have probably guessed, Sir,’ answered the lively one, ‘we are not constables but attached to the Public Office at Bow Street. We must, therefore, request you to come with us to tell your tale to Mr Fielding personally. It is his expressed wish to question important witnesses himself.’
Putting his hand in his pocket to check that the piece of m
aterial still lay safely within his handkerchief, John decided that he would indeed have more chance of proving his innocence with the great John Fielding, London’s Principal Justice of the Peace, a man whose wit and intelligence were a thing of legend.
‘I should be delighted to meet him,’ he answered calmly, though his mobile eyebrows inadvertently drew into a frown.
‘Then we will go now, if you please, Sir. And you two young people as well,’ replied the Beak Runner, bowing politely to the couple, who looked aghast.
John drew Samuel to one side. ‘I’m suspected, I know it. For God’s sake go to my home and tell my father what’s afoot.’
His friend rolled his eyes. The road to the city was fraught with hazard to those who left the Pleasure Gardens late, and he had no means of transport other than to go by water, which would take too long.
‘I’ll do my best,’ he said through gritted teeth.
‘Then we’ll be on our way, lady and gentlemen,’ the dark man announced, sounding very courteous but very firm.
Looking round, John saw that the crowd had dispersed, that only a few stragglers remained at Vaux Hall, a blight having fallen on the entire evening. He also saw, as the ragged group set off towards the main entrance, that two soberly dressed men carrying what looked like a stretcher were making their way down The Dark Walk.
‘It’s all right,’ the lively Beak Runner called to them, ‘we’ve seen all there is to see. Take her away.’
Bowing his head as a mark of respect, the Apothecary, in a terrible parody of his arrival at the Pleasure Gardens, passed through the swing doors, this time escorted by Mr Fielding’s Brave Fellows, on his way to the Public Office at Bow Street. While down at the water’s edge, the Beauty also departed Vaux Hall, her earthly shell loaded on to a wherry to make its last tragic journey to the city mortuary, leaving behind for ever the scene of what only a few short hours before had been her final triumph.
