Death Makes No Distinction

by Lucienne Boyce

  “Mmm, mmm.”

  After each slight encouragement, a woman’s tearful voice continued its disjointed murmur.

  Dan stepped into the room. There were two occupants, Townsend and a woman in a chair by the marble fireplace. His first thought, though, was for Louise Parmeter, formerly mistress to the Prince of Wales. She sat behind a daintily fashioned mahogany desk, the upper half of her body sprawled across the inlaid surface.

  His resentment against the victim evaporated as soon as he saw her. Even in death she was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. Long eyelashes swept her delicate cheeks; shapely eyebrows framed large lidded eyes; and her hair was a glory of gold. Her lips were slightly parted, as if on the verge of a smile that must have been dazzling when life animated it.

  Her hands and arms were stretched out in front of her, the left palm uppermost, a pen lying by her right fingertips. Her head was turned to the side and her left cheek rested on a sheet of paper half-covered in writing that ended in a jagged, blotted line. Her hair was matted with blood from a glistening wound at the back of her skull. A heavy silver candlestick had been thrown on to the desk, gouging its brilliant surface, the end sticky with gore in which were embedded several hairs. The inkstand had been overturned, its contents obliterating the pattern of the opulent rug beneath.

  Townsend thrust one hand into the pocket of the yellow waistcoat straining over his round belly and swished his cane like a school beadle controlling an unruly class.

  “There you are at last, Foster.”

  “Mr Townsend.”

  Dan met the witness’s red-eyed gaze. Her nose was rubbed raw from crying. She wore an unostentatious though well-made dress with a checked apron, a simple muslin neckerchief, and a plain cap. She was younger than Louise Parmeter by some ten years: Dan guessed her to be about twenty-five. She did not have the attitude of a servant, would not have been sitting in her mistress’s armchair if she was, yet she had clearly not been Louise Parmeter’s equal. A companion perhaps.

  “This is Miss Agnes Taylor, Miss Parmeter’s protégée,” Townsend said.

  “Her protégée in what, Miss Taylor?” Dan asked.

  “Miss Parmeter and I are both votaries to the poetic muse,” Agnes answered. She choked back a sob. “That is, she was.”

  “Miss Taylor found the body,” Townsend said.

  “When?”

  “I came looking for her when she did not come in for luncheon,” Agnes said. “Found her – like that.”

  “I’m asking the questions, Foster,” Townsend said. “You just whip out your notebook and mark down the main points.” He tapped his cane on the floor as he counted them off. “Miss Louise Parmeter, a literary lady, works in her study from nine o’clock every morning. At midday she takes a light luncheon. Today she did not go to the dining room. Miss Taylor came to fetch her. Knocked. No reply. Entered. Found the lady brutally slain. Murder weapon: the candlestick on her desk. Have you got that? Obvious how the killer got in and out.”

  The desk stood in front of a glass door that gave on to the garden, a formal affair of urns, fountains and statues, looking grey and drab on an overcast April day. The long curtains were looped back and the door was ajar.

  “How did he get into the garden?” Dan asked. “It’s a high wall. He couldn’t have climbed it in broad daylight without drawing attention to himself.”

  Townsend tut-tutted. “I have already established the facts. There is a gate at the end of the garden which leads into a lane at the rear running between Mount Street and Hill Street, where the stables are located. The gate was closed but unlocked when I checked it. It is usually kept locked.”

  “Have you looked for footprints?”

  “Thank heavens you are here to think of it. Of course I have. There are none.”

  “You must have been on the scene very quickly to have discovered so much.”

  “Owing to my royal duties, I was as good as on the spot. The Prince was paying a visit to Lady Jersey at her daughter’s home, number thirty-eight, when I heard a commotion in the square. Naturally a disturbance in such close proximity to His Highness requires my attention and I came to investigate. When His Highness learned that not only had a brutal murder taken place a few doors away, but the victim was known to him, he was deeply affected. He has asked me to bring the killer to justice with all due despatch – which we will not achieve if you are going to waste time going over ground I have already covered.”

  Dan, ignoring this harangue, moved towards the desk to take a closer look. He stooped over Louise Parmeter’s body. One of her earlobes was torn and bloodied.

  “Her jewellery has been taken?” he asked Agnes.

  “Yes,” she answered. “Diamond earrings and a matching necklace. They were a gift from the Prince of Wales.” She dabbed at her eyes.

  “She wore diamonds to work at her desk?”

  “She often wears – wore – them. She didn’t believe in hoarding.”

  “The question is,” Townsend said, “who did the thief have on the inside? The servants are gathered in the hall downstairs under the guard of two constables, and all are accounted for. So whoever let him in is still on the premises. Go down and start taking their statements, Foster. Find out where they say they were this morning, and make a note of anyone who doesn’t have an alibi. And send a couple of constables down the lane to find out if anyone saw anything.”

  Dan thought of telling Townsend what to do with his orders, then remembered Sir William Addington’s threat to demote him. There was no point giving Townsend cause to make a bad report of him within an hour of starting the case. Besides, there were several things puzzling him.

  “That clock on the mantelpiece is worth a bit,” he said. “Not to mention the silver snuffbox on that table over there. The candle snuffers. The decanter and glasses. Any one of the ornaments.”

  “Obviously he came expressly for the diamonds,” Townsend said. “They alone are enough to make his fortune – his and his accomplice’s.”

  “But why come for them while she’s wearing them? And why in the daytime?”

  “They were kept overnight in a Bramah safe in the butler’s pantry. The lock is impossible to pick. It’s apparent, Foster, that you are not used to high-class crimes of this nature. There’s a bit more going on here than the pilfering of a few bits of lace from a haberdasher’s, or the lifting of a purse. It takes a bit of nerve to pull off something like this, and it wants someone with connections to sell the gems. They’ll need taking out of their settings, possibly getting over to Amsterdam. This is a professional job.”

  “Then why did he miss one?” Dan used his pencil to push a lock of the dead woman’s hair aside, revealing the glittering diamonds on the drop still hanging from her left ear.

  “Because he was interrupted before he got everything he wanted,” Townsend said. “Probably when Miss Taylor knocked on the door.”

  Agnes’s hands flew up to her throat. “Oh! Do you mean he was still in the room when I was standing in the hall?”

  “Very likely,” Townsend answered.

  Dan scratched his head with the pencil. “But even with someone knocking on the door, it would have been the work of seconds to snatch the earring. He’d made no ceremony of taking the first. And it’s strange, isn’t it, that she sat calmly at her desk while someone let themselves in at the door just behind her. She must have known he was there. If she didn’t hear his footsteps, he would have blocked out the light.”

  Townsend rolled his eyes. “Do you have a point, Foster?”

  “I think the killer must have been someone she knew.”

  Agnes let out a scream and collapsed back in the chair in a dead faint.

  Chapter Six

  Dan revived Agnes with a glass of Madeira from one of the bottles on the sideboard.

  “Really, Foster, if you had gone and done
what I asked you instead of blundering around upsetting people, we wouldn’t have a fainting female on our hands,” Townsend grumbled.

  “No, no!” Agnes protested, holding out her glass for a refill. “Blame rather my delicate sensibility – my soul is aquiver – my heart overburdened – forgive me – it has all been such a shock.”

  Dan did not think it needed much delicate sensibility to be upset by finding a bloodied corpse, but only said, “Take your time, Miss Taylor.”

  He put the decanter away and went back to the desk. One of the drawers was slightly open and the key was in the lock, but there was nothing in it. “Miss Taylor, do you know what Miss Parmeter kept in here? Second drawer down on the left?”

  She put aside her glass, hurried to the desk and stared into the empty drawer in dismay.

  “Her book.”

  “What book is that?”

  “The one she was writing. Her memoirs.”

  Townsend went over, put his hand inside, groped around and confirmed that it was indeed empty. “There must have been something valuable in there. Money? A watch? Jewellery?”

  “Only the book so far as I know,” Agnes said. “She kept it locked away when she wasn’t working on it.”

  Her glance fell upon the body and with a horrified squeak she retreated to her seat and the Madeira.

  “Why would someone take her book?” Dan asked.

  “I don’t know,” she answered, “but she often said that there were many people who would prefer Memoirs of Herself and Others not to be published. She used to laugh and say she was going to dedicate it to ‘the Lords, Generals and Politicians of Great Britain’. Many of them were the others, you see.”

  “She was writing about her affairs with them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who knew about the memoirs?”

  “Everybody, I should think. She used to amuse her company with some of the stories she had to tell. She never mentioned any names, and there was always a great deal of laughter and raillery as they tried to guess who she meant.”

  “What sort of stories?”

  “A young heir who swore to his family that he had ended their affair long before he had done so; if it came out, he would lose his inheritance. A merchant who promised her a generous settlement, then refused to keep his side of the agreement; she knew a great deal about his tax evasions. One who boasted to his friends of his prowess as a lover when he was more of a Lysander to her Cloris.”

  “A what to her what?” said Townsend.

  “A would-be amorous lover in a poem by Aphra Behn,” Agnes replied. “It’s called The Disappointment. But no one took her remarks seriously, nor, I am sure, were they meant seriously. I don’t think anybody really believed the memoirs would ever be finished, let alone published, not even Miss Parmeter herself. It was mere drollery.”

  “Someone must have taken it seriously,” Dan said.

  “Now, Foster, don’t jump ahead of yourself,” Townsend said. “I don’t think we need concern ourselves with a few pages from a lady’s diary. It’s the valuables I’m interested in.”

  “If someone took the book, it was valuable to them. So did they kill her for the book, or for the diamonds?”

  Townsend snorted. “Oh yes, that makes sense. The killer stood here and thought, let me see, what shall I take, a book or some priceless diamonds?”

  “But he took both.”

  “Of course he did. He used the book to wrap the jewels in.”

  “If he needed something to wrap them in, why not take one of these loose sheets scattered on the desk? If it came to it, why not use a handkerchief or scarf, which could be used to tie them much more securely?”

  “How do I know what was in his mind? He panicked and grabbed the first thing to hand.”

  “But the manuscript wasn’t the first thing to hand. He had to go to the trouble of unlocking a drawer to get to it. And, since he was interrupted before he had a chance to take all of the jewellery, it was the book he went for first.”

  “Let’s stop wasting time with groundless speculations. I want you—” Townsend was distracted by the sound of the front door opening and closing. “What the hell is that noise? I told them no one was to be admitted.”

  It was too late. Rapid footsteps crossed the hall. A domineering voice announced, “I’ll show myself in.”

  The study door opened to admit a vision stuffed into tight breeches and gleaming boots, an exquisitely cut blue jacket, a yellow striped satin waistcoat, snowy white shirt and stock. A corpulent vision with a peevish turn to the mouth, true, but a royal one: once seen, the Prince of Wales was impossible to mistake. Dan had often spotted him when he was on duty at Drury Lane Theatre with other Bow Street officers whose job was to protect the theatre-going crowds from pickpockets, drunkards and beggars.

  Agnes produced a high-pitched cry from her repertoire of screeches, started to her feet and gave a clumsy curtsey, while Townsend jumped to attention and made a smart bow. Dan recovered his surprise in time to present his own bow. It was as awkward as Agnes’s curtsey, neither of them having much experience of playing the courtier.

  “Your Royal Highness!” Townsend cried, hurrying forward. “Let me escort you from this awful scene.”

  The Prince shook his head, almost dislodging his artfully tousled curls. “It’s this awful scene I’ve come to see, Towney.”

  Townsend followed him to the desk and shooed Dan out of the way. George glanced enquiringly at Dan.

  “My assistant, Officer Foster,” Townsend said.

  George nodded. “Towney’s told me a lot about you, Foster. I never attend public fights now, you know. I once saw a man killed in a bout of fisticuffs. Though I gather that such things are very unlikely nowadays, the rules being much stricter than they were.”

  The remark puzzled Dan for a few seconds, until he guessed that Townsend must have mentioned his interest in pugilism. Why he should have done so, Dan could not fathom. It could have no bearing on his abilities as an investigator.

  Having no idea of the etiquette when addressed by royalty, Dan thought a straightforward response best. He bowed again and, following Townsend’s example, said, “Thank you, Your Royal Highness, but I do not fight in public competitions.”

  “Well, I’ll leave all that to you,” George said vaguely.

  Already distracted from the subject, he gazed down at the body. Some of the natural colour left his cheeks, throwing spots of artificial pink into relief. He stroked the pale forehead with the back of his fingers.

  “Poor Louise,” he murmured. He caught sight of the ragged ear. “What’s this? Her jewels snatched from her?”

  “The villain did indeed so violate the lady’s remains when he had done for – slain her,” Townsend said. “He came for her diamonds.”

  “Not the ones I gave her?”

  “Yes. With your leave, I will ask your jeweller for a detailed description.”

  George waved his hand. “Of course, of course, whatever you need.”

  Townsend pointed at the half-open garden door with his cane. “This is how he got in and out. It’s what we call an inside job, Your Royal Highness. Someone let the thief in. We are about to start questioning the servants.”

  “Good God! You don’t think it was one of them?”

  “Sadly, sir, greed is a besetting sin of the lower orders. Surrounded by all this wealth, is it to be wondered at that many succumb? I see it all too often in my line of work.”

  The Prince shivered, possibly because the room was growing cold as the neglected fire sank low. With a sigh, he moved away, noticed the open drawer and halted abruptly.

  “Her book is missing.”

  “Yes, Miss Taylor has drawn my attention to the fact,” Townsend said.

  “If that book gets out, Towney, it’ll provide the greatest entertainment we’ve seen for many
an age. There will hardly be a noble house left unblushing.”

  “I understand that the book is likely to cause a great deal of embarrassment.”

  “Of the most delicious kind. I am almost tempted to offer a reward for its publication.”

  Either, Dan thought, this is the coolest performance I ever saw, or the Prince really has nothing to fear from Louise Parmeter’s book. But how can that be, if it’s about her affairs with the great and the good? Unless he already knows that the book has been safely disposed of.

  Dan realised that he was staring at the Prince. Too late. George had already read the suspicion in his eye.

  “You think that would be unwise of me, Officer?” the Prince asked. “But I am not in the book.”

  Dan could bluster a denial that he’d thought anything of the kind, but what would be the point? The whoring, hard-drinking, buffooning royal disappointment of the newspaper gossip columns was altogether sharper than he was given credit for.

  “Can you be certain of that, Your Royal Highness?” he asked.

  “I must apologise, sir, Foster is not accustomed—” Townsend began, but George held up a silencing hand.

  “Damn it, Towney, I like a man who can look me in the eye. Let me set his mind at rest. I can say with absolute certainty that I am not in the book. There are, you see, the diamonds.”

  Townsend sucked in his lower lip and stared up at the ceiling.

  “Oh, come, Towney, let us not be coy,” George said irritably. “We’re all men of the world.”

  Dan was not a man of the Prince’s world, but he grasped his meaning. It was how women like Louise Parmeter obtained security for the loss of youth and beauty. Jewels, annuities, houses, carriages, paintings: such things were given in exchange for keeping letters private, or memoirs unpublished. Blackmail, dress it up how you will. Had other men also been paying a price for her silence? And had one of those men grown tired of the arrangement and decided to take steps to ensure his story was never told?

  George was already ahead of him there too. “I say, Towney, do you think they’ll realise what they’ve got when they look at the memoirs? Do you think it’s even possible that they already know? That they took the book because they’re in it? Now that would shake some ancient foundations!”