‘I think that Lady Caroline forgot to mention something important,’ he whispered.
‘Have you come from my stepmother, Detective?’ Mrs Willoughby asked. ‘I heard you whispering. Is everything well with Lady Caroline?’ Her large, dark eyes stared dolefully across the room at him. He detected a slight puffiness and redness in the rims. Had she been crying?
Lavender cleared his throat. ‘My apologies, Mrs Willoughby. Yes, we have just come from Lady Clare’s home. Unfortunately, we have some bad news for you about your sister, Miss April Clare.’
Suddenly, her shoulders shook and the woman dissolved into ugly sobs. Lavender and Woods exchanged a startled glance and moved swiftly across the carpet towards her. Her distress was genuine but Lavender wondered what had upset her; he hadn’t told her about April’s death yet. He reached for his handkerchief then realised that it was still sodden from Lady Caroline’s tears. He gestured to Woods who pulled out his own grubby handkerchief and offered it to the distraught woman. She took it gratefully with a trembling hand.
Afternoon tea was set out on a silver tray on a nearby table. Lavender poured a cup of the steaming beverage and held it out to her. ‘Here, try to drink this. It may help,’ he suggested. ‘Do you want sugar?’
‘Yes – no – yes,’ she stammered. A little confused, Lavender took the silver tongs and dropped two cubes of the fine white crystals into the china cup before placing it in front of her. Grasping the drink with both hands, she raised it to her lips and gulped it down. Eventually she sat back and stared up at him with swollen eyes.
‘April is dead, isn’t she?’
He was taken aback. He abandoned his carefully prepared speech and said quietly, ‘I’m afraid so, Mrs Willoughby. We found her body in an empty house in Covent Garden yesterday.’
‘I knew it! I knew it!’ The young woman now collapsed into a new spasm of tears. Alarmed at her grief and remembering Lady Caroline’s warning about Mrs Willoughby’s delicate constitution, he sat down beside her on the sofa and took her hand in his.
‘Is Captain Willoughby at home?’ asked Woods. He had wandered across to the window to examine the large brass compass, mounted on gimbals that glinted in the light streaming through the lace curtain. ‘Should we send for him?’
The mention of her husband had a strengthening effect on the distraught woman. ‘No. Captain Willoughby has been away at sea for nearly a year,’ she said between sniffles. ‘He’s in the Indian Ocean aboard HMS Boadicea.’ She pointed above the fireplace to a magnificent oil painting of a thirty-eight-gun warship in full sail and at a jaunty angle on choppy seas. ‘He commissioned that painting on his last voyage.’
‘Is there anyone else we can fetch?’ Lavender asked. ‘Lady Caroline said she will be calling soon but perhaps there is someone we can call immediately?’
She shook her head and did her best to compose herself. ‘I will be fine until my stepmother arrives.’ Her face crumpled again. ‘Oh, Detective! I’m so glad you’re here! I have been frantic with worry over the last few days and had no idea what to do!’
‘What’s happened, Mrs Willoughby? And how did you know that your sister was already dead?’
She fell silent. Lavender squeezed her hand again and was conscious of the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece in the short silence that followed. He decided to try gentle questioning. She seemed to be struggling to find the right words. ‘Did you see Miss Clare on Friday night?’ he asked. ‘Lady Caroline said you were due to travel to her soirée together.’
‘Yes. April arrived just after lunch. She had a few days when she wasn’t needed at the theatre. She often spent time with me during these lulls. Her lodgings are rather drab and uncomfortable and I’m so desperately lonely since Nesbit went back to sea.’ She sighed. Her beautiful eyes stared vacantly ahead. Lavender had the impression that she was looking for inspiration or trying to retrieve a memory. ‘We ate a light supper here and then dressed for the party. I had hired a hansom cab for the journey, as Captain Willoughby and I don’t keep a carriage.’
‘What happened on the journey?’ Lavender prompted gently.
‘We crossed the river and were just approaching the Five Fields area when our cab was set upon by highwaymen.’
Lavender grimaced. The dangerous marshland known as Five Fields, south of Hyde Park, was a notorious stamping ground for tobymen and footpads. He felt her hand tremble again. The experience must have been traumatic for the two sisters.
‘But they didn’t want money or jewels. They wrenched open the door of the cab and reached in for April.’ Her voice faltered. ‘I heard one of them yell: “Get the actress!”’
‘Could you see their faces?’ Lavender asked.
‘No. No – they wore masks.’
‘Did any of them sound like foreigners?’ Woods asked. He moved across to perch on the arm of the chair.
She glanced up at him, confused. ‘They dragged April outside and disappeared with her into the gloom.’ Large tears rolled down her smooth cheeks again, then she started to babble again. ‘It happened so fast, Detective. I heard April scream . . . I have never felt so wretched in my life when they rode away with her. So useless . . . so utterly helpless . . .’
‘There was nothing you could have done, Mrs Willoughby.’ Lavender waited until she was more composed. ‘Did they say anything else?’ he asked. ‘How many of them were there?’
‘Three. Four, maybe. One of them said: “Go back home. Stay away from the law. We’ll be in touch.” That’s how I knew they wanted a ransom.’
‘Did they get in touch?’
‘No. I haven’t heard a thing from them – nothing. But I knew . . .’
‘What did you know?’
‘I knew she was dead.’ The starkness and simplicity of her statement and the utter certainty in her tearstained and tragic face made the hairs stand up on the back of Lavender’s neck.
‘We’re twins you see, detective. We’re connected. I felt her life force go out several days ago. She’s left me. Left me for good.’
Lavender saw Woods turn pale and shuffle uncomfortably on the arm of his chair. He shared his constable’s discomfort. Although Lavender didn’t believe in most aspects of the supernatural he had never been able to discount the existence of a strange, unnatural bond between siblings who had shared a womb.
‘What I don’t understand,’ Woods said, ‘is how they knew which one of you were which?’
‘I was wearing a partial veil,’ Mrs Willoughby said. ‘It was dark and I was – I was at the back of the coach on the far side. April was nearer the door they opened.’
‘So the kidnappers were not intimate with you or your sister. They didn’t know either of you personally,’ Lavender said thoughtfully.
‘How do you work that out, sir?’ Woods asked.
‘They didn’t know that her sister was an identical twin but they had followed Miss Clare and knew what she looked like.’
‘With respect, sir,’ said Woods. ‘Half of London will know what Miss Clare looked like. She’s a famous actress.’ Mrs Willoughby gave him a grateful, weak smile.
Lavender fell silent for a moment, mulling over these latest revelations. He had always suspected that April Clare had been kidnapped and held prisoner in Raleigh Close. This evil scheme had been carefully thought out. Someone had known that the actress planned to spend time with her sister and then travel to Lady Caroline’s. She had obviously been followed here and the villains had seized their chance to kidnap the actress in the remote and dangerous Five Fields. It was well planned and premeditated. The fact that Darius Jones, the pimp who used Raleigh Close for his nuns, had been drowned in the Thames could still be a coincidence. But if it wasn’t a coincidence, then these villains were more brutal and calculating than Lavender had previously imagined.
But something had gone badly wrong at Raleigh Close. The actress had died before they could claim a ransom, or even contact her relatives. These criminals had not gone to all this trouble to
simply murder April Clare; they could have done that when they stopped the coach at the Five Fields. No. They wanted something. But what?
Damn that surgeon, Allison. If Sir Richard had waited for them at Bow Street, they would already know how April Clare had died. Then Lavender remembered the ransacked lodgings of the dead girl and he frowned. That didn’t fit with the normal behaviour of criminals intent on abduction.
‘What happened next?’ Woods asked. ‘And what was that rascal of a cab driver doin’ while you were attacked?
‘The cab driver was as scared as me,’ Mrs Willoughby said. ‘They held a pistol up to him. The man was shaking.’ She grimaced at the memory.
‘Why didn’t you report the abduction of your sister to the constables?’ Lavender asked.
‘I was too scared,’ she said. Her head drooped with shame. ‘They had told me not to go near the law. I knew they must want money. I have a little money. I thought that if I did what they said and paid the ransom, then April would be returned to me safely.’
Lavender sighed at her naivety. Kidnapping was a crime more common than most Londoners were aware and it could be vicious. Only last summer, two innocent young boys had been taken from a wealthy family in Mayfair. The ransom had been paid but both boys had still ended up with their throats cut. The gang responsible had disappeared back into whatever sewer they had crawled out of, and so far they had eluded capture. Was it the same gang, perhaps?
‘I came home and waited,’ Mrs Willoughby wailed. ‘Hoping beyond hope, for some news – or a message. It has been interminable!’ She began to sob again. ‘I’m so glad you’re here, Detective – the last few days have been so awful, so lonely. I know you’ve brought me terrible news but at least my torment is over, and poor April is at peace. I’ve never been so frightened in my life.’
‘Did you notice anything else out of the ordinary on that night?’ Lavender asked.
Mrs Willoughby shook her head, too overcome with grief to speak.
‘If you’ll excuse me, sir,’ Woods said as he stood up, ‘I think I’ll go and talk to the servants. They may have seen or heard somethin’.’ Lavender nodded. ‘Another suggestion, sir – we should track down the driver of this cab.’
Lavender raised his head sharply. ‘Do you think he may have been in collusion with the kidnappers?’
‘It’s a possibility, sir. Most cabbies know how dangerous the Five Fields are, and most of them avoid the area like the plague. His choice of route is suspicious. He would have been better advised to take a different route and stay south of the river until the Westminster Bridge.’
‘He was very young and frightened,’ Mrs Willoughby said.
‘Bloody coward,’ muttered Woods, as he disappeared out of the room.
‘Mrs Willoughby, did Miss Clare have anyone in her life who may have wished her harm?’ Lavender asked. ‘A jealous rival, perhaps?’ Mrs Willoughby shook her head. ‘Did she ever confide in you about a sweetheart or a beau?’
Again this was met with a negative response. Lavender asked a series of questions about the dead woman but he gleaned no further information. He wondered how much Mrs Willoughby had slept since her sister had been wrenched from her life. He was relieved when Woods reappeared with a pale-faced maid.
The maid wrung her hands in her apron. ‘Oh ma’am!’ she exclaimed. ‘I’m so sorry to hear about Miss April! She were such a lovely woman.’
Mrs Willoughby rallied slightly. ‘Show the detective and the constable out, Ruby,’ she said. ‘And then return to me.’
‘Very good, ma’am.’
‘We’ll be in touch soon,’ Lavender promised as they left.
‘This is dreadful news about Miss April, dreadful,’ babbled the servant as she led them to the door.
‘Had you no idea?’ Lavender asked sharply. ‘Didn’t your mistress confide in anyone about her terrible ordeal?’
The girl blinked up at him in surprise. She had a large pair of cornflower blue eyes to match her soft, country accent. ‘Why, no, sir. I knew nuffin’ about Miss April’s kidnappin’ until yer constable ’ere just told me in the kitchen.’
‘Thank you for your help,’ Lavender said. ‘By the way, does your mistress usually take sugar in her tea?’
‘Why, no, sir.’
‘Well, I would recommend that she does today,’ he said. ‘Sweet tea is the best thing for shock. Insist that she takes a couple of lumps.’
‘Yes, sir.’
The two men pulled on their hats and left.
Chapter Twelve
It was mid-afternoon and both men were hungry. They decided to have a meal before they retrieved their horses from the ostlers. Lavender led Woods into the busy town centre of Wandsworth. People made their way slowly down the street, staggering home beneath the weight of their purchases: heavy baskets, bolts of fabric and bulging sacks. There was a strong and attractive smell of hops and barley from the Thames-side brewery that masked the stench of the fetid river. A steady stream of brewer’s drays, hauled by the rippling muscles of huge, broad-shouldered shire horses, passed them in the street. They waited for a momentary break in the traffic and then crossed the road, drawn to a brightly lit tavern on the quayside.
The taproom heaved with brewery workers and grimy stevedores, amongst other labourers. Lavender and Woods pushed their way through the throng until they found a table and a couple of stools at the back of the smoky tavern. Beneath the hum of conversation could be heard the incessant clink-clink of dice being shaken in a glass as patrons played the age-old games of ‘Bones’.
Lavender sat down, took off his hat and loosened his greatcoat. The crackling log fire sent a welcome blast of hot air to warm his frozen face. When the barmaid arrived, they ordered food and a tankard of ale. Woods poured most of a full jug of thick gravy onto his meat and potato pie. He then proceeded to demolish the meal with relish.
Lavender smiled and asked: ‘Is Betsy keeping you short of food again?’
‘You what, sir?’ Woods asked. His ruddy cheeks protruded like a rodents as he chewed.
‘Never mind. Tell me what you discovered from the Willoughby servants.’
Woods belched with satisfaction and wiped the greasy gravy from his mouth with the sodden handkerchief he had retrieved from Mrs Willoughby. ‘There’s three of them: a cook and a couple of maids. They saw and suspected nothing. They were aware that Mrs Willoughby came home alone and early from her Lady Caroline’s party but she claimed to have a headache, so the servants thought nothing of it. According to the servants, Mrs Willoughby has sat quietly in the parlour for the last three days. No one has called at the house and no one has seen or heard anything suspicious in the neighbourhood. The servants weren’t aware of anyone watching the house on the night of the kidnapping or of anyone loitering outside.’
‘Well, April Clare’s movements were followed closely,’ Lavender snapped. ‘Someone must have seen something.’
‘I think the household has been distracted,’ said Woods. ‘The nursemaid told me that their nipper has been colicky and they’ve all been upset and disturbed by his cryin’.’
Lavender was startled. ‘There’s a child?’
‘Yes, Mrs Willoughby has a baby boy, called Charlie. He’s about the same age as my Tabitha. Eight months, I think.’ Woods paused with a fork of pie halfway to his mouth. His eyes widened. ‘You don’t think it were somethin’ to do with that mynah bird, do you?’
Lavender smiled. ‘No, Ned, I don’t. But it had crossed my mind that the sisters may have played one of their pranks on Lady Caroline last Friday.’
Large furrows appeared in Woods’ broad forehead. The meat pie continued to hover in midair. ‘What? You think that they may have swapped clothes and pretended to be each other?’
‘It had crossed my mind,’ Lavender said, ‘though God knows why. It might have been the way she gulped down that sugared tea – and I failed to see any sign that Mrs Willoughby was as “delicate” as Lady Caroline had described. Yes, she was upse
t but she seemed quite robust and healthy to me. I’ve no doubt that to swap identity would have been an easy trick for the sisters to play. Anyway, Mrs Willoughby is obviously whom she claims to be. Sir Richard told us that the dead twin had never borne a child and the Willoughbys have one in their nursery. The woman we have just interviewed was Mrs Harriet Willoughby, the mother of the child.’
Woods nodded and swallowed his food. ‘You could have knocked me down with a feather when we walked into that room. Those women are identical.’ He jabbed the fork in Lavender’s direction for emphasis.
‘Were identical, Ned,’ Lavender said softly. ‘One of them is dead now and we still don’t know why.’
‘Is it just a kidnappin’ gone wrong, do you think?’
‘I don’t know.’ He sat back thoughtfully and applied his mind to the unsolved mysteries that still surrounded April Clare’s death. The gloom of the warm, cosy tavern was probably as good a place as any to think. Had it been a kidnapping for a cash ransom? If so, why had the villains ransacked April’s lodgings? Or had they? Was that just a coincidental burglary?
‘The Willoughbys are financially comfortable,’ Lavender said aloud. He always found it helpful to share his thoughts with Woods. ‘A naval captain makes a good salary. But I don’t think they’re particularly wealthy. Baron Clare left his family very little money. Miss Clare chose to support herself on the stage, and the baron’s widow, Lady Caroline, never has any cash to spare despite the income she makes from her art. She struggled to pay Bow Street for the services I rendered a few years ago when her former lover blackmailed her. She juggles her creditors. Kidnapping April Clare would never have made anyone rich; the ransom would not have been huge. And the kidnappers seem to have gone to a lot of trouble to organise this abduction.’ He shrugged. ‘Perhaps things will become clearer when we track down Sir Richard and find out how the girl died.’
The Sans Pareil Mystery (The Detective Lavender Mysteries Book 2) Page 10
