Well, folks might be in for a surprise soon, Woods thought smugly – especially Magistrate Read. He had worried in the past about Lavender’s involvement with Doña Magdalena, whom he knew was a feisty filly even on a quiet day. But he had it on good authority from Betsy that the pair of them were well-matched and that Stephen Lavender was in love. This had calmed his fears because Betsy was rarely wrong about such things.
Magistrate Read might curl up his lip and complain about Doña Magdalena’s religion, but Woods knew that once Stephen Lavender made up his mind to do something, there wasn’t anything on earth that would stop him. He suspected that Magistrate Read knew this too. Still, it wasn’t good for Bow Street that the magistrate and his cleverest detective were at odds.
Sighing, Woods clomped back down to the stage door and resumed his vigil on his stool. The peace and quiet in the draughty corridor suggested that Broadhurst and Miss Bologna had finished their tryst and left the office. He slumped down against the wall and pretended to be asleep. Not long now, he realised.
April Clare returned to the Sans Pareil just before six. She swept down the corridor in a shimmering, black chiffon gown edged with dark green lace and black beads. A fashionable black ostrich feather curled around the mound of glossy black hair piled on her head. Woods gasped. Her resemblance to her dead sister was uncanny. Then he remembered why they were here. He glanced down and noted with satisfaction that she had her play script clutched in her gloved hands. Good.
As soon as April Clare walked through the gaping doorway into the green room, the noise level rose dramatically. The theatre cast swarmed around her like buzzing insects.
‘April! April, darling!’ She was passed from one embrace to another. Even the three actresses who had so bitterly bemoaned Miss Clare’s return now fawned all over her and squealed with delight. For a moment, she was pulled into the centre of the room and he lost sight of her. Then she reappeared with Jane Scott in front of the fireplace. Jane Scott clapped her hands to get attention. ‘Quiet!’ she shouted. ‘I would just like to say a word or two about darling April’s return to the Sans Pareil – and then we must toast her miraculous resurrection!’
‘Excuse me one moment, Miss Scott,’ said April Clare. ‘I’ll just put my play script down on the table.’ The actress couldn’t have timed it better. Everyone in the theatre watched in near silence as she placed her play script, containing the list of naval information, back into exactly the same place where she had left it the week before.
Good gal. Woods grunted with satisfaction and sat back to wait.
It didn’t take long. After a brief speech and the toast, the party dispersed and everyone moved along to the dressing rooms to prepare for that evening’s performance. Woods had counted them all into the green room; now he counted them out. Eventually, there was only one person left who remained out of sight, lurking in the shadows at the bottom end of the room. Woods sat perfectly still, leant against the wall and watched through half-closed eyes. Here he comes.
Gabriel Gomez, the Spanish actor, walked to the front of the green room. Woods remembered Lavender complaining about Gomez’s indifferent acting earlier in the week and had identified the Spaniard yesterday. Gomez had his back to the door and the shadowy corridor where Woods sat, but Woods knew that he was rummaging through April Clare’s script. Suddenly, Gomez stopped and turned towards the blazing candelabra over the fireplace. He scanned the paper in his hand and folded it before slipping it into his coat pocket. His actions only took seconds but it was enough.
Got you – you sly fox. Woods felt satisfaction sweep through him. Gomez left the green room. Woods closed his eyes, held his breath as he waited for the Spaniard’s next move. The actor went into one of the dressing rooms, retrieved his coat and hat then headed for the stage door. Woods gave him a moment before he turned up the collar of his own coat, pulled his hat low over his eyes and rose to follow Gomez out onto the street. Captain Sackville’s instructions had been clear: Follow the spy to his lair so we can round up as many of this gang as possible.
Woods leapt up the stone steps outside the theatre and joined the heaving throng on the busy street. He glanced around and caught sight of the actor weaving in and out of the crowds. Suddenly, a gloved hand reached out and grabbed him by the arm. It was Lavender.
‘It’s that Spaniard – Gabriel Gomez.’ Woods pointed to the dark figure hurrying down the road. ‘He‘s got the list in his pocket and I’m trailin’ him.’
‘Good work, Ned,’ said Lavender. ‘We’ll follow him together.’
There was no time for any further exchange of news. It was dark; the pavement was a sea of bobbing heads, hats and bonnets. It wasn’t easy to follow a black-coated, dark-haired man in a hat amongst so many others similarly attired. Sometimes they lost him in the shadows and always breathed a sigh of relief when he stepped out again into a pool of light thrown out from an open tavern door or the occasional wall lantern. They followed closer than normal, desperate not to lose sight of their quarry.
‘Let’s hope that he doesn’t jump into a cab,’ Lavender said. They closed the gap until they were less than a dozen yards behind Gomez. When they reached Shaftesbury Avenue, the Spaniard glanced back. For a moment, his eyes rested on the two police officers. He turned and quickened his pace.
‘We need to split up,’ Lavender said and weaved his way through heavy traffic onto the other side of the road. Gomez didn’t turn round again until he reached the corner of Bedford Square. This time he looked straight at Woods and Woods saw the fear in the Spaniard’s eyes before Gomez broke into a run and disappeared around the corner.
‘Damn it.’ Woods quickened his own pace. Lavender crossed back over the road and fell into step beside him, matching his stride. ‘He knows we’re on his tail,’ Woods said.
They heard a house door slam as they turned the corner into Bedford Square but neither of them saw which house Gomez had entered. The elegant square, with its sides of neat brick houses, was quiet, empty and dimly lit, although candles flickered behind the closed drapes of several homes. Nothing moved except the wind-rustled dead leaves in the undergrowth of the park in the centre. There were no sounds except the distant barking of a dog and the rumble of traffic on Bloomsbury Street behind them. Their quarry had vanished.
‘Where did he go?’ Lavender asked.
‘He must be inside one of them houses,’ Woods said.
Lavender’s voice rose sharply. ‘But which one? Which house?’
Woods shrugged helplessly.
Fifty yards further down the pavement, the drapes at one of the ground-floor windows suddenly twitched and parted. Light flooded out onto the pavement. Gomez was framed in the window, illuminated by the blazing candelabra behind him. The Spaniard looked fearful and seemed to be looking for them. His eyes found them. He mouthed something, as if talking to someone else in the room. Then he disappeared as quickly as he had appeared.
‘What’s that about?’ Woods asked.
‘It’s almost as if he wanted us to know where he is,’ Lavender said.
‘What do we do now?’
Woods never got a reply. The unmistakably sharp crack of a pistol shot suddenly shattered the evening peace. A blue flash of gunpowder flared up in the gap between the drapes of the window where they had just seen Gomez.
‘Heaven and hell!’ They broke into a run and leapt up the stone stairs to the front door of the house. They heard women screaming inside. Lavender pulled his pistol out of his pocket quickly followed by Woods, who muttered a thankful prayer that he had retrieved his own weapon from Betsy’s hiding place. Lavender rapped loudly on the front door.
Another pistol shot reverberated around the inside of the house, fired just inside the hallway on the other side of the door. The women’s screams intensified and Lavender banged harder.
‘Police! Open this door!’
‘Gawd’s teeth, it’s a massacre!’ Woods exclaimed. Suddenly, Lavender stopped hammering and tried the handle. It was
unlocked. The door gave way and the two policemen half fell and half ran into the dimly lit hallway.
‘Detective Stephen Lavender and Constable Woods – Bow Street Police!’ Lavender yelled.
The two terrified women were pressed against the balustrade at the bottom of the stairs. They screamed again and clutched each other, but neither seemed to be hurt.
Lavender and Woods turned in the direction of the pistol shots. The doorjamb and the side of the door to their left were a mass of jagged splinters. Someone had shot off the lock. Shards of wood crunched beneath their boots as they stepped cautiously into the room. Lavender led the way, the arm holding his pistol outstretched before him.
It was a man’s study. Bookcases towered up the walls around them. A warm fire flickered in the grate. Before them on the thick carpet, Gabriel Gomez lay dead. His lifeless eyes stared up at the crystal chandelier in the centre of the ornate ceiling above. Blood seeped from the hole in his skull onto the white muslin of his cravat; he had been shot in the head.
Standing in front of him, with dishevelled hair and a horrified expression on her face was Doña Magdalena. She leant on the high back of a winged armchair for support with one hand. In the other, she limply held a pearl-handled pistol. Smoke still curled from the barrel.
Woods glanced sharply at Lavender who was obviously as surprised as him to see her here. Doña Magdalena stared back, her luminous eyes wide with shock. Both were oblivious to everything else in the room.
Woods cleared his throat. ‘What has happened here, Doña Magdalena?’ he asked.
‘So glad you could join us, Detective Lavender,’ said a heavily accented, sarcastic male voice beside him. Woods spun around and found himself staring into the cold eyes of a tall, good-looking foreigner.
‘It appears that Doña Magdalena has just shot dead one of my tenants.’
Chapter Thirty
‘What shall we do, sir?’ Woods’ voice was so low it was almost a whisper.
Lavender couldn’t think or move. He didn’t even react to Felipe Menendez’s sarcasm. He stared at the woman he loved. Magdalena stared back, breathing heavily through parted lips. Her eyes were dark impenetrable pools.
Woods gave him a curious look and moved forward to take command. ‘Evenin’, Doña Magdalena.’ He gently removed the pistol from Magdalena’s grasp and opened the barrel. ‘It’s warm and the riflin’ groove is empty.’ Next, Woods squatted down next to the corpse and placed his hand at the side of Gomez’s neck. ‘Well, he’s dead, for sure,’ he pronounced.
Magdalena tore her gaze away from his own and looked down compassionately at the dead Spaniard. ‘He shot himself.’ Her voice cracked as if she struggled to formulate the words. The three men stared at her in silence. ‘When I came through the door he was dead. He’d shot himself.’
Woods was about to stand up when he suddenly leant forward and reached out beneath the great beech-wood desk that dominated the room. When he withdrew his hand, it held a pistol: the tip of the barrel was blackened with residue powder. ‘This is still warm as well,’ he said. He snapped open the barrel. ‘One shot fired.’
Lavender heaved a huge sigh of relief. Two pistols, both fired. Two shots. One shot had taken off the door lock; the other went into Gomez’s skull.
He found his voice and turned to face Menendez. ‘What has occurred here tonight?’
‘As I told you,’ Menendez said in that languid, annoying voice of his. ‘Doña Magdalena has just shot dead my tenant, Gabriel Gomez.’
‘I did not!’ Magdalena’s anger made her suddenly articulate. ‘I heard Don Gabriel arrive home from the theatre and enter this room. Next, I heard the sound of a pistol shot and came to investigate – but the door was locked from the inside. I was concerned that someone might be bleeding to death in here – and Juana didn’t seem to know where the spare key was for the room.’ She glanced contemptuously in the direction of the two other women who were now hovering in the doorway. In the better light of the study, Lavender now recognised them as the two Spanish women they had met at the theatre in the company of their brother. ‘So I used my pistol to shoot off the door lock. Juana and Olaya watched me.’
Lavender turned to the women framed in the doorway. ‘Is this true?’ He knew it was. The women both glanced nervously at their brother before nodding.
Magdalena took a deep breath as she struggled to find her next words. ‘When I entered the room,’ she said quietly. ‘Don Gabriel was already dead – by his own hand.’ She pointed to the pistol Woods had retrieved from under the desk. ‘He has killed himself.’
To give himself some time to think, Lavender walked over to the damaged door and examined the splintered wood.
‘Where were you when this happened?’ he asked Menendez.
‘I came into the room after I heard the pistols firing. I walked in to see Doña Magdalena and my sisters standing over the dead man. It was only a few seconds before you and your constable burst through the same door.’
‘So you followed them into the room?’
Suddenly, there was a renewed wailing from the hallway.
‘Excuse me,’ Menendez said. ‘I must see to my sisters. They’re distressed.’
Lavender waited until Menendez was out of earshot before he moved over to Magdalena. ‘Is this true?’ he asked quietly. ‘Did he follow you into this room?’
She nodded. ‘The study was empty when I broke in. Gabriel just lay there – dead. I’d heard the first shot only moments before.’ Her face crumpled and she swayed. He put his arm round her waist to steady her and pulled her close. She rested her head on his shoulder and the sweet smell of her hair neutralised the acrid stench of gunpowder that lingered in the room. ‘Do you want me to take you and Teresa back to your own lodgings?’ he asked, quietly. ‘I know these people are your friends but you don’t want to be caught up in this.’
‘No, no.’ He could hear the distress in her voice. ‘I will stay here the night as planned. Why would Don Gabriel kill himself?’ Her long, black eyelashes glimmered with unshed tears.
Lavender grimaced. Gomez had known that they were following him and he would have known why. It was only a matter of time before the Spaniard would have been arrested and hanged as a foreign spy. Gomez had chosen to take his own life, rather than face the hangman’s noose. But Magdalena didn’t need to know this at the moment – and neither did Menendez.
‘Let me take you out of here, Magdalena,’ he said, gently. ‘You need to call for Teresa, pack up your belongings and leave.’ He placed his arm around her and led her out into the hallway.
Menendez and his two sisters glanced up with barely concealed hostility. Lavender’s hackles rose but he controlled his tone and words as he turned and addressed the older sister in Spanish. ‘Señorita Menendez, please take Doña Magdalena into the drawing room and wait for us there. She has had quite a shock.’
‘Haven’t we all?’ snapped the woman. She glared at him sourly but did as he asked. The two sisters ushered Magdalena away.
With the women gone, Lavender’s mind sprang into action. He returned to the study. Woods was still kneeling by the body. ‘His coat pockets are empty, sir,’ he said.
Lavender frowned. ‘Have you checked his waistcoat?’
Woods nodded.
Where was the list of code that Gomez had removed from April Clare’s script in the theatre? The Spaniard had met no one since he left the Sans Pareil and Magdalena said that Gomez had gone straight into the study and locked the door before he shot himself.
‘He must have put the list down somewhere. Help me check the desk and the rest of the room,’ Lavender said.
Ignoring the corpse, which still lay on the carpet, they checked every shelf, ledge and tabletop in the room. Woods rummaged through the waste bin and Lavender rolled over the body to check the piece of paper wasn’t trapped beneath.
When Menendez returned, Lavender was trying and failing to open the locked drawers of the desk. ‘I have sent for an undertaker,�
� Menendez said. Lavender nodded brusquely. Everything about Menendez irritated him, from the man’s bored and drawling voice to the sardonic glint in his arrogant eyes. ‘Are you looking for something, gentlemen?’ the Spaniard asked.
‘What was your relationship with Don Gabriel?’ Lavender asked.
‘As I have already told you, Detective, he was my tenant.’
‘For how long?’
Menendez shrugged. ‘A few months. He needed lodgings and I was happy to assist such a talented artist. He was a fine singer; we always enjoyed his performances at the theatre.’
‘But this is not his room?’
‘Well, no,’ Menendez said. ‘The room he rents from us is upstairs. This is my study.’
‘Why did he come in here to shoot himself?’
Menendez raised his eyebrows and gave Lavender a disparaging look. ‘I have no idea. It was probably because this is where I keep my pistol.’
‘This is your weapon?’ Woods held up the pistol he had retrieved from the floor.
‘Yes,’ Menendez said. ‘I keep it behind those books.’ He pointed towards a row of red classics on a shelf of the bookcase. ‘Don Gabriel knew this.’
‘Why would he use your pistol to kill himself?’
Menendez shrugged again. ‘You do ask the most obscure questions, Detective. I presume he used my pistol because he didn’t have one of his own. And like me, he wasn’t privy to the knowledge that Doña Magdalena secretes one in her petticoats. Presumably he thought it was the only weapon in the house.’
He glanced up sharply as Woods tried to force open another one of the drawers in the desk. ‘There is no point trying to open those drawers, Constable.’ Menendez patted the breast of his coat. ‘I keep the key on me at all times – and they’re locked now. Whatever it is you’re looking for, it won’t be in the desk.’
The Sans Pareil Mystery (The Detective Lavender Mysteries Book 2) Page 26
