by Robin Paige
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE - ANARCHISTS ESCAPE PRISON VAN! DANGEROUS PAIR AT LARGE IN ...
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
AUTHORS’ NOTES
REFERENCES
Praise for Death at Glamis Castle
“Gypsy prophecies, singalongs at the pub, a possible ghost or two: There’s something for everyone. And if you don’t fall in love with Glamis Castle, you haven’t a wee dram o’ romance in your soul.”—Kirkus Reviews
Death at Dartmoor
“A fantasia on themes from The Hound of the Baskervilles whose focus on the Sheridans shows an altogether more lighthearted side of the moors than Doyle ever revealed.”—Kirkus Reviews
Death at Epsom Downs
“Enough danger and intrigue to keep readers turning the pages, which are filled with vivid historical detail.”—Booklist
“Readers who like their historical mysteries on the lighter side will find much to enjoy here.”—Publishers Weekly
More praise for Robin Paige’s Victorian Mysteries
“I read it with enjoyment . . . I found myself burning for the injustices of it, and caring what happened to the people.”
—Anne Perry
“Wonderfully gothic . . . A bright and lively re-creation of late-Victorian society.”—Sharan Newman
“An original and intelligent sleuth . . . a vivid re-creation of Victorian England.”—Jean Hager, author of Blooming Murder
“Robin Paige’s detectives do for turn-of-the-century technology and detection what Elizabeth Peters’s Peabody and Emerson have done for Victorian Egyptology.”—Gothic Journal
And don’t miss these other Victorian Mysteries by Robin Paige
Death at Bishop’s Keep
... in which our detectives Kate Ardleigh
and Sir Charles Sheridan meet for the first time
as they are drawn into a lurid conspiracy . . .
Death at Gallows Green
...in which two mysterious deaths bring Kate
and Sir Charles together once more
to solve the secrets of Gallows Green . . .
Death at Daisy’s Folly
... in which Charles and Kate discover
that even the highest levels of society are
no refuge from the lowest of deeds—
such as murder . . .
Death at Devil’s Bridge
...in which newlyweds Charles and Kate Sheridan
begin their lives at Bishop’s Keep—only to find
a new mystery right in their own backyard . . .
Death at Rottingdean
...in which a seaside holiday for Charles and Kate
becomes a working vacation when the body of a
coast guard is discovered on the beach
of Smuggler’s Village . . .
Death at Whitechapel
...in which a friend of the Sheridans is blackmailed—
by someone who claims to have proof
that her son’s father was none other
than the notorious Jack the Ripper . .
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario M4V 3B2, Canada
(a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)
Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia
(a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)
Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India
Penguin Group (NZ), Cnr. Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand
(a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196,
South Africa
Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
DEATH IN HYDE PARK
A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the authors
Copyright © 2004 by Susan Wittig Albert and William J. Albert.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form
without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials in
violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
eISBN : 978-0-425-20113-8
Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
The name BERKLEY PRIME CRIME and the BERKLEY PRIME CRIME design are trademarks
belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
http://us.penguingroup.com
CAST OF MAJOR CHARACTERS * indicates historical persons
Charles, Lord Sheridan, Baron Somersworth
Lady Kathryn Ardleigh Sheridan, aka Beryl Bardwell
*Jack London, American adventure writer
Nellie Lovelace (Ellie Wurtz), actress
Bradford Marsden, investment promoter
Officials, Police, and Agents
Inspector Earnest Ashcraft, Special Branch, Scotland Yard
*Sergeant Charles Collins, fingerprint expert, Scotland Yard
*Fredrick Ponsonby, assistant secretary to King Edward VII
Dmitri Tropov, alias Vladimir Rasnokov, member of Russia Ochrana (Czar’s secret police)
Captain Steven Wells, Intelligence Branch, War Office
Anarchists, Trade Unionists
Charlotte Conway, editor of the Anarchist Clarion
Sybil Conway, Charlotte Conway’s mother
Adam Gould, Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants
Ivan Kopinski, Russian Anarchist
Yuri Messenko, Hyde Park bomber
Pierre Mouffetard, Fr
ench Anarchist
*Helen Rossetti, coauthor of A Girl Among the Anarchists
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way. . . .
Charles Dickens,
A Tale of Two Cities
CHAPTER ONE
With this sword do justice, stop the growth of iniquity, protect the Holy Church of God, help and defend widows and orphans, restore the things that are gone to decay, maintain the things that are restored, punish and reform what is amiss, and confirm what is in good order.
The Archibishop of Canterbury,
presenting the Sword of State to King Edward VII
at his coronation, 9 August 1902
Edward VII almost missed his coronation. The great event had already been postponed some eighteen months after Edward ascended Queen Victoria’s empty throne, primarily because of the ugly debacle of the Boer War. But at last the war dragged to its conclusion, and plans were made to crown the King and Queen on 26 June 1902. Heads of state from around the world began to converge on London; twenty-five hundred quail and three hundred legs of mutton were ordered for the Coronation banquet; the Peers took their Coronation robes out of storage and had them cleaned and aired; and the cavalry who were to participate in the parade polished their swords and buffed their golden buttons. The Empire was preparing for a grand exhibition of its power and glory.
The difficulty began some two weeks before the great event, when the King began to suffer severe nausea and abdominal pain. After a few days, his worried physicians brought Sir Frederick Treves into the case. Treves, perhaps best known for his association with the Elephant Man, had written and lectured on the difficult topic of appendicitis, or “perityphilitis,” as it was called. The first appendectomy had been performed in the United States some fifteen years earlier, but the operation was still considered novel, radical, and dangerous. Treves recommended surgery. Edward refused.
“I have a coronation on hand,” the King said testily.
Treves frowned at his sovereign. “It will be a funeral if you don’t have the operation, sir.”
At last, the King gave in, and the surgery, which required less than an hour, was carried out at Buckingham Palace. Since Edward was sixty-one, obese, a heavy drinker and smoker with a family history of gastric cancer, the prognosis was not particularly good. An anxious Empire waited in nail-biting suspense for the dreaded announcement that the King had died under the knife.
But Edward had a strong constitution and an even stronger will to live—after all, he had waited a great many years to ascend his mother’s throne—and he survived. His Coronation was rescheduled for August 9. And while some saw the King’s narrow escape as a dark omen for a reign already marred by a war that could not be won, others understood that it merely proved (as if proof were necessary) that Englishmen lived in the very best of all possible times, in the very best of all possible circumstances, and in the very best of all possible worlds.
It rained on August 9. The heavy gray skies wept over the great, gray city, and frequent showers chilled the August day. But the rain did nothing at all to quench the giddy exuberance of the vast throngs gathered to watch King Edward and Queen Alexandra make their triumphal progress, at last, to Westminster Abbey. The people had waited a long time for this day, and they did not intend to let a few showers spoil their celebration. And while the ceremonies were shorn of the glitter and glamor of foreign heads of state, most of whom had already gone home, the great day was still perfectly splendid—better, many said, because it was a family event rather than an Imperial gala. Thousands of British prelates, princes, and peers gathered to witness the crowning, while hundreds of thousands of British citizens noisily thronged the streets and filled windows along the route of the parade.
At eleven-fifteen in the morning, Edward and Alexandra were passing up St. James Street and through Trafalgar Square, their crystal and gilt coach drawn by eight superbly matched cream-colored horses preceded by an escort of the Royal Horse Guards. The crowd in the square roared when the coach came into sight, followed by ranks of glittering cavalry and foot soldiers, a broad stream of scarlet and gold flowing through the wet, gray streets. It was a demonstration of the Empire’s military prowess, perhaps designed to ease the sting of the recent military disgrace in South Africa, where England’s finest had been hard put to it to suppress a rabble of sixty thousand Boer farmers. But that humiliation was forgotten now. The people had come to see and to cheer the King and Queen, and cheer they did, at the tops of their lungs and with all their hearts.
Jack London, an American writer recently arrived in England, joined the throng. He couldn’t see much except for the backs of the double line of soldiers walling off the line of march, but between their shoulders he saw the gold coach bearing a man and a woman, both in the regal splendor of coronation robes.
“Gaw’ blimey, wot a splendid ol’ chap,” exclaimed a ragged, dirty man leaning on a stick. He dug his elbow blithely into Jack’s ribs and blew his beery breath into Jack’s face. “Ain’t ’e a rum un, eh? As fine a king as ever wore crown, is wot I sez. Too bad ’is ol’ mum kept ’im waitin’ so long to put it on ’is head.”
“An’ there be ’is Queen,” sighed the woman on Jack’s right, whose tattered gray shawl did nothing to shield her disheveled hair against the spitting rain. “A rare beauty, an’ ’er pushin’ sixty, if ye’d b’lieve it.” She heaved a gusty sigh. “Wisht I ’ad a few of ’er diamonds to put in me ’air. I’d glitter, I would.”
Jack London, gloomily calculating that just one of the Queen’s glittering jewels could provide enough to feed the one million subjects who would receive poor-law relief on that day, shook his head in disgust as the Royal coach clattered past. He had never witnessed such mumbo-jumbo tomfoolery, he would write later, except maybe in a Yankee circus. He shoved his chapped hands into the pockets of his ragged coat, lowered his capped head against the rain, and made off through the crowd.
Nearer Westminster, another group of spectators enjoyed a somewhat wider view. Bradford Marsden, his pretty wife Edith, and a dozen guests watched the procession from a high window, sipping champagne and eating fresh oysters. They applauded the crimson-and-gold tide, the ponies prancing, the drums drumming, the bugles bugling, all in a cacophonous celebration of wealth and power. The coronation, Marsden reflected with immense satisfaction, was an inspiring statement of the Empire’s indisputable authority and undeniable magnificence: Long might the Empire endure and prosper, and long might Bradford Marsden prosper with it. He smiled as he thought that the vantage point his guests were enjoying with such careless gaity would have put a hundred guineas a head into his pocket, had he been as hard up for a bit of ready as he’d been in the past—when he’d had to pawn his mother’s emeralds, for instance.
But time and tide had changed for the better, and Marsden was feeling happily flush. His family property and wealth, like that of many of the aristocracy, had vanished in the national decline of agricultural income, and Bradford, the last scion of the family branch, had been forced to fend for himself. Like other young aristocrats—Charles Rolls, for instance, the younger son of Lord Llangattock, was selling expensive motorcars; and Sir Harley Dalrymple-Hay, a baronet, was building underground lines in London—Bradford Marsden had turned his hand to commercial enterprises. He had formed a fortunate association with Cecil Rhodes’s gold mining enterprise in Rhodesia, married Rhodes’s goddaughter, and managed to come out of the war with a substantial profit in his pocket. In fact, his new investment business was doing well enough to allow him to purchase a house and furnish it stylishly, to dress his wife in a Worth gown, and to grace her elegant throat with several fine strands of mat
ched pearls.
Bradford slipped his arm around Edith’s waist and nuzzled her neck as the King’s coach came into view. For him, the Coronation was a celebration of all that was right with the world, and a promise of even better things to come.
Within Westminster Abbey, the spectacle was much more intimate and immediate, many of the spectators themselves a part of the pageant. In the transept, Kate Sheridan fidgeted on her hard wooden chair. Her coronation robe, last worn by a previous Baroness Somersworth at the crowning of Queen Victoria in 1838, was trimmed in two inches of miniver and two bars of ermine, with a yard-long train that she had found almost impossible to manage gracefully. Like the robes of the ladies around her, it smelt faintly of the camphor-chest, in spite of being aired. The bevy of duchesses, marchionesses, countesses, viscountessess, and baronesses were seated in strict order of precedence, their ranks signified by the quantity of miniver and ermine on their robes, the length of their trains, and the style of the coronets they would don upon the crowning of the Queen. They all, however, wore identical white elbow-length gloves. Later, when the King was asked what had impressed him most about the ceremony, he would answer with a glint in his eye that the simultaneous lifting of those graceful white arms as the ladies put on their coronets had reminded him of a scene from a beautiful ballet.
Kate, feeling very much an imposter among this exalted assembly, wished fervently that she could have been seated with her husband Charles. But Lord Sheridan, Baron Somersworth, sat among the other peers in the transept on the opposite side of the throne, where she could not even catch a glimpse of him. She suspected, though, that he was every bit as uncomfortable as she. Charles had attended the ceremony not because he wanted to, but solely out of a sense of duty and as a testimony to his respect for the King who had finally come into his own.
