by Death
I tried to keep the report as clear as possible, but even as I told it my own questions kept tumbling out.
‘I don’t understand why Mr Reed was making money from a Frenchman. And were the missing papers related to the transaction with this person?’
Davenport rubbed his temples.
‘I’m not sure, Miss Hardwicke, I’m not even sure that we’ll ever find out.’
‘I thought that his waistcoat might have been from Paris. Would this business have concerned sales of cloth, perhaps?’
‘Tell me again, tell me what the man said about Paris. Precisely, if you can.’
I closed my eyes and tried to shut out the noise of the people around us.
‘He said that Mr Reed had met someone in London whom he had known in Paris and that this person was going to give him, no pay him, a lot of money.’
I opened my eyes and he was smiling.
‘What is it?’ I said.
‘Is that exactly what he said?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then the person Mr Reed was meeting was not French. Or not necessarily so.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Mr Reed had met someone in London whom he had known in Paris. If he had travelled to Paris as an Englishman, then so have many others. People do travel to France, you know.’
‘I know that.’ I, like the gingerbread man, had assumed Mr Reed was meeting a Frenchman, someone from Paris. But what if we had it wrong? Perhaps he was meeting a fellow traveller? Another thought struck me.
‘He said person. Not man, but person. Mr Reed might have been meeting a woman who was paying him money.’
‘True.’ He took a mouthful of beer. ‘Tell me more about the other people at the party. I’ve met Bridgewater – or Tommy as he’s known – but who were the others?’
I hesitated. ‘We don’t normally like to talk about our guests.’
‘I’m not interested in their tastes. I only want to know who was there. And what about the women? Might any of them, for example, have been to Paris?’
For all I knew any of them could have been.
‘There were four of us from the Berwick Street house. I have never been to Paris, and I doubt if any of the others have. Except Sydney.’
‘Sydney?’
‘Our doorman. He wasn’t in the house earlier, which was unusual. You didn’t meet him, but he’s French.’
‘Is he now?’ He was interested.
‘But I don’t think Mr Reed would have had dealings with Sydney. Why would he?’
‘Why indeed? Who knows what a cloth merchant and a brothel bully would have in common – apart from a shared acquaintance with your house?’
‘He’s not a bully,’ I said, frowning at him. ‘At least, not like the usual ones. Mrs Farley insists on calling him a doorman. He’s tall and strong and he’s perfectly capable of throwing out violent men and blacking someone’s eye if needs be, but he’s not aggressive. I can’t see him strangling a man, either. Oh…!’
‘What?’
‘I’ve just remembered, Mrs Farley lived in Paris once. With the late Mr Farley – if there ever really was a Mr Farley. She models her house on those she saw there. That’s why we’ve got such an elegant and exotic doorman. It’s why we are all so very respectable compared with other establishments.’
He dismissed this comment.
‘So, there’s one woman who’s been to Paris, at least. And your so-called doorman. What of the others at the party?’
‘I have no idea about the girls who came from Mrs Hardy’s. I could ask them. And there were about a dozen men, of whom I spent time with four: Mr Reed and Mr Stanford you know of, Mr Herring and Mr Winchcombe came with Charles. It was those three who tumbled Mr Reed out onto the street for Mrs Farley, along with Tommy Bridgewater.’
‘That’s interesting. Tommy Bridgewater swears that he didn’t know Reed, even though Reed called his name. Was Reed acquainted with any of the others?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t think he knew anyone except me when he arrived. It would have been difficult to tell, anyway, as we were all wearing masks – apart from Tommy and Amelia.’
‘Why not them?’
‘They weren’t invited. They should have stayed upstairs and out of the way, but Amelia came down to see what was happening and that’s when Mr Reed caught sight of her and began to be unpleasant.’
‘And everyone, men and women, wore masks, except those two?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Why the masks? What’s that about?’
‘It’s something Mrs Farley picked up in Paris. Masked balls were all the rage there a few years ago, but they’re not so common here. It adds to the mystery and the elegance of the evening.’ I winked at him. ‘To say nothing of the excitement. The masks stay on, even when the clothes fall off.’
‘Paris, again.’
A girl was leading a laughing man up the stairs. He watched them with a wistful expression until they disappeared.
‘I think,’ he looked back at me again, ‘I think that you should speak to the gentlemen and find out whether they have been to Paris, and whether any of them had met Reed before.’
‘Why me?’
‘You want to help, don’t you? I’ve got other matters to attend to. Mr Reed’s death is not the only crime in London and we don’t have enough men to hand.’ He dropped some coins on the table and stood up. ‘I’d better be going.’
‘You’re going home?’
‘Not yet. I discovered the whereabouts of Mr Reed’s lodgings. He was staying with a couple called Groves. Respectable people,’ he added, unnecessarily. ‘Mr Groves is a butcher.’
‘You’re going to see them now?’ It was getting late and respectable people would be locking up for the night in an hour or so.
‘Grimshaw told them I’d be around.’
I shuddered, remembering the scowling face and wide shoulders.
‘Is Mr Grimshaw already there?’
‘Not tonight. Mr Fielding has sent him and a couple of others to a warehouse off the Strand. Apparently, it’s full of stolen property that needs to be returned to the rightful owners.’ He finished his beer. ‘But the men who are currently looking after it are not going to be happy about that. We’re wondering if they have anything to tell us about Swann’s gang.’
There would be a fight. No wonder Jack Grimshaw was going.
‘I could come with you instead, then,’ I said. ‘I’d like to see where Mr Reed was lodging.’
He was taken aback. It was a bold request; I knew that and assumed he would refuse. He chewed the inside of his lip as he thought for a moment.
‘Very well,’ he said. ‘You may come with me.’ I stood before he could change his mind. He shoved his hat firmly on his head. ‘Just stay close to me and keep your mouth shut. And remember: I ask the questions.’
Chapter Seventeen
We walked quickly up the street for several paces before he slowed down a little. William Davenport was a man who walked in order to arrive at places; he did not saunter or peer about at his surroundings. He was uninterested in food sellers and paid no heed to their melancholy cries offering us sustenance. He didn’t appear to notice the cluster of thin grey children sleeping underneath a broken cart at the side of the path, or the half-naked woman in the window above them, lighting a small candle – the better to display her wares to the gentlemen who walked more slowly, looking for precisely those delights.
But he was alert; leading us confidently to our destination. We turned down several streets into an area near to Golden Square that was quiet and relatively free of squalor. He found the door of a decent-looking property. It was large, but neat and not at all showy.
‘This is it.’ He hammered hard on the wood.
A thin-faced woman in a plain cap opened the door to us. She was not old, but she looked like a woman with a life that was hard even if it was comfortable.
‘What do you want at this time of night?’ Anxious eyes
flitted up and down the street, as if she were expecting robbers and murderers to be running up and down it. It seemed a quiet enough place to me.
‘William Davenport, from the magistrate at Bow Street, mistress. I think you’re expecting me? This is Miss Lizzie Hardwicke,’ his voice faded, unable to explain me or my presence any further.
She looked at me, taking in everything she needed to form her own conclusions. ‘We don’t rent rooms by the hour, whoever you are.’ She lifted her pointy chin at us, as though she had just said something very daring.
‘We’re not here for a room. As my colleague told you, I’d like to speak with Mr Groves about a murder.’
At that her face changed. She became flustered again, twittering like a little bird.
‘Come in, please. Do forgive me. It’s such dreadful, dreadful news and I am quite shaken by it. I’ll call my husband.’ She pulled us in and cried up the stairway. ‘John! John! The constable’s come about Mr Reed.’
We heard grumbles and mutters from the floor above and then a man slumped down the stairs to us with the nimbleness of a large pig.
‘Well, let him into the back room, Susan.’ He shooed us along the hallway to a dismal room. He offered us a seat around a wooden table while Susan fussed about lighting as many candles as she could find and bringing a jug of beer to the table in jittery hands before sitting down uncertainly.
‘You rented a room to Mr George Reed, I understand.’ Davenport declined the beer. ‘Have you found a new tenant since he died?’
‘Not as yet. I’m hopeful; it’s a good room.’
We were in luck.
‘I’d be glad to see Mr Reed’s possessions, before you clear them, if you don’t mind, sir.’
Mr Groves scratched at a hairy ear.
‘I’m not sure I can agree to that. It don’t seem right, you going through his things. He left them here, you know.’
Mr Groves wanted to pick over them himself. He would, like any man of sense, sell whatever he could.
Davenport looked thoughtful.
‘Mr Reed was a visitor to London, sir. We haven’t been able to find his relatives and I’m hoping to find something that will lead us to his home in Norwich.’
‘Yes, he was from Norwich,’ Susan cut in. ‘Something in cloth, from what he said to me. My sister’s in Norwich.’
‘He was a cloth merchant; here on business,’ Davenport nodded to her. ‘But there may be people expecting him home and, apart from knowing the city he hailed from, we have no way of knowing who they might be. I’d be most grateful to see his room.’
I could see the sympathy beginning to rise in Susan’s face. He was clever, Mr Davenport.
‘You won’t take nothing?’ Mr Groves’ fat face was still contorted with the thought we would carry away his loot.
‘You can come up with us and make sure, if you like,’ Davenport said, ‘but I don’t plan on removing anything of value – unless such items would belong more properly to his relations.’
I saw Susan shoot a wary glance at her husband. His mouth tightened a little but, clearly weighing up the situation, he nodded.
‘All right. I’ll take you up.’ He heaved his frame out of the chair. ‘Susan, we’ll need those candles.’
Susan handed a light to Davenport and another to me, carrying one for her husband, before leading us up the stairs.
‘We rent out the room for a bit of extra money,’ she said as we climbed, her reedy little voice offering me an explanation. ‘John’s work at the butcher’s is not always regular. And he’s not so well these days.’
Overeating, probably.
John cleared his throat noisily behind us. Susan took the hint and we reached Mr Reed’s room in silence.
The room was small and simply furnished, but it was not shabby. There was a low bed with a truckle underneath it, and an empty pot, a table and a straight-backed chair for writing, a cupboard for clothes, and a stand with a jug and bowl. A small mirror hung next to the cupboard, and the curtain at the window looked new, but apart from that there was no decoration or colour. There were no paintings on the walls. For a shrewd man of business, like Reed, this place had offered a good location for what I guessed was a minimal cost. I wondered aloud why he had chosen to rent a room like this, rather than stay at an inn.
‘I think he liked it here,’ Susan said, planting the candles on the table in the corner and patting the bed cover with a touch of pride. ‘He said that he appreciated the quietness as he attended to his business.’
‘Better than the noise of comings and goings he would have had at an inn, I suppose,’ I said. She nodded. Well, he had sought some excitement outside these four walls, certainly.
I lifted my light as Davenport entered with John Groves.
‘Here you are then,’ said Mr Groves between gulping breaths. ‘It’s how he left it.’
‘You’ve not touched anything?’ Davenport looked about.
‘Not a thing. It’s all got to be cleared tomorrow morning. I think his chest is behind the door.’
‘Was he planning to stay for a long time?’
Mr Groves shook his head.
‘He was happy enough to keep on with the rent, but he said he was returning to Norwich shortly.’ That was what he had said to me too. ‘He wanted to keep the room here for when he came to London. He told me that his business was expanding and he needed to be here from time to time.’
‘How long had he been your lodger?’ I asked.
‘Less than a week,’ Susan cut in. ‘He was such a good lodger for us too. A man of means, pleasant manners, very quiet and able to pay us promptly. The money was very useful to us.’
Her husband frowned at her and her shoulders sagged.
‘I’d like to look at his possessions, please.’ Davenport was keen to poke about – as was I.
Mr Groves shrugged and gestured towards the cupboard.
‘There’s not much. He was a modest gentleman.’
‘He didn’t seem that modest to me,’ I muttered to Davenport.
‘Well, as we know, he was wearing a fine waistcoat and his purse is missing,’ he said, keeping his voice low, ‘there can’t be much left to find.’
‘Except his papers.’
‘Indeed.’
Davenport opened the cupboard and began rummaging through the shirts and coats. I took a candle and pulled the truckle cot from under the bed. Neither of us found anything of significance. The chest was full of more folded clothes and shoes, all of which were of good quality, but nothing else.
The table in the corner promised more. We found a writing set designed for travelling traders: a neat pen, a small inkhorn, and a pile of paper, unmarked and wrapped with a pale ribbon. An old newspaper hid a well-thumbed copy of Fanny Hill that fell open at his favourite pages. Small wonder he had been so greedy for young Amelia Blackwood. Apart from that there was nothing to tell us about him.
‘No papers, Miss Hardwicke,’ Davenport noted.
‘Then he really must have been carrying them. He was most particular about the packet.’
‘He was always scribbling something or other,’ said John Groves, from the doorway. ‘He would be keen to get to his desk whenever he was in.’
‘He was up early writing in the morning,’ Susan agreed.
‘May I take these spare sheets of paper?’ Davenport turned to Mr Groves. ‘They’re not worth much, but I can give you something for your trouble.’
Susan looked like she was about to say that it was no trouble at all, but her husband, mentally inventing the value of six or seven small sheets, said that Mr Davenport was a very obliging gentleman.
‘We still have no idea about his home, or family,’ I said, as Davenport fished a coin from his coat.
‘I don’t think there was a Mrs Reed,’ said John Groves, hand closing over the money. ‘He never mentioned a family, neither. But you never know.’
‘He told me that his business was in the very centre of Norwich,’ Susan said, her
eyes squinting as she recalled a conversation that, at the time, had probably seemed unimportant; the sort of general chit-chat you make with a person you’ve only just met. ‘Next to the Guildhall, I think he said. I imagine that if you were to go there you would find people that knew him. If he really was that worthy a gentleman as he told us.’
Well, that was the question, wasn’t it?
Davenport looked thoughtful for a moment. He was weighing something in his head.
‘I think,’ he said, ‘I think it would be useful to send a man to Norwich. Yes, I’ll see if I can find someone to send over.’
It would take more than a day to ride there, nearer two, but the roads had just been relieved of one highwayman. Still, Fielding’s men were stretched, as he had told me. I couldn’t see the magistrate sparing a man for such an excursion.
‘Come, Miss Hardwicke, I’ll escort you home.’
‘Thank you. I think that would be very kind.’ With a man by my side I wouldn’t be pestered. Very soon, the house would be opening its doors to the sort of gentlemen who wanted exactly the same as the pests, but who would pay more for it.
We said farewell to Mr Groves and his anxious wife and went back into the chill of the night. The small fires along the roadside gave precious little light, let alone heat. I pulled the cloak around my neck as we picked our way in silence along the squalid streets.
Chapter Eighteen
When we reached the house, I could see something was out of place on the doorstep. There was a crumpled body lying outside the front door. A small body in a pink gown, singing quietly to itself, out of tune. I groaned.
Sallie had not been sober enough to find her way back to Bess and Kitty’s place, but she had been able to recall that I lived on Berwick Street. And for reasons known only to her gin-addled mind, she had decided to come and find me. I was in enough trouble with Ma already; if she discovered that this filthy, drunken scrap was anything to do with me, I would be looking for a new home.
