Murder in St. Giles

by Jennifer Ashley

  Shaddock lifted his glass to us. “Your health, Captain.” After we drank, he said, “Why’d you look me up, Tommy? Thinking of returning to the game?” He did not look hopeful.

  “Saw young Geoffrey Oliver in town,” Brewster said. “Scrapped with him. He’s got promise.”

  “Aye, a bonny fighter is Geoff.” Shaddock looked wistful. “Were I a younger man, I’d take him and show him off all over. As it is, he’s had to find his own way, poor lad.”

  “He was with a bookmaker, an unscrupulous one,” I said. “Though I believe that partnership is now dissolved.”

  “Bastard ran off with the money, did he?” Shaddock returned his gaze to the window. “Like a magpie, he was. Wanted everything shiny for himself.”

  “You know him?” I asked.

  Mrs. Shaddock answered for him. “Mr. White. Can’t be his real name. He comes round wanting Mr. S. to train lads to stage their fights, choose who wins and loses, so Mr. White can make a packet. Says he’ll share the punters’ money with us—a tiny percentage, you understand. Lion’s share goes to him for arranging it.”

  “One reason prize fighting was made illegal,” Brewster put in.

  The other was that the combatants sometimes died or were crippled for life, and also because young gentlemen ruined themselves completely with the wagering. Not that this had made the wagering cease.

  “Beggars like White ruin the sport,” Shaddock spluttered, then he brightened. “Why don’t you take Oliver in hand, Tommy? Show him off, let him come into his own as he deserves.”

  Brewster considered this for the span of a heartbeat. “Already have a job.” He jerked his thumb at me. “Looking after this one.”

  Shaddock scowled. “Working for a criminal, you mean. You were one of me best, lad. What happened to ye?”

  Brewster did not look abashed. “Mr. Denis gave me work when no one else would bother. If not for him, I’d a’ seen the gallows a long time ago. Don’t need the thieving when I have a nice lot of cash to take home to me wife. All I have to do now is keep the captain’s bones whole—which ain’t as easy as it sounds, believe me.”

  Shaddock pinned him with a severe gaze. “Thieving’s what ruined you in the first place. Ye could have made us all a pile with me exhibiting you. You could have your own training school now or set up like Jackson to teach moves to the toffs. ‘Gentleman,’ my arse. He ain’t no more a gentleman than me or you.”

  “That’s as may be, but I have a wife to keep and no wish to grub for me living.”

  Shaddock deflated. “Aye, well, it’s an old argument, and a reason we fell out in the first place. I’m happy ye came back to me. We’re too old for all this now. Friends again?”

  “’Course.” Brewster’s eyes flickered, as though he wanted to say more, but he shook the hand Shaddock offered him. “You might have had the right of it, but nothing for it.”

  “You were never a patient lad,” Shaddock said. “Talented, but restless. Ah well, I have wisdom now, but you see me reduced to chasing the crafty birds out of my seeds. I’m trying to bring up some summer squash and runner beans so Mrs. S. don’t have to run all the way to the market every day. She’s a dab hand with the cooking, is Mrs. S.”

  Mrs. S. flushed. “Go on with ye now.”

  They were comfortable with each other, enviably so. I wondered whether Donata and I would ever be as they were.

  The thought reminded me of Donata’s flight, and my anger and fear came at me all over again.

  “I wanted to meet you not only for Brewster’s sake,” I said, trying to keep to the matter at hand. “But to ask you a theoretical question. Could an untrained man—or woman—bring down a larger man? Enough to drive a knife into him?”

  “Certainly he could, if that untrained man was wily enough,” Shaddock answered. “You don’t have to be large to win a fight, just strong, fast, and clever. It’s how Danny Mendoza, a middleweight, won the championship for heavyweights. I had the devil of a time teaching Tommy not to rely on his size.” He took a drink of ale. “Why? Who’s had a knife driven into him?”

  “Me wife’s brother,” Brewster said. “Jack Finch.”

  I had let my eye stray out the window to the space of garden. Shaddock’s skill—despite Mrs. Shaddock’s disparagement—showed in what looked like rows of lettuce or other greens, neatly hoed, next to the straight furrows of wet earth where the birds happily feasted.

  I became aware of a heavy silence behind me. I turned to see both Shaddocks staring at Brewster. Shaddock’s face was such a deep shade of gray I sprang forward to catch him and lower him into a chair.

  Mrs. Shaddock rushed from the room, but she was back in an instant with a glass of brandy she shoved under her husband’s nose.

  Brewster remained firmly planted where he’d been, his eyes narrowing. “So, you knew Finchie, did ye? What was he to you that his passing gives ye such a jolt?”

  Chapter 11

  Lord help me. Jack Finch.” Shaddock wheezed and took another gulp of brandy. “Dead and gone. Thank the Lord. An answer to a prayer, that.”

  “What you on about?” Brewster demanded. “Ye never told me ye knew ’im.”

  Mrs. Shaddock stood straight, anger in her eyes. “We didn’t—not when you was around. Finchie came later. Threatening us. Wanting money. Blackmailing, cheating, thug he was. Dead, is he? Happy to hear it.”

  “Everyone knew Finch, Captain,” Shaddock said, his voice faint. “He had bookmakers under his thumb, trainers and fighters terrified. For years, when he’d show up at a match, we knew there’d be trouble. Like Mr. White, he’d demand for us to throw fights, but with Mr. White it’s a choice—he smiles and walks away if you won’t. Finchie would have the lads waylaid and beaten until we learned our lesson. Or he’d have us start the fights in the streets and then demand we pay more not to have the law come down on us. You know only exhibition fighting is legal now, Captain, but we must make ends meet. Finchie gave the Watch and Runners backhanders to arrest those he accused and let others go. Shared the conviction money with them.”

  Shaddock shrank into himself, smaller than ever.

  “If he was that awful, it’s curious I’d never heard of the man,” I mused. “I attend pugilist matches, but have never noticed him.”

  “You attend with gentlemen,” Shaddock corrected me. “Your lot have matches with rules and referees. So very polite. It’s different when you’re taking your lads around trying to make a living. We hope they move up to the Fancy, where a gentleman might sponsor them, but mostly, it’s matches wherever we can get away with them.” He drew a thin breath. “In any case, Finchie up and disappeared about five year ago. We hoped that was the last we’d see of him. And now he’s dead. Thanks be to God.” It was a fervent prayer.

  “Five years ago, I was being invalided out of the army,” I said. “And apparently Finch was arrested and sent to the hulks to await transportation. Which also explains why I never heard about him. I wonder if he tried to blackmail the wrong man.”

  “A toff, maybe,” Brewster suggested. “Or a Runner what didn’t like being told what to do.”

  I could imagine Pomeroy cheerfully taking Finch’s money for looking the other way, and then arresting Finch in the next breath. Spendlove would arrest Finch on the spot for simply offering him a bribe. Perhaps Spendlove got wind of Finch’s corruption and swooped in for the kill.

  “He’s dead and gone now,” Brewster said, reaching down to squeeze Shaddock’s shoulder with a gentle hand. “Rest easy, old friend.”

  “Let’s hope his secrets died with him.” Shaddock gulped more brandy, and he wouldn’t tell us what he meant.

  We left the Shaddocks—Mrs. Shaddock hovering over her shocked husband—and rolled back toward town.

  “I’m off to Bow Street,” I said to Brewster as the carriage rattled through Temple Bar to the Strand. “You might wish to absent yourself.”

  Brewster looked aggrieved and asked to be dropped at Covent Garden and the marketplace. L
east he could do was bring poor Em the shopping, he said.

  “Can you find out for me where my cousin Marcus is staying?” I asked him as he stepped down from the hackney. “Denis notwithstanding, I’d like to be able to put my hands on him if need be.”

  Brewster sent me a pained look but nodded. “I’ll turn him up.” He put a large hand on the open carriage door, ignoring the impatience of the coachman. “You stay whole and don’t go wandering off on your own. Remember who gets trounced if you’re hurt.” He slammed the door and backed away. “Cor, I’m a bleeding nanny,” I heard him mutter before the coach rumbled on.

  The Bow Street magistrate’s house, a tall edifice near the bulk of Covent Garden Theatre, was crowded, as usual, with the arrested men and women of the night waiting to see the magistrate.

  Pomeroy was in—very much so. I saw as I ducked inside past thieves and game girls that he had two men by the backs of their necks and was hauling them toward the courtroom.

  The doors of this chamber were open, the room within crammed with those standing before the magistrate and those watching or waiting their turn. The magistrate sat on his dais to hand out quick judgments—sentences for lesser crimes or remanding those committing the greater—robbery, murder—to Newgate to wait for trial.

  “These two decided to beat down a young lady and have their way with her,” Pomeroy roared to me as he passed. “On my patch. Said they thought she were a game girl. As though that would make a difference to me. They’ll have the noose when I’m done with them.”

  The sorry specimens, still half drunk, looked pathetic and small in Pomeroy’s large hands. I climbed the stairs to Pomeroy’s room to wait until the magistrate decided the men’s fates. Thankfully, I did not see Spendlove, and I hoped that Runner was far across the country pursuing villains.

  Timothy Spendlove was determined to find a way to get his hooks into me, in order to use me to destroy Denis. These days, however, I believed he’d be happy to see me in the dock for my own sake. I’d outmaneuvered him so far, but Spendlove was a ruthless man.

  Pomeroy returned in a surprisingly short time. “They’re off to Newgate, the pair of them,” he said in the hearty voice with which he’d dressed down soldiers during the Peninsular War. “Don’t feel too sorry for them, Captain. You didn’t see the girl they had at. She might live, or she might die, and might never walk again if she does live.” He traded his jovial expression for one of frightening grimness. “They might not last until their trials. Even hardened murderers don’t like them as hurt little girls. I leave the lads to their fate. Now then, Captain, what ye want?”

  “Jack Finch.”

  “Oh, yes?” Pomeroy sat behind his desk with a thump. “I’ll never forgive you for taking that murder to another magistrate’s house, Captain. After all we’ve been through together. Should be my conviction, not Quimby’s. The Governess we call him, because he’s so prim and proper.”

  “He seems competent,” I said.

  “Oh, he is that,” Pomeroy admitted grudgingly. “I complained to my magistrate, but he says let the Governess investigate. But I’m still hurt.”

  “I apologize, Sergeant, but if I’d come to you, I’d even now be trying to spring Brewster from Newgate. Mr. Quimby at least had the decency to ascertain Brewster didn’t do it, instead of immediately arresting him.”

  “It’s by no means certain he didn’t do it.” Pomeroy’s cheerfulness returned. “I’ve read what Quimby so carefully wrote up about the crime. All he’s decided is the man were killed by a knife, not the beating, which Mr. Brewster admits he did do. Don’t mean Mr. Brewster didn’t stick the knife into Finch when he came back, and then ran off and told you the man had been murdered. Mr. Brewster has a colorful past. And present.”

  I knew full well Pomeroy had a point. “Precisely why I did not seek you,” I said.

  Pomeroy folded his hands on his desk, the backs of them covered with pale hair. “I bang up those who might have done a crime because they so often have done it. Once they’re in Newgate, I know they’re safely stashed while I collect the evidence to convict. Don’t have to worry about them running off out of the country. If I find as I investigate that they didn’t do it, or I lay my hands on the right bloke, then I let the innocent man go.” He gave me a comfortable nod.

  “’Course, those I arrest are never entirely innocent,” he continued. “I only lock up a bad man what’s done something. If I can get them on the crime in question, well and good. If I can’t find anyone else what done it or any reason they should be let off, well then, I know I ain’t sending a good man to the gallows. They’re paying for something else as bad they done in the past. I’ve never thrown a true innocent to the wolves.”

  Justice according to Milton Pomeroy. I could see his logic, and also his flaws, but decided not to argue.

  “Do you know much about Finch?” I asked. “He apparently was terrorizing street fighters while you and I were battling in Portugal and Spain, and was convicted five years ago, according to Mr. Quimby.”

  “Oh, aye. I started asking about him as soon as I got word you were interested in his death. Mr. Spendlove had been after him a long time, even before he became a Runner. Spendlove learned his trade chasing the man, you might say. Finch was a famous pugilist in his own time, a heavyweight and a champion. But a right bastard, by all accounts. Let him be dead, and give a medal to whoever killed him, is the consensus.”

  “I would,” I said. “But I don’t want Brewster to be sacrificed for the crime.”

  Pomeroy looked aggrieved. “You are softhearted for a hard criminal, Captain. Will get you killed one day. Spendlove finally got to Finch in the end. He were tried for robbery with violence—don’t know whether that were the actual crime he were doing when Spendlove nicked him, but that’s what he stood trial for. Judge couldn’t be convinced to hang him, but Finch did get sent off to the hulks and then Van Diemen’s Land to work himself to death.” Pomeroy shuddered. “Hanging’s quicker and kinder, if you ask me. Spendlove says judge was in Finch’s pay, or at least in fear of him. He sentenced transportation to hard labor right quick, soon as the jury returned. Good riddance, sounds like.”

  “And yet, he turned up again,” I said.

  Pomeroy laced his hands behind his head. “Wager he extorted his way back, threatening and bullying. But now he’s dead. Ah, well. Don’t have to worry about him hurting anyone again.”

  “Do you have any idea who could have killed him?” I persisted. “Apart from Brewster, I mean.”

  “Who’s to say? Bloke from the prison who escaped with him? His fellow passengers on his journey back? One of his victims in London? His sisters? His woman, if he had one?” Pomeroy studied the ceiling as he ran through the list. “I like the idea of his woman. Ladies can always be relied upon to go after a man they think has betrayed them. Or maybe a pugilist forced to throw a match because of him. Fighters don’t like to pretend they ain’t the best.”

  “A wide field then,” I said glumly.

  “Your Mr. Quimby will narrow that down.” Pomeroy propped his feet on his desk, his muddy boots making short work of the papers there. “If I find anything, I might tell ya, or I might keep it to meself. If I discover the man what done it first, the reward is mine. If Governess Quimby finds him, then …” He spread his hands. “I will concede the contest. And you can stand me several pints to make it up to me.”

  The hackney had waited for me at the corner, the driver passing the time with coachmen from other hired hacks. I asked him to take me to Berkeley Square.

  I ought to have been relieved I was journeying to a more civilized part of town, but I’d learned in my brief years in London that Mayfair was only civilized in its veneer. The beautiful mansions that rose along Piccadilly and the streets leading to the stately squares held plenty of corruption and men capable of violence.

  By the time I reached Lady Aline’s in the middle of Berkeley Square, it was one in the afternoon.

  The lady was awake, her
maid told me, when I plied the door knocker, and she would inquire whether she would see me. But after I waited about a quarter of an hour in a reception room, sipping port Lady Aline kept stocked for gentlemen callers, the maid returned with a note for me.

  I am hardly fit to be seen, dear boy. But if you call this evening, you can take me to the theatre. Turn up precisely at eight. A

  At eight pm, dressed in my finest, I duly arrived and handed Lady Aline Carrington, a stout woman of fifty-five and proud of her spinster status, into Donata’s landau. I took the seat across from her, facing rearward as was polite. Lady Aline’s gowns were made to flatter her large figure, the sumptuous velvets and fluttering silk drawing the eye from her ample features, and tonight she was resplendent in silver and green.

  This lady, left very wealthy by a wise father and given use of the Berkeley Square house by her brother, a marquis, had proposals every Season by smitten suitors, but she turned them all down.

  “I am well provided for,” Lady Aline would say. “And my brother is kind to me. Why do I need the bother of a husband?”

  “You’ll be wanting to know about Donata,” Aline said as we rolled off toward Covent Garden, the feathers in her headdress waving. “Well, I shall tell you all, but after we arrive.”

  She turned to gossip about the ton, and I had to retain my composure and let her chatter.

  It took some time to make our way through Piccadilly and Leicester Square to Long Acre and then to the theatre, and I chafed at every delay. Once we arrived, I handed Lady Aline out of the coach, and we ascended through the crowd to Donata’s box.

  We found it already occupied by Lucius Grenville, and with him, Marianne Simmons, resplendent in the best Parisian finery.

  “Ah, you’ve brought him.” Grenville rose to greet us, flushed with eagerness as he shook my hand. “Forgive the underhanded method, but you are confounded difficult to run to ground.” He slid his arm around Marianne, who’d risen beside him, and every lorgnette in the theatre flashed our way. “Do tell me everything, and I’ll reveal what I have found out myself.”