Daughters of Night

by Laura Shepherd-Robinson

  Knox bowed, and then retreated discreetly to the table, where he attended to some papers while they talked.

  ‘Your brothers are well, I trust?’ Stone inquired.

  Caro inclined her head. ‘Mordechai attends to the bank, while Ambrose enjoys Switzerland this summer. Hunting game.’

  Stone grinned. ‘Bagging many a vixen, I don’t doubt.’

  Caro took the ring from her panniers. ‘I come here on a quest concerning lost property, Mr Stone. Yours, not mine. I found this ring, and I’m told it belongs to you.’

  Stone held it up between forefinger and thumb. ‘Goodness, what a sleuth-hound you are. Yes, the ring is mine – at least, I paid for its commission. How good of you to take the time to return it.’

  ‘I tracked you down through the jeweller, Mr Loredo. He tells me it is a copy of a much older piece.’

  ‘Here you see the original,’ Stone said, holding out his hand. ‘Mr Dodd-Bellingham dug it out of the ground at Pompeii. It had lain there in the ash for nearly two thousand years. I consider it one of the finest pieces in my collection.’

  ‘I was digging up a skeleton in the ruins of a bathhouse at the time,’ Simon said. ‘The ring was on the poor man’s finger. Nobody had laid eyes on it since he was killed in the volcanic eruption.’

  ‘A fortuitous find,’ Caro said. ‘Rather like mine.’

  ‘The ring has an interesting provenance,’ Stone said. ‘Mr Dodd-Bellingham speculates that the bathhouse was also a brothel, and that the ring signified membership of that establishment. The woman carved on the garnet is probably the wife of the ring’s owner. The goat on the stone’s reverse signifies Pan, god of fornication. When the owner visited the brothel, he’d simply turn the garnet around.’

  It was a habit of Stone’s, Caro recalled, to push the boundaries of conversational propriety – in order to discomfort others and amuse himself. His candour didn’t offend her, though his motive did.

  ‘Mr Stone, you are speaking to a lady,’ Simon said, an ugly pink flush creeping down the side of his neck.

  Stone raised his eyebrows. ‘Mrs Corsham is not one of your vases, to be swaddled in cotton lest she smash. Society would be a good deal more entertaining, I always think, if we allowed women the freedom to discourse upon the same topics as men. What say you, Mrs Corsham?’

  ‘I accord to the general principle, yes, Mr Stone. As to your Roman and his ring, I am afraid the hypocrisy of your sex is only too often the subject of our discourse.’

  Stone laughed. ‘There now, Simon. Mrs Corsham is not so easily shockable as you suppose.’

  ‘I confess the circumstances that led to my finding this ring shocked me to my core,’ Caro continued sombrely. ‘It was lying in the bower at Vauxhall Gardens where the woman was murdered the other night. It was I who found the body, whilst taking the air. I lost a glove in all the confusion, and yesterday returned to look for it. There in the undergrowth, I found this ring.’

  Erasmus Knox had looked up from his documents. Simon’s face was a picture of consternation. Stone only arched an eyebrow. ‘I had heard it was you who found the poor doxy dying. That must have been distressing. And then you found this ring. Well, I never.’

  As Mordechai had predicted, the story had plainly got around. ‘I hope you will not blame poor Mr Loredo for giving me your name. It was either that or I took the ring to the magistrate. All told, we thought discretion was the wisest course.’

  ‘You thought to spare my blushes? How kind. Yet you need not have scrupled overly. My reputation is bad as a blight, I’m sorry to say.’

  ‘Did you lose the ring on the night of the exhibition?’

  ‘Are you asking if I killed the woman in the bower?’ Stone sounded greatly entertained by the thought.

  ‘Not at all,’ Caro replied, though it had certainly crossed her mind. ‘I thought you might have seen something that could aid the magistrate’s investigation.’

  ‘Alas, had I been in the bowers that night, I would willingly own it. I live my life in the open – sinner that I am.’

  ‘Then you lost it on a different night?’

  ‘I didn’t lose it at all.’ Again, Stone held up his hand. ‘I had three copies of the ring made, and the original here is mine. The others I gave away to friends. Mr Dodd-Bellingham has one himself, though I see he isn’t wearing it. Did you drop yours in the bower, you naughty boy?’

  A pink flush suffused Simon’s throat again. ‘No, it is at home. I didn’t wear it today, as I was intending to clean the statue of Mercury in your fountain.’

  Caro examined them sceptically. ‘The dead woman’s name is Lucy Loveless,’ she said to Stone. ‘Did you know her?’

  ‘Possibly, I’ve met many women of the town.’

  ‘I ask because there she is on your wall.’

  Caro had noticed the painting when she’d walked in. It was hard to miss, being about ten feet by fifteen. To the fore of the canvas, Lucy lay sprawled naked on the ground, her face ravaged with pain, blood pooling beneath her. On a bed behind her, a naked man also lay dying. Moonlight glinted on the helmet of the man who had slain them, gilding his anguished face.

  ‘My Clytemnestra,’ Stone said. ‘Agnetti had six whores line up, and I picked the one I liked best. The poor girl. What a waste of all that beauty.’

  It seemed an unlikely coincidence. ‘Can I ask to whom you gave the other rings?’

  Stone cocked his head. ‘No doubt you are also curious as to why I would have three copies made in the first place. If you will walk with me a moment, I shall endeavour to explain.’

  Erasmus Knox watched their progress across the gallery. He hadn’t taken his eyes off her since the revelation about the ring. Simon followed in their wake, their footsteps echoing across the marble floor. Stone halted in front of another canvas: Agnetti’s work again, but a modern scene.

  Four gentlemen sat around a table covered with a baize cloth on which lay a book, open at a drawing of an Ionic pillar. At the head of the table sat Stone himself, his hand raised in a curious gesture, his thumb and forefinger pressed neatly together. Next to him sat Simon Dodd-Bellingham, gazing through his spectacles at an oval jewel he held up to the light. To his right sat his brother, Lieutenant Edward Dodd-Bellingham, his redcoat a match in shade to the garnets that glowed richly on each man’s hand. The final gentleman, she saw with astonishment, was Lord March.

  ‘The Priapus Club,’ Stone said. ‘A society for gentlemen with a shared interest in classical civilization. Here you see a painting of the four founders. We are larger in number now, but only the founders have rings. Is it true, as I have heard, that Lord March found you in the bowers after you discovered the dead woman? I imagine he must have lost the ring then.’

  The extent of Stone’s knowledge made her wonder if he’d spoken to Lord March. The revelation that they were friends surprised her. He had never mentioned Stone as anything other than a loose acquaintance. Nor had he mentioned this club. Nor Agnetti’s painting. Yet until recently he’d had debts – said to total over twenty thousand pounds – and it was how Stone was rumoured to work: mingling business with pleasure.

  ‘Lord March found me on the path outside. He barely set foot in the bower. Whereas I discovered the ring buried deep in the undergrowth, near to where the body had been lying.’

  Caro had never asked him what he’d been doing in the bowers that night, presuming that he’d followed her from the Rotunda. Now she wondered. He had courted Clemency Howard behind her back – but had there been other women too? Prostitutes? Women known to Stone? Lucy Loveless? Might he have returned to the bower yesterday to look for the ring, having lost it on the night of the murder? Might he have killed Lucy?

  He had been her lover, intermittently, for almost a year, and in that time she had rarely heard him utter a harsh word, much less raise a hand. He did have a tendency to a certain roughness in unspent passion, but it had never been the cause of her displeasure – rather the reverse. Beyond the drinking and the insouci
ance, he was scholarly and clever. She found it hard to imagine him responsible for that blood-soaked scene. Yet how well could a woman ever really know a man? Marriage had taught her about their lies, their hidden selves.

  Simon spoke up with a slight stammer: ‘My brother couldn’t have lost the ring – not on that night at least. I was by his side the entire time, and we left early to have supper in town. We didn’t even hear about the murder until the following day.’

  His cheeks were damp with sweat. Something wasn’t right. Simon’s nerves. Mr Knox’s watchful gaze. Above all, that Mr Stone had known Lucy Loveless.

  ‘Lord March, I know, has a passion for the classical poets.’ She addressed Simon. ‘I never had your brother marked down as an enthusiast for historical inquiry.’

  Simon’s eyes flitted to his client. ‘Mr Stone convinced him of its merits.’

  ‘Then he must be a great persuader.’ Caro turned back to the painting. ‘What does that gesture mean? That shape you are making with your hand?’

  Stone wagged a chiding finger. ‘You cannot expect me to reveal all my secrets, Mrs Corsham.’

  ‘I thought you lived your life in the open?’

  ‘Everyone has secrets. Just ask your brother Ambrose.’

  He smiled broadly, as if it were just another of his outré remarks, but to Caro’s ears it sounded remarkably like a threat.

  ‘I shall call on Lord March and the lieutenant.’ Caro held out her hand for the ring. ‘This mystery will resolve itself, I am sure. Thank you for your assistance, Mr Stone. I am sorry to have trespassed upon your time.’

  Stone seemed reluctant to let go of the ring, but he handed it over with a distant smile. ‘It was no trespass, Mrs Corsham. Do give my warmest regards to your brothers.’

  ‘I shall,’ Caro replied. ‘To Mordechai, at least. Ambrose is in Switzerland.’

  This time there was no mistaking the knowing quality of Stone’s smile. ‘So you said.’

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  THE MOMENT CHILD walked through the door of the Brown Bear tavern, Orin jumped up and grabbed him by the arm. He practically dragged Child out the door, into the narrow alley off Bow Street that ran alongside the tavern.

  ‘What the devil have you got me into, Perry?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Child said. ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘I did as you asked. Tried to get a look at those papers and drawings they found in the dead girl’s room. The lads who’d searched the place didn’t have them. They’d given them to Sir Amos Fox as per their orders.’

  ‘Why did Fox want them?’

  ‘How the hell should I know? I also asked around about that damn document your client thought she’d seen in the bower. Next thing I know, I’m dragged across the street and given the Inquisition. Sir Amos held my arse to the fire. They wanted to know everything. What I knew about the murder. What I knew about this document. What I knew about Lucy Loveless – who her friends were. I told them I knew arse all. I was just doing a friend a favour. Then they wanted to know all about you.’

  ‘They?’

  ‘He had another gentleman with him. Fat, fifty, white eyebrows like an owl. Someone important. Sir Amos was dancing to his tune, not the other way around.’

  ‘Did you give them my name?’

  ‘Of course I bloody did. They threatened my job. Eyebrows wanted to know if you’d mentioned finding any papers that belonged to Lucy. He also asked about your client. I didn’t give them her name – said you wouldn’t tell me – but I damn well should have done.’

  Official sorts, Child was thinking, remembering the description of the men who’d been looking for Kitty Carefree. The only people from whom Sir Amos was likely to take orders worked down the road in Whitehall. But why would the ministry have an interest in Lucy Loveless? It seemed to have a connection to her papers. Had Sir Amos sent his Runners to Lucy’s rooms looking for something in particular? From their questions to Orin, it didn’t sound as if they’d found it. Private letters, perhaps? The sort that might compromise an important gentleman’s reputation?

  ‘I didn’t know this would happen,’ Child said. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Orin threw up his hands, breathing heavily.

  ‘Did you find out anything else?’ Child asked. ‘About the murder. Or that redcoat soldier? His name’s Lieutenant Edward Dodd-Bellingham, I’ve learned.’

  ‘Weren’t you listening? I don’t want anything to do with your damn murder.’ He turned on his heel and stormed off down the alley.

  ‘What happened to Deptford till we die?’ Child called after him.

  Orin didn’t turn back. ‘We’re in London now.’

  *

  Child felt bad that he’d got Orin into trouble, but he didn’t see how it was really his fault. It wasn’t as though Whitehall normally concerned themselves with murdered prostitutes. The development troubled him. If there was one thing he disliked more than tall, handsome gentlemen and beautiful women, it was politics. Yet, despite these misgivings, he wasn’t prepared to walk away. All that stood between him and Finn Daley’s axe was Mrs Corsham’s commission.

  He spent the rest of that night looking for Jenny Wren, tracking her down eventually at an alehouse named the Ape and Apple, deep in the bowels of the slum rookery of St Giles. The place was so fogged with pipe smoke, it was hard to breathe. A man in a patchwork coat was playing an Irish jig on a fiddle, while a warty woman banged time on a bodhrán. Child asked at the bar for Jenny, and was directed to one of the back rooms, where he found her two matted-haired swains guarding the door. One had a brickbat in his hand, cradling it lovingly like a child. The other looked as if he tortured pets for fun.

  ‘Are you going to let me in?’

  ‘No business tonight. Go fuck your grandmother’s horse.’

  Child smiled placidly. He didn’t know why they didn’t like him, and he didn’t much care. ‘She’ll want mine.’

  ‘Didn’t you hear him? No business. Not from men with broken noses.’

  Child tilted his face to the light, though he could guess what was coming next. ‘Mine’s not broken.’

  The fellow with the brickbat grinned, stepping forward, but Child’s pistol was suddenly digging into his belly, and all the fun drained out of the man’s unshaven face.

  ‘I don’t want any trouble, friend. I just want to see her.’

  The men exchanged a glance, and brickbat shrugged, evidently deciding Child was more trouble than he was worth. They stepped aside and Child walked through the door. Jenny and her friends – assorted whores and cutpurses – were sitting around a table scattered with playing cards and tin cups of gin. In the middle was the pot: a pile of ill-begotten coins, snuffboxes, rings, handkerchiefs, wigs, pocketbooks and buttons. The whores smiled at Child and the villains scowled. Jenny grinned. ‘Perry Child, you old soaker. Missing me already? Lock up your bottles, lads, or we’ll have to roll him home.’

  ‘I’m told you’re not open for business?’

  ‘Always open, Perry. Step into my study.’

  Her study was a table in an alcove in the main taproom, a spluttering stub of greasy candle between them.

  ‘I’m looking for a prostitute named Nelly Diver. Do you know her?’

  ‘That poxy salt-bitch whore? More’s the pity.’

  ‘Do you know where I can find her?’

  ‘Haven’t seen her around in a while. Maybe she’s dead.’ Jenny grinned happily.

  ‘Can you find out where she is? Do it fast?’

  Jenny leaned back in her chair, giving him a lazy smile of appraisal. ‘It’s time we had that chat about the disciples again, Perry. What was all that you was saying about the will of God?’

  Child rolled his eyes, though time rather than money was his pressing issue that night. ‘How much do you want?’

  PAMELA

  12 January 1782

  The audience room again. Only one gentleman present. Pamela watching Mrs Havilland. Mrs Havilland watching the gentleman. The g
entleman watching her.

  He was rather old. Even worse, he looked well-worn. Paunchy, shabby in dress, his own hair thick but run through with grey. A nose like a carrion crow, and bloodshot eyes that bored into her.

  ‘Would you mind turning around, please?’ he asked, his accent thick and foreign. Pamela had heard Hannah, the first housemaid, talk at length about Italians and their perversions. Repressing a shudder, she turned all the way around, assuming he wanted to see her arse.

  ‘No, I’d like to look at your face in profile.’

  She didn’t know what that meant, and just stood there stupidly, until Mrs Havilland, losing patience, took her roughly by the shoulders, positioning her side-on. ‘Well? Will she serve?’ she asked.

  He looked at her for a long time. ‘I think I could scour the country for a hundred years and not find a face so fitting.’

  ‘I told you so,’ Mrs Havilland said with satisfaction.

  ‘The same price as before. Have her brought to my house tomorrow at ten o’clock.’

  Pamela’s head jerked up. Was it decided? Was it to be him? Her auction wasn’t supposed to be until the end of next month.

  Mrs Havilland’s face betrayed nothing. Pamela studied the gentleman again. ‘Are you to be my first, sir?’ she asked, with a sinking heart.

  He grimaced as if she’d offended him, screwing up his tired eyes against the light. ‘Please, nothing like that. I will not touch you, and neither will anyone else in my house. I wish only to paint you.’

  *

  It was a great honour, Cecily explained later that night, as they knelt on Pamela’s bed in their nightgowns. From the window they were watching the gentlemen leaving Mrs Havilland’s – picking out the ones they hoped would win their maidenheads at auction. Earlier, on stage, Pamela had looked for her soldier, but he hadn’t come tonight.

  ‘Mr Agnetti is a famous artist,’ Cecily said, ‘perhaps one day as great as Mr Reynolds himself. Your likeness will hang on the wall of a grand person’s house. Generations of people will see it, long after the worms have picked you dry.’