Daughters of Night

by Laura Shepherd-Robinson

  Those in attendance at Vauxhall on the night of the sensational murder of Lucy Loveless, may have descried the disappearance of Mrs Wiltshire from amongst their number. We have learned that this stalwart lady embarked to take the air, and thereby stumbled upon the grisly scene in the bowers. Where, one wonders, was Captain Wiltshire during his wife’s hour of distress? In France, comes the answer, Mrs Wiltshire’s Arcadian expeditions no less intrepid than they are solitary. How fortunate, then, that a certain gentleman was on hand to restore Mrs Wiltshire to serenity with his tender care. We hear this gentleman, like the lady, is fond of taking a turn in the bowers – such exertions between the pair of them, we wonder there is any air left to breathe!

  Caro stared at the scandal sheet, appalled. This would explain why people had been looking at her in the ballroom: gossiping, speculating, casting judgement. Mordechai would be incandescent when he heard of it. And it would hardly make things easier with Harry.

  ‘You need to stop all this, Caro. Think of your present situation. Why would you seek to draw attention to yourself at such a time?’

  Scenting danger, her eyes narrowed. ‘Breathe one word of my present situation, and I’ll tell your father the child is yours. I shall name it after you, a little Fitzmarch. Harry will bring a suit against you for criminal conversation and I will give evidence in court on his behalf. What will Clemency Howard and her parents make of that?’

  He held up his hands. ‘Steady on, Caro. I won’t tell a soul. Why would I?’

  Because you don’t like my inquiry into Lucy’s murder. Because you played some part in all of this – I just don’t yet know what. But he’d say nothing. Not when he stood to lose Clemency Howard, and with her his father’s favour. Not when his inheritance was at stake.

  ‘But my point still stands,’ he said, moderating his tone. ‘Why would you seek to make enemies of everyone who matters in London?’

  ‘You and your friends are not everyone, Lord March. And if I make enemies by hiring a man to look into a brutal murder, then I have to ask myself why that is.’

  ‘ “Why” is the damn question. I don’t understand why you’re doing this. Nobody does.’

  There wasn’t one answer she could give him. Not one that he’d understand. Because if she hadn’t tried to help me, Lucy would never have been in that bower. Because when we thought she was one of us she mattered – and then she did not. Because a dead child casts a long shadow. Because where there is guilt, there is rage. Because even those at the top of the tree don’t have impunity from murder, and their fall, when it comes, is the furthest of all.

  ‘That girl we asked you about: Pamela. Don’t deny that you knew her.’

  ‘The one in the drawing? I met her once or twice at Agnetti’s house. I didn’t recall it before, but Neddy reminded me.’

  It sounded like lines he’d rehearsed for a play. ‘No, I saw your face. You know what happened to her, don’t you? You all do.’

  He spoke coldly. ‘I will submit to no further interrogations from you, madam. Your inquiry is ill-advised, your speculations fanciful. I intend to speak to Sir Amos Fox, to your brother too. Perhaps they can talk some sense into you, where I cannot.’

  *

  She had barely set foot back in the ballroom when he appeared by her side. Jonathan Stone, wearing his private smile and a sleek moleskin suit.

  ‘I hear you reunited the ring with its owner. And hired a man to look into the Vauxhall murder. I trust your inquiry proceeds apace?’

  ‘It has led us to a girl named Pamela – as I am sure you’ve also been informed.’

  ‘My Iphigenia. Lucy developed a strange obsession with her. I counsel you not to do the same.’

  ‘Lucy thought she’d been murdered. She suspected you, among others.’

  ‘People often look for the worst in me. It is a cross I have to bear.’

  ‘One you do not seem to find especially burdensome.’

  Stone watched the dancers, unblinking. ‘Appearances can be deceptive. Oh, don’t mistake my meaning. I have no fear of the hangman’s rope, but no man likes to stand accused of a crime he did not commit. Did you talk to him, as I asked? Brother Ambrose?’

  ‘How could I? Ambrose is in Switzerland.’

  He glanced at her askance, and his smile broadened. ‘Talk to him. Ask him about Jonathan Stone. I guarantee you’ll see things differently once you do.’

  She gazed at him, uncertain, not wanting to admit that she couldn’t ask Ambrose anything; not liking his allusions, not knowing what they meant. ‘I’m quite capable of forming my own opinion about you, sir.’

  ‘Everybody does.’ He swept an arm across the ballroom to encompass the beau monde. ‘They call me a man of appetite, as if I should be ashamed of it. As if they themselves had never tasted forbidden fruit. It doesn’t stop them taking my money, they leave their sanctimony at the door. Some even attend my parties – ask Brother Ambrose. A woman of appetite is, I regret to say, a different proposition. Her indiscretions are not just a scandal. They are a moral outrage. She is not just to be condemned, she must be cast out.’

  His tone gave Caro pause. ‘A story regarding my discovery in the bowers has somehow found its way into the pages of The London Hermes.’

  ‘Then you’ll understand,’ he cried, delighted, ‘how unpleasant it is to have people casting aspersions about your good name. Like me, you must be hoping this is the end of it.’

  She held his gaze, eyes equally serious in their intent. ‘Do you mean to threaten me, Mr Stone?’

  ‘Sorry, was I too opaque? It was ever a failing of mine.’ He gestured again to the chattering beau monde. ‘This snake pit is not to my pleasure. I abhor their hypocrisy, but beneath this idealist lurks a shameful pragmatist. Know that I will use whatever tools I have to hand.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHILD BOUGHT HIS dinner from a pie-man on Dean Street. The man jabbed his thumb through the crust and poured meat liquor into the hole, while Child kept a nervous eye out for Finn Daley. That he hadn’t paid Child a visit yet disturbed him. The Irishman’s laxity was so uncharacteristic as to be implausible.

  He ate the pie as he walked down to Compton Street. The Golden Pear Tree was busy with gentlemen going in and out, many of those leaving heading for the tableaux house opposite. Child followed them, handing over a half-guinea to the doorman with a grimace.

  The room was dark and cavernous. Perhaps two-score gentlemen sat at tables in front of a stage. A fiddler was playing pizzicato, an oriental tune, and several dark-haired girls on-stage danced rhythmically. Seashells covered their breasts and their straw skirts swayed. ‘Behold the maidens of the South Sea,’ someone bellowed off-stage.

  A lady of about sixty sat at a table to the rear, the only woman over twenty-five in the place. Surrounded by yellow-haired girls – presumably those who hadn’t made the cut for the South Sea scene – the footmen jumped to her orders and the patrons treated her with respect. Mrs Havilland, Child presumed.

  He edged his way through to her table, and the girls assessed him with bored eyes. Mrs Havilland’s hair was artfully piled, adorned with silver shells and a golden starfish. Her unimpressed gaze travelled over Child’s coat, belying her thin red smile.

  ‘Beauty is bought by the judgement of the eye, sir.’ She swept the air with a silver scratcher to point at the girls. ‘But in this house, not by judgement alone.’

  ‘I’m not looking to buy, but I am looking for a girl.’ Child took out the drawing. ‘Her name is Pamela. She was selling her maidenhead about six months ago. Did she do so here?’

  The smile vanished, replaced by a flinty stare. ‘All my girls are here of their own free will. They don’t appreciate men asking questions. Neither do I.’

  ‘I’m not here to cause trouble. Will you look at the picture, please? This girl has disappeared, I suspect unwillingly.’ He held the drawing up so all the whores around the table could see it.

  Mrs Havilland raised her scratcher to point at him.
Seconds later, two pairs of big hands gripped him, and he was dragged from the room, bundled back down the corridor, out onto the street. One of the footmen put a boot to Child’s arse, and he landed hard on the cobbles.

  ‘Can I have my half-guinea back?’ he called after them.

  The door slammed. He wasn’t getting back in there tonight. Child decided to return tomorrow, when he’d try to bribe one of the girls, or one of the servants. Cursing Mrs Havilland’s name, he limped in the direction of Covent Garden, intending to resume his search for the link-boy, Hector. As he waited to cross the road at the junction with Greek Street, he felt a light touch on his arm. His hand leapt to his pistol, drawing it as he turned. His assailant let out a cry of alarm, stumbling back. Not Finn Daley, but one of the yellow-haired girls from the tableaux house. Heart pounding, Child returned his pistol to his pocket and held up his hands. ‘Forgive me. I didn’t mean to frighten you.’

  She stared at him indignantly. ‘Well, you did.’ Glancing around, she lowered her voice. ‘My name is Cecily. Pamela was my friend. Buy me a coffee and I’ll talk to you – but I need to be quick.’

  *

  The coffeehouse was quiet, just a few whores sitting around the polished wooden interior, nursing cups of milky capuchin coffee, so-called because the colour of the coffee resembled the brown cowls of the monks. Drinking one was a signal to customers that a girl was for sale.

  Cecily sipped hers daintily, occasionally smiling at Child so that onlookers would think he was a client. Broad-shouldered, with overly plucked eyebrows that gave her a startled look, she was well-spoken, with a slight edge of Essex.

  ‘Pamela and I were up for sale at the same time. We shared a room. After I was auctioned, I didn’t see her for a while. But I had some trouble at home, and I came back to Mrs Havilland’s just before she left for good.’

  ‘When was Pamela auctioned? Can you remember?’

  ‘The end of February. But the gentleman who bought her didn’t want her right away, so she stayed on at the tableaux house for another week. Then one night he came and collected her in a carriage. Pamela promised to come back and see me, but she never did.’

  ‘Can you recall the date?’

  ‘The first of March. She said it was the start of her new life.’

  ‘Do you know who he was? The gentleman who bought her?’

  ‘A redcoat officer named Dodd-Bellingham. I’d seen him in the tableaux house from time to time. Pamela talked about him a lot. She was sitting for the artist, Mr Agnetti, and she’d met him again there.’

  ‘Was the lieutenant alone when he came to collect her?’

  ‘He was with another gentleman – somebody said they were brothers. They came in a hired carriage full of girls from the Whores’ Club. Pamela said they were heading to a private masquerade in the country.’

  ‘Did you recognize any of the girls?’

  She smiled shyly. ‘I know all the members of the Whores’ Club. I hope one day they’ll let me join.’ She counted four names on her manicured fingers. ‘Rosy Sims, Ceylon Sally, Kitty Carefree, and Becky Greengrass. Pamela knew Kitty. They’d become friends at Agnetti’s house.’

  ‘This woman wasn’t one of them?’ Child showed her the second drawing.

  ‘That’s Lucy Loveless. She wasn’t there that night. But she came later, like you, asking questions.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘In April. Mrs Havilland sent her away, but I followed her, just like I did with you. Told her the same things I’m telling you now.’ She stirred her capuchin, looking at him intently. ‘I read about Lucy’s murder in the newspapers. Do you think it had something to do with this? With Pamela?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘I knew it. That Pamela was dead, I mean. Even before Lucy came. Mrs Havilland said she had found a keeper, but I knew it couldn’t be true.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because she never came back for her money. Mrs Havilland said she did, but she was lying. That’s why she won’t help you – she kept it for herself. A hundred and twenty-five guineas minus expenses. Nobody walks away from that.’

  Child was inclined to agree, but he asked his next questions anyway. ‘Is there any possibility that Pamela could be with her family? Or returned to service because she didn’t take to this life?’

  ‘Pamela never knew her parents. She grew up in an orphanage. And she hated being in service. That’s why she was doing all this, for a chance at a better life. Something bad happened to her, Mr Child. I know it did.’

  Child showed her the card with the satyr. ‘Did you ever see Pamela with one of these?’

  ‘She had one with her that night she left. It was an invitation to the masquerade. I asked her about the satyr and she said it was the symbol of their club.’

  ‘The Priapus Club?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, nodding, ‘that was it. Pamela was nervous to be going, but excited too. She was sweet on the soldier, you see. Had a nosegay he gave her, which she kept until it fell to pieces. He wasn’t rich, but that didn’t stop her moping around.’

  The lieutenant, who’d pretended not to recognize the invitation at his house only yesterday. ‘How did he buy her at auction if he wasn’t rich?’

  ‘Perhaps he wasn’t as poor as she thought? He couldn’t have been, could he? Her maidenhead went for two hundred and fifty guineas. She looked young, see, which always gets a girl more.’

  ‘Did she say anything else about him that you remember?’

  Cecily thought for a moment. ‘She said she had a rival. Another woman. She didn’t say who.’

  Child wondered if that rival was Agnetti’s assistant, Cassandra Willoughby – he strongly suspected that she and Dodd-Bellingham were the couple that Von Siegel, the lamplighter, had seen heading for the bowers.

  ‘I’ve heard the club has over a dozen members. You didn’t see any other carriages? Other girls?’

  ‘There weren’t any others. Just five girls for five men. Pamela told me this night was special. Only the very best girls invited. But when I said that to Lucy, she shook her head.’

  Child frowned. ‘Who told you there were five men?’

  ‘Lucy. She asked me if I knew who the others were. I told her I only saw the lieutenant and his brother.’

  A fifth suspect. Nelly had thought Lucy only had four in mind, but that had been because of the four drawings. Perhaps this fifth man had never sat for a painting? Or perhaps he had been the one wielding the brush?

  ‘Did Pamela ever talk about Agnetti?’ Child was thinking of the knife he’d found that afternoon, and the scene he’d subsequently witnessed in the Rotunda.

  ‘She said he was kind. I think she liked him – but not like that. He was old.’

  ‘Did he ever try anything with her?’

  ‘I don’t think so. She would have said.’

  ‘How about the lieutenant’s brother, Simon? Did she ever talk about him? Or a gentleman named Jonathan Stone? Or a friend of the lieutenant’s named Lord March?’

  Cecily nodded. ‘The last one, Lord March. Pamela liked to tell us about all the fine people she was meeting at Agnetti’s house. We’d roll our eyes, but she didn’t care. Proud as a peacock.’

  ‘Did she ever mention an argument with any of these men? Or anything that made her feel uncomfortable?’

  ‘She said Lord March had a fancy for her, and we teased her about wanting to be the next Countess of Amberley. To hear her talk, there wasn’t a man on God’s earth who didn’t show an interest in her, but it didn’t make her uncomfortable, she enjoyed it, played up to it.’

  And maybe one of them hadn’t liked that. Maybe he’d wanted to be the one in control. Some men did.

  Child needed to find Hector. He needed to find Kitty Carefree and the other girls in that carriage. But I’m getting there, Lucy, he thought. I’m on your trail.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  LORD MARCH WAS talking to Lieutenant Dodd-Bellingham. Caro watched them across the ballroom, gues
sing from their tense faces that it wasn’t their usual easy banter. Clemency Howard was watching them too. By her side, Jacobus Agnetti was talking to Lord March’s mother, the Countess of Amberley, doubtless angling for a commission. Caro looked around for Simon Dodd-Bellingham, but she couldn’t see him. She wished Jonathan Stone’s threat had unsettled her less than it had.

  Nicholas Cavill-Lawrence was laughing with the Earl of Amberley, but every time she moved, she felt his cold fish-eye upon her. She thought of the missing document in the bower, Cavill-Lawrence’s interest in Jonathan Stone, the Home Office agents looking for Lucy’s friends. What’s your part in all of this? she wondered.

  Lord March and the lieutenant walked across the ballroom, weaving between the dancers. Caro followed at a distance, through the courtyard garden, into the Star Room. The pair passed between the gaming tables, disappearing through a doorway that led to the kitchens.

  Caro waited for a little while, but they didn’t come out. Eventually, she walked over to the doorway herself, stepping back to avoid a striding waiter bearing a tray of griddled kidneys. There was no sign of her quarries. She couldn’t imagine they had business in the kitchens. But halfway down the corridor was another door that looked as if it led outside.

  Walking swiftly, she tried the door, and found that it opened onto a small dark courtyard. There was nothing much to see: a midden of kitchen waste, a few old pallets, a line of drying dishcloths and a rusting bucket. Over the strains of the orchestra, she could hear a murmur of male voices close at hand.

  An alley led off the courtyard, and Caro edged around the wall to peer into it. Lord March and the lieutenant stood some yards away. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but from their movements it didn’t look convivial.

  The lieutenant held a fist before his face and, for a moment, Caro thought he might strike Lord March. Moonlight flashed on something clutched in his gloved hand. Lord March snatched it from him, and flung it away. The lieutenant said something else, and Lord March pushed past him, heading back towards the courtyard with a face like thunder. Caro drew back into the shadows, praying he wouldn’t spot her in the dark. But he seemed intent only upon his own unsteady progress, stumbling into Carlisle House.