Her son looked up from his bowl to point at Child. ‘Monster, Mama, monster.’
‘Hush,’ she said, smiling fondly. ‘This is Mr Child, a very clever man who catches villains.’
Still thinking about Jonathan Stone and his betrayal, Child decided that the boy had it about right.
‘Do you have any children, sir?’ Mrs Corsham asked. ‘I know so little about you.’
‘I had a son once. He died.’
She stared at him aghast. ‘I’m sorry. That was a thoughtless question.’
He made a hopeless gesture. ‘It was a long time ago.’
To cover their awkwardness, she tacked back to their inquiry. ‘I found out something interesting from a friend of my sister-in-law. Before she disappeared, Theresa Agnetti had taken a lover: Lieutenant Dodd-Bellingham.’
Child raised his eyebrows. ‘Miss Willoughby, Theresa Agnetti, Pamela. Was there a woman in Agnetti’s house whom the lieutenant didn’t try to seduce?’
‘That’s how he is – just like his father. And he’s handsome, of course, charming enough when he wants to be – and persistent. For every ten women who say no, like Miss Willoughby, there will be one who says yes, like Mrs Agnetti.’
‘Perhaps he doesn’t like it when they say no – and when they’re poor and friendless, like Miss Willoughby, it makes no odds. Perhaps he tried to rape Pamela and she fought back?’
Mrs Corsham glanced at her son, seemingly anxious about the topic, but he seemed happily absorbed, scraping up the last of his pottage.
‘Lucy thought that Stone wanted Pamela at the masquerade for a purpose,’ Child went on. ‘That he trusted those men because he knew their secrets. If Simon is a thief and his brother is a rapist, then perhaps Stone has evidence of those crimes? Did you ever hear anything untoward about Lord March?’
‘No, but I do know he would never have introduced the Prince to Stone willingly. He took great pride in his role as Prinny’s mentor – perhaps the only thing he ever took seriously, apart from his poetry.’ She shook her head. ‘I hate to think of Pamela out there at Muswell Rise in the middle of the night, with no one to help her.’
‘Kitty was there.’ Child told her about his discoveries since they’d last met. ‘I think she felt guilty about whatever had happened to Pamela. It makes me wonder if it is her testimony that the Home Office are searching for. We know Lucy was looking for Kitty – perhaps she found her.’
‘Then we must find her too.’
The little boy jumped down from the table. ‘Mama, may I hunt the mouse again?’
‘He spotted it two days ago upon the nursery stairs,’ Mrs Corsham explained. ‘It’s sparked quite the obsession. You may hunt the mouse, my love, if Mrs Graves says you can. Miles, see him upstairs, will you, please?’
Frowning, she turned back to Child. ‘Do you think Kitty is the friend Lucy mentioned? The one who was supposed to give her dossier to the newspapers, but never did?’
‘It’s possible.’ Child thought of Nelly Diver’s battered, bleeding face. ‘If we’re right, then I hope to God that we find Kitty before the Home Office do. Assuming they haven’t already.’
‘I have my first sitting with Mr Agnetti this afternoon,’ Mrs Corsham said. ‘I’ll ask him about Kitty. And I’ll try to find out more about what went on in his house in the weeks before Pamela disappeared. I think you might be right that Theresa Agnetti is connected to all this somehow.’
‘You promised me that you wouldn’t meet with any of our suspects alone,’ Child objected. ‘Mr Agnetti might still be our fifth man.’
‘Miles will be downstairs. Agnetti will hardly try anything with him around.’
‘Lucy was surrounded by six thousand people. That didn’t help her.’
She smiled at his concern. ‘You are a stalwart servant, Mr Child.’
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
MR AGNETTI PROPOSED to paint Caro standing in front of a ruined temple in a glade. She would have flowers in her hair and growing at her feet. Orange blossom for her married state; lilies for wealth; cinquefoils for motherhood.
He positioned her on his stage, next to a broken pillar, adjusting her stance several times in a way she felt somewhat impertinent, turning her shoulder, raising her chin, like she was a doll. Morning sunlight poured through the open windows and the cries of the street-hawkers carried from the square below.
‘At first I will simply make some sketches,’ he said. ‘Probably for two or three sittings, after which I will commence painting. I cannot predict a finish date, but most commissions take between three and six months.’
Without her allowance, she wouldn’t have enough money to pay the outstanding amount. But Harry would surely be home by then, and Mr Agnetti’s bill would be settled one way or another. As would her own account with Harry. She shivered, not wanting to think of her unborn child and all it entailed.
Mr Child’s commission was another matter, and she would need money to pay her own way – she was damned if she’d let Mordechai keep her shut up at home like an errant child. Earlier that morning, she’d therefore dispatched Pomfret on a discreet mission to a pawnbroker’s in Marylebone with a pearl necklace she’d never liked. He’d returned with thirty pounds. A trifling sum, but for the moment, it would have to do. She could always pawn the Hilliard miniature, if it came to it.
Agnetti sketched upon a secretary desk, rather than his easel, working in both chalk and charcoal, his hand moving rapidly across the paper. Caro’s eyes flicked to the giant canvas leaning against the wall. He’d worked on it since her last visit. The faces of the Furies were further defined with highlights and shadow.
‘Look at me, if you please, madam,’ Agnetti barked, and her eyes slid obediently back to his face. Remembering Mr Child’s warnings, she suppressed a shiver. Had those big hands, which brought such vivid life to his canvases, also wielded the instrument of death at Vauxhall Gardens? Had they thrown her under the wheels of that carriage at Carlisle House?
‘I have been thinking a little more about Lucy Loveless,’ she said. ‘And about Pamela, your Iphigenia. Did they know one another?’
‘I was wondering whether you were going to raise the topic,’ he said. ‘Lord March tells me you have employed a thief-taker to look into the murder. Do I take it your sudden admiration for my painting is connected to your inquiry?’
Caught out, she hesitated, before deciding to own the charge. ‘It seemed a good opportunity to learn more about Lucy.’
‘I see. Something strange happened the other day. I discovered that another drawing, one of Lucy, had gone missing from one of my sketchbooks. That book was in the Rotunda when you called on me there. Was it you who stole it?’
She flushed under his stern gaze. ‘Borrowed it, rather.’
Agnetti tossed his charcoal onto his desk. ‘You never thought to ask me for the drawing directly? Or put your questions to me honestly?’
Given that Miles was downstairs, within earshot if she screamed, she spoke boldly: ‘I didn’t know if I could trust your answers. My thief-taker found the murder weapon hidden in a bush at Vauxhall. It was one of your knives, the handle tied with red string.’
‘Madre di Dio.’ He closed his eyes. ‘There were knives, frames, other tools in the storeroom located off the corridor in the Rotunda. It wasn’t locked. Miss Willoughby and I needed to go in and out. Anyone could have slipped in there and taken the knife.’
‘Were you in the Rotunda between half past nine and ten o’clock?’
‘Many people can attest to it.’
‘Yet you just said you went often to the storeroom?’
‘Yes, but only for a matter of minutes each time.’
A matter of minutes was all you’d need to get from the Rotunda to the bowers and back again. A man would barely be missed. But then the same held true for all of them.
‘If I ask my questions honestly now, will you answer them?’
‘Of course. Whatever my past disagreements with Lucy, I want her murderer ca
ught. The magistrate’s ambivalence angers me too. But I will return your deposit.’ He crumpled his sketch into a ball and tossed it over his shoulder. ‘The work of Agnetti is not for the walls of false admirers.’
Determined not to be chastened by his censure, Caro began combatively. ‘We have heard that your quarrels with Lucy predated the theft of your drawings. That you had an argument with her around the time she was beaten.’
‘I wouldn’t call it an argument. I was looking for my wife and I thought Lucy might know where she was.’
‘Did you lose your temper?’
‘I may have done. I was worried for Theresa and my emotions were heightened. Lucy had strong views on marriage and men, and I thought it possible she’d helped Theresa leave, without realizing the full extent of her troubled mind. She insisted not.’
‘Were you the one who beat her?’
‘Of course not.’ He sounded weary. ‘She’d hardly have carried on sitting for me, if I had.’
‘She might have done. She wanted to steal those drawings.’
He threw up his hands. ‘I just wanted to know where Theresa was. But that was six months ago. I didn’t kill Lucy.’
‘Did you know that Lucy was looking into Pamela’s disappearance?’
‘Yes, she told me after I confronted her about the stolen drawings.’
‘Pamela had attended a masquerade at Stone’s estate on the night she disappeared. The four gentlemen in your stolen drawings were present – as well as a fifth man. Was that you?’
‘Lucy asked me the same question. I wasn’t there.’
‘Yet you said you’d been to the Priapus Club before?’
‘In January, two months before Pamela disappeared. It was not what I was led to expect. Mr Stone might be a valued client, but as a married man, his club was not to my taste.’
Caro gazed at him sceptically. ‘Can you give me the names of the members? Other than the four in your painting?’
‘I’m afraid not. Everyone was wearing masks. And once I’d witnessed the true nature of the club, I swiftly left.’
‘What did you do after Lucy raised her concerns with you?’
‘My mind was on other matters at the time, namely the disappearance of my wife. But I did question Kitty, another of my sitters, regarding Pamela’s whereabouts. She assured me that Pamela had simply found herself a wealthy keeper.’
‘It didn’t occur to you that Kitty could have been lying?’
He sighed. ‘You sound like Lucy. There is no evidence to suggest it. Some of my sitters I wouldn’t trust to tell me the grass was green, but Kitty was an uncomplicated girl, with a romantic heart. She is the last person I believe would be complicit in a murder.’
Caro’s eyes fastened on his Judgement of Paris: his red-headed Aphrodite. ‘Is that Kitty?’
‘Yes, it is.’
‘Do you know where she is now? My thief-taker is trying to find her.’
‘They told me at her lodgings that she too had found a keeper. That has always been the pattern of Kitty’s life: a year or two as the personal property of a wealthy gentleman, followed by stints in the brothels in Soho and St James’s, when they tire of her company.’
‘Did you know Pamela never went back to the tableaux house for her money? She walked away from a hundred and twenty-five guineas.’
He frowned. ‘No, I did not.’
‘I know Pamela met the Dodd-Bellingham brothers and Lord March in this house. Did she meet Mr Stone here too?’
‘I don’t believe so. Mr Stone rarely visits my studio. That’s what he has the lieutenant for.’
‘Did she ever talk about him?’
‘She asked me some questions about him once or twice. My sitters like nothing more than talking about rich, important gentlemen.’
‘Did Pamela ever mention feeling disturbed by any of those gentlemen? An unwanted interest? A forceful advance?’
‘If she had raised any concern with me, then I would have acted upon it. Pamela was my sitter, under my protection.’
‘You said your wife and Lucy were friends. Was she also a friend of Pamela’s?’
The furrow in his brow deepened. ‘What has Theresa got to do with this?’
‘They disappeared on the same day. Did you never think that odd?’
‘I confess I barely noticed Pamela’s absence at first. I was too busy looking for Theresa. When I did, as I said, I was told she’d found a keeper. I certainly had no cause to make a connection. But in answer to your question, no, they were not friends. In truth, there was a tension between them.’
‘Oh?’
‘I never fully learned the cause of it. Perhaps Theresa resented the time I spent on the Iphigenia painting. Sometimes she desired my company at times when I couldn’t give it. Often when I could, she did not.’
‘Could Theresa have been jealous?’
He gave her an icy glare. ‘Forsaking all others. It was not a vow I took lightly, whatever the newspapers might say or people might believe. Besides which, Pamela was a child.’
‘Can you think of any other reason for their antipathy?’
‘No, but Theresa could be . . . difficult with people sometimes. She was slow to trust and sometimes her manner turned people against her.’
‘My thief-taker spoke to a friend of Pamela’s who says she had a strong liking for Lieutenant Dodd-Bellingham. Did you ever witness any affection between them?’
‘No, and Pamela would never have let anything progress very far. She was auctioning her virginity for a large sum, and whatever her feelings, I don’t believe she’d have risked losing it. She is young, but not a fool, and above everything, she wants to improve her lot in life. If I possessed as little as she does, I daresay I would too.’ He paused. ‘She really left her money at the tableaux house?’
‘That’s what I’ve been told.’
His heavy brows drew together again, and she assessed his troubled expression with a critical eye.
‘I asked my previous question, Mr Agnetti, because I wonder whether the lieutenant might have played some part in the tension between Pamela and Theresa?’
He turned away, and she could see the question had hurt him. ‘The gossip has spread so far?’
‘I did hear a rumour. Is it true?’
‘I don’t wish to speak of it,’ he said. ‘Theresa has nothing to do with any of this. Of that, I’m certain.’
‘But Mr Agnetti—’
‘No,’ he said fiercely. ‘If you have any more questions about Lucy or Pamela, then you may return at any time. But the struggles Theresa and I faced as husband and wife are a private matter.’
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
A SPRAY OF blood flew past Child’s eyes. The pugilists circled one another, keeping their distance. Three hundred voices roared as they came at one another again.
Mixed doubles always brought the crowds out, and this bout was a grudge match. Last year the Mascarenhas, a husband-and-wife pairing from Lisbon, had defeated Mr Wheatacre, a stevedore, and his partner in sparring, Mrs Johnson. The blood was hers: her close-fitted jacket and Holland drawers already spattered.
Child had met Solomon Loredo in a tavern on Old Street at two o’clock. All the spectators had gathered there, the streets around the tavern swarming. The organizers had circled the crowd, looking out for informants, the London magistrates particularly zealous when it came to boxing. Then one of them had cried out that the location of the match was to be Blackheath, and they’d all piled into their carriages, a long line of sixty vehicles trundling south.
‘I feel bad that you paid for my ticket,’ Loredo said, his little black eyes never leaving the fighters in the ring. ‘For I have nothing for you. I asked all over the City. Spoke to other dealers in antiquities, other jewellers. Nobody had a bad word to say about Simon Dodd-Bellingham. No rumours about women or violence, no visits to the City brothels. I went to several myself, spoke to the bawds and the girls.’
‘That must have been a hardship.’
> ‘I am a diligent man, Child, what can I say?’
‘Dodd-Bellingham claims not to like whores. Only respectable women.’
‘That fits with what I heard. In that respect, as a bachelor, he is unusual.’
‘Maybe his tastes run in a different direction. There are other sorts of brothel. Ones that deal in men or little boys. Or little girls.’
Loredo looked troubled. ‘Not Dodd-Bellingham. He has been to my house, met my wife, met my daughters. I never witnessed anything to give me cause for concern.’
‘Sometimes the biggest rakes are just talk, and the quiet upright men the ones you ought to watch. I knew a merchant in Deptford who went to church every day, and strangled three whores before we caught him.’ Child took Pamela’s picture from his pocket. ‘This is the one we think was murdered back in March. She was older than she looked, but not by much.’
Loredo dragged his eyes from the fight, and frowned, seemingly troubled by the girl’s youth. ‘I hope to God you’re wrong about Dodd-Bellingham. I still think you are.’
The crowd surged forward as Mascarenhas caught Wheatacre a hefty peg on the chin and he went down. The Portuguese, in the manly and proper way of pugilism, kicked the fallen man in the ribs, a practice known as ‘purring’, until he managed to roll away, and reclaim his feet. This prompted a flurry of bets upon the Portuguese, a man calling out new odds to entice those supporting the English.
‘Did you ever hear a rumour about Dodd-Bellingham stealing from one of his clients? A man named Ansell Ward?’
‘Yes, I heard it,’ Loredo said.
‘You weren’t going to mention it?’
‘Only because I concluded that there was no truth to the allegation. I looked into it when I first had dealings with Dodd-Bellingham – a man who would steal from his clients wouldn’t think twice about deceiving another dealer. Yet aspects of the story didn’t sit right with me from the start. Dodd-Bellingham was trying to build his business, make a name for himself with his clients. He had grand ambitions. That’s why he got himself into debt in the first place.’
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