Daughters of Night

by Laura Shepherd-Robinson

  ‘We’ll wait,’ Child said.

  Simon sighed. ‘If Mr Stone finds out that I have talked to you, then he will tell Mr Ward.’

  ‘That’s a risk you’ll have to take,’ Child said. ‘But Stone won’t find out from us. Not if you tell us the truth.’

  Simon stared unhappily at the box of antiquities in his hands. ‘Then I have no choice.’

  *

  While they waited for Simon to return, they wandered the South Sea rooms, admiring carved wooden figures and paintings upon leather scrolls. When Simon caught up with them, he was still carrying his crate. ‘They only wanted two of my pots, and none of the coins. All my best pieces go to Mr Stone, at generous prices naturally. He subtracts any profit from my debt. It will be years before I can repay him at this rate.’

  Caro’s sympathy was in short supply. ‘You knew what Stone planned to do with Pamela? That he intended to give her to my brother?’

  ‘I thought it was shocking. We all did, even Neddy. But what else could we do?’

  ‘Warn her not to go?’

  ‘Stone would have called in our debts, had us locked in the Fleet. I’d have lost Miss Ward. But Pamela might never have been infected. I spoke to a physician. He said it was unlikely.’

  Seeing no absolution in Caro’s face, he started walking. ‘I told you the truth last time. I know nothing of any murder. I really did go for a walk. The girls told me what had happened with your brother when I returned, but I just went to bed. In the morning, when I awoke, Neddy and the girls were gone.’

  ‘You expect us to believe that you know nothing about it?’

  ‘It is the truth. I swear it on Miss Ward’s life.’

  ‘Tell us about that morning,’ Child said. ‘Leave nothing out.’

  They walked to a small tearoom with a garden and a skittle alley, and a view over the fields to the distant village of Highgate. They sat outside, though it wasn’t warm, the breeze cooling their tea.

  ‘All I can tell you is that Mr Stone was not his usual self at breakfast,’ Simon said. ‘Neither was Lord March. I presumed they felt as guilty about Pamela and your brother as I did myself. As far as I was concerned, Pamela had returned to London along with Neddy and the other girls. When I got home, I did ask him about Pamela, but he didn’t want to talk about it. Neither did I, truth be told. I wanted to forget that I’d ever played a part in it. Much later, after Lucy came to see me, I spoke to Neddy again. I demanded to know if it was true that Pamela had been murdered. He said it wasn’t, that she had found a wealthy keeper. I accepted my brother at his word.’

  ‘I saw your brother and Lord March arguing over a silver necklace at Carlisle House,’ Caro said. ‘It belonged to Pamela.’

  Simon shook his head. ‘Why would they kill her? It makes no sense.’

  Mr Child studied him evenly. ‘Theresa Agnetti visited Stone’s estate earlier that same day. Do you know anything about that?’

  ‘Yes, I was there, delivering some new pieces for Mr Stone’s collection.’

  ‘Do you know what he and Mrs Agnetti discussed?’

  ‘No, she asked to talk to him in private. They went downstairs to his study.’

  ‘Was that usual?’

  ‘No, I suppose it wasn’t. Normally, when she came to the house on her husband’s business, they talked in front of me. Mr Stone enjoyed her company. They knew one another from their time in India.’

  ‘How did Theresa seem on that last occasion?’

  ‘Calm. I was relieved.’

  ‘Why so?’

  ‘I had taken her a letter from my brother earlier that morning. They had been having an amour behind Mr Agnetti’s back, and he wished to end it.’

  ‘How did she react when you gave her the letter?’

  ‘I don’t know. She was upstairs in bed. I gave it to Pamela to deliver.’

  From Mr Child’s expression, Caro knew that he was thinking the same as her. How would that have made Theresa feel? To have her rival deliver a note of dismissal from the man she loved?

  ‘Do you have any idea where Mrs Agnetti is now?’

  ‘No, I told you before, I hardly knew her.’

  ‘That house in Wiltshire,’ Mr Child said. ‘Farthingale Hall. Does it belong to Stone?’ He registered Simon’s look of surprise. ‘I read a letter in your bureau.’

  He flushed scarlet. ‘Those papers are private. A gentleman doesn’t read another’s correspondence.’

  ‘Then you’re out of luck, because I’m no gentleman – as your brother was keen to remind me. That house was purchased in April, not long after these events. Could Stone be keeping Mrs Agnetti there?’

  ‘Mrs Agnetti? What makes you say that?’

  ‘She walked out of her house without any clothes, and you have purchased and sent lady’s clothes there, amongst other things.’

  ‘It was just an order Stone had me collect. The house is for one of his mistresses.’

  ‘Have you met her? Could it be Theresa Agnetti?’

  He shook his head vigorously. ‘Mr Denning, the steward at Farthingale Hall, saw the lady who is to live there. Stone was showing her around the place. He described a very different woman to Theresa Agnetti. Young, full in figure, and very beautiful. Even a charitable man wouldn’t describe Mrs Agnetti thus.’

  Caro felt all this was a distraction. Mrs Agnetti had loved the lieutenant. He had just broken her heart. She was hardly likely to have lurched into an amour with Mr Stone. Nor, she felt, was Theresa the sort of woman who would tempt Stone, no matter how much he had enjoyed her company.

  ‘Our witness says that when your brother and Lord March returned to Stone’s house, they had red mud and straw on their boots. You are familiar with Stone’s estate. Where might it have come from?’

  ‘The stables?’

  ‘They went into the woods, away from the house.’

  ‘I can’t think.’

  ‘Try harder,’ Child said.

  Simon’s brow furrowed. ‘There is a disused farm on the north side of the estate, beyond the wood. I’ve seen it from a hilltop: a yard and some buildings. The yard was red, like a wound in the landscape.’

  Caro met Child’s gaze. ‘A disused farm would offer plenty of places to hide a body,’ she observed.

  Simon shook his head, as if he was still unwilling to believe that Pamela had been murdered.

  ‘I asked you about your brother and Somerset,’ Caro said. ‘I think you lied to me. Now I want the truth.’

  Simon’s shoulders slumped. He removed his spectacles and rubbed his eyes. Betraying his brother was evidently coming at a cost.

  ‘Something happened last year,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t long after Neddy had returned from the colonies. A gift was delivered to the house, and Neddy opened it in front of me, thinking it was from one of his women. The box contained a white feather. I thought it was some sort of joke, but Neddy didn’t take it well. He threw it on the fire. Then later that day, an ensign who had served with Neddy called at the house. As they were going into the drawing room, I heard Neddy say: “I received a package from Somerset this morning.”?’ Simon spread his hands. ‘That’s all I know.’

  Caro’s mind was racing. A white feather, symbol of cowardice amongst military men.

  ‘Did you really go for dinner at the Prince of Wales on the night Lucy was murdered?’ Mr Child asked.

  Blushing, he shook his head. ‘I went to Lyme Street, to stand opposite Ward’s house. Sometimes Julia comes to her bedroom window, and we look at one another.’

  ‘Did she do so on that night?’

  ‘No, but it brought me great solace just to be near her.’

  ‘Some men will go to great lengths not to lose the woman they love,’ Mrs Corsham observed. ‘Some are even prepared to kill to prevent it. Pamela told a friend of hers that she knew a secret that could make her rich. One of the possibilities we’ve been considering is that this secret concerned one of you. That it might even be the motive for her murder.’

  ‘I
’d like to think that I’d kill for Miss Ward,’ Simon said. ‘But how could I possibly have made Pamela rich? I have no money – and neither does Neddy. Thanks to Mr Stone.’

  ‘You never heard Pamela speak of any secret?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘But I only met her a few times.’ He closed his eyes. ‘That last morning, when I went to the house, when I asked Pamela to deliver my brother’s letter, she asked me if she’d be safe at the masquerade. I said she would.’ He stared down at his hands. ‘Don’t think I don’t have a conscience. I think of her often – what we did. I blame Mr Stone for that most of all.’

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  MRS CORSHAM’S CARRIAGE rattled along King’s Street and then turned west onto High Holborn. This stretch of the street was lined with lottery shops: barbers offering a chance to win ten pounds with a shave; bootblacks where a man might win a guinea; stalls where threepence bought you a dozen oysters and a chance at a side of ham. Child thought fleetingly of Jonathan Stone, and his own odds of getting out of this mess unscathed.

  ‘We need to find Pamela’s body,’ Mrs Corsham said. ‘You need to take a look around that disused farm.’

  ‘You said the grounds were full of guards and gamekeepers. I’d never get close.’

  ‘Tomorrow is full moon. The night of the masquerade. All the guests will be wearing masks.’

  ‘No,’ Child said firmly. ‘It’s too dangerous.’

  ‘We could dress you up as a gentleman. And we have one of the lieutenant’s invitations.’

  ‘Not a chance,’ Child said. ‘Wherever Pamela is buried, I don’t fancy lying next to her.’

  They sat for a time in silence, each absorbed by their own thoughts. Halfway down Fleet Street, Mrs Corsham turned to him again, her eyes alight with excitement. ‘After the lieutenant received that white feather in the mail, he said he’d just received a package from Somerset. And when Lucy threatened him, she said she was thinking of taking a trip to see Somerset.’

  ‘What of it?’ Child said.

  ‘I wonder if he was talking about a place at all? What if he was referring to Somerset, a person?’

  A slow smile spread over Child’s face. ‘If you’re right, then this Somerset must be known to both the lieutenant and the ensign. If it was a woman, surely he’d have said Mrs Somerset? So it must be a man. Another soldier?’

  ‘If he served with the lieutenant, then he must be an officer. I remember him telling me that his regiment were redeployed to Jamaica. Only a handful of wounded officers were permitted to return home. The lieutenant was granted leave to accompany them because the King wanted to meet him. You could surely find out if one of them was named Somerset?’

  Child nodded. ‘Drop me at Charing Cross, and I’ll do so now.’

  *

  Most of the troops stationed in London were billeted in taverns close to the royal palaces, as the English had a natural distrust of soldiers living in permanent barracks. Child wandered the alehouses of Whitehall in search of soldiers who looked easy in drink and conversation. His freedom with his coin attracted the attention of several cadaverous girls with matted hair and soiled clothes – a far cry from the Whores’ Club. He waved them away.

  Child soon learned from a drunken private that the non-commissioned officers – those who’d come up from the rank and file, rather than gentlemen like the lieutenant – liked to drink in the Griffin on Villiers Street. It took him a few minutes to walk down there.

  The tavern wasn’t much different from the one he’d just left. Drink, dice, cards, a slightly better class of doxy, and bawdy songs. Child idled around a game of chicken-hazard, occasionally flashing his coin, until someone invited him to join in. The dice were clearly cogged and he bet cautiously, limiting his losses, until enough time had passed for him to drop the name comfortably.

  ‘Did any of you ever come across an officer named Somerset? He served in the colonies, I think.’

  ‘Jack Somerset? Sir Douglas’s Foot? Non-commissioned sergeant? Took a ball in the arm at Bound Brook?’

  Sir Douglas’s Foot was the lieutenant’s former regiment. ‘That’s him. I heard he was back in London now.’

  The man who had spoken had a crooked aquiline nose. The other players called him Pitt, because he supposedly resembled the young Chancellor of the Exchequer, though Child couldn’t see it. ‘That’s right. You know the army threw him out?’

  ‘I didn’t, no.’

  ‘Bit too fond of this.’ Pitt raised his glass. ‘But aren’t we all?’

  Child cast the dice. ‘Know where I can find him? Friend of mine owes him six shillings and wants to make good.’

  ‘Last I heard he was living at the Rag Fair. That should tell you everything about how he’s faring. He’ll be glad of your six shillings.’

  Child thanked him, and shortly thereafter, made his excuses and left. He was due to dine with Solomon Loredo and his family at eight, and some of the soldiers’ banter had made him realize what a mess he must look. His coat was stained with blood from yesterday’s beating, and his chin was bristled. His lodgings were on the way to Loredo’s house at St Mary-le-Bow, and he decided to stop off for a wash and a shave. As he walked across town, he dwelled again on his conversation with Kitty Carefree, trying to identify the discrepancy niggling away at him. By the time he reached Holborn, he’d failed to come up with the answer. Keep thinking, he told himself. It’ll come to you.

  A carriage was idling near the entrance to his court, and as Child passed, the door opened. The larger of the two men who’d accosted him in Soho stepped out. Child turned to run, but the man’s scarcely less-large friend was already behind him. He gave Child a gap-toothed grin, and nodded to the interior of the carriage.

  ‘Get in. Mr Stone wants a word.’

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  CARO HAD WONDERED whether Mr Agnetti would be at Vauxhall for the exhibition. Yet when she arrived at his house in Leicester Fields, she saw lights in the windows of both his studio and the drawing room. Miles waited in the hall while the manservant showed her upstairs, where she discovered Mr Agnetti painting by candlelight.

  He laid down his brush and bowed. ‘Mrs Corsham.’

  ‘Forgive my intrusion at this late hour, sir. I need to speak to you in confidence. My thief-taker found Kitty Carefree. I spoke to her.’

  Agnetti nodded to his manservant. ‘Leave us, please.’

  Clearing a sofa of drawings, he invited her to sit, and then pulled up a chair himself. ‘Do go on, madam. You mentioned that you had spoken to Kitty? I do hope she is well?’

  ‘First, I wish to apologize,’ she said. ‘For suspecting you of involvement in Lucy’s murder. Kitty told us who the fifth man was. My brother Ambrose.’

  ‘I am so sorry. That must have been hard.’

  ‘Ambrose didn’t kill her, I am certain. But his part in this despicable enterprise was almost as bad.’ Caro told him the whole story, believing that only candour would earn his trust.

  ‘Appalling,’ he said, disgust and distress written large upon his face. ‘How could they have done that to a child?’ He rose and paced the room. ‘Then you truly believe that Pamela is dead? Murdered by the same animal who killed Lucy?’

  ‘Yes, I do. We think Pamela is buried on Stone’s estate.’ She paused judiciously. ‘The reason I have called on you is that it’s possible that Theresa played a role in these events. You described a tension between your wife and Pamela, but we think it was much more than that. Someone told us Theresa believed Pamela murdered her baby.’

  He sat down heavily and passed a hand across his face. ‘How can that be true? You should know that Theresa was not always rational in those last days. There were times when I feared she was losing her mind.’

  Caro fought a wave of nausea. ‘But if Theresa believed it to be true, and she was not behaving rationally, might that not have given her a reason to harm Pamela? I don’t say Theresa killed her, not for a moment, but she visited Stone’s estate on the day she later disappe
ared – the same day Pamela attended that masquerade.’

  Agnetti made a bemused gesture. ‘I asked her to call on Stone. She took him a contract and some sketches.’

  ‘It seems odd to attend to your business if she’d already made up her mind to leave.’

  ‘As I said, she was not always acting with reason. I believe her decision to leave might have been made in the moment. Why else would she have taken no money? And no clothes?’

  ‘Could you tell me about those last days? What happened between the two of you? I would not ask if I did not believe it to be important.’

  His reluctance was etched into every line on his tired face, but he nodded slowly. ‘If you truly think it might help your thief-taker catch this beast among men. But allow me first to wash and fetch some wine.’

  He was gone some time. Caro wandered the studio, looking at the paintings. Agnetti had worked upon his Clytemnestra, Lucy’s face made flesh and blood, breathed back to life by his brush. ‘We make progress,’ Caro told her softly.

  When Agnetti returned, he handed her a glass of wine and she sipped it tentatively. Retaking his seat, he drew a lamp closer.

  ‘To truly understand my wife’s actions, you must first hear about our marriage from the beginning.’ Agnetti spoke slowly, his mellifluous voice rising and falling with the strain of the telling. ‘I first met Theresa at the house of her father, who served as British consul to the Kingdom of Naples. Her family lived on a small estate outside the city limits, and I stayed there while I painted her father’s portrait. He was pleased with my work, and he asked me to paint his daughter too. From our first meeting, I could tell that Theresa was a girl of fragile spirit. She barely said a word in our first sittings, mute with shyness, twitching with nerves. But later, as she grew to trust me, I saw the true Theresa: a young woman of learning, with a deep curiosity of the mind, and a fascination for art, philosophy and languages. Yet I sensed a deep sadness within her too.’

  He sipped his wine, grimacing, though to Caro’s taste it was very fine. ‘Theresa was then but twenty-one years old, and yet in the five years since she had set foot on Neapolitan soil, she had never once ventured out into society. I found it curious – this learned young woman, shut up in that villa, with only her parents and their servants and her books. Later, I learned the reason why. Before Theresa had left India, when she was just fifteen years old, she had fallen in love with a gentleman who did not love her back. Distraught by his rejection, she had attempted to commit suicide by cutting her wrists. That’s why her father brought the family to Naples – to escape the scandal and restore her to health. Back then, I knew nothing of this. I saw only a timid girl, who had begun to fascinate me.’