The Hanover Square Affair

Chapter Eight

"Bury me cold," the constable breathed. "Look what they done to the poor bugger."

The constable for the parish, a round-faced young man, blacksmith by trade, stood in the doorway of the study and stared at the carnage within.

I sat at the kneehole desk near the window, leafing through Horne's collection of calling cards. Pomeroy planted his fists on his hips and surveyed the dead body, the pool of blood, and me rifling the desk.

"Did you find him, Captain?"

I didn't look up. "The butler found him. I was in the reception room. Bremer rushed down and fetched me."

"He's the gent you were asking me about, ain't he? Friend of yours? "

I chose my words with care. "He is a friend of a friend. I called to pay my respects."

"To be sure. And you found him like this."

"The butler found him," I repeated. "He fetched me, and I followed him upstairs. Horne was lying as you see him now."

Pomeroy advanced to the edge of the stain, pudgy fingers stroking his chin. "Bled like a pig, didn't he? Took a while for that lot to dry, though, wouldn't you say? Crows would be at him by now."

I said, "The butler and footman say Mr. Horne came into this room this morning and asked not to be disturbed. After that-" I spread my hands, indicating anything could have happened after that.

"Well, I'll be questioning the butler and footman, to be sure. Now, if you don't mind, sir, the constable and I will be at it."

I palmed the card of Mr. James Denis, slid it into my pocket, and closed the card box. "Carry on, Sergeant."

I crossed the room to the door and went out. The constable remained in the hall, staring at the body, his pasty face shiny with sweat.

I said kindly, "The footman can fetch you brandy or port."

"Them are the devil's drinks, sir."

Dear God, A London constable who was a Methodist. I silently wished him luck.

As I neared the staircase, Hetty put her mob-capped head out of the bedroom. "She's awake, sir. I told her the master was dead. She's a bit bewildered by it all."

I glanced back at the study, but Pomeroy and the constable were not watching me. Pomeroy's loud and cheerful tones floated down the hall. I motioned Hetty back inside the room, then stepped in quietly and shut the door.

The yellow-haired girl watched me from the bed, her dark eyes pools of confusion.

"Aimee?"

Her voice was a shallow whisper. "Yes."

I sat down in the chair I'd pulled close to the bed, and she flinched and closed her eyes.

"I'll not hurt you, Aimee," I said in the gentlest voice I could. "I've come from the Thorntons."

Aimee's face relaxed, and after a moment or two, her eyes drifted open. She had brown eyes, but the brown was swallowed up by the black of her pupils. I read shock there, and hurt so deep I could not reach it.

"My name is Captain Lacey," I said. "I've come to find you and Jane. Do you know where Jane is?"

Tears filled her eyes and streaked silently down her cheeks. "No, sir. She's gone. He sent her away."

"Do you mean Horne? Where did he send her?"

Aimee shook her head against the pillow. "He wouldn't tell me, sir, no matter how much I begged."

"I'm going to find her," I said.

Aimee's eyes remained hopeless.

I suddenly hated Josiah Horne with all my strength. I no longer gave a damn who had killed him, and I raged at them all-the nervous Bremer, the oblivious John, the self-righteous Hetty. They'd known their master for what he was, they'd known of Jane and Aimee, and yet they stayed and said nothing, silently consenting to what he did.

"I've sent for Alice," I said. "Do you remember Alice, the Thorntons' maid? I will stay until she comes."

Aimee nodded faintly and closed her eyes.

I rose, trembling with anger and helpless frustration. Hetty looked up, but I said nothing to her as I let myself out of the room, closing the door on the ruined creature on the bed.

I searched for Bremer again and found him in the servants' hall. He'd moved to the long table and held a tumbler of clear liquid between his shaking hands. His eyes had lost focus. "I've never seen the like in all my days."

I had seen worse in the army, acts of atrocity not always committed by the enemy, but I did not tell him so.

I sat down next to Bremer, noting that the room boasted a comfortable fire and a sofa under the window. I'd discovered what Horne had spent his money on-high wages and comfortable furnishings for servants who would stay with him no matter what crimes he committed.

"The girl I found in the wardrobe," I said. "You know who she is."

Bremer exhaled a volume of gin-scented breath. "She's nobody, sir. Just a maid."

I resisted the urge to shove him off the chair. "When her mistress left, she stayed behind. How long ago did the other girl, Lily, leave?"

Bremer searched for inspiration in his glass. "Three weeks gone now."

I stared at him. "Three weeks? How could John and Hetty not know that Aimee hadn't left with her mistress? Aimee had to eat, to sleep somewhere. Are you claiming that half the household did not know your master kept Aimee here for three weeks?"

Bremer shrugged. "He had her in an upstairs room, where no one is allowed to go but me."

"And Grace."

"And Grace. Mr. Horne had to have someone see to her, didn't he? So Grace brought her meals and cared for her."

"And told no one? No whispering it to Hetty or John, no games that she knew something they did not?"

"Indeed, no, sir. Grace knows her place. He pays her extra wages. And me."

"The cook must have known," I said. "She would have to prepare meals."

Bremer shook his head. "Grace was sent out for her meals, and took them up to her. And the door to her room was always locked, and only I and Mr. Horne had the keys."

Damn the man. I had been angry with Hetty, but she truly had not known the extent of her master's crimes. Bremer had openly helped him. "And Aimee never raised an outcry? A healthy, young girl locked up in a room would make some noise. She would bang on the door or shout out of the window."

"Mr. Horne gave her opium to keep her quiet."

I sprang up, no longer able to sit. Here was Bremer, warmed by a good fire with a thick carpet under his feet, drinking from a crystal tumbler, while a young woman was fed opium and beaten and raped.

"Why did Horne send Lily away?"

"I don't know, sir."

"You do know, damn you. Tell me."

"I think because he'd got her belly-full."

I grabbed Bremer's tumbler from his hands and smashed it to the floor. "And you stood by. You knew what he was and what he did, and you said nothing. You did not tell the girl's family, or the magistrates, or anyone. You let him ruin a girl and her maid, right before your eyes."

Bremer choked out, "He paid good wages, sir."

I grabbed Bremer by his coat and hauled him onto the fine veneer of the table. "Damn your wages. He destroyed an entire family. I hope you murdered him, because it would prove you had one ounce of human feeling in you."

"I didn't," he gasped. "I didn't."

"But you know who did. You must. You are the only one who knows everything about this household."

"No."

Pomeroy's battlefield voice floated into the room accompanied by his heavy tread. "Not much to see up there. Just one very dead cove minus his ballocks. What are you doing, Captain?"

I eased my hands from Bremer's coat, and the butler slumped back into the chair, eyes bulging.

"Just having a word with Mr. Bremer," I said.

"Oh, aye? I know how that usually plays out. Don't break his neck yet, sir, I want to ask him some questions. Beginning with who was the girl in the wardrobe?"

Bremer opened his mouth, but I glared him to silence. "She has nothing to do with this. I am taking her home."

"She the young lady you were looking for?"

Pomeroy was always too tenacious for his own good. The constable looked on, his breathing shallow and rapid.

"No," I said. "Leave her alone. She's been through much."

"All right, sir, if you like. But she might have killed the gent upstairs."

"Unlikely. The wardrobe was locked from the outside and her hands were tied."

Pomeroy shrugged, as if such facts were mere inconveniences. "If she's ill, she'll not go far. Now then, sir, I want to talk to this butler before he's completely trimmed. I hope you won't take offense if I ask you to go. Your temper's a bit wild, and he can't answer me if you break all his teeth. Thank you, sir. I knew you were with me."

I did not want to wait in Aimee's room for Alice, because I couldn't bear to look again into those hopeless eyes. I made my way to the kitchens, instead, which I found empty. The boy, Henry, was still out, and there was no sign of John.

The cook stamped into the room. She dumped a bag onto the flour-strewn kitchen table and began to pile things in it-knives, towels, spoons. She was a handsome woman, tall, large boned, and ample chested, a woman I might have found attractive in another circumstance. Now her brow was clouded in high indignation, and her lips trembled.

"Such goings-on in this house," she snapped. "I never heard the like."

I leaned against the dresser and folded my arms. "I assume Bremer or John told you about Aimee. Did you know she hadn't gone?"

"Well, how could I? I work down here all day and all night, don't I? Making his meals and baking his bread." She swept an angry arm across the table and flung abandoned dough and flour onto the flagstone floor. "And Grace helping him like his abbess. I gave her the sack, I can tell you."

I had wondered where Grace had disappeared to. "What about John? Where is he?"

She thrust a handful of towels into the bag. "How should I know? With his mates at the public house, I expect, filling their ears with the tale. Well, no more for me, thank you very much. I'm off to stay with my brother and his wife. They have an inn on the Hampstead Road, and she's got her hands full because he was always a shiftless lout."

"The constable will want to speak to you before you go."

"Well, I don't want to speak to him. Here I am in this kitchen all the day long, cooking dainties to please the master's delicate appetite. The dishes I created for him and him alone. He would come down those stairs some nights and thank me, smiling so friendly-like, and take my hand… " She stopped. "And now there's rioting outside the house one day, and murder inside the next." She picked up the bag, which clanked. "I'll have no more of it. Good evening to you, sir."

She marched past me, lips firm, head high, and out through the scullery. After a moment, I saw her climb the steps outside, gray skirt swirling to reveal shapely ankles and stout shoes.

I knew I ought to go after her, to escort her somewhere safely at least. A young woman walking alone, no matter how robust, in London, had much to fear. But somehow I sensed that any would-be assailant would get the worse end of the bargain in an encounter with her tonight.

No, I left her, I left Bremer sobbing in the servants' hall under the onslaught of Pomeroy's questioning, and I left that house.

Outside, fog rolled over me, thick and clammy, but I inhaled as if I stood in a fragrant spring night of Portugal. I leaned against the railings and let the rain beat on me, and was still there when Alice came, worry and relief on her work-worn face, to take Aimee home.

Grenville's carriage stood at the head of Grimpen Lane when I arrived home, coach lights throwing a sickly yellow swirl into the fog and rain. Despite the weather, my neighbors had turned out to ogle it and the fine horses that pulled it, but the sight did nothing to relieve my temper.

Grenville sat in the same worn wingchair Louisa had occupied the night before, with something crumbly and bready in his hands. He had stoked the fire high and the room hung with heat.

"Ah, Lacey," he said as I entered. "Your Mrs. Beltan does a fine crumpet. I'd have her supply my house entirely, but my chef would never speak to me again. Thinks he's a genius with pastry." He peered at me. "Good Lord, Lacey, what happened?"

I was soaked through, and my face must have been grim as an undertaker's. I moved to my bedroom and began peeling off my clothes.

I heard Grenville rise and follow me. "Are you all right?"

"Ask Mrs. Beltan to bring me some hot water," I said and slammed the door in his face.