still raining, still cold. Lady Breckenridge did not appear. Barnstable gave me a jar of his liniment to take home with me, and it was to him that I said my good-byes.
The inquest for Amelia Chapman began that morning at ten o'clock in a public house near Blackfriar's Bridge. Because the death had been by means of violence, the coroner had called a jury. The rather blank-looking gentlemen of this jury sat upright in their chairs near the middle of the room.
Chapman stood and testified that the dead woman had been his wife. The surgeon who'd examined the body gave evidence that the deceased had met her death from a blow to the head sometime after four in the afternoon on Monday. Thompson put forth his theory that she had been thrown into the river from the Temple Gardens, near to half-past four.
The coroner called Chapman again and asked him all about his wife, his relations with her, her movements on the day he'd last seen her, and his on the day she died. Chapman trembled a little, unused to being on this side of the questioning, but his voice was steady. He produced a fellow barrister who could claim that Chapman had sat next to him in Middle Temple Hall all through dinner on Monday afternoon. Chapman's red-haired pupil also volunteered that he had seen his master dining in the Hall between four and five. I wondered if life as Chapman's pupil had finally become less dull for Mr. Gower.
Thompson had had no luck discovering how Peaches had gotten to Middle Temple or the Temple Gardens. He'd questioned hackney drivers, but none remembered driving Mrs. Chapman anywhere. Thompson had discovered that Mrs. Chapman had indeed boarded a coach bound for Sussex, but had left the coach at a coaching inn near Epsom and disappeared. How she'd gotten back to London was a mystery. No other public coach admitted to having had her as a passenger.
During Thompson's evidence, Mr. Chapman claimed to feel faint, and he was allowed to leave the room with Pomeroy to attend him. Thompson proceeded to tell how a ring had been found on Peaches' finger, discovered to belong to one Lord Barbury. I wondered if Chapman, knowing this revelation was coming, had decided to retreat before he'd have to sit, humiliated, while Thompson revealed how he'd be cuckolded.
Lord Barbury had admitted to being the lover of Mrs. Chapman. No, Barbury was not in court today, but Thompson had questioned him thoroughly, and Barbury had been able to satisfy Thompson that he'd stayed at White's club the whole of Monday afternoon.
Lord Barbury had played a game of whist with Lord Alvanley and two other prominent gentlemen, who each swore that Barbury never left the table from three o'clock to six. Likewise, Barbury's coachman had been carefully questioned. He had not gone to Middle Temple, he said, nor had he been summoned to drive Mrs. Chapman there.
I'd told Thompson when I'd arrived of my findings at Inglethorpe's and that Peaches had last been seen at The Glass House by young Jean, and about Kensington, who deserved further investigation. But when Thompson mentioned the name of The Glass House, the coroner immediately cut him off and bade him sit down. I remembered Thompson and Sir Montague saying that whoever owned The Glass House had several magistrates in his pocket, and I wondered if that were the case here.
The coroner instructed the jury, who quickly brought back the verdict of murder by person or persons unknown. The inquest was at an end.
From the look in Thompson's eye, he considered things far from over. He had no time to speak with me, however, because other cases awaited his attention, and he left at once for his house in Wapping.
I departed public house to run my own errands, one of which was close by in the City. Thompson had seemed satisfied with Lord Barbury's alibi at White's, but I wondered if he truly believed Barbury's innocence to be established. I was sorry he had to rush away, and I would have to find him again and learn his ideas.
A second errand I wanted to run today was to retrieve my walking stick from Inglethorpe. While I appreciated Grenville's generosity in lending me his walking stick, and my leg was now relaxed and warm from Barnstable's ministrations, I wanted my own back. Not only had it cost me a quarter's pay, but Louisa Brandon had assisted me in choosing it.
We'd gone to a Spanish sword maker, who'd made the beautiful sword and its cane, adding a hidden latch in the handle that released the sword. Last spring, the cane had been broken in one of my adventures, and Grenville had ordered a replacement for it. The walking stick was no longer simply a prop for my lameness, it represented the kindness of my friends.
My first errand, however, was with a moneylender.
This particular moneylender had dealt with the Lacey family for generations. When the Laceys had been high in the world, the coffers of London had been open to them. My grandfather and father had each drawn on that tradition and managed to borrow enough to live a life of relative ease while squandering their fortune. The long war against France had not been kind to either my father or the estate, and now all that was left was the ruin of a house Norfolk and the tiny bit of land on which it sat. The remainder of the farms had been sold long ago to pay my father's mountain of debts.
I was the last of the family, a gentleman of reduced means. In the Army, I had led a life of much activity, and sitting idly at home did not appeal to me. I had already begun keeping an ear open for circumstances in which a gentleman might earn his keep, as a secretary, perhaps, or an assistant, a sort of gentleman's aide de camp. I planned to recruit Bartholomew in the task of discovering whom might be willing to employ for me, since the lad seemed to know everyone in London.
The moneylender I spoke to remembered my grandfather well, was his contemporary, in fact. I looked into the lined face, eyes undimmed by time, and wondered if my own grandfather would have lived longer had he not succumbed to hedonistic pleasures. The man facing me had suppressed his own desires with years of strict discipline. His fortune had increased while the Lacey fortune had faded, and now he was in a position to condescend to me.
He lent me three hundred guineas. In return I'd have to pay him a percentage of the money, payable in increments. I was not fond of usury, but I had no choice. I signed myself into debt and left his house with the money.
I visited my bank, paid it into my account, and wrote out a bank draft. I returned to the outside world and settled my uneasiness by purchasing coffee from a vendor. I took a hackney to Mayfair, heading for Inglethorpe's residence to retrieve my walking stick.
I descended at Curzon Street at half-past three. Bartholomew left me there, jogging off to Grosvenor Street to visit his brother and wait for me at Grenville's. As I stepped up to the door, a gust of wind sent rain under my greatcoat, and water poured from my hat brim. I lifted the knocker.
The door opened before I could let the knocker fall, the polished brass ripped from my hand.
'Ah, Captain,' Milton Pomeroy said. 'I was about to send a lad to fetch you. Returned to the scene of the crime, eh?'
Icy droplets slid under my collar. 'Crime?' What crime?'
Pomeroy's flat yellow hair was dark with rain. 'The crime of murder, sir. Mr. Simon Inglethorpe, gentleman. Laid out flat in his own reception room, dead as stone. And curious thing, Captain. It's your sticker that has him pinned to the floor. It's in him all the way through to the carpet.'
Chapter Eight
Inglethorpe lay spread-eagled on the gold and cream carpet of the reception room, the same small, uncomfortable room had housed me yesterday while I'd waited for the footman to admit me upstairs.
Inglethorpe's expression was one of astonishment. The dead man's face was chalk white face, a thick rivulet of dried blood creased his chin. He was naked from the waist up, his white skin stark against the carpet. Below the waist he wore tight black pantaloons that buttoned at his ankles, silk stockings, and pumps. His stomach showed that he had slightly gone to fat, and his chest muscles were limp.
The sword from my walking stick stuck straight out of Inglethorpe's chest, the blade surrounded by a circle of dried blood. The handle, which doubled as a hilt, shone faintly in the candlelight.
I turned to Pomeroy, dumbfounded. 'When did this happen?'
