Peaches, wrapped in a sheet, waited in silence on the table. Standing beside the shrouded body was Sir Montague Harris, the magistrate I’d met the year before. I was surprised at his presence, as he was magistrate at the Whitechapel house, far from the scene of the crime. The houses and officers often cooperated with each other, but if a magistrate from another part of the metropolis had not been asked to participate in an investigation, he had no need to.
Sir Montague, however, looked very interested. He shook my hand, professing himself pleased to see me.
Chapman was introduced to him but did not look impressed.
'This must be a mistake, you know,' he said, in a voice of one annoyed that the outside world had intruded on his workday. 'My wife is in Sussex.'
'That's as may be,' Pomeroy said. 'But here we are.'
He stepped forward, removed the wrapping from Peaches' face, and held his candle high.
Silent and blue-gray in the circle of light, Peaches looked almost serene. Her ringlets had dried from her dousing in the Thames and lay on her shoulders as silken and golden as a girl's.
Chapman stared at her a long time, his face unmoving.
'Well?' Pomeroy boomed. His candle wavered, and a drop of hot wax splashed on Peaches' shrouded chest.
'That is my wife,' Mr. Chapman said finally. 'She was meant to be in Sussex.' He sounded as though this breach of plans displeased him.
'I am very sorry, sir.' Sir Montague's words were polite but sincere. 'From what Mr. Thompson tells me, she died quickly. Probably never knew what happened. Now, then sir, when did you last see your wife?'
Thompson quietly pulled the sheet back over Peaches' face. She was not a person any more, merely a figure under a sheet.
'I handed her into a hackney, bound for a coaching inn,' Chapman said. 'She was to take the mail to Sussex. That was three, no four days ago.'
'And where were you,' Pomeroy broke in, 'yesterday afternoon at half-past four?'
Chapman turned to him in mild shock. 'Why is that important?'
'Because your wife was tipped into the river very near your chambers in Middle Temple at that time.'
Chapman paled. 'If you imply that I killed her, you are wrong. I dined that evening in the hall, with my pupil and fellow barristers. I never left it. I put my wife into a coach on Saturday, and have not set eyes on her from that time to this.' He glanced at the shrouded body and flinched, as though only now understanding that her death was real.
'Did you have any quarrel with your wife, sir?' Pomeroy asked.
A vein began pulsing in Chapman's forehead. 'What do you mean, asking me such a thing?'
'Did you know, for instance, that your wife was having an affair with a posh gent?'
Chapman's face suffused with color. He looked at the four of us, all silent, all waiting for his answer. It struck me that although Chapman had not believed his wife dead, he very well believed she'd had a lover.
'Gentlemen, you cast aspersions on my wife's reputation,' he said.
'She'd been an actress, had she not?' Thompson said. 'Not many actresses have excellent reputations to begin with.'
Chapman's jaw hardened. 'That was years ago. She gave up the stage-everything-when she married me.'
'An odd choice of wife, wasn't it?' Thompson said. 'For a respectable barrister?'
'That is really none of your business.'
Sir Montague spoke, still polite, but his voice firm. 'She was murdered, sir, which is a very serious crime. We will expect you at the inquest, day after tomorrow.'
Chapman blinked at the word 'inquest.' 'Surely, I will not be called to give evidence.'
'A few things will be easier if you are there,' Sir Montague said. He never lost his polite geniality. 'You understand.'
As a barrister, Mr. Chapman obviously did.
'Before you leave, just tell Mr. Pomeroy the names of the men you dined with, and your movements between four and five o'clock, yesterday.'
'Of course.' Chapman's voice was lackluster.
We went back to the outside world, which was almost as dim as the stone room had been. Mr. Chapman did not shake hands with me or Thompson. He moved into the side room indicated to wait for Pomeroy.
'He must have done it, sir,' Pomeroy hissed at Sir Montague, his round face wearing an annoyed expression. 'Why are you letting him go?'
'So that you may watch him, of course,' Sir Montague said. 'If he is innocent, he will do nothing but grow enraged at the inefficiencies of the magistrates. If he is guilty, he will betray himself.'
Pomeroy looked thoughtful, gave Sir Montague a nod, and turned back to the waiting Chapman.
Sir Montague asked me and Thompson to speak to him and led us upstairs to the magistrate's rooms. The Bow Street magistrate was not there. He was even now presiding in the court below, where those arrested during the night would parade before him-pickpockets, prostitutes, thieves, and ruffians. The magistrate would hear the cases against them and decide whether to let the culprits go free or to bind them over for trial. Mr. Chapman might very well prosecute them in a few days at the Old Bailey, if Pomeroy didn’t arrest Chapman first.
Thompson closed the door, and Sir Montague settled his bulk on a wide bench. 'I was pleased for the chance to meet you again, Captain,' he said. 'When Mr. Thompson told me that Mr. Pomeroy had fetched you to view the body, I was interested. I remember how you tweaked the coroner's nose in Kent for not doing his job.'
'I was impertinent.' I had been, but I’d also believed in what I’d said.
'He was in a hurry and wanted his dinner,' Sir Montague said. 'Your observations were apt, and he ought to have paid attention. I would be pleased to hear your observations in this case.'
He was watching me closely. I had the feeling, as I had in Kent, that were I ever in the dock before him, Sir Montague Harris would peel me apart layer by layer.
'I agree with Mr. Thompson's idea that she was killed in the Temple Gardens, near the stairs,' I said. 'It would have been dark and few people would have been out in the rain. Also, as the wife of a barrister, she would see nothing wrong with answering a summons from her husband-or one purporting to be from her husband-to Middle Temple.'
Thompson leaned against a plain wooden desk and folded his arms. 'Why would her husband summon her if he thought her in Sussex?'
'We have only his word on that matter,' Sir Montague said. 'He and his servants will be questioned, of course.'
'If she had returned to London to meet someone at the Temple Gardens,' I said, 'she likely hired a coach to let her down at Middle Temple Lane. Drivers can be questioned.'
'Or the posh Lord Barbury hired a coach for her,' Thompson said. 'I have an appointment to speak to him today; I will certainly ask him. I suggest she used the Sussex journey as a ruse to get away from her husband for a few days to meet Lord Barbury. Perhaps Chapman discovered the ruse and killed her in anger.'
'Would she answer a summons to Middle Temple if she were hiding from her husband?' I asked.
Thompson spread his hands. 'Perhaps the other speculation is correct, that she met her end elsewhere and was brought to the gardens. Her husband would know the gardens and know they would be empty at that time of day.'
'Or it is the lover,' Sir Montague broke in. 'Perhaps she wanted to end the association and return to her husband's affections. In a crime like this, it is often one or the other, the husband or the lover. We only need discover which one.'
'But in this case,' I said, 'both the lover and the husband claim to have been in places with plenty of witnesses at the time of the crime. Mr. Chapman in Middle Temple Hall, and Lord Barbury at White's.'
'We will certainly ascertain that,' Sir Montague said. 'But we have yet to establish the involvement of a third party.'
'What is your interest?' I asked Sir Montague. 'Whitechapel is a long way from Bow Street or even Blackfriar's Bridge.'
