Chapter Eleven
The search for Dawes led Strathairn and Irvine to a busy street near the docks crowded with horses and wagons, pushcarts, and pack animals. Dawes had a room in an alley off to the side of the main thoroughfare, rank with the stink of cat urine and something worse. When Strathairn and Irvine were close enough to knock, the smell grew stronger. They eyed each other, recognizing the stench. Strathairn cursed and banged on the rough wooden door. When no one answered, he tried the knob. The door swung open.
Pistols in hand, they entered the dim interior of the windowless room.
They staggered back as a blast of putrid air washed over them. “The devil!” Irvine gasped.
“Damn this infernal window tax.” Strathairn cursed and kicked the ill-fitting door wide. “It forces the poor to live in the dark.”
Handkerchiefs held to their noses, they stepped inside. As his eyes grew accustomed to the gloom, Strathairn made out a small table with a candle and a chair and a narrow cot in the corner.
A man lay on the bed. Judging by the signs of vermin, he had been dead for some time.
Strathairn took the candle Irvine lit and held it close to the body. The mattress was soaked with blood. “Not a natural death then. How long would you say?”
“In this warm weather it’s hard to tell.” Irvine’s voice was gagged by his handkerchief. “A week at least.”
The dead man’s pockets yielded nothing of interest to Strathairn’s search. Irvine inspected the few clothes hanging on a peg on the wall. The wretched room held little bar a jug of ale, a tankard, and a few crumbs of bread on a pewter plate the rats had missed.
Strathairn checked under the pillow and straw mattress, lifting them with his cane. He swiped at the swarm of disturbed flies. “Nothing here.”
They escaped the rancid air into the alley, gasping for breath. “Find a constable and send for the coroner,” Strathairn ordered.
After the coroner’s inspection of the body, it was removed to the morgue. No autopsy was to be performed. Dawes had been feloniously murdered by persons unknown, his throat cut.
“Dawes could just have been robbed of his recent bounty, but we have to discover who paid him and for what. We’ll return to the docks,” Strathairn said after they left Bow Street.
In the tavern, one of Dawes’s cronies appeared genuinely shocked to learn of his death. He confessed that Dawes was paid to smuggle a wooden crate ashore and deliver it. To whom he didn’t know. He never saw the man who paid him.
“Describe the crate,” Strathairn said after buying him another pint of ale.
“Twas flat, longer than wide.” He took a long swallow.
“Do you think it was heavy?”
“Maybe not, but ’e was strong, was Dawes.” He shrugged. “I were tryin’ to mind me own business. Don’t pay to poke yer nose in anyone else’s ’ere on the docks.”
“Contraband,” Irvine muttered as he and Strathairn crossed the road. “But that’s usually foreign brandy, spirits, bolts of silk or tea. A few soldier mates of mine got involved in the business after the war left them injured and unable to work. But they operate in small ships down along the coast.”
“Somewhere like Dartmouth, where they can transport their cargo inland? Risk enough to cross the channel with customs preventative boats in pursuit.” Strathairn was thinking hard. “The sheer number of ships moored in the Thames makes it easy to conceal contraband brought in along with legitimate cargo. But we’re looking at something unusual here. This isn’t a tailor merely in need of French cloth or a gentleman after the brandy.”
That evening in The Three Crowns riverside alehouse, some of Dawes’s friends and fellow dockworkers admitted seeing him with the crate. No one could or would identify the boat. It was a busy time at the docks.
“Did any of you get a good look at the man?” Strathairn gazed around the taproom at the assembled group, softened up by several rounds of ale he’d bought them.
One man with a knitted cap on his head spoke up. “Dawes met ’im in the alley beside the alehouse.”
“Did they leave together?”
The beefy dockworker scratched his chin. “Nope. Followed me inside, showed me his blunt, but refused to say more. Dawes was scared right enough.” He shook his head sorrowfully. “Said the Frenchie threatened to cut his throat if he talked.”
They left the alehouse into a chilly night. Soupy fog drifted off the river and swirled around their legs, threatening to rise to choke and blind them.
“Looks like he did talk,” Irvine said as they walked beneath a gas lamp’s hazy circle of light.
“Maybe he’d outlived his usefulness,” Strathairn said. “Dead men don’t tell tales. We’ll need to delve further and find out what was in that crate. Where the contents are now. I’ll report to Parnham in the morning. You’re in charge, Irvine. Get people on it. Talk to the Thames River Police. Go to the Customs House and check the charts for boats arriving from France on or close to that day. I have something else to do.”
Irvine straightened his shoulders. “Right, my lord.”
Strathairn began a tedious round of the clubs Vaughn frequented during the evening. The fog had worsened. The moist air clung to his hair and clothing as he made his way cautiously along gloomy streets, wary of footpads. Lamps cast a feeble glow from carriages moving at a snail’s pace through the soupy air. A linkboy dashed past him, lighting the way for pedestrians.
Vaughn wasn’t at Watier’s. His search went steadily down from there in the less salubrious smoky gambling hells. No one had seen Vaughn for weeks. He arrived back at Grosvenor Square in the early hours, tired and dispirited. He did not want to let Sibella down. His promise meant a lot to him. It was the only thing he could do for her.
*
The day after she accompanied her mother to the village fete, Sibella was on her knees digging in the garden at Brandreth Park when Lord Coombe appeared. He was his immaculate self, dressed in an olive-green coat and buff trousers. “Don’t your gardeners do that?” he asked with his stiff smile.
Did her messy appearance upset him? Sibella removed her gloves and untied the smock over the cambric gown she always wore in the garden as they strolled back to the house. She suffered again from that fervent desire to do or say something outrageous; to force a reaction from him. His starchy reserve annoyed her, but it also made her guilty. After all, her feelings for Strathairn were not his fault. “Your trip was successful?”
“Quite successful, yes.” His smile was a trifle smug whether he was pleased at her question or his trip, she wasn’t sure.
“Chaloner tells me you import coffee from your plantation in the West Indies.”
“That is correct.” He averted his gaze, prodding his cane at a branch of azalea too close to the path.
“Do you go to the West Indies often?”
“When business demands it.”
She waited for him to elaborate, but he said nothing more.
“Should I like it there?” she asked. “Quite different to life here, I imagine.”
“I will never take you to the West Indies.” He grimaced. “It’s different in every respect to England. Little morality exists in that hot heathenish country. You would hate the place.”
She doubted he had much idea about her likes and dislikes as he’d never asked her about them. Tired of the awkward silences between them, she gave voice to an idea she had been considering. “Remember when you invited me to visit your house?”
“Of course I do.” A spark brightened his eyes. “You wish to visit my home?”
“We might go tomorrow,” she said.
“We’ll need to leave early. Would it inconvenience you should I call after breakfast? Ten o’clock?” He cleared his throat. “I trust that Lady Maria will accompany us?”
“I’m sure she will.”
As soon as Lord Coombe departed, Sibella climbed the stairs in search of Maria. “Please come. I can’t go alone,” she said, “and I need you to distract him while I question the staff.”
Maria’s brows shot up. “Question the staff?”
“I want to learn more about Lord Coombe and his wife.”
Maria turned from the mirror, a new hat in her hands. “Why? Do you have reason to believe Coombe strangled her?” She gave an exaggerated shiver.
“What a horrible thought. No, I just want to learn more about her. Was it a love match? What Lady Brookwood told me led me to believe theirs wasn’t a happy marriage.”
“I don’t know how you intend to find that out from servants. They might gossip among themselves but remain loyal to their masters. If they know what’s good for them,” Maria said with a chuckle. She turned back to the mirror to consider the hat, spangled-blue velvet adorned with plumes of feathers, now settled atop her dark curls. “It’s unlike you to be so nosey.”
“I’m about to marry the man. Shouldn’t I be at least a little curious?”
“I would never pry into Harry’s past. I’m sure I’d discover he’d been with other women. I hope he has. I wouldn’t want us both to be virgins.”
Sibella’s lips twitched. “I shouldn’t think you need worry about Harry. The way he looks at you, I’m sure he’ll know exactly how to go about it.”
Maria laughed.
“But what I wish to learn about Lord Coombe is more important.”
“More important than the bedchamber?”
Sibella coughed, a lump blocking her throat. “Don’t be frivolous, Maria.”
Maria’s eyes widened. “Wasn’t that why you wanted to marry Strathairn? Because he looked at you in the same way?”
“In the past perhaps,” Sibella said crossly as Strathairn’s smoky blue-gray eyes appeared in her mind. “I’d rather we didn’t speak of him.”
Maria bit her lip, shamefaced. “I’m sorry, Sib. Of course, I’ll come. And I’ll distract Lord Coombe for you, which shan’t be easy.”
“Bless you, my sweet.” Sibella hugged her and eyed the blue affair perched on Maria’s head. “I’m not sure about the hat, though.”
“No, I agree. It’s a little ordinary. Blue suits everyone, and everyone wears it. Unlike orange or olive green. And yellow, which is even more unusual.” Maria returned the hat to the tissue paper and replaced it in its round box. “I’ll have it sent back.”
Early the next morning, Lord Coombe’s shiny black carriage arrived with a groom beside the coachman and two fair young footmen riding behind. Just before luncheon, they reached the first tumbledown black and white cottages of Chiddingston.
Maria gazed out the window. “You can see the spires of Lamplugh Abbey from here.”
Lord Coombe nodded, pleased. “The duke is my neighbor, as I have said.”
They drove on through green fields dotted with wide spreading oaks and black and white cows, for another half hour. Then the carriage turned into a narrow lane.
Arrowtree Manor’s gardens were as neat as a new pin with clipped box hedges and raked gravel walks. “You’ll be impressed with the house’s decoration,” Lord Coombe said, with a proud smile.
A black and white half-timbered house, the casement windows had fine latticework. Coombe stepped aside as Sibella and Maria entered the handsomely paneled hall. He escorted them through the house pointing out the decorative touches: symbols of Tudor rose, thistle and fleurs-de-lis featured in the oak woodwork and the stained-glass windows. The theme continued in tapestries and the embroideries which adorned the walls.
“How very fine those embroideries are,” Maria said. “Who made them?”
“Lady Coombe.” Her name hung in the air as Lord Coombe hurried them past the oak staircase and along a passage to the dining room.
Seated at the table, a footman served them a light luncheon of cold meats, cheeses, breads, and nuts before they embarked on a tour of the house. Then Coombe led them out into the gardens.
Sibella looked about at the ordered grounds, so very unlike Brandreth Park with its banks of roses, flowering trees, arbors, and hot houses. “I look forward to working in the gardens.”
“There are several gardeners in my employ,” Coombe said flatly.
After returning to the house, they partook of tea, seated on a green-velvet sofa in the drawing room.
Lord Coombe stirred sugar into his cup. “What do you think of my home, Lady Sibella?”
Sibella took a welcome sip of tea, her mouth dry. Mary Jane’s presence was everywhere she looked. “The house is beautiful, isn’t it, Maria?”
“Exquisite,” Maria said.
Aware of how little time remained, Sibella finished her tea and stood. “I wish to be excused.”
Coombe jumped up and pulled the bell. “A footman will direct you.”
She slipped from the room as Maria asked, “What year was the house built, my lord?”
An older footman escorted her. “What is your name?” she asked him, as they climbed the staircase.
“Havers, my lady.”
“Were you in service when Lady Coombe was alive, Havers?”
“Yes, my lady.”
“You enjoy your work here?”
“I do, thank you, my lady. It’s quieter these days. His lordship seldom entertains and is away a lot.”
She nodded sympathetically. “I expect business does take him away often. It would have been livelier before your mistress died, I imagine.”
Havers’ face suffused with color. “When Lady Coombe enjoyed good health, yes.”
They reached the top of the stairs. “So difficult when one is constantly ill. I imagine a certain amount of upheaval would occur.”
Havers glanced down at the hall below before speaking. “There was some unpleasantness. But not now, I’m glad to say. Positions such as this are difficult to find, my lady.”
She thought Havers apologetic as he bowed and left her. When Sibella emerged from the water closet, the corridor was empty. Taking her chance, she darted down the servants’ stairs.
She emerged into the kitchen. “Oh dear, I’m afraid I’m lost.” The cook, scullery maid and, a middle-aged lady in a black gown all gaped and dipped in curtsies.
The black-gowned woman came forward. “I’m Mrs. Elphick, the housekeeper, my lady. May I show you the way?”
“I’d be grateful, thank you.”
She followed the housekeeper back upstairs to the drawing room. “Lady Coombe must have been house proud.”
“Oh she was, my lady.”
“Her early death was tragic.”
“Poor soul. A maid found her lying at the bottom of the stairs when she went to do the fires.”
“How shocking for Lord Coombe.”
“He was so distraught he instructed Lady Coombe’s pet dog to be shot.” She shook her head. “But he was persuaded to give the animal to the coachman.”
With a sharp intake of breath, Sibella clutched the banister. “How very sad!”
“Couldn’t stand the sound of its whining, said the dog reminded him of her and fair broke his heart,” Mrs. Elphick said. “His lordship left for the West Indies straight after the funeral. He was gone for months. We don’t know why her ladyship chose to leave her chamber during the night.” The housekeeper’s face lengthened in distress. “Lady Coombe was ill and took laudanum to sleep, which may have muddled her mind.”
They approached the door to the drawing room. “Thank you for showing me the way, Mrs. Elphick.”
“My pleasure, my lady.”
The door opened, and Lord Coombe’s face appeared. He looked annoyed. “There you are. Your sister has gone to find you.”
“Has she? I’m afraid I got lost. Mrs. Elphick kindly assisted me.”
“We must be on our way. Fresh horses stand waiting. Even so, we won’t arrive back at Brandreth Park until after dark. My footmen will need to be armed.”
“My goodness. I do apologize.”
The trip home seemed interminable. Maria made an attempt at bright chatter and Sibella tried to contribute, discussing everything from the opera to politics. Then Maria, bored or exhausted, slept against her shoulder as the carriage negotiated the appalling roads.
Lord Coombe fell silent, but she sensed he watched her. What would he think if he knew she had been asking questions of his staff? He appeared genuinely distressed by his wife’s passing. But the incident with the dog worried her, even if the result of deep sorrow, it seemed unnecessarily cruel. Might he still mourn the wife he had loved? It would account for his serious demeanor. If so, her future as his wife appeared even more challenging. She licked her lips nervously.
Lord Coombe nodded to her. “I hope you enjoyed the day.”
“Yes, we did, and the house is perfectly lovely. Thank you for showing it to Maria and me.”
He had been attentive and considerate, and she really had no right to be so ungrateful. She had an overwhelming urge to confess her concerns to her mother. She’d been unaccountably emotional of late and a dose of common sense was sorely needed.
When the carriage finally reached home in the early evening, after a tedious, but thankfully uneventful trip, they found the house in uproar. Her mother rushed to hug her and Maria in the entry, a letter clutched in her hand. “We must return to London on the morrow. Your sister Aida has begun her lying in.” Her lips twitched in vexation. “And from the sound of this missive from her husband, Lord Peter is the one having the baby.”