“Yeah? Caught who killed me dad yet?”
“Not yet.” I stared at Ned until he stepped back and let me in. Brewster followed, scowling at the pair of them.
Charlotte’s expression turned to puzzlement when she saw Oro. I told him to wait, and he sat down, obedient, as I closed the door.
“Did your father have that dog with him when he came here?” I asked her.
“He did,” Charlotte said, still puzzled. “I made him sleep in the street—wasn’t having no dirty dog in my room.”
“My wife would agree with you,” I said. “So he was your father’s?”
“Suppose so. He were looking after ’im, anyway.”
“For his friend, Mr. Blackmore, who’d been killed?”
“Yeah.” Charlotte’s brows drew down. “How’d you know?”
“I tend to find things out. Did Mr. Finch talk about Mr. Blackmore?”
“Happen he did.” Charlotte planted herself on the one chair and folded her arms over her bright dressing gown, a thing of yellow silk with blue Chinese-looking embroidery. “Dad asked me, if you please, like I’d know anything about it, what happened to Mr. Blackmore. He’d been arrested, hadn’t he? For thrashing a bloke.” She fluttered a hand. “Didn’t happen around here. Off Mr. Blackmore goes to Newgate, and we never see him again. Dad went to Blackmore’s digs and found the dog, and comes back here in a rage. He was even more angry when he came home a few nights later, saying Blackmore was dead. Dad was powerful cut up. He and Blackmore were great friends.”
Brewster rumbled. “Were Finch and Blackmore more than friends? Seems like there weren’t two greater villains alive. Why were they so chummy?”
Charlotte blinked. “I dunno. They were just mates. Weren’t bent or nothing. They got on, is all, like me and Neddy.”
Ned, in breeches and a loose shirt, stood behind Charlotte with his hands on his hips, trying, and failing, to look intimidating. Charlotte had full command of this partnership.
Ned and Charlotte had the sort of relationship Brewster meant, but I could see that Charlotte considered Ned a friend, not just a bedmate. Bedmates to her were business, but for some reason the washed-out Ned was special to her.
“You said your father asked you for money,” I prompted.
Charlotte nodded. “He needed it, he said. Bad. Why he thought I’d have any, I don’t know. I had to give it all to Hobson. Not now, though, thanks to Uncle Tommy.” She grinned up at Brewster, her demeanor far less hostile. “That’s why Dad thrashed Hobson, to get my money out of him.”
Because he had to pay Steadman his exorbitant fee for bringing him out of bondage, I’d already surmised. “He succeeded in getting the money from Hobson, I believe,” I said. Hobson had certainly been bruised and furious.
“Oh, yes. No one stood up to me dad for long.” Charlotte sounded proud. “But he were good to me. Always, like I said. And he didn’t have to be. He brought me this.” She slid her hand down the silk gown. “Guess he stopped off in China.”
Or helped himself to goods on the merchantman returning from Asia that gave him passage. Finch could have sold such a gown for several guineas, but instead he’d bestowed it on his illegitimate daughter, and was distressed at the death of his friend. The terrifying man was proving to have a soft heart, or at least a close thing to it.
“Did your dad still need money after he got whatever Hobson gave him?”
Charlotte nodded. “He were worried, so whatever he needed it for must have been important. But he said he had an idea where to get it, so all would be well.” Her face fell. “And then he died.”
“Before or after he found this source of income?” I mused, half to myself.
“Well, I don’t know, do I?” Charlotte said angrily. “I didn’t know he were dead.” Tears filled her eyes and caught in her voice. “He said he’d come back for me, and he never did.”
“Aw, Lotty.” Ned leaned down and wrapped his arms around her, and Charlotte sank back into him, sniffling.
“I’m very sorry about your father, Miss Finch,” I said gently.
She looked up, eyes streaming. “Miss Finch. Like I’m a lady.” She swiped at her wet cheeks. “Find out who murdered him, Captain.” Her voice turned fierce. “And then string him up until his balls turn blue.”
We left Charlotte after that. Oro waited patiently for me on the landing, and he fell into step with me as we went down the stairs.
“Why don’t you look in on your wife and meet me in Grimpen Lane?” I said as we strode back to the hackney. “I thought I’d stop off and speak to Pomeroy.”
Brewster scowled. “I’ll come with ye. I don’t trust you not to get yourself into mischief between here and there.”
He remained outside when I went into the magistrate’s house at Bow Street, leaning on the wheel of the hackney and holding Oro’s lead.
Pomeroy was in, but my request startled him. “I’d like to speak to Spendlove,” I said.
His fair brows climbed. “Would you, Captain? What the devil for?”
“I want to ask him about Finch’s conviction. I wish to discover who was Finch’s accuser, and Spendlove would know. Save me some time.”
“If he’d speak to you. But he’s out. Went to Reading after a pair of counterfeiters. Might be back tomorrow.”
“You have records here. A room full of them.” I’d once stood among boxes upon boxes in the dust of the cellars.
Pomeroy heaved a sigh. “I can ask. Wait here.”
He barreled out, leaving me alone in his room. The chamber was neat but plain, with a table for a desk, a second chair and another, smaller table, and not much else. The window, I saw as I went to it, looked out over a tiny yard. A small shed in the back served as additional jail space, I knew. I’d once viewed a corpse laid out there.
I waited for half an hour. I fully expected Brewster to become impatient and disappear, dog and carriage and all, but a look out the window across the hall showed him still below, in conversation with the coachman and another man I couldn’t identify. From above, what I mostly saw was hats.
“You’re in luck, Captain.” Pomeroy’s voice boomed back into his room before he did. “One of the magistrate’s clerks remembered the case, at least when Finchie were brought in by a very proud patroller called Spendlove. It were something of an occasion. Finch was arrested for beating a man called Leeds, who said he would prosecute. Spendlove caught Finch in the act, near the church in St. Giles, and there wasn’t much chance he’d get off. I suppose that gave this Leeds bloke courage.”
“Who is Mr. Leeds?” I asked, trying to keep my eagerness at bay.
“Devil if I know. Clerk of some kind, I’m told. Probably didn’t get out of Finch’s way on the street one day, and paid the price.”
“Hmm.” I very much wondered. “Thank you, Pomeroy. I’ll stand you a pint for that.”
“And I will make certain you pay. Oh, and tell Tommy Brewster that his friend, Slocombe, I think his name is, and the other bloke what helped you on the hulks were pardoned of their misdeeds and set free.” He shook his head. “Stop interfering, Captain. If it were up to you, no men would be banged up, and we’d be overrun with villains.”
“We already are,” I said, clapping on my hat. “They’re sitting right now in the Houses of Parliament.”
“Ha.” Pomeroy’s laugh rang through the tiny room. “Very amusing, Captain.”
I departed, his merriment and the words Houses of Parliament following me down the stairs.
I now had to return home and keep my promises. Once there, I sent a note to Denis, asking if he could find out anything about a Mr. Leeds—possibly a clerk, I scribbled—who had prosecuted Jack Finch.
I also wrote a letter to my friend, Sir Gideon Derwent, a reformer, describing the conditions in the hulk, the Atonement. While I did not, as Pomeroy had implied, wish to set free every convicted man, I could not agree with treating them worse than rats.
Sir Gideon was a reformer with a strong voice
and much influence. He likely already knew about the hulks, but I penned him a vivid description of what I’d seen. I also mentioned Lord Mercer’s practice of taking men out of the hulks to fight in savage matches, and Blackmore’s death because of it. Sir Gideon, who was quite powerful in his own way, would not fear reprisal from Mercer. While Sir Montague might be slow and careful about Mercer, Sir Gideon would simply expect the man’s crimes to be punished, no matter how much money he gave to the Admiralty’s purse.
I’d already relinquished Oro to the stables, where Brewster had a bite of dinner with the coachman and lads, and then I had to give myself to Bartholomew to be stuffed into a new suit.
The coat and trousers were well made and hung easily on my big frame, but I’d refused to let the tailor add a colorful waistcoat, overly wide lapels, or shorten the trousers to show off my boots. I had never been, and would not now be, a fop.
Bartholomew kindly tied the cravat so that I could actually turn my head and look up and down with a bit of effort, but he made certain that I was free of every speck of dust before he let me out of his sight.
I had to admit that escorting my wife, who was a beautiful lady in her green and gold silk, and my daughter, equally lovely in a simpler gown of cream trimmed with blue, was not a difficulty. The gentlemen tonight would look upon me with envy.
Our outing was a supper ball at a Grosvenor Square mansion. The house was enormous. A connection had been built between it and its stables, and now it sported a roof garden on top of the extension. The ballroom, reached by a grand staircase from the entrance, opened onto this roof garden, which was lit by lanterns. A high wall cut off the view from the roof to the houses across the narrow road, so we could make believe, but for the noise, that we were somewhere in the country.
I escorted Gabriella inside, while Grenville had Donata on his arm. Marianne had not been invited—not to a society ball given by a countess with unmarried misses in attendance. Marianne, ever practical, would not be annoyed, but Grenville was.
“Rules put too much emphasis on who a person is,” he’d muttered to me outside. “And not enough on what they are like inside. The dear girl is intelligent, resilient, courageous, and has far more sense than half the people on the guest list. And yet, she is forbidden and always will be, unless she’s invited for her talent, to entertain us all.”
“Mr. Fox married his Mrs. Armistead,” I reminded him.
“And they retired to the country to putter about their garden,” Grenville growled back. “I dislike puttering.”
“He was getting on in years by then,” I said. “But the match was more or less accepted.”
“Because she was once the Regent’s mistress, and he was a great statesman,” Grenville said. “Again, connections were more important than character.”
I withdrew from the field, and we spoke no more about it.
When we emerged into the ballroom, I saw Gabriella’s suitors brighten and begin to surge our way. With some dismay I noted that Emmett Garfield, the most confident of them, had filled out since last spring, and looked less of a youth and more of a man. Young ladies in the ballroom cast coy glances at him.
Not Gabriella, I noticed with some relief. She seemed to ignore the gentlemen and scanned the room for the young misses who had befriended her last Season.
I had to spend some time greeting the hostess and other ladies and gentlemen of Donata’s acquaintance, including Lady Aline. Gabriella at last was led off by Donata with Gabriella’s new female friends and their mothers, leaving me relatively alone.
“There is more masculine entertainment in the drawing room,” Grenville said at my elbow. “Cards and brandy, and also a few fellows who know Lord Mercer. Shall we adjourn?”
Chapter 25
The drawing room was grand, with a ceiling I judged at twenty feet, plenty of paintings of ancestors on the walls, built-in cabinets full of books, and eight card tables, most of them occupied.
Grenville led me to a table with two empty seats, the gentlemen already there waiting for us to make a foursome for whist. Fortunes could be lost in such casual games. I would have to wager with care or at least make certain I won.
I’d met one of the gentlemen before—Viscount Compton, a neighbor of Grenville’s, elderly and a bit short-sighted, but sharp of mind. The other man I knew vaguely as Mr. Fitzpatrick, the second or third son of an earl. In his mid-thirties, he mostly lived to race horses and enjoy himself, having a large allowance and not many cares.
“Mercer,” Mr. Fitzpatrick said after the play had gone around the table a few times. “Dear Lord, never tell me you’ve made friends with him, Grenville.”
“Not at all.” Grenville feigned horror. “The captain is busy finding things out again, don’t you know, and he is curious about Mercer. We all agree Mercer is fairly awful.”
“He’s very odd, to be sure,” Fitzpatrick said to me. “He’s a neighbor of mine, in Kent. I have a house there, where I’ve got some beautiful racers—two-year-olds who will go to Newmarket this season.”
Mr. Fitzpatrick clearly was more interested in talking of his horses than Mercer, but Grenville steered him back to the matter at hand.
“I have heard he’s more than odd,” Grenville said. “Disgusting rather.”
“Disgusting is a good word for him,” Fitzpatrick said readily. “He invites people down and more or less forces them into the garden to watch men bash each other until they can’t stand. Then he throws the injured fellows into a cart and has them rolled back from whence they came. Wherever that may be.”
“The nearby hulks,” Grenville said. “That is supposed to be a deep, dark secret.”
Fitzpatrick’s brown eyes widened. “Truly? I’d never heard that. But come to think of it, these fellows do look dirty and barbaric. And resigned. I always wondered why some were rather reluctant fighters. Mercer has to have someone scream at them to ginger them up. Very strange and quite unsavory.”
“Who did he have scream at them?” I asked. “His gamekeeper, perhaps?”
“Hmm? Oh, no, nothing like that. The chaps who bring the others do the shouting. One is sort of a herdsman, I suppose you’d call him, keeping an eye on the fighters, and another fellow, Mr. White, to take the wagers. I only went to one of these gatherings, and decided never to go back.” He shuddered. “It does not take much incentive to avoid Lord Mercer. He doesn’t even ride.” The last was spoken in a tone of shock.
“A fellow was killed at one of these matches,” I said. “A former pugilist, probably fighting men half his age.”
Mr. Fitzpatrick’s brows went up. “I hadn’t heard that, either, but I cannot confess I am surprised. I say, Grenville, you ought to put it about that Mercer is not quite the thing. Perhaps he’ll move to the Continent and trouble us no more.”
“Rather hard on the inhabitants of France or Switzerland, or wherever he ends up,” Grenville said.
“Too true.” Fitzpatrick chuckled. “The sacrifices we make for our fellows.”
“Mercer killed a man,” Viscount Compton said abruptly. He peered at his cards, then at those on the table, squinting until his eyes were nearly closed.
Grenville, who rarely permitted himself displays of emotion in public, blinked in amazement. “I beg your pardon?”
Compton plucked out a queen and laid it down. “When he was younger, just down from Oxford. He beat a footman with a poker. Killed the chap. No one knew why. Possibly didn’t bring him his brandy quickly enough.”
“Good Lord,” Grenville said. “Was he never brought to trial?”
Compton shook his head. “He lied through his teeth, made out it was an accident, but we all knew. Mercer buries himself in the country because decent people won’t stick him. His wife is a baron’s daughter, but by all accounts, she’s no better than a courtesan. I don’t mean a courtesan like yours, Grenville, who is a lady who must live by her wits. I mean a whore who enjoys it. Leads her husband around by his whatsit. Damn it all, I’ve played the wrong ca
rd. Meant to put down the queen.”
“That is a queen,” Fitzpatrick said, his voice faint. “You’ve taken the trick, which means you’ve won the hand.”
“Ah,” Lord Compton brightened. “So I have. Perhaps we should change the disagreeable subject. It seems to have put you gentlemen off your game.
When we finished play—I won enough hands to keep from having to pay Lord Compton too much—Grenville and I returned to the ballroom.
Grenville stood up with ladies whose social standing needed a boost and continued to express approval of my daughter. Gabriella was already well-liked, as she had a natural charm and a friendliness that said she did not view the other young ladies as her rivals.
I happened to know she had no interest in the gentlemen, which was to my liking. What was not to my liking was that Mr. Garfield was particularly attentive.
He was deferential to me but a little too certain of my approval—Mr. Garfield had helped me on a problem last year, and I suppose he thought this meant I would accept him as a son-in-law.
Mr. Garfield danced once with Gabriella, and they chatted in a polite way that wasn’t overly familiar. Only one dance, I was pleased to see.
Grenville escaped the ballroom, pretending he was aged and exhausted, and led me to a small chamber on the next floor, away from the noise.
Our host had left brandy there, and Grenville poured out. I sank gratefully into an armchair, my leg tired.
“Well, now we know what sort of man Lord Mercer is,” he said after a long swallow of brandy. “A foul, violent bastard. You can always put your Mr. Pomeroy onto him. He won’t care the man’s a peer. Mercer would be tried in the House of Lords, but whether or not they acquit him, it would ruin him forever.”
“Yes,” I said absently.
“What are you thinking?” Grenville asked with interest. “I see cogs spinning.”
“Trying to put the entire picture together,” I said, easing my cramped knee. “Finch is arrested and transported for roughing up a fellow called Leeds—whoever he is. Once Finch is gone, his friend, Mr. Blackmore forms a partnership with Mr. White, the unscrupulous bookmaker. They arrange pugilism matches for Lord Mercer using convicts from the hulks, or true pugilists, or both. At one of these bouts, Blackmore makes friends with one of Mercer’s dogs and takes it away with him. Mercer, not a sporting man, according to Fitzpatrick, except for his fondness for boxing, does not notice. The kennel master could have been too afraid of Mercer to report the loss, or perhaps he did and Mercer did not care. Or Mercer gave him the dog as payment.”