A Disappearance in Drury Lane (32 page)

“Gabriel!” Donata’s voice was harsh with terror. I felt great pain, heard Bartholomew’s cry of alarm, and then something very heavy hit my back.

As I fell, Donata’s warm body there to surround and catch me, my thoughts sharpened into astonishing clarity. In one moment, like a shimmering drop of suspended water, I saw who had driven away Mrs. Collins, murdered Perry, and now had tried to kill me.

Chapter Twenty-Four

At four o’clock that afternoon, I stood at the front door of Hannah Wolff’s house, where she lived with her sister and brother-in-law. Pomeroy and Spendlove were with me.

I hadn’t wanted Spendlove there, but he’d insisted on joining us when I’d gone to fetch Pomeroy. Sir Nathaniel, the magistrate, had agreed. Pomeroy had expressed his aggravation loudly, but Spendlove had won.

I rapped upon the door, wincing at the pain in my singed knuckles. I also ached from where Bartholomew had tackled me, shoving me down and hitting me with a carpet to put out the fire that had caught my coat. The clothes had been ruined, but fortunately, the man inside had been spared.

The plain maid who’d answered the door the last time opened it again, looking askance at me and the two Runners. She did not want to admit us, and I had to stand in front of Pomeroy and Spendlove to keep them from simply barreling their way in. This maid had done nothing, and I could at least be polite.

We went into the foyer and then the front hall. The walls were plain dark wood, with framed panels of wallpaper at neat intervals, each rectangle holding a painting. The paintings were not very good, at least, not compared to the artwork I’d seen at Grenville’s or Denis’s. They were competent and pretty, what a cit could afford.

The Holts were both at home, the maid said, and would be down directly. When they entered, I again wondered at my thoughts. Hannah’s sister and her husband regarded us with timid puzzlement, and Mrs. Holt asked the maid to send in refreshments.

“We’ll not stay,” I said. “I came to tell you that Mrs. Collins has been found. She is well, and she is eager to return to Drury Lane for the remainder of the season.”

“What did he say?” Hannah herself stood in a doorway that connected with the next room, holding herself steady on the doorframe. “Captain Lacey, you found Abby?”

“I did,” I said. “She will be back in London soon. Are you alone here? Where is Coleman?”

“Hasn’t come for me. I was tired today, and my head hurts. And I am not alone. My sister and Mr. Holt are here.”

I turned to the rheumatic maid who’d come in with the tea tray, which again I took out of her crooked hands and set on a table. “Please send for Mr. Coleman,” I told her. “Mrs. Wolff will need him.”

The maid turned to Mrs. Holt for confirmation. Mrs. Holt nodded, then started for her sister. “Dear Hannah, you should not be out of bed. You’ll take a chill.”

I stepped between them. “Not yet, Mrs. Holt.”

Spendlove, who had been standing by with his beefy arms folded, finally exploded into impatience. “May we get on with this? That is, if you aren’t about to sit down for tea and cakes. Perhaps we should wait until a royal duchess comes to call.”

Mrs. Holt ignored him, while her husband’s mouth popped open. “Excuse me, Captain Lacey,” Mrs. Holt said. “My sister needs me.”

“She does not,” I said. “She needs Coleman.”

“I’m not waiting for him,” Spendlove rumbled behind me.

“Neither am I,” Pomeroy said. “Sorry, Captain. Mr. Benjamin Holt and Mrs. Holt, you are being arrested for the murder of Mr. John Perry, and for procuring a device meant to maim or kill from one Mr. Thomas Ridgley. I will be taking you to a magistrate where he will hear my evidence and decide whether there is enough to hold you for trial.”

Mrs. Holt stopped. She looked, not at the Runners, but at me, her eyes widening in amazement. “I cannot leave this house, gentlemen. I must take care of Hannah.”

“Mr. Coleman will,” I said. “Luckily for her, he’s been looking after her all this time. I shudder to think what might have happened to her had he not.”

“I do not know what you mean,” Mrs. Holt said in indignation. “Everything I have done has been for my sister. I gave up my life on the stage so I could make certain she always had a decent place to live. She is one of the great ones. I have always known that.”

Mr. Holt had remained in place and silent, but he’d straightened from his stoop, which made his stomach look immediately less puffy. His head came up, and now he appeared to be a foot taller, almost as tall as I was.

“What is happening?” Hannah asked into the silence. “Martha, tell me.”

“It was all for you,” Mrs. Holt said, her voice firm. “Abigail Collins would have ruined you, cast you out, and you the best in the world. You took that woman to your bosom, taught her everything she knew, made her everything she is. She came here, pathetic and poor from the little traveling players, keen to make a go on the London stage. And what did she do in the end? She turned on you, she did. Mrs. Collins made you into her dresser and her teacher, keeping you as a drudge when once you’d been great, far better than she ever was. And she was going to give you the push. She could not do that. I would not let her do that.”

Hannah’s eyes were wide, her lips trembling. Her hand slid from its propping position, and she started to fall.

I sprang forward and caught her. This woman, who had seemed such a pillar of strength on the stage, was nothing more than a collection of frail bones. She was so light I barely felt her weight as I held her upright.

Spendlove looked belligerent at my rescue, but Pomeroy merely moved so neither of the Holts could run for it out the front door.

“I don’t understand,” Hannah said, tears in her eyes. “I never wanted this.”

“I did not want this for you either,” I said. “But they tried to kill Mrs. Collins, and this morning, they tried to kill me. My
wife
opened that package.”

The incident had made the fury in me rise in red incandescence. If they’d tossed an incendiary device at me as I’d made my way through a deserted passage or some such, I could have understood. I’d have blamed myself for not taking more care.

But they’d endangered Donata, and everyone in my house, and that was beyond forgiveness. Barnstable, who’d brought in the post, might have been hurt or killed by that package if it had gone off too soon. And dear God, my daughter might have seen the box, thought it innocent iced cakes, and snatched it up in playful eagerness.

“Your wife?” Hannah turned her face up to mine. “Oh, Lord. Is she well?”

“She is. But it was a near thing.”

It made me sick to think how near. A harmless parcel from Gunter’s, Donata had assumed it. I was keeping myself from contemplating the full of it, or else I’d fall here with Hannah and degenerate into a gibbering fool.

“Handy little devices,” Mr. Holt said, no longer the dithering middle-aged gentleman. His voice was clear, filled with pride. “We had several made. Mr. Ridgley was obliging.”

Good God. “Make a search of the house,” I said to Pomeroy. “Carefully. Mrs. Wolff, you will come with me.”

“You leave my sister alone,” Mrs. Holt said. “She’s not to be touched by the likes of you.”

I ignored her. Without a word, I led Hannah swiftly back through the room from which she’d come, into the hall, and thence out of the house. As we went, I heard Pomeroy’s voice rise cheerily, reminding the Holts that they were under arrest. Spendlove curtly called in the patrollers who’d waited without, and they flowed through the front door as I took Hannah out of it.

She looked up at me, the once great lady of the stage, now faded, tired, and grieving. “What have I done?”

“Not you,” I said. “Not you, Mrs. Wolff. This is not your fault.”

“Yes, it is.” She rested against me, closing her eyes against the glare of winter sun she could not see. “I was always such a prideful creature. I took credit for shaping Abby, but she has the gift. She could have done it without me. But I suppose I poured all my troubles out to my sister, and she took it much too serious. Martha has always been protective of me, proud she sacrificed her career to look after me, the great actress. And God forgive me, I thought she was right.”

Tears trickled down her cheeks. I dared press a kiss to her forehead. “You were the best of all, Mrs. Wolff. You were, in truth. I’ll never forget you. Here is Coleman. He’ll look after you now. I wager he always will.”

*** *** ***

Life was not tidy, with every problem put away into neat boxes when all was done. I felt as I had when I’d packed up the pieces of my old life in Grimpen Lane—as though I’d emptied everything hodge-podge into a crate and nailed it shut.

The danger was gone, Abigail free to return to Drury Lane. Pomeroy and Spendlove had searched the Holts’ house and found several more of the incendiary devices, which Mr. Holt had kept locked in a strong metal box in a cupboard.

Both the Holts had confessed to hiring Ridgley, and Mr. Holt confessed to killing Mr. Perry. The man and wife were in Newgate now, awaiting their fate. Because Holt was a successful businessman, he had the money to pay for private accommodations for himself and his wife. But they’d hang.

Pomeroy complained that Spendlove would horn in on the conviction reward, though he admitted Spendlove had been helpful in obtaining the confession. I did not like to think how Spendlove had done so.

Spendlove was, of course, forced to drop the idea that I’d killed Perry. He still had his eye on me, though, he said, and on Denis. He promised to pot the both of us with one blow someday. I had no doubt he would, but in the first days after the investigation was over, I scarcely cared.

I never did discover why Mrs. Carfax had so readily told the magistrate she’d seen me entering my rooms the night of Perry’s death. Whatever knowledge Spendlove held over her, Mrs. Carfax was not telling. Miss Winston had been unable to discover the secret, and I dropped the matter.

As for Grenville, I did not see him for a few days after the arrests. When he finally invited me to his house to take a midmorning meal with him—a creation of Anton’s—he was despondent.

“How did you know?” Grenville asked me. “I’ll never forgive you for not sending for me when you made the arrest, but perhaps that was best. They had more incendiary devices, you say, in their
house
? Were they mad?”

“I believe they were,” I said, scraping up the sauce of orange liqueur that Anton had poured, flaming, over my crepe stuffed with cheese. “They’d convinced themselves they were Mrs. Wolff’s protectors, that they had to look after her at all costs.”

“At all costs.” Grenville blew out his breath. “Good Lord. But how did you discover what they’d done? I never thought of them, to tell the truth.”

“I hadn’t thought of them either. When I met them they seemed pleasant but not very clever. But when the device went off in Donata’s chamber, all the pieces seemed to rise and form together in my head. I had a flash of how Mr. Kean can transform himself from a small, hunched nobody into a great orator in the space of a moment. He’s excellent at it. When I met Mr. Holt, I remembered thinking him a small, hunched nobody—but what would happen if he straightened up and changed his manner entirely? In the next second, it occurred to me that Mrs. Holt had been an actress—she’d know about donning costumes and changing her appearance, and perhaps her husband knew something about acting as well.”

“A good point,” Grenville said. He leaned forward, no longer downcast, his eyes alight with interest.

“Holt might have been on the stage himself,” I said. “Or perhaps he picked up tricks from his actress wife, or from living with an actress as skilled as Hannah. We were looking for a man and a woman, remember. The woman who had hired Ridgley to make the device, and the man who fetched it and took it to the delivery company. Both were described by distinctive things—golden curls and clothing much like Marianne’s; the man with large teeth and hands. Mr. Holt’s teeth are not large, but I will wager they were false. When I first met the Holts, I remember he sat very quietly, making no gestures. False teeth can be got rid of, but hands are another matter. He took care to hide his from me.” I took the last bite of my crepe and wished for another. “Ridgley apparently did not reveal to Denis that he made more than one device for the Holts. I will have to tell him.”

Grenville shivered and took another sip of coffee. “Holt kept them about to use on people who stood in his way? Fool. He might have done himself real harm.”

“I do not believe either he or his wife cared. I think they’d convinced themselves that anything they did to protect Hannah was just. Even going to Newgate and the gallows. Even destroying themselves.”

“Well, God save me from protectors such as they.” Grenville sighed and clicked his fine porcelain cup to its saucer. “What about Marianne? She is still in Berkshire?”

“I believe so. She’s remaining with Mrs. Collins until Mrs. Collins feels ready to return. Marianne will enjoy the long visit with David.”

I spoke lightly, but Grenville gave me a grim look. “I’ve been a bloody fool, haven’t I?”

“A bit.” I leaned back in my chair, wiping my mouth on my handkerchief. Another excellent meal. I would begin riding in the park this very day, I vowed. “Though I cannot put the blame entirely on you. Marianne can be maddeningly stubborn.”

“If she is determined to leave me, I will let her. I am weary of this. Make certain she comes to no harm, Lacey, and tell her I will continue the keeping of David. Our quarrels are not his fault.”

I did not argue. I knew Marianne and Grenville cared for each other, but I was no longer certain how to settle their battles, if I ever had known.

“Perhaps you will take up your travels again? Egypt?”

I felt a pull when I named the place. Grenville had once said he’d take me with him on his next journey there. I longed to travel the world again, and if he’d asked me two years ago, I’d have already been downstairs waiting for him in his carriage. But these days I had much to keep me in England. I had a wife, and I’d found my daughter. I looked forward to spending the rest of the spring with Gabriella, who would make her debut under Donata’s care soon. I did not want to rush off to foreign lands at this moment.