Death In Hyde Park

Table of Contents

 

 

Praise for Death at Glamis Castle

“Gypsy prophecies, singalongs at the pub, a possible ghost or two: There’s something for everyone. And if you don’t fall in love with Glamis Castle, you haven’t a wee dram o’ romance in your soul.”—
Kirkus Reviews

 
Death at Dartmoor

“A fantasia on themes from
The Hound of the Baskervilles
whose focus on the Sheridans shows an altogether more lighthearted side of the moors than Doyle ever revealed.”—
Kirkus Reviews

 
Death at Epsom Downs

“Enough danger and intrigue to keep readers turning the pages, which are filled with vivid historical detail.”—
Booklist

 
“Readers who like their historical mysteries on the lighter side will find much to enjoy here.”—
Publishers Weekly

More praise for Robin Paige’s Victorian Mysteries

“I read it with enjoyment . . . I found myself burning for the injustices of it, and caring what happened to the people.”

—Anne Perry

 
“Wonderfully gothic . . . A bright and lively re-creation of late-Victorian society.”—Sharan Newman

 
“An original and intelligent sleuth . . . a vivid re-creation of Victorian England.”—Jean Hager, author of
Blooming Murder

 
“Robin Paige’s detectives do for turn-of-the-century technology and detection what Elizabeth Peters’s Peabody and Emerson have done for Victorian Egyptology.”—
Gothic Journal

And don’t miss these other Victorian Mysteries by Robin Paige

Death at Bishop’s Keep

... in which our detectives Kate Ardleigh
and Sir Charles Sheridan meet for the first time
as they are drawn into a lurid conspiracy . . .

 
Death at Gallows Green

...in which two mysterious deaths bring Kate
and Sir Charles together once more
to solve the secrets of Gallows Green . . .

 
Death at Daisy’s Folly

... in which Charles and Kate discover
that even the highest levels of society are
no refuge from the lowest of deeds—
such as murder . . .

 
Death at Devil’s Bridge

...in which newlyweds Charles and Kate Sheridan
begin their lives at Bishop’s Keep—only to find
a new mystery right in their own backyard . . .

 
Death at Rottingdean

...in which a seaside holiday for Charles and Kate
becomes a working vacation when the body of a
coast guard is discovered on the beach
of Smuggler’s Village . . .

 
Death at Whitechapel

...in which a friend of the Sheridans is blackmailed—
by someone who claims to have proof
that her son’s father was none other
than the notorious Jack the Ripper . .

THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario M4V 3B2, Canada
(a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)
Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia
(a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)
Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India
Penguin Group (NZ), Cnr. Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand
(a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)
Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196,
South Africa

 
Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

 
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

 
DEATH IN HYDE PARK

 
A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the authors

 
Copyright © 2004 by Susan Wittig Albert and William J. Albert.

 
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form
without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials in
violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

eISBN : 978-0-425-20113-8

 
Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
The name BERKLEY PRIME CRIME and the BERKLEY PRIME CRIME design are trademarks
belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

 

 

CAST OF MAJOR CHARACTERS * indicates historical persons

Charles, Lord Sheridan,
Baron Somersworth

Lady Kathryn Ardleigh Sheridan,
aka Beryl Bardwell

*Jack London,
American adventure writer

Nellie Lovelace (Ellie Wurtz),
actress

Bradford Marsden,
investment promoter

Inspector Earnest Ashcraft,
Special Branch, Scotland Yard

*Sergeant Charles Collins,
fingerprint expert, Scotland Yard

*Fredrick Ponsonby
, assistant secretary to King Edward VII

Dmitri Tropov, alias Vladimir Rasnokov,
member of Russia Ochrana (Czar’s secret police)

Captain Steven Wells,
Intelligence Branch, War Office

Charlotte Conway
, editor of the
Anarchist Clarion

Sybil Conway,
Charlotte Conway’s mother

Adam Gould,
Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants

Ivan Kopinski,
Russian Anarchist

Yuri Messenko,
Hyde Park bomber

Pierre Mouffetard,
French Anarchist

*Helen Rossetti,
coauthor of
A Girl Among the Anarchists

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way. . . .

 
Charles Dickens,
A Tale of Two Cities

CHAPTER ONE

 
 
 
 
Edward VII almost missed his coronation. The great event had already been postponed some eighteen months after Edward ascended Queen Victoria’s empty throne, primarily because of the ugly debacle of the Boer War. But at last the war dragged to its conclusion, and plans were made to crown the King and Queen on 26 June 1902. Heads of state from around the world began to converge on London; twenty-five hundred quail and three hundred legs of mutton were ordered for the Coronation banquet; the Peers took their Coronation robes out of storage and had them cleaned and aired; and the cavalry who were to participate in the parade polished their swords and buffed their golden buttons. The Empire was preparing for a grand exhibition of its power and glory.

The difficulty began some two weeks before the great event, when the King began to suffer severe nausea and abdominal pain. After a few days, his worried physicians brought Sir Frederick Treves into the case. Treves, perhaps best known for his association with the Elephant Man, had written and lectured on the difficult topic of appendicitis, or “perityphilitis,” as it was called. The first appendectomy had been performed in the United States some fifteen years earlier, but the operation was still considered novel, radical, and dangerous. Treves recommended surgery. Edward refused.

“I have a coronation on hand,” the King said testily.

Treves frowned at his sovereign. “It will be a funeral if you don’t have the operation, sir.”

At last, the King gave in, and the surgery, which required less than an hour, was carried out at Buckingham Palace. Since Edward was sixty-one, obese, a heavy drinker and smoker with a family history of gastric cancer, the prognosis was not particularly good. An anxious Empire waited in nail-biting suspense for the dreaded announcement that the King had died under the knife.

But Edward had a strong constitution and an even stronger will to live—after all, he had waited a great many years to ascend his mother’s throne—and he survived. His Coronation was rescheduled for August 9. And while some saw the King’s narrow escape as a dark omen for a reign already marred by a war that could not be won, others understood that it merely proved (as if proof were necessary) that Englishmen lived in the very best of all possible times, in the very best of all possible circumstances, and in the very best of all possible worlds.

It rained on August 9. The heavy gray skies wept over the great, gray city, and frequent showers chilled the August day. But the rain did nothing at all to quench the giddy exuberance of the vast throngs gathered to watch King Edward and Queen Alexandra make their triumphal progress, at last, to Westminster Abbey. The people had waited a long time for this day, and they did not intend to let a few showers spoil their celebration. And while the ceremonies were shorn of the glitter and glamor of foreign heads of state, most of whom had already gone home, the great day was still perfectly splendid—better, many said, because it was a family event rather than an Imperial gala. Thousands of British prelates, princes, and peers gathered to witness the crowning, while hundreds of thousands of British citizens noisily thronged the streets and filled windows along the route of the parade.