Death in the Valley of Shadows (4 page)

Her husband laughed. “You must try, my dear. There’s no going back to plain Mrs. now.”

Elizabeth sighed, nodding her head. “I know, I know. It’s just that I have never been one for airs and graces.”

“Nor ever will be,” her husband said affectionately as he rose to his feet and took her outstretched hand.

It was a pleasant evening, ending long after darkness fell. Hiring a linkman, the Apothecary walked to the place where the hackneys plied for passengers, then was driven home, planning on retiring to bed early. But in this he was to be disappointed for no sooner had he gone into the hall than he was presented with a card on a tray.

“A lady has called to see you, Sir,” murmured the footman who handed it to him.

“A lady?” John repeated. “Who is it? Anyone I know?”

“According to her visiting ticket it is a Mrs. Rayner and her face is not familiar to me.”

John stared at the card, seeing that its owner had a fashionable address in the newly developed Mayfair.

“Where is the visitor?”

“I have shown her into the drawing room, Sir. She said she would wait an half hour for you but after that must return home.”

“Then I’m glad I came back in time.” And John crossed the hall to the room little used in Sir Gabriel’s day but now, since the arrival of Emilia, the main reception room for the family and guests.

A woman stood by the fireplace, holding her hands out to the flames, a woman who turned as she heard John enter and fixed him with a cool stare. That she was Aidan Fenchurch’s daughter he had no doubt, for the same, slightly small, crab-like eyes were looking at him, made somewhat more attractive by their feminine setting but not sufficiently so to render the woman a beauty. She was in her early thirties, John thought; a tall, thin, bony creature, at present clad from head to toe in black and even paler because of it.

“Miss Evalina?” he ventured.

“Mrs. Rayner,” she answered haughtily. “Jocasta Rayner. And you are John Rawlings, I take it?”

The Apothecary bowed, very handsomely. “Yes, Madam. How did you know of me?”

“Because of this,” she answered, and thrust towards him a packet which she had placed on the mantelpiece while she warmed herself.

John took it and went cold as he saw that it had his name and address written on it in a hand he did not recognise.

“How did you come by it?” he asked, but knew the answer even before she spoke. It was obviously the collection of papers that her father had been going to take to Nassau Street had he not so brutally been done to death.

“It was in my father’s coach,” Jocasta answered abruptly. “It was not discovered until earlier today. I thought I would bring it to you and find out a little more about its contents and about you yourself.”

John motioned her towards a chair. “Please sit down and let me get you some refreshment. Would you like a glass of canary?”

The woman shook her head, her face and lips drained of colour. “No. I doubt I could stomach it. Since my father’s savage murder last evening I have not been able to touch a thing.”

“Then allow me to give you some physick. I am an Apothecary and would suggest that you take some at once to help steady yourself. After that a drop of brandy would not go amiss.”

Jocasta stared at him. “I had not put you down as a man of medicine.”

“Oh? What had you thought me to be?”

“A nothing. A fop of fashion with plenty of money and no sense.”

“Alas, no. Such a pleasurable life has been denied me. Though, on second thoughts, I believe I would hate to idle away meaningless days uttering silly oaths and sniffing snuff.”

She barked a humourless laugh. “So there’s mere to you than meets the eye.”

“So it would appear. Now, let me fetch you some restorative physick. Believe me, it will be of help to you throughout the days that lie ahead.”

Jocasta seemed suddenly drained of energy. “Oh, very well. It would be impossible for anything to make me feel more wretched than I do now.”

She closed her eyes and John hurried from the room and upstairs to a small cupboard in his bedroom in which he kept his pills and physicks. There he poured some powdered Feverfew into a glass, added some Oxymel and, taking the glass downstairs, mixed the whole with white wine.

“Here,” he said, handing the concoction to Mrs. Rayner, “this should help you.”

She eyed it with suspicion, looking extraordinarily like her father as she did so. “What is it?”

“A mixture to relieve melancholy and heaviness of spirits. If you send a servant to my shop in Shug Lane tomorrow I’ll prepare some bottles for you.”

She appeared to be finally reassured that John was actually what he claimed to be and downed the glassful in one deep swallow, then pulled a face.

“It has a bitter aftertaste.”

“Things that are good for you often do,” he answered wryly.

She smiled for the first time, looking quite attractive in her bony way. “A parallel with life, perhaps.”

“Indeed.” He took a seat opposite hers. “About these papers. Where did you say they were found?”

“In my father’s coach. He had left the house and was just stepping inside when two robbers came out of the shadows and set about him.”

“They were definitely thieves?”

Jocasta shot him a penetrating look. “What do you mean?”

“Did they rob him of his money and jewels or merely attack him?”

She frowned. “The watch disturbed them and they ran away, leaving him to die in the street.”

“So nothing was actually stolen?”

“No.”

The Apothecary looked thoughtful. “I wonder…”

“What?”

“Whether these men were actually hired assassins and theft was not their motive at all.”

Jocasta Rayner looked utterly astonished. “But why? Why should anyone want to hurt my father? The very idea is beyond comprehension.”

So she knows nothing of the Shadow, John realised. Aidan Fenchurch had confided none of his troubles to his children.

He looked vague. “One can never be sure of these things. However good a man one can never rule out the possibility of a jealous business rival or someone who imagines themselves slighted. Hardly anyone goes through life without upsetting somebody at some stage.”

Jocasta nodded. “I suppose you’re right. But personally I don’t believe it. As far as I am concerned - and I am sure that I speak for the rest of the family as well - my father was killed by two footpads, chosen at random.”

A slight colour had come into her cheeks as a result of the physick and she accepted the brandy that John now offered her. After a moment’s silence, Jocasta said, “Mr. Rawlings…”

“Yes?”

“What was in those papers and why should my father pick you to give them to? Have you known him for some while in fact?”

The Apothecary weighed the situation carefully. To reveal everything about Ariadne Bussell to a daughter so recently and so brutally bereaved would be the height of cruelty. On the other hand, in view of the investigation that was about to start, most of the truth, if not all of it, would be bound to come out. He decided to be diplomatic.

“I haven’t read them, of course, as you have only just now delivered them to me, but I have reason to believe that they might contain information of a nature very personal to your late father.”

Jocasta looked immensely puzzled. “But why should he give them to you?”

John decided on a half-truth. “He came into my shop yesterday and said he thought me to be an honest citizen.”

“Why on earth should he do that? Was it a joke?”

“Mrs. Rayner,” the Apothecary answered firmly, “it was said in all seriousness. Your father asked me to take these very papers to Sir John Fielding of Bow Street in the event of anything untoward happening to him.”

Jocasta seemed to shrink to half her size, crouching back in her chair as if she had been physically attacked. “What exactly do you mean by that?”

It had come and not at all as John had wanted it. Yet discretion must be paramount at this stage.

“Simply what I say. I think your father feared that someone had a grudge against him and might, just possibly, carry that grudge too far. So he had prepared a statement for the Principal Magistrate in the event of an accident befalling him. That is all I can tell you.”

“So he was expecting an attack,” Jocasta said, her voice very low.

“I think he was, yes.”

“But from whom? He didn’t have an enemy in the world.”

“We have covered this ground, Mrs. Rayner. In the morning it will be my duty to take Mr. Fenchurch’s statement to Sir John Fielding. It will then become his obligation to track down your father’s killers and to discover the facts behind his death.”

Jocasta was very quiet, slowly sipping her brandy, gazing into the fire. Then she shook her head. “Poor Father. I hope that this is all a horrible coincidence. That he imagined someone hated him enough to kill him.”

“Perhaps it is just that. Perhaps he was done to death by cut- purses after all. Personally I think you should stop speculating until Sir John has made his decision.”

She was silent again, then drained her glass and got to her feet.

“You are right, of course. No amount of conjecture can bring my father back. Incidentally, Mr. Rawlings, I shall be staying at Bloomsbury Square for the time being. My unmarried sister and my cousin are both in residence there and have asked me to remain until after the funeral. Millicent, of course, is coping but Evalina is completely hysterical.”

“And which sisters are they? Older or younger?”

“Millicent is a cousin who lives with us. Evalina is the eldest of us three girls; my younger sister, Louisa, is … out of town at present.”

Why had there been a slight hesitation in Jocasta’s voice? John wondered. “Then she will not have heard the grievous news?” he asked.

“No. She is… touring… and I am not sure exactly where she is at present.”

Again that hesitation. “Is she married?” John asked pleasantly. “Yes. Yes, indeed.” Mrs. Rayner started to move towards the door.

“You came by coach?”

“I did. It is presently round in Dolphin’s Yard.”

“I’ll send a footman to fetch it.”

They went into the hall together, listening to the sound of the equipage coming to the front door.

“You have been very kind, Mr. Rawlings. Pray will you call in person bringing some more of that excellent physick.”

He bowed and took her hand. “Of course I will. I shall arrive about noon.”

“And if you have anything even stronger for Evalina I am sure the whole household will be mightily relieved.”

He smiled irregularly. “I’ll do my best.”

Her coach had drawn up outside and a servant went to open the front door for her. Jocasta turned in the entrance.

“I wonder if Mrs. Bussell knows?” she said, more to herself than to her host.

John remained silent, determined to keep all secret until Sir John Fielding decided it was time to do otherwise.

“Do you think I should write to Father’s friends?” Jocasta continued.

The Apothecary shook his head. “I think you will find that such a dramatic story concerning a well-known merchant will be reported in the newspapers tomorrow.”

She smiled, very wryly. “I suppose we will then be overwhelmed by callers.”

John gave an answering smile. “It is the way of the world, alas.”

Jocasta Rayner curtseyed. “Goodbye, Sir. Thank you for your hospitality.”

“It has been most interesting to meet you,” he said, and accompanied her into the street where he handed her inside her carriage before going within to read the last words that her father had ever written.

Chapter Three

T
he papers, which John read and re-read once his visitor had gone, revealed little new. They simply recounted the tale of Mrs. Bussell and her obsessive love for Aidan Fenchurch which had turned to a dangerous hatred. But had it, John wondered as he finally resealed the dead man’s statement. As he had said to the victim himself, it seemed to him that Ariadne was still besotted with the object of her affections. Would this, the Apothecary considered as he put on his nightshirt and got into bed, make her more or less likely to order an attack on her former lover.

He recalled her face; how affable she had tried to look when she realised that her fury was getting her nowhere. Yet the smile flashed by the overpowering set of teeth had been entirely without humour or humanity. Yes, John thought, blowing out the bedside candle, that woman could be a truly dangerous member of her sex, capable of handing out hurt to anyone whom she believed either stood in her way or had rejected her.

It seemed that Sir John Fielding was of a like mind. Having sat in total silence while his clerk, Joe Jago, read Aidan Fenchurch’s statement aloud, his first comment was, “Poor fellow. I would not care for a harpy of that stamp to shadow me.”

“Do you think she hired ruffians to take care of him, as it were, Sir?”