Die I Will Not (15 page)

PART TWO

Say, where am I? Can you tell?
Is my heart within my breast?
Am I bound in magic spell,
Or by fiends of hell possest?

Say, what horror sways this brain?

Do I sleep, or do I wake?
If I sleep—oh, dream of pain!
From my lids thy fetters take.

—Charlotte Dacre, “The Musing Maniac”

Chapter XIV

“May I join you?” said Chase. Horatio Rex stood on the terrace that overlooked the river, his coattails stirring in the breeze, his head lifted toward a sky in which dawn's rosy streaks had faded. Now that the light had increased, a banquet of beauty lay revealed before them on this unusually clear morning. Immediately to their left stretched the expanse of Somerset House and the incomplete arches of the new Strand Bridge. Beyond, the dome of St. Paul's floated amid the spires of City churches. To their right, Westminster Bridge sparkled like a fairy road in the sunshine, while the Abbey seemed as if it would last forever.

Turning from his study of the horizon, Rex sent Chase a veiled look, the old hostility still lurking. The man looked years older than he had in his drawing room just four days before, his urbane polish dulled, his eyes furtive and haunted.

Chase leaned his elbows on the parapet. “I need you to answer some questions.”

“Ask them.” Rex looked back at the river, where skiffs and lighters and coal brigs had already begun to crowd the waterway as London went calmly about its business.

Chase watched them too. They all had somewhere to go, but when he thought of the ugly futility of Mary Leach's death, he couldn't see why they bothered.
What the devil was the point?
There was no answer to this question. What he mostly felt now was guilt—guilt that he had not been quick enough and smart enough to save her. He would much preferred to have arrested her and let her take her chances in court defending herself against the charge of stabbing her husband. She might have pled insanity perhaps. Then he decided there
was
an answer to his unanswerable question. There was a point, and he would find it. He would find out who had murdered Mary Leach and why. Completing this task would not assuage the guilt, but it would allow him to lay it aside, one more loss, one more disappointment, an old letter hidden away in a drawer.

Chase spoke into the silence. “We've brought Mrs. Leach home, sir. The surgeon has examined her, and the housekeeper sits with her.”

“Good. She should not be alone. They must keep candles burning by her side.”

“If it can be any comfort to you, she was not violated.”

Rex let his eyelids drop and opened them slowly, as if even so small a movement was an effort. He kept his face turned resolutely forward. “Thank God for that small mercy.”

“I've inspected the stable, sir, and the Coroner has been summoned.” Chase paused. “There's more. A pistol Leach kept in a desk drawer in the library has gone missing. Mrs. Leach must have taken it to defend herself, but there was no sign of it where she was found. We must assume she never had a chance to fire and her murderer removed the weapon.”

When there was no response, Chase took the button from his waistcoat pocket and laid it on the parapet. “I found this along with Mrs. Leach's bonnet in a water trough. Do you recognize it?” As he spoke, he was running his eye down the other man's coat; Rex's buttons were of metal, not cloth, yet he'd had ample time to change his garments, Chase thought.

“A common enough thing,” said Rex indifferently, barely glancing at it.

“Why would Mrs. Leach refer to herself as a ‘wretch' and pen a note to arrange the care of her children? She was getting her affairs in order because she knew she was in danger.” Chase allowed Rex to read the note but kept the memorandum book in his own hands.

“This means nothing.” Rex pushed the book away. “My daughter believed we are all sinners. She understood the fragility of life; after all, she lost a child of her own body less than a year ago. She merely took precautions.”

But Chase had glimpsed a flash of fear behind the raw pain in the other man's eyes. At any rate, the explanation failed to satisfy. “Your daughter's fate is terrible enough, but we must consider her husband's death. You've been helping Mrs. Leach hide the truth.”

“I have no idea what you're talking about, Chase. Of course I dealt with the surgeon and promised to handle the parish authorities for Mary. She needed me. Any father would do the same.”

“Mrs. Leach told Fladgate a cock and bull story about a masked assailant. Did you open your purse wide, hoping to ensure his silence? Maybe you even bribed the porter at the
Daily Intelligencer
to disappear.”

“That's a lie.”

“Who then?”

Rex shrugged. “I don't know. Someone must have wanted the porter's information. I've seen the watchers in Fitzroy Square, and they followed us from Greek Street last night too. I'm sure they are agents employed by the Home Office. Last night Mary said…she was afraid, Chase.”

“We are speaking of Leach. The porter Peter Malone was a witness to what happened at the newspaper office. Did he see—a woman?”

“What does it signify if he did? Who would believe a mere woman capable of such a crime? Any man could defend himself. In any case, if Malone saw a woman, it could just as easily have been Mrs. Wolfe. I'm told she had called on Leach at the
Daily Intelligencer
.”

Fury swept over Chase. “You dare to imply Mrs. Wolfe had something to do with the attack? You know perfectly well your own daughter was there that night.”

“I insinuate nothing. I only hint at the construction the world may put on these events. What good can it do to destroy my Mary's reputation? The only thing that matters is to find out who did this to her and why.”

“I don't know yet, but I suspect the villain was after information.” Chase had decided it would do no good to mention that Mary Leach had been tortured by having her head thrust into a trough of dirty water, though this information must come out in the inquest. Besides, he wanted to see if Rex would betray any knowledge of the scene.

Rex lowered his face to his arms. “My God, how frightened she must have been. Why did no one come to her aid?”

“The beggars in the Arches are unlikely to intervene.”

“It's bad enough that Mary's children must suffer the loss of their mother, but think of the scandal.”

“You're right. The journalists are bound to seize on the story. She must have told you something, Rex. Mrs. Leach left the house to meet someone, and you said she was afraid. Who was it?”

“I tell you, I don't know! She didn't take me into her confidence. She didn't trust me, her own father. I'll live with my failure for the rest of my life.”

“You must have a theory.”

His bent head shifted, and his voice was slightly muffled when he answered. “She needed to escape an intolerable situation. She was trapped. She mentioned you, Chase. When I told her Mrs. Wolfe was your friend, she asked me whether I thought you a decent man. What could I say? Should I have advised her to consult a Bow Street Runner?”

“A pity you didn't, isn't it?” said Chase wearily. “Why did she want to see Mrs. Wolfe?”

“To put her on her guard? I had tried that myself when I told Mrs. Wolfe's fribble of a husband about the masked man. I wanted to see how he would react, and I thought he was sure to repeat the story to her. A miscalculation, as it happened.”

“Yes, because after you rushed to your daughter's side, you learned
she
was the one involved, not Mrs. Wolfe.”

“I did think Mrs. Wolfe might be Collatinus.”

“Why should you suspect her?”

“She might have tried to resurrect the past or hoped to profit from old secrets. Her father was suspected of murdering a woman when he was last in London.”

“You mean Nell Durant?”

In his astonishment, Rex jerked upright. “You know about her?”

“One of the fashionable impure, once the Regent's mistress. Your daughter owned a pocketknife bearing the device of the Prince of Wales. Did Nell give it to her?”

“Probably. They were friends. That was before Mary married Leach and turned Tory. My wife promoted the match because she thought Mary was wasting her life, dwelling in the past. Nell's death along with the accusation against Sandford ruined my daughter. She was never the same.” He looked around vaguely. “Where is Mrs. Wolfe? If I am to explain, Chase, we must go back nearly twenty years to my friendship with her father.”

“Wolfe thought it best to escort her back to Greek Street. She was terribly distressed by the news of Mrs. Leach's death. You say your daughter did not trust you enough to confide in you. Well, you have been guilty of the same fault with Mrs. Wolfe. We have been stumbling around in the dark. I do know Sandford was the original Collatinus.”

“True enough.”

“And Nell?”

“She was a woman who felt her power. Her smallest smile drew men like bees to a blossom. She used to hold court in her opera box like a queen. She'd already had several protectors by the time she came to the Prince's notice.”

“Nell was also a wronged mother, according to the letters.”

Rex nodded. “She had a son a few months before she died. There were rumors.”

“What kind of rumors? Who fathered the child?”

“I heard reports it was the Prince of Wales. Nell once told me His Royal Highness had treated her shabbily. He cast her off as he casts off every woman after he's had his fill. And promised her a settlement that was not forthcoming. Which explains why—”

“She resorted to blackmail?”

“She'd written her memoirs, you see. She meant to demand hush money from her former lovers and acquaintances in exchange for having their names expunged from the manuscript, and, of course, she wanted to embarrass the Prince. Then she came to one of my routs and met Sandford. He was one of a group of young men of good family and advanced opinions I'd been cultivating.”

“Whose idea was it to write the Collatinus letters?”

“Sandford's. Nell had been made a plaything for rich and titled men, according to him. He convinced her to sell him information for his letters, which I agreed to publish. Her knowledge could thus do good for the world.”

“She agreed?”

“When an injury is done to a man, he may seek retribution at law or on the dueling ground. A woman has no such remedies, or so Nell claimed.”

“She sold the pair of you the secrets of her fashionable friends at an immense profit. Pay up or see your soiled linen exposed to the world. What were these secrets?”

“Oh, the usual,” Rex replied, a ghost smile flickering at his lips. “We took aim at the Prince's debts, of course, and I recall there was a colonel who forced his mistress to sell her favors and thereby satisfy his creditors. A duchess, mistress to a government minister, who gained lucrative places for all her relations. The cuckolded aristocrat whose children all had different fathers. But would you believe that profit was not our primary motive, at least not my motive or Sandford's? We intended nothing less than to discredit the aristocracy's right to rule. If our targets refused to pay up, we would publish the information as paragraphs in the next Collatinus letter. Or, if they met our demands, as they usually did, we funneled some of the money toward the defense of the republicans or toward the families of the men who had been arrested. We couldn't lose. One way or the other, our enemies paid.”

“Nell Durant paid a far higher price. What happened to her?”

“She was found murdered at her home in Marylebone. Her sister implicated Sandford.”

“What possible motive?”

“I don't know. Someone offered to pay more for her memoirs, or Sandford discovered she had betrayed him.”

“You were in difficulties with the authorities. Maybe you decided that Nell had grown too troublesome and killed her yourself?”

“No, it must have been Sandford. There was no one else.”

“You are convinced of his guilt?”

Rex's expression shifted uneasily. “He ran away, didn't he? Yet I've always regretted our falling out right before he left. He said he was innocent, but I'm afraid I didn't quite believe him. A friendship destroyed.”

“Perhaps he told you the truth. Sandford certainly
didn't
kill your daughter. Two women are dead. If the same person murdered both of them, he was innocent. And what of you? I hear your political allegiances underwent a change. Did your daughter suspect you of having something to do with Nell's death? Was that why she didn't trust you?”

“Damn you, Chase. What can you know of my life? Nell was dead, Sandford gone for good. Nothing to be done for either of them. The authorities would show a man of my race no mercy, assume the worst, and put the blame for Nell's murder at my door. I acted to save my family and myself. Do you judge me for it?”

“You made a bargain?”

“I betrayed no one,” he said proudly. “I told the scoundrels only what they already knew, but they made sure I was humbled. I was to renounce my belief in the rights of man at a public assembly and defend the English constitution in print. Ralph Hewitt, a connection of my wife's, conducted the negotiations for me.”

“And you thought it was all over until the letters started again? You went back to your usury and found better ways to profit by fleecing young men with expensive tastes who were stupid enough to put themselves in your power.”

“You judge me by the world's prejudice.” Rex looked into Chase's face and sighed. “My father was a street hawker. What professions do you imagine were open to me? Do you know how often the wellborn have failed to honor my contracts? You wonder why I am forced to charge such high rates of interest? They are all liars and cheats, from the Prince of Wales down to the merest sprigs of nobility out to indulge their pleasures without paying for them.”

“His Royal Highness borrowed money off you?”

“He did—when I was fool enough to enter into financial engagements with him and his cronies. He has never repaid a shilling.”

“Will you bury your daughter in accordance with your faith, sir?” inquired Chase, suddenly curious. He knew next to nothing about Judaism, he realized. He had encountered few Jews in his life, and he had never before spoken at length to one.