Savage Magic (28 page)

The rider climbs down, holding the reins of his horse, and indicates to Horton that they should walk a little away from the servants.

‘I’m to give you news of the investigation, from the magistrate.’

‘What is your name, officer?’

‘William Jealous. Of the Bow Street mounted patrol.’

The name is familiar. Horton frowns in recall.

‘Jealous. Are you of the same family as Charles Jealous?’

‘He is my father.’

The young man looks pleased. Horton feels he has made an ally.

‘A good man, your father. Now, tell me.’

‘All the members of the Sybarites have been warned that they may be potential victims of this killer. Sir Henry has just received that letter.’

‘Ah. Well, then. Perhaps he will talk to me now.’

‘Also, we have investigated the gypsies of Norwood.’

‘Gypsies? Why on earth is Graham talking to gypsies?’

‘One was seen outside Sir John Cope’s house.’

‘But gypsies are almost as common in London as whores.’

‘I know not the magistrate’s reasoning.’

‘Did you learn anything in Norwood?’

‘Only that there had been a strange woman there, with a younger woman, earlier this year. She matches the appearance of a gypsy woman seen several times outside the home of Sir John Cope.’

‘But this is hardly evidence of foul deeds. Women come and go from Norwood all year round.’

‘I cannot say.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Constables are being sent to the London homes of all the Sybarites. To keep watch.’

‘What has been learned from the houses of the two dead men?’

‘Nothing. There are no signs of any forced entry. All the doors and windows were secured. None of the servants heard or saw anything during the night. It is as if the men were done away with by spirits.’

The young man’s face is excited. The thrill of investigation is written in his eyes. Horton tells himself this boy may be of use.

‘That is all?’

‘Yes, constable.’

The young rider shifts position, and climbs back on his horse.

‘Wait,’ says Horton, tearing himself away from his thoughts, which is considerably harder than he might have expected. ‘When are you expected back?’

The rider looks down at him, perhaps not as impatiently as Horton might have imagined.

‘I was given no specific duty today beyond informing you of developments.’

‘Well, I have something I’d like you to help me with. But it’ll be a long ride.’

‘Raven here likes a run.’

He pats the side of his horse proudly.

‘Does he? Well, perhaps you both would appreciate an even longer run.’

‘Perhaps. Where to?’

‘A place called Stoke d’Abernon. It is not quite a dozen miles from here. I need you to deliver a letter, and bring back a reply.’

WESTMINSTER

The letters he sent out the previous evening have already sparked a reaction by the time Graham returns to Bow Street from Norwood. Six letters in all have been sent in London, to six of the seven names on the list provided by Sir John Cope’s manservant, Burgess. The seventh name is Sir Henry Tempest, and that matter, Graham trusts, is already in hand.

Of the six letters, two provoke a direct response. Sir Thomas Mackworth sent Graham’s constable back with a terse note saying any further association of his name with the Sybarites will lead to an immediate suit; he even intimates that to preserve his honour he might threaten a duel. He adds that no Bow Street ‘meddler’ is going to be loitering outside his house, and damn the consequences.

The other note does not come back with the constable; it appears that John Cameron, the youngest of the supposed Sybarites, is going to cooperate with Graham’s request. His note simply thanks Graham for the attention, and informs him that he will be returning to his father’s estate in the country. The note asks for Graham to kindly keep the reasons for his return secret; the Earl of Ruthin and Flint, Alexander Cameron, has an upright reputation (the letter does not say, it only implies, as such letters tend to do), which would be tarnished by Sybaritic associations.

Three of the other letters have met with no response at all, only a silent and presumably rather embarrassed acquiescence, and so Graham’s constables spent last night in attendance at the residences of Samuel Lake, the second brother of Viscount Lake (who claims direct descent from Lancelot of the Lake), Algernon Lincoln (son of Hugh Lincoln, the Duke of Handforth) and Henry Harcourt Palmer, son of Sir Charles Harcourt Palmer.

The sixth letter, not to Graham’s surprise, sparked the biggest response of all. An hour after his return from Norwood, the Bow Street servant brings him a note. Graham is required to attend the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Viscount Sidmouth, immediately. Graham is not entirely surprised, and decides to walk, and to think.

It is the afternoon, and the fruit and vegetable stalls in the Piazza are being cleared away. The streets have an air of preparedness about them, hung between the clattering commerce of the day and the illicit trading of the night. He tries to clear his mind of what is to come with Sidmouth, using a technique he learned from a courtesan who’d once been kept, for some months, by Charles James Fox. ‘He always said, the only way to stay sane is to turn off your thinking,’ Miranda had said, one night as they’d sipped wine in her rooms off Maiden Lane. ‘And the only way to turn your thinking off is to open your senses – your ears, your nose, your eyes – to everything that is around you
right now
.’ And with that, she’d moved her hand down beneath the bedclothes, and Aaron Graham found that, indeed, one’s senses could overwhelm one’s cares.

He thinks back to what Talty had said, the previous night. ‘We’ve all got our own information to trade, don’t we?’ Had that been a threat? Did he know, then, that Aaron Graham, magistrate, was an infrequent but long-standing customer of some of Covent Garden’s finest jades? But surely such knowledge was immaterial; it would have been more of a matter for gossip if a man in Graham’s circumstances did
not
partake of such pleasures, even before his wife departed to usher in his singleton existence on the fringe of Britain’s most scandalous district. But this only makes Talty’s implied threat more disconcerting; does he know something else? Has Graham said something to one of those women – said all manner of things, tenderly over the pillow in some candle-lit bedroom – which has been passed down and across and into the hands of Maiden Lane’s primary panderer?

The avenues for investigating the Sybarites are closing up, at least in London. The trip to Norwood had generated intrigue – a mysterious woman, apparently the same one he encountered at Sir John Cope’s, and her daughter, living among the gypsies. But however theatrical Mother Marcus had been, it leaves him with nothing: just another gypsy living among gypsies. The six guineas he’d left with Mother Marcus could have been better spent.

The previous night has brought no new developments. The six members of the Sybarites he had contacted had all been made aware, all (even the angry Sir Thomas Mackworth) would have had an eye on the street and on their doors and windows. Even John Cameron, who is presumably even now in a coach clattering to a country redoubt, may have been looking to his coach driver and imagining riders approaching the windows.

Meanwhile, other constables have responded to the search warrant he has issued, demanding the immediate arrest of any or all of the three whores mentioned by Talty: Rose Dawkins, Elizabeth Carrington, Maria Cranfield. Jealous has promised to take up this search himself when he returns from Horton.

And then there is Horton himself, and Thorpe Lee House. The case is obscure, but nowhere is that obscurity deeper or more distressing than in Thorpe. Graham had considered ordering Horton to return to London, in light of the most recent death. He is impatient for news of the place, and for the results of Horton’s interview with Sir Henry. The more he thinks about matters, the more Sir Henry’s timely flight to Surrey seems significant.

He reaches the Home Department with barely a thought for the meeting with Sidmouth. He has his own method for avoiding thoughts of an unpleasant meeting, it would seem; replace those thoughts with ones which are even more unpleasant.

Henry Addington, the Viscount Sidmouth, is the most powerful person with whom Aaron Graham has any personal dealings. The younger Graham, working away on legal and judicial matters in Newfoundland, would have been astonished by the prospect of such an association as the one the magistrate now has with the former prime minister. It would indicate how far he had risen, how much he had made of his meagre family resources. That younger man might even have traded his future domestic happiness for the prospect of such advancement. That younger man, Graham reflects, was a naive fool. For one, he had never lost a wife.

Sidmouth’s lean, sensible, dull face is poised over a letter when Graham is shown into his office. He does not ask Graham to sit down, nor would Graham expect him to. He does not even immediately acknowledge Graham’s presence, but finishes his letter and puts down his quill. He breathes in through his nose and closes his eyes, as if resetting his thoughts, and then looks at Graham.

‘The Sybarites, Graham. Tell me all you know of the Sybarites.’

‘A private society, your Lordship. A small group of men. It appears to be an entirely hedonistic enterprise – no political intent whatsoever, as far as I can garner.’

‘And two of them are now dead?’

‘Yes, your Lordship.’

‘I know neither name – Cope, was it? And Wodehouse?’

The Home Secretary looks at no paper when saying his name. He has, it would appear, read carefully over this matter.

‘Indeed, your Lordship. Wodehouse is the third son of Baron Wodehouse of Kimberley; a young man, of no significant achievement. Sir John Cope was the heir to Sir Richard Cope’s title. A rector, I believe his father was.’

‘The circumstances of their deaths, if you please.’

‘Both were killed in especially violent ways. Their bodies were much mutilated, such that it is almost impossible for the coroner to be entirely certain of the cause of death. Wodehouse’s stomach was opened, and his entrails were partially removed. Cope’s manhood was severed, and the surrounding area eviscerated. The member was placed in his mouth.’

The Viscount blinks, mildly. He has long made it clear that this kind of dispassionate summary is his preferred mode of discourse. The man lacks imagination, it is well known, but in counterbalance he possesses sense, calm and propriety. Sometimes, he reminds Graham of his friend Sir John Harriott, in that gentleman’s quieter moments.

‘You are making something of a habit of these bizarre episodes, Graham. The Ratcliffe Highway murders. That odd occasion around Sir Joseph Banks’s vessel last year. And now this. You have a suspect?’

‘No, your Lordship.’

‘You have arrested no one?’

‘No, your Lordship. There is a warrant in place for the arrest of three Covent Garden prostitutes.’

‘You believe them to be the killers?’

‘Not entirely, sir. But we believe they may help us to establish a motive for the killings.’

‘A
motive?
Hmm. Well, I have received a letter.’

He picks up the paper from his desk, for all the world like an absent-minded professor referring to a note from his sister. Graham imagines it is anything but.

‘It comes from the Earl of Maidstone. I understand you wrote to him.’

‘Yes, your Lordship.’

‘You have accused him of membership of the Sybarites.’

‘Does he deny this?’

‘Ah, not quite, no.’ The Home Secretary smiles, a knowing little expression, and Graham relaxes a little. ‘He does rather resent your bringing it up, however. You perhaps should have contacted me before writing to one such as this, Graham.’

‘There was little time, your Lordship. I was acutely concerned that these men might be threatened this past night.’

‘That is as it may be. But there is form and there is etiquette, Graham. The Earl is the son of the Marquess of Tonbridge. His mother is the daughter of a Viscount. This is a significant family, and it would seem from his letter that the Earl is most aware of that.’

‘Does he require anything of me?’

‘He does. He requires four constables.’

Graham frowns in some confusion. That little smile reappears on the Home Secretary’s face.

‘Yes, Graham. He resents your intrusion onto his personal sphere. But he also rather thinks you might be right. Do you have the men available?’

THORPE