Secret Lament (16 page)

“No.”

“Or herself?”

“His wife? No.”

“Then you wanted me.” She plumped herself into a chair, set her elbows on the table and grinned at me. Her pose gave me a fine view of her neat breasts. “Want the whole story
do you?” Another wink at my sigh. “You’re becoming well-known, Mr Patterson. They say your talents extend to more than music.”

There had been a time I had wanted nothing more than to be left alone to play and compose. Now I could not remember the last time I had set pen to paper to plan a concerto. And I did not miss
it. To tell the truth, solving a mystery or two had been far more profitable.

“Well,” she said, “what do you want to know?”

I took a grip on my wits. “I want to know what happened last night. Why was the girl out of the house?”

“Eloping, so they say.”

“And no one heard her leave?”

“Apparently not. I didn’t. But then I sleep sound.”

The sign of a clear conscience, I’m told. But there was that butcher – I knew what Mrs Baker meant by particular friend. And she was so open about it!

“They all dined here last night?”

She shook her head and slid a piece of meat on to my plate. “The ladies did. He had an engagement with a friend.” She snorted. “A tavern, more like. He was as drunk as a lord
when he came home. Had an altercation with Mr Proctor on the doorstep. Accused him of harassing his daughter.” She chuckled. “Mr Proctor! Doesn’t even use his whip on his horse
for fear of hurting it.”

There was a mixture of amusement and contempt in her voice. Proctor can engender that feeling all too easily.

“What time was that?”

“About nine.”

“Not very late.”

“He said the friend had been called away and demanded I serve him dinner. Well, there was nothing left! Mrs M eats for six and there was none of the missish attitude about the young lady.
Not that that surprised me. Any rate, I brought in some bread and meats, much like you’re having now.” She poured ale for me. “And he turned his nose up at them.” She gave
me a slice of pheasant. “Likes his fancy sauces, he does. Come of being a foreigner, I daresay.”

“Complained, did he?”

“To the air,” she retorted, breaking off a chunk of bread and chewing on it. “I left him to it.”

“Then what happened?”

She gave the matter some thought. “Oh, yes, I remember. I took tea into the ladies, and the young missy said she was going to bed. Feeling unwell, she said.” Mrs Baker gave me a
significant look, which was entirely lost on me. “Her mother fussed over her a bit but let her go. Then his highness came into the drawing room with the brandy in his hand.” She
chuckled. “Most of it was already inside him! Mrs M took one look at him and said she thought she’d go to bed early too.”

I picked at the meat, played with the bread. “And what did Signor Mazzanti do?”

She shrugged. “I tidied up the dishes, locked the doors and went to bed myself. If he did what he usually does, he stayed up all night, drinking himself into a stupor.”

“He does that every night?”

“Every night he’s been in this house.”

“Then conjugal relations – ”

“Non-existent,” she said with glee.

I tried to work out what Julia must have done. She had gone upstairs, waited until the house seemed quiet, gone down, left by the front door and waited in the street. But the house was
narrow-fronted and Julia must surely have been visible from the windows on to the street.

“Did Mazzanti usually stay in the drawing room all night?”

She nodded. “Sleeps in a chair. And he’s there every morning till noon at least. I have to turn any visitors away at the door, or show them into the dining room.” She gulped at
ale. “And he stinks. The room stinks. He gets so he doesn’t know what he’s doing and the stuff goes all over the chairs. Over the curtains too once – tell me how he managed
that!”

When Bedwalters and I had brought Julia’s body back, Mazzanti had opened the door himself. He had been dazed, like a man that has just woken from a deep sleep. And yes, he had smelt of
brandy, a little. Perhaps he had not had time to drink as much as usual.

“You definitely locked the front door before you retired?”

She gave me a reproachful look as if I had just insulted her.

“Mrs Baker,” I said tactfully. “The door was ajar just now when I arrived, and your neighbours are after all trustworthy people. It would hardly have been surprising if you had
left the door unlocked.”

“Not after that burglary on Monday night,” she retorted.

I had not forgotten about that. “Tell me about it.”

She was only too glad to oblige and I devoted myself to her meats which were excellent; I knew the butcher Mrs Baker was
friendly
with – one of the more respectable ones. Mrs Baker
wiped sweat from her brow, fanned herself against the hot sun flooding in through the kitchen window, and told me all between gulps of beer and mouthfuls of bread.

The evening before the burglary had apparently passed much as usual: Mrs Baker in the kitchen, the ladies in the drawing room, Mazzanti lingering too long over his wine after dinner. At some
point, he had gone into the drawing room and disturbed the ladies with talk of money troubles.

“Had his wife in tears, he did,” Mrs Baker said. “When I went in to clear the tea things, he was berating her for getting old – losing her looks, he said, not attracting
the gentlemen any more. The young lady was smirking at that.” Mrs Baker stared contemplatively into her ale for a moment. “None of them liked each other, you know. Well, I can
understand trouble between husband and wife – it happens all the time. My own case… ” She stopped and gave me a rueful look. “Married, Mr Patterson?”

“Not yet.” I caught myself up, cursed. Why the devil had I not just said no? What if Mrs Baker had heard rumours…

Apparently she had not. “That’s well,” she said approvingly. “Take your time over it. That’s what caused half the trouble in this case. The young lady wanting to
rush into marriage. Anyhow she went off to bed early.”

“She seems to have made a habit of it.”

Mrs Baker chuckled. “With her parents quarrelling all the time? Wouldn’t you?”

My father had been one of those quarrelsome men but as a son I had seen little of it – my mother had taken the brunt of it. I said nothing.

“So she went up to bed,” Mrs Baker said. “And her mother followed her and I went off too and left the Signor to get drunk. Much the same as every other night.”

“And the house was all locked up?”

She winced. “I may have left the back door unlocked.”

“The butcher?” I suggested.

She set her head on one side. “Now, Mr Patterson,” she said, “a gentleman should know better than to ask a question like that.”

Which was an answer in itself, I reflected. “And then?”

“Nothing, sir, till the middle of the night, when I heard a tremendous noise on the stair and went out to see what had happened. I thought – ” she looked coyly at me.

“The butcher?” I prompted.

“He will insist on coming up without a candle in case someone sees it and he’s as blind as a bat! So I went out to pick him up again. And there was Julia lying on the stair,
clutching on to the banister to stop herself tumbling down. She’d hit her head and was dazed. I went to her to ask her if she was all right. And then I heard the sound of someone running,
down in the hall.”

“What did you do?”

“What any sensible woman would have done,” she said. “I picked up the poker I keep under my bed in case of such emergencies and I went down after him. To tell the truth, I
still thought it was my butcher friend, thrown into a fright by the young lady appearing. But it wasn’t – my friend told me next day he’d not left his wife all night. So who it
was in my house the Lord alone knows.”

“You didn’t see him?”

“Not a hair of him. Only his highness.”

“Mazzanti?”

“He’d heard the fellow too, and came out to catch him.” She sniffed. “Drunk as he was! No use at all. He was blundering around in the hall and walking into doors and
crying out that the villain had hit him, and bleeding all over my furniture and meanwhile the fellow was getting away!” She poured more ale for both of us. “Foreigners,” she said,
placidly. “Useless.”

“Did Mazzanti see the intruder? Could he describe him?”

“Not he!”

“Was anything stolen?”

“Not a penny.” She contemplated a slice of the pheasant, speared it with the point of her knife. “There was one odd thing though. Miss claimed the fellow had tried to throw her
downstairs.” She nodded at my surprise. “Aye, I thought she was imagining it too. But after what happened last night… ”

I finished off the meats in silence. If the burglary had been an unsuccessful attempt to kill Julia, how did that relate to the attempted burglaries at Esther’s house? From what
she’d told me, she’d been injured as a result of her own courage in tackling the intruder. But what if that had been his purpose in trying to get into the house?

Nothing made sense. What connection did Esther have with Julia? She’d told me they’d never met. And, if there was a connection, it would surely rule out the idea that a passer by had
taken advantage of finding Julia in the street. And who could it be?

Philip Ord was known to both ladies, I thought, and he had a motive. What if Julia had threatened to use those letters against him? Had the burglary been an attempt to find the letters and
remove them from Julia’s possession?

Philip Ord – a murderer?

I’d seen him on the night of the murder, hadn’t I? At Mrs Hill’s, I thought.

Ord?

Mrs Baker got up to clear away the meat and bread, and to set down a huge bread pudding. I brought my attention back to the present. I was after information and I would not get it if I
daydreamed. “Where are Signor and Signora Mazzanti now?”

“
He’s
out organising the funeral. Chaplain of All Hallows was first on the list to be honoured with a visit, then the organist and the undertaker.” Mrs Baker cut up the
pudding. “Oh, and the tailor – he doesn’t have mourning, he says.
She’s
being looked after by Mrs Jenison and Mr Heron. You know, sir, I never met a lady who so
expected to be looked after. I daresay the quality are like that, but the rest of us know it’s hard work that brings home the meat.”

I nodded absently. If Mazzanti was looking for the organist of All Hallows, he would be out of luck; the organist was in London introducing his mother to the youngest of his six children. I was
his deputy and Mazzanti would no doubt be seeking me out before long. I had better practise the funeral psalms. Not that I was likely to be paid, if William Wright’s assessment of the
Mazzantis’ financial dealing was correct. Still it meant that Mazzanti and I would have to have a conversation; I’d have plenty of questions for him.

Mrs Baker tucked into her pudding. “Mrs M seems to think that now his highness will dedicate himself to her again. They’ll console each other, weep on each other’s shoulders
and devote the rest of their lives to her singing.” She snorted. “Any fool can see her days are over.”

“She has a wonderful singing voice.”

“She’s almost as old as I am,” Mrs Baker said tartly.

“That proves my point,” I said. “I never met anyone whose days are so clearly
not
over.”

She told me to get away with me, but her smile of pleasure at the flattery lingered. “I stick to what I say,” she added. “It doesn’t matter how you look when you’re
letting out lodgings. When you get up on a stage, though, that’s different. You’ve got to attract the gentlemen. And it’s a rare gentleman that likes a mature woman.” She
preened herself a little. “His highness will find another young lady,” she said. “Mark my words.”

I thought of Athalia.

“Not that Mrs M’ll see that,” Mrs Baker said, waving her tankard at me. “She’s the sort of lady who doesn’t see what she doesn’t like. The day after the
burglary she never gave it a second thought but went straight out visiting the next morning as if it hadn’t happened. And Miss – she sent a note off.”

I considered for a moment. “Fixing up the elopement?”

Mrs Baker nodded approvingly.

“Are you sure? How do you know?”

“Saw her. She gave the paper to a boy in the street.”

“Did you hear where she told the boy to take it?”

She shook her head. “Too far off.” She paused for a moment, looked at me shrewdly. “Want to see her, do you? The body, I mean.”

I did not. I had seen quite enough in Amen Corner. “No, but I’d like to look at her room.”

“Well, so you shall. They’ve laid Miss out in the spare room, her own room being a trifle
disordered
.”

She finished off her bread pudding, stacked the dishes and wiped down the table. Then, in the airy kitchen bright with the last sunshine of the day, she took up a candle and lit it. We went out
into the shuttered gloomy hall; as we went up the dark stairs, our shadows danced and flickered, the banisters cast grotesque shadows.

At the top of the stairs we saw the three doors, all closed and the tiny narrow stair to the attics. Up here the heat was heavier than ever. “The maid lives out with her mother in the
tavern,” Mrs Baker said. “I have the top floor to myself. Keeps the place private for my lodgers.”

We paused outside one of the doors. Mrs Baker was in contemplative mood. “She’s a nice girl,” she said. “The maid, I mean. Not bright but plenty of commonsense. Though I
daresay she’ll have her head turned by some good-looking young man one day, just like young Miss M.” She sighed. “What makes young girls so foolish?”

“Youth, I suppose,” I said lightly. I felt hypocritical; older men do foolish things too. Look at Ord. Look at myself. “Young people fall in love so easily.”

“Falling in love is easy and harmless enough,” Mrs Baker retorted. “It’s the falling into bed that’s foolish.”

I stopped with my hand on the door, turned to stare at her. Dear God, why had I not thought of that before?

“Julia was pregnant,” I said.

THE LADY’S MISCELLANY Available at Willliam Charnley’s on the High Bridge.