Stolen Remains (17 page)

“You dismissed my—”

Hurst ignored her and looked at Stephen. “Women and their hysterics, eh, my lord?”

Stephen didn’t respond.

“Now, Mrs. Harper, I’m sure you understand the importance of reporting crimes to the police.”

“Which I did. And I don’t believe he did anything that would constitute a crime, Inspector. He was merely rude,” Violet said.

“Best to let us judge that. I don’t make recommendations for burial clothing, do I?”

“No.” Violet’s teeth ached from gritting them. Surely this funeral could take place soon and she could return home with Sam, leaving behind this bullying inspector and the battling Fairmonts.

Stephen rescued Violet. “You may be interested in knowing, Inspector, that a newspaper reporter was here earlier, poking about. This is the result of his visit.” Stephen handed him the previous day’s newspaper.

Violet could have sworn she saw steam blasting from the detective’s nostrils. “Reporters! They are the greatest scourge the earth has ever known. Worse than a cholera outbreak. A bigger blight than—”

“Yes, we already know firsthand how duplicitous and irritating they can be.” Stephen took the paper back from Hurst.

Violet busied herself around the coffin while Hurst calmed down and asked the family more questions about who “James” might be and Pratt scribbled notes. They asked no questions about the prince’s visit, which suggested to Violet that Stephen hadn’t mentioned it in his note.

She pulled several more stems that were browning, and once again blew away some dust settling on the coffin’s lid. The family’s minimal household help was quickly beginning to show.

What was this? With her back to the family, Violet examined the lock. There were scratch marks on it. Someone had been tampering with it. But who?

She started to turn around to make mention of it but stopped. Perhaps someone in the family had brushed up against it. Or the new maid had acted with curiosity. She might have even let in a curiosity seeker who had fiddled with it.

Why give Mr. Hurst an opportunity to mock her further? Perhaps she could simply figure this out for herself.

Once the detectives were gone, Violet took her leave of the family so she could meet Mary Cooke for their trip to Hyde Park. As she stepped into the street, she noticed a boy selling newspapers on a corner. He looked to be a mere ten years old. His brown knickers were torn and his hands and face were filthy from ink. She purchased a fresh edition of
The Times
from him.

She immediately regretted it.

The headline, written once again by the detestable Ellis Catesby, trumpeted the prince’s visit to Raybourn House, but was less than flattering about it.

Violet couldn’t read any further. She hoped no one in the family would see the day’s paper, but did it really matter if they did? A spiteful neighbor would surely bring it by. Well, there was nothing Violet could do about it now. She took it with her to her meeting with Mary.

Originally an enclosed deer park, Hyde Park was the largest royal park in London and had been open to the public since the time of Charles I. It had also been the home of the Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1851, the prince consort’s most notable accomplishment during his short life.

As Violet passed through the Grand Entrance into the park’s southeast end with Mary, she remembered the visit she had taken to the Exhibition with her parents, and having been overwhelmed just by the magnificent glass pavilion on the south end of the park that had held the event. Alas, the structure was gone now. The public complained about its continued presence after the Exhibition, so the architect purchased it and removed it to Sydenham Hill in Kent.

Without the glass palace, though, the Serpentine River, a man-made body of water snaking through the trees and walkways, took its rightful place as the highlight of the park.

Mary still had a cloud of misery surrounding her, and the casual walk through the park’s winding pathways did nothing to revive her. Instead, she seemed to shrink from the throngs of people taking advantage of the cloudless, warm day.

“Why don’t we hire a rowboat and take a closer look at the swans?” Violet pointed to the long-necked, snow-white birds, with golden beaks framed in black, floating on the Serpentine as though they hadn’t a care in the world.

Most likely they weren’t dealing with errant husbands or dead bodies that couldn’t make their way into the ground.

Mary offered a wan smile for a particularly big cob as he floated past their rented boat in search of a female. How was it that the birds glided along so easily, barely making a ripple in the water, while Violet was straining with the oars to keep up with them?

Violet showed the newspaper article to Mary, who offered sympathetic noises. “Such dreadful things the newspapers say. It reminds me of what they said about you when Graham disappeared.”

“I know. Except I’m sure the viscount’s family is used to only appearing in the newspapers for announcements about parties they’ve attended, marriages they’ve made, and heirs they’ve birthed. This will send them reeling.”

She paused rowing, letting the boat drift along where it would. Mary leaned back and closed her eyes, dipping her fingers into the water over each side of their small craft. The noise of people talking and shuffling along graveled paths receded from consciousness as the two friends moved with the breeze. Violet’s eyelids grew heavy and she’d nearly fallen asleep with the oars across her lap, when Mary interrupted her pleasant nap.

“I read once that something dreadful happened in this lake about fifty years ago.”

Violet opened one eye. “How dreadful?”

“It had to do with the poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley. It was in 1815, no, 1816—or was it 1817?—no, no, I’m certain it was 1816. His first wife, the one before Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin—you know, the one that wrote that frightening novel about the hideous creature produced by a scientific experiment that goes awry—”

“Yes, I know. What about his first wife?”

“Oh yes, her name was Harriet. She was pregnant, and committed suicide by drowning herself in this very lake. You see, Percy and Mary were already an item and traveling off to Geneva together, with Mary already calling herself ‘Mrs. Shelley.’ I’m sure the poor woman could hardly stand the scandal of it all.”

Violet thought about Mary Cooke’s roving husband, and understood why the story was compelling to her friend. “How very sad.”

“But that’s not the most remarkable part. Only six years later, Percy himself drowned in a sudden storm while sailing along the Italian coastline. Isn’t that peculiar?”

It was. They rowed awhile in silence, and soon Violet drifted off again. When Mary next spoke, it was with surprising forcefulness.

“I do believe George intends to leave me for good.”

Violet’s eyes flew open. “What are you saying?”

Mary swirled her fingers in the water. “Things are . . . missing. A pearl necklace, a cameo brooch, and a sapphire ring Matthew gave me have disappeared from my jewelry casket.”

Matthew was Mary’s first husband, who had died years ago of a tumor on his brain.

“I also had some extra money hidden beneath a floorboard in the shop for emergency purposes. I’d saved nearly thirty pounds. It’s gone.”

“Maybe someone broke into the premises.”

Mary’s expression was that of a child who has realized that the mongrel puppy she adored really has died and would not be joyfully licking her face or chasing sticks ever again.

“I have to accept that it was George. Everything went missing just before he left this time, and he has not written at all. Is there another conclusion?”

Violet could think of nothing to cheer her friend. They continued to drift until Mary finally took her fingers out of the water and held them up. They were completely shriveled.

“They look like my heart,” she said.

Poor Mary. Violet sympathized with her situation, but what could be done about it?

The two friends remained in companionable silence as Violet rowed back again, each caught up in her own thoughts about death and betrayal.

Mary rubbed her hands together. “Enough feeling sorry for myself. I’ve had a lovely time. Shall we do it again?”

The women agreed to meet again in another week’s time to once again rent a boat on the Serpentine, with Mary promising to bring crumbs along to feed the swans.

Mary was so cheered by the idea that Violet did not voice her doubts that she would still be in England by then.

Violet was about to relieve herself of her front-lacing corset when a palace servant knocked at her outer door. Violet quickly reassembled her bodice and skirt, but by the time she was ready to answer the door, she found merely an envelope that had been slipped under it.

It was from a Mrs. Young, requesting that Violet meet her the following morning in the crypt of St. Paul’s Cathedral, by Sir Christopher Wren’s tomb.

Was this a prank, or was it possible that this woman had valuable information about Lord Raybourn’s murder? Violet supposed the crypt at St. Paul’s was safe enough, given the number of tourists that would surely be there. It was unlikely that this woman truly knew anything. She was probably just a curiosity seeker who had figured out a unique way to ferret out gossip about the family.

Violet chose to leave early the next day for St. Paul’s, to spend time in quiet contemplation among its various chapels. She eschewed her normal undertaker’s garb, instead choosing a burgundy-and-black outfit, appropriately somber yet not mourning.

At the appointed time, Violet took the staircase down into the crypt. Originally off-limits to visitors except for those attending interments, the crypt had been open to tourists since Lord Nelson’s body had been buried down there in a fantastic black tomb more than fifty years ago. The cathedral’s crypt was a rabbit’s warren of hallways with tiny chapels jutting off them. The air had the peculiar stillness common to underground burial chambers. It was familiar and oddly comforting for Violet, and she supposed she was the only person down here actually breathing deeply to capture the atmosphere in her nostrils.

She went in exploration of Wren’s tomb, her heels clacking against the stone floor and the noise reverberating off the stone walls and ceiling. The floors were punctuated by flat grave markers, giving the observer details about the birth and death dates of whoever was located beneath the metal slab. After some searching, she found it in an alcove with a barrel ceiling above it. A spiked gate created a private enclosure for Wren’s tomb. No one was inside. Violet stepped through the opening at one end of the fencing to wait.

She examined Wren’s tomb. Upon it was inscribed, L
ECTOR, SI MONUMENTUM REQUIRIS, CIRCUMSPICE.
Reader, if you seek his monument, look about you.

Violet smiled. Wren certainly deserved his reputation as a master architect for his designs of St. Paul’s, parts of Hampton Court, the Royal Observatory, and countless other buildings he created after the Great Fire of 1666.

After studying the inscription, she turned to examining the tomb itself, wondering what funerary practices were used upon the great man. Was he embalmed? How long did he lie in state before burial? What was his coffin inside the tomb made from?

Violet eventually grew bored of the mental exercise. Where was Mrs. Young? A couple carrying a guidebook approached the tomb. Violet looked at them hopefully, but they quickly moved on.

Had the woman decided not to come at the last moment?

Violet glanced at the watch pinned to her bodice. It was half an hour past the appointed time. She waited another half hour, then gave up and returned to her lodgings.

Yet another envelope waited for her under the door when she returned. It was an incoherent ramble from Stephen, demanding to know what she’d done with his father’s body and when did she plan to inform the family of it?

Now thoroughly confused by the morning’s events, Violet quickly changed into her undertaking attire and hired a cab to take her straight to Park Street.

“Has something happened?” she asked, removing her hat and gloves and handing them to Louisa.

“They’s in the drawing room, madam,” was all the maid said, making Violet even more unsettled.

As usual, the Fairmont family was in an uproar, except today the fury was reserved for Violet. She felt as though she’d been placed against a wall, and five members of a firing squad were aiming weapons at her heart. At least Toby wasn’t there.

“I see you received my note,” Stephen said as she entered the drawing room. “Pray tell, what made you decide to abscond with the coffin?” He waved a hand toward the empty bier. One of the lily pots was knocked over; there was a dark stain on the carpet from spilled water.

Violet hardly knew what to say. “Your father is gone?”

“Obviously,” Dorothy said. “Your men said you instructed them to take the coffin.”

“My men?”