The Sans Pareil Mystery (The Detective Lavender Mysteries Book 2) (8 page)

‘I’m Peg,’ she said. ‘And this ’ere is Martha. Izzie is the drunken tosspot who’s about to fall over – and the little one’s Kate.’

‘I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, ladies,’ he said. ‘Have any of you been inside Raleigh Close since Thursday?’

‘Now why would we go into that creepy old cesspit when we can use Dar’s nice warm bed?’ asked one. The others laughed. ‘Those days of stumblin’ around Raleigh Close in the dark are over fer us.’

‘Is this about that dead gal you Runners found there yesterday?’ asked Kate, the youngest and quietest of the cackling group. She was little more than a child, he realised sadly.

‘Yes, treacle, it is,’ he said. ‘Do any of you know anythin’ about her?’

The mention of the dead actress had the same effect as a bucket of cold water on the whores. Their faces dropped into a collective scowl.

‘Was she one of us?’ asked Kate. The girl looked terrified.

‘No, she was an actress from the Sans Pareil.’ The sigh of relief in the group was audible: the prospect of a killer on the loose, who was partial to murdering prostitutes, was terrifying to them.

‘’Twas nothin’ to do wi’ us, Officer,’ said the older whore. ‘We were as surprised as you Runners when her body popped out from beneath them floorboards.’ Some of them must have been in the crowd, he realised. ‘And I doubt it were anythin’ to do with Dirty Dar, either. We ain’t seen him fer days.’

‘Eeh! You don’t suppose he’s been murdered too, do you?’ said one of the group.

‘What, that slimy old bastard? Naw, he’ll be foxed somewhere in a gutter. Let’s make hay while the sun shines, gals – our miserly buttock-broker will be back afore we know it.’

Woods’ mind was spinning. A missing pimp? Was there a connection? And then he remembered something else.

‘I’ve changed my mind, ladies,’ he said. ‘I think I would like a bit of company.’

Peg grinned. ‘Why you naughty boy, Officer!’ she said. ‘And yer supposed to be workin’ too! Now what do you fancy? We can provide all manner of services for an hour or so.’

‘Yes,’ slurred the swaying Izzie. ‘Yer can lie in state wiff all of uz if yer wants.’

‘Oh, it will only take a few minutes,’ he said blithely.

Peg blinked in surprise. ‘Well, I’m sure we can draw it out for a bit longer than that, Constable. It’ll be a shillin’, anyways.’

‘Good,’ said Woods. ‘But I warn you, it takes a lot to get my juices flowin’ these days.’

‘Bit of a dry bob are you, Officer?’ asked Peg. ‘Don’t worry I’ll get those nutmegs and that sugar stick of yours workin’ again.’ She leered provocatively at him, grabbed her ample bosoms and bounced them up and down. The other women fell about laughing at her antics.

They were a cheerful bunch of whores, Woods decided, and probably relieved that their pimp was gone. He pulled out the coin and handed it over to Peg. ‘I think it might be best if you accompany me back to Bow Street, madam. You sound just the kind of gal I need.’

‘Bow Street?’ She recoiled and he wondered if she had spent time in their cells. ‘What kind of a knave’s trick is this?’

‘I’ve a fancy for a bit of dockin’ at work. I think the risk of being caught swivin’ at Bow Street might just get my old juices in a frenzy again. There’s an unused room around the back. I’ll give you another shillin’ if you’ll come with me to Bow Street.’

‘Very well,’ said Peg and hooked her arm into his. ‘But no funny business, mind – I don’t want you arrestin’ me for trespass once you’ve done.’

Chapter Nine

Lavender knew that Lady Caroline was a late riser and he was reluctant to take her bad news about her stepdaughter when possibly in a state of déshabillé. He went briefly into Bow Street to deal with the charges for the silk-snatcher he had apprehended the night before at the theatre and then decided to visit April Clare’s lodgings. His route took him straight across the bustling Covent Garden market.

Inigo Jones’ grand Italian piazza was now a heaving, stinking mass of humanity and commerce. A row of forty-eight small shops, brick-built with slate roofs, and many of them with cellars, had been erected on the south side of the piazza. Contrary to intended original usage for the market, many of them were now occupied by bakers, haberdashers, cook shops, retailers of Geneva and other spirituous liquors. This section served the lower orders of London society and even at this early hour some of the crowds were disorderly and drunk. Housewives and servants strolled along the aisles examining the stalls, which were piled high with mountains of potatoes, turnips, swedes, dried herbs, stringy beans and sprouts. The stallholders who shouted out their wares were desperate to drown out their competitors and thus yelled until hoarse. Their customers argued about the high prices and complained about the poor choice. Occasionally a fight broke out.

At the western edge of the square were the better-class fruiterers and the florists. Here the choice was wider, colourful, exotic and more expensive. Aristocratic ladies and their liveried servants examined the hothouse blooms, and the plums and grapes. Imported breadfruits, oranges and lemons from the South Pacific islands sat side by side with new and strange fruits and spices from the East Indies. Lavender skirted this side of the piazza and veered round a fat woman with a tray of buttonholes and posies. He paused briefly in front of an Italian puppet play and smiled as he remembered how, as a young man, he had once expended a shilling, which he couldn’t afford to spare, to purchase a bunch of dahlias for his childhood sweetheart. He made a mental note to purchase some flowers for Magdalena the next time he called on her.

April Clare’s lodgings were on a dank street behind the market, on the top floor of a dismal house. The upper window frames in the overhanging eaves were rotten, and dark streaks of grime ran down the walls from the broken guttering above. The elderly landlady who answered his knock at the door said, ‘No gentleman callers!’ and tried to slam it in his face. Lavender pulled out his badge of office for her to examine in the dim light. She glared at his tipstaff for a long time with her rheumy eyes before she finally shuffled aside and let him in.

‘You said she’s dead?’ The old crone leant heavily on the bannister at the bottom of the staircase as climbed up the steps.

‘Yes, I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news,’ he called down over his shoulder before he turned a bend in the stairwell and disappeared from sight.

‘Who’ll pay me the rent she owes?’ she wailed after him.

As he approached the door of April Clare’s attic chamber, Lavender realised that it was ajar and had been forced open. Cautiously, he pushed the door and entered the freezing garret. The room had been ransacked. The mattress had been lifted off the bed and rested on its narrow edge against the window. Clothing from the open closet was strewn across the floor and the drawers of the dresser had been pulled out and upturned. Hundreds of sheets of paper were scattered across the debris like confetti. When he examined them closer he realised that they were the loose sheets from the actress’s play scripts. Someone had been here before him and they had been looking for something.

Lavender sifted through the wreckage of April Clare’s life, searching for clues to her intruders. What had been so special about the young actress that led others to imprison her and ransack her room? What was she involved in?

He decided to send Woods, or another constable, back later. They could ask the other tenants in the house if they had heard the door lock shatter and when. They may have also seen someone climbing up to the top floor. But he doubted these inquiries would yield much information. Despite the fact that the old crone downstairs with her red eyes and bristly chin looked a bit like Cerberus, the canine guard to the gates of Hades, Lavender suspected that she was useless as a gatekeeper and probably a bit deaf as well. The building seemed to be deserted and the door to the chamber was rotten and warped. It would have yielded quickly.

He straightened up and resolved to return to Bow Street, find his constable and then go on to Lincoln’s Inn Fields. He had put off his visit to Lady Caroline Clare for long enough.

However, Lavender was in for a shock when he walked back into Bow Street Magistrates’ Court, looking for Ned Woods.

‘’E’s out the back in the courtyard,’ said one of the clerks at the desk. ‘’E’s in trouble with one of those ’ell-cats from ’Art Street.’ The man grinned from ear to ear but refused to enlighten him any further.

There was a large crowd of cheering grooms, patrol officers and other constables gathered in a circle at the rear of the police office. In the centre of the cobbled courtyard was a furious middle-aged, red-faced whore, screaming abuse at Woods.

‘You dirty smut!’ she yelled as she tried to pummel him. ‘You’re sick, you! Sick in the ’ead! You should be in bleedin’ Bedlam!’

Woods grinned from ear to ear across his broad face and did his best to dodge and parry her blows.

‘Desist, madam!’ Lavender shouted as he pushed his way through the crowd. ‘What is the problem here?’

‘Are you ’is guvnor?’ demanded the woman.

‘Yes.’

She pointed furiously at Woods. ‘Well ’e needs lockin’ up – the depraved bugger! Sick! Sick ’e is!’

‘What’s happened?’

‘’E brought me back ’ere for a quick strum of his fiddle.’

‘What?’ The question came out as more of a splutter. Fighting back laughter and incredulity he struggled to formulate his next question. ‘Constable Woods did what?’

‘Come wi’ me, ’e says,’ the woman continued. ‘Come with me. I know a quiet room at the back of Bow Street. Nice and quiet it is. No geezer will disturb us . . .’ The grooms were in hysterics. Her voice rose to a furious crescendo.

‘What happened?

‘’E took me into the bleedin’ morgue!’ she screamed. ‘Full of stiffs it is – and stinkin’! Great dead eyes staring up at me!’ The other men in the yard were now bent double with laughter. Tears streamed down their cheeks.

Somehow Lavender kept his face straight. ‘When you said he “took you” in the morgue, madam, exactly what do you mean?’ One of the grooms started choking.

‘You dirty bugger!’ screeched the harridan. ‘I ’ave my standards! I’m not layin’ in a room with dustmen nor plasterin’ my warm guts to a corpse!’

Lavender’s lips twitched. ‘Is that what my constable asked you to do, madam? Lie with the corpse?’

‘No, I didn’t.’ Woods grinned and nimbly dodged another blow to the head. ‘I have me standards as well. I simply asked Peg, here, if she recognised that corpse we dragged out of the river the other day – and she does. Come on, gal. You’ve had your fun and you’ve been well paid for a few minutes’ work.’ His voice rose with authority. ‘Off back to Hart Street with you now.’

For a moment it looked like the furious woman would refuse to leave but then she spat onto the ground and strode away. ‘You’re debauched – the bleedin’ lot of you!’ she yelled over her shoulder. ‘Rot in ’ell!’

Disappointed that the fun was over, the other officers and grooms drifted reluctantly back to their duties. Most of them were still laughing.

Lavender relaxed and allowed himself the luxury of a grin. ‘You tricked her here to identify a corpse?’ he said. Woods nodded. ‘Did she know the dead man we pulled out of the Thames?’ Woods nodded again. ‘And you brought her back here to identify him with the promise of some business?’

‘Well, she wouldn’t have come to identify him if I’d asked her straight, would she?’ Woods grinned. ‘Those gals don’t go out of their way to help the law.’

‘What made you think she might know the dead man?’

‘There’s a missin’ pimp on Hart Street,’ Woods said. ‘And we’ve got an unidentified body in the morgue. I just had a hunch it were him.’ Woods was still grinning. He rubbed his red forehead. ‘Gawd’s teeth! Peg doesn’t half pack a good punch, when she’s riled.’ He nodded towards Lavender’s swollen eye. ‘By the look of that shiner, you’ve been on the wrong end of someone’s fist as well.’

Instinctively, Lavender’s hand went up to his bruised eye socket. ‘I had a spot of trouble with a silk-snatcher at the theatre last night,’ he said. ‘So, who is the dead man?’

‘He’s called Darius Jones; he’s that pimp from Hart Street.’

‘And how did he end up in the river?’

‘I don’t know, but I think there’s a connection with our dead actress.’

‘Oh? That sounds intriguing. We have to go and visit the stepmother of the dead girl now. You can tell me the details on the way.’

Lady Caroline leased rooms in the basement of an imposing house in one of Lincoln’s Inn Fields’ leafiest streets. The area was out of fashion since the burgeoning developments in the West End and the house had a jaded grandeur to it. The cracked limewash and peeling paintwork on the exterior of the building added to the aura of faded glamour and dwindling fortune. A cold wind swirled up the winter debris that littered the weed-strewn cobbled street.

However, the inside of the apartment was warm and beautifully furnished. Exquisite oil paintings of landscapes and framed gilt lithographs jostled with each other for space on the walls of the hallway, interspersed with tiny cameo portraits suspended on brass chains from the picture rail. The maid led them through to the back of the house where a large glass orangery had been attached to the house.

Sunlight streamed down through the vaulted glass ceiling. Half-finished canvases were stacked, row on row, against the lower walls of the hothouse. A great easel stood in the centre, ringed by assorted furniture. There were tables littered with discarded paintbrushes, tubes of oil paints, rags and glasses of water. Flowers and platters of fruit were scattered about the tiled floor.

Lady Caroline was cleaning brushes in front of the easel when they entered the orangery. A plain, green turban held back her unruly red hair and a simple, paint-splattered, dun-coloured pinafore protected her white muslin dress.

‘Detective Lavender!’ she exclaimed, graciously. ‘What a pleasure to see you again so soon – and your charming constable.’

Two young men sat on the mismatched daybeds and chaises longues amongst discarded fans and ostrich feathers. They glanced up when the maid announced Lavender and Woods’ arrival. Lavender recognised the foppish Henry Duddles but the other young man, who wore a black velvet yarmulke on his dark head, was unknown to him.

‘You know Duddles, of course?’ she continued. ‘This is Solomon Rothschild, my nephew. Will you take tea with us? You can tell me how you came across that black eye. I’m sure that you weren’t so colourful when we met last night at the theatre.’

Lavender nodded to the other men and swallowed hard before he began. ‘Unfortunately, Lady Caroline, I’m the bearer of terrible news.’

The smile faded from her face. ‘Oh?’

‘I think you need to sit down.’

‘What has happened?’ She remained standing by the easel, her eyes narrowed with concern and her back rigid. He had no alternative but to continue.

‘We have recovered the dead body of a young woman and I’m sad to tell you that we believe it to be your stepdaughter, April Clare.’

For a split second there was absolute silence in the studio. Lady Caroline took a sharp breath and Lavender saw her eyes widen with horror. A second later, she staggered and fell against the easel in front of her, which crashed to the ground. He leapt forward and managed to catch her before she fell on top of the shattered easel and canvas. Both young men jumped to their feet but it was Rothschild who helped him lead the half-conscious woman towards a pale yellow chaise longue. Duddles hopped from one foot to the other wailing. ‘Caro? Caro!’ he shrieked. ‘Help! Someone! She’s dying!’

‘Find some smelling salts,’ Lavender instructed him sharply.

‘Stay calm, fellah,’ said Woods.

Lady Caroline raised her head. ‘No. No smelling salts. I’m fine,’ she whispered. ‘Oh, what a terrible thing to happen! Poor April!’

Solomon sat down beside her on the silk daybed and put his arm around her shoulders. Lavender handed Lady Caroline his own handkerchief and sent Woods to find the maid and organise some sweet tea.

After a few minutes, Lady Caroline made a determined effort to stop crying. She turned her pale face towards Lavender and demanded to know what had happened to her stepdaughter.

‘Perhaps you should lie down for a while,’ suggested Duddles.

‘Do stop fussing, Henry,’ she snapped. ‘I need to know about poor April.’

Briefly, Lavender told her the facts. Unfortunately, there was no way to soften the horror of how they had discovered April Clare’s body. Caroline recoiled, sank back into her seat and sobbed again. But when the tea arrived, sipping the beverage seemed to calm her.

Lavender took her hand in his. ‘You have to believe me, Lady Caroline,’ he said. ‘I had no idea April Divine, the actress, was connected to you when I met you last night at the theatre.’

‘I do believe you,’ she said, and sighed. ‘I was the one who insisted she used a stage name.’

‘Can you tell me more about her?’ he asked.

Lady Caroline dabbed her eyes. Lavender saw the pain in them. ‘April always was a wild girl, charming – but wild,’ she said eventually. ‘She dreamed of a theatrical career from a young age. Of course, while her father was alive this was impossible; the daughters of barons do not become actresses. But there was nothing I could do to stop her going onstage after he died. I had a premonition that this would end badly.’ She raised both her hands in a gesture of resignation. ‘But who am I, Detective, to stop a young girl from following her heart?’

Lavender knew she was thinking about her elopement with Victor Rothschild. ‘I’m sure you were an excellent stepmother,’ he said, softly. ‘She was lucky to have such a tolerant guardian.’