The Thames River Murders (18 page)

The house in which Mr. Bennett dwelled with his third wife had an ostentatious facade with many windows, ionic columns flanking the door, and a pediment capping the first floor. Very Greek, very austere.

I wondered who the house belonged to. Women rarely owned property outright—they could inherit a trust that kept property for them, usually set up by fathers or grandfathers to ensure the females of the family weren’t preyed upon by unscrupulous fortune-hunters. When a woman married, all her property went to her husband. In my case, Donata’s money and anywhere she lived was controlled by several trusts, so I couldn’t touch any of it.

I had an allowance from one of these trusts, which was all I needed. Donata’s father and his man of business had hammered out the agreements with me before our marriage, and I’d readily signed.
 

My man of business had been unhappy with me for not fighting for more money, but at my stage of life, I wanted only enough to not have to scrabble for my supper. Any grandiose ideas of amassing a fortune had died into flickers long ago.

Mr. Bennett’s wife had either inherited this house in a trust, or, like Donata’s, it had been set up for her to live in for her lifetime. I hoped so, for her sake. Mr. Bennett’s wives had the habit of dying—if she had a lifetime lease, when she was gone, Mr. Bennett would be out.

A correct footman answered the door, took my card, showed no interest in it, and ushered me to a reception room.

The house reminded me of a museum. The wide front hall led to a grand staircase of polished dark wood, leading up into dark reaches. The hall itself, and the reception room, were silent, dimly lit, and held a jumble of treasures from the past.

Heavy cabinets with glass doors lined the hall, and treated me to a display of ancient maritime instruments—an astrolabe, a sextant, a primitive compass, a telescope. More nautical trinkets filled other cabinets—carvings from shark’s teeth, stones from distant shores, a pressed exotic flower, which was tall, orange, and spikelike.
 

Wooden carvings done by the natives of some South Sea land were on display next to lacquer pitchers and bowls, along with porcelain that looked distinctly Chinese. Grenville could likely have identified the countries and time periods of all the objects.

The reception room contained India. My time in that area had been mostly on the battlefields, marching and fighting in perpetual heat and constant rain. But I remembered the strings of bells adorning elephants—bells everywhere, in fact—woven wicker baskets and furniture, peacock feathers, silken carpets, bright silks draped over the furniture and hanging from the walls.

This collection had been here for some time. The silks were beginning to fade and the bells were dusty, as though the current inhabitants of the house did not treasure them as had their original owners.

The footman returned to retrieve me, and I followed him upstairs to a parlor in the front of the house.

China and other countries of mainland Asia prevailed here—porcelain bowls and vases, several tall screens inlaid with mother-of-pearl, bronzes of the round-bellied Buddha, and figures of many-armed gods, including a woman with two rows of breasts and flames coming from her mouth.

“Kali, goddess of destruction,” a light voice said behind me.

I turned to find a woman in a long-sleeved gray gown, her chest and shoulders covered with a fichu. The fichu was a bit out of date, but this lady seemed somewhat old-fashioned herself.
 

She was perhaps in her mid-thirties, the same age as Devorah Hartman. She wore a soft cap over her hair, which was a rich chocolate brown, and her eyes were deep blue. She studied me with an air of quiet dignity, but not much curiosity.

I thought it odd that such a genteel woman would not object to the bronzes all over the room depicting nudity in male and female figures. I caught sight of a small figurine in a cabinet behind her depicting an erotic act—a man standing on his hands, his severely elongated penis reaching to the open mouth of a woman. The lady in front of me, proper, serene, and modestly covered, did not even notice it.

“Mrs. Bennett?” I asked.

“I am she.” The lady had my card in her hand. “Captain Gabriel Lacey. You wished to speak to my husband?”

“Is he not at home?” I asked. She could have sent the footman with the message. Why receive me? Alone?

“No, he is out. On business.” The last word was delivered defiantly, as though I had come to accuse Mr. Bennett of being on a frivolous errand.

“I can return later,” I said. “I have no wish to disturb you.”

“Or you can speak to me. I have Mr. Bennett’s full confidence.”

More defiance. I was interested.

I swept a glance around the room. “Is one of your family a world traveler?” I knew Bennett hadn’t collected these things. They’d sat here for a long time, become so much a part of the fabric of this house they were passed by without attention.

“My father, my grandfather, and my great-grandfather.” Mrs. Bennett’s voice took on a touch of pride. “They were prominent in the East India Company. They took many voyages of both exploration and trade, and as you can see, returned with a multitude of treasures.”

She opened her fingers to gesture to the room, like a guide in her personal museum.

“It is quite a collection,” I said. “I have a friend who also acquires things on world travel. When I was a traveller, I hadn’t the foresight to pick up anything at all.”

“Mr. Grenville, you mean.” A smile touched her mouth. “I have heard of you, his dearest friend. Also his famous collection, which, I can assure you does not match my family’s in quantity. My great-grandfather was Captain Woolwich, my grandfather was also a ship’s captain, and my father.”

She was very proud, and I did not confess I’d never heard of the Woolwichs, great merchant captains of the East India Company. My life had been absorbed by the army, and many soldiers considered the merchantmen soft and self-indulgent. We were no doubt completely wrong, but all groups of men believe they are superior to others who are not fortunate enough to be among them.

“And Mr. Bennett?” I asked. “Is he a seafaring man?”

The woman sounded amused. “Indeed no. Mr. Bennett has his feet firmly on dry land, which I appreciate in him. The sea is romantic, I suppose, but one does not see one’s husband much. I prefer a husband who remains in London.”

She would have watched her mother say good-bye to her father often, and the man stay away for long stretches of time.

“I understand,” I said. “Difficult for a wife to accompany her husband on long sea voyages. Your father left all this to you?” I looked around again. My impertinent question perhaps would be forgiven if I seemed sufficiently awed by the treasures, many of which could be bought cheaply in crowded Asian bazaars.

“Left to me?” Mrs. Bennett looked puzzled, then she laughed. Her plainness vanished as her face lit. Perhaps I wronged Bennett—he might have fallen in love with her laughter instead of her obvious fortune.

“My father is not deceased, Captain,” she said. “He is upstairs, in his rooms. He would like to meet you, a friend of the famous Mr. Grenville. Will you come up?”

Chapter Eighteen

I did not mask my astonishment well, and she laughed at me again.

I agreed to meet her so-famous father—my curiosity getting the better of me—and she took me up another flight of stairs to a bedchamber in the rear of the vast house.

This chamber was enormous. I remembered the first time I’d awakened in a bed in Grenville’s home, thinking of myself as a tiny speck in the middle of the ocean of the room. That bedchamber could easily fit into this one.

I’d expected the nautical and Far Eastern themes in the lower parts of the house to carry on here, but that was not the case. The bedroom had been furnished with fairly modern pieces—Sheraton and Hepplewhite predominated here. Unlike the walls in Donata’s house, which were pure Adam, a wallpaper from the eighteenth century, fading now, depicted ladies and gentlemen in powdered wigs and pointed shoes, taking their leisure in the country.

In the middle of this huge chamber, pulled from the wall, was a bed with heavy curtains around it. The curtains on the side facing away from the window were drawn back, while all the others were closed, presumably to keep away drafts.

Mrs. Bennett led me, without hesitation, to the bed.

Lying propped on pillows in the middle of it was an elderly man. He was a bit shrunken, but I could tell he’d once been tall and strong. The strength was evident in the hard blue eyes in his very wrinkled face. There I read anger that his body had weakened without his permission.

“Captain Lacey?” His voice was quiet, raspy, but I could hear that it once had boomed out down a long deck filled with scrambling sailors. “I am Captain Woolwich. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

He held out a hand. I shook it, finding his bare fingers smooth and nearly hairless, but his grip powerful.

Woolwich looked behind me at his daughter. “Run away, Margaret. We men wish to speak alone.”

Margaret, instead of being either offended or subdued, gave her father a sunny smile and left the room. The heels of her soft shoes kicked up the back hem of her dull gray gown as she went.

She closed the door carefully, as though not wishing to disturb her father with the click of the latch, and we heard her footfalls on the landing. Woolwich waited until her footsteps faded down the stairs before he waved me to sit in a chair drawn up to the bed.

“She’s a good girl, but a featherhead,” he growled. “Her mother was a spirited, intelligent creature, but Margaret has none of that in her. I would suspect my lady of a dalliance when I was away, but Margaret looks too much like my family. And I have no brothers my wife could have substituted for my attentions.” He gave a cough and cleared his throat. “Now then, Captain, why are you here? Please tell me you are after my worthless son-in-law.”

“I did come to speak to him, yes,” I began cautiously. “I take it he is out?”

“Yes, he goes to the Stock Exchange and pretends to understand all that goes on. Really, he is making certain my shares in all my investments have not lost any value. What has he done, Captain? Committed a crime? Have you come to take him to the magistrate?”

His blue eyes were bright with both cynicism and hope.

“What can you tell me about Mr. Bennett?” I asked.

“Ha, so you will not give me your purpose. All the same, I have read of you, and heard how you and Mr. Grenville work with the Runners to reveal blackguards and evil men. Now, here you are asking about Bennett. High time, too. He is the worst of blackguards, Captain. An oily rakehell, I’d judge him, though he goes to church of a Sunday and is a pious prig.”

“Where does he come from?” I settled in, happy to have my suspicions confirmed.

“Heaven knows. Oh, he speaks well enough—claims he went to a fine school and is now a scholar, and that is easily ascertained. But though he has the voice of a gentleman, there’s something wrong with him.”

“What about his family? Has no one inquired about them?”

“To be sure, I have. Mr. Bennett’s father was a respectable gentleman of Derbyshire, and none have anything bad to say about him. He died when his son—Andrew—was about sixteen. Andrew had a guardian then, an uncle, but the uncle more or less ignored him, and Andrew continued his schooling at Balliol, so he claims. Again, easily found out, so I believe him. When he came into his majority, Andrew took the money he inherited from his father, cut ties with his uncle—whom he claims was a cruel man—and set up on his own.”

“He married,” I said. “Twice before.”

“Oh, yes, he told us all about it. The tragic life of Andrew Bennett.”

“His first wife …” I prompted.

“Miss Judith Hartman. Lovely girl, he says. Father unreasonable.” Woolwich coughed into his leathery fist. “Father not a fool, I’d say. Poor Judith lost, never to be found again. Oh, well, there’s Miss Watson, with her large dowry. Father a nabob. Made Bennett several thousand pounds richer, then she took ill and died, ever so convenient, poor thing. Never knew what became of Miss Hartman. Either she came to her senses and fled far from his reach, or he killed her and buried her in the cellar.”

I flinched. Too close to the mark. “Miss Hartman has been found,” I said quietly. “I should say—she was found long ago, but no one knew who she was. I have brought to light that the body was that of Miss Judith Hartman. She was struck on the head and dropped into the river.”

Woolwich ceased moving. Breathing. He stared at me, his eyes burning in his wan face, his body motionless.

He didn’t breathe for so long that I became alarmed. I rose from my seat, took a silver flask from the bedside table and opened it. As I’d suspected, the scent of good brandy wafted out.

I held it to Woolwich’s nose. He gasped and began to cough.

The coughing wracked him, shook his body. His eyes watered. I decided I’d better fetch his daughter, but when I started for the bell, the old man wheezed, “No!”

I turned back. Woolwich grabbed the flask from me, upended it, and poured a quantity of brandy down his throat. He coughed for a few more seconds, then settled down and breathed easier.

“I knew it,” he whispered. “He’s a bloody murderer.”

“I unfortunately cannot swear to that,” I said. “There is nothing to say his was the hand that struck down Miss Hartman. That is why I came here—to speak to him, to find out all about him.”

“You doubt me?” Woolwich glared imperiously. Onboard ship, his word would have been law. He must have great difficulty ordering about a daughter who only gave him a fond look and obeyed because it suited her.

“I cannot in all good conscience send a man to the gallows if he is not guilty of murder,” I said. “Even if he is a reprobate. I must be certain.”

“Be certain of this, Captain. That man is wrong. He has turned my daughter’s head. She was very much what the dandy set called an
ape-leader
or
on the shelf
—so many terms for a useless spinster. Mr. Bennett courted her ardently and led her up the aisle two months after he met her. Long enough for the banns, but not much beyond. He insisted it be done properly. They did not have my blessing, but Margaret was of age, and so was he. Can a father stop two people in their thirties marrying when there is no impediment?
He’ll come ’round,
I hear her say often enough to Bennett. He is unctuous to me, never says a bad word around me. But what you tell me makes me greatly fear for my daughter.”