When the devil drives, p.10
When the Devil Drives, page 10
‘You think I’m an assassin?’
Although I’d insisted on being present when she dressed, I couldn’t help feeling more embarrassed by the situation than she seemed to be. As she sat back in an armchair to let the maid re-bandage her injured leg, I’d walked across to the dressing table where the contents of her jewel box were spread in a glittering sweep. None of the pieces would have been classed by Mr Clyde as serious jewels, but there were pretty things all the same: silver and jade bracelets, pendants and earrings of garnet, turquoise, topaz, tourmaline. One of her rings, a heavy gold signet, looked more like a man’s. It had a fine carving of a bull’s head, the lines clear and deep as if newly made. A white hand came over my shoulder and snatched it. The contessa had limped across the room, one stocking off, one stocking on. She scooped up the jewels, put them back in their velvet lined box and slammed the lid shut. At the time it struck me as petty revenge – she thought I was regarding her as an assassin, so she was treating me like a thief.
Now, side by side in her droshky, we seemed to be in a state of truce, though she was as tense as a cat about to pounce.
‘So you know exactly where he’ll be visiting?’ I said.
She nodded.
‘And when?’
‘Not exactly. But before evening.’
‘Royalty usually keeps to a strict timetable,’ I said.
‘It’s a private visit. He has been to London before. He has an aunt in Kensington.’
‘Is Brother Albert visiting too?’
A firm shake of the head. Either she was bluffing or well-informed.
‘And are you quite certain your gentleman friend will be with Prince Ernest?’ I said.
She turned to me, surprised. I think up to that point she’d forgotten her own fiction: that it was a gentleman of the royal household rather than the prince himself who was the object of her obsession. She recovered herself quickly.
‘He is always at the prince’s side.’
We turned out of Rotten Row, into the tree-lined suburb of Kensington Gore. Houses here were set back from the road, refuges for the rich who preferred to keep their distance from London society. From there, we made a right-handed turn into a street of elegant straight-fronted houses, a stone’s throw from Kensington Palace. Pan on the box seemed to know where he was going. He turned the droshky into a side street before glancing over his shoulder for instructions.
‘There.’
The contessa signed to him to turn into the driveway of a tall and narrow house. The windows were shuttered, the gravel of the drive furred with grass under the almost bare branches of an old plane tree.
‘Turn here.’
Pan turned the pony on the sweep in front of the deserted house and came to a stop under the tree. We were facing outwards to an equally tall but broader house across the street. That one was inhabited, curtains drawn back, a lamp already glowing in one of the downstairs windows. From the intent way the contessa was looking at it, this was the house where the prince was expected. How had she known that there was an empty house opposite, so suitable for keeping watch? My admiration of her staff work increased.
We waited in the droshky. Young Pan slid off the box to stand beside the pony, feeding it tidbits from his pocket. A drizzle set in, painting a gloss on the fallen leaves of the plane tree, hazing the light from the lamp in the opposite window. The contessa sank back in her seat and put up her fur-lined hood.
‘You have the letter?’
‘Yes.’ It was in my reticule. I’d read it before we left her apartment. It was written in very correct German, in her schoolgirlish hand.
My Dear,
I have not deserved this neglect. Only send me a line to assure me that I am not forgotten and, if you can, call on me and permit me to tell you in person what I say to you daily and hourly in your absence, that you are forever in the heart of your devoted and unhappy friend.
Then her signature, looped and curling back on itself like a slow river. The light under our tree took on the grainy look that comes just before dusk. Several more windows of the house opposite yellowed into lamplight. The contessa sighed.
‘Is he worth this?’ I said.
The hoplessness of her situation was coming home to me.
‘Have you never loved a man?’ she said.
I hesitated. When she spoke again she sounded triumphant.
‘You haven’t, have you?’
I’d been thinking of Robert, and if I’d torment myself like this for him. He’d be in Ireland by now. In the hiss of drizzle on leaves, I spoke the truth.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Then you haven’t,’ she said.
‘Isn’t it possible to love a man without pain?’ I said.
From the movement of the fur hood, she was shaking her head.
‘What if a man loved you and wanted to spend his life with you? Wouldn’t that be better than risking hurt like this?’
When I said it, I was speaking for Mr Clyde. I guessed what her answer would be, but never knew for sure because the sound of hooves, wheels and creaking leather came from the corner and a carriage turned into our road. Her fingers clamped my wrist.
‘Him.’
A plain black landau, drawn by a pair of greys. On the box, a driver with a groom beside him. The hood at the back was up, but as the carriage slowed and turned to enter the drive of the house opposite, I could make out two men sitting inside, their top hats on their knees. One was dark, the other yellow-haired.
‘Now.’
The contessa let go of my hand and gave me a shove on the shoulder.
‘Which one?’ I said, knowing full well.
‘The dark one.’
Prince Ernest and his brother had dark hair. Even I knew that. I took my time getting down from the droshky because the landau was still manouevring its way close to the steps of the house opposite.
‘Hurry,’ she hissed at me.
No need to whisper. The men wouldn’t have heard a shout above the grinding of wheels on gravel. I crossed the road, her note in my hand. The landau came to a halt and the groom jumped down to open the door, by the steps on the far side from me. I walked quickly round the back of the landau, judging my moment. The door was open, the groom holding it. The fair-haired man came out first, put his hat on and stood back. As soon as the other man’s shoe gleamed on the step, I moved.
‘Sir, I’ve been asked to give you this.’ And I held out the note.
Close to, in the lamplight over the door, he was good looking enough although not a man for whom I’d break my heart. Quite tall, standing like a soldier, curling side-whiskers and a beak of a nose that was almost Roman, coming nearly straight down from a high forehead. He had an arrogant air, as if modelling for his own statue and was giving me a stony stare down that long nose. From what had happened to the contessa, I was expecting a rough handling, ready to run once I’d done my errand. Instead, the two gentlemen and the groom seemed frozen. Then the yellow-haired man reached out and took the note from my hand.
‘Allow me, Your Highness.’
The door was open now, a flood of yellow light coming down the steps. The dark-haired man gave one nod of the head, turned and walked up the steps. The yellow-haired man followed, holding the note between gloved fingers, and turned for one glance back at me. I walked back across the road with a sense of anticlimax. Young Pan was already on the box and our droshky was moving before I’d even had a chance to sit down. I fell onto the seat beside the contessa.
‘What did he say?’
‘Nothing.’
‘You gave it to him, into his hand? I couldn’t see.’
‘The other man took it. His aide de camp, I suppose. At least he didn’t throw it down.’
‘And you saw him up close?’
‘Inevitably.’
‘What did you think of him?’
‘A man like other men.’
She gave a great sigh and flopped back on the cushioned seat. I thought it was a sad sigh, until I looked at her face in the dusk and saw an expression of deep satisfaction, as if she’d achieved something difficult and dangerous. Was she imagining the prince reading her note, relenting? I couldn’t help feeling pity for the undoubted disappointment she’d suffer. We parted at her door, after I’d helped her get down from the droshky and limp across the pavement. She didn’t thank me, but then I hadn’t expected it.
At nine o’clock, by arrangement, I met Mr Clyde at the apartment in Grosvenor Street to report what had happened. Suzette was on the premises, as a token chaperone I supposed, but we talked alone in the drawing room, one lamp lit. He listened, expressionless, while I told him about our excursion.
‘So it all went as she wanted?’ he said.
‘Yes, but what good will it do? When he doesn’t reply, we’ll be back where we were before, only she’ll be more desperate.’
He nodded. I wondered if he were thinking seriously about the kidnap proposition but decided not to mention it again. I stood up and picked up my cloak from the piano stool. Instantly, he was on his feet, helping me settle the cloak round my shoulders. His hands lingered for a moment more than was necessary and the tip of his little finger brushed my neck, light as a moth’s wing. I turned and found myself looking into his eyes.
‘Miss Lane, I’m more grateful to you than I can say. You’re a true friend to her – and to me.’
A paid friend, I should have reminded him. Not a true friend at all. And yet I couldn’t say it. I let him lead the way downstairs and open the door. He raised his hand for a cab and one arrived almost instantly.
‘I don’t need a cab,’ I said. ‘It’s only a step or two.’
He said nothing, only opened the front of the cab for me and handed up money to the driver. I was jolted the few hundred yards home in the old leather and tobacco smelling dark of the cab. Take her away and take yourself away, I said in my thoughts to Mr Clyde. I was still feeling that moth-touch of his finger on my neck and the trouble was, I’d liked it.
EIGHT
I was awake through most of the night, counting the chimes from the workhouse clock. At last I fell asleep, but it felt as if I’d been unconscious for only a minute or two when running footsteps came up the stairs. A fist thumped against the door, followed by Tabby’s voice, hoarse and breathless.
‘There’s a lady dead in the park.’
I jumped out of bed and opened the door. She was wearing her old boots with a shawl over her head, much as she’d been in her pre-apprentice days. I think she wandered in the dark for old time’s sake.
‘Where?’
‘By the naked statue.’
I guessed she meant the enormous Achilles at Hyde Park Corner, set up in honour of the Duke of Wellington’s victories and so anatomically detailed that delicate ladies averted their eyes.
‘Did you see her yourself?’
‘No. One of the boys that works in the mews just told me.’
‘When did they find her?’
‘He said she wasn’t there last night. Some man found her just now.’
‘Have the police been sent for?
‘S’pose so.’
I told her to wait on the landing, while I dressed and scrawled a note to leave on the mounting block for Amos, saying I was sorry I’d been called away. We walked together across Park Lane and through the park. The dark was lifting, but it was still too early even for the earliest riders and the paths were deserted until we came near Achilles. By then it was light enough to see that a small crowd had gathered round the pale granite base of the statue.
Two police constables were standing in front of something lying by the base, trying to keep the crowd back. They had the edgy look of men waiting for somebody to tell them what to do. I told Tabby to wait and went up to the nearest one. He spread his arms, blocking my way.
‘You wouldn’t want to see, ma’am.’
Under his arm, I glimpsed the dark fabric of a woman’s skirt, horizontal.
‘I don’t especially want to see, only a young woman acquaintance of mine is missing.’
‘Missing how long, ma’am?’
‘Just over two weeks.’
‘Well, it won’t be her then, ma’am. This one wasn’t here last night.’
Before I could discuss the logic of that, the constable caught sight of somebody over my shoulder and snapped to attention.
‘We’re just waiting for the coffin shell to be brought from the church, sir, then we’ll get her away.’
A sergeant had arrived, with the washed-out air of a man who’d been dealt one incident too many at the end of a night duty. I stepped back, but kept within hearing distance. The sergeant asked the constable if the deceased had been identified.
‘No sir. Young and respectable by the look of her.’
‘Who reported her?’
‘Park keeper, out early walking his dog.’
‘Was she dead when you got here?’
‘Dead and cold, and the blood had congealed. We took note of that.’
The constable sounded pleased with himself but the sergeant was unimpressed. ‘Not so very much blood, with her throat slit,’ he said. He was looking at something over the constable’s shoulder.
‘But then, she wasn’t very large, was she?’ the constable said.
I took a step forward, unnoticed by either of them. I could see a pair of feet now. They were small, but the black shoes were more clumsy and scuffed than seemed likely in a woman of Miss Tilbury’s class. The sergeant asked the constable if they’d found anything on her that might identify her.
‘No sir, no reticule or anything, unless it’s lying underneath her. No jewellery, apart from her wedding ring.’
‘She was married then?’
‘Looks like it, sir. Quite bright and new looking, the ring is.’
I must have made some sound, because the sergeant turned towards me and frowned. ‘This lady knows another young lady who’s gone missing,’ the constable explained. ‘Only she’s been gone two weeks.’
‘My acquaintance is nineteen years old, fair-haired and a little below average height,’ I said. ‘Her name’s Dora Tilbury.’
The two men looked at each other then at me.
‘Do you feel able to look at this lady?’ the sergeant asked. ‘If it’s not her, at least you can feel easy in your mind.’
I nodded. It was not the time to admit that I’d never actually set eyes on Dora Tilbury. The constable stepped aside and the two men formed a screen behind me as I stepped up to the body.
My first thought was simple and terrified: He’s destroyed her. I’d never been so close to the Achilles statue before. The monstrous size of the black metal god towering on his plinth twenty feet above us, the upraised sword and the shield blotting out the rising sun, made it seem as if the statue had slaughtered the creature lying far beneath its feet and was celebrating a triumph over his victim, out of all proportion to its size or the small force needed to take its life. For a heartbeat, I hardly thought of the woman and stood frozen by a terror out of myth. If the two policemen noticed, they probably thought I was reluctant to look at the woman. That too. The smell of blood was in my nostrils. I looked down. Her neck was wrapped in a cotton scarf or tucker so deeply encrusted in dark blood that only a few patches showed it had once been blue. Her eyes were closed, head flopped at an angle. More blood had soaked into her grey jacket and the plain white bodice beneath it. Some had pooled on the stone beside her upper body. Her arms lay neatly at her side, gloveless with palms facing upwards. The left wrist had a diagonal slit across it, encrusted with more blood. It looked as if she might have raised her arm to try to fight off her attacker. Her hair . . .
‘Her hair’s wet,’ I said.
It was scraped neatly back from her face, so presumably coiled in a chignon at the back, a dark straw colour that would probably have been fair when dry. It wasn’t wringing wet, but thoroughly damp as if she’d washed it an hour or so before. Whatever the two police officers had expected from me, it wasn’t that.
‘Is she your friend?’ the sergeant asked, doing his best to sound gentle.
‘I . . . I’m not sure. Dora Tilbury had a pale brown birthmark on the inside of her left wrist.’
The sergeant nodded to the constable, who walked round her head and kneeled down by the left hand.
‘Can’t tell, sir. Too much blood on it.’
‘Then go and get some water.’
The sergeant nodded towards the pool in the Dell. The constable took a handkerchief out of his pocket and pushed his way round the growing crowd.
‘So you’re not sure?’ the sergeant said.
‘I didn’t know her well. She was a friend of a friend.’
It was too complicated to explain then about being a private investigator. We stood in silence with our backs to the body until the constable came back with his wet handkerchief. In his hurry, he skidded on the stone pavement surrounding the statue and almost pitched over onto the body. The sergeant told him to be careful, took the handkerchief from him, kneeled down and sponged.
‘Slippery here,’ mumbled the constable, shamefaced.
I thought he might have skidded on the blood, but there was none where he’d stepped. I supposed even a police officer’s nerves weren’t cast iron.
‘If you could come and look, ma’am,’ the sergeant said.
It was only a small mark, no more than an inch long. The horizontal gash in the slim white wrist had just missed it.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘She must be Dora Tilbury.’
With her hand palm-up, we could only see the back of the gold ring on her wedding finger. It looked new and rather loose.
‘I’d be grateful if you’d wait over there, ma’am,’ the sergeant said.
The sergeant and the other constable kept the crowd back while the beadle and constable lifted the body into the shell and then onto the coffin cart. It was trundled away, with some of the crowd following.
‘Nothing to see now. Go about your business,’ the sergeant said to the rest of them.
Slowly, they drifted away. At some point, Tabby had arrived at my side.
‘Is it her, then?’
