Death at St. James's Palace (28 page)

“Jack threw it on my instigation. Despite all George Goward had done - or rather not done - it was he who breathed life into me. The rose was the one and only respect I ever paid him.”
 

I wonder, John thought, if it was your lover who exacted the final revenge for your neglect? And yet again the memory of the black man’s grinning face as Goward lay with skull smashed at the bottom of the Grand Staircase, came back to haunt him.
 

The supper party was superb; everything that money could buy lavished on the guests and Jack Morocco himself proving to be the perfect host. Despite feeling somewhat older than the rest of the visitors, John enjoyed himself thoroughly, while Aminta seemed to have recovered her old spirits and laughed and danced along with everybody else.
 

Looking at her, considering her beauty to be almost unworldly, the Apothecary again asked himself the question as to whether a man would kill for her. Without doubt, the answer was yes. Yet would Jack Morocco risk losing all his material benefits, his wonderful lifestyle, just to be avenged for his mistress’s neglected past? If he thought he could get away with it, he would, John concluded. In fact there was little he wouldn’t put past the black man in the way of daring and contempt for authority. Yet, observing him, charming all who came in contact with him, it was impossible not to like him. A great desire that Jack should not be the one who must be brought to justice came over John and he did something totally foreign to his nature. He actually wished that the guilty party would be Lady Mary Goward, whom he was due to visit, in company with the Blind Beak, the very next day.

“More champagne,” said a voice at his elbow, and John saw that his host had come to join him.

“Thank you.”
 

Morocco snapped his fingers and a footman appeared instantly. “I saw you speaking to Aminta earlier. How did you get on?”

“Do you mean do I like her? If so, the answer is yes.”

“Let’s not mince words, John. Did she tell you her story?”

“I had guessed it anyway. The parish records showed the birth of a daughter to George Goward, a daughter who bore the name Georgiana Aminta. I worked the rest out for myself.”

“You Public Office people are quite cunning. I’ll give you that,” said Jack, downing a glass and immediately taking another. “Checking the parish records, eh. So now you know why I didn’t like Goward and have no time for that wife of his either.”

“Yes.” John looked his host straight in the eye. “Jack, there’s something else. A rumour circulates that Lady Mary, despite her size, is a lascivious woman. It is said by the locals of Islington that she gave birth to a child out of wedlock and that that child was black. Was it you? Goward’s widow your mother?”
 

The great dark eyes changed and the Apothecary saw in them a look that he had glimpsed once before. A look of immense sadness and knowing, as if all the terror and trials of those snatched from their native land to act as unpaid servants to white men had entered the soul of Jack Morocco.

“I ask you, John, could that woman have produced a creature like myself?”

“It does not follow that her children must be as vacuous and vacant as she.”

“That’s true enough, but the answer is no. If the rumour is reality, then the child is not me. I was born on board a slave ship. My mother gave birth to me in the horrors of that foetid crowded hold where people of my race were chained in order to be transported from their families and homes into servitude. The experience killed her but I lived; I lived because, by God, I was tough and determined. I was baptised in our first port of call because they all expected me to die, but I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. Some maiden sisters in Bristol brought me up but when I became too lively for them, forever involved in japes and jollys, they sold me off. You know the rest. I owe everything to the Duchess. She loves me and has given me a life of luxury and pleasure. So whoever Lady Mary’s love child - a misnomer if ever there was one - might be, it is certainly not myself.”

“This case is full of unexplained children,” said John, musingly. “Miss Chudleigh’s unwanted offspring, George Goward’s daughter. Lady Mary’s bastard, to say nothing of her fat son, my ex servant Lucinda, the thirteenth page boy. How do they all fit in, I wonder?”

“And how many of them are still alive?” Jack Morocco added.

“Most, it would seem.”
 

He relapsed into silence, Sir John’s words that there was a thread somewhere repeating themselves in his head. There had to be a connection but what itwas remained a mystery. Yet at least the Apothecary felt he might now make some sort of progress. When he had asked the Duke of Guernsey about the thirteenth page boy there could be no doubt that the young man had lied. If he could somehow or other persuade him to tell the truth then perhaps the rest of the pieces would fall into place. But meanwhile there was something even more important to do. Tomorrow, in company with Sir John and Lady Fielding, he would see Lady Mary Goward and she would finally have to answer for herself.

Chapter 17

R
ather oddly, considering his dislike of the woman, Lady Mary Goward’s London home was a mere stone’s throw from Jack Morocco’s private apartments. Whereas he lived in Grosvenor Square, she had a large and fashionable house in South Audley Street and no doubt they must have seen one another when strolling round town. But today, John thought, as the coach carrying himself and the Fieldings from Bow Street drew up at the graceful house in which the dead man and the fat lady had lived together, there was little chance of being seen by anyone. It was pouring hard, the sky dull and leaden, the streets awash with all the accumulated filth of days.

It seemed that the widow had left Islington the day after the funeral, preferring to do her mourning in her more accessible London residence, where she could receive sympathetic visitors, no doubt, and weep profusely over continual cups of tea. As the Apothecary stepped down from the carriage to assist Elizabeth Fielding and Sir John to disembark, he wondered just what sort of condition they were going to find Lady Mary in, and checked yet again that he had a small medical bag with him. He had also taken the precaution of putting on rather an old suit of clothes just in case he was unable to sidestep her habit of regular vomiting.

The Blind Beak himself was in a very bad mood and not prepared for any nonsense, as he had informed John during the journey.

“She’ll not shilly and shally with me, by Jove she won’t,” he had said as they left the Public Office behind them.

“Do you still think she is the guilty party, Sir?”

The Magistrate had grunted. “I have thought so for so long that I am now beginning to doubt it. She’s too obvious, if you know what I mean.”

“And there were several people present who had a grudge against Goward.”

“Yes. Including your friend Digby Turnbull. Wasn’t he in love with Sir George’s first wife?”

“At the least, very attached to her. I wonder if he knows that Aminta is Hannah Wilson’s daughter.”

“I should make a point of telling him then closely watch his reaction,” Sir John had answered, and after that had relapsed into total silence, a sure sign that he was thinking things through.

The interior of the Goward establishment was as fine as its outside. Having climbed the stairs, beautifully curved and displaying wrought iron balustrades, most elegantly designed in the shape of a lyre, John entered a room almost self-consciously stylish. Deep red in colour, it had a marble fireplace, the mantelpiece supported by two scantily clad caryatids. Over the fire hung a very fine painting, a large chandelier throwing light onto it and also on to the figure in black, a handkerchief raised to its eyes, which reclined on a sofa, sobbing loudly.

“Great God,” muttered Sir John, and tapped his way into the room and to a chair, in which he sat without invitation.

“Sir John and Lady Fielding and Mr. John Rawlings,” boomed Lady Mary’s footman, somewhat late in the day.

The Apothecary noticed with enormous interest that the man was in his forties and jet black, clearly a servant who had been kept on from boyhood. Was this, John wondered, the father of Lady Mary’s bastard. And, if so, had Jack Morocco been lying in his teeth about his parentage?

“I can’t receive you,” wailed the widow pitifully. “As you can see, I am in disarray.”

“I cannot see, Madam,” said the Magistrate angrily. “And even if I could I should not take pity on you. The Public Office has left you entirely alone during the time of your troubles and this arrangement to speak with you has been made for some considerable time. You may plead indisposition for as long as you wish but here I sit and here I stay. Mr. Rawlings, be so good as to administer salts if you please.”

The Beak was clearly furious and even his wife looked alarmed, laying a calming hand on his arm. He completely ignored this and made a gesture to John, who stood shuffling from foot to foot, to calm his patient down.

“Lady Mary,” the Apothecary said placatingly.

She glared at him, her eyes piggy with weeping. “I don’t want your horrible salts.”

“Then do without,” thundered Sir John. “But know that I shall order you into court if you refuse to cooperate.”

She howled the louder but took the proffered bottle and sniffed gingerly.

“Would you like some soothing physick?” John asked.

“No, I shall do naught but bring it back.”

The Apothecary groaned audibly and the Blind Beak hissed with rage. “Madam, you must take your emotions in hand. I refuse to allow this procrastination one second longer.”

“But my husband has only just been laid to rest.”

“Then it is time to let him lie in peace and discover who was responsible for pushing him to an untimely death.”

“He wasn’t pushed,” said Lady Mary mulishly. “It was an accident - and that is all I have to say about it.”

“If I may remind you, Madam, you stated to Mr. Rawlings at the funeral that you husband had been done to death, or words to that effect at least.”

“Well, I’ve thought it over and changed my mind. He tripped and fell. There’s an end to it.”

“That is not the opinion of myself and a certain other witness. Now, tell me all that happened. Everything, from the moment you entered St. James’s Palace to the time of Sir George’s plunge.”

Lady Mary glared at John. “You’re the other witness aren’t you, you wretch?” she whispered.

“No, I’m not,” he whispered back. “Now get on and answer or you’ll find yourself charged at Bow Street.”
 

She looked furious but slowly started to speak. “George and I travelled to the investiture by coach. We waited in the long reception hall with everybody else. Then we climbed the stairs and went through the various apartments. Then I went to sit with the guests and George waited with the rest of the recipients.”

“I believe you were taken ill on the way in,” Sir John interrupted. “What happened?”

“A page-of-honour escorted me to a closet. I was vomi- tous.”

“Again?” the Magistrate asked rudely.

She ignored him. “The page sent for water and cleaned the front of my dress.”

“That was very good of him.”

John spoke. “Did you by any chance notice that there were thirteen pages present that day instead of the customary twelve?”

The porcine eyes glinted in his direction then John distinctly saw Lady Mary turn away from him so that the expression in them would not be revealed. She knows, he thought.

But her lips said something different. “Of course not. How could I have done?”

“Very easily I imagine. By counting, as I did.”

“Well I didn’t count them.” She turned to the Blind Beak. “Shall I continue?”

“Yes, of course.”

“After the ceremony was over I went to go down the stairs with everybody else. Then Her Majesty…” Lady Mary simpered. “… passed along the landing and I turned to make obeisance.”

Only she could have put it like that, thought John.

“At that moment George missed his footing and fell. That is all I have to say,” the widow finished.

“You saw nothing out of the ordinary? Nobody moved near you?”
 

“I can’t even remember who was standing close.”

“Then let me refresh your memory. Julius and Christabel Witherspoon, who are neighbours of yours in Islington; Jack Morocco, the Duchess of Arundel’s adopted black son; and close behind, Miss Chudleigh and a servant of the King’s household, Digby Turnbull.”

“I didn’t notice,” Lady Mary repeated obstinately.

“Well, take it from me, they were there. Further, one of them saw a pair of shoes move quickly as the push was executed. A pair of shoes not unlike your own,” Sir John said harshly.

Lady Mary emitted a scream loud as a trumpet. “How dare you? Are you accusing me? You shall not get away with this, Sir. I shall go to the highest in the land with my complaint against you. You shall be stripped of your office. Apologise I say.”

Sir John remained amazingly calm. “Madam, I have accused you of nothing. I merely pointed out that the shoes that were seen were not unlike the ones you wear yourself. They were small and rather tight, that is all.”