Death at St. James's Palace (29 page)

“Who saw this?” she asked truculently.

“That I am not at liberty to disclose.”

“Because there’s no such person,” Lady Mary retorted. “You say these things to discomfit your victims. Anyway, I’m telling you for once and for all, George fell accidentally.

“You are entitled to believe that,” Sir John answered, and suddenly looked benign, a complete change of tack. “Tell me your life story,” he said, almost as if he were requesting a fairy tale.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I said tell me your life story. You were born Lady Mary Milland, were you not? Daughter of the Earl of Grimsby?”

“That is correct.”

John could not help but notice that the widow’s little girl voice had returned and presumed from this that she was starting to calm down.

“What happened next?”

“I married young, very young, indeed scarcely seventeen, the Earl of Lomond, an ancient Scottish peerage. I then had my son, little Frederick, but when he was only two years old, his father was killed in a hunting accident. Then I met George and we were married shortly afterwards.”

“How fortunate that a widow and widower should come together like that,” Sir John stated comfortably.

She shot him a look of pure surprise and the Apothecary could almost see the words of denial forming on her lips. Then Lady Mary realised that the Public Office knew far more than she had reckoned on and that to contradict would do her more harm than good. “Yes,” she said shortly.

“I believe your husband had a daughter by his first wife but that you did not wish to take her into your household,” the Magistrate continued.

“It was for the girl’s own good,” Lady Mary answered, her voice now very small. “She was being brought up by her mother’s sister and was tremendously happy. She would not have enjoyed London life.”

So Aminta had not lied. Lady Mary had known all along that the girl existed.

“Did you ask her?” John said caustically.

“There was no need to,” the widow answered crossly. “The situation spoke for itself.”

“I see. I have also heard that your son was sent to boarding school because your husband did not care for his appearance. Is that correct?”

“Of course not. He was sent to school to be educated. George was very fond of Frederick.”

“Even though he teased him mercilessly about being obese?”

The little girl voice had vanished. “Who told you this?” hissed Lady Mary angrily.

“People who knew you at the time. The artist Julius Witherspoon and his sister to be precise. Mr. Rawlings has seen a portrait of you and your son that Sir George Goward refused to accept because he said you both looked too large.”

Lady Mary’s face worked. “How dare you, Sir? What is the point of these questions? What are you trying to prove by asking me about the past and throwing insults into the bargain?”

“By enquiring about the events leading up to a suspicious death, the reason for that death frequently becomes clear. Despite your contradiction, I believe that your husband was murdered and that somebody had a grudge against him. What I am trying to elucidate is, from the many who disliked him, which one actually gave him the fatal thrust.”

“You’re wasting your time. George was very popular.”

Sir John ignored this, turning the black bandage which he always wore over his eyes in her direction and sitting motionless, an old and unnerving ploy.

“Thank you for telling me your story. Lady Mary. Now, is it complete in every detail? You have omitted nothing?”

“Why should I?” Her tones had altered completely and a definite note of defiance was clearly audible. The Apothecary automatically fished in his bag for something calming.

“No reason, no reason,” said the Blind Beak cheerfully. He paused, then asked silkily, “You only had the one child?”

“I’ve already told you, Sir George and I did not have any children.”

“I remember you saying that. But what I meant was, did you have another child, perhaps before Frederick was bom? And maybe another, conceived while you were married but proving to be unsuitable?”

Lady Mary rose to her feet, looming like a great crow in her mourning clothes. “What are you insinuating, Sir?”

“Nothing. Again I am only repeating rumour and gossip, a necessary part of any investigation I fear. Apparently it is said in Islington that you bore a child out of wedlock when you were a very young girl. Further, that you had a child while married to Sir George Goward but that it was black.”

Lady Mary lost all colour and mouthed frantically, no sound coming from her lips.

The Blind Beak continued ruthlessly. “Is this a fact, Madam? Answer me, I pray you.”

The widow’s face turned the shade of raw liver and she made a choking sound as she clawed the air frantically. “Frederick,” she gasped, then fell in a dead faint at the Apothecary’s feet.

It was more than a simple faint, of that he felt certain as he knelt at her side and felt her pulse. Lady Mary’s face had contorted, her lip down on one side, her eyelid drooping as if she had palsy. Further, her arm had twisted in a peculiar way and was lying half underneath her.

“God’s life!” John exclaimed forcibly. “I think she’s had an apopletic fit.”

“What?” called the Blind Beak, turning towards the sound. “What’s happening?”

“It’s Lady Mary. I believe she’s had a seizure.”

“You must ring for the servants,” said Elizabeth, rising from her chair and hurrying to join John. She leaned forward to look into the widow’s face. “She seems palsied indeed. I declare the strain has been too much for her.”

“That and her own precarious state of health. With the amount of extra weight she carried it is small wonder that she has been struck down.”

Elizabeth’s anxious gaze met the Apothecary’s. “John’s questioning didn’t bring this about, did it?”

“In a way. But this kind of seizure could have come upon her at any time, rest assured.” He searched frantically in his bag. “I’m not carrying anything really suitable. I hadn’t envisaged this sort of eventuality.”

“Have you nothing that will bring her back to consciousness?” asked Lady Fielding, frantically tugging a bellrope.

“Only Black Horehound for hysterics. That and my salts. I will do what I can but I think a physician should be sent for immediately.”

“Is the woman seriously ill?” asked Sir John from his chair.

“She has certainly had a seizure, Sir.”

“Did I cause it?”

“She was very unfit and the questions you asked her obviously hit home. Yet I can’t believe that someone with nothing to hide would have been as upset as she.”

“If I have brought her low then I have much to answer for,” the Blind Beak said seriously.

“You alone could not have done it,” John answered with equal gravity. “The apoplexy might have attacked at any moment. Please believe that.”

The door to the salon opened and the black footman appeared. “Yes, Sir?”

“Your mistress has been taken ill. Kindly arrange for her to be carried to her room and for a doctor to be summoned at once. Meanwhile, I will treat her.”

Without much hope, John administered a spoonful of the horribly bitter Black Horehound and after a moment, much to his surprise. Lady Mary choked violently, twitched and opened one eye. Then she tried to speak but with no effect. It was as he had feared; an apoplexy had left her palsied and dumb. There would be no further statements from her for some considerable while. The mystery of her children was, for the time being anyway, going to remain just that.

The journey back to Bow Street was conducted in sombre silence, Sir John Fielding obviously feeling more than guilty that Lady Mary had collapsed whilst being questioned about her past. However, his spirits were greatly restored by the sight of Julius Witherspoon who had called without an appointment on the chance of being able to make some preliminary sketches of the Blind Beak and his wife. Having decided that this would be in order, the older couple went to change into more suitable garments, leaving John alone with the painter.

“And where is your delightful sister?” the Apothecary asked, hoping that his friend Samuel was not totally out of the picture.

“She is shopping in town and is to go to the Theatre Royal later with Mr. Swann. Christabel and I are both planning to spend the night in London.”

“So you will be on your own this evening?”

“Yes.”

“Then do come and dine with me. My wife is in Kensington at the moment, staying with my father, so I would really appreciate your company.”

“I’ve a better idea as you are temporarily a bachelor,” Julius answered. “Let us dine at my club, the Pandemonium. They are due to meet tonight at the Blenheim Tavern in Bond Street and I had half promised to be present. I think you should come.”

“I should very much enjoy that,” the Apothecary answered, and leaving the little artist to start his sketches, hurried back to the shop to put in as much time as he could before the time to dine.

It seemed that the Pandemonium Club rejoiced in the most extraordinary initiation ceremony to which John, proposed as a new member by Julius Witherspoon, suddenly found himself subjected. Almost as soon as he had entered the Blenheim Tavern, Julius had suggested that he should join their ranks, a proposal met with much acclaim by several other rowdy members, one of whom, the Apothecary was astonished to learn, was Thomas Gainsborough, the celebrated painter, presently living in Bath but in London on this occasion to execute a commission.

“Well?” Julius had asked.

“Do you think I’m worthy?”

“As worthy as any of us. I’ll send word through that a new member is proposed.”

Julius slipped through a door leading to a room beyond, which he firmly closed behind him so that John could not see inside.

“You’re for it,” said Gainsborough in his Suffolk accent, and laughed heartily.

“They will admit you,” Julius announced solemnly, returning and, before the Apothecary could utter another word, he had slipped a blindfold over John’s eyes.

Unable to see a thing, John heard the door open and found himself being led through by the elbow, Julius on one side and the great Gainsborough on the other. There was a roar of greeting as the three appeared and judging by the sound, the Apothecary imagined himself to be in a large room occupied by an equally large number of people. Feeling his way cautiously, he discovered that he was standing at the bottom of an almost perpendicular ladder, that his guides had let go of him and that the order to mount was being shouted from every quarter. Glad that he had had nothing to drink in the way of alcohol, the Apothecary slowly climbed the steps, about dozen in all, and then was ordered to remove his blindfold.

He was standing on a platform, far too narrow for his liking, looking down at a table round which were seated the club’s officials. John’s eyes bulged in his head, for here were the great men of the arts, all staring up at him, completely straight-faced. Gainsborough’s rival, Joshua Reynolds was there, David Garrick, whom John had met before during the fatal incident at
The Beggar’s Opera,
and even the great Dr. Samuel Johnson, the most clubbable man in London according to his friends.

Reynolds, whom John recognised from a portrait he had seen of the artist, appeared to be the president, for he wore a rather extraordinary cap and gown, and had a gavel lying on the table before him. David Garrick, wearing a long black robe and a mask, which did not in the least disguise his recognisable features, had placed behind him on a perch a live owl, which he appeared to be consulting about John’s suitability as a new member. As well as these two, there were twelve other dignitaries, all masked and gowned. The rather frightening effect of this solemn gathering was enhanced by the fact that a cauldron of spirits of wine stood on the table in front of them, throwing a most eerie light on all of their faces. John gulped, wondering what he had wandered into.

“Examine the candidate,” boomed Joshua Reynolds.

Garrick spoke, disguising his voice but insufficiently to deceive the Apothecary. “Sir, were you present at your birth?”

So this was the way of it. Sheer absurdity, not meant to be taken seriously.

“I can’t remember,” John answered gravely.

“Do you hear that. Screech?” Garrick asked the owl, which winked an eye but did not reply.

“Sir,” the actor asked again, “think carefully. You are out shooting and a covey of partridges takes flight. There are thirteen in it. You kill two birds with the first barrel, and one with the second. How many remain? Take care what you reply, Sir.”

This was an easy one, John thought. “Why, ten remain, of course.”

Garrick turned to the owl. “Hear that. Screech? Ten remain. Foolish fellow.” He regarded the Apothecary once more. “Only three remained, Sir. The ten live birds flew away.”

“Fine,” chorused the other judges. “One bottle of claret.”

So it went on. Ridiculous questions being met with equally ridiculous answers and fines of bottles of wine being imposed. Finally, though, they considered the Apothecary absurd enough and he was allowed to descend from his perilous platform and was offered membership, his subscription to be yet another bottle of claret.