Maggie MacKeever (6 page)

“You’re a fool, Simpkin!” said his master. “I wonder why I put up with you. If that woman ever gains entry to these rooms again, you’ll be dismissed, and without a reference, understand?” The valet nodded. “Very well, then, prepare my bath.”

Simpkin set about this task with great efficiency, demonstrating his noiseless step and politeness of manner, his good temper and subservience, all the time trembling lest he rouse his master to further wrath. No question that he would slam the door in Leda Langtry’s face if she ever dared show it here again.

Lord Warwick sat down at his desk, upon which perched an excellent bust of Cromwell, and reached for his port. As he filled a glass with the dark liquid, he reflected that Leda Langtry was said to have the temperament of a fighting cock.

Her arrest on the charge of intention to traduce and vilify Prinny had caused widespread indignation and made the Regent even more unpopular. As if matters had not already been bad enough. The usual attacks on Prinny for his immoral character and his abominable treatment of the Princess of Wales had increased a hundredfold during the visit to London of the Allied Sovereigns. Relations between the Prince Regent and the Tsar of Russia had at best been strained, and the Tsar had not improved matters by waltzing energetically around Lady Chalmondely’s ballroom with Lady Jersey, one of the Prince’s earlier conquests, and Lady Bligh, whom the world knew he wished to make his next, while treating Lady Hertford, the current favorite, with a marked lack of interest. Now Prinny was drinking even more heavily than usual, and that was a prodigious amount indeed.

Poor Simpkin, emptying hot water into a metal bath, dropped a can. Lord Warwick turned to glower at his valet, an exercise somewhat difficult to execute due to the high shirt collar that brushed his earlobes and framed his chin. “Another female you will not admit to these premises,” said Warwick severely, “is Lady Bligh. You
do
recall Lady Bligh, Simpkin?”

“Yes, your grace.” The valet retrieved the can. An interesting interview that one had been, and of great interest to Lord Warwick’s spouse. A few more similarly enlightening encounters and Simpkin would be able to retire.

“Your bath is ready, your grace.” Simpkin prepared to either help his master to disrobe or, if it seemed wiser, to flee. Lord Warwick emptied his glass and rose.

There was yet another interview to be conducted that evening, and the anticipation of it was almost more than Warwick could bear. He unlocked a drawer of his desk and drew forth a sheaf of banknotes. This night would see him vindicated of a great many past slights. Even Prinny would be forced to admit the cleverness of a mind that had outthought the experts at Bow Street. But Warwick had learned to be cautious. Before he presented his conclusions to higher authorities, his suspicions would be confirmed.

Simpkin stole a glance at the banknotes, of which there was an awesome pile, as he helped his master to disrobe. Perhaps his master had come to a belated appreciation of his invaluable services and meant to render a reward.

Lord Warwick lowered himself into the bath. “That will be all, Simpkin,” he said.

“Very good, your grace.” Correct as ever, the valet left the room. He did not, however, then set about the many tasks with which he normally filled his time, such as washing the glass and silver used at luncheon or attending the sitting room fire. Instead he shut himself in the pantry, there to count the banknotes that he’d palmed from the stack on his master’s desk. Simpkin had his own ways of dealing with ingratitude.

Lord Warwick sank into his steaming bath with a deep sigh. He had no complaint of his hotel, which made every concession to his comfort, including a goose-feather bed large enough to contain two or three people, as well as a half dozen wide towels. Indeed, the only fly in Lord Warwick’s domestic ointment was his moronic valet. No matter. After this next interview he would repair to his club, there to mingle with congenial souls and celebrate his cleverness by winning a few rubbers at whist. So lost was Lord Warwick in reverie that when the door suddenly opened he jumped and splashed water all about the floor. Surely the wretched fellow hadn’t come so soon!

Not Lord Warwick’s anticipated caller stepped into the room, nor his valet, but a black-clad woman, heavily veiled. Her ugly bonnet afforded only a glimpse of white hair. 

Embarrassed, he sank down to his chin in soapsuds. “ You! Why the deuce have you returned?”

This invasion had not gone unnoticed in the butler’s pantry. Simpkin scurried to the door of his master’s room and put his eye once again to the keyhole. The sight of Lord Warwick interrupted ignobly in his ablutions made Simpkin nearly swoon. His master would have his head on a platter for this intrusion. A knocking on the outer door called him away.

Simpkin was incorrect; Lord Warwick was not considering beheading his valet, but boiling him in hot oil. “Answer me!” he demanded of the female, whose shoulders were shaking with what appeared to be silent mirth. “How dare you burst in here?”

“I’d dare a lot for this,” she said, moving closer. Lord Warwick had no time to do more than stare at the pistol that she held.

The shot, heard throughout the hotel, was loud as thunder in Lord Warwick’s vestibule. Simpkin, who had just opened the front door to admit another caller, gasped and turned pale with alarm. As one, the men hurried down the hallway. The valet threw open the door. There was no one in the room save Lord Warwick, in his bloody tub. “My lord!” gasped the valet and stumbled against the desk.

Lord Barrymore looked somewhat pale himself. “This is no time for hysterics. Fetch a doctor, man.”

Simpkin tore his gaze away from the grisly contents of the bath, which was shaped somewhat unfortunately like a metal coffin. He looked down at Lord Warwick’s desk, bare now of banknotes, and then at the open window. “Oh, sir!” he moaned. “I very much fear that the master has been robbed.”

“Yes,” said Lord Barrymore. “I rather suspect he has.”

Chapter 6

Crump, having fortified himself with a bobstick of rum slim, moved cautiously among the crowds who bustled along Fleet Street. Once this had been a sanctuary for debtors and duelists, thieves and murderers, as well as imprudent poets anxious to escape the pillory. Nor had the situation greatly changed. Those who cast slurs upon the King’s majesty were still in need of refuge. Crump gazed at the timber-fronted shops with swinging signs above their entrances. His wistful eye alighted upon one of the ancient taverns that were so common here. He would need more than a shilling’s worth of punch to fortify him for
this
task.

He bypassed the tavern. There was no time to waste, though Crump more than half suspected that his pigeon had already flown. He touched the paper in his pocket, a writ granted by Sir John for the apprehension of a murderer. The papers were full of the astonishing details of Lord Warwick’s death, and the London
Apocalypse
had gone so far as to poke fun at what it termed the plodding efforts of Bow Street. The Chief Magistrate heartily rued the day that the great Fielding had broken with tradition and admitted journalists into his court, thereby setting a precedent that many of his predecessors had ample cause to regret.

Even allowing for Sir John’s natural disgust with the backhanded blow Fate had dealt him—for Lord Warwick’s murderer could be none other than a woman whom the Chief Magistrate had personally escorted from Newgate only days before, a fact that was recalled with grave displeasure by Sir John’s superior, the Home Secretary—Crump felt that his own treatment had been grossly unfair. After hearing Simpkin’s tale of a violent quarrel between his master and Leda Langtry, and the valet’s further assertions that Leda herself had shot Warwick, Sir John had delivered himself of a scathing denunciation of Crump’s intelligence and demanded that the Runner make an immediate arrest.

The thief taker reached his destination, the shop that housed the
Apocalypse,
above which Leda had her home. It was not a bad neighborhood. These coffeehouses were far different from those Crump frequented, catering not to unwashed criminals and their whores but to wits and scholars, journalists and writers, who exchanged information no more damning than a clever
bon mot.
Adjusting his waistcoat, today buff satin with an open pattern in black velvet, Crump stepped into the shop.

The scene that greeted him was one of considerable chaos. Bustling about the small front room were at least five people, all of them talking at the same time. Leda sat on the dirty floor, sorting busily through a pile of wrapped newspapers, while a dark young man, his clothes an appalling mishmash of styles, bent over a large, odd-looking piece of machinery.

“High time!” he cried and swooped down upon the startled Runner. “You’ve come at last! As I’ve told Koenig, his steam press is of little use to us without an understanding of how the wretched thing works.” Crump’s arm was seized and he was dragged across the room. “Proceed!” cried the dark stranger, whose eyes were so pale they were almost colorless. “We shall watch in wide-eyed wonder as you perform a miracle.”

Crump stared at the monstrous chunk of machinery and thought he was more likely to pull a rabbit from his hat. Indeed, this strange young man with his narrow twitching nose and watery eyes rather looked like that small beast. Crump held up his hand. “You’ve made a mistake, my lad.”

“A mistake!” shrieked the young man, thereby attracting the attention of everyone in the room. “A mistake, you say! We have a paper to get out—four full pages with advertising, local news, political comment and vigorous leaders written by the editors and then embellished by the sapient observations of that brilliant commentator upon human folly, the Bystander!”

“Cut line, Willie,” said Leda calmly, from her spot upon the floor.

“Cut line, Leda?” cried Willie, eyebrows dancing frantically up and down. “Koenig swore his steam press could print eleven hundred copies of a single four-page sheet in one hour. Now this fellow says we have been taken in. Bubbled, in fact!”

Crump felt as if he’d stepped into a madhouse. It was obvious that someone must make a move to silence this extremely vocal young man. He did so with reluctance, aware that every person in that tiny chamber would regard him as the enemy. “Lord love you,” he said genially, touching the brace of pistols resting round his plump waist. “I don’t know anything about your steam presses, being here on an entirely different matter.” He pulled forth his identity card. “The name is Crump, and the address is Bow Street.”

“A Runner!” Willie clasped his hands to his chest. “You brave, brave man! Leda, why didn’t you tell me you’d seen fit to notify Bow Street?”

With an ink-stained hand, Leda pushed straggling white hair off her forehead. “Because I didn’t. Be off with the lot of you!” The others filed into the printing room, where a man and a boy were busy at the press, but Willie remained behind. A sudden silence descended. The ill-fitting windows rattled with the beat of passing horses’ hooves, the cries of peddlers, the shouts of the newsvendors.

“Notify Bow Street of what?” asked Crump. Now that Leda was safely in his grasp, he could afford to take his time. There was much in the present situation that aroused his curiosity.

“Of robbery!” said Willie, almost hopping up and down. “We have been violated, Mr. Crump! Yesterday afternoon I returned to the office to find our priceless prose scattered about the floor, trampled on, our most stunning bursts of rhetoric burnt to ashes in the grate!”

Crump peered around the cluttered room and wondered how anyone could detect, amid such muddle, that robbery had taken place. “Was anything stolen?” he asked, though with little interest. The Runner had more than sufficient experience to smell a red herring when one was dangled under his nose.

“Nothing to signify.” Leda rose to her feet and wiped her hands against her skirt. “Some personal papers, my pistol, a pair of my shoes.”

“Ah, now, you’ll be pulling my leg.” Though he appeared bland, the Runner’s senses had come to attention at mention of that pistol. Well they might claim it was stolen, since that item had caused a man’s death.

“Mr. Crump!” tittered Willie, as he sidled closer to the Runner. “We wouldn’t think of doing such a thing. Highly improper it would be, though a delightful way to pass one’s time.”

“Behave yourself, Willie!” interjected Leda, before Crump could verbalize his indignation. Her brown eyes rested on the Runner, and in them was perplexity. “I didn’t call in Bow Street, considering our little burglary much too inconsequential to engage such great minds. Why
are
you here? I hope you will not take it personally, Mr. Crump, if I tell you your presence inspires me with a somewhat unpleasant presentiment.”

Well it should, thought Crump, for the weapon found by Warwick’s body had been identified as Leda’s pistol, and she was furthermore known to be a crack shot, as attested by a miserable wretch who, intent on breaking and entering her shop, had had an unfortunate confrontation with the business end of her gun.

Crump looked at Willie, who was capering about the room like a performing monkey. Why did Willie strike a chord of recognition when Crump had never set eyes on him before? “Just who is
he?”
the Runner asked Leda, with a jerk of his head.

Willie had heard. “I,” he announced, drawing himself up, “am the one and only William Fitzwilliam, my dear Mr. Crump.” When the Runner looked unappreciative, he held up one slender and somewhat ink-stained finger. “Ah, I see you do not recognize the name. Very well, I shall elucidate.” He took a deep breath. “ ‘Through the galleries of Windsor rambles the old mad king, wild of hair and eye, in his violet dressing gown, here playing a harpsichord for a heavenly chorus that only he can hear, there lecturing an equally invisible senate!’ “

“Willie writes a column for my newspaper,” explained Leda. “He calls himself the Bystander.”

Willie bowed. “I am entirely at your service, Mr. Crump. Only tell me how I may be of assistance.”