Captain Lacey, you cannot run to the magistrate and accuse the Prince Regent of murder,” Mrs. Morgan said crisply.
Around us men and women drifted down the promenade, ignoring the clump of us blocking the way as they determinedly enjoyed the sunshine.
“I realize that.” I made myself say the words, because of course I wanted to hurry back to the court and tell Pyne and the coroner this very thing.
I could easily envision the Regent, spoiled and hedonistic, running Isherwood through in a crazed duel, and then making certain another was caught as his murderer.
I liked the idea, because it would mean I hadn’t killed Isherwood. But Mrs. Morgan was wise, and caution stilled me. First, I’d have difficulty explaining why anyone should not believe me a madman; second, I’d have to confess how much I knew about Isherwood’s death; and third, if I had been given a mind-blotting concoction beforehand, that spoke of careful planning. I could not imagine the impetuous Regent coolly coming up with such a scheme.
Mrs. Morgan watched me. “It would be your word and my son’s to the Regent’s.”
I saw her worry about repercussions against Clement. I let out a breath. “Do not fear, Mrs. Morgan. I will hold my tongue—at least until I am very certain. Clement—can you find out why the Regent departed so late? And what he did in those hours between rising from the supper table until he left the Pavilion?”
“I already have.” Clement looked annoyed I wouldn’t think he’d done so. “He went to visit a lady right after supper. It’s why he was in such a hurry to excuse himself.”
“A lady.” Of course. “What lady?”
“Lady Hollingsworth. She has a house in Brighton—or at least, her husband does. She arrived here alone, and off he went to meet her.”
The Regent, despite his bulk and his gout, still indulged himself ardently with the fairer sex. While physically he might not be as active as he had been in the past, he still preferred the company of the ladies. I hardly blamed him on that score.
“Did he return to the Pavilion after visiting her?”
“Oh yes. Around one, it was. No one can tell me exactly where he was at that time.” Clement beamed in triumph. “And then he was off at three, heading for London. So he might have gutted the officer, sir.”
Mrs. Morgan remained skeptical. “No one knows exactly where the pair of you were either. Find out what His Highness was up to in those hours, Clement. Once you know everything, Captain Lacey, then make your report. The Regent’s not the best of men, we know, but he is the sovereign these days and could make life very difficult for you if he chose.”
I knew I would have to tread carefully. But at least it gave me a direction.
“Thank you, Clement,” I said in sincerity. “You have done me a great service.”
Clement continued to be pleased with himself, but his mother was more practical. “That remains to be seen. And Clement is only doing his duty—which he should get back to.” She gave her son a pointed look. “I’m certain you don’t have leave to be away.”
“I do,” Clement said, aggrieved. “They let me out for air once in a while, Mum.”
“Be that as it may, it’s time you were back inside, before you get that livery dirty. I imagine I’d be expected to pay for it.”
Clement gave a long-suffering sigh, kissed his mother resignedly on the cheek, and ran off across the road, heading for the Pavilion.
“He’s a good lad,” I said.
“You do not have to humor me, Captain. I know he is.” Mrs. Morgan’s dark eyes sparkled. “I would not be one bit surprised if His Highness committed this deed and then fit you up for it, but it is a sticky situation. I too will ask questions of my most gossipy friends about Lady Hollingsworth and the prince’s comings and goings that night.” She gave me an approving look. “I like you, Captain. You have been kind to Clement, and I will not let you down.”
I bowed. “Thank you, dear lady.”
She fixed me with a steely gaze. “But if I find you have done bad things, and are using Clement to cover up for you, may God have mercy on your soul.”
Her words rang with the certainty of a high court judge’s.
I gave her another bow. “I’d deserve your wrath, madam. I would require God’s mercy, indeed.”
Brewster had remained silent during the exchange, but he made his feelings known as we turned toward home.
“You going to step up to His Highness and accuse him of stabbing the colonel? If so, I’m asking His Nibs to give you a different nanny.”
“Do not worry,” I said to soothe him. “I realize the futility of trying to question the Regent. However, Grenville might be able to find out exactly what happened that night.” I pondered. “I also ought to write Colonel Brandon about this business.”
“This is the colonel what got your knee broken?”
I nodded. “Brandon remembers Isherwood and all that happened in Salamanca. He was not best pleased with me about my part in it, but he might have ideas regarding who would want to kill Isherwood—besides me, I mean.”
Brewster looked skeptical. “Surprised you’re still alive, guv.”
“So am I, believe me.”
We hadn’t progressed far down Bedford Row when a man stepped out of a side lane to confront us.
He was the cavalry officer who’d stared at me at the inquest. I remembered, with sudden clarity, that I’d seen him the afternoon I’d begun inquiries about Isherwood’s murder. After I’d conversed with Bickley and Miss Farrow, I’d spied this man in the street. He’d studied me as though he’d speak to me but then had not.
The officer was a few years younger than I, and tall, his bearing straight. He wore the same regimental colors as young Isherwood and Major Forbes—blue coat with gold facings and gold braid. The jacket was trim, the trousers neat over his boots.
Brewster positioned himself watchfully next to the officer as the man gave me a perfunctory bow. “Captain Christopher Wilks, at your service.”
I held out my hand. “Captain Gabriel Lacey, at yours. Thirty-Fifth Light. You are in the Forty-Seventh?”
“Indeed.” Captain Wilks shook my hand. “I saw you at the inquest today.”
“And I you.”
Brewster looked back and forth between us, frowning at our politeness.
“A bad business,” Wilks went on. “Perhaps we can speak?”
Brewster and I had come as far as West Street, near the Customs House. In a lane beyond this was a small tavern. I noted that a few gentlemen walking along this street wore small black caps on the crowns of their heads—the Jewish synagogue was near.
Captain Wilks and I agreed to enter the tavern. The regulars lifted their heads and regarded us with suspicion when we walked in, but soon went back to their ale and quiet muttered conversation.
Wilks raised his brows at Brewster, who took a stool against the wall near the table where we seated ourselves.
“He is trusted,” I told Wilks. “Whatever you say to me will not be repeated.” That is, to anyone but Denis, should Brewster believe Denis needed to know it.
Not until we had full tankards in front of us did Wilks come around to what he wished to say.
“I heard the coroner ask you to account for your whereabouts the night—the early morning rather—when Joshua Bickley was killed.”
I nodded. “I was at supper at the Royal Pavilion. With my wife, several friends, many acquaintances, and the Regent himself.”
“Including men of my regiment,” Wilks acknowledged. “Colonel Isherwood and Lord Armitage. Colonel Isherwood is now dead, from a sudden fever, his son says.”
“Lord Armitage is one of the Forty-Seventh?” I asked in surprise.
“Nominally.” Wilks looked disapproving. “He was at Austerlitz, as he no doubt will have told you. After Armitage returned to London with his wife, he bought himself a commission and joined our regiment on the Peninsula just before Ciudad Roderigo.”
Ciudad Roderigo had been a very bad business, and the fact that Armitage had been there startled me. “I was at Salamanca,” I said. “The Forty-Seventh combined forces with my regiment there, but I never met Lord Armitage.”
“Because he stayed in the rear, dining with other aristocrats in Spanish noble houses.” Wilks’s disgust was plain.
“You mean he wanted the credit for fighting Napoleon without actually having to soil his gloves.”
“Indeed,” Wilks said. “Lord Armitage and Colonel Isherwood were friends, I believe, or at least acquaintances. They were often in each other’s company. However, I do not like to gossip about the colonel, especially now that he is deceased.”
“I understand.” I took a sip of ale to indicate I would not press him. I wanted to, very much, but I understood the sort of man Wilks was—one who obeyed the rules of honor. I had quarreled with Colonel Brandon for years, but I would never disparage him in front of a man from another regiment.
“Is this what you wished to ask me about—the supper at the Pavilion?” I inquired.
“No, you misunderstand. You told the coroner that you dined at the Pavilion and then went home and slept after you spoke Mr. Bickley. But you did not. I saw you.”
My heartbeat quickened, and my hand tightened on my tankard. “Did you? Where?”
“In a public house. One very near the Quaker Meeting. It’s a friendly place and I take an ale there on nights I am off duty. You came in alone, sat down in a corner and asked for coffee. I could see you were in a bad way, which is no doubt why you wanted the coffee. You told the coroner you were inebriated.”
“I was,” I said cautiously. “I must have imbibed too well at supper.”
“You were befuddled, yes, but in a strange way. I’ve seen many a drunken man in my time, but you seemed more alert and aware, your speech not slurred.”
I had absolutely no memory of walking into this pub, let alone drinking coffee. “Is that all I did?” I asked, my tone sharp.
Wilks watched me carefully. “You truly do not remember?”
“Of course not. If I had, I’d have told the coroner.”
He held up a hand. “Peace, Captain. I came to you about this because you seem a decent fellow and genuinely puzzled about that night. You sipped your coffee and appeared to calm yourself. Then the publican handed you a paper. You read it and shoved yourself up and away very quickly. I watched you go, wondering, but you disappeared quickly. I assumed you’d received dire news.”
A message? But from whom and about what? “What did I do with the paper?” I demanded.
“Crumpled it in your hand, as far as I can remember.”
“I didn’t throw it into the fire?” I asked in agitation.
“There was no fire. It was a warm night. You had the paper when you rushed out, I believe. You might have thrown it away after that, of course.”
“Which public house?” I rose, unable to sit still. “Can you direct me?”
“The Fox and Hen, in a lane near the Quaker Meeting.”
Which I must have entered after speaking to Mr. Bickley. Bickley had not mentioned I’d been reeling drunk when I spoke to him, and neither had Miss Farrow. Therefore I possibly had drunk something in that tavern—something in the coffee—that rendered me senseless. Hadn’t Marianne told me that coffee could disguise the taste of opium?
And what on earth had been in the message that took me away?
“Forgive me, Captain,” I said. “I must go there at once.”
“Quite understandable. I will accompany you.”
The captain generously left coin for the ale we’d barely touched and led the way out. Brewster dumped as much ale down his throat as he could before wiping his mouth and hurrying after us.
Brighton was as cheerful as ever despite the sadness of the inquest—holiday-goers shopping and dining, locals haggling at the markets, vendors desperate to sell wares to tourists who might depart tomorrow and never return.
The Fox and Hen, sporting a lively painted sign of a large hen chasing a frightened-looking fox, was steps away from the Quaker Meeting House. One of the Quakers, working in the garden, glanced up in curiosity as we raced past.
While I wanted to charge inside and shake the publican until he told me what I wanted to know, I made myself calmly order ale for us all—I’d pay this time—before I addressed the man behind the bar.
“Do you remember me from Monday night?” I asked.
The publican, busy trying a broach a new keg, glanced up and grunted. “Can’t say I do.”
“I sat …” I looked to Captain Wilks for guidance.
“In the inglenook.” He pointed. “Near the fireplace.”
The publican remained at his task. “Many men do. My taproom’s a busy place.”
“I ordered a coffee, and then you brought me a note or letter,” I said. “I grew alarmed when I read it and ran out.”
The publican shook his head, then he paused and turned his head to study me. “Oh, aye, I remember now. You gave me a crown for my trouble. Thank ye kindly.”
“Excellent.” At least he recalled a good tip. “Do you know what the message said?”
The publican straightened, resting his hands on the bar. “No. I don’t read, meself. Have me son do that for me. Why don’t you know what it said?”
I warmed. “I cannot explain.”
The publican’s face creased in a smile. “Far gone in drink, were ye? You were swaying a bit as you sat, I remember. Probably didn’t mean to hand me so much for nothing, did ye? Well, ye can’t have it back. It’s mine fair and square.”
“I’d be obliged for your help.” I dipped into my pocket and brought out another crown. “Did anyone else read this message? Or did I drop it on my way out?”
“How should I know? We sweep up all kinds of bits every night when we shut the doors. You wouldn’t believe the things we find. If you dropped it on the floor, it’s long gone to the rag and bone man.”
I stifled my disappointment with effort. “Did anyone besides yourself see the message?”
“That important, is it?” The publican frowned at me. “Sit yourself down, sir. I’ll ask me son.”
I took the nearest chair, barely containing my restlessness. Brewster and the captain joined me, Brewster slurping this ale determinedly.
The publican finished setting up his keg before he wiped his hands and disappeared through a door.
“Is the place familiar to you?” Captain Wilks asked me. “Anything you remember?”
“Not at all,” I said in disappointment as I looked around. “If I’d wanted coffee, why did I not step into the coffee house?” There was one nearby, which I’d passed when I’d tried to retrace my steps from Monday night.
“You were muddled,” Brewster said. “Happens.”
“Possibly.” I scanned the room, noting the fireplace with its bench built into the wall—the inglenook. My eye went to a cartoon pinned above the bench, of a popular actress of the stage, her curvy proportions exaggerated, her large cap balanced on an abundance of golden curls.
One of my dreams returned from Tuesday morning, when I lay in a stupor—of my wife in such a cap, her hair changing from dark to pale, and then her face becoming Marianne’s. I’d heard Marianne’s voice telling me I was a lazy lie-abed.
I stared at the cartoon, rising from my seat to study it. The image of the blond actress must have stuck in my brain and then transformed into my inebriated dreams.
If I could remember that, could I remember other things?
I scrutinized the taproom again, but nothing leapt at me. I slid onto the bench in the inglenook, where I could see the picture as I had then.
“I remember that.” I pointed to it as Brewster and the captain followed me. “I must have stared quite hard at it.”
“Course you did.” Brewster still held his tankard. “You’re ever one for the ladies, and she’s a fair specimen.”
Or did the picture mean something else to me? I could not think what.
“This must be the lad,” Captain Wilks said.
The publican approached us, followed by a tall young man in his twenties, his lankiness just turning to harder muscle.
“Do you know anything about the message delivered to me here this past Monday night?” I asked him without preliminary.
The young man gave me a slow nod. “I do, sir. Dad tells me you don’t remember it.”
“Did you happen to see what was in this message?” I tried to curb my impatience.
“I did. Sorry, sir, but it were only a bit of paper. Couldn’t help but see what were written on it.”
“Don’t drag it out, lad,” Brewster growled. “What did the bloody thing say?”
The young man flushed. “I don’t recall exactly. But it said for you to go outside. To meet someone.” His color deepened. “I assumed a lady.”
My throat tightened, making speech difficult. “Why did you assume that?”
“’Cause I saw you with her. You ran out, and a lady with a large cloak and hat took your arm. You disappeared with her in the dark, and that’s the last I saw of ye.”