Dinner Most Deadly Page 17
“It’s a special occasion,” he reminded her as he handed her up into the hackney. “Mrs. Church’s farewell performance. Did I tell you I recently had the honor of being of assistance to her?”
“I see I shall have to keep a close eye on you,” she scolded with mock severity. “First Lady Fieldhurst, and now Mrs. Church. It seems to me you have the honor of being of assistance to entirely too many beautiful women!”
“I hope you will count yourself as one of them,” he said, seating himself beside her.
Her dark eyes shone in the lamplight filtering through the carriage windows. She tucked her hand through the crook of his arm and gave it a little squeeze. “I think you are very sweet, John.”
It soon transpired that they were obliged to walk in any case, for when they reached Drury Lane, they found the street in front of the theatre so choked with traffic that Pickett was forced to dismiss his hired equipage and escort his fair companion the rest of the way on foot. Once inside the theatre, they found places in the pit that offered a reasonably good view of the stage (a good view, in this case, meaning one with no large bonnets or tall men to block it) and took their seats. As Pickett had seen Mrs. Church’s Ophelia once before already, his attention was prone at times to wander, and all too frequently his gaze was drawn upward toward the rows of boxes overhead, where those wealthy enough to pay five shillings per seat congregated to survey the performance and each other.
“What is the matter?” asked Dulcie during one of these intervals. “What are you looking for?”
Pickett shook his head, somehow both disappointed and relieved to find the Fieldhurst box unoccupied. “Nothing.”
Perhaps feeling a bit guilty for this lapse, Pickett turned to Dulcie when the final curtain had fallen. “Would you like to meet Mrs. Church?”
“Can you do that?” asked Dulcie, her eyes wide with awe.
“I can try. I told you, I once—”
“—Had the honor of being of assistance to her,” she finished for him. “Yes, I remember. But will she agree to see you?”
“I don’t know. There’s only one way to find out.”
Grabbing Dulcie’s hand to keep from losing her in the throng, he squeezed his way backstage, where a dozen or more gentlemen bearing large floral bouquets had assembled outside the actress’s dressing room.
“Yes, your Grace,” a harried assistant to Mr. Sheridan, the theatre manager, assured an elegantly dressed man cradling two dozen autumn roses in his arm. “Mrs. Church has been informed of your arrival. If you will be patient—”
“Excuse me,” Pickett said, tapping the much put-upon underling on the shoulder. “Will you please tell Mrs. Church that John Pickett requests the honor of a meeting?”
The duke shot Pickett a contemptuous glance, and a dashing officer in scarlet regimentals made a dismissive snort, but the theatre assistant, heaving a sigh, consented, albeit without enthusiasm. “I will, young man, but I make no promises.”
Pickett nodded. “I understand.”
The underling rapped on the door and then slipped inside, closing it quickly behind him before the more aggressive of the gentlemen callers could push their way inside. A moment later, the door opened again. Instead of the harassed assistant, a beautiful woman with heavy stage makeup and raven-dark hair appeared in the aperture.
“Mr. Pickett! How lovely to see you again! Do come in! Oh, good evening, Major Richardson. Yes, your Grace, I see you brought me flowers. It was very kind of you, and I shall thank you directly, but first I must have a word with my very dear friend Mr. Pickett. Do forgive me, gentlemen. Come in, Mr. Pickett!” She reached out to take his arm and pull him through the crowd into her dressing room.
Pickett could not resist the urge to bestow a rather smug smile on the assemblage as, guiding Dulcie before him with a hand at her waist, he passed them all en route to Mrs. Church’s sanctum sanctorum.
“Pray shut the door, Mr. Pickett, and lock it, if you would be so kind,” urged Mrs. Church once they were safely inside.
He did so, and the noise outside was muted to a dull roar. “It is good to see you once more before you leave London,” he told the actress. “Mrs. Church, may I present my friend, Miss Dulcie Monroe?”
“I hope you enjoyed the performance, Miss Monroe.” Mrs. Church nodded at the young woman, but regarded Pickett with a quizzical smile.
“Oh, yes indeed! This was my first visit to the theatre,” Dulcie confessed, blushing.
“But not your last, I hope. Tell me, how would you like to meet our Hamlet? Mr. Bracegirdle,” she addressed the harried assistant, “pray take Miss Monroe to meet Mr. Brereton. Tell him I would be much obliged to him if he will see her. Thank you! You are an angel!”
Having shut the door behind Dulcie and the much-harassed angel, she turned the full force of her considerable charm on Pickett. “Now we may be private,” she declared, giving him her hands and kissing the air on either side of his face. “It is indeed lovely to see you again, Mr. Pickett, but I must ask: who is this Miss Monroe? What, pray, has happened to Mrs. Pickett?”
Pickett flushed, thinking that perhaps his plan to dazzle Dulcie with his exalted connections had not been such a good idea after all. “I think you know that any ‘marriage’ between myself and Lady Fieldhurst was merely a masquerade.”
She raised a knowing eyebrow. “Not in Scotland, it isn’t.”
He sighed. “Yes, we’re finding that out.”
“And?”
“And her ladyship’s solicitor is already making arrangements to have the marriage annulled.”
“And you’re letting him? Forgive me if I am overstepping, Mr. Pickett, but it is obvious to the meanest intelligence how you feel about the lady! Surely you cannot mean to let the annulment go through without lifting a finger to stop it!”
“That’s not all I won’t be lifting,” muttered Pickett, then blushed crimson as she burst out laughing. “I beg your pardon—I should not have spoken so to a lady.”
“Ah, but you know I am not much of a lady—and you, I believe, have a greater claim to the title of gentleman than many who are born to it. If I can see that, I daresay a certain lady of our acquaintance has recognized it as well.”
“I can’t speak for her ladyship’s feelings on the matter, but I cannot believe she would want to remain tied to a thief-taker with nothing but twenty-five shillings a week!”
“Have you asked her?”
Pickett bristled. “I would not so insult her!”
“If she required a fortune to be happy, she should have been ecstatic with her viscount,” the actress pointed out. Seeing he was not convinced, she added, “Trust me on this, Mr. Pickett: life is too short and love is too precious to waste on things that don’t matter—not really, not when one’s future happiness is at stake. You are familiar enough with my own story to recognize I know whereof I speak. If you love her, don’t give her up without a fight.”
His own words to Lord Dunnington came floating back to him. She’s your wife! Aren’t you going to fight for her? But the two cases were completely different. Lady Dunnington had promised to love, honor, and obey, and however lightly she may have taken her vows in the years that followed, she had taken them knowingly and voluntarily. Lady Fieldhurst had done neither. It would be wrong of him to try to hold her to a commitment she’d had no intention or knowledge of making.
“I am glad for you, and hope you and your husband will be very happy together,” Pickett said. “But things are different between Lady Fieldhurst and me. Even if the difference between our stations were unimportant—and it isn’t, not by a long chalk!—she could have any man she chose. Why on earth would she want me?”
She gave him a long, calculating look. “Do you know, I don’t think I shall tell you. It seems to me that a great part of your charm springs from the fact that you are utterly unaware of your own appeal. I should hate to spoil it. No, Mr. Pickett, if you desire an answer to that question, you must ask the lady herself.”
“Oh, please call me Miss Kirkbride,” she interrupted.
“Miss Kirkbride, then, I can’t possibly—she would never—”
He got no further, for at that moment the door opened and Dulcie re-entered the room. Pickett hardly knew whether to be sorry or glad for the interruption.
“Thank you, Mrs. Church, that was quite wonderful! Mr. Brereton even kissed my hand.” Dulcie held up her right hand as if to admire it. “I’m sure I shall never wash it again!”
So thrown off balance was Pickett by his aborted conversation with Mrs. Church that his farewell speech to the actress was disjointed almost to the point of incoherence. Once outside the theatre with Dulcie, however, he was obliged to focus all his attention on the problem of procuring a hackney when half of London seemed to be entertaining the same ambition, with the happy result that by the time they returned to Audley Street he was much himself again. He escorted his fair companion down the stairs to the servants’ entrance, and she paused at the door and turned to face him.
“Will you not come in for tea, or perhaps coffee?” she asked, looking up at him with her large, doe-like eyes.
He shook his head. “Thank you, but I’d best get home. I have to be back at the Bow Street office in the morning.”
“I understand,” she said, obviously disappointed. “Well, thank you for a lovely evening, John. I do hope all goes well with your investigations.”
“I don’t know,” said Pickett, considering the matter carefully. “If things go too well, I’ll have no further reason to call in Audley Street.”
“You don’t need a reason, John.” She ducked her chin and looked up at him through her lashes. “Whatever may be happening above stairs, you may always be sure of a welcome from me.”
“Thank you, Dulcie.”
He took her hand and would have raised it to his lips, but she slipped it out of his grasp.
“Not there! That’s the hand Mr. Brereton kissed.” She lifted her face ever so slightly to his. “I guess you’ll just have to find something else to kiss.”
Pickett, nothing loth, drew her into his embrace and lowered his mouth to hers.
But when he closed his eyes, it was not Dulcie in his arms.
CHAPTER 16
In Which John Pickett Tries His Hand at Matchmaking
Pickett arrived at the Bow Street Public Office the next morning to discover that Mr. Crumpton had been busy about his work. A message had been delivered for him there, and when he opened it, he was instructed that Dr. Edmund Humphrey had agreed to see him at his practice in Harley Street promptly at eleven. Pickett, glancing up at the clock over the magistrate’s bench, saw that he had some time to make inquiries before presenting himself in Harley Street. In fact, he was more than a little surprised by the summons; when Mr. Crumpton had assured him that the results of the doctor’s examination would be falsified (for a consideration, of course), he had assumed there would be no need for a face-to-face meeting. Now that he was made aware of his error, he approached the magistrate with some trepidation.
“Mr. Colquhoun, sir,” he began, “I’m afraid I must be out of the office for much of the morning, with your permission.”
Mr. Colquhoun regarded him from underneath beetling brows. “Does this concern the investigation, or the annulment?”
Pickett sighed. “Both, I’m afraid. I do have a few inquiries to make regarding the investigation, but as for the annulment, it seems there is the matter of a—a medical examination—”
“Good God, what next?” grumbled the magistrate. “I have been thinking, Mr. Pickett, and it seems to me I had best remove you from the Sir Reginald Montague case altogether.”
“Remove me from the case, sir?” echoed Pickett, surprised and not at all pleased. “But why?”
“I should have done so from the very beginning; the fact that you are at least nominally married to one of the parties involved might be construed as a conflict of interest, to say the least. But now, given the shambles that is your personal life at the moment—”
“Lady Fieldhurst may have been present at dinner that night, sir, but she is hardly ‘involved’! There is no question of her being guilty, as she was with Lady Dunnington at the time the shot was fired.”
“And has it not occurred to you that the Ladies Fieldhurst and Dunnington are one another’s only alibi? It appears you are slipping, Mr. Pickett, or else you are so distracted by the annulment process that you can no longer give the investigation the attention it deserves.”
“In fact, sir, it had indeed occurred to me. But as I am, as you say, acquainted with one of the parties in question—”
“Most people would consider marriage much more than a mere acquaintance!”
“—I know Lady Fieldhurst to be incapable of such an act, and in this case her innocence would seem to exonerate Lady Dunnington, since for one of the ladies to lie about the matter would require that the other lie as well.” Of course, Lady Fieldhurst had certainly been less than truthful on the subject of Lady Dunnington’s ten-minute absence from the dinner table, but since she had recently made a full confession about the matter (which had occurred quite some time before the murder in any case), Pickett saw no need to make Mr. Colquhoun a gift of this information.
“Nevertheless, Mr. Foote has expressed an interest in being dispatched to Mayfair on some of these cases involving the aristocracy—”
“Begging your pardon, sir, but Mr. Foote hates me and would like nothing better than to advance his own career at my expense!” Pickett put in with some asperity.
“If by that outburst you mean he is envious of you, of course he is, and who can blame him? You have established in less than a year a reputation that it has taken him the better part of a decade to achieve. But Mr. Foote is efficient, although by no means brilliant, and no one can accuse him of having close ‘acquaintances’ among the aristocracy. If you will hand over your notes on the case to him, he should be quite capable of picking up the investigation where you left off.”
“Mr. Colquhoun, sir, please don’t take me off this case,” said Pickett, not above begging.
“Can you give me one good reason why I shouldn’t?”
Pickett sighed. “At the moment, sir, it seems to be the one area in which my—my competence—is not being called into question.”
Mr. Colquhoun looked into his youngest Runner’s anguished face and felt himself weakening. It would not do for him to be perceived as favoring one Runner above all the others—much less the one with the least experience of any on the force—but John Pickett was already being put through hell over this annulment without his adding to the lad’s burden.
“Oh, very well,” he said reluctantly. “I’ll give you a little longer, but if I don’t see some real progress being made toward an arrest, I will have no choice but to remove you and put Foote in your place. Is that clear?”
“Very clear, sir. Thank you. Now, if you please, sir, may I—may I go? There is the—the matter of the physician’s examination later this morning, and I have a line of inquiry I should like to pursue in the meantime.”
Mr. Colquhoun made a flapping motion with his hands. “By all means, be off with you.”
“Thank you.” He had not gone half a dozen steps when he turned back. “Oh, and sir?”
“Yes, what is it now?”
“After the case of Sir Reginald Montague is resolved, you may give Mr. Foote all the Mayfair assignments he wishes. I have no desire to visit the area again.”
The magistrate scowled at him. “Are you sure? Aside from the fact that most of the well-paying commissions come from that part of Town, you seem to have a gift for dealing with the upper classes. Not that you blend in, precisely, but at least you don’t set up people’s backs. I fear Mr. Foote will be hard pressed to duplicate your success there.”
“I am flattered by your confidence in me, sir, but I am quite sure. I—I think it b
est if, once this case is settled, I don’t see her ladyship again.”
The magistrate’s eyebrows rose. “Very well, Mr. Pickett, if that is what you wish.”
“It is, sir. Thank you,” said Pickett again, and left the Bow Street office.
Mr. Colquhoun, watching him go, muttered, “Damn the woman,” then snapped the head off a hapless member of the foot patrol who had the misfortune to choose that moment to ask a perfectly innocuous question.
Having obtained his magistrate’s permission, if not his blessing, Pickett set out once again for Mayfair—specifically, for the Albany flat of Lord Rupert Latham. He could think of few places where he would not prefer to be (Dr. Humphrey’s Harley Street office being a rare exception), and few people whose company he would be less desirous of seeking out. Still, Lord Rupert Latham was the only person he knew who would possess the knowledge he sought without having a personal stake in the dissemination of this information. And so it was that he came to be shown into Lord Rupert’s flat just as that gentleman, gorgeously arrayed in a dressing gown of Oriental design, was sitting down to breakfast.
“My good fellow,” he told Pickett, wincing at the sunlight emitted through the open door, “I am, as always, enchanted to see your happy smiling face, but at nine o’clock in the morning? Must you?”
As Pickett was neither happy nor smiling, he gave Lord Rupert’s welcome all the consideration it deserved—which was to say, none at all. “I beg your pardon for calling so early, your lordship, but I have obligations later in the day, and wanted to see you first.”
“Is the hour of my arrest at hand, then? Tell me, what reason have you uncovered that might inspire me to kill Sir Reginald? I should have imagined you would have lost interest in dispatching me to the gallows, given that you have contrived to wed Lady Fieldhurst against all odds. Or do you doubt your ability to hold her interest, and thus feel the need to eliminate the competition?”
“As for my marriage to her ladyship, you will no doubt be pleased to know that plans have already been set in motion for an annulment,” Pickett said tonelessly, wishing he might be less sensitive to Lord Rupert’s jibes.