Death of a Fop (Bow Street Consultant series Book 1) Read online

  Well if she looked young and tragic and sufficiently attractive perhaps Mr Chorleigh would be moved to help her by interceding with Uncle Jasper. She tripped downstairs to meet with Mr Armitage and the Hackney cab. She was glad of the quilted petticoat she had had the forethought to put on; muslin was not a practical fabric for February, though enough young girls desirous of being fashionable braved the cold to wear it even in midwinter.

  They were crossing the metropolis from Jane’s home in the newer north west residential portion of London to Gray’s Inn Road, where the solicitor’s firm had its office, close to the bustling centre of legal activity, the Inns of Court, so that that a barrister might readily be briefed on behalf of a client. Chorleigh, Wright and Jekyll’s was not the sort of partnership that would readily encourage litigation in their clients; this was far too public and vulgar a thing for any of their clients to be involved in. However in the case of a juicy piece of tort on the part of a third party, or a suit contesting a will drawn up by some other solicitor was a situation in which Chorleigh and Partners might condescend to go to the bar. Their office was in a tall building that somehow managed to be both facelessly modern and seedy looking, exuding an air of respectable, but uninviting shabby-gentility.

  “Your husband…. Ah yes, the nephew of Mr Jasper Churchill…. He applied to me almost a year ago to see if it might be possible to break an entail if his uncle agreed…. Quite impossible I fear…. Living beyond his means I suppose; well so far as the legal situation is concerned Mrs Churchill in the event of his death the entail passes directly to any offspring you have and will be broken on the event of the death of Mr Jasper Churchill; have you offspring?” Mr Chorleigh was not what one might describe as fat; but he was carrying some embonpoint which he swelled towards Jane after the fashion of a pouter pigeon displaying and doubtless with similar motive. His pigeon grey waistcoat did nothing to dispel this impression.

  “We have a daughter” said Jane “As to any others it is too early to say. Though I believe it unlikely” she added. “Does that mean that the portion of the income that Mr Jasper Churchill has been paying to my late husband will continue to cover the needs of our daughter?”

  “That I shall have to communicate with Mr Churchill over; but I cannot see that there would be a problem” said Mr Chorleigh. “If you have been used, however, to high living you may find that you will need to make small economies…..”

  “Oh I do not believe that I shall be requiring as many servants as Frank thought necessary,” said Jane, “and I have not myself enjoyed any high living so I do not believe there will be any difficulties. However, there may be a few complications regarding my husband’s death; perhaps Mr Armitage here will explain.”

  Mr Chorleigh had been glancing rather doubtfully at Jane’s companion; he wore respectable enough clothes with a reasonably good quality wool coat and good quality buckskins and boots that had a military look. He might pass as an affluent tradesman or even a clerk; and what role he fulfilled Mr Chorleigh could not guess.

  “It appears” said Caleb, proceeding to stretch the truth for the lovely and dignified lady, “That Mr Churchill may have been placed under duress; threats to harm his lovely wife and daughter; and this lead to his untimely death. I’m from Bow Street; an Officer of the Law. And in case he was told to remove wills or other documents from your office it is my dooty to ask you to discreetly check if any such documents ‘ave been moved, misplaced or dahnright gone missink” his accent emerged again under the outraged stare of the solicitor.

  Mr Chorleigh looked mystified as well as outraged.

  “But how would Mr Churchill have any access to documents in this office? Only the other partners and clerks could see and touch them.”

  “But he worked here!” said Jane “His uncle insisted; he spoke to Mr Wright about it!”

  Mr Chorleigh blinked, plainly taken aback.

  “He worked here? Mr Wright you say knew?” he rang a bell; and a young man no older than twenty rapidly appeared. He was affecting a dandy look so far as he might in the dark, unremarkable clothes of a clerk; but his collar points were so high he could scarcely turn his head and his waistcoat was a far from sober lavender embroidered in silver and purple. A spasm of disapproval passed over Mr Chorleigh’s face as he surveyed this sartorial mutiny.

  “StClair”said Mr Chorleigh “Ask Mr Wright to step in here please.”

  “Certainly Uncle William” said the youth. Mr Chorleigh swelled in a rather purple fashion.

  “How often do I have to tell you not to call me Uncle William at work?” he demanded.

  “Sorry Mr Chorleigh sir” said the youth, not sounding sorry in the least. He bobbed out of the room.

  Shortly ponderous steps were heard; and a jovial looking man who was inclined to the adipose stepped into the room. He made Mr Chorleigh appear relatively svelt by comparison and his claret coloured velveret waistcoat might be seen to strain on the buttons.

  “How may I be of assistance?” he beamed all round.

  “Mr Wright, did you engage the young Mr Churchill to work as a clerk?” demanded Mr Chorleigh.

  “Indeed I did, indeed I did” cried Mr Wright “His uncle felt it would have a steadying influence on him; and at first I believed it would not work for he was idle! Idle indeed! But of late he has been staying late and working keenly upon the projects that have interested him; a change, you see, a change!”

  Chorleigh paled.

  “Mr Armitage will explain” he said giving both Caleb and Jane a poisonous look.

  Caleb repeated his explanation; and Mr Wright’s face lost all jollity and took on an ugly look. His belly seemed to swell even more with anger and Jane wondered whether any of the buttons would pop off his waistcoat.

  “If he has cheated this firm, I say we should have our dues from his uncle!” he growled “Made a mockery of me he has, a mockery!”

  “Not, sir, necessarily” said Caleb imperturbably. Jane thought him rather brave to speak so calmly to two such angry men; she was only keeping herself composed by making bets with herself over which button would fail first if any did. “There is a possibility that Mr Churchill was threatened into performing some indiscretion; it is no certainty. But for your own peace of mind and the potential solving of this poor young man’s murder then you should check all the documents that you may be expected to have.”

  “MURDER!” cried Mr Chorleigh.

  “MURDER!” echoed Mr Wright.

  “He did explain” said Jane with some asperity.

  “My dear Mrs Churchill; I beg your pardon, Mr Armitage and you also spoke of sudden demise” said Mr Chorleigh “And I immediately assumed that if he was in debt that young Mr Churchill had committed suicide. That puts a whole different complexion on it; a most distressing affair!”

  “Quite so” said Mr Wright resuming a more natural size and colour, to Jane’s relief. “A man under threat by such ruffians as will kill has more excuse than one who has taken the coward’s way out to escape from shame.”

  “Excellent; you will not mind then that I must question all the other clerks” said Mr Armitage.

  They minded; but there was very little that they might do about it.

  There were four other clerks who worked in the office including the one who had summoned Mr Wright. Jane perforce sat in the poky office where they did their copying of writs and other such menial duties while Caleb Armitage spoke with them. He introduced her politely.

  The slight, dark, man in his middle twenties, with guileless blue eyes and the air of a schoolboy, gaped in amazement.

  “But that cannot be Mrs Churchill!” he cried “Why, I have seen Frank out with his wife; a blonde with rather…. well she filled her bodice rather well,” he added blushing, “and Frank even introduced me to her as Dolly!”

  Jane went pale.

  “I should have thought” she said “That if you had any pretensions to being a gentleman you might be able to tell the difference between a man’s wife and his
– his infidelities.”

  “Now that’s a good name for a ladybird if you like” said Mr Armitage approvingly. “Try not to act like you was born yesterday, Mr….?”

  The young man flushed.

  “My name is Perrin; Kit Perrin. And – why, Frank was married barely more than a year ago; what else was I to think? I know he is – was – spendthrift and frivolous but not that he was a deuced libertine! Why I have been married almost four years; we have three children, and I should never step outside marriage!”

  Armitage hid a grin; this youth was too innocent to live!

  He also stifled a comment that if there were three offspring in four years of marriage the young couple appeared to occupy themselves too fully in the bedroom for him to have time to seek elsewhere; it might offend Mrs Churchill.

  She caught his eye; and he suddenly realised that exactly the same thought had crossed her mind; and he felt a degree of heat touch his cheekbones as he gave her a sheepish grin.

  Her smile was small and swift and rapidly directed towards her neat black gloves as she looked down.

  “I too had not realised that Frank was so ill behaved” said an older man, who was going thin on top; it was a description that might also have been levelled at his coat which was shiny at the elbows. “Richard Pennythrift is my name; I had spoken to him about his fecklessness but he just laughed. Those of us who do not have a wealthy uncle and who must provide for seven surviving offspring cannot afford so cavalier an attitude. But he was good company” he added. Caleb noted him down as one who might have liked to have been a bit more of a bang-up cove himself given the monetary advantages Mr Frank Churchill had enjoyed.

  A freckle faced young man laughed wryly. Like the young clerk who was Mr Chorleigh’s nephew he had pretensions to dandyism, but confined his efforts to high shirt points and a neck cloth that may have been meant to have been tied in the style of the Mathematical and was, to Mr Armitage’s way of thinking, unlikely to graduate.

  “And I am glad that I have not yet been leg shackled in the parson’s mousetrap” the young man said “Edward Jarvey. I’m going to mourn Frank; he was good company. Of course,” he added looking boldly at Jane, “if there is anything I can do for Frank’s widow, she might even convert me to considering matrimony as good for the soul.”

  Jane gave him a fishy stare.

  She could scarcely believe such a level of brazen contumely and ill taste!

  “Thank you Mr Jarvey; I believe when this unfortunate incident has been resolved the best thing that may be done for me is that I never have anything more to do with this office and its denizens than I have to” said Jane.

  “Mrs Churchill!” cried the youngest – the youth who had been addressed as StClair “You surely do not suspect any of us of killing him do you? I say what a lark!”

  “Be silent, Mr Despard” said Richard Pennythrift uncomfortably.

  “Mr Despard, can you think that anyone in this office is likely to want to kill Mr Churchill?” asked Caleb intently.

  Mr Despard grinned.

  “Tempting as it is to picture Uncle William or Mr Wright tiptoeing ponderously around with a knife in their hand some how it’s too ripe a picture to swallow” he said cheerfully. “However much Mr Wright used to complain about Mr Churchill’s lack of industry. Maybe Mr Jekyll? He has, as the Bard puts it, ‘that lean and hungry look’.”

  “That’s because he suffers from dyspepsia” said Edward Jarvey, not crushed for long by Jane’s set down “And because he believes the worst of everyone. Maybe he has dyspepsia because he believes the worst of everyone.”

  “Oh let us place the case for the prosecution in the clerks’ room then” said StClair Despard “Shut your stupid mouth” said Kit Perrin uncomfortably “Just because you have taken your law exams, and hope to join a firm of solicitors, does not give you the right to play-act as a barrister.”

  “The case against Mr Perrin” intoned StClair Despard sepulchrally as though he had not heard “Disliked Frank Churchill; thought him frivolous. Disapproved of the woman he was innocent enough to think was the real Mrs Churchill…. No actually Kit, you couldn’t kill anybody; you wouldn’t even think about it.”

  “No of course not!” said Mr Perrin. Angry colour burned on his cheeks.

  “Case against Edward Jarvey” said Mr Despard “Got on well with Frank; went drinking and to watch the gees with him; unless you owed him money no case to answer. Case against Mr Pennythrift!”

  “MUST you make yourself look more like a chawbacon than you are?” asked Mr Pennythrift.

  “Well the officer of the law isn’t stopping me; so he’s enjoying it” said Mr Despard shrewdly.

  “I shouldn’t say enjoying was the right word lad, but it is revealing” said Caleb. Mr Despard grinned.

  “Have I or have I not a great future ahead of me as a clever interrogator of clients?” he said. “Mr Pennythrift! You liked Frank but disapproved of him! You killed him to save his wife from starvation when he spent all his money!”

  “You are a fool StClair” said Pennythrift. “You sound like my Horace; and he’s twelve.”

  “Now that was a put down of put downs” said Mr Despard. “But to conclude; the case against StClair Despard. Who knew that Frank Churchill was up to something dashed havy-cavy but was not sure what sort of a may game he was playing staying late in the office, writing out documents.”

  “Writing out documents? Copying do you mean?” asked Caleb sharply.

  “No your honour, honest as the day is long…. Sorry sir” said Mr Despard as Caleb frowned at him. “He brought in parchment of his own and sat at his desk preparing documents. Sometimes he referred to notes. Well, I saw him do this twice; when my uncle was working late and required me to run errands. And as Mr Wright has been praising Frank’s industry the last few months, saying that he has worked late on a number of occasions, I drew my own inferences as the law will have it.”

  “Ever nosy enough to read over his shoulder?” asked Caleb.

  “He wouldn’t let me get near enough” said Mr Despard regretfully “But I did look at his blotting block in the mirror; and what I could read was ‘with one hundred’ which was no real help.”

  “You never know” said Caleb “You’ve a glib tongue on you my lad; and I’m surprised it’s this side of the law you’ve chosen not the bar; but you know the value of evidence.”

  “That’s why I’ve chosen this side of the law sir” said Mr Despard “Because I know the value of evidence. Any idiot can stand up and speechify, and if parliament is anything to go by, most idiots do.”

  Chapter 5

  Caleb sat himself gingerly down again on a dainty chair, at Jane’s request, in her parlour; and Fowler, looking disapproving, laid down the tray with the tea caddy, teapot and teaset. Jane took the key of the ornately inlaid tea caddy from her chatelaine in her reticule and looked at her footman thoughtfully.

  “Fowler, this household is going to have to economise,” said Jane crisply, “and I might be inclined to consider anyone with a Friday face as one of the first to go. I shall be consulting with Mrs Ketch on the matter; I am sure she knows who are the most convivial of my servants below stairs” she added, unlocking the caddy to spoon the precious leaves into the teapot.

  Fowler looked startled; a rare event for a man whose countenance had, as Caleb put it to himself, two expressions, stiff and stiffer. He managed to keep himself sufficiently contained to pass the hot water to Jane to pour into the teapot and to pass the bone china cups to Caleb and Jane. It was plain that he felt quite anguished that the precious brew were being given to a low type like a Bow Street Runner.

  “I beg your pardon Mrs Churchill; I did not intend to cause offence” he said in his cultivated voice.

  “Then you will be pleased to be given a hint that you have come close” said Jane, expertly and gracefully lifting the pot once or twice to seethe the tea and pouring it into Caleb’s teacup, a pretty thing of pale blue with darker blue scroll w
ork on it and a gilt rim. Mr Armitage had received enough stolen goods to recognise it as quality ware and hoped fervently not to further lower himself in Fowler’s eyes by breaking the delicate cup. Jane went on “Mr Armitage is doing his best to find out who has foully murdered the master. He is to be given due respect for that and without grudging. I have been hoping to retain your services, and those of Mrs Ketch and either Ella or the maid of all work, Juliet.”

  “With due respect, Mrs Churchill” said Fowler “Juliet is a brazen piece who would put on airs at helping you to dress as well as cleaning. It would not be a much greater outlay – since Juliet would expect her wages to be raised – to retain Ella and the ‘tweenstairs maid. At twelve years old her wages are but five pounds a year in addition to her board and clothing; and she is a good willing girl of whom Mrs Ketch has expressed the hopes of much promise. She also is the sister of the girl who cares for Miss Frances and helps her willingly.”

  “Thank you Fowler; I shall consider that option when I am speaking with Mrs Ketch” said Jane. “I pray that you will explain kindly to both Emerson and Palmer that I shall have to dispense with their services and will write them good characters; with the explanation that their situation in my household has become superfluous not because of any problem with their service.”

  “Very good, Mrs Churchill” Fowler bowed and withdrew on his noiseless feet.

  “That fellow is first cousin to a cat I swear” said Caleb.

  “He is however very efficient,” said Jane, “and worthy of his hire if he will not indulge in a fit of the sulks over serving you while you stay. I will not have my orders questioned even tacitly; I may not be used to playing the great lady as Frank would have me do, but I know what is acceptable.”

  “He’s quite right though, ma’am; I’m not really the sort of fellow a fine lady like yourself should be hobnobbing with” said Caleb “I got some respectability in the army, rose to sergeant; but I was born in a rookery; that’s the worst slums in London, ma’am” he explained as she looked puzzled. “A warren of dirty narrer streets; the sun don’t even shine into a lot of them they’re that narrer; and the army or navy the only way to escape; maybe free or four famblies – three or four families I should say – living in a room. There’s never no complete quiet nowhere; skeered me bad at first how much space I had, how quiet it could be at night in the barracks, only the tramp of the guard to be heard, and the odd challenge; a bed to meself; cor, I thought I was in heaven! Then I got took on by my officer, Sir Henry Wilton; a fine gentleman, what trained me as his batman and learned me to talk proper, when I think about it. He got me the job in Bow Street; he never believed I wouldn’t walk again. ‘Caleb,’ he said, ‘you’ve as stubborn as an ox with….’ Well, he praised my courage, after the coarse fashion gentlemen may, Ma’am, and I couldn’t let him down. So here I am; and not a fit subject to be sitting in a lady’s parlour so familiar-like.”