The Thames River Murders Read online

  I returned to the South Audley Street house, Brewster accompanying me in the hackney in a growling temper.

  I looked forward to the evening, when I would be in the bosom of my new family. Gabriella had been spending a few days in the Berkeley Square home of Lady Aline Carrington, who was grooming her in the finer points of being a young lady, but she would be home this evening. I’d spend time with young Peter, Donata’s son, of whom I was growing quite fond. Peter had the brutish strength of his deceased father but the sharp mind of his mother. I was pleased to be able to watch him flourish.

  Before I could go to Donata’s chamber and tell her what I had learned, Barnstable sought me out in my study, a pained look on his face.

  Barnstable had crisp black hair that I suspected he touched with something from a bottle, a lean face, and intense brown eyes. He could display the greatest hauteur as a butler, but he was also a human being, very protective of his mistress and her family.

  “Sir,” Barnstable said, indignation in his eyes. “There is a person asking to see you.”

  I waited, but he simply stood and radiated disapproval. “Does this person have a name?”

  The chill in Barnstable’s voice could have sent frost up the walls. “I have put him in the back reception room.”

  Banished, that meant, to the chamber held for the least desirable of visitors. It also meant the visitor was a man of the middle or upper classes, or else he’d not have been admitted to the house at all.

  “You did not answer about his name,” I said.

  “He has a card.” Barnstable held it out to me between two fingers. Another mark of disapprobation—he delivered cards of Donata’s visitors on a silver salver.

  I saw why Barnstable hadn’t wanted to tell me the man’s name. The card bore, in plain black script, Mr. Benjamin Molodzinski. Likely Barnstable hadn’t looked forward to wrapping his tongue around all the syllables. The card also proclaimed that Mr. Molodzinski had an office in a lane off Cornhill, in the City.

  My curiosity was roused. An unusual name and an unusual visitor. I closed the card in my hand.

  “I will speak to him. Thank you, Barnstable.”

  I descended the two flights of stairs from my study, my knee protesting, and reached the ground floor.

  The rear reception room, a tiny niche of a chamber behind the stairs, had no windows. I wondered what the box of a room had been meant to be when the house was built, but presently it was furnished with uncomfortable chairs and dimly lit, to encourage the unwanted visitor to give up and quickly seek his way out.

  My visitor today had waited. I walked in and stopped in surprise.

  Facing me was the man Denis’s men had pummeled then tossed into a carriage. His thick brown hair was snarled, and his face was bruised and bloody, one eye swollen shut.

  “Forgive me, Captain,” the man said. He drew himself up with what dignity he could. “I took the liberty of inquiring who you were and where you lived, and I’m afraid I followed you home. Will you speak to me, sir?”

  Chapter Five

  Of course I would speak to him. I very much wanted to know all about him.

  I bade Mr. Molodzinski follow me from the reception room to the main drawing room.

  We remained on the ground floor—I did not want to upset Barnstable’s sensibilities by taking a stranger to the private rooms in the house. Nor did I want Mr. Molodzinski near my wife before I knew who he was and what he wanted.

  It was Bartholomew, my valet, who brought in a bowl of water and cloths and doctored Molodzinski’s wounds as he sat in a straight-backed chair, towels draped over him. The man submitted to the treatment with good grace.

  “You may speak in front of Bartholomew,” I said. “He is discreet.”

  Bartholomew shot me a grateful glance. He was as curious as I was, I could see.

  “I wish to thank you for intervening for me,” Molodzinski began. “It was good of you. And very brave.”

  “Futile,” I said. “I didn’t prevent them working you over.”

  “Ah.” Molodzinski waved a hand at his battered face. “This is nothing I have not experienced before. My large nose tends to attract men’s fists.”

  I had supposed, with his name, that the man would be foreign, but his English was as clear and succinct as mine, and possessed the slight cant of London. No one who hadn’t grown up in this metropolis would speak so.

  London, however, attracted men from all walks of life from all over the world. The long war with France had sent many a refugee to England’s shores, and those families settled in and began to produce generations of children. Molodzinski’s father might speak in a thick accent of some distant place on the Continent, but this man had grown up among Londoners.

  Barnstable finished his ministrations but took his time with the bandages. He wanted to hear the man’s story.

  “I owe Mr. Denis money,” the man confessed. “An ironic situation, as I am usually advising gentlemen about theirs. But I am afraid I owe him many thousands of pounds.”

  I wondered if Molodzinski had come to touch me for blunt. Before I could think of a way to politely put him off, the man smiled weakly.

  “Mr. Denis knew I would not be able to pay him back such a sum for many years, so he was happy to take my services in lieu. Only, there I have been remiss in paying him. This afternoon, he was showing his … er … impatience.”

  “I see,” I said. “You have my sympathy. I am also often remiss in rendering my services to Mr. Denis. He shows similar impatience with me.”

  “I thought so,” Molodzinski said. “You were very good to try to stop him.”

  Bartholomew shot me a curious glance, wondering what on earth I’d done now. I quelled his look and returned to Molodzinski.

  “What can I do for you, Mr. … Molodzinski? Have I got that right?”

  Molodzinski looked impressed. “You are one of the few Englishmen who do not tangle my name in their mouths. My family is Polish, though we have lived in London for several generations. I feel quite English myself, though plenty do not consider me to be so.”

  I understood why. While England’s shores were a safe haven for those of many countries, at the same time, anything un-English was looked at askance. Also, if I understood aright, he was a Jew.

  Grenville had plenty of men of Hebrew origin in the circle of his acquaintance, those who kept to their religion as well as those who had joined the Church of England in order to further their careers.

  In this enlightened age, laws were strict with regards to any one not in the C of E. A Jewish man could not stand for Parliament, vote, or practice certain trades. They could, however, attend their own houses of worship—the synagogues—and were not barred from gaining vast amounts of wealth, as had the famous Rothschild family or Moses Montefiore, Rothschild’s brother-in-law and successful businessman in his own right.

  Molodzinski looked a man of far more modest means, though his clothes were well made and respectable enough.

  “You have not told me why you sought me,” I said.

  Molodzinski looked surprised. “No? I beg your pardon, sir. I only wished to thank you for trying to help me. It was kind of you. But also to warn you. Mr. Denis is a hard man. Do not anger him, I beg you. If you were in his house, then you owe him as well. Extricate yourself from him as quickly and completely as possible.”

  Sound advice. I gave him a faint smile. “I am afraid your warning comes far too late. Mr. Denis has his hand well around my throat.”

  Molodzinski’s expression turned to one of compassion. “Then I am sorry for you, sir. In that case, it was doubly courageous of you to come to my defense. If ever you need a favor, you have only to ask me, Captain. I am in your debt.”

  He stood and held out his hand. I took it, looking into eyes that were ingenuous and sincere.

  Bartholomew had managed to put a bandage on his face, which looked awkward against his flesh, but Molodzinski’s pride was undiminished.

  I took his
hand, felt his firm clasp, then the man nodded at me and took his leave.

  Barnstable had unbent somewhat by the time we emerged, seeing that I’d received Molodzinski without concern, and he sent a footman running for a hackney. Bartholomew and I bundled Molodzinski into it. Molodzinski touched his hat, lifted his hand in a wave, then fell against the seat as the hackney jerked forward.

  I was left wondering what on earth such a good-natured man had done to earn the wrath of James Denis.

  ***

  My daughter, Gabriella, returned home from Lady Aline’s soon after that, her eyes alight with excitement.

  “I am learning quite a lot on the pianoforte,” she said to me as I met her in the private parlor where the family usually gathered, though she and I were alone at the moment.

  I watched Gabriella as she wandered about the room, too energetic to sit still. Her hair was glossy brown, a shade lighter than mine, but she had the Lacey brown eyes. Fortunately for her, she resembled her mother about the face, and had been spared my large, square jaw.

  “This pleases you, does it?” I asked.

  Gabriella turned to me and gave me a rueful smile. “I beg your pardon, sir. Lady Aline gives me so many attentions, as does Lady Donata, that it will quite turn my head.”

  “You deserve their attentions. You are a lovely young woman.”

  She was, I observed with a pang. I’d lost Gabriella when she’d been only two years old, a chatty, adorable girl who ran fearlessly about army camps or our tiny backstreet house in Paris.

  I’d not seen her from the day her mother took her and fled until Gabriella had returned to London last year, a young lady of seventeen. She was grown now, and beautiful, but I still saw in her restlessness the quick mind and curiosity of that baby girl.

  Gabriella blushed under my praise, made herself cease fluttering, and came to sit beside me.

  “Father, I know that the attentions to me—the dancing instructions, the music masters, the endless lessons on how to address everyone from a scullery maid to a duchess—are to make me presentable enough to gain the favor of a gentleman once I am out. I am to marry whoever that gentleman is.” Gabriella lost her delight. “Only, I am not certain I wish to marry. Not yet. I am very young.”

  Ladies in Donata’s and Aline’s circles wed at Gabriella’s age and younger. I knew both women worried that if Gabriella did not “take” this Season, she might be left on the shelf.

  The ladies and gentlemen not in the aristocratic circle, however, such as Gabriella and myself, might wait a bit longer for matrimony. A prudent father in the country gentry would seek the very best match for his daughter, even if it took some years.

  I tried to sound comforting. “Do not let my wife and Lady Aline goad you into a marriage you do not want. Marriage is for life. Be careful whom you choose.”

  My words brought back her eagerness. “Oh, I shall, sir. I have no wish to run headlong into wedlock with a spindly gentleman with no chin, a hawk nose, and a sour disposition simply because he is the Baron of Nonesuch.”

  I could hear Lady Aline’s decided opinions ringing in her words. Gabriella admired Lady Aline—a determined spinster—very much.

  “There,” I said. “You see? You have a sensible regard for these things.”

  Her face fell again, her moods as changeable as the wind. “But I hate to disappoint Lady Donata. She has been so kind to me.”

  Donata had devoted herself to Gabriella’s come-out with the zeal of a Methodist trying to convert the masses of London from a street corner. I did not know whether Donata was enjoying herself because she might never have a daughter of her own to indulge, or because her first marriage had been so unhappy that she wished to guide Gabriella down a different path.

  Whatever the reason, Donata had certainly thrown herself into the task.

  “Donata only wants to see you content,” I said. “She would be the last person to wish you married to the Baron of Nonesuch, unless he made you very happy indeed.”

  The smile returned. “Well, that would be a relief. She does give me reams of information every day on this gentleman or that, who his family is, why he’d make a good husband. No one too lofty, mind. Apparently, I am quite the nobody.”

  I raised my brows. “Donata said that?”

  “She does not have to. Pedigree is all important in this endeavor, I believe. While I am a gentleman’s daughter, I have neither title nor vast wealth to make me much of a catch.”

  Donata had already explained this to me, somewhat apologetically; Aline with her brisk no-nonsense approach to life.

  “They wish to marry you off, because that is what ladies of their acquaintance do,” I said. “A woman either marries and becomes a grand hostess or does not marry at all and lives quietly in a back room. But neither path must be for you. I am surprised at Lady Aline—she is quite proud of avoiding the married state herself.”

  “But she is the sister of a marquis, has much wealth, and many connections,” Gabriella said. “I asked her, point blank, why she wishes me to marry, when she so adamantly did not. Things are different for her, she said. She has the leisure to never marry if she does not want to. Her father saw to that by settling a large amount of money on her.”

  Something I could never do. “Even so,” I said. “Do not marry to please Donata and Lady Aline. It is a step to be considered carefully.”

  Gabriella leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek. “You are a wise man, sir. I will heed your words.”

  Again restless, she leapt up, ready to run from the room. Gabriella seemed to remember, at the last moment, that a young lady should not dash away from her elders until she had leave, and she hovered at the door.

  I had risen from my seat when she hopped up, and I gave her a nod. “Go on, then.”

  Another sunny smile, a hurried curtsey, and Gabriella whirled from the room, her footsteps rapid on the stairs.

  She left me with a lighter heart. I loved her so.

  ***

  I did not hear from Grenville all day. Presumably he had not returned home—I felt certain he’d have sent a rapidly penned note, or turned up on the doorstep himself, when he learned of the corpse in his wine cellar.

  I did journey to the cavalrymen’s club in St. James’s after I had told Donata of my failed quest to find the surgeon, to inquire about surgeons there. The elderly colonels I’d found only looked at me blankly, and I left disappointed.

  That evening, I would attend the opera at Covent Garden with my wife and Lady Aline. As Gabriella was not officially “out” yet, she would remain home, which I thought ridiculous, but Donata was firm. Last year, when Gabriella had visited, we’d taken her about, but at the time, she’d been considered more of a tourist and a child than a young lady being readied to be presented to the ton.

  I would be glad when Gabriella’s come-out ball, planned for next week, was done with, and we could all breathe out again.

  We traveled to Covent Garden in Lady Aline’s coach, that tall, white-haired lady saying she felt honored to have such a handsome gentleman escorting her. She thoroughly approved of me, she said, since I was not tiresome and actually knew how to be polite to a woman of her advanced years. Donata only looked on, pleased that Aline, one of her mother’s closest friends, and I got along so well.

  Donata’s box was lavish, and as usual, full of guests. At the interval, plenty of ladies and gentlemen visited to gossip away. Donata, in one of her extravagant headdresses, sat happily in the middle of it.

  I slipped out, seeking a moment away from the chaos. Donata saw me go, and understood. She was in her element here, but knew I was not.

  Under the colonnade outside, hopeful ladies of the demimonde smiled at me, but they recognized me and knew I was a devoted husband. That did not prevent them teasing me, however.

  “Now then, Captain,” one young lady said, slipping her hand into the crook of my arm. “Walk with me a bit, will you?”

  She was several steps above a street girl—the
kind Black Nancy had been. She reminded me more of Marianne Simmons, an actress who had taken up with protectors for survival.

  This young woman had black hair and blue eyes, wore plenty of rouge on cheeks and on her bosom, and dressed in an elegant gown of blue lace and silk worthy of Donata.

  “I emerged only to take the air,” I said to her. “Nothing else. I would rather walk alone.”

  “No, you would not,” she said, steering me from the piazza with a surprisingly strong hand.

  “If you are dragging me off to rob me, I must warn you I have very little,” I said. “My watch fob was given to me by my wife, so I must ask to keep that, though you are welcome to the few coins in my pocket. And to my handkerchief. My valet is quite adamant about keeping me in linens.”

  The young woman laughed. “Ain’t you a one? I wish you weren’t so interested in your wife, sir. You’d be lively. Perhaps when you grow tired of married life, you’ll seek me?”

  “If my wife shows me the door for hurrying away with you now, I will be back in my rooms above a bakeshop and hopelessly poor again,” I said. “Shall you risk it?”

  She only pealed in laughter again. She had been determinedly walking me around the corner to James Street, which led south into the large square that was Covent Garden.

  This late, the vendors would have closed up and gone, to wait for early morning when their wares came in from the country. At the moment, Covent Garden would be home to the denizens of the night, ready to prey on the unwary.

  I managed to detach myself from the lady as we walked down the shadowy street, but she grabbed me again in a firm grip. Another young woman closed on me from the other side, this one a street girl, and together, the pair dragged me on toward the square.

  They must have known I would not deliberately hurt a woman. I was pondering making an exception in this case—they might be taking me to men who would relieve me of my watch, its precious fob, coins, and even clothes, which would fetch a good price with secondhand merchants.

  I noted the absence of Brewster, who would be handy about now. Of course, he’d choose this instance to grow tired of following me.