The Rose in the Wheel: A Regency Mystery (Regency Mysteries Book 1) Read online

  “Seems rather unorthodox to deposit one’s victim in the center of the road,” Chase said, louder than before.

  “It is at that,” replied Button.

  “Witnesses?”

  “One woman has come forward to say as she spied a hackney coach strike the victim, but she wasn’t close enough to see much.”

  “And I’ll wager she describes everyone from the devil to the Prince Regent himself driving the thing!”

  There was scattered laughter from the crowd while Gander scribbled furiously.

  Chase turned back to the constable and pointed to the marks visible on the paving stones. “See here, Button. Observe these horse and carriage tracks. It looks as if she were dragged along here after being struck by the horses and caught by the wheels. The impact probably snapped her neck.”

  “But was she quite dead before it struck, sir? I’d hate to think of her lying in the cold suffering all to herself.” Button lifted somber eyes from the ground.

  Meeting his gaze, Chase lowered his voice. “’Tis hard to say. It depends on whether or not the throttling killed her first.” He paused. “I’ll see the Watch now.”

  “He’s here, sir.” Button indicated a frail, stooped old man sitting on a low wall nearby, a stave and grease-encrusted lantern at his feet.

  The old man approached, his rheumy eyes glaring at Chase. “Get on with it. I need my sleep and can’t afford to waste time standing here freezing my arse.”

  Button was embarrassed. “Show some respect, Old Tom. This gent’s from Bow Street.”

  Tom merely snorted, but Chase addressed the old man politely: “Were your rounds regular last night, Tom? Any business delay you?” He purposely gave the old man an out in case he had been sleeping in his box, tippling, or talking to the dollymops, all activities popularly attributed to the Watch.

  “Like clockwork! Every half hour in the rain and all.”

  “Did you notice anything out of the common? Any strangers? Any disturbances?”

  “No more ’n usual.” He started to shuffle away, but Chase waved him back.

  “You see, Tom, the attack must have occurred after the rain stopped as the loose dirt on the front of the victim’s cloak has not been washed away. Nor is her clothing as damp as one might expect. When did the rain end, do you recall?”

  “After three, I reckon.”

  “Might you have overlooked her on your circuits? Oh, not through lack of diligence,” he put in hastily as Old Tom’s hackles rose. “In the dark.”

  “Couldn’t say.” He folded his lips together as if determined to add nothing more.

  Button broke in. “Verifying the gates are fast is part of Tom’s duty, sir. He’d have seen her, that’s certain.” He pointed to a narrow iron gate set in the churchyard wall.

  “What’s on the other side of that wall?” asked Chase.

  “Just the garden, sir, and the Society’s buildings beyond. The women use this gate, I believe, as it’s most convenient.”

  “What about the other gates? Are they kept locked as well?”

  “Yes, sir. I did ask the curate, and he unfastened them as usual this morning.”

  After regarding him frowningly a moment, Chase looked back at the Watch. “One more question before you seek your bed, Tom. What time did Mr. Wood summon you?”

  “He called to me as I was making my six o’clock rounds. So I springs my rattle and folk come running. Logical, ain’t it?” He brandished the rattle in Chase’s face.

  Moving aside, Chase nodded in dismissal. “That’s all for now.” The old man snorted again and hobbled away through the muck, his tracks joining the welter of smudged markings in the street.

  “The horse and wheel traces are still plain,” Chase remarked, “but as for footprints, I’d swear a herd of bullocks plowed through here. We won’t distinguish hers in all this.”

  “Perhaps we rubbed ’em out, not looking where we were stepping.” The color came up under Button’s round cheeks.

  Chase moved toward the curb with his head down. “Clear these people away, Constable.”

  “You heard him, Pinch,” Button called to a man at the front. “And you too, Meg.” He and the other parish officer moved through the throng, addressing people by name, urging them to disperse. The fat lady made a face at Button and turned to go, a child draped over each massive arm. Gander retreated to the doorway of the bakery across the way.

  Returning to the dead woman, Chase studied her once more. This time he felt a heavy regret he knew would linger rather like the perpetual ache in his knee.

  Constance Tyrone had rich, yet delicate lips, a high forehead, and gray eyes, death clouded. The curve of her profile was lovely. He stooped to pick up one white hand stiff with rigor. Chase replaced it gently, his gaze traveling lower.

  On her right foot she wore a pale blue slipper tied at the ankle. A white satin rosette adorned the toe. Strange footwear for walking on a wet night, no hat in evidence either. And where was the other slipper? Her left foot was covered in just a ripped stocking. He motioned to Button.

  “She’s missing a shoe. Have a look around and see if you can spot it.”

  “Must have flown off when she was struck.”

  “Flown where? Surely no farther than we can see.”

  The constable looked helpless.

  Chase fingered the slipper. “And I’ve a mystery for you, Button. Do you suppose she was a witch?” He smiled at the constable’s blank amazement. “No muck on the sole, man. See for yourself. Unless she was in the habit of flying through the streets of London, I cannot think how she got here. She assuredly did not walk.”

  Chapter Two

  When the Coroner and jury filed in, Penelope straightened on the bench and closed the journal in her lap. Recording the particulars of the scene had beguiled the waiting. Though she had not wanted to come today, she had promised. And now that she was actually here, her curiosity had quickened in spite of herself. Suddenly aware of the scratching of pencils, she glanced at a cluster of men seated nearby. Journalists, no doubt, easily identified by their notebooks and their narrow-eyed scrutiny of the room.

  The large front parlor of the Crown public house was packed almost to bursting with spectators all determined to plumb Constance Tyrone’s life. Why had she ventured out alone in the bitter November night? No gently bred woman ever did, even one who so resolutely pursued her own ends. But perhaps that was it: she had not been like others of her class.

  All this Penelope had gathered by listening to snippets of the conversations swirling around her. Mostly, those in attendance were tradesmen of the parish, but a few heavily veiled ladies sat in the private booths. A fire blazed in the hearth, adding the smell of wood smoke to the sweat and perfumes of close bodies.

  She was relieved when the proceedings began. After the Coroner offered his initial remarks, an officer escorted the jury into an adjoining room to view the body. Upon the panel’s return, the Coroner called the first witness, Sir Giles Tyrone’s coachman, who reported his failed attempt to collect his mistress on that final afternoon.

  Then a spindly young man stepped up to the table in the center of the room. Voice quavering, he gave his name as Thaddeus Wood, curate for the parish of St. Catherine. Upon the Coroner admonishing him to speak up, he sat in the chair provided and steeled himself for what was patently an unpleasant duty. But his ordeal was brief, for he had little more to relate than his discovery of the body early the prior morning.

  “Have you any notion why Miss Tyrone might have been abroad?” asked the Coroner before dismissing him.

  “No,” replied Wood, barely audible. “An errand in the parish perhaps.”

  Next the Coroner called a woman who appeared to be about six- or seven-and-thirty. Wearing a frayed gown and a dusty, flamboyant hat, she scowled at the jury as she sat down. Her face was pale under hectic spots of rouge, her hair scraped back into a knot. Penelope felt a stirring of pity as the hum of disapproval rose.

  The Coroner
glanced up from his papers. “Name?”

  “Joan Snowden of Milk Alley near Dean Street.” She smoothed her skirts and folded her hands in her lap.

  On her way home from an engagement with “friends” at just after one o’clock on Tuesday morning, Joan had seen a hackney coach driving north at a spanking pace.

  “I’d have thought nothing of it, sir, but for seeing as how it near toppled when it hit something in the road by the church.”

  “Did you observe the hackney’s number plate?”

  “No, sir.”

  Irritation darkened the Coroner’s expression. “Did you go closer to ascertain what—or who—it was the carriage had struck?” he inquired, sarcastically polite.

  “No, sir, I didn’t. It wasn’t my lookout. Anyway, someone else got there first. He could’ve been aiming to lend a hand or up to no good. How was I to know?”

  A murmuring broke out, and the Coroner said sharply, “You saw someone in the street? Can you describe him?”

  Joan looked scared. “No, sir, except to say as he looked uncommon big. Leastwise from where I was standing.”

  When she stepped down, a Mr. Reginald Strap, surgeon on staff at St. Thomas’s Hospital, gave his testimony.

  “I understand you are intimately acquainted with the Tyrone family, sir?” began the Coroner.

  “Indeed. Mr. Bertram Tyrone and I are friends from our school days. We renewed the acquaintance in town some years ago when the family consulted me about fainting spells Miss Tyrone had been having. Nothing serious, exhaustion merely, but I referred her to a physician.” He spoke with authority, his purposeful eyes fixed on the audience.

  “I am afraid my friend Mr. Tyrone is in some distress as he and his sister were devoted. I’ve had to administer laudanum drops to give him ease. You see, he feels to blame for failing to protect her, particularly as he and I spent a rather convivial evening together the night before she was found.” Strap looked up, adding bleakly, “We didn’t realize.”

  “You weren’t to know. Would you tell the jury, sir, what is your connection to the St. Catherine Society?”

  “As an old friend, I offer my medical services gratis to Miss Tyrone’s protégées.”

  “And I make no doubt she was grateful, Mr. Strap. It seems this noble endeavor had become her life’s work?”

  “Indeed, the family would likely say the work consumed too much of her time, for her health was uncertain and the demands of this self-imposed duty burdensome.” Strap’s voice dropped. “I wonder if she was attacked while performing some charitable errand in the parish that night. Although it can only be considered…unwise for a young gentlewoman to be abroad alone, Miss Tyrone was not always amenable to the advice of well-wishers.”

  Shaking his head, the Coroner glanced at the jury to see if they got the point. They did. Penelope looked away.

  Her gaze fell on a man who sat taking notes in his pocketbook. She somehow knew he wasn’t a journalist. Too large, she thought illogically, and too relaxed, half lounging in his chair. There was humor, solitary and acrid, in his face, and a fierce intelligence in the eyes glinting behind spectacles. He wore creased, nondescript clothing and highly burnished boots. His gray-streaked hair was tied in an old-fashioned queue. Before she could be caught staring, Penelope’s attention was pulled back to Mr. Strap, who was reporting his examination of the body.

  “Actually, it was rather difficult to determine the exact cause of death. She suffered two grievous injuries, either of which could have been mortal.

  “There are severe contusions indicative, of course, of an attacker’s hands pressing upon the throat, yet the victim also sustained fractures of the cervical vertebrae.” He surveyed the room. “In layman’s terms, her neck was broken.”

  “Was her neck broken in the attack, or is it more likely the carriage accident was the cause of this injury?” asked the Coroner.

  “A particularly violent throttling could indeed have snapped her neck. However, the lack of significant swelling in the face would seem to support that a severed spine rather than asphyxiation by choking is the likely cause of death.”

  Strap added that when he had examined the victim at eight o’clock in the morning she had been dead for at least six hours, and rigor mortis had set in. At length, when the Coroner dismissed him, he made his way to one of the booths near the rear of the room.

  The Coroner called Elizabeth Minton, Constance Tyrone’s assistant, who described the work of the St. Catherine Society.

  “We are engaged in helping women of humble station, especially unmarried females who are thrown upon the world. The Society offers practical assistance and also some rudimentary education enabling a young woman to find respectable employment.”

  Miss Minton’s testimony was delivered in a prim, colorless tone as if she had memorized it. In her early thirties, she was a slight woman with large, waiflike blue eyes. Her cumbersome mourning dress seeming to swallow her up, she looked like a child playing dress-up in her mother’s clothing. Her back was stiff, however, her gaze alert and oddly guarded.

  Responding to her apparent fragility, the Coroner seemed at first inclined to lavish his rather ponderous gallantry upon her. After assuring himself she was comfortable, he said, “You must be especially qualified to shed some light on Miss Tyrone’s final hours, madam. Though to speak of her must bring you great sorrow, I can only hope that sacrificing your own feelings in the service of truth will be of comfort to you in your affliction.”

  Contempt in her eyes, she retorted, “Fear not, sir. I am more than ready to answer any question you may put to me; still, I very much doubt that anything like truth is obtainable here.”

  “Why what do you mean, Miss Minton?”

  “Only that my friend is dead, and nothing you can do will alter that fact. We do not know what was in her mind that day, nor what brought her out in the night to be attacked so cruelly.” Her tone implied that the Coroner at any rate was likely to remain in ignorance.

  “She did not in general confide in you?” he asked after a short silence.

  “No, Miss Tyrone was one to keep herself to herself.”

  Without any further prompting Miss Minton went on to summarize what she knew of the victim’s final day: a morning spent in the usual activities, luncheon with members of the Society, and an errand in the afternoon.

  “She didn’t tell me what her errand was, but it may have been connected to a letter delivered at luncheon.”

  “Did this letter appear to alarm her?”

  “I couldn’t say. She merely pressed a coin into the hand of the urchin who brought it and slid the letter under her plate for later perusal. When I saw her a short time later, she mentioned she would be going out about two o’clock.”

  Miss Minton had not seen Constance again and returned to her own lodgings about four.

  The last witness turned out to be the man whom Penelope had noticed earlier: John Chase, a Bow Street officer. Casually removing his spectacles, he sauntered forward to take his place. And as soon as he opened his mouth, there wasn’t a person who could look away.

  “Upon examining the body and speaking with the Watch, I found that some curious facts had emerged.” Chase went on to explain that since the victim’s clothing had not been saturated, he could presume she had been accosted sometime after the rain stopped.

  “The watchman Old Tom reported that the sky cleared about three o’clock, but it seems he mistook the time. If you recall Joan Snowden’s testimony, she observed the hackney coach striking something in the road rather earlier: a few minutes after one, in fact.

  “In subsequent inquiries, I ascertained that the rain actually ceased about half past twelve, which added further credence to Miss Snowden’s report. But if she did indeed witness the trampling, it seems odd that during Tom’s regular circuits he should not have discovered a body in the middle of the road. Of course, with the weather so inclement perhaps Tom felt himself called upon to repair to the watchhouse. I believe the
re is one placed hard by the church grounds in order to discourage grave robbers and other villains.” His tone was dry, and Penelope could envisage the parish authorities seething.

  “What are we to make of this, sir?” put in the Coroner.

  Chase turned to him politely. “Initially I assumed that sometime between half past twelve and one o’clock Miss Tyrone was the victim of violent thievery only then to be struck by a passing carriage. But I must tell you, gentlemen, certain circumstances seem passing strange in my view.”

  The Coroner frowned. The journalists, however, looked pleased.

  “Her footwear was entirely unsuitable for walking abroad,” Chase continued. “Indeed, one of her slippers was missing, and the sole of the one remaining was free of filth in spite of the muddy street.

  “And why would Miss Tyrone be on her way to the Society? The curate has told us he did not unlock the gate until just after six o’clock in the morning. She had no key in her possession, either to the gate or to her office. I thought perhaps her keys had been stolen, but later discovered one in her desk and the other hanging in its place on the wall.”

  He looked around the room rather triumphantly, Penelope thought, and for good reason. No one had the faintest idea how to answer the questions he posed. The Coroner merely shrugged, gesturing at the officer to continue. The journalists, gorging on every word, knew good theatre when they heard it.

  “There remains another matter which it is my duty to bring to your attention.” He paused again. Truly, thought Penelope in amusement, this man should have been on the stage.

  “You see, gentlemen, I think I know what Miss Tyrone’s errand was the afternoon of Monday, 11 November. Searching her study, I found a portfolio of sketches drawn by the artist whom Sir Giles had engaged to complete her portrait.” He picked up some sheets from the table and held them up.