The Rose in the Wheel: A Regency Mystery (Regency Mysteries Book 1) Page 3

  Addressing the jury directly this time, he added, “As you will see in a moment, these drawings portray Miss Tyrone in the guise of St. Catherine—she who was put to the wheel to be tortured.”

  They nodded. Chase added, “I am afraid the drawings are of an indecent nature.”

  “Indecent?” said the Coroner.

  “Yes, there is something in the subject’s expression and posture. I leave it to you to see what I mean.”

  As a loud buzzing broke out, the Coroner called for order, and the Runner sat, unselfconsciously enjoying the effect of his words. But Penelope’s smile had shriveled to ashes.

  Chase rose, handing the sketches to the Coroner, who picked up the first one and stared at it, entranced. Tearing his eyes away, he dropped it on the table with an exclamation of disgust.

  Penelope ducked her head for a moment as if somehow the people around her would be able to read her thoughts. But no one was paying her the least attention. The avid whispering intensified, the journalists craning their necks and edging forward to get a glimpse of those sketches. One even planted himself directly behind the Coroner’s bewigged head and thrust his skinny neck into viewing position. From behind, his cronies hissed, begging for details.

  It might have been comical if one did not recall exactly what it was they were falling all over themselves to look at. A woman had died, and there was something obscene in her exposure to public censure and titillation. Damn Jeremy. Nonetheless, her anger at his folly warred with anxiety that this time his charm would pay no toll; he was in deep trouble indeed. How could he do this to her and to Sarah? The room seemed to press in.

  “…with the sketches was a letter which I believe was the very one Miss Tyrone received at luncheon Monday last. It is from the artist, one Mr. Jeremy Wolfe, soliciting a private interview with the victim on unspecified but ‘urgent’ business. I submit to you that for the next step in this investigation we must apply to this Mr. Wolfe.”

  Penelope had heard enough. She slipped her notebook into her bag and gathered her gloves and hat. Pushing her way out of the room, she took a deep breath upon gaining the corridor. At least the walk to Jeremy’s lodgings would allow her time to regain her composure. She would need her wits about her.

  It wasn’t every day, after all, that one’s husband was likely to be taken up for murder.

  Chapter Three

  Edward Buckler leaned back, his feet occupying the one uncluttered spot on the desk. For several hours, he had sat immobile in his chair, reading the past few editions of the Times. The report of a deadly fire in Crown Court had made him shiver with horror. On a lighter note, he’d learned that Mr. A.S. Thelwall had delivered an address on the progress of the Great Comet, which had been visible now for months. Moreover, a series of lectures by the noted poet Mr. Coleridge was to commence soon at the Philosophical Society. Two guineas for the course, or three “with the privilege of introducing a lady.”

  He stretched, yawning, and the newspaper slid from his lap to join the pile on the rug. “Damn,” he croaked. He pushed back his chair and stood, frowning down at the desk crammed with papers, open books, and dried-up ink pots. Beside the desk a small table held the remains of more than one meal, including a half-empty teacup, which Buckler retrieved on the way to the window.

  Throwing back the curtain on another hazy day, he slumped against a pedestal supporting a battered bust purported to be Dante. Someone had scratched an inscription on its base: LASCIATE OGNI SPERANZA VOI CH’ENTRATE!

  “Abandon all hope, indeed, Dante old boy,” he murmured, patting it affectionately, “for all who enter here will find the tea has gone cold. Not only that, but this room is a bloody jumble.”

  Even in the dim light the furniture looked faded and lumpy, dust coating every available surface. Stacks of books and periodicals dotted the carpet, and the coat rack had tipped over to spill its garments on the floor. In the far corner stood a long case clock that lost precisely one minute and fifteen seconds every twelve hours, something Buckler had discovered in a week-long experiment.

  Turning his back, he leaned his elbows on the sill and gazed at the mist that had rolled up from the Thames to smother his view of the garden. Somehow the gospel of getting ahead had been less insistent of late. Those maneuverings designed to browbeat a witness or mislead a credulous jury—too often in defense of a cause one knew to be unjust—now seemed as unreal as half-remembered dreams. All in the great tradition of the English Bar, he thought wryly.

  But here the Temple had stood for over six hundred years, originally as the seat of the Knights Templar, that abolished order of warrior monks, and later as a preserve for lawyers. In the Elizabethan period it had offered a fraternal, collegiate lifestyle and sound legal training to young men of good family. The barristers remained, but the days of revels were ended: no gentlemen dancing in the Hall for the Benchers, no feasts lasting for days, and no more moots or mock trials testing the mettle of all participants. Today, life at the Temple was eminently less colorful and more practical, as suited the modern era. Business, the all-absorbing, vital business of law. One defendant’s misfortune could be the making of a barrister’s career.

  At that moment he realized that he himself, still in his red brocade dressing gown in the middle of the afternoon, was in no better condition than his chambers. Surely at thirty he was too young to retire from the world, even if he had nothing better to do than to idle at the court with all the other briefless barristers. Perhaps he merely needed some companionship, preferably female, an excellent bottle of claret among friends, or a ticket to Mr. Coleridge’s lectures.

  “I shall make a new start of it,” he said aloud with a mock salute in Dante’s direction.

  With that he moved toward his desk, determined to do battle with the mound of papers. Bending down, he yanked at the drawer where he kept his pins, expecting it to stick as usual. Instead it flew open and expelled its entire contents.

  “Damn, damn, damn,” he muttered, crawling about on hands and knees like some pacing beast with red fur.

  He was in this position when he heard the stairs creak. The door banged open.

  “Come in, Bob. Don’t stand on ceremony. Have some cold tea,” he called, still focused on the pins, pens, wafers, and blotting paper all over the floor.

  Someone cleared his throat with a blusterous “Ahem,” and Buckler groaned in recognition. When he looked up, instead of his clerk’s bony frame he beheld the rounded, imposing figure of Ezekiel Thorogood, attorney, reformer, and general pain in the…. But Thorogood was not alone.

  In the doorway stood a small woman, made that much smaller next to Thorogood’s bulk. Wearing a serviceable gray cloak, she had warm skin and wide eyes of a rich brown. Her dark hair was dressed simply. The style gave her an air of vulnerability until one noticed the strong bones of nose, cheek, and jaw. She was young, five-and-twenty perhaps, and held a child, a girl of about three years who resembled her. The woman waited, not diffidently, but with an air of sizing up her surroundings.

  Peeking like a tiny, eager bird, the child giggled to see him on his hands and knees. “Horsey, Mama!” she chortled as she squirmed in her mother’s arms. And Buckler bounded to his feet, grabbing ineffectually at the belt which trailed on the floor.

  Advancing into the room, Thorogood lifted the coat stand and draped his fur-lined cloak and white hat over it. “I trust we haven’t come at an inconvenient moment.”

  “Do make yourself comfortable,” said Buckler.

  The woman set her child on the threadbare carpet. Her gaze swept the room.

  “Edward Buckler, ma’am,” he announced with the slightest of bows. “I fear you have the advantage of me.”

  She had stooped to loosen the child’s wrap. Now she rose, incredulity writ clear in her face. “I do apologize, sir. I am Penelope Wolfe. This is my daughter, Sarah.” Again her stare lingered on the dirty breakfast dishes and the clothing strewn on floor and furniture. “Perhaps we are intruding?” The child tugged
at her cloak so hard that the woman staggered. She bent again to issue a low-voiced reprimand.

  “No, no, my dear,” said Thorogood. “Buckler, we’ve need of your help. This young woman’s husband is under a cloud.”

  Buckler emitted another groan, which he turned into an unconvincing cough. He had known Thorogood for a mere two years, but somehow it seemed longer. Long enough at any rate to have embroiled him in a number of tangles, for the old lawyer had a genius for wreaking havoc in any well-ordered existence. More than once Buckler’s “payment” lay in a few bolts of cloth or, on one memorable day, in a brood of chickens that had taken to his chambers like ducks to water.

  In a country where in theory one could be hanged for stealing merchandise valued at a few shillings, Thorogood stood for a new ideal. He actually believed there was something more important than the preservation of rich men’s property. Some of his colleagues gave him the disparaging title of “thieves’ attorney,” claiming he worked hand in glove with the criminal element. Thorogood saw it differently. His career had been long and successful, and now, approaching retirement, he offered his services only to those who were poor or in desperate need. The original impulse for Thorogood’s altruism had sprung from his second wife, a Quakeress, who had left the faith of her upbringing to marry for love. But he had become so wholly keen on his own account that even she had trouble restraining him.

  Buckler slanted a scowl at his friend, then with a flourish swept debris from one armchair to the floor. “Won’t you sit down, madam?” He essayed a smile at the little girl, who ignored him. The woman removed her cloak and sat, her unflinching gaze fixed on Buckler as he took the chair opposite.

  Thorogood perched somewhat precariously on a stool. Retrieving a silver timepiece from his pocket, he intoned, “Tempus fugit. Though apparently not so swiftly around here. Buckler, your clock is off by ten minutes.” He clicked his watch shut. “Well then, here it is. Yesterday this lady attended the Coroner’s inquest looking into the death of Miss Constance Tyrone.” Pausing, he beamed. Mrs. Wolfe, taken aback, opened her mouth to clarify.

  Buckler picked up the newspaper he had been reading and pointed to an article. HORRID MURDER, said the headline. “Baronet’s daughter found dead outside the church?”

  The lawyer nodded as if commending a favorite pupil. “You’ve heard the verdict? Murder against person or persons unknown. Only it seems some are inclined to name that unknown person, and rather prematurely I might add. A not unusual state of affairs for our esteemed authorities.”

  Sighing, Buckler turned to Penelope Wolfe. He had a feeling he knew what was coming. “Are you connected with the family, ma’am?”

  “No. It is my husband Jeremy who knew the victim. He is an artist, you see, commissioned to paint Miss Tyrone’s portrait. Now, through an unlucky chain of circumstance, he has come under suspicion.”

  Buckler had little desire to get involved in this matter, whatever the “chain of circumstance” that had brought Jeremy Wolfe to the notice of the authorities. “Ah, tea?” he said awkwardly. Then he noted her all too obvious appraisal of the pile of used crockery.

  “We won’t put you to any trouble,” said Thorogood. “We’ll be on our way once we’ve made the arrangements.”

  “Arrangements?” he echoed with foreboding. He tried to catch Thorogood’s eye, but in vain, for the lawyer was muttering over a gravy stain on his waistcoat.

  The woman spoke again. “Jeremy has been remanded to Newgate, awaiting evidence. We had hopes you might visit him.”

  Barristers did not visit persons held under suspicion of murder in filthy prisons. That lot fell to solicitors and attorneys. Barristers stayed comfortably holed up in their own comfortable if insular milieu with nothing to say to the scaff and raff. If this was Thorogood’s way of pushing him back into the world, he could think again.

  But if Buckler didn’t interview Jeremy Wolfe, there was no doubt that Thorogood would. And for all his vim, the man was getting on in years. Allowing him to enter a damp den like Newgate would hardly endear Buckler to Mrs. Thorogood. Although she knew her husband to be perfectly capable of driving himself and anyone fool enough to accompany him into an early grave, lately she had looked to Buckler to moderate his sudden enthusiasms. Or, persuasion failing, to serve as Thorogood’s proxy. Persuasion always failed.

  Buckler looked down to see the child Sarah reaching her hand toward the table where lay a tiny quartz figurine that he had absently set in his saucer.

  “No, love, you mustn’t touch,” said Penelope Wolfe.

  But when the child’s eyes shot to his face, he smiled. “That is Philomela, the nightingale, lover of song. You may hold it.”

  The little girl nodded wisely and repeated to herself, night-in-gale. After exploring the bird with her chubby fingers, she set it in the middle of the saucer.

  Curiously, this brief byplay seemed to unnerve the mother, for she looked away for the first time, her fingers pulling at her skirt. Then she said, “You were about to wish me at Jericho, were you not? Oh, politely, I have no doubt.” Her expression reflected a mixture of doubt and hauteur.

  Buckler sighed. “Have you no one else to act in your interests?”

  “You mean, why isn’t some gentleman here in my stead? I assure you I shall do better without. Besides there’s no one.”

  She looked around the room again as if seeking visible evidence of his credentials. He felt a prick of annoyance.

  “Youngest son of a country gentleman of good repute and middling estate. Harrow. Then Cambridge. Called to the Bar of the Inner Temple some three years past. Won a few cases, lost a few more. That’s all I can tell you, I’m afraid.”

  She laughed, and her face thawed into sudden, surprising beauty. Hearing her mother, Sarah laughed too. Thorogood grinned at all and sundry, clearly delighted his little gathering was proving a success.

  Buckler gave in. “What would you have me do, ma’am?”

  “Since my husband has refused to give good account of his whereabouts on the night in question, suspicion has attached to him all the more strongly. I’d like you to question him, impress upon him the seriousness of his position. And I’d like you to defend him should it prove necessary.”

  “I will have little choice but to do so if the brief is properly tendered.”

  She raised her brows. “If you are asked to argue a cause you yourself do not wholeheartedly endorse? What then, sir? Would you work to free a man you thought guilty?”

  “It is quite simple, madam. The integrity of our system, indeed the very liberties of England, depend on doing just that.” Ignoring Thorogood’s bark of laughter, he continued. “You see, as Lord Erskine said in defending the radical Tom Paine, the minute counsel prejudges the guilt or innocence of his client, justice can never be done. That judgment belongs only to the court.”

  “You’ve learned your lessons well, boy.” Thorogood left his stool to retrieve a pipe from his coat. “My one remaining vice,” he said as Mrs. Wolfe nodded her permission.

  Lighting it, he stood in front of the fire and declaimed, “Non potest gratis constare libertas. Hanc si in magno aestimas omnia parvo aestimanda sunt. Freedom cannot be bought for nothing. If you hold her precious, you must hold all else of little value.”

  “That’s well enough, sir,” said Mrs. Wolfe. “But Seneca aside, sacrificing one’s integrity is too high a price to pay, even for freedom. I have heard that honest diligence can be a rare commodity among those engaged in criminal work.”

  She knows the classics? Buckler was surprised and not entirely certain whether he liked it. On the whole he approved of education for women, yet there was something rather disconcerting in the sharpness of this rejoinder.

  But what she said was true enough. Barristers taking criminal cases were often not highly regarded in the profession, and many used this work merely as a stepping stone to more eligible pursuits in civil suits.

  “Not this man, missy,” said Thorogood. “He’s quite the
most honorable and…er…diligent man I’ve ever met, though perhaps one wouldn’t think it on first acquaintance. You should see him in his barrister’s robe and wig. A different animal entirely.”

  He waved his pipe and sent a plume of smoke to curl around Buckler’s head, adding, “But you really ought to engage a maidservant, my dear fellow.”

  ***

  Penelope stepped out of Buckler’s chambers into Crown Office Row, glad to escape the narrow stairwell. But it seemed she had only entered a more stifling corridor as she pressed through a thick, yellowish fog that made it impossible to see beyond a few yards ahead. It was beginning to rain again, a dreary drizzle that soaked through the brim of her bonnet and trickled down her face. She wondered if she had been wise to take leave of Mr. Thorogood and the hackney so graciously offered, yet she’d no wish to impose upon the old gentleman any longer or to reveal the need to preserve her own slender resources.

  She walked up to Fleet Street. Though it was only four o’clock, the lamps were lit, and the occasional flicker of a linkboy’s torch added its bit to dispel the gloom. Caught in the flow of their own business, people drifted in and out of view, moving in currents up and down the street, some resting briefly in a doorway only to be swept once more into the course. It was nearly a mile to her lodgings in St. Martin’s Lane, and Penelope couldn’t use the umbrella under her arm since she needed both hands to carry the child. So she quickened her pace, trying to avoid the puddles washing over her ankles, her skirts quickly saturated with filth.

  By the time she paused at the crossing, trying to catch her breath and fruitlessly shifting a Sarah grown heavy with sleep, she began to think that perhaps she ought to give in and take a hackney after all. But how this sensible resolve was to be enacted with no coach stand in sight, she could not at that moment apprehend. The carriages flying past were so full of purpose and importance while she, standing there, felt so unequivocally and irredeemably alone…

  “Come away from the window,” Jeremy said. “You’ll catch a chill.” She moved closer to him on the seat and braced herself as the coach lurched. Shutting her eyes, she wished she could drown out the incessant clopping as each blow of the horses’ hooves pounded between her eyes.