A Body in Berkeley Square (7 page)

Perhaps he was throwing himself to the
wolves, knowing that Mrs. Harper had killed Turner. But why on
earth should he feel so compelled to go to the gallows for her?
Brandon was, all in all, a selfish man. Why he'd suddenly become
heroic for another person was a mystery to me.

Sir Nathaniel straightened his papers. "Very
well, I have made my decision. Colonel Brandon, I am committing you
to trial for the murder of Mr. Henry Turner on the night of the
fifth of April. The evidence against you is stronger than the
evidence for your innocence. You will go to Newgate prison and
remain there until your trial. Thank you, Mr. Pomeroy. Please have
Colonel Brandon escorted to the prison."

Pomeroy looked slightly taken aback. I
imagined he'd regarded arresting his former colonel as a good joke,
assuming I'd quickly get him off. But Sir Nathaniel looked severe,
in his understated way.

Pomeroy rose. Grenville and I stood up with
him.

"Sir Nathaniel," I said. "Must he stay in the
prison? It will be a blow to a man of his standing."

"I am sorry, Captain Lacey, but there are
laws. Colonel Brandon will live in Newgate until he stands in the
dock. The wait will not be long, and he will have a private room.
He will not live in the common cells with the rabble."

No, Brandon was wealthy enough to afford a
room with furnishings and good meals. His physical comfort would
not be impaired, but he'd be a ruined man.

"Colonel," Pomeroy said reluctantly.

The only one who did not argue was Brandon.
He rose, his face set, and let Pomeroy lead him from the room.

*** *** ***

Newgate prison stood at the intersection of
Newgate Street and Old Bailey, north of Ludgate Hill and not far
from Saint Paul's Cathedral. The dome of the cathedral hung against
the leaden sky as Grenville stopped his phaeton in the crowds of
Ludgate Hill at my request.

"I can drive you all the way," Grenville
offered.

I declined. "Your high-stepping horses and
polished rig are for Hyde Park, not the gallows yard at
Newgate."

Grenville nodded his understanding. He'd
certainly draw attention if he went down to the prison. He held the
horses steady while the tiger hopped from his perch on the back and
assisted me to the ground.

"I am sorry for all this, Lacey," Grenville
said. "I was not much help, was I?"

"You told what you saw. Not your fault that
Brandon is so damned stubborn." I adjusted my hat. "Will you take a
message to Mrs. Brandon? Tell her what happened at the examination,
and that I am here to settle Brandon's needs. Tell her I will come
as soon as I can."

Grenville regarded me a moment, as though he
wanted to say something more. But already people were taking notice
of him and the elegant phaeton. Grenville took the hint, tipped his
hat, then signaled his horses to move on. I walked the rest of the
way to the prison.

Newgate prison itself was a depressing
building of gray block stones. Windows, barred and forbidding,
lined its walls. In the open area outside the gate was the gallows,
empty today. Hangings took place on Monday for the public; those
waiting their turn inside could watch. Today was Sunday. The
condemned would attend chapel and emerge tomorrow to their
dooms.

When I'd been a lad, the hangings had taken
place at Tyburn near the end of what was now Park Lane. Once when
I'd come to London with my father, I'd sneaked away to witness a
hanging there. I still remembered the fevered press of bodies, the
excitement and dismay radiating from the crowd, the buildup of
frenzy as the prisoner rolled past in his cart, ready to face the
gallows.

Thinking back, the hanged man must have been
less than twenty years old, though he'd seemed older to me at the
time. He'd stood straight in the cart, nodding to the crowd like an
actor pleased by his audience. The guards with him had led him up
the steps to the scaffold, where he'd stood and addressed us
all.

"Friends, today I die for the crime of being
honest. I honestly stole those clothes from me master's shop."

The crowd had laughed. He'd grinned along
with them. "Do not cry for me, I go to a better place." He'd looked
around. "Any place is better than Newgate in the damp."

Again, they'd laughed. The hangman had cut
off his words by jamming a hood over his head and a noose around
his neck.

I'd crept to the very edge of the scaffold
while he'd joked with the crowd. I'd seen the young man's face
before the hood had gone down. He'd been gray, his lips trembling.
He might have made light of his punishment to others, but he was
terrified.

When they hauled him from his feet, he gave a
startled cry, which was cut off in mid-breath. I watched in
fascinated horror as he kicked and struggled mightily to live, then
just to breathe, while the crowed cheered or mocked him.

They'd cut him down, stone dead, and sold his
clothes to the people there.

I'd run back to the townhouse my father had
rented and was sick all night.

I'd witnessed hangings since then, in the
army, in India, and deaths more terrible, but the hanging I'd seen
as a child of six had seemed the worst terror I could have faced.
I'd dreamed for weeks that I was that man, having my vision cut
abruptly off by the hood, feeling the burn of the rope about my
neck, hearing the crowd laughing and cheering.

Passing the gallows now, I felt a qualm of
that old dread, the ghost of the noose that had killed the young
thief.

Pomeroy and Brandon had already arrived. I
caught up to them as they passed beneath the gate, following them
into a courtyard that smelled of urine.

Pomeroy went to the keeper's room, a square
office with a bench and a table and a window giving onto the
courtyard. The keeper was alone with another turnkey, the two men
portly from beef and ale.

Pomeroy released Brandon officially, then
said, "He's a posh gent. He'll want the finest rooms you have."

"Oh?" the keeper guffawed. "A duke, is
'e?"

"He's a colonel and a gentleman," Pomeroy
said severely. "He's to be treated fine, or I'll hear of it."

The keeper seemed a bit in awe of Pomeroy,
probably with good reason. Pomeroy was a powerful and strong man,
not shy about using his fists when necessary. In addition, he was a
Bow Street Runner, and keeping on the friendly side of a Runner was
always wise.

The keeper told Brandon, in a slightly more
respectful tone, "Aye, if you pay me well, sir, you'll have no
troubles here. Send for one or two of your own servants, and you'll
live as well as you would at home. A gentleman is always
welcome."

Brandon looked from the keeper to Pomeroy in
fury. "Do you mean, Sergeant, that you wish me to bribe this
man?"

"You have to pay for room and board, sir,"
Pomeroy said in a patient tone. "And buy your bedding and fuel and
things. Stands to reason. The more you pay, the better you
live."

"For God's sake," Brandon began. "I do not
even have much money with me."

"I will settle his affairs," I broke in as
the keeper took on a belligerent expression.

"No you will not," Brandon retorted.

"I do not believe they will let you visit
your man of business on the moment," I answered impatiently. "I
will visit on your behalf. Or would you rather bed down on hay with
a flea-ridden street girl?"

Brandon blanched. Street girls made him
nervous in any case. "I take your point, Lacey. I only wish to God
I had someone else to help me."

I knew he did. The turnkey grinned at me and
led us into the bowels of the building.

* * * * *

Chapter Five

The room Brandon obtained was not elegant by
any means. A tall tester bed stood in one corner, with a heavy
mahogany cupboard on another wall and a table and chairs in the
middle of the room. A small fireplace, cold, lay opposite the
door.

The turnkey barked at a lackey to build a
fire. Gloom-faced, the servant looked neither at me nor Brandon
while he worked, then he shuffled out. Pomeroy, with a cheerful
"Good day, sirs," left us alone.

Brandon looked out of a barred window to the
courtyard three floors below. He remained silent, his back in his
soiled coat still and sullen.

"Sir," I said. Even after all the years I'd
known him and all we'd been through, I still could not bring myself
to address him in a way other than as an officer who outranked
me.

"I suppose," Brandon said coldly, addressing
his words to the window, "that as soon as you heard what had
happened, you went immediately to my wife."

"Of course I did. I knew Louisa would be
distressed once I learned what a pig's breakfast you'd made of
everything."

"How fortunate that she has a friend as kind
as you," he said, biting off every word. "A friend who will stay
with her in times of trouble."

"Lady Aline Carrington stays with her."

Brandon swung around. His face was carefully
neutral, but his eyes glittered. "You must be delighted, Gabriel.
Watching me be arrested and tried for murder. My wife will need
much comfort during this ordeal, and there you will be. Perhaps the
turnkey will allow me to hang a pair of horns above my door, so
that all who pass will know that herein lies a cuckold."

I was tempted to march out of the room and
leave the idiot to his fate, but I knew that Louisa would never
forgive me if I did. "You are a fool and a bloody hypocrite. Your
wife has never betrayed you. Yet you claimed, with Louisa standing
next to you, that this Mrs. Harper was your mistress. If Louisa
leaves you, it will be as much as you deserve."

"Ah, yes. I can learn from you how to be an
abandoned husband."

I stared at him in astonishment. In all our
quarrels, he had never cast up to me that my wife had deserted me,
as though the topic were impermissible. Now he glared at me,
defiance in his very breathing.

Through my anger, I had a hint of
understanding. "Why are you deliberately provoking me?" I asked.
"You know you need my help. Why are you tempting me to tell you to
go to the devil and stay there?"

"Because this is none of your affair!"

"It hurts Louisa. And is therefore my
affair."

"Affair," he sneered. "A fine choice of
words."

"Your word, sir." I stepped close to him. "Do
you
want
to die in ignominy? Hanging is a nasty death, and
you know it. Louisa will have to live her life as the wife of a
condemned murderer."

"Lacey, for God's sake, stay out of
this."

"Why?" I asked him. "Never tell me you really
did kill Turner."

He avoided my gaze. "I do not wish to speak
of it."

"Did Imogene Harper kill him? Why are you
protecting her?"

"I will not answer."

"I will ask her," I said.

"You will leave her alone," he snapped in
reply.

"You are no longer my commanding officer.
Your own actions made that so. I no longer must obey you."

I expected him to argue, to rage, to bluster.
But Brandon said nothing. After a time, he turned away, his
shoulders slumped in defeat.

"You are a fool, sir," I repeated.

He turned back to me, a strange light in his
eyes. "No, Gabriel.
You
are the fool."

I knew I would gain nothing more from him, so
I turned away and left him alone.

*** *** ***

I visited Brandon's man of business before
leaving the City to explain Brandon's situation and tell him to
send money to the prison. The man of business was distressed, with
good reason. A respectable solicitor wants a respectable clientele,
and a client held in Newgate to await trial for murder was a most
distressing thing indeed. However, he put in motion the errands
needed to ensure that Brandon spent his time in prison in the most
comfortable accommodations possible.

I returned to my lodgings and ate a hasty
meal of bread at Mrs. Beltan's bakery below my rooms. I bathed and
changed my clothes, giving them over to Bartholomew to clean, but I
could not shake the stench of Newgate from me.

I took a hackney back to Mayfair and to Brook
Street. Lady Aline met me at the door to Brandon's house. Grenville
had been and gone, she said, and had broken the bad news.

Louisa was up, pacing her sitting room in
agitation. Her face was white, her eyes sunken into hollows. She
held herself rigid when I went to take her hands and kiss her
cheek.

I explained that I'd seen Brandon settled and
that he could have a servant or two to look after him. Lady Aline
said she'd dispatch Brandon's valet at once and bustled off to do
so. As soon as the door closed, Louisa's hands clamped down on
mine.

"What will happen now, Gabriel?"

"Pomeroy and his patrollers will try to
gather evidence against Brandon. If they find nothing that firmly
points to his guilt, then he will be acquitted."

"His knife in the man's chest is not firm
evidence?"

"Anyone may steal another's knife and use it.
Were I to murder someone, I would use a weapon easily identified as
belonging to another man. Why bring suspicion to myself?"

"If you were angry, you would not think of
that," Louisa said. "You would snatch up the first thing you saw
and stab."

"Perhaps."

Her observation gave me an idea. What if
Brandon had left the knife in the anteroom when he was in there
earlier with Turner? Why he should, I didn't know, but he might
have done. The murderer could have quarreled with Turner, noticed
the knife, and in a fit of pique, snatched it up and driven it into
Turner's chest.

"Louisa, your husband is being stubbornly
cryptic, but I will discover the truth," I said. "I will bring him
back to you. I promise you that."

Louisa released my hands and walked away from
me, her eyes bleak. "Gabriel, have I been deceived all my life? I
stuck by him through thick and thin. Through everything he did.
Even after . . . When he came looking for me in your tent that
night, I went back to him. He tried his best to harm you over that
incident, and even then I stood by him."