Death in the Peerless Pool (17 page)

‘If recently is eighteen months ago, then, yes, I was.'

‘What happened?'

‘She was in love with someone else. I think she used me to try and forget him.'

‘Not an unknown thing for a female to do. So it was her that you were dreaming about.'

Leaning across the table, John took the actress's hand in his. ‘No, Coralie, it was you.'

‘Me?'

‘Don't pretend to be surprised. Ever since I met you, that time when you took the part of the girl murdered in the Dark Walk at Vaux Hall and ended up saving me from being shot, I have been in love with you.'

Coralie's eyebrows rose. ‘That is hard to believe in view of your other women.'

‘I must admit that there have been one or two, but that was only because I believed you hardly noticed me.'

‘Oh, I noticed you all right, do not be mistaken about that.'

‘Then my heart is light.'

Coralie squeezed his hand, which was still holding hers. ‘Are you truly in love with me, despite your other … diversions?' She said the word deliciously, her eyes smiling as she did so.

‘I have never stopped. That last time, with the Romney Marsh affaire, I had to make a conscious effort to banish you from my thoughts.'

‘Did you succeed?'

‘Never.'

‘Oh, my dear John.'

‘Will you marry me?' said the Apothecary, wonderfully and wildly, full of passion and champagne.

Coralie looked at him very seriously. ‘One day, perhaps.'

He pulled himself together. ‘I suppose you are about to say, yet again, that you are married to the theatre.'

‘For the time being I am, yes.'

‘What does that mean?'

‘That at some point in the future, heaven alone knows when, I shall be satisfied with what I have achieved and then seek a fascinating husband, the sort who will always keep me interested, and with him raise some large-eyed children with hair the colour of mine and wits sharp as his.'

The Apothecary felt sweat break out beneath his shirt. ‘Coralie, might I be their father?'

‘It's possible, I suppose.'

‘So you are asking me to wait until you are ready?'

She shot him an unfathomable glance. ‘Actually, my dear Mr Rawlings, I am ready now.'

He stared at her. ‘What are you saying?'

‘You know my history, John. You know that I am not a creature of convention. Why don't we make love to one another while time passes?'

The Apothecary drank an entire glass of champagne in one swallow. ‘Do you mean …?'

‘Sample the delights of marriage without the tie? Yes, I do.'

‘My God, Coralie.'

‘Are you too much of a prude to countenance such unusual behaviour?'

‘You know damned well that I am not.'

‘Then let us drink to our future.'

‘There is only one bar to this arrangement.'

‘And that is?'

‘Having shared your bed I would be cut to the quick if you met another.'

‘And so would I, my dear. But that is a chance we have to take. Life can never be pre-planned. One never knows from one moment to the next which way the whole mad whirligig is going to lead us.' Coralie's expression changed. ‘And talking of that, take me on the merry-go-round, John. I have always adored them and on this occasion the spin will symbolise something about our relationship, would you not agree?'

Weak with the realisation that at long last he had won the woman of his choice, John gave Coralie a look in which he expressed all that he had felt for her since first they met.

‘In what way do you mean?'

‘We have got on the roundabout and been close, then we have got off again and drifted apart. Now we are getting on once more, possibly to remain together for the whole long ride.'

Summoning the waiter so that he might pay the bill, John said, ‘I shall be an ardent lover, you know that.'

‘And you will not care that every night of my life a hundred men fall in love with me?'

‘I'll care not a whit nor a jot provided that it is my bed you get into when the evening's performance ends.'

She leaned across the table and kissed him, and John would have done more by way of response had the waiter not arrived at that very second. But finally, and at long last, the account settled, they wandered off hand in hand through the crowd of people in painted masks and merry-andrew tawdry dresses until they came to the roundabout. There, John lifted Coralie on to one of the painted horses, then mounted the one next to hers.

‘You are certain about this?' he said, as they started to whirl round. ‘It is not all too sudden for you?'

‘We have known each other four years, have we not?' she answered.

‘Yes.'

‘Then where's the suddenness in that?'

And leaning across the space that divided them, Coralie Clive kissed John Rawlings full on the lips, and continued to kiss him as the merry-go-round gathered momentum.

At five o'clock in the morning, John Rawlings quietly left Coralie's house in Cecil Street and walked back through a sweet-smelling shower towards his home. Beneath his feet the cobbles were washed and clean, and it seemed to him as he proceeded along The Strand, then turned left up St Martin's Lane, that though he had walked this way on a thousand occasions, this time it was all new. For he felt renewed too, seeing the world with a kindlier eye, a different, more understanding outlook, because at long last, after so many years of longing for her, he had become Coralie Clive's lover. What it was that had made her change her mind so suddenly he could not be sure. Whether the Duke of Richmond's recent marriage had had any bearing on the situation he could not tell. But the fact was that he did not care. Not one damnation. They had spent the night together and it had been as wonderful as he had always imagined.

They had watched the eight o'clock performance of Kitty's play and then had left Bartholomew Fair, walking a little way, taking a hackney coach for the rest of the journey. But though he had wanted her urgently, the Apothecary had bided his time once they were hidden from the world in her house; drinking wine and laughing in Coralie's bedroom, wooing her with sensuous kisses, then finally taking the actress to bed and experiencing a passion far beyond any he had felt before. Every other woman he had made love to had been banished from his mind for good as he had gathered the dark red rose of her beauty into his arms and mingled his essence with hers.

And now he walked the streets, his mind still unable to grasp what had actually taken place, yet his body as alive and alert as he had ever known it. Bursting into song, John hurried through Leicester Fields, and back to the house in Nassau Street in which he had been raised from boyhood, an age of innocence left behind for ever.

Sir Gabriel had not yet risen, but Nicholas Dawkins, a much calmer air about him, the Apothecary was relieved to see, was just about to leave to open the shop in Shug Lane.

John gave him a beaming smile. ‘Nicholas, how is everything with you, my friend?'

The Muscovite returned the discerning gaze of a young man come to wisdom. ‘Very good, Master. I took your advice.'

The Apothecary stared at him blankly. ‘What advice was that?'

‘To visit a certain house in Leicester Fields. I did so and I promise you, Sir, that my course is set. Mary Ann will be wooed honourably and with propriety from now on.'

An irrepressible grin crossed John's features as he suddenly saw himself as a wanton youth and his apprentice as the controlled man of the world. But putting on the most serious expression in his repertoire, the Apothecary answered gravely, ‘Then my mind is at rest, Nick. I shall exercise a Master's discretion as to your private affairs as long as you continue this sane and sensible plan.'

Then he ruined the whole effect by letting out a wild and lunatic laugh as he proceeded indoors.

As angry and turbulent as the Blind Beak had been on the previous day, this morning he was calm and tranquil as the ocean after a storm. He sat behind his desk in the Public Office, to which John had walked after first going to see that all was well with his shop, his head bowed, listening intently to the Apothecary's account of what had taken place in Bath. Occasionally he nodded, sometimes the black bandage that covered his eyes turned in John's direction, but for the main he sat stiff, taking in every word that was said to him. Eventually he asked a question.

‘So is it your opinion that there was something amiss regarding Sir Vivian Sweeting and the children he cared for?'

The Apothecary shook his head. ‘I'm not certain. I was on the point of hearing the truth from Jack the coachman when Orlando burst in and further conversation became impossible. But yet, Sir, it is the other story which haunts me.'

‘Other story?'

‘The disappearance of Lady Allbury's youngest child. It is so similar to that of Lord Anthony and Lady Dysart.' And John recounted the tale of how Meredith had vanished in Paris.

The Magistrate became even more silent, adopting that pose which often made John wonder whether he had fallen asleep. But, finally, he spoke.

‘I remember hearing about that case. My brother Henry told me of it. It seems that Lord Anthony wrote to the Public Office and enlisted their help to look for the boy in London. I need hardly say that no trace of him was ever found.'

‘What do you think happened to him?'

Mr Fielding became motionless. ‘It is highly unlikely that the child wandered off on its own. Particularly as it has always been known that rings of child abductors have been at work for decades. Consider the Spiriters; those creatures who, particularly in the reign of Queen Anne, prowled the streets of London, often dressed in the cast-off clothes of the fashionable, to seduce young people to go beyond the seas. Those who would not leave willingly were taken by force, their final destination the plantations, where they were sold into slavery by the Masters of the Ships.'

‘Do you suspect that Meredith Dysart …?'

‘I do not know. As I said, it is hardly possible that a child could take itself off without a body being found. Perhaps he and Lucy Allbury both fell into the hands of a kidnapping gang. Perhaps neither.'

‘Yet one vanished in Paris, the other Bath.'

‘There are certain evidences that the Spiriters were at work in other great European cities besides London.'

The Apothecary cleared his throat. ‘So what moves should be made now. Sir? Hannah Rankin obviously lived in Sir Vivian's house for a while. Should I pursue that avenue further or follow her trail in London?'

‘I think you should start by confronting the lying Toby. We called him into the Public Office while you were away, but he stuck with his story.'

‘That I had stated the victim was female?'

‘Just so. But it was clear from his manner that he knew more than he was prepared to admit.'

‘Could he have killed Hannah?'

‘Quite easily, I imagine. Yet something about Mr Swann's idea that one of the lunatics was responsible appealed to me so much that I instructed Runner Rudge to go to the Hospital and find out the background, as much as was possible that is, of the various inmates.'

‘And?'

‘One of them, a young fellow of twenty-odd, bears the same surname as Toby, namely Wills. So far nothing has been said about this. I think you should tackle him with it, Mr Rawlings. Tell him that you know he is lying, ask him why.'

‘And what of Hannah's two mysterious visitors, the coachman and the Frenchman? Has anything further been discovered about them?'

‘Nothing so far, but I thought an enquiry at the French Hospital might not go amiss.'

‘It seems I have much to do.'

‘So much so that you must have an assistant.'

‘Runner Rudge?'

‘No. I think Jago, though I am loath to spare him.'

A wonderful idea came to John. ‘Would it be possible to call in someone else instead? That is if the person concerned is willing?'

‘I presume you are talking of a personal friend? Somebody you can trust?'

‘Oh, yes, I am. In fact I thought of asking Miss Coralie Clive, Sir. The theatres are closed for two weeks because of Bartholomew Fair and I believe that she has a certain amount of time on her hands.'

The Magistrate gave a very small chuckle but in no other manner revealed what he was thinking. ‘I wonder,' he said slowly, ‘if Miss Clive could be persuaded to take the waters at Bath. Women always have such a way with worming out secrets. Were she to get into the confidence of your friend Orlando, then we might learn a great deal more.'

‘But Orlando is a self-confessed libertine. I wouldn't like to think of Coralie keeping bad company.'

Mr Fielding chuckled again. ‘I am quite sure that Miss Clive is more than capable of looking after herself, my dear Sir. Is it not a fact of life that those in the acting profession come across all sorts and have to get along with them as best they can?'

‘Yes, but …' John protested.

‘I think she would be an ideal choice for someone to help you but, of course, the option to ask her must remain with you,' said the Blind Beak firmly, then laughed again at some private joke of his own.

In the event the decision was made for John. Longing to see Coralie again but dutybound to go home after he had closed his shop, not having set eyes on Sir Gabriel since he had returned from Bath, the Apothecary found his heart leaping high as he hurried through the front door and heard a female voice coming from the library. Rushing down the passageway, he flung the door open. And there she was, looking divine in an emerald-green gown. Throwing convention to one side, John's new love had daringly come to visit him.

‘Coralie!' he said breathlessly.

‘Good afternoon, Mr Rawlings,' she answered, but her smile said it all. She had missed him as much as he had her.