Death in the Peerless Pool (34 page)

‘Look no further for your murderer, my dear. I killed Hannah Rankin and the Marquis, and I glory in the fact that I did so. Dear God, spare a prayer for poor Orlando.'

Then he raised his arms as if he could fly and stepped off the balustrade into the night.

Just for one second John did not move, rooted to the spot by what he had witnessed. Then he rushed from the room, hurling himself down the staircase and through that rabbit warren of a house to where a door led into the garden.

Jack was already kneeling beside Orlando's body, cradling him in his arms, the tears running silently down his cheeks.

‘He's dead, he's dead,' he kept repeating.

‘Let me see,' answered John, and leant over Orlando to listen for his heartbeat. There was nothing, yet still the Apothecary tore at the beau's coat and shirt so that he could put his ear to Orlando's chest. But the heart was silent, and John could see by the first faint rays of the moon that the poor creature had crashed on to his head, smashing his skull to an oozing pulp.

‘He died instantly,' he said to Jack.

‘But he's gone, my poor brother, the only friend I ever had.'

‘He killed Sir Vivian before he took his own life.'

‘You're wrong there,' Jack answered bitterly, ‘Sir Vivian killed him years ago, as he did us all.'

‘Rest in peace,' said John, and went to draw the shirt back over the whitening skin. And then his eye was caught by something, and the Apothecary gasped at what he saw. On the left of Orlando's chest, as distinct and clear as a patch of blood, was a red birthmark, a port wine stain.

He looked at Jack, who still knelt beside the body, weeping.

‘Has Orlando always had this?'

‘Yes, since the day I first met him.'

‘God's mercy,' said the Apothecary.

For he knew then that in his arms, quite dead, lay the last mortal remains of Meredith Dysart.

‘So it's finished,' said Mr Fielding, sitting very straight in his high-backed chair, the black bandage that concealed his blind eyes turned in John's direction, his expression intense.

‘Yes, Sir. Before he killed himself, Orlando confessed to both murders.'

‘I see.' The Magistrate steepled his fingers. ‘Yet what puzzles me is the fact that there are so many inconsistencies, so many pieces that do not fit. One small example: how did Orlando find out where Hannah Rankin went after she left Sir Vivian's employ? He had to know where she was in order to go there and murder her, if you see what I mean.'

‘Presumably Jack knew her whereabouts. He saw her for some years after she left Welham House, usually dragging some wretched child about.'

‘And the Marquis? How did Orlando know where to locate him?'

‘Oh, that was simple. Mother Hamp told Jack – for that is definitely who it was who called on her – all about him.'

‘Mm. Well, it's a neat ending, I must say.'

‘But you are not convinced?'

‘Yes and no. I said to you we needed either proof or a confession. Now we have one. Yet there are too many questions left unanswered, Mr Rawlings. I mean, which was Toby's anonymous friend – Orlando or Jack? And how did they know him in the first place? And how exactly did they track Hannah down? For I am not convinced that Jack knew her whereabouts all along. And why was Jack in London when the Marquis was shot, when it was Orlando who confessed to shooting him?'

Joe Jago spoke up from his corner. ‘That final confession poses more problems than it solves, if you ask me, Sir.'

‘Indeed,' answered the Apothecary, and wished that he were not in the same room as the finest brain in London, together with the cunning fox Jago.

For ever since Orlando's tragic funeral, attended by Jack and himself, young Sidmouth and the servants of the house, but none of the beau monde, there had been a scene in John's pictorial memory that refused to go away. In this scene he was in the Bath Assembly Rooms with Orlando and he had just told him of the death of Hannah Rankin. As clearly as if the poor thing were present, John saw the beau's features transform into a mask of loathing, followed swiftly by a further change to pure triumph as he learned that she was dead. Was this the reaction of a murderer, he wondered? Could anyone who knew she was gone have acted quite so convincingly? Yet John shied away from investigating further, believing with all his heart that sleeping dogs should now be left to lie.

Mr Fielding was speaking again. ‘We tread a fine line here, Joe. The case is concluded, Mr Rawlings has brought us the admission of guilt that we needed, yet there are loopholes of which all three of us are aware. Still, I believe we would be quite justified in closing the book on Hannah Rankin.'

‘I agree with you there, Sir.'

‘Do you think I can safely enter the fact that she was murdered by a young man known as Orlando Sweeting, as was the Marquis de Saint Ombre, together with that vile kidnapper, Sir Vivian Sweeting?'

‘Absolutely, Sir,' said the clerk, and quite deliberately gave John a light-eyed wink which spoke volumes.

From his high-backed chair Mr Fielding said, ‘I wonder,' and then there was silence.

‘So what's afoot?' asked Samuel, rubbing his hands together excitedly.

‘Everything and nothing. As you know, the case is closed. Mr Fielding is writing his report and that will be that. And yet …'

‘Yes?'

‘Samuel, I don't think Orlando killed anyone except Sir Vivian. When I informed him that Hannah was dead his face was exultant. It was his instantaneous response. I would stake my very life on the fact that I was the first person to tell him and he reacted naturally.'

‘Dear God. Then why did he confess?'

‘In order to protect those who really did the deeds. He took their guilt on himself so that they could walk free of fear.'

‘Was it Jack then?'

‘In the case of the Marquis, I'm sure it was. But somebody else murdered Hannah Rankin.'

‘Who? Do you know?'

‘Yes, I think so.' And John uttered a name. Samuel listened, wide-eyed.

‘What do you intend to do about it?'

‘I'm not quite sure yet. So first of all you and I are going to the Peerless Pool to relax, then to The Old Fountain for a drink.'

‘And then?'

‘I am going to Coralie's house. I shall take the necessary action tomorrow regarding the murderer, that is if I do anything at all.'

Samuel looked at John most acutely. ‘There's something else, isn't there? Something you want to tell me but are afraid to say.'

‘Yes.'

‘Is it about Orlando?'

‘Yes. You are very observant.'

‘What is it?'

‘The poor thing was the missing Meredith Dysart, or Gregg, however one likes to think of him. I have found Lord Anthony's grandson, yet how can I tell them? It will break Ambrosine's heart.'

‘Are you absolutely sure it was him?'

‘Absolutely. He had the birthmark exactly where Lady Dysart said it was.'

‘But couldn't it just as easily have been Jack? You said both boys were brought from France.'

‘Jack certainly thought they were, and Orlando's birthmark proved it.'

‘Well, then,' said Samuel.

‘Well, then, what?'

‘Just well, then,' answered the Goldsmith, and smiled expansively.

It was September and beautifully fine and warm, but for all that the swimming pool was not as full as it had been that other time; that day when Hannah Rankin's body had been found lying on the bed of the Fish Pond and John had started on the trail that had led him to such sordid truths. In fact today the waters were reasonably empty, and both the Apothecary and Samuel were able to enjoy a long, leisurely swim. Afterwards they plunged into the cold bath, a withering experience, and then, feeling virtuous, went to have food and wine and sit in the sunshine. As chance would have it, and very much as John had hoped, Toby Wills served them.

‘Well, well,' said the Apothecary. ‘How are you, my friend? It seems a long while since we met.'

The waiter turned on him an uncommunicative look, his features set, his face expressionless. Irritated, John decided to give the man the shock of his life.

‘I suppose you have heard that the killer of Hannah Rankin has been discovered and the investigation is now closed?'

The waiter's hands shook violently as he attempted to pour claret into a glass. ‘Really, Sir?'

‘Oh, yes. The murderer confessed before he killed himself.'

Toby's face was the colour of ash, and he could hardly mouth the next words. ‘So who was it, Sir?'

‘Nobody you would have known,' John replied airily. ‘Hannah once worked in Bath and it was a person connected with that phase of her life, a young man called Orlando Sweeting. He had been badly used by her as a child and he decided to take revenge.'

There it was; relief, joy, exuberance even.

The Apothecary narrowed his eyes. ‘You came from round that way, didn't you, Toby?'

‘I was born in Somerset, Sir, but I did not hail from Bath.'

‘No, I never thought you did,' John said, as the final question was answered.

At eight o'clock the following morning, John walked briskly from the house of the Clive sisters in Cecil Street, then made his way via The Strand, St Martins Lane and Castle Street towards Leicester Fields and home. There he changed into sombre black, suitable for the task that lay before him, and collected Jack, who had been staying at number two Nassau Street ever since Orlando's funeral. The Apothecary then spent some while in choosing which of his many suits he should lend the coachman, and finally decided on violet satin, a shade that strongly enhanced the colour of Jack's unusual eyes.

‘But what is all this finery for?' the young man asked.

‘Just so that you look your best,' the Apothecary answered enigmatically, then they set off together in Sir Gabriel's coach, especially borrowed for the occasion.

The driver took them through Piccadilly to Berkeley Square, behind which lay the new development of Mayfair. And there they stopped outside the home of Lord Anthony and Lady Dysart.

‘Jack, can you amuse yourself for an hour?' John asked, presenting his card to the footman who answered the door.

‘You don't want me to come in with you?'

‘Not at the moment. Return at noon, by which time my business will be concluded.'

‘Very well.' And the young man went off, a handsome figure in his borrowed clothing, looking very slightly bemused by the secrecy of everything that was taking place.

Inside the house, a normal day progressed; servants about their duties, the master in his library, reading the newspaper, the mistress out shopping with her maid.

‘Lord Anthony will receive you now, Sir,' said the footman, who had shown John into an anteroom. ‘Would you follow me?' And they went from the reception hall to the book-lined room where the Apothecary had sat with his host and first met that stolid figure, Gregg the steward: in the company of, though he had not know it at the time, the two grandfathers of that saddest of young men, the beau known as Orlando Sweeting.

Lord Anthony looked up from his copy of The Spectator and gestured to John to take a seat.

‘My dear Mr Rawlings, do sit down. Would you care for a glass of sherry?'

‘Very much indeed,' the Apothecary answered with feeling, and took the glass offered to him on a silver tray by the footman.

‘Now how may I help you?'

John waited until the servant had left the room, then he leant forward in his chair. ‘Lord Anthony, it is hard to know where to begin. On the face of it you know nothing of the death of a woman called Hannah Rankin who worked at St Luke's Hospital for Poor Lunatics, and who was found in the Fish Pond close to the Peerless Pool, severely beaten then thrown in alive to drown.'

The nobleman folded his paper meticulously and put it down on the table beside him.

‘No, you are quite right. I had not heard of such an incident until this moment.'

‘Yet you knew of Sir Vivian Sweeting. Knew that when your daughter Alice was struggling to make ends meet after marrying Gregg's son Richard, against your wishes, she took in washing from Welham House, Sir Vivian's home.'

‘Yes, I knew that.'

‘Well, Hannah Rankin also worked there at that time. Did your paid informants not tell you that?'

‘I repeat, I had never heard of Hannah Rankin until just now.'

‘Did you not also discover, years later, that Sir Vivian masterminded a child abduction ring and that his creature in this hellish trade was the very same Hannah?'

Lord Anthony looked down his long, patrician nose. ‘I don't know what you're talking about, young man. Believe me, if you were anyone other than Gabriel's son, I should ask you to leave forthwith.'

‘Please, Sir, give me a hearing. A man has already admitted to killing Hannah, then bitterly paid the penalty by taking his own life. There is nothing to fear from the law. It is only my desire to learn the truth that makes me say what I do.'

His host did not reply, which the Apothecary took as a sign that he should continue. He hurried on.

‘I do not know how you made the connection between Hannah and Meredith, but make it I believe you eventually did. Gregg was in this country when the boy vanished, and he may have hit on something before he joined you in Paris, something which did not make sense till many years later. Alternatively, one of your informants in France could have pointed you in the right direction. Whatever transpired, it clearly took you a very long time to catch up with her. But then Toby Wills, the waiter at the Peerless Pool, suddenly provided you with the information you needed, I think.'

Lord Anthony drew in his breath but said nothing.

‘He worked for you as a boy. In fact he's one of the children in your family portrait. I didn't recognise him at first, but once I had done, everything slotted into place. It is my belief that as a childhood friend of Richard's, he always kept in touch with Gregg, whom he probably looked on as a father figure. He knew the anguish you all went through, knew the names of the people you were looking for. Then one day, by chance, a strange woman appeared in The Old Fountain and Toby asked who she was. Probably no one could have been more surprised than he to learn that her name was Hannah Rankin and that she worked close by at St Luke's Hospital. An easy step from there to find out where she lived, then to write to his old associate Gregg and tell him that the search was over. Then Gregg called on her, no doubt to check that it was the same woman. He drove your coach with the coat of arms on the door, and she grew so afraid that she packed her bags and was ready to leave had not you, Lord Anthony, stopped her doing so.'