A Mystery at Carlton House Read online

  “Ah, you will enjoy this, Captain.” Spendlove’s eyebrow flickered again, faster this time. “The culprit has absconded with priceless pieces of art from under the nose of royalty. None other than the Prince Regent himself has seen things go missing from his most beautiful house down the road from St. James’s Palace. The reward for this one will be quite spectacular. And you, Captain Lacey, are going to help me get it.”

  Chapter 3

  Spendlove’s eyes gleamed with both greed and excitement. He rocked on his heels while his brow went twitch, twitch, twitch.

  I reflected that while the surgeon had no emotions whatsoever, Spendlove had too many. At the moment he’d wrapped glee, single-mindedness, and self-righteousness into an unsavory bundle.

  My instinct was to tell him to go to the devil—to dismiss him and have Barnstable throw him out. I had no wish to do any favors for the man who had broken into my rooms, arrested me for murder, and tried to blackmail me into giving him evidence against James Denis.

  I did admit to curiosity, however. The Prince Regent had built the ostentatious Carlton House as his sanctum away from the formality of St. James’s and filled it with treasures, or so Grenville had told me. Grenville had the fortune—or as he sometimes said, the misfortune—to be accepted into the Regent’s “set,” and was often invited to soirees, balls, suppers, and the like at Carlton House as well as the prince’s retreat at Brighton.

  Any man who would steal from a place like Carlton House had to be audacious. Would such a man be so easily caught by Spendlove?

  I swallowed my quick response and settled for a cold stare. “I have many things to do at the moment. A family to look after. Bow Street has plenty of foot patrollers who do this sort of thing, don’t they?”

  “None with your quick wit and your luck, Captain. Pomeroy is right about that.” Spendlove cast his eyes around the little room, admiring the gilded trim on the paneled walls, the landscape paintings—my favorite a hay cart in a field under a lowering sky. The painting had been done in Norfolk, and the artist had captured the emotion of the region well, the broad expanse of land that could be frightening or uplifting. “This is a very nice abode, I must say.”

  “Lady Breckenridge is a woman of good taste,” I responded cautiously. Spendlove never threw out a remark without a reason.

  He turned back to me with a skewering gaze. “A house a man would enjoy living in. I would, meself. My own rooms are comfortable, but not very splendid.”

  “What are you working up to?” I asked in a sharp tone. “I told you, I have much to do.”

  Spendlove laced his hands and stretched his arms then let his hands fall to his sides. “You are correct—I should make my point. Only this, Captain. You will help me look into this matter. Else you might not see this tasteful and warm house again. I know you are the confederate of Mr. Denis, a known criminal, and all your connections will not change the fact that if you do not help me sink him, you will fall with him. I have told you this before.”

  “And I have told you,” I said, trying to keep a firm rein on my temper, “that I am not his confederate. I have done my damnedest to avoid him for years.”

  “Yet, you carried out a commission for him in Egypt, going directly to visit him upon your return. You helped him recover a priceless book before that and befriended a man who owed him money to no doubt help squeeze the man dry. Do you recall any of this, Captain? One of Mr. Denis’s ruffians nearly paid with his life to keep you from getting yourself shot. Now why would he do that, if you weren’t well in with Mr. Denis?”

  Every action Spendlove recounted had happened, more or less, but he could put a nasty spin on anything. The ruffian who’d shoved me out of the way of a bullet, Thomas Brewster, had recovered and accompanied me to Egypt at Denis’s behest. He’d become a comrade in arms, of a sort, and I thought, a friend.

  “Brewster is his own man and does what he will,” I said. Not strictly true, but Brewster did not obey orders from anyone blindly. “Any assistance I give Mr. Denis comes at a high cost to myself, and I usually have no choice. If my actions benefit him, it is accidental. He is ever a man who turns an opportunity to his advantage.”

  “That is something he has in common with me,” Spendlove said. “I seize an opportunity, as I am seizing one now.” He leaned to me, his expression turning hard. “I know Denis is behind these thefts. The unfortunate man waiting in Newgate for his trial works for him somehow—I can feel it. What I need is evidence, and what better gent to bring it to me than you?”

  “Your pursuit of Mr. Denis is your own preoccupation,” I said, holding my ground. “I do not like the idea of these thefts, but if it is Denis’s scheme and his man carrying it out, I will leave you to discover this on your own.”

  Spendlove’s eyes filled with a chill disapproval, an anger that was dangerous for its unwavering focus. “You walk on a thin edge, sir, a very thin one. I could pull you for many things, Captain, but I don’t—I’m mindful you have a lady wife who is unwell and a new child in your household. I’m not an unfeeling man. But you go too far. Help me prove Mr. Denis has committed this crime, and I’ll release you from all else. Never to trouble you again.”

  I did not believe him. Spendlove was the sort of man who liked having people in his pocket, to pull out whenever he needed them.

  If he’d been very certain Denis was behind the thefts, he’d have moved on Denis at once and not waited to corner me for my help. There must be some doubt, if not from Spendlove then someone higher up than he was.

  I wondered myself. The paintings and sculptures in the prince’s collection were certainly worthy of Denis’s attention, but would he do something so overt as to send in a man to steal them? If Denis wanted a painting the Regent owned, that painting would move from Carlton House to Denis’s house in Curzon Street with no one being the wiser. The Regent would likely hand it over himself, whether he was aware of it or not.

  However, I did not turn a scornful back on Spendlove and shout for Barnstable and the able Bartholomew to throw him out for three reasons.

  First, I felt sorry for the poor fellow sent to Newgate on Spendlove’s say-so. The man might be undeniably guilty, but I could still pity him. If he was innocent of the crime, leaving him to Spendlove’s mercy would be cruel in the extreme. My help might free him.

  Second, I was undeniably curious as to what artwork had been stolen and how it had been done.

  Third, as much as Denis infuriated me, I owed him much. Had he not made certain the surgeon was in Oxford when needed, I’d have lost Anne and likely Donata along with her. Denis had helped my life to change from the circumstances I’d been in when I’d first come to London, letting in hope and happiness. Ironic that I owed so much to him, but I also knew Denis had carefully planned that. If I could prove he had nothing to do with these thefts, I could repay some of my debt.

  I would be saving my own skin as well, but that outcome would be consequent to the other three. If I refused, Spendlove might decide to produce evidence that I had something to do with this crime, and it was in my own best interest to discover what had really happened.

  I hadn’t looked away from Spendlove as I’d pondered, but I saw his eyes flare with triumph. He’d known from the beginning I wouldn’t be able to resist, known I would now be nodding my head and agreeing.

  Damn the man.

  * * *

  Spendlove went away without telling me much more, not even the name of the man he’d arrested. Apparently I was to prove he’d done the crime without knowing anything of him. I asked to visit the man in question, but Spendlove refused.

  To cool my temper and also to think, I took myself to the nursery. I liked the room at the top of the house, sheltered from the world, decorated in creams and whites, and filled with the sounds, loud and soft, of children.

  The wet nurse, a plump young woman with fiery red hair, had a babe of her own. She often had both her son and my daughter at her bosom when I went up, the children quietly suckling
while she sat in lazy contentment. The ancients believed that two children nursed by the same woman, regardless of parents, would have a special bond, like brothers, or brother and sister in this case. I would have to pay attention as the children grew, to see whether this transpired.

  Peter was with his tutor in a separate chamber, the boy staring into space as the tutor droned on about something or other. Cyril Roth, Peter’s new tutor, was a thin young man from King’s College, Cambridge, apparently brilliant, but as usually happened with men of intelligence, completely out of pocket. The third son of an untitled gentleman of not much means, though his lineage was impeccable, he’d had a place at Cambridge with certainty from the day he was born.

  Many well-educated third sons went into the clergy, but young Mr. Roth had declared to me he had no calling or aptitude for it, so he’d settled for tutoring instead. That he was well qualified to teach young Lord Breckenridge, I had no doubt, because Donata would not have let him join the household otherwise.

  Mr. Roth sprang to his feet when he saw me, and Peter looked around, his eyes lighting with sudden hope when he beheld me in the doorway.

  “Sir.” Mr. Roth had some awe of the fact that I’d been a soldier in the recent wars against Napoleon. One of his older brothers was an officer of a regiment in Buckinghamshire, but apparently, he merely swanned about in his uniform and had never seen action. “How are you, sir?”

  “Very well, thank you,” I replied. Mr. Roth’s formality amused me. “Sit. I am not here to interrupt.”

  Peter looked disappointed. Sometimes I’d burst in, certain he’d been penned up with lessons long enough, and take him on a tramp or a ride. Usually this happened when I’d been penned up too long.

  At the moment, I was absently wandering the house while contemplating what Spendlove had told me. I’d heard nothing about thefts from Carlton House—every morning I read every word of several newspapers, and I’d seen no mention at all of artwork going missing from the Regent’s house or, indeed, of anyone arrested for it. Journalists usually knew about these things before the rest of us mortals did.

  “Mr. Roth,” I said, sitting down abruptly. I caught him standing, off guard, and the young man plopped back into his chair. His hair was wheat-colored, which he’d tried to tame with pomade, but wisps resisted lying flat and straggled to his face. “What can you tell me about the artwork in Carlton House? Paintings, statuary? The Regent is a great collector, I have heard.”

  The newspapers loved to go on and on about that, either praising his taste or bemoaning his extravagance.

  Mr. Roth’s mouth hung open. “Oh, sir, I’ve never been to Carlton House …”

  I cut off his modest bleating with a wave of my hand. “But you’re a scholar, a good one, my wife says. A historian. Surely you have some idea of the things he’s bought to decorate his mansion.”

  Mr. Roth was nervous and shy—from what I understood, his father was a martinet—but I didn’t have the patience to ease him into the question. He cleared his throat, scratched his head, which scattered pomade droplets to the book on the table, and sniffled.

  “A good many things,” he said, and then I watched this thin, nervous, twitchy young man transform. He sat up straighter, his color rose, and his eyes took on a sparkle of interest. “He’s sent men far and wide to bring him items, haunts the catalogs of the antiquities auctioneers, and lavishes a fortune on his paintings. He has things from Roman times—how I’d love to see those, sir. Touch them … like reaching into the past, it is. There are bronzes from Flanders in the fifteen hundreds, paintings by Dutch masters and beautiful modern paintings as well—Mr. Stubbs and the like. Gold cups and vases from the ancients … it would be worth my life to see it.”

  Mr. Roth sat in happy contemplation a moment, then the light faded from his eyes, and he returned to the present. He looked around the prosaic nursery of his young charge and let out a small sigh.

  Peter had listened with rapt attention—he liked historic things, especially the bits of pottery, gold, and tablets with writing on them I’d brought him from Egypt. He and I had been going over the writing together on these winter nights, trying to figure out what they said. The decipherment of the hieroglyphs, even with the stone Napoleon’s officer had found, still eluded even the best scholars.

  “Why do you ask?” Mr. Roth said. “Sir.”

  I rubbed my left knee, the one that had sustained injury on the Peninsula, courtesy of French soldiers in need of entertainment. I thought of Spendlove’s threats to coerce me into helping him, coupled with the lack of information in the newspapers—the thefts were being kept quiet, I surmised, Spendlove working frantically to have the culprit convicted and condemned before the world knew of the situation. The magistrates must want to present a fait accompli, not have the newspapers rubbish them for letting a member of the royal family be robbed.

  “Curiosity,” I extemporized, which was true. “Carry on with your lessons. I apologize for interrupting.”

  “Not at all. We always welcome you, Captain.” Mr. Roth rose when I did. Peter got up too, already painfully polite at age seven.

  Peter gave me an imploring look. I could never resist the look, especially as I remembered myself at his age, confined to a room with a tedious tutor, beaten if my attention wandered—not that Mr. Roth would dare with Peter—while all the world called to me.

  “Half an hour,” I told Peter. “And then we’ll go riding. All right, Mr. Roth?”

  Mr. Roth nodded, looking unhappy to cease lessons, but he acknowledged that I was the head of the house now. Donata would be annoyed with me, as she did not want Peter to grow up to be an ignorant lout like his now-deceased father, but I had far more sympathy with Peter than his mother on this matter.

  Peter brightened, and I left them. I heard Mr. Roth’s voice take on its authoritative drone behind the closed door. “Now then, your lordship, let us try the passage again …”

  * * *

  True to my word, in thirty minutes’ time, I returned to the nursery and took Peter out of the house and to Hyde Park, along with a young lad called Philip Preston. Philip ought to have been back at his school, since it was Hilary term, but his mother often kept him home, fearing for his health. Philip had grown from the thin stripling I’d met two and a half years ago to a robust boy who’d become quite a good rider. He was a few years older than Peter and protective of the lad. They were already good friends.

  I turned the ride into a lesson so Philip’s father could justify allowing him to come with us. Today we learned to sit a hard gallop and how to give the horse his head while still maintaining control.

  The lads enjoyed themselves letting their horses burst down the Row, yelling like hellions. Fortunately, at this early hour, not many people were about, so most of fashionable London was not there to be shocked.

  After the lesson, I sent the boys and horses home with their respective grooms, Peter’s groom riding my horse and leading Peter back to the mews. I walked from Hyde Park alone, out through Grosvenor Gate and up Park Lane to Grosvenor Street.

  Grosvenor Square, its four streets lined with mansions and surrounding a large green park, was filled with carts and other vehicles, drivers making deliveries to the many households.

  Like a great machine, London was never dormant for long. The wealthy in this square bought clothing, food, and drink from the finest shops in Bond Street and other lanes, passed last year’s clothing down to the servants, who wore them until they sold them to secondhand merchants or tore them up to use for rags. The empty bottles and bones from last night’s roast and wine went to the rag and bone men, as well as the cloth that could no longer be used for anything else. The rag and bone men would sell the bottles to those who would reuse them or melt them for the glass, the rags were beaten and pulped to form paper, the bones crushed for meal to raise the crops or feed the animals who would be next year’s feast. The cycle went around without end. Comforting or dreary—however one chose to look at it.

&nbs
p; It was ten o’clock in the morning, and the great Lucius Grenville would hardly be awake. He was one of the wealthiest men in Britain, obtaining his money by inheriting several fortunes from male relatives who’d died without issue as well was from wise investment of said fortunes.

  Grenville’s tastes were envied and copied, including by the Prince Regent, and his fame had spread throughout England to the Continent. Grenville had once told me he valued my company because it was refreshing. “You do not say what you are supposed to say, or anticipate what I wish to hear,” he’d explained.

  In other words, I was blunt and rude. I suppose, to a man surrounded by fawning sycophants, my blatant opinions could be considered a novelty.

  It was the height of rudeness to call without warning so early in the morning, but I knew Grenville would never forgive me if I kept the problem Spendlove had thrust upon me from him. We’d quarreled in the past about that very thing, and truth to tell, I knew I’d need his help. He’d know about the artwork in Carlton House and how it might be stolen, and by whom.

  I stepped up to his door and rapped smartly on it, to have it wrenched open by a haughty footman. I had hoped for Matthias, brother to my valet, Bartholomew, but this was not to be. Matthias would have greeted me warmly, admitted me to the foyer, and then rushed up the stairs to see if Grenville was awake.

  This footman gazed stiffly down his nose at me. “Mr. Grenville is not at home, sir.”

  I gave him an impatient frown. “Mr. Grenville can hardly be out at this hour. He’s shocked at my heartiness for even being dressed at ten in the morning.”

  “Nevertheless, sir. He is out.”

  I peered into the young man’s eyes but found no deception. Grenville, for reasons of his own, must truly have pried himself from bed and left the house.

  “Who the devil is that? Never tell me it’s Captain Lacey.”