“It would seem, from what you say, Jane, that his lordship was most unhappy with Sir John Moore’s conduct of the Swedish campaign,” Henry observed. “I believe that gallant general was in fact arrested by King Gustavus, and only escaped Stockholm by donning a peasant’s clothes, and making his way through the gates of the city in a labourer’s cart.”
“Lord Harold utters no criticism of Moore,” I said thoughtfully, “and indeed, I have always reflected that Moore’s subsequent death in the retreat from Corunna would have deeply grieved his lordship, had he lived to know it.[12] I took the import of his text to mean, rather, that he disapproved of the Government’s diversion of force and attention from Peninsular affairs, to those in the Baltic.”
“That is perhaps the case,” Henry said cautiously, “but I cannot find that troop dispositions made two years since, can have any bearing on the death of a woman in Berkeley Square. Recollect, Jane, that the Prince — rather than serving as unofficial leader of the opposition — now holds the reins of government as Regent; that Mr. Perceval’s government is in flux; that Lord Castlereagh and Mr. Canning came to such blows that they are no longer invested with considerable powers in the Cabinet — as they were when Lord Harold wrote his entry — and thus, that the case is entirely altered! You cannot be forever seeking illumination in those old papers, my dear — tho’ it pains me to say as much.”
“All the same — I should like to have a little conversation with Lord Moira, Henry. I would be most grateful if you could put me in the way of speaking to him, as soon as may be.”
“I should be very happy, Jane.” My brother appeared startled. “But why this impatience?”
An idea of the gallows rose in my mind. “My time in London … grows short.”
“As does mine.” He glanced at me ruefully. “I am expected in Oxford on militia business for much of next week. I quit London on Sunday — but rest assured that Egerton will proceed with his printing whether I am present to spur him, or not. Eliza shall be Egerton’s taskmaster in my absence.”
Would that my novel were all that occupied my heart in the interval!
“You are very good, Henry.” I kissed his cheek as I rose from the table. My brother clasped my hand a moment in his before releasing it.
“I need not say how much your presence at such a time must gratify me, Jane. I cannot like leaving Eliza alone when she is in such a case.”
A tremor of guilt suffused me. “You would mean … her cold? But it is very trifling.”
He thrust his chair from the table. “She is hardly as young as she once was. Her indispositions of late have only increased, no matter how many remedies she seeks for them. I will not scruple to disclose that our removal to this house in Sloane Street was due in part to a desire for a more salubrious neighbourhood. The air in Hans Town is very fresh — it might almost remind one of the country.”
“Indeed it might. And now that May is upon us—”
“You do not find Eliza much altered?” my brother demanded. “I tell myself it is only the ravages of the winter, but her health has always been indifferent, Jane — you know her for a most delicate creature.”
I perceived that this trouble had been growing upon him, in the quiet evenings of early dusk, through December and January; such is the fate of a man who marries a lady ten years his senior, to be staring always at the prospect of a grave.
“Nonsense,” I said. “Eliza is very stout. And I am here to nurse her, with mustard plasters and flannel if necessary. Go to Oxford.”
When he would have smiled, and turned for his library door, I added swiftly, “But make my introduction to Lord Moira first, I beg!”
“Is it so important?” The satiric twinkle of my Henry of old was returned once more to his eyes. “I might almost believe you in fear for your life, Jane— so ardent is your desire for instruction in politics! We might look for Lord Moira to attend the inquest into Tscholikova’s death on the morrow. Most of the Upper Ten Thousand[13] will have squeezed into the publican’s rooms before nine o’clock has tolled.”
“Then I shall certainly accompany you,” I said swiftly, and bid him goodnight.
I confess I was relieved to learn that my brother would be absent for the better part of next week; I had too much to accomplish in those swiftly declining days, and too little guile to manage the business without a full confession. I might expect Eliza to emerge from her sickroom the very moment her husband’s hired mare had clattered away from Sloane Street; we would all of us move in greater ease once the ignorant were absent from the house.
For my part, I employed a quarter-hour in writing a brief missive to Sylvester Chizzlewit, Esquire, before snuffing out my candle. It should be sent round to the solicitor’s chambers no later than eight o’clock in the morning, with a discreetly-worded plea for his attendance upon me in Sloane Street. I foresaw the need of a gentleman in the coming days — one with an acute and subtle mind — and my brief acquaintance with the Chizzlewit family assured me that the youngest scion should possess such qualities.
As for the inquest itself — I had no fear of being called as witness by the coroner, to account for my dubious brokering of a dead woman’s jewels. Bill Skroggs had assured me that the magistrate would permit no mention of the curious theft to be introduced at the proceedings. Death alone was the panel’s province; Lord Castlereagh’s subtle investigations into a murder were a matter of stealth, to be conducted in the shadows.
THE BOW STREET MAGISTRATE’S OFFICE SITS DIrectly opposite the Theatre Royal, where Monday evening I had obtained my sole glimpse of Princess Tscholikova in life. It is also aptly located hard by a publick house: the Brown Bear, capably run by one Steptoe Harding. On these premises the Runners are wont to rest their weary limbs at the close of the day, and trade tales of the ardours of crime, under the influence of a can of ale or a measure of Blue Ruin. This morning, however, as Henry and I made our way towards Covent Garden, the narrow passage of Bow Street was clogged with carriage traffick that all but prohibited entry to the Bear. It was as my brother had predicted: the cream of London Society had come to learn why a Russian princess had breathed her last on Lord Castlereagh’s doorstep.
It was but half-past eight o’clock in the morning, and the inquest was not to be opened until the hour of ten; yet already seats were claimed towards the front of the publican’s main taproom, and the knot of persons by the door was five deep, all of them discoursing at the top of their lungs on every subject from movements in the Peninsula to a nobleman’s losses in one of the more fashionable gambling hells. Most of the interested parties were gentlemen: some of their faces I recognised. None were of Henry’s intimate circle — indeed, these were the Great of London Society: Lord Alvanley, who was extremely wealthy and deplorably intimate with the Prince Regent; Earl Grey, who might hope to lead a government in time, if the Regent deigned to remember his Whiggish friends; Henry, Lord Holland — another Whig, but one for whom I held an indescribable fondness, as having been the object of Lord Harold Trowbridge’s trust and esteem for thirty years at least. I have no acquaintance with Lord Holland or his fashionable lady; I shall never dine among the twenty or thirty Select who are summoned nightly to take potluck at Holland House; but I shall always bear him a depth of affection, for having supported Lord Harold in his darkest days.
The scene should have been offensive, were it not so benignly familiar: a crowd of elegant clubmen conversing at their ease in the Brown Bear, while beyond the door of the publick room, the body of Princess Tscholikova must even then await the scrutiny of the coroner’s panel: blue and cold, her neck ravaged by a knife or a razor, the remains already giving off a putrid smell at the passage of four days’ time. I felt a wild impulse to go to her — to protect this unknown woman from the callous riot of hunting and pugilism, on-dits and cockfights, the formation of governments and Perceval’s discomfiture … I thought to look for Earl Moira, in the hope that I might profit from this interval in furthering acquaintance — but as Henry squeezed politely past a gentleman who must, who could only be the ambitious Tory minister, George Canning, I glimpsed the Comte d’Entraigues.