Chapter 14
Susan Styles stopped on the landing between the first and ground floors and peered at the face of a brass-and-oak barometer.
She tapped the glass and smiled. The black hand pointed reassuringly to a spot between FAIR and VERY DRY.
The servants had drawn back the burgundy drapes, and sunlight streamed through the southeast windows, slanting bright rectangles across the floor’s Persian carpets.
Susan caught the butler as he crossed the entrance hall. “Did the footman catch Mrs. Locock before she left?” She’d sent a note to Mary about their morning walk.
“Yes, my lady. And William was grateful for the half crown. He’s a good lad with an elderly mother to keep. And being out on a morning like this wasn’t a chore.”
She smiled. “Today is a reminder that winter isn’t a life sentence.”
Susan hadn’t been away from the house and grounds in days.
Princess Alexandra’s knee had been bothering her.
Louise had holed up in her room, producing sketches and clay models for a new project.
When Mary Locock sent an invitation to stroll in Green Park with her baby, Lady Styles accepted with pleasure.
Susan’s note would prepare Mary for two unexpected additions to their walking party: Harriet Fitz-Gerald and Princess Louise.
At Marlborough House the evening before, dinner conversation had wandered down the oft-visited topic of the weather.
Susan had read the prince’s boredom as easily as a child’s picture book, wondering if he would ever grow up.
Bertie’s gaze had drifted over Alix’s head and fixed on the mantel clock.
He’s calculating when he can slip away to the Midnight Club.
The prince wasn’t the only one who found the evening dull, so Lady Styles amused herself by conducting a small experiment.
Susan turned to Oliver Montgomery, seated at her left. “I’m meeting Mary Locock in Green Park tomorrow morning. That is if the sun shines and it’s not too cold.” She glanced across the table at a bored Harriet FitzGerald. Then she asked, “Princess Louise, are you still planning to join us?”
When Louise said yes, Harriet had brightened at once. “Oh, I adore Green Park. And walks are just the thing to shake off the winter doldrums.”
“Why don’t you come?” Susan had said. “We arranged to meet at eleven at the Queen’s Walk.”
As Susan waited for Princess Louise to come down in the morning, she thought, I shouldn’t have baited Harriet last night. Still, she couldn’t help smiling. At least Harriet would be rewarded with a morning spent in her idol’s company.
Princess Louise called from the first-floor landing, “Do I need my muff?”
“I think not. Gloves are enough.”
“Good.” She handed it to a footman and descended. “Harriet is meeting us at the park?”
“Yes.”
The princess waved away the waiting carriage as Susan guessed she would, and they walked the short stretch from Marlborough House to Green Park. “Cantered” was a better word, and Susan fell behind after twenty paces.
“Come along, Susan. With all this waiting on Alix, you’ve lost a step or two.”
“Perhaps if Their Royal Highnesses would make up their minds—decide on the time they wished to go out—there would be less sitting involved in waiting.”
Princess Louise laughed. “Guilty as charged. Still, your early mornings are predictable. Nothing much happens before eleven. I cannot understand how Alix lazes away the best part of the day. She was still in bed, picking at her breakfast tray, when I looked in to say goodbye.”
Susan stole a look at Louise’s profile. It had been their liveliest exchange in days, and her moodiness and preoccupation had lifted. Still, Lady Styles wondered about the outing. But she buried her misgivings, thinking, Perhaps it’s a good idea after all.
Susan said, “You’ll have to slow the pace when we arrive at the park. A stroll with a baby carriage isn’t a race.”
They reached the end of the Mall and turned right onto the Queen’s Walk.
Louise waved, spotting Harriet FitzGerald and Mary Locock strolling in their direction, Mary pushing a perambulator.
Then the four set off to traverse Green Park along the main path that cut across the lawn like the hypotenuse of a triangle.
Louise walked beside Mrs. Locock; Harriet and Susan fell in place behind them.
Nursery maids pushed most of the baby carriages they passed, but Susan knew that Mary Locock delighted in every small act of motherhood.
“Your youngest must still be in his perambulator, Harriet,” Mary said. She leaned into the carriage, adjusting little Henry’s blankets. “Why didn’t you bring him along?”
Harriet waved away the question. “Oh, I never interfere with the workings of the nursery. Nanny and the maids have their schedules.”
Princess Louise caught Susan’s eye and looked away.
They walked along, four ladies and a baby, the infant nestled in a three-wheeled, rattan perambulator.
They’d nearly reached the center of the triangular park where they would turn and make the circuit back to the Queen’s Walk.
A tittering, tweeting chorus serenaded them as they passed a thick planting of trees.
“Redwings, I think,” Susan said.
“They’ve woken the baby.” Princess Louise bent forward over the carriage.
A loud, sharp crack sent the flock of frantic birds flapping from the branches.
“Damn it, another dead end,” Tennant said, dropping the report from Kilcullen on his desk.
The chief constable of Kildare’s Royal Irish Constabulary had forwarded their report on the Dowling family. They’d traced them to a small village west of Kilcullen, but the trail ended there.
“The hamlet lost its church years ago,” Tennant said to O’Malley, “but the copper from Kilcullen found an old priest in the next town who remembered the family. After the husband died, his wife and children were forced off the farm. Margaret Dowling and her daughters, Elizabeth and Brigid.”
“’Tis an old story in Ireland, packing up after generations in a place but with nowhere to go. Is the priest remembering where they headed?”
“To Naas Workhouse,” Tennant said. “The local removing officer wrote up the order, so we have a date: September 1856.”
O’Malley shook his head. “Poor lasses.”
“Here’s the mystery, Paddy. Naas Workhouse has no record of them.”
“’Tis a puzzle. We have Lizzie Dowling, an ordinary Irish lass living in Kildare. She never arrives at the workhouse but starts working for Lady Middlebury.”
Tennant nodded. “The Middleburys’ estate is eight miles east of Kilcullen, not far from the Dowlings’ village. Then Lizzie crosses the sea to work for the queen and is murdered.”
“And the little sister, Brigid Dowling, travels far to the south in County Cork to work for Lady Middlebury’s sister. Then Brigid is murdered in London, and Lady Middlebury in Windsor Great Park.”
“Neither of the sisters ended up at Naas Workhouse,” Tennant said. “Nor did their mother, Margaret Dowling.”
“What happened to their mam, I’m wondering?”
“Unknown.” Tennant handed the report to O’Malley. “One last riddle. Take a look at the final paragraph. According to the old priest, someone else was looking for the Dowlings.”
The sergeant read it and looked up. “A soldier, showing up a year or two later.”
“Pity this Father Flynn’s eyesight and memory are half gone.”
O’Malley twisted around in his seat at the sound of raised voices and boots pounding down the corridor.
“Sir”—a panting constable took a deep breath—“there’s been a shooting in Green Park.”
He watched her fall. Then he dropped the rifle among the black poplars, the cover from where he aimed and fired.
The bullet struck higher and farther to the right than an ideal kill shot, and he smiled.
Couldn’t be better, he thought. He knew not to run and draw attention to himself.
He walked twenty yards parallel to the line of trees, then calmly cut across the verge, joining the foot traffic along Constitution Hill.
Passersby along the street had heard nothing over the din of carriage traffic, their gazes turned away from Green Park, intent on Buckingham Palace, looking to see if the Royal Standard flew from the flagpole. It waved from it rarely, and the pole was empty that day. The queen was elsewhere.
He headed up the hill toward Piccadilly, one dark-haired man of average height lost in the late-morning throng.
Sir Richard stopped Tennant and O’Malley at the end of the corridor. “Three ladies were taken to Westminster Hospital.”
“Three?”
“Princess Louise is reported to be among them. The first report identified her as the victim, but a second says she wasn’t injured. I don’t trust either account, given all the confusion. You and the sergeant go to the hospital and sort it out.”
Tennant asked, “Who’s taking charge of the investigation in the park?”
“The local divisional inspector, for now. You take command when you finish at the hospital.”
“Yes, sir,” Tennant said, turning away.
A hansom waited at the back entrance to the Yard.
The driver applied his whip when Tennant said, “Westminster Hospital. As quickly as you can.” As they rattled down Whitehall, passing Downing Street and the Home Office building, Tennant wondered if Sir Lionel Dermott knew about the shooting.
He got his answer when the cab swung right, passing Westminster Abbey on the left, and rolled to a stop behind a hansom.
Dermott looked over his shoulder as he paid off the cabbie.
“You’ve heard,” Sir Lionel said.
“Our information is that Princess Louise was among the party but is uninjured, Tennant said. “I’m here to confirm that report.”
“And Susan? Lady Styles. Was she—”
Tennant took his arm. “There’s only one way to find out.”