Chapter 21
Chapter
Twenty-One
The magistrate slammed his fist onto the desk and the boom echoed around the office.
“For Christ’s sake, Marsden, you’ve already brought in a duke—now you want to take a marquess’s son into custody?” Sir Gabriel Poston, chief magistrate at Bow Street, kept his fingers clenched into the fist.
“Not custody. I want to bring him in and ask a few questions about Belladora Lovejoy. He was her lover, after all.” Hugh had spent a good hour after his discussion with the Duke of Fournier trying to figure how to untangle the connection with St. John in a clear way for Sir Gabriel, without exposing the duke’s secret.
There was no doubt that should Fournier’s affair be discovered, he would be tried and convicted for buggery and sent to an asylum or sanatorium—even if he was cleared of murder.
Same sex affairs were illegal, and many considered those who carried them out to be not in their right mind.
Just last year, Bow Street had raided a rumored molly house and arrested half a dozen men; under accordance of the law, they’d been sent to prison, a few of them clapped into the stocks and left to endure pain and humiliation as the crowds jeered and lobbed at them everything from rotten vegetables to dead cats.
Sir Gabriel leaned back in his chair, his stomach straining over the waist of his trousers.
The magistrate was a lover of fine food, good wine, and comfortable chairs, and it showed.
He’d taken over operations at Bow Street from his predecessor some dozen years before and could spot a lie like a hawk spots a mouse.
“There are no more questions needing to be asked, Marsden. Fournier’s case is closed.”
Hugh frowned from where he sat across the desk from the magistrate. “You mean it is moving ahead to trial.”
Sir Gabriel exhaled. “I mean closed. He’s a bloody duke. Lord Westborough has agreed to shunt him off north, to some asylum in the Highlands or some such. It’s over. He’s being escorted there tomorrow.”
Hugh gripped the arms of the chair. “When was this decided?”
Sir Gabriel incised him with one of his legendary cold glares.
He didn’t need to respond for Hugh to know what he was thinking.
That it didn’t matter when it was decided or how, just that it had been and to let it go.
Sir Gabriel never enjoyed dwelling on one case for too long; there were too many criminals and arrests to be made to spend much time on any one of them.
Usually, Hugh was of the same mind. The more arrests he made, the better his living.
This was different though.
There was little he disliked more than admitting he was wrong, except, perhaps, having to voice it to his supervisor, his mentor. Sir Gabriel had trained him, shaped him into the officer he was. He could turn and leave the office right now. He could save himself the trouble and humiliation.
His conscience, however, stood firm.
“I believe the duke is innocent.” The words rolled from his tongue and took with them a weight from his shoulders.
Sir Gabriel held still, his stare changing from exacting to stunned. “You what?”
“I brought him in for the murder, and at the time, it felt right. But I cannot deny the details of the case I’ve learned since then—”
“Details you’ve learned alongside the Duchess of Fournier.”
The magistrate had his finger on the pulse of Bow Street; he knew what, who, when, and where, always.
“She has a vested interest in her husband’s case,” Hugh allowed.
The chief magistrate stood, his impressive height and bulk dwarfing Hugh and making him once again feel like a young, fresh-faced street patrolman full of doubt.
“She is running in circles, Marsden. I’ve had a man on her for these last many days, and she has caught you up in her aimless foolishness. ”
Hugh snapped his eyes to Sir Gabriel’s. “You’ve had someone following her?”
Unexpected ire bubbled in his chest. Audrey had seen a man outside Violet House and on her tail on more than one occasion. Perhaps not the murderer after all. Momentary relief snubbed out when he remembered he’d been shut out of an official part of the case. His case. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I wanted to be sure the duke’s wife wasn’t somehow involved in his lover’s murder, and your distaste for the upper echelons of society is well known,” Sir Gabriel replied, guttering a laugh as if Hugh should’ve known the answer.
“I didn’t think you could be unbiased. Apparently, I was right, only it’s gone in a much different direction than I anticipated. ”
Just as everyone in the duchess’s set knew of Hugh’s past, so did the men at Bow Street. It wasn’t often they had reason to visit the homes of London’s elite, but whenever they did, Hugh was not the man to go.
Sir Gabriel came out from behind his desk. Hugh met him at the corner. “What do you mean by a different direction?”
“You must cease this dalliance with the duchess before it ruins you.”
“Dalliance,” he scoffed. “It’s nothing of the sort.”
The magistrate held up a thick finger. “A cloud has hung over you since the duel with Neatham. Becoming mixed up with a duchess is throwing oil onto the fire, and well you know it. Bow Street doesn’t need it. I don’t need it.”
Hugh wasn’t naive—he knew how things would look.
It was why he’d asked her to stay away from Bow Street.
He’d be content to remain invisible to the ton for the rest of his life…
just not at the duchess’s expense. He couldn’t walk away from this case when he knew she would not let it go until her last breath.
Now that the duke was about to be released into the custody of some institution in the north, where he could be forgotten, swept under the rug…
Once the duchess learned of it, she would panic. Do something reckless. Again.
“St. John is off limits,” Sir Gabriel announced, his voice booming. Hugh could only nod. Arguing would earn him nothing but a desk assignment. Anyone who got on the chief magistrate’s wrong side found themselves with a stack of files and paperwork no one else wanted to be saddled with.
Hugh quit the office and stormed down to the ground level, where his own cramped closet of an office was located near the back of the building. He hadn’t gotten four steps from the base of the stairs when he heard a raspy, pre-pubescent voice hurtling profanities at the front desk clerk.
“I’m tellin’ ya, ya nugget brain, I’ve got to see him now, an’ it be important—more important than what you’re doin’!”
Hugh’s heels dragged to a stop. He backed up and entered the front room. Sure enough, Sir stood before the clerk, who was busy scowling at the boy, his cheeks red.
“Now listen here, you scum sucker, this is the last time I’ll tell you to get out—”
“Sir,” Hugh bellowed. The boy twisted his rail-thin upper body toward him.
“Finally. Been tryin’ to get this fish-faced clod to tell me where you was for a quarter hour.”
Hugh raised a hand to the clerk, a signal to let it be. “Why are you here?”
He hadn’t asked the boy to report to him.
For a heartbeat, he hoped Sir brought news of another crime, something to drive Hugh’s mind from the Lovejoy murder.
From the duchess. It was what Sir Gabriel wanted.
No doubt it would be easier, better, to move on and leave everything having to do with the duke and duchess in the past.
“Your fancy lady,” Sir said. “I been keeping my peepers on her, just in case, and I thought you might want to know where she’s been.”
He braced himself. “Nowhere good, I imagine.”
“The workhouse called St. Emmanuel’s. Got there by a hansom and then left again. Heard her tell the jarvey Bedford Street.”
“My address? Did you follow her there?”
“Nah, I knew you was here,” he answered.
Absently, Hugh took a few ha’pennies from his pock and tossed them to Sir. “Nicely done. Good initiative, lad.”
The copper coins disappeared into one of the boy’s many pockets, and Sir tugged the brim of his cap. Hugh stared over the boy’s head, awareness ripping into him. She’d gone to the workhouse to find the footman, to hunt down the letter Lady Wimbly had wanted burned. It was dangerous. Desperate.
She knew. The duchess had learned of her husband’s imminent removal to the institution. She was acting rashly and was going to confront the footman alone.
“Come with me,” Hugh growled, and then bolted toward the station’s front door. Sir followed, a shadow on Hugh’s heels.
There was no need for a cab; Hugh’s home on the corner of Bedford Street and Maiden Lane could be reached in only a few minutes if he ran—which he did. He kept stride with Sir, the young boy holding onto his hat and pumping his arms.
The duchess hadn’t taken her driver, Carrigan. Which meant she’d most likely absconded from Violet House without any of the staff knowing.
Hugh barreled up the front steps to his home and swung the door wide. “Basil!”
The valet entered the hall, dressed to go out with his coat and hat. “I was just about to come to Bow Street, sir. You had a visitor, the Duchess of—”
“Where is she?” Hugh peered into the front room, but it was vacant.
“Gone, sir. She left a message for you. Said it was quite urgent.” Basil took a folded piece of paper from his pocket. “I hope you’re not angry, but I had a look and indeed, I thought it was prudent to come to you right away.”
Breathless from the run and from his bottled apprehension, he took the note.
The footman’s name is Fellows. The letter is on a boat at St. K. wharves. The Jackdaw. Meet me there. I’ll be careful.
Hugh crumpled the paper in his fist. “Like hell she will be,” he grumbled. “Damn woman!”
If St. John and the marchioness were involved, as Hugh suspected, who better to assign the killing than a man they’d rescued from a workhouse? The letter. It had to be something incriminating. Something the killer held onto for insurance.
“Did she say anything else to you?” he asked Basil. Alarm crinkled his valet’s brow as he shook his head.
“No, sir. Her Grace seemed to be in a hurry. I offered her a carriage, but she left on foot.”
“She can’t walk to the wharves from here. When did she leave? How long ago?”
“Fifteen minutes at the most,” Basil replied, removing his hat.
If she’d caught a hansom quickly, she might be arriving at the wharves right at that moment. He swore under his breath.
“Basil, keep your coat on and go to Bow Street,” he said. “Ask for the chief magistrate. Tell him I need a few patrolmen at the St. Katherine wharves right away. Let him know the duchess might be in danger there.”
That should light a fire under Sir Gabriel’s heels.
“What about me?” Sir asked.
Hugh peered down at him. “How well do you know the docks?”
He shrugged a knobby shoulder. “Like the back of me hand.”
“Then you can help me find the duchess,” Hugh said, and with that, the two of them raced into the falling dusk.