Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Author's Note
Books in the Captain Lacey Series on Kindle
About the Author
Copyright
Chapter One
June, 1818
The letter, neatly folded at my plate, looked innocuous enough, but I had a sense of disquiet about it.
The letter had come through the post, my name and direction carefully printed by hand. Captain Gabriel Lacey, South Audley Street, Mayfair.
An auspicious address, though not my original. I’d married it. Six months ago, I had been living in straitened circumstances in rooms above a Covent Garden bakeshop. At New Year’s I had married Donata Breckenridge, a young widow, and moved into tasteful splendor.
The previous master of this house, Lord Breckenridge, had been a brute of a man, and a boor. Did I feel a sense of triumph that I had awakened with the beautiful Donata half an hour ago, while the foul Breckenridge was dead?
I did, I am very much afraid.
I breakfasted alone. Donata slept on upstairs, weary from her social engagements of the previous night. Her small son from her first marriage, Peter—the current Viscount Breckenridge—took his breakfast in the nursery, and my daughter had not yet woken. In the family, Peter and I were the early risers.
I eyed the letter for some time, filled with a sense of foreboding. I’d received two rather nasty missives in the last weeks, unsigned, purporting me to be an imposter—in fact not the Gabriel Lacey who had left my Norfolk country estate more than twenty years ago with a regiment posted to India. I was a blackguard who’d come to cheat Lady Breckenridge out of her money and leave her destitute. If I did not heed the writer’s warning, leave a substantial sum for him in a yet-to-be determined meeting place, and disappear again, he would denounce me.
I, of course, showed these letters to my wife at once. Donata had great fun with them, and was busy trying to decipher the handwriting. A jealous suitor, she proclaimed, though she had no idea which one. Could be dozens, she’d said, which unnerved me a bit, though I should not have been surprised. Donata had been quite a diamond of the first water in her Season.
I finished my ham and slice of bread, toasted to near blackness as I liked it, and took a long draught of coffee before I lifted the letter and broke the seal with my knife.
I make so bold to write to you, Captain, to beg a favor. I have a problem I have been pondering for some time, and would like another opinion. Sir Montague Harris, magistrate at Whitechapel, suggested I put the affair before you and see what you make of it. You would, unfortunately, have to travel to Wapping, but there is no way around that. If you would prefer to discuss the matter first, I am happy to meet you in a place more convenient to explain.
Yours sincerely,
Peter Thompson
Thames River Police
“Barnstable,” I said to the butler, who hovered nearby, waiting to serve me. “Please send for a hackney. I am off to Wapping this morning.”
***
Barnstable, who was a stickler for appearances, wanted to rouse the coachman to have me driven across London in the Breckenridge landau. I forestalled him, seeing no reason to wake the man, Hagen, who’d been out until four driving my wife from place to place. Nor did I wish to roll into the seamier parts of London in a luxurious coach with the Breckenridge crest on its side.
A hackney would do. Barnstable made sure one halted at our front door, a plain black coach, shining with rain. I asked Barnstable to convey to Donata where I’d gone, in case she woke before my return, and I was off.
The coach had only reached the end of South Audley Street when the door was flung open again. The vehicle listed sharply as a large man climbed inside, slammed the door, and fell onto the seat opposite me. He gave me a nod.
“Mornin’, Captain.”
“Mr. Brewster.” My hand relaxed on my walking stick, which had a stout sword inside it. “I would have hoped Mr. Denis had ceased sending a minder after me.”
Brewster folded his thick hands across his belly and returned my look blandly. “Mr. Denis pays me to follow you. When you dart out of your house at nine in the morning and leap into a hackney, I can’t but help wondering where you’re off to. If I didn’t find out, Mr. Denis would not be pleased.”
James Denis was not forgiving of those who disobeyed his orders. I had to concede Brewster’s dilemma.
“I am going to visit a man of the River Police,” I said. “Perhaps not an errand you’d wish to take.”
Brewster made a slight shrug. “I go where you go, Captain.”
Brewster was a criminal, a thief and possibly a murderer. James Denis, an even greater criminal, ever plotted to have me under his thumb. The association between us, however, had become much more complicated than that. My ideas about Denis had changed, though I had no illusions about exactly what sort of man he was.
The journey across London was tedious, its streets clogged with vehicles, animals, and humanity living as hard as they could under the cloud of smoke twined with mist from the river.
We moved along the Strand, then Cheapside, then through the heart of the City’s financial prowess at Cornhill and Leadenhall. We turned southward around Tower Hill and so to the docklands.
Wapping was in the midst of these, with tall ships lining the wharves, the forest of masts and yardarms stretching down the river. The bare rigging moved as the ships rocked, the vessels straining to be released to the freedom of the sea.
I’d sailed plenty myself in such ships, my longest voyage being to India when I’d been young and in the army, to fight in Mysore. I’d dragged my delicate first wife across the ocean with me. That she would not have the eagerness to see an exotic part of the world at my side had never occurred to me.
A similar ship had taken me to Norway, then to France, and finally to Iberia, to fight battle after battle in the unceasing wars. Since I’d returned to England in 1814, an injury denying me the glory of Waterloo, I’d been land-bound. The sight of the tall ships stirred in me a longing to explore parts unknown.
For now, I turned my back on the ships and descended from the coach in front of the narrow house that was an office for the Thames River Police.
Formed by merchants and ship owners tired of cargo being stolen from the holds of moored ships, the Thames River Police patrolled the river, watch over the ships and docks, and apprehend thieves. While the river was their jurisdiction, they did sometimes help the magistrates and Runners throughout London with investigations.
I entered the house to find a small room filled with desks, maps of the river, and pigeonholes crammed with scraps of paper. A wiry young man scampered into the back when I removed my hat and gave my name.
Brewster did not enter the house behind me. He remained outside next to the hackney, leaning on its wheel and narrowly watching anyone who passed. He had no intention of letting the hired driver leave, he’d said, in case I needed a quick departure, but neither had he any intention of voluntarily walking into a house full of patrollers.