“That is a point.” We headed into the busier realm of Soho Square, undiminished even at this late hour. “This house is not that far from Cavendish Square—a different world, but he ought to have put much more distance between them.”
“Mayhap he likes to stay in an area what he’s familiar with. Oi—Look sharp, Captain.”
A small body darted in front of me, the boy who had Andrew Bennett’s eyes. “Ye leave me mum alone.”
I tipped my hat to him. “I do apologize, Mr. Bennett. I did not realize it was so late to call.”
Young Mark kept his fists clenched, clearly not knowing what to make of me. “When ye see me dad, tell him to come home. Me mum is missing him.”
“He stays away often does he?” I asked. “His work, no doubt.”
The lad scoffed. “I know what his work is, don’t I? He’s a card sharp. Must be. He comes in, gives mum plenty of money, and he’s off again. He has to spend days in the gambling dens, I warrant, to come with so much. So why do you really want to see him?”
“Not about anything to do with gambling,” I said. “I promise you. Do you have any idea where he goes? I could find him and send him home.”
Mark deflated. “Nah. I tried to follow him once, but got lost. He doesn’t like us going very far from the house, so I don’t know my way about. ’Tis dangerous ’round here, he says.”
“He is right.” I took a coin from my pocket and handed it to him. “I will look for him and send him home.”
The coin was snatched from my hand and disappeared while my fingers still felt its imprint. “Thank ye, sir.”
I touched my hat again. “Good night.”
“Night.” Mark skimmed around me and was gone, running hard back to the lane.
Brewster and I were left alone with the denizens of Soho.
“Well,” I said, my spirits rising. “At last, I have something to arrest the bloody man for.”
***
I returned home and slept, confident that Denis’s men would not let Bennett out of their sight. Tomorrow, I would speak to Pomeroy and have Bennett charged with bigamy.
In the morning, after a refreshingly dreamless sleep, I ate breakfast with good appetite, refraining from whistling a sunny tune. I was closing in on Bennett, and would get him one way or another.
I penned a note to Grenville, telling him of the night’s adventures and where I was off to, and sent one of the footmen running to his house with it. Bartholomew was up in the attics, snoring away, and I’d let him sleep. He’d had a bad night.
I found Brewster outside the front door when I emerged. He was taking his job as watchdog seriously.
The air inside the hackney we took to Bow Street was as stuffy as ever, but today it did not bother me. A breeze wafted outside, the sky was blue, roses bloomed in the public gardens, and all was right in my world. The nagging worries about Gabriella and the army of suitors that would descend upon our house I pushed firmly aside.
Pomeroy was in. In triumph, I presented my findings and suspicions about Bennett and said I wanted to bring suit against him for bigamy.
Pomeroy only looked at me and raised his large mug of coffee to his lips.
“He’ll not be the first gentleman who has himself a second so-called wife tucked somewhere, sir.”
“Using the same name as his first wife? I mean his legitimate wife?”
Pomeroy shrugged. “Happens. Mayhap he likes to pretend his mistress is his darling wife, especially when his legal darling wife is a shrew. Who knows? He might have these ‘Mrs. Bennetts’, all over London.”
“He has children with her. I wager this Ella does not know she is not his wife.”
“Possibly not,” Pomeroy said. “Don’t mean he’s a bigamist. Just crafty. Bring me evidence he’s married both these women in a church with a vicar, all laid out in the parish register, with banns or a special license—then I can take a case to the magistrate. Otherwise, he’s no different from your gentlemen of the town what maintain houses for wives and however many mistresses they can afford.”
“Bloody hell, Pomeroy.”
“Captain, you cannot have a man arrested, tried, and hanged because you don’t like him. Laws of England were made to keep that from happening—in theory. If not, every blessed one of us would be dead.”
“I believe him a killer,” I said in a hard voice. “Twice over now—who knows how many times? We must stop him.”
“Aye—I don’t much want a man who disposes of wives in such a cavalier manner running about the streets. But I need something more to arrest him on than you think he killed a woman fifteen years ago. I need a murder weapon with blood on it, blood on his clothes, a witness …”
“Any murder weapon and bloody clothes will have been destroyed years ago, and you know it. I wager the crowbar that struck her is at the bottom of the Thames, his clothes long since burned. What witness will remember exactly what he did or saw on an exact day fifteen years gone?”
Pomeroy shrugged again. “Until such a one comes forward, or this Mr. Bennett breaks down and confesses all, there’s nothing to arrest him for.”
“Very well then.” I was angry, but I knew Pomeroy was correct on all counts.
I could not drag in a man on suspicion alone. Ella might have taken Bennett’s last name, but it did not mean he’d married her in truth. That he’d legally married Margaret, his current wife, I believed—I imagined Captain Woolwich had made damn certain of it.
“I also think he did another murder,” I said. “Last night. Of a man employed as a footman in his house. Jack … I don’t know his surname.”
Pomeroy’s brows rose. “Jack Tyler? Known as Jack the Fox? He was a thief. The Watch thinks he was struck down when he tried to rob someone in the street.”
“It was Bennett,” I said with conviction. “Jack was working more or less for me, keeping watch on Bennett and his house. He followed him last night, and then Jack was dead. Bennett must have found him out and killed him. I’m certain of it.”
“Well,” Pomeroy said cheerfully. “You find me a witness and a bloody murder weapon, and I’ll happily arrest him. My patrollers are running around Oxford Street in quest of such things even now, so they might beat you to it. Meanwhile, don’t let the man arrest you for having him followed about, all right, Captain?”
***
I did not believe Grenville would be awake so early, but when I returned to South Audley Street, I found him there, waiting for me in my study.
“Pomeroy is right, I’m afraid,” Grenville said, after I told him what had transpired at Bow Street. “About the bigamy. I once knew a man who required each of his mistresses to call themselves Marie Antoinette. He went through a string of them, all Maries. Lavished such gifts and riches on them I’m certain they’d have called themselves Nebuchadnezzar if he’d asked.”
“You said you would question friends about parish registers to discover whether he legally married Judith Hartman,” I reminded him. “I believe we should check all the parish registers, to find out if he’s had any other marriages we don’t know about.”
“I don’t know all the vicars in England,” Grenville warned. “Though I know a good many. I have the feeling I will be swimming in punch before the week is out.”
“Thank you,” I said, pulling myself from my thoughts to fix my gaze on him. “Your help is invaluable.”
Grenville waved that aside. “Do not make me blush, Lacey. You know I am happy to assist—I’d have fled London long ago in ennui if not for you and your nose for trouble. I look forward to seeing what you will dig up in Egypt, so to speak.”
My heart beat faster. “You are putting the plans in place, then?”
“Of course. We will begin the New Year voyaging to the sands of the desert.”
The prospect sent a pleasant sensation through me, though I was not certain now I wanted to leave my family, especially when Donata would have her child not long before that.