Page 42 of Who Will Remember (Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery #20)
S aville Street was a short, exclusive enclave consisting of a single row of dignified eighteenth-century stone-dressed brick houses, generally either three or four stories tall plus basements and attics. There were no houses on the western side of the street, only the high garden walls and imposing rear gates of another stretch of houses that faced west onto Old Burlington Street.
The houses here tended to be occupied by aging dowagers, generals, admirals, physicians, and members of Parliament. Only one of the houses, Number 19, near the northern end of the street, had a tailor’s establishment on the ground floor, with each of the other three floors let independently as suites.
The rooms rented by Lord Preston Farnsworth lay on the first floor, up a grandly sweeping open-well staircase with twisted balusters and heavy, imposing newel-posts kept nicely polished. As he climbed the stairs, Sebastian could see Sir Henry Lovejoy standing on the landing above, deep in conversation with a thin, well-dressed man who looked to be in his early thirties. The man nodded in response to something Lovejoy said, then turned to mount the stairs to the second floor.
“How did you manage to find this place?” Sebastian asked as Lovejoy walked over to meet him.
“One of my lads followed Lord Preston’s valet when he left St. James’s Square this morning. Seems the reason the man pretended ignorance of the rooms’ existence is because he saw an opportunity to make a tidy sum by quietly selling the contents on the sly.”
“Charming fellow.”
The suite consisted of two rooms: a spacious front parlor that overlooked the street and a slightly smaller bedroom behind it. Sebastian paused at the entrance to the parlor, his gaze taking in the room’s plaster frieze of cavorting, naked nymphs, the green marble fireplace with fluted pilasters, the thick Turkey carpet, the comfortably padded sofa and armchairs covered in a fine green and champagne striped silk. “He spared no expense, did he?”
Lovejoy sniffed. “Apparently not.”
A small, plump man in his forties with thinning dark hair, a pasty complexion, and forgettable features sat at one end of the silk-covered sofa, his arms crossed at his chest, a bored, faintly supercilious expression on his face.
“The valet,” said Lovejoy. “Leonard Dudley is his name. He says he was with Lord Preston some fifteen years, and that before he hired this place Farnsworth had rooms in Jermyn Street. Seems he gave them up and shifted here six or eight months ago.”
The valet cast them a quick look, then glanced fastidiously away.
Sebastian said, “What else have you managed to get out of him?”
“Very little, I’m afraid. He claims Farnsworth used the rooms for ‘quiet contemplation.’ He also denies he had any intention of selling the place’s contents and says he kept Farnsworth’s secret out of respect for his dead master’s privacy.” What might have been a hint of amusement narrowed the magistrate’s eyes. “You’re more than welcome to try your hand at him if you wish.”
The valet looked up, his face wooden as Sebastian strolled over to him. “So tell me this,” said Sebastian. “When was Lord Preston last here?”
The valet kept his expression blank, his eyes blinking rapidly. “That I can’t say,” he said in a prim, high-pitched voice.
His lips curling into a hard smile that showed his teeth, Sebastian rested one hand on the sofa’s arm and leaned down until his face was even with that of the gentleman’s gentleman. “I think maybe you could if you tried. If not, a night or two in Coldbath Fields Prison might help loosen your tongue. I understand the old chums up there like valets.” He lowered his voice. “If you know what I mean?”
The valet edged away from him, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as he swallowed hard. “Of course, I know that Lord Preston was here several days before he died—maybe that Wednesday?” His voice rose even higher. “But I didn’t always know when he came.”
“Could he have left St. James’s Square last Saturday, walking, and then taken a hackney here?”
The valet nodded his head vigorously up and down. “He did that sometimes, particularly on Saturday nights. Then he would send me up to put things to rights a day or two later.”
Sebastian and Lovejoy exchanged glances.
“And it didn’t occur to you that this information might be helpful to us in understanding what happened to him?” snapped Lovejoy.
The valet looked from Sebastian to the magistrate and back again.
Sebastian said, “Where did Farnsworth get the women he brought here? And don’t even think of denying that that’s what he used these rooms for.”
The valet’s nose twitched. “Different places. The abbesses were always careful to take good care of him, but he also enjoyed picking up women from the street and bringing them here.”
“What else?”
“Nothing! There isn’t anything else I can tell you! I swear.”
“If you think very hard,” said Sebastian, pushing away from the sofa, “I suspect you might come up with more. So do try.”
The valet was still nodding vigorously when Sebastian turned away.
“We can start checking with the jarveys who work the area around St. James’s Square,” said Lovejoy. “Hopefully, we can find one who remembers bringing Lord Preston here that night.”
“Have you searched the rooms yet?”
“Not yet. Sir Nathaniel said he wanted to see the place before we started tearing it apart.”
“Perhaps this will convince him to broaden his personal list of suspects,” said Sebastian, going to stand in the doorway to the other room.
“Perhaps,” said Lovejoy, although he sounded doubtful.
This second room was dominated by the wide silk-hung bed that stood along the near wall, its embroidered dark blue counterpane half-buried beneath a jumble of clothes the valet had obviously been sorting in preparation for selling them to secondhand clothing dealers. The bedstead was of elegantly carved mahogany, the room’s two bureaus and a small round table with two chairs were exquisitely inlaid French pieces, and a vast array of pictures arranged in towering rows covered the dark blue silk-hung walls. Some were heavily framed oils, some delicate watercolors, others deliberately crude prints. All were erotic.
“Quite a collection,” said Sebastian, wandering over to study a massive oil painting of Leda being raped by a swan.
Lovejoy cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Indeed. We’ve spoken to the owner of the establishment downstairs. He says he doesn’t know if his lordship came last Saturday. He rarely saw Farnsworth and had the impression he mainly used the rooms at night. The gentleman who lives on the second floor—a Mr. Bingley—says basically the same thing. The third floor is currently vacant.”
Sebastian moved on to a print of a naked Daphne dancing before an equally naked Apollo. “Makes sense that he would come mainly at night, given what he used the rooms for.”
Lovejoy nodded gravely. “The house itself is owned by the widow of an Admiral Munstead. We’re trying to contact the solicitor who handles her affairs to verify everything, but I doubt he’ll be able to tell us much.”
“Probably not.” Sebastian let his gaze rove over the carved wooden pipe left lying casually on the inlaid table, the man’s brush and comb arranged neatly atop one of the bureaus. Farnsworth might have brought women to these rooms, but there was no sign that one had ever actually lived here. And that suggested that rather than keeping a mistress, Farnsworth had chosen to satisfy his sexual desires with a long string of women he either picked up from the streets or arranged to hire through brothels. “It would be interesting to talk to some of the women he brought here. There must have been dozens of them.”
Lovejoy sighed. “Undoubtedly. And yet I’ll be surprised if we can find even one who’ll be willing to admit it.”
“Not now that he’s been murdered,” agreed Sebastian, going to stand at one of the room’s two tall rear windows. Someone—presumably the valet—had opened the heavy curtains to flood the space with light. The back of the house overlooked a small, well-tended garden. Beyond that stretched the rear gardens of a row of houses that faced north onto New Burlington Street, while to the right ran a long, low series of brick buildings he realized must be Burlington Mews. And directly to the east lay the swath of destruction that marked the path of what would someday become the Regent’s New Street.
“Well,” said Sebastian after a long moment, “at least we now understand what Farnsworth was doing up here that night.”
Leaving Lovejoy to await the arrival of Sir Nathaniel, Sebastian walked out of Number 19 Saville Street and turned right. Only one house separated Number 19 from the behemoth that stood at the corner of New Burlington Street. Turning right again, he walked past just six more houses before reaching the ruins of what had once been Swallow Street.
For a long time Sebastian stood on the corner of that ghostly, windblown street. Overhead, the clouds were gathering again; he could smell the coming rain, smell the dust from the nearby demolished buildings and the dankness of old wet stone. If he were to turn right once more and walk several hundred feet he would be directly opposite the crumbling stone archway that led to that ancient Tudor courtyard and its death-haunted ruin of a chapel.
“So why the bloody hell did you come here , to Swallow Street, that night?” Sebastian said aloud, as if the wraith of Lord Preston Farnsworth himself stood silently beside him. “Why leave your warm secret rooms, your bottles of French brandy and erotic pictures, perhaps even the willing woman you’d hired for the night, to venture into this dark, deserted wasteland and get your head bashed in?”
Why, why, why?