Deadly Affair: A Georgian Historical Mystery (Alec Halsey Crimance) Read online

  Alec politely waited, although he had so much he wanted to ask the clergyman. Not least, how he came to be taking snuff from a gold box in an elegant drawing room full of high-ranking politicians when less than a year ago he had been ministering to the wretched poor in the parish of St. Judes. He glanced at the Duke surrounded by the party faithful, intrigued by the possible connection between a nobleman of the highest rank and that of a poor, ill-dressed cleric of no family. The Duke could not be called benevolent. His disdain for those socially beneath him was well known. He was the epitome of what Alec most despised about his own order. Blackwell was a mild-mannered, honest man without pretence and ambition; a person of little worth to a consummate politician such as the Duke. Strange bedfellows indeed.

  “My lord, oblige me by refilling my glass,” the clergyman said in a thin hoarse whisper, tugging at his frayed neckcloth as if for air.

  Alec did as he was requested but one look at Blackwell told him the man had taken ill. His face had changed color and he looked suddenly uncomfortably hot. Sweat had begun to bead on his forehead. Alec felt for the man’s pulse and was surprised by the rapid, pulsating beat in his wrist. He loosened the clergyman’s cravat, sitting him back in his chair as he did so. This only seemed to aggravate the old man. Blackwell let his head drop back as he sucked in air through a slackened mouth. Alec had the neckcloth unraveled and the man’s waistcoat undone but still Blackwell gasped, his wheezing so loud that the other guests were alerted to his condition and conversation and laughter ceased.

  Sir Charles rushed to Alec’s side, calling for his butler to bring a pitcher of water. He turned to his old school friend for guidance, not knowing what to do with the gasping bulk now convulsing in his chair. “What’s to do?”

  “Fetch a physician!” Alec commanded, his arm feeling as if it was about to break under the cleric’s writhing weight.

  Just as he said this Blackwell pitched forward and vomited. A great stinking mass of undigested food splashed Alec’s stockinged leg and fell in lumps to the carpet. It was enough to send the onlookers staggering backwards. One gentleman heaved, stuck his head in the chamber pot beneath the table, and followed the cleric’s example. Alec held back his own nausea and maneuvered the cleric to his knees where he vomited once more. The great guttural shudders were the last straw for even the most hardened stomach and the circle of gentlemen surrounding him broke and scattered. Lord George Stanton made the mistake of peering over Sir Charles shoulder. The stench hit him before the sight and he reeled back, almost losing his balance had not the Duke caught his stepson by the elbow and thrust him onto the nearest chair.

  Alec was at a loss to know how to alleviate the man’s suffering. Until a physician could be found, there was not much anyone could do but shuffle about helpless and uncomfortable. Sir Charles tried to put a tumbler of water to the vicar’s parched lips but it was to no avail. Blackwell, his once sallow complexion now bright pink, continued to gasp, unaware of his surroundings and unable to ask for help.

  Then, all at once, the convulsions ceased as suddenly as they had begun. There came a collective sigh from around the room. Blackwell was perfectly still, his bald head now minus its brown haired bobwig, bent forward as if in prayer. He gave one last great shuddering breath and promptly collapsed, face down, into the mess he had created.

  He was dead.

  “What a wretched end to the evening,” complained Lord George Stanton, refilling his port glass.

  No one spoke. No one had spoken for five minutes. This fatuous remark did little to endear the Duke’s stepson to his fellow guests. Sir Charles looked pained. He wished the physician would hurry along so his servants could clean up.

  The Turkey rugs would have to be replaced.

  Sir Charles was reminded of his duties as host when Viscount St. Edmunds summonsed up the courage to excuse himself; he would join the ladies in the drawing room. Sir Charles suggested that the rest of the gentlemen do likewise. There was no reason why they should remain in the dining room, and the ladies would be wondering at their prolonged absence. There was not a man who cared to disagree and they bolted through the open doorway, greatly relieved if still in shock. A good hanging was one thing, but to witness a dinner guest dropping dead over the port…Well! It was unspeakably distasteful and downright bad mannered.

  The butler took the initiative and sent a footman with a bowl of clean water and cloth to wipe the vomit from the leg of Alec’s black satin knee breeches and white-clocked stockings. Soft-footed servants quietly cleaned away the glasses and decanters, and the two strongest amongst their number were ready to assist in removing the body once the physician had confirmed the clergyman was indeed dead. Though why this was necessary now, with the man going cold on the rug, the butler was left to wonder at.

  Sir Charles seemed unaware he was not the only one left watching over the corpse, until the physician was ushered into the room and began his examination by directing questions to Alec. Sir Charles was quite content to let his friend recount events. Apart from finding the process repugnant, he lacked the energy to do anything but repine on the disastrous end to a dinner party that had held the promise of furthering his political ambitions.

  If only he could somehow hush up the whole ghastly business! He knew this for wishful thinking. For one thing, Lord George Stanton had the biggest mouth in town. By morning not only would the news have gone right through his club in St. James’s Street, but also in Parliament he would bear the brunt of the opposition’s twisted sense of humor. Just the sort of thing guaranteed to pour scorn on the many years spent carefully building up the vision of a trusted and worthy member of the government. He wondered in what light the Duke would view the whole sordid business.

  His mentor leaned in an opened window, unnoticed and silent. He seemed disinterested in the proceedings until the physician gave the nod for the servants to carry the corpse away, saying,

  “The poor fellow suffered a massive heart attack. Could’ve happened at any time.” He looked at Sir Charles, apologetically. “A pity it had to happen at one of your dinners, Sir Charles.”

  The Duke turned at this and Alec noted that the nobleman’s lined face had blanched as white as the froth of lace at his wrists.

  “It is your opinion that the Reverend Blackwell died of heart failure?” asked the Duke.

  The physician remained unmoved. “Yes, your Grace. That is my opinion.”

  The Duke was unconvinced. “After everything Lord Halsey has told you of the man’s final moments, you can state without reservation that it was a heart attack?”

  Sir Charles gave a nervous laugh. “Your Grace, what else could it be?” He looked to Alec and then at the physician. “Food poisoning, perhaps?”

  “No. No. No,” dismissed the physician. “Not enough time for that. Besides, the vicar would not be the only one affected. There’d be signs of distress in the others. And as Lord Halsey has assured me no one else suffered similarly, I very much doubt there was anything in the food to cause the man distress.”

  “No one has asked the ladies—” began Alec, only to be cut short by the Duke’s sniggering.

  “Ever the pedantic need for the truth, Halsey?” the Duke sneered. “Then again,” he drawled, a significant glance at the place where the clergyman had dropped dead, “this sort of thing isn’t new to you, is it?”

  Sir Charles’s mouth swung open at this bald reference to the suspicious shooting death of his friend’s elder brother. He didn’t know where to look. And however ludicrous the suggestion, he couldn’t bring himself to defend Alec at the expense of incurring the displeasure of his mentor. The physician was left wondering.

  Alec bit back a retort, preferring to ignore the inference. Instead he said calmly to the physician, “His Grace is in shock and perhaps requires—”

  “I require nothing,” spat out the Duke of Cleveley, not taking his gaze from his opened snuffbox. Unable to control the tremble in his hand, he fumbled to close the lid and the little
gold box clattered to the floor, its precious powdery contents washing across the polished floorboards.

  Alec stared at the snuffbox, which had come to rest at the pointed toe of his polished shoe, and within a blink of an eye Sir Charles was groveling on his knees before him, eager to be the one to return the little gold box to his former employer. It saddened Alec to see his old school friend prostrating himself in such a demeaning way. The Duke barely noticed this act of sublime subjugation and he certainly did not thank Sir Charles. In fact, he snatched the snuffbox from his hand and without so much as a goodnight strode from the room. For Alec it was not a moment too soon. He hoped tonight would be the first and last time he would ever be in the company of such an arrogant ugly man.

  A week later he had the misfortune to encounter the Duke at an art exhibition in Oxford Street.

  Plantagenet Halsey MP considered himself fighting fit for a man entering his sixtieth year, and what he most wanted to do was fight the latest bill put before the Commons. A bill that, if passed, would see an increase in the number of ships leaving Bristol harbor in search of African slave labor for the sugar plantations of the West Indies and the cotton plantations of the American colonies. A bill proposed by the government, and championed by the Duke of Cleveley, as the only means of ensuring the kingdom’s supremacy over its European counterparts. Plantagenet Halsey loathed the Duke with a passion; almost as much as he hated the very idea of human enslavement.

  Thoughts of the Duke put a bitter taste in his mouth and intruded on what his nephew was saying. The last time he’d confronted the Duke he’d made a fool of himself. He should’ve heeded the advice of colleagues and left the debate on the floor of the House. Two hours of listening to Sir Charles Weir drone on and on about the urgent need to increase, not only the number of ships but the permissible number of slaves taken on board such vessels, to ensure England’s mercantile advantage was not compromised, was all the old man needed to send his blood to the boil.

  Everyone knew Sir Charles was the Duke’s puppet in the Commons. The man had been Cleveley’s secretary for ten years before being rewarded for his loyalty with a rotten borough seat in the Duke’s keeping. And for the past five years he had repaid the Duke by being his eyes and ears in the Commons. He never missed a vote, never opposed a government endorsed bill, and at every opportunity championed the integrity of the Duke’s character and political motives on the numerous occasions a member of parliament took it upon himself to question such matters. In Plantagenet Halsey’s opinion the worst kind of sycophant: unthinkingly loyal and doggedly determined.

  How insane of him then to confront the man and his idol in the pavilion at Ranelagh Gardens. It was the first appearance of the Duke at a public gathering since the death of his good Duchess. The orchestra had just finished playing a selection of Handel’s favored water music in honor of the Duke’s presence. The audience not only applauded the musicians but one of their number took it upon themselves to offer three cheers in support of the Duke. The man himself had appeared nobly self-effacing. His puppet, Sir Charles, was not so humble and grinned from ear to ear at such public enthusiasm for his benefactor.

  It was a rare occurrence for a member of the English aristocracy to receive such praise. Plantagenet Halsey considered such affected displays best left to the French who worshipped their nobles with unthinking zeal. That the Duke should be given such an honor, all because his stirring speeches about the expanding British empire appealed to the swelling money bags of the merchant class at the expense of those poor African natives herded up like cattle and loaded into British frigates for slave labor in distant lands, was enough to turn the old man’s stomach. His response was immediate and instinctive.

  He had marched straight up to the Duke, poked him in the chest with the Malacca head of his walking stick, and called him a murderer of nations or some such provocative thing that he could not now recall. He had then spat on the sparkling diamond encrusted buckles of his Grace’s well-polished shoes. The outraged Sir Charles quickly stepped in front of the Duke, and the rest of their party closed protectively about the great man, leaving the crowd that swelled forward to wonder at all the fuss.

  The Duke did not give him the satisfaction of responding to this violation of his immaculate person. He merely turned heel and walked away, leaving Plantagenet Halsey to the mercy of his followers, who dragged him outside by the collar of his plain woolen frockcoat and tossed him into the cold water of the nearest pond. His walking stick, a gift from his nephew, was snapped in two and thrown in after him.

  The old man sneezed; a reminder that he was not fully recovered from this watery ordeal. It served to bring him back to the present. Alec was looking at him as if he required an answer.

  “Vomited you say?” questioned Plantagenet Halsey, recalling the thread of their conversation. “I’m no expert in such matters but that don’t seem consistent with a heart attack. Or is it?”

  “I’ve no idea,” said Alec. “All I know is the man was perfectly healthy throughout dinner. He was not in any discomfort. No shortness of breath, or flush to his face. And he certainly wasn’t in pain. No sign at all of what was to come.” He laid aside his gold-rimmed spectacles atop a stack of unopened correspondence. “Blackwell’s death came as a complete shock.”

  “I’ll miss the old badger, but I’m not sorry he up and died at one of Weir’s dinners.”

  Alec smiled thinly. He knew very well what had happened at Ranelagh Gardens. His valet, Tam, had inadvertently told him in explaining why he was late in drawing his bath; that he’d been busy preparing an elixir for the old man’s sore throat, a consequence of ending up in a fishpond. The whole story had come out and Tam had begged him not to reveal his breach of confidence. It was not Alec’s intention to remind his uncle of his embarrassing impetuousness. He may agree with his uncle’s sentiments but he certainly did not approve of his methods.

  “When I accepted Charles’s invitation to dine,” Alec said patiently, “I did so as an old school friend, and because I owed him a favor. If it makes you feel any better I found the evening rather dull.”

  “A diplomatic understatement,” grumbled the old man, “given the end to the evenin’.”

  “As I said, the vicar’s death was a complete shock.”

  “Obviously not to everyone, my boy.”

  “Meaning?”

  Plantagenet Halsey’s grey bushy brows lifted in surprise. “Come now. Don’t tell me you think he suffered a natural death?”

  Alec frowned. “I’ve no evidence to suggest otherwise, which means I should dismiss any suspicions as absurd.”

  “Aha! So you do have suspicions. Got to wonderin’ who would want to be rid of a harmless old vicar?” Plantagenet Halsey asked shrewdly.

  “Yes. Particularly when just as the port was being put on the table I overheard Lord George Stanton telling Weir he suspected Blackwell of blackmailing Cleveley.”

  “Blackmail? That don’t sound like the Blackwell I knew.”

  “No. But it’s Stanton’s belief that only blackmail could induce the Duke to let Blackwell live under his roof.”

  “What? Blackwell was livin’ in that nobleman’s house?”

  “Furthermore, Charles was of the opinion that perhaps it was the Duchess of Cleveley’s dying wish that Blackwell be given a home because it was he who had performed the last rites on the Duchess.”

  The old man was so agog at this that he leaned forward on the ribbon back chair. “Are you sure we’re talkin’ about the same vicar?”

  “The Reverend Blackwell we knew, the penniless helper of the poor and forgotten of our society, I can’t imagine having an enemy in the world. Yet, if he was on friendly terms with the Duchess, whose son accuses him of blackmail, and he’d recently taken to living at the Duke of Cleveley’s social and economic expense, then the vicar may well have had enemies, and under the very roof he was staying.” Alec looked pensive. “He showed me a gold snuffbox, a gift. The poor parish vicar we knew woul
d’ve shunned such luxuries, or at the very least have sold it for medicinals, food, anything to help his ragged flock.”

  “The man must’ve been drunk. Or drugged.”

  Alec grinned. “Perhaps you think I was by the look on your face. When was the last time you saw Blackwell?”

  “It’s only been about a month since he sent for Tam to—About a month.”

  Alec ignored the slip for the moment. “If we take the approach that this other Blackwell had enemies—Stanton for one was not pleased he’d moved into the Cleveley mansion—and ask if there was an opportunity for murder then yes, I think he could’ve been poisoned; something slipped into his food, or his drink. The servants were coming and going all the time with dishes and bottles. And more than once Blackwell had to get up from the table to relieve himself behind the screen. And I spent more time talking to Charles on my right than I did the good vicar on my left.” Alec shrugged. “And that is assuming he was poisoned at dinner. He may have been poisoned before he arrived at Weir’s dinner party.”

  The old man stood up with the aid of his old splintered Malacca cane. “Perhaps… Perhaps he did have a heart attack. Perhaps the vomitin’ was just a consequence of too much rich food, and a mere coincidence that both happened at the same time? The fact you were sittin’ beside him is neither here nor there.”

  “Is that what you’ll be saying to the doubters, Uncle?”

  “What y’mean?”

  Alec sighed. “If you and I think there was an opportunity for foul play, who’s to say others don’t think the same? In fact, that’s what’s being whispered about already, isn’t it?” When the old man pretended ignorance by lifting his thin shoulders, Alec said impatiently, “I may have spent the past seven months rusticating in Kent but that hasn’t made me blind, deaf or a simpleton. I know what’s being said behind my back. I need only walk into my club, ride in the Park, take up a foil at Anton’s, for there to be an awkward exchange of whispered asides between men who wouldn’t normally know me from Adam. I was sitting next to Blackwell. I was the one on whom he vomited. And I was the only one at that dinner party ever accused and acquitted of a man’s murder—my brother’s murder. There’s no need to look into a witch’s cauldron to know who everyone suspects!”