Resurrection Row - Anne Perry [0]
Anne Perry
To MEG
for all her help
Contents
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1
THE FOG SWIRLED thick and sour down the street, obscuring the distances and blurring the gas lamps above. The air was bitter and damp, catching in the throat, yet it did not chill the enthusiasm of the audience pouring out of the theatre, a few bursting into impromptu snatches of song from Gilbert and Sullivan’s new opera, The Mikado. One girl even lilted from side to side in imitation of the little Japanese heroine, before her mother told her sharply to remember herself and behave with the decorum her family had a right to expect.
Two hundred yards away Sir Desmond and Lady Cantlay were walking slowly in the general direction of Leicester Square, intending to hail a cab; they had not brought their own carriage because of the difficulty of finding a suitable place to meet afterwards. On such a January night one did not wish to keep the horses standing or roaming the area to pick one up. It was too hard to come by a really excellently matched pair to risk their health in such an unnecessary fashion. Cabs were plentiful enough and naturally gathered at the coming out of any theatre.
“I did enjoy that,” Lady Gwendoline said with a sigh of pleasure that turned into a shiver as a swirl of fog wreathed her and the damp touched her face. “I must purchase some of the music to play for myself; it really is delightful. Especially that song the hero sings.” She took a breath, coughed, and then sang in a very sweet voice, “A wandering minstrel I, a thing of rags and patches—er—what was next, Desmond? I recall the tune, but the words escape me.”
He took her arm to draw her away from the curb as a cab swished by, splashing manure where the street sweeper had gone home too early to clear it.
“I don’t know, my dear. I’m sure it will be in the music. It really is a miserable night, it is no pleasure at all to walk. We must find a cab immediately. I can see one coming now. Wait here and I’ll call him.” He stepped out into the street as a hansom loomed out of the mist, its slow hooves muffled in the blanketing damp, the horse dragging head down, almost directionless.
“Come on!” Sir Desmond said irritably. “What’s the matter with you, man? Don’t you want a fare?”
The horse drew level with him and raised its head, ears coming forward at the sound of his voice.
“Cabby!” Desmond said sharply.
There was no reply. The driver sat motionless on the box, his greatcoat collar turned up, hiding most of his face, the reins slack over the rail.
“Cabby!” Desmond was growing increasingly annoyed. “I presume you are not engaged? My wife and I wish to go to Gadstone Park!”
Still the man did not stir or steady the horse, which was moving gently, shifting from foot to foot, making it unsafe for Gwendoline to attempt to climb into the cab.
“For heaven’s sake, man! What’s the matter with you?” Desmond reached up and grabbed at the skirts of the driver’s coat and pulled sharply. “Control your animal!”
To his horror the man tilted toward him, overbalanced, and toppled down, falling untidily off the box over the wheel and onto the pavement at his feet.
Desmond’s immediate thought was that the man was drunken insensible. He would not be by any stretch the only cabby to fortify himself against endless hours in the bitter fog by taking more alcohol than he could handle. It was an infernal nuisance, but he was not without a flicker of understanding for it. Were he not in Gwendoline’s hearing he would have sworn fluently, but now he was obliged to hold his tongue.
“Drunk,” he said with exasperation.
Gwendoline came forward and looked at him.
“Can’t we do something about it?” She had no idea what such a thing might be.
Desmond bent down and rolled him over till the man was lying on his back, and at the same moment the wind blew a clear patch in the fog so the gaslight fell on his face.
It was appallingly obvious that he was dead—indeed, that he had been dead for some time. Even more dreadful than the livid, puffy flesh was the sweet smell