Murder at the Seven Dials

Murder at the Seven Dials A BOW STREET DUCHESS MYSTERY BOOK ONE CARA DEVLIN Copyright © 2023 by Cara Devlin All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Names and characters are products of the author’s imagination. ISBN paperback: 979-8987612507 ISBN hardcover: 979-8987612514 Contents Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Death at Fournier Downs About the Author Also by Cara Devlin Chapter One London April 1819 The boy navigated the dark and narrow alley with a breed of confidence only street urchins possessed. Stealthy and fearless, he dodged shoulders and carts, moldering crates of rubbish, and took an agile leap over the splayed legs of a vagrant. A person could adjust to a certain level of comfort with this sordid side of London, where Covent Garden and Long Acre met with the Strand and Temple. The gilded people of Mayfair and Knightsbridge seemed worlds away instead of just a few miles due west. Hugh Marsden considered himself one those adjusted sort. He trailed the scrappy lad, known to him only as Sir, through a sooty warren of streets and alleyways, trusting the boy’s nose for trouble—and reward—without question. Sir had arrived at number 19 Bedford Street at half past eleven on a Tuesday evening. He’d pounded incessantly upon the front door Hugh’s modest and narrow, three-story terraced house until the wood had swung away from his fist, to be replaced by an unimpressed valet glaring down at him. From his chair in the upstairs study, Hugh had already folded the most recent copy of the Hue and Cry gazette. Sir’s particular knock was unmistakable. The late hour, concerning. “You want to see this one, Mister Hugh,” Sir said, gasping for breath when Hugh met him in the foyer. As a principal officer at Bow Street, Hugh no longer walked the night streets as a foot patrol, as he once had. In fact, he’d been just about to turn in for the evening, and Basil, his ever reliable valet-turned-mother-hen, reminded him of it. Hugh ignored him and kept his curious gaze on Sir. “Is it serious?” Sir’s answer—a dramatic expression of revulsion—was bait enough. Hooked, Hugh told Basil to fetch his coat. “I’ll signal for a cab—” the valet began, but Hugh interrupted, “No time. We’re on foot, Sir,” and then bounded away, barely one sleeve into his greatcoat. He chased the lad, ignoring the stitch in his side. The wiry eleven-year-old, however, contained the boundless energy of a foxhound. “The bloody nob’s still there!” Sir shouted over his bony shoulder. And with that little nugget of gold, Hugh ran faster. Wherever there was and whatever crime he’d committed, if it led to a conviction at the magistrate’s court, a fine ten pounds would land in Hugh Marsden’s pocket—so long as he was the one to bring the man in. Though not part of his pound-a-week salary, Magistrate Poston liked to the keep things competitive among the officers and patrolmen. And Sir would be in for a crown, too. At last, the lad stopped running and let Hugh catch up. He pointed toward a dingy row of terraced housing, where a crowd clustered at the bottom of the entrance steps. Hugh ripped off his hat and raked his fingers through his hair, the roots damp with perspiration. “How do you know it’s a nob?” Hugh asked. Sir held out his palm, the creases blackened with coal soot and street grime. “Oh, he be a gent, Mister Hugh. I know me a gent when I see one.” He ignored the boy’s outstretched palm and pushed through the bedraggled crowd, into the mouth of the building. “Where?” Sir remained attached to his heels. “Third floor, second room, left. Now where’s me coin?” Hugh edged through the crowd at the base of the common stairwell. The blockade was made up of prostitutes past their prime and long overdue for a bath. “Bow Street’s ‘ere, girls,” one of them crooned as Hugh took the steps two at a time. He wore nothing that would mark him as an officer with the Bow Street force, like the navy coats and red vests the mounted officers wore, but he supposed these ladies knew how to read a fellow by his clothes. Straight away, they would have noted the cut of his suit, clean and pressed. That alone marked him as unlike the men of their usual acquaintance. They would have caught his scent as he passed, which lacked the stale brume of alcohol and cigars. They likely noticed the flintlock pistol at one hip and the iron wrist cuffs dangling from the opposite. “Didn’t know Bow Street ‘ad such a fine bum!” The particularly uninventive comment followed him up and around the bend in the stairwell. Granted, they were not paid for their creativity. Sir barreled up the stairwell, his palm still out and thrust up in front of Hugh’s chest. The persistent, stunted wretch. “What’s the man done?” he asked as they climbed the narrow steps to the third floor. “He’s done murder, that’s what he’s done. Now where’s me coin? I got a sick baby brother and me mum’s got the wheezes real bad, and then me Da, he—” “Save the sorry tale of your plight for the nuns, Sir. You’ll get your coin when I get my man.” Which, by the looks of the crush of people up ahead, might not happen after all. If another foot patrol had arrived, he’d have jurisdiction,