In the Family Way by Sheri Cobb South

Author:Sheri Cobb South
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sonatina Press

Chapter 12

In Which John Pickett’s Investigation Begins

“And the worst part,” Pickett complained to Julia upon his return to Curzon Street, “is that except for Sully—Mr. Sullivan Bradley, that is—I have no idea where to find any of these people!”

Having buried his father, Pickett had plunged headlong into the work of investigation, starting with the list of the Queen of the Seas’s passengers and crew he had wrung from the unwilling Mr. Ludlow. At least, that had been his intention, until he had encountered this rather daunting obstacle.

“Were they not obliged to state their place of residence when they booked passage?” Julia, sitting up in bed, leaned in for a better look at the neat column of names, written in a curiously slanting hand with which she had become very familiar over the last nine months.

“No, for none of them appears to have a permanent residence in London—or anywhere else, for that matter. They would have given up their colonial residences before sailing, and no doubt had intended to find housing after they arrived.”

“What about this one?” Julia pointed to a name listed near the top. “ ‘Sir Horace Stapleton, Undersecretary to the Governor of His Majesty’s Colony of New South Wales.’ He should be easy enough to run to ground.”

Pickett looked doubtful. “Should he?”

“Of course! You have only to go to the War and Colonial Office in Whitehall and start asking for him. Government circles are surprisingly small. Sooner or later, you’re going to run into someone who can tell you where to find him.”

Pickett jotted down the name of this entity in the margin next to Sir Horace’s name. He hated being beholden to Julia’s first husband for anything, but there was no denying the fact that the late Lord Fieldhurst’s government connections, and the knowledge Julia had gleaned from them over her six-year marriage to the viscount, had their uses.

“I’m assuming Lady Stapleton is his wife,” he said, moving down to the next name on the list. “I wonder if she’s also the veiled lady at the inquest.” He closed the notebook and returned it to the inside pocket of his coat. “I think that will do to be going on with. I’m going to the docks first, to talk to the captain of the ship. While I’m about it, I’ll look up Sully’s boardinghouse and collect Da’s valise. With any luck, I’ll find something in it that will give me a lead.”

The weather had not noticeably warmed since the funeral on the previous day, and in concession to the cold—to say nothing of the fact that he would be obliged to make the return journey carrying a valise of unknown weight and size—Pickett hired a hackney instead of making the seven-mile trek to the Isle of Dogs on foot.

No island in the literal sense, the Isle of Dogs was a marshy peninsula enclosed on three sides by a deep meander in the River Thames. No one could say how or when the peninsula had got its name,

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