I stumbled to the far end of the chamber, expecting at every step to hear men pounding after me. The footman would no doubt raise the alarm.
I pawed at the drapes until I found a chink in one and lifted it to slide behind it. The cloths hung about a foot out from the edges of the room, creating a tunnel between fabric and unpainted wall.
I groped my way along this this for a while before I came upon a smaller door, closed but unlocked. I ducked through the narrow portal and along a short hall only to emerge in another enormous room.
This chamber had whitewashed walls, several massive fireplaces, and tables covered with pots, bowls, baskets, boxes, and haphazard piles of fruits and vegetables. Plucked fowls on one table leaked juices into a mound of flour.
It was far too early to find anyone in the kitchen, to my relief—and dimly to my distress. Something behind my panic did not like to see the comestibles out in the open with mice enjoying a small feast on the corner of a table.
I moved haltingly through the room, ignoring the smell of overripe fruit and aging fowl, but there seemed to be no way out of the infernal kitchen. At last I discovered another door the shadows of a cupboard, and I entered another corridor, my entire body beginning to shake, as though I had an ague.
The passageway was plain and unadorned, the walls flaking plaster. A servants’ route through the lavish house.
I heard a step and flattened myself against the wall, as though that would make me unseen. Whoever it was loped toward me without trying to be silent, obviously not expecting to meet anyone back here.
When he was a few paces away I saw by the light of his candle that it was the same footman, probably on his way to alert someone about the murder. He jerked to a halt when he saw me, and I took advantage of his shock and seized him before he could run again.
He struggled. He was half my age, and very strong, but I was an experienced fighter, and in spite of my current infirmity, I held him in a firm grip.
“Stand still,” I commanded in a fierce whisper. “I did not kill that man. I found him there.”
Hadn’t I? I wished like the devil I could remember.
“I promise you,” I said. “I give you my word.” The phrases stung my throat and I hoped they were true.
The young man’s frightened breath made a wheezing sound in the stillness. “You’re Mr. Grenville’s friend, ain’t ya?”
His accent put him from somewhere in south London. He had no question about my identity, but the servants would know who was in this house at any given time and what they meant to the Regent.
“Yes,” I answered breathlessly. “Mr. Grenville will vouch for me. My wife will too—though that rather depends on her mood.”
The young man only stared at me as I made my feeble joke, ready to spring and run the instant I released him.
“What is that room?” I asked, waving vaguely behind me. “Where Colonel Isherwood …”
“Banqueting room. Sir.”
“What the devil was he—?” I broke off, knowing the question was a futile one.
I considered for a moment that this young man had murdered Colonel Isherwood, but I could see no evidence of it. The death had been a messy business, and the lad did not have a splash of blood on his white shirt or the dark blue dressing gown. I unfortunately, had a streak of blood starting at my right knee and ending in the middle of my coat, as though the dying man’s blood had smeared me.
“Show me the way out,” I said. “Unless you have a mind to run for a watchman. If so, you’d better go now.”
The young man swallowed, his slim throat showing a prominent Adam’s apple. “This way, sir.”
Whether he’d decided to trust me or would lead me straight to said watchman I could not guess, and truth to tell, I did not much care. I only wanted free of this place.
I released him cautiously. He did not bolt but started through corridor, I staggering on his heels. The hallway’s blank walls were broken only by plain doors that would lead to the chambers of the Regent’s luxurious hideaway, each door identical.
My guide moved unerringly, leading me around turns and down short staircases until I was completely lost. I half-fancied we’d emerge once more into the room where the dead man lay, with twenty watchmen and a magistrate waiting to arrest me.
We descended yet another set of stairs, and the footman slowing for my hobbling steps, and opened a door at the bottom. I had so convinced myself we’d return to the banqueting room or a similar chamber that I was surprised to feel cool, damp outside air and hear the sea in the distance.
The narrow door, opening to a tiny and noisome passage, must be meant for those removing slops or night soil, the parts of life one did not want marring a beautiful palace. A path led around a wall and past a bit of shrubbery that screened it from the house.
“Gate at the end,” my guide said. “Turn right. Lane will take ya to Great East Street.”
“Thank you,” I said sincerely. “What is your name, lad?”
