This is from my next Lyon’s Den story, Thrown to the Lyon.
***
Ben had given up on finding Seward the night before, after trawling through a dozen awful dives. He woke the following morning determined to track the man down. He had a couple of other engagements for the day, but making Mrs. Kent safe was his priority.
Perhaps the next step was to find Seward’s friends. One of them, Tiberius Hastings, who had once been betrothed to Ben’s sister, was now in a private asylum, after attempting to drown Lauren for breaking off the betrothal. But the man ran with a pack of other dissolute fools.
There was no point in looking for any of them before noon, so in the interim, Ben would meet with his secretary and also call at the Lion’s Den to look in on Mrs. Kent.
They would not let him up onto Mrs. Dove Lyon’s floor, but they showed him to one of the little sitting rooms on the floor above the gaming den, and a few minutes later, Mrs. Dove Lyons joined him, accompanied by the little boy and his soldier doll.
“I have not yet been able to talk to Seward,” he admitted, once they had exchanged greetings.
“I was wondering whether if it would be possible to find the man who gave Stephen the apple,” Mrs. Kent commented. “He was on his way to market, and the apples in his baskets were of exceptional size. Surely there cannot be many apple sellers with apples that are so large?”
It was worth a try. If it could be shown that Seward was lying about the theft, then his entire case collapsed. “When we say exceptionally large,” he said, “what size are we talking?”
The shape she made with her hands was about five inches around. “I thought I might go to the market and look for him myself,” she said. “I would recognise him, you see.”
“Not without escort,” Ben objected. “We need a reputable witness handy whenever you go out, Mrs. Kent, in case Seward tries something else.”
Mrs. Kent accepted his argument without demur, and when they left the Lyon’s Den some thirty minutes later, Mrs. Kent was on Ben’s arm, and a couple of Mrs. Dove Lyon’s wolves (as she called her doormen-come-bodyguards) paced behind them.
Stephen had been left behind in the kitchen, where the cook and the maids had promised to keep him entertained.
Covent Garden market was not far away, but it was crowded, and they had almost completed the circuit of the area before Mrs. Kent pulled her hand away and hurried up to a man who was loading empty baskets into a cart.
“Sir,” she said. “Sir, was it not you whom I met yesterday morning, on the Strand?”
He turned, a cheerful fellow in his middle age, with a girth that hinted at the pleasures he enjoyed at table, and twinkling blue eyes. “It is the lady who helped me pick up my apples. How do you do, ma’am? How is your sweet little boy? Did he enjoy his apple pie?”
Ben gave a sigh of relief. The man could not have been a better witness.
And when Ben and Mrs. Kent explained the situation to him, so he proved to be. He insisted on heading to the magistrate’s court without further ado, and swearing a statement. “My brother, here, and my son shall say the same. I’ll leave them here with the stall, but they can make a statement if needed. And I daresay your constables can find a dozen other people—or more—who were on The Strand near Charing Cross, and who saw the whole thing.”
He had another thought. “Furthermore, if you have the apple, it proves it, for I am the only person within carting distance of London who grows Peasgood Nonsuch, and if she was not given it by me, then there’s nowhere else she could have got it. Show me the apple, man, and let’s be finished with this.”
Mrs. Kent leaned heavily on his arm, as if she was dizzy with relief. “The officers at the Bow Street Magistrate’s Court have taken the apple as evidence,” she said. “You will be able to see it when we get there.” The dastardly Seward would be foiled, and she would be free to return to her home.
At Bow Street, a different clerk was on the desk, and when Ben gave his name and title, he was quick to fetch Officer Fairlie. Fairlie was delighted to meet the apple seller—his name was Bert Grummidge. “I’ll take your statement, Mr. Grummidge, if you will just step this way, and yes, the apple will be in the property lockup.”
But it wasn’t. No one could explain what had become of it, but eventually one of the younger constables discovered an apple core in a rubbish bin. It was twice the size of a normal apple, and Grummidge declared it to be a Peasgood Nonesuch, even though not much of it was left and even what was was brown and gnawed.
“That’s good enough for me,” Fairlie told Ben and Mrs. Kent, but I will put the information to the magistrate to see if he requires further information.” He glowered. “And I shall find out who has been eating our evidence. If you can just be patient until I send word to the earl, Mrs. Kent.”
Ben took Mrs. Kent back to the Lyon’s Den. “I beg you to stay with Mrs. Dove Lyon for a few more days, Mrs. Kent,” he said. “Just until I have done what I can to spike Seward’s guns.”
He frowned as another thought struck him. “I will make sure to sort things out before the end of the week. Mrs. Dove Lyon is having another of her masked balls, and you will not want to be in residence at that time.”
After that, he carried Bert off to the nearest tavern for a well-deserved drink.
