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the heart.”
    She winced and drew back, as if the shot had hit her own heart. She had seen a few corpses since the Berkeley Brigade had taken up crime solving as a hobby, but familiarity never lessened the horror of it. “Poor fellow,” she said. “What do you know of him? I’m not familiar with the name.”
    “The Foggs are a county family of some importance. His mama is cousin to Lady Hertford,” Townsend said. “The prince visited the family last spring and took a fancy to the lad. Young Henry was not getting along with his family, not settling into a good country farmer after university. Felt himself too grand for them, I daresay.
    “It was arranged that he would come to London and some situation would be found for him, as it was. A sort of curator at Somerset House, but I don’t necessarily look for the murderer there. It was more of a synecure than anything else. Fogg didn’t put in what I would call a good day’s work. Came and went as he pleased. He had friends from his university days. He ran with an arty crowd here in London.”
    Several eyes turned in the direction of Prance, the artistic one of the group. “I never heard of him,” Prance said.
    “I believe there is some lady in the case,” Townsend continued.
    “Surely a lady didn’t shoot him!” Prance exclaimed.
    Corinne just listened. She knew from personal experience of a lady who had not only murdered, but murdered her own papa in cold blood. Why did these foolish men think a lady incapable of violence?
    “Why do you think a lady is involved at all?” Coffen asked. “Was there clues?”
    “You might call them that,” Townsend replied. “A lock of his hair had been cut off. After the murder, I think. The shears were left on the table, and a lock of hair, right in front, was cropped close to the scalp. Common sense says it would have been done with more finesse had Fogg been alive. A further quizzing of Lady Hertford revealed that a ring was missing as well. A little gold ring he had taken to wearing on the smallest finger of his left hand the past months. Lady Hertford had teased him about it. She thought from his blushes it was from a lady, but he would never admit it.”
    “Starting to sound like one of them crimes passionels ,” Coffen opined.
    “You have hit the nail on the head, sir,” Townsend said. “That is just the way my mind is tending.”
    Luten listened disconsolately. “Was there something you wanted us to do, Townsend?” he asked, with waning interest.
    “As you were looking into the matter, I just wondered if you had come up with anything.”
    “No, nothing yet, I fear. Our only interest was to help the prince. As it’s clear the attack was not on him, I believe our involvement is at an end.”
    “I wouldn’t mind taking a crack at it,” Coffen said. He loved food and horses and actresses, but there was little dearer to his heart than a good murder. “I know a fellow who works at Somerset House, Ernie Parker. Bought a nag off him, an excellent cob. Ernie might have some useful gossip.”
    Townsend slapped his knee. “Good lad! Have a go at him. You could do a better job of it than myself. Amazing the way folks, even innocent folks, clam up like oysters when they hear the words Bow Street. Let me know straightaway if you learn anything.”
    “I will,” Coffen said. “Sounds like a case of cherchez la femme to me. The missing lock of hair, the ring.”
    “I doubt a lady would call on her beau at the Albany,” Corinne said. “But perhaps she wasn’t a bona fide lady.”
    “The young greenheads do get themselves mixed up with actresses—and worse,” Townsend said, nodding.
    “She might have had a brother or someone do it for her. If Fogg had wronged her, I mean,” Coffen suggested.
    Prance, still harping on Byron, added, “Or she might have dressed up as a page, as Lady Caroline Lamb did when hounding after Byron.”
    The conversation continued a while. Luten paid little heed. There was one