by C. S. Harris
He could see the children now—a sturdy fair-haired boy of perhaps eight, a younger, darker girl, and another even younger boy. And he wondered how any man could have such fine grandchildren and deliberately stay away from them in a fit of pique.
Aloud, he said, “Did you know any of the people who were killed on Ratcliffe Highway and New Gravel Lane three years ago?”
“No, my lord.”
“Did your father?”
“I can’t say for certain, but I don’t believe so, no.”
“Do you know if he had other suspects at the time besides the man who killed himself in prison?”
“I remember hearing they’d detained a number of different men, but I don’t know if any of them were seriously considered suspects.” She started to say something else, then hesitated.
“What is it?” he asked, watching her.
She thrust up from her seat to go stand at the window with her gaze on the children below. “This is going to sound ridiculously fanciful, but . . .”
“Yes?” he prompted again when her voice trailed off.
“I think—no, I know someone has been watching us. Not simply watching us, but following us.”
Sebastian felt a chill pass over him. “You’ve seen this person?”
“Not well enough to describe him. He’s usually little more than a dark shape that melts into the night, or a shadow that’s there and then gone. But I’ve felt his presence at other times, even when I couldn’t see him.” The color in her cheeks darkened. “As I said, I know it sounds fanciful.”
“How long has this been going on?”
“For a week, at least. Perhaps more.”
“Given what happened to your father, I don’t see how anyone could doubt you.”
From the garden came the little girl’s voice, chanting, “One for sorrow, two for joy . . .”
Katie Ingram kept her gaze on the children below. “I’ve been thinking about those families that were killed—about that poor little baby, beaten to death in his cradle with his mother and father lying dead upstairs.” She swallowed. “My husband is a captain on a coal rig that runs back and forth between Newcastle and London. He won’t be home for at least another ten days, and I . . . I’m frightened.”
“Three for a girl, four for a boy . . .”
Sebastian said, “If you’d like, I could speak to Bow Street about having someone assigned to watch the house.”
Her lips parted. “Would they do that, you think?”
“Five for silver, six for gold. Seven for a secret, never to be told . . .”
“I think so, yes.”
“Oh, thank you. Thank you so much,” she said, just as the other two children chimed in on the counting rhyme, their voices rising in a triumphant crescendo.
“Eight for a wish, nine for a kiss.
“Ten for the bird you must not miss.”
Chapter 5
Charles, Lord Jarvis, stood at the window of his chambers in Carlton House, his gaze on the wet, crowded forecourt below.
A second cousin to mad old King George III, Jarvis was widely acknowledged as the real power behind the fragile regency of the Prince of Wales, the King’s vain, lazy, self-indulgent son. A large, imposing man with piercing gray eyes, Jarvis had a strong aquiline nose and an unexpectedly winning—and very deceptive—smile. He was not smiling now. The dispatches from the peace conference gathering in Vienna looked promising, but the last thing they needed as they set about putting the world back together after the defeat of that Corsican upstart was to have some ridiculous mass hysteria sweep the capital. If—
“Beg your pardon, my lord,” said his clerk, clearing his throat, “the Home Secretary has arrived.”
“It’s about time,” snapped Jarvis, turning from the window as Henry Addington, Lord Sidmouth, came in on a swift step.
The clerk bowed discreetly and withdrew.
The Home Secretary paused just inside the doorway, his hat in his hands. “My apologies for keeping you waiting, my lord.” He bowed low, the thin, overlong graying dark hair that fringed his balding pate falling forward into his face so that he had to sweep it back as he straightened. “But I thought it best to confer with Sir Henry Lovejoy of Bow Street before—”
Jarvis waved aside his apology with an impatient hand. “What the devil is going on?”
Sidmouth swallowed. In addition to being Home Secretary, he was both a former prime minister and a former speaker of the house, while Jarvis held no official portfolio in the government. But with the exception of the Prince Regent himself, there was no more influential man in all of Britain than Jarvis. Brilliant, utterly ruthless, and in command of a web of spies and informants that gave him a well-earned reputation for being eerily omniscient, he could destroy Sidmouth with a snap of his fingers—and wouldn’t hesitate to do so if he considered it best for either Britain or the monarchy.
“I’m afraid it’s difficult to say at this point, my lord. Pym’s death does indeed mirror those of the Ratcliffe Highway murders of three years ago, as well as that of a seaman killed last week. But I’m told nothing’s been discovered so far to suggest these new deaths have anything to do with those of the past.”
“But they could conceivably be the work of the same man?”
The Home Secretary’s small eyes widened. “Oh, surely not, my lord. I mean, the scoundrel they had in prison hanged himself! Why would a man do that if he weren’t guilty?”
“You don’t have much of an imagination, do you, Sidmouth?”
The Home Secretary’s gaze drifted away. “I take it you’re referring to these rumors—the idea that Williams didn’t actually hang himself but was in fact murdered in his cell? Surely no one would believe such a thing, my lord.”
“You’d be amazed what people believe.”
The Home Secretary shifted uncomfortably.
Jarvis went to stand behind his delicate French desk, the fingers of one hand tapping impatiently on the sheaf of reports he’d been reading. “These rumors—and the ridiculous terror accompanying them—must be squashed immediately. Do you understand me? Immediately.”
The Home Secretary paled. “I understand, my lord.”
“I trust that you do. The last thing the Regent needs at the moment is something like this.”
There was no need to expand upon the reasons why this moment was so sensitive. After decades of war with France and—off and on—much of the rest of Europe, Britain was finally at peace. But the long-yearned-for cessation of hostilities was proving in some ways to be as unsettling and disruptive as war. The streets were filled with hungry, ragged ex-soldiers and sailors unable to find work. Wages were collapsing and prices spiraling out of control. There was agitation against the government’s plan to impose the so-called Corn Laws, an import tax to protect wheat-growing British landowners, which would drive the cost of bread beyond the reach of the poor. And of course Ireland was, as always, hovering on the brink of revolt. The last thing they needed was a string of grisly murders terrifying the already restive population.
“Next time I see you,” said Jarvis, “I expect to hear that this wretched episode is behind us.”
“Yes, my lord,” said Sidmouth, and bowed himself out.
Chapter 6
Why would the same killer strike both a prosperous magistrate and a common sailor? Even if the murders were completely random, the disparity in the victims would be odd. And Sebastian found it difficult to conceive of a meaningful link between the two dead men.
He spent the next several hours down by the docks, talking to various weathered men of the sea, looking for anyone who had known Hugo Reeves. The picture that emerged was of a seaman in his early thirties, of medium height and build, described as a hard-drinking gambler and—according to one old salt Sebastian found nursing a glass of rum in a tavern near Hermitage Basin—“more’n a bit on th
e ugly side.”
“What do you mean by that?” asked Sebastian.
The aging seaman—a gray-whiskered Cornishman named Jago Stark—looked at Sebastian over the rim of his glass. “Means I wouldn’t have wanted to turn me back on the bastard, that’s what it means.”
“Who do you think killed him?”
The older man grunted and took a deep drink of his rum. “Somebody doin’ the world a favor.”
“Do you know if Reeves had any dealing with Sir Edwin Pym?”
“Who?”
“Sir Edwin Pym, one of the Shadwell magistrates. He was killed last night.”
“Well, I wouldn’t be surprised if Reeves was hauled before the beaks more’n a time or two.”
“What about Timothy Marr, the Ratcliffe Highway linen draper who was murdered three years ago? Could Reeves have known him?”
“Why would he?”
“Marr sailed on the Dover Castle. Did Reeves?”
“Don’t think so.” Stark fixed Sebastian with a long, steady gaze. “Why you askin’ all these questions?”
“Just trying to figure out if there could be a connection between the murders.”
The seaman shook his head. “People die around here all the time.”
“Do you know where Reeves was staying when he was killed?”
“Think maybe it was the Copper Kettle, but I could be wrong. He was the kind of man you stayed away from, if you’re smart.”
Sebastian tried the Copper Kettle, but the one-legged, gnarled old innkeeper turned his head, spat, and said he’d never let that bugger anywhere near his place. It took a while, but Sebastian finally traced the dead seaman to a mean lodging house on Globe Street.
“Aye, ’e was ’ere,” said the slatternly landlady, who sat smoking a clay pipe on a three-legged stool just inside the open front door of her squalid establishment.
“What can you tell me about him?” said Sebastian.
The landlady stared up at him with narrowed, suspicious eyes. “Wot’s there t’ tell? ’E was a seafarin’ man. Liked t’ drink, gamble, fight, and tup women. Guess ’e finally tangled with somebody meaner’n ’im who beat ’is ’ead in.”
A drizzle had begun to fall, buffeted by the wind coming off the river, and Sebastian could feel the mist billowing in through the open door. “Do you know if he ever had any dealings with Sir Edwin Pym?”
The lodging-house keeper gave a breathy chuckle that showed her toothless gums. “Can’t see that sailor ’avin’ anythin’ t’ do wit anybody who’s a ‘sir.’”
“Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to kill him?”
“Anybody what served on a ship wit ’im, maybe? How’m I t’ know?”
“Any of his mates around?”
She sucked on her pipe. “Nah. There were a couple, but they sailed on the Gosforth a few days ago.”
Sebastian stared out at the rain, frustratingly aware of the fact that he was getting nowhere. He touched his hand to his hat and said, “Thank you,” just as the rain began to come down harder.
* * *
Before heading back to Mayfair, Sebastian stopped by a coffeehouse in Westminster frequented by ex-cavalrymen.
He found two men there he both knew and respected, and who were at loose ends since the cessation of the war with France. Desperate for any kind of work they could find, they were more than happy to agree to spend the next week or so watching Katie Ingram’s house from dusk to dawn. He’d thought about asking Lovejoy to assign a couple of his men to the task, but the Bow Street Runners were doubtless already stretched thin in the race to catch the new East End killer. And truth be told, Sebastian felt more comfortable giving the assignment to men he knew and trusted.
“Who’re we watchin’ for, exactly?” asked the tall Scotsman named Campbell.
“Anyone who intends the woman or her children harm,” said Sebastian.
The Scotsman nodded. “Reckon we can do that, Cap’n.”
After that, Sebastian drove back to Stepney to introduce the men to Sir Edwin Pym’s daughter and assure her that they would be guarding her house every night. She looked at him with solemn, knowing eyes that glittered with gratitude.
But she was too frightened to risk losing the protection she so desperately needed by inquiring too closely into its origins.
* * *
By the time he drew up outside his own bow-windowed town house in Brook Street, it was pouring, with water shooting off the eaves in a dull roar and running deep in the gutters.
“Baby ’em,” he told Tom, handing his tiger the chestnuts’ reins. “They’ve earned it. I’ll probably be going to Tower Hill later, but if this weather keeps up, I’m taking the damned carriage.”
With a laugh, Tom wiped his wet face and moved up to the high seat.
Sebastian hopped down to the pavement, then paused to look back at his tiger through the driving rain. “When you were listening to the gossip in Wapping, did you by chance hear anyone voice their opinion of Sir Edwin Pym?”
“Oh, aye. Right unpopular ’e was, from the sound o’ things. They mighta been scared o’ the way he was killed, but I’d say more’n a few of ’em are right glad he’s dead, however it came about.”
Sebastian thought about the dead man’s dry-eyed daughter, and nodded. “That sounds about right.”
Chapter 7
Hero Devlin sat in one of the upholstered chairs beside the drawing room fire. Dressed in a long-sleeved afternoon gown of soft midnight blue wool made high at the neck and embellished with champagne-colored satin rosettes, she had a serviceable notebook balanced on one knee while her young son played on the hearthrug nearby. She was trying to compose a list of questions for the new article she was writing on the miserable fate of London’s many orphans, but her thoughts kept straying.
Her series of articles for the Morning Chronicle had been enraging her father, Lord Jarvis, for nearly two years now. But while Jarvis terrified virtually everyone from royal dukes to field marshals, his wrath had little effect on his daughter, who was every bit as strong-willed and determined as he—and in some ways nearly as ruthless. Lately it had occurred to her that she was far more like her father than she cared to admit, but she had never decided if that was a good or a bad thing.
She glanced over at Simon, who sat with his legs sprawled out before him, his attention all for the enormous long-haired black cat he was carefully petting with a splayed hand. The cat feigned indifference bordering on disdain, but the truth was that the little boy was its special person.
At twenty months, Simon Alistair St. Cyr was unusually tall, like both his father and his mother, with Devlin’s lean build, nearly black hair, and strange yellow eyes. But his winsome smile was that of his maternal grandfather, and as she watched him, Hero found herself wondering just how much of each of his four very different grandparents swirled around within this little boy: Jarvis, so brilliant, hard, and merciless; the scandalous Lady Hendon, so beautiful and so outrageous; Hero’s own gentle mother, dead now for over a year; and that other grandfather, the shadowy figure who remained a mystery to them all. The man who had fathered Devlin on another man’s wife before disappearing without a trace.
It was the most urgent of the many questions Devlin wanted to ask his mother: Who is my father? But Hero was becoming increasingly afraid he might never get the chance to ask it—that he might live the rest of his life never knowing, always wondering.
The front door opened below, and she watched Simon’s head lift as a step sounded on the stairs. Then Devlin appeared in the doorway. He’d taken off his wet, many-caped driving coat and tall hat, but rain still glistened on his lean cheeks and flecked his high black boots.
“Papa,” cried the little boy, disturbing the cat as he pushed to his feet and ran across the room.
Reaching down, Devlin grasped the baby around his sturdy waist
and raised him high. Simon squealed with delight, and Devlin hugged the child so close that the boy squirmed to get down. It was the only indication Devlin gave as to just how deeply what he’d seen that morning had disturbed him. But Hero knew him; knew how much each brush with murder and the violent emotions swirling around it always cost him.
“I wasn’t expecting you back so soon,” she said.
He set Simon on his feet. “The rain drove me back, although I’ll need to go out again to talk to Gibson. Hopefully his autopsy will turn up something, because at the moment we’ve nothing to go on. Absolutely nothing.”
“Was it as bad as Sir Henry’s note this morning made it sound?”
Devlin went to pour himself a glass of wine. “If anything, it was worse. I’m afraid it makes grim hearing.”
“Tell me anyway.”
“You’re certain?”
“Yes.”
He took her at her word and did, keeping his voice low so the boy wouldn’t hear.
“Good heavens,” she said softly when he had finished. “You think these new killings are related in some way to the Ratcliffe Highway murders?”
“It’s difficult to avoid leaping to that conclusion, isn’t it? Although that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true.” He took a slow sip of his wine and came to stand with his back to the fire, his gaze on Simon, who was now playing with a wooden toy horse and cart. “I thought you had an interview with the director of some workhouse today?”
“He’s sent word that he’ll be unable to meet with me.”
“That’s unfortunate.”
She set aside her notebook. “If I didn’t know better, I’d suspect Jarvis of having directed one of his henchmen to put a spoke in my wheel.”
“Would he do that?”
“Of course he would.”
Devlin met her gaze and smiled. Then the smile faded. “How much do you know about the events surrounding the Ratcliffe Highway murders?”