What the Devil Knows

by C. S. Harris

  It was a question for which Sebastian had no answer. He said, “Where exactly did they bury him?”

  “At the crossing of Cannon Street Road and that new lane—Cable, I think they’re calling it now.” Setting aside her knitting, she heaved to her feet and padded across the kitchen to a dresser, where she rummaged around in a drawer for a moment before coming up with a folded, tattered newspaper clipping. “Don’t know why I saved it,” she said, handing it to him. “Except that to be throwing it away seemed like denying what they’d done to the poor lad.”

  Sebastian opened the clipping carefully, for the paper was brittle, the creased folds easy to tear. It was the Times’s account of John Williams’s burial procession. “If Williams didn’t kill himself, then who do you think did?”

  He saw the leap of fear in her eyes, quickly hidden as her gaze slid away from his. She picked up her knitting. “Oh, I never gave no thought to that,” she said.

  And though he continued to press her, she refused to be drawn any further.

  Chapter 22

  Sebastian stood at the intersection of Cannon Street Road and Cable Lane, his back to a tavern called the Crown and Dolphin, his gaze on the press of costermongers and coal heavers, draymen and staggering, hungover sailors passing back and forth in the crossing before him. The air was heavy with the smell of manure and coal smoke, ale and roasting meat and the ever-present brine from the tide rolling in to slosh against the wharves at the base of the hill. Ironbound wheels rattled over uneven cobbles; children shouted and laughed; dogs barked; women called to one another. All seemed oblivious to the moldering bones of the disgraced man who lay a scant four feet below them, his body awkwardly contorted into the deliberately small space dug for him, a stake driven through his heart. But then, why wouldn’t they be? There was nothing to indicate that a twenty-seven-year-old seaman had been dumped into a shallow hole dug here at the center of the crossroads, with unslaked lime thrown in on top of him before the dirt and cobbles were quickly replaced.

  It was as if he had never been. All that remained was the memory and lingering horror of what he’d supposedly done.

  The discovery of John Williams’s silent, hanging corpse in a prison cell in Clerkenwell had infuriated London. He’d not only “cheated the gallows,” as the saying went; he’d also cheated the people, who were always eager for a gruesome display of public vengeance dressed up as justice.

  And so the Home Office had devised an alternative spectacle. On New Year’s Eve 1811, a rough, angled platform was fixed atop a cart, and John Williams’s limp body tied to it. His “murderous implements”—the ship’s maul from the Marrs’ shop, the iron crowbar from the King’s Arms, and the ripping chisel (which hadn’t actually been used to kill anyone)—were displayed around him, along with the sharpened stake that would be driven through his heart. And then, in what was described as a “salutary example to the lower orders,” the dead man was paraded through the streets.

  Accompanied by a phalanx of public officials and constables with drawn cutlasses, the cart had rolled past the Marrs’ linen shop on Ratcliffe Highway, down Old Gravel Lane to Cinnamon Street and Pear Tree Alley, then up New Gravel Lane to the King’s Arms before coming here, to the crossroads.

  The young seaman with the handsome, weak face hadn’t been convicted of anything. Yet by his supposed suicide, he was seen as having branded himself as the killer. According to the Times article now in Sebastian’s pocket—Mrs. Vermilloe had insisted he take it away with him—the thousands of Londoners who’d gathered to watch the ceremonial degradation had been unexpectedly solemn and silent. But when the stake was driven through the dead man’s heart, a cheer went up. By both his death and the final ignominy of his unhallowed burial, John Williams freed the people of London from the fears with which they had lived for weeks—the fear of sudden, hideous, blood-splattered death, and the fear that comes from any raw, inescapable reminder of the secret evil that can lurk within our fellow men.

  Sebastian acknowledged that it was possible John Williams really was the Ratcliffe Highway murderer—or at least one of them. It was possible the slightly built young man with the mysterious past, a handsome but weak face, and a taste for fine clothes had picked up a heavy maul and crowbar and for some unknown, unimaginable reason used them to slaughter seven men, women, and children.

  It was possible. But Sebastian doubted it. And if Williams was innocent of the hideous crimes for which he’d been blamed, then that opened up the possibility that eight people had been murdered in that cold December of 1811: four at the Marrs’ shop, three at the King’s Arms.

  And one in a solitary cell in Coldbath Fields Prison.

  Chapter 23

  Sebastian drew up in front of his house in Brook Street to find a man leaning against the iron railing at the top of the area steps, one elbow looped around a finial and the brim of his slouch hat tipped rakishly over one eye.

  He was young, no more than eighteen or nineteen, with overlong, somewhat ragged black hair, quick green eyes, and a wide leprechaun face that looked as if it was made for carefree smiles but was currently scowling. His pantaloons were a shocking shade of yellow, his waistcoat striped black and white, his coat black, and he had a black kerchief knotted jauntily around his neck. The clothes were not well tailored, but neither were they shabby.

  “You know that cove?” asked Tom, eyeing the man.

  “No. But I think I know who he is.” Sebastian handed the tiger his reins. “Stable ’em.”

  Tom cast the man another suspicious glance. “Aye, gov’nor.”

  The young man made no attempt to alter his posture as Sebastian hopped to the ground. “Yer ’is nibs, are ye?”

  “I suppose that depends on which ‘nibs’ you’re looking for,” said Sebastian, walking up to him, the high wheels of the curricle rattling over the cobbles as Tom urged the chestnuts toward the stables. “I’m Devlin. I take it you’re Seamus Faddy?”

  The young man sniffed, his gaze assessing Sebastian from his high-crowned beaver hat and caped driving coat to his glossy Hessians. “Grace Calhoun says yer wantin’ t’ talk t’ me.” Mr. Seamus Faddy was obviously not happy to be where he was. But there were few in Grace’s orbit with the courage to say no to her.

  “Did she tell you why?”

  “She reckons ye think I know somethin’ about that Shadwell magistrate gettin’ ’is head bashed in last week. But I don’t.”

  Sebastian was aware of an elderly woman in a purple velvet pelisse and ostrich-plumed hat coming toward them on the flagway, a small fluffy white dog tucked up under one arm and a frown on her face as she stared at the vision in black and yellow. He considered suggesting they continue their conversation in his library, then thought better of it.

  “Let’s go for a walk, shall we?”

  Seamus pushed away from the railing. “What’s the matter? Afraid I might prig some o’ yer precious geegaws if ye was t’ let me into yer house?”

  “Something like that,” said Sebastian.

  The lad huffed a scornful breath as they turned toward the leafy square just visible up the street. “Nah. Grace made me promise t’ keep me daddles to meself.”

  “I’ll have to remember to thank her for that.”

  “Huh,” huffed the lad again. He was quite short—nearly a foot shorter than Sebastian—and slender. But there was a wiry strength about him that Sebastian imagined would be quite capable of swinging a heavy maul at a despised magistrate’s head. Would he have been able to do the same three years ago?

  Unlikely.

  “I didn’t have nothin’ t’ do with what ’appened t’ Pym,” Seamus Faddy was saying. “Not a blessed thing.”

  “Where were you that Saturday night?”

  “Me? Spent the evenin’ with some old friends up in Clerkenwell, I did. Not claimin’ I wouldn’t ’ave liked to bash in ’is ’ead, because I would. Only it weren’t
me as done fer ’im.”

  “Any idea who did?”

  “Nope. And that’s the gospel truth.” Seamus laid a splayed hand across his chest and cast angelic eyes heavenward. “I swear.”

  “Right,” said Sebastian.

  The lad laughed. “Not sayin’ I’d tell ye if’n I did know, mind ye. But the fact is, I don’t.”

  “Did Grace Calhoun also make you promise to tell me the truth?”

  “I told her I’d try. Cain’t ask for more’n that.”

  At least the lad was honest in that respect, thought Sebastian. “I understand you’ve abandoned your former career as a pickpocket.”

  “That’s right. Moved up in the world, I have.”

  “So why did Sir Edwin Pym accuse you of lifting a gentleman’s purse on Wapping High Street a week ago Monday?”

  Seamus Faddy’s eyes narrowed in a way that made him look less like a leprechaun and more like a gargoyle. “Weren’t just anybody’s purse; ’twas ’is own purse ’e accused me o’ liftin’. Said I was cheatin’ ’im of ’is proper cut, and if I didn’t pay up, ’e was gonna see me dance the hempen jig. So me, I says, ‘Ye can’t prove I done nothin’ without hangin’ a noose around yer own fat neck.’ And that’s when ’e sets up the screech that I’d prigged ’is purse. So I ran.”

  It took Sebastian a moment to decipher this. “Are you telling me Sir Edwin Pym was taking a cut of whatever you stole from the shipping and warehouses along the river?”

  Seamus Faddy wrinkled his nose, his gaze on a heavily laden coal wagon plodding toward them in the street. “The word Pym used was a ‘tithe.’ Like ’e was the bloody Church of England and we was ’is congregation or somethin’.”

  “‘We’?” said Sebastian.

  “Me and me lads. Got me a crew, I do.”

  Moved up in the world, indeed, thought Sebastian. It took intelligence, cunning, and ruthlessness to command a gang of thieves on the riverfront, especially at such a young age. A man like that would surely be more than capable of slitting a hated enemy’s throat. Aloud, he said, “And Nathan Cockerwell? Did he share in Pym’s ‘tithes’?”

  “Nah. Although from what I’m ’earin’, he and Pym was runnin’ some other rigs together.”

  “Such as?”

  Seamus cast him a look dripping with scorn. “Ye don’t know much, do ye?”

  “Sadly, no.”

  Seamus Faddy laid a finger beside his nose and winked. “Ask the vicar. Reckon he could tell ye. Or any publican in the Tower Hamlets, when it comes down to it.”

  “You ever hear of a former rifleman and publican named Ian Ryker?”

  Seamus let his gaze drift over the upper windows of the house beside them with the kind of appraising gleam calculated to strike fear into any homeowner. Then he said, “Ryker?” with an airy tone that was more than a bit telling.

  “So you do know him.”

  “Let’s just say I heard some talk.”

  “What kind of talk?”

  “Heard ’e tangled with Pym o’er somethin’. Don’t ask me what.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “Last week sometime. Over by the basin, it was.”

  “And how did you come to hear about it?”

  “I hear things. Keep me ears open, I do. It’s necessary fer me business.”

  “No doubt. And did you hear the outcome of this, er, entanglement?”

  “Oh, aye. Ryker threatened to cut out Pym’s gizzard, while Pym swore ’e was gonna send Ryker to the same place as ’is da.”

  “Ian Ryker’s father is dead.”

  “Yeah, I kinda figured that. Might be worth yer while t’ find out how he died, don’t ye reckon?”

  Sebastian studied the young thief’s gleaming dark green eyes and faintly malicious smile. “I ‘reckon’ you might be right.”

  Chapter 24

  Do you think any of what Seamus Faddy told you is true?” asked Hero.

  They had wrapped Simon up in a warm coat, hat, and mittens, and were taking him for a walk around Grosvenor Square. The sun was still shining, but high clouds were beginning to gather and the chill in the air was becoming more pronounced.

  Sebastian watched as Simon braced his legs far apart and carefully bent to pick up a feather, which he placed in the basket whose handle he carried clutched in one fist. This was a “treasure-gathering” expedition, and the basket was already filled with a collection of pretty leaves, acorns, interesting rocks, and bits of moss.

  “I believe the part about Sir Edwin Pym demanding a ‘tithe’ from the gangs that plague shipping on the river. It fits with everything else I’m hearing about the man, and it explains the strange pickpocketing accusation. As for the rest? Who knows? Seamus isn’t being honest about something—although, as far as I’m aware, he didn’t have a motive to go after either Cockerwell or that seaman who was killed last month.”

  “As far as you’re aware,” said Hero.

  “True.”

  “And the information about Ryker?”

  “Seems as if it would be worth investigating further. I’ve been wondering why Grace Calhoun gave me Ryker’s whereabouts so easily. She always has her own reasons for being helpful.”

  Hero intervened to stop Simon from adding a fat beetle to his basket. “I keep thinking about what the landlady at the Pear Tree said about John Williams—about the kind of man he was. Do you think she could be that mistaken in his character?”

  Sebastian squinted up at the weak, hazy sun. “I honestly don’t know. We like to think we can recognize the instincts of a brutal killer when they lurk within our fellow men. But there is a kind of murderer who learns young to hide his true nature behind an outward semblance of normalcy. Was that John Williams? I’ve no idea.”

  She looked over at him. “Yet you doubt his guilt.”

  “It’s his suicide that bothers me as much as anything. He hadn’t even been committed to trial yet; he was only facing his pretrial hearing, and the evidence against him was damnably weak.”

  “If his guilt was weighing heavily on his mind . . .”

  Sebastian shook his head. “The kind of man who could brutally slaughter two entire families—including women and children—wouldn’t feel guilt. I can understand a man wanting to save himself the humiliation of a public hanging, but Williams wasn’t there yet.”

  A red squirrel ran across their path to dash up the trunk of a nearby oak tree. Simon shrieked with delight and darted after it.

  “Oh, no, you don’t,” said Hero with a laugh, catching the little boy around the waist to swing him up into her arms, the basket thumping against her hip. To Sebastian, she said, “You think Williams was murdered, too?”

  “I think it’s certainly possible.”

  “By whom?”

  Sebastian remained silent, his gaze following the progress of the squirrel as it ran chattering into the highest branches overhead.

  “Jarvis,” she said, her voice tight. “You think Jarvis had him killed.”

  He wanted to deny it, but couldn’t. “Possibly. Or the Home Secretary at the time.”

  She stared off across the square as Simon squirmed to get down. “Yes, I can see them deciding to quickly eliminate Williams in order to calm the public’s fears. But . . . the killings did cease.”

  Sebastian took Simon from her arms and swung the little boy up onto his shoulders. “They did, which certainly makes John Williams’s guilt seem more likely. Except . . .”

  Hero caught Simon’s basket before it fell. “Except?”

  “The general assumption is that Williams had no motive for the killings beyond either theft or an act of mindless brutality. It’s one of the things that made the murders both so shocking and so frightening, because everyone in London feared they might become the killer’s next victims.”

  “Yes,” said Hero
.

  “But what if the killer did have a motive—only no one discovered it? And he quit killing when he’d achieved his purpose?”

  “And now he has a reason to start up again?”

  “Him, or someone who is copying him,” said Sebastian as they turned their steps toward home.

  Hero glanced over at him. “That’s the problem, isn’t it? You don’t know which you’re dealing with. A vicious, murderous seaman who sailed away three years ago but is now back? A madman copying the Ratcliffe Highway killer for the sick, twisted delight it brings him? Or someone else, someone with a very real purpose we can’t begin to understand.” She stared down the street to where a rag-and-bone man was talking to a cook standing at the top of her household’s area steps.

  “What?” Sebastian asked, watching her.

  “I’ve been thinking about what Lovejoy told you—about how Pym liked to pick up young prostitutes, and how Gibson said he’d probably been with a girl right before he was killed.”

  “Yes,” said Sebastian, not following her line of thought.

  “I could try talking to some of the young girls on the streets of Wapping as part of my research into the city’s foundlings and orphans. They might be able to tell me something.”

  “I can’t see the Morning Chronicle publishing an article about child prostitutes on the streets of London.”

  She made a face. “I won’t be able to say what they’re doing, of course, except in the most euphemistic of language imaginable. But they might know something, and I doubt any of them have willingly spoken to the men Sir Henry sent to comb the neighborhood.”

  “That’s certainly true.” They’d paused beside the house steps, and he reached out to touch her cheek with the back of one hand. “But you will be careful.”

  “Will the presence of my coachmen and two footmen, plus a primed pistol in my reticule, reassure you?”

  No, he thought. But he didn’t say it.