What Darkness Brings sscm-8

by C. S. Harris

  “What about a former army lieutenant named Tyson?”

  “You mean Matt Tyson?”

  “So you do know him.”

  “I’ve met him a few times, here and there. Why?”

  “Know if he had any dealings with Eisler?”

  Yates thought about it a moment, then said, “He must have. I remember running into him once in Fountain Lane, although it was some time ago now. Perhaps as much as a month or so ago.”

  “Do you know why he was there?”

  “No. Why? What does Tyson have to do with this?”

  Sebastian pushed away from the window. “I don’t know. But I intend to find out.”

  Lieutenant Matt Tyson was about to enter Gentleman Jackson’s Boxing Salon when Sebastian walked up to him and said, “We need to talk. Come walk with me.”

  Tyson paused, the faintest hint of a smile tightening the sun-darkened flesh beside his thin lips as he shook his head. “Sorry; I’m meeting someone here at four.”

  Sebastian kept his voice pleasant. “We can have our conversation inside, if you prefer. I’ve no doubt Jackson’s other patrons would find the sordid details of your court-martial fascinating.”

  Something flashed in the lieutenant’s eyes, something almost immediately hidden by his carefully lowered lids. “I was acquitted; remember?”

  “Not by me.”

  Without glancing at him again, Tyson resettled his hat on his head and turned his steps toward Piccadilly. A thick bank of dark clouds still hung low over the sodden city. Water dripped from overhanging eaves and misted windowpanes; the pavement glistened dark and wet.

  “When did you sell out?” asked Sebastian, falling into step beside him.

  “A couple of months ago, if you must know. What the devil difference does it make to you?”

  “Curious timing.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Only that after all these years, it looks as if Wellington is finally turning the tide against the French. I should think it would be a time of great opportunity for a man of your. . talents.”

  Tyson’s eyes narrowed. But all he said was, “Sometimes a man just gets tired of killing.”

  “Not all men.”

  Tyson threw him a quick sideways glance. “You did.”

  It had been two years now since Sebastian had sold out for a complicated crescendo of reasons he’d yet to come to grips with. But then, he had never been the kind of man who took pleasure in killing.

  Tyson had.

  Sebastian said, “What was your business with Daniel Eisler?”

  The man’s faint smile broadened. “My, my, you have been busy, haven’t you?”

  “What was it?” Sebastian said again.

  Tyson shrugged. “Eisler bought jewels. I had some to sell. And no, I didn’t slit some senorita’s throat or rape a convent full of nuns to get them. I took them off a dead French colonel at Badajoz. Where he got them is really none of my affair, now, is it?”

  The bodies of the French dead were routinely stripped of their valuables, uniforms, and boots before being buried or burned. The spoils of war had long been considered a natural supplement to the King’s shilling. Officers didn’t usually join in the looting of the dead, although some did.

  But the systematic looting of civilians was something else again. Wellington had always discouraged the age-old tradition of subjecting a conquered city to three days of ritual pillage by marauding, drunken soldiers-both because it was bad for discipline and because the British liked to portray themselves as saviors rather than conquerors. But Badajoz would remain forever a stain on the honor of the modern British army, for the fortified Spanish frontier city had endured days of savage rape, murder, and pillage after being stormed by Wellington’s troops last March. Tyson might claim his booty came from the body of a French colonel, but Sebastian suspected otherwise.

  He said, “And did Eisler give you a fair price for your ‘items’?”

  “He did, yes. Otherwise, why would I have done business with him?”

  “Who suggested him to you? Thomas Hope?”

  Tyson shook his head. “A friend from Spain. And I haven’t been anywhere near the old goat in weeks, so if you’re looking for someone besides Yates to pin this murder on, you’re just going to have to keep looking.”

  In Sebastian’s experience, most people had a tendency to fidget when they lied; they hesitated, or their voices rose in pitch, or their demeanor shifted in some subtle way. But there were those who could meet your gaze, smile, and lie with a careless grace born of a complete absence of either guilt or fear of detection. Matt Tyson was one of those men.

  “I might actually believe you,” said Sebastian, “if I hadn’t sat on your court-martial board.”

  A quick flare of anger tightened the lieutenant’s features before being carefully smoothed away. He turned his head to watch an elegant red barouche dashing up the street. After a moment, he said, “I did see something at Eisler’s house the last time I was there, which you might find relevant.”

  “Oh? What’s that?”

  “A woman was leaving Fountain Lane just as I arrived. A young, nicely dressed gentlewoman. I couldn’t tell you who she was-she was heavily veiled and got into a hack that was waiting for her. I assumed at first she was there for much the same reason I was-to sell Eisler a piece of her jewelry, probably to pay off a gaming debt. Then I saw Eisler.”

  “And?”

  “The old goat had his flap buttoned awry. He must have taken her right there in the parlor because I could still smell the stink of his lust in the air. I’ve since heard it’s where he always took his women-whores and ladies alike.”

  “You’re saying he made a practice of it?”

  “Didn’t you know?” Smug amusement bordering on derision suffused the other man’s face. “He was quite the nasty old sot, your Eisler. He’d loan money to pretty young things, and then when they couldn’t pay his ruinous interest rates, he’d offer them a choice: Either let him tumble them on that ratty old couch or have whatever trinket they’d pledged declared forfeit. He offered the same deal to men who were late on their payments-if they had a pretty wife.”

  When Sebastian remained silent, Tyson laughed out loud. “Don’t believe me? Ask that sybaritic nephew of his.”

  “You mean Perlman? What would he know of it?”

  “Far more than you might think. I’ve heard that one of the ways Perlman kept in his uncle’s good graces was by providing him with whores.” Tyson paused as the church bells of the city began to chime the hour, one after the other ringing out over the wet streets. “And now, you really must excuse me. I did mention I was meeting someone at four.”

  Sebastian let him go.

  Under ordinary circumstances, he’d have been inclined to doubt just about anything a man like Tyson said. But he kept remembering that dank, foul room with its heavy, old-fashioned chimneypiece and a small pair of cheap blue satin slippers peeking out from beneath a worn horsehair sofa.

  Chapter 29

  The discovery that Eisler had been engaging in a nasty combination of blackmail and sexual exploitation had the potential to open up a vast array of new suspects, most of them unfortunately both nameless and faceless. If Yates and Tyson were telling the truth-and Sebastian suspected that in this, at least, they were-then London must be so full of men and women who’d nursed a secret but powerful reason to murder the old bastard that it was difficult to know where to start.

  Sebastian was seated in the drawing room, the blue satin slipper held thoughtfully in his hands, when Hero came in yanking off her wet bonnet and gloves.

  “I’ve been looking for the black cat,” she said. “I can’t find him anywhere.”

  “Calling what? ‘Here, cat, cat, cat’? You need to give him a name.”

  “He’s not my cat; he’s yours.” She went to stand at the window, her gaze on the rain-washed pavement below. “One of the housemaids saw a man hanging around who sounds like Foy. She said
he was trying to coax the cat to come to him with what looked like sardines.”

  Sebastian knew a moment of disquiet. But all he said was, “The cat’s probably just taken shelter from the rain someplace. He’ll be back. Where else is he likely to get roast chicken and a bowl of cream?”

  She gave him a tight, strained smile and nodded to the slipper in his hand. “What’s this?”

  Sebastian held it up. “It’s one of a pair that I found tucked beneath a tattered old horsehair sofa in Daniel Eisler’s parlor.”

  She lifted the shoe from his hand. “This is not a lady’s slipper.”

  “No, it is not.”

  She looked up at him. “You say both shoes were still there?”

  “Yes.”

  “How odd. I wonder if he gave their owner a new pair and she simply left the old ones.”

  “Eisler? I suspect that old bastard never gave anyone anything-excepting perhaps an inclination for suicide.”

  “Then I’d say the shoes’ owner must have left the premises precipitously.” She handed the shoe back to him. “Somewhat like Cinderella.”

  “Only, I doubt this Cinderella was worried about her coach turning into a pumpkin at the stroke of midnight.”

  Hero said, “Apart from the fact that walking in one’s stocking feet would be decidedly uncomfortable, these shoes-however cheap I might consider them-would nevertheless represent a significant investment for their owner. I doubt she left them behind willingly.”

  “I’m thinking she might have been there when Eisler was shot.”

  Hero frowned down at the tiny, worn shoe. “And ran away in fear?”

  “That’s one possibility.”

  “Are you saying you think your Blue Satin Cinderella might have shot him?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “So who is she?”

  “I have no idea. But I know someone who might.”

  “Oh, God. Not you again,” exclaimed Samuel Perlman when Sebastian came upon him in the showrooms of Christie’s in Pall Mall.

  Sebastian ran his gaze over the framed sepia-colored draw-

  ing of a woman’s head that Perlman was examining. “I’d have thought you just inherited enough of this sort of thing from your uncle to satisfy the acquisitive urgings of even the most ardent collector.”

  “I like to keep an eye on what’s available,” said Perlman, leaning forward to squint at the drawing’s signature. “Do you think it’s really a Leonardo?”

  “You tell me.”

  Eisler’s nephew had changed into tight, buff-colored trousers, a claret-and-white-striped waistcoat, and a monstrously wide cravat meticulously arranged in a complicated style known as the Waterfall. He straightened. “After our previous conversation, I’d hoped I’d seen the last of you.”

  Sebastian showed his teeth in a smile. “Let that be a lesson to you: If you don’t care to see me again, you might consider being a bit more forthcoming in your answers to my questions.”

  Perlman breathed a resigned sigh. “What now?”

  “I’ve been hearing some interesting tales about your uncle and women.”

  “Women?” Perlman gave a high-pitched titter. “Don’t be ridiculous. My uncle was an old man.”

  “Not that old.”

  Perlman moved on to a massive, heavily framed oil that took up a considerable section of one wall, his attention all for the darkly swirling scene before him.

  Sebastian said, “I’m told you used to provide your uncle with whores.”

  Perlman cast him a quick sideways glance. “And precisely who, one wonders, told you that?”

  “Does it matter?”

  When Perlman remained silent, Sebastian said, “I think your uncle may have had a woman at his house the night he was shot. Did you send her to him?”

  “I did not.”

  “But you’re not denying that you did sometimes act as his procurer.”

  Perlman kept his gaze on the vast oil. “What an ugly little word.”

  “You have one you prefer?”

  “I won’t deny I did occasionally perform certain. . commissions for him.”

  “Define ‘occasionally.’”

  “Every few weeks. . or so.”

  “Where did the women come from?

  “The Haymarket. Covent Garden. Really, Devlin, you know as well as I do where to find women of that sort.”

  “Are you saying you supplied him with common women you picked up off the street?”

  Perlman swiped the tip of his nose between one pinched thumb and forefinger and sniffed. “That’s the kind he liked.”

  “I’ve heard he also liked another kind of women. Pretty young gentlewomen who owed him money-or whose husbands owed him money.”

  “I wouldn’t know anything about that,” said Perlman loftily.

  “You wouldn’t?”

  “I would not.” He cast a quick glance around, but the auction rooms were nearly deserted in the gloom of the rainy afternoon. “Listen: I am not denying my uncle had an appetite for women. He did. It was. . unseemly. But to my knowledge he satisfied those needs with whores. Now, if you’ll excuse me? You are distracting me. This is not a leisure activity, you know. Art collecting is serious business.”

  “In a moment. So you would have me believe you never heard of him coercing a gentlewoman to share his couch?”

  “I have not, no.”

  Sebastian smiled. Unlike Tyson, Samuel Perlman was a terrible liar. “Then tell me this: Who owed your uncle money?”

  Perlman gave a tsking huff of derision. “That sort of information is privileged. I couldn’t tell you, even if I knew.”

  “Are you saying you don’t know?”

  “As a matter of fact, I don’t. The bastard must have written it all down somewhere, but I’ll be damned if I can find his ledgers. He obviously hid them.”

  “That’s one possibility,” said Sebastian.

  “Are you suggesting there’s another?”

  “Whoever shot Eisler could have taken them.”

  Perlman gave another of his derisive little laughs. “My uncle was shot by Russell Yates. And everyone in London knows it. . except you, apparently.”

  Sebastian shifted his gaze to the large canvas beside them, a biblical scene complete with plumed Roman soldiers, fainting women, and an angry bearded man with a bare, heavily muscled chest who may or may not have been Samson. “Looks like a Van Dyke.”

  Perlman opened his eyes in astonishment. “Impressive.”

  “But that doesn’t mean it is.”

  Sebastian turned toward the door.

  He’d taken two steps when Perlman stopped him by saying, “I do know the name of one man who owed my uncle money. Beresford. Blair Beresford.”

  Sebastian paused. “I thought you said you consider that sort of information privileged.”

  A gleam of what looked suspiciously like sly triumph flared in the other man’s eyes. “I know I can rely upon you to exercise the utmost discretion with the information I have provided you.”

  “Have something against Beresford, do you?”

  But Perlman only smiled faintly and returned to his study of the oil.

  It took Sebastian a while, but he finally tracked Blair Beresford to Bond Street, where the Irishman waited outside the bow-fronted establishment of one of London’s most fashionable milliners. The rain had finally eased up, the clouds breaking apart to show pale aquamarine streaks of clear sky above. Beresford was leaning against the side of Louisa Hope’s elegant barouche, his arms folded at his chest, his chin sunk in his cravat, his thoughts evidently far, far away.

  “Ah, there you are,” said Sebastian, walking up to him.

  Beresford straightened with a jerk, his eyes going wide in a way that told Sebastian the young Irishman had obviously at some time in the past several hours had an interesting conversation with his friend Matt Tyson. “Actually, I was just about to go see if Louisa-”

  “Not to worry,” said Sebastian, ruthlessly turning th
e younger man’s steps toward Oxford Street. “I won’t take but a moment of your time. I’m just wondering if you could explain something for me.”

  Beresford cast an apprehensive glance over his shoulder, toward the milliner’s shop. “I can try.”

  “Good. You see, I’ve been wondering: Why would someone whose cousin is married to one of the richest men in England need to go to a bloodsucker like Daniel Eisler to borrow money?”

  Sebastian watched as all the color drained from the younger man’s face to leave him pale and visibly shaken. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He drew up abruptly. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, I really must-”

  “Cut line,” said Sebastian, swinging to face him. “You can answer the question, or I can ask it of Louisa Hope. Which do you prefer?”

  Beresford met his gaze, then looked away, his lower jaw thrust out as he exhaled a long, painful breath. “Louisa doesn’t know anything about any of this,” he said quietly.

  “Why Eisler? Why not go to Hope?”

  Beresford continued walking, his soft blue eyes fixed on the wet pavement before them. “I did. The first time.”

  “Go on.”

  “It all happened one night right after I first came to London. I fell in with some friends from Oxford. They wanted to try a gaming hell near Portland Place, so I went with them. The stakes were. . high. Almost before I knew it, I’d lost a thousand pounds.” He gave a nearly hysterical laugh. “A thousand pounds! My father only clears twelve hundred pounds in a good year.”

  “So you went to Hope?”

  Beresford nodded. “He behaved remarkably well, under the circumstances. Read me a lecture, of course, but nothing I didn’t deserve. When he handed me the money, he warned me there would be no second time.”

  “Don’t tell me you went back to the same hell again?”

  Beresford’s lips crimped into a painfully thin line. “Hope told me I didn’t need to repay him. But. . it didn’t sit right with me to just take his money. The problem was, I knew the only way I could ever get my hands on that much blunt would be to win it.”