Where Serpents Sleep: A Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery

by C. S. Harris

  “Who is he?”

  Kane flashed his white smile. “You think I’m going to give you everything?”

  “Actually, I’m wondering why you’ve told me as much as you have.”

  Kane laughed, his attention all for his sketch. Sebastian said, “And was Rose willing to be released to this O’Brian?”

  Kane kept his gaze on his sketch. “Actually, no.”

  “Why not?”

  “She didn’t say.”

  “She didn’t say, or you’re not saying?”

  They were both aware of a heavy tread on the stairs. A moment later, Kane’s pet prizefighter came back into the chamber, the thug’s eyes narrowing when he saw Sebastian. “Trouble here, Mr. Kane?”

  “No trouble,” said Sebastian, one hand slipping, significantly, to the small flintlock he kept in his coat pocket. “I was just leaving.”

  The henchman’s gaze flicked to Sebastian’s hand. He set his jaw, but stayed where he was.

  Sebastian smiled. “Good evening, gentlemen.” He bowed to the silent woman on the divan. “Madame.”

  Cherry was waiting for Sebastian on the footpath outside the Black Dragon.

  “You didn’t get hurt, did you?” he said, dropping a crown into her outstretched palm.

  “Me? Nah. It was fun. Did yer little trick get ye what ye wanted?”

  Sebastian glanced toward the tavern in time to see a bulky shadow jerk back away from the lamplight. “I’m not sure.”

  Chapter 13

  George, Prince Regent of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, gripped a vial of smelling salts in one plump white hand and held it to his own nostrils.

  “Perceval tells us there was another attack in Yorkshire,” said the Prince. “Luddites!” He inhaled deeply and shuddered, although whether it was in reaction to the smelling salts or the thought of the Luddites, Jarvis couldn’t be certain. “Carrying on like savages,” continued the Prince. “Hiding their faces. Smashing machines. Something must be done about this!”

  “A number of arrests have already been made,” said Jarvis, privately consigning the Prime Minister to the devil. Whatever had possessed Perceval to regale the Regent with this tale? “Unfortunately, the lower orders are still infected by the events in France. They think they can remold society. Become uppity with their betters. But the more progress our armies make on the Continent, the sooner these Luddites and their ilk will see the error of their ways.”

  “Yes, but are we making progress on the Continent?”

  “We will,” said Jarvis resolutely.

  The Regent shifted against his pillows, restless. A giant platter of buttered crab and four bottles of port after dinner last night had brought on the most alarming of the Prince’s symptoms—the bowel distress, the tingling in his hands and feet, the mental confusion. That episode—combined with a heavy bleeding by Dr. Heberden—had left George too exhausted to do more than totter between his bed and his dressing room couch. But not, unfortunately, too exhausted to receive his Prime Minister.

  George said, “Perceval brought me a copy of his newest pamphlet. He seems to have discovered an alarming prophesy in the Bible. Something about a new satanic power rising in the west. The pamphlet is there, near the window.” The Prince waved one fat, beringed hand in a vague gesture toward a small table.

  Jarvis generally tried to ignore the Prime Minister’s periodic attempts at elucidating godly intent. Religion had its place in society, reconciling the masses to their fate and assuring their docile acceptance of the rule of their betters. But this was taking things too far. “Don’t tell me Perceval has equated our former American colonies with this new satanic threat?”

  The Regent took another sniff of his salts. “He fears it may be so.”

  “Well, I’ll be certain to read this new pamphlet with interest,” said Jarvis. Tucking the offending publication beneath one arm, he bowed himself out of the royal presence.

  A tall, muscular man had been leaning against the far wall of the Prince’s antechamber. As Jarvis crossed the room toward the corridor, the man fell into step beside him.

  “About the matter we discussed earlier,” said Colonel Epson-Smith.

  “Walk with me,” said Jarvis, turning into the corridor.

  The two men’s footsteps echoed up and down the cavernous space. Epson-Smith kept his voice low. “It seems someone else has an interest in the event.”

  “Who?” said Jarvis without breaking stride.

  “Devlin.”

  “Devlin? What is his interest in this?”

  “He refuses to say. There’s a woman making inquiries, as well.”

  “A woman?” Jarvis swung to face the man beside him, and whatever Epson-Smith saw in Jarvis’s face caused the Colonel to take a step back.

  “I’m not certain yet who she is, my lord. But word on the streets is that a gentlewoman has been asking questions at some of the lodging houses in Covent Garden and—”

  “Forget about the woman,” Jarvis snapped and continued walking.

  Epson-Smith inclined his head and fell into step beside him. “As you wish, my lord. And Devlin?”

  Jarvis paused at the entrance to his own chambers. A thin, nervous clerk leapt to attention. “My lord!”

  Jarvis thrust the Prime Minister’s pamphlet at the clerk and said curtly, “Burn this.”

  The clerk bobbed a frightened bow. “Yes, my lord.”

  To Epson-Smith, Jarvis said simply, “I’ll deal with Devlin.”

  Chapter 14

  Paul Gibson kept his surgery in an ancient sandstone building at the base of Tower Hill. Beside it stood his house, also of stone, but small and ill-kept, for Gibson house, also of stone, but small and ill-kept, for Gibson was a bachelor with a housekeeper named Mrs. Federico who refused to set foot in any room containing human parts in glass jars—a prejudice that effectively limited her to the kitchen, dining room, and hallway.

  “It’s a pig’s fetus,” said Gibson, identifying the small purplish-pink curl floating in liquid in a jar on the parlor mantelpiece that had caught Sebastian’s attention. “I was using it for comparative purposes in my anatomy class at St. Thomas’s.”

  “Ah,” said Sebastian, going to splash brandy into two glasses and carrying one to his friend.

  “I told Mrs. Federico it was a pig,” said Gibson, taking the glass with thanks. “But she still refused to clean in here.”

  Sebastian moved a pile of papers and books from the worn leather sofa to the floor and sat down. “One would think she’d be used to it by now.”

  “Some people never get used to it.”

  Sebastian wasn’t sure he himself would ever get used to the body parts Gibson scattered so carelessly around his house, but he kept that observation to himself.

  Gibson said, “Sir William turned all of the women’s bodies over to the Friends for burial. The service is set for tomorrow evening. Unfortunately, the Friends refused to grant me permission to perform any postmortems. But they did allow me to examine the bodies more thoroughly.”

  “And?”

  “I don’t think any of those women died from the fire.” Gibson propped the stump of his left leg up on a stool, his head bowed to hide the grimace of pain that contorted his features. There were times, Sebastian knew, when the pain grew so fierce that Gibson could abandon himself for days to the sweet relief of opium-induced oblivion. “They were all dead—or close to it—when the fire was set. At least,” the doctor added, “I assume it was set. I have no evidence of that.”

  Sebastian raised his brandy to his nostrils and inhaled its heady scent.

  “It’s difficult to be certain,” Gibson continued, “but I wouldn’t say the killings were an act of passion. Whoever did it was very methodical. They must have killed each woman in turn, then simply moved on to the next. There was no superfluous hacking of the bodies.”

  Sebastian nodded silently. In the War, they’d both seen men caught in the grip of a killing frenzy hack at bodies over a
nd over again, long after life had expired.

  “What can you tell me about the woman who was shot?”

  “Not a great deal, I’m afraid. The body was badly burned. From her teeth I’d say she was less than twenty. She was a slim, fairly tall woman. Does that sound like your Rose Jones?”

  “When she was at the Academy she called herself Rose Fletcher.”

  Gibson raised one eyebrow. “You think that’s her real name?”

  “Probably not. Joshua Walden thinks her name might once have been Rachel.”

  Gibson grunted. “Not your standard Molly or Elizabeth.”

  “No. Whoever she was, she was well-bred. Everything I’ve found so far suggests that her presence at the Magdalene House was the reason for the slaughter.”

  Sebastian became aware of Gibson’s eyes upon him, studying him intently. “Why have you involved yourself in this?” Gibson asked.

  Sebastian took a slow sip of his drink. “Have you noticed anyone else interested in solving these murders?”

  “Women are murdered on the streets of London all the time, Sebastian.”

  “Not like this.”

  Gibson was silent for another moment. Then he said, “It’s because of Jarvis, isn’t it? It’s a way of sticking your finger in his eye.”

  A slow smile curved Sebastian’s lips. “That’s part of it, yes.”

  “Does Miss Jarvis know that your motives aren’t entirely chivalrous?”

  “Oh, she knows, all right. In fact, she’s counting on it.”

  Gibson shifted his weight, seeking a more comfortable position for his mangled leg. “I saw Miss Boleyn today, when I was in Covent Garden. She stopped her carriage and spoke to me.”

  Sebastian took a long, slow swallow of his drink and said nothing.

  “She asked about you,” said Gibson. “She wanted to know how you are doing.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I lied. I told her you’re fine.”

  Sebastian took another drink. “She isn’t Miss Boleyn anymore.”

  “She still uses it as a stage name, does she not?”

  She did, of course. But Sebastian was careful never to let himself think of her in that way.

  “I told her you’d involved yourself in another murder,” said Gibson.

  She wouldn’t like that, Sebastian thought. In the past, she’d always fretted about what his involvement in the pursuit of murderers cost him. Then again, perhaps she no longer cared. Or cared in a different way . . . as a sister, rather than as the lover she’d once been.

  To Sebastian’s relief, Gibson changed the subject again. He said, “You think the brothel owner, this Kane, could be behind the killings?”

  Sebastian blew out a long breath. He hadn’t even realized he’d been holding it. “I think he’s more than capable of it. The problem is, I’m not sure why he would do it.”

  “Rose Fletcher ran away from him, didn’t she? She sounds as if she was a valuable commodity.”

  “Valuable, yes. But not exactly rare. This town is full of women ready to sell themselves to stay alive. And while Kane might have kept her in debt, you can be sure he never let the debt become excessively large.”

  “She could have been killed as an example to others,” said Gibson.

  “She could have been,” Sebastian agreed. “But to kill seven women just to get to one?” He shook his head. “No, I think whoever did this was desperate.”

  “Or very angry,” said Gibson. “How do you intend to find this man O’Brian?”

  Sebastian drained his brandy. “I’ll set Tom on it tomorrow.”

  Gibson lurched to his feet and reached for his friend’s empty glass. “A girl like that—educated, wellborn—how could she have come to such an end?”

  “Someone betrayed her,” said Sebastian, “and I’m not talking about whoever killed her. She was betrayed before that, by those whose duty it was to love her and care for her.”

  “I wonder if her family even know she’s dead.”

  Sebastian raised his gaze to the pig fetus on the mantelpiece. “I’d say that depends on whether or not they’re the ones who killed her.”

  Chapter 15

  WEDNESDAY, 6 MAY 1812

  Sebastian stood beside his bedroom window, his gaze on the still-sleeping city streets below, on the gleam of dew on the cobbles and the pigeons fluttering on the ridge of a nearby roofline. In the pale blush of early dawn, the chimneys of London loomed thick and dark, the spires of the city’s churches thrusting up against a slowly lightening sky. It was that hour between night and day when time seemed suspended and a man could get lost in the past, if he let himself.

  Grasping the sash, he thrust up the window and let the frigid air of the dying night bite his naked flesh. He’d been driven here from his bed by the dreams that still crept upon him far too often in the undefended hours of sleep. During the day, he could control his thoughts, even control the yearnings that still came upon him. But sleep made him vulnerable. Which is why he avoided it as much as possible.

  Some men could spend a lifetime in a soft, brandy-tinged blur, squinting through a smoky haze at cards that meant nothing. Win or lose, the deadness inside remained. But it was all an illusion, Sebastian had decided—both the sensation of inner deadness and the comfort of the blur. A trick a man played on himself.

  No one else was fooled.

  The day broke warm and sunny with all the golden promise of the long-delayed spring. Sebastian breakfasted early, then called his tiger, Tom, into the library.

  Tom came in dragging his feet. “I didn’t mean to do it,” he blurted out.

  Sebastian looked up from the estate agent’s report he’d been reading and frowned. “You didn’t mean to do what?”

  Tom hung his head, his tiger’s cap twisted between his hands. “I’m that sorry, gov’nor. Truly I am.”

  “If you set fire to the tails of Morey’s coat again—”

  Tom’s head jerked up. “I didn’t!”

  “Thank God for that, at least.” For all his disapproving ways, Morey ran Sebastian’s decidedly irregular household with the competence and efficiency of the gunnery sergeant he’d once been. Sebastian would be hard put to replace him. “Out with it then,” he said, his gaze steady on the tiger. “What have you been doing?”

  “I was down in the kitchen, see? Me and Adam—he’s the new footman. We was just playin’ around and—”

  Sebastian became aware of a disturbance emanating from the lower regions of the house, Madame LeClerc’s outraged cries punctuated by Calhoun’s soothing tones. “Explain it to me later. I want you to find someone for me. A man named Luke O’Brian.”

  Tom’s eyes flashed with anticipation. “You think ’e might ’ave somethin’ to do with the murder of them women?”

  “I think he might.”

  “What manner o’ man is ’e?”

  “I haven’t the slightest idea. The only thing I know about him is that he frequents a brothel near Portman Square called the Orchard Street Academy.”