Where Serpents Sleep: A Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery

by C. S. Harris

  He watched her glance out the darkened window to where her carriage and footmen awaited. She said, “I must get back to my mother. If he regains consciousness—if he says anything—”

  “We’ll let you know.”

  She brought her gaze back to Sebastian’s face. “Have you discovered anything yet?”

  “Only that you were right. The woman you met at the Magdalene House was in all likelihood Rachel Fairchild.”

  She nodded. He was only confirming what she’d already suspected. He noticed the way exhaustion had sharpened her features, making her eyes huge in a pale face.

  He said, “It’s what you wanted to know, isn’t it? Who she was. Now you know. You can go back to writing petitions to Parliament, or however you spend your time. Let your father deal with these people. God knows he’s capable.”

  “Have you discovered how Rachel Fairchild came to be there, in Covent Garden?”

  “No.”

  “Then I can’t stop.” She looked beyond him to Gibson. “You will send the bill for the man’s care to me.”

  “As you wish,” said Gibson.

  She nodded again, and left.

  Gibson stared after her. They could hear the jingle of harness, the clatter of hooves on cobbles as the carriage moved off. “Jesus, Mary, Joseph, and all the saints,” he said softly, then went back to work on the mangled man before him.

  THURSDAY, 7 MAY 1812

  The next morning, Sebastian received some interesting intelligence from Jules Calhoun.

  “I’ve learned a wee bit more about your Mr. O’Brian,” said Calhoun, putting away Sebastian’s razor.

  Sebastian finished buttoning his shirt and glanced around. “Oh?”

  “Not only is he held in the utmost esteem by the city’s tradesmen, but he’s trusted implicitly by his clients,” said the valet, holding out a crisply laundered cravat. “His commissions are reasonable, he never demands compensation from merchants, and he’s a regular contributor to the Orphans’ Fund.”

  Sebastian carefully wound the cravat’s folds around his neck. “So how does he afford all the expensive pleasures of life?”

  “It’s quite simple, actually. He’s one of the biggest thieves working the Thames.”

  Sebastian looked around. “Now that is interesting.”

  “It’s a very clever arrangement, when you think about it,” said the valet. “His activities as a procurement agent mean he’s constantly down on the docks dealing with shipments and going in and out of warehouses. From what I understand, the man’s meticulous—plans his operations to the most exacting detail, then executes them flawlessly. He’s really quite brilliant. They say he’s been behind every big job on the river in the past five years. His last enterprise cleaned out an entire warehouse full of Russian sables from just off the Ratcliff highway.”

  Sebastian shrugged into his coat. “Russian sables? Sir William mentioned something about Russian sables. When was this?”

  “Monday night,” said Calhoun, holding out Sebastian’s hat. “Just hours after the attack on the Magdalene House.”

  Chapter 28

  Luke O’Brian kept rooms in a well-tended stone house not far from the ancient pitched slate roofs and towering chimneys of St. Katherine’s Hospital below the Tower.

  A few simple inquiries in the area brought Sebastian to a small eating house squeezed in between a ship’s chandler and a biscuit baker, for this was a part of the city that made its living from the docks and the river that linked London with the sea and the world beyond. The eating house was simple but wholesome, the air filled with the smell of sizzling bacon and fresh bread and boisterous conversations rising up from tables filled with ships’ officers, customs men, and clerks. Luke O’Brian sat by himself at a small table near the front window. Sebastian nodded to a middle-aged woman with rosy cheeks and an apron tied over her expansive middle, and went to slide into the seat opposite the agent.

  “I understand congratulations are in order,” said Sebastian, keeping his voice low. “That was quite a successful enterprise you managed to pull off.”

  O’Brian glanced up from his plate and frowned. “Do I know you?”

  “We’ve met.”

  O’Brian gave Sebastian a hard look, then grunted. “So we have. You’ve lost twenty years and a good two stone in twenty-four hours. Quite a feat.”

  Sebastian smiled. “It turns out that neither one of us is exactly what we first portrayed ourselves to be. You, for instance, are not just a purchasing agent.”

  O’Brian carefully cut a piece of bacon. “And I take it you’re not really a Bow Street Runner.”

  “No.” Sebastian paused while the apple-cheeked woman bustled up to take his order. “Just tea, please,” he told her with a smile. After she’d gone, he brought his gaze back to the agent and said quietly, “Nor am I interested in what happened to a certain warehouse full of Russian sables.”

  O’Brian chewed slowly, and swallowed. “So what are you interested in?”

  “The death of a young woman.”

  “We went over all that.”

  “Did we? I’ve learned a few things since then. For instance, did you know Rose was really Rachel Fairchild, daughter of Basil, Lord Fairchild?”

  The man’s face gave nothing away. “Who told you that?”

  “This,” said Sebastian, laying the silver bracelet on the table. “Have you ever seen it?”

  O’Brian’s fork clattered against the side of his plate. He stared at the bracelet a moment, then lifted his gaze to Sebastian’s. “You obviously know it’s hers. Where did you get it?”

  “From one of the whores at the Academy. It used to belong to Rose?”

  “Yes.” Picking up the bracelet, O’Brian studied the medallion with its crested helm and three eagle heads. “You say she was a Fairchild?”

  “You didn’t know?”

  “No.”

  If the man was lying, he was bloody good at it. But then, of course, he was good at it. His life depended upon it. Sebastian said, “I understand Russian sables are very valuable.”

  O’Brian gave a slow smile. “So they say.”

  “A man with that much to lose could be dangerous,” said Sebastian, “if someone found out about his plans.” He paused while the plump-faced woman put his tea on the table before him. O’Brian said nothing.

  “If he realized a woman knew what he did for a living, such a man might well intimidate her—bully her—just to keep her quiet. Except, I can see a woman like Rachel—or Rose—getting scared. So scared she ran away. In which case then, she’d really be a threat. A threat that needed to be tracked down and silenced before she ruined everything.”

  O’Brian tore off a piece of bread and used it to wipe up the egg yolk on his plate. “A man doesn’t stay in this business long if he doesn’t learn to keep his mouth shut. I’m not that careless.” He popped the bread in his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. “If I was, I’d be in Botany Bay. Or dead.”

  “Mistakes happen.”

  “Not if you’re careful. I’m very careful. I’m also not a violent man. Ask around the docks; anyone will tell you. Sure, I have a temper. My father was Irish, after all.” He leaned forward. “But a body’d have to be sick to kill all those women.”

  “Or very afraid.”

  O’Brian met Sebastian’s gaze, and held it. “There’s nothing I’m that afraid of.”

  Sebastian took a long sip of his tea. “Kane tells me you wanted to buy Rose out of the house, but she refused.”

  “He said that?”

  “Are you saying it’s not true?”

  “Are you kidding? Of course she was willing. She hated Kane, and she hated that house.”

  “Do you think that’s why she ran away? Because of Kane?”

  “What would be the sense in that? I was getting her out of there.” O’Brian leaned his elbows on the table, his linked hands coming up to tap against his chin. “The only thing I can figure is something must have happened. Something that
scared her. She just bolted.”

  “So why didn’t she bolt to you?”

  “Maybe she figured she’d be too easy to trace.” A wry smile tightened the flesh beside his eyes. “Didn’t take you long to find me, now did it?”

  Sebastian studied the agent’s dark, handsome face. “Ian Kane says her departure meant nothing to him. That she was easily replaced.”

  O’Brian huffed a humorless laugh. “What do you think? I was about to pay him two hundred pounds for her.” He leaned forward. He was no longer smiling. “It sets a bad example for the other girls, now doesn’t it? Her taking off like that. I don’t know what he told you. But the truth is, he was livid when he found out she’d run away. Said if he ever got his hands on her again, he’d kill her.”

  Chapter 29

  Ian Kane sat on a folding stool amidst the tumbledown tombs and overgrown headstones of the churchyard of All-hallows Barking, a paintbrush in one hand, a flat palette smeared with paint in the other. Balanced on the easel before him stood the canvas on which the north face of the church was beginning to emerge in a glory of sun-washed golds and blues and reds. Sebastian squinted up at the billowing clouds building overhead and said, “You’re about to lose your sun.”

  “This is England,” said Kane, his gaze on the church before him. “I always lose my sun.”

  Sebastian watched the brothel owner load his paintbrush with gold. “I’d have thought a gloomy day more suited to your subject.”

  “You would,” said Kane.

  Sebastian gave a sharp laugh. The church was a curious blend of styles and materials, the massive round pillars and Gothic arches of the west end dating back to the thirteenth century, while the eastern end was much more recent, with a brick steeple that had been added only a hundred fifty years before.

  “I was eight when I started in the mines,” said Kane, squinting at the point where the church’s old staircase turret wound toward a roof badly in need of replacement. “I was lucky. Most lads go down when they’re only six—some as young as four. I was a pony boy. Did you know that they keep those poor beasts down in the mines until they die? Their hooves turn green. It’s unnatural, stabling horses a mile underground so they never see the sun.” He added a fleck of light to the painted turret on the canvas. “I like the sun.”

  The air filled with a gentle cooing from the pigeons roosting on the steeple. Kane painted for a few moments, then said, “What brings you sniffing around me again?”

  Sebastian leaned against the edge of a nearby lichen-covered tomb. “I found Luke O’Brian.”

  “That didn’t take long. Did he confess to the murders?”

  “No. But he provided me with some interesting information. He says Rose Fletcher was more than happy to let him buy her out of your house.”

  Kane added a touch of blue to a clerestory window. “I don’t buy and sell women. You make me sound like some bloody Yank.”

  Sebastian crossed his arms at his chest and leaned back. “Right. You were simply going to let O’Brian pay the woman’s debts—with a handsome commission for you, of course.”

  “It’s the English way, isn’t it—commissions?”

  “He also said you weren’t as sanguine as you would have me believe about her precipitous departure. He says you were furious that she’d left. Furious enough to threaten to kill her if you found her.”

  Kane shrugged. “It’s an easy thing to say, isn’t it? I’d like to kill him. Or, I could kill her. People say it all the time. Not many follow through on it.”

  “Some do.”

  “I had no reason to kill her. Rose was a good source of revenue but she wasn’t irreplaceable. What good would killing her do me?”

  Sebastian said, “She was about to be sold—excuse me, released—to O’Brian. So why would she run?”

  “You tell me.”

  “Maybe she saw something she wasn’t supposed to see.”

  Kane threw him a sideways glance. “What are you imagining? Murder? Treason? Satanic rituals?”

  Sebastian met his gaze and held it. “I hadn’t thought about the satanic rituals.”

  Kane swung back to his painting. After a moment, he said, “A gentleman came to the house a couple of weeks ago. He was quite surprised to find Rose at the Academy. Only, he didn’t call her Rose. He called her ‘Rachel.’ ”

  “A gentleman?”

  “Most definitely a gentleman. Not a scrambling functionary or schoolteacher or vicar, but a real gentleman.” Kane gave him a mean smile. “Like you. Only smaller, thinner. Reddish brown hair. Good-looking enough, I suppose, but he had a weak chin.”

  The church bells began to peal, startling the pigeons roosting on the tower so that they flew up, their wings beating the air with a soft whirling sound quickly lost amid the distant rattle of harness and the crunch of ironbound wheels over cobbles, and the cry of a chimney sweep’s boy shouting, “ ’Weep, ’weep.”

  “Sound like anyone you know?” said Kane, one eyebrow raised in mocking inquiry. He waited a beat, then added, “My lord Devlin?”

  Sebastian studied the clouds building overhead. “You had me followed,” he said.

  Kane squinted up at the sky. “There goes the sun.”

  “How’s your man’s arm?” Sebastian pushed away from the tomb as Kane flipped open a leather-bound wooden box littered with paint-stained bottles and old rags at his feet. “An injury like that can incapacitate a man for a spell.”

  “I heard you’d tangled with a cadger near the docks yesterday,” said Kane, thrusting his palette and brushes into the box. “I don’t know who the fellow was.” He closed the lid on the box and snapped the fastenings before straightening. “But I do know this: It wasn’t one of my lads.”

  “Now why should I believe you?” said Sebastian.

  “Believe me or not, as you choose. But your questions are obviously making someone uneasy.” Kane smiled and reached for his easel. In the pale light, the blue scar left across his forehead by his early years in the coal mines looked even darker. “Uneasy enough to want to kill you.”

  In his surgery near Tower Hill, Paul Gibson shifted on the hard wooden seat of his chair, his head tipped to one side as he listened to the wounded man’s ragged breathing. Hero Jarvis’s assailant had passed a restless night drifting in and out of consciousness. Once, he had startled awake, his gray eyes open wide, his lips parting as if on a gasp. Gibson had leaned forward to say softly, “What’s your name?” But the man had only closed his eyes and turned his head away.

  Pushing to his feet, Gibson left the man’s bedside and limped down the hall. The stump of his left leg was aching badly, giving him a slow, awkward gait. He answered a call of nature, then splashed water on his face and roughly toweled it dry. He was pouring himself a morning ale when he thought he heard a step in the hall.

  “Anyone there?” he called.

  The stillness of the surgery stretched out around him, raising a sudden, inexplicable length of gooseflesh on his arms.

  “Who’s there?” he called again, setting aside the ale.

  He lurched toward the front room, torn between surging alarm and a feeling of profound foolishness. From the street outside came the shuffling hoofbeats of a passing horse and the voice of a hawker crying, “ ’Ere I am with me rabbits hangin’ from me pole. Who’ll buy me rabbits?”