by C. S. Harris
“What has happened?” said Sebastian.
“Why, someone’s done gone and murdered the Bishop of London. Last night, in the crypt o’ some church near ’Ounslow ’Eath!”
Chapter 3
In addition to a modest estate in Hampshire bequeathed him by a maiden great-aunt, Sebastian also kept an elegant little bow-fronted townhouse in Brook Street. His long-suffering majordomo, Morey, met him at the door with a grave bow. “The Archbishop of Canterbury and the Duchess of Claiborne are here to see you, my lord. In the drawing room.”
“Good God.” Sebastian handed the majordomo his riding crop, hat, and gloves. “It’s true then.”
Morey bowed again. “Yes, my lord. I took the liberty of offering to send up tea, but her ladyship refused.”
Sebastian climbed the stairs to the first floor two at a time to find his aunt Henrietta—a vision in purple silk and a towering turban—ensconced in one of the delicate chairs beside the drawing room’s bowed front window. A gray-haired, skeletally thin cleric with the pallid complexion of a man in the final stages of consumption sat opposite her. They were great old friends, his aunt and the Archbishop of Canterbury. Sebastian knew the Archbishop’s long illness and approaching death had caused her considerable distress.
“My apologies for coming to you in all my dirt,” said Sebastian, “but I understand the reason for your visit is urgent.”
Archbishop John Moore held out a thin, blue-veined hand that trembled visibly. “And I am sorry if we forced you to curtail your morning ride. You’ll excuse me if I do not stand.”
Sebastian bowed low over the Archbishop’s frail hand, then turned to kiss his aunt’s cheek. “Shall I ring for tea?”
“I’ve had all the tea I want this morning,” said Aunt Henrietta with an inelegant grunt. “What I need is brandy.”
Five years Hendon’s senior, the Dowager Duchess of Claiborne was one of the grand old dames of society. As solidly built as her brother, she had Hendon’s broad, fleshy face and the fiercely blue St. Cyr eyes. But she was looking decidedly drawn this morning, and it occurred to Sebastian that she was abroad so early because she’d yet to make it to her bed.
“You do have brandy, don’t you?” she said sharply when he hesitated.
Sebastian cast an inquiring eye toward Archbishop Moore.
“Brandy sounds like a marvelous idea,” said the Archbishop with a shaky smile.
Sebastian moved to the decanter kept on a side table near the hearth. “Brandy it is.”
“I assume by now you’ve heard of the death of the Bishop of London?” said Henrietta.
“Only moments ago.”
The Archbishop cleared his throat. “It appears someone bashed in his skull last night in the crypt of St. Margaret’s, in Tanfield Hill.”
Sebastian splashed brandy into three glasses and wondered what any of this had to do with him.
“The crypt has been shut up for decades,” said the Archbishop as Sebastian handed him a glass. “I gather the odors from the place had begun to interfere with the use of the church and raised concerns about disease. The decision was made to wall it off.”
Personally, Sebastian had always found the practice of stacking coffins in open crypts bizarre to the point of being barbaric, but he kept that observation to himself. He handed his aunt her brandy and said, “If the crypt was shut up, then what was the Bishop doing down there?”
“Some workmen accidentally broke through the bricked-up entrance yesterday and made an unpleasant discovery,” said the Archbishop. “Due to the potential for scandal, the Reverend thought it best to involve Bishop Prescott right away.”
Sebastian went to lean against the mantelpiece. “Scandal? Why?”
“Because of the body.”
Sebastian paused with his glass raised halfway to his lips. “The body?”
“The dead body in the crypt,” said his aunt, as if he were being deliberately obtuse.
Sebastian took a sip of his brandy and shuddered. He had something of a reputation for hard drinking and wild living, but half past seven in the morning was a little early to be drinking brandy, even for Sebastian. “I should imagine there are any number of dead bodies in the crypt of St. Margaret’s. It dates from—what? The twelfth century?”
“Actually, the crypt is even older than the church,” said the Archbishop. “It dates back to Anglo-Saxon times.”
“So, hundreds of bodies,” said Sebastian. “If not a thousand or more.”
Henrietta leaned forward, her brandy held delicately aloft in one hand. “The body the workmen discovered was not one of the burials, Sebastian. The man was obviously murdered down there.” She lowered her voice. “At some point before the crypt was sealed. He was found sprawled on the floor behind one of the columns. With a knife in his back.”
Sebastian glanced from his aunt to the Archbishop beside her. “Excuse me, Your Grace, but . . . Why are you here, telling me this?”
“You know perfectly well why we’re here, Sebastian,” snapped his aunt. “We’re here because the Archbishop wants you to solve the murders.”
“Why?”
“Why?” she echoed indignantly. “What do you mean, why? Because you’re good at it, of course.”
Sebastian stood perfectly still. He’d been afraid this was coming. “I can understand that the local magistrate might find the matter overwhelming, but I should think Bow Street more than capable of dealing with the case.”
The Archbishop cleared his throat again. “I have already discussed the situation with Bow Street. Sir Henry Lovejoy concurs with my decision to bring you into the investigation. Bow Street is all well and good when it comes to dealing with the murder of a shopkeeper or merchant. But they simply don’t have the capability of handling an incident at this level of society, and they know it.”
Pushing away from the hearth, Sebastian went to stand beside the window overlooking the street below. It was true that in the last year and a half he’d found himself drawn into a number of murder investigations. Yet those murders had touched him personally in some way, or had involved victims who were otherwise unlikely to find justice. And each case had peeled another layer off his soul.
He said, “The last time I participated in a murder investigation, something like a dozen people ended up dead.”
“I can understand your reluctance to be drawn into this,” said the Archbishop in his soothing, father-confessor voice.
Did he? Sebastian wondered. Did he have any idea of the passions that swirled around murder? The secrets and lies, the rage and despair?
The Archbishop’s watery gray eyes narrowed. The man might be old and ill, but no one rose to become the most powerful churchman in all of England without being both intelligent and very, very astute. “Yet I wonder if you understand how critical it is to the well-being of the nation that this murder be solved, and solved quickly?”
When Sebastian kept silent, Moore continued. “It’s no secret that my days are numbered. The process is already under way to select my successor, which is as it should be. A lengthy hiatus in these situations is best avoided. As it happens, Bishop Prescott was a strong contender for the position. In fact, he was my personal favorite.”
Sebastian frowned. “You think that might have something to do with his death?”
“It might. At this point we’ve no way of knowing.” Setting aside his brandy, the Archbishop leaned forward, his hands coming together as if in prayer. “But consider this: It’s been just two months since the Prime Minister was killed. Now the Bishop of London has been murdered. If I die tomorrow . . .” He paused to spread his hands wide, as if inviting Sebastian to imagine a nation bereft of both spiritual and political leadership.
“This is a dangerous time in our nation’s history,” he continued solemnly, his hands coming together again when Sebastian still remained silent. “We’ve been at war virtually without pause for two decades. There is widespread suffering and much discontent among the people. And now the Am
ericans are threatening to attack us.”
Sebastian huffed a soft laugh. “I see. It’s both my spiritual and my patriotic duty to solve this murder, is it?”
His aunt frowned at him.
Ignoring her, Sebastian said, “The other body—the one with the knife in his back. Who was he?”
The sudden direct question seemed to take the Archbishop by surprise. “That we do not know.”
“But you say he was killed years ago?”
“So it would appear, yes. From his clothing, I’m told it’s likely he died sometime in the last century.”
The puzzle was undeniably intriguing—two men murdered in a crypt, their violent deaths separated by decades. Sebastian stared out the window, at a baker’s boy making his rounds with the strap of a tray slung around his neck. “Hot buns,” he called, “fresh hot buns!”
Aunt Henrietta could keep silent no longer. “Well?” she demanded. “Will you do it?”
Sebastian turned to meet his aunt’s anxious stare. If the Archbishop had come alone to request Sebastian’s assistance, Sebastian would have turned him down without hesitation. Exaggerated appeals to his patriotism inevitably fell flat, while the true nature of Sebastian’s spiritual beliefs would doubtless give the old cleric a severe shock. Yet the wily old Archbishop was obviously shrewd enough to guess some of it, which was why he had brought his dear old friend the Duchess of Claiborne here with him.
She might be gruff and ruthlessly unsentimental, but of all the members of Sebastian’s family she was the only one who had never let him down, whose love he’d always known was pure and unconditional. Sebastian could not refuse her.
He raised his brandy to his lips and drained the glass. “I’ll do it.”
Chapter 4
The village of Tanfield Hill lay about half a mile to the south of the main post road between London and the West Country, just beyond the notorious, highwayman-infested stretch of open land known as Hounslow Heath. Here, the scrub and gorse of the heath began to give way to open, rolling woodland of oak and silver birch. The village itself was a picturesque collection of thatched cottages and whitewashed stone shops strung out along a cobbled high street and a few flanking lanes.
Driving himself in his curricle, Sebastian rattled over a narrow stone bridge spanning the quiet millstream and into the village at around half past ten that morning. The sun was up strong now, bathing the old stone walls in a warm, bucolic glow and filling the air with the sweet scent of roses and honeysuckle tumbling over garden fences and scrambling up neat lattices. From here he could see the low, solid nave and single spire of the ancient Norman church of St. Margaret’s crowning a gentle hill covered with daisy-strewn grass and a scattering of aged, moss-covered tombstones.
He turned his chestnuts up the slope, toward the gravel sweep before the church, where Sir Henry Lovejoy stood talking to a workman dressed in a rough smock. A diminutive, middle-aged man with a baldhead and a serious demeanor, Sir Henry was the newest of Bow Street’s three stipendiary magistrates. At the sight of Sebastian, he dismissed the workman with a nod and started across the gravel toward the curricle.
“Find someplace to water and rest them,” Sebastian told his tiger, handing the young groom the chestnuts’ reins. “We’ll be here awhile.”
“I’ll take care of ’em, gov’nor,” said Tom, scrambling from his perch at the rear of the carriage. “Ne’er you fear.”
“Oh, and Tom—ask around a bit while you’re at it. I’d like to hear what the locals are saying about all this.”
“Aye, gov’nor.”
“Lord Devlin,” called Sir Henry, coming up to him. “So the Archbishop convinced you to take an interest in the investigation after all, did he? I feared he might not succeed. This isn’t exactly your normal type of murder.”
Sebastian hopped down from the curricle’s high seat. “I didn’t know I had a normal type of murder.” Once, this earnest little magistrate had sought Sebastian’s own arrest. But over the past year and a half the sternly religious magistrate and the urbane, irreverent Viscount had built an odd friendship, founded on mutual respect and a strong, abiding sense of trust. Sebastian said, “Bow Street didn’t object to the suggestion that I become involved?”
One corner of the magistrate’s thin lips twitched with the faintest suggestion of a smile. “I wouldn’t exactly describe Sir James’s reaction as pleased. But when the Archbishop of Canterbury personally intervenes in an investigation, not even the Chief Magistrate would dare complain.”
“And you?”
“Me?” Turning, Lovejoy led the way to the northern side of the ancient parish church, where scattered piles of building rubble lay deserted beneath the strengthening sun. “When it comes to murder in the upper reaches of society and government, I know our limits. A delicate business, this. And puzzling. Most puzzling.”
Sebastian’s head tipped back, his eyes narrowing as he scanned the worn, age-darkened stone walls of the church. The nave of St. Margaret’s had the narrow, round-topped windows and heavy masonry typical of the early Norman period. Only the tower was noticeably lighter and more delicate, its spire probably added in early Tudor times.
He let his gaze fall to the rubble at their feet. Through the remnants of a broken wall he could see the upper reaches of a set of worn stone steps that disappeared down into a well of black. “How long ago was the crypt bricked up?” he asked, peering into the darkness. His voice echoed back at him from below.
“As near as anyone can remember, it was around the time of the revolt in America.” The magistrate had an unnaturally high-pitched voice that had a tendency to squeak when he became excited or nervous. He was squeaking now.
“So, thirty or forty years ago.”
“Something like that, yes.” A lantern rested on a large, flat-topped stone near the broken wall. Stooping, Lovejoy flipped open the door and began to kindle his tinderbox. “According to the workmen, an old charnel house stood here. They were in the process of demolishing it when they stumbled upon the entrance to the crypt. It’s been closed off for so long that people had forgotten the stairs were here. I gather it was a bit of a shock when the workmen broke through the wall. And even more of a shock when a couple of the lads decided to go exploring and tripped over the body of a man, dressed in the velvets and lace of the last century and with a knife sticking out his back. According to the workmen, the Reverend took one look at the body and left almost immediately for London.”
Sebastian stared off down the hill, to where the millstream curled lazily around a stand of willows. “It seems a curious thing to have done. Why go to the Bishop? Why not the local magistrate?”
Lovejoy frowned over his task. “From what I understand, Reverend Earnshaw is of a somewhat, shall we say, excitable disposition.”
Sebastian raised one eyebrow in surprise. “You haven’t actually spoken to him?”
The magistrate was still struggling with his tinderbox. “Not yet, unfortunately. The discovery of the Bishop’s body on top of the other horrors of the crypt seems to have been too much for the man. He managed to stagger over to the Manor and tell his tale to Douglas Pyle—that’s the local magistrate, by the way: a typical village squire, far more interested in horses and hounds than in solving murders. Anyway, as soon as the Reverend told Pyle where to find the bodies, he simply went home and dosed himself with laudanum. Liberally.” The magistrate’s flame went out, and he had to try again. “He’s still insensible.”
Sebastian resisted the urge to take the tinderbox from Lovejoy’s hands and light it for him. The magistrate was uncharacteristically shaken. “You say Earnshaw found the Bishop?”
“That’s right.”
“But if the Reverend himself went to London to get Prescott, then what was the Bishop doing down in the crypt alone?”
Lovejoy grunted with satisfaction as the lantern’s wick finally caught. “According to what we’ve been able to ascertain, Reverend Earnshaw returned immediately to Tanfield Hill in his o
wn gig, while the Bishop followed later in his coach.”
“So where was the Bishop’s coachman while the Bishop was getting his head bashed in?”
“He remained on his box, as per the Bishop’s instructions. The man says he neither saw nor heard anything out of the ordinary.” Lovejoy tucked away his tinderbox and flipped the lantern’s small door closed. “Although if you ask me, he probably dozed off, and awakened only when the Reverend set up a shout. Seems the Reverend spotted the Bishop’s light in the crypt and ventured down there again, alone, only to discover the Bishop lying nearly atop the earlier victim’s body.”
“Body? But surely if the other man had been dead for decades, he’d be reduced to a skeleton by now?”
A shadow of revulsion crossed the magistrate’s pinched features. “Unfortunately, no. I understand it has something to do with the composition of the soil and perhaps the lime in the mortar. If there’s no intrusion of water, the corpses in a crypt can essentially mummify, rather than decay.”
Sebastian became aware of the putrefying stench of death wafting up from below. “I remember seeing something similar in Italy. In Palermo.”
“Then you’ll know what to expect,” said the magistrate, turning toward the entrance to the crypt. Tightening his grip on the lantern’s short handle, he stooped through the thin, broken remnant of the brick wall and started down the stairs. After a moment’s hesitation, Sebastian followed.
Worn and cracked by time, the steps descended through a narrow stone stair vault, the light from the lantern playing over an arched roof plastered with limestone. The air was cold and dank, with an unpleasant, almost greasy quality that seemed to wrap itself around them as they reached the base of the steps.
They found themselves in an ancient central aisle, its low vaulted ceiling supported by thick spiral columns topped with crude pillow capitals. Dating back to Anglo-Saxon times, the crypt was larger than Sebastian had expected, with rows of bays opening to either side. Yet the bays seemed oddly dark. As his eyes quickly grew accustomed to the gloom, Sebastian realized the bays were dark because they were full of coffins. Hundreds and hundreds of wooden coffins, some left bare, some painted, but most upholstered in moldering woolen cloth or draped in tattered velvet. Stacked row upon row, floor to ceiling, and curtained with massive sheets of cobwebs, they reached as far as he could see in all directions.