by C. S. Harris
“I thought our conversation would be more congenial without the presence of one of your gentlemen of the Fancy,” said Sebastian. He wandered the room, his gaze roving over the series of canvases on the wall. Done in oils in much the same style as the charcoal sketch on the easel, the paintings included both London street scenes and views of ships on the Thames. One particularly striking image of the church of Allhallows Barking caught in a stream of sunlight was only half finished. But most of the paintings were of naked women in a variety of languid poses.
“I suppose that’s one of the advantages of running a brothel,” said Sebastian. “There can’t be many artists with such ready access to a houseful of women who are more than willing to take off their clothes.”
Kane merely set aside his rag and grunted.
“I wonder,” said Sebastian, “did you ever paint Rose Fletcher?”
“Who?”
“Rose Fletcher. Up until last week she was one of the dashers at the Orchard Street Academy. I understand you’re the proprietor.”
Kane picked up a short piece of charcoal and traced a neat line along the hip of the figure in his sketch. “I have more than one house and employ scores of women. Do you think I know them all?”
From below stairs came a loud thump, followed by a bellow of rage. Sebastian said, “This woman left your house precipitously and went into hiding. I’m wondering if she was hiding from you.”
“What do you think?” said Kane, keeping his attention on his work. “That I stock my houses with traffic from some nefarious white-slave ring?” He had a slickly handsome face and a wide mouth full of straight white teeth he showed in a smile. “Why would she hide from me? Every soiled dove on the street would have you think she was kidnapped and forced into the trade. It’s all a fantasy. The girls in my houses are there because they choose to be, and they’re free to leave whenever they want.”
Sebastian glanced toward the Cyprian on the divan. She made a small movement, then lay still, her rosy-tipped breasts rising gently with each breath. A faint flush of color had spread across her cheeks. It was one thing, evidently, to pose naked for Ian Kane, but something else to do it in the presence of a stranger.
Sebastian said, “You weren’t angry that she left?”
A muscle jumped along Kane’s suddenly tight jaw. “Whores leave all the time. They usually come back. But even if they don’t, do you think I care? There are always more where they came from.” He jerked his head toward the street below. “You can’t walk a block without tripping over half a dozen strumpets.”
“Perhaps. Yet Rose Fletcher was undoubtedly afraid of someone.”
“Most whores are afraid of someone. A husband maybe, or a boyfriend who’s a little too handy with his fists.” Kane cocked his head to one side, studying the sketch before him. “What I’m wondering,” he said, carefully smudging the line he’d just drawn, “is why a fine gentleman like yourself would take an interest in a piece of Haymarket ware. Surely you don’t fancy her for yourself?”
“Not exactly. She’s dead. She was one of the eight women murdered at the Magdalene House last night.”
The suggestion that the fire at the Magdalene House was no accident didn’t seem to surprise Kane. But then, word traveled fast on the streets. Without looking up, he said, “You think I did that?”
“I think you’re hiding something.”
There was a pause, after which the brothel owner appeared to come to a decision. He reached for a finer piece of charcoal. “You’re right. Rose Fletcher was at the Academy. She was there the better part of a year. I don’t know why she left. She never gave any indication she was unhappy there.”
“Rose Fletcher wasn’t her real name, was it?”
“Probably not. They all take noms de guerre.”
“Do you know where she came from?”
Kane gave a sharp bark of laughter. “Women like her are a commodity. You think I care where they come from? We’re not talking fine wine here. The provenance is immaterial.”
Sebastian glanced toward the naked woman on the divan. The flush in her cheeks had deepened.
“Did Rose ever have trouble with anyone at the Academy?”
“You mean customers?” Kane shook his head. “We’re very careful with our clientele. Those who like it rough learn to go someplace else.”
“Did she have any special customers?”
“She was a popular piece of merchandise.” His eyes narrowed as he layered in defining detail to his sketch of the woman’s breasts. “But as a matter of fact, there was one particular customer that I know of. He was so enamored of her that he offered to buy her away from the house.”
“Buy her? I thought you said these women aren’t slaves.”
Kane shrugged. “She had some debts. Most whores do. They work to pay off what they owe.”
It was the usual practice: Advance the women just enough money to keep them in a perpetual state of debt so that they couldn’t leave even if they wanted to. It wasn’t technically slavery, but that’s what it amounted to.
Sebastian studied the man’s smooth face. He had a faint blue line, like a tattoo, that ran across his forehead. Sebastian had seen marks like that before, on miners. Coal dust settled into healing cuts, leaving a mark that never disappeared. Kane had obviously spent some time in the mines himself as a lad, before fleeing to London. Sebastian said, “What was the name of the customer who tried to buy her?”
“O’Brian. Luke O’Brian.”
“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 and 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, ra
ther 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.”