by C. S. Harris
His hand tightening around the handle of the pistol, Sebastian drew it from his pocket, every sense coming to tingling alertness. Drawing back the flintlock’s first hammer, he used his shoulder to nudge the door open wider.
The familiar tang of freshly spilled blood hit him first, overlaying the scents of candle wax and dry rot and decadence. The hall looked much as he remembered it, the once grand carpet and soaring plasterwork illuminated by bronze sconces with mottled mirrors. The dim golden light showed him the door-man, Thackery, half sitting, half lying in a huddled heap against the wall just inside the entrance.
Stepping cautiously into the hall, Sebastian gave the man a nudge with the toe of one boot, which sent the pugilist flopping sideways in a heavy, slow-motion roll. His eyes were closed, his plump cheeks as soft and flushed as a sleeping babe’s. His pistol held at the alert, Sebastian reached down with his left hand and felt the man’s still-warm neck for a pulse. Then his gaze fell to the dark stain of blood visible beneath the edge of the man’s coat. Flipping back the brown corduroy, Sebastian studied the neatly sliced waistcoat. It was the kind of cut left by a dagger aimed well and deep.
He straightened, aware of the unnatural quiet of the house around him. He threw a quick glance into the small room to his right but found it, mercifully, empty. He moved on, his heart pounding in his chest. How many women would a house like this one employ? he wondered. Two dozen? More? Add to that their customers . . .
He paused at the heavy velvet curtain of the arch, the polished grip of the pistol slick with sweat in his hand. At his feet lay a stout man of perhaps fifty with heavy jowls and graying dark hair. A customer, by the looks of him, at the wrong place at the wrong time. He sprawled on his back, his arms flung wide like a crucifixion victim.
Moving cautiously, Sebastian stepped past him, into the parlor with its fading emerald hangings, the tawdry splendor of moldering mirrors grand enough to have graced the halls of Versailles in an earlier, less decadent life. The light from the branches of candles on the chipped marble mantelpiece flared up warm and golden, showing him two more dead women.
The Cyprian lying near the settee was unknown to him. Turning her over, he found himself staring into wide, vacant blue eyes. Her hair was the color of cornsilk, her teeth as small and white as a child’s. A spill of blood trickled from the corner of her open mouth to pool on the carpet like a misshapen black rose. Beyond her, near the base of the staircase, he found Miss Lil.
Sebastian crouched down beside the Academy’s abbess. She lay curled on one side, her hands thrust out as if she’d sought to fend off her assailant. He touched her cheek and watched her head loll unnaturally against her shoulder. He didn’t need Paul Gibson to diagnose the cause of death.
Four dead. Sitting back on his heels, Sebastian lifted his gaze toward the first floor above. Surely one of them had cried out in alarm or terror before they’d died. Had no one upstairs heard? Or were the inhabitants of this house so accustomed to the sound of screams and shouts that no one had paid any heed?
Pushing to his feet, he was about to mount the steps when he became aware of another scent hanging in the air, mingling with the odor of blood and decay. The hot, pungent scent of a quickly extinguished candle.
His gaze shifted to the lacy alcove to the right of the hearth. When he’d been here before, the alcove had been lit by a candle that had shown him the wraithlike silhouette of a woman and a harp. Now all was darkness and silence.
He crossed the room with rapid strides to snatch back the lace curtain. The alcove smelled of hot wax and charred candlewick and raw fear. The harp stood abandoned in the center of the alcove, the low stool beside it overturned. Just inside the curtain, a tall, gaunt-faced woman pressed her back to the wall, her hands splayed out beside her as if she could will herself to disappear into the paneling.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said gently. “You’re safe.”
The woman’s thin chest jerked with her ragged breathing. “God have mercy on me,” she whispered, her voice cracking. “They’re dead, aren’t they? All dead.”
Sebastian studied her pale face, the straight brown brows and sharply edged bones so obvious beneath the inadequate flesh of cheek and forehead. She looked to be in her late twenties or early thirties. Her speech was cultured, her gown rigorously high-necked and modest. And judging by the milky-white glaze that obscured her eyes, she was quite blind.
He said, “How long ago did this happen?”
“A minute. Maybe two. Not long.”
Sebastian’s gaze lifted to the stairs. He had walked the length of Orchard Street, the Academy always in his line of sight. If anyone had left the house a minute or two before his arrival, he’d have seen them. He felt his body tense. “Where did they go? The men who did this, I mean. Upstairs?”
Even as he asked the question, he heard a thump from overhead followed by a woman’s high-pitched laugh and the lower tones of a man’s voice.
“No,” said the harpist, her spine still pressed flat to the wall. “Down the hall, toward the back of the house.”
His gaze shifted to the darkened hall that ran along the back of the stairs. “What’s there?”
“The kitchen,” she said. Her head lifted suddenly, her face turning as a more pungent scent of smoke overrode the lingering wisps from the candles. “Do you smell that?”
He smelled it. He could hear it, too: the crackling of flames, the roar of ancient timbers catching, flaring up. “Bloody hell,” he swore, grabbing her wrist. “They’ve torched the place. Come on.” Jerking her from the alcove, he raised his voice to shout, “Fire! Everyone out! Quickly! Fire!”
“No,” she said, squirming from his grasp to dart back behind the curtain. “My harp.”
“Bloody hell,” he said again as she struggled beneath the instrument’s weight. “I’ll bring the bloody harp.” Already he could see the faint reddish glow from the rear of the house, hear the screams of the women, the excited shouts of the men, the thump of running feet on the stairs. “Just get out of here.”
She refused to leave without him—or, more accurately, without her harp. “Be careful,” she cautioned as he staggered beneath its bulk. Squealing, half-naked women and men with bare pink flesh that glowed in the lamplight pushed past them in a scrambling rush for the door. A middle-aged man with a hairy, sunken white chest and flaccid phallus kept bleating, “I say, I say, I say.”
The clanging of the firebell reverberated up and down the street. Already a crowd was forming at the base of the house’s front steps. Buckets appeared, passed hand to hand. Swearing softly beneath his load, Sebastian pushed their way through the shouting throng and turned toward Portman Square. “There’s just one thing I don’t understand, Miss—”
“Driscoll,” she said, hovering protectively about her harp as the crush of men, women, and children rushing toward the fire increased. “Mary Driscoll.”
“Miss Driscoll.” The sounding board of the harp was beginning to dig unpleasantly into his back. “Why didn’t those men kill you?”
“They didn’t know I was there. I put out my candle and quit playing the instant I heard them in the hall with Thackery.”
“You know who they were?”
“No. But I recognized their voices. They came to the house the night Hessy Abrahams died.”
Sebastian studied her gaunt, strained features. “You recognized their voices? How many times have you heard them?”
“Only the once.” She must have caught the doubt in his own voice, because an unexpected smile curled her lips. “When you’re blind, you learn to listen very, very carefully.”
He could see his curricle now, Tom at the chestnuts’ heads trying to quiet them as they sidled nervously, their manes tossing, nostrils flaring at the scent of the fire. Sebastian said, “Tell me about the men. How many were there?”
“Only two,” she said. “The one was older, in his thirties, I’d say. He was the one in charge. The younger man listened to him, did w
hat he was told without question or argument.”
Like a good soldier, thought Sebastian. Aloud, he said, “What about their accents?”
She shook her head. “I couldn’t tell much, beyond the fact that they were gentlemen.”
He put out his hand, stopping her when she would have kept walking. “We’re at my carriage.”
“Gov’nor,” said Tom, his mouth falling open, “you ain’t never gonna fit that thing in the curricle.”
“Yes, I am,” said Sebastian, temporarily setting the harp on the flagstones beside the carriage. “Miss Driscoll here is going to hold it on her lap.” He offered her a hand up and she took it without hesitation.
With the Academy in flames, he supposed she had no place else to go. But as he watched her settle on the curricle’s high seat, another thought occurred to him. He said, “Do you know who I am?”
Again, that faint smile. “Of course I know who you are. You’re Viscount Devlin. You came to the house last Tuesday. You had wine with Miss Lil, Tasmin, Becky, and Sarah. Then your questions made Miss Lil uncomfortable, and she asked you to leave.”
“I never gave my name.”
“No. But I heard Miss Lil and Mr. Kane talking about you later. People are strange in that way. If you can’t see, they often act as if you can’t hear, either. Or perhaps they simply assume I’m stupid.”
She was far from stupid. He handed the harp up to her, grunting softly beneath its weight. “That still doesn’t explain why you’re willing to come with me.”
She clutched the harp to her. “Those men were looking for Miss Lil. Once they’d killed her, they left.” He saw her delicate throat work as she swallowed. “I don’t want them to come for me.”
Sebastian gazed up at her thin, plain face. Now that he had her in his curricle, he wasn’t exactly sure what he was going to do with her. From the distance came a shout, followed by what sounded like a collective sigh as the walls of the Academy collapsed inward in a fiery inferno that sent sparks flying high into the night sky.
“Gov’nor?” said Tom.
Sebastian leapt up into the curricle and gathered the reins. “Stand away from their heads,” he said, and turned the chestnuts toward Covent Garden Theater.
Chapter 51
Kat Boleyn might have been the most celebrated young actress of the London stage, but her cramped dressing room at the Covent Garden Theater was not designed to accommodate Miss Boleyn in full costume as Beatrice, a tall nobleman in a many-caped driving coat, and a blind woman clutching a harp.
She looked at Mary Driscoll’s pale, strained face and said to Sebastian, “Could I speak to you outside for a moment?”
They crowded into a dimly lit corridor smelling strongly of grease paint and orange peels and dust. Kat whispered, “Sebastian, what are you going to do with her?”
“I’m hoping she can identify the men who forced their way into the Academy tonight.”
“She’s blind.”
“Yes, but she heard their voices. She’ll be able to recognize them if she hears them again.”
Kat looked at him. He knew what she was thinking, that while he might credit Miss Driscoll’s ability to identify voices, no one else would. But all she said was, “And afterward? What will you do with her then?”
“Don’t worry. I won’t leave you lumbered with her forever.”
“I’m not worried about that.”
“I’m sorry, but I had no place else to take her where I knew she’d be safe.” He couldn’t see taking a woman like Mary Driscoll to the Red Lion.
“Sebastian, truly, it’s all right.” She reached out to touch his arm. A simple enough gesture, yet it sent a rush of forbidden longing coursing through him. It had been a mistake to come here, he realized, a mistake to allow himself to stand this close to her, to breathe in all the old familiar scents of a tainted past.
She dropped her hand and took a step back. “I heard someone has tried to kill you. Twice.”
“Where did you hear that?”
She stood with her arms gripped across the stomach of her costume as if she were cold, although it was not cold in the theater. Instead of answering, she said, “You will be careful. Not just of this killer, but of Jarvis.”
“I can handle Jarvis.”
“No one can handle Jarvis.”
To his surprise, Sebastian found himself smiling. “His daughter can.”
Walking out of the theater a few minutes later, Sebastian found his tiger waiting patiently at the chestnuts’ heads. The night had fallen clear and cold, with just the hint of a breeze that carried with it the sound of music and laughter and men’s voices raised in a toast. Sebastian said, “Take them home, Tom. I won’t be needing you anymore tonight.”
The tiger glanced at the door of the nearby music hall, then back at Sebastian’s face. “I can stay.”
Sebastian’s gaze lifted, like Tom’s, to the music hall door. It was too well lit, too loud, too full of the exuberance of life. Sebastian intended to do his drinking someplace dark and earnest. He clapped the tiger on the shoulder and turned away. “Just go home, Tom. Now.”
Chapter 52
SUNDAY, 10 MAY 1812
“My lord? My lord.” Sebastian opened one eye, tried to focus on the lean, serious face of his valet, then gave it up with a groan. “I don’t care if the entire city of London is afire. Just go away.”
“Here,” said Calhoun, slipping what felt like a warm mug into Sebastian’s slack hand. “Drink this.”
“What the devil is it?”
“Tincture of milk thistle.”
Sebastian opened the other eye, but it didn’t work any better than the first. “What the hell are you doing here? Go away.”
“A message has arrived from Dr. Gibson.”
“And?” Sebastian opened both eyes this time and clenched his teeth as the room spun unpleasantly around him.
“It seems the authorities have recovered the body of a military gentleman by the name of Max Ludlow. Dr. Gibson will be performing the autopsy this morning, and he thought you might be interested.”
Sebastian sat up so fast the hot liquid in the forgotten mug sloshed over the sides and burned his hand. “Bloody hell.”
“Drink it, my lord,” said Calhoun, turning away toward the dressing room. “Nothing is better than milk thistle when you’ve got the devil of a head.”
The milk thistle helped some, but not enough to encourage Sebastian to do more than glance at the dishes awaiting him in the breakfast room before turning away and calling for his town carriage. The day had dawned cool but clear and far too bright. He subsided into one corner of his carriage and closed his eyes. Gibson’s autopsies were never pleasant, but Sebastian didn’t want to even think about the kind of shape Max Ludlow’s body would be in after ten days.
“ ’E’s in the room out the back,” said Gibson’s housekeeper when she opened the door to Sebastian. A short, stout woman with iron gray hair and a plain, ruddy face, she scowled at him with unabashed disapproval. “I’m to take you there. Not that I’m going any farther than halfway down the garden, mind you. It’s unnatural, what ’e does down there.”
Sebastian followed Mrs. Federico’s broad back down the ancient, narrow hall and through the kitchen to the untidy yard that led to the small stone building where Gibson performed both his postmortems and his illicit dissections. True to her word, halfway across the yard Mrs. Federico drew up short. “Viscount or no viscount, I ain’t goin’ no farther,” she said, and headed back toward her kitchen.
Sebastian had to quell the urge to follow her. He could already smell Max Ludlow.
“There you are,” said Gibson, appearing at the building’s open doorway, his gore-stained hands held aloft. “I thought you’d be interested in this.”
Sebastian tried breathing through his mouth. “Where did they find him?”
“In Bethnal Green. Wrapped in canvas and dumped in a ditch along Jews Walk.”
“I suppose it’s better than the
Thames,” said Sebastian. He’d seen bodies pulled out of the river after a week. It wasn’t a sight he cared to see again.
“There was water in the ditch.”
“Good God,” said Sebastian. He should have had more of Calhoun’s milk thistle.
Gibson ducked back into the building’s dank interior. After a brief hesitation, Sebastian followed.