Who Buries the Dead: A Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery

by C. S. Harris

  “Did he say anything to you about some Stuart relics he was considering buying?”

  Knightly shook his head. “Not that I recall, no. But then, I’m afraid I sometimes didn’t pay a great deal of attention when Stanley would start prattling on about his collection.”

  Sebastian set aside his wineglass and rose to his feet. “Thank you. You’ve been very helpful.”

  Sir Galen rose with him and tucked his paper under one arm in an awkward, self-conscious gesture. “He was a good man, you know. My uncle died the summer I was fourteen, when we were in Jamaica. I had already lost my grandfather, and my parents long before that. Stanley Preston took me under his wing. I was nothing more than a tiresome adolescent, but he treated me like a man grown. You couldn’t ask for a truer, more loyal friend. Whoever killed him—” He broke off, as if fearing the intensity of his emotions might lead him into the kind of intemperate speech he’d just credited to Stanley Preston. He pressed his lips together and shook his head, then said, “Whoever killed him left the world a poorer place.”

  “Who do you think did it?”

  The question seemed to surprise Knightly. “Me?” He paused. “If it were me, I suppose I would look into Captain Wyeth’s movements.” A self-deprecating smile touched his lips. “But then, as I said, I’m not exactly disinterested in that quarter.”

  “It sounds to me as if this Captain Wyeth may well be our man,” said Lovejoy as he and Sebastian stood on the terrace of the vast pile of government offices known as Somerset House, looking out over the sullen gray waters of the Thames. “He readily admits he has no alibi for the time of the murder, and given that Preston was opposing the captain’s ambitions of marrying Miss Preston and had promised to disinherit her if she wed against his wishes, he also possessed a powerful motive.”

  “Just because he had a motive and no alibi doesn’t mean he did it,” said Sebastian, watching a crane fit into place a large stone on the new Strand Bridge. “I’m still not convinced Henry Austen is being entirely honest about his quarrel that night with Preston. It might be worthwhile to send a constable to talk to the Monster’s regular patrons; one of them may have overheard something interesting.”

  Lovejoy nodded. “Good idea. We’ve recently discovered Preston received a visitor on Sunday morning, by the way—a physician named Sterling. Douglas Sterling.”

  “Preston was unwell?”

  Lovejoy shook his head. “According to Miss Preston, her father was in the best of health—at least, as far as she knows.”

  “What does this Dr. Sterling say?”

  “Very little, unfortunately. I sent one of my best lads—a Constable Hart—to speak with him, but Sterling claims the visit was medical in nature and refuses to discuss it further. When Constable Hart tried to press the matter, the good doctor became quite agitated and stormed off. Hart thinks he’s hiding something.”

  “Interesting. I’ll have to have a go at him.”

  Lovejoy cleared his throat. “I should perhaps have mentioned this Dr. Sterling is quite aged.”

  “How aged?”

  “Nearly eighty. He’s been retired for years.”

  “So why was he treating Preston?”

  “He claims he saw him as a favor.”

  “They were friends?”

  “Miss Preston says he’s the former colleague of a some relative—a cousin of her grandfather, I believe.”

  Sebastian turned to stare at him. “Lord Sidmouth’s father was a physician—and her grandfather’s cousin.”

  “Was he? Then perhaps that’s the connection.”

  “Where does this Dr. Sterling live?”

  “Number fourteen Chatham Place. But I gather he spends most of his time at a coffeehouse near the bridgehead. He sounds like a crusty old gentleman. I suspect you’ll not find him easy to coerce into talking, if he’s made up his mind not to.”

  “Perhaps I can appeal to his better nature.”

  “After listening to Constable Hart,” said Lovejoy, turning away from the river, “I’m not convinced he has one.”

  Chapter 24

  D ouglas Sterling proved to be one of those aged gentlemen who still clung to the powdered wigs considered de rigueur for men of birth and education when they were in their prime.

  Sebastian found him in a coffeehouse on the east side of Chatham Place, seated near the bowed front window where he could watch the steady stream of traffic passing back and forth on Blackfriars Bridge. He was hunched over a medical journal that lay open on the table before him, but looked up and frowned when Sebastian paused beside him.

  His face was heavily lined with age, the skin sallow and blotched with liver spots. But his frame was still lean, his hands unpalsied, his dark eyes shiny with a belligerent intelligence. “You’re obviously not from Bow Street,” he said, his voice raspy but strong. “So what in blazes do you want with me?”

  “Mind if I have a seat?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do,” said the old man, and returned pointedly to his reading.

  Sebastian leaned one shoulder against a nearby wall, his arms crossed at his chest. Through the window he could see a massive farm wagon heavily laden with hay jolting and swaying as it came down off the bridge’s span. “Nice view,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “Come here often, do you?”

  “You must know I do; otherwise, you wouldn’t have found me here, now, would you?”

  “I understand you’ve retired from the practice of medicine.”

  “Pretty much.”

  “Yet you consulted with Stanley Preston the very day he died?”

  “I like to keep my hand in, now and then.”

  “Now and then?”

  “Yes.” The aged physician gave up all pretense of reading and leaned back in his chair. “Who are you?”

  “The name’s Devlin.”

  Sterling’s eyes narrowed. “The Earl of Hendon’s son?”

  “Yes.”

  “I hear you’ve taken a fancy to solving murders. In my day, gentlemen left that sort of thing to the constables and magistrates.”

  “Like Constable Hart?”

  Sterling grunted. “The man is beyond impudent.”

  Sebastian studied the old doctor’s watery, nearly lashless dark eyes. “He thinks you’re hiding something.”

  Rather than become flustered, Sterling simply returned Sebastian’s steady gaze and said, “He’s welcome to think what he likes.”

  “It doesn’t disturb you that someone lopped off Stanley Preston’s head less than twelve hours after you saw him?”

  “Of course it disturbs me—as it would any right-minded gentleman.”

  “Yet you refuse to divulge information which could conceivably lead to the apprehension of his killer.”

  “It is only your assumption—and that of the ridiculous Constable Hart—that I possess any such information.”

  “Are you by chance acquainted with the Home Secretary, Lord Sidmouth?”

  “Huh. Knew him before he was even breeched, I did—although I doubt he’d acknowledge the likes of me now that he’s become so fine. Lord Sidmouth, indeed. And his father no more than a simple physician, like me.”

  “You were colleagues?”

  “We were. Although it was years ago, now.”

  “Yet you still maintained an acquaintance with Stanley Preston?”

  “That strike you as odd?”

  “I suppose not. Tell me this: Did Preston seem at all anxious when you last saw him? Frightened?”

  “Hardly.”

  “How often would you see him?”

  “Not often.”

  “Yet he consulted with you over a medical problem his own daughter didn’t know he had?”

  “I don’t discuss my health with my daughters. Do you?”

&n
bsp; “I don’t have a daughter.”

  “A son?”

  “Yes.”

  The old physician gave a throaty grunt. “Strapping young man like yourself, bet you think you want sons—carry on the name, make you proud at Oxford and on the hunting field, and all that rot. But mark my words: You get to be my age, it’s a daughter you’ll be wanting.”

  Outside in the square, the hay wagon had caught a wheel in a rut and shuddered to a halt. Someone shouted as the driver cracked his whip.

  Sebastian said, “What did you think of Preston’s interest in collecting the heads of famous men?”

  The old physician thrust out his upper lip and shrugged. “Ever see the collection of anatomical specimens amassed by the late John Hunter? They’re in the care of the Royal College of Surgeons these days.”

  “Can’t say that I have.”

  “Mind you, Hunter’s collection was based on anatomical peculiarities rather than whatever fame or infamy the individuals may have managed to acquire in life. But his point was the same.”

  “Was it? I’d have said the impetus behind Hunter’s collection was education and research.”

  “He liked to think it was. Could even have started out that way. But if you’d ever observed his pride in his specimens, you’d know better.”

  Sebastian studied the aged doctor’s sallow, wrinkled face. “Can you think of anything that might have taken Stanley Preston to Bloody Bridge last Sunday night?”

  “No.”

  “Ever hear of a man named Sinclair Oliphant?”

  “No,” said Sterling again. Although this time he blinked, and his gaze skittered away.

  “You’re certain of that?”

  “Course I’m certain,” Sterling snapped and glared defiantly back at Sebastian again, as if determined to stare him down.

  “Who do you think killed Stanley Preston?”

  “I’ve no idea.”

  “None?”

  “None.”

  “Then why your reluctance to discuss your last meeting with him?”

  For one brief moment, Sterling’s jaw sagged, and Sebastian caught a glimpse of uncertainty and what might even have been fear in the old man’s eyes.

  Then the aged physician clenched his teeth together. “My meeting with Stanley Preston last Sunday was private, and I intend for it to remain that way. You can stand there for the rest of the day as far as I’m concerned, but I’ve told you all you need to know.”

  He hunched a shoulder and returned pointedly to his reading.

  “Telling me what you think I need to know is not the same as telling me all you know,” said Sebastian.

  But Sterling kept his stare fixed on the page before him, the powder from his old-fashioned wig dusting the shoulders of his worn coat.

  Frustrated, Sebastian went next to the Home Office, where his second attempt to speak to Viscount Sidmouth was no more successful than the first. This time, the clerk insisted that his lordship was at Carlton House in consultation with the Regent and was not expected to return that day.

  Sebastian studied the clerk’s pasty white face. He was a short, gently rounded man with a balding pate and a small, puckered mouth that curled up into what looked like a habitual condescending smile. “At Carlton House, you say?”

  The smirk deepened. “That is correct.”

  “You’re certain of that?” Sebastian could quite clearly hear the Home Secretary in conversation with a fellow cabinet member behind a nearby closed door. But the clerk had no way of knowing that.

  “Of course I am certain,” said the little man with a sniff.

  “It’s the oddest thing, but I’m beginning to get the impression the Secretary is deliberately avoiding me.”

  The clerk stared back at Sebastian, pale eyes blinking rapidly.

  If Sidmouth had been closeted with anyone else, Sebastian would have been tempted to set the supercilious clerk aside and open the door to the Home Secretary’s office. But Sebastian recognized the voice of the nobleman whose low, measured tones alternated with Sidmouth’s higher ranges: It was the Earl of Hendon, the man Sebastian had called Father until a short time ago.

  Sebastian nodded to the closed door. “When the Secretary finishes his meeting with Lord Hendon, you can tell him that I’ll be back.”

  The clerk gave a nervous titter. “When? When will you be back?”

  “When will he be available?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t really say. He’s busy. Very busy.”

  “Then I suppose I’ll simply need to catch him when he’s not busy.”

  The clerk’s smile slid into something less confident. “What does that mean?”

  But Sebastian simply smiled and walked away, leaving the clerk bleating behind him, “But what does that mean? What does it mean?”

  That night, Sebastian donned silk knee breeches, buckled dress shoes, and a chapeaux bras and took his wife to a ball.

  The ball was given by Countess Lieven, the Russian Ambassador’s wife. Her husband had only recently been posted to the Court of St. James, yet the young Countess had already managed to make herself one of Society’s leaders. She was politically astute, totally unscrupulous, breathtakingly snobbish, charismatic, and brilliant. Her invitations were amongst the most sought after in London, and her approval was critical to any young lady making her debut into Society.

  “If he’s that desperate to avoid you,” Hero said to Sebastian as their carriage joined the crush of fashionable vehicles making their way toward the Lievens’ town house, “maybe he won’t be there.”

  “His daughter is making her come out this Season. He’ll be there.”

  Chapter 25

  H enry Addington, First Viscount Sidmouth, stood at the edge of the crowded dance floor, an indulgent smile on his face as he watched his pretty, dark-haired daughter advancing through the movements of an energetic Scottish reel. Overhead, massive crystal chandeliers sparkled in the flickering light of a sea of candles. The air was thick with the smell of hot wax and expensive perfume and copious perspiration from the laughing, chattering, jewel-bedecked members of the ton. Sidmouth himself was looking more than a little damp.

  So intent was the Home Secretary on watching his daughter’s progress that he remained oblivious to Sebastian’s approach until Sebastian said, “Ah; there you are.”

  Sidmouth gave an uncomfortable start and glanced around as if looking for someplace to hide.

  “I’ve been wanting to speak to you,” said Sebastian.

  The Home Secretary’s jaw sagged, his eyes bulging. “Yes, I know. But . . . here?”

  “We could step into one of the withdrawing rooms, if you’d prefer.”

  “Perhaps you could come by my office tomorrow morning and—”

  “No,” said Sebastian.

  Sidmouth cleared his throat uncomfortably. “One of the withdrawing rooms, yes.” He led the way to a small alcove near the head of the stairs, then swung about to clear his throat and say in a low voice, “I’m told you’re working with Bow Street to solve this ghastly murder of my poor cousin.”

  “I am, yes.”

  “We weren’t close, you know,” said Sidmouth. “First cousins once removed.”

  “But you did know him.”

  “Yes, of course. Just not . . . well.”

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  The Home Secretary blinked rapidly. “Can’t really say, I’m afraid. But it’s been weeks. Yes, surely weeks—if not months.”

  “Know anyone who might have wanted to kill him?”

  Sidmouth looked shocked and vaguely offended by the suggestion. “Good gracious, no.”

  Sebastian studied the other man’s long, pale face, with its patrician nose and incongruously heavy jaw. “I understand you know an elderly physician named Douglas Sterling.�
��

  “Sterling?” Sidmouth gave a nervous laugh. “He was an early colleague of my father. What has he to do with anything?”

  “When did you last see him?”

  “Good gracious; I’ve no idea. Why?”

  Rather than answer him, Sebastian said, “Tell me about Sinclair Oliphant.”

  Sidmouth’s face went slack. “What?”

  “Why was he recalled from Jamaica?”

  The Secretary drew back his shoulders and affected a haughty, ministerial air. “I’m afraid I am not at liberty to discuss Home Office affairs.”

  “But he was recalled.”

  “The decision to return to England was Lord Oliphant’s own.”

  “That’s not what I’m hearing.”

  Sidmouth waved one white-gloved hand in a dismissive gesture. “Rumor. Nothing but rumor.”

  “So you’re saying your cousin had nothing to do with it?”

  The Home Secretary’s nostrils flared with the intensity of his indignation. “I beg your pardon?”

  Sebastian met the man’s angry gaze and held it. “It has occurred to you, surely, that Oliphant might be responsible for Stanley Preston’s head ending up on Bloody Bridge? And that if he is, then you might be his next victim?”

  Sidmouth’s eyes went wide, his assumption of ministerial magnificence slipping. “Good God; you aren’t seriously suggesting that Oliphant did that to Stanley?” Then he shook his head so vigorously he reminded Sebastian of a man coming in out of the rain. “No; I can’t believe it.”

  “But something did happen between the two men.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “From what I’m hearing, there were few people with whom Stanley Preston didn’t quarrel at one time or another. Yet you would have me believe he never clashed with Oliphant while he was governor?”

  “Yes, well . . . disputes between colonial governors and prominent local landowners are unfortunately all too frequent, you know.”

  “And Stanley Preston had the advantage of being first cousin—once removed—to the Home Secretary.”