Who Buries the Dead: A Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery

by C. S. Harris

  “Of course they are,” said Sebastian.

  Rather than take offense, she laughed out loud, her small beady eyes practically disappearing into her fat face.

  He nodded to the mechanical bird between them. “Where does it come from?”

  “Persia. Or maybe China. Does it matter? Sings as sweet and sunny as an angel of the good Lord, it does.”

  The clear notes began to slow down, the key cleverly concealed in the bird’s tail feathers turning slower and slower, the wings seeming to grow heavier and heavier with each flutter.

  He said, “I’ve discovered you’ve been less than honest with me.”

  She gave him a look of shocked innocence. “You don’t say?”

  “Last Saturday, Stanley Preston came charging into your shop and accused you of cheating him. He threatened to turn you in to the authorities as a fence, whereupon you threatened to strangle him with his own intestines and feed what was left of him to the dogs.”

  “Nah, that weren’t it. Don’t know who you been talking to, but I said I was gonna strangle him with his own guts and feed his privates to the dogs.”

  Sebastian studied her broad, still smiling face. “Yet you told me you hadn’t seen the man in a month or more.”

  She shrugged. “Reckon I forgot.”

  “You forgot.”

  “Got a terrible memory, I do.”

  “You do realize, of course, that his threat to turn you over to the authorities gives you a powerful motive for murder?”

  “It might—if I’d thought he meant it. Only, he didn’t.”

  “So certain?”

  “Course I’m certain. Everybody cheats each other in this business—when they can. And the buyers is as guilty as the sellers. You such a flat as t’ think Preston cared whether the stuff he bought here was stolen or not? He couldn’t expose me without exposing himself, now, could he?”

  “He could claim not to know the origins of your merchandise.”

  “To be sure, he could. But then, so could I, now, couldn’t I?” She poked one short, fat finger toward him. “If he’d been strung up by his own innards and gelded, you might be able to pin this on me. But he weren’t. So get out of me shop.”

  Sebastian nodded to the now silent bird on the counter between them. “How much is the nightingale?”

  She snatched it up and cradled it against her massive bosom as if it were something rare and precious to her. “’Tain’t for sale. Not to you.”

  Sebastian kept his gaze on her face. “Ever have dealings with anyone from Windsor Castle?”

  Her unexpected, slow smile betrayed not a hint of either recognition or alarm. “I told you, I only deal in human heads if they’re gilded and studded with jewels.”

  “I don’t recall saying anything about a head,” said Sebastian, and walked out of her shop.

  The sun was sinking low in the sky when Sebastian joined Gibson for a pint at an ancient, half-timbered tavern near the Tower. The Irishman’s eyes were hollow and bruised-looking, and there was a decidedly green tinge to his face.

  “You think it was a trap?” said Gibson, wrapping his unsteady hands around his tankard. “That Priss Mulligan used the King’s head as bait to lure Preston to Bloody Bridge and then kill him?”

  Sebastian leaned his shoulders against the worn, high back of the old-fashioned settle. “I think it’s a strong possibility, yes.”

  Gibson drained the rest of his ale and set aside the empty tankard. “How do you know your unknown thief himself isn’t the killer? Maybe he decided to kill Preston, steal whatever money he’d brought, and then sell the head to Priss Mulligan.”

  “That’s also a possibility.”

  “But you don’t think so?”

  “Why would a simple thief go to all the trouble of cutting off Preston’s head and setting it up on the bridge?”

  “Why would anyone who wasn’t more than a wee bit crazy?”

  “True.” Sebastian signaled the barmaid for two more pints. “There is a third possibility.”

  “There is?”

  “Preston could have been at the bridge to meet whoever stole the royal relics. Only, someone else followed him to the bridge and killed him.”

  “Someone like Wyeth or Oliphant?”

  “Or even Henry Austen. After all, we only have his word as to the nature of their quarrel.”

  Gibson grunted. “What I don’t understand is how this old physician—Sterling—fits into anything. Why kill him?”

  “My guess is he figured out who killed Preston, or at least had a pretty good idea.” Sebastian frowned. “Although there could always be another link that I’m missing entirely.”

  Gibson swiped a shaky hand down over his pale, clammy face. “Alexi says she gave you the results of Sterling’s autopsy.”

  “She did, yes.” Sebastian studied his friend’s heavy-lidded, bloodshot eyes. “Did you ever get a chance to look at the body yourself?”

  Gibson shook his head, his gaze sliding away.

  “How’s your leg now?” Sebastian asked gently.

  “Better.”

  Sebastian remained silent, but Gibson seemed to know the direction of his thoughts, for he said, “It’s barmy, if you ask me—thinking you can get rid of the phantom pains from a man’s missing leg with nothing more than a box and mirrors.”

  “We don’t understand much about the mind or how it functions, do we? Madame Sauvage seems to think it could work. So why not try it? What have you to lose?” Besides your pain and an opium addiction that’s going to kill you, Sebastian thought, although he didn’t say it.

  Gibson set his jaw and shook his head, and Sebastian knew his refusal was all tied up with his pride, and a fear of looking foolish or weak, and a host of other emotions Sebastian couldn’t even guess at and suspected Gibson himself had no desire to probe.

  The surgeon waited while the buxom young barmaid set two new tankards on the table, then said, “So where’s this king’s head now, do you think?”

  “I suppose that depends on whether the thief and the killer are the same person. But if the thief isn’t the killer, then I’m afraid he’s probably in danger—and I suspect he knows it.”

  Gibson stared at him. “How you figure that?”

  “One of two things: either the killer used the King’s head to lure Preston to Bloody Bridge, in which case the thief knows who the killer is, or the thief had nothing to do with the murder but arrived at the bridge in time to see something.”

  “What makes you think he saw something?”

  “Because someone—either the thief, the killer, or Preston himself—dropped that inscribed lead strap beside the stream. And if it was the thief, then he must have been too rattled—or afraid of being seen—to take the time to look for it in the dark. Otherwise, why leave something that valuable—especially something that has the potential to tie him to murder?”

  Gibson leaned forward. “Maybe that’s why Sterling was killed. He was a physician, after all. Most of them are more interested in drinking urine and dispensing potions than in studying anatomy, but some do. Could be he had ties to the resurrection men working out at Windsor and figured out who your thief was.”

  Sebastian paused with his tankard lifted halfway to his mouth. “Do you know any of them?”

  Gibson shook his head. “Resurrection men are fiercely territorial, and the lads I deal with tend to stick to the churchyards of the City or Mayfair. But I’ll bet that virger you talked to could give you their names. He might not have ever managed to catch them red-handed, but he knows who they are—you can count on that.”

  “Actually, he was at pains to convince me that virtually anyone in Windsor could have accessed the crypt—something I suspect the Dean would be shocked to hear.”

  Gibson grunted. “Sounds like he probably deals with them himself. God kn
ows he wouldn’t be the first.”

  Sebastian tried to picture toothy Rowan Toop surreptitiously leaving greased gates unlocked in anticipation of the stealthy midnight visits of body snatchers, or offering to sell choice items lifted from the crypts under his care.

  And Sebastian found he had no difficulty imagining either scenario.

  Chapter 38

  Sunday, 28 March

  T he next morning, Sebastian drove out to Windsor Castle to find the Right Reverend Edward Legge pacing back and forth before the chapel steps, his full cheeks flushed with annoyance. The morning had dawned cool and damp, with a fine mist that drifted across the lower court and hung in the half-dead trees near the cloisters.

  “I don’t know where the fool has taken himself off to,” snapped the Dean when Sebastian introduced himself and asked for the virger. “He wasn’t here for morning services. And I’m to meet with the Canons in less than ten minutes. He’s supposed to be there! The internment of Princess Augusta is this Wednesday.”

  Sebastian studied the Dean’s plump, self-absorbed face. “Have you sent to make inquiries at his lodgings?”

  “Of course I’ve sent to make inquiries,” said the Dean. “What sort of imbecile do you take me for? His wife claims he went for a walk and never came back.”

  “When?”

  “How on earth would I know?”

  Sebastian shifted his gaze to a castle guard who was trotting across the court toward them. The Dean turned, following Sebastian’s gaze.

  The guard was young and fresh faced and breathing heavily, and he had to pause to suck in a few gulps of air before saying with a gasp, “He’s dead, Reverend.”

  Legge stared at him. “Toop? Are you saying Toop is dead?”

  “Yes, sir. They . . .” The young guard paused to swallow hard. “They found him down by Romney Island. In the river.”

  “What did the fool do? Fall in and drown?”

  “I don’t think so, sir. His head’s all caved in.”

  A long, narrow stretch of wooded land in the middle of the Thames, Romney Island lay just below the old wooden bridge that connected Windsor to the town of Eton on the north bank of the river. That morning, a gap-toothed, tow-headed boy of twelve had rowed his skiff from Eton out to the island and was just dropping a fishing line into the water when he noticed the black cloth of the virger’s cassock floating amidst the exposed roots of a willow at the river’s edge.

  By the time Sebastian reached the island, a constable and the keeper from the nearby lock had already hauled the sodden body up onto the gravel bank. The virger lay on his stomach, his arms sprawled stiffly out from his sides, his head turned so that one glassy eye seemed to stare at Sebastian in startled horror as he hunkered down beside the body. From the looks of things, the man had probably been dead a good eight to ten hours, although Sebastian could never remember if cold water sped up or slowed down the processes of death.

  He looked up at the constable. “Do you know when he was last seen?”

  The constable—a brawny, middle-aged man with a heavy morning stubble of dark beard—wiped the back of one hand across his nose and sniffed. “His wife says he took the dog for a walk last night around half past eight. Gone a good while, he was, before she realized he hadn’t come back. Had her sister visiting, and they was busy chatting, you see. Wasn’t till the dog come barkin’ at the door that she knew something was amiss.”

  “How big is the dog?”

  The constable looked at Sebastian as if that were just the sort of daft question one might expect from some bloody London lord they’d been ordered to cooperate with. “Little gray thing about the size of a cat. Why?”

  If the constable couldn’t fathom the significance of the size of the dog, Sebastian didn’t have time to explain it to him. Then he realized the constable wasn’t thinking in terms of murder.

  “The fog come up real bad just after dusk last night,” said the constable. “Looks to me like the virger must’ve taken his dog for a walk along the river, slipped, hit his head on somethin’, and fell in the river and drowned.”

  “That’s certainly one explanation,” said Sebastian, studying the ugly gash on the side of the virger’s head. The water had washed away all trace of blood, although the wound had undoubtedly bled profusely; he could see shattered bone amidst the pulpy flesh. “If that’s the case, it shouldn’t be difficult to find the spot where he came to grief; his blood should be smeared all over whatever he hit.”

  “I suppose so, my lord. But . . . what difference does it make?”

  “I’m afraid there’s a very good chance your virger had some help going into the river.”

  The constable shook his head. “I don’t understand. Help from who?”

  Sebastian pushed to his feet. “From whoever killed him.”

  Sebastian’s desire to have the dead virger sent to Paul Gibson for autopsy was met with predictable resistance from Dean Legge.

  “Send the body for a postmortem?” said the Dean with an indignant squeak. “All the way to London? When the fool simply tumbled into the river? What an unconscionable waste of funds.”

  Sebastian kept his own voice calm and even. “I don’t think we’re dealing with an accident.”

  “You can’t be serious. Who would want to kill a simple virger? No, no; I can’t authorize it. Even if a postmortem were necessary, Windsor boasts any number of competent medical men who are more than capable of performing the task.”

  Sebastian stared off across the misty court and uttered those magic words “Jarvis” and “King Charles’s head.”

  The Dean closed his mouth, turned a sickly shade of gray, and bustled off to make the arrangements without further argument.

  The virger’s lodgings lay to the west of the chapel in that part of the castle known as Horseshoe Cloister. A quaint old house of timber framing filled in with brick noggin, it dated back to the fifteenth century, with delicate window tracery and a second story that jutted out over the ground floor.

  Sebastian found Rowan Toop’s widow seated in a small but surprisingly fine parlor and surrounded by a bevy of somber-faced women who stared at him as if he were a crow who’d alit in the midst of a covey of mourning doves. He wouldn’t have been surprised if the grieving widow had simply buried her face in the depths of her black linen handkerchief and used her grief as a reason not to speak with him. Instead, she excused herself to the ruffled ladies and withdrew with Sebastian through a low door into an adjoining dining room.

  “They mean well, I know,” she said, closing the door to the parlor with a sigh of relief. “It’s just that, sometimes, sympathy can be more oppressive than grief.”

  It certainly appeared to be so in this case, Sebastian thought, studying her self-composed features and noticeably dry eyes. Either that, or the Widow Toop was extraordinarily successful at hiding her feelings.

  She was a startlingly plain woman, built tall and as bony thin as her late husband. But she was better born, and lost no time in letting Sebastian know she was the daughter of one of St. George’s former Canons. She was also, he suspected, better educated and more intelligent than Toop. Yet it was not at all difficult to understand how she had ended up married to a mere virger. Intelligent she might be, and gently bred, but she had a most unfortunate face, with a small squashed nose and no chin and bad teeth.

  She fixed Sebastian with a steady gaze. “You’re here because of the death of my husband?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry.”

  She nodded. “Rowan told me you’d been asking about the missing relics.”

  “Can you tell me if he stayed home last Sunday evening? Or did he go out?”

  The question didn’t seem to surprise her, although he noticed her gaze slid away. “He was out, yes.”

  “Long enough to make it to London and back?”

  She nodded quietly and wen
t to fiddle with an expensive-looking silver epergne on the sideboard. Like the parlor, the dining room was small but exquisitely furnished, with a cabinet of fine French china and gilded sconces dripping cascades of faceted crystals. Some items were undoubtedly her own pieces, inherited from her mother, the Canon’s wife. But not all.

  “Do you know where he went?” asked Sebastian. “Or why?”

  “No.”

  Somehow, Sebastian couldn’t bring himself to come right out and ask this recently widowed woman if she’d known her husband was a grave robber. So he said instead, “Did your husband ever mention a woman named Priss Mulligan? She owns a secondhand shop in Houndsditch.”

  “I don’t believe so, no. But then, Rowan knew I had no interest in . . . in some of the things he did.”

  That’s one way to put it, Sebastian thought. Aloud, he said, “How did he seem when he came home Sunday night?”

  “Truthfully? I’d never seen him in such a state.”

  “In what sense?”

  “It’s almost as if he were . . . frightened. Yes, that’s it; frightened. Terrified, actually.”

  “Of what? Do you know?”

  “No; I’m sorry. He said he didn’t want to talk about it and went to bed.”

  “Was he carrying anything when he returned?”

  “No.” The question obviously puzzled her. “Whatever do you mean?”

  Sebastian simply shook his head. “What about last night? Was he frightened when he took the dog for its walk?”

  “I don’t think so, no. They’ve been busy planning Princess Augusta’s funeral, you know, and he always enjoyed royal affairs at the chapel.”

  “Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to harm your husband?”

  Her eyes widened. “No, but . . . I thought they said he simply fell into the river?”

  “Perhaps. Perhaps not. Your husband never told you anything about what happened Sunday night? About who he was going to meet, or why?”

  “No.”

  Sebastian studied the widow’s plain face, the delicate gold locket nestled at her throat, the fine muslin gown her husband had doubtless purchased with money gained from dealing with resurrection men or selling trinkets snatched from the dead.