Why Mermaids Sing sscm-3

by C. S. Harris

  “There was a young man murdered down in Kent last Easter, in Avery. The son of one Reverend William Thornton.”

  “And this Reverend Thornton was on the Harmony, as well?”

  “I don’t know for certain yet, but I suspect so, yes. I do know that he and his wife spent some years on a mission in India.”

  They walked along in silence for a time, their footsteps echoing in the stone-vaulted corridor. At last she said, “It makes no sense. Why would someone be killing the children of the Harmony’s passengers?”

  “Someone who wanted revenge, perhaps.”

  “Revenge for what?”

  Sebastian met her gaze and held it, and the air between them crackled with all that remained unsaid. The desperate, starving men and women of the Harmony might have kept their secret for five long years, but there was no escaping the implications suggested by the butchered bodies of their children.

  Lady Carmichael’s eyes widened. She shook her head fiercely, her throat working hard as if she were forced to swallow a rise of bile. “No. You’re wrong. Nothing like that happened on that ship.”

  “Can you be certain?”

  Her voice throbbed with emotion. “My husband is a hard man, Lord Devlin. A hard, brilliant man who can be brutal in business if he must. But only in business. He could never, ever have done what you are suggesting. Never.”

  Sebastian stared off across the now silent, half-ruined cloister, all that remained of what had once been a thriving community. “Most of us probably think we could never do such a thing,” he said. “Yet when faced with the stark choice between that and death, I suspect we’d all be uncomfortably surprised by how few would choose death.”

  “You’re wrong,” she said again. But she was no longer looking at him, and Sebastian suspected she spoke the words in a futile effort to convince herself.

  Chapter 34

  Kat was seated at the elegant little writing table in her morning room, attempting to draft a terse note to the Irishman Aiden O’Connell when she heard Devlin’s rich voice in the hall below, mingling with the desultory tones of her maid, Elspeth. Quickly shoving the note out of sight, Kat stood and turned just as he entered the room.

  He was dressed in doeskin riding breeches and top boots, and brought with him the crisp scent of the September morning. He caught her to him for a quick kiss and said, “Come ride with me in the park.”

  She held him just an instant too long, then laughed. “I’m not dressed for riding.”

  “So change.” He touched his fingers to her cheek, his expression suddenly, unexpectedly serious. “I’ve hardly seen you the last few days, and when I do, I find you looking…tense.”

  The urge to confide the truth to him welled up within her, hot and desperate. Yet even more than she feared Jarvis, she found she feared watching the love in Devlin’s eyes turn to hate. And so she kept silent, although the need to confide in him remained, filling her with a bittersweet ache.

  She brushed her lips across his and somehow managed to summon up a smile. “Give me fifteen minutes.”

  “Fifteen minutes?” he said with exaggerated incredulity, then threw up his hands to catch her playful punch.

  Some half an hour later, as they trotted side by side through the streets of the city, he told her of Captain Bellamy, his beautiful young Brazilian wife, and little Francesca. Kat knew a pang of fear when he told her of the knife-wielding assassin on the Thames. And then he told her of last night’s meeting with Charles, Lord Jarvis.

  She listened to him in silence. “And you believed him?” she asked when Devlin had finished.

  He glanced over at her, a light frown touching his forehead. “Sir Henry is checking into the particulars of the ship. But yes, I believe him. It simply fits too well. I suppose even Jarvis must tell the truth at times.”

  She made an inelegant sound deep in her throat. “Without an ulterior motive? Never.”

  She was uncomfortably aware of him watching her as they turned through the gates of the park and rode in silence for a moment. She could fool all of London from the stage, but she couldn’t fool this man.

  He said, “Why won’t you tell me what’s wrong?”

  She considered trying to laugh the question away, but knew she would never convince him. Forcing herself to meet his fierce yellow stare, she said in a low, strained voice, “I’m sorry. I can’t speak of it.”

  He continued to hold her gaze, his face drawn with worry. But he said no more.

  She looked away, her attention caught by a small man in a round hat and spectacles hurrying toward them across the park. As she watched, he raised one hand in a discreet attempt to catch their attention.

  Devlin reined in and swung to his feet.

  “My lord,” said Sir Henry Lovejoy, coming up to them. Pivoting, he gave Kat an awkward little bow. “Miss Boleyn. My apologies for the interruption. Your young tiger told me I might find you here, and I thought you would be interested to hear that I’ve been to the Board of Trade.”

  “And?” said Devlin.

  “Their records of the inquiry into the Harmony’s loss appear to be missing. The clerk assures me they’ve simply been misfiled and he has instituted a thorough search for them, but it’s curious. Very curious.”

  Kat heard Devlin utter a soft oath. “You think someone could have taken the records?” she asked.

  “Surely not,” said Sir Henry. Reaching into his coat, the magistrate drew forth a slip of paper. “I was, however, able to ascertain the names of the owners of both the ship and the cargo.”

  “What was she carrying?” asked Devlin, taking the paper.

  “Tea. In an effort to stave off the mutiny, Captain Bellamy was forced to allow the crew to throw the entire shipment overboard in an attempt to delay the ship’s sinking. The owner of the cargo—a Mr. Wesley Oldfield—was ruined. Utterly ruined. He’s in debtors’ prison, at the Marshalsea.”

  “That’s interesting.” Devlin glanced down at the paper in his hand and gave a wry smile.

  “What is it?” said Kat, watching him.

  Devlin handed her the paper. “The ship’s owner. It’s Russell Yates.”

  Sir Henry cleared his throat. “You know Mr. Yates?”

  “Mr. Yates is a well-known figure around the West End,” said Kat. “The man used to be a pirate.”

  “A pirate?”

  She smiled. “Well, a privateer. He was the younger son of an East Anglian nobleman, but ran off to sea as a boy and came home a wealthy man. He still wears a gold hoop in one ear and talks like a pirate. Society professes to be scandalized, but they tolerate him because…Well, because he’s Yates, and he was brought up a gentleman, and he is both amusing and very, very wealthy.”

  Sir Henry was looking serious. “You think he could have something to do with these savage murders?”

  “Yates?” Kat thought about it. “I suspect he could be savage, if driven to it. But to coldly murder four young men for something their fathers might have done? No. I don’t think he could do that.”

  “What finally happened to the Harmony?” Devlin asked. “Do you know?”

  Sir Henry nodded. “According to what I’ve been able to discover, a partial crew from the HMS Sovereign tried to patch her up and sail her back to London, but she was too far gone. They finally had to abandon her when she floundered in heavy seas off Lisbon.”

  “So Mr. Yates suffered a loss, as well.”

  “So it would seem. Although the ship might well have been insured. I plan to spend the afternoon in the offices of the city newspapers, reading their back issues for more details on the incident.”

  “I thought you were off the case?” said Devlin with a smile.

  A rare gleam of amusement lit the magistrate’s serious gray eyes. “I am.”

  Chapter 35

  Having exchanged the black Arab for his curricle, Sebastian rattled across the worn stones of London Bridge into Southwark. The sun shone warm and golden on the river, but the lanes around the Mar
shalsea prison were dark and dank, the air heavy with the foul stench of rubbish and rot and despair.

  “Wesley Oldfield,” said Devlin, pressing a coin into the shaky hand of an old man he came across within the prison’s high gray brick walls. “Where might I find him?”

  “Up the stairs. Last door to your right,” said the man in a surprisingly cultured voice.

  “Thank you.”

  Holding a handkerchief to his nose, Sebastian climbed the noisome, urine-stained stairs and made his way down a cold passage. The sound of a violin playing a sad, sweetly lilting tune came to him from the far side of the scarred old door at the end of the corridor. The music stopped when Sebastian knocked.

  “Who is it?” called a tight, anxious voice.

  “Viscount Devlin.”

  The door jerked open.

  An unkempt man stood on the far side. According to what Sebastian had been able to learn, Wesley Oldfield was in his late thirties. But the man before Sebastian looked a good twenty years older than that, his long, matted hair the color of a winter sky, his face sunken and gray with ill health. He stood hunched over, one hand on the edge of the door as if for support, the other arm cradling a battered violin. He peered at Sebastian through watery, washed-out blue eyes, his jaw slack. “Do I know you?”

  “Mr. Wesley Oldfield?” said Sebastian.

  The man ran one hand across the stubble on his chin in a self-conscious gesture. “That’s right.”

  “May I come in?”

  Oldfield hesitated, then took a step back and swept a flourishing bow. “Come in. Do come in. Pray accept my apologies for the less than salubrious nature of my accommodations.”

  Sebastian stepped into a small, low-ceilinged room with a meager, empty fireplace and a single, barred window. The room was as unkempt as the man, and smelled foully of stale sweat and excrement and the slowly creeping madness that can come from a once-promising life now hopelessly derailed.

  Oldfield moved awkwardly to clear the clutter of papers and books from the threadbare seat of a once grand chair. “Please. Sit down. I get so few visitors these days I fear I’m forgetting my manners. May I offer you brandy?” He reached for a bottle that stood open on a rickety table, then said, “Oh, dear,” and tssked softly to himself, staring down at the empty bottle. “I must have finished it last night.”

  “I have no need of refreshment, thank you.” Looking at the broken man before him, Sebastian found it difficult to believe Oldfield could have anything to do with the murders. He wasn’t sure the man was even capable of remembering anything of significance about the Harmony or its last, fatal voyage.

  “You’re the Earl of Hendon’s son, are you not?” said Oldfield, turning away to lay the violin in its case with an almost reverent air.

  “You know my father?”

  “I know of him.” The man swung back to fix Sebastian with an unexpectedly steady stare. “Why are you here?”

  “I wanted to talk to you about the Harmony.”

  The man’s reaction to this bald statement was utterly unexpected. The Harmony might have led to his ruin, but at the mention of the ship’s name, he came to perch on the edge of his unmade bed, a strange excitement animating his features as he leaned forward. “You’ve noticed it, too, have you?”

  “Noticed what?”

  “These killings. First the Reverend Thornton’s son—”

  “You know about Nicholas Thornton?”

  “Oh, yes, I know. First Thornton. Then Carmichael and Stanton. And now Bellamy. Someone is killing their sons.”

  Sebastian stared into the man’s tortured, mad eyes. “Do you know why?”

  “Why? Not exactly, no. But when you think about the way those young men were butchered, it gives you some ideas, does it not?” He broke off to cast Sebastian a sideways glance. “Is that why you’re here? You think I’m responsible?”

  “You’re in prison,” said Sebastian.

  An eerie smile played around the other man’s lips. “Yes. But we’re sometimes allowed out, you know.”

  “Only during the day,” noted Sebastian. “Carmichael, Stanton, and Bellamy were all killed at night, when you’re locked in.”

  Oldfield’s smile slipped. “True.” Then he brightened. “I could have hired someone.”

  “You’re bankrupt.”

  “There is that.” Oldfield sighed. “And I’ve no motive.”

  Sebastian glanced around the cold prison cell. “No?”

  Oldfield tssked again and shook his head. “It was the crew who insisted my cargo be thrown overboard. They thought the ship was going to sink.”

  Sebastian started to remind him that the ship actually had sunk in the end. Then he changed his mind.

  “It’s the crew who ruined me,” Oldfield was saying. His nostrils quivered, his hatred twisting his lips cruelly with each word. “Dirty, ignorant scum. Panicking. Abandoning the ship the way they did. Taking all the food and water. Leaving the others to die. I would gladly butcher every last one of their God-rotted carcasses. But—” He broke off, his voice and features suddenly returning to normal. “They’re already dead.”

  “They’re dead?”

  “That’s right. Most of them were killed by natives when their boat landed on the west coast of Africa. The few who survived were picked up by His Majesty’s Navy and brought back to London to hang.”

  “You attended their trial?”

  Oldfield cast him a scornful look. “What do you think? Every minute of it. Their trial and their hangings. One of the crewmen—I think his name was Parker—he made a bad end of it. Struggling and shouting even after they had the rope around his neck. He kept swearing the men who testified at his trial were lying.”

  Sebastian sat forward. “Lying? About what?”

  Oldfield shrugged. “I don’t recall now. It had nothing to do with me.” He scratched thoughtfully at the skin behind one ear. “But I do remember the man had a brother, a docker. He was there at the trial and at the hanging. Swore he’d see that the buggers paid for his brother’s death.”

  “See that who paid?”

  “Why, those who testified at the trial, of course.”

  “And who was that?”

  Oldfield smiled. “Bellamy. Stanton. Carmichael.” The smile slipped. “But not Thornton.” He looked confused. “At least, I don’t think Thornton was there.”

  “Who else?” asked Sebastian, even as Oldfield turned to glance out the window.

  The man didn’t answer.

  Sebastian raised his voice and tried again. “Who else was at the trial?”

  Oldfield swung his head to stare directly at Sebastian. The watery blue eyes widened with confusion. “What trial?”

  Sebastian found Tom outside the prison, walking the chestnuts up and down the lane.

  “Learn anythin’?” Tom asked as Sebastian leapt up to the curricle’s seat.

  “Perhaps. Perhaps not. I’m afraid Mr. Oldfield’s misfortunes have addled his brain.” Sebastian took the reins. “I want you to find someone for me. A docker by the name of Parker. He had a brother hanged four years ago for the mutiny on the Harmony.”

  Tom stepped back from the horses’ heads, one hand coming up to hold his hat in place. “You think he might be the cove what’s been doin’ the killin’?”

  “He could be. Then again, he could also be a simple figment of Mr. Wesley Oldfield’s imagination.”

  Sebastian gathered his reins. He knew a powerful urge to confront both Lord Stanton and Sir Humphrey Carmichael with what he had learned. Yet it would be a mistake, he knew, to approach either man now, before he’d learned the full story of the Harmony’s final voyage.

  It was time, Sebastian realized, for another visit to the Reverend Thornton in Kent.

  Chapter 36

  Returning from her ride with Devlin, Kat tore up her half-written note to the Irishman Aiden O’Connell and burned the scraps.

  It had occurred to her that sending any written communication—no matter how
carefully composed—would be folly. The danger of such a note falling into the hands of Jarvis’s agents were simply too high.

  She had just over twenty-four hours left. Closing her writing desk with a snap, she went to change into a walking dress of straw-colored lawn decorated with plaiting at the bodice and waist and set out to track down the Irishman herself.

  The spymaster continued to be elusive. But as she mingled with a crowd of well-dressed onlookers cheering their favorite teams in the summer’s last regatta on the Thames, Kat found herself in the company of Russell Yates, ex-privateer and former owner of the ill-fated Harmony.

  For a woman with Kat’s talents, it was easy enough to maneuver herself next to Yates and engage him in conversation. He was an imposing figure, tall and large boned, with broad shoulders and a solid physique he kept well honed at Jackson’s and Angelo’s. He wore the buff-colored breeches, striped silk waistcoat, and dark blue morning coat of a gentleman, but he still looked like a pirate, with his hawkish nose, sun-darkened skin, and dark hair he kept just a shade too long.

  “I saw you at Covent Garden last night,” he said, the gold hoop in his left ear catching the light as he bowed over her hand. “I must say, you make a charming shrew. But then you also make a regal Cleopatra and an incomparable Juliet.”

  Kat smiled. “We’re considering doing Othello next. I thought of you when I read the text. You owned a ship that was lost at sea, did you not? The Helpmate or the Handsome or some such thing.”

  He lifted a glass of wine from the tray of a servant who hovered at his elbow and took a slow sip. “The Harmony. Singularly inappropriately christened ship, considering its fate.”

  “You’ve heard the rumors, I suppose? That these grisly murders are somehow linked to the ship’s ordeal?”

  “No. I hadn’t heard any talk. But I’m not surprised. Devilish business, that. Frankly, I’m glad the ship sank off Portugal. It would have been impossible to crew with that kind of history, and then what would I have done with it?”