Why Kill the Innocent

by C. S. Harris

  Sebastian stood with one hand braced against the nearby mantelpiece. “Quite a while, from the looks of things. Much of the blood has dried, and the fire has burnt itself down to ashes. According to the housemaid, he shut himself in here shortly after breakfast, and no one in the household had seen him since.”

  “Not even to bring him a cup of tea?”

  “She said he didn’t like to be disturbed.”

  “Someone obviously disturbed him.” Lovejoy pushed to his feet with a stifled grunt as his knees creaked. He turned in a slow circle, taking in the room’s gently worn furnishings and scattered musical instruments. Jane Ambrose’s basket of mending still rested beside her chair. “There doesn’t appear to be any sign of either an altercation or a search.”

  “No.”

  Lovejoy sighed. “I’ll set some of the lads to going over the house. We might find something.”

  “Perhaps,” agreed Sebastian, although he doubted it.

  Lovejoy brought his gaze back to the dagger protruding from the dead man’s chest. It was an exotic weapon, the nephrite handle gently curved to fit comfortably in the palm and set with pearls and semiprecious stones. “An unusual piece.”

  “It looks Indian to me—probably Mughal,” said Sebastian, and left it at that.

  * * *

  Dusk was falling by the time Sebastian made it back to St. Anne’s, Soho.

  Liam Maxwell was not there.

  He checked the journalist’s printing shop, then his booth at the Frost Fair, and drew a blank both places. Frustrated, he turned his steps toward Tower Hill. As he crossed Gibson’s snowy yard, he could see the glow of a lantern shining through the high windows of the surgeon’s stone outbuilding to cast a warm pool of golden light into the night. But when Sebastian pushed open the door, the Irishman was just tugging off Ambrose’s boots.

  “Bloody hell,” said Gibson, looking up. “I hope you aren’t already expecting me to know anything about this latest corpse you’ve sent. Lovejoy’s men just delivered him.”

  Sebastian grunted. “Let me see the dagger, at least.”

  Gibson shifted to carefully ease the weapon from the dead man’s chest, his eyes narrowing as he studied the inlaid handle. “Looks Mughal.”

  “That’s what I was thinking.”

  “It also looks like a woman’s weapon.”

  Sebastian took the knife in his hand and frowned. “Yes.” It was an exquisite piece of work, the blade curved with a central ridge and damascene floral decoration near the hilt and a floral motif of inlaid pearls and red and green stones on the pommel.

  Gibson was watching him carefully. “Do I take it that means something to you?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  “Well,” said Gibson, exaggerating his brogue, “it’s a relief, it is, knowing you’ve narrowed things down a bit.” He tugged off the second boot. “Since you’re here, you might as well help me strip the fellow. Your eyes are better in this light than mine anyway.”

  * * *

  Whoever killed Edward Ambrose had stabbed him three times.

  “Doesn’t look like this killer knew what he was doing,” said Sebastian, staring at the three jagged gashes in the dead man’s now naked torso.

  “Doesn’t, does it?” Gibson unhooked the lantern from the chain over the stone slab and held it closer. “I’d say this was the first wound,” he said, pointing to the lowest slit. “That one got his stomach. Then this one”—he prodded the tip of one finger into the next cut—“hit a rib. Got it right the third time, though: straight into the heart. Unless of course Edward Ambrose’s heart isn’t where it’s supposed to be, which sometimes happens.”

  Sebastian took a step back as Gibson reached for his scalpel. “Do you still need me?”

  Gibson looked up with a grin. “Why? Don’t you want to stay and observe?”

  The stone outbuilding was cold enough that when Sebastian blew out a quick, harsh breath, the exhalation billowed around him in a white cloud. “Thank you, but no.”

  * * *

  A light snow began to fall as Sebastian searched the dark frozen city for Liam Maxwell. Without a wind, it hurtled straight down, big flakes that looked like shadows against the rows of dimly glowing streetlamps on Fleet Street and the Strand. He trailed through a score of taverns and coffeehouses, then worked his way down toward the riverfront again. The night became a blur of smoky bursts of firelight gleaming on strange upturned faces, of warmth and laughter punctuated by stretches of darkness and bitter cold.

  He finally ran the printer to ground in a Frost Fair drinking tent that some wag had christened THE MUSCOVITE, the letters spelled out crudely on a weathered board. A rough shelter concocted of old sails and crossed galley oars, it was crowded with tradesmen, watermen, and fairgoers, all drinking Mum and Old Tom as if there were no tomorrow.

  Liam Maxwell sat on a bench at one end of the rough trestle table, hunched over and alone, his somber mood effectively isolating him from his gay surroundings. His cravat was rumpled and askew, his cheeks unshaven, his collar torn. From the looks of things, the man hadn’t been to bed in days.

  Sebastian walked up to press his hands flat onto the table’s boards and lean into it. “Did you kill Edward Ambrose?”

  Maxwell’s head fell back, his eyes widening and mouth going slack with a credible expression of shock that shifted ever so subtly into fear. “He’s dead?”

  “Stabbed.”

  “When?”

  “Probably sometime this morning.”

  “I didn’t do it.”

  “Can you prove it?”

  The journalist pressed his lips together and shook his head.

  Sebastian said, “Then why the devil should I believe you?”

  Maxwell’s eyes were bloodshot and puffy. “Why would I kill him?”

  “You know why.”

  He swallowed. “Are you saying he did it—Ambrose killed Jane?”

  “Possibly. Maybe even probably. And I can’t conceive of anyone besides you who had a reason to kill him.”

  “I didn’t do it,” he said again.

  “So where have you been all day? As far as I can tell, no one has seen you.”

  “I’ve been . . . around.”

  “Where?”

  “No place for any length of time. I wanted to be alone.”

  Sebastian reached into his greatcoat and tossed the Mughal knife onto the table between them with a flick of his wrist. The jeweled dagger spun around once, then lay still. “Recognize this? It was found in Ambrose’s heart.”

  Maxwell leaned back on his bench, hands braced against the table’s edge, his breath coming quick and shallow.

  Sebastian said, “You were raised in India, weren’t you? As was your mother before you.”

  Maxwell brought up tented hands to cover his nose and mouth as he nodded. Slowly he raised his gaze to meet Sebastian’s. “That’s not my knife. I swear to God, I’ve never seen it before.”

  “One of two things,” said Sebastian. “Either you’re lying, or—”

  “I’m not!”

  “Or someone is trying to frame you.”

  A burst of laughter from a nearby table momentarily jerked Liam Maxwell’s attention away. Then he leaned forward and lowered his voice. “There’s something I haven’t told you about. Something that might explain all of this.”

  “Such as?”

  Maxwell threw another quick look around the crowded tent and pushed to his feet. “Not here.”

  Chapter 45

  They pushed their way through the throngs of laughing, staggering, wildly celebratory fairgoers. The snow continued to fall; the scent of hot pitch from the torches mingled with the fragrant aromas of roasting chestnuts and spiced wine to hang heavy in the cold air.

  “What haven’t you told me?” Sebastian demanded, swerving to av
oid a woman selling baked potatoes from a barrel.

  “First of all, you must understand that I kept silent about this largely because it didn’t occur to me that it might have anything to do with what happened to Jane. But also because it betrays a secret that is not mine to tell.”

  Sebastian glanced over at him. “So why tell me now?”

  “I . . . I haven’t been reading the papers much lately, which is why I only just heard this afternoon about what happened to that harpist Valentino Vescovi.”

  Whatever Sebastian had been expecting, it wasn’t that. “Vescovi?”

  Maxwell’s jaw tightened. “You must swear to me that this will go no further. Jane would never forgive me if she were somehow to become the cause of bringing harm on the young Princess.”

  “This involves Princess Charlotte?”

  “You must swear to me that whatever happens, you won’t betray the Princess.”

  “All right. You have my word as a gentleman.”

  Maxwell nodded, then hesitated as if choosing his words carefully. “About a year and a half ago, the Regent sent Charlotte down to Windsor and made her stay there for months. The Princess always hates it when he does that—it separates her from her mother and all of her instructors, and she doesn’t actually live in the castle with her grandmother and aunts, but in a separate house called Lower Lodge.”

  “That’s odd. Why?”

  “Who knows why? Because Prinny is a vicious, ugly human being, that’s why. Lower Lodge is a damp, isolated place, and this particular time she was there so long she became horribly lonely and depressed. And then she made the acquaintance of an officer whose regiment was billeted in the neighborhood—a Lieutenant Charles Hesse, of the Eighteenth Light Dragoons.” Maxwell paused. “Are you familiar with him?”

  “Should I be?”

  “He’s a natural son of the Regent’s brother, the Duke of York.”

  “In other words, he is Charlotte’s first cousin.”

  “Yes.” Maxwell squinted into the distance. “He’s said to be a very attractive man. Rather short of stature, but then a man’s height is not so noticeable when he’s on horseback.”

  “And the Princess saw him largely on a horse?”

  Maxwell nodded. “He used to ride beside her open carriage every day, when she drove out with Lady de Clifford—Charlotte’s governess before the present one. The Princess has a carriage with a team of lovely grays she keeps down at Windsor and is no mean whip, you know.”

  “So I have heard,” said Sebastian. “Do I take it a flirtation developed?”

  “It was inevitable, really, when one considers the way the Regent keeps the girl so isolated. What did he expect to happen the first time she met a handsome, personable young man in regimentals—especially one she was inclined to trust because he was related to her?”

  “How long did this go on?”

  “That they met daily in Windsor Park? Some six weeks. Then Lady de Clifford moved—belatedly—to put a stop to the growing friendship. Charlotte protested, of course, but eventually Hesse’s regiment was transferred to Portsmouth in preparation for embarkation to the Peninsula.”

  “He’s there now?”

  “On the Continent? Yes. With Wellington.”

  “This all occurred more than a year ago. What bearing can it possibly have on what happened to Jane?”

  “The thing is, you see, after Captain Hesse—he’s a captain now—after he left for Portsmouth, the Princess wrote to him. Frequently. And she continued writing to him even after his regiment was sent to the Peninsula. Some of the letters referenced incidents between them that were . . . not wise.”

  “How unwise?”

  Maxwell stared off across the ice. “Unwise enough to cause the Princess considerable embarrassment, should they become known.”

  “Enough to cause the Prince of Orange to withdraw from the betrothal?”

  Maxwell hesitated a moment, then nodded.

  Sebastian said, “Go on.”

  “For months now Princess Charlotte has been desperately trying to contact Hesse and convince him to return the letters to her.”

  “And?”

  “It turns out Hesse doesn’t have the letters with him. He left them in a trunk with a friend in Portsmouth, along with instructions to sink the trunk in the sea, should Hesse be killed.” Maxwell paused. “The Princess was thinking she’d finally be able to get the letters back. But then word came a few weeks ago that the trunk had been broken into and the packet of letters stolen.”

  Sebastian had a sudden vivid recollection of a dying Valentino, his face contorted with pain, saying, I was coming to see you . . . tell you about the letters. He’d assumed the harpist was referring to the letters he had carried between Charlotte and her mother. In that, obviously, he had been wrong.

  He said, “Do you know who stole them?”

  “No. But the Dutch alliance is unpopular with powerful elements both here and in the Netherlands. I can see someone stealing the letters and publishing them in the hopes of embarrassing Orange enough that he’d back out of the alliance.”

  “When precisely did this happen?”

  “That the letters were stolen? I couldn’t say for certain. The Princess told Jane about it at her Monday lesson.”

  “The week she died? Or before that?”

  “The week before. It’s the reason Jane went out to see Charlotte’s mother—to ask if she was behind the letters’ theft.”

  “And?”

  “She said no.”

  “Jane believed her?”

  “She told me Caroline was so upset when she heard about it that she spilled her glass of wine. So yes, Jane believed her. The Princess of Wales might be desperate to prevent Charlotte from marrying Orange, but not at the cost of destroying her daughter.”

  Sebastian wasn’t so sure about that. But all he said was “Just because Caroline didn’t do it doesn’t mean some of the men around her weren’t responsible.”

  Maxwell blew out a long, troubled breath. “That’s what Jane was afraid of.”

  Sebastian stared off across the frozen river. “I still don’t see how the death of either Jane or Edward Ambrose could be linked to the Hesse letters.”

  “I don’t either. But I know there were things she wasn’t telling me.”

  Sebastian studied the other man’s strained, exhausted profile. “Because she was afraid you’d publish something about the letters?”

  “Good God, no! I would never do that! Just because I don’t believe in monarchy doesn’t mean I’d deliberately destroy an innocent young girl—no matter who her parents are.”

  “So what are you suggesting?”

  Maxwell swiped a shaky hand down over his lower face. “I don’t know what I’m suggesting. But you can be sure both Princesses know a damned sight more about it than I do.”

  “The problem is,” said Sebastian, meeting the other man’s troubled gaze, “how to get them to admit it?”

  Chapter 46

  Friday, 4 February

  “It’s true, then?” said Hero as she and Miss Ella Kinsworth walked side by side around the high-walled, snowy gardens of Warwick House.

  The older woman nodded, her hands gripped tightly together in her fur muff. “Please tell me you understand why I couldn’t say anything about the Hesse letters.”

  When Hero remained silent, Miss Kinsworth looked away, her eyes blinking rapidly. “Dear God, is that why poor Valentino Vescovi was killed? Because of the letters?”

  “I think it very likely, yes.”

  “But . . . why?”

  “How much did Vescovi know about Hesse?”

  Miss Kinsworth sucked in a deep breath. “After Lady de Clifford realized—belatedly—what was happening between the two cousins, she put a stop to Charlotte’s daily drives around Windsor Park and con
vinced the Regent to allow the Princess’s household to move back to London.”

  “Did the Prince know about Charlotte’s growing feelings for her cousin?”

  “Not then, no.”

  Hero kept her gaze on her friend’s half-averted face. “What I don’t understand is how this correspondence even came about. I was under the impression the Prince had someone read all of Charlotte’s letters. So how was she able to write to Hesse?”

  “Through her mother.”

  “Good heavens,” said Hero softly.

  Miss Kinsworth nodded. “That’s how Vescovi was involved. He carried the letters between Charlotte and her mother.”

  Hero stared up at the bare, snow-shrouded trees. “Why on earth would Caroline do such a thing?”

  “Who knows? The Princess of Wales is nothing if not eccentric. Perhaps she did it because she felt sorry for the unnatural way Charlotte has been kept so horribly isolated. But the truth is, I wouldn’t put it past her to have done it to spite the Prince—or in a spirit of pure mischief.”

  “Her own daughter? I can’t believe that.”

  Miss Kinsworth pressed her lips together and said nothing.

  Hero watched her for a moment, then said, “There’s something you’re not telling me.”

  The older woman drew a deep, troubled breath. “At the time of the flirtation, the Princess of Wales was staying in apartments in Kensington Palace. After Charlotte’s return to London, Hesse used to come to the palace’s garden gate when Charlotte was visiting her mother, and Caroline would let him in so that the cousins could meet.”

  “What utter folly.”

  “There’s worse. One evening Caroline actually locked the young couple alone together in her bedroom and told them to ‘have fun.’”

  “For how long?”

  “Hours.”

  “Dear Lord. Why?”

  “Who knows why Caroline does the things she does? Perhaps she’d had too much wine with dinner. But for whatever reason, it was beyond inexcusable.”