by C. S. Harris
“I remember hearing tales about this place when I was on the street,” said Tom, Sebastian’s young groom, or tiger. Craning back his head, he squinted up at the inn’s leaning chimneys and crooked casement windows. “Heard they throw the bodies of those they murder out the rear windows into the Fleet.”
“I’ll keep my wits about me,” said Sebastian, handing the boy the reins. “But if I’m not back in half an hour, send the constables in after me.”
Tom laughed.
Inside, the heavily beamed ceiling was low, the wainscoting dark with the smoke of ages, the worn flagstone paving underfoot covered with sawdust. It was early enough that the taproom was nearly deserted, with only a couple of rough-looking characters in an old-fashioned booth near the front windows and a dark-haired, middle-aged man with the broken nose and brawny build of a retired Gentleman of the Fancy behind the bar.
“I’m looking for Grace Calhoun,” said Sebastian, walking up to him. “Is she around?”
The man—who was at least six-two and so muscle-bound as to make his movements slow and ponderous—screwed up his lips and shot a stream of tobacco juice in the general direction of a battered spittoon. “Who’s askin’?”
“Devlin.”
“Huh.” The barman turned and disappeared through a doorway behind the bar.
Sebastian could hear whispers—the barman’s hushed voice, then a woman’s. Their words were pitched low enough that they surely had no expectation of being overheard. But Sebastian’s hearing, like his eyesight, was abnormally acute.
“’E don’t say wot ’e wants,” whispered the barman.
“You know what he wants.”
“I kin tell ’im ye ain’t ’ere.”
“No. I’ll see him. Why not?”
She appeared a moment later, a tall, upright woman with unusual, striking features and thick black hair beginning to shade to gray. Sebastian thought she must have been quite young at the time of Calhoun’s birth, because she didn’t look much above fifty now. Her black eyes were shrewd and cunning and utterly merciless.
“How did you know?” said Grace Calhoun, coming straight to the point. There was no need for her to spell out the obvious by saying, How did you know Nicholas Hayes was staying here?
“Deduction. Someone had to tell him where to find Jules.”
She sniffed.
Sebastian said, “When did Hayes come here?”
“Couple weeks ago. Why?”
“Calhoun seems to have the impression he’d only just arrived in London.”
“He figured the less my Jules knew, the better.”
“Yet he contacted him,” said Sebastian. And you obviously told him how to do so.
“He didn’t want to. But he was afraid he might need help.”
“With what?”
“He didn’t say, and I ain’t one for askin’.”
Sebastian studied the woman’s hard, carefully shuttered face. The particulars of her life were unknown to him, but no one reached her position in London’s dangerous, cutthroat underworld without being tough and brutal and very, very clever. “Why let him stay? He was a danger to you.”
“If he’d been caught, you mean?” She gave a dismissive twitch of one shoulder. “Who’s t’ say I knew who he was? The last twenty years been hard on him, that’s for sure.”
“Did anyone come to see him while he was here?”
Grace Calhoun cast a questioning look at the barman, who spat again and said, “Didn’t see nobody ’cept that boy ’e brung wit him.”
“You mean Ji?”
“Aye.”
“Is the boy here now?”
Grace Calhoun shook her head. “We ain’t seen him since yesterday.”
The faint hope Sebastian had nourished that he’d find the boy here, safe, died. “Do you know the name of the man Hayes was planning to meet in Somer’s Town yesterday?”
“No. Why would I?”
“Because you’re far more knowledgeable than you like to appear.”
She remained silent, but a faint gleam of what might have been amusement lit up her dark eyes.
He said, “May I see Hayes’s room?”
“What for?”
“It might help me figure out who killed him.”
Her head tilted to one side. “Why you care who killed him?”
“I care,” said Sebastian.
She was silent for a moment, considering his request and its various ramifications. Then she glanced at the ex-boxer standing nearby with his arms folded at his chest. “Show him.”
Chapter 12
S ebastian followed the silent barman up two narrow flights of stairs to a room overlooking the Fleet. Furnished with a heavy old bed and a smaller trundle for the boy, the room was both neat and noticeably cleaner than the rest of the inn. A Chinese porcelain shaving cup, a razor, and other personal items were lined up on the washstand; two sets of silk slippers—one pair large, the other small—were visible beneath the edge of the mattress, their toes embroidered with colorful butterflies and birds. On a table beside the bed rested a chinois enameled frame containing a miniature portrait of a young Chinese woman.
“Do you know anything about the woman?” asked Sebastian, going to pick up the miniature. She’d been painted with her face turned partly away and a faint smile curling her lips. She was lovely.
The barman shook his head. “’E didn’t talk much, that cove.”
Curled up beside the portrait lay what Sebastian recognized as a set of Buddhist prayer beads. Made from the wood of the bodhi tree, they were worn and obviously well used. Two talismans or amulets flanked the beads’ decorative tassel: one a silver spiral, the other a symbol Sebastian didn’t recognize. He stared at it a long moment, then turned away to begin searching the room.
The shelves of the wardrobe contained spare clothing for both the dead man and the missing child. Hayes’s clothes were all European in style, but there were a small changshan and a magua, presumably for Ji. Sebastian fingered the fine, colorful silk, wondering again about the relationship between man and child. A stack of well-read books rested on the top shelf, and he scanned the titles: Milton’s Paradise Lost; Shakespeare’s Tragedies; Plato’s Republic. Interesting reading for a man infamous for kidnapping an heiress and killing a French countess.
“Ye ’bout done there?” demanded the barman, shifting restlessly.
“Almost.”
The bed was easy enough to search, its lumpy mattress resting directly on leather slings. A sea chest stood at the footboard, but it was nearly empty, containing only a winter greatcoat small enough to fit the child and a few other miscellaneous pieces of clothing. At the very bottom, tucked beneath a scarf, was an unloaded flintlock pistol and a powder horn, along with a leather kit containing a brass funnel, lead shot, extra flints, cloth patches, and cleaning materials. The pistol was not new, and Sebastian found himself wondering why the hell Hayes hadn’t taken the weapon with him to Somer’s Town. The man had obviously misjudged whomever he went to meet.
Leaving the gun where he’d found it, Sebastian was replacing the clothing when a folded sheet of newspaper fluttered to the floor. Picking it up, he realized he was holding the third and fourth pages from the Morning Post for the last Tuesday in May. Densely printed, the pages contained everything from notices of property sales and upcoming horse auctions to a section headed “Fashionable Arrangements for the Week.” He quickly skimmed the list.
THIS EVENING: the Countess of Balcarra’s rout, Cumberland Place
TOMORROW: the Duchess of Warton’s ball, Berkeley Square
THURSDAY, JUNE 2: Lady Forbes’s rout, St. James’s Square / Mrs. Drummond’s ball, Half Moon Street
FRIDAY, JUNE 3: the Marchioness of Hertford’s ball, Manchester Square
SATURDAY, JUNE 4: Mrs. Campbell’s rout, Grosvenor S
treet
SUNDAY, JUNE 5: Mr. and Mrs. James Mortimer’s public breakfast, Oaklawn, Blackheath
It was the final item that caught Sebastian’s eye:
MONDAY, JUNE 6: the Comte de Compans’s soirée, Dover Street
“Ain’t got all day, ye know,” grumbled the barman.
Sebastian tucked the folded news sheet into his pocket and closed the chest’s lid. “I’ve finished.”
* * *
Alistair James St. Cyr, the Fifth Earl of Hendon, was striding purposefully across Palace Yard toward Whitehall when Sebastian came upon him.
One of the most powerful men in Britain after Lord Jarvis, Hendon had served as Chancellor of the Exchequer under a succession of three prime ministers. There’d been a time when he’d been taller than Sebastian, although these days the Earl had begun to stoop. He had a blunt, heavy-featured face, thinning white hair, and the piercing blue eyes that had been the hallmark of the St. Cyr family for generations but were so noticeably lacking in Sebastian. Sebastian had grown up calling this man “Father,” although he’d recently learned that their relationship was considerably more complicated. The rift that discovery had caused was beginning to heal, but slowly.
“I’m surprised you’re not at Ascot with the Regent and the Allied Sovereigns,” said Sebastian, falling into step beside him.
Hendon made a gruff noise deep in his throat and kept walking. “We’re looking at two solid weeks of endless balls, routs, dinners, receptions, banquets, and reviews. They don’t need me at Ascot.”
“Understandable.”
Hendon threw him a quick glance, his jaw tightening. “I saw this morning’s papers. Is it true, what they’re saying? That Nicholas Hayes was found murdered up in Somer’s Town?”
“It is, yes.”
“What a sordid affair. Please tell me you haven’t involved yourself in it.”
“I have, actually.”
Hendon’s jaw tightened. “You were—what? Eight? Ten?—when he killed that Frenchwoman?”
“Thirteen. Fourteen by the time he was transported.”
“Huh. Well, I doubt you paid much attention to it at the time, but if you had, you’d know not to have anything to do with this. You’d simply be glad the wretched man is finally dead and let it go.”
“Oh? So tell me about him.”
Hendon drew up abruptly. “You can’t be serious.”
“But I am.”
Hendon cast a quick glance around the crowded Yard. “We can’t discuss it here.”
“Then let’s go for a walk.”
* * *
They walked across Westminster Bridge, toward the sun-dazzled south bank of the river.
“How much do you know?” asked Hendon.
“Nothing beyond the fact that Hayes was transported for murdering the Countess de Compans, and that she was very young and very beautiful.”
Hendon stared off across the river, his eyes narrowed against the glint bouncing off the water. “She was beautiful, with the palest blond hair and eyes the color of violets. To be honest, she was the most exquisitely beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. Chantal was her name. Chantal de LaRivière. She was younger than the Count—no more than twenty or twenty-one when she died. She left a child barely a year old.”
“Tragic.”
“It was, yes.”
“So exactly what happened?”
“LaRivière found Hayes trying to force himself on her. When he pulled the bastard away from her, Hayes drew a double-barreled pistol and shot first the Count, then Chantal. The bullet only grazed LaRivière’s head, but Chantal was killed.”
“Sordid, indeed,” said Sebastian.
“Hayes insisted he was innocent, of course.”
“Oh? What was his story?”
“He denied that LaRivière found him trying to force himself on the Countess. Claimed she was simply present at an argument between the two men and that the pistol was LaRivière’s. According to Hayes, the Count threatened him with the gun, and it went off when he tried to defend himself. He said the same bullet that wounded the Count killed Chantal outright.”
“Surely the servants would have been able to count the number of gunshots.”
“He didn’t dispute that the gun went off twice. He claimed the first bullet—fired by the Count—had gone wild, although it was never found.”
“And the jury didn’t believe his story?”
“Given the man’s disreputable history? Of course not. Hayes had no good excuse for being where he was. And while he claimed they were arguing, he refused to say about what. If he’d only admitted it, he might have been found guilty of manslaughter. Instead, he was convicted of murder. I’m surprised he didn’t hang.”
“Did you know him?”
“Hayes? No, not really. Knew the father, of course. He was up at Oxford with me.”
“The Second Earl? What did you think of him?”
Hendon was silent a moment, his lips pressing into a tight line. “He was a pompous, vain, arrogant man, yet extraordinarily touchy about the fact his title was only an Irish one and relatively recent at that. It’s a bad combination, in my experience—arrogance and wounded pride. It sours a man.”
“Nicholas was his third son?”
“He was, yes. The middle son, Crispin, drowned just a few days before Chantal de LaRivière’s murder. And the heir—Lucas, I believe was his name—died childless a year or two before the Earl.”
“And when was that?”
“That Seaforth died? Must have been ten years ago, at least.”
“That’s when the title passed to the Earl’s nephew, Ethan?”
“That’s right. He was the heir presumptive, given that Nicholas was dead—or so everyone thought.” Hendon frowned. “You’re certain this fellow killed up in Somer’s Town really was Nicholas Hayes?”
“There doesn’t seem to be much doubt about it.”
Hendon paused for a moment, his gaze on a wherryman rowing his fare across the river. But Sebastian had the impression his thoughts were far, far away. After a moment, the Earl said, “Why the devil would someone like that return to England?”
“I can think of one rather obvious explanation.”
Hendon turned his head to stare at him. “You can? What?”
“What if Nicholas Hayes told the truth eighteen years ago? What if he really didn’t kill Chantal de LaRivière?”
“What are you suggesting? That the Count accidently shot his own wife and then blamed Hayes for it? That’s absurd.”
“It would explain why Hayes came back.”
“For revenge, you mean? Against the Count de Compans? Please tell me you aren’t suggesting that Gilbert-Christophe de LaRivière of all people killed Hayes. Good God, Devlin! Eighteen years ago, LaRivière was just another impoverished French nobleman struggling to survive in exile. But he’s now a close confidant of both the newly restored French King and his brother—who will no doubt be King himself soon enough. The only reason LaRivière isn’t in Paris with the rest of them is because he agreed to stay and represent the Bourbons during the Allied Sovereigns’ visit.”
Sebastian studied Hendon’s hot, angry face. “Just because I see it as a possibility to be explored doesn’t mean I intend to accuse the good Count out of hand, if that’s what concerns you.”
Hendon’s lips flattened into a thin line. “I’d hoped when you married and became a father you’d give up this nonsense. It’s not at all a proper thing for you to be doing, chasing after murderers. Especially when the victim is a man of such despicable character. It’s . . . unseemly.”
Sebastian gave a faint shake of his head. “Murder is unseemly. Making certain a killer doesn’t get away with what he has done is an obligation we the living owe to the dead—no matter how unsavory we consider them to be.”
“
I suppose so—but that’s why we have magistrates and constables.”
“Am I not my brother’s keeper?” said Sebastian softly.
Hendon pointed a shaky finger at him. “Don’t start.”
“Are you saying it’s not relevant?”
Hendon didn’t try to deny it, although his face grew even redder. “But this murder, Devlin? The dead man was himself a murderer.”
“And what if he wasn’t?”
“Of course he was.”
Sebastian held his peace. Yet he found himself thinking of two sets of embroidered Chinese slippers, one large, the other small, tucked neatly away beneath a lumpy mattress.
And a set of Buddhist prayer beads curled up beside the miniature portrait of a faintly smiling young woman.
Chapter 13
J i had awakened that morning just before dawn, still slumped in the recess of the old doorway. Jerking up, mouth dry with a rush of terror, the child scanned the narrow lane, listening, watching. The man Poole was gone.
But the child was still too afraid to return to the Red Lion. Instead, Ji took off running, darting down noisome alleys, past stinking breweries, through streets crowded with shabby secondhand dealers and bawling hawkers who wouldn’t have been too out of place in Canton. On and on the child ran. Only when the familiar inn and the danger it had come to represent were left far, far behind did Ji draw up, chest heaving, lungs gasping, head spinning with fear and confusion mixed with mind-numbing grief and a paralyzing sense of failure.
I should have been there when he died, Ji kept thinking over and over again. I should be with him now. Worse than the heart-stopping fear, almost worse than the tide of overwhelming grief, was this shameful sense of having failed Hayes at the time of his greatest need. As death approached, Ji should have been at his side chanting the holy protective verses and helping Hayes feel calm and at peace. Instead, Hayes had died alone. Alone and in pain.