by C. S. Harris
Foley raised his own tankard to his lips, his gaze meeting Sebastian’s over the rim. “You may assume anything you like.”
Sebastian leaned back in his seat, his arms crossed at his chest, and smiled. “I’m told Ross was expecting a visitor Saturday night. You wouldn’t by any chance know who that was?”
Foley shook his head. “Sorry. No.”
“Do you know if he had any financial difficulties? A mistress? Gambling debts, perhaps?”
“Hardly. We’re pretty careful about that sort of thing.”
“Know of anyone who might have wanted him dead?”
Foley set down his fork with a clatter. “You can’t be serious about all this?”
Sebastian ignored the question. “No enemies?”
Foley held his gaze. “None that I am aware of, no.”
“Any recent quarrels?”
Foley was silent for a moment.
“What?” prompted Sebastian.
The Undersecretary drained the last of his pint and gave a soft laugh.
Sebastian said, “So he did have an argument. With whom?”
Sir Hyde Foley reached for his hat, his chair grating across the old stone-flagged floor as he pushed to his feet. “Good day, my lord.”
Quickly paying off his tab, Sebastian reached the flagway in time to see Foley turn to stride up Pall Mall, away from his offices in Downing Street.
Tom was waiting nearby.
“Get down and follow him,” said Sebastian, leaping into the curricle to take the reins. “I want to know where he goes.”
Chapter 7
P aul Gibson spent most of the morning dissecting Alexander Ross’s chest cavity. He found no evidence of any heart disease or other natural disability. He was so engrossed in his task that he barely managed to grab time before his scheduled lecture at St. Thomas’s to study the Bills of Mortality for London and Westminster.
Published weekly for more than two hundred years now by the parish clerks, the Bills of Mortality recorded the dead in each parish, along with their ages and causes of death. Originally designed to provide a warning against the onset of plagues, the Bills of Mortality were not infallible. But they were fairly reliable. The returns were compiled by old women known as “viewers” or “searchers of the dead,” employed by each parish. Their job was to enter houses where a death had been reported. Since they were paid two pence per body, they tended to be thorough to the point of being aggressive.
Of course, the searchers’ expertise in determining causes of death was limited. Gibson had no doubt that whatever searcher recorded Alexander Ross’s death had simply accepted the diagnosis provided by the renowned Dr. Cooper. But if Jumpin’ Jack had made a mistake—if the body lying on Gibson’s slab belonged not to Mr. Alexander Ross but to some other young gentleman who was known to have encountered a violent death—then his identity would be found in the Bills of Mortality.
Choosing a chair near a dusty window, Gibson quickly ran through the compiled list of deaths by natural causes for the previous week ... aged, 24; ague, 2; bloody flux, 1; childbed, 3; fever, 235; French pox, 1; measles, 5. . . . Sighing, he skipped down to the “unnatural deaths”: bites, mad dog, 1; burnt, 2; choked, none; drowned, 3; shot, none; smothered, 1; stabbed, none.
He checked the previous week, just to be certain. Shot, one. Stabbed, none.
Leaning back in his chair, he scrubbed both hands down over his face. Then he pushed to his feet, returned the Bills of Mortality to the bored-looking clerk, and went in search of Dr. Astley Cooper.
He met the surgeon turning in through the gates of St. Thomas’s Hospital.
An imposing man with dark eyebrows and thick gray hair flowing from a rapidly receding hairline, Dr. Astley Cooper was long accustomed to hearing himself described as London’s preeminent surgeon. In addition to lecturing on anatomy at St. Thomas’s, he was a member of the Royal College of Surgeons and a professor of surgery at Guy’s Hospital. But it was his flourishing private practice that earned him more than twenty-one thousand pounds a year—a level of success he made no attempt to keep secret.
“May I walk with you a moment, Dr. Cooper?” Gibson asked, falling into step beside the famous man.
“As you wish,” said Cooper, cutting across the quadrangle toward the chapel. He cast Gibson a quick, assessing glance. “I hear you are to lecture this afternoon on cerebral circulation. I trust you’ve consulted my own writings on the subject?”
Gibson schooled his features into an expression of solemn respect. “To be sure, Dr. Cooper. You are the expert, are you not?”
Cooper nodded, said, “Good,” and kept walking.
Gibson said, “I wanted to ask you a few questions about Alexander Ross.”
Cooper frowned. “Who?”
“The young gentleman who was found dead in his rooms in St. James’s Street last Sunday. The one you said died of a defective heart.”
“Ah, yes; I remember now. What about him?”
“I was wondering if you were told he had a history of pleurisy? Or perhaps carditis?”
Cooper shrugged. “How would I know? The man was no patient of mine.”
“No one gave you a medical history?”
“I was told simply that he appeared healthy to all who knew him.”
“And you saw no signs of disorder in the room? Nothing out of place?”
“What a preposterous question. The man died peacefully in his sleep. He wasn’t thrashing about in his death throes, if that’s what you’re suggesting.”
“There were no signs of blood on the sheets?
“Why on earth would there be? The man died of morbus cordis.” The surgeon’s eyes narrowed. “Are you questioning my diagnosis?”
“Not at all. Simply curious.” Gibson drew up. “Thank you; you’ve been most helpful.”
He started to turn away, then swung back around when a thought occurred to him. “Just one more question, Dr. Cooper—”
The surgeon tightened his prominent, bulbous jaw. “Yes? What now?”
“I was wondering who called you to Mr. Ross’s bedside that morning.”
“Who called me? Sir Hyde Foley. Why do you ask?”
Chapter 8
S ir Henry Lovejoy, once the chief magistrate at Queen Square, now the newest of Bow Street’s three stipendiary magistrates, drew a handkerchief from his pocket and pressed its snowy folds against his damp upper lip. The day had grown uncomfortably warm, the insects in the surrounding dank grass setting up a loud, maddening hum that seemed somehow to accentuate the foul stench of death and decay rising from the body before him.
Wrapped in a dirty canvas, the unidentified corpse lay halfhidden in a weed-choked ditch on the edge of Bethnal Green. A wretched, insalubrious area on the northeastern fringes of London, the district was a favorite dumping ground for dead cats and dogs, unwanted babies, and victims of murder.
“He ain’t a pretty sight, I’m afraid,” said Constable OʹNeal, a stout, middle-aged man with florid jowls and a prominent nose. Slopping noisily through several inches of slimy water, he leaned over with a grunt to draw back a corner of the canvas and reveal a bloated, discolored nightmare of a face.
“Good God.” Lovejoy bunched the handkerchief against his nostrils. “Cover it up again. Quickly, before the children see it.”
The constable threw a skeptical glance at the knot of ragged, half-grown urchins who’d gathered nearby to gawk at them, and dropped the canvas. “Yes, sir.”
Normally, the discovery of another body in one of the poorest districts of London was of no concern to Bow Street. But there were circumstances surrounding this man’s death that Lovejoy found troubling. He said, “So what exactly have you discovered, Constable?”
“Not much, I’m afraid. You did notice his clothes, sir? They’re uncommon fine. The local magistrate reckons the body musta been brought from someplace else and dumped here. Ain’t no gentlemen missing from around these parts, sir.”
Lovejoy sighed. “No identif
ication on him?”
“None, sir.”
Lovejoy turned to stare thoughtfully across the green, toward the dark, grim walls of the madhouse and, beyond that, Jews Walk. This was an area of marshy fields and tumbledown cottages, of Catholics and Jews and impoverished French weavers.
The constable cleared his throat. “And then there’s the lad I was telling you about—Jamie Durban, sir.”
Lovejoy brought his gaze back to the constable’s jowly face. “Where is he?”
“Here, sir.” The constable motioned to one of the ragged boys. “Well, come on, then, lad. Say your piece.”
Jamie Durban—a scrawny, carrot-topped lad of ten or twelve—wiped the back of one hand across his nose and reluctantly stepped forward.
Lovejoy looked the boy up and down. He was barefoot, the flesh of his arms and legs liberally streaked with dirt, his ragged shirt and breeches two sizes too big for his slight frame. “So what have you to say for yourself, Jamie Durban?”
The lad threw a frightened glance at the constable.
“Go on. Tell him,” urged the constable.
Jamie swallowed hard enough to bob his Adam’s apple up and down in his skinny throat. “It were Saturday night o’ last week, sir—or rather, I suppose you could say early Sunday mornin’.”
Lovejoy fixed the boy with a hard stare. “Go on.”
“I were ’eadin’ ’ome along the east side o’ the green, when I seen a swell carriage drawn up just ’ere—beside the ditch.”
“What makes you think it was a gentleman’s carriage and not a hackney?” asked Lovejoy. “It was rather dark last Saturday, was it not?”
“Not so much, sir. The moon was still pretty new, but it was clear and the stars was shinin’ somethin’ fierce. It was a gentry cove’s carriage, all right. A curricle, drawn by a pair o’ highsteppin’ dark ’orses and driven by a cove wearin’ one o’ them fancy coats with all them shoulder capes.”
Lovejoy studied the boy’s pale, delicate features. “And?”
“I could see the gentry cove was wrestlin’ with somethin’ big and bulky ʹe ʹad on the floor o’ ’is curricle. So I nipped behind the wall o’ the corner house there to watch, and I seen ’im dump it’ere, in the ditch. It’d rained some that day, and I ’eard the splash when it ’it the water.”
Lovejoy’s gaze drifted back to the silent, canvas-covered body at their feet. “What did the gentleman do next?”
“Why, ’e got back in ’is curricle and drove off. Toward the west, sir.”
“And what did you do, Jamie?”
Jamie dug the bare toes of one foot into the dirt, his gaze averted.
“Speak up, there, lad,” barked the constable. “Answer the magistrate’s question.”
Jamie’s jaw went slack with remembered horror. “I ... um, I waited ’til I was sure the cove was long gone. Then I come and took a peek at what ’e’d ’eaved into the ditch.”
“Are you telling me,” said Lovejoy, “that you have known this body was here since last Saturday night? And you only just got around to telling the constables about it today?”
The boy took a step back, his eyes widening. “I kept thinkin’ somebody was bound to find ʹim. Especially once ʹe started smellin’. But then ’e jist laid ’ere and laid ’ere, and finally it got so’s I couldn’t stand it no more. So I told Father Dean at St. Matthew’s, and ’e said I should own up to what I seen.”
Lovejoy frowned. “You’re certain this was Saturday night?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And when you first saw it, was the body fresh? Or was it already showing signs of decay?”
“Oh, ’e were fresh, all right. Why, ’e were still warm!”
Lovejoy frowned. “What time did you say this was?”
“Jist after three, sir. I remember I ’eard the night watchman calling the hour as I was crossin’ the green.”
Lovejoy and the constable exchanged glances. “And what were you doing out at three in the morning, lad? Hmm? Speak up there.”
Jamie Durban took another step back, his previously pale face suddenly flushing scarlet.
“Go on, then. Answer the magistrate’s question,” urged the constable.
His nostrils flaring in panic, the boy whirled to take off across the green, arms and legs pumping, hair flashing golden red in the hot sun.
“Bloody hell.” The constable lumbered up out of the ditch. “You want I should go after him, sir?”
Lovejoy watched the boy run. “No. Let him go. I assume you know where he lives?”
“Yes, sir. In Three Dog Lane. Lives with his widowed ma and three sisters, he does.”
His handkerchief pressed once more to his nostrils, Lovejoy hunkered down beside the ditch. The weeds had been trampled by countless rough boots, the fetid water churned and muddied. Whatever evidence might have been recoverable days ago had been lost to the rain and the passage of time and careless men. He glanced up at the constable. “You’ve searched the area?”
“We have. Nothing, sir.” The constable paused. “You want we should send the body to the dead house in Wapping, sir?”
Lovejoy frowned. London had several dead houses, or mortuaries, for unidentified or unclaimed bodies. But they were miserable, filthy places, most with little space for a proper postmortem.
He shook his head. “Fetch a shell from the dead house, but have a couple of lads carry the body to the surgery of Paul Gibson, on Tower Hill. Perhaps he’ll be able to give us something to go on.” He pushed to his feet. “And check the pawnbrokers’ shops and fences in the area. See if young Mr. Durban has sold any men’s jewelry or other items in the last week.”
“You think he stole something from the body, sir?”
“How else did he know the corpse was still warm?”
“Aye, good point that, sir. Although I suppose—” The constable broke off, his gaze shifting to something over Sir Henry’s shoulder.
“What is it?” Lovejoy turned to find a tall, bone-thin clerk hurrying toward them across the green. He drew up before them, his breath coming in noisy gasps.
“Sir Henry,” said the man, his pale forehead gleaming with sweat. “A message for you from the Foreign Office. The Undersecretary, Sir Hyde Foley, wishes to see you. At once!”
Chapter 9
S ebastian’s next stop was the Mayfair town house of the woman he still thought of as his Aunt Henrietta, although she was not, in truth, his aunt, or any other relation closer than a distant cousin.
Born Lady Henrietta St. Cyr, the elder sister of the Earl of Hendon, she had been married for fifty years to the Duke of Claiborne. A widow now for more than three years, the Dowager Duchess still occupied the vast family pile on Park Lane. By rights, the house belonged to her eldest son. But the new Duke of Claiborne was no match for his formidable mother. So while the current Duke raised his growing family in a much smaller house on Half Moon Street, the Duchess continued on as before, one of the acknowledged grandes dames of society—and a veritable walking Debrett’s Peerage, who knew everything there was to know about the members of the Upper Ten Thousand.
Sebastian expected to find her still abed, or perhaps sipping chocolate in her dressing room, for the Duchess was famous for never leaving her room before one. But to his surprise, she was not only up and dressed, but in her breakfast parlor partaking of toast and tea and perusing a copy of the Morning Post.
“Good heavens,” she said, sitting forward with a jerk that set her tea to slopping dangerously. “Sebastian.”
“You’re up early, Aunt,” he said, stooping to plant a kiss on her cheek. “It’s barely past noon.”
“Blame Claiborne’s eldest, Georgina. Takes after me, poor girl. But as I always say, just because a woman is not beautiful is no excuse for not being fashionable. Unfortunately, that silly nitwit Claiborne married can’t dress herself properly, let alone a chit just out of the schoolroom. So there’s nothing for it but for me to take the child to the cloth warehouses myself.”
/> “Ah.”
She reached for her quizzing glass and regarded him through it. “Why are you here, you fatiguing child?”
He laughed. “Two things, actually. First of all, I’d like to hear what you know about Sir Gareth Ross.”
“Sir Gareth?” She looked intrigued. “Whatever has he done?”
“Nothing that I know of.” Sebastian drew out the chair beside her and sat. “Tell me about him.”
ʺWell ... there’s not much to tell, actually. He must be in his early forties by now, I suppose. Your typical country gentleman. Married some chit from Norfolk—a Miss Alice Hart, if I remember correctly—but she died in childbirth barely a year later, and her child with her. He never remarried.”
“I take it he’s something of an invalid?”
“That’s right. Broke his back in a carriage accident a few years ago. He isn’t exactly bedridden, but he doesn’t get around much and, well”—she dropped her voice to a stage whisper and leaned forward—“let’s just say, I’ve heard he won’t be siring any sons.”
“So his heir presumptive was his younger brother, Mr. Alexander Ross. And now?”
“A cousin of some sort. There were something like four or five daughters in the family, but only the two sons.”
Sebastian turned sideways so he could stretch out his legs and cross his boots at the ankles. “What do you know about Alexander Ross?”
“Charming young man. Terrible tragedy, his dying like that.” She opened her eyes wider. “Good heavens, is that why you’re interested in the Rosses? Dear me.”
It was beginning to occur to Sebastian that he had only to express an interest in someone who’d recently died for anyone hearing him to assume that individual had been murdered. He said, “That’s all you can tell me about the younger Ross? That he was a ‘charming young man’?”
Henrietta frowned. “Well, he’d recently become engaged to an heiress. Miss Sabrina Cox.”
“Cox?”
“Mmm. Not one of the Coxes of Staffordshire, mind you. Her father was Peter Cox—the one who was Lord Mayor, and then Member of Parliament for London until his death.”