by C. S. Harris
“And here I thought you just said Mr. Leigh-Jones was a most conscientious magistrate. I don’t think you’ll find him inclined to reward you for your zeal in protecting him from the Palace.”
“The Palace?” The clerk looked up, a wave of conflicting emotions passing over his face, doubt followed by indecision chased by annoyance and chagrin.
Sebastian started to push away from the desk. “I’ll tell His Highness—”
“No! One moment, please.”
Sebastian paused.
The clerk threw a quick look around, then leaned forward to lick his thin lips and whisper, “His house is in the Crescent, off the Minories. Number four.”
“Thank you,” said Sebastian, just as the doxy let out a high-pitched, ear-shattering squeal.
“Oooo. Say that again, ye whore’s son, an’ I’ll scratch yer bloomin’ eyes from yer ’ead and feed ’em to the bleedin’ chooks!”
Bertram Leigh-Jones lived in a comfortable eighteenth-century town house built of good sturdy brown brick with white-painted window frames and a shiny green door. Sebastian half expected the magistrate to refuse to see him. But a few minutes after he sent up his card with the thin, mousy-haired young housemaid who’d answered his knock, she reappeared to say meekly, “This way, my lord.”
He found Leigh-Jones in a small chamber overlooking the Crescent. The room had been fitted up as a workspace, with a large, sturdy table in the center and an array of shelves piled high with a jumble of paints, pots, tools, and bins filled with pieces of fine wood; the air was thick with the smell of linseed oil and a pot of hot hide glue. The magistrate himself sat perched on a high stool, a pair of spectacles on the end of his nose as he focused on fitting a minute piece of rigging to a partially constructed model of a Spanish galleon.
He cast a quick glance at Sebastian before returning his gaze to the model. “You have some nerve, coming here,” he said, his big, blunt figures surprisingly nimble at their task.
“I’m told you believe the pouch of diamonds found on Jud Foy’s body came from Daniel Eisler.”
“Oh? Who told you that?”
“Is it true?”
“As it happens, it is, yes.”
“How can you be so certain?”
“The initials, of course. You did notice them, didn’t you? Not only that, but a woman at the greengrocer’s on the corner remembers seeing Foy watching Eisler’s house.” Leigh-Jones sighed and straightened, his hands coming to rest at the edge of his worktable. “One would think you’d be pleased to hear that evidence has come to light suggesting your friend Yates is not, in fact, the murderer of Mr. Eisler.”
“You’re saying that Jud Foy is?”
“Was,” corrected Leigh-Jones, pushing to his feet to putter around to the other side of his worktable. “In Foy’s case, the verb is most definitely ‘was.’”
“You’ll be releasing Yates?”
The magistrate’s focus was all for his model. “I believe so, yes. We’re simply waiting on a few more pieces of information.”
“Such as?”
Leigh-Jones looked at him over the rims of his glasses. “You can read about it in the papers along with everyone else.”
“So who are you suggesting killed Foy?”
“Footpads, most likely. Fortunately, the sexton frightened them off before they were able to relieve the scoundrel of his ill-gotten gains.”
“And Collot? Who killed him?”
“Who?”
“Jacques Collot. He was shot by a rifleman near Seven Dials last night.”
“Ah, you mean the French thief. What has he to do with anything?”
“Quite a lot, actually.”
“I rather think not.” The magistrate’s protruding belly shook with his breathy laughter, although Sebastian could see little real humor in the man’s face. “I’ve no doubt it’s a blow to your pride, having some common East End magistrate solve a murder that stumped you. But if it’s any consolation, I myself was wrong about Yates, now, wasn’t I? The important thing is that Eisler’s murder has been solved, the man responsible is dead, and the good people of London can go to sleep in their beds at night without needing to worry there’s some madman wandering in their midst.”
Sebastian studied Leigh-Jones’s fleshy, florid face: the watery, blinking hazel eyes; the small mouth pulled back into a self-satisfied grin. He’d learned long ago that for far too many people, it wasn’t really important that justice be done. Unless they were personally involved in some way, most cared little if an innocent man was hanged. What mattered was that those in authority be seen as having successfully fulfilled their duty to keep the people safe from fear or any perceived threat that might disrupt the tranquility of their lives. In that sense, Jud Foy dead was far more useful than Jud Foy alive. Dead men told no tales and answered no questions.
Sebastian said, “And if Foy wasn’t actually responsible?”
The magistrate’s cheeks darkened suddenly to an angry hue as he punched the air between them with one glue-smudged finger. He was no longer smiling. “No one will thank you for that kind of talk. You hear me? No one.”
“I’m afraid I can’t agree that should be a factor here,” said Sebastian, and left him there with his bits of wood and hemp and his pot of simmering glue.
Chapter 49
S
ebastian was crossing Pall Mall, headed toward Carlton House, when he heard himself hailed by Mr. Thomas Hope.
“My lord,” said Hope, panting slightly from the unaccustomed exertion of hurrying up the street. “This is fortuitous indeed. If I might have a word with you for a moment?”
“Of course,” said Sebastian, moderating his pace to the other man’s slower gait. “Is something wrong?”
The banker’s mouth worked furiously back and forth. “You’ve heard, I assume, that Yates is to be released from prison?”
“I had heard, yes. Do I take it you find that troubling?”
“What? Oh, no. It’s not Yates’s release that worries me, per se. It’s what we’re hearing about the death of this fellow Jud Foy. All these deaths associated with the diamond! It’s as if it’s cursed or something. First King Louis and Marie Antoinette, then the Duke of Brunswick. And now Eisler and Foy and that French thief whose name for the moment escapes me. To be frank, I’m worried about Louisa.”
Sebastian studied the banker’s homely, haggard face. He wondered if Hope realized he’d just admitted to knowing the true origins of his rare blue diamond. “You don’t still have the diamond, do you?”
“No. But then, neither did the King and Queen of France when they lost their heads. Or Brunswick when he was killed in battle. Or—”
“People die all the time. I’ve no doubt if you knew the entire history of any large gem, you’d find many people associated with it who died violently. Apart from which, I don’t believe Jud Foy actually had anything to do with the diamond.”
“You don’t? But . . . They’re saying he’s the one who killed Eisler! Are you suggesting you now believe Yates—”
“No. To be frank, I still don’t know who killed Eisler. Or why.”
Hope sank his upper teeth into his lip and worried it back and forth, as if summoning the courage to speak. “I fear I’ve not been entirely honest with you.”
“Oh?”
“I told you I didn’t know if Eisler had a buyer interested in my diamond. That was not strictly true.”
Sebastian waited.
Hope sucked in a deep breath, then blurted out, “Prinny. Prinny was interested. Most definitely interested.”
Sebastian said, “I had rather suspected that.”
“You did?”
“I don’t imagine there can be many potential buyers for a stone of that caliber.”
“True, true. But there is one thing you may not know: The Prince’s representative was scheduled to meet with Eisler in Fountain Lane the very night he was killed.”
“Do you know the identity of that individual?”
>
Hope shook his head. “Unfortunately, no. But I should think it would not be all that difficult to discover. I believe Lord Jarvis was also involved in the negotiations.”
“Jarvis?”
Hope blinked rapidly several times, so that Sebastian wondered what the man saw in his face. “Yes, my lord.”
Sebastian’s history with his father-in-law was defined by a level of antagonism that had included—but was not limited to—physical assault, larceny, attempted murder, and a certain memorable kidnapping incident.
In one sense, Sebastian could not help but admire the big man’s dedication to the preservation of England and her monarchy. But he had no illusions about the level of Jarvis’s ruthlessness. The King’s powerful cousin could have taught Machiavelli a thing or two about duplicity, cunning, and the unswerving elevation of expediency over such maudlin notions as sentiment, principle, and morality.
To Sebastian’s knowledge, Jarvis possessed only one humanizing trait, and that was his affection for his sole surviving child, Hero. The man despised his aged, grasping mother and his two foolish sisters and would probably have consigned his addlebrained wife to Bedlam had it not been for Hero.
But when Sebastian reached Carlton House, it was to discover that Lord Jarvis was not there.
Swearing softly to himself, Sebastian turned toward his father-in-law’s Grosvenor Square town house.
His peal at the door was answered by a trim, wooden-faced butler named Grisham whom Sebastian suspected had not yet forgiven him for a certain incident a few weeks before, when Sebastian had hauled a dead body up the curving staircase to dump it on Lord Jarvis’s drawing room carpet.
“My lord,” said Grisham, his professional mask firmly in place. “I am afraid Lady Devlin is no longer here, having left shortly after her conversation with his lordship this morning.”
“Actually, it’s Lord Jarvis I was interested in seeing.”
A breath of wariness clouded the butler’s normally impassive features. “Unfortunately, his lordship is unavailable at the moment, as he has retired to his dressing room in preparation for an important audience with—”
“That’s quite all right,” said Sebastian, brushing past the butler and heading for the stairs. “I won’t be but a moment.”
There was a time when such an intrusion would have motivated Grisham to call the constables. Now he had to content himself with closing the front door with unusual force.
Sebastian took the stairs two at a time and entered the dressing room without knocking.
Jarvis was standing before his dressing table, his back to the door. Pausing in the act of fastening his cuffs, he looked up, his gaze meeting Sebastian’s in the mirror. He calmly straightened his cuffs and glanced over at his valet.
“Leave us.”
The man bowed and carefully laid the neckcloths he’d been holding over the nearby daybed. “Yes, my lord.”
Jarvis waited until the man had closed the door. Then he turned to select one of the cravats. “Well?”
“The Prince’s representative who was to meet with Eisler the night he was killed—who was it?”
Jarvis carefully eased the length of starched linen around his neck. “Heard about that, did you?”
“Yes.”
“To be frank, I’m somewhat surprised you didn’t make this discovery days ago.”
Sebastian gave his father-in-law a hard, gritty smile. “His name?”
“The gentleman’s identity is immaterial—an amateur although highly knowledgeable lapidary who had agreed to inspect the gem prior to its formal presentation to the Prince by Eisler at the Palace.”
“Which was scheduled for when?”
“Tuesday.”
“When one is dealing with murder, no potential witness—or suspect—is ‘immaterial.’”
Jarvis smoothed the folds of his cravat, his gaze on his reflection in the mirror. “The gentleman in question arrived at the scene nearly an hour after the shooting occurred and, upon observing the commotion, quietly left. He declined to step forward because he has no information of merit to add and because it is of the utmost importance that the Prince not be seen to be involved in anything of this nature.”
“And does the Prince know, I wonder, that the gem in question was once the French Blue?”
“As it happens, he does. Indeed, the item he ordered designed for it was to be an emblem of the Golden Fleece.”
“But he isn’t a member of any of the Orders of the Golden Fleece.”
“He is confident that he soon shall be.” Jarvis turned from the mirror. “I fail to understand your continuing interest in this affair. The authorities have determined some deranged ex-soldier murdered Daniel Eisler. I understand he was seen actually watching the house.”
“Jud Foy was watching the house, yes. But I don’t think he killed Eisler.”
A faint smile curled Jarvis’s full lips. “So certain?”
Sebastian studied the big man’s half-averted profile. He could not shake the suspicion that behind this subtle play and counterplay of arrest, imminent hanging, and sudden release lurked Jarvis’s long vendetta against Russell Yates and Kat Boleyn. He said, “And does the Prince know that the diamond he covets was once in the possession of his own wife?”
“That he does not know.”
“Yet you do?”
Jarvis turned, his face set in bland lines. “Seventeen years ago, His Royal Highness took an unfortunate, instant dislike to his bride. That dislike has since solidified into an aversion—”
“Actually, I think I’d be more inclined to call it an irrational but powerful loathing colored by a petty lust for revenge.”
“—and a determination,” continued Jarvis, ignoring the interjection, “to be rid of his wife. Such a step would, however, be disastrous for the stability of the realm and the future of the monarchy.”
“Hence the need to conceal from the Prince the entire history of the stone?” said Sebastian. “If my memory serves me correctly, the Prince Regent was named executor of Brunswick’s estate, which means that Princess Caroline technically should have handed over to her husband’s keeping any of the old Duke’s jewels in her possession. Obviously she did not do so.”
“Caroline may be stupid, but she’s not that stupid,” said Jarvis. “Fortunately, she at least stopped short of publicly accusing Prinny of playing fast and loose with her father’s estate.”
“Unlike her brother, the current Duke.”
“Just so.”
Sebastian said, “I think Daniel Eisler knew the circuitous route the stone had taken to come into Hope’s possession and was using that knowledge to apply pressure on the Princess in order to obtain something from her that he wanted. You wouldn’t happen to know what that was, would you?”
“No.”
Sebastian studied the big man’s complacent, aquiline countenance. “I don’t believe you.”
Jarvis possessed a startlingly winsome smile he could use with devastating effect to charm and cajole the unwary and the credulous. He flashed that smile now, a sparkle of genuine amusement lighting his steel gray eyes. “Would I lie to you?”
“Yes.”
The sound of Jarvis’s laughter followed Sebastian down the stairs and out of the house.
Chapter 50
“I
don’t know how I can ever properly thank you,” said Yates.
The two men were walking along the Serpentine in Hyde Park, the evening sun glittering on the breeze-ruffled expanse of water, the long grass and frost-nipped leaves of the nearby stand of oaks and walnuts drenched with a rich golden light. Sebastian noticed Yates kept lifting his face to the setting sun and breathing deeply of the crisp fresh air, as if savoring every subtle nuance of his new freedom.
Sebastian said, “You actually don’t have much to thank me for, as it turns out. I had nothing to do with the authorities’ decision to set you free. That was all Jud Foy’s doing—however inadvertent that may have been.”
“It’s always possible.”
Yates glanced over at him. “But you don’t believe it?”
“No, I don’t.”
“So how do you explain the pouch of diamonds they’re saying was found in his possession?”
“Easy enough to plant evidence on a man’s dead body, thus casting suspicion in his direction. He’s not exactly able to defend himself against the accusation, now, is he?”
“No. But . . . why bother? The authorities were already convinced they had the killer—me—in custody.”
“You don’t find his death rather convenient, given the timing of the decision to set you free?”
Yates glanced over at him, a troubled expression drawing his brows together. “And will you still continue looking for the killer?”
Sebastian paused to watch a duck lift off the surface of the canal, wings beating the soft evening air, its quack echoing across the water. After a moment, he said, “I wish I could believe it’s all over. But I don’t.”
Yates drew up beside him, his gaze, like Sebastian’s, on the duck’s awkward flight. He said, “Kat doesn’t trust Jarvis.”
Sebastian shook his head and blew out a long, heavy breath. “Neither do I.”
Sebastian was walking up Brook Street when he noticed a tall, dark-haired man striding toward him with the long-legged gait of a soldier who has covered many, many miles.
One hand in his coat pocket, Sebastian paused and let Jamie Knox come up to him.
“Looking for me?” Sebastian asked quietly.
Knox drew up, his yellow eyes narrowed to thin slits, his jaw set hard. “Jud Foy is dead.”
“I know.”
“Did you kill him?”
“I did not.”
Knox chewed the inside of one cheek. “I’m thinking he’s dead because I told you where to find him.”
“I don’t think so. But I could be wrong.”