by C. S. Harris
But that night, Sebastian dreamed of demure ladies in gowns of heavy velvet and brocade, their wimples white in the spring sunshine. He wandered crushed-gravel paths shaded by leafy chestnut trees; breathed in the scents of lavender and apothecary roses, vervain and lemon balm. Climbing the steps to a broad, freshly swept terrace, he entered a graceful sandstone house, its leaded windows unshrouded by ivy or cobwebs or the grime of ages.
The flagstones beneath his feet were well scrubbed and unbroken, the newly whitewashed walls hung with rich tapestries and crossed swords. As he moved down the passage, he heard the distant lilting notes of a pipe, a child’s laughter, a man’s chanting voice suddenly hushed. And he awoke with a start, legs swinging over the edge of the bed as he sat up, the icy air of the pale morning biting his naked flesh.
“What’s wrong?” asked Hero sleepily, rolling over to lay a hand on his arm.
“There’s something about Eisler’s house that has been bothering me for days now.”
She sat up, her dark hair tumbling about her bare shoulders as she hugged the quilt to her against the cold. “What about the house?”
He pushed to his feet. “Something in the proportions of the rooms is off. I can’t quite put my finger on it. But I want to take another look at it.” He glanced back at her. “Care to come?”
“Do you think Perlman will agree to let us search the house again?”
Sebastian smiled. “I don’t intend to ask him.”
The door to the crumbling old Tudor house in Fountain Lane was opened by a sour-faced woman in black bombazine and a yellowing cap. She was as stout as her husband was lean and a good fifteen to twenty years younger, with thick, bushy gray brows, a bulbous nose, and small dark eyes half-hidden by fat, puffy lids.
“Good morning,” Sebastian said cheerfully. “I’m—”
“I know who you are.” She sniffed. “Campbell’s off to market this morning—thanks be to God. Ever since you come here the other day, he’s done nothing but crow about how he ‘helped’ the great Lord Devlin with one of his ‘investigations.’ Humph.”
Sebastian and Hero exchanged glances.
Hero said, “We’re here to look at the house again,” and brushed past the housekeeper without giving her a chance to object. Just inside the entrance, Hero drew up in undisguised astonishment. “Good heavens.”
“Sure, then, the place ain’t as clean and tidy as it could be,” bleated Mrs. Campbell, her manner changing instantly from challenging to wheedling. “But then, Mr. Eisler was ever so particular about his things, preferring to see them disappear beneath dust and cobwebs rather than have me lay a hand on them.”
“And did he take the same attitude toward the floor?” asked Hero, her gaze focused on the ancient flagstones half-buried beneath decades’ accumulation of dried leaves, dirt, and debris.
“It’s only me now, you know. And I’m not as young as—”
Sebastian said, “Thank you, Mrs. Campbell. That will be all for now.”
The housekeeper sniffed and disappeared toward the kitchen, muttering beneath her breath.
Hero turned in a slow circle, her eyes widening as she took in the jumble of exquisite, dust-shrouded furniture, the row after row of grand old masters, their heavy gilded frames mildewed and flyspecked.
“The entire house looks like this,” said Sebastian.
“And you think the proportions of the rooms are off? How can you even see the proportions through this mess?”
Sebastian led the way through the stone-cased archway to the corridor. “First, look at the size of the chamber Eisler used as his office.”
She peered through the door at the chaos wrought by Samuel Perlman’s determined search for his uncle’s account books.
Sebastian said, “Now come back through here”—he strode to the long parlor and pushed aside the curtain that covered the second door—“and look at where this room ends.”
Frowning, she went back and forth between the two rooms several times, then came to stare thoughtfully at the parlor’s back wall. “I see what you mean. It’s as if there should be another small room between the two chambers. Part of the space is obviously occupied by the chimney for this massive old fireplace. But it’s offcenter, and there isn’t a hearth on the other side, as you would expect.” She glanced over at him. “What are you suggesting?”
Sebastian moved to the fancifully carved mantelpiece and began methodically pushing, pulling, and twisting the various intricately depicted beasts and fruit-laden garlands. “My brother Richard noticed something similar in our house in Cornwall. We eventually realized there was an old priest’s hole everyone had long ago forgotten.”
Hero came to help, focusing her attention on the muntins, styles, and rails of the paneled wall to the left of the hearth. But after a moment, she paused and sniffed.
“What is it?” he asked, watching her.
“Don’t you smell it?”
He shook his head. “Mold? Dry rot? Dead men’s bones? What?”
“And here I thought all your senses were unnaturally acute.”
“Not my sense of smell. It’s actually rather poor.”
She turned to look at him. “Really? I can think of any number of situations in which that would be a definite advantage.”
“This obviously isn’t one of them. What do you smell?”
“Urine. It’s very strong—and the smell is coming from behind this section here.” She tapped on it experimentally. “Does that sound hollow to you?”
“Yes.” He stood back, his gaze assessing the joints of the age-darkened paneling. Now that he knew where to look, the subtle outline of one section was vaguely discernable. He reached for the dagger in his boot.
“Your knife?” she said, watching him. “You’re going to use your knife? For what?”
He eased the tip of his blade into the joint nearest the hearth. “If I can find the catch—” He paused as he felt the edge of the dagger hit metal. He worked slowly and carefully, manipulating the catch in first one direction, then the other. Shifting the blade to beneath the latch, he pressed upward and heard a faint snick.
The panel slid to one side.
“I suspect that’s cheating, but it’s still impressive,” said Hero.
“Thank you.”
Thrusting his dagger back into its sheath, he pushed the panel open wider.
The space beyond was perhaps six by eight feet, dusty and empty except for two ironbound wooden trunks, a basket of small glass containers stoppered with cork, and a faint damp stain still visible on the paving stones just inside the opening. In the stale air of the ancient enclosed space, the odor of urine was pungent.
Hero wrinkled her nose. “Do you think someone was shut up in here so long they couldn’t hold it?”
A crumpled cloth lying to one side of the entrance caught Sebastian’s attention. Reaching down, he found himself holding a cheap configuration of yellowed muslin reinforced by whalebone, its tapes badly frayed with wear.
“Good heavens,” said Hero. “It’s a woman’s stays.”
Sebastian passed it to her.
“They’re so tiny.” She looked up to meet his gaze. “You think these stays belonged to the owner of the blue satin slippers?”
Sebastian swung around to look back at the long, old-fashioned parlor. Anyone shut up in the priest’s hole would have had an excellent view of whatever transpired in the room . . . if there was a peephole.
It took him only a moment to find it, cleverly worked into the pattern of the wainscoting.
He said, “I suspect Eisler shoved his bit o’ muslin—and most of her clothes—in here when they were interrupted by someone coming to the front door. She was probably watching through the keyhole when the visitor shot Eisler and was so frightened she wet herself. Yates said he burst into the house as soon as he heard the shot fired, followed almost immediately by Perlman.”
“So where was the killer?”
“He could have bolted immediately for th
e rear entrance. Or he might have hidden behind a curtain until both Yates and Perlman were gone, and then run.”
“Followed by your Blue Satin Cinderella, who dropped her stays and didn’t dare stop long enough to retrieve her slippers. She must have been very frightened.”
“Well, she would be, wouldn’t she?”
Hero nodded. She folded the small, tattered garment as carefully as if it were something fine and precious. “So she knows who the murderer is.”
“She may not know who he is, but she could probably identify him.”
Hero looked up, her face solemn. “The question is, Does he know about her?”
“I hope not.”
Chapter 54
T
he largest of the two trunks opened to reveal stacks of worn leather-bound ledgers.
“The missing account books?” asked Hero, peering over Sebastian’s shoulder as he leafed through the top volume.
He nodded. “Telling, isn’t it? He leaves everything from priceless fifteenth-century Italian canvases to exquisite Greek marbles lying about the house gathering dust, yet he hides these away.”
He moved on to the next, smaller chest. This one contained a curious assortment of objects, each carefully wrapped in squares of white or black silk and bound up with cord. He unwrapped a snuffbox, a vinaigrette, a gold chain with a locket such as a man might present to his bride as a wedding gift. Only, in this instance, the enameled pattern on the face of the locket was worked into the golden crown and three white feathers of the Prince of Wales.
He held it up. “Look at this.”
“Prinny?” said Hero reaching to open the locket. Inside lay a curled lock of golden-red hair.
“I think we now know what Eisler wanted from Princess Caroline.”
“A locket with the Prince Regent’s hair? But . . . why? It can’t be worth much.”
“It is to someone interested in magic ‘operations’ aimed at increasing their wealth and attracting the favor of princes.”
Hero peered into the chest. “Is that what all these items are? The personal possessions of powerful people he wished to influence by casting spells over them?”
“Influence or destroy.”
Hero went to hunker down beside the basket.
“What are they?” he asked, watching her lift one of the small glass containers.
“They look like vials filled with . . .” She eased open the cork and sniffed. “Dirt.” She turned it toward the light. “How very curious. Each is labeled with a name. This one says, ‘Alfred Dauncey.’”
“I knew Dauncey. He blew out his brains last year. They say he was deeply in debt—all rolled up.”
She picked up another vial. “This says, ‘Stanley Benson.’ Isn’t he the baronet’s son who slit his own throat last winter?”
Sebastian nodded. “Rumor has it he was also in the clutches of some moneylender.”
She stared down at the mound of glass vials. “Good heavens. Do you think all these people killed themselves because of Eisler?”
“I suspect so.”
She reached for another vial. “This one says . . .”
“What?” he prompted when her voice trailed off.
Her gaze met his. “This one says, ‘Rebecca Ridgeway.’”
Sebastian studied her strained, suddenly pale face. “That’s significant; why?”
“Rebecca Ridgeway was Abigail McBean’s sister. The one who died last spring.”
Miss Abigail McBean sat on the comfortably worn sofa in her cozy little drawing room, her head bowed, the small, dirt-filled vial in her hand. On the cushion beside her lay one of Daniel Eisler’s leather-bound account books opened to a page where the third name from the bottom read, Marcus Ridgeway, 2000 pounds. Beside that, Eisler had scrawled, Paid in full, 2 April 1812.
Hero sat in an armchair near the fire; Sebastian stood on the far side of the room.
After a moment, Abigail cleared her throat painfully and said, “Rebecca was my younger sister. She was . . . quite different from me. Pretty. Delightfully vivacious. Always far more interested in parties than books. She married Marcus when she was just nineteen. Unfortunately, my late brother-in-law was a handsome and charming but sadly flawed man: weak, irresponsible, and capable of breathtaking selfishness. He was constantly in debt, but somehow he always found a way to right himself again.”
“What happened last spring?” asked Hero gently.
“Rebecca came to me in tears, just before Easter. She said Marcus had fallen deep into the clutches of some St. Botolph-Aldgate moneylender and was on the verge of ruin. I’d helped Marcus in the past, but he never paid me back, and I . . . I live on a very limited income.”
“You told her you couldn’t help her?”
Abigail nodded without looking up. “Yes. A week later, they were both dead.”
“How?”
She traced her sister’s name on the vial’s label with trembling fingertips. “Marcus was found floating in the Thames near the Wapping Stairs.”
“Do you think he killed himself?”
“Marcus?” She shook her head. “In my experience, suicide generally requires a measure of either guilt or despair. But Marcus had a gift for convincing himself that nothing was ever his fault. And no matter how desperate his situation, he was always certain he’d somehow come about.”
Hero nodded to the open ledger. “He obviously did. Somehow.”
Abigail’s brows drew together in a crinkling frown.
“And your sister?” Sebastian asked quietly.
“They pulled Rebecca’s body out of the river the next day.”
A heavy silence settled on the room, broken only by the distant sound of a child’s voice, chanting, “Oranges and lemons, say the bells of St. Clement’s. . . .”
Hero said, “What do you think happened to them?”
“In truth?” Abigail looked up, her face mottled and puffy with unshed tears. “I think Rebecca killed him. And then she killed herself. Although I could be wrong. It could have been an accident. The coroner’s court returned a verdict of death by misadventure.”
“Why did Eisler have a glass vial of dirt with your sister’s name on it?”
“I don’t believe he knew Rebecca was my sister,” she said quietly.
“‘When will you pay me?’ say the bells of Old Bailey,” chanted the child in the garden below.
Sebastian said, “How long before he died had Eisler been coming to you for consultation on his work with the grimoires?”
“Several years.”
“So when your sister told you about her husband’s St. Botolph-Aldgate moneylender, you must have suspected who she was talking about?”
“Yes.”
Sebastian was aware of Hero’s hard gray eyes upon him. But all he said was, “Eisler had a collection of these vials. I recognized several of the names of young men who recently committed suicide.”
Abigail’s hand closed around the vial. “Some people believe that those who take their own lives will haunt anyone they blame for driving them to it. There are numerous operations in the various grimoires for binding the souls of suicides. Most are best performed with earth from the graves of the dead.”
“Chip-chop, chip-chop, the last man’s dead!”
An outburst of children’s laughter drew Sebastian’s attention again to the window overlooking the garden, where a fair-haired little girl had collapsed with her brother in a fit of giggles. He was remembering what John Francillon had told him, that Eisler feared dead men. He now understood what the lapidary had meant.
Abigail said, “Did you find a vial for Marcus?”
Sebastian shook his head. They had written down all the names on the vials and brought away with them Eisler’s account books. The rest they left as they had found it, carefully closing the section of paneling behind them. “No.”
Abigail pushed out her breath in a strange sound. “Eisler obviously realized Marcus wasn’t the type to do away with himself.” Her ga
ze returned to her brother-in-law’s name in the account book beside her, her brows twitching together in a troubled frown. “I wonder how Marcus managed to repay his debt.”
Sebastian and Hero exchanged silent glances.
But if Abigail McBean did not know the truth, Sebastian had no intention of telling her.
“Admit it,” Hero said to him later, as they drove away from Abigail McBean’s modest Camden Place house. “You think Abigail killed him.”
Sebastian looked over at her. “Don’t you?”
He expected her to leap to her friend’s defense and insist Abigail McBean was incapable of murder. Instead, she said, “Do you think Abigail knows that Marcus Ridgeway forced his wife to prostitute herself to Eisler in order to pay off his debt?”
“I suspect she does—if she killed Eisler. Otherwise . . . I hope not. She doesn’t need to live with that knowledge on top of everything else.”
Hero said, “I keep thinking about all those glass vials. So many men and women, driven to death by that loathsome man.”
“And by their own weaknesses.”
When Hero remained silent, Sebastian said, “Think about this: Abigail McBean has known for the last five months that Eisler was implicated in the death of her sister and brother-in-law. Yet she continued to assist him with his interpretation of the ancient grimoires and their magic operations. Why?”
Hero shook her head. “I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense.”
“It does if you understand just how frightened of the souls of dead men Eisler was.”
“You think Abigail was deliberately feeding that fear? To torment him?”
“Yes.”
“So why kill him? Why not simply continue to torment him, if she’d chosen that as her means of revenge?”
Sebastian stared out the window at the rolling, misty undulations of Green Park, deserted now in the cold and damp. “Perhaps she learned of another victim, someone she knew and also cared about. Someone who made her decide Eisler needed to be stopped—permanently.”