by C. S. Harris
Moving purposefully from cage to cage, he quickly unlatched one door after the other, rattling the slats of those whose occupants appeared too weakened or morose to seize the freedom offered them. In a whirl of wings, they rose against the night sky, first sparrows, doves, and larks; then, once the smaller birds had flown to safety, the goshawks and owls. Sebastian stood at last before the cage of the disgruntled, long-haired black cat, which looked up at him with slitted green eyes. Sebastian swung open the cage door, its hinges squealing loud enough to make him wince.
“Well, go on, then,” he whispered when the cat remained motionless. “What are you waiting for? An invitation from the King?”
The cat blinked.
Sebastian tipped the cage forward, upending the cat, which dropped lightly onto the pavement beside him with an indignant yowl.
“Shhh,” hissed Sebastian.
The cat streaked into the night, its ridiculously long, bushy tail lashing back and forth.
Sebastian watched it for a moment, ears straining for any sound that might indicate that his presence had been detected. The wind gusted up again, thrashing the creaking limbs of the old elms.
He eased the knife from his boot and crossed to the back door.
The gap between the door and its frame was not as wide as he’d hoped, but it was enough. Slipping the blade through the opening close against the frame, he pressed down until the hard steel of the knife sank into the softer iron of the bolt with enough purchase to enable him to slide the bolt a fraction to the right. Then he freed the blade, eased it in close to the frame again, and pressed down.
He did this again and again, working the bolt back bit by bit. The work was excruciatingly slow. It would have been much easier to simply knock out the bars on one of the windows and break the glass, but he preferred to leave as little sign of his entry as possible. He was aware of a soft patter as the rain started up again, and the distant cry of the watch shouting, “Two o’clock on a rainy night and all is well.” Then the bolt cleared the frame with a soft click, and the door creaked inward perhaps six inches.
Sebastian pushed it open wider, took a step, and nearly tripped as something warm and furry threaded between his legs.
“Will you go away?” he whispered.
The cat let out a soft mew.
Bloody hell.
Slipping the knife back into its sheath, Sebastian stepped over the cat, then quickly shut the door in its face.
“Meow,” complained the cat, caught on the outside.
With the door closed, the corridor lay in near total darkness, the only illumination a faint glow that spilled through the archway from the windows of the vast hall beyond. The rows of heavy paintings on the walls and stacks of fine furniture loomed out of heavy shadows. The smell of mold and rot hung thick in the air.
Moving quietly, he opened the first door to his right and found himself staring at a dining room that looked as if it hadn’t been used for its intended purpose in decades. The velvet curtains at the windows hung in tatters; a long Jacobean table and a dozen chairs with barley-turned legs, so darkened by centuries of smoke and old wax as to be nearly black, stood in the center of the room. All were so buried beneath piles of furniture and stacks of paintings and objets d’art that it would take a man a week to search the room, clearing a path for himself as he went.
Closing the door, Sebastian turned to the opposite side of the corridor, only to draw up short at the sight of a pair of green eyes gleaming at him from out of the darkness.
“How the devil did you get in here?” he whispered to the cat. Then a waft of wind scented by wet pavement and sodden earth caused the heavy door from the terrace to shift with a loud creak, and he realized that, without the bolt, it had swung open again.
He used his boot to nudge the cat out of his way. “Just be quiet, will you?”
The next door opened to reveal a chamber only slightly less cluttered than the dining room, although this space was obviously used for more than storage, for there was a clear path from the door to a beautiful ebony desk inlaid with ivory and piled high with papers. From the looks of things, someone had been going through them—no doubt Eisler’s heirs or their solicitors. Beyond the desk stood a massive safe, its heavy iron door hanging open, its shelves empty. Whatever gems, stacks of currency, and other secrets it might once have contained were now gone.
He moved on.
As he had suspected, the next door proved to be a second entrance to the long parlor where Eisler had been shot. This, obviously, was how the murderer had managed to flee the house without being seen by Yates . . . if Yates was telling the truth about what had happened that night.
It bothered Sebastian that he was not as convinced of that as he would like to have been.
There remained only one more door on this floor, not far from where the set of narrow steps led down to the basement kitchen. Crossing back across the corridor, he pressed down on the door latch.
It was locked.
At his feet, the black cat settled on its haunches and let out a soft mew.
“Yes, it is puzzling, isn’t it?” Sebastian said to the cat. “But I wish you would—”
He broke off as a muffled thump sounded from below.
Sebastian drew back from the top of the stairs, his spine pressed against the wall, the dagger from his boot in his hand. A faint glow, as if from a lantern, illuminated the stairwell leading up from the basement and threw the long shadows of two men across the far wall. A heavy footstep sounded on the stairs, then another.
“Meow,” went the cat.
The footsteps stopped.
“Meow.” Stretching to its feet, the cat arched its back and went to stand at the top of the stairs, its enormous fluffy tail lashing back and forth, green eyes glinting in the darkness.
“What in the name of all that’s ’oly is that?” demanded one of the men in a frightened whisper.
The second man answered, his voice older, harsher. “It’s a cat, you damn fool.” Sebastian heard a whacking sound, as if the older man had walloped his companion with his hat.
“Ow. What was that for?”
“Jist shut up and keep goin’.”
The footsteps resumed their cautious ascent.
Sebastian eased sideways deeper into the shadows cast by the open stair door and a massive bureau piled high with everything from a marble bust and Grecian urn to a jumble of elegant walking sticks. But there was no place to hide, and he couldn’t cross in front of the stairs or even slide back toward the dining room without moving into the men’s line of vision.
“Where do we look first?” whispered the younger man, his voice cracking with nerves.
“The parlor, I should think,” answered his companion.
“And if we don’t find it there?”
“Then we go through every bleedin’ room in the house till we do find it. What do ye think? Ye want to be the one to tell the gov’nor we failed?”
“No. But . . .” The footsteps halted again. “Morgan?”
“What? Now what are ye stoppin’ for?”
“Why’s the back door standin’ open?”
Sebastian could see the first housebreaker now. A tall, skinny lad dressed in a brown corduroy coat and baggy trousers, he held a shuttered horn lantern in one clenched fist, the muted light glowing golden on the smooth, unlined features of a youth probably no more than sixteen or eighteen. His gaze riveted on the open back door, he swallowed heavily, the movement visibly bobbing his Adam’s apple up and down. The lantern light quivered as his hand shook.
“What the ’ell?” said the older man, pausing on the step behind him.
“Ye think maybe the wind blew it open?”
“How the ’ell would I know? Go look.”
“Give me the pistol.”
&nbs
p; “Why? Ye think Rawhead and Bloodybones are gonna git ye?”
“Stop laughin’ at me and jist give me the pistol.”
The older man grumbled but handed over a heavy horse pistol that looked like a relic of the Thirty Years’ War.
Sebastian held himself utterly still as the young housebreaker passed in front of him, the light from the lantern playing over the walls and jumbled treasures of the corridor. If the man had simply glanced around, he would have seen Sebastian quite easily. But the lad’s attention was fixed on the open door and the windswept terrace beyond. He was so nervous, Sebastian could see the barrel of his gun shaking; the lantern light danced and quivered.
“Well?” demanded the older man, reaching the top step. He was slightly shorter than his companion but considerably bulkier, with a thick neck, a powerful chest, and heavily muscled arms and legs. His features were blunt, his nose large and crooked, his beetle-browed gaze fixed, like the younger man’s, on the door to the terrace.
Then he turned his head and saw Sebastian standing no more than five feet away from him.
Chapter 20
“W
hat the ’ell!”
Jerking a large, curving knife loose from the sheath at his side, the ruffian rushed at Sebastian, the blade held over his head in a backhanded grip.
Seizing a heavy brass walking stick from the clutter atop the bureau beside him, Sebastian swung it up to block the blade’s vicious downward slash. Metal clanged against metal. But the power behind the blow was so intense that the impact reverberated down Sebastian’s left arm, and he staggered.
The housebreaker recovered instantly, his lips curling away from his teeth in a fierce rictus, his grip on the knife shifting. “Shoot ’im!” he yelled to the younger man by the door.
“I can’t! Yer in the way,” he screeched, the gun held straight out in front of him in a trembling grip, his voice rising an octave as he fumbled to set down the lantern.
“Bloody bastard,” growled the thick-necked man. He lunged again, driving the knife straight toward Sebastian’s heart.
Dancing sideways an instant too late, Sebastian felt the blade slice through the flesh of his ribs as he pivoted and drove his own dagger deep into the ruffian’s chest.
“Morgan!” cried the man from the doorway.
For one suspended moment, the ruffian froze, his heavy features a study in astonishment. Then he crumpled.
Sebastian tried to wrench his dagger free and felt it catch on the man’s ribs as he fell.
“You killed my brother!” screamed the young man at the door, the pistol held before him, his left hand coming up to steady his grip. His finger was just tightening on the trigger when the black cat stretched up and sank the claws of both front paws into his leg.
The man let out a sharp yelp. Belching flame, the pistol exploded in a deafening roar that filled the corridor with pungent smoke and a shower of pulverized plaster as the shot buried itself in the ceiling.
His jaw sagging in fear and fresh horror, the younger man threw away the now useless pistol and bolted out the door.
Sebastian wrenched his dagger free from the dead man’s chest with a violent shove that sent the body tumbling and thumping down the stairs. He could hear the younger man crashing through the overgrown wreck of a garden, frantic, stumbling blindly. By the time Sebastian erupted out the door into the wet, windblown night, the housebreaker was nearly to the ruined stables.
Gripping the gory dagger in his fist, Sebastian dashed across the terrace and leapt down the steps. A sharp branch snagged his coat; he jerked and heard the cloth rip as he pushed on. He could see the young housebreaker’s slim frame silhouetted against the night sky as he scrambled up the pile of fallen bricks that marked the crumbling wall at the base of the garden.
“What do ye want from me?” he screamed, pausing to grab one of the loose bricks and chuck it at Sebastian’s head.
Sebastian ducked. “I want to know who sent you.”
“Go to ’ell.”
Collecting his feet beneath him, the lad jumped. Sebastian heard his body hit the other side with a splat, then the plopping squish of running feet flailing through mud.
Sebastian climbed after him, the half-collapsed wall shifting ominously beneath him as he dropped lightly onto the far side.
He found himself in a muddy, rubbish-strewn alley hemmed in by high walls on either side. He could see the lad dashing frantically for the distant street, his feet slipping and sliding in the muck as he ran.
Sebastian pelted after him, then drew up sharply as the dark outline of a carriage loomed at the end of the alley. The near door flew open, the long, dark barrel of a rifle poking out into the night.
“Shit,” he swore, instinctively ducking his head as he dove into the shadows of the wall beside him. He hit the cold mud and said, “Shit,” again as he slid face-first through what smelled like a heap of rotting cabbage leaves mingled with a pile of fresh horse dung. Looking up, he saw a spurt of flame, heard the crack of a rifle shot cut through the night.
But the unseen man in the carriage was not shooting at Sebastian.
Some twenty feet from the end of the alley, the young housebreaker stumbled, his body jerking, his torso twisting, his knees buckling beneath him. The carriage’s driver whipped up his horses; the vehicle lurched into the night, trace chains jangling, wheels clattering over the cobbles.
Swiping at the mud and muck on his face, Sebastian went to hunker down beside the boy and draw his trembling, bloody body into his arms. “Who hired you?” Sebastian asked, lifting him.
The lad shook his head and coughed, his eyes scared, one clawlike hand digging into Sebastian’s arm.
“Tell me, damn it! Don’t you understand? Whoever they are, they just killed you.”
But the light was already fading from the boy’s eyes, the tension in his body easing, the fierce grip on Sebastian’s arm loosening, falling.
“Son of a bitch,” swore Sebastian. Heedless of the mud, he sank back on his haunches, the dead boy still gripped in his arms. “Son of a bitch,” he said again.
And then he said it a third time. “Son of a bitch.”
Hero was dressed and seated beside the fire in her bedchamber, the ancient Hebrew manuscript open on her lap, when Devlin walked in, bringing with him a pungent odor of rotten cabbage, horse manure, and mud. He’d already stripped off his coat and boots, but his face, waistcoat, and breeches were liberally smeared with muck, and he held a longhaired black cat tucked up under one arm.
The manuscript slid to the floor, forgotten, as she started at him. “Devlin. Good God. Are you all right?”
“What are you doing up?” he asked as the cat gave a disgruntled howl and leapt from his arms.
“I couldn’t sleep. What happened? And what are you doing with that cat?”
“He claims I owe him since he saved my life, although I maintain he was only returning the favor.”
She started to laugh. Then she noticed the dark red sheen mingled with the muck on his waistcoat and the laughter died on her lips. “Is that your blood?”
“Only some of it.” He headed for his dressing room, stripping off clothes as he went.
She followed him. “How much of it?”
He yanked off his ruined waistcoat, his nose wrinkling as he tossed it aside. “My apologies for the aroma. I fear I slid through someone’s garbage pile. Calhoun isn’t going to be happy. I think that waistcoat was his favorite.”
“How much of it?” she demanded again, helping him ease his ripped shirt over his head. He tried to turn away, but she saw the long purple slit that cut across his ribs and caught his arm. “Devlin—”
He squinted down at it. “It’s not deep.”
“Why didn’t you go to Gibson and get it sewn up?”
“It’s n
ot that bad.”
“You could get lockjaw from it!”
“Sewing it up wouldn’t prevent that, now, would it?”
She gave him a look that needed no accompanying words and turned toward the bellpull. “If nothing else, you need to wash it well with hot water. I’m ringing for Calhoun.”
“Good God, no; it’s nearly four in the morning.”
She let her hand fall to her side and turned toward the door. “Very well. I’ll go down into the kitchen and heat some water myself.”
He let her ring for Calhoun.
Afterward, she curled up on the rug beside his chair while he sat before the fire, a glass of brandy in his hand, and told her what had happened.
“What do you think those men were looking for?” she asked when he had finished. “The blue diamond Collot told you about?”
He took a long, slow sip of his brandy. “I suppose it’s possible, but I doubt it. I think whatever is going on here is far more serious than some diamond—however big it might be.”
“Are you certain the rifleman in that carriage was shooting at the young housebreaker and not you?”
“If he was aiming at me, he’s an appalling shot.”
“Most people are.”
“Not this one. He hit the lad square in the chest, killing him almost instantly.”
She kept her gaze on the cat, who was giving himself a long, fastidious bath beside the hearth. “You think he was killed to keep him from revealing who hired him?”
“I think it likely, yes.”
“But . . . why? Why not simply haul the lad into the carriage and whisk him safely away?”
“He said the man I killed in the house was his brother. I suppose that once we learned the identity of the dead man, it wouldn’t have been hard to track down the lad and find whoever was behind the attempted burglary.”
“But the man in the carriage had no way of knowing the older man was dead.”