Why Mermaids Sing: A Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery

by C. S. Harris

  An indefinable quiver passed over Sir Henry’s normally bland features. “Yes. Unfortunately, his lordship was rather upset by the choice of surgeon for his son’s postmortem.”

  “As well as by my possible involvement in the investigation into the circumstances of his death, I gather?”

  Sir Henry blinked. “As a matter of fact, yes. How did you know?”

  Sebastian simply shook his head. “Where does his lordship say his son spent last night?”

  “It seems the boy made one of a party of friends who rode down to Merton Abbey for yesterday’s prizefight.”

  Bare-knuckle boxing was illegal and could, technically, be stopped by the magistrates, which is why the matches were typically held several hours’ ride from London. But the match between the Champion and his Scottish challenger, McGregor, had been the subject of such intense speculation there couldn’t be a magistrate in the area who hadn’t been aware of it.

  “They set out from London for Merton Abbey as a group, just before eleven yesterday morning,” Sir Henry was saying.

  “So what happened?”

  “Mr. Stanton was expected home for a dinner party his mother was giving. He never arrived.” Sir Henry paused. “Lady Stanton is said to be hysterical.”

  The bells of Westminster Abbey began to chime the hour, the rich notes floating out over the city. “Do you have the names of these friends?”

  “Yes. Young Lord Burlington, Sir Miles Jefferies’s son Davis, and a Charlie McDermott. At the moment they’re gathered at a pub in Fleet Street. I was just on my way there to interview them.”

  Sebastian squinted against the bright September sun. “Let me approach them first.”

  He was aware of Sir Henry studying him. “I didn’t think you were interested in the case, my lord.”

  Sebastian gave a grim smile and turned away. “I’ve changed my mind.”

  Chapter 7

  The Boar’s Head on Fleet Street was one of those comfortable old pubs with dark paneled walls and low ceilings that reminded their patrons of winter evenings spent tucked away in the cozy Jacobin inns of Leicester and Derby, Northampton and Worcestershire. Sebastian supposed it was that warm familiarity that had made it an attractive refuge for three young men with bruised spirits and aching memories.

  Ordering a pint of ale, Sebastian paused beside the low, ancient bar. The three friends huddled around a table in the corner, unaware of his presence. A somber group, they sat with shoulders hunched, hands cupped around pewter tankards, chins sunk in ambitiously tied cravats. Occasionally one would make a comment and the others would nod. No one laughed.

  The eldest of the three, Davis Jefferies, was but twenty, a slight, incredibly gaunt young man who looked more like sixteen. To his left sat Charlie McDermott, another slim youth with the pale skin and flaming red hair of the far north. Only Lord Burlington, a baron’s son from Nottingham who’d come into his title as a child, approached Dominic Stanton in size and bulk.

  Sebastian watched the men for a time, then walked over to their table, pulled out a chair, and sat down. Three startled pairs of eyes turned toward him. “I’d like a few words with you gentlemen,” he said quietly, “if you don’t mind?”

  The three exchanged hurried glances. “No. Of course not,” said Jefferies, stammering slightly. “How may we help you, my lord?”

  “I understand you attended yesterday’s mill down at Merton Abbey.”

  Jefferies hesitated a moment, then said, “Yes.”

  “With Mr. Dominic Stanton?”

  The redheaded Scotsman, McDermott, spoke up, saying in a rush, “I beg your pardon, my lord, but what is this about?”

  Sebastian leaned back in his chair. “I’m wondering if you know of anyone Stanton might have angered lately. A gentleman annoyed by Mr. Stanton’s attentions to his lady, perhaps? Or perhaps someone he bested in a game of chance or a wager?”

  The three were silent for a moment, thinking. Then Jefferies shook his head and said, “Dominic wasn’t much in the petticoat line. And he never could pick a winner—or run a bluff.”

  “Was he in any way acquainted with Mr. Barclay Carmichael?”

  “Are you roasting me? A bang-up Corinthian like Carmichael? No. We all admired him, but…that was it.”

  Burlington spoke up suddenly. “You’re trying to figure out who did it, aren’t you?” The boy’s face was pale and puffy. When Sebastian looked into his soft gray eyes, Burlington glanced quickly away.

  “Do you have any ideas about what happened to him?”

  All three boys shook their heads, their eyes wide.

  “Where did you gentlemen go after yesterday’s fight?”

  “To the White Monk,” said McDermott. “Outside Merton Abbey.”

  “Until when?”

  “Just before midnight. But Dominic left long before that. His mother wanted him home for some dinner party she was giving.”

  “So he left alone?”

  Again, the three exchanged glances. It was Burlington who swallowed and licked his lips before answering. “He asked me to go with him. Said he didn’t want to ride back to London by himself. But I just laughed at him. Made fun of him. Told him he was acting like a shrieking little housemaid.” The boy’s voice cracked and he looked away again, blinking rapidly.

  “What time did he leave?”

  “About half past five, I’d say?” McDermott looked around the table for confirmation. The other two nodded their heads. “Yes. Half past five.”

  “Driving himself in his curricle?”

  “No. We all rode. Dominic has—had,” he corrected himself quickly, “a sweet-going little mare named Roxanne. Last I heard, she was missing, too.”

  “What does she look like?”

  “A dapple gray. With four white socks and a white blaze.”

  Sebastian pushed back his chair, then hesitated. “You said Mr. Stanton was nervous. Was he often so?”

  “Dominic? No. At least, not until lately.”

  “When you say lately, what exactly do you mean?”

  Again there was that brief consensus taking. “The last month?” said Jefferies. “Maybe more.”

  “Do you know what was making him nervous?”

  The question was met with a heavy silence. After a moment Burlington cleared his throat and said, “He thought someone was following him. Watching him.”

  “Did he ever see anyone?”

  “No. No one. It was just a feeling he had. He was spooked. It’s why we all laughed at him. God help us. We laughed at him.”

  Chapter 8

  Riding his neat little black Arab, Sebastian took the road south from London toward Merton Abbey, following in reverse the route Dominic Stanton would have taken the night before.

  The afternoon was hot, the sun a golden blaze of late-summer glory. By now the traces of last night’s rain had been reduced to an occasional patch of mud drying quickly in the heat. Insects whined; the ripe, uncut fields of wheat and rye stood motionless, unstirred by any breeze. When a stand of oaks and chestnuts near the base of a hill closed around him, Sebastian welcomed the shade.

  The road had proved to be little traveled. Sebastian suspected that even with yesterday’s mill, by the time Dominic Stanton left the White Monk on the outskirts of Merton Abbey, the surge of spectators returning to London would have already passed. Sebastian might welcome the coolness of this shady wood, but for a young man riding at dusk, alone and frightened by an unseen menace, the shadowy copse must have seemed anything but pleasant.

  Sebastian slowed his horse to a walk.

  The ground here fell away to the east, deep into a rocky gulley where the trees grew close and tangled with vines. As Sebastian scanned the sides of the track, he noticed his mare’s ears flick forward and back. Tossing her head, she whinnied softly. Sebastian reined in and listened. From the depths of the gully came a soft answering nicker.

  He found the gray deep in the gully, her trailing reins caught fast in a thicket. Dismounting, he a
pproached her with softly crooned words. “Easy there, girl. Easy.”

  She quivered a moment, her eyes wide, then hung her head. He stroked her neck and let her nuzzle his chest. Slowly, looking for traces of blood, he ran his hand over the saddle leather. His hand came away clean.

  “What happened, girl? Hmmm? Do you know?”

  He checked her hocks and hooves, but she seemed sound. Then, skimming his fingers along the girth, he found the place where a sharp knife had sliced through the strap. Not enough to cut it completely, but enough that it would eventually work itself loose and a rider would feel his saddle begin to slip.

  Leading the gray, Sebastian followed the faint trail of broken branches and bruised leaves back up to the road above. Last night’s rain coupled with the day’s traffic had obscured any trace that might have been left on the roadway itself. But at the edge beneath the trees, he found a place where the gray had trampled the earth with nervous sidling feet and, beyond that, tracks left by a two-wheeled carriage or cart that had pulled over to the soft verge. Whether the tracks had been laid down last night or at some other time, he had no way of knowing.

  He spent the next fifteen minutes walking the area, looking for any other indications of what might have happened there last night. He was about to give up when a flash of white caught his eye. Reaching down into a tangle of long grass, he found himself holding a small porcelain vial decorated with a blue-and-white flower pattern.

  He’d seen such vials before. They were imported by the thousands from China and the Far East. Raising the vial to his nostrils, he sniffed.

  And caught the familiar pungent scent of opium.

  Chapter 9

  Leading Dominic Stanton’s gray mare, Sebastian arrived at the White Monk in Merton Abbey to discover that Sir Henry Lovejoy’s constables had already done a commendable job of setting up the backs of every one of the White Monk’s ostlers and serving maids.

  Located on the outskirts of town, the White Monk was a rambling, half-timbered country inn with an old-fashioned cobbled yard and busy stables. “We musta ’ad a ’undred or more carriages and gigs through ’ere yesterday after the fight,” said the head ostler, fixing Sebastian with a malevolent glare. “Which one you askin’ about?”

  Sebastian bounced a half crown in his palm. “The one whose driver was behaving in some way out of the ordinary.”

  The ostler eyed the coin with undisguised longing. He was a thin, wiry man in his late fifties with gray stubble shadowing his cheeks and a prominent Adam’s apple that bobbed when he swallowed. “Didn’t see that one.”

  Sebastian tossed the coin into the air and caught it. “Do you recall which ostler took care of this gray?”

  “Aye. That were me.”

  “Really? Did you notice anything amiss with the saddle?”

  “Course not. Why you ask?”

  “Look at it now.”

  The ostler cast Sebastian a quizzing glance, then went to run an expert’s hand over the rig. At the sight of the cinch, he froze. He fingered the neatly sliced edge, his back held rigid, then swung slowly to face Sebastian.

  “You think I did this?”

  “No. I think you want this half crown. Who really took care of the mare?”

  The ostler hesitated, his chest rising with his labored breathing. At last he said, “It were me. But I swear to you, there weren’t nothin’ wrong with the cinch when I brung this horse to the young gentleman.”

  “At the time Mr. Stanton called for his mare, was there a crowd in the yard?”

  “Aye. More than a few. Why?”

  “Do you think one of them could have sliced the cinch?”

  The ostler squinted off across the cobbled yard to where a pair of geese was coming in to land on the holding pond, the rich light of the evening sun turning their outstretched white wings to gold. “I suppose it’s possible. But I didn’t see nothin’.”

  “Did you notice exactly who was in the yard at the time?”

  “No.” He shook his head with what looked like genuine regret. “Not that I recall.”

  The geese filled the air with their plaintive calls. “You’ve been most helpful,” said Sebastian, pressing the coin into the ostler’s palm. “Thank you.”

  Sebastian spent the next hour drinking a couple of pints of dark ale in the White Monk’s public room. Tonight, the patrons were all locals. But yesterday’s fight had brought a crowd of young men such as Dominic Stanton and his friends. Sebastian talked to a farmer with ruddy cheeks and a bulbous nose who remembered the young gentlemen clearly.

  “I’ve a son about their age myself,” said the farmer, wiping the foam from his upper lip with the back of one hand. “Those lads were in high spirits, to be sure. But no harm in that. A man’s only young once, I always say.”

  “They didn’t quarrel with anyone?” Sebastian asked.

  “Not that I saw.”

  Sebastian spent the next hour buying drinks and talking to the inn’s various patrons. But they all told him the same tale.

  Calling for his horse, he checked the cinch, then rode back to London, Dominic Stanton’s pretty little gray trotting contentedly behind him.

  Sebastian employed numerous servants, both at his house in London and at the small estate near Winchester left him by a maiden great-aunt. Many were family retainers; almost all were solid, respectable employees. Only one—a twelve-year-old former street urchin named Tom whom Sebastian had taken on as his tiger—was neither.

  Returning to the mews behind his Brook Street town house, Sebastian handed his black Arab into the care of one of his grooms. But he entrusted Dominic Stanton’s mare to Tom.

  “I suppose by now you know all about the body found in Old Palace Yard this morning,” said Sebastian.

  “Aye.” Tom ran an expert’s hand down the gray’s near flank and bent to study a gash Sebastian hadn’t even noticed. “Butchered like a side o’ beef, from what I ’ear. They’re callin’ the cove what did it the ‘Butcher o’ the West End.’”

  “Huh. Sir Henry won’t like that.”

  Tom’s nearly lashless gray eyes sparkled with expectation. “’E’s asked fer yer help, ain’t ’e?”

  “Hasn’t he,” corrected Sebastian absently. “How did you know that?”

  “I knows.”

  Sebastian eyed the brown-haired, sharp-faced lad beside him. “Any speculation on the streets as to who might be behind all of this?”

  “Oh, there’s plenty o’ spec-u-la-tion,” said Tom, pronouncing the word carefully. “People are sayin’ it’s everything from French devil worshippers to witches. But nobody really knows nothin’.” He patted the gray’s neck. “This ’is ’orse?”

  Sebastian nodded. “I found her just off the road to Merton Abbey.”

  Tom fingered the cut cinch and pushed a low whistle through the gap in his front teeth. “Look at that.”

  “Look at that, indeed.” Sebastian turned toward the house. “I want you to take the mare to Sir Henry in Queen Square. Tell him I have a few possibilities I intend to pursue.”

  “So we’re gonna be lookin’ into these murders, are we?” said Tom with obvious delight.

  Sebastian swung back around. “We?”

  But Tom only laughed.

  Chapter 10

  An hour later, Sebastian took the stairs of the theater’s Covent Garden entrance two at a time. The theater’s principal front, with its columned portico and classical bas-reliefs, faced onto Bow Street. But that entrance was still chained closed, for the theater did not officially open for the fall season until Monday night. Tonight’s performance was a dress rehearsal only.

  Handing a coin to the attendant, Sebastian hurried across the ornate box lobby. Even before he slipped into the row of empty boxes, he could hear a hard-pressed Petruchio exclaiming from the stage, “‘You lie, in faith; for you are call’d plain Kate, and bonny Kate, and sometimes Kate the curst. But Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom…’”

  Easing into a seat, Sebast
ian watched the woman on the stage below prop her hands on her hips and throw back her head. “‘Asses are made to bear,’” she told her theatrical suitor with a scornful curling of her lip, “‘and so are you.’” Then, for the briefest instant, her eyes lifted to the boxes and she smiled. She knew Sebastian was there.

  Her name was Kat Boleyn, and at twenty-three, she was the most acclaimed actress on the London stage, famous as much for her dark good looks and vivid blue eyes as for her considerable talent on the boards. Once, long ago, Sebastian had asked her to marry him. Much had happened since then, although her love for him remained undiminished. That, Sebastian knew. It was, after all, the selfless strength of her love for him that made Kat determined never to become his wife. She had this idea in her head that by marrying him she would destroy him, and nothing Sebastian could say or do would change her mind.

  As the dress rehearsal ended, Sebastian headed backstage. He found Kat seated at her dressing table, busy with the task of wiping greasepaint from her face. She looked up, her gaze meeting his in the mirror. She smiled. “I thought perhaps you meant to renege on your offer to escort me to supper tonight.”

  He pressed a kiss against the nape of her neck, where it arched delicately below the upswept tumble of her rich, auburn-lit hair. “I’ve been to Merton Abbey,” he said, resting one hip on the edge of her dressing table.

  “Merton Abbey?” She frowned. “Whatever for?”

  “It’s the last place anyone saw a young man named Dominic Stanton alive. Someone dumped his mutilated body in Old Palace Yard last night, and Sir Henry has asked for my assistance.”

  “You agreed?” He heard the concern in her voice, saw it in the way she searched his face. Of all the people in Sebastian’s world, only Kat—and perhaps the surgeon Paul Gibson—understood what his involvement in this murder would cost him. “Why?”

  Sebastian gave her a wry smile. “I’d like to think I agreed simply because Sir Henry asked it of me. But I suspect it’s also because the boy’s father warned me that it was none of my affair.”