by C. S. Harris
Hero rose to greet her. “Please don’t apologize. I’ve only just arrived myself.”
“Goodness, you’re as tall as your father,” said Victoria, standing on tiptoe to kiss her cheek.
“Nearly.” Compared to this delicate, diminutive cousin, Hero found herself feeling uncharacteristically awkward and overgrown.
Cousin Victoria laughed, revealing pretty white teeth and a dimple that peeked in one damask cheek. “I’ve heard so much about you from your mother, I feel as if I know you already.”
“Please accept my condolences on the death of your husband.”
“Oh, thank you.” Cousin Victoria cast a sad, trembling smile toward Hero’s mother. “I was on my way north to spend some time with John’s family in Norfolk when Cousin Annabelle so kindly invited me to break my journey with her for a few weeks.”
Lady Jarvis reached out to press her young relative’s hand. “The pleasure is all mine, my dear; believe me.”
“My mother tells me you’ve just come from Spain,” said Hero, resuming her seat. “Is it true what they’re saying—that our armies will soon be over the Pyrenees?”
Cousin Victoria sank into a chair near the hearth. “Undoubtedly. Oh, there may be a few French strongholds left in the Peninsula. But I believe Wellington intends to simply bypass them and press forward into France, driving all the way to Paris.”
“This is good news,” said Lady Jarvis, pouring her young relative a cup of tea.
“Yes. But then, our cause is just, which means our victory has always been inevitable.”
“You sound like my father,” said Hero, smiling.
Cousin Victoria nodded and reached for her cup. “Lord Jarvis was telling me something of his plans for the restructuring of Europe just last night.”
For one long, awkward moment, Hero could only stare at the woman before her. Jarvis? Jarvis had not only condescended to entertain his wife’s female guest, but actually discussed his plans for a post-Napoleonic Europe with her?
Jarvis?
“I was relieved to hear the Prince is dedicated to seeing Europe’s monarchs restored to the thrones God gave them,” said Cousin Victoria, sipping her tea.
Hero cleared her throat. “So he is. Although there’s no denying that what God gives he can also take away—as we have seen.”
“True,” agreed the widow. “But he is now guiding our forces to victory, is he not?”
“God and Wellington,” said Hero.
Cousin Victoria tilted her head to one side and laughed again with delight. She was some two or three years older than Hero, in her late twenties, with finely molded features and a milky-white complexion untouched by a lifetime spent in hotter climes. And it occurred to Hero, watching her, that Jarvis’s indulgence of the young widow shouldn’t have surprised her as much as it had. Jarvis had always enjoyed beautiful women, and Victoria Hart-Davis possessed precisely the sort of looks Jarvis admired most: petite and fair, with the same sky blue eyes that had once attracted him to Hero’s mother.
It was a thought that disturbed Hero more than she could have explained.
Chapter 6
A few inquiries on the streets of Clerkenwell led Sebastian to what was known as Coldbath Square, where he found Constable Mott Gowan eating an eel pie from a cart parked along one side of the square.
Developed as a grand, marble-lined medicinal bath late in the seventeenth century, the famous Cold Bath was nearly hidden by a tall brick wall above which only the bathhouse’s steeply gabled roof and the autumn-tinged golds and reds of the garden’s treetops were visible. The houses fronting three sides of the square had been built by speculators with grand hopes of seeing Clerkenwell turn into a fashionable resort. But the construction of the massive Middlesex House of Correction on the fourth side of the square had seriously undermined the prestige of the neighborhood.
“Aye, I’m the one took Benji’s body to Gibson,” said Mott Gowan in answer to Sebastian’s question. The constable was a tall, lanky man in his late thirties or early forties, his hair straight and sandy colored, his face bony and dominated by a prominent square jaw. “That Hatton Garden magistrate, Sir Arthur, he was all for dumpin’ the lad’s remains in the poor hole of St. James’s and forgettin’ about him. I said I’d see him given a proper burial, and I will.” The man’s eyes narrowed. “Didn’t say I wouldn’t try to figure out what happened to him, first, though.”
“Do you recognize this?” asked Sebastian, holding up the battered hat he had brought from the shot factory.
“Don’t think so. Why?”
“I found it at the bottom of Benji’s grave. Was it his?”
Gowan shook his head. “I don’t rightly know.”
“Could the watchman or one of the constables have dropped it?”
Gowan frowned. “It’s a pretty sorry-lookin’ hat.”
“Do you remember seeing it there last night?”
“No. But then, it was awful dark and foggy. I didn’t look around much. And after that, the constables from Hatton Garden Public Office took over.” Gowan’s scowl deepened. There was obviously considerable animosity between the parish constables and the public office constables.
“How well did you know Benji?” asked Sebastian.
“I’ve known him and his sister, Sybil, for years. Their da used t’ be a watchmaker over in St. John’s Place, afore he died back in ’aught-eight. Annie—that’s their momma—she managed to keep ’em for a while, takin’ in washin’ and such. But then she took sick—real sick. Seemed like every week Benji was haulin’ somethin’ down to the secondhand stalls, sellin’ this and that—anything to buy food and pay the rent. But in the end there weren’t nothin’ left to sell, and their landlord kicked ’em out.”
“So they were already living on the street when their mother was arrested?”
The constable nodded glumly. “Even if Annie had got to feelin’ better, she wouldn’t have been able to take in washin’ no more. How could she, without her kettles?” His massive jaw worked as he chewed a large mouthful of his pie and swallowed. “I ain’t sayin’ it’s right, what Annie done—takin’ that card o’ lace from Miss Tilly’s shop. But what else was she gonna do? Other than turn to whorin’, and she said she couldn’t bring herself to do that.”
Sebastian glanced up as a cool breeze shifted the leaves of the trees on the far side of the wall. A woman turning to prostitution risked being sent to the Bridewell. But if she were caught stealing anything worth more than a pittance, she could hang. “She was sent to Botany Bay?”
Gowan took another big bite of his pie. “Aye. Scheduled to hang at first, she was. But the sentence was commuted to seven years’ transportation at the end of the sessions. She begged ’em to let her take the children with her—didn’t have no family hereabouts t’ leave ’em with. But the magistrates wouldn’t do it. Said Benji and Sybil was old enough to fend fer themselves.” The constable shook his head. “Sybil was five at the time. How was she supposed to fend fer herself?”
Sebastian stared across Baynes Row at the gloomy gray walls of the prison, where a group of laughing, half-grown boys were playfully pushing and shoving one another. He’d heard of children as young as two being left screaming on the docks as their hysterical mothers were rowed out to the convict ships.
“Benji weren’t much more’n a little nipper himself,” Gowan said. “But he stepped up and took care of his sister, he did.”
“Have you seen Sybil since Benji was killed?”
“No.” Gowan swallowed the last of his eel pie and wiped his greasy fingers on the seat of his breeches. “Ain’t nobody seen neither of ’em these past three or four days. I been askin’ around, but it looks like whoever killed Benji musta got Sybil too. And if they’re doin’ to her what they done to that poor lad—” The man’s voice cracked, and he simply shook his head.
“When were t
hey last seen?”
“Well . . . I seen Benji meself with one of his friends down in Hockley-in-the-Hole Friday ev’ning. I don’t think Sybil was with ’em, but she may’ve been.”
“How old is she now?”
Gowan frowned in thought. “Must be seven or eight, I s’pose. But she’s a fey little thing. Don’t look near so big.”
“Light blond hair, same as Benji?”
The constable blew out a long, troubled breath. “Aye. Got her momma’s blue eyes too.”
“Where did Benji and his sister used to sleep?”
“Anywhere they could. When he had a spare penny or two, Benji’d sometimes buy space for ’em on a bed in one of the flophouses. But that weren’t often.”
“I hear Benji was a thief. Is that true?”
Gowan rubbed the back of his neck. “I s’pose. Oh, he’d run errands and help muck out the stables at the Red Lion when he could. But he weren’t real strong. Who’s gonna hire a slight boy like him to do hard work—not when they can get some big, strappin’ lad for the same wages?”
The bell of the nearby church of St. James began to toll the hour, its steady peal echoed by that of the old medieval chapel of the Hospitallers that lay beyond it in St. John’s Close. Sebastian said, “Do you know what time it was when Rory Inchbald found the boy’s body?”
“Well, let’s see. . . . The watch come and got me just afore two, so I reckon it was maybe one or half past.”
It fit with what the ex-soldier had told him. Sebastian said, “Did you get a good look at what had been done to Benji before he was killed?”
As Sebastian watched, the skin seemed to draw tight across the prominent bones of the constable’s face and his voice dropped to a whisper as he nodded. “It’s why I took the boy’s body to Paul Gibson. It ain’t normal, what was done to him.”
“Gibson says Benji was tortured over a period of two or three days. Do you know anyone who might do something like that?”
“Good Lord. I hope not. You’d be able to tell, wouldn’t you? If somebody you knew was that twisted? That sick in the head?”
Sebastian wasn’t so sure about that, but all he said was, “Did Benji ever have anything to do with any of the gentlemen around here?”
“Gentlemen? Not that I know of. Why?”
“Rory Inchbald claims he saw another man that night in addition to the boy digging the grave. A gentleman.”
The constable grunted. “Huh. I know he says he saw a second fellow in a cart. But he never said nothin’ to me about it being a gentleman. I wouldn’t put too much stock in anything Inchbald tells you.” Gowan leaned forward to tap one forefinger against the side of his head. “Ain’t right in here, I’m afraid.”
“You think he made that part up?”
“Let’s just say Inchbald hates gentlemen. When he was in the army, some lord’s son had him flogged to within an inch of his life for somethin’ Inchbald claims he didn’t do.” Gowan hesitated, then added, “Wouldn’t turn my back on him if I was you. You know what I mean?”
Sebastian watched as a man leading a donkey loaded with lumpy sacks of coal turned the corner near the band of ragged boys. The coal man was aged and stooped, his clothes and face black with coal dust. “What if the killers don’t have Sybil?” said Sebastian. “What if she’s frightened and hiding? Where do you think she would go?”
Gowan shook his head, his gaze, like Sebastian’s, on the gang of boys now moving to range themselves across Coppice Row. “Can’t think of anyplace I ain’t already searched. But you might try askin’ Benji’s friends. I know they been lookin’ for her too—lookin’ for both of ’em till we found what was left of Benji yesterday mornin’.”
“Do you know his friends’ names?”
“Well, let’s see. . . . There’s Toby Dancing. He’s the one I was tellin’ you I seen with Benji on Friday.” Gowan nodded to the pack of ragged, dirty boys that had now formed a ring around the old coal man and his donkey. “And Jem Jones—the tall lad with the red kerchief knotted around his neck you see there—he’s one of Benji’s mates too.” The constable raised his voice. “Hey, Jem! Aye, I’m talkin’ to you, lad,” he said when Jem’s head jerked around, his eyes widening, his gangly body tensing.
For a moment, Sebastian thought the boy meant to run. Then Gowan said, “No; don’t lope off. You ain’t done nothin’—leastways, nothin’ I know about. But there’s a lord here wants t’ ask you some questions about Benji.”
Jem Jones hesitated, then came toward them with dragging steps.
“Are ye really a lord?” he asked Sebastian, awe chasing doubt and mistrust across his features as he drew up eight to ten feet away. An underfed, long-legged lad, he could have been anywhere between a big fourteen and a small eighteen. His face was thin and nondescript, his hair a dirty light brown, his eyes a washed-out gray.
“Of course he’s a real lord,” snapped Gowan. “Viscount Devlin to you, lad. So you mind your manners, you hear? And you lot,” he shouted, flapping his arms at the circle of boys as they began to close in on the coal man. “Stop that!” He pushed away from the wall. “Excuse me, my lord,” he said in a rush and trotted across the street just as the donkey let out a panicked bray.
Jem Jones stayed where he was, his narrowed gaze fixed on Sebastian. “Why ye want to know about Benji?”
“I’m trying to discover who killed him.”
“You? But . . . why?”
“Because no one else seems likely to make the effort.”
Jem sniffed. “Mick Swallow disappeared last year, and nobody ever tried to figure out who killed him.”
“Was his body found?”
“No.”
“So what makes you think he was killed?”
“’Cause one day he was here and the next day he wasn’t. He’d’ve told me if he was gonna go off somewheres. He’s my cousin.”
It occurred to Sebastian that if the ex-soldier hadn’t interrupted the digging of Benji Thatcher’s grave, Benji would simply have disappeared too, just like Sybil. And he felt a whisper of dread, a sense of standing on the precipice of something ominous. “Do street children disappear around here very often?”
“Often enough.”
“How often?”
Jem twitched. “I dunno. Every few months or so. Sometimes they come back. But mostly they just stay gone.”
Sebastian kept his gaze on the boy’s thin, grubby face. “What do you think happened to Sybil and Benji and your cousin?”
Jem played with the frayed cuff of his cut-down man’s shirt.
“Tell me,” said Sebastian.
The boy’s chin jerked up, his chest lifting as he sucked in a quick, deep breath. “I reckon somebody snatched ’em; that’s what. Snatched ’em all.”
“Any idea who might be doing it?”
Jem set his jaw and stared back at Sebastian, his entire body stiff with hostility and distrust.
“You know, don’t you?” said Sebastian.
“No.” The boy gave a quick shake of his head. “Nobody knows.”
“But you have some suspicions.”
Jem kept shaking his head. “No. It’s just—” He broke off to cast a quick, apprehensive glance around. Constable Gowan, the coal man and his donkey, and Jem Jones’s friends had all disappeared.
“Just—?” prompted Sebastian.
“Well, there’s talk about what he is.”
“Oh? What do they say he is?”
Jem tensed again, and for a moment Sebastian thought this time he really would run off rather than answer. Then the boy gulped and said in a whispered rush, “Folks say it’s a gentleman.”
At some level, Sebastian realized, he hadn’t actually believed Rory Inchbald’s tale of seeing a “gentleman” that night. Now it seemed considerably more likely that the ex-soldier had been telling the truth. Sebas
tian kept his gaze on the boy’s face. “What makes people think that?”
“I dunno. It’s just what they say.”
“Who says?”
Jem’s gaze flicked, significantly, over Sebastian’s neatly tailored coat and doeskin breeches. “Just . . . folks.”
Sebastian was beginning to realize he’d made a mistake in driving directly to Clerkenwell after leaving Gibson’s surgery. He should have gone back to Brook Street and changed into the kind of old-fashioned frock coat, greasy breeches, and broken-down boots that were sold by the secondhand clothing stalls of Rosemary Lane. Amongst the poorest, roughest elements of places like Clerkenwell, a gentleman was more than an outsider; he was an enemy.
Sebastian said, “I understand Benji has another friend, a lad named Toby Dancing. Do you know where I might find him?”
“Nah. He was always more Benji’s friend than mine.”
“Constable Gowan tells me you’ve been looking for Benji’s sister, Sybil.”
The question seemed to take Jem by surprise. He hesitated a moment, as if fearing some sort of trick. “Aye.”
“You’ve found no trace of her?”
“No.”
“If Benji’s killers don’t have her, do you have any idea where she could be?”
The lad’s lip curled in a sneer. “If I knew, then I’d look there, now, wouldn’t I?”
“So you would. And where have you looked?”
Something pinched the boy’s dirty features, a hint of some emotion that was there and then gone. “Around.”
“If you find any trace of her, or hear anything that might help us understand what happened to Benji, you’ll tell Constable Gowan?”
Jem nodded, his eyes narrowed and flinty, and Sebastian knew it for a lie.
Sebastian gave up then and turned toward where he’d left Tom with the horses. He’d almost reached the curricle when he heard footsteps running after him and swung about.
Jem skidded to a halt, his chest jerking.
“Finally remember something?” asked Sebastian.