by C. S. Harris
Cantrell was silent, his gaze on his ale, as if he might find the answer in its depths. His breath eased out in a long, painful gust. “They don’t stop,” he said quietly. “Once they get a taste for it, they don’t stop. They get some twisted, erotic pleasure out of causing other people pain and watching it. Only, it’s not just about sexual pleasure. It’s also about power. It’s as if his kind feed off the helplessness and fear of others—it makes them feel bigger than they know deep down inside they are. And it’s a sickness with no cure except death.”
Sebastian studied the Professor’s weathered, craggy face. There was a raw, personal edge to the old man’s anger, and for some reason Sebastian couldn’t have named he found himself thinking about the lord’s son Cantrell had killed so long ago.
You don’t get over an experience like that.
Cantrell sipped his ale. “Was Hamish able to tell you anything useful?”
“Not as much as I’d hoped, although he did reinforce my belief that it’s a gentleman we’re looking for. And his description of the old farmhouse where he was held should be useful—assuming of course that I can find it.” Sebastian reached for his hat as he rose to his feet. “I just hope to God it’s not some jumbled creation of the boy’s opium-fogged memories.”
“It could well be. Opium plays strange tricks on the mind.”
Sebastian met the old man’s worried gaze. “I know.”
• • •
Night had long since fallen by the time Sebastian collected his curricle and turned the horses toward home.
“Folks around Clerkenwell, they cain’t talk about nothin’ else but whoever’s been snatchin’ them children,” said Tom as they drove through cold, dark streets lit only by flaring torches and the occasional smoking oil lamp.
“Hear any theories as to who’s doing this?”
“Oh, aye; they’re blamin’ everythin’ from the Hammersmith ghost to Black Annis and a grindylow. Right scared, they are.”
“With good reason.” The chestnuts were restless and playful, having spent the better part of the last twelve hours eating their heads off in a stable near Coldbath Square. And as Sebastian brought them under control, it occurred to him that the events of the day had left his young tiger loitering about the dangerous streets of Clerkenwell, alone, for far too long.
“What we gonna do next?” asked Tom as they turned onto Holborn.
“There’s no ‘we,’ Tom,” said Sebastian, coming to a decision. “Not this time. We’re dealing with a killer who preys on boys your age, and that means I want you safely away from it all. Starting tomorrow I’ll be using Giles until I catch whoever’s doing this.”
“Gov’nor. No!”
Sebastian put a hard edge to his voice. “Let me make this clear: I’ll brook no arguments and humor no disobedience. If you bring the horses around again tomorrow morning, I’ll send you right back to the stables. Is that understood?”
The tiger sniffed.
“Understood?”
There was a long silence. Then the boy said in a small, tight voice. “Yes, my lord.”
After that, Tom subsided into a tense, wounded silence that endured the rest of the way home.
Sebastian ignored him. The tiger would survive his hurt feelings. But it was doubtful he’d be as lucky if he were to encounter the Clerkenwell killer.
• • •
“An old half-timbered farmhouse built like the Cat’s Tail?” said Jules Calhoun when Sebastian asked the valet if he knew of such a farmstead somewhere to the north of London.
“You’re familiar with the style?”
“I am, my lord. I remember there being a few such places near Islington when I was a lad. But they’re gone now.”
“This one is far enough outside London that it’s surrounded by fields, and it still retains some of its outbuildings—or at least it did as of last December. The boy thinks the barns are of gray stone, but he could be wrong.”
“I’ll ask around and see what I can find, my lord.”
“But watch yourself, Calhoun,” said Sebastian as the valet started to turn away. “This killer . . . He’s like nothing I’ve dealt with before. He doesn’t kill out of anger or greed or fear. He kills because he enjoys it.”
Calhoun nodded, his lips pressed into an unusually serious line. “I’ll be careful, my lord.”
• • •
Late that night, long after the lamplighter had passed on his rounds, Paul Gibson stood with his hands dangling at his sides, his gaze on the stacks of wooden boxes filled with what was left of the unknown, pitifully young victims from Clerkenwell. He’d lit the lantern and hung it from the chain above the stone slab in the center of the room. But he couldn’t seem to bring himself to move. He could feel the dank cold of the outbuilding seeping deep into the marrow of his being, and it was as if he were absorbing the horror of it, breathing it all in along with the scents of dirt and bones and death.
A whisper of sound brought his head around. Alexi stood in the doorway, a tiny, impossibly brilliant slip of a woman with a cloud of fiery red hair and a mysterious essence that somehow continued to elude him—even after eight months of going through the pattern of his days with her. Eight months of joining his body to hers at night.
She said, “Are you all right?”
“Sure, then. Simply feeling a touch overwhelmed, I suppose.”
“You’re certain that’s all there is to it?”
He met her gaze, and the moment stretched out to become one that required brutal honesty. He pressed his lips together in a tight line and shook his head. “After all those years of war, I thought I’d seen every horror mankind’s Manichean nature can produce. But I never expected to see something like this here. Not here, in London. I don’t know why, but to find this kind of savage cruelty in the midst of normal, everyday life makes it somehow worse.”
She came to lay her hand against his cheek and look at him with her wise brown eyes. And he found himself wondering not for the first time what she saw in him. Why she stayed. Why she loved him.
She said, “How’s the leg?”
He could lie. He could tell her it hurt like the bejesus. He could use it as an excuse to take refuge in the sweet, soothing bliss of opium. But the truth was the leg troubled him little at the moment, despite a day spent cramped in awkward positions in the cold. Because it wasn’t actually his leg that hurt; when the agony came, it emanated inexplicably from the foot and part of his leg that were no longer there.
He gave her a crooked smile. “Not so bad.”
She didn’t smile back, just drew a deep breath that parted her lips. “One of these days you’re going to need to find your way to letting me help you with that.”
“One of these days.”
“Soon,” she said. And he felt his old fear grip him—the fear that eventually she would leave him whether he managed to free himself from the opium’s death grip or not.
And then he wondered what she had seen in his eyes, because she said, her voice husky with its evocatively lilting French accent, “It’s late. Late and cold. I’ll help you wash these bones tomorrow. But now—” She smiled and took his hand to lay it on her breast and hold it there. “Come inside.”
And so he did.
Chapter 35
That evening after dinner, Sebastian paid a rare visit to Hendon House in Grosvenor Square.
He found the man he’d once called Father seated alone at his dining table, a glass of port at his elbow and his white head bowed over the well-worn collection of Cicero’s orations lying open before him.
“I should think you’d be able recite those by now, as much as you read them,” said Sebastian, pausing in the doorway.
Hendon looked up, the leap of joy in his eyes painful to see. But all he said was, “I find a never-ending delight in the man’s incomparable use of language.”
He closed the volume and pushed it aside. “Pour yourself a glass and sit.”
Sebastian brought a glass from the sideboard and came to pull out a nearby chair. “I spoke to Amanda. She wouldn’t listen.”
“I know; she told me. At least you tried. Thank you.”
Sebastian poured himself a measure of port and settled back in his chair. It felt unexpectedly comfortable and right, to be sitting in this familiar, candlelit dining room, drinking port with this man and listening to the fire crackle on the hearth. He pushed the thought away and said, “Unfortunately, I’ve discovered Ashworth is even worse than I knew. Have you ever heard of Number Three, Pickering Place?”
Hendon shook his head.
“It’s an exclusive but nasty little establishment that caters to two main types of customers: those who like their prostitutes very, very young and those with a taste for flagellation. Or both.”
Hendon reached for his port and took a long, slow swallow. “You’re telling me Ashworth frequents this place?”
“He did until he hurt one of their girls so badly they blackballed him.”
“My God.”
“I tried talking to Stephanie, but she refuses to hear anything to Ashworth’s discredit.”
Hendon fingered the stem of his glass, his lower jaw working back and forth in that way he had when he was thinking or troubled.
Sebastian said, “There’s more.”
Hendon looked up, tensing.
“He’s also been known to take a whip to at least one of his housemaids. He says the girl was willing, but I’m not convinced. And the most worrisome part is that the girl has now disappeared.”
“Stephanie can’t marry him.”
“Unfortunately I don’t see how we can stop her,” said Sebastian, unconsciously bringing up a hand to touch the cut on his forehead.
Hendon said, “What happened to your face?”
Sebastian let his hand fall. “Someone tried to kill me last night.”
“Good God. Who?”
“Hirelings. I don’t know who they worked for.”
“They? How many were there?”
“Two.”
“Two? And you still managed to fight them off?”
“Yes.”
Hendon’s eyes narrowed. “You killed them, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Amanda told me you’ve involved yourself in another murder inquiry.”
“Yes.”
Hendon’s nostrils flared with a predictable combination of anger and concern. “I’d hoped you were done with that nonsense.”
Sebastian felt his own irritation rising, for this was an old, familiar, and aggravating source of contention between the two men. Rather than answer, he reached for his port and drained the glass.
Hendon said, “When’s the inquest for these men you killed?”
Sebastian pushed to his feet. “First thing tomorrow morning at the King’s Head in Swallow Street.”
“Do you expect trouble?”
“Not really.” He reached for his hat and turned to leave.
Hendon said, “What murder are you investigating?”
Sebastian paused to look back at him. “Amanda didn’t say?”
“No.”
“Someone’s been killing poor children. Out at Clerkenwell.”
“Children? God help us. Do you know who’s responsible?”
We all are, Sebastian wanted to say. You. Me. This city. This nation. Everyone who ever saw a cold, hungry child alone on the streets and simply looked away.
But all he said was, “Not yet,” and left it at that.
• • •
An hour later Sebastian poured himself a brandy, settled beside his own library fire, and opened the Marquis de Sade’s Les 120 journées de Sodome. He’d been avoiding reading it. But he was beginning to realize that if he were to have any hope of bringing this killer to justice he needed to understand what was driving him. Only, how could he ever understand such a twisted mind?
He was vaguely familiar with some of de Sade’s other works. But this one was far different in degree if not exactly in kind. It was as if the infamous Marquis had taken a lifetime’s frustration and rage and poured it forth in a vile torrent of horror, blasphemy, debauchery, sickening imagery, and unimaginably fiendish cruelties. At several points Sebastian was tempted to set the book aside. He kept going only with difficulty. And with each page, it got worse. He hadn’t realized it was possible for a book to be both repulsive and achingly boring at the same time.
He was perhaps three-quarters of the way through when Hero came to lean over the back of his chair. “I’m not sure it’s wise to read that before trying to sleep.”
He looked up at her. “You read it?”
“I did.”
“The entire thing?”
“Yes.”
Sebastian closed the book and set it aside. “I don’t think I can.”
She came around to settle on the rug at his feet, her back resting against his chair. “Frankly, I wish I had not.”
They sat for a time in a troubled, companionable silence, listening to the hiss of the fire on the hearth and the quiet whispers of the night around them.
Sebastian said, “Is he mad, do you think?”
“De Sade? He is certainly troubled. But I think he had a definite purpose in writing that book.”
“What? To amass a catalogue of every horror ever imagined by mankind—and then some? If so, he succeeded.”
“Perhaps. But I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the four perpetrators of all that fiendishly debauched cruelty are wealthy, powerful men: a banker, a bishop, a judge, and a duke. Or that the victims of their unbridled excesses are all poor.”
Sebastian played with a dark curl that lay against the nape of her neck. “You think he was making a political statement?”
“Political and philosophical.” She shifted to face him. “After all, there’s a reason he was in the Bastille. And I doubt it’s because the French King was troubled by the Marquis’s unorthodox antics with his valet and some servant girl.”
“Well, he was an admirer of the Revolution—until their excesses disgusted even him.” Sebastian paused. “Which is rather horrifying to think about.”
She took his hands in hers. “Frankly, I think it’s a pity the manuscript wasn’t lost in the destruction of the Bastille, the way de Sade thought it was. The world would have been better off without it.”
“Yes.”
She ran the pads of her thumbs across the backs of his hands. “You think this book could be inspiring the Clerkenwell killer?”
Sebastian shook his head. “I doubt our killer needs de Sade for inspiration. But I can see how someone who enjoys inflicting pain would enjoy reading it.” He nodded to the ornate black leather volume on the table beside him. “There’s a line in there that echoes something Hamish told me his captor kept repeating to him, about true pleasure coming only through pain.”
“It’s possible that line can be found in some of de Sade’s other works.”
“Perhaps. But I suspect anyone who admires de Sade enough to quote him would want to own this book. Which means I probably need to take another look at the comte de Brienne and Hector Kneebone.”
She was silent for a moment.
“What?” he asked, watching her.
“You’ve eliminated Ashworth as a suspect?”
“Not entirely. But that’s mainly because I don’t like him. The fact that he was with Amanda when Benji was killed really should rule him out.”
“And my dear cousin Sir Francis Rowe?”
“He also has an alibi—courtesy of no less a personage than the Prince Regent. And your father.”
She rested her head against his knee. After a moment she said, “Benji’s little sister
, Sybil, is dead, isn’t she?”
“I don’t want to think so, but she must be. She’s so young. If she weren’t dead, someone would have found her by now.”
“Yet she wasn’t buried at the shot factory.”
“No. But we have more missing children than we have graves. I’m afraid the killer has probably been burying his victims someplace else too.”
She watched the fire in silence for a moment. Then she said, “All those poor, abandoned, unloved children. Their lives were already so wretched, with no one to take care of them. No one to love them. No one to hug them and hold them. And then to meet such an unimaginably frightening end . . . You’d think that whoever is doing this must be so evil, you could feel it radiating off him if you were ever near him. Yet obviously you can’t.”
“I suspect he doesn’t see himself as evil.”
She lifted her head. “How could he not?”
“He knows what he’s doing isn’t considered acceptable, which is why he’s careful not to get caught. But I think he feels entitled to take his own pleasure at the expense of others—especially those he considers his inferiors.”
“Like the banker, the bishop, the lord, and the judge,” she said softly.
Sebastian took her hand to lace his fingers with hers, and held her tight. “I’m afraid de Sade knew what he was talking about. Which is as depressing as it is unsettling.”
• • •
Saturday, 18 September
Sebastian came out of the house the next morning to find his middle-aged groom, Giles, waiting with the curricle. “Huh,” said Sebastian, gathering the reins. “I must confess, I half expected another go-around with Tom. He’s not normally this easy to bring to heel.”
“Oh, he’s in a high dudgeon, no mistake about that, my lord. Nothing flicks the lad on the raw more than being reminded of how young he still is.” Giles grinned. “Know what he told me he wants to be when he’s a man grown?”
“A groom? A mail coach driver? A postilion?”
Giles shook his head. “A Bow Street Runner.”
“Oh, dear Lord,” said Sebastian, and turned his horses toward Swallow Street and the King’s Head.