Who Slays the Wicked

by C. S. Harris

  “Was he afraid of the man, do you think?”

  “Afraid? No. But he was annoyed.”

  “What did this fellow look like? Had you ever seen him before?”

  “Good heavens, no.”

  “You’re certain?”

  “Oh, yes. He’s not one you’d forget, once you saw him. Tall and lanky, with a strangely narrow, elongated head and a puckery mouth that makes it look like he’s sucking on an invisible lemon.”

  Sebastian had automatically assumed Ashworth’s shadow must have been McCay. Now he realized he was wrong. “What was this fellow doing?”

  “Nothing beyond sticking close enough to be noticeable. If he’d actually done anything I’d have set the constables after him. I was tempted to anyway, but Anthony told me to leave it be.”

  “He never explained to you how he knew the man?”

  “No. And the next time I looked around, the fellow was gone. To be frank, I completely forgot the incident until last night, when I was thinking about your question.” He studied Sebastian’s deliberately impassive face. “But it means something, doesn’t it?”

  “It might.”

  * * *

  “It’s getting dark,” said Hero, watching Sebastian tie a coarse black kerchief around his neck.

  He reached for a tattered coat from the rag fair in Rosemary Lane and shrugged into it.

  She said, “You do realize you could wait until morning to go plunging into Seven Dials. That it would be safer. And wiser.”

  “I should have gone after Cotton last night and given him my opinion of shady characters who approach my wife.”

  “He didn’t do anything to me.”

  “No.” Sebastian set a slouch hat at a rakish angle on his ash-and-lard-drenched hair. “But that doesn’t mean he won’t.”

  * * *

  Sebastian found the common room of the Black Swan thick with tobacco smoke and reeking with the usual foul combination of spilled ale, bad teeth, and rank body odor. The dim light from a scattering of guttering tallow dips flickered over a roaring throng of rough men, their faces shiny with a desperate kind of excitement or sunken into hopeless despair.

  Sebastian ordered a pint and stood with an elbow propped on the battered bar, his gaze roving from one cluster of ragged men to the next. A couple of burly tradesmen, probably butchers from the looks of them, came in without glancing at him and quickly faded into the shadowy corners. This was a world of unshaven faces and furtive glances, of men who’d steal the pennies off a dead man’s eyes and kill you for the clothes off your back if given a chance. As he watched a “blind” beggar laughingly remove the bandages from his head to reveal perfectly sound eyes, Sebastian found himself wondering, again, how Ashworth had connected with a man such as Sid Cotton in the first place. Or was this another service provided by the dead valet? If Digby had sourced prostitutes from the Haymarket, why not killers from Seven Dials?

  Sebastian raised his tankard to his lips but was careful not to drink from it. He became aware of the barman watching him slyly. The man’s beefy arms were crossed at his chest, his protuberant belly straining against his greasy leather apron, his balding head thrown back at a belligerent angle. Taking a shilling from his pocket, Sebastian slid the coin across the scarred surface of the bar toward him. “I’m looking for Sid Cotton. Is he upstairs?”

  The coin disappeared. “Nah.”

  “You’re certain of that?”

  “’E went out. Two hours ’n’ more ago.”

  Sebastian slid another shilling across the boards. “Where did he go?”

  The second coin disappeared. “Don’t know.”

  “Or won’t say?”

  The barman’s eyes narrowed to slits as his lips pulled back to display a mouthful of large, crooked teeth. Sebastian couldn’t decide whether it was meant to be a smile. “I’ll tell ’im yer lookin’ fer ’im,” said the man.

  Sebastian briefly considered carrying his search for Cotton up the rickety narrow stairs at the back of the tavern, then decided against it. The menacing hostility in the room was so intense as to be palpable.

  The bartender sniffed. “If I see ’im, who should I send ’im to?”

  “He’ll know.”

  Pushing the tankard away, Sebastian headed for the door. He was aware of the two husky men who had come into the Black Swan behind him rising to their feet and following him.

  He was beginning to suspect they weren’t butchers after all.

  Outside, the night was cold, the air heavy with the stench of coal smoke, roasting meat, and overflowing boghouses. He drew up on the narrow pavement, his gaze seemingly focused on the old-iron monger’s across the street even as his awareness was all for the two men pausing behind him. He’d never seen either man before and had no idea if their interest in him was driven by simple larceny or something more personal.

  But as he stepped wide to avoid the refuse-clogged gutter, the two men fell in behind him.

  Chapter 33

  Sebastian pushed his way through the knots of ragged men, women, and filthy, scrawny children that clogged the intersection of the seven radiating streets. A mist was rolling in, blurring the already dim light cast by torches thrust into high wall brackets. Keeping one hand on the small double-barreled flintlock pistol in his greatcoat pocket, he turned north toward Broad Street. The two men kept perhaps seven or eight paces behind him.

  There was no doubt they were following him.

  Both were relatively young, one dark, the other fair, their clothes that of semiskilled workingmen rather than the motley assortment of rags worn by ruffians such as Sid Cotton. Unlike Cotton, these men would blend easily into any neighborhood, including Mayfair. Sebastian tried to recall if he’d noticed them earlier. But he’d been so focused on finding Ashworth’s killer and proving Stephanie innocent that he’d been largely oblivious to anything else.

  Dangerously oblivious.

  He brushed past a stall selling smoked herrings in paper cones, past a decrepit, decaying hovel with missing windowpanes covered in old newspaper that crackled in the rising cold wind. With every step he took away from the district’s starlike center, the lane became darker, and the crowds thinned until they disappeared. This was a good place to kill, and he suspected the men shadowing him had been sent to kill him.

  Carefully slipping the flintlock from his pocket, Sebastian drew up abruptly and swung about, his pistol’s twin muzzles coming up as he thumbed back the first hammer. “Do I take it you gentlemen wish to speak with me? Or did you intend to go straight for the kill?”

  The men stopped, eyes widening and arms dangling awkwardly at their sides. Despite the cold, their coats hung open to display the flintlock thrust into one man’s waistband and the knife strapped to his companion’s side. The way Sebastian figured it, they now had basically three options: They could run away, laugh and try to claim it was all a mistake, or rush him. The dark-haired man said something to his companion—something Sebastian couldn’t understand. The companion’s response was guttural and decisive and sounded vaguely like miyego-ubivayem.

  “Well?” said Sebastian.

  The first man—the darker one, the one who seemed less sure of himself—stayed where he was on the narrow pavement while his fair-haired companion stepped sideways into the lane, putting distance between them. And Sebastian knew that if he didn’t stop him, the men would soon have him sandwiched between them.

  Sebastian shifted the muzzle of his flintlock to follow the moving man and said calmly, “One more step and you’re dead.”

  The fair-haired man drew up, his lips pulling back in a smile. He was still smiling when his hand flashed toward the pistol at his waist.

  Sebastian squeezed the trigger.

  A roaring burst of fire exploded into the dark night. The bullet tore into the man’s throat to send blood spurting in pulsing arcs. He s
taggered back, his body swaying as he continued bringing up his own flintlock and fired.

  The brick wall beside Sebastian’s head erupted in a shower of dust and sharp chunks of debris. He felt a jagged pain tear across his temple and the sting of grit in his eyes.

  “Boris!” shouted the dark-haired man as his companion crumpled in the gutter.

  Half-blind, Sebastian thumbed back his second hammer and pivoted to face the surviving assassin. “Your choice.”

  The man’s gaze flickered from Sebastian’s gun to his dying companion. Then he turned and ran.

  Sebastian swiped a sleeve across his face, trying to wipe the blood and grit from his eyes. “Bloody hell,” he swore, and let the man go.

  His eyes and forehead hurting like hell, Sebastian went to crouch beside the man in the gutter. The assailant’s eyes were half-open but glazed, the blood surging from his neck beginning to slow.

  “Who sent you?” said Sebastian.

  Lips slick with blood, the man stared silently back at him, his eyes vacant.

  “Damn.” Easing the man down to the pavement, Sebastian found himself looking at the empty flintlock that had fallen nearby.

  Swearing again, he reached for it, his eyes narrowing at the sight of the familiar escutcheon on the grip.

  * * *

  Charles, Lord Jarvis, was crossing the torchlit forecourt of Carlton House when a tall, dark-haired young man in an appallingly ragged coat and greasy breeches fell into step beside him. Blood ran down the side of his face from a wound on his forehead and dripped onto his black neckcloth; a yellowing bruise showed on his chin.

  “Good God,” said Jarvis. “How ever did you get past the guards, looking like that?”

  Devlin’s teeth gleamed white out of his dirt- and blood-streaked face. “They recognized me.”

  “Commendable, I suppose.” Jarvis nodded to the guards as he passed through the portal. “I assume you’re here for a reason.”

  “There’s something you need to see.”

  Jarvis’s carriage was awaiting him at the kerb, and he paused to cast a disparaging glance at his son-in-law’s clothes as a footman scrambled to open the door and let down the steps. “I trust those rags are not vermin-infested.”

  “Not too badly.”

  “Huh.” He climbed into his carriage and watched silently as Devlin leapt up to take the backward-facing seat. “Drive on,” Jarvis told the coachman.

  The carriage rolled forward with a rattle of chains and the clatter of hooves on cobblestone. Jarvis kept his gaze fixed on his son-in-law. “So, what is of such pressing importance that you must offend my nostrils with such a malodorous and totally unsuitable rig?”

  “This,” said Devlin, holding out a brass-mounted flintlock.

  “A pistol? Am I supposed to be impressed? It’s rather ordinary-looking.”

  “Someone just tried to kill me with it.”

  “And they missed? What a pity.”

  Devlin laughed out loud, his lean body moving easily with the motion of the carriage. “You don’t recognize it?”

  “Should I?”

  “It’s a Russian pattern 1809, commissioned by Tsar Alexander and manufactured at Izhevsk in the Urals. They’re carried by Russian mounted Dragoons and Cuirassier, Hussar, and Cossack troops, as well as by officers of other regiments.”

  Jarvis kept the same faintly derisive smile on his face, but he was curious enough to say, “How can you be certain it’s Russian?”

  “The Tsar believes in marking his own.” Devlin flipped the pistol to display a brass escutcheon mounted on the grip and engraved with Alexander’s cipher: a florid “A” surmounted by a crown topped with a holy cross.

  Jarvis shrugged. “Doubtless some English soldier picked it up off a battlefield somewhere and brought it home.”

  “I might think that if I hadn’t heard one of the two men who jumped me say ‘Kill him’ to his companion in Russian.”

  “I didn’t know you counted the ability to speak Russian amongst your many talents.”

  “I don’t. But when you’re in the army, you tend to pick up certain common words in a variety of languages. Generally, most are vulgar references to male and female body parts and related activities. But one also learns the word for ‘kill.’”

  Jarvis watched the light from the swinging carriage lantern dance across his son-in-law’s bloody face. “And where is the original owner of this pistol now?”

  “Dead.”

  “You killed him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Inconvenient. The authorities have the corpse?”

  Devlin shook his head. “By the time I returned with the constables, it was gone.”

  “Thank goodness for that, at least.”

  “Oh? Why is that?”

  “Don’t be stupid.” Jarvis paused. “So, why are you here, precisely?”

  Devlin tucked the pistol into the waistband of his disgusting breeches and swiped a forearm across his bleeding face. “You don’t find it telling that the Russians should have such a lethal reaction to my investigation into Ashworth’s death?”

  “When you keep trying to implicate the Grand Duchess’s lady-in-waiting—who happens to be the widow of a Russian prince and war hero? No, I do not. On the contrary, I would find it remarkable if they failed to show any interest.”

  “Bit of a leap from showing an interest in my investigation to trying to kill me, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Perhaps. But then, they do things differently in Russia.” Jarvis drew his snuffbox from his pocket and opened it with a flick of his thumb. “I did warn you to stay away from the Pulteney. You ignored me.”

  “I did, yes. Although I wonder how you know that.”

  Jarvis lifted a pinch of snuff to one nostril and sniffed.

  When he continued to remain silent, Devlin said, “Did you know the Russians were trying to kill me?”

  “I did not. Presumably they see your activities as a threat.”

  “Obviously. The question is still why.”

  “That I cannot say.”

  “Actually, I suspect you could.”

  Jarvis closed his snuffbox and tucked it away. “You heard the allied armies have entered Paris?”

  “Yes. And Napoléon?”

  “Has been formally deposed by the Sénat. He could have saved himself by simply agreeing to accept France’s original borders under the ancien régime. But he refused. And now he’s on the run.”

  “With his army?”

  “Unfortunately. But while the common soldiers would probably follow him to hell if he asked it of them, I suspect most of his officers have more sense. It will be over soon.”

  Devlin swiped at his cheek again. “I’ll believe it when he’s dead.”

  Jarvis frowned. “You’re bleeding all over my carriage.”

  Devlin laughed and signaled the coachman to pull up.

  Jarvis watched the Viscount jump down from the carriage, then said, “I meant it when I warned you to stay away from the Grand Duchess and her court. Ignore me at your peril.”

  Devlin glanced back at him, his strange yellow eyes glowing in the lamplight. “Or—what? You’ll send someone to try to kill me next?”

  “You don’t understand what you’re interfering in.”

  “Not yet. But I will.”

  Chapter 34

  Sebastian was in his dressing room, dabbing at the blood on his face, when Hero came to stand in the doorway.

  “One of the housemaids tells me my husband came home covered in blood. I assumed she was exaggerating. Obviously, I was mistaken.”

  “I don’t know if I’d say ‘covered’ in blood.”

  “Look in the mirror.” She watched him dip the cloth in the washbowl and squeeze, the gentle trickle of water filling the room’s silence. He touched th
e cloth to his forehead and winced.

  “Here, let me do that.” She pushed away from the doorway and came to take the cloth from him. Her voice and face were both utterly calm. But when she dipped the cloth in the water again, he noticed her hands were not quite steady. She turned his face to the lamplight. “Shouldn’t you have gone to see Gibson?”

  “It’s only a scratch.”

  “It’s a bit more than that.”

  “I’ll live.”

  She made an incoherent noise deep in her throat but kept her focus on the task of cleaning the raw, jagged furrows dug into the side of his scalp by the exploding brick. “And was it worth it?”

  “I didn’t find Cotton. But a couple of Russians found me.”

  Her hand fell. “Russians did this?”

  “Mmm. I killed one of them, then beat a prudent retreat for reinforcements. By the time I returned with the constables, the body was gone. I assume his compatriot removed him.”

  “You’re certain they were Russian?”

  “Yes. I thought Jarvis might find their involvement interesting, but all he did was complain about my dripping blood on his carriage’s upholstery.”

  “So, are you going to ask the lovely Princess Ivanna why she wants you dead?”

  “Yes, but not until I understand it a bit better myself.” He watched her soak a pad with alcohol. “Has Tom come back yet?”

  She pressed the pad to his wound and waited while he let out a long hiss. “No.”

  * * *

  Tom returned to Brook Street late that night.

  He was dressed in a pair of ragged breeches so big he had to hold them up with a length of rope. Once his shirt might have been white, but those days were far in the distant, forgotten past. His coat was a motley collection of patches, and the hat he clutched was so battered that half the brim hung loose from the crown.