by C. S. Harris
“By stabbing him in the back,” said Hero. “What a ghastly man. But . . . why go through the trouble of stripping him?”
Sebastian shook his head. “He didn’t. All he did was maneuver the body into the alley—probably as the man was still dying—and leave him there covered with rubbish. Some rag-and-bone picker must have come along, poked through the trash, and found the body.”
Hero’s eyes widened. “And took the clothes! Good heavens. Why didn’t I think of that?”
“Because neither of us has ever been so desperate as to see the clothes of a murdered man as valuable, let alone something like a bone or a dog turd. Ben King was the one who suggested it to me.”
Hero watched Simon toddle over to a stack of books. “And then Lindley tracked Sissy to her lodgings and killed her too? He’s killed anyone who could possibly identify him.”
“Everyone except Ben King. And I suspect the only reason the crossing sweep is still alive is because his ‘creepy-jeepies’ warned him he was in danger.”
“But why kill Sir Felix Paige?”
“Paige is the one part of all this that doesn’t seem to fit. I’m half inclined to credit his murder to the burly Russians around the Grand Duchess and her lovely lady-in-waiting, although I’m having to work to come up with an adequate explanation for it.”
Hero said, “You can’t prove any of this. Lindley has a perfectly understandable explanation for his arrangement with Digby, and everything else is simply . . . conjecture.”
“So far. But I’ve just learned from Lovejoy that Lindley stopped Bow Street from conducting a thorough search of the Curzon Street house, and I know from Fullerton that the Marquis ordered his son’s room closed and locked. Everyone assumed he was driven by a father’s grief, combined with a desire to protect the reputation of his nasty son. But he may simply be hiding something—something that points to his own guilt.”
“Like what?”
“That I don’t know yet. I need to have another look at that room.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You’re planning to break in there, aren’t you?”
He gave her a slow smile. “Tonight.”
Chapter 47
Saturday, 9 April
The hours before dawn were moonless and so unseasonably cold that Sebastian could see his breath as he cut through the shadowy rear gardens of Ashworth’s Curzon Street residence. The house loomed dark and silent before him; the aged butler and the two remaining housemaids would long since have retired to their rooms.
Slipping a housebreaker’s tool known as a picklock from the pocket of his greatcoat, Sebastian paused at the edge of the flagged terrace, his preternaturally keen hearing alive to every faint rustle in the shrubbery, the distant bark of a dog, the echoing cry of the watch.
“Two o’clock on a cloudy night and all is well . . .”
Except Sebastian had the vague, niggling sense that something wasn’t quite right. He drew a quiet breath, hesitating longer than he’d intended as he sought to identify the source of that elusive, prickly sense of danger. But he heard only the pattering of some four-footed creature in the night and the thump of his own heart.
Moving quickly, he crossed the terrace to flatten himself against the stuccoed wall beside the rear door. That was when he realized what was wrong: A faint but unmistakable scent of beeswax hung in the cold night air, and it came from the door that stood unlatched and cracked open perhaps an inch. Listening closely, he could now hear distant voices speaking quietly—first a woman’s whisper, then a low baritone he recognized as Colonel Nikolai Demidov’s.
What the devil?
Easing his knife from its sheath in his boot, Sebastian slowly pushed open the door. He waited, listening, alive to the possibility the Russians might have left a guard at the door.
Nothing.
Stepping into a rear service corridor, he moved easily through the darkened house to the front entrance hall. He could hear the Russian colonel and his female companion—Ivanna?—moving stealthily overhead. He thought at first they must be in the drawing room, then realized they were actually two floors above, in Ashworth’s bedchamber.
Why? he wondered. Why, why, why?
He gazed thoughtfully at the main staircase, which rose from the entrance hall in a long straight line before taking a short jag to empty onto the first floor’s corridor. If Demidov had posted a lookout above, Sebastian would be an easy target the moment he started up the steps. He considered going back to take the narrower, steeper servants’ stairs that lay behind the green baize door at the rear of the house, then reasoned that the Russians were more likely to fear being disturbed by the servants than by someone from outside. That meant a guard was more likely to be posted at the back stairs than here.
Although there could always be two guards.
Clenching his knife for a moment between his teeth, Sebastian jerked off his boots. Then, the knife in one hand, his boots in the other, he started up the main staircase in his stocking feet. He was careful to stay close to the wall, avoiding the center of the treads to minimize the chance of a betraying creak. He’d almost reached the first floor when he heard Demidov grumble above, “It’s not here.”
Sebastian crept up the next flight of stairs.
“Hush,” whispered the woman. “You speak too loudly.” The colonel’s French was even worse than his English, but the woman spoke with a flawless Parisian accent untouched by any Russian overtones.
“It’s not here,” Demidov repeated, lowering his voice.
“It must be.”
“One of the servants could have found it and taken it.”
“Don’t be a fool.”
As he reached the top of the second flight of stairs, Sebastian could see a faint glow of light spilling down the corridor from Ashworth’s chamber overlooking the street. The rest of the house lay in darkness. He paused, quietly listening and watching. And from the archway that separated the front corridor from the narrow rear servants’ passage came the faintest of sounds: the click of a boot heel on polished floorboards, the brush of cloth against cloth.
So Demidov had brought a lookout after all, stationing him at the narrow back stairs that would be used by any servants venturing from the attics or basement to investigate.
His grip tightening on the knife in his hand, Sebastian moved stealthily toward the guard. He could see him now, turned half away, a heavy Russian pattern 1809 flintlock held loosely at his side, his attention all for the door to the servants’ stairs. There was something familiar about the shape of the Russian’s head, about the angle of his jaw, and Sebastian realized he had seen the man before, in Seven Dials.
Then a faint betraying creak cut through the stillness as Sebastian’s foot trod on a loose floorboard. He froze. The Russian turned, sucking in a quick, startled gasp as he jerked up the pistol and thumbed back the hammer. But Sebastian was already cocking his own arm to snap it forward and release his dagger in a fluid motion that sent the blade whistling through the air to sink into the Russian’s throat. The man gave a faint gurgle and dropped to the floor.
“What was that?” Sebastian heard the unknown woman say as he darted forward to retrieve his knife.
“I didn’t hear anything,” said the colonel. “You’re imagining things.”
“I heard something. Go check.”
Quickly yanking the blade from the dead Russian’s body, Sebastian quietly set down his boots and flattened back against the green baize-covered door just as Colonel Demidov started down the corridor. He paused for a moment at the base of the main flight of stairs leading up to the third floor, his head cocked, listening. Then his gaze shifted toward the alcove of the servants’ stair, and he said, “Vlad?”
Sebastian held himself very still, wishing his knife’s handle weren’t so damned blood-slicked. Impossible to accurately throw it now.
“Vladimir
?” Drawing a sleek dueling pistol from his pocket, the colonel advanced cautiously toward the archway, obviously struggling to see in the darkness.
Sebastian waited. Waited until the colonel was almost opposite the baize-covered door. Then Demidov must have finally spotted the shadowy outline of the crumpled guard, because he gave a smothered oath and drew up.
Sebastian lunged forward, closing his left fist around the Russian’s gun hand and yanking it up in an old street fighter’s trick that both eliminated the gun’s immediate threat and cleared a path for Sebastian to drive his dagger toward the man’s heart.
Demidov pulled uselessly against Sebastian’s grip. But by pivoting away and bringing his left arm down in a sweeping block, he managed to knock Sebastian’s knife off target. The blade skittered across the colonel’s side; then its hilt snagged on the colonel’s gold-trimmed tunic in a way that pulled the dagger’s slippery handle from Sebastian’s grasp.
“Bloody hell,” he swore softly.
“You!” roared the colonel. Drawing his chin down against his chest, he rammed forward like a butting bull, smashing the top of his big head into Sebastian’s face and sending blood spurting everywhere.
Temporarily blinded by the explosion of pain and blood, Sebastian felt a beefy fist close around his throat and tighten. Knowing he didn’t dare relax his grip on the Russian’s gun, Sebastian clawed with one hand at the deadly hold that was squeezing, squeezing. It was useless.
Desperate, he gave up and fumbled instead for the dagger he knew he hadn’t heard fall. Where the hell was it? He felt his fingers slide over the bloody hilt and closed his fist around the handle. There was a roaring in his ears as he yanked the knife free and shifted its angle to plunge the blade up under the Russian’s left arm, thrusting straight into his heart.
Demidov let out a breathy “Oof,” his gun making a dull thump as it hit the floorboards. But somehow he still managed to keep his grip on Sebastian’s throat. Gritting his teeth, Sebastian twisted the knife deeper and heard the rattling gurgle of the dying man’s breath. Then the colonel collapsed against him. Sebastian barely managed to catch his weight and ease the Russian quietly to the floor.
“Demidov?” he heard the unseen woman call. “Qu’est-ce que c’est?”
Yanking the knife from the Russian’s chest, Sebastian jammed his feet into his boots, thrust the blade back into its sheath, and snatched up the colonel’s gun. He had his own small double-barreled flintlock in his pocket, but the colonel’s pistol had a better range, and he was beyond worrying about waking the servants with noise.
Trotting back toward the front of the house, he could see Ashworth’s chamber faintly illuminated by a shuttered lantern and a small brace of candles that rested on a bombe chest near the door. But the unknown woman had gone silent and was nowhere in sight.
He was still deciding how best to deal with her when the hatchet-faced older woman he’d seen so often at Ivanna’s side came through the doorway at him, the long, oaken handle of a brass bed warmer clutched in both hands. “Salaud,” she hissed, and swung the bed warmer’s brass pan at his head.
He flung up his right arm to block her blow. He managed to protect his head, but the impact of the heavy brass pan against his forearm sent waves of pain radiating down his wrist to his hand. The colonel’s pistol slipped from his suddenly numb fingers and went spinning across the floor.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, wiping a crooked elbow across his bloody face. “Just stop.”
She backed into the room, then drew up and swung the bed warmer to one side, intending to hit him again.
Lunging forward, his foot kicked the fallen pistol and he stumbled, but somehow managed to close one hand around the bed warmer’s handle just below the pan. Then he balled up his still-throbbing fist and punched her in the face.
He expected her to go down. She didn’t.
Staggering sideways, she slammed into the bombe chest near the door, rocking the blazing candelabra and sending a glass figurine and a black satin reticule he realized must be hers tumbling to the floor. He punched her again. This time she went sprawling.
Stepping back well out of her reach, Sebastian yanked his own small double-barreled pistol from his pocket and leveled it at her. “Ne bougez pas,” he said as she shoved herself up on all fours, shaking her head as if to clear her senses. “Don’t move, and I won’t hurt you.”
She shifted around so that she was sitting on the floor facing him, her breath coming shallow and quick. “Why?” she said in English, bringing up a hand to swipe at the line of blood trickling from her nose. “Are you afraid of me?”
Sebastian thumbed back the first hammer of his flintlock. “A woman can kill as easily as a man.”
She gave a faint smile. “True.”
He was aware of the chaos of the room around them, the furniture overturned, the covers of the still-bloody bed torn asunder. He said, “What were you looking for?”
He didn’t expect her to answer, but she did. “Madame left something she wanted back.”
“The night she murdered Viscount Ashworth, you mean?”
The woman shook her head. “She lost the bracelet here that night, yes, but she did not kill him.”
He gave a faint laugh. “Of course not.”
“You don’t believe me? You’re a fool. I have the bracelet in my reticule. Here, I’ll show it to you.”
“Don’t touch it,” warned Sebastian, thumbing back the second hammer.
Her jaw tightening, she grabbed the black satin reticule and thrust her hand inside. Sebastian squeezed the first trigger, and the flintlock’s muzzle belched an explosion of flame and smoke.
The shot caught her high in the shoulder, but she barely flinched. Rather than try to draw her own small muff gun from the reticule, she simply fired at him through the black satin bag.
He felt her bullet slam into his side. She was staggering to her feet when he fired the second barrel.
This time he hit her dead center, a new dark sheen of blood blooming across the black silk bodice of her mourning gown. But it didn’t stop her. Surging to her feet, she caught up the candelabra from the chest and swung it at him.
He felt hot wax splatter his face and smelled singeing wool as the smoldering wicks crushed against his greatcoat. Grabbing her arm, he twisted it behind her back and slammed her against the nearest wall.
“Bâtard!” she snarled, bucking against him. Then she went limp in his arms.
“Jesus Christ.” He took a step back, letting her go, and watched her slide down the wall, leaving a bloody trail against the elegant champagne-and-gold-striped wallpaper.
For a moment he wavered, holding himself tense, ready for her to come at him again. But her eyes were blank and staring. She was dead.
“Jesus Christ,” he said again, sinking to his knees. Then the world went black, and he pitched forward onto his face.
* * *
His first awareness was of pain.
His side was afire with a wet burning that all but eclipsed the throbbing pain in the middle of his face and the ache in his forearm. He realized he was lying on his back on something hard. The floor. Memory returned, and he knew where he was, except that there was too much light visible through his closed eyelids. Could dawn have come?
He opened his eyes slowly, peering cautiously through lowered lashes. He was still on the floor of Ashworth’s bedchamber, but dawn had not yet arrived. Someone had set the candelabra back atop the bombe chest and lit its broken candles, along with the candles flanking the hearth and an oil lamp beside the bed. He could see the hatchet-faced woman still sprawled against the wall, her dead eyes wide and staring, her mouth agape.
He thought at first the gunshots must have brought the household to investigate. But even if Ashworth’s servants hadn’t been trained to ignore anything they heard, Fullerton was old and half-deaf
and doubtless slept three floors below in the basement beside the silver and wine. The two remaining housemaids were probably cowering alone in the attic, too terrified to investigate. They had not come. Instead, someone—presumably the same person who’d lit the candles and lamps—had lashed Sebastian’s wrists together with golden silk cords.
“Ah,” said the Marquis of Lindley. “You’re awake.”
Chapter 48
“I see I was wise to tie your hands,” said the old man.
Sebastian shifted his head. Ashworth’s father stood near his son’s overturned mattress, a flintlock pistol in one hand. At first, Sebastian assumed he had picked up the colonel’s dueling pistol. But the weapon was too heavy, too graceless, and he realized the Marquis must have retrieved the gun from the fallen guard in the corridor. Which meant the colonel’s pistol could still be—where?
“I thought you might come tonight,” continued the aged Marquis in that same soft, deceptively gentle voice.
“How could you know?” said Sebastian, twisting his wrists, testing the knots. They held tight.
“I saw it in your eyes yesterday in the park, when you asked to search the house and I put you off. You’re not a man who likes being told no, are you? And you have something of a reputation for unorthodox behavior. I looked into you when Sir Henry told me you’d be helping Bow Street with the investigation into my son’s death. Did you think I would not?”
Sebastian tried to remember where he had dropped the colonel’s gun, but his head was splitting, and he felt both nauseated and dangerously faint. He’d been near the chamber door, hadn’t he? He had a vague memory of kicking the thing when he struggled with Ivanna’s woman. So where was it now?
“Of course,” Lindley said with what sounded almost like a laugh, “I wasn’t expecting the Russians. It was most generous of you to eliminate them for me.”
Sebastian twisted his wrists again, assessing the play in the cords and the range of movement it gave his hands. “You know why they were here?”