What Darkness Brings (25 page)

Chapter 47

T
hat afternoon, Kat Boleyn drove her high-perch phaeton to the Physic Garden in Chelsea. Leaving her horse in the care of her groom, she walked briskly down a dripping, mist-shrouded path to a secluded pond. When the days were fine, Kat could lose herself for hours in the old apothecary garden’s lush border beds and vast plantings. But on this day, she was in no mood to linger.

The man she had come to meet was already waiting for her at the water’s edge. He turned as she approached, a tall, powerful figure in shiny Hessians, fawn-colored breeches, and a well-tailored dark coat.

“Top o’ the mornin’ to you,” he said, exaggerating his brogue. His name was Aiden O’Connell, and he was the younger son of the Earl of Rathkeale, an ancient Irish family long infamous for their enthusiastic cooperation with the invading English. Kat still found it difficult to believe that this man—young, handsome, rich—had chosen to risk everything by quietly working for Irish independence. Like Kat before him, he had decided that one of the best ways to help the Irish and weaken the English was to assist their enemies, the French.

He tipped his hat, a lazy smile deepening the two improbable dimples in his lean cheeks. “Is it too much to be hoping that you’ve had a change of heart and are willing to work with us again?”

“You know me better than that,” she said as they turned to walk along the banks of the pond, the mist wafting cold and damp against their faces.

“Ah, so I feared,” he said with a mournful sigh. “Then why, pray tell, are we braving one of the coldest September mornings I can remember to meet?”

“Because Russell Yates is about to hang for a murder he didn’t commit, and more people are dying every day.”

When the man beside her remained silent, she said, “You know about the French Blue?”

He squinted at the ghostly shapes of the chestnut trees on the far side of the pond. “I do, yes.”

“I need to find out who Napoléon has tasked with its recovery.”

“That I don’t know.”

She swung to face him, the heavy woolen skirts of her carriage dress swirling around their ankles. “Don’t know—or won’t tell?”

A soft light of amusement gleamed in the depths of his hooded green eyes. “Don’t know . . . but wouldn’t tell if I did.”

“Then at least tell me this: Is he English?”

“In truth, I don’t know. It may even be a woman, for all I’ve been told. But I do know this: Napoléon is not happy with his agent’s performance. He’s dispatched someone else—someone from Paris—to assist in the gem’s recovery. Someone who’s said to be quick and clever and very dangerous.”

“A man with a pockmarked face?”

“I don’t know; I haven’t seen him.”

“I have. He tried to kidnap me from Covent Garden Market.

O’Connell’s lips tightened into a thin line. “I heard about that.”

“From your French masters?”

His nostrils flared, his head rearing back. “
Bloody hell.
Is that what you think? That I had a hand in that?”

“What else am I to think?”

“I heard about what happened the same way everyone else in London heard of it—it’s all over town! Besides which, why the devil would Napoléon’s agents want to get their hands on you anyway?”

“It makes sense if they think Yates killed Eisler and took the French Blue. Steal Yates’s wife, and offer to make a trade.”

O’Connell was silent.

“Well, doesn’t it?” she said.

The Irishman drew in a long, ragged breath. “I suppose it’s possible. But if it is true, I know nothing about it.” He reached to gently touch the back of one hand ever so briefly to her cheek. “And remember this: The French are no more my masters than they were yours. I work with them—not for them.”

She searched his deceptively open, handsome face. But he was a man who, like Kat herself, played a dangerous game and had learned long ago to give nothing away. She said, “Is there anything you can tell me that I might be able to use?”

O’Connell shook his head. “Only this: I don’t envy whoever has been set to this task. The potential rewards are undoubtedly great. But should they fail to recover the diamond, Napoléon is bound to suspect he’s been betrayed—that his agents have simply decided to keep the gem for themselves.”

“In other words, if they fail, they’ll be killed,” said Kat.

“More than likely, yes. And they know it. Which means that whoever you’re dealing with is doubly dangerous, because their very survival depends on the successful completion of their mission. Get in their way, and you’re liable to end up dead.”

He hesitated a moment, then added, “You might consider giving the same warning to Lord Devlin.”

Chapter
48

T
his was the part of a murder investigation that Sebastian always dreaded, when the bodies of witnesses and potential suspects started piling up, and for every question answered, two more arose. With a growing sense of urgency, he left St. James’s Street and headed toward Tower Hill.

The rain might have ended, but the wind blowing off the river was bitter cold and felt more like December than the end of September. He found the surgeon whistling an old Irish drinking ditty as he bent over the granite slab in the center of his small outbuilding. Naked and half-eviscerated, the shrunken corpse of Jud Foy looked faintly blue in the thin morning light.

“Ah, there you are,” said Gibson, looking up. He set aside his scalpel with a clatter and reached for a rag to wipe his gory hands. “Thought I might be seeing you, then.”

Sebastian nodded to the cadaver’s ruined head. “I take it that’s what killed him?”

“It did, indeed. Most effectively.”

“What can you tell me about it?”

“Well . . . The blow appears to have come from his left, which would be consistent with an attacker who is right-handed.”

“Unless he was struck from behind.”

Gibson shook his head. “Judging from the angle, I’d say he was facing his killer.”

Sebastian hunkered down to study the pulpy mess. “Any idea what he was hit with?”

“Something long and heavy, and wielded with powerful force. I’d say whoever hit him was aiming to kill, not incapacitate.”

“Seems a curious choice of weapon. I mean, why bludgeon him? Much easier—and surer—to simply stick a knife between his ribs.”

“The bludgeon is a common weapon amongst footpads.”

“There is that. The intent could have been to make it look as if he’d been set upon by common thieves.”

Gibson tossed his rag onto a nearby shelf. “You do know this wasn’t the first time someone tried to cave in his head, don’t you? From what I can see, it’s a miracle the man was alive.”

Sebastian straightened. “I heard he was kicked in the head by a mule in Spain.”

“A mule?” Gibson shook his head. “That was no mule.”

“Oh?”

“I’ve seen men kicked in the head by mules, and I’ve seen what a rifle butt can do to a human skull when swung with a measure of force and skill.”

Sebastian nodded to the gaping wound. “Could this have been done by a rifle butt?”

“No. More likely a length of lead pipe.”

“Lovely.” He went to stand in the open doorway and draw the cold, damp air into his lungs.

“I heard some interesting talk down at the pub a while ago when I popped in for a bite to eat,” said Gibson, limping over to join him. “They’re saying the authorities have decided to set Russell Yates free.”

Sebastian stared at him.
“What?”

“Mmm. Something about a pouch of Eisler’s jewels found on our friend here. They’re saying it’s more than likely that he’s the killer.”

“But . . . I don’t think he is.”

Gibson studied Sebastian’s face through narrowed eyes. “And here I was thinking you’d be over the moon, hearing that Yates might be freed.”

Sebastian shook his head. He was remembering what Kat had told him, about the visit Jarvis had paid to Yates’s cell that first night—and the worry in her eyes when she said it. “Nothing about Yates’s incarceration has felt right from the very beginning,” he said. “Somehow this just seems all a piece with the rest of it.”

“Could be just a rumor.”

Sebastian pushed away from the doorframe. “Only one sure way to find out.”

A supercilious clerk at the Lambeth Street Public Office informed Sebastian that Fridays were not one of Bertram Leigh-Jones’s days of attendance.

“He attends Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays,” said the clerk, casting a sour glance toward the rear of the hall, where a blowsy doxy in a tattered purple satin gown and improbably red hair was haranguing a constable in a high-pitched cockney whine.

“I didn’t do nothin’ o’ the sort,”
she screeched
. “I’m a good girl, I am.”

Sebastian kept his gaze on the clerk’s thin, bony face. “So you’re saying he was not in attendance last Monday?”

“He was not.”

“Then how did he come to be involved in the committal of Russell Yates?”

“As it happens, Mr. Leigh-Jones was in the vicinity of Fountain Lane when the hue and cry was raised. As such, he took charge of the pursuit and capture of the suspect and the interrogation of the witnesses before formally committing the villain to Newgate. He was here until dawn.”

“Commendable.”

The clerk sniffed. He appeared to be in his late thirties or early forties, with greasy dark hair plastered to a prominent skull and a nose to rival that of Wellington himself. “Mr. Leigh-Jones is a most conscientious magistrate.”

“And where might I find him?”

From the depths of the hall came the doxy’s loud, strident complaint:
“I tell ye, I never!
’
Tis nothin’ but a Banbury Tale, the lot o’ it!”

The clerk was forced to raise his own voice to compete. “Mr. Leigh-Jones does not like to be disturbed on his off days. You may come back on Saturday, if you wish. We open at eleven.”

“I’m afraid this won’t wait.”

The clerk went back to writing in his ledger. “Unfortunate, under the circumstances. You could see Mr. Dixon, the magistrate currently in attendance. Or you can return on Saturday. The choice is yours.”

“And here I thought you just said Mr. Leigh-Jones was a most conscientious magistrate. I don’t think you’ll find him inclined to reward you for your zeal in protecting him from the Palace.”

“The Palace?”
The clerk looked up, a wave of conflicting emotions passing over his face, doubt followed by indecision chased by annoyance and chagrin.

Sebastian started to push away from the desk. “I’ll tell His Highness—”

“No! One moment, please.”

Sebastian paused.

The clerk threw a quick look around, then leaned forward to lick his thin lips and whisper, “His house is in the Crescent, off the Minories. Number four.”

“Thank you,” said Sebastian, just as the doxy let out a high-pitched, ear-shattering squeal.

“Oooo. Say that again, ye whore’s son, an’ I’ll scratch yer bloomin’ eyes from yer ’ead and feed ’em to the bleedin’ chooks!”

Bertram Leigh-Jones lived in a comfortable eighteenth-century town house built of good sturdy brown brick with white-painted window frames and a shiny green door. Sebastian half expected the magistrate to refuse to see him. But a few minutes after he sent up his card with the thin, mousy-haired young housemaid who’d answered his knock, she reappeared to say meekly, “This way, my lord.”

He found Leigh-Jones in a small chamber overlooking the Crescent. The room had been fitted up as a workspace, with a large, sturdy table in the center and an array of shelves piled high with a jumble of paints, pots, tools, and bins filled with pieces of fine wood; the air was thick with the smell of linseed oil and a pot of hot hide glue. The magistrate himself sat perched on a high stool, a pair of spectacles on the end of his nose as he focused on fitting a minute piece of rigging to a partially constructed model of a Spanish galleon.

He cast a quick glance at Sebastian before returning his gaze to the model. “You have some nerve, coming here,” he said, his big, blunt figures surprisingly nimble at their task.

“I’m told you believe the pouch of diamonds found on Jud Foy’s body came from Daniel Eisler.”

“Oh? Who told you that?”

“Is it true?”

“As it happens, it is, yes.”

“How can you be so certain?”

“The initials, of course. You did notice them, didn’t you? Not only that, but a woman at the greengrocer’s on the corner remembers seeing Foy watching Eisler’s house.” Leigh-Jones sighed and straightened, his hands coming to rest at the edge of his worktable. “One would think you’d be pleased to hear that evidence has come to light suggesting your friend Yates is not, in fact, the murderer of Mr. Eisler.”

“You’re saying that Jud Foy is?”

“Was,” corrected Leigh-Jones, pushing to his feet to putter around to the other side of his worktable. “In Foy’s case, the verb is most definitely ‘was.’”

“You’ll be releasing Yates?”

The magistrate’s focus was all for his model. “I believe so, yes. We’re simply waiting on a few more pieces of information.”

“Such as?”

Leigh-Jones looked at him over the rims of his glasses. “You can read about it in the papers along with everyone else.”

“So who are you suggesting killed Foy?”

“Footpads, most likely. Fortunately, the sexton frightened them off before they were able to relieve the scoundrel of his ill-gotten gains.”

“And Collot? Who killed him?”

“Who?”

“Jacques Collot. He was shot by a rifleman near Seven Dials last night.”

“Ah, you mean the French thief. What has he to do with anything?”

“Quite a lot, actually.”

“I rather think not.” The magistrate’s protruding belly shook with his breathy laughter, although Sebastian could see little real humor in the man’s face. “I’ve no doubt it’s a blow to your pride, having some common East End magistrate solve a murder that stumped you. But if it’s any consolation, I myself was wrong about Yates, now, wasn’t I? The important thing is that Eisler’s murder has been solved, the man responsible is dead, and the good people of London can go to sleep in their beds at night without needing to worry there’s some madman wandering in their midst.”

Sebastian studied Leigh-Jones’s fleshy, florid face: the watery, blinking hazel eyes; the small mouth pulled back into a self-satisfied grin. He’d learned long ago that for far too many people, it wasn’t really important that justice be done. Unless they were personally involved in some way, most cared little if an innocent man was hanged. What mattered was that those in authority be seen as having successfully fulfilled their duty to keep the people safe from fear or any perceived threat that might disrupt the tranquility of their lives. In that sense, Jud Foy dead was far more useful than Jud Foy alive. Dead men told no tales and answered no questions.

Sebastian said, “And if Foy wasn’t actually responsible?”

The magistrate’s cheeks darkened suddenly to an angry hue as he punched the air between them with one glue-smudged finger. He was no longer smiling. “No one will thank you for that kind of talk. You hear me? No one.”

“I’m afraid I can’t agree that should be a factor here,” said Sebastian, and left him there with his bits of wood and hemp and his pot of simmering glue.