Where Serpents Sleep (13 page)

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Authors: C. S. Harris

BOOK: Where Serpents Sleep
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He swung abruptly away. “You say Hendon is not well. What is wrong with him?”
 
 
“The doctors say it’s his heart. He eats too much, drinks too much.”
 
 
“That’s not likely to stop.”
 
 
“He’s been worse these last months. He misses you, Sebastian. The estrangement between you causes him much grief.”
 
 
Sebastian paused beside his desk and looked back at her. It was a moment before he could answer. “I’m sorry. I’m not ready to speak to him yet.”
 
 
She nodded briskly, then retied her bonnet strings and pulled on her fine kid gloves. “Just don’t wait until it’s too late, Sebastian.”
 
 
Chapter 17
 
 
At the highly unfashionable hour of half past nine in the morning, Miss Hero Jarvis was drinking a cup of tea A in the morning room when her father came upon her. “You’re up early,” she said.
 
 
He sank into the chair opposite hers. “I wanted to catch you before you left the house.”
 
 
“Oh? Would you like a cup of tea?” she asked, reaching for the teapot.
 
 
“Yes, thank you.” He leaned forward, his frowning gaze hard on her face. “I thought we had an agreement.”
 
 
She poured a measure of milk into his cup with a steady hand, then added the tea. “I haven’t violated it. I agreed not to approach the magistrates, and I have not done so.” Of course, their agreement had been more along the lines of an edict, to which she’d had little choice but to concur. He’d warned her that if she did attempt to approach the magistrates about the killings, he would let it be known that her claims to have been present in the house at the time of the attack were motivated by nothing more than a desire to draw attention to the plight of such women and should therefore be disregarded.
 
 
She handed him the cup. “I take it you’ve received a report from one or more of your minions?”
 
 
“You knew I would.”
 
 
“Yes.”
 
 
He pressed his lips together in a sour line. “It is you, isn’t it? The gentlewoman who has been asking questions about the Magdalene House?”
 
 
“Did you think I would not?” When he didn’t answer, she said, “I know your main concern in all this is that my name not be bandied about in connection with the incident. You needn’t fear that I’ve been anything other than discreet. There is nothing to link my name to what happened that night.”
 
 
Lord Jarvis pushed aside his tea untasted, his gaze still on her face. “If I ordered you to stop, would you obey me?”
 
 
She met his stare without flinching. “Yes. But I would resent it.”
 
 
Jarvis nodded. “Then I won’t ask it of you.”
 
 
Hero didn’t realize she’d been holding her breath until she felt it easing out of her in a long sigh.
 
 
He pushed to his feet. “It goes without saying that you will be cautious.”
 
 
“I will be cautious.”
 
 
He nodded again and left the room.
 
 
She stared after him in surprise. She had expected him to ask her about Devlin’s involvement, as well, for she had no doubt that by now her father had also learned of the Viscount’s interest in the murders. Jarvis’s reticence puzzled her, but only for a moment. She did not know all the details of the animosity between the two men, but she knew it ran deep. And she realized it doubtless had never occurred to Lord Jarvis that Devlin had involved himself in the Magdalene House murders at her specific request.
 
 
 
At just before ten o’clock that morning, Hero’s carriage drew up before the pylon-shaped facade of Bullock’s Museum at 22 Piccadilly. Giant twelve-foot statues of Isis and Osiris, nearly naked and bewigged
à la égyptien
, stared down at her. She paid her shilling fee and passed through a papyrus-columned portico styled to resemble the entrance to an Egyptian temple.
 
 
For an extra sixpence she was able to acquire a small booklet detailing the wonders of the various exhibition halls. She wandered for a time, studying first the collection of carvings in wood and ivory, then the curiosities brought back from the South Seas by Captain Cook. In the western wing she came upon the Pantherion, which contained—according to her booklet—“all the known Quadrupeds of the Earth.” Stuffed, of course. The Pantherion was reached by way of a basaltic cavern said to be modeled on the Giant’s Causeway of the Isle of Staffa—although her guidebook neglected to mention precisely where that might be.
 
 
In the distance, Hero could hear a progression of church bells chiming the quarter hour. It was nearly eleven o’clock. She studied an Indian hut set against the background of a tropical forest complete with glassy-eyed elephants and roaring tigers and a large, coiled snake, and felt a sense of frustration well within her. It had been a mistake, she realized, to set the rendezvous for this morning. She’d been driven by a sense of urgency, but she should have allowed more time for news of her reward to spread. More time for the women of Covent Garden to summon up the courage to step forward.
 
 
She climbed the steps to the first floor, where a room styled to resemble a medieval hall displayed an exhibit of historic arms and armor. Here she found a young woman seated by herself on a bench beneath the domed ceiling. Hero eyed the woman with a renewed surge of expectation. She was obviously waiting for someone. She sat with her reticule clutched in both hands, her gaze darting warily around the room. With her demur pink muslin and round bonnet, she looked more like a young debutante than Haymarket ware, but perhaps she had deliberately dressed in a way that would not draw attention to herself. Hero had just made up her mind to approach the young woman when she jumped up from her seat and rushed across the hall toward the stairs.
 
 
Looking around, Hero noticed the gentleman in buff-colored breeches and an olive drab coat who had followed her up the steps.
Of course,
thought Hero;
a secret assignation.
 
 
Blowing out an ungenteel breath of disappointment, Hero was about to turn back toward the stairs herself when a woman’s lightly accented voice said, “You’re the one, aren’t you? The gentry mort who was at Molly O’Keefe’s, asking questions about Rose and Hannah?”
 
 
Hero turned as a tall Jamaican with a long regal neck and an elegant carriage stepped out of the shadows. Hero felt a frisson of anticipation. “Do you have information for me?”
 
 
“For a price,” said the Jamaican.
 
 
“You’ll be paid your twenty pounds when and if the information you provide proves to be correct.”
 
 
The woman’s almond-shaped eyes narrowed. “How do I know you’ll deliver?”
 
 
Hero’s head jerked up. No one had ever before questioned her honor. “You have my word.”
 
 
The woman simply laughed.
 
 
Hero said, “What’s your name?”
 
 
“Tasmin. Tasmin Poole.”
 
 
“You know where I can find Hannah?”
 
 
Tasmin Poole shook her head. “I don’t know where Hannah Green is. But I’ve got this.” She held up a delicate silver chain bracelet from which dangled a shield embossed with a coat of arms.
 
 
Hero reached out her hand, but the Cyprian closed her fist tight around the bracelet, hiding it from view. “Uh-uh. You want t’see it, you pay for it.”
 
 
“Where did you get it?”
 
 
“Rose gave it t’me.”
 
 
“
Gave
it to you?”
 
 
Tasmin Poole smiled. “Let’s call it a payment.”
 
 
“How do I know you’re telling the truth? How do I know this bracelet was Rose’s?”
 
 
A sly smile curved the Jamaican Cyprian’s wide mouth. “You have my word.”
 
 
Hero’s fingers tightened around the strings of her reticule. “I’ll give you ten guineas for the bracelet.”
 
 
“Fifteen,” said the Jamaican.
 
 
“Twelve.”
 
 
“Thirteen.”
 
 
“Thirteen, then.” Hero reached into her reticule for the money. She’d have paid twice that. “Now what can you tell me about Rose?”
 
 
In one deft motion, Tasmin Poole handed over the bracelet and scooped up the payment. “That’ll cost you extra.”
 
 
Chapter 18
 
 
In an effort to humor his volatile French cook, Sebastian was picking at an elegant nuncheon of cold salmon in his dining room, when Tom returned with the information that Luke O’Brian, the man named by Ian Kane as Rose’s particular customer, was a purchasing agent with clients who ranged from India to the West Indies and Canada.
 
 
“He buys ’em everything from kegs o’ nails and plows to furniture and rugs and stuff for their ’ouses—whatever they need. I couldn’t find anyone what ’ad anything to say to ’is discredit. They say ’e’s ’onest as can be with ’is clients, yet ’e don’t seem to put the squeeze on the merchants, neither.”
 
 
“A regular paragon.” Sebastian folded his napkin and set it aside. Catching Morey’s eye, he said, “Tell Calhoun I’ll be needing him right away.”
 
 
The majordomo bowed and withdrew.
 
 
Tom frowned. “A para-what?”
 
 
“A paragon. A model of excellence and perfection.”
 
 
“That sounds like ’im all right.”
 
 
Sebastian pushed up from the table. “Which begs the question, doesn’t it? What’s this paragon doing frequenting someplace like the Orchard Street Academy?”
 
 
 
“The brown corduroy, don’t you think?” said Calhoun, sorting through that portion of Sebastian’s wardrobe culled from the secondhand clothing dealers of Rosemary Lane and Monmouth Street. “It will clash hideously with the red waistcoat, but Bow Street Runners seem to have a strong predilection for brown corduroy. And you’ll like this—” The valet turned, a black neckcloth held delicately between two extended fingers. “The individual who sold it to me assured me one could wear it for a month without washing it.”
 
 
Sebastian looked around from rubbing powder into his hair. Between the powder and some judiciously applied theatrical makeup, he had already added twenty years to his appearance. A bolster around his torso would add twenty pounds. “Only a month?”
 
 
Calhoun laughed. “Two, in a pinch.”
 
 
A few simple questions asked along the riverfront soon brought Sebastian to the outward-bound West Indian docks at the Isle of Dogs, where he found Luke O’Brian overseeing the loading of a shipment of canvas and hemp bound for Barbados. For a moment Sebastian simply watched him from a distance. The purchasing agent was a well-made man of perhaps thirty or thirty-five, expensively if quietly dressed, his manner easy toward ship’s captain and sailor alike.
 
 
Most of the Bow Street Runners Sebastian had met were gruff, bullying men. That was the demeanor Sebastian assumed now, sinking further into the persona as he walked the length of the wind-buffeted dock so that even his posture and manner of movement altered. It was a trick Kat had taught him when they were both young and in love and fatally unaware of the common blood that coursed through their veins.
 
 
“You’re O’Brian, aren’t you?” said Sebastian brusquely. “Luke O’Brian?”
 
 
The purchasing agent turned. He had light brown hair and hazel eyes that flashed with a lively intelligence. “That’s right. May I help you?”
 
 
“My name is Taylor.” Sebastian clasped the lapels of his corduroy coat and threw out his chest. “Simon Taylor. We’re looking into the death of Rose Fletcher.” He’d learned he never actually had to
say
he was from Bow Street; as long as he looked and acted the part, the assumption simply followed.

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