Who Buries the Dead (17 page)

“It was war.”

“No, it wasn’t. It was revenge. Those women and children deserve justice. But there is no real justice in murder.”

He saw her sad smile, the almost imperceptible shake of her head. She drew the line between right and wrong in a different place than he. It was one of the ways in which they differed, one of the ways in which she was very much her father’s daughter.

He touched her face, ran his fingertips along the curve of her cheek. “I believe those who die violently at the hands of others deserve justice. We owe them that. The problem is, by going after ruthless men—and women—I run the risk of putting you in danger. You and Simon too.”

He told her then what he’d learned from Knox, about the threat Priss Mulligan might pose to them all. He said, “Promise me you’ll be careful?”

She took his hand in hers, pressed a kiss to his palm. “I knew what you did when I married you, Devlin. It’s a part of who you are—a part of what I love about you. I won’t try to pretend that I don’t worry something might happen to you, because I do—the same way I worry about Simon catching a fever or coming down with the flux. But I refuse to be ruled by my fears.” She gave him a lopsided smile. “As for Simon and me . . . we’re both constantly surrounded by a small army of servants. I don’t think we’re exactly vulnerable.”

He wanted to say,
Everyone is vulnerable.

But some fears were best left unspoken.

Friday, 26 March

T
he next morning, Sebastian drove toward the Tower of London, to Paul Gibson’s surgery.

He left Tom to water the horses at the fountain near the ancient fortress’s walls and slipped through the shadowy, narrow passage that led to the unkempt yard at the rear of the Irishman’s old stone house. Only, this time, in place of Gibson’s throaty tenor warbling some Irish drinking song, he could hear a Frenchwoman’s soft, clear voice singing,
“Madame à sa tour monte, mironton, mironton, mirontaine . . .”

He reached the open doorway to find Alexi Sauvage bent over the naked, eviscerated body of Douglas Sterling laid out on the stone slab before her. She had a leather apron tied over her simple gown and a bloody scalpel in one hand and was singing softly to herself,
“Madame à sa tour monte si haut qu’elle peut—”

“What are you doing here?” he demanded. He knew she had trained as a doctor in Italy, knew she must have done this sort of thing before. But finding her here was still disconcerting.

A lock of flame red hair fell across her eyes as she looked up at him. She pushed it back with one bent wrist. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

“Where’s Gibson?”

She set aside the scalpel with a clatter. She was an attractive woman, with pale, delicate skin and a high-bridged nose and brown eyes, dark now with an old hatred. Sebastian might have had a good reason for killing the man she’d once loved, but he knew she had never forgiven him for it.

“Gibson is”—she hesitated, then finished by saying—“not well today.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning, your friend is an opium eater. How he managed to meet his responsibilities with even a semblance of normalcy before I arrived is beyond me. But I don’t think he could have kept it up much longer.”

Sebastian studied her set, angry face. “You said you could help him. Yet you have not done so.”

She reached for a rag and wiped her hands. “As long as he suffers the phantom pains from his missing leg, he will never be able to free himself of the opium.”

“You said you can help him with that too.”

“Only if he allows it.”

“Why would he not?”

“Perhaps you should try asking him that yourself.” She picked up her scalpel again. “Although you’re not likely to get a coherent response from him at the moment.”

Sebastian nodded to the decapitated body between them. “What have you discovered?”

“Not much. For an old man, Douglas Sterling was as healthy as an ox. He’d likely have lived another ten or more years, if someone hadn’t stabbed him in the back and cut off his head.”

“In that order?”

“Yes.”

“You’re certain?”

“Are you suggesting I’m incompetent?”

I’m suggesting you’re probably not as good at this as Gibson,
he thought. But all he said was, “Is there anything that might tell us who did this?”

She gave him a tight, unpleasant smile. “I was under the impression that was your job.”

Sebastian shifted his gaze to where Sterling’s bloodless head rested in a basin on the shelf, and for a moment, all he could think about was the tale Knox had told him, of the smuggler who’d come home to find his wife missing and his little boys hideously dismembered.

He said, “Where’s Gibson?”

She shook her head. “You don’t want to see him.”

“No. But I think I should.”

Her gaze met his, but her eyes were hooded and he could not begin to guess at her thoughts.

Then she said, “He’s in the parlor.”

He found Gibson sprawled in one of the old cracked leather chairs beside the cold hearth, his coat rumpled, his cravat gone, the collar of his shirt stained with sweat. Sebastian thought his friend lost in an opium-induced stupor. Then the Irishman looked up, his eyes hazy, his smile dreamy.

“Devlin.”

Sebastian walked over to pour himself a brandy, then gulped it down in one long pull.

“You’re here about this latest headless fellow, I suppose.” Gibson waved one hand vaguely in the direction of the yard. “Haven’t started yet, I’m afraid.”

Sebastian poured himself another drink. “Alexi Sauvage has almost finished the postmortem.”

Something flickered across Gibson’s features, then faded into bland contentment. “Has she, now? She’s very clever. Wish she’d marry me. But she won’t.”

“She says your leg has been troubling you.”

“My leg?” Gibson’s fuzzy smile never slipped. “I think about it sometimes, still over there, doubtless a bare, weathered bone by now. While I’m here. Not yet a pile of bare bones.”

When Sebastian said nothing, the surgeon drew in a slow, even breath that eased out like a sigh. “It’s a bit like a woman, you know. Opium, I mean. Soft. Caressing . . . Deceptive. A delightful exaltation of the spirit mingled with cloudless serenity. Truly a gift from the gods.”

“That can kill,” said Sebastian.

Gibson’s smile grew lopsided. “The gifts of the gods are often double-edged, are they not?”

“Did you look at Sterling yourself at all?”

“Who?” said Gibson, his head lolling against the back of the chair. “Sometimes I wish I were a poet—or maybe a composer—so I could share this joy and beauty. Everything’s so much clearer. Brighter. More intense. Delicious . . .”

His voice faded and his gaze grew unfocused again, his face slack.

A soft step in the passage drew Sebastian’s gaze to the doorway.

“He wouldn’t have wanted you to see him like this,” said Alexi Sauvage, her hands cupping her bent elbows close to her body, her voice low.

Sebastian turned toward her, aware of a powerful rush of fear and guilt all twisted up into a helpless rage that somehow ended up being directed at her. “
God damn you.
Why don’t you help him?”

“I told you: He won’t let me.”

“Why not?”

She shifted her gaze to the man now lost in a cloud of opium-hued bliss. “Fear. Embarrassment. A man’s peculiar notion of pride. I don’t know. You tell me; you’re a man—his friend. All I know is, he can’t keep going on like this. It’s destroying his mind and body.
Killing
him.”

“When will he be . . .”

“Normal?” she shrugged. “He’ll sleep for some time now. When he wakes, he’ll be listless, depressed. Nauseous. Tomorrow will be better than tonight.”

Sebastian set aside his second brandy untouched. “Then I’ll be back tomorrow.”

“W
hat we doin’ ’ere?” asked Tom as Sebastian drew his curricle to a halt at the side of the lane leading to Bloody Bridge.

The sky was light blue and marbled with ripples of white clouds, the spring air rich with the smell of freshly turned earth and budding leaves and the smoke rising from the chimneys of the nearby cottages. Sebastian handed the boy his reins. “Thinking,” he said, and dropped lightly to the ground.

He could feel the drying, muddy ruts of the roadway crumble beneath his boots as he walked toward the bridge, his gaze drifting over the expanse of market and nursery gardens that stretched away to the east. The tolling bell of a small country chapel, its tower barely visible above a distant cluster of trees, was carried on the cool breeze. Frowning, he turned to look back at Sloane Square, now drenched with a rich golden sunlight.

“So whatcha thinkin’?” asked Tom, watching him.

“No one seems to be able to tell me what Stanley Preston was doing here on a rainy Sunday night.”

“Some folks just like t’ walk in the rain,” said Tom. “Never made no sense to me, but ’tis a fact.”

“True. Yet Preston was afraid of footpads, and Bloody Bridge has a decidedly nasty history.”

Sebastian went to hunker down in the grassy verge where they’d found Preston’s decapitated body sprawled on its back. There was no sign now that it had ever been there. He rested a forearm on one thigh. “Molly Watson from the Rose and Crown says Preston’s greatcoat was open, with his pocket watch dangling on the grass beside him.”

“Ye think somebody was goin’ through ’is pockets, lookin’ fer somethin’?”

“That’s one explanation.”

Tom screwed up his face in puzzlement. “There’s another?”

“He was stabbed in the back, which suggests he either turned his back on his killer—obviously not a wise thing to do—or he didn’t hear the killer come up behind him.” Sebastian rose to his feet. “When do people typically look at their watches?”

“I don’t know. Ne’er ’ad one, meself.”

Sebastian found himself smiling. “Men generally check their watches when they’re late for an appointment, or when someone else is late.”

“So yer sayin’ ye think ’e was ’ere t’ meet somebody? Somebody who was late?”

“I think so, yes. And whoever it was, that person was obviously someone Preston was extraordinarily anxious to see.”

“How ye know that?”

“Because Preston was afraid of Bloody Bridge at night, yet he still agreed to come here, alone, after dark.”

Sebastian stared across the open green of Sloane Square toward Chelsea and the river that flowed out of sight at the base of the hill. Anyone traveling down from Windsor to deliver the stolen royal relics to Preston would in all likelihood have come by the Thames. If he landed at Cheyne Walk, he would need only to come up the short stretch of Paradise Row and skirt the shadowy gardens of Chelsea Hospital and the Royal Military Asylum in order to reach Sloane Square and—just beyond it—the quiet, deserted lane to Bloody Bridge. Above Sloane Square lay the long, straight stretch of Sloane Street and Hans Place, both well lit and heavily traveled. The kinds of places where a man might be seen—and recognized.

So Bloody Bridge was not simply out of the way and little frequented; it was essentially halfway between Alford House and the river.

Sebastian went to stand at the edge of the rivulet where he’d found the ancient inscribed length of lead strapping. He was now fairly certain that Stanley Preston had come here that night to take possession of the relics from a thief whose identity Sebastian still didn’t know. Was it a trap? Possibly. If so, who had set it? Priss Mulligan? Thistlewood? Oliphant? Or had the killer simply taken advantage of Preston’s unwise decision to venture alone to such a dark, out-of-the-way spot? And what about the thief? Had he arrived before or after the murder? Impossible to say. But the thief had been there; the presence of the coffin strap proved that.

So who was the thief? And where was the King’s head?

“What sort of fellow arranges a meeting in a dark, out-of-the-way spot?” said Sebastian.

“Someone who don’t want nobody t’ see ’im!” said Tom in triumph.

Turning away from that death-haunted bridge, Sebastian went to leap up into the curricle’s high seat and take the reins. “Exactly.”

“Stop glowering at us, Jarvis,” grumbled George, His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, Regent of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Swallowing a half-masticated mouthful of buttered crab, the Prince reached for his wineglass and drank deeply. “It’s enough to give us indigestion.”

They were in one of Carlton House’s private withdrawing rooms, the table before the Prince spread with a feast intended to still the hunger pains that so often came upon His Highness in the midafternoon.

“Your meeting with the Russian Ambassador—” Jarvis began.

“Can be put off until tomorrow,” said the Prince, negligently waving a delicate silver fork piled with more crab. “The Countess of Hertford should be here any moment. You wouldn’t expect me to forgo such a treat, now, would you?” He flashed a smile that was meant to be roguish but came off simply as simpering and foolish.

He was fifty years old and grossly fat, his once handsome features coarsened by decades of dissipation and excess. But in his own mind, he was still the dashing young Prince Florizel who’d charmed the nation that now despised him for his extravagance and his irresponsibility and his breathtaking selfishness.

Jarvis kept his own features bland. One did not reach—or retain—his position of power by indulging in useless displays of annoyance and contempt. “The Ambassador has been waiting three hours.”

“Then one would think he’d welcome the opportunity to go home. Tell him to come back tomorrow. And take yourself off as well, before you bring on my spasms.”

Any spasms the Prince was likely to suffer would owe considerably more to the pile of crab and two bottles of burgundy he’d already consumed than to the demands of his royal responsibilities. But Jarvis bowed and said, “Yes, sir.”

He’d almost reached the door when the Prince said, “Oh, and Jarvis? I trust the arrangements for the formal opening of Charles I’s coffin are all in place?”

Jarvis paused. “The opening is scheduled for the first of April, the day following your aunt the Duchess’s funeral.”

“Excellent.” George gave a wide, slightly greasy smile. “What a treat it will be.”

Jarvis bowed again and withdrew.

He spent the next half hour soothing the outraged Russian Ambassador’s ruffled sensibilities and averting a minor diplomatic crisis. Then, feeling in need of a good, strong drink, he returned to his own chambers to find his son-in-law, Viscount Devlin, leaning against the sill of the window overlooking the forecourt, his arms folded at his chest and his boots crossed at the ankles.

“What the devil are you doing here?” demanded Jarvis, going to pour himself a glass of brandy.

“Have your men made any progress in their efforts to track down Charles I’s missing head?”

“They have not. Have you?”

“No.”

Jarvis eased the stopper from the crystal decanter and poured a healthy measure into one glass. “I won’t offer you a brandy since you’re not staying.”

The Viscount smiled. “When’s the formal opening to be?”

Jarvis set aside the decanter and turned to face him, glass in hand. “Next Thursday.”

“How many people know Charles’s head is missing?”

“The Dean and the virger of St. George’s, and the two men I’ve tasked with the item’s recovery. Why?”

“I assume all have been sworn to secrecy?”

“Naturally.”

“I plan to drive out to Windsor Castle in the morning and take a look at the royal vault. It might be helpful if you sent a message instructing the Dean and the virger to cooperate with me.”

Jarvis took a long drink, then paused a moment before saying, “You’ve found evidence to suggest these rather macabre murders are indeed linked to the theft from the royal crypt?”

“Evidence? No.”

Jarvis grunted. “I’ll send the message. But you will keep me informed.” It was not a question.

Devlin pushed away from the window. “Of course.”

Jarvis waited until the Viscount had taken himself off. Then he rang for his clerk.

“Send Major Archer to me. Now.”