Who Buries the Dead (25 page)

With a petulant frown, Lady Oliphant set aside her ice cup and shook out the skirts of her elegant satin ball gown. “Come away, Sinclair; do. I want to dance.”

Oliphant took her hand in his and rested it on the crook of his bent arm. “Of course, my dear.” He nodded casually to Sebastian. “Devlin.”

Sebastian watched them thread their way through the growing crowd of guests filtering into the supper room from the ballroom above. He watched as Lady Oliphant, a smile now plastered on her face, curtsied low to a dowager countess while Oliphant laughed heartily at a few pleasantries exchanged with her son, a cabinet minister.

The conviction that Oliphant was hiding something remained. But all the old doubts came crowding back as Sebastian acknowledged the possibility that maybe—just maybe—he was allowing the events of the past to color his interpretation of the present.

And because of it, men were still dying.

C
aptain Hugh Wyeth was throwing darts by himself in the Shepherd’s Rest public room, pitching one after the other at a battered board hanging against a pockmarked wall. He hardly seemed to be focusing or even looking, and yet his aim was true every time.

“You’re good,” said Sebastian, coming to lean against a nearby wall.

“I’ve had a lot of practice lately. There’s not much else to do.”

“When do you rejoin your regiment?”

Wyeth let fly another dart. “According to the doctors, not as soon as I had hoped.”

“Who were you with?”

“The Twentieth Hussars.”

“The Twentieth Hussars used to be stationed in Jamaica.”

Wyeth looked over at him, puzzled. “We were, yes. Why?”

“Did you ever meet Dr. Sterling there?”

“Not to my knowledge. Was he in Jamaica?”

“As it happens, yes.”

The captain sent his last dart flying at the target. “You look like you’re dressed for a ball.”

“I am.”

Wyeth grunted and went to retrieve his tightly clustered darts. He no longer wore his sling, but Sebastian noticed he held his right arm stiffly against his side.

Sebastian said, “You told me you didn’t know Sinclair Oliphant. Yet he seems to know you.”

Wyeth looked around in surprise. “What?”

“He’s the one who told me you were stationed in Jamaica—presumably to shift suspicion away from himself and onto you.”

“Did it work?”

When Sebastian returned no answer, the captain gave a soft, humorless laugh and said, “I suppose the fact that you’re here tells me all I need to know.” He walked back to the throwing line, then paused, weighing his first dart. “Why would I kill some old doctor? Tell me that.”

“I don’t know. But then, I can’t figure out why anyone would want to murder him—unless it was because he knew something worrisome about whoever killed Stanley Preston.”

Wyeth threw his dart and practically missed the target entirely.

Sebastian said, “Ever hear of a man named Rowan Toop?”

“No. Why? Is he dead too?”

Sebastian nodded. “They found him this morning, at Windsor.”

“Someone cut off his head?”

“No, actually; he drowned.”

“You think I did that?”

“You wouldn’t happen to know what might have taken Stanley Preston to Bucket Lane last Sunday, would you?”

“Where?”

“Bucket Lane. Off Fish Street Hill, near London Bridge.”

“No. Don’t tell me someone’s died there too?”

“Not to my knowledge.”

Wyeth threw the rest of his darts at the target, one after the other in rapid succession. This time, they were spread all over the round wooden board in a chaotic pattern.

Sebastian said, “Last Sunday at Lady Farningham’s musical evening, you and Miss Preston quarreled. That’s why you left early, isn’t it? In fact, Miss Preston herself left not long after you did.”

“So?”

“Why did you quarrel?”

“Does it matter?”

“You tell me. Does it?”

The captain twitched one shoulder and said nothing.

Sebastian studied the younger man’s angry, tightly held features. “Sinclair Oliphant told me something else. He says that six years ago, you tried to elope with Miss Preston. Only, her father and brother caught up with you and brought her back.”

Sebastian watched the blood drain from the captain’s face. “How the devil did he know that?”

“Stanley Preston made himself Oliphant’s enemy, and Oliphant is the kind of man who makes it his business to know his enemies’ most dangerous secrets. So it’s true?”

Wyeth swallowed hard. “Yes. Look—I’m not proud of what we did, but . . . we were both very young and desperate, and . . . we didn’t understand the gravity of what we were doing.”

“It certainly does much to explain Preston’s animosity toward you.”

Wyeth tightened his jaw and said nothing.

“Miss Preston is of age now. Yet most women are reluctant to marry without their father’s blessing.”
Particularly when there’s a potential inheritance involved,
Sebastian thought. “Would she have married you, do you think, if her father continued to withhold his consent?”

“Stanley Preston was never going to change his mind, believe me.”

“So would she have married you anyway?”

Wyeth swung to face him, his hands curling into fists at his sides. “You think I would have done that to her? Married her without his blessing? Preston would never have forgiven her. He swore he’d cut her off without a penny and never speak to her again, and he meant it. Yet you think I would have married her anyway? Taken her away from a life of comfort to make her follow the drum and live in poverty? My God; what kind of man do you take me for?”

“You were certainly ready to elope with her six years ago.”

“I was eighteen! I told you, I’m not proud of what happened six years ago. But I know better now.”

“She wouldn’t have been completely penniless,” said Sebastian. “She’d still have had her mother’s portion.”

“Her mother’s portion amounts to even less than my annual pay. Enough to help buy a few promotions, perhaps, and ease the worst hardships that come with life in the Army. But without her inheritance from Preston, I could never have given her anything like the kind of life she’s always known.”

“Is that so important?”

“You know it is. I’ve seen what poverty can do to a gently reared woman. My grandfather was never as wealthy as Preston, but my mother still grew up surrounded by servants, with a carriage and her own pony and summers spent at the seaside. With five daughters and an estate entailed to the male line, my grandfather couldn’t give her much of a dowry, but she was pretty enough that he hoped she’d attract suitors anyway. And she did—the grandest being a man worth ten thousand pounds a year.”

“She turned them all down to marry your father?”

Wyeth nodded. “My father’s living was worth barely two hundred pounds a year.” He gave a ragged laugh. “Once, she’d worn ball gowns worth nearly that much.”

“Were they happy?”

“They were happy with each other, yes. But her life was . . . hard. She’d cry sometimes, when she didn’t know I could hear her. She worried constantly, about where they were going to find the money to fix the vicarage roof, or pay my school fees, or provide for my three sisters. All that worry and fear . . . In the end, it killed her. That’s when I realized how selfish I’d been, asking Anne to marry me, expecting her to endure a different version of the kind of life that killed my mother.”

“You’re saying that when faced with a choice between love and wealth, a woman should choose wealth?”

“No. But—”

“You think your mother would have been happier married to a man with ten thousand pounds a year whom she didn’t love?”

“No. But—”

“And if your father had made the choice for her by walking away, would she have been happy?”

Wyeth glared at him. “God
damn
you. Who are you—an earl’s son, heir to a grand fortune—to presume to pass judgment on me? What do you know of the kind of choices the rest of us must make?”

“More than you might think,” said Sebastian.

He was turning away when Wyeth’s fist caught him high on the side of his cheek.

“You let him hit you?” said Hero, holding a twisted cloth filled with ice against the rapidly purpling bruise.

“Not exactly,” said Sebastian, wincing. “But I did provoke him. It didn’t seem right to hit him back.”

“You’re going to end up with a black eye.”

“It won’t be the first.”

She made an incoherent noise deep in her throat and went to refill her cloth from the bucket of ice provided by Calhoun. “If he were clever, Captain Wyeth would be trying to convince you that Preston had agreed to let him marry Anne. Instead, he insists Preston would never have consented, then goes on to detail why a man of honor would never marry Anne without her inheritance. It’s as if he were determined to tie a noose around his own neck and hang himself.”

“I know. Which, ironically enough, makes me think he probably
didn’t
kill Stanley Preston.” Sebastian went to peer at his discolored face in the washstand mirror. “I wish I could say I felt the same way about Miss Anne Preston.”

Hero turned to look at him, the ice-filled cloth held slack in her hand. “You can’t be serious.”

“Oh, I don’t mean that she personally stabbed Preston and Sterling and cut off their heads. But she wouldn’t be the first woman to hire someone to do her dirty work for her. Someone such as, say, Diggory Flynn.”

“Surely she can’t be that diabolical? To kill her own father . . .”

Sebastian shrugged. “Patricide, matricide, fratricide: They seem so unnatural that we’re repelled by the very thought. Yet they happen—often enough that we’ve even coined words for them. Anne Preston wanted Captain Hugh Wyeth, but she knew he’d never marry her without her inheritance. Not because he’s a greedy fortune hunter, but because he saw what poverty did to his mother and he’s too noble to do that to a woman he loves.”

“So she removes Stanley Preston, and now she’s free to marry her captain
and
receive her inheritance? Is that what you’re suggesting? His noble qualms are stilled, and she never needs to worry about having to wash her own clothes in a muddy stream in some backward part of the world? Yes; it makes sense—if she’s that shockingly selfish and coldhearted. But it doesn’t give her a reason to kill Douglas Sterling.”

“Just because we don’t know of a reason doesn’t mean one doesn’t exist.”

Hero set aside the ice-filled cloth. “Why order the killer to cut off his victims’ heads?”

“Perhaps that was his own embellishment. Or perhaps she thought a more gruesome killing would help deflect suspicion from her.”

“Surely she can’t be that . . . evil.”

“I wouldn’t have said so. But I’ve been wrong about people before.” He took the ice-filled cloth and carefully pressed it against his face. “The problem is, it still doesn’t explain why Stanley Preston made a most uncharacteristic visit to Bucket Lane just hours before he was killed.”

“That could be entirely unrelated to anything.”

“It could be,” said Sebastian, remembering the dusky-skinned woman with the long neck and the strange, turquoise eyes. “But I doubt it. And if it is related, then whoever Preston went to see that day might very well be in danger—although they probably don’t know it.”

Hero went to hunker down beside the black cat curled up before the dressing room fire. “One of the costermongers I interviewed lives near Fish Street Hill,” she said, her hand trailing down the cat’s back. “I could ask him to look into it. They all seem to know each other.” She shifted her hand to scratch behind the cat’s ears. “And Rowan Toop? How do you think he fits into all this?”

“I think he stole the royal relics from the crypt and was selling them to Preston. They’d arranged to meet at Bloody Bridge, except by the time Toop arrived, Preston was already dead. Toop was probably so horrified by what he discovered that he ran off—dropping the inscribed coffin strap in the process. It’s hard to say whether or not he saw—or knew—something that could have identified the killer. But the killer obviously thought he did. And killed him too.”

Hero kept her gaze on the cat. “Or Toop could have been so rattled by recent events that he simply slipped in the mud while taking his dog for a walk and pitched into the Thames—without anyone’s help.”

“True.” Sebastian set aside the melting ice and reached for a clean cloth to dry his face. “I’m hoping Gibson will have an answer when I see him tomorrow.”

If he’s not lost in an opium-induced fog,
thought Sebastian.

Monday, 29 March

A
fter some thirty-six hours, Rowan Toop’s corpse had taken on the vague odor of rotting fish.

Naked and eviscerated, it lay on the stone table in the outbuilding at the base of Paul Gibson’s unkempt yard. The Irishman was there, cold sober and cranky. He was not singing.

“I was wondering when you’d show up,” he said when Sebastian came to stand in the doorway.

“Good morning,” said Sebastian.

The surgeon grunted. “Nice black eye.”

“Thank you.”

Sebastian took one look at what was left of Toop, then looked elsewhere. “So did he drown? Or was he murdered?”

“Maybe both. Maybe one, maybe the other. It’s hard to say.”

“It is?”

“It is.” Gibson set aside his knife with a clatter and reached for a rag to wipe the gore from his hands. “He could have been hit over the head, then thrown into the river, whereupon he drowned. Or he could have fallen and hit his own head, slipped into the river, and drowned. He could even have slipped into the river, hit his head on something, and then drowned.”

“But you’re saying he was alive when he went into the water?”

“Not necessarily. He could also have been hit on the head, died, and then been tossed into the river. That’s a nasty blow he’s got there—nasty enough to kill him without any help from the river.”

“Was there water in his lungs?”

“There was. Water, sand—even a few bits of grass.”

“So he must have breathed all that stuff in. Right?”

“No. If there hadn’t been any water in his lungs, then I could tell you, yes, he was probably dead when he hit the water. But the action of the river could have driven water into his lungs even after he was dead.” Gibson picked up his knife and pointed at what Sebastian realized must be Rowan Toop’s lungs, sitting on a rusty tray parked on a nearby shelf. “See that white foam?”

“Yes,” said Sebastian, who had no desire to peer too closely.

“You often find a fine white froth like that in the lungs of drownings pulled from the Thames. But you also see it in the lungs of men whose hearts have failed, or who’ve hit their heads. Now, your Rowan Toop’s heart was just fine. But you obviously can’t say the same thing about his head.”

Sebastian blew out a long, frustrated breath. “So you can’t tell me
anything
?”

“No. Only thing remotely queer about any of this is that they found him so fast. A freshly dead body’ll usually sink like a rock. They don’t typically come up again until enough gas builds in their guts to float them to the surface. And this time of year, that usually takes about five days.”

“Five days? So why was Toop found on Romney Island less than twelve hours after he disappeared?”

Gibson shrugged. “Must’ve been something about the way he went in the water. Trapped air in his cassock. It happens. He floated down to the island and got caught in the trees before he had a chance to sink.”

Sebastian braced his hands against the stone table and stared at the dead man’s pale, bony face. “I can’t believe he just slipped and hit his head. Somebody killed him.”

“Probably,” agreed Gibson. “But unless they find a bloody cudgel by the side of the river, you’ll never be able to prove it.”

Later that morning, Sebastian joined Sir Henry Lovejoy at a coffeehouse just off the Strand.

“I’ve had the lads looking into this Diggory Flynn you were asking about,” said Lovejoy, taking a cautious sip of his hot chocolate. “Unfortunately, they haven’t been able to find a trace of him.”

“It could be an assumed name.” Sebastian wrapped his hands around his own steaming coffee. “I’ve just come from Gibson’s surgery.”

“And?”

“He says Toop’s postmortem is inconclusive; the virger may have been killed, or he may simply have slipped and fallen in the river.”

Lovejoy looked thoughtfully at Sebastian’s discolored eye. But all he said was, “Perhaps that explains why Toop’s head wasn’t cut off—because he wasn’t actually murdered.”

“He was murdered,” said Sebastian.

“Then how do you explain the differences in both the method of murder and the treatment of the body?”

“It could be because the killer didn’t have time to be more grisly. Or perhaps he didn’t want us to realize that Toop’s death was connected to those of Preston and Sterling. Or . . .”

“Or?” prompted Lovejoy.

Sebastian rested his elbows on the table. “Ask yourself: Why would a killer cut off his victims’ heads?”

“Because he’s mad.”

“That’s one explanation. But there are others. The killer’s purpose could be to create fear—either in the community at large, or in one specifically targeted individual who knows he’s next.”

“Such as whom?”

Sebastian shook his head. “I don’t know.” From the distance came the
rat-a-tat-tat
of a military drum and the tramp of marching feet.

“Either way,” said Lovejoy, “it’s still the work of a madman. No sane individual goes around cutting off people’s heads.”

“I think most of us are a bit mad, each in our own way.”

“But . . . to cut off a man’s head?”

Sebastian stared out the bowed window at a street filled with stout matrons and City merchants and all the usual bustle of a London morning. But he wasn’t seeing any of it. He was seeing another time, another place. “It happens in battle,” he said. “More often than you might think. It’s as if the act of killing taps into something primitive within us—a deep and powerful rage that finds expression in the mutilation of a dead enemy.”

“You think that’s what we’re dealing with here? Rage? But . . . over what?”

“I still don’t know. But I suspect that rage was directed at Preston and Sterling, whereas Toop . . . Toop was killed simply out of concern he might have seen something.”

“What a disturbing thought.” Lovejoy sat for a moment in silence. Then he cleared his throat and said, “I’ve had some of the lads interviewing the regular patrons at the Monster, as you suggested. They located a solicitor who was seated at a table near Henry Austen when Preston came into the tavern last Sunday night. He says the way Preston was yelling made it virtually impossible not to hear everything that was said.”

“And?”

“It seems that, amongst other threats, Preston swore he was going to withdraw his funds from Austen’s bank.”

“Did Preston bank with Austen?”

“He did. Indeed, his deposits were quite substantial. And here’s another interesting thing: Dr. Douglas Sterling was also a subscriber.”

“What does Henry Austen say about all this?”

“He claims his bank is strong enough to withstand the defection of a dozen such subscribers.”

“Is it?”

“Who can say? But this doesn’t look good for him. It doesn’t look good at all.”

Sebastian found Henry Austen coming out of a small brick chapel tucked away off Brompton Row. This was a part of Hans Town as yet unspoiled by London’s creeping sprawl, where budding chestnut trees swayed gently in the breeze and vast fields of market gardens stretched away to the east. The day had dawned gloriously warm, with the sky a rare, clear blue and the air fresh with the promise of spring.

Sebastian paused his curricle across from the chapel, the brim of his hat tipped against the strengthening sun, and watched Henry Austen walk out the chapel door, eyes blinking against the sudden fierceness of the light. His gaze focused on Sebastian and he momentarily froze before turning to speak to the two women who accompanied him: his sister Jane and their friend, Miss Anne Preston.

Jane Austen looked up, smiled, and nodded to Sebastian. Anne Preston stared at him, but she did not smile or acknowledge him in any way.

“That younger gentry mort don’t appear to like ye overly much,” observed Tom from his perch at the rear of the curricle.

“She doesn’t, does she?” agreed Sebastian.

Leaving the two women to walk on alone, Henry Austen crossed the street toward Sebastian, then drew up while still some feet away. “How did you find me?”

“Your clerk told me you were helping Miss Preston finalize the details of her father’s funeral.”

Austen nodded, his arms hanging loosely at his sides. “I know why you’re here.”

“I figured you would. Climb up. Tom will get down and wait for us.”

Austen hesitated a moment, then leapt into the high seat as Tom scrambled down.

“I won’t be long,” Sebastian told the tiger, and gave his horses the office to start.

“Fine pair,” said Austen, his gaze on the chestnuts’ sun-warmed hides as they bowled up the lane toward Fulham.

“They were bred on my estate down in Hampshire.”

Austen turned his head to look at Sebastian. “I take it you find my failure to tell you of Preston’s threat to my bank suspicious.”

“Should I?”

“Bow Street does.”

“Perhaps that’s because they don’t understand the important part that confidence plays in the stability of a bank. I’m not surprised you chose to keep it quiet. Or as quiet as you could after Preston shouted his intentions in a crowded tavern.”

When Austen remained silent, Sebastian said, “Could your bank have withstood Preston’s withdrawal? And before you answer, l should warn you that I have the resources to verify your answer.”

“Then why bother to ask?” snapped the banker.

Sebastian kept his attention on the road.

After a moment, Austen said, “Yes, the bank is solid, damn you. Preston was a large investor; I won’t deny that. But not by any means the largest.”

“Do you think he would have carried through on his threat?”

“Honestly? I don’t know. He was always flying off the handle and saying wild things, only to later calm down and reconsider.”

“And Douglas Sterling? Would he have followed his old friend’s lead and also removed his funds from your bank?”

Austen looked genuinely surprised. “Sterling? Of course not. Why would he?”

“Because of the friendship between them?”

Austen shook his head. “They knew each other, of course—had known each other for years. But I’d characterize them more as acquaintances than what you might call friends. Apart from the difference in their ages, Sterling was a physician from a relatively humble background, whereas Preston had grand ambitions of taking his place in Society. He was always talking about his late wife the Baron’s daughter, or his cousin the Home Secretary. Another man might have ignored the disparity in their rank and wealth. But not Preston.”

“Was Preston ill, do you think?” Sebastian asked, guiding his horses around an empty farm wagon.

“Not to my knowledge. But then, as I said, Preston and I weren’t exactly great friends either.”

“From the sound of things, he wasn’t intimate with many people.”

“In my experience, people who view others as social or financial assets rarely do accumulate close friends.”

“True,” said Sebastian. “You wouldn’t by chance happen to know what took Preston to Fish Street Hill last Sunday, would you?”

“Fish Street Hill? Good heavens; no.”

“Ever know Preston to keep a mistress?”

Austen’s eyes widened at the question. “No. He was genuinely, madly in love with his wife and never got over her death.”

“What about when he was a very young man? Say thirty or thirty-five years ago, when he was in Jamaica?”

Rather than answer immediately, Austen studied Sebastian from beneath half-lowered lids. “What are you suggesting?”

“Any possibility Preston could have had a child by one of the slave women on his plantations?”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Is it so improbable?”

“Let’s just say that if you’d known Preston, you’d understand just how improbable it is. His belief in the superiority of the English was intense and unshakable. I mean, the man could never forgive my wife for once having married a
Frenchman
. And while I wasn’t acquainted with him thirty years ago, the mind frankly boggles at the thought of him raping one of his slave women—if that’s what you’re suggesting.”

“Those who rail the loudest against ‘racial impurity’ are often those who feel they have something to hide. Something that violates their own twisted moral code.”

Austen thought about it a moment, then blew out a long breath. “I suppose it’s possible, but . . . Whatever gave you such an idea?”