What the Devil Knows

by C. S. Harris

  “I don’t know wot yer talkin’ about!”

  “Don’t you? Because now that I think about it, even if you did kill everyone from John Williams to Robert Vermilloe, you should still be nervous. It looks to me as if someone knows exactly what happened three years ago and why. They’ve obviously decided to take justice into their own hands, and I suspect you’re next.”

  Ablass’s lips peeled back from his teeth in a mean smile. “Don’t know who ye been talkin’ to, but they been spinnin’ ye a tale, that’s fer sure.”

  Sebastian shook his head. “The Sun Tavern was a stupid place to approach your former employer for a bit of blackmail. What were you threatening him with? Obviously you couldn’t expose him for the part he played in ordering the Ratcliffe Highway murders, but you could threaten to kill his daughter and grandchildren the same vicious way, couldn’t you? Is that why you were hanging around her house in Stepney? To frighten her and him so he’d pay up? I gather no one told you Pym declared ten years ago that his daughter was dead to him.”

  “I don’t know wot yer talkin’ about,” said Ablass again.

  Sebastian met the other man’s glittering, angry gaze. “Yes, you do. At first I was thinking you must have killed Pym and Cockerwell the same way you killed the Marrs and Old John’s family. But then I realized you’re too smart to do something like that, aren’t you? The Ratcliffe Highway killings were deliberately made gruesome and bloody because they were more than simple murders. They were a warning sent to every publican who ever thought about fighting back against the East End magistrates and the brewers. I can see you maybe deciding to kill the magistrates, but if it were you, you’d have done it the same way you killed Robert Vermilloe—quietly, with a knife in the back. Whoever killed Pym and Cockerwell didn’t want their deaths to be written off as just another sad example of the violence that plagues the East End. No, whoever killed those two crooked magistrates wanted their deaths to remind everyone of the Ratcliffe Highway murders. And that tells me you’re not the new Ratcliffe killer. That tells me you’re probably the killer’s next victim.”

  Ablass made a rough snorting sound, his nostrils turning white and pinched around the edges. “Yer mad. Ye hear me? Mad.”

  Sebastian gave another faint shake of his head. “No. And you know it. That’s why you’re scared. You’re so scared I can smell it. And you know who else smells it? The killer. Tell me who you think is doing this; it’s the only chance you have to survive.”

  Ablass sucked in a deep breath, the heavy moisture in the night air beading on the wild hairs of his long beard. “Ye don’t care about me. Ye just want to see me hang.”

  “Was Hugo Reeves one of the killers, Billy?” said Sebastian, pressing him. “Is that why he was butchered the same way as Pym and Cockerwell? What about Buxton-Collins and Meux? Were they a party to what happened three years ago? Why are you protecting them? Because you’re afraid they might send someone to quietly slip a knife in your back? They will, you know—if you let them. And if whoever butchered Pym and the others doesn’t get to you first.”

  Ablass brought up one meaty hand to punch the air between them with a shaky finger. “Ye got nothin’ on me, ye hear? Nothin’!”

  He turned to fumble with the handle of the taproom’s door. From somewhere in the distance came the howl of a dog and the rattle of cartwheels and, from nearer, the quiet click of a flintlock’s hammer being pulled back.

  “Look out!” shouted Sebastian, throwing himself flat as the night exploded with a roar of sulfurous flames.

  Chapter 54

  The bullet hit Ablass square in the chest with a dull thwump, expelling the air from his lungs and spinning him around. He wavered for a moment, staggering back against the brick wall behind him, his face slack with shock mingling slowly with the horror of comprehension.

  Then his eyes rolled back in his head, and he fell.

  “Bloody hell,” swore Sebastian, his gaze raking the misty darkness.

  He could hear the sound of running feet receding fast into the distance, and the impulse to give chase was strong. He pushed it down. Keeping his head low in case there was a second shooter, he crawled across the glistening damp pavement to lift the seaman’s head in his arms. He could hear the gurgle in Ablass’s throat, knew the man was drowning in his own blood.

  “Who did this?” Sebastian demanded, only dimly aware of people shouting, of the door from the taproom flying open to spill men into the street. “Tell me who shot you.”

  Ablass’s tongue flicked out to wet his lips, sending a cascade of dark blood pouring down his face. “God rot ye,” he whispered as Sebastian bent his head forward, trying to catch the cracked words. “Ye hear me? God rot ye.”

  * * *

  “You think the killer was aiming at Ablass? Or you?” asked Sir Henry Lovejoy, the collar of his greatcoat turned up against the cold, damp night.

  They stood together in the street before the Three Moons, the constables keeping back the nervous onlookers while they waited for the men from the deadhouse. At one point Sebastian had seen Hannah Bishop’s pale face in the crowd, and for a brief moment their gazes met. Then she sucked in a deep breath and turned away.

  “I could be wrong,” Sebastian said now, “but I suspect the killer had more to fear from Ablass than from me. I might have a rough idea of what is happening, but I’ll be damned if I can prove any of it.”

  Lovejoy peered over his spectacles at the dead man’s blood-drenched chest. “Well, if Ablass was the intended target, then whoever did this is an extraordinarily good shot. A rifle, do you think?”

  “Sounded like it.”

  “Anyone on your list of suspects a marksman?”

  “Ian Ryker was a rifleman,” said Sebastian. “But he’s in prison, isn’t he?” He thought a moment. “Sampson Buxton-Collins cultivates a reputation as a keen sportsman.”

  “Oh dear,” said Lovejoy, turning his head to meet Sebastian’s gaze. “Oh dear, oh dear.”

  * * *

  “You’re certain that bullet wasn’t meant for you?” Hero said later as Sebastian bent over the basin in his dressing room and washed the dead man’s splattered blood from his face.

  “You sound like Lovejoy,” he said.

  “Well?”

  Sebastian reached for a towel and looked over to where she stood beside the hearth, watching him. “With Ablass dead, who’s left to implicate either Meux or Buxton-Collins in any of the murders?”

  “You mean, if they were involved.”

  “They were involved—or at least one of them was.” He set aside the towel and reached for a clean shirt. “Pym and Cockerwell might have been the ones who paid Ablass to quietly eliminate everyone from that Clerkenwell prison turnkey to the seamen Hart and Harrison. But Robert Vermilloe was stabbed sometime Friday night. And that means we’re looking at either Meux or Buxton-Collins—or both, although my money is on Buxton-Collins.”

  “Rich men don’t usually do their own killing.”

  He pulled the shirt over his head. “Not usually, although I can see one doing it if he’s feeling threatened.”

  “But you’ve still no proof.”

  “Nope. None.” He blew out a harsh breath and reached for a clean cravat. “I need to find Frank Nichols’s widow.”

  “What do you think she can tell you?”

  “I don’t know. But if she can tell me anything, she’s in danger.” He kept his gaze on the mirror as he wound the cravat around his neck.

  “You’re going to confront Buxton-Collins again, aren’t you?” she said, watching him. “Do you even know where he is tonight?”

  He turned, his eyes meeting hers, and he smiled. “I hear Jarvis is having a dinner party.”

  * * *

  He found Jarvis’s town house ablaze with lights, the streets around the darkened square lined with gentlemen’s carriages, the mist here no more
than vague wisps that drifted through the shadowy trees and hugged the lamplit, rain-slick cobbles.

  “Lord Devlin,” said Grisham, his face wooden as he reluctantly opened the door to his master’s son-in-law.

  “Good evening, Grisham.” Sebastian handed the butler his hat and walking stick as the sound of cultured voices, mostly male, spilled down the grand staircase to the entrance hall. “I assume they’re in the drawing room?”

  Grisham stared stiffly at the opposite wall. “Yes, my lord.”

  “Good.” Sebastian turned toward the stairs, then paused to glance back and ask, “When did Buxton-Collins arrive?”

  “A quarter of an hour ago, my lord.”

  Sebastian nodded. “Thank you.”

  He took the stairs rapidly, aware of the anger still surging through him. He found the drawing room crowded with a range of political and moneyed interests—everyone from Liverpool and his most important cabinet ministers to the heads of London’s most prominent banking families. Sampson Buxton-Collins was standing near the hearth, a glass of wine in one hand, his face flushed with pleasure as he conversed with a petite, elegantly gowned woman Sebastian recognized as Victoria Hart-Davis.

  Sebastian was halfway across the room toward them when Jarvis intercepted him.

  “What the devil are you doing here?” he demanded in a low voice.

  Sebastian was aware of the brewer raising his wineglass to his lips, his gaze meeting Sebastian’s over the brim. “I’ve a message for one of your guests—Sampson Buxton-Collins, to be precise.”

  “The devil you say.”

  Sebastian brought his gaze back to his father-in-law’s full, angry face. “If you’d prefer, you can deliver the message yourself. Tell him he can kill everyone from John Williams to Robert Vermilloe, but it won’t make any difference. A man with his wealth and status might have nothing to fear from the public hangman, but this isn’t about what passes for justice in the Kingdom of Great Britain. This is about retribution, and whoever butchered Pym and Cockerwell is coming for him next.”

  Jarvis let out a low hissing sound. “Are you mad? What the bloody hell are you accusing the man of now?”

  Sebastian met his father-in-law’s blazing eyes. “Ask him. And while you’re at it, ask if he sent those men to break into my house last Thursday night. Then watch his face when he answers you.”

  “Are you quite through?”

  Sebastian cast another glance toward the big, bulky brewer. “For now.”

  Chapter 55

  Monday, 17 October

  The next morning Sebastian stood at the corner of Cannon Street Road and Cable Lane, his gaze on the worn cobbles of the intersection before him, his thoughts on the skeleton that lay crumpled beneath the piles of reeking manure, beneath the endlessly passing cart and wagon wheels, the clattering hooves, the plodding feet.

  The day was surprisingly sunny and warm, and Sebastian found his thoughts spinning away to another time, a time when a sixteen-year-old lad with sensitive features and a taste for fine clothes and good books had run off to sea, leaving an unknown home and an unknown family. And he wondered, What drove you? A desire to see the world or the need to escape a father too handy with his belt and his fists? Where did you come from? Does anyone who once loved you know you’re buried here? Or are you completely forgotten by all except those who still shudder at the mention of your name?

  Sebastian thought he understood now what had happened in that cold December of 1811. He understood the nexus between the rich brewers and the corrupt magistrates who’d treated the East End like a benighted medieval fiefdom. He understood, too, the angry determination of a handful of publicans pushed beyond the limits of endurance and compliance—those simple, hardworking men who’d fatally underestimated the ruthless fury of rich, powerful men so greedy they would protect their privileged position by ordering two entire families slaughtered—and then frame and murder a hapless seaman before quietly setting about eliminating everyone who’d made the mistake of cooperating with them.

  Sebastian could never prove any of it, of course, and the frustration of that knowledge welled within him, bitter and painful. But the truth was known either in whole or at least in part by others. And one of those who knew—Charlie Horton, the Reverend York, Seamus Faddy, or perhaps someone Sebastian had yet to identify—was now wreaking his own revenge.

  Sebastian had to acknowledge that a part of him sympathized with this new Ratcliffe Highway killer. He knew only too well that the wealthy and powerful rarely faced justice in this world, and he knew, too, how the need for justice could burn like a corrosive fire in a man’s breast. For hadn’t he himself succumbed to such temptations in the past?

  And he was still paying for it.

  * * *

  He spent the next several hours walking the streets of Wapping, talking to a variety of shopkeepers and tradesmen. He was still looking for Frank Nichols’s widow, but the entire family seemed to have abandoned the parish, and Sebastian had to admit he couldn’t blame them.

  In the end he left Tom to continue the search and drove back to Brook Street, frustrated and haunted by the certainty that the long string of violent deaths had not yet reached its end.

  * * *

  Several hours later he was drinking a pot of ale and staring at the map of London he’d spread across his library table when the front door slammed open and Tom’s shout echoed around the entrance hall. “I found ’er, gov’nor!”

  Looking around, Sebastian heard Morey’s hiss and Tom’s breathless “Where’s ’e at?”

  “The library,” said Morey. “But you mustn’t—”

  Tom’s booted feet were already pounding across the marble-tiled floor. Then the tiger burst into the room, bringing with him the smell of autumn sunshine and horses and hot boy and startling the big black cat that had been sleeping curled up in a chair by the front window. “I found yer widow woman!”

  “Where?” said Sebastian.

  “She’s livin’ with ’er middle daughter over in Lambeth. Leastways that’s what the old groom in the stables o’ that inn she used t’ own says, and I reckon ’e oughta know.”

  “Does he know where in Lambeth?”

  “Not exactly, but ’e says the daughter’s married to an apothecary what’s got a shop near the archbishop’s palace, so I reckon it shouldn’t be that hard to find.”

  * * *

  The parish of Lambeth lay on the south side of the Thames, opposite the outer reaches of Westminster. Still fairly rural in character, Lambeth was dominated by the soaring fifteenth-century towers, venerable old hall, and crenellated redbrick Tudor gateway of the archbishop of Canterbury’s ancient sprawling palace.

  Sebastian found the nearby apothecary’s easily enough, in a row of shops that faced onto Lambeth Butts just around the corner from the palace. An old sunlit orchard stretched out behind the shops, and it was to the orchard that the bespectacled middle-aged apothecary directed Sebastian.

  “She took our lads there not half an hour ago,” said the apothecary, displaying a complete lack of curiosity as to the reason for Sebastian’s interest in his aged mother-in-law. “After all this rain, it’s a lovely day, isn’t it?”

  Sebastian walked between the rows of gnarled pear and apple trees, the wind soft against his cheek, the air of the countryside tasting blessedly fresh as he drew it deep into his lungs. He could see her now, a woman somewhere in her sixties. She was perched on a milking stool beneath a spreading apple tree, a faint smile on her face as she watched her two small grandsons chase each other around the stout trunks of the old trees. She was a frail-looking woman, rail thin, her hair wispy white, her deeply lined face dragged down by the horror and soul-crushing sorrow of her life. For a moment Sebastian found himself reluctant to intrude on this moment of peace. Then she looked up and saw him, and he stepped forward to introduce himself and explain the reason for his v
isit.

  “It’s not easy, thinking about it, my lord,” she said, her face taking on a pinched look as she stared up at him.

  “I understand. I’m sorry, but it could be important.”

  She searched his face. “You think these new murders are connected to what happened three years ago?”

  “Yes.”

  She nodded, then looked away. “I don’t see how anything I have to say could be of any help to you, my lord. My Frank, he didn’t talk to me much about what he and Old John were planning to do about the breweries and the magistrates. He knew I was against what they were up to, so he kept most of it to himself. And I was right.” She looked down, her fingers alternately pleating and smoothing the sturdy cloth of her gown where it lay across her knees. Then she said it again, more softly: “I was right.”

  “Did you ever know a man named Billy Ablass?”

  Her face twisted. “Ablass? He came into the taproom sometimes, but I never liked him.” She gazed across the orchard to where the wind was gently rippling the long grass, and swallows darted around the eaves of a weathered shed. “They held him for a time, you know, thinking he might’ve been the killer—or at least one of them. But in the end they let him go.”

  “Do you think John Williams was really responsible for the murders?”

  She brought her gaze back to his face. “Oh, no. He was such a kindly, considerate young man. No one will ever convince me he did such a thing.”

  “So you knew him?”

  She nodded. “He used to come into the Bull and Bush and see me whenever he was ashore. I never had sons, you see, and he liked to say I reminded him of his mother.”

  Sebastian watched one of the little boys hunker down nearby, his hands on his thighs, his face serious as he watched a lizard scurry across a half-buried rock. “Did he ever talk about his family?”