What Darkness Brings sscm-8

by C. S. Harris

  “You certainly may.” She heaped the plate with a generous selection of dainty sandwiches. “Is Jenny a London girl, born and bred?”

  Drummer shoved a sandwich in his mouth and shook his head. “She and Jeremy-that’s ’er brother-grew up Bermondsey, down in Southwark. I remember ’im tellin’ me their family ’ad a room over the gatehouse o’ some old abbey down there. But their folks died o’ the flux some years ago, and they didn’t ’ave no kin, so they come up to the city lookin’ for work.”

  “Is that where she’s gone now?” asked Sebastian. “To Southwark?”

  Drummer swallowed another bite of sandwich. “Nah. I wouldn’t a told you if it was.”

  Hero poured the boy a mug of hot chocolate. “We want to help Jenny, not harm her. She needs help, Drummer. I’m afraid those other men you mentioned who are looking for her might kill her if they find her. And they are determined to find her. You must tell us where she is.”

  The boy paused in midchew, his gaze going from Hero to Sebastian and back.

  Hero said, “I understand it’s difficult to know whom to trust.”

  Drummer swallowed, hard.

  “Tell us,” said Sebastian, his voice quiet but implacable.

  “White ’Orse Yard,” Drummer blurted out, his chest jerking with the agitation of his breathing. “She’s got a room at the Pope’s ’Ead in White ’Orse Yard, jist off Drury Lane.”

  Sebastian took the boy with him, along with a hamper packed with more sandwiches and cakes, and a warm coat that had recently grown too snug for Tom. Hero was cross about her inability to accompany them, but even she had to admit that the uproar provoked by the appearance of a gentlewoman in a Drury Lane tavern was unlikely to be helpful.

  The warren of narrow, crooked alleys and foul, dark courts around the Drury Lane and Covent Garden theaters had long ago degenerated into a precinct of flash houses, low taverns, and rat-infested accommodation houses where families of ten or more could be found crammed into a single small, airless room. Sebastian made certain both his coachman and the footman were armed, and slipped a small double-barreled flintlock into his own pocket.

  It was still several hours before nightfall, yet already the narrow cobbled lane leading to White Horse Yard was filling with a rough, half-drunken crowd and a thick mist that drifted in a dense, wind-swirled, suffocating cloak between the tightly packed houses.

  “Why did she take refuge here? Do you know?” Sebastian asked as the carriage drew up at the end of the lane.

  Drummer shook his head, his mouth full of cake. “I think meybe she used to work round about ’ere, when she first come up to London.”

  “How do you know she’s here? Did she tell you?”

  “Her brother, Jeremy, tumbles with us. She wanted ’im to bring ’er some o’ ’er stuff a couple days ago and ’e asked fer me ’elp. Only, she were right cross when she see’d me. That’s when she made me promise not to tell where she is.”

  “She’s right to be cautious.”

  The boy looked doubtful but paused to grab a couple more sandwiches and thrust them into his pockets before tripping down the carriage steps in Sebastian’s wake.

  Sebastian grasped the lad firmly by the arm and held on to him as they worked their way through the surging, boisterous crowd. The damp, smoky air was thick with the smell of broiling meat and unwashed bodies and the pervasive, inescapable stench of rot.

  The Pope’s Head in White Horse Yard occupied what looked as if it had once been the carriage house of a long-vanished grand residence, its redbrick facade now worn and blackened by grime, a broken gutter dripping a line of green slime down one side. As they approached the inn, the door flew open and two drunken soldiers staggered out, arms linked around each other’s shoulders and heads tipped back as they sang, “King George commands and we obey, o’er the hills and far away. .”

  Drummer hung back, eyes wide, lips parted, chest jerking with his agitated breathing. “Do I gotta go in wit’ ye? I mean, ye know-”

  “Yes,” said Sebastian, hauling the boy across the entrance passage to the inn’s dark, narrow staircase. “I need you to convince Jenny that I’m here to help her.”

  “She ain’t gonna be happy I brung ye.”

  Lit only by a single smoking oil lamp, the stairs creaked and groaned beneath their weight. But the telltale sounds of their approach were lost in the convivial roar from the taproom and the raucous laughter from a chamber at the end of the hall and a man’s well-bred voice raised in anger on the far side of the door nearest the top of the steps.

  “Where is it, damn you? I know you took it. Where is the diamond? Did you-”

  The rest of his words were swallowed by a woman’s terrified scream.

  Chapter 56

  “’Elp!” she shouted. “’E’s killin’ me. Somebody ’elp!”

  Sebastian kicked in the door hard enough to splinter the thin wooden panels and slam it back against the wall.

  The room beyond was small and dingy, the air close and foul. A single tallow candle on a battered table near the narrow bed flared in the sudden draft, casting long shadows across the bare floorboards and ancient paneled walls. Blair Beresford, his hat gone, his handsome features twisted with determination, had pinned a tiny slip of a girl against a tall, battered wardrobe, her birdlike wrists clasped in one hand and wrenched over her head.

  “You son of a bitch,” swore Sebastian, tackling him in a rush.

  The two men went down together, hard. Jenny Davie, finding herself unexpectedly free, broke for the door.

  “A guinea if you grab her and hold on to her!” Sebastian shouted at Drummer, then ducked his head as Beresford swung a fist at his face.

  Sebastian scrambled to grab the man’s wrists, grunting as Beresford jabbed his knee into Sebastian’s groin and tried to scoot backward on his elbows. He was dimly aware of Jenny Davie shouting, “Ow, let me go, ye little shabbaroon!” as Drummer snagged her skirts and held on.

  Beresford threw another wild punch that grazed the side of Sebastian’s jaw. Grunting, Sebastian fisted his hand in the front of Beresford’s waistcoat and hauled him up to slam his back against the near wall. “God damn it,” swore Sebastian, breathing hard. “Somehow, I never pegged you for a killer.”

  Beresford bucked against Sebastian’s hold, then subsided in resignation, a trickle of blood leaking from the corner of his mouth. “What the devil are you talking about? I didn’t kill anyone.”

  “Then why the hell are you here?”

  “The diamond.” He jerked his head toward the girl. “She must have taken it! I was thinking that if I could recover it, it would be a way to pay Hope back for all he’s done for me.”

  Sebastian swung his head to look over his shoulder at the girl, who had suddenly gone utterly still. “What makes you think she has it?”

  “Because no one else does, and she was there. I dropped her in Fountain Lane less than half an hour before Eisler was killed. Look-I know I lied to you when I said I didn’t take Eisler a girl that night. But everything else I told you was the truth. I swear!”

  Sebastian tightened his hold on the younger man, his lips curling away from his teeth in a hard smile. “Why the bloody hell should I believe you? I think you shot Eisler, and now you’re here to get rid of your last witness.”

  “Oy, what ye talkin’ about, then?” scoffed Jenny Davie, her voice sharp. “’E ain’t the cove what shot that old goat.” Then, as if suddenly aware that she had captured the interested attention of everyone in the room, she looked quickly from one to the next and tried to take a step back. “What? What’s everybody starin’ at me for?”

  For the first time, Sebastian took a good, long look at the girl Hero called the Blue Satin Cinderella. She looked more like fifteen than seventeen, with an incredibly tiny, small-boned frame and hair that might have been honey colored if it were cleaner. Her face was thin and delicately featured, her eyes a soft, luminous gray, her chin small and pointed.

  “You saw who
did it?” said Sebastian, releasing his hold on Blair Beresford. The younger man slid down the wall and just sat there, back pressed to the panels, legs outstretched.

  “Course I did,” she said. “That old goat took and shoved me in a nasty little cupboard when someone come a-knockin’ at the door afore ’e was done wit’ me. I saw the ’ole thing, and this cove”-she jerked her chin dismissively toward Beresford-“weren’t even there.”

  “So who did shoot him?” Sebastian demanded.

  “’Ow the bloody ’ell should I know?”

  “You just said you saw him.”

  “That don’t mean I know who ’e was!”

  Sebastian tamped down a spurt of impatience. “But you can tell me what he looked like.”

  Jenny shook her matted hair out of her face. “Course I can. A death’s-’ead on a mopstick, ’e was.”

  Sebastian stared at her, not understanding. “A what?”

  She huffed her breath and rolled her eyes. “Ye know, a tall, skinny cove what looks like ’e ain’t long for this world. An’ ’e ’ad one of them cavalry mustaches.”

  Sebastian stared at her with the heavy heart of a man who has just had one of his worst fears confirmed.

  “If ye ask me,” Jenny was saying, “’e weren’t right in the ’ead. ’E come in wavin’ that gun around and sayin’ ’e were there t’ bell the cat.”

  “And then what happened?” asked Sebastian, keeping his voice even with difficulty.

  “That old goat, ’e laughed at the cove, wanted to know ’ow exactly did ’e propose t’ do that? Only, just then someone else come poundin’ on the front door real hard. The skinny cove got spooked and looked around, and the old goat pounced on him. That’s when the gun went off.”

  “And what did the, er, skinny cove do then?”

  “Why, ’e bolted out the back door, just afore these other two coves come in, one after the other, with the chinless, curly-’eaded one hollerin’ ‘murder.’”

  “And the diamond?” asked Blair Beresford from where he sat on the floor, a lock of golden hair tumbled across his dusty forehead. “What happened to the diamond?”

  Jenny Davie pushed out her lips, opened her eyes wide, and shook her head. “I keep tellin’ ye, I don’t know nothin’ about no diamond.”

  “Then why are you hiding here, in Covent Garden?” asked Sebastian. “Why didn’t you go to the magistrates and tell them what you know?”

  He saw the leap of fear in her wide gray eyes, saw her small pointed chin jut forward in determination, and knew his mistake an instant too late.

  “Hold on to her!” he shouted at Drummer, just as Jenny hauled back her fist and punched the boy in the nose.

  “Ow,” he cried, tears starting in his eyes, blood spurting as he let go of the girl to cup both hands over his face.

  “Stop her!” Sebastian yelled as Jenny bolted for the stairs. “Bloody hell.”

  Sebastian pelted after her, half running, half falling down the steep, narrow staircase. He reached the entrance passage just in time to see the girl squeeze through a boisterous knot of drovers trying to shove into the taproom.

  By the time Sebastian pushed his way into the street, Jenny Davie had disappeared, swallowed up by the fog.

  Chapter 57

  Sebastian returned to the Pope’s Head to find both Drummer and Blair Beresford long gone.

  But the crossing sweep had simply returned to the carriage at the end of the lane and was waiting there for Sebastian. He had his head tipped back, the bridge of his nose pinched between one thumb and forefinger as he sought to stem the blood that still trickled from his nostrils. “Do I get my guinea?” he asked, his voice muffled by his oversized sleeve. “Even though she got away from me in the end?”

  Sebastian handed the boy his handkerchief and steered him toward the carriage steps. “Considering your battle wounds, I’d say you earned yourself two guineas for this night’s work.”

  The boy’s eyes grew round above the voluminous folds of Sebastian’s handkerchief. “Cor.”

  Sebastian pressed the coins into the boy’s hand and turned to his coachman. “Take the lad back to Brook Street and ask Lady Devlin to see that he is attended to.”

  Drummer stuck his head back out the open door. “Ye ain’t comin’?”

  “I shall be along directly,” said Sebastian, closing the door on him.

  He nodded to the coachman, then went in search of a hackney to take him to Kensington.

  The curtains were not yet drawn at the Yeoman’s Row lodgings of Annie and Emma Wilkinson, allowing a warm, golden glow to spill from the parlor and light up the cool, misty night. Sebastian paused for a moment on the footpath outside. At the end of the street, the fenced gardens of Kensington Square lay dark and silent. But for a moment, he thought he could hear the echo of a child’s chant, “‘When will you pay me?’ say the bells of Old Bailey.”

  “Wait here for me,” Sebastian told the hackney driver and moved with an aching sadness to ring his old friend’s bell.

  “Devlin!” A delighted smile lit up Annie Wilkinson’s features as she came toward him. “What a pleasant surprise. Julie”-she turned to the housemaid who had escorted him up the stairs-“put the kettle on and bring his lordship some of that cake we-”

  Sebastian squeezed her hands, then let her go. “Thank you, but I don’t need anything.”

  She turned to the wine carafe that stood with a tray of glasses on a table near the front windows. “At least let me get you a glass of burgundy.”

  “Annie. . We need to talk.”

  She looked up from pouring the wine. Something in his tone must have alerted her, because she set the carafe aside and said with a forced smile, “You’re sounding very serious, Devlin.”

  He went to stand with his back to the small fire burning on the hearth. “I had an interesting conversation this evening with a young girl named Jenny Davie.”

  Annie looked puzzled. “I don’t believe I recognize the name. Should I?”

  “I wouldn’t think so. She is what’s popularly dismissed by polite society as ‘Haymarket ware.’ A week ago, her services were engaged by a rather nasty old St. Botolph-Aldgate diamond merchant named Daniel Eisler.” He paused. “You do recognize that name, don’t you?”

  She held herself very still. “What are you trying to say, Devlin?”

  “Last Sunday evening at approximately half past eight, Daniel Eisler was shot to death by a tall, ill-looking man with a cavalry mustache. Now, I suppose there could be any number of men in London who fit that description. But this particular man seems to have had a fondness for old fables. He told Eisler that he’d come to bell the cat.”

  She forced a husky laugh. “It’s a common enough tale.”

  “True. But I’ve seen Eisler’s account books, Annie.”

  She went to stand beside the window, one hand raised to clutch the worn cloth as if she were about to close it, her back held painfully straight.

  Sebastian said, “You knew, didn’t you? You knew Rhys had killed him.”

  She shook her head back and forth, her throat working as she swallowed. “No.”

  “Annie, you said Rhys went out for a walk that night at half past eight and never came back. But Emma told me that her papa didn’t get home in time to tell her a story that night. What’s Emma’s bedtime, Annie? Seven? Eight? She’s in bed now, isn’t she?”

  “Seven.” Annie turned toward him, her face haggard. “I didn’t know what he’d done. I swear I didn’t. I’ll admit I suspected, but I didn’t know. Not until today.”

  “Why today?”

  “I’ll show you,” she said, and strode quickly from the room.

  She was back in a moment, carrying a flintlock pistol loosely wrapped in a square of old flannel. When she held it out to him, he caught the sulfuric stench of burnt powder.

  “You know what Rhys was like,” she said. “He’d spent half his life in the army. He knew the importance of taking care of his gun. He never fired i
t without cleaning it before he put it away. So as soon as I saw it like this, I knew. .”

  Sebastian carefully folded back the cloth. It was an old Elliot pattern flintlock pistol with a nine-inch barrel and the gently curving grip favored by the Light Dragoons.

  She said, “I didn’t even know Rhys had borrowed money until he was already behind on the interest. That’s when Eisler said he’d heard Rhys had a pretty wife, and that he was willing to forgive the interest on the debt if I. . if Rhys would agree. .”

  “I know all about the way Eisler abused the women who found themselves in his debt,” Sebastian said softly. “Did you do it, Annie?”

  She drew back as if he had slapped her. “No!”

  “But you were tempted?”

  She pressed her fist to her lips, her eyes squeezing shut as she nodded. “We were so desperate.”

  “Annie. . You could have come to me at any time. I would have been more than happy to help. I told you that.”

  She dropped her hand to her side and sniffed, her lips pressing into a thin line. “I would never do that, and neither would Rhys.”

  Sebastian searched her tightly held face. “So what happened?”

  “Rhys was so appalled by the proposal that he started looking into Eisler. You say you know about the way he used people, but we’d had no idea. One night, when Rhys was telling me of the things he’d learned, I said, ‘Something needs to be done about that bastard. There must be some way to warn other people to steer clear of his traps.’ I didn’t mean anything by it-I was just thinking out loud. Only, Rhys said there was no way for the mice to bell the cat. That the only way to stop a man like Eisler was to kill him.”

  Her gaze dropped to the gun in Sebastian’s hands, her breath backing up in her throat. “He’d been talking a lot lately about how much better it would be for Emma and me if he were dead-that Eisler wouldn’t be able to pursue the debt, that Emma and I could go live with my grandmother, that I’d be free to remarry.” She swallowed. “I always begged him not to talk like that, but. .”