When Maidens Mourn: A Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery

by C. S. Harris

  Sebastian started to say, “Maybe she—” Then he broke off, his gaze caught by a dark, motionless shape floating at the edge of the moat’s stagnant green waters. The dog stopped in his tracks, the fur on his back rising as his lips pulled away from his teeth and a deep, throaty growl rumbled in his chest.

  Arceneaux rested a hand on Chien’s head, his own voice a whisper. “What is it?”

  “Stay here,” said Sebastian, sliding down the embankment to the water’s edge.

  The man’s body floated facedown in the algae-scummed water, arms flung stiffly to its sides. Splashing into the murky shallows, Sebastian fisted his hand around the collar of the brown corduroy coat and hauled the body up onto the bank, the bracken and ferns crushing beneath his boot heels and the dead man’s sodden, squelching weight.

  “Is he dead?” Arceneaux asked, holding the dog at the top of the ancient earthen works. “Who is it?”

  Sebastian hesitated a moment, his breath coming uncomfortably hard. The man’s clothes were rough, his boots worn, his golden red hair worn a bit too long. Hunkering down beside the body, Sebastian slowly rolled it over.

  The man flopped onto his back with a sodden plop, arms flailing outward, to reveal a pale, dripping face and blankly staring eyes. A water-blurred stain discolored the torn, charred front of his leather jerkin and smock.

  Sebastian sank back on his heels, one hand coming up to adjust his hat lower over his eyes as he blew out a long breath. “It’s Rory Forster.”

  Chapter 33

  The local magistrate proved to be a foul-tempered, heavy-featured squire named John Richards.

  Well into middle age and running comfortably to fat, Squire John was far more interested in his hounds and the joint his cook was preparing for his dinner than in all the sordid, tedious requirements of a murder investigation. When Tom—upon discovering that Sir Stanley and his lady had removed to London for a few days—carried Sebastian’s message to the Squire, the tiger had a hard time convincing the man to leave his cow pasture.

  The Squire now stood on the shady bank of the moat, one beefy hand sliding over his ruddy, sagging jowls as he stared down at the waterlogged body at his feet. “Well, hell,” he muttered, his brows beetling into a fierce scowl. “Truth be told, I was more than half convinced your tiger was making up the whole tale when he came to me. I mean, two bodies found floating in Camlet Moat in one week? Impossible, I’d have said. But here’s another one, all right.”

  “At least this one’s local,” observed Sebastian.

  The Squire drew a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his bulbous nose. “But that’s the worst part of it, you see. Can’t imagine Bow Street interesting themselves in the murder of some blacksmith’s son from Cockfosters.” A hopeful gleam crept into his watery gray eyes. “Unless, of course, you think this might have something to do with that young gentlewoman we found here last Sunday?”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised but what it does.”

  The Squire brightened. “I’ll send one of the lads off to London right away.” A flicker of movement drew his attention across the moat, to where Philippe Arceneaux was methodically crisscrossing the island with Chien bounding enthusiastically at his side. The Squire wiped his nose again, his eyes narrowing with suspicion. “Who did you say that fellow was?”

  “My dog handler.”

  “That’s your dog?”

  “It is.”

  “Huh. Fellow’s got a Frenchy look about him, if you ask me. They’re saying it was a Frenchman who killed that gentlewoman, you know. What is this fellow doing with that dog, exactly?”

  “I was hoping the dog might pick up some trace of the missing Tennyson children.”

  When the Squire still looked doubtful, Sebastian added, “It’s a…a Strand hound. They’re famous for their ability to track missing persons. This one is particularly well trained and talented.”

  “Well trained, you say?” asked the Squire, just as Chien flushed up a rabbit and tore off after it through the underbrush.

  Behind him, Arceneaux shouted, “Chien! À moi. Imbécile.”

  “He is sometimes distracted by the local fauna,” Sebastian admitted.

  The Squire sniffed. “Best keep him away from Forster here. Don’t reckon Bow Street would fancy dog prints all over the place.”

  Sebastian hunkered down again to study the dead man’s charred clothing and gaping raw wound. The flies were already busy, and he brushed them away with his hand. He didn’t need Gibson to tell him that the man had been shot—and at close quarters. But whatever other secrets the dead man had to reveal would need to wait for the anatomist’s examination. After a moment, Sebastian said, “I’m told Forster married a local widow this past year.”

  “That’s right. Rachel Clark, of Hollyhock Farm. I sent one of the lads over there to warn her, just in case what your tiger was telling me turned out to be true.” The Squire sniffed again. “She could’ve done a sight better, if you ask me. Very prosperous property, Hollyhock Farm. But then, there’s no denying Forster was a handsome man. And when it comes to good-looking men, it’s a rare woman who doesn’t make a fool of herself.” The Squire’s lips pursed as he shifted his brooding gaze to Sebastian. “Course, it’s even worse when they deck themselves out like a Bond Street beau and drive a fancy sporting carriage.”

  Sebastian cleared his throat and pushed to his feet. “Yes, well…I’d best remove my Strand hound and his handler before they contaminate the scene.” He motioned to Arceneaux, who dragged Chien from where he was now intently following the hopping progress of a toad and hauled the reluctant canine off toward the curricle.

  For one moment, Sebastian considered as a courtesy telling the Squire of his intention to visit the twice-widowed Rachel of Hollyhock Farm. Then the Squire added darkly, “And a title, of course. Just let a man have looks and a title, and when it comes to the ladies, it doesn’t matter what sort of a dastardly reputation the sot might have.”

  Sebastian touched his hat and bowed. “Squire John.”

  As they drove away, he was aware of the Squire still standing at the water’s edge, the shade of the ancient grove pooling heavily around him, one meaty hand swiping the air before his face as he batted at the thickening cloud of flies.

  “I would like to apologize,” said Arceneaux stiffly, one hand resting around the damp, happy dog as they drove toward Hollyhock Farm. “I put you through all this, and for what? Chien found no trace of the boys. Nothing.”

  Sebastian glanced over at him. “It was worth a try.”

  The Frenchman stared straight ahead, his face troubled. “None of this makes any sense. What could have happened to them? How could they have simply disappeared like this? And why?”

  But it was a question Sebastian could not begin to answer.

  Hero found the area around Covent Garden’s vast square crowded with a swarm of fruit and vegetable sellers. Vendors’ cries of “Ripe cher-ries, sixpence a pound” and “Buy my primroses, two bunches a penny” echoed through the narrow streets; the scent of freshly cut flowers and damp earth and unwashed, closely packed bodies hung heavily in the air. As they pushed their way closer to the market, the coachman was forced to check his horses to a crawl.

  She kept her gaze focused straight ahead, ignoring the pleading cries of the urchins who leapt up to press their faces against her carriage windows and the roar of laughter from the ragged crowd gathered around a Punch and Judy show on the church steps. By day, the classical piazza laid out before St. Paul’s by Inigo Jones was the site of London’s largest produce market. But later, when the shadows of evening stretched across the cobblestones and the square’s motley collection of stalls and lean-tos closed for the night, willing ladies in tawdry satins with plunging necklines and husky crooning voices would emerge to loiter beneath the colonnades and soaring porticos and hiss their lewd invitations to passersby.

  Slowly inching through the throng, the carriage finally swung onto King Street and then drew up before a once
grand mansion now divided into lodgings. Hero lowered her hat’s veil and waited while her footman knocked on the house’s warped, cracked door. It wasn’t until the door was opened and the large, familiar form of Molly O’Keefe, the house’s mistress, filled the entrance that the footman came to let down the carriage steps.

  The two women had come to know each other months earlier, when Hero was researching a theory on the economic causes of the recent explosion in the number of prostitutes in the city. Clucking at the sight of her, Molly whisked Hero into a dilapidated hall with stained, once grand paneling and a broken chandelier that dangled precariously overhead, then slammed the door in the faces of her gawking neighbors. “Yer ladyship! Sakes alive, I ne’er thought to be seeing ye again.”

  “Molly, I need your help,” said Hero, and drew the portrait of Bevin Childe from her sketch pad.

  Chapter 34

  True to its name, Hollyhock Farm proved to be a rambling brick cottage with a low slate roof and white-painted windows surrounded by a riot of hollyhocks and lavender and fat pink cabbage roses as big as Sebastian’s fist. At the edge of the garden curled a lazy stream spanned by an old, honeysuckle-draped wooden bridge. A flock of white geese waddling along the stream’s banks looked up, the warm wind ruffling their feathers, their necks arching in alarm as Chien stood up on the curricle’s seat and let out a woof in their direction.

  “Do try to keep that hell-born hound out of the geese, will you?” said Sebastian, dropping lightly to the gravel verge outside the garden.

  “Chien,” whispered Arceneaux, pulling the dog’s head around. “Behave.”

  Sebastian had expected to find the widow of Hollyhock Farm surrounded in her grief by family and neighbors. But she was alone in her garden, her arms wrapped across her chest, the skirts of her simple muslin gown brushing the trailing plantings of lady’s mantle and alyssum as she paced the cottage’s flagstone paths. She was obviously past the first blush of youth, perhaps even a year or two older than her dead husband, but still slim and attractive, with softly waving golden hair and a sweet, heart-shaped face.

  “Mrs. Forster,” said Sebastian, drawing up a few feet away from her. “If I might have a word with you?”

  The face she turned to him was dry-eyed, a pale mask of shock and grief and something else—something that looked suspiciously like relief, as if she were slowly wakening from a seductive nightmare. She nodded and swallowed hard, her throat cording with the effort. “They’re saying Rory might be dead. That his body was found by some London lord out at Camlet Moat. Is it true, then?”

  “It is, yes. I’m sorry. Please allow me to offer my condolences on the loss of your husband.”

  She sucked in a deep breath that shuddered her chest. But otherwise she struck him as remarkably composed. “Thank you.”

  “I know the timing is awkward, but would you mind if I asked a few questions?”

  She shook her head and drew in another of those shaky breaths. “No. Although I don’t know what I can tell you that would be of any use to you. I didn’t even know Rory was going out to the moat this morning. He said he was planning to work on the roof of the cow shed. Lord knows it’s needed mending these past six weeks or more.”

  “I would imagine things have been rather neglected around the farm, with your husband working for Sir Stanley at Camlet Moat.”

  She turned to walk along the path, Sebastian beside her. “I told him he was going to need to give up that nonsense for the harvest. But…”

  “He was reluctant to quit?”

  “He said he could hire Jack Williams to take his place around here for half what he was making with Sir Stanley. But a farm needs more than hired men. It’s one of the reasons I—” She broke off and bit her lip.

  It’s one of the reasons I married him. The unsaid words hung in the air.

  Pausing beside a rose-covered arch, she let her gaze drift to the slowly sliding waters of the stream. She was obviously better bred than her husband, her farm prosperous. She would have been quite a catch for a blacksmith’s younger son.

  Sebastian drew up beside her. “Sir Stanley has given up the excavations and filled in the trenches,” he said. “So why would your husband go out to the moat this morning?”

  She threw him a quick glance. Then her gaze skittered away, but not before he saw the leap of fear in her eyes.

  “Did he go out to the moat last Sunday?” asked Sebastian.

  “Rory? Oh, no. He was here with me, all night.”

  “He told you to say that, didn’t he?”

  She shook her head, her face pinched.

  “You can’t do your husband any harm by admitting the truth now. He’s dead. But the more we know, the better chance we’ll have of finding who killed him.” Sebastian hesitated, then said again, “He went to the moat Sunday, didn’t he?”

  Her voice was a painful whisper. “He warned me not to tell anyone. Made me swear to keep his secret.”

  And probably threatened to beat her if she let the truth slip, Sebastian thought. Aloud, he said, “What time did he leave the farm last Sunday?”

  She pressed a tight fist against her lips. “Not long before sunset. Even though it was Sunday and there wasn’t likely to be anyone about, he still thought it best to wait till late.”

  “Do you know why he went?”

  Her lip curled. “On account of the treasure, of course. He was mad for it. Much rather dig useless holes in the dirt out there than dig the new well we needed here.”

  “What time did he come home?”

  “About midnight, I suppose. All wet, he was. Said he’d lost his footing and slipped into the moat. I was that put out with him. But he told me to shut up. Said we were going to be rich—that I was going to have fine silks and satins, and my own carriage, just like Squire John’s lady.”

  “Do you think he actually found something?”

  “If he did, he didn’t come home with any of it; I can tell you that much.” A faint hint of color touched her cheeks. “I checked his pockets, you see, after he fell asleep. Of course, he could’ve hid it someplace again, before he came in.” She paused, then added, almost bitterly, “And now he’s gone and got himself killed.”

  “Had you noticed him behaving in any way out of the ordinary these last few days?”

  She thought about it a moment, then shook her head. “Not unless you count going into London yesterday.”

  “Did he often go to London?”

  “Never knew him to do it before.”

  A shout drew Sebastian’s attention to the stream, where Chien could be seen advancing on the geese in a low crouch, his tail tucked between his legs, his eyes fixed and focused.

  Sebastian said, “Did he tell you why he went?”

  “No. Although he was in a rare good mood when he came home. I hadn’t seem him in such high spirits since the days when he was courting me.” At the memory, a softness came over her features, then faded.

  Arceneaux’s voice drifted up from the banks of the stream. “Chien.”

  Sebastian asked quickly, “Is there anything else you can tell me that might help?”

  She shook her head just as Arceneaux shouted, “Chien! Mon dieu. No!”

  The message from Molly O’Keefe reached Hero late that afternoon.

  She returned to Covent Garden just as the slanting, golden light of early evening was beginning to flood the mean, narrow streets. The residents of Molly’s lodging house were already stirring.

  “What have you found?” Hero asked Molly as a raucous trill of laughter floated from somewhere on the first floor above and two blowsy women pushed past them toward the lodging house door. The lodging house was not a brothel, although there was no denying that many of its occupants were Cyprians. But these women took their customers elsewhere, to establishments known as “accommodation houses.”

  One of the Cyprians, a black-haired woman in feathers and a diaphanous silver-spangled gown, smacked her lips and cocked one hip provocatively at Hero. “S
hopping for a bit o’ muslin to raise yer old sod’s flag, are ye, me lady? Bet I can do the trick. Do you like to watch?”

  “Thank you, but no,” said Hero.

  “Lizzy, ye foulmouthed trollop,” hissed Molly, flapping her apron at the woman. “Ye mind yer bloody manners and get out o’ here.”

  Lizzy laughed and disappeared into the night with a jaunty backward wave of one white hand.

  “I’ve a girl by the name of Charlotte Roach waiting for ye in me sitting room,” said Molly, drawing Hero toward the rear of the house. “Although if truth be told, I’m not certain a gently bred lady such as yerself should be hearing wot she’s got to say.”

  “Nonsense,” said Hero. “You should know by now that I am not so easily shocked.”

  Molly paused outside the closed door, her broad, homely face troubled. “Ye ain’t heard wot she’s got to say yet.”

  Charlotte Roach couldn’t have been more than fourteen or fifteen years old. She had a thin, sharp-boned face and straw-colored hair and pale, shrewd eyes rimmed by short, sparse blond lashes. Her tattered gown of pink and white striped satin had obviously been made for someone both older and larger, and then cut down, its neckline plunging to expose most of the girl’s small, high breasts. She sat in an unladylike sprawl on a worn settee beside Molly’s empty hearth, a glass of what looked like gin in one hand, her lips crimped into a tight, hard line that didn’t soften when Hero walked into the room. She looked Hero up and down in frank appraisal, then glanced over at Molly. “This the gentry mort ye was tellin’ me about?”

  “I am,” said Hero.

  Charlotte brought her gaze back to Hero’s face, one grubby finger reaching out to tap the sketch of Childe lying on the settee beside her. “’E yer Jerry sneak?”

  “If by that you mean to ask if the man in that sketch is my husband, then the answer is no.” With slow deliberation, Hero drew five guineas from her reticule and laid them in a row across the surface of the table before her. “This is for you…if you tell me what I want to know. But don’t even think of trying to sell me Grub Street news, for I’ll know a lie if I hear it.”