by C. S. Harris
“And the English do not?”
When Sebastian remained silent, the Ambassador said, “Who told you that I was seen arguing with Ross at Vauxhall?”
“I’m sorry; I can’t say.”
Ramadani nodded. “Yes. I can understand that.” He drew up sharply, the glossy bay fidgeting beneath him. “It is always possible that your assassin does indeed lurk somewhere in the foreign diplomatic community, Lord Devlin. But if I were you, I would search for him closer to home.” He inclined his head. “Good day, my lord.”
Chapter 20
S ebastian arrived back at Brook Street to find Sir Henry Lovejoy awaiting him.
“Sir Henry,” said Sebastian, clasping the magistrate’s hand. “I hope you’ve not been waiting long?”
“Not long, no.”
“Good. You’re just in time for breakfast. Join me?”
Sir Henry cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Thank you, but I have already breakfasted.”
“A cup of tea, then,” said Sebastian, ushering the magistrate into the dining room and pouring him a cup. “I know better than to offer you ale.”
“That’s very kind of you.”
Plate in hand, Sebastian surveyed the selection of dishes set out on his sideboard. “So, what brings you to Mayfair?”
Sir Henry cleared his throat again. He was a small man, barely five feet in his socks, with a squeaky, almost comically high-pitched voice. But his unprepossessing appearance disguised a sharp mind and a true dedication to justice. He had come to the magistracy in the middle years of his life, after achieving a modest success as a merchant. Once, he had hunted Sebastian as a murderer. But from those strange beginnings had grown respect and friendship.
Now the magistrate took a sip of his tea, then said, “I’ve just come from St. James’s Street.”
Sebastian paused in the act of spooning buttered eggs onto his plate. “Oh? Has something happened?”
“It’s difficult to say, actually. You see, last night—at something like half past one in the morning—a young gentleman with rooms over the Je Reviens coffeehouse notified the watch that he’d come home to find a dead body lying on the stairs outside his door.”
“A dead body?”
“Yes. A gentleman, dressed in evening clothes. With a broken neck.”
“As if he’d taken a tumble down the stairs?” asked Sebastian, selecting a slice of bacon.
“One might suppose so, yes. Only, here’s the odd part: When the constables arrived, there was no body to be found. Just a gentleman’s shoe.”
“One shoe?”
“One shoe.”
Sebastian added grilled mushrooms and tomatoes to his plate. “Perhaps it was all a hum. I assume the gentleman who reported the body was foxed? He could have been seeing things.”
“That was the assumption, naturally. I gather the constables were rather harsh on the young man. Only, when Mr. Alexander Ross’s valet opened the door to his late master’s rooms this morning—just above where the body was said to have been seen—he discovered signs of a struggle. A broken table. A smashed lantern.” Sir Henry paused. “And a gentleman’s hat.”
“Indeed?” Sebastian came to sit at the table, thankful he had paused long enough to at least retrieve his own hat before leaving Ross’s rooms. “How ... puzzling. But I can’t help wondering what all this has to do with me?”
The magistrate took a slow sip of his tea. “Sir Hyde Foley tells me you have been asking questions about Alexander Ross’s death—that you believe he was murdered.” He carefully set his cup back on its saucer, his attention all for the task. “Might I ask the reason for your suspicions?”
Sebastian shrugged. “A healthy young man attached to the Foreign Office is found dead. You don’t find that suspicious?”
“I’m told Ross died of morbus cordis.”
“Yet no autopsy was ever performed.”
Sir Henry nodded as if coming to a decision and pushed to his feet. “You’re right. It does warrant looking into. I’ll order the body exhumed.”
Sebastian paused with a forkful of eggs halfway to his mouth. “Exhumed?”
“Yes. These things take time to arrange, of course. And we’ll need to send word to notify Sir Gareth in Oxfordshire. So it won’t be until Monday morning. We’ll have the body sent to Paul Gibson, of course.” Sir Henry turned toward the door. “I’ll see myself out, my lord.”
Half an hour later, Sebastian reined in his curricle before Paul Gibson’s surgery. A skinny youth with a troubled complexion—a medical student, from the looks of him—was just emerging from the narrow passage that ran alongside the surgery. He was clutching something long and narrow wrapped in canvas, and, at the sight of Sebastian, he sidled over to the far side of the street and quickened his pace, throwing a nervous glance over his shoulder.
Sebastian watched the youth for a moment, then handed the reins to his tiger. “That sun’s getting hot. Better water them.”
Squeezing through the dank passage, he found Gibson in the small stone outbuilding at the base of the surgery’s rear yard. He had the door thrown open wide, and as Sebastian approached through the unkempt garden, he could hear the buzzing of flies, smell the stench of rotting flesh.
“I wouldn’t come too close, if I were you,” said Gibson with a grin when he looked up and saw Sebastian.
Sebastian paused in the open doorway, his gaze on the nightmare laid out on the stone table in the center of the room. “Good God,” he said softly.
“A delivery from Bow Street. Heat and water can do ugly things to the human body.” Gibson dropped his scalpel in a tin basin and reached for a stained rag to wipe his hands. “Very quickly.”
“How did he die?”
The surgeon walked around the end of the table and came to stand beside Sebastian, his gaze still on the cadaver. “I don’t know yet. He wasn’t shot. Wasn’t strangled. Wasn’t knifed. No blunt trauma that I can see.”
“Can you see it, with the body that far gone?”
“Not always, but generally—when you know what you’re looking for, yes.”
Sebastian cast a quick glance around the room, looking for a different corpse. He said, “I’ve just had a rather troubling visit from Sir Henry Lovejoy. He’s ordering Alexander Ross’s body exhumed on Monday. We need to get Jumpin’ Jack to put it back.”
Gibson stared at him. “Put it back? You can’t be serious.”
Sebastian felt an unpleasant foreboding steal over him. “You do still have it, don’t you? The body, I mean.”
Gibson nodded to a truncated form lying beneath a tarp near the door. “Well ... I’ve the torso and the head, yes.”
“The torso and—Bloody hell. What happened to the rest of it?”
“It’s not easy for medical students to get cadavers, you know; they’re expensive. But they can afford . . . pieces.”
“Are you telling me you’ve sold Ross’s arms and legs to your students?”
“That’s how it’s done,” said Gibson defensively.
Sebastian stared at his old friend. “Well, you’ll just have to get the arms and legs back. Quickly.”
“Yes, of course. It’s just ... You don’t think that when they exhume Mr. Ross, they’re going to notice that the body’s already been carved up a wee bit?”
“There’s not much we can do about it at this point, is there? At least they’ll still be able to see—” He broke off as a new thought occurred to him. “The neck and head are still attached to the torso, aren’t they?”
“Oh, yes. The lad who was to take the head isn’t coming until this afternoon.”
“Thank God for that.”
“He’s going to be disappointed, though.”
“We’ll get him another!”
“Right.”
They turned to walk out of the dank, foul air of the mortuary into the hot sunshine. Gibson stood with his back resting against the rough wall of the outbuilding, one hand tugging at his earlobe. After a moment, he said, �
��I’m not certain Jumpin’ Jack is going to like this. Putting a body back in its grave, I mean. Can’t say I ever heard of such a thing being done before.”
“Tell him it’ll earn him a hundred quid. That should allay whatever qualms he may have.”
Gibson nodded. “Any luck yet finding out who did for the poor devil?”
“At the moment my list of suspects seems to be in danger of expanding to include half the diplomatic community of London.” Sebastian told Gibson about his discussions with the Russian Colonel and the Turkish Ambassador, and the mysterious disappearance of the body of the unknown intruder he’d encountered in Alexander Ross’s rooms.
“That’s a trick,” said Gibson at the end of it. “How do you carry a dead body down the middle of St. James’s Street?”
“Easy enough, I suppose, if you’ve two men. Simply support the body between the two of you, with its arms over your shoulders. Weave a bit as if you’re all drunk, and no one’s likely to give you a second thought—not at that time of night.”
“Yes, you’re right; that would work.” Gibson pushed away from the wall. “You think this man’s friends saw you?”
“If they were watching the front of the building, they must have seen me come out. Whether or not they recognized me is a different question.”
“What do you suppose they were looking for?”
Sebastian blew out a long breath. The stink from the nearby cadaver was becoming overwhelming. “If I knew that, I might have a better idea who killed Alexander Ross.”
Gibson looked thoughtful. “You say the man you fought was English?”
“He sounded it. But that doesn’t mean he was. Members of the diplomatic corps can be surprisingly good with languages. And God knows there are plenty of Frenchmen who’ve been in this country long enough to sound as British as you or I.”
“And then there’s always the Americans,” said Gibson. “They can certainly sound English.”
“True,” agreed Sebastian, remembering the half-written letter found in the davenport desk. He batted away a fly hovering near his eyes. “What do anatomists normally do with the bodies they dissect? Once they’re finally through with them, I mean.”
Gibson gave him a long, steady look. “Do you really want to know?”
“Yes.”
“We-ell,” said Gibson, drawing the word out into two syllables. “Some surgeons dump the bits in the Thames. But that’s always dangerous. I mean, there’s the chance of being seen, and it’s never good to have stray pieces of cadavers washing up on the riverbanks. Tends to get people excited.”
“I can imagine,” said Sebastian dryly.
“More commonly, they’ll dump them in the countryside, someplace where the wild pigs are likely to take care of the problem for them. Although I have heard of anatomists who bury them in the basements of their own houses.”
Sebastian eyed his friend with mounting horror. “And you?”
“I usually don’t have much to worry about, after I’ve passed on various body parts to my students. As for what does remain ...” He stared off across the unkempt yard that stretched between the outbuilding and the house.
“Good God,” said Sebastian, following his gaze.
Gibson grinned. “You did ask.”
“Does Mrs. Federico know?”
Gibson cast his eyes heavenward. “The saints preserve us. She’d leave me for sure if she knew.”
Sebastian laughed. “And that would be a bad thing?”
“Aye, it would. She’s the devil of a housekeeper, but she cooks my dinner and washes my clothes. And the truth is that while she complains a lot, she’s the only woman I’ve had who lasted beyond the arrival of the first cadaver sent by the magistrates for autopsy.”
“Does she know about Jumpin’ Jack?”
Gibson grinned. “He doesn’t usually come around in daylight.”
“But you do know how to contact him?”
“Ah, yes.”
“Good. Offer him two hundred pounds if you must. Just get Alexander Ross back in his grave.” Sebastian started to turn away, then paused. “I almost forgot; I’ve a favor to ask of you. I’m getting married at eleven o’clock Thursday morning and I’d like you to be my best man.”
Gibson started to laugh, then broke off, his eyes narrowing as he searched Sebastian’s face. “Good God,” he said. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Very.”
Gibson swallowed hard. “Then I’ll be honored. Who . . . who is the bride, if I may be so bold as to ask?”
“Miss Hero Jarvis,” said Sebastian. Then he added, “And if you stand there like that with your mouth open, you’re liable to get flies in it.”
Chapter 21
L eaving Tom walking the chestnuts up and down Newgate, Sebastian found Miss Jarvis seated on a stool in the shade cast by a remnant of the long-vanished priory’s old cloisters, a drawing pad on her lap. She wore a dusty pink walking dress trimmed with velvet, and a broad-brimmed straw hat with a matching pink velvet band and a tall feather that fluttered in the warm breeze when she turned her head to watch him walk up to her.
“Why, good morning, Miss Jarvis,” he said, squinting down at her sketch. It was surprisingly good, a very accurate architectural rendering in bold strokes of black. “Fancy meeting you here.”
“My lord,” she said, wiping her hands on a cloth. “A surprise indeed.” Pushing to her feet, she handed her sketch pad and drawing implements to her long-suffering maid. “Wait for me here, Marie,” she told the woman.
“Yes, Miss Jarvis.”
“I want to know what makes you think Alexander Ross was murdered,” she said bluntly as they turned to walk together along the ancient, dilapidated cloister.
Sebastian had occupied himself on the drive from Tower Hill in deciding how much he could—and could not—tell Miss Jarvis. Now he said, “There was nothing wrong with Ross’s heart. The attending physician missed the stiletto wound at the base of his skull.”
She stared at him, hard. “How do you know this?”
“That, I’m afraid, I am not at liberty to say.”
He saw a flash of something in her eyes, but she glanced away before he could be certain what it was. “A stiletto thrust to the base of the skull sounds like the work of an assassin,” she said, their footsteps echoing along the stone arcade.
“It does, does it not?” Actually, it sounded like the work done by the sort of men her father typically employed, but he didn’t say that.
She brought her gaze back to his face, her eyes narrowing, and he had the disconcerting realization that she knew exactly what he’d been thinking. But all she said was, “Have you a suspect?”
“At the moment? Everyone and no one. I keep getting dark hints about all sorts of shadowy diplomatic maneuverings, to the point that it’s beginning to seem as if half the diplomatic community of London is somehow involved.”
“And how exactly does Colonel Chernishav fit in?”
“Ross and Chernishav were to meet at Cribb’s Parlor the night Ross died. When he didn’t show up, Chernishav went to Ross’s rooms in St. James’s street, sometime around midnight. Ross didn’t answer the door.”
“So he says.”
“Actually, in that, at least, I believe him. A man fitting the Colonel’s description was seen climbing the stairs around midnight, only to come back down again immediately afterward.”
She gave him a hard, thoughtful look. “You think Ross was dead by then?”
Sebastian chose his words carefully; he had no intention of involving her in this murder investigation any more than he had to. “Another man was seen going up the stairs earlier that evening, somewhere around eight—and no, I haven’t discovered yet who that might have been,” he added before she could ask.
“So exactly what are you suggesting? That Ross was stabbed by this earlier visitor, then undressed and put into his bed so that it would appear as if he’d died naturally in his sleep?”
“It seem
s likely. Although it’s also possible Ross was killed someplace else and his body brought back to his rooms in the predawn hours, when there was no one about to see it.”
“Seems a risky thing to have done.”
“It does, yes. Nevertheless, I can’t rule it out.” He was thinking about the body of the man with the broken neck that had disappeared from the stairwell of that same house just the night before. A ruse similar to the one used to carry that body away from St. James’s Street could also have been used to return Ross’s body to it.
They walked along in silence for a moment. Then she said, “I didn’t know Ross well, but what I knew of him, I liked. He was a very open and engaging man. I can’t imagine anyone having a reason to kill him.”
“What about your cousin, Miss Cox; what is she like? Was she happy in her engagement, do you think?”
Miss Jarvis gave a sharp, incredulous laugh. “What are you suggesting? That Sabrina became disillusioned with her betrothal and hired an assassin to rid her of him?”
“The thought had occurred to me, yes.” Sabrina Cox, or her wealthy, disagreeable big brother.
“That’s because you don’t know Sabrina.”
“No, I don’t. And unfortunately, her state of mourning makes it most difficult for me to approach her.”
He was aware of Miss Jarvis giving him another of her long, steady looks. “So that is why you indulged my vulgar curiosity by coming here, is it? You’d like me to speak to Sabrina for you—ask if she knows of anyone Ross might have quarreled with lately, perhaps? See what other deep, dark secrets I can ferret out?”
Sebastian said, “Alexander Ross had another visitor the night he died. A woman wearing a veil.”
“You think it was Sabrina?”
“I think it unlikely. But I don’t know. Will you speak to her?” Sebastian asked.
Their perusal of the cloister’s remnant had brought them back to her abigail. Miss Jarvis reached to take the sketchbook from the woman’s hands. “I’ll consider it,” she said.
And he had to be satisfied with that.
After Devlin’s departure, Paul Gibson went to stand again in the doorway of his small outbuilding, his hands on his hips, a niggling suspicion beginning to form in his mind.
