Sebastien St. Cyr 08 - What Darkness Brings

by C. S. Harris

  “What other victim?”

  But Sebastian only shook his head, his gaze on a fog-shrouded copse of oaks.

  While Devlin settled down in his library with Eisler’s account books, Hero changed into a warmer carriage gown of soft pink wool and went in search of the crossing sweep named Drummer.

  She found the boy working to clear a pile of fresh manure from his corner. He was reluctant to pause in his labors, but the promise of a silver coin lured him to the steps of St. Giles, where he sat with his bare hands tucked up beneath his armpits as he rocked back and forth for warmth. Hero noticed he had acquired a sturdy pair of leather boots, only gently worn by their previous owner.

  “Ye want to know more about the crossin’ sweeps?” he asked, looking up at her.

  “Not today. I was thinking about how you told me that you and your friends often go to the Haymarket in the evening.”

  “Y-yes,” he said slowly, obviously confused by this new line of inquiry.

  “Have you ever found girls for a gentleman who takes them to an old man living in a ramshackle house just off the Minories in St. Botolph-Aldgate?”

  Drummer froze, his skinny little body tense, as if he were about to bolt.

  “Don’t worry,” said Hero gently. “You won’t get into trouble for it. I’m trying to find a girl who was taken there last Sunday night. Do you know who she is?”

  Drummer cast a quick glance around, as if to reassure himself that no one had overheard her question.

  Then he nodded solemnly, his eyes wide and afraid.

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  ebastian found the name he was looking for entered under the heading for June 1812.

  Major Rhys Wilkinson’s debt was for five hundred pounds and had been partially repaid.

  He set aside the ledger and rose to go stand with his palms resting on the windowsill, his gaze fixed unseeingly on the misty street before him. He tried to tell himself that the death of both men on the same night could be a coincidence. That Rhys was not the kind of man to commit cold-blooded murder over a debt of five hundred pounds. But he was haunted by the memory of a young girl with a dusting of cinnamon-colored freckles across her sunburned nose, who’d once shot a Spanish guerrilla point-blank in the face.

  He was still standing at the window some minutes later when Hero’s stylish yellow-bodied town carriage drew up before the house. He watched her descend the carriage steps, a ragged, incredibly dirty, gape-mouthed child clasped firmly by one hand.

  “We’ll have sandwiches, cakes, and hot chocolate in the library, as soon as possible,” he heard her tell Morey, her footsteps brisk as she crossed the black-and-white-marbled entry hall. The room filled with the scent of coal smoke and fresh manure and grimy boy.

  “This is Drummer,” she said, releasing the child’s hand so that she could loosen the ribbons of her bonnet and yank off her gloves. “He’s a crossing sweep at St. Giles, but he also works in the Haymarket in the evenings, helping gentlemen too shy to descend from their carriages to find girls.” She gave the boy a nudge forward. “Make your bow and tell his lordship about Jenny.”

  The boy stumbled forward, a grubby wideawake cap clutched in both hands, his skinny chest jerking with his agitated breathing.

  “Jenny?” prompted Sebastian when the lad remained mute.

  “Jenny Davie,” supplied Hero. “She’s seventeen, and last Sunday evening she was hired by a gentleman in a hackney who was known to procure girls for a nasty old goat living in St. Botolph-Aldgate.”

  Sebastian led the boy closer to the fire, where the black cat looked up in slit-eyed annoyance at their intrusion. “What did this gentleman look like?”

  Drummer raised a shoulder in the offhand shrug of a lad to whom one member of the nobility was pretty much like the next. “I reckon ’e looks like a nob.”

  “My age? Younger? Or older?”

  Drummer frowned with the effort of thought. “Younger, I’d say—by a fair bit.”

  Sebastian and Hero exchanged glances. So Jenny Davie’s procurer had not been Samuel Perlman.

  “Fair?” asked Sebastian. “Or dark haired?”

  “’E’s got a mess o’ curls as gold as a guinea. The girls always go with ’im real quick, because ’e’s so good-lookin’. But ’e ain’t never ’ad nothin’ to do with any of ’em. Jist takes ’em to that old codger.”

  Blair Beresford, thought Sebastian. Aloud, he said, “Tell me about Jenny Davie.”

  Again that twitch of the shoulder. Circumstances had obviously taught Drummer long ago to take life—and people—as he met them, with little time for analysis or criticism. “Wot’s there t’ tell? She’s a doxy.”

  “Where does she live?”

  The boy’s gaze slid away. “She used t’ keep a room at a lodgin’ ’ouse in Rose Court.”

  “But she’s not there anymore?”

  Drummer shook his head. “There’s been a mess o’ people lookin’ for ’er.”

  “Oh? Such as?”

  “Well, the curly-’eaded cove what ’ired ’er, fer one.”

  Interesting, thought Sebastian. “Who else?”

  The boy’s shoulder twitched. “Some Frenchman. “’E’s been lookin’ fer ’er real ’ard. He’s even offered blunt to any o’ the lads what could tell ’im where she’s gone.”

  Sebastian saw Hero’s eyes narrow and knew that the boy had not yet told her this part of his tale. “What does he look like?”

  “’E looks like a Frenchman.”

  “Tall? Short? Old? Young? Dark? Fair?”

  Drummer frowned. “Older than you, and shorter—but not real old or real short. I reckon ’e ’as a real bad pockmarked face, but I didn’t pay him a whole lot o’ mind. I mean, I ain’t about to bubble on Jenny, so why would I? She said if anyone was to come lookin’ fer ’er, we was t’ keep mum.”

  “So you do know where she is.”

  The boy sucked in a quick breath as he realized his mistake. He edged toward the door but was stopped by the entrance of Morey, who came in bearing a heavy tray loaded down with sandwiches, small cakes, and a pitcher of steaming hot chocolate.

  Hero said, “Here, let me fix you a plate of sandwiches. Do you prefer ham or roast beef?”

  The boy swallowed hard. “Can I ’ave some o’ both?” he asked in a small, hopeful voice.

  “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 th
e 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.

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  lp!” 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 do
or 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.

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  ebastian 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?”