Where the Dead Lie

by C. S. Harris

  “He was, yes.” The woman was no fool; her eyes narrowed. “That’s important; why?”

  Sebastian looked into her pretty, open face and didn’t have the heart to tell her.

  • • •

  He sent a message to Lovejoy, suggesting Bow Street and the local magistrates might want to consider also searching the back garden of the Bethnal Green cottage. Sebastian then spent the next several hours speaking to a range of people up and down the country road.

  It didn’t take him long to learn that the plump young mother was right: The little brick cottage had a decidedly unsavory reputation. But how much of that was due to the discovery of the moldering dead man with a dagger in his back was hard to say. Once again, no one could tell him much about the house’s previous tenant, whom they’d rarely seen.

  Sebastian was about to give up when he found a gnarled, white-haired old man named Corky Baldoon. Corky was sitting on the front stoop of his tumbledown cottage and nimbly weaving a basket from a pile of supple hazel branches when Sebastian reined in the curricle beside him.

  “The fellow what used t’ live in that brick cottage? Aye, I seen him a few times,” said the old man in answer to Sebastian’s query.

  “What did he look like?” asked Sebastian, watching the basket take shape beneath the old man’s liver-spotted hands.

  “Well, he was young,” said Baldoon, his bony, surprisingly spry fingers flashing in and out with impressive skill.

  “How young?”

  The old man cackled, showing gums long since denuded of teeth. “What ye thinkin’? That when yer my age, even a man in his fifties looks young?”

  “This man was in his fifties?”

  Corky laughed again. “Didn’t say that.”

  Sebastian smiled. “So how old was he?”

  “’Bout yer age, I reckon.” The old man squinted up at Sebastian, his pale blue eyes watery and nearly lashless. “Meybe a mite older.”

  “Can you describe him?”

  “Aye. Me legs might be worthless these days, but there ain’t nothin’ wrong with me eyes. Not yet, anyways.”

  Sebastian waited, but the old man simply kept weaving his basket. Finally, Sebastian said, “So what did he look like?”

  “Hmm. Fine-lookin’ cove, he was. Tall and handsome in a way reminded me of a nasty bugger I used t’ know long ago. Course, it couldn’t have been him, seein’ as how it’s been fifty years or more since I knew the bloody bastard. But there’s no denying he looked like him.”

  Tall and handsome. Sebastian wondered how many tens of thousands of tall, handsome young men lived in London. To an age-shriveled old man like Corky Baldoon, even the average-sized Hector Kneebone would probably appear tall. And some might call a slim, well-dressed man such as the comte de Brienne “handsome.”

  “Wasn’t jist his looks, though,” Corky was saying. “There was somethin’ about the way he sat up on that horse—like he was the bloody king of the world and he knew it. Reminded me of his lordship, it did.”

  “His lordship?” prompted Sebastian, more out of politeness than in expectation of learning anything useful.

  “Aye. Viscount Ashworth he was in them days.” The old man turned his head and spat. “Course, now he’s the high and mighty Marquis of Lindley, God rot his soul in the hottest part of Hades for evermore.”

  Sebastian held himself very still. “How do you know the Marquis of Lindley?”

  “Hail from Devon, I do,” said Corky Baldoon, pausing to survey his handiwork. “Or I did, till he and his da, the old Marquis, stole me land with their bloody Act of Enclosure back in ’sixty-five.” The old man’s eyes narrowed as he whipped a cane in and out of the basket’s top edge. “M’wife died in the poorhouse that winter, along with our two young lads. After that I spent a lot of time thinking about killin’ them slimy bastards—Lindley and Ashworth both. But I still had me little Jenny then. Just five years old, she was. And what would’ve become of her, if her da got hisself hanged for murder? So I didn’t do it. But I wanted to. Ain’t no denyin’ I wanted to. And I ain’t never forgot what that bastard looked like.”

  Corky Baldoon set his basket aside unfinished, his hands falling idle in his lap. And Sebastian realized the old man had stopped because tears had welled up in his eyes so that he could no longer see. “I’ll remember that till the day I die.”

  Chapter 44

  The Duchess of Claiborne was coming down her front steps when Sebastian drew up before her Park Lane home.

  She wore an impressive carriage gown of fine, soft mauve wool trimmed with turquois satin piping and paired with a truly awe-inspiring mauve and turquoise turban. At the sight of Sebastian, she paused, one hand groping for the quizzing glass that hung from a darker mauve riband around her neck.

  “Aunt,” he said cheerily, handing the reins to Giles and jumping down.

  “Not now, Devlin. I’m on my way to—”

  “It won’t take but a moment.” He cupped her elbow to steer her back into the house. “You knew the Marquis of Lindley fifty years ago, did you not? When he was still Viscount Ashworth?”

  The Duchess let her quizzing glass fall. “I did, yes. Why do you ask?”

  “What did he look like when he was young?”

  She frowned with thought. “Well, let me see . . . Tall. Broad shouldered. Extraordinarily handsome. All in all, a fine figure of a man—much like his son, actually. Same dark blond hair and strong jaw. Charming in that same smooth, not entirely sincere way. Not to say that there was ever anything mean or dissolute about Lindley, then or now. Not like Ashworth.”

  Sebastian suspected Corky Baldoon might disagree about the mean part, but he kept that thought to himself.

  Aunt Henrietta pursed her lips. “You haven’t said why you’re asking.”

  “Would it be possible for someone who knew the Marquis all those years ago to recognize the resemblance of the father to the son if they saw Ashworth today?”

  “I suppose it’s possible. But—”

  “Do Amanda and Stephanie go to Lady Jersey’s ball tonight?”

  “Oh, no; Amanda has quarreled with Sally. I believe Ashworth is escorting them to Lady Farningham’s musical evening instead. She has an Italian harpist or some such frightful person.” The Duchess was not fond of harps.

  Sebastian planted a loud kiss on her powdered and rouged cheek. “Thank you, Aunt.”

  “But what has all this to do with Stephanie?” she called after him as he turned to run down the steps. “Devlin? Devlin.”

  • • •

  Leaving Park Lane, Sebastian went next to Tower Hill, where he found Paul Gibson standing in the center of the outbuilding, his thoughtful gaze on the big, naked body of Les Jenkins.

  “Ah; I was hoping you’d come,” said Gibson. “Look at this.”

  Pale and waxy and already shrinking in death, the caretaker lay on the stone table in the middle of the room. Two purple slits, one large, the other quite small, showed clearly against the white flesh of the dead man’s hairy chest.

  “That doesn’t make sense,” said Sebastian, staring at him.

  Gibson leaned back against a shelf piled with the boxes of washed bones from the shot factory. The room was getting uncomfortably crowded. “It does when you realize he was stabbed twice—once in the back with a blade long enough for the tip to go all the way through his body, and again in the chest. The one in the back killed him. The other was just to leave you a message.”

  Sebastian looked up. “Heard about that, did you?”

  Gibson nodded. “Nasty. Not to mention more than a touch disturbing.”

  Sebastian looked at the dead man’s chest again. “Same dagger both times?”

  “Nope. The knife holding your note wasn’t long enough to go all the way through and come out the other side like that.”

  “So—what? A swo
rd stick?”

  “Probably.”

  “Lovely.” Sebastian shifted his gaze to the boxes of bones. “And the burials from Clerkenwell? Did you find anything that might identify any of them besides Mick Swallow?”

  “One, the twelve-year-old girl, had an old break in her forearm that had healed well. That’s it.”

  Sebastian let his breath ease out in a sigh and went to stand in the doorway.

  Gibson said, “Lovejoy has asked me to take part in a search for more graves out at the farmstead where you found this fellow.”

  Sebastian nodded. “There’s another house needs to be searched, as well. A cottage in Bethnal Green.”

  “You think that’s where the children were tortured and killed? At those two houses?”

  “Judging by what I saw out at Penniwinch Lane, I don’t think there’s much doubt about it. The houses were both leased by the same man, although he doesn’t seem to have actually lived at either one.”

  “My God,” said Gibson. “What sort of man keeps a house simply to have someplace to kill children?”

  Sebastian pushed away from the doorframe. “A very wealthy one.”

  • • •

  Sebastian arrived back at Brook Street to find that Hero had yet to return from visiting her mother in Berkeley Square.

  “This came not long ago from Lady Devlin,” said Morey, looking grim as he held out a silver tray with a sealed missive. “Her ladyship also sent Claire home with Master Simon, along with a message for Cook saying not to expect her for dinner.”

  Puzzled, Sebastian broke the seal. I’ll be late, Hero had written in her strong, rather masculine hand. My mother’s not well, but don’t worry.

  Sebastian fingered the note as he turned toward the stairs. She had explicitly told him not to worry. But he also knew Hero well enough to suspect that she would downplay her concerns about her mother’s health in order to avoid distracting him from such an important investigation.

  And for that reason, he couldn’t help but be troubled.

  • • •

  Lady Farningham’s musical evenings had quickly become a fixture of London Society. Featuring everything from French opera singers to Austrian pianists and Spanish cellists, the gatherings were popular amongst those members of the Upper Ten Thousand with musical inclinations—or at least with pretentions to pose as such. Amanda fell into neither category and typically avoided them. But alternate entertainments were scarce on a night chosen by one of Almack’s powerful patronesses for her ball.

  Sebastian arrived at Mount Street to find music already floating through the Countess’s spacious reception rooms. As usual the ladies in attendance occupied rows of chairs set in a horseshoe around the harpist, the famous Italian virtuoso Valentino Vescovi, while the gentlemen tended to prop up the walls on the periphery. He spotted Amanda and pretty, golden-haired Stephanie in one of the last rows, with Ashworth lounging against a nearby pilaster. For one moment, his gaze met Sebastian’s across the elegant room. Then he pushed away from the wall to stroll casually toward a nearby salon where a refreshment table had been set up.

  Sebastian followed.

  “We need to talk,” said Sebastian, coming to stand on the far side of the heavily laden table.

  The Viscount reached for a plate. “Oh? Why?”

  “Where were you last night?”

  Ashworth hesitated, as if considering the rival merits of asparagus versus haricots verts. “As it happens, I was with your lovely niece and her mother. Why?”

  “For how long?”

  “Really, Devlin; if you—”

  “For how long, damn you?”

  Ashworth glanced up, a muscle jumping along his tight jaw. “From eight until approximately half past one this morning. Why? Has there been another death no one seems to care about besides you?”

  Sebastian figured Les Jenkins had been dead at most an hour or two by the time he found the man’s body at around two that morning. Which meant that it was impossible, again, for Ashworth to be the killer.

  When Sebastian remained silent, the Viscount gave a short, sharp laugh. “Good God; I’ve nailed it, haven’t I?” The amusement faded abruptly. “Are you really so desperate to keep me from marrying into your family as to try to pin a murder on me?”

  Sebastian said, “I wonder, have you ever spent much time in Bethnal Green?”

  “Bethnal Green?” Ashworth gave all his attention to the task of spooning buttered crab onto his plate. “You must be joking. What would I be doing in Bethnal Green of all places?”

  “Torturing and killing desperately poor, starving children.”

  “In Bethnal Green? And here I thought you were hanging around Clerkenwell these days.” The Viscount pulled a face. “You really ought to pick more fashionable neighborhoods, you know.”

  “Why? You obviously don’t.”

  Ashworth’s lips curled up into what might have been a smile. “Are you calling your sister and niece liars?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Then what? Exactly?”

  Sebastian studied the other man’s smooth, handsome face. What could he say? That an eighty-year-old man with a grudge against Ashworth’s family was convinced he saw a younger version of the Marquis of Lindley riding away from a house that may or may not have something to do with a long string of missing street children?

  “At a loss, are you?” said Ashworth.

  Sebastian shook his head. “I might not have figured it all out yet. But I will.”

  Ashworth set aside his filled plate. “Well, be certain to let me know when you do,” he said, and walked away.

  “You’re still at it, aren’t you?” said a familiar tight, angry voice behind him.

  Sebastian turned. “Dear Amanda.”

  She stood tall and elegant, a formidable presence in silver silk trimmed with exquisitely fine lace. “Why must you persist? Why can’t you simply accept defeat and move on to some other amusement?”

  “Amusement? You think that’s what this is? “

  “You must be enjoying it. Otherwise why are you doing it?”

  “Because people are dying. Children are dying.”

  She raised one delicately arched eyebrow. “Oh? Has another of your grubby street urchins been killed?”

  Sebastian looked into her cold, fiercely blue St. Cyr eyes and wondered how he and this woman could possibly have come from the same loving, laughing mother. “Thankfully not a child this time, Amanda. A man. Actually, two of them. Two men who presumably could have identified the killer.”

  “And when did this happen?”

  “The most recent murder was last night at around midnight—give or take an hour or so.”

  “Well; there, you see? Ashworth was with us last night—along with some of the most distinguished men in the Kingdom including Castlereagh, Pugh, and Liverpool. Feel free to speak with them as well if you care to embarrass yourself. They’ll all tell you the same thing. But I hope you’ll have the decency—not to mention the intelligence—to stop this nonsense.”

  She made as if to brush past him, but he caught her arm and swung her around to face him again. “Even if by some chance I’m wrong and Ashworth isn’t responsible for this string of vile murders, he’s still not a good man, Amanda. And you know it.”

  Oozing with contempt and condescension as only Amanda could, she let her gaze sweep over him. “Lord Ashworth is a gentleman born and bred. How dare you of all people presume to judge him?” Her gaze fixed on his hand gripping her arm, and he let her go.

  Then he stood and watched her walk away, the plumes of her dowager’s turban nodding in the candle-heated air.

  Chapter 45

  Sebastian lay awake in the darkness, his gaze on the tucked blue satin of the tester overhead. Outside, the wind had come up again, keening like a live thing through the eav
es. In his tormented, exhausted state, he imagined for one moment he could almost hear it whispering of the things he should know—the things he could know if he only listened hard enough.

  He felt Hero shift beside him, her warm hand coming to rest on his chest. She’d arrived home not long after Sebastian, looking tired and frightened. Her mother, never particularly strong, had collapsed midway through what had until then been a pleasant afternoon playing with her grandson.

  He slipped his arm beneath her shoulders to draw her close as she nestled her head in the crook of his shoulder. “Worried about your mother?” he asked softly.

  She nodded. “It’s all so sudden. I don’t understand it.” She was silent a moment, then said, “You’re thinking about all those dead children, aren’t you?”

  He buried his face in her hair. “I keep coming back to what the old man out at Bethnal Green told me. What are the odds that this mysterious Mr. Herbert should remind Corky Baldoon of Ashworth’s father?”

  “It is rather bizarre. But that doesn’t mean Ashworth actually is Richard Herbert.”

  “No.”

  He felt her smile against him. “But you believe he is, don’t you?

  “Yes.”

  She said, “Ashworth was with your sister when Benji Thatcher was being buried and again when Les Jenkins was killed. He simply can’t be the man you’re looking for.”

  “I know.”

  “No, you don’t. If anything, you’re more convinced it’s him than ever.”

  He put his chin on the top of her head and ran his hand up and down her side. “I like to think it’s all reason and deduction, what I do. That I carefully weigh evidence and uncover information and secrets until I finally see my way to a solution. But that’s only part of it. The truth is, a lot of it is simply intuition . . . a hunch . . . whatever you want to call it. And my gut tells me the killer is Ashworth even though I know it’s impossible.”

  “It’s not exactly impossible,” she said. “The boy who was seen trying to bury Benji could have killed the caretaker out at the farmstead.”