Who Slays the Wicked

by C. S. Harris

  At one point, while they watched the regatta, she had frightened him by teetering on the edge of the quay with the deadly rush of the river beneath her, the wind blowing her hair and her face alive with the heady delight of it all. He’d been shaking when he pulled her back to safety, but she’d only laughed. And he’d known then that there was more than a wildness to her. She possessed deep within her an urge to push boundaries and walk on the thin, ragged edge of destruction, as if compelled to tempt fate or even welcome it.

  “I wish I could go with you,” she’d said later that afternoon, when he was driving her home.

  He’d laughed. “To war?”

  “Yes.”

  “Unfortunately, there’s more to war than handsome uniforms, magnificent horses, and the glory of homecoming.”

  She’d turned her head to look at him, her eyes solemn with a wisdom that didn’t belong in a child. “You think that’s what appeals to me, Uncle? The uniforms and horses and chance for glory?”

  “Evidently not,” he’d answered, suddenly serious. “My apologies for underestimating you. So, what does?”

  “They say it’s the ultimate test of one’s mettle, don’t they? A chance to experience life at its most raw, when it’s most . . . real. And then . . . die.”

  He’d felt a chill wash over him. “You want to die, Steph?”

  A strange smile played about her lips. “Doesn’t everyone?”

  “Actually, no.”

  She’d stared at him a moment before turning her face away. “Then they’re luckier than they realize.”

  It was a conversation that had haunted him ever since. And he felt again, now, that sense of having failed her, of never quite grasping the elusive pain that drove her hurtling through a troubled life. He was missing something, he thought as he turned to mount his front steps. He’d always missed something.

  But what?

  * * *

  “Ah, there you are, my lord,” said Morey as he opened the door.

  Sebastian’s gaze fell on a familiar hat and cane resting on the hall table. “Hendon?”

  “Yes, my lord. He’s with her ladyship and young master Simon in the drawing room.”

  Sebastian swung off his driving coat and handed it with his own hat and gloves to the majordomo. Then he mounted the stairs to find the man known to the world as his father sitting beside a cheerful fire and dangling fourteen-month-old Simon on one knee.

  Alistair St. Cyr, the Fifth Earl of Hendon, was nearing seventy now, his thinning hair long since gone white, his heavyset, once-tall frame beginning to stoop. He was laughing when Sebastian entered the room, the little boy’s hands clinging to Hendon’s thick, blunt fingers as he bounced his knee up and down. For a moment, Sebastian paused, conscious of a warm tightening in his chest as he watched them. Technically the child was only distantly related to Hendon through his grandmother. But that didn’t stop the Earl from loving Simon with a fierceness that was impossible to miss.

  Then Hendon looked up and saw Sebastian, and the laughter faded from his blunt-featured face. “I came back to town as soon as I heard,” he said, grasping the little boy around his sturdy waist and setting him down on his feet.

  Simon’s face crumpled, and Hero, who had been standing nearby, stepped forward to swing the little boy up into her arms as he began to cry. “I think someone’s ready for bed. Say good night, then.”

  Hendon made a big show of wishing the child pleasant dreams. But as soon as Hero left the room, he turned to Sebastian and said, “Is it true, what they’re saying in the papers? That Ashworth was found tied naked to his bed?”

  “Yes. With red silk bonds.”

  “Bloody hell.” Hendon watched Sebastian walk over to pour two glasses of burgundy. “Any idea yet who did it?”

  “None whatsoever, although there was a black leather whip mixed up in the bedclothes.”

  “Bloody hell,” said Hendon again, taking the drink Sebastian held out to him. Hendon rolled the wine in its glass, his gaze on the swirling ruby liquid, his lips pursed. “You’ve spoken to Steph?”

  “I have, yes.”

  He looked up. “And?”

  “She says she didn’t do it.”

  Sebastian expected Hendon to explode at him, to insist that of course she hadn’t done it; that only a fool could think even for a moment that his granddaughter might have committed murder. Instead, he took a deep swallow of his wine and said, “You believe her?”

  “I honestly don’t know.”

  Hendon nodded, his face strained. “I wouldn’t blame her if she did.”

  Sebastian went to stand beside the hearth, his gaze on the small blaze. “Neither would I.”

  “Is she in danger of being accused?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Please tell me you’ve at least found other suspects.”

  Sebastian looked up. “There’s a shopkeeper who had good reason to kill the bastard, and I might even be inclined to think him guilty if Ashworth had been found in an alley with his head bashed in. But under the circumstances, I’m afraid we’re looking for a woman—probably someone who took fright at what Ashworth was doing to her. I suppose it’s technically possible that someone just happened to find him passed out and tied to his bed and took advantage of the situation to murder him. But it seems rather doubtful.”

  “There’s no one else besides this shopkeeper?”

  “I’m looking into a woman he was involved with. And his valet is missing. If we’re lucky, he’ll be found and confess to the murder before anyone has enough time to start thinking that Stephanie might have done it.”

  Hendon pushed to his feet and went to stand at one of the windows overlooking the darkened, misty street. “I saw Ashworth myself just a few days before I left for Oxford.”

  “Oh? Why?”

  Hendon stood with his hands clasped behind his back, his jaw working silently in that way he had when he was thoughtful or troubled. He was the kind of man who never allowed himself to be hurried into speech, who chose his words carefully and deliberately. And so Sebastian swallowed his impatience and waited.

  After a moment, the Earl said, “It was utterly by chance. I was in Swallow Street, looking at the demolitions they’ve started for Nash’s New Street.”

  “It’s really going to happen, then?”

  “Oh, yes. There’s talk of calling it ‘Regent Street,’ although I suspect the Prince is optimistic that by the time it’s actually under construction, it’ll be called ‘George the Fourth Street.’”

  “Nothing like hopefully anticipating your own sire’s death.” Sebastian took a sip of his wine. “So, what was Ashworth doing in Swallow Street?”

  “I don’t know. I actually didn’t speak with him myself. I’m not certain he even saw me. John Nash has a young associate, a Welshman named Russell Firth. He’s a bright, personable fellow—I knew who he was because I’d met him before, when he and Nash were making their presentations before the Commissioners of Woods and Forests. That’s who Ashworth was talking to—arguing with, in fact.”

  “Firth?” Sebastian had met the young architect himself through Hero. “What were they arguing about?”

  “I couldn’t hear. But there’s no doubt their words were heated. I wouldn’t have thought much about it, except . . .”

  “Yes?”

  Hendon swiped one thick, blunt-fingered hand across his lower face. “I’d just seen the fellow—Firth—a few days before, with Stephanie. They were standing by the Serpentine in Hyde Park.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Simply standing together by the water. Talking. Laughing.”

  Sebastian studied Hendon’s troubled face. “Stephanie might not be the insufferable snob her mother is, but somehow I find it difficult to believe she’s suddenly taken to consorting with some random architect-builder. There’s probably a s
imple explanation.”

  “There could be.” Hendon shook his head. “Except . . .”

  “Yes?”

  Hendon let out his breath in a heavy sigh. “It was the way she was looking at him that caught my attention.” He hesitated, then pushed on. “I may be an old man, but I recognize that expression. She was looking at him the way a woman looks at a man who interests her. And he was looking right back.”

  * * *

  “Hendon thinks Stephanie is having an affair with Russell Firth?” said Hero later that night when Sebastian finally had an opportunity alone to tell her about it. “An architect? Stephanie?”

  She was curled up in a chair beside their bedroom fire with Sebastian seated at her feet. He tipped back his head to look up at her. “I agree it sounds improbable, but Hendon isn’t given to flights of fancy. Even if Steph isn’t actually having an affair with the fellow, there must be something there for Hendon to have been struck by it.”

  “You think that’s why Ashworth was having words with Firth? Because he suspected the man was sleeping with his wife?”

  “Possibly.”

  Her lips parted as she drew in a troubled breath. “If Hendon saw them and leapt to such a troubling conclusion, other people must have as well. This isn’t good.”

  “No,” said Sebastian. “No, it isn’t.”

  Chapter 11

  Saturday, 2 April

  “We used t’ live in Swallow Street when I was a wee tyke,” Tom said the next morning as Sebastian guided his horses east toward the doomed street.

  The day had dawned cool and overcast, the air heavy with the smell of coal smoke and horse droppings and the promise of rain. Sebastian threw a quick glance back at his tiger. The boy rarely spoke of the days when his father was still alive, of the life he’d lived before his mother was transported to Botany Bay and his brother hanged for theft at the age of thirteen. “You did?”

  Tom nodded. “Are they really gonna tear it all out so’s they can put in some fancy new street?”

  “Most of it. Or at least that’s the plan.”

  The Prince Regent’s grand project to plow a new avenue through London had been sparked by the reversion to the Crown of a stretch of rural parkland known as Marylebone on the northwest outskirts of the city. Originally, the scheme simply called for the construction at Marylebone Park of a palatial summer residence for the Prince surrounded by several dozen villas amid what he wanted to rename “Regent’s Park.”

  But the vision was soon expanded by a proposal to punch a magnificent new artery through the preexisting neighborhoods on the edge of the West End, thus creating a sweeping avenue of high-end shops and houses that would connect the Prince’s new summer residence to his existing palace of Carlton House on Pall Mall. This “New Street” would have the added happy benefit of dividing the wealthy, privileged inhabitants of Mayfair from less fashionable, fading areas such as Soho and Golden Square, and the even more insalubrious stretches of London that lay to the east. The Regent’s favorite architect, John Nash, was overseeing the vast project. But so great was its scope that Nash was forced to bring in other builders and architects such as James Burton and young Russell Firth.

  Firth was still in his late twenties, but he’d already made something of a name for himself. The son of a successful Cardiff builder, he’d won a scholarship to Cambridge at the age of sixteen and then received the university’s prestigious Worts Traveling Bachelorship, a stipend that enabled him to spend three years studying antiquities in Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy. It was a unique background that combined a solid grounding in classical architecture with a builder’s grasp of the realities of construction. If the Regent’s grand rebuilding scheme ever came to fruition, Sebastian suspected it would owe more to Firth than to the Prince’s favorite architect, Nash.

  As he turned in to Swallow Street, Sebastian at first found it difficult to believe the street was slated for demolition. The roadway was thronged with carts and wagons; pedestrians passed back and forth on the pavement; children shouted and laughed; dogs barked. But then he noticed the stretches of already empty shops, the windows of their upper stories blank. What had once been an aged public house on a far corner was already being reduced to rubble, and Sebastian spotted Firth himself deep in conversation with the foreman of the work crew.

  “I shouldn’t be long,” said Sebastian, pulling in close to the kerb and handing the boy the reins.

  The architect was just turning away from the half-demolished building when Sebastian hopped down and walked toward him. He was attractive in a quiet, unassuming way, of above average height and slim, with lightly curling fair hair and even features. When Sebastian had seen him before, at the Royal Society, his dress had been that of a respectable, relatively affluent man of affairs. But today he looked like what he was—an architect-builder not afraid of getting his clothes dirty on a construction site.

  At the moment, his attention was focused on a notebook he held in one hand. Then he looked up, caught sight of Sebastian, and paused, his eyes narrowing and his face smoothing into a blank mask as he let Sebastian walk up to him.

  “Good morning,” said Sebastian. “I don’t know if you remember—”

  “I know who you are. And I can guess why you’re here.”

  “Oh?”

  Firth held his head at a proud angle, his eyes hooded and wary. “I saw the newspapers. I don’t imagine you’ve randomly decided to take a break from investigating the murder of your niece’s husband simply to come and have a look at our progress on the Regent’s New Street.”

  “Fair enough. Then let’s be blunt, shall we? You were recently seen arguing with Ashworth. Here, actually. Just a few days before he was killed. Care to tell me why?”

  The air filled with a clattering bang and an explosion of dust; someone in the distance laughed. Firth threw a glance over his shoulder at the demolition, then said, “Is there a reason I should?”

  “When it comes to murder, cooperation is always a good idea. Unless one is guilty, of course. Then I suppose a semblance of cooperation is probably the best way to go.”

  Firth stood with his hands on his hips, his jaw set hard. “You can’t seriously think I killed him. Why would I?”

  “I don’t know. Why were you arguing with him?”

  He went to toss his notebook on a nearby rough worktable and began sorting through a stack of papers held down by a brick fragment. “We weren’t arguing, exactly. Ashworth was interested in hiring me to rebuild the facade of some manor house of his down in Kent. I refused.”

  “Why?”

  Firth glanced over at him. “Why what?”

  “Why did you refuse?”

  “Because the bastard has—had—a well-earned reputation for not paying people who work for him. I was pretty blunt about my reasons for turning him down, and he got a bit nasty as a result.”

  It all sounded believable. Except of course it did nothing to explain the private interlude with Stephanie that Hendon had witnessed beside the Serpentine in Hyde Park.

  Sebastian said, “I understand you know Lady Ashworth.”

  For one telling moment, Firth paused at his paper shuffling, then resumed it almost at once. “I do, yes. We met at a lecture I gave last spring on the Greek temple of Poseidon at Sounion.”

  “Stephanie attended a lecture on ancient Greek architecture?”

  “You say that as if it surprises you. You obviously don’t know your niece as well as you think you do.”

  “Obviously not,” agreed Sebastian. “But I gather that wasn’t the only time you’ve met her.”

  Firth gave up fiddling with the papers and swung to face him. “No. No, it wasn’t. But I hope you’re not suggesting that somehow implicates me in her husband’s death.”

  Sebastian studied the younger man’s smooth, tense face. “Who do you think killed him?”

 
Firth gave an incredulous laugh. “How would I know?”

  “You must have some theory about what happened.”

  Firth shook his head. “He was an arrogant, nasty bastard who cheated and abused everyone. And do you know why? Because he was always—always—allowed to get away with it.”

  “Someone evidently decided not to let him get away with it anymore.”

  “Good,” said Firth. “It’s too bad it didn’t happen long ago. But it wasn’t me.”

  “Where were you last night?”

  “Home. Asleep.”

  “Any way to verify that?”

  “No.” His gaze shifted to a couple of workmen stacking stones from the half-dismantled public house into a wagon. And for one unguarded moment, the man’s facade of angry belligerence cracked, allowing a glimpse of the yawning fear that lurked behind it. Firth carefully set the brick on his papers again, his attention all for his task.

  “You know something,” said Sebastian, watching him. “What is it?”

  Firth looked up, his face strained.

  “Tell me.”

  The architect gave an uncomfortable shake of his head, as if disturbed by what he was about to say. “It may be nothing, but I did hear he was being blamed for the death of a young woman. Seems he forced himself on her, and she killed herself because of it. Word is, the mother vowed to make him pay for the rest of what she promised would be a short life.”

  “What was the woman’s name?”

  “I don’t think I ever knew. Or if I did, I don’t recall it.”

  “Who told you this?”

  “I overheard it at a Royal Society lecture. I wasn’t familiar with the people who were talking, but I caught Ashworth’s name and it drew my attention.”

  “Because of your friendship with his wife, you mean?”