Chapter 11
Sebastian met up with Sir Henry Lovejoy again midway through the afternoon.
“You’ve heard the results of the autopsy?” said the magistrate as they walked along the terrace of Somerset House.
Sebastian nodded. “I have, yes. It seems there’s no doubt that the dead man is indeed Marcus Toole.”
“No, no doubt.” Lovejoy paused at the terrace’s stone balustrade to look out over the choppy gray waters of the Thames. “Unfortunately, Sir Samuel is refusing to violate his son’s privacy by allowing us to search the man’s bachelor quarters near St. James’s Street.”
“That is unfortunate,” said Sebastian.
Lovejoy nodded. “We’ve spoken to Toole’s valet, but the man is virtually insensible with shock and apparently fiercely loyal to his late employer. He can’t think of any reason anyone would want to kill young Toole, who—to hear the valet talk—should be a candidate for sainthood.”
“I suspect he’s in need of a character reference from Sir Samuel and knows he won’t get one if he does anything except sing the young man’s praises.”
“So it would seem.” Lovejoy sighed and turned to walk on.
“Lady Keebles likewise denied our request to search her son’s library and bedroom after his murder; the very idea outraged her.
I don’t think either parent grasps the concept that important evidence as to the identity of their sons’ killer might be found amongst their effects. ”
“Or they know their sons had something to hide.”
Lovejoy glanced over at him. “I suppose that’s possible as well, yes.”
Sebastian kept his gaze on the magistrate’s face. “Have you managed to speak to my nephew today?”
“We did, yes, although I can’t say he added anything to what he’d already told us. He is still laboring under a great deal of distress.” Lovejoy cleared his throat. “Have you seen him?”
“Not yet. I wanted to hear what some of his friends have to say first. Phineas Upcott tells me he and Theo Bridgewood were planning to join Bayard and Toole out at Chalk Farm, but ate something at the White Horse on Piccadilly the night before that disagreed with them. It could simply be a coincidence, but it might be worth checking out.”
“Indeed,” said Lovejoy, his frown deepening. “I’ll have one of the lads look into it.” He paused, then added awkwardly, “We also spoke to young Lady Wilcox, but she had nothing to add to our understanding of last night’s events, either. I gather they’ve only been married—what? Three months?”
“Not even that,” said Sebastian. The marriage had been arranged and pushed through with almost unseemly haste by Sebastian’s half sister, Amanda, for reasons he could only speculate about.
The new Lady Wilcox was quite young, barely seventeen years old, a quiet, rather colorless woman who was apparently more than content to be abandoned by her new husband on a Saturday night, when most young brides were eager to be seen at the theater or one of the balls that were starting up again with the return of the ton to London.
Sir Henry was silent for a moment, watching a passing barge.
Then he said, “I assume you’ve seen the papers?
Because of the murder’s location on Primrose Hill, Fleet Street has seized upon the notion of Toole’s death as a reenactment of some barbaric form of ancient human sacrifice and run with it.
Needless to say, Sir Nathaniel Conant is doing everything he can to squash the speculation. ”
“I’ve no doubt,” said Sebastian. Bow Street’s new Chief Magistrate was very much the creature of the Prince Regent and Jarvis.
When the Regent had sought to push a divorce from his wife, Princess Caroline, through Parliament, it was Conant who’d found and helped bribe witnesses to falsely testify that the Princess had given birth to one of the orphaned children she fostered.
His knighthood and the office of Chief Magistrate of London’s most prestigious public office had been his reward, and Lovejoy had been chafing under the man’s less-than-honorable leadership ever since.
“Do I take it the Palace is not pleased?”
“To put it mildly. They want someone tried, convicted, and hanged, and the sooner, the better.”
“That’s not good.”
“No.” Lovejoy kept his gaze on the barge. “Do you think your nephew is right? That the murders of Toole and Keebles are somehow linked?”
“It seems likely, doesn’t it? The problem is, no one is being at all cooperative about any of this. And that makes me wonder why.”
After that, Sebastian spent the better part of the next hour trolling the haunts typically frequented by Bayard and his friends.
His nephew proved elusive, but he came upon Theo Bridgewood in the reading room of White’s, his head bowed over the Morning Chronicle; a scattering of other newspapers and a brandy rested on the small round table at his elbow.
Sebastian ordered a glass of Bordeaux, then went to settle in the red leather chair on the far side of the younger man’s table. “Mind if I join you?”
Theo looked up. He was an extraordinarily attractive man of twenty-six or -seven, tall and well-formed, with even, striking features and thick, dark brown hair styled à la Brutus.
Unlike Upcott and Bayard, he had at some point abandoned the tendency toward dandyism he’d affected when younger and now wore the sort of somber, dark blue coat, buckskin breeches, and Hessians typical of a Corinthian.
“Not at all,” he said, folding his paper and tossing it aside. “I was just reading the press’s lurid speculation about Toole’s death. Druids and ancient rites of human sacrifice, of all things.”
“Do you believe any of it?”
“Good God, no. Don’t tell me you do?”
Sebastian shook his head. “So who do you think killed him?”
“Me? I’ve no idea. How could I?”
“Did he have any enemies that you know of?”
“Toole? No.”
“None?”
“None that I was aware of.”
“Can you think of anyone he quarreled with recently?”
“No.”
“What about the man he tangled with a month or two ago out at Chalk Farm Tavern? A man who may or may not have been a highwayman.”
Theo’s brows drew together in a frown. “Where did you hear about that?”
“From one of Toole’s friends.”
“Ah. You’ve been talking to Upcott, have you? He was in here not long ago, bleating on about Chalk Farm like Mary’s little lamb—or do I mean a scared version of little Mary herself? At any rate, I’d no idea the fellow was so lily-livered; it’s embarrassing.”
“Would you happen to know this highwayman’s name?”
Theo pursed his lips as if thoughtfully considering the question, then shook his head. “Sorry, no. Don’t think I ever heard it.”
“Do you remember what he looked like?”
“Not really. He wasn’t exactly what you’d call memorable.”
“Tall, or short?”
“Neither, probably.”
“Old, or young?”
Theo laughed. “They don’t usually live to be old, do they?”
“Not usually, no. Was he fair-haired? Dark?”
“I have no idea. It’s not as if I paid a great deal of attention to the fellow, and I can’t think why you—and Upcott—imagine he has anything to do with what happened to Toole.”
“Proximity, perhaps?”
“Well, I suppose there is that.”
“What was the quarrel about, anyway?”
“I don’t know if I’d describe it as a quarrel, exactly. The fellow took exception to something Toole did, that’s all.”
“What did he do?”
Theo laughed again, less convincingly this time. “You think I remember? It was months ago, and I was more than half foxed at the time.”
“Did you and Toole and the others go out to Chalk Farm often?”
“Not often, no. But sometimes.”
“Why?”
“Why not?” Theo cast an expressive glance around the sedate, well-appointed room with its rich velvet curtains, sparkling chandeliers, and thick Turkey carpets. “It’s considerably livelier and more interesting than anything to be found around here, wouldn’t you say?”
“No doubt.” Shifting in his chair, Sebastian drew the carved wooden wolf from his pocket and held it out. “Have you ever seen this before?”
Theo glanced at it, then shook his head. “No.”
“You’re certain?”
The younger man took the piece for a moment, turned it over, then handed it back. “No; sorry. Are you suggesting it could have something to do with what happened to Toole?”
“It might. Do you know if Toole had an interest in Celtic history or the Druids?”
“Toole?” The younger man gave a sharp laugh. “Good lord, no. What a ridiculous thought.”
“What was he interested in?”
A hint of a sad smile tugged at the other man’s lips, then was gone.
And it occurred to Sebastian, watching him, that it was the first sign of any emotion—other than scorn and amusement—that Theo had displayed.
“Horses. The Fancy. The cut of his coat. One of the pretty new dancers at the opera.” He grimaced. “Definitely not Druids.”
“Could he have quarreled with someone who does have an interest in the Druids?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“What about Gilbert Keebles? Did he ever express an interest in the Celts or Druidism?”
“No. I don’t know anyone who’s interested in Druids. Do you? My knowledge of them begins and ends with the tales my old Welsh nurse used to tell me when I was a child.”
Sebastian took a slow sip of his wine. “What do you think happened to him? Keebles, I mean.”
“Gil was a fool. He was drunk as a wheelbarrow when he left us that night, only instead of going home, he decided to take a walk along the river.”
“He told you that when he left you? That he was going for a walk along the Thames?”
“Not exactly. What he said was that he was randy as hell and was going to find some threepenny whore and take her standing up against one of the gas lamps on Westminster Bridge. Unfortunately, he picked the wrong bit of muslin, didn’t he?
So rather than getting fucked, he ended up with a knife stuck in his ribs. ”
“Except that he wasn’t robbed.”
Theo reached for his brandy and took a deep drink. “I figure he tried to get away from the whore and her bully boy, fell in the river, and drowned.”