Chapter 13
The footsteps stopped. Then Sebastian heard a man’s throaty laugh, and a dark shadow straightened slowly, his hands held where Sebastian could see them as he continued walking the last several hundred feet to the top of the hill. “Don’t mean you no harm. Just want to talk.”
“I take it you’re Sid?”
“I am,” said the man, touching one hand to his hat as he executed a flourishing bow. “Sid Diamond, at your service.” He looked to be around Sebastian’s age, of average height and build, his features rugged, his dress that of an ex-soldier or country squire down on his luck.
Or a highwayman.
He straightened slowly. “Now it’s your turn; who the hell are you?”
“The name’s Devlin.”
The man’s eyes narrowed. “As in Viscount Devlin? The Earl of Hendon’s son and heir?”
Sebastian nodded.
The other man laughed out loud.
“That’s funny, is it?” said Sebastian.
Diamond pushed his hat back on his head. “You don’t think so?” He went to stand beside the remnants of the fire, his head bowed. When he turned around again, he was no longer laughing. “This where somebody tried to use that bloody nob for firewood?”
“Yes.”
“Now, that would have been a sight to see.”
“It’s a pity you missed it, then. If you did.”
Diamond stared at him for a long moment. “You’re thinkin’ I killed him, are you?”
“You did have a quarrel with him. Him and his friends.”
“Don’t know if I’d call it a quarrel, exactly. They thought they could treat other folks like they’re of no more account than the dung on the soles of their boots, and I showed ’em they were wrong.”
“And how precisely did you do that?”
He shrugged. “They were botherin’ Alison. I made ’em stop.”
“Alison?”
Diamond jerked his head in the general direction of Chalk Farm. “Alison Cross, the tavern keeper.”
“Ah. Alison struck me as the type of woman who is more than capable of taking care of herself.”
“She is. But there was five of them. And that kind ain’t used to being told no.”
“So what happened after you told them to stop?”
“They tried pushin’ me around, from one t’ the other, laughin’ and whoopin’ like the jackasses they are. So I collared one, put my knife to his throat, and told the rest of ’em I’d give ’em five seconds to get out before I started cuttin’ off bits of their friend.”
“Which one did you grab?”
The highwayman smiled. “As it happens, it was your nephew.”
“What did his friends do?”
“They sloughed off as fast as they could. Then I let your nevvy go—although I may’ve taken a wee chunk out of his ear first to remind him to mind his manners in the future.”
“They simply left?”
“Nah. I’ll be damned if they didn’t steal Jesse. Took her out on the heath, ripped up my saddle and dumped it in the mud, and probably would’ve slit her throat, too, if she hadn’t reared up and got away from them. She had a knife slash on her neck, and the reins were snapped.”
“Jesse is your mare?”
“She is.”
“How do you know Toole and his friends are the ones who took her?”
“One of the tavern’s ostlers saw them. It’s not like they were trying to hide what they were doin’.”
“When exactly was this?”
Diamond shrugged. “A month or two ago.”
Sebastian studied the other man’s roughhewn features and found himself remembering what Upcott had said about him. There was no mistaking the man’s way of holding himself, of moving—his manner of speech, even. All told their own story to anyone who’d spent six years as a cavalry officer.
Sebastian said, “Which regiment were you in?”
A flare of surprise flickered in the other man’s eyes. “The Eleventh Light Dragoons.”
“And now you’re on the high toby?”
Diamond’s jaw hardened. “You think I’m the only one fallen on hard times?”
“No. But you don’t strike me as the type to take what those men tried to do to your mare and walk away.”
Diamond’s lips curled in a slow, nasty smile. “Maybe. Maybe I’d even come up with a plan to get my own back at them.” His gaze drifted again to the cold firepit at his feet. “But it looks like somebody beat me to this one.”
Perhaps, thought Sebastian. Or perhaps not. Aloud, he said, “Where were you last night?”
This time the man’s grin was something less nasty, more rollicking, his dark brown eyes dancing with amusement. “Workin’.”
“Alone?”
“I like t’ work alone.”
“That’s unfortunate. If Bow Street gets wind of this, you might find you could use an alibi.”
“Huh. You still thinkin’ I did that?” Diamond jerked his chin toward the cold ashes at their feet. “Why the bloody hell would I go through all the trouble of settin’ the bastard on fire?”
“Presumably for the same reason those men stole your horse and ripped up your saddle.”
Diamond shook his head. “That ain’t my way.
” He fell silent for a moment, then said, “That night—the night those coves were goin’ after Alison—they started off pickin’ on a couple of greenheads who’d come into the tavern.
Little more’n boys, they were—not much above eighteen or nineteen from the looks of ’em, and still wet behind the ears.
One of ’em especially was a real kinchin cove, and he’s the one those bucks focused on.
Men like that can smell weakness and fear the same way a horse or a dog knows who’s afraid of ’em.
Cut the buttons off the poor lad’s trousers and pulled ’em down, saying they was gonna whip his bare arse.
That’s when Alison went over and told ’em to leave the young cub alone. So they turned on her.”
“Do you know who this young cub was?”
“Nah. Never seen him before or since. But they knew him, and he knew them. Struck me as a bit of a nan-boy, if you know what I mean?”
“And all five of them were picking on him?”
Diamond nodded. “One of ’em started it—Toole, as a matter of fact.
But then the others joined in. Or at least, four of ’em did.
There was six of ’em to begin with, you see.
But the sixth cove, he hung back; even told ’em to cut it out at one point.
Of course, all they did was laugh. Told him if he didn’t want to have fun, he could just watch. ”
“So what did he do?”
“He left.”
“Do you know who he was?”
“No; I’ve no interest in him.”
“But you know who the other five were.”
“You could say I’ve made it my business to find out, which is how I come to know one of ’em’s your nephew. That’s why you’re out here, isn’t it? Askin’ questions and pokin’ around.”
“Partially.”
“He’s a rotter, you know. Your nevvy, I mean.”
“I know,” Sebastian said honestly.
The highwayman tilted his head, as if trying to understand something he found incomprehensible. “So why you care if somebody’s taken to killin’ the buggers?”
“Because he is my father’s grandson.”
“Ah. I see. You’re thinkin’ his death would grieve the Earl, is that it? Seems to me it’d be better for the old man to wake up one morning to the news that somebody’d quietly garroted the little bastard than to have to watch him piss when he can’t whistle.”
It was a harsh but aptly descriptive euphemism for hanging, “to piss when you can’t whistle.” Sebastian said, “What precisely are you implying?”
“You mean you don’t know?”
“No.”
“Then maybe that’s what you ought to be tryin’ to find out,” said Sid Diamond, turning away. “Rather than worrying about what happened up here.”
“You think he did it?” Hero asked later that night. She was standing behind his chair, her hands resting loosely on his shoulders as he sat before the library fire, a glass of brandy cradled in one palm. “This highwayman, I mean. You think he killed Toole and Keebles?”
Sebastian tipped back his head to look up at her. “He’s certainly capable of it. Although a simple bullet in the chest or six inches of cold steel in the gut strike me as more the man’s style than a crude reenactment of some ancient rite of human sacrifice.”
“Gil Keebles got six inches of cold steel before he went in the river. And Marcus Toole was shot before he ended up in that fire. Perhaps they both simply…fell. One in the water, the other in the fire. No ghostly echo of ancient sacrifices necessary. Just…gravity.”
“It’s certainly possible,” said Sebastian, taking a sip of his brandy.
“Who do you think this ‘greenhead’ Sid Diamond was talking about could be?”
“I have no idea. But I intend to ask Bayard tomorrow.”
Hero walked over to stand with one hand resting on the mantel, her gaze on the fire. “The sixth man—the one who left—could have been Emmanuel Royston-Jones.”
“Probably. I plan to talk to him tomorrow, too. If Bayard—”
He broke off at the sound of a hackney carriage pulling up outside.
Quick footsteps thumped up the front steps, followed by a heavy hand beating an urgent tattoo with the knocker as Morey moved to open the door.
Sebastian felt his heart sink as he listened to the low murmur of voices. “Bloody hell,” he whispered.
Hero looked up at him. “What is it?”
“My lord,” said Morey, appearing at the entrance to the library with a big, slouch-hatted man Sebastian recognized as one of Lovejoy’s constables at his heels. “Someone from Bow Street.”
“Lord Devlin,” said the man with a bow to Sebastian.
Then he glanced over at Hero and bowed again.
“My apologies, my lady, for the intrusion. But Sir Henry thought your lordship would like to know that another young gentleman has been found murdered. This one’s hanging from a bricklayer’s scaffolding by one of those grand new houses they’re building up in Marylebone. ”
Sebastian felt his stomach lurch. Please not Bayard was his first, inevitable thought. He cleared his throat and said, “Who? Who is the dead man?”
The constable bowed again. “A Mr. Phineas Upcott, my lord.”