Chapter 40
“When was he found?” said Sebastian, standing beside Sir Henry Lovejoy at the entrance to a noisome alley off Little Suffolk Street.
The morning had dawned cold and cloudy, with a faint mist that smelled heavily of coal smoke, effluent, and the brine from the distant river.
This was a depressed, disreputable section of the city that stretched to the north of Charing Cross, behind the aged, dilapidated assemblage of stables, barracks, and records storehouses that formed the King’s Mews.
“An old woman collecting dog feces to sell to the tanneries stumbled upon him just after daybreak,” said the magistrate, his features grim.
Sebastian drew a deep breath of the foul-scented air, let it out slowly, and forced himself to walk forward to where Bayard lay crumpled on his side some eight to ten feet inside the alley.
His pale yellow pantaloons were smeared with muck, his fashionable high-crowned beaver hat rested upside down beside him, and the back of his extravagantly tailored fawn-colored greatcoat showed several ragged slashes soaked dark with his blood.
Sebastian’s eyes narrowed. “He’s been stabbed? ”
“So it appears,” said Lovejoy. “His watch and purse are missing, but it’s impossible to know if he was robbed by his killer or by someone who stumbled upon the body later. He’s quite cold, so I suspect he’s been here for hours.”
His heart feeling painfully heavy in his chest, Sebastian crouched down beside his nephew. Bayard’s one visible eye was open and staring and already beginning to flatten, his jaw sagged, and as Sebastian watched, a fly crawled out of his open mouth.
Before he could stop himself, Sebastian flinched and looked away.
Lovejoy coughed. “Sir Nathaniel is convinced that Lord Wilcox, like Keebles and the others, has fallen victim to the Radicals.”
Sebastian glanced back at his friend. “And why does he think that—beyond political expedience?”
“No reason that I’m aware of.”
Sebastian brought his gaze back to the body beside him. “He hasn’t been posed to look like a Celtic sacrifice, although I suppose that could be because the killer was interrupted before he had a chance.”
Lovejoy nodded. “The area is rarely deserted, even late at night. If we’re lucky, we might find someone who saw something.”
Sebastian let his gaze drift around the alley’s soot-stained, ancient brick walls, the overflowing dustbins, the broken glass and muddy, urine-drenched cobbles. “Any idea where Wilcox was last night?”
“We haven’t actually spoken to his lordship’s household yet. Sir Nathaniel thought it would be best if Lord Wilcox’s mother and wife were to hear the news from a family member.”
Sebastian pushed to his feet and turned to face his friend. But all he said was, “Yes, of course. I’ll go right away.”
Bayard’s long-suffering butler, Crowley, opened the door of the house in St. James’s Square and frowned.
“Good morning, my lord,” he said primly, holding the door open no more than a foot or two. “I regret to inform your lordship that Lord Wilcox is not presently at home.”
“I know,” said Sebastian, pushing the door open wider to brush past him. “Is her ladyship down yet?”
The butler’s eyes widened with panic. “My lord—! Please! The younger Lady Wilcox has not as yet come down, while the dowager is currently at breakfast and is not receiving—”
“That’s quite all right,” said Sebastian, heading for the dining room. “I’ll announce myself.”
The butler closed the door with a decided snap.
Sebastian found his sister seated at one end of the long mahogany table she herself had chosen as a bride some thirty years before.
A cup of tea rested at her elbow, and she had the Morning Chronicle spread open before her.
“Good God,” she said, looking up at his entrance.
“What can Crowley be thinking, allowing you to have your run of the place like this? And at such an hour? I really must have Bayard give the man a—”
“I’m afraid I’m here as the bearer of bad news,” Sebastian said as gently as he could. “And if there’s an easy way to say this, I don’t know what it is. I’m sorry, but Bayard is dead.”
She stared at him in silence for a long moment, her expression utterly unreadable. She raked her lower lip between her front teeth, then said evenly, “I can’t begin to imagine your purpose in coming to me with such an outrageous tale, but I wouldn’t have believed even you could be so cruel as to—”
“It’s not a tale, Amanda. I’ve just come from seeing the body myself. He was found stabbed in the back early this morning in an alley near the King’s Mews.”
She turned her head away, her expression oddly flat, her gaze seemingly fixed on the swirling mist outside the dining room windows.
Whatever her thoughts, whatever her emotions, none of them showed on her face.
“Why you?” she said at last. “Why were you sent to tell me this, rather than someone from Bow Street?”
“They thought it would be kinder.”
“Indeed.” She reached for her tea, took a sip, then carefully settled the cup in its saucer and looked at him. “Do they know who is responsible?”
“Not yet. But the area around the King’s Mews is rarely deserted, even late at night. It’s possible there may have been a witness.”
Something flickered in those brilliant blue St. Cyr eyes before being hidden by carefully lowered lids. “They’ve linked his death to that of Keebles and the others?”
“It seems likely, although there are…differences.”
Her features twisted into a sneer. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” She flung one hand in the general direction of the King’s Mews. “My only surviving son is lying out there, dead, with an assassin’s dagger in his back, and you come here to gloat and play the expert?”
“I’m not gloating, Amanda.”
“Aren’t you?” She pushed up from her chair to stand with her curled knuckles resting on the table before her.
“Get out. Do you hear me? With Bayard dead, the servants in this house are once again answerable to me, and I can assure you that I won’t hesitate to summon every footman on the premises to throw you out. ”
“That will hardly be necessary,” he said dryly, turning. “But if you need anything—anything at all—you have only to ask.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
He had almost reached the door when her voice stopped him. “I take it you’ve told Hendon?”
He paused to look back at her. “Not yet. I’m on my way there now. My first thought was to tell you.”
He saw the flare of surprise in her eyes. But other than that, her expression remained unaltered, and she simply turned her head away.
“I suppose it was inevitable, given the man he was,” said Hendon later as he and Sebastian sat beside the fire in the library of the Earl’s house in Grosvenor Square.
“There’s always been something not quite right about him, even as a boy.
” The Earl fell silent for a time, his face haggard, his gaze on the golden flames leaping on the hearth.
“It’s odd, isn’t it, the way we can love someone even when we don’t like them? ”
“Yes,” said Sebastian.
Holding his pipe cupped in one palm, Hendon reached for his tobacco pouch, then set about filling the bowl. “You’ve no idea who’s doing this?”
“No. Although I’m told Sir Nathaniel has already placed the blame for Bayard’s death on the Radicals.”
Hendon looked over at him. “You don’t agree?
“No.”
Hendon nodded. “Nothing political about Bayard. Never has been.” Leaning forward, he lit a taper, then held it to his pipe, his eyes narrowing against the smoke. He puffed in silence for a time, then said, “How is Amanda taking it?”
“Surprisingly well.”
Hendon grunted. “Not so surprising, really. She never liked him, either. I always thought the way she treated him was half of what was wrong with the boy.”
“Probably.”
Hendon lapsed into silence again for some time, his thoughts obviously in a dark place. Then he roused himself and said, “Fancy a game of chess?”
Sebastian smiled. “Of course.”
It was late afternoon by the time Sebastian left the grieving Earl and headed east, to Tower Hill.
He found Paul Gibson in the old stone outbuilding at the base of the garden; the eviscerated body of Bayard lay on the slab before him, and the surgeon was washing his hands in a battered bowl of pink water.
“Don’t say anything,” he growled, looking up.
His face was haggard, unshaven, and sallow, his eyes bloodshot and bruised-looking.
Despite the cold, he wasn’t wearing a coat, his shirt was crumpled and stained with sweat, his gray-laced dark hair rumpled and wild.
“There isn’t a damned thing you can say that I haven’t already heard from Alexi a dozen times over. ”
Sebastian dropped his gaze to the pale, waxen corpse that had once been his nephew. “What can you tell me about him?”
Gibson reached for a ragged towel. “Nothing that you don’t already know. He was stabbed in the back three times, presumably by someone who wanted to make damned certain he was dead.”
“Doesn’t sound like footpads,” said Sebastian, his gaze on Bayard’s face, its features now calm and peaceful in death. “They’re usually more interested in incapacitating their target, robbing him, and getting away as fast as they can. Not sticking around to make certain their victim is dead.”
“True. Although if Lord Wilcox here was screaming, and your footpad was trying to get him to shut up…”
“That’s possible.”
Gibson tossed the towel aside. “This killer of yours strikes me as unusually adaptable. He shoots, he stabs, he drowns, he throttles his victims. You sure you’re dealing with only one murderer?”
“No. My guess is at least two, but it could be more.”
Gibson nodded. “The papers are saying it’s obviously the work of Radicals driven by a sick, twisted hatred of their betters. They’re saying it’s a whole gang of them, each with his own favorite way of killing.”
“They’re getting that from Sir Nathaniel and the Home Office. The Palace is probably even paying Fleet Street to run that nonsense. They do it all the time.”
Gibson scraped the palm of one hand across the stubble on his chin. “They’re worried about Monday’s meeting up at Spa Fields, are they?”
“So it would seem.” Sebastian forced himself to look again at what was left of Bayard. “You can’t tell me anything about his killer? Anything at all?”
Gibson pressed his lips together and shook his head. “Not unless they had something to do with that nick that’s missing out of his ear, although it’s almost healed. From the look of things, I’d say he got it maybe a month or two ago.”
That night, Sebastian lay with Hero in his arms and listened to a cold wind thrash the plane trees in the distant square.
“It’s not your fault,” she said quietly.
He didn’t even try to pretend to misunderstand her.
“You don’t think so? Bayard came to me, afraid, because someone was killing his friends and he was terrified he might be next.
He asked for my help, and my first thought was that he himself might be the killer.
Now he’s dead, along with three of his friends, with a fourth missing and likely lying buried out there somewhere.
And with the possible exception of whatever has happened to Royston-Jones, I’m finding it hard to see any of those men’s deaths as tragic.
Alison Cross’s and Jenna Diamond’s deaths? Yes. Bayard’s and his friends’? No.”
“I suspect Theo Bridgewood isn’t sleeping well tonight.”
“Unless he himself is the killer.”
She pushed up on her elbow so she could look down at him. “Do you seriously think he could be?”
Sebastian reached up to run his fingers through the heavy fall of her dark hair. “I don’t know. But I don’t see how I can ignore it as a possibility.”
“Why would he do that? Kill his friends, I mean.”
“To shut them up, perhaps? I suspect we don’t know the half of what those men have done. Perhaps he was afraid they might start talking. He could actually be the one killing both his friends and the women.”
She sat up completely, crossing her legs beneath her.
“What about Emmanuel Royston-Jones? What if he’s not dead?
We know something caused him to become estranged from his friends, but no one seems to know—or at least be willing to say—what that was.
What if the explanation that’s always been given—the gentling influence of his beloved, now dead betrothed—isn’t the true story?
What if whatever caused the break between the men was so horrible that Royston-Jones is now bent on some mad mission of revenge? ”
Sebastian watched her tuck a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “I wish I could say I haven’t been thinking about that, too, but…as much as I genuinely liked the man, there’s no denying he’s weak. And weakness can sometimes drive a man to murder.”
“If he is the killer…” Hero started to say, then hesitated before continuing. “Is he mad, do you think?”
“I suppose that would depend on what pushed him to kill. I can think of circumstances that would drive me to kill four men.” He looked over at her. “Can’t you?”
Something changed in her face, something that left her looking hard and fierce. “Yes. Yes, I can.”