Chapter 42
Theo Bridgewood was in Manton’s shooting gallery in Davies Street when Sebastian came to stand with his arms crossed at his chest and his shoulders propped against a nearby wall.
The younger man was stripped down to his breeches and shirtsleeves; his face was abnormally pale, his dark hair disordered, his eyes sunken and bloodshot.
The attendant at his elbow was methodically reloading a fine set of dueling pistols, one after the other, as the lord’s son cupped wafer after wafer.
For an instant, Theo glanced over at Sebastian, then calmly sighted on the next wafer and pulled the trigger.
“Nice shot,” said Sebastian as the crackling boom of the fiery explosion echoed around the open space and the air filled with the pungent scent of burnt powder. The thin round target had dissolved.
Theo handed the spent flintlock to the waiting attendant, nodded the man’s dismissal, then turned to Sebastian with an exaggerated bow.
“Thank you, thank you.” He straightened.
“I take it you’re here to see me? Has something else happened?
I believe at last count, I’d run out of close friends to turn up dead. ”
Sebastian pushed away from the wall. “We need to talk.”
Theo held up his hands, palms outward, and grimaced. “Let me clean up, and I’ll get my coat.”
Skirting the side of the square, the two men walked down Berkeley Street toward Piccadilly.
The day was dull and overcast, with an icy wind blowing out of the north.
“My father wants me to leave town,” said Theo, his expression solemn as he kept his gaze on the line of plane trees at the base of the slope.
“Rusticate for a while until Bow Street catches this killer and everything settles down.”
“So why don’t you?” said Sebastian.
Theo’s jaw tightened. “I don’t believe in running away.”
“Sometimes retreat is…prudent.”
“As in ‘He who runs away may live to fight another day’?” Theo shook his head. “I’d rather stand my ground and fight now.”
“Do you even know whom you’re fighting?”
He huffed a low laugh. “No.”
Sebastian studied the younger man’s handsome, stony profile. “Of your original group of six friends from Eton, four are now dead and one is missing. You’re the only one left.”
Theo threw him a quick glance. “My mathematical skills might not be the best, but even I can subtract five from six.”
“You think Royston-Jones is dead?”
“Don’t you?”
“Probably.”
Theo kept his gaze on the wind-tossed trees in the distance. “Sir Nathaniel Conant and my father think some group of crazy Radicals is behind it all.”
“You don’t agree?”
“In case you hadn’t noticed, none of us has ever been what you might call interested in politics. Why would Radicals want to kill us, of all people? I can think of hundreds of more logical targets.”
“Because of your fathers, perhaps?”
Theo frowned as if considering this. “I suppose I can see some Radical wanting to hit back at my father and Sir Samuel Toole, and maybe old Zacharia Royston-Jones, too, because of his wealth. But Gil Keebles’s father has been dead since forever, and until this last week Sir Lawrence hadn’t been near London in years.
As for Bayard—well, you know as well as I do what Bayard was like.
I mean, did he ever attend Parliament after coming into the title? Even once?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
Theo nodded. “So no, I don’t think we’re talking about Radicals. But if you’re looking to me to explain what’s going on, I can’t.”
“Have you read Lucan?”
Theo looked puzzled. “What?”
“Lucan. The Roman poet.”
An edge of annoyance crept into the younger man’s voice. “I know who Lucan is. But what the devil has he to do with anything?”
“Have you read him?”
“Of course I’ve read him—years ago, at Eton. Why do you ask?”
“Because he identifies three of the ancient Celtic methods of human sacrifice. Thanks to Lucan, we know that offerings to the god Teutates were drowned, those to Taranis were burned, and sacrifices made to Esas were hanged from trees—although evidently a wooden bricklayer’s scaffold or barn beam will do in a pinch. ”
Theo drew up and turned to face him. “You can’t be serious.”
“I wish I weren’t.”
Theo looked away to where some pigeons were pecking at a scattering of crumbs on the pavement, his gaze abstract as he chewed at the inside of one cheek.
“Well, aren’t you the clever one, seeing such a neat classical allusion in a random assortment of murders?
The problem is, all the killings don’t actually fit, do they?
Bayard was simply stabbed, you know. In the back. ”
“And Keebles was stabbed in the side before being drowned, while Toole was shot in the chest before being burned, and Upcott and Alison Cross were both throttled before being hanged. Their bodies weren’t so much sacrificed as staged to look like sacrifices.
Bayard’s killer could have been interrupted before he had time to stage that one. ”
Theo stared at him, his eyes going wide. “But…why would someone do something like that?”
“I was hoping perhaps you might be able to explain it.”
“Me? I told you: I have no idea who’s doing this!”
Sebastian said, “Three or four weeks ago, shortly before the first Spa Fields assembly, you were overheard somewhat gleefully attempting to intimidate a certain German chemist by describing in detail the various ways in which the Celts once performed their human sacrifices—by drowning, burning, and hanging—and then threatening to do the same to him.”
Theo was silent for a long moment, his brows drawing together in a frown. “Told you that, did he?”
“No. As I said, you were overheard. That’s what comes from letting your quarrels play out in the public streets.” It wasn’t strictly true, of course, but Sebastian had no intention of exposing Accum—again—to this man’s wrath.
Something glittered in the younger man’s hard eyes as he turned to walk on. “And did your informant also tell you the bloody little Hun drew a pistol on me? A pistol!”
“Yes,” said Sebastian, falling into step beside him.
“So that’s why you’re rattling on about Celtic sacrifices? Because you think Accum is the killer?”
“I suppose that’s one explanation.”
“What other explanation is there?”
“From the sound of things, the reference to Lucan rolled rather easily off your tongue. I’m wondering if you’ve made a similar threat before. To someone else, perhaps?”
“Oh, bloody hell.” Theo drew up at the corner of Piccadilly, his head falling back as if in stunned amazement as he started to turn away, then swung to face Sebastian again. “First of all, it was a joke, not a threat. A bit of a nasty joke, perhaps, but still a joke.”
“Have you used that ‘joke’ with others?”
Theo hesitated, then huffed a low laugh.
“As a matter of fact, I have—probably more times than I can count. It was a running gag we used all the time when we were lads at Eton. We’d pontificate about sacrificing the headmaster to Esas, or burning a particularly pedantic lecturer for Taranis, or tossing one of the more annoying younger lads into the Thames as a sacrifice to Teutates.
We thought we were oh so clever and witty; you know how insufferably full of themselves schoolboys can be.
I don’t know why the hell I said it the other day to Accum, except the bloody Hun does seem to bring out the worst in me. ”
“So one of the others—Keebles, Toole, Upcott, Bayard, or even Royston-Jones—could have said something similar to someone else?” It was a discovery that had the potential to throw the entire investigation wide open again.
If the men had been using that same nasty taunt since they were lads, the killer could be virtually anyone.
Or at least anyone well-read enough to understand and remember the classical reference.
“I wouldn’t be surprised.”
The younger man’s face had taken on a drawn, troubled look. Sebastian said, “Why didn’t you go out to Chalk Farm with Toole and Bayard the night Toole was killed on Primrose Hill?”
“I was sick—sicker than a bloody dog. Upcott and I both were. Something we ate at a pub the night before must’ve been off. Why do you ask?”
Upcott himself had said the same, and the pub had confirmed the illness of some of their customers.
It would be an easy claim to verify with Bridgewood’s servants, which made Sebastian suspect it was probably true.
Aloud, he said, “Who would have known that—that you and Upcott were sick, so that Toole and Bayard would be alone that night?”
“Who would have known? I’ve no idea. What precisely are you suggesting, Devlin? That someone we tangled with at some point has decided to use what was basically a schoolboys’ conceit as a formula for murder? For murdering us all? Who would do something like that?”
“You can’t think of anyone?”
“No! It’s madness.”
“You don’t think this killer is mad?”
When Theo remained silent, Sebastian said, “If Royston-Jones isn’t dead, where do you think he is?”
“Emmanuel? I’ve no idea. He’s been acting strange for months, since even before that insipid chit of his died.”
“Do you know why?”
“Why? ‘Blood will out,’ I suppose.” Theo’s lip curled. “One of his grandfathers was a lumper, you know, while the other was an impoverished Irish peer so down on his luck he was reduced to auctioning off his daughter to the highest bidder.”
“And you’ve no idea why Emmanuel suddenly started ‘acting strange’?”
“No. I always assumed it was because of the chit’s influence. What was her name? Abigail? Agatha?”
“Annie,” said Sebastian.
“That’s right; Annie.” Theo was silent for a moment. “You can’t think that Emmanuel has been doing this? Emmanuel? You can’t be serious.”
Sebastian shook his head. “No, I’m not suggesting that—although I also don’t think we can dismiss it as a possibility.
Can you think of a reason why he would want to kill your friends?
” Something besides listening to the five of you sneer at his grandparents’ humble origins for the past fifteen years?
“Good lord, no. It’s madness even to suggest it.
Here the poor man’s lying dead out there somewhere—that is, if he wasn’t dumped in the Thames like Keebles and swept out to sea with the tide—and all you can do is accuse him of murder.
Next thing we know, you’ll be saying I must be the killer because I’m the last man standing. ”
“You have to admit it is rather suggestive.”
“Oh, for the love of God!”
“You can’t think of anyone with a powerful enough grudge against your friends to want to kill them? All five of them?”
“No.” Theo’s voice rose in pitch, his eyes bulging with what looked very much like genuine fear.
“Maybe Sir Nathaniel is right; maybe the Radicals are behind it. There’s a coffeehouse out in Clerkenwell—the Rising Sun, it’s called—where the Spencean who keeps it took a shot at us for objecting to the seditious literature he was supplying his customers. Maybe he’s behind it all.”
“Did you tell Bow Street about him?”
“I did, yes. And about that bloody violinist at the opera who fancies himself a fencing master.”
“Anyone else?
“Isn’t that enough? How many Radicals do you know?”
“Not many,” Sebastian acknowledged. “How do you think the tavern keeper and barmaid out at Chalk Farm Tavern fit into this? Why would someone who’s interested in killing your friends also target them?”
“What makes you think those women’s deaths have anything to do with us?”
“Because one was hanged and the other drowned.”
Theo shrugged. “Perhaps they killed themselves.”
“They didn’t.”
“So certain?”
“The surgeon who performed their autopsies is.”
Theo shrugged again.
“There’s also the interesting fact that it’s been just over a month since Jenna Diamond, the barmaid, told someone that you and your friends forced yourselves on her.”
Theo stared at him for one intense moment, then threw back his head and laughed. “Is this some sort of jest?”
“No.”
“She ‘told someone,’ did she? Do you know how ridiculous that sounds?”
“So you deny it?”
“Of course I deny it. Good God. Do you think it’s so difficult for us to find a willing tumble that we’ve had to resort to taking the chits by force?” He laughed again. “Believe me, the world is full of women more than eager to spread their legs for wealth and the whiff of a title.”
“We’re talking about rape as a tool for revenge, not something done in a twisted quest for sexual release.”
“Revenge?” Theo’s lips quirked up in a strange, rollicking smile. “Revenge for what?”
“An ugly incident out at Chalk Farm Tavern involving two earnest young scholars recently sent down from Cambridge, the innkeeper Alison Cross, and a highwayman named Diamond—Jenna Diamond’s brother. You were so annoyed with him that you stole his horse; remember?”
No longer amused, Theo met Sebastian’s gaze and held it with a steadiness tinged with quiet menace. “I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about.”
“No?”
“No.”
“If you think on it, I suspect you’ll remember,” said Sebastian. Then he turned and left Theo standing on the street corner, his fists clenched and his eyes narrowed to slits.
Returning to Brook Street, Sebastian sent a note to Lovejoy suggesting he look into Theo Bridgewood’s whereabouts on the night of Toole’s murder.
After that, he sat for some time staring unseeingly out the library window.
Then, standing up from his desk, he went to pull his copy of Debrett’s Peerage from the shelf and looked up the Earl of Glenraven.
The entry was brief. Emmanuel’s grandfather, James Alexander Royston, had been the First Earl of Glenraven.
He had fathered three children—a son and two daughters.
The current holder of the title, Emmanuel’s cousin, was only the Second Earl, for he had inherited the earldom directly from his grandfather, the First Earl.
Sebastian searched in vain for an explanation of what the First Earl had done to earn his elevation to the peerage; nor was the fate of the Second Earl’s father—who would have been the First Earl’s son and therefore uncle to both Emmanuel Royston-Jones and Ciana O’Leary—explained.
His curiosity stirred, Sebastian was leafing through a volume on eighteenth-century Irish history when Jules Calhoun scratched at the door.
“My lord,” said the valet, not even trying to hide his smile as he bowed. “I’ve located someone who was on Westminster Bridge the night Gilbert Keebles was attacked and killed.”
Sebastian closed the heavy tome and tossed it aside. “And?”
Calhoun’s smile widened. “I think you’ll find what he has to say interesting. Very interesting, indeed, my lord.”