Chapter 23
That night, Sebastian dreamed of ancient manuscripts written in blood, of shadowy caverns beckoning him with dangerous promises of secrets to be revealed. He saw a ship, its sun-struck sails billowing in a fair wind, and a familiar, golden-haired woman, ever young, her head thrown back in joyous laughter.
He awoke with his throat tight, his breath coming hard and fast. He was aware of a heavy ache of yearning in his chest and eyes so dry they hurt. Beside him, Hero shifted, murmuring in her sleep.
Gently so as not to wake her, he drew her to him and buried his face in the sweet warmth of her hair.
Monday, 4 April
The inquest into the murder of Lord Ashworth was held at the White Hart in Clarges Street. Because no official venue for such inquiries existed, inquests were typically convened in whatever nearby pub or inn was large enough to accommodate the crowds so often attracted by the titillating opportunity to view a bloody, mutilated corpse.
Viscount Ashworth, his skin beginning to take on a waxy, greenish hue, lay faceup on a battered table in the center of the room. The bodies of murder victims were typically displayed naked. At the insistence of his lordship’s father, the Marquis of Lindley, a folded sheet had been draped over the victim’s groin. But his lordship’s savagely hacked chest was in full view of anyone who cared to wander in out of the rain and gawk at it.
“I never thought I’d be attending my own son’s inquest,” Lindley told Sebastian as the two men stood together waiting for the coroner to arrive. It seemed to Sebastian, looking at him, that the Marquis had aged a decade in just three days. He’d always been thin, but there was now an air of increased fragility about him, a slowness to his movements that hadn’t been there before. It was as if his sorrow over his son’s death were a brutal weight bearing down upon him. And it was visibly crushing him.
“Look at them,” said Lindley, staring out over the pushing, malodorous crowd, all vying for a chance to peer at the dead man. The air was thick with a foul stench of wet wool, sweat, tobacco, and ale. “It’s a rare day’s entertainment for them, like a cockfight or a bearbaiting—with my son’s mutilated body as the central spectacle.”
“You don’t need to stay for this,” Sebastian said quietly.
“Yes, I do. I owe him that. And then—” The old man’s voice broke, and he had to swallow and start again. “And then I’ll take him home.” He cleared his throat. “Lovejoy tells me you’ve agreed to help try to find the killer. I can’t tell you how grateful I am for that. Are you making any progress at all?”
Sebastian shook his head. “I wish I could say I was, but . . . not really. I’m sorry.”
“‘For this child I prayed,’” quoted the old man softly. “‘And the Lord hath given me my petition that which I asked of him. Therefore I have lent him to the Lord.’” Lindley sighed. “Samuel 1:27 to 28.” He paused again, then said, “If there’s anything I can do—anything—you’ll let me know? I keep going over and over everything I can recall him saying these last few weeks, hoping I’ll come up with something that might explain this. But I can’t.”
“He didn’t seem nervous or upset or preoccupied in any way?”
“Anthony? No. He wasn’t the type, actually. They don’t come any cooler or steadier.”
Sebastian wasn’t convinced such a characteristic was entirely admirable. In his experience, men who lacked the capacity to feel fear or nervousness were all too often missing other emotions, valuable attributes such as empathy, compassion, and remorse. He said, “Do you know if he’d quarreled with anyone recently? Or if there was someone he might have angered or frightened?”
The old Marquis thought about it a moment, then shook his head. “Not that I’m aware. Although to be honest, I didn’t see much of him. I’d hoped marriage to your niece might settle him down. Change him. A wife and children typically have that effect, don’t they? But not with Anthony.” A quiver passed over his aged face. “I’ve outlived them all now—my wife, all but one of my sisters, and all four of my children. A man dedicates his life to preserving the proud heritage entrusted to him by his father—building up the family estates, protecting the honor of the family name—thinking one day he will pass on the sacred obligation to his own son . . .” His voice trailed off; then he swallowed hard and said, “Thank God for the birth of those two little boys.”
“They must be a source of great comfort to you.”
A faint spark of joy glimmered through the pain shadowing the old man’s eyes. “Have you seen them? They’re fine lads, as lusty and strong as you could wish. My only regret is that they’ll never have the opportunity to know the man who was their father.”
Personally, Sebastian thought that was just as well for the children’s sake. But he kept that opinion to himself.
There was a stirring near the door that suggested the imminent arrival of the coroner. The Marquis glanced over at the commotion and said, “We had someone from Bow Street at Lindley House this morning, talking to the servants. Do you know anything about that?”
“No. Sorry.”
Lindley fixed him with a hard stare. “Please tell me they don’t suspect Stephanie.”
A constable could be heard near the entrance barking, “Make way! Make way there!” as the coroner tried to push into the overcrowded public room.
Sebastian said, “I don’t think they suspect her, exactly. But you must see that they feel the need to investigate every angle, no matter how delicate.”
“I suppose, yes. But it’s hard on the poor girl. She has enough to bear without Bow Street Runners throwing her abigail into hysterics.”
“When were they there?”
“This morning, right before I left to come here. Something about a bundle of clothes some wherryman fished from the Thames.”
Sebastian had expected the inquest to also cover the death of Edward Digby. But the coroner—a wispy, white-haired former reverend named Lamar Liddell—had declined to save the purses of the parish ratepayers by doubling up. It wasn’t often a coroner was given the opportunity to preside over the murder of a viscount, and Sebastian suspected Liddell didn’t want some mere valet distracting from the importance of the event.
But apart from the silent, inescapable presence of Ashworth’s mutilated, bloody corpse, the inquest was something of a disappointment for those who’d crowded into the public room to enjoy it. The coroner’s voice was so breathy and soft that he was difficult for many to hear. The most potentially interesting testimony came from Lovejoy, but the Bow Street magistrate did his best to deliver his evidence in dry, unsensational periods. His lordship’s butler, Fullerton, could only explain apologetically that he’d slept through both the murder and the discovery of the body, and was quickly dismissed. Alice, the housemaid who’d first walked in on the blood-splashed murder scene, was weeping so hysterically that her testimony was virtually incoherent. And the second housemaid, Jenny Crutcher, wasn’t there at all, since no one had been able to locate her in order to serve her with a summons.
“Havey-cavey thing to do,” muttered the coroner when told of the woman’s absence. “Going off like that right after a murder.”
Sebastian glanced over at Lovejoy, who gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head. Lovejoy had assigned two of his Runners to track down the housemaid as soon as they discovered she’d bolted. At first, they’d been inclined to ascribe her hasty departure to nerves. But the discovery of Edward Digby’s naked, bloody corpse raised the ominous possibility that Jenny Crutcher might somehow have been involved in Ashworth’s death, or that she at least knew something.
Something that had put her life in danger.
The coroner’s jury returned a verdict of bloody murder by person or persons unknown. Afterward, Sebastian sat with Lovejoy in a coffeehouse off Piccadilly. The day was wretchedly gloomy, with a heavy cover of thick gray clouds and endless, drizzling rain.
“The palace is not going to be happy,” said Lovejoy, sipping cautiously at his hot chocolate. “They want someone arrested and remanded for trial. Quickly.”
Sebastian wrapped his hands around his coffee mug. “Any luck finding a modista able to identify the bloodstained clothes recovered from the Thames?”
“Unfortunately, no.” Lovejoy cleared his throat uncomfortably. “One of my lads, Constable Gowdy, took the clothes ’round to Lindley House this morning and asked Lady Ashworth’s abigail if she could identify them. Pushed the girl rather hard, from what I understand. You’ll be relieved to hear she denied they belonged to her mistress.”
“But?” said Sebastian, watching his friend’s face.
“Constable Gowdy says he doesn’t believe her. He’s convinced the abigail was lying.” Lovejoy paused, then continued, his voice low. “I hesitate to even suggest it, but might Her Ladyship be capable of doing such a thing, do you think?”
Sebastian took a moment to answer. It was a question he’d been asking himself for three days now. He chose his words carefully. “Ashworth was an ugly, dangerous human being. I suspect someone like that could drive almost anyone to murder, particularly if they feared for their life. But stabbing a man in the back, the way Edward Digby was killed? That’s something else entirely. I can’t see Stephanie doing that.” Although she could have had an accomplice, Sebastian thought. Someone like Firth who loved her enough to try to clean up behind her. But he kept that possibility to himself.
Lovejoy looked relieved. “Yes, that’s my reading of the situation as well.”
“Where are the clothes now?”
“With Constable Gowdy.”
“Have him send them to Brook Street, why don’t you? I’d like to take a look at them myself.”
“Of course.” Lovejoy took another sip of his hot chocolate. “We’ve also had no luck yet in finding a hackney driver, although we’re still looking.”
Sebastian leaned back in his seat. “I’ve had two different people tell me Ashworth sometimes picked up streetwalkers and brought them home to play his ‘games.’ It might be worth looking into that too.”
“You think that’s what we could be dealing with here? A woman off the streets who didn’t know what she was letting herself in for, took fright, and killed him?”
“Either took fright, or took revenge, depending on the sequence of events and the character of the woman.”
“And Digby?”
“Perhaps he ran after her and tried to stop her. So she killed him too.”
“Except that Digby was stabbed in the back.”
“True. But I can envision several scenarios that would explain that. Although how he then ended up naked in that alley is a bit more problematic.”
Lovejoy looked troubled. “If this woman does exist, it’s not going to be easy finding her. Unlike hackney drivers, London does not license its whores.”
“No.” Sebastian paused. “Of course, there is another possibility.”
Lovejoy shook his head. “What?”
“That Ashworth was with a whore that night, but she’s not the murderer. She’s a witness. And . . .”
“And?”
Sebastian pushed his coffee aside. “And by now she might well be another victim.”