A rriving at Tower Hill a short time later, Sebastian found Paul Gibson on the stoop behind his surgery emptying a basin of bloody water into the yard. He looked haggard, his face unshaven, his eyes sunken and almost bruised.
“You look like the devil,” said Sebastian.
“Thank you. I’ve finished your dead tea gardens owner, if that’s why you’re here,” growled Gibson, slapping his hand against the bottom of the upturned basin. “Did it late yesterday evening. And it’s a good thing too, given that I spent all of last night and most of the morning stitching up stab wounds and binding broken bones. This heat has got to let up soon, or we’re all going to die—or wish we could.”
“Find anything interesting with Pennington?”
“Nope. He was stabbed four times in the back, probably with just your ordinary, everyday knife. That’s all.”
Sebastian narrowed his eyes against the fiercely blazing sun. “What about Hayes?”
“Finished him too. Didn’t see anything to change my opinion about what happened the night he died. The second slash of the sickle is probably the one that brought him down, and then the killer twisted the blade, severing the artery and killing him.”
“Would he have had much blood on him? The killer, I mean.”
“On his cuffs, maybe. But probably not much beyond that. The initial cuts didn’t hit anything vital. It’s the internal damage that did the work, so the blood would have seeped out slowly rather than spurting all over your killer.” Gibson gave his basin a final shake and turned. “How about a wee something to slake the thirst of this god-awful heat?”
Sebastian blew out a long, harsh breath. “Sounds good to me.”
It was later, when they were sitting at the table in Gibson’s kitchen, a pitcher of ale from the corner tavern on the boards between them, that Gibson said, “Did find one thing you might consider relevant—about your Earl’s disreputable son, I mean.”
“Hayes? What’s that?”
“He was dying of consumption.”
Sebastian felt a sudden chill sluice through him. “Do you think he knew it?”
“Don’t see how he could help but.”
“How much longer did he have to live?”
“Four to six months, at best. Probably less. Certainly no more.”
Sebastian stared out the window at the sun-drenched ancient stone outbuilding at the base of the yard where Nicholas Hayes still lay. “That casts everything in a slightly different light.”
Gibson nodded. “I thought it might.”