Chapter 12
It was an idyllic spot, this sunny, daisy-strewn meadow at the edge of a shady stand of chestnuts and oaks.
Pulling his curricle off to the side of the lane, Sebastian handed the reins to Tom and hopped down. The picnic hamper and rug he’d noticed the previous evening were now gone, doubtless carried off by the same man who’d helped himself to the white ironstone dishes. All that remained to mark what had happened here were the faint impressions left in the grass by the picnic rug and the bodies of the two dead women who’d been posed beside it.
That, and the dried splashes of blood still visible on scattered clumps of grass and patches of bare earth.
Walking to the center of the meadow, Sebastian turned in a slow circle, taking in the lay of the land: the open wood, the narrow brook with the path running beside it, the slope down which the two brothers had run after hearing the shots. A gentle breeze brought him the lowing of distant cows, the chatter of an unseen squirrel, the purling of the nearby brook.
It should have been a peaceful moment, but it was not. When he closed his eyes, it was as if the air here still hummed with a violent swirl of emotions—bewilderment, shock, horror, and a numbing grief, all tangled together with a strange aura of exhilaration tinged with what he thought might well be triumph. It was surely no coincidence, Sebastian thought, that the creatures of the wood were avoiding this place.
Taking a deep breath, he began to walk in ever-widening circles around the site. Lovejoy’s constables had searched the area the previous afternoon, but Sebastian wanted to get a feel for the place himself. He found the bundle of flowers Arabella Priestly had been gathering, now lying wilted and forgotten where she’d dropped them. Perhaps ten or fifteen feet farther upstream, where the broad grassy bank of the brook curved away from the path, he spotted a white ironstone cup that her brother Percy had doubtless been using to catch tadpoles. It lay on its side in the shallows of a pool teeming with tiny, darting black shadows. Reaching down, Sebastian picked it up, turning the cup upside down to let the water run out.
So far he’d seen few flowers here besides the inevitable scattering of daisies, which meant that the sunflowers, poppies, and cornflowers in Arabella’s bouquet must have come from farther upstream. Had young Percy stayed here, scooping up tadpoles in this shallow pool, while his sister ventured farther afield in search of her flowers? If so, the boy could conceivably have seen or heard something that Arabella had not.
Sebastian turned to look back toward the meadow. A clump of brambles hid the fatal picnic site from his view. But the boy had been close enough that he might have heard something. And if the man who shot Laura and Emma McInnis had then ducked into the wood, the young lad might even have seen him.
It was a worrisome thought, for more than one reason. It had been unfortunate enough to have to question Arabella, to ask a girl of fifteen to relive the horrors of that afternoon. But a child of thirteen? Sebastian wondered if the boy’s father would even agree to it.
Still carrying the forgotten ironstone cup, Sebastian turned back to where he had left Tom with the curricle. He had only a passing acquaintance with the children’s father, Miles Priestly, Viscount Salinger. A widower now for some years, he was, like Sir Ivo, a sporting man ten to fifteen years older than Sebastian, with an estate in Leicestershire. Beyond that, Sebastian knew little of the man.
“That’s what ye found?” said Tom when Sebastian walked back to the curricle. “A cup?”
Sebastian leapt up to the high seat and took the reins. “Just a cup.”
It was midafternoon by the time Sebastian arrived back in London.
Leaving his tired horses in Brook Street in Tom’s care, Sebastian walked the short distance to the relatively modest town house of Viscount Salinger in Down Street, off Piccadilly. He wouldn’t have been surprised to be told that the dead woman’s grieving brother was not at home to visitors. But Salinger’s butler, a stately, prim man in his early sixties, bowed deeply and said, “Ah, yes; Lord Devlin. Lord Salinger warned us to expect you. If you’ll come this way?”
Escorting Sebastian upstairs to the drawing room, the butler promised to send a footman with a pitcher of ale, then went off to apprise Salinger of his lordship’s arrival.
Sebastian was standing at the front window, watching the shadows lengthen in the street below, when he became aware of the sensation of being watched. Turning, he found a fair-haired boy he recognized as Percy peeking around the doorjamb at him.
“Hullo there,” said Sebastian.
Casting a furtive glance over his shoulder toward the stairs, the boy scooted into the room. He was small for his age and slight, with thin straight hair, delicate features, and a sprinkling of faint freckles across the bridge of his short nose. “You’re Lord Devlin, aren’t you?” said Percy, his pale gray eyes wide, his face aglow with barely suppressed excitement. “I saw you yesterday at the keeper’s cottage, but we weren’t formally introduced. I’m Percy.” The boy flashed a quick, impish grin. “My brother Duncan is the heir, you know. I’m just the spare.”
Sebastian smiled. “Well, how do you do, Master Percy the Spare? It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
The boy’s grin widened, then collapsed. “You’re here to talk to Papa about what happened out at Richmond Park, are you? I heard Uncle Ivo telling Papa that Bow Street has asked for your help. You do this a lot, don’t you? Solve murders, I mean.”
“I help when I can,” said Sebastian, choosing his words carefully. However anxious he might be to question the boy, he had no intention of doing so without the father’s permission.
“It must be great fun,” said young Master Percy with all of a schoolboy’s enthusiasm, “chasing after murderers and such.”
“I don’t know that I’d describe it as ‘fun.’ ”
“You wouldn’t? I think it’d be grand. Do you reckon the killer might try to murder us next? Arabella and me, I mean.” Sebastian had the distinct impression the boy found the possibility far more exciting than frightening.
“I don’t see why he would,” said Sebastian, although it was a blatant lie. Because if the killer thought the children had seen or heard something that might help identify him . . .
“Arabella says—” Percy began, only to break off when a man’s tread sounded on the stairs.
“Oh, drat,” said the boy under his breath as Lord Salinger appeared at the entrance to the drawing room.
He was a tall man in his late forties, still strong and vigorous, although he was beginning to thicken around the middle, and his once-dark hair was now graying. His dress was neat rather than fashionable, more country gentleman than man-about-town, the points of his shirt collar and his cravat both modest, his coat cut loose enough that he would have no need of assistance easing into it. The resemblance between brother and sister was slight but there, mainly around the chin, which was square.
He drew up abruptly at the sight of his son, then came forward, saying to Sebastian, “Lord Devlin; I thought you might come.” To Percy, he said, “Off you go now, lad.”
“But, Papa—”
“No buts. Make your bow and then go.”
The boy executed a reluctant bow, then turned slowly away, dragging his feet.
Salinger watched him go, his face pinched with a father’s worry and haggard with a brother’s grief. Then he turned to Sebastian and said gruffly, “I see James has brought us a pitcher of ale. I had a barrel delivered fresh from the brewery just this morning, you know. May I pour you a tankard? It’s devilish hot out there.”
“Yes, please.”
“Is it too much to hope that you’re here because Bow Street has caught this mad killer?” said Salinger, going to the tray.
Sebastian shook his head. “If they have, I’m unaware of it.”
Salinger sighed and reached for the pitcher. “I knew it unlikely. But still . . .”
“It’s early days yet,” said Sebastian.
“Yes, I suppose . . .”
“Do you know of anyone who might have wanted to harm either your sister or your niece?” asked Sebastian, accepting the tankard held out to him.
“Me?” Salinger turned back to pour himself some ale. “No; sorry. My sister and I held each other in affection, but I’m afraid we were never very close. The differences in our ages and interests were too great. Our brother Alfred is between us, you know, and we had a brother named John who died while still up at Oxford.”
“What were your sister’s interests, if you don’t mind my asking?”
A gleam of gentle amusement showed in the other man’s eyes, then faded away to something sad and hurting. “Everything I consider a dead bore: literature, art, music, good works—that sort of thing. She thought hunting cruel and boxing savage, and while she liked dogs well enough, she never had much use for my hounds since she associated them with hunting and, well, you wouldn’t have wanted to get her started on that.”
Sebastian took a slow swallow of his ale. “Is there someone who might know more about her?”
Salinger thought for a moment, then shook his head. “Sorry. She must have had friends, but I’ll be damned if I could name any of them. Alfred’s now a vicar up in Leicestershire, so I doubt he could tell you anything useful, either.” He rubbed a hand across his forehead and down over his eyes. “I know it sounds like I’m being uncooperative, but I really don’t know anything that would be of much use to you. And the truth is, I’m so bloody worried about my children that I’m finding it difficult to think straight.”
“Have the children said anything to you about yesterday?”
“Not really. I know they saw Laura and Emma’s bodies from a distance, but, thankfully, those two lads had the sense to keep the children from getting too close.”
“And neither Percy nor Arabella saw or heard anything that might help explain what happened?”
“I don’t think so, no.”
“Would you mind if I talked to young Percy?”
Salinger stared at him a moment, then shook his head. “Sorry, but no; I don’t think that would be a good idea. I want the lad to forget what happened yesterday, not dwell on it.”
“Sometimes talking about things is the best way to move past them.”
Salinger’s face hardened. “Not this time.”
“If they know something that could help identify the killer—”
“They don’t. And I won’t have them upset further by being forced to relive the horror of what happened.”
Sebastian took a deep drink of ale and tried to swallow his frustration with it. “How well do you know your brother-in-law?”
“Ivo? I’ve known him most of my life. We were at Harrow and Cambridge together. Laura actually met him through me. Why do you ask?”
“Did you know he used to hit your sister? Hit her hard enough to leave bruises?”
Salinger’s eyes narrowed, his nostrils flaring. “That’s ridiculous. I don’t know where you got that, but whoever told you that should be hauled into court for slander.”
“The bruises were discovered during the postmortem examination. You didn’t know that he hit her?”
“No, and I don’t believe it. If she had bruises, she must have fallen.”
“Perhaps,” said Sebastian, and let it go.
Salinger drank deeply of his own ale. “If you ask me, what you ought to be doing is looking into all the bloody undesirables with whom she came into contact at that Foundling Hospital or as a result of this newest start of hers—apprentices or some such thing.”
“Did she talk to you about that?”
“No. She knew how I felt about it.”
“How many people knew about yesterday’s expedition to Richmond Park?”
“The servants, I suppose—mine and Ivo’s. But beyond that, I couldn’t say.” He paused. “Laura was always so good about taking Arabella and Percy—and Duncan, too, of course, when he was younger—on picnics and such. It hasn’t been easy for me, raising the three of them without a mother. I don’t know what I’d have done without Laura.” He glanced away, and although he didn’t say it, the words I don’t know what I’m going to do now without her hung unvoiced in the air. Then he swallowed and said, “It’s going to be hard on the children, losing their aunt and their cousin, too.”
“Yes, I can see that. I’m sorry.” Sebastian drained his tankard and set it aside. “Please accept my condolences on the loss of your sister and niece, and my apologies for having to disturb you at such a painful time.”
“I appreciate your coming,” said Salinger, walking with him to the top of the stairs. “You’ll let me know if you learn anything?”
“Yes, of course.”
Salinger nodded. “Thank you.”
He stayed there, at the top of the stairs, watching as the footman in the entry hall below leapt to open the front door for Sebastian. He was still there when the footman closed the door behind Sebastian.
Glancing back at the house, Sebastian could see Percy’s frustrated face peering down at him from one of the second-floor windows. Then the boy jerked around, as if someone had called his name, and all that was left was the swaying curtain where he had been.