Chapter 24
Sebastian found the children’s father pacing back and forth before the empty hearth in his library, his features grim and his hands clenched at his sides.
“Thank God you’ve come,” said Salinger, turning as the butler ushered Sebastian into the room.
“I trust you’ve sent word to Bow Street?” said Sebastian.
“Yes, yes; in fact, they’ve only just left. But I’ve been thinking about what you said: how Laura and Emma’s killer might worry the children know something that could identify him—something that would lead him to target the children next. God help me, if only I’d listened!”
“Can you tell me exactly what happened this morning?” Sebastian said calmly.
Salinger swiped a hand down over his face, sucked in a deep, steadying breath, and nodded. “Miss Oakley—that’s the children’s governess—typically takes them for a walk in the park every morning before breakfast. But she wasn’t feeling well today, so she sent the children with Arabella’s abigail, a girl named Cassy. They hadn’t been in the park long at all when some blackguard jumped out and grabbed Percy. I get the impression he was trying to drag the boy off with him, except Percy bit and scratched and kicked him, and Arabella and the abigail started screaming, so in the end the fellow let Percy go and ran away.”
“You were lucky.”
Salinger swallowed hard. “I know. But it does sound as if the killer has reason to believe that Percy might have seen something—or possibly heard something—that could identify him. Something that Percy might not have thought to mention at the inquest because he didn’t realize it was important.” He looked at Sebastian with wild, haunted eyes. “Will you talk to him now? Talk to them both?”
Brother and sister sat side by side on a cream brocade–covered settee in the drawing room, with a gaunt middle-aged woman whom Sebastian took to be their governess quietly watching in the background from a straight-backed chair. The woman was pale from her recent illness, but her features were firmly set in the lines of one determined to do her duty. Arabella held her hands quietly folded together in her lap, her gaze focused unseeingly on one of the windows overlooking the street. But Percy squirmed restlessly, one stocking sagging down to his ankle, his nankeens smudged with what looked like grass stains at the knees, the collar of his frilled shirt awry. He leapt to his feet when his father and Sebastian entered the room.
“Lord Devlin! Did Papa tell you what happened?” said the boy, his cheeks flushed with excitement and his eyes bright.
“Percy,” hissed the governess, leaning forward. “Apologize to his lordship, make your bow, sit down, and be patient.”
The boy flashed his father and Sebastian a rueful grin, bowed, and plopped down on the settee again. “I beg your pardon. But . . . did he?”
“He told me, yes,” said Sebastian, settling in a nearby chair. “But I’d like to hear it in more detail from you. I understand you make a habit of walking in the park every morning before breakfast?”
“Yes,” said Arabella with her head turned in such a way that her grimace was hidden from her governess. “Miss Oakley calls it our ‘daily constitutional,’ and the world would need to end before we’d be allowed to miss it. So since she wasn’t well this morning we went with Cassy.”
“Where were you in the park when this man approached you?”
“By the spinney,” said Percy, jumping in before his sister had a chance to answer. “I’d run ahead a bit—Cassy was dawdling so!—and then, just as I reached the grove, this fellow leaps out from behind a bush and grabs me!”
“What did he look like?”
“He was huge!” said Percy.
“He was not huge,” said Arabella, frowning at him.
“Yes, he was!”
“No, he was not. He wasn’t even as tall as Lord Devlin.”
“Well, but almost,” insisted Percy. “You know he was tall.”
“Could you see his face?” said Sebastian.
“Not really,” said Arabella. “He had a kerchief tied across his nose, like this—” She cupped a hand across her nose and mouth so that only her eyes showed.
“Did you get the impression he was young? Old? In between?”
“Young,” said Percy, bouncing up and down on the settee’s plump cushion. “And very strong.”
This time Arabella nodded in agreement.
“How was he dressed?”
Brother and sister looked at each other. “Well . . .” said Arabella. “Definitely not in the first start of fashion.”
“But not dressed rough, either,” added Percy. “Sorta like Mr. Thompson.”
“Mr. Thompson?” said Sebastian.
“My solicitor,” supplied Salinger.
“Ah. Could you see his hair color?”
Percy nodded. “It was real dark. And so was his skin.”
The children’s father had been standing before the empty hearth, his hands clasped behind his back. But at that he took a quick step forward. This detail was obviously news to him.
“You mean he was browned by the sun?” said Sebastian.
“Maaaybeee,” said Arabella, drawing out the word. “But not exactly.” She hesitated, then said in a rush, “He reminded me of Malcolm’s fencing master.”
“Malcolm?” said Sebastian.
“Sir Ivo’s son and heir,” said Salinger. “He and my elder son left late last week for a fishing trip to Scotland with friends.”
“What can you tell me about this fencing master?”
Salinger frowned. “I know that at one time Sir Ivo had engaged the services of Damion Pitcairn, but I don’t know if he’s still using him.”
Sebastian knew a sense of deep foreboding. The son of a Scottish plantation owner and an enslaved woman, Damion Pitcairn gave fencing lessons to the sons of rich men to supplement his income as a violinist at the Opera. Brilliant and incredibly talented, he would have had a bright future ahead of him . . . were it not for his mixed heritage and the color of his skin.
Sebastian leaned forward, his hands clasped loosely between his knees. “I’d like to ask you a few questions about Sunday’s picnic in Richmond Park, if you don’t mind. Whose idea was the expedition?”
Again the children exchanged glances. Percy shrugged, while Arabella said slowly, “I think maybe it was Aunt Laura who came up with the idea, but I don’t know for certain. It could have been Emma.”
“How many people knew about the planned picnic?”
Another shrug, this time from Arabella. “Well, the servants did, of course. But beyond that?” She scrunched up her face in thought. “I don’t think I told anyone, but Emma might have.”
“Have either of you remembered anything—anything at all—that might shed some light on what happened to your aunt and cousin?”
Brother and sister shook their heads in unison. “No, sir,” said Arabella. “I’m sorry.”
Sebastian glanced at her brother. “Tell me this, Percy: Did you stay with your sister while she was picking wildflowers?”
The boy wrinkled his nose. “No, sir. I wanted to catch tadpoles. There’s ever so many of them in that pool near where the path turns—you know the place where it’s sandy? I nicked one of the teacups when Aunt Laura wasn’t looking”—he cast a rueful glance at his frowning father—“and told Arabella to go on ahead.”
“Did you see or hear anything while you were catching tadpoles?”
“No, sir. I mean, I heard a couple of shots, of course, but I figured maybe it was somebody shooting at wafers or some such thing. It wasn’t until later that I realized no one would’ve been doing that in the park.”
“You didn’t hear any voices?”
“I may have,” said the boy slowly. “But I wasn’t really paying attention, if you know what I mean?” A ghost of a smile touched his lips, then was gone. “I was just . . . playing with the tadpoles.”
“I understand,” said Sebastian.
Percy looked at him with wide, solemn eyes. “You think that’s why that fellow jumped me this morning? Because he killed Aunt Laura and Emma, and he thinks I saw or heard something?”
Sebastian threw a significant glance at the boy’s father, who said, “We don’t really know yet, Percy. Lord Devlin is simply trying to help us figure it all out.”
“I wish I had paid more attention,” said the boy with a frustrated sigh.
Sebastian pushed to his feet and reached out to rest a reassuring hand on the boy’s small, thin shoulder. “Don’t worry about it, lad.”
The boy bit his lip and nodded, but his soft gray eyes were swimming with tears he refused to let fall.
“How long ago did your elder son and his cousin leave for Scotland?” Sebastian asked Lord Salinger as the two men walked down the stairs to the front door.
“Last Thursday. Why?”
“And for how long had the expedition to Richmond been planned?”
Salinger thought for a moment. “I suppose it’s been two weeks or more since the children first started talking about it. Why?”
“So it’s conceivable that one of the boys could have mentioned it to someone?” Someone such as Malcolm’s young fencing instructor, Sebastian thought, but he didn’t say it.
“I suppose so, yes. But why would they?”
Sebastian shook his head. “I have no idea. But I don’t think we can discount it as a possibility.”