Chapter 43
Saturday, 29 July
The rain had started up again sometime after midnight, sweeping in from the North Sea, so that London awoke the next morning to an unseasonably cool and wet day, with heavy dark clouds that pressed down low on the city’s clustered chimneys and slick slate rooftops.
Shortly after breakfast Sebastian drove east to Tower Hill, where he found the door to Gibson’s stone outbuilding standing open and the surgeon already bent over the pallid corpse of Cassy Jones. Despite the cold and damp, he wore only breeches and a dirty, bloodstained shirt that hung open at the neck and was torn at the shoulder. His cheeks were stubbly with several days’ growth of beard, his lips swollen and cut, one eye blackened and swollen shut, the other so bloodshot it practically glowed red.
“What the hell happened to you?” said Sebastian, pausing in the doorway.
“I fell.”
“You fell?”
“That’s right. I fell.” Gibson tossed his scalpel aside with a clatter. “If you’re here looking for answers, I don’t have any to give you. All I can tell you is that someone stabbed this poor young woman four times with a big knife, probably something like a kitchen knife or butcher knife. No sign of bruises on her arms or wrists, so I don’t think he grabbed her—or if he did, he didn’t grab her very hard. Just stabbed and stabbed until he was certain she was dead. That’s it. That’s all she has for us.”
“Bloody hell,” Sebastian said softly, and turned away to stare out over Alexi’s dripping-wet garden.
Gibson tilted his head, watching him out of his good eye. “You still don’t have any idea who’s doing this?”
“Oh, I have lots of ideas—and no proof of any of them.”
“That’s bad.”
“Yes.” Sebastian turned to look back at his friend’s bruised and battered face. “Yes, it is.”
The rain was still falling when Sebastian met with Sir Henry Lovejoy in a coffeehouse overlooking the sodden stalls and subdued, wet crowds of Covent Garden Market. “There’s no doubt this throws an entirely different light on things,” said Lovejoy after Sebastian had given him an abbreviated version of what they had learned about Sir Ivo McInnis. The magistrate was silent for a moment, his gaze on the steam rising from the cup of hot chocolate on the table before him. “And yet . . .” He paused. “I can see a man with a reputation for violence killing his wife because he suspects her of having an affair—particularly if her death will enable him to marry the seductive young widow with whom he has become involved. But for him to kill an innocent sixteen-year-old girl simply because she might not be his daughter is considerably more difficult to believe. Could any man be that monstrous? If we were talking about a boy child—an heir—whom he suspected of not being his, then that might make sense as a motive. But why kill the girl? Out of sheer rage?”
Sebastian wrapped his hands around his hot coffee. “I suppose that could have played a part, but it appears there may have been a financial incentive, as well—at least according to Mrs. Edmondson, who says that under the terms of Laura’s marriage settlement, Emma was owed a portion of ten thousand pounds. Now, with the death of both mother and elder daughter, all of Laura’s dowry with the exception of Thisbe’s portion will remain part of the McInnis estate.”
Lovejoy frowned. “I was under the impression the old Viscount was too far under the hatches to provide his daughter with much of a dowry.”
“He was. The current Lord Salinger’s father-in-law, Septimus Bain, put up the capital to secure a ‘respectable’ alliance for his daughter’s sister-in-law.”
“Ah.” Lovejoy raised his hot chocolate to his lips and took a tentative sip. “Under the right circumstances, ten thousand pounds could certainly be construed as an ample incentive for murder.”
“What do we know about Sir Ivo’s movements that Sunday?”
“As it happens, he was attending a pugilistic match out at Copthall Common. There’s no doubt about that; he was seen by many.” Lovejoy paused. “Although obviously he could have hired a killer, and then made it a point to display himself very publicly at the crucial time.”
“And now he’s using the same man to try to kill his wife’s niece and nephew.”
Lovejoy nodded thoughtfully. “If Lady McInnis had been the only victim of what happened out at Richmond Park, then Sir Ivo might well have been seen as our most likely suspect from the very beginning. It was largely his daughter’s death—combined with the strange positioning of the bodies—that seemed to rule that out.” He settled the cup back in its saucer. “How very diabolical this all is. Do you think McInnis is indeed our man?”
Sebastian settled back in his chair. “I wouldn’t say I’m entirely convinced of it yet, no. I can see McInnis trying to silence Percy and Arabella out of fear they might have seen or heard something that could identify him. But I’m still stumped by the role played in all this by little Gilly Harper—unless of course she was killed by someone else entirely, and then whoever McInnis hired to attack his wife’s niece and nephew took advantage of the strange circumstances of the apprentice’s death to pose the abigail in a similar way and throw us off.”
“Perhaps. Or Gilly’s death and the attacks on Lord Salinger’s children could be totally unrelated.” Lovejoy frowned. “Although I’ll admit I still find that difficult to believe.”
“Unless the murders out at Richmond Park inspired a completely unrelated killer here in London to do something similar.”
The magistrate’s eyes widened. “Now, there’s a frightening thought.”
“Yes.”
Lovejoy cleared his throat. “As it happens, we do now have one other possible suspect. Young Master Percy tells us he thinks the man who attacked him in Hyde Park may have resembled a Jamaican fencing master named Damion Pitcairn. Are you familiar with the fellow?”
Sebastian felt a chill pass over him, but he was careful to keep his voice even, nonchalant. “I am, yes. And frankly, I can’t believe he has anything to do with what’s happened.”
“Interesting. Well, we’ve set some of the lads to looking into him, in any case. The Home Secretary in particular is quite keen on the possibility he may be our man.” Lovejoy took another slow sip of chocolate. “I’m afraid the Palace is increasing the pressure on Bow Street to have someone remanded into custody quickly. The Home Secretary tells us the Prince is outraged to discover we’ve been looking into Mr. Basil Rhodes, with the result that we’ve now been ordered to stay far, far away from the man.”
“I can’t say I’m surprised. Jarvis was threatening me with mayhem and murder over it again last night.”
Lovejoy sighed. “My lads were trying to work quietly, but obviously they weren’t quiet enough.”
“Did they discover anything?”
“Well, it turns out there is a discrepancy in Mr. Rhodes’s account of his movements last Sunday. He’s been heard to claim he was attending a pugilistic match last Sunday at Moulsey Hurst. Except of course there was no match at Moulsey Hurst that day; it was out at Copthall Common.”
Sebastian gave a soft huff of laughter. “Sounds like the kind of mistake Rhodes would make.”
“He’s obviously hiding something. According to his servants, Rhodes went out late Sunday morning—walking—without saying where he was going, and remained gone for a considerable time, not returning until the evening.”
“Sounds rather ominous. Have you asked Rhodes for an explanation?”
“No. I fear it would be unwise to antagonize the Palace any further at this point.” He paused, then added, “Unwise for us, that is.” Then Lovejoy settled his cup in its saucer, and Sebastian saw the magistrate’s eyes narrow with a hint of one of his rare smiles.
Basil Rhodes was in the elegantly appointed back room of an exclusive tailor’s shop on Bond Street, looking over a selection of fine woolens spread out on a mahogany table for his inspection, when Sebastian walked up to him.
“Oh, Lord, not you again,” said Rhodes, rolling his eyes.
“You weren’t expecting me?”
“Is there a reason I should have been?”
“When you claim to have been attending a mill out in Moulsey Hurst at the time of a murder, and yet the Fancy was actually meeting at Copthall Common, one might anticipate provoking some puzzlement.”
Rhodes gave him a broad grin. “Did I say Moulsey Hurst? I meant Copthall, of course. How silly of me.”
Sebastian met the hovering tailor’s anxious gaze and said, “Leave us.”
“I say,” bleated Rhodes as the tailor blanched, then backed away, bowing low, through the curtain and disappeared. “Of all the high-handed—”
“So tell me this,” said Sebastian, cutting him off. “Exactly who was fighting on Sunday?”
The Prince’s favorite natural son waved one plump, elegantly gloved hand through the air. “That Black American, obviously. And I’ve no doubt you know the name of the other fellow—the one everyone’s always talking about. I confess I don’t follow such things too closely, but I assume you do.”
“Which man won?”
Rhodes tittered. “You don’t seriously expect me to remember the fellow’s name, do you?”
“I thought you might have some idea. But given that one man was Black and the other white, you should at least be able to remember that. So which was it?”
Rhodes blinked. “The white man, of course.”
“Good guess. You had a fifty-fifty chance, after all. But as it happens, you’re wrong.”
Rhodes blinked again, his jaw sagging.
Sebastian said, “So where were you, in reality?”
Rhodes closed his mouth and swallowed. “I told you: I was at Copthall Common. But I left early.”
“With whom?”
“What do you mean, ‘with whom’?”
“You would have me believe you went by yourself? In a hired coach? When you cared so little about the fight that you didn’t even bother to learn the names of the contestants—or who won?”
Rhodes straightened his shoulders and affected an air of outraged dignity. “My companions are none of your affair.”
“Perhaps not. Although I suspect Bow Street might be interested in knowing the answer to that question.”
Basil Rhodes threw back his head and laughed. “Do you seriously think my father would allow some upstart magistrate—appointed by a member of his own government, remember—to harass me? Me?”
“Probably not,” said Sebastian pleasantly. “But no one appointed me. Which means no one can call me off.”
Rhodes quit laughing, his face hardening as he brought up one hand to poke the air between them with a pointed finger. “You do realize I know precisely why you’re doing this.”
“You do?”
“I’ve heard about you—about your radical ideas; your sympathy for everything from republicanism to such revolting concepts as universal manhood suffrage.”
“Not only manhood suffrage,” said Sebastian with a quiet smile.
Rhodes’s eyes bulged. “Good God.”
“See? It’s even worse than you thought. Although I’ll be damned if I can fathom what that has to do with anything.”
“It’s why you’re determined to persecute me—because you hate the Hanovers.”
Sebastian was tempted to point out that Basil Rhodes was not, legally, a Hanover. But all he said was, “I freely admit that I loathe our current system. I am outraged by our continued toleration of the institution of slavery, and by the sight of children starving to death under bridges, and by the knowledge that the widows of the brave men who fell before Ciudad Rodrigo and Vitoria are being forced to prostitute themselves on the streets to stay alive. But the Hanovers?” He shook his head. “No; I don’t hate them.”
“The problem with you,” said Rhodes, “is that you’re so blinded by prejudice that you don’t know where to look.”
“Oh? So where do you think I should be looking? Do tell.”
“How about the victim’s own brother?”
“Salinger?”
The man’s lips curled up in a smirk that reminded Sebastian forcibly of his royal father. “She had quite the quarrel with him, you know. Right before she died.”
“Oh? And how do you happen to know this?”
Rhodes laid a finger beside his rather blobby nose and winked. “Someone told me.”
Veronica Goodlakes, thought Sebastian. Although if the widow knew of such a quarrel, why the hell hadn’t she mentioned it to Hero?
Rhodes’s smile widened. “Do I gather from your silence that you were unaware of the siblings’ rather violent disagreement?”
“You’re suggesting Lord Salinger killed his own sister and niece? Because of some quarrel—which may or may not have occurred?”
“Oh, it occurred, all right. I’ve seen him playing the role of the grieving brother and frightened father; it’s all so affecting, wouldn’t you say? But there’s another side to our dear Viscount, I’m afraid: a harsh, unforgiving side. After all, we’re talking about a man who consigned his own wife to a lunatic asylum years ago—as soon as she gave birth to his second son—and he’s kept her there ever since. Old Septimus Bain was dead by then, of course; Salinger wouldn’t have dared do it if moneybags had still been alive. But once the old man was dead and Salinger had his wife’s fortune and his heir and a spare, then . . . poof.” Rhodes brought up both fists to burst them open in a mocking imitation of twin explosions. “Time to make the lovely lady disappear.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean, Why? Because he was tired of her, obviously. I’m told she was a charming woman. The smell of the shop might have hung around the old man, but not her. And yet, thanks to her father’s ambitious determination to see her wed to a title, she’s spent all these years hidden away in an asylum while her husband lets everyone think she’s dead.” Rhodes ran the splayed fingers of both hands through his unruly, flyaway hair, raking it away from his forehead. Then he looked over at Sebastian and laughed. “You don’t believe me, do you? You can always ask Salinger, you know. I doubt he’d lie to your face.”
Sebastian studied the royal bastard’s full-cheeked, self-satisfied smirk. Like most people with a flexible attitude toward the truth, Basil Rhodes was a smooth liar. But Sebastian had an uneasy feeling that this, at its core, was an assertion too bizarre, too easily disproven, to make sense as anything other than a disturbing reality.