Chapter 44
Christ, this rain,” swore Sebastian as he pulled up in front of the Duchess of Claiborne’s house on Park Lane a short time later. Water darkened the chestnuts’ hides, ran swift and deep in the gutters, drummed on the leaves of the plane trees in the park across the lane. “You might as well take the curricle back to Brook Street. I’ll grab a hackney when I’m finished here.”
“My lord.” Tom’s wet, sharp-featured face went slack with horror. “Not a hackney!”
“Shocking, I know. But it’s so miserable out that if I’m lucky, no one will be around to see me disgrace myself by appearing in such a humble equipage.” Sebastian handed the boy the reins. “And after you’ve taken care of the chestnuts, I’d like you to see if you can befriend one or two of the servants at Mr. Basil Rhodes’s town house in Cork Street.”
The tiger’s face brightened. “What ye want to know, gov’nor?”
“Mainly if it’s true that no one knows where Rhodes was last Sunday. Also if he’s received any unusual visitors lately—namely someone young, dark-haired, and slim.”
“Gor,” breathed Tom. “You thinking Prinny’s by-blow might be the killer?
Sebastian hopped down to the paving, leaping wide to avoid the rushing gutter. “Let’s just say I’m not ready to discount it as a possibility.”
The door was opened by the Dowager Duchess’s butler, Humphrey, his normally disapproving face lightened by what looked suspiciously like a malicious smile as he eyed the rain running off the brim of Sebastian’s hat and soaking the multiple capes of his greatcoat.
“Good morning, my lord. Bit wet out today, is it not? I take it you’re here to see Her Grace?” Humphrey glanced toward the street, where Tom was pulling away from the kerb. “Unfortunately, Her Grace is not, at present, at home.”
“Good try,” said Sebastian, eyeing Humphrey’s obvious glee with misgivings. “But it’s barely eleven o’clock.” The Duchess was famous for never leaving her bedroom before twelve or one o’clock.
“True, true. But Her Grace has indeed gone out, nonetheless.” Humphrey looked pointedly at the now-empty, rain-washed street, and his smile widened enough to show a hint of teeth. “Oh, dear; I see your young groom has already departed with your curricle. Shall I send one of the footmen to procure a hackney to convey you back to Brook Street?”
The decrepit old hackney summoned by the Dowager’s footman reeked of damp and rot and decay, with so much moldering straw spread on its floorboards that Sebastian was still brushing stray bits of dried vegetation from the hem of his driving coat when he was met in his entrance hall by Morey.
“A lad brought this to the door some ten minutes ago,” said the majordomo, his face expressionless as he held out a silver salver upon which lay a badly folded square of cheap, grubby paper. “He said it was for ‘the Viscount,’ then ran off without saying more.”
“Odd,” said Sebastian, unfolding the dirty, crumpled page.
The message was short and crudely lettered in pencil. I got sumthin I gotta tel ye. It was signed Coldfield.
Sebastian looked up. “Describe the lad.”
Morey shrugged. “Small. Thin. Filthy dark hair and dirty face. Ragged clothes. Looked as if he might be a crossing sweep or perhaps a stable boy, although I can’t say I’ve ever seen him in the area. He’s not one of the lads typically used to deliver messages around here.”
Sebastian fingered the cryptic note, then turned toward the stairs. “Send a message to the stables to have my carriage brought around immed—no, better make that half an hour. I need to get out of these wet clothes.”
By the time Sebastian reached the thatcher’s dilapidated cottage near Richmond Park’s Petersham Gate, the rain had slowed to a drizzle that pattered on the carriage roof and dimpled the puddles standing in a low ditch beside the road.
In the gloomy light of the overcast afternoon, the cottage looked deserted: The broken gate still hung open, and no smoke curled from the chimney. Sebastian stepped down to the lane’s muddy verge and then paused, one hand still on the carriage door as he let his gaze roam over the ruined garden, the pile of thatching tools, the ramshackle outbuildings. The cottage door stood open perhaps a foot, but he could see no movement within, hear no trace of sound.
“I don’t like that cold wind,” he said, glancing up at his coachman. “Better walk them.”
“Aye, my lord.”
Acutely conscious of the unnatural stillness, Sebastian crossed the road. At the gate he paused again, a sense of uneasiness that he didn’t like crawling up his spine. Brushing through the wet, rain-beaten tangle of basil and tansy overgrown with nettles and thistles that hung over the walkway, he stopped before the partially open door.
“Coldfield?” he called, then raised his voice. “Coldfield.”
Silence.
Sebastian was turning away, intending to check the outbuildings, when he heard a faint whine coming from inside the cottage. He stopped. “Bounder? Is that you?”
The whine came again, along with the soft thumping of a dog’s tail.
“Bloody hell,” said Sebastian under his breath. He hesitated a moment, then reached down to slip the knife from his boot and pushed the door open wide.
Of one room only, the gloomy interior of Cato Coldfield’s cottage was as ill-kempt and slovenly as its exterior, with dusty cobwebs hanging from the exposed beams overhead and a hard earthen floor in need of sweeping. A rusting pot of what looked like burnt stew sat moldering on the cold hearth; a stale half loaf of bread and a scattering of food-encrusted dishes littered the surface of the nearby crude table. The air reeked of unwashed clothes, urine, and excrement heavily overlain with the unmistakable stench of blood.
“Damn,” whispered Sebastian.
Cato Coldfield lay sprawled on his back not far from the opening of the large stone fireplace. His face was pale, his arms flung stiffly out, his eyes wide and dry and protuberant. The little black-and-white dog, Bounder, huddled whimpering beside his dead master’s head.
“It’s all right, boy,” Sebastian said gently, going to crouch down beside the dead man. “Everything’s going to be all right.” Yanking off one glove, he touched the back of his hand to Cato’s pallid cheek. The dead man was utterly cold, but his head moved: The rigor mortis that still stiffened his arms and legs was starting to go off.
Sebastian studied the pulpy mess someone had made of the man’s chest. From the looks of things, he’d been both shot and stabbed. “Lovely,” said Sebastian under his breath.
Bounder whined, looking up at Sebastian with hurt, pleading eyes, his tail moving feebly as Sebastian reached to run his hand down the dog’s sides. “You all right there, boy?”
Bounder ducked his head, his tail thumping again.
One comforting hand still resting on the dog, Sebastian let his gaze travel around the dim, cluttered space. The room might be untidy, but it showed no visible signs of having been the scene of a struggle. Sebastian brought his gaze back to focus on the body beside him. Given Coldfield’s distance from his door, Sebastian suspected the thatcher had either left the door open and been surprised by his murderer or . . .
Or he’d welcomed his killer inside.
“So which was it, Bounder? Hmm?” asked Sebastian, bringing his attention back to the dog.
But Bounder only looked up at him with dark, desperately pleading eyes.
“This makes no sense,” said Sir Henry Lovejoy several hours later.
He stood with Sebastian beside what was left of Cato Coldfield, the magistrate’s chin resting on his chest as he stared down at the thatcher’s bloody corpse. From outside came the voices of the half dozen or so men who’d been organized to search the outbuildings and surrounding area.
“No,” agreed Sebastian, his arms crossed at his chest.
Lovejoy raised his head and glanced around. “Where’s the man’s dog?”
“The keeper’s wife is taking him.”
“Ah.” The magistrate blew out a long breath. “Before Gilly Harper was found, I’d come to the conclusion that Coldfield must be our killer—that Daniel O’Toole was hanged by mistake and that Coldfield must have killed Julia and Madeline the same way he’d killed Lady McInnis and her daughter. But then, after Gilly, I thought I must be wrong, that I was perhaps allowing my personal emotions to sway my thinking. And now . . .” His voice trailed away, and he swallowed hard before saying, “Now I don’t know what to think.”
“You said your constable discovered that Coldfield was out and about last Sunday. Perhaps he saw something, and that’s why the killer decided he had to be silenced.”
“Perhaps. Although if he did, then why didn’t he say something?”
“Perhaps he was planning to.”
Lovejoy looked over at him. “Let me see that message again.” He took the crumpled, dirty sheet of paper Sebastian held out to him, his forehead creasing with thought as he studied the misspelled, crudely formed words. “Do you think Coldfield actually wrote this?”
“Do we know if he could even write?” said Sebastian.
“I’ve no idea.”
Sebastian stared down at the dead man’s pale, slack features. “That message was delivered to my house this morning. And while I could be wrong, it looks to me as if Coldfield here has been dead for at least twenty-four hours—if not longer.”
Lovejoy pursed his lips. “So unless the messenger boy was shockingly tardy in delivering his note, Coldfield couldn’t have sent it. Which begs the question: Who did?”
“The killer?”
Lovejoy met his gaze, his face drawn. “But why?”
“That I can’t begin to explain.”
It was some time later, when Sebastian and Lovejoy were watching a couple of men load the thatcher’s body onto the bed of a cart that was to carry him to Paul Gibson’s surgery in London, that one of the constables beating his way through the long wet grass beside the lane gave a shout.
Turning, Sebastian watched the man bend down to pick up something, then straighten.
“Sir Henry!” cried the man, turning to trot back toward them. “Look at this, Sir Henry! Found it lying there beside the road like somebody tossed it aside—or maybe dropped it as he was running away.”
Cradling his find in both hands, the man held out a wet pistol.
Carefully wrapping one hand around the handle, Lovejoy raised the muzzle to his nostrils and sniffed. He looked over at Sebastian. “It’s been fired recently.”
“Let me see it.”
It was a fine piece, thought Sebastian, taking it in hand; a Stanton flintlock pistol with a late eighteenth century–style mechanism with no bridle on the flash pan. The barrel was of polished brass, as were the butt cap, escutcheon, trigger guard, and side plate; a carefully wrought, decorative silver wire inlay formed a delicate design around the barrel tang. Suddenly conscious of his pounding heart, Sebastian turned the pistol to stare down at the engraving on the butt cap.
Lieut. Z. Finch, 45TH Regt.