Chapter 45
Sir Felix Paige lay sprawled on his back in an unscythed patch of fine-leaved fescues and ryegrass not far from a stand of gnarled oaks in a naturalized section of the park. His stiffening arms were flung out at his sides, and he had one leg bent awkwardly beneath him. His face was livid, his eyes bulging. The dark cord used to cut off his life was still embedded deep in the flesh of his neck.
“Strangled, obviously,” said Lovejoy as Sebastian hunkered down beside the corpse.
Sebastian studied the dead man’s blood-smeared lips. “Why the hell would our killer change weapons at this stage in the game?”
“Perhaps it’s a different killer.”
“God save us.” Sebastian ran his gaze over the dead man’s clothes—the fashionable dark blue coat, the white-and-indigo-striped waistcoat, the pale yellow pantaloons. Paige was lying on his back, but the knees of his pantaloons were noticeably stained with grass and dirt. “Gibson will hopefully be able to tell us for certain, but it looks to me as if he’s probably been dead for hours.”
Lovejoy hunched his shoulders against the cold morning wind. “The palace isn’t going to like this. First a marquis’s son, now a baronet.”
Sebastian pushed to his feet. “The world is better off without either of those two men in it. Unless I miss my guess, Paige only succeeded to his title by murdering his father, cousin, and brother—in that order.”
Lovejoy stared at him. “Good heavens. You think there’s a possibility he killed Ashworth?”
“And someone has now killed him in revenge?” Sebastian let his gaze drift around the half-wild remnant of old heathland. “That would explain the shift in murder weapons, wouldn’t it? The main problem with that theory is, I haven’t been able to come up with a believable reason for Paige to have killed Ashworth.”
“Perhaps an explanation will become clearer once we begin investigating his affairs.”
“Perhaps,” said Sebastian.
It was several hours later when Sebastian arrived at the dank stone outbuilding behind Paul Gibson’s surgery on Tower Hill to find Sir Felix Paige’s lanky, naked body lying on the surgeon’s stone slab.
“This one’s different,” said the Irishman, looking up as Sebastian paused in the open doorway.
“It is, indeed. Any idea when he might have been killed?”
“Probably last night. Does that fit with what you know?”
Sebastian nodded, his gaze on the ugly purple line circling the dead man’s throat. “I’ve just spoken to some of his friends who say he was supposed to meet them at the cockpit on Birdcage Walk at nine, but he never showed.”
“The lads who brought him said he was found near there.”
“He was. Coincidentally, it’s also near where his cousin was found murdered a few years ago.”
“You think that’s significant?”
“Damned if I know. But it does nothing to explain what he was doing in the park at that time of night. Any chance the body was dumped there?”
“It’s possible. But there are grass stains along with the dirt on the knees of his pantaloons. Someone hit him on the back of his head before strangling him.”
“Oh?” Sebastian pushed away from the door and took a step forward. “Hard enough to knock him out?”
“Maybe. Definitely hard enough to stun him.”
“Huh. So the killer hits him, drops him to his knees, and then garrotes him? I suppose it’s a good way to hamper your victim’s ability to fight back.”
“It is, indeed. There aren’t any fingernail scratches on his neck the way you’d expect if he were conscious enough to try to claw at the ligature. But then, when the windpipe is compressed hard and fast, they don’t stay conscious for long.”
“And you think Paige’s was? Compressed hard and fast, I mean.”
“Definitely.” Gibson reached for a dark cord that lay curled up on a nearby shelf and handed it to him. “You don’t see one of these every day.”
Sebastian found himself holding a narrow garrote with a large knot tied in the center. “It’s waxed.”
Gibson tucked his hands up under his arms and leaned back against the edge of the shelf behind him. “Not only is it waxed, but the knot is strategically positioned to crush the larynx. Whoever killed Paige knew exactly what he was doing. Under normal circumstances, it’s not easy to strangle a strong, healthy man to death. But wax your garrote and it slices right into the throat and does the job in half the time. Crush the windpipe with a knot and it’s even better.”
Sebastian brought his gaze back to the dead man’s bloated, discolored face. “The killings of Ashworth, Digby, and the girl were messy—acts of either passion or desperation. But this . . . This was professional.”
“Very.” Gibson blew out a long, troubled breath. “So, know any professional killers?”
“A waxed garrote?” said Hendon as he and Sebastian walked along the gravel paths of the Privy Gardens that had once formed a part of Henry VIII’s now-vanished Whitehall Palace. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
Sebastian kept his gaze on the Earl’s face. “It’s an assassin’s weapon.”
Hendon was silent for a moment, his eyes narrowed against the glare of the weak spring sun off the wind-ruffled river beside them. “You’re thinking someone in the Grand Duchess’s household might have killed Paige?”
“I’m finding it hard to come up with any other explanation. Can you?”
“Not really. But . . . why? What possible threat could Paige have been to the Tsar’s sister?”
“A considerable threat, if he knew—or even simply suspected—that her noble lady-in-waiting had hacked to death the son of the Marquis of Lindley in the midst of some decidedly risqué sex games. Especially if Ivanna’s motive was to protect the Russian royal family from having its machinations exposed.”
“Yes, I can see that. The problem is, if it is true, how do you prove it?”
“I’m not sure I can. And the palace would never let me touch the Russians even if I could.”
Hendon let out his breath in a heavy sigh. “The bodies are beginning to pile up, aren’t they? I was worried at first that Stephanie might have killed Ashworth herself, but she couldn’t have committed this kind of carnage.” He paused, then added, “Even considering who her father was.”
Sebastian looked over at the Earl. “Wilcox wasn’t actually her father, you know.”
Hendon’s eyes widened. “You can’t be serious.”
“Not according to Aunt Henrietta. And I assume she knows what she’s talking about.”
“Good heavens,” said the Earl, his jaw working back and forth in that way he had. Then he said it again: “Good heavens.”
Sebastian was drawing up in front of his Brook Street house when he spotted Tom rounding the corner from Bond Street at a run.
“I found ’im!” shouted the tiger, his face shining with triumph as he jumped over a crate of live chickens and dodged a coalman with a bulging sack. “I done found Ben King, and ’e says ’e’s willin’ to talk to yer honor.”
“He’s still alive?”
The boy skidded to a halt, breathing heavily. “Aye. ’E’s got ’isself a new corner near St. Andrew’s in Holborn.”
“Holborn? That can’t pay very well—especially not when compared to Beau Brummell’s neighborhood.”
“It don’t. ’E says ’is take is ’alf what it was on Curzon Street. ’E didn’t want t’ talk t’ ye, but I told ’im that if ’e tells ye wot ’e knows, then meybe you’ll be able t’ catch the killer so’s ’e can come back t’ Mayfair.”
“And he agreed?”
“Not right away. I told ’im ye’d give ’im a couple o’ shillings, and ’e said make it ’alf a crown and ’e’ll spill it all.”
“Half a crown?”
Tom grinned. “I figured ye was good fer it, gov’ner.”
Ben King turned out to be a short, sturdy lad of perhaps eleven or twelve with thick golden hair; even, attractive features; and bright, knowing eyes. Despite his recent fall in income, he was still cleaner than most crossing sweeps, and although his clothes were the usual assortment of rag-fair finds, he somehow managed to carry them off with an air of assurance and cocky good humor.
“I wants me half crown up front,” said the crossing sweep when Sebastian and his tiger met the boy in St. Andrew’s ancient churchyard.
Sebastian held up two coins. “Half now, half when you’ve finished telling me what I need to know.”
Ben’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. “How can I be sure ye won’t cheat me?”
“My word as a gentleman.”
The boy made a rude noise. “I know what that’s worth.” But he tucked the first coin out of sight and hopped up to perch on the edge of a nearby table tomb. “What ye want t’ know?”
“I’m told you used to deliver messages for Lord Ashworth’s valet, Digby.”
“Aye.”
“To whom?”
“Mainly his lordship’s da.”
“You mean, to the Marquis of Lindley?”
“Aye.”
“How often?”
Ben gave a negligent shrug. “Often enough.”
“Where else?”
“Meyer’s, sometimes.”
“The Conduit Street tailor?”
“Aye. And Hoby’s.”
Hoby was a fashionable bootmaker. “Anyone else not a merchant in Conduit, St. James’s, or Bond Street?”
The boy looked thoughtful. “Well, sometimes he’d give me a message for Sir Felix Paige, him as lives in Cork Street.”
“Lived, past tense. Paige was found dead this morning. Strangled.”
Ben’s features remained impassive, but he sucked in a quick breath that jerked his narrow chest. “I ain’t heard that.”
“I understand Digby gave you a message to carry the night Ashworth was killed.”
“Aye.”
“For whom?”
“Fer his lordship—the old Marquis.”
“The message was from Ashworth?”
“Nah. It was from Digby hisself. The ones for Park Lane almost always were.”
Whatever Sebastian had been expecting, it wasn’t that. “How did you know?”
“’Cause they didn’t have Ashworth’s seal on ’em, like the others.”
Of course, thought Sebastian. “And were you given a response to carry back to Curzon Street?”
“No.”
Sebastian studied the boy’s small, upturned nose, well-formed cheekbones, and gracefully arched brows. “How long have you been a crossing sweep?”
“Ever since me da died four—no, five years ago. I don’t even remember me mother, she died so long ago.”
“Have you been on Curzon Street all that time?”
“Aye—up till last week. It’s a good stand.” The boy pulled a face. “A hellova lot better’n here.”
“When did you begin carrying messages from Digby to Lindley House?”
Ben gave another twitch of his shoulder. “I dunno. Mabye six months or so after I started.”
So, four and a half years. Edward Digby had been sending messages to his employer’s father since shortly after he’d arrived at Curzon Street, and Lindley had never said a word about it.
Sebastian said, “Did you see Digby again the night of the murder? After he gave you the message to take to Park Lane, I mean.”
Ben shook his head. “I didn’t go back that night. Had no reason to.”
“Who do you think killed him?”
The question seemed to take the boy by surprise. “Digby? How would I know?” A faintly malicious gleam of amusement lit up his dark brown eyes. “Heard he was found stripped to the skin in that alley up by Chesterfield House. He wouldn’t have liked that. He wouldn’t have liked that at all. Proud and fussy, he was.”
“Do you have any idea why the killer would take Digby’s clothes?”
“What makes you think the killer done that? As long as they say he was left layin’ there, I reckon somebody musta come along, found him, and took the clothes to sell. He was always a natty dresser, Digby.”
It was a simple explanation that for some reason had never occurred to any of them, but it made sense. Even if the back of the valet’s shirt, waistcoat, and coat had been bloody and shredded, their fine material would still have been worth a great deal to that desperate army of poor men, women, and children who scoured the streets for rags, bones, and dog droppings.
Sebastian said, “Why did you run away from Curzon Street?”
“Why d’ye think?”
“You know who killed Ashworth?”
The boy shook his head slowly from side to side, but Sebastian saw his sun-darkened throat work as he swallowed.
“Then what made you run, Ben?”
“I seen him,” said the boy, his voice barely a whisper.
“Who?”
“That old man. The Marquis. He come to Curzon Street.”
“You mean the morning after Ashworth’s murder?”
The boy nodded.
“And that frightened you? Why?”
“I dunno. It was jist . . .”
“Just—what?”
“Somethin’ I seen in his eyes. He was gettin’ outta his carriage, and he looked over and saw me. Gave me the creepy-jeepies, it did. I learned a long time ago to trust me creepy-jeepies. I mean, he might be an old man, but he’s still Ashworth’s da, ain’t he? And that Viscount, he was like one o’ them things the vicar used to preach to us about on Sundays when I was little—you know, them things you think look like men, but they’ve really got shaggy hair and hooves, or maybe claws and wings like bats? They’re always lurkin’ in the shadows, tryin’ to hurt folks. That was Ashworth, all right.”
“You mean, demons?”
Ben gave a faint shiver that he tried to suppress. “Aye. That’s it. You’d look at that lord, and he seemed all rich and handsome-like. But underneath it all, he was really ugly and evil. A demon.”