The Devlin Diary (32 page)

“To what purpose? Even the King’s Guards are no help in this matter. Look at what happened after Sir Henry’s death—an innocent man was hanged.”

“We can’t be certain of that.”

“You may not be certain, but I am. The only way to find the truth is to search for it ourselves. I came here for a reason: to ask you if you’d found anything among your father’s papers.”

“I’ve looked, but so far have come up with nothing.”

Edward sits down again, easing back into the chair with a bewildered sigh. “I felt so certain there’d be something—some reference to that night at Saint-Cloud.”

“I’ve found no mention of it. In fact, I have not found any notes on the princess at all, or from that entire period in which he attended her.”

“Does that seem unusual to you?”

“Under the circumstances, yes.”

He looks down at his hands, interlacing his fingers and tapping his thumbs together thoughtfully. When he looks up, there’s a re
newed optimism in his eyes. “Did your father correspond with anyone regularly?”

“With many people.” She grasps the direction of his thoughts. “But I can think of no one who might be familiar with those events.”

Hester enters carrying a tray with bread, cheese, sliced meat, and a decanter of claret. She sets it on the table between them and makes a short, solemn curtsy before hurrying back to the kitchen.

Edward’s eyes follow her from the room. “Have you heard from Lucy?”

Hannah shakes her head sadly. “Not a word.”

“Have you made any other effort to find her?”

“We have inquired of everyone hereabout, to no avail. Other than that, I know not what to do. Lucy is a free person. She did not steal from us; she took only what was hers. I have no legal or moral grounds for preventing her from doing as she wishes. But it has been hard. My mother asks for her every day. And I worry so; Lucy is very young, and so much more innocent than she imagines she is.” She smiles ruefully. “But you do not want to hear about the problems of my little household.”

“Indeed, I do not mind at all.” His clear gray eyes lock onto hers and she is reminded of the day they met, the first time they truly looked at each other. It provokes a flutter in her chest and a sudden shyness that she would not have thought herself capable of feeling, but with Dr. Strathern she has felt many things that she thought were long behind her. She looks away and busies herself with pouring the wine. “Please, you must eat,” she says, pushing the plate with bread and meat closer to him. Judging by the way he eagerly takes up their simple meal, he is famished. “You have not eaten all day,” she observes.

“No, it was a bad business. I’ll be lucky if any of the servants want to stay on after this. It is so odd. My whole life has—” He stops, seeming to think better of following that train of thought. Instead, he shakes his head as though he knows not what to make of anything anymore. “I had no notion of having a large house and a staff to worry over, not quite so soon.”

“Where do you make your home now?”

“My brother’s house near Leicester Square. I was planning to stay there until…”

“Until your marriage,” Hannah finishes for him.

He looks down and slowly rubs his hand across his mouth. “I find it difficult to speak of it to you,” he admits. “I feel…confused.”

Hannah stands up. “Dr. Strathern, perhaps you should go home. You must be very tired after what has happened. It’s not surprising that you are feeling so unsettled. Tomorrow you will feel better, I am certain.”

As is proper, Edward stands, too, but he makes no move toward the door. “I don’t want to go home,” he says, his tone as vexed as it was when he first arrived. “I want to find out who murdered my uncle. Your father must have seen something, must have known something—if he had not, I believe he would still be alive.” He pauses, calming his impassioned thoughts with a few measured breaths. “Has it not occurred to you,” he continues, brow knitting with worry, “that you may also be in danger?”

“Yes. And so may you.”

“We must do whatever we can. Perhaps if I helped you read through your father’s papers…”

“Wait—earlier you asked if my father had any correspondents.” Hannah smiles. “I’ve just thought of someone we should call upon.”

B
Y THE TIME
they reach Dr. Sydenham’s house on Pall Mall it’s well after six of the clock and the last vestiges of daylight are long gone. Hannah emerges from the carriage into a cold, clear night and breathes in the fresh tang of flourishing greenery and rich, loamy earth still fragrant from yesterday’s rain. This part of London is sparsely inhabited; the aristocratic mansions that have sprouted up in recent years are surrounded by private gardens, public parks, open fields. In comparison to the neighboring estates, Dr. Sydenham’s residence is modest in size and lacking ostentation. In the latter respect it resembles its owner, a Puritan among Royalists. Hannah raps the brass knocker in the shape of a caduceus, and soon a woman in a ruffled white cap opens the door.

“Hannah Briscoe!” she exclaims, her eyes wide with delight. “Can that be you?”

“Indeed it is.” They embrace warmly. Dr. Sydenham’s housemaid has changed little in the years since Hannah last saw her. Grown a bit more plump, perhaps, but her coppery hair is as bright as ever, her broad face welcoming.

“It’s been much too long since you paid us a visit.” Maureen steps back from the doorway and impatiently waves them both inside.

Hannah introduces Edward and inquires after Dr. Sydenham as they remove their hats and gloves in the wood-paneled hall.

“He’s at home,” Maureen replies, “though he’s been feeling rather poorly all day. But I’m sure he’ll be pleased to see you. One moment, I’ll tell him you’re here.”

“Should I be nervous?” Edward asks as Maureen hurries away down the hall. “I’ve heard the good doctor can be quite imposing.”

“It’s true you might find yourself arguing the merits of morbid anatomy,” Hannah says, “but he has always been kind to me.”

“I can’t imagine why anyone would be otherwise.” His eyes look large in the dim light.

Hannah is suddenly conscious of how close they stand in the narrow hall, aware of Edward’s warmth and the faint, spicy-sweet scent of his skin. On the ride over they carefully avoided any further discourse on subjects of a personal nature, an unspoken agreement to put private matters aside while embarked on their pursuit of the truth. But those feelings are right under the skin, ready to surface again at the least opportunity. Edward moves closer, close enough that if she tilts her face up to his, their lips would nearly meet. Bridging that distance is only a matter of inches, and the desire to do so suffuses the air between them. “Hannah,” he whispers hoarsely, and for a second she allows herself to imagine it, everything falling away, their cares, their obstacles, this house they stand in, everything disregarded for the sensation of his lips on hers.

Maureen appears at the end of the hall. She must notice how quickly they step away from each other, but she discreetly ignores it. “He’ll see you in his study,” she says brightly. Hannah follows, hoping no one will notice the flush spreading over her face. Their unconsummated kiss resonates in her body like a missed heartbeat as the housemaid ushers them into a comfortable room with a wood fire burning in the hearth. Dr. Sydenham sits facing the flames, his slippered feet propped on a footstool, a light blanket draped across his legs.

“Forgive me for not rising to greet you,” he says amiably. Hannah is pleased to notice that Edward is favorably impressed by the physician’s direct yet agreeable manner and his understated attire, a dark woolen
suit with a square linen collar. At forty-eight, Dr. Sydenham is still striking, with a magnificent head of graying hair that flows in waves to his shoulders and a strong-featured face absent of the usual marks and furrows of age, except for a deep crease of concentration between his brows. His expression is one that those who are not well acquainted with him might deem arrogant, but Hannah knows he is capable of great compassion. He is also, from her father’s own accounts, prone to pigheaded resolve—a charge that Dr. Sydenham often leveled back at his friend.

“My rheumatism has got the better of me today, I fear,” he says. He has been troubled with the gout for nearly two decades, and in recent years he has suffered a host of other ills. But he continues to write medical treatises, teach, and practice physick, with a practice so extensive that it includes both the indigent poor of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital and persons of quality such as John Locke and Lord Shaftesbury. “Please come in and make yourselves easy.” He gestures to the two chairs that help complete a cozy half circle in front of the fire.

“Hannah Briscoe,” he says affectionately, his brown eyes merry behind spectacle glasses glimmering with the fire’s reflected light. “It seems only yesterday that you were a girl putting my medical students to shame. She used to visit here with her father,” he tells Strathern, “and went ’round to his patients with him. She knew more about medicine at sixteen than most young men coming out of Oxford or Cambridge at twenty-two.”

Dr. Sydenham’s casual reference to the past feels foreign to her; so much has happened since then that the time he speaks of seems very long ago. “You are too generous,” Hannah says, although she remembers being astonished by how ignorant the university graduates were.

The sparkle fades from his eyes. “I regret I could not attend your father’s funeral last year.”

“Your letter of condolence was quite enough,” Hannah says sincerely.

“I cannot agree, but I was in the country and unable to travel at the time. A great shame, as there is nothing more salubrious for gout than exercise and fresh air. But my other ailments prevented me.”

“Exercise and fresh air is your recommended remedy for gout?” Edward asks.

Dr. Sydenham nods. “Horseback for those who are able, otherwise a daily coach ride will do. Along with the steady consumption of small beer and retiring early of an evening, no later than nine of the clock.” He smiles at Edward. “Surprised, are you? Do not credit every wild tale told about me. Most are the extravagant foolishness of prejudiced people. After I recommended a cooling regimen for the treatment of smallpox, the story went ’round that I take those who are so afflicted out of their beds and put them in a bath of ice water. It’s balderdash, of course. This is the kind of thing one must put up with if one dares to be different. Some simply don’t like the fact that I don’t prescribe a great deal of medicine. Often there’s nothing better than to leave a sick body alone to allow it to be healed by that prince of physicians, time. But that’s not how doctors and apothecaries get rich.” He chuckles softly to himself and shakes his head, as if at his own folly. “But I go on too long. I suspect you are not here to listen to my theories of physick.”

“Dr. Sydenham,” Hannah begins, “Dr. Strathern and I have discovered something very distressing. My father was murdered not by a thief but by someone with a darker purpose, one we do not yet know. But we are quite certain”—she glances at Edward, who nods solemnly—“that my father’s death is in some way connected to that of Sir Henry Reynolds and, more recently, Dr. Strathern’s uncle, Sir Granville—”

“Sir Granville Haines?” Dr. Sydenham says with surprise.

“Yes.”

“I had not heard of this.” He looks quizzically at Edward.

“It’s only just happened,” Edward explains.

“This is distressing indeed.” The furrow between his brows deepens as he assimilates their news.

“We believe that these murders have something to do with my father’s time in Paris attending Princess Henriette-Anne,” Hannah says. “Did he ever speak to you of it?”

The doctor stares thoughtfully into the fire. Finally he looks back at Hannah with resolve. “Did your father ever tell you why he left court?”

“Not exactly, no. Only that he had some sort of argument with Lord Arlington.”

“It wasn’t precisely an argument. Your father simply refused to do something Arlington asked him to do.”

“What was that?”

“Lie.” Dr. Sydenham leans forward as if to get up from the chair, but as soon as his feet touch the floor he grimaces with pain. “Dr. Strathern, if you would be so kind?”

“What can I do for you, sir?”

“On the top shelf of that cabinet,” he says as he points across the room, “there’s a cherrywood box. Can you bring it to me?”

Edward retrieves the box and puts it in Dr. Sydenham’s outstretched hands. Inside is a stack of aging papers: legal documents, a few deeds, old letters. From the bottom of the box he extracts a folded page with a broken wax seal. He looks at it intently, as if he is uncertain about what to do with it.

“Sir,” Hannah says, “if that letter should shed any light on why my father was killed, I believe I have a right to see it.”

“I hesitate not because I would deny you that right but because it occurs to me that at least two people who knew the contents of this document have been murdered. I would not be honoring my friendship with your late father if I put you in harm’s way.”

“I am determined”—she glances at Edward—“
we
are determined to find out the truth, regardless of the consequences.”

Dr. Sydenham looks at Strathern, eyebrows raised. “What she says is true, sir,” Edward assures him.

Dr. Sydenham hands the paper to Hannah. “You are your father’s daughter.”

She unfolds it and begins to read. Almost at once she looks up from the page, her eyes wide. “This is my father’s report on Princess Henriette-Anne’s postmortem,” she says, amazed.

“He gave it to me for safekeeping soon after his disagreement with Lord Arlington,” Dr. Sydenham explains.

Hannah pores over the page written in her father’s familiar hand. “‘Corrosion of the stomach lining, morbidity of the liver, evidence of
renal injury…,’” she reads aloud. She looks quizzically at the other physicians. “He does not come right out and say so, but his findings are strongly indicative of poison.”

Dr. Sydenham nods solemnly. “Keep reading.”

She quickly peruses the rest of the report. “My God,” she whispers.

“What is it?” Edward asks. Hannah silently hands him the report. It takes only a moment for him to discover what has shocked her. “‘The uterus is enlarged,’” he reads. “‘Upon further examination, the princess is found to be with child. Judging from the size of the fetus, about three months gone.’”

“Poisoned and pregnant,” says Hannah, perplexed. “My father lied to me. He told me himself that the princess died from natural causes, and he never said a word about her being with child.”

“I’m sure he was only trying to protect you,” Dr. Sydenham says. “He must have suspected that knowing this was dangerous.”

“What did you mean when you said Lord Arlington asked him to lie?”

“He asked your father to destroy this report and write a new one, a report that made no reference to those morbidities that indicated poisoning or to the princess’s condition. Your father refused to do it.”

“Why would Arlington try to conceal the murder of the king’s sister?” Hannah asks. “He could be sent to the Tower.”

“Not only sent to the Tower, but executed,” the physician adds. “Whoever poisoned the princess murdered not only her but her child—the child of the Duc d’Orleans and a potential heir to the French throne. A treasonable crime in both England and France.”

“Perhaps Arlington has concealed this because it is he who is behind it,” Edward remarks.

“Why are you so suspicious of Arlington?” Hannah asks.

“He is known to be ruthless in achieving his aims.”

“But murder? It seems extreme, even for someone as ambitious as Arlington. Do you believe that the minister is behind this, Dr. Sydenham?” Hannah asks. “Is that what my father believed?”

“I have often wondered about Arlington’s role in this matter. Your father did not share his thoughts on the subject with me, so I cannot
tell you his conclusions. For myself, I think the minister is unscrupulous and considers nothing other than his own interests, no matter how loudly he brays about his service to king and country, but I have never thought him a murderer. Indeed, I cannot see how the death of the princess benefits him in any way.”

“You raise an important point, sir,” Edward says. “Who, if anyone, stood to gain from the princess’s death? I recall that at the time, rumors condemned her husband’s lover, the Chevalier de Lorraine. It went around that he had her poisoned in retribution for being banished from the French court. But those rumors ended once it was put about that she died from natural causes.”

“I’m sorry to say, Dr. Strathern, that your uncle helped to spread that particular fiction. Lord Arlington prevailed upon Sir Granville to write a new, false postmortem report that became the official one.”

Edward nods slowly. “In exchange for a better position at court, no doubt.”

“It appears that these murders are meant to conceal the murder of the princess,” Dr. Sydenham sums up.

“Someone is killing everyone who knows the truth,” Hannah agrees. The three regard each other soberly as the reality sinks in: they are all potential victims.

Edward reaches into his pocket. “There is something else we cannot make sense of, sir. We would appreciate hearing your opinion on this.” He gives a piece of foolscap to the physician, who carefully studies the symbols written thereupon.

“My father and the others were not only murdered but mutilated, all in a similar fashion,” Hannah says. “Their fingers were cut off in the same sequence in which they were killed. My father, being the first, had one finger missing, and Sir Granville, being the last—”

“Was missing four,” Edward adds. “The symbols you see there were inscribed on the bodies.”

“The
x
in the square is an apothecaries’ mark,” Hannah says.

“Yes, I recognize it.
Menses,
” Dr. Sydenham says, using the Latin word for
month.

“Are the others familiar to you?” she asks.

“These two”—he points them out to Hannah—“look like the astrological signs Capricorn and Leo.” He hands the paper to her.

It’s the first time she’s seen all the markings together. There are twelve in all, as each body was inscribed with three different symbols. So far, if Dr. Sydenham is correct, they have deciphered only three of the twelve: the astrological sign for Leo, the sign for Capricorn, and the
x
enclosed by a square, the apothecaries’ symbol for
month.
No,
menses.
It’s Latin. Some of the other symbols, she sees now, are not symbols at all. They’re letters.