Who Buries the Dead (24 page)

N
ewly changed into doeskin breeches and a well-tailored dark blue coat, with his hair still damp, Sebastian knocked on the door of Sir Galen Knightly’s town house in Half Moon Street to find the Baronet standing in the stately, old-fashioned hall with his gloves in one hand and a walking stick tucked up under his arm.

“I beg your pardon,” said Sebastian. “Have I caught you on the verge of going out?”

Sir Galen looked vaguely chagrined. “Well . . . actually, yes. Did you need something?”

“I had a few more questions about Preston I was hoping you might be able to answer.”

The Baronet glanced at the hall clock. “Would you mind walking with me toward Bond Street?”

It was Sir Galen’s practice, Sebastian recalled, to dine at Stevens every Wednesday and Sunday at half past six. “Of course,” said Sebastian, and the older man’s face cleared.

Sebastian let his gaze drift around the hall while Knightly conferred for a moment with his butler. From the looks of things, the house had been little altered since the days of Sir Galen’s grandfather. The Baronet’s tragic young bride, who had survived her wedding by only ten months before dying in childbirth, hadn’t lived long enough to make many changes, and her grief-stricken widower had obviously been content to leave things as they were.

“Have you made some progress in your investigations?” asked Sir Galen as they descended the front steps and turned toward the east.

“Some. I was wondering if you know what might have taken Stanley Preston to Fish Street Hill last Sunday—to a wretched alley called Bucket Lane.”

“Fish Street Hill?” Knightly glanced over at him in surprise. “Good heavens; no. I can’t imagine. You’re certain?”

“Yes.”

“How very odd.”

“Is it?”

“Very. Stanley had what you might call an aversion to those of low birth. In general, he avoided them as much as possible.”

“Low birth and low means?”

“Well, yes. Of course.”

Sebastian paused to hand a penny to the young crossing sweep who was busy clearing manure from the intersection with a ragged broom. “It’s been how long since Preston’s wife died?”

“Eight years, I believe. Why?”

“He was still a fairly young man at the time of her death. Yet he never remarried.”

“No. But then, he was sincerely attached to his late wife. I honestly don’t think he ever looked at another woman—before or after her death. He worshipped her.”

“No mistresses?”

“No. Never. And if you’re thinking that might be what took Stanley to this Bucket Lane, then I’m afraid you really don’t understand the man who was Stanley Preston. If Stanley had been inclined to take a mistress—which he never did, of course, but if he had—he would never have chosen some common Billingsgate trollop. I remember hearing him say once that for a gentleman to lie down with a baseborn wench was tantamount to miscegenation.”

Sebastian thought of the Bucket Lane woman’s flawless, dusky skin and exquisite bone structure and wondered if Sir Galen actually knew his old friend as well as he thought he did. “An interesting choice of words,” said Sebastian. “Miscegenation. Do I take it he never had any interest in the enslaved women who worked his plantations in Jamaica either?”

“Good God, no!”

“Yet it’s not uncommon, is it?”

“It is amongst gentlemen of honor.”

Sebastian watched a ponderous coal wagon making its way up the street and said nothing.

Sir Galen cleared his throat. “To my knowledge, Stanley Preston seldom ventured east of Bond Street except on business at the bank or exchange. I can’t imagine what might have taken him to an area such as Fish Street Hill.”

“Yet he did business with the likes of Priss Mulligan.”

Knightly’s brows drew together in a puzzled frown. “Who?”

“Priss Mulligan—a decidedly unsavory woman who keeps a secondhand shop in Houndsditch.”

“Ah, yes; I remember hearing him speak of her. But then, I suspect Stanley would have ventured into Hades and done business with Satan himself if the devil happened to possess something Stanley wanted for his collection.” The Baronet’s eyes widened as if inspired by a sudden thought. “Perhaps that’s what he was doing in this Bucket Lane. Buying some relic or another.”

“The area’s inhabitants are costers and fishmongers. Not thieves and fences.”

“Some costers have been known to deal in stolen goods.”

“Stolen hams and bolts of cloth, perhaps. Not priceless relics.”

“Perhaps one got lucky.”

“Perhaps. Only, how would he know to offer it to Preston?”

“True; I hadn’t thought of that.” He shrugged. “Then I’m afraid I have no explanation.” He hesitated a moment, then said, “Are you no closer to discovering who might have killed him?”

“I’m afraid not.”

Knightly pushed out a long, pained sigh. “And now Dr. Sterling is dead too. It’s beyond ghastly.”

“You were acquainted with Sterling?”

Knightly shrugged. “Jamaica is a very small island.”

Sebastian stared at him. “Are you saying Douglas Sterling spent time in Jamaica?”

“Yes. You didn’t know?”

“When?”

“He practiced there as a young man. And he still goes out every few years to visit a daughter who married a merchant in Kingston.” Knightly paused. “Although I suppose I should say he
used to go
.”

“That’s a long voyage for a man of his age.”

“It was, yes. But he always claimed the sea air was good for him—that it more than made up for the fatigue of the journey. Said it was the London fog that was going to kill him.” Knightly shook his head sadly at the implications of his own words.

“When was Sterling last in Jamaica? Do you know?”

“Recently, I believe. Although I couldn’t say precisely when.”

“During Sinclair Oliphant’s period as governor?”

“It must have been, I suppose.” Knightly drew up on the footpath before the Stevens. “You think that’s significant?”

“It may be. I don’t know.”

Knightly nodded, then glanced surreptitiously at his watch as a nearby clock tower chimed the quarter hour. “Would you care to join me for dinner?”

“Thank you, but I’m afraid I have a previous engagement.”

It was only partially a lie. Sebastian’s engagement was with Sinclair Oliphant.

The colonel just didn’t know about it yet.

Dressed now in satin knee breeches and an evening coat, with a chapeaux bras and a silver-headed walking stick that concealed a sharp, deadly dagger, Sebastian trolled the pleasure grounds of London’s haut ton: the gentlemen’s clubs and gaming rooms and glittering, elegant ballrooms that provided evening entertainment to the city’s most bored, most pampered residents. He finally came upon his quarry at the highly fashionable ball being given by Lady Davenport.

Lord Oliphant and his slim, blond wife were in her ladyship’s supper room enjoying their hostess’s lemon ices. Lady Oliphant was younger than her husband, probably no more than twenty-five or thirty. One of six daughters of an impoverished squire, she was an attractive woman, although her face and nose were considered too long, her mouth too small and prim, her chin too pointed, for her to be acknowledged a beauty. When she first married Oliphant, he had been a mere Army officer, destined for a life in that second tier reserved for younger sons. But the death of his childless elder brother had changed all that, bringing Oliphant a title, estate, wealth, and status. Watching her, Sebastian found himself wondering if she knew of the things her husband had done in the war, before he’d become Lord Oliphant and governor of Jamaica. Would she care if she did?

For some reason he could not have explained, Sebastian found himself doubting it.

He pushed away from the doorframe and walked toward them. He knew exactly when Oliphant became aware of his presence, knew it by the subtle shifting of the man’s posture and the faint glitter that leapt into his eyes. But Oliphant continued eating his ice with an assumption of insouciance.

Or perhaps it wasn’t an assumption, Sebastian thought, watching him. In Sebastian’s experience, men like Oliphant were made fundamentally different from their fellow beings. It was as if they’d been born immune not only to empathy and compassion, but to worry and self-doubt and fear as well.

“Again?” said Oliphant when Sebastian drew up, the groaning expanse of Lady Davenport’s heavily laden supper table between them.

“Again.” He tightened his grip on the head of his sword stick. “I’m told you knew Dr. Douglas Sterling.”

“I did, yes.” Oliphant’s eyelids drooped slightly as he sucked on a spoonful of lemon ice. “As did any number of other people, I’m sure.”

“True. But that number narrows considerably when one eliminates those who did not also know Stanley Preston.”

Lady Oliphant paused with her spoon hovering above her lemon ice, her entire being stiff with outrage. “Surely you’re not suggesting my husband has anything to do with these dreadful murders?”

“Yes,” said Sebastian.

Her long, thin nose quivered with scorn. “The very idea is beyond preposterous. A lord of the realm!”

“Did your husband ever tell you about Santa Iria?” he asked, watching her closely.

She gave him a blank look. “What?”

“Santa Iria. It is—or perhaps I should say, was—a convent in the mountains of Portugal. A place of refuge for simple, devout women and the war orphans they cared for.”

She looked uninterested. “And what has this to do with anything?”

“The abbess of Santa Iria was the daughter of a local grandee—a prominent landowner who was reluctant to be seen taking sides against the French for fear his people would suffer reprisals should the British be defeated. So your husband came up with a way to persuade him.”

She threw Oliphant an admiring smile. “Sinclair is very inventive.”

Oliphant bowed but said nothing.

“He is that,” agreed Sebastian. “He sent out a courier carrying false dispatches—dispatches suggesting the abbess of Santa Iria was acting as a spy for the British. Then he tipped off a French troop in the area, so that they were able to capture the courier. Needless to say, the French believed the dispatches to be genuine.”

“That was clever,” said Lady Oliphant.

“The courier didn’t think so.”

She shrugged.

Oliphant sucked on another spoonful of ice. “Do finish your story. I suspect my wife will enjoy it.”

She looked at Sebastian expectantly.

He said, “The French attacked Santa Iria at dawn. The convent was burned, the women and children all killed. Not even the smallest of babes were spared. The abbess—who was no British spy but an innocent nun—was repeatedly violated and tortured in an effort to make her talk. She died in agony.”

“And her father? The dithering grandee? Was he persuaded by this French outrage to finally turn against Napoléon?”

“Actually, no. He was so horrified by what had been done that he suffered a seizure and died.”

“Hmm. Pity. Still, you must admit it was an ingenious plan.”

“Dozens of innocent women and children died, needlessly.”

“Yes. The French have perpetrated many such outrages across Europe. Which is why, with the grace of God, they will soon be defeated.”

A gleam of amusement shone in her husband’s light blue eyes.

Sebastian said, “I don’t think God had anything to do with what happened at Santa Iria.”

“The good Lord works in mysterious ways.”

Sebastian studied her smug, self-satisfied face. He’d often wondered what sort of woman could be content married to a man like Oliphant.

Now he knew.

Oliphant said, “One of these days, Devlin, you really must move beyond the events of that spring in Portugal. War is war; dreadful things happen. But do you think a London ball is the proper place to be dredging up the gruesome details?”

“When people are still dying—here, in London? Yes.”

“I take it you’re referring to this tiresome matter of Preston?”

“And Sterling.”

Oliphant sighed and handed his empty ice cup to a hovering waiter. “Shall I give you a little hint? Yes; I do believe I shall.”

“Sinclair is always most generous,” said Lady Oliphant.

Oliphant gave a small bow. “You are aware, of course, of the star-crossed love affair between Miss Preston and a certain hussar captain?”

When Sebastian remained silent, Oliphant said, “Of course, Preston and his son did an admirable job of hushing up the elopement six years ago. But somehow, whispers always seem to get about; have you noticed? I tend to blame the servants.”

Had
Hugh Wyeth and Anne Preston attempted an elopement in the past? Sebastian wondered. If so, this was the first he’d heard of it. He kept his voice sounding bored. “This is your hint?”

“Oh, no; I assumed you already knew about the young captain. But are you aware, I wonder, that there are interesting links between the captain and Dr. Sterling?” Oliphant’s face creased into an indulgent smile. “Do you know where Captain Wyeth’s regiment was stationed before their transfer to Portugal?” He leaned forward and whispered loudly.
“It was Jamaica.”

When Sebastian made no response, Oliphant’s lips pursed into a simulated moue of concern. “I’m afraid your obsession with the past is not only unhealthy, but is also negatively impacting your goal of catching this killer.” He raised one eyebrow in mocking inquiry. “At least, I assume that is your goal. Is it not?”