What Darkness Brings sscm-8

  What Darkness Brings

  ( Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery - 8 )

  C. S. Harris

  C. S. Harris

  What Darkness Brings

  The gaudy, blabbing and remorseful day

  Is crept into the bosom of the sea;

  And now loud-howling wolves arouse the jadeThat drag the tragic melancholy night;

  Who, with their drowsy, slow and flagging wings,

  Clip dead men’s graves and from their misty jawBreathe foul contagious darkness in the air.

  — William Shakespeare, Henry VI, PART 2, ACT 4, SCENE 1

  Chapter 1

  London Sunday, 20 September 1812

  The man was so old his face sagged in crinkly, sallow folds and Jenny could see pink scalp through the thin white hair plastered by sweat to his head.

  “The irony is delicious; don’t you agree?” he said as he slid a big, multifaceted piece of blue glass down between the swells of her breasts. The glass felt smooth and cool against her bare skin, but his fingers were as bone thin and cold as a corpse’s.

  She forced herself to lie still even though she wanted desperately to squirm away. She might be only seventeen, but Jenny Davie had been in this business for almost five years. She knew how to keep a smile plastered on her face when inside her guts roiled with revulsion and an exasperated urge to say, Can’t we just get this over with?

  “Think about it.” He blinked, and she noticed he had no lashes fringing his small, sunken eyes, and that his teeth were so long and yellow they made her think of the ratty mule that pulled the dustman’s cart. He said, “Once, this diamond graced the crowns of kings and nestled in the silken bosom of a queen. And now here it lies. . on the somewhat grubby breasts of a cheap London whore.”

  “Go on wit’ you,” she scoffed, squinting down at the pretty glass. “Jist because I’m a whore don’t mean I’m stupid. That ain’t no diamond. It’s blue. And it’s bigger than a bloody peach pit.”

  “Much bigger than a peach pit,” agreed the old man as the glass caught the flickering light from a nearby brace of candles and glowed as if with an inner fire. His dark eyes gleamed, and Jenny found herself wondering what he needed a whore for since he seemed more excited by his big chunk of blue glass than he was by her. “They say that once, this stone formed the third eye of a heathen-”

  He broke off, his head coming up as a loud pounding sounded at the distant front door.

  Before she could stop herself, Jenny jerked. She was lying on her back on a dusty, scratchy horsehair sofa in the cavernous, decrepit parlor of the old man’s house. Most men took their whores in the back rooms of coffeehouses or in one of the city’s numerous accommodation houses. But not this man. He always had his whores brought here, to his cobweb-draped old mansion in St. Botolph-Aldgate. And he didn’t take them upstairs either, but did his business here, on the couch-which suited Jenny just fine, since she never liked being too far from a way out of trouble.

  He muttered something under his breath she didn’t understand, although from the way he said it she figured it was some kind of curse. Then he said, “He wasn’t supposed to be here this early.”

  He reared up, straightening his clothes. He’d had her strip down to her stockings and shift, which he’d untied so that it gaped open nearly to her waist. But he hadn’t taken off any of his own clothes, not even his fusty, old-fashioned coat or shoes. He glanced around, the blue chunk of glass held tight in one fist. “Here,” he said, gathering her stays, petticoat, and dress and shoving them into her arms. “Take these and get in-”

  The knocking sounded again, louder this time, as she slid off the couch with her crumpled clothing clutched to her chest. “I can leave-”

  “No.” He moved toward the looming, old-fashioned chimneypiece that stood at one end of the room. It was a fantastical thing of smoke-darkened wood carved into tiers of columns with swags of fruit and nuts and even animals. “This won’t take long.” He pressed something in the carving, and Jenny blinked as a portion of the nearby paneling slid open. “Just get in here.”

  She found herself peering into a dark cubbyhole some six or eight feet square, empty except for an old basket and a couple of ironbound trunks lined against one wall. “In there? But-”

  His hand closed around her bare upper arm tight enough that she squealed, “Ow!”

  “Just shut up and get in there. If you let out a peep, you won’t get paid. And if you touch anything, I’ll break your neck. Understood?”

  She supposed he saw the answer-or maybe just her fear-in her face, because he didn’t wait for her reply but thrust her into the little room and slid the panel closed. Whirling around, she heard a latch click as a thick blackness swallowed her. She choked down a scream.

  The air in the cubbyhole was musty and old smelling, like the man and the rest of his house, only nastier. It was so dark she wondered how the blazes he thought she was going to steal something when she couldn’t see anything but a tiny pinprick of light about level with her head. She went to press one eye against the speck of light and realized it was a peephole, contrived to give a good view of the room beyond. She watched as he nestled his pretty piece of glass inside a velvet-lined red leather box. Then he shoved the box in the drawer of a nearby console and yelled, “I’m coming, I’m coming,” as the knocking at the front door sounded again.

  Jenny took a deep, shaky breath. She’d heard about some old houses having hidden cupboards like this. Priests’ holes, they called them. They had something to do with Papists and such, although she’d never quite understood what it was all about. She wondered what would happen to her if the old goat never came back to release her. And then she wished she hadn’t wondered that, because it made the walls seem to press in on her, and the blackness became so thick and heavy it felt as if it were stealing her breath and sucking the life out of her. She leaned her forehead against the wooden panel and tried to breathe in sucking little pants. She told herself that if Papists used to hide their priests in these cubbyholes, then they must have contrived a way for the panel to be opened from the inside. She began feeling around for the catch, then froze when she realized the voices from the front hall were coming closer.

  Pressing her eye to the peephole again, she watched as the nasty old codger backed into the room. He had his hands raised queerly, sort of up and out to the side, like a body trying to ward off a ghost or something. Then she saw the pistol in the hands of the old man’s visitor, and she understood.

  The old cove was talking fast now. Jenny held herself very still, although her heart thumped in her chest and her breath came so hard and fast it was a wonder they couldn’t hear it.

  Then she heard a new pounding on the front door and someone shouting. The visitor holding the gun jerked around, distracted, and the old goat lunged.

  The gun went off, belching flame and pungent smoke. The old man staggered back. Crumpled.

  Jenny felt a hot, stinging gush run down her legs and realized she’d just wet herself.

  Chapter 2

  “But it was supposed to be mine,” wailed George, Prince Regent of Great Britain and Ireland, his plump, feminine face florid with rage as he paced wildly up and down the marble-floored room. “What the devil was Eisler thinking, getting himself murdered like this before he could deliver it to me?”

  “Shockingly inconsiderate of the man,” agreed the King’s powerful cousin, Charles, Lord Jarvis, without the slightest betraying hint of amusement in his voice. “Only, do calm yourself, Your Highness; you don’t want to bring on one of your spasms.” He caught the eye of the Prince’s private physician, who was hovering nearby.

  The doctor bowed and withdrew.

  Jarvis’s immense power did
not derive from his kinship with the King, which was distant. It was his peerless blend of stunning intelligence and unswerving dedication to the preservation of the monarchy combined with a cold, unblinking ruthlessness that had made him indispensable first to George III, then to the Prince Regent. For thirty years, Jarvis had maneuvered from the shadows, deftly blunting the inevitable repercussions of a dangerous combination of royal weakness and incompetence complicated by a hereditary tendency toward insanity. If not for Jarvis’s capable stewardship, the English monarchy might well have gone the way of the French, and the Hanovers knew it.

  “Any idea who is responsible for this outrage?” demanded the Prince.

  “Not yet, my lord.”

  They were in the Circular Room of Carlton House, where George had been hosting a musical evening when some fool carelessly dropped the news of the murder of Daniel Eisler within the Prince’s hearing.

  They’d had to clear the room quickly.

  The Regent continued pacing, his movements surprisingly quick and energetic for a man of his girth. Once, he’d been a handsome prince, beloved by his people and welcomed with cheers wherever he went. But those days were long gone. The Prince of Wales-or Prinny, as he was often called-was now in his fiftieth year, grown fat with self-indulgence and dissipation, and despised by the nation for his spiraling debts, his endless extravagant building projects, and his increasing fondness for expensive jeweled trinkets.

  “I’ve already commissioned Belmont to design a special piece around it,” said the Prince. “And now you’re telling me the diamond is gone? Vanished? Where am I to find another blue diamond of such size and brilliance? You tell me that! Hmm?”

  “When the murderer is apprehended, the diamond will presumably be recovered,” said Jarvis as the Prince’s physician reentered the room, a small vial in his hand. Behind the doctor came one of Jarvis’s own men, a tall, mustachioed ex-military officer of the type with whom Jarvis liked to surround himself.

  “Well?” Jarvis demanded of his henchman.

  “They’ve nabbed the murderer,” said the officer, leaning for-

  ward to whisper in Jarvis’s ear. “I think you’ll find his identity interesting.”

  “Oh?” Jarvis kept his gaze on the Prince, who was obediently swallowing his doctor’s potion. “And why is that?”

  “It’s Yates. Russell Yates.”

  Jarvis tipped back his head and laughed.

  Jarvis held a scented pomander to his nose, the heels of his dress shoes clicking on the worn paving stones as he strode down the frigid, rush-lit prison corridor. Normally, he ordered prisoners brought to his chambers at the Palace. But under the circumstances, seeing this man in his cell seemed more. . delectable.

  The stocky turnkey paused outside a thick, nail-studded door, the heavy iron key raised, one bushy eyebrow cocked in a wordless question.

  “Well, go on, then; open it,” said Jarvis, breathing in the scent of cloves and rue.

  The man fit the key in the large lock and turned it with a click.

  The feeble light of a single smoking tallow candle filled the narrow room beyond with dark shadows. A man standing beside the cell’s barred window turned abruptly, chains clanking, as the draft of the opening door caused the flame to flicker and almost go out. He was a young man, in his thirties, his body powerful and well muscled, his handsome face filled with an expression of anticipation that faded when his gaze fell on his visitor.

  Jarvis wondered whom the man had been expecting. His lovely wife, perhaps? The thought made Jarvis smile.

  The two men regarded each other from across the width of the small room. Then Jarvis drew a jeweled snuffbox from his pocket and said, “We need to talk.”

  Chapter 3

  Monday, 21 September

  The morning dawned dull and overcast, the air crisp with an unseasonably sharp reminder of winter days to come. Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, drew up on the verge of the carriageway, the breath of his elegant, highbred chestnuts showing frosty white as they snorted and hung their heads. It was nearly seven, and they’d been out all night.

  For a moment, Sebastian paused, his gaze narrowing as he studied the cluster of constables near the bank of the canal. They were on the southwestern edge of Hyde Park, far from the carefully groomed fashionable rides and promenades favored by the residents of Mayfair. Here, the grass grew rough, brush choked the clusters of trees, and what few paths existed were narrow and seldom traveled.

  He handed the reins to his tiger, a half-grown groom named Tom who scrambled forward from his perch at the rear of the curricle. “Best walk ’em,” said Sebastian, dropping lightly to the ground. “There’s a nasty bite to that wind, and they’re tired.”

  “Aye, gov’nor.” Tom’s scattering of freckles stood out stark against his pale skin. He had a sharp-featured face, held tight now with exhaustion and suppressed emotion. He was thirteen years old, a onetime street urchin and pickpocket who had been with Sebastian for nearly two years. They were master and servant, but they were also more than that, which was why Tom felt compelled to add, “I’m sorry ’bout your friend.”

  Sebastian nodded and turned to cut across the meadow, the soles of his Hessian boots leaving a faint trail of crushed grass behind him. He had spent the past ten hours in an increasingly concerned search for his missing friend, a devil-may-care, charming scapegrace of a Taffy named Major Rhys Wilkinson. At first, Sebastian had wondered if Wilkinson’s wife might be overreacting when she asked for his help; he’d suspected Rhys simply popped in for a pint someplace, fell in with old friends, and forgot the time. But Annie Wilkinson kept insisting Rhys would never do that. And as night bled slowly into dawn, Sebastian himself had become convinced that something was terribly wrong.

  As he approached the stand of oaks near the canal, a familiar middle-aged man, small and bespectacled and wrapped in a great-

  coat more suited to the dead of winter than a chilly September morning, broke off his conversation with one of the constables and walked forward to meet him.

  “Sir Henry,” said Sebastian. “Thank you for sending me word.”

  “Sorry news, I’m afraid,” said Sir Henry Lovejoy. Once of Queen Square’s public office, Sir Henry was the newest of Bow Street’s three stipendiary magistrates, a man who undertook his responsibilities with a seriousness born of his own personal tragedies and a dour religious outlook. He and Sebastian might be unlikely friends, but friends they were.

  Sebastian gazed beyond the magistrate, to where the lifeless body of a tall, dark-haired man in his early thirties lay curled on its side next to a rustic bench. “What happened to him?”

  “Unfortunately, that’s not readily apparent,” said Lovejoy as they walked toward the body. “There are no discernable signs of violence. He was found lying much as you see him. It’s as if he sat down to rest and then collapsed. I understand he has been ill for some time?”

  Sebastian nodded. “Walcheren fever. He fought it as long as he could, but in the end he was invalided out of the service.”

  The magistrate tut-tutted softly. “Ah, yes; terrible business, that. Terrible.” The 1809 assault on the Dutch island of Walcheren was the kind of military debacle most Englishmen tried to forget. The largest British expeditionary force ever assembled up to that time had embarked with the ambitious aim of taking first Flushing and then Antwerp, in preparation for a march on Paris. Instead, they’d been forced to withdraw from the island after only a few months, in the grip of a medical disaster. In the end, more than a quarter of the forty thousand men involved succumbed to a mysterious disease from which few ever recovered.

  Sebastian hunkered down beside his friend’s body. The two men had met nearly ten years before as subalterns, when Sebastian bought his first commission as a raw cornet and Wilkinson had just won promotion to the same rank. The son of a poor vicar who’d served with the common soldiers as a “gentleman volunteer” for three long years before a vacancy opened up, Wilkinson made no attempt to hid
e his good-humored scorn for the young Earl’s heir, whose wealth enabled him to step straight into a rank Wilkinson himself had had to fight to earn. Sebastian won the older man’s respect only slowly; friendship between them had taken even longer. But it had come.

  Wilkinson still wore the proud swooping mustache of a cavalry officer. But his clothes were those of a gentleman down on his luck, the cuffs of his shirt neatly darned at the edges, his coat showing the effects of one too many brushings. Once, he’d been a strapping officer, tanned dark by the sun and full of life. But years of illness had wasted his once powerful body and left his skin sallow and sunken. Reaching out, Sebastian touched his friend’s cheek, then brought his hand back to rest on his own thigh, fingers curled. “He’s stone-cold. He must have been here all night.”

  “So it would seem. Hopefully Paul Gibson will be able to tell us for certain after the postmortem.”

  Like Sebastian and Wilkinson, Gibson had once worn the King’s colors. A regimental surgeon, he’d honed his craft on the charnel-house battlefields of Europe. No one was better at ferreting out the secrets a dead body might have to tell-which was why Gibson was the last person Sebastian wanted examining this body.

  He swiped one hand across his beard-roughened face. “Is that necessary? I mean, if he died of the fever. .”

  Lovejoy looked vaguely surprised. Normally, Sebastian was a vocal proponent of the still relatively new and highly controversial practice of autopsying the bodies of victims of murder or suspicious death. “Still best to be certain-wouldn’t you say, my lord? Although I don’t doubt you’re right. From the looks of things, he sat down on the bench to rest and suffered a seizure of some sort. Poor man. One wonders what possessed him to push himself by walking so far. And at night, after the park was closed.”