What Darkness Brings sscm-8 Page 6

  Sebastian knew her marriage to Yates had never been-could never be-more than one of convenience. Yates’s association with the most beautiful, most desirable woman of the London stage was for him a tactic to quiet the whispers about his sexuality, while Kat, in exchange, gained the protection of whatever damaging information Yates held against Jarvis. It was a marriage devoid of both sexual attraction and romantic love. But Sebastian knew that over the past year the two had nevertheless become friends-good friends. And Kat had always been fiercely loyal to her friends.

  Yet Sebastian couldn’t shake the feeling there was something more to her concern, a subtle nuance that eluded him.

  He said, “You told me once that Yates has evidence against Jarvis-evidence of something that would ruin him if it became known.”

  “Yes.”

  “It should be in Jarvis’s best interest to see that no harm comes to Yates. If anyone has the power to get the charges against him dropped, it’s Jarvis. So why hasn’t he done it?”

  She drew in a deep, troubled breath, a subtle betrayal that was unusual for her.

  “What?” he asked, watching her.

  “Jarvis visited Yates in his cell last night. Yates says he came to reassure him that he was in no danger.”

  “But you don’t believe him?”

  She shook her head, her lips pressed into a tight line as she turned her horse back onto Bishopsgate. “Yates used to think the evidence he has against Jarvis could protect us both. Only, I’m not so sure.”

  Sebastian knew a sense of profound disquiet. If given a choice between saving Kat and saving himself, he had little doubt which Yates would choose.

  But all he said was, “How well did you know Eisler?”

  “I didn’t. But I’ve been asking around. Word on the street has it he was killed by a Parisian named Jacques Collot. Collot likes to claim he fled France during the Revolution because his monarchist principles were revolted by the excesses of republican and democratic fervor. But from what I’m hearing, the truth is probably considerably less flattering.”

  Sebastian frowned. “What was his connection to Eisler?”

  “Let’s just say Eisler wasn’t exactly careful about the origins of the jewels he bought. He also had a tendency to cheat the people he did business with.”

  “You think he cheated Collot?”

  She drew up outside the Black Devil again, where her groom was rushing to finish eating a paper-wrapped sausage he’d bought from a nearby cart. “They say Collot was heard raging about Eisler in a tavern just two nights ago-swore next time he saw the man he was going to kill him.”

  “Drunken talk is cheap.”

  “True. But it’s a place to start, isn’t it?”

  “It is, yes. Do you know where I can find this man?”

  She shook her head. “Sorry.”

  He dropped lightly to the paving, then paused with one hand on the seat’s high railing. He had the unsettling sense that there were unseen but powerful forces at work behind all this. Powerful and dangerous. He glanced over at her groom. “Is your man armed?”

  She pressed her lips into a thin, tight line and shook her head. “I refuse to allow Jarvis to frighten me.”

  “Jarvis frightens me, Kat. Please, just. . be careful.”

  Returning to Brook Street, Sebastian sent for his valet and asked without preamble, “Ever hear of a somewhat unsavory Frenchman named Jacques Collot?”

  Most gentlemen’s gentlemen would be outraged by their employer’s suggestion that they consorted with or were in any way familiar with the members of London’s vast criminal class. But Jules Calhoun was not your ordinary gentleman’s gentleman. Small and lithe, with a boyish shock of flaxen hair and a roguish smile, he was a genius at repairing the ravages the pursuit of murderers could at times inflict on Sebastian’s wardrobe. But he also possessed certain other skills useful to a man with Sebastian’s interests-skills that had their origins in the fact that he began life in one of the worst flash houses in London.

  “I have heard of him, my lord,” said Calhoun. “I believe he arrived in London some ten or fifteen years ago. But I can’t say I know much about him.”

  “Know where he lives?”

  “No. But I can find out.”

  Several hours later, Sebastian was seated at the desk in his library with Knox’s manuscript open before him when Hero came in.

  She still wore her emerald green carriage dress, although the plume in her jaunty hat was now sadly drooping, for it had come on to rain. “Ah, there you are,” she said, taking off her hat to frown down at the bedraggled feather.

  “So, did your crossing sweep talk to you?” he asked, leaning back in his chair.

  “He did. And you would not believe some of the things he told me.” She came to peer over his shoulder at the manuscript. “I didn’t know you read Hebrew.”

  “I don’t. I’m looking at the pictures. They’re. . strange.”

  She let her gaze run over the page, her eyes widening slightly at the illustration of what looked like a spinning wheel surrounded by odd symbols. “Where did this come from?”

  “I’m told it was smuggled into the country for Daniel Eisler, although he died before he could take delivery. And I haven’t the slightest idea what it is.”

  She turned the pages, pausing to stare at an illustration of a fanged demon with the wings of an eagle. “I could be wrong, but it looks as if your Mr. Eisler was interested in the occult.”

  “What makes you think-” He broke off as Calhoun appeared in the doorway.

  “I beg your pardon, my lord,” said the valet, beginning to back away. “I’d no notion her ladyship-”

  “That’s quite all right,” said Sebastian. “Did you find Collot?”

  “I did, my lord. I’m told he keeps a room at the Pilgrim in White Lyon Street.”

  “Good God.”

  The valet’s eyes danced with amusement. “I take it you’re familiar with the establishment?”

  “I am.”

  Calhoun cast a significant glance at Hero, who was busy thumbing through the tattered old manuscript. “Shall I have Tom bring the curricle around, my lord?”

  “No; after last night, I told him I wanted him to rest today. Send Giles.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “Who’s Collot?” Hero asked after Calhoun had gone. “And what is so nasty about the Pilgrim that neither you nor Calhoun care to sully my lady’s delicate ears with it?”

  Sebastian gave a soft laugh. “Collot is a reputedly unsavory Frenchman who may have had something to do with Eisler’s death, while the Pilgrim is a den of vice and iniquity in Seven Dials.”

  “Hmm. You’ll take a pistol with you, of course?”

  “My dear Lady Devlin, are you perhaps worried about my safety?”

  “Not really,” she said, a smile flickering around her lips as she turned back to the book. “Do you mind if I look at this while you’re gone?”

  “You don’t by any chance read Hebrew?”

  “Sadly, no. But I know someone who does.”

  Chapter 12

  A quarter of an hour later, Sebastian walked down the steps of his house to find the curricle waiting, with Tom standing at the grays’ heads.

  “What the devil are you doing here? I told you to take the day off and rest. Where’s Giles?”

  “Giles is feeling peakish. And I done rested-for hours.”

  Sebastian leapt up to take the reins. “I don’t recall hearing anything about Giles feeling ‘peakish.’”

  Tom scrambled onto his perch. “Well, he is.”

  Sebastian cast the tiger a suspicious glance.

  But Tom only grinned.

  Lying just to the northwest of Covent Garden, the nest of fetid alleys and dark courts known as Seven Dials had once been a prosperous area favored by poets and ambassadors and favorites of Good Ole Queen Bess. Those days were long gone. The once grand houses of brick and stone lining the main thoroughfares were now falling into r
uin, their pleasure gardens and parks vanished beneath a warren of squalid hovels built of wood and given over to beggars and thieves and costermongers of the meanest sort.

  The Pilgrim, on a narrow lane just off Castle Street, was technically licensed to sell beer as well as spirits but appeared to cater mainly to those who preferred their alcohol in the form of cheap gin.

  “A go of Cork,” said Sebastian, walking up to the counter.

  The gin slinger, a stout, aging woman with a massive bosom swelling out of the bodice of her ragged, dirty dress, looked at him through narrowed, suspicious eyes as she splashed gin into a smudged glass. “Wot ye doin’ ’ere? We don’t need yer kind ’ere. Yer kind is always trouble.”

  “I’m looking for Jacques Collot. Know where I might find him?”

  “Collot?” She sniffed and shook her head. “Never ’eard o’ ’im.”

  Sebastian laid a half crown on the stained countertop. “If you do happen to see him, tell him I have a job he might be interested in, would you?”

  “I told ye, I ain’t never ’eard o’ ’im.” But the coin disappeared.

  Sebastian went to settle at one of the rickety tables at the rear of the room, the glass of pungent gin twirling back and forth between his fingertips. He even raised it as if to drink a few times, although he was careful not to let it touch his lips.

  A sluggish fire burned on the shallow hearth, filling the room with a bitter smoke that didn’t encourage many of the patrons to linger. Sebastian watched a steady stream of men file into the low-ceilinged chamber, throw down a shot of gin at a penny a glass, then leave again. As far as he could tell, the glasses were never washed.

  After some five or ten minutes, a stocky, middle-aged man with graying side-whiskers and one strangely wayward eye walked through the door. Bypassing the counter, he came straight to pull out the chair opposite Sebastian and sit.

  They say Collot’s got a wandering eye, can’t control which way it looks, Calhoun had told Sebastian before he left Brook Street. He’s maybe forty or forty-five; about my height but carrying more flesh.

  “I hear that you search for Collot,” the man with the faulty eye said in a heavy French accent. “I am not he, mais je puis-er, I can perhaps find him for you, if you wish. Yes?”

  Sebastian nodded to the slatternly barmaid, who slapped a shot of gin down in front of the Frenchman, exchanged a veiled glance with him, and went away again.

  The man downed his gin in one long pull and licked his lips. “You have a job, yes?”

  “For Collot.”

  “Collot, he is my good friend since many years. You tell me, I tell him.”

  “You knew him in Paris, did you?”

  “Mais oui. We were the children together. In Montmartre. You know Paris?”

  “I heard Collot was a jewel thief in Paris.”

  The man leaned back in his seat, his mouth hanging open in a parody of shock. “A thief? Non. Who says such a thing?”

  “The same people who say the nob in Newgate didn’t kill Daniel Eisler. They say Collot did it.”

  The man shoved up from his chair, ready to run, his wandering eye rolling wildly. “Monsieur!”

  “I suggest you sit down,” said Sebastian quietly. “There are two Bow Street runners waiting out the front for you, and two more out the back.” He punctuated the lie with a smile. “You can talk to them if you prefer, but I suspect you might find it more pleasant to deal with me.”

  Collot sank back down into his seat, his voice hoarse. “What do you want from me?”

  “How did you know Eisler?”

  “But I didn’t say I-”

  “You knew him. Tell me how.”

  Collot licked his lips again, and Sebastian signaled the barmaid for another shot of gin.

  “How?” Sebastian repeated after the woman left.

  “I knew him years ago.”

  “In Paris?”

  Collot downed the second gin and shook his head. “Amsterdam.”

  “When was this?”

  “’Ninety-two.”

  “You sold him jewels?”

  The Frenchman’s lip curled, his nose wrinkling like that of a man who has just smelled something foul. “He was scum. The worst kind of scum. He’d as soon cheat you as look at you, and then he’d laugh in your face and call you a fool.”

  “Did he cheat you?”

  As if aware of the pit yawning before him, Collot drew himself up straighter in his chair. “Me? Mais non. Not me.”

  Sebastian tilted his gin back and forth between his fingertips, aware of the Frenchman’s eyes upon it. “The jewels you sold to Eisler in Amsterdam in ’ninety-two, where did you get them?”

  “My family. For generations, the Collots have been lapidaries. Ask anyone who knew Paris, before. They’ll tell you. But by the autumn of ’ninety-two, things were bad-very bad. We could not stay. We took refuge in Amsterdam.”

  “And sold Eisler your jewels?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’ve had no dealings with him here in London?”

  “No.”

  “That’s not what I’m hearing.”

  “Perhaps people have me confused with someone else. Some other emigre.”

  “Perhaps.” Sebastian shifted in his seat so that he could cross his outthrust boots at the ankles. “Who do you think killed Eisler?”

  Collot touched the back of one hand to his nose and sniffed. “What you trying to do to me, hmm? People see me talking to a Bow Street runner, what are they to think? You try to get me killed?”

  “I’m not a runner, and everyone in here thinks I’m offering you a job. What kind of jobs do you do, exactly?”

  Collot sniffed again. “This and that.”

  Sebastian shoved his own untouched gin across the table. After a moment’s hesitation, Collot picked it up and raised the glass to his lips, his hand shaking so badly he almost spilled it.

  “You’re afraid of something,” said Sebastian, watching him. “What is it?

  Collot drained the glass, then leaned forward, his lips wet, the veins in his forehead bulging against his sweat-slicked skin. Sebastian could smell the fear roiling off him, mingling with the stench of stale sweat and cheap gin. The Frenchman threw a quick glance around, his voice dropping to a whisper. “Eisler was peddling a big diamond. A big blue diamond.”

  “How large of a diamond are we talking about?”

  “Forty-five or fifty carats. Perhaps more.”

  “Where did it come from?”

  “Only one big blue diamond I know about, and that’s the one belongs to the banker, Hope.”

  “Henry Philip Hope?”

  “No. The other one. His brother, Thomas.”

  “I haven’t heard anything about a big blue diamond being associated with Eisler’s death.”

  “That’s my point. No one has heard about it. So I ask you, where is it? Hmm?” He wiped a trembling hand across his mouth and said it again. “Where is it?”

  Chapter 13

  Sebastian figured he could automatically discount upward of ninety percent of what Jacques Collot had told him. But the Frenchman’s fear, at least, had been real. And his reference to the Hopes was so unexpected, so outrageous, that Sebastian decided it just might be worth looking into.

  A respectable old family of Scottish merchant bankers, the Hopes had settled in Amsterdam in the previous century and prospered there for generations. The family business, Hope and Company, was the kind of financial establishment that lent money to kings. Just ten years before, they had put together the financial package that enabled the fledgling United States to purchase the Louisiana Territory from Napoleon’s France-thus, coincidentally, helping to fund the continuing French war effort.

  But the Hopes were, predictably enough, not particularly anxious to experience republican principles firsthand. When the French armies marched on Amsterdam and The Hague, the Hopes packed up their vast collection of paintings and sculptures and gems and scurried back across the Cha
nnel to England.

  Sebastian’s acquaintance with the Hopes was limited to desultory state dinner parties and crowded ballrooms and various similar functions of the kind he generally preferred to avoid. If he had been in Thomas Hope’s vast museum-like house in Duchess Street, he didn’t recall it. But when Sebastian sent up his card, the Hopes’ very proper English butler quickly showed him in. One did not turn away the heir of Alistair St. Cyr, Earl of Hendon and Chancellor of the Exchequer.

  Thomas Hope greeted him with a wide smile and firm handshake. But his small eyes were hooded and wary, and Sebastian found himself wondering why.

  “Devlin! Good to see you. This is a surprise. Please, have a seat.” A short, ungainly man in his forties with a craggy, almost brutish-looking face, he stretched out a hand toward a yellow satin-covered settee that looked like something Cleopatra might have reclined upon while awaiting Mark Antony. “And how is your father?”

  To a casual observer, the remark might have seemed innocent; it was not. Everyone who was anyone in London knew that a deep and lasting estrangement had grown up between the Earl of Hendon and his heir.

  “He is well, thank you.” Sebastian returned the banker’s practiced smile. “And you?”

  As they exchanged the customary polite nothings, Sebastian let his gaze drift around the room, taking in the mummy cases painted on the ceiling, the alabaster vases, the regal, Egyptian-style cats, the life-sized portrait of a beautiful, dark-haired, sloe-eyed woman painted on worn boards that looked very much like part of an ancient sarcophagus.

  “Is that from a Ptolemaic tomb?” Sebastian asked, staring at it.

  Hope appeared delighted. “You recognize it! It is, yes. This is what I call my Egyptian Room. The piece you’re sitting on was manufactured to my own design, based on drawings I did of a similar relic discovered in a tomb near the Nile while I was there.”

  Sebastian glanced down at the settee’s black wooden frame, which was decorated with paintings of the jackal-headed god Anubis and had bronze scarabs for feet. Thomas, he now remembered, was the Hope brother with little interest in the actual business that generated the family’s fortune. Leaving his relatives to mind the bank and mercantile empire, he’d spent much of his youth on an extended Grand Tour, visiting not only Europe but Africa and Asia, as well. Now confined to Britain by the disruptions of war, he devoted himself largely to increasing his stature as a patron of the arts. Lately he’d also taken to his pen, publishing a folio volume entitled Household Furniture and Interior Decoration, followed shortly by Costumes of the Ancients. His newest project was reportedly a grandly ambitious philosophical work on the origins and prospects of man, although he was said to despair of ever finishing it.