Why Mermaids Sing: A Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery Read online

  For an instant, the man’s eyes left Sebastian’s face, his gaze flicking to the flintlock at Sebastian’s side. The man’s expression never altered. “I’ve come to offer you some friendly advice.”

  “Advice?”

  “Advice. I was hired to give you a warning. You know the kind. A dead cat on your doorstep. A brick through your window in the middle of the night. But then I thought, Why play games? There’s something the gentleman needs to understand, so why not simply explain it to him?”

  “Hence the advice.”

  “That’s right.” The man in the slouch hat brought up his left hand to scratch the side of his nose. “The thing is, you see, you’ve been asking too many questions. The gentleman who hired me wants you to stop.”

  “You mean, asking questions about Barclay Carmichael and Dominic Stanton.”

  The man smiled again. “That’s right. See? I knew you’d understand.”

  “Who hired you? Lord Stanton or Sir Humphrey Carmichael?”

  The man’s smile slid away. “Now there you go, asking questions. Not a good idea, remember?”

  The man was starting to annoy Sebastian. “Just who are you, anyway?”

  “My name isn’t important. I’m just the messenger.”

  “And the adviser.”

  “So to speak.”

  “And if I fail to heed your advice?”

  The man’s smile was completely gone now. “That would be unwise.”

  Sebastian signaled his footman, who leapt forward to let down the carriage steps. “Give your employer some advice from me, why don’t you?” Sebastian said.

  The man pivoted to keep his face toward Sebastian as Sebastian moved past him to the carriage. The man’s right hand never left his pocket. Sebastian never raised the pistol from his side. “Tell your employer I don’t like people who kill cats. I have a real objection to heavy rocks being thrown through my windows. And if he sends anyone after me again, I’ll kill him.”

  Something glittered in the other man’s eyes, something that was both a warning and a promise. “Till we meet again, then,” he said, and faded into the night.

  Sebastian settled into the corner of his carriage, the flintlock resting against his knee. He could hear the distant strains of music from his aunt’s ballroom and, from nearer at hand, a woman’s laughter.

  His questions were obviously making someone uncomfortable. The threat against him had been serious, the man who delivered it a professional. Leaning forward, Sebastian signaled his coachman to drive on. He had no intention of heeding the man’s warning, of course. Which meant that he’d be meeting the gentleman in the slouch hat again.

  Only next time, Sebastian knew, he wouldn’t see the man coming.

  Chapter 20

  TUESDAY, 17 SEPTEMBER 1811

  Early the next morning, Sebastian received an unexpected visit from a furtive little man with sun-darkened skin and an accent that could change from Geordie to Cockney or from French to Spanish to Italian and back again in an instant. His name was Emmanuel Jones, and he had once worked for Sebastian in the Army. Now he was working for Sebastian again in an entirely different capacity. He was searching for Sebastian’s mother.

  “That ship you was askin’ about,” said Jones. “The San Remo? You were right. It didn’t sink seventeen years ago. It made port at the Hague, then worked its way along the coast in slow stages, through the straights of Gibraltar and around the toe of Italy, to Venice.”

  Sebastian rested his elbows on his library’s broad desktop and studied the enigmatic features of the man who stood before him. “And the Englishwoman who was on it?”

  “She calls herself Lady Sophia Sedlow now.”

  Sebastian nodded. Sedlow had been his mother’s maiden name. “And?”

  “She lived for a time in Venice, with a poet. He died. Nine years ago.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “She left Italy in the company of a Frenchman, sometime around 1803. One of Napoleon’s generals.”

  “Which one?”

  “Becnel.”

  Sebastian stood from behind his desk and went to fiddle with the inlaid Moroccan box he kept on a shelf near the hearth. It was a moment before he trusted himself to speak. “She’s in France now?”

  “Yes. But I don’t know exactly where.”

  Sebastian swung to look at him. “Then why are you here?”

  Something flickered across the man’s normally impassive face. “I’m not messing with Becnel.”

  Crossing to his desk, Sebastian opened a drawer and drew forth an envelope from which he counted a stack of banknotes. “Speak of this to anyone,” he said, shoving the notes across the desk, “and I’ll kill you. It’s as simple as that.”

  Jones folded the money out of sight with a sniff. “I know how to keep me mouth shut.”

  After he had gone, Sebastian went to stand, again, beside the empty hearth, his gaze fixed unseeingly on the cold, empty grate. He would need to find another agent, someone both trustworthy and unafraid to venture into the heart of Napoleon’s France.

  It wouldn’t be easy. But it could be done.

  He spent much of what was left of the morning interviewing applicants for the position of valet.

  “We come highly recommended,” said one of the applicants, a softly rounded man named Flint who affected a thin black mustache and punctuated his words with soft flutterings of his flawlessly manicured white hands. “Highly recommended, indeed.”

  Sebastian glanced through the valet’s glowing credentials and felt a spurt of cautious optimism. In a field of applicants distinguished by nothing so much as mediocrity, the man looked promising. “So I see. You take considerable pride in your work, I understand.”

  “We consider our work more than a vocation,” said Flint, sitting painfully upright in a chair on the opposite side of Sebastian’s desk. “For us, taking care of our gentleman is akin to a calling. No measure is too extreme to achieve the best presentation. If a gentleman is a bit thin in the calf, we add padding to the stockings. If a gentleman grows corpulent in his advancing years, we are conversant with the discreet use of the corset. And for that unfortunate tendency displayed by some gentlemen to grow hair on the backs of the fingers, we are well versed in the art of hot waxing.”

  Something of Sebastian’s reaction to this speech must have shown on his face, for the valet hastened to add, “Not that your lordship requires any of these extreme measures.”

  “Thank God for that.”

  The valet tilted his head, subjecting Sebastian to an intense scrutiny that made him feel like a nag being offered for sale at Tattersall’s. “We would, of course, press for a bit more precision in the presentation. Sporting gentlemen can sometimes be a tad too careless in their dressing, if you know what we mean? A few extra hours spent at the toilette each morning can make such a difference.”

  “A few extra hours?”

  Flint nodded. “No more than two or three.”

  Sebastian leaned back in his chair and pressed his fingertips together. “I’m something of an eccentric creature, I fear. There are times when I find it expedient to dress in the type of garments one customarily sees for sale in places such as Rosemary Lane. I trust you would have no difficulty with that?”

  Flint gave a nervous titter. “Your lordship is…most droll.”

  “On the contrary, I am entirely serious.”

  The valet’s pained smile fell, just as Tom came catapulting into the room, bringing with him the scent of sunbaked streets, hot boy, and the pervasive, earthy odor of the stables.

  “I’ve a message from Sir ’Enry,” said the tiger, breathing hard. “’E’s discovered another murder ’e thinks might be linked to the two young gentlemen what snuffed it here in London. Seems they found a body in a churchyard down in Kent, way last April. Gutted like a bleedin’ fish, ’e was—”

  “Merciful heavens,” said the valet, pressing a snowy handkerchief to his lips.

  “—and Sir ’Enry,�
�� continued Tom, casting the valet a curious glance, “’e wants to know if’n you’d be interested in drivin’ down there with ’im this mornin’.”

  Sebastian pushed back his chair and turned to the valet. “If you’ll excuse me, Mr. Flint—”

  But the little man with the neat black mustache and soft white hands was already gone.

  “The boy’s name was Thornton,” said Sir Henry Lovejoy, one hand held up to anchor his round hat more firmly to his bald head, the other hand gripping the edge of the seat beside him. “Mr. Nicholas Thornton.”

  Lovejoy was beginning to regret his decision to make the journey down to the Kentish town of Avery in Viscount Devlin’s curricle, with that irreclaimable pickpocket Tom ensconced on the tiger’s perch in the back. Lovejoy did not have a fondness for horseflesh; nor did he share his lordship’s obvious delight in speed. Lord Devlin feathered a turn, his horses’ flashing hooves eating up the miles. Lovejoy closed his eyes.

  “How old was he?” asked the Viscount.

  Lovejoy forced himself to open his eyes. There was no denying that the Viscount seemed to have his horses under perfect control. Lovejoy loosened his hold on the seat and drew in a deep breath. “Just nineteen. He was a divinity student up at Cambridge. Studying to enter the church, like his father.”

  “The church?” said Devlin in surprise.

  Lovejoy nodded. “The boy’s father is the rector at St. Andrews. The Reverend William Thornton.”

  “What makes you think there’s a connection between his death and the London murders?”

  Lovejoy himself found the similarities in the deaths difficult to comprehend. A rector, while considerably more distinguished than a vicar or a mere curate, was of a social rank far different from that enjoyed by either Stanton or Carmichael. “As I understand it, the boy’s body was hacked open and his organs removed. I know little beyond that. I’m afraid young Mr. Thornton’s killing attracted considerably less attention than the recent murders in London. Avery is, after all, some distance from Town.”

  “And the boy’s father was only a clergyman,” said the Viscount.

  Lovejoy kept his face wooden. “Just so.”

  The white gate of a toll appeared up ahead. The urchin Tom blew a blast on his yard of tin as Devlin drew up and waited for the keeper to amble out of his cottage.

  “You say the boy was killed last April?” said Devlin, after the toll was cleared.

  “When he came down for the Easter holiday. Took a pole and went out fishing sometime in the late afternoon.”

  “By himself?”

  “So it would appear. They later found his pole beside a stream that runs behind the vicarage.”

  “And the body?”

  “Wasn’t discovered until the next morning at dawn. The killer left the boy in the rector’s own churchyard, lying atop one of the tombs.”

  Chapter 21

  A very proved to be a sleepy Kentish market town with a wide High Street curving down a gentle hill toward the banks of the Medway below. It was dominated by its old Norman church, St. Andrews, which stood in the midst of an ancient but well-tended churchyard of scythed grass dotted with worn gray tombstones. To the south of the church lay the rectory, a pleasantly proportioned house of mellow red brick built late in the last century, with twin, two-story bay windows protruding gracefully on either side of a small white porch.

  The Reverend William Thornton received them in a study overlooking the rambling untidy gardens that stretched away from the rear of the vicarage. The study was a scholar’s refuge, filled with piles of manuscript pages and ancient leather-bound volumes that overflowed the room’s many bookcases to spill onto tables and across the floor.

  They found him seated in a green leather chair beside the empty hearth, a frail-looking man with wispy gray hair and a prominent nose made more conspicuous by the gauntness of his cheeks. A rug covered his legs. He did not stand at their entrance.

  “You must forgive me for not rising to greet you,” he said when the stout middle-aged housekeeper in a mobcap ushered them in to see him. “I fear my legs no longer support me. But please do not allow my infirmity to lead you to deduce that you are unwelcome. It’s not often I receive visitors from London. Please, sit down. Mrs. Ross, some tea.”

  “Please accept our apologies for intruding upon you,” said Lovejoy, taking a seat on a nearby comfortably worn sofa. “But we must ask you some questions about your son.”

  Declining a seat, Sebastian went to stand with one hip resting on the low sill of a window overlooking the garden. He watched as Thornton’s pale cheeks sagged, his lips trembling for a moment before he pressed them tightly together.

  “It’s because of these killings in London, isn’t it? You think there’s some connection?”

  “There may be,” said Lovejoy.

  One of the Reverend’s bony, heavily veined hands tightened on the edge of the rug in his lap. “Mrs. Ross told me about this last one, the Stanton boy. It’s terrible, just terrible.”

  “What can you tell us about the day your son disappeared, Mr. Thornton?”

  The rector sat in silence for a moment. When he spoke, his voice was hushed and oddly flat, as if he could speak only by sealing off his every emotion from the tale he was telling. “Nicholas was up at Cambridge, but he’d come down for the Easter holidays. He used to spend every minute he could when he was home in the wood behind the house, and that was where he went that morning. It was a Wednesday. He was due to return to Cambridge in just a few days.”

  “He went fishing?”

  “He took a pole with him, but I think it was something in the nature of a prop, so he’d look productive.” Amusement gleamed, then was gone in an instant. “He said he’d be back in an hour or two, in time for nuncheon.”

  “But he didn’t come back?”

  “No. I didn’t worry at first. You know what boys are like. But as the afternoon wore on, I became concerned. Nicholas was not usually so careless. When the shadows began to lengthen toward evening, I finally decided to go looking for him. I found his pole and his shoes beside the stream, near his favorite fishing hole. But nothing else. It was as if he had vanished.”

  “Was there any sign of a struggle?”

  “No. Some men from the town volunteered to help me search the wood and beyond.” Thornton restlessly shifted his legs. “I wasn’t so infirm then, you see. We fanned out over the entire area, but we found nothing. Not until the following morning.”

  “When his body was discovered in the churchyard.”

  The Reverend’s lower lip quivered. “Yes.”

  Sir Henry hesitated, as if reluctant to press on. He glanced at Sebastian, who said, “Was your son by any chance acquainted with either Dominic Stanton or Barclay Carmichael?”

  Thornton’s eyes widened. “No. Not to my knowledge. Nicholas was up at Cambridge, studying divinity. I can’t imagine he would have met either one.”

  “Tell us about your son, Reverend,” said Sir Henry, his voice unusually gentle. “What was he like?”

  A sad smile touched the rector’s lips and brought a brief spark of life to the tired old eyes. “He was one of the most curious children I’ve ever known, always asking questions, wanting to see how things worked.”

  “And as a young man?”

  “He was little changed. He was still a child in so many ways. Not in his mind,” the clergyman added quickly. “He was always very bright. But in his ways and interests.”

  “Have you other children?”

  “No.”

  Sebastian let his gaze drift over the neglected garden to the small glebe and, beyond that, the stretch of wood where the boy had disappeared.

  “Can you think of anyone who might have had a grudge against your son,” Sir Henry asked, “either real or imagined?”

  The Reverend drew a deep breath that lifted his thin chest, then let it out in a sigh. “Not that I know of. Nicholas was a very quiet boy. Quiet and serious. My wife used to worry about him. She
used to say he was more at ease with books than with people.” Again that wistful smile touched his lips only to vanish, leaving him looking more stricken than before. “I thank God every day she didn’t live to see what happened to him.”

  “Your wife is dead?”

  The Reverend nodded sadly. “She died this past January, right after Christmas.”

  Sebastian was careful not to look at Lovejoy. He’d heard it said that once the magistrate had had a wife. A wife and a child both, now long dead.

  “You have our deepest sympathies,” murmured the magistrate.

  Sebastian found his gaze drawn again to the scene outside the window. To the north of the garden with its brick paths and overflowing clumps of marigold and santolina, lavender and roses, lay the church of St. Andrews. Through a gap in the high yew hedge he could see the church’s squat medieval buttresses and an ancient square tower that thrust up broodingly against the blue September sky. The churchyard was an expanse of carefully tended green, far tidier than the rectory’s own garden and crowded with a scattering of ancient gray headstones and tombs. He wondered if the Reverend had been the one to find his son’s body, although it wasn’t a question Sebastian felt inclined to ask.

  “Do you mind if we ask who examined your son’s body?” said Sebastian.

  The Reverend appeared surprised by the question, although he answered it readily enough. “No, of course not. It was Dr. Newman. Dr. Aaron Newman. He lives here in Avery, just across the green. Perhaps he can help you in a way I have been unable to do.” The Reverend paused. “I keep reminding myself, ‘Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.’ But it doesn’t help. The man who did that to my son—” His voice broke. He paused to swallow hard, then said more quietly, “Whoever did that to my son was evil. To visit such an end on a poor innocent lad of nineteen…” His voice failed him again, and this time he made no attempt to continue.