What Remains Of Heaven Part 15

He said, "Perhaps Reverend Earnshaw knew something he failed to disclose to us. Something that could have led us to Prescott's killer."

Lovejoy frowned. "But why would the man keep such information back?"

"He may not have realized the significance of what he knew. At least, not until it was too late."

Sebastian stood just inside the door to the vestry, his arms crossed at his chest, and watched Sir Henry peer into the gloom, eyes narrowed to a squint, his candlestick held high.

The light flickered over a bloated, pale face and wide, sight-less eyes. "Good G.o.d," exclaimed the magistrate, jerking back so violently that the candle splashed hot wax over his hand.

"It's a ghoulish sight, no doubt about it," agreed Squire Pyle, raising his own horn lantern high to better illuminate the scene before them.

The air in the vestry was chill and close, the stale scent of old incense overlaid by the pungent odors of dried blood and death. A small chamber built to one side of St. Margaret's main altar, it was lined with cupboard doors and chests with wide, shallow drawers in which were stored the church's vestments. At the narrow end of the room, a tall locker had been thrown open to expose its grisly contents.

Some five and a half feet high and perhaps four feet wide, the cupboard had a row of hooks that ran across the top. One of these hooks had been thrust through the back of the Reverend's collar so that his body hung there, head squashed to one side. Sebastian found the effect disconcertingly similar to a side of beef hung up for display in a butcher shop.

"I thought it best to leave him like that till you got here," said the Squire, wiping one hand across his lower face. "So's you could see it yourself."

"Yes . . . well . . . we've seen it." Lovejoy took another step back, holding his candlestick more carefully. "Pray, take him down now."

Pyle nodded to his constable, a big, burly man in a leather waistcoat, who hefted the Reverend's body off its hook. Rigid with rigor mortis, the corpse thumped awkwardly against a nearby bench before cras.h.i.+ng to the floor.

"Sorry," mumbled the constable.

Lovejoy dabbed at his lips with a wadded-up handkerchief and swallowed.

Sebastian said, "Any indication as to how he was killed?"

Pyle jerked his chin toward the Reverend's bloodstained waistcoat. "There's a neat slice in his waistcoat and s.h.i.+rt, just above his heart. I'd say he was stabbed. But then, I'm no doctor."

Lovejoy tucked away his handkerchief. "We'll have the corpse conveyed to Paul Gibson, at Tower Hill, for a full postmortem."

Pyle nodded to his constable. "Aye. I'll get the lads on it right away."

Sebastian glanced around the vestry. "A wound like that would have bled significantly. Any traces of blood elsewhere in the church?"

"The cleaning lady found a bit near the altar. Looks as if somebody took the trouble to try to clean it up, which is why we didn't notice it sooner. You can see something of a trail from there to the vestry, although it was pretty much wiped up, too."

"Show us," said Lovejoy.

Lovejoy studied the smeared stains near the altar, his head bent, his hands clasped behind his back as he followed the smudges back to the vestry. Then he walked outside to stand beneath the aged porch and draw the cool air of the night deep into his lungs.

"Why hang up the Reverend's corpse in his own vestry cupboard?" he asked when Sebastian walked up behind him.

Sebastian stared out over the shadowy churchyard, with its pale, tumbled tombstones glowing faintly beneath the darkened canopy of oaks that s.h.i.+fted in the growing wind. "To delay discovery, one presumes."

"Yes, I suppose." Lovejoy was silent a moment, huddled deep in his coat, lost in his own thoughts. The wind gusted up even stronger, banging a shutter someplace in the night. He s.h.i.+vered, and turned toward where Tom walked the chestnuts. "And people claim London is a dangerous place."

By the time they dropped the magistrate at his house on Russell Square, the wind had grown increasingly violent, churning the heavy clouds overhead and bringing with it the smell of coming rain.

"Out with it," Sebastian said to his tiger as the tired chestnuts turned toward Brook Street.

Tom made his eyes go round with innocence. "Gov'nor?"

"You've been looking smug ever since we left Tanfield Hill. What have you discovered?"

Tom grinned. "While you and Sir 'Enry was in the church, I got to talkin' to one of the ostlers at the Dog 'n' Duck."

"The what?"

"The Dog 'n' Duck. It's the inn down by the millstream."

"Ah. Go on."

"This ostler-'is name is Jeb, by the way: Jeb Cooper. Anyway, it seems 'e was a groom in the stables at the Grange thirty years ago."

Sebastian swung onto Bond Street. The footpaths and pavement were eerily dark and empty, the unpleasant wind having driven most of the city's inhabitants indoors. "You mean when Sir Nigel was still alive?"

"Aye." A gust s.n.a.t.c.hed at Tom's hat, and he smashed it down on his head with his free hand. " ' E remembers the night Sir Peter's da disappeared weery well. Weery well, indeed. Says there were strange goings-on at the Grange that night. Weery strange."

"How's that?"

" ' E says Sir Nigel didn't jist ride into town that night. Says 'e took off in a 'igh dudgeon. That's why n.o.body thought much about it when 'e dinna come back. Not till the next day, when 'is 'orse was found wanderin' on the 'eath."

Sebastian blew out a long breath. "Why is it," he said, drawing up in front of his house on Brook Street, "that every time I begin to think I'm getting a handle on the events surrounding this murder, I suddenly discover I really don't know what's going on at all?"

The street was unnaturally dark, the wind having blown out a good half of the tall oil lamps that marched in a line up the block. But thanks to Morey's vigilance, the two lamps bracketing Sebastian's front door still burned brightly, casting a pool of light over the short flight of steps and the pavement before it.

"Give 'em a good rubdown," said Sebastian, handing the tiger the reins. "I'll drive the grays tomorrow."

Tom scrambled into the seat. "Ye'll be goin' back out to Tanfield 'Ill?"

"Sounds as if I need to have a conversation with this ost-" Sebastian broke off, his head turning as the booming discharge of a long gun crackled through the night.

Chapter 26.

With a startled cry, Tom started up, half spinning around in the seat.

"b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l." Grabbing the boy, Sebastian dragged him off the exposed high perch and into the inadequate shadows cast by the delicate carriage.

The rifle crackled again. Heads tossing, the chestnuts whinnied in terror, their hooves clattering on the cobbles as they sidled nervously. Sebastian was hideously conscious of the boy's head lolling against his shoulder, could feel the slick wetness of blood on his hands. "Tom," he whispered. "Tom!"

The boy let out a low moan, just as the gun boomed once more. Sebastian caught his breath. A third shot?

He scanned the dark, empty street before them, his eyes narrowing as he spotted the shadow of a man crouched in the area steps of a house some three doors down.

"Morey!" Sebastian bellowed.

Sebastian's front door crashed open, spilling a flood of golden light down the steps. The majordomo charged out, blunderbuss in hand. "Where are they?" demanded the former gunnery sergeant. "I'll get 'em, Captain."

Sebastian yanked the majordomo down into the shadows and s.n.a.t.c.hed the blunderbuss. "Here. Take care of the boy."

Already, Sebastian could hear the sound of running feet, disappearing fast. "b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l."

Pus.h.i.+ng up, he sprinted down the darkened street, blunderbuss in hand. A good three-quarters of a block ahead of him, a cloaked figure with a hat pulled low darted toward the corner.

"Watch!" bellowed Sebastian. "Watch, I say!" As the figure reached the corner, Sebastian paused to raise Morey's blunderbuss and fire.

But the short-barreled, stocky muzzle loader was designed to do maximum damage at minimum range. The heavy shot blew a chunk out of one of the corner stones of the end house. The running figure veered out of sight.

"b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l," swore Sebastian, and ran on.

He heard the creak of saddle leather, the clatter of hooves on cobbles. Bursting around the corner onto Davies Street, he saw the flick of a horse's tail disappearing into the night.

He expelled a long, frustrated breath. "Son of a b.i.t.c.h."

Fist tightening around the stock of the empty blunderbuss, he swung back toward Brook Street. He was pa.s.sing a house halfway down the block when he saw the gleam of a metal gun barrel lying near the service door at the base of the house's area steps. Running lightly down to the darkened service area, he picked up the long, elegant rifle abandoned by his would-be a.s.sa.s.sin.

Sebastian stood in the doorway of his best guest bedchamber, his gaze on the small, dark-haired boy sleeping beneath the covers. "How bad is it?"

Paul Gibson collected his instruments in his bag and straightened. "Barring any serious infection, he should be fine. I was able to extract the bullet from his shoulder without doing serious damage to either bone or sinew. I suspect he fainted from shock as much as anything. He was certainly hollering l.u.s.t ily enough while I was trying to sew him up. I've dressed the wound with some basilic.u.m powder, and given him a couple drops of laudanum to help him sleep."

Sebastian kept his gaze on the boy's pale face. "That bullet was meant for me."

Gibson clapped Sebastian on the shoulder. "Come. I could use a drink and so could you. The boy'll be fine."

"So who do you think it was?" said Gibson, lounging in one of the leather chairs in Sebastian's library. "Obadiah?"

"Perhaps." Sebastian splashed generous measures of brandy into two gla.s.ses and handed one to his friend. "Perhaps not. I keep thinking of Reverend Earnshaw, hanging in his own vestment locker like a side of beef."

"What's to say that wasn't Obadiah's work, as well?"

"It's certainly possible." Picking up the rifle, Sebastian held it out. "Ever see a butcher carry a weapon like this?"

"What the devil is it?" asked Gibson, studying the rifle's strange screw mechanism.

"It's a Ferguson breech-loading rifle."

"A breech-loading rifle?"

Sebastian nodded. "The problem with rifles has always been that they're so d.a.m.n slow to load. That, plus they can't be fitted with bayonets." He turned the screw handle to open the breech. "This mechanism got around both those problems. I've heard it said that a man who knows what he's doing can fire six rounds a minute and hit a target up to two hundred yards away with this gun."

"Six rounds a minute? You're lucky you weren't killed."

Sebastian pointed to the clogged screw mechanism. "The problem is, the breech threads have a nasty habit of clogging up around the third shot. It's one of the reasons the Army never adopted the Ferguson. They're quite rare."

Gibson ran a hand over the weapon's well-oiled stock. "I suppose Obadiah could have lifted it from some dead officer in the field and brought it back from the Peninsula with him."

"He could have," said Sebastian, going to stand beside the window overlooking the darkened street.

Gibson cleared his throat. "Is it wise, do you think, to expose yourself at the window in that way?"

Sebastian swung to face him. "What would you have me do? Hide in the house?"

"No. But . . . just draw the drapes, would you?"

Sebastian drained his gla.s.s with a laugh and stepped away from the window. "Did you get a chance to look at Earnshaw's body?"

Gibson shook his head. "The constable from Tanfield Hill was still drinking a tankard of ale in my kitchen when your footman arrived with news that Tom had been shot. I'll start on your Reverend first thing in the morning."

Sebastian went to pour himself another drink. "I'll be surprised if his body has much to tell us."

"The Constable said something about a stab wound?"

"That's what it looked like."

Gibson finished his own brandy in one long pull. "Just like Sir Nigel Prescott."

"Yes. Only this one wasn't stabbed in the back." Sebastian raised the carafe of brandy in a silent inquiry.

"No more for me, thanks," said the surgeon, pus.h.i.+ng to his feet. "You'll be riding out to Tanfield Hill again in the morning?"

"Yes."

Gibson nodded. He turned toward the door, then paused to look back and say, "Just be careful, Devlin."

Chapter 27.

SUNDAY, 12 JULY 1812.

The next morning dawned heavily overcast and bl.u.s.tery, with an unseasonably chill north wind that whistled in the chimneys and sent trash scuttling down the city streets.

Before leaving the house, Sebastian checked on Tom and found the boy sitting up in bed, pink-cheeked and cranky.

" 'Tain't nothin' but a scratch," he said. "If'n Morey'll let me 'ave me breeches-"

Sebastian touched the boy's forehead and found him hot. "You're not going anywhere, and that's an order."