C Harris - Where Shadows Dance

“I can imagine,” said Sebastian dryly.

“More commonly, they’ll dump them in the countryside, someplace where the wild pigs are likely to take care of the problem for them. Although I have heard of anatomists who bury them in the basements of their own houses.”

Sebastian eyed his friend with mounting horror. “And you?”

“I usually don’t have much to worry about, after I’ve passed on various body parts to my students. As for what does remain ...” He stared off across the unkempt yard that stretched between the outbuilding and the house.

“Good God,” said Sebastian, following his gaze.

Gibson grinned. “You did ask.”

“Does Mrs. Federico know?”

Gibson cast his eyes heavenward. “The saints preserve us. She’d leave me for sure if she knew.”

Sebastian laughed. “And that would be a bad thing?”

“Aye, it would. She’s the devil of a housekeeper, but she cooks my dinner and washes my clothes. And the truth is that while she complains a lot, she’s the only woman I’ve had who lasted beyond the arrival of the first cadaver sent by the magistrates for autopsy.”

“Does she know about Jumpin’ Jack?”

Gibson grinned. “He doesn’t usually come around in daylight.”

“But you do know how to contact him?”

“Ah, yes.”

“Good. Offer him two hundred pounds if you must. Just get Alexander Ross back in his grave.” Sebastian started to turn away, then paused. “I almost forgot; I’ve a favor to ask of you. I’m getting married at eleven o’clock Thursday morning and I’d like you to be my best man.”

Gibson started to laugh, then broke off, his eyes narrowing as he searched Sebastian’s face. “Good God,” he said. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“Very.”

Gibson swallowed hard. “Then I’ll be honored. Who . . . who is the bride, if I may be so bold as to ask?”

“Miss Hero Jarvis,” said Sebastian. Then he added, “And if you stand there like that with your mouth open, you’re liable to get flies in it.”

Leaving Tom walking the chestnuts up and down Newgate, Sebastian found Miss Jarvis seated on a stool in the shade cast by a remnant of the long-vanished priory’s old cloisters, a drawing pad on her lap. She wore a dusty pink walking dress trimmed with velvet, and a broad-brimmed straw hat with a matching pink velvet band and a tall feather that fluttered in the warm breeze when she turned her head to watch him walk up to her.

“Why, good morning, Miss Jarvis,” he said, squinting down at her sketch. It was surprisingly good, a very accurate architectural rendering in bold strokes of black. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“My lord,” she said, wiping her hands on a cloth. “A surprise indeed.” Pushing to her feet, she handed her sketch pad and drawing implements to her long-suffering maid. “Wait for me here, Marie,” she told the woman.

“Yes, Miss Jarvis.”

“I want to know what makes you think Alexander Ross was murdered,” she said bluntly as they turned to walk together along the ancient, dilapidated cloister.

Sebastian had occupied himself on the drive from Tower Hill in deciding how much he could—and could not—tell Miss Jarvis. Now he said, “There was nothing wrong with Ross’s heart. The attending physician missed the stiletto wound at the base of his skull.”

She stared at him, hard. “How do you know this?”

“That, I’m afraid, I am not at liberty to say.”

He saw a flash of something in her eyes, but she glanced away before he could be certain what it was. “A stiletto thrust to the base of the skull sounds like the work of an assassin,” she said, their footsteps echoing along the stone arcade.

“It does, does it not?” Actually, it sounded like the work done by the sort of men her father typically employed, but he didn’t say that.

She brought her gaze back to his face, her eyes narrowing, and he had the disconcerting realization that she knew exactly what he’d been thinking. But all she said was, “Have you a suspect?”

“At the moment? Everyone and no one. I keep getting dark hints about all sorts of shadowy diplomatic maneuverings, to the point that it’s beginning to seem as if half the diplomatic community of London is somehow involved.”

“And how exactly does Colonel Chernishav fit in?”

“Ross and Chernishav were to meet at Cribb’s Parlor the night Ross died. When he didn’t show up, Chernishav went to Ross’s rooms in St. James’s street, sometime around midnight. Ross didn’t answer the door.”

“So he says.”

“Actually, in that, at least, I believe him. A man fitting the Colonel’s description was seen climbing the stairs around midnight, only to come back down again immediately afterward.”

She gave him a hard, thoughtful look. “You think Ross was dead by then?”

Sebastian chose his words carefully; he had no intention of involving her in this murder investigation any more than he had to. “Another man was seen going up the stairs earlier that evening, somewhere around eight—and no, I haven’t discovered yet who that might have been,” he added before she could ask.

“So exactly what are you suggesting? That Ross was stabbed by this earlier visitor, then undressed and put into his bed so that it would appear as if he’d died naturally in his sleep?”

“It seems likely. Although it’s also possible Ross was killed someplace else and his body brought back to his rooms in the predawn hours, when there was no one about to see it.”

“Seems a risky thing to have done.”

“It does, yes. Nevertheless, I can’t rule it out.” He was thinking about the body of the man with the broken neck that had disappeared from the stairwell of that same house just the night before. A ruse similar to the one used to carry that body away from St. James’s Street could also have been used to return Ross’s body to it.

They walked along in silence for a moment. Then she said, “I didn’t know Ross well, but what I knew of him, I liked. He was a very open and engaging man. I can’t imagine anyone having a reason to kill him.”

“What about your cousin, Miss Cox; what is she like? Was she happy in her engagement, do you think?”

Miss Jarvis gave a sharp, incredulous laugh. “What are you suggesting? That Sabrina became disillusioned with her betrothal and hired an assassin to rid her of him?”

“The thought had occurred to me, yes.” Sabrina Cox, or her wealthy, disagreeable big brother.

“That’s because you don’t know Sabrina.”

“No, I don’t. And unfortunately, her state of mourning makes it most difficult for me to approach her.”

He was aware of Miss Jarvis giving him another of her long, steady looks. “So that is why you indulged my vulgar curiosity by coming here, is it? You’d like me to speak to Sabrina for you—ask if she knows of anyone Ross might have quarreled with lately, perhaps? See what other deep, dark secrets I can ferret out?”

Sebastian said, “Alexander Ross had another visitor the night he died. A woman wearing a veil.”

“You think it was Sabrina?”

“I think it unlikely. But I don’t know. Will you speak to her?” Sebastian asked.

Their perusal of the cloister’s remnant had brought them back to her abigail. Miss Jarvis reached to take the sketchbook from the woman’s hands. “I’ll consider it,” she said.

And he had to be satisfied with that.

After Devlin’s departure, Paul Gibson went to stand again in the doorway of his small outbuilding, his hands on his hips, a niggling suspicion beginning to form in his mind.

It hadn’t registered with him before, given the vastly different stages of decomposition exhibited by the two cadavers—or parts thereof—in the room. But it occurred to him now that Alexander Ross and this unknown man had both met their deaths at approximately the same time—late Saturday night or Sunday morning. The difference was that Alexander Ross had been kept on ice in a cool, darkened room while awaiting burial, whereas the unknown corpse from Bethnal Green had lain for days beneath a hot sun, half-submerged in water, the air around him swarming with insects.