C. Harris - Who Buries the Dead

Sebastian shifted his gaze to the young woman beside him. She was utterly unperturbed by a ghoulish sight the likes of which would cause many gentlewomen to fall into strong hysterics. But then, he realized, she had grown up surrounded by her father’s bizarre collection. It was a side of Miss Anne Preston that was both unexpected and more than a little thought provoking.

He brought his attention back to the remnants of the man who had once butchered men, women, and children the length of England, Scotland, and Ireland. Traces of hair and the mustache remained, but the ears and part of the nose were gone. He said, “All those years on a spike above Westminster Hall appear to have taken quite a toll.”

“Actually, much of the damage is fairly recent. The head was owned for a time by the actor Samuel Russell, and he was said to be in the habit of getting foxed and passing it around at his dinner parties. I gather he and his guests dropped it a few times.”

“So how did the Lord Protector go from being on a spike above Westminster to being an object of conversation at an actor’s drunken dinner parties?”

“Sometime during the reign of James II, there was a violent storm. The high winds broke the spike, and the head fell down.”

“I’m surprised it didn’t smash.”

“I suspect it would have, had it hit the pavement. But it was caught by a guard who happened to be patrolling below. Evidently his sympathies still lay with the Puritans, because he took the head home and hid it. There was quite a hue and cry when its loss was discovered in the morning-they even offered a reward for the head’s return.”

“Why? I mean, why would they care at that point?”

“I can’t imagine. Perhaps they feared it might become a relic. But the reward wasn’t enough to tempt the guard, and he kept it hidden. Father could have told you how it got from the guard to Russell, but I’ve forgotten.”

Sebastian shifted to the next pedestal. This head was more gruesome than the last, being light brown in color rather than black and less shrunken, with its nearly toothless mouth gaping open in a frightful grin. The neatly engraved brass plaque on the front of the case said simply, HENRI IV.

Sebastian stared at it. “That’s Henri IV? The French king?”

“Yes.”

“How did your father get him? I thought he was buried along with the rest of France’s royals at the basilica of Saint-Denis in Paris.”

“He was. But when the revolutionaries broke open all the royal tombs and tossed the contents into a common grave, someone with a fondness for ‘Good King Henri’ saved his head and smuggled it out of the country.”

“Why?”

Her face lit up with silent laughter. “You obviously don’t understand the mentality of collectors.”

“Do you?”

“Not entirely. But after years of observing Father, I’d say much of the fascination comes from the way old items can make us feel closer to the past.”

Sebastian thought he was beginning to understand why Anne Preston was generally regarded as being both quiet and a bit strange. She must have learned long ago that this sort of conversation didn’t play out well in London’s drawing rooms.

They shifted to the third pedestal. This head was both the best preserved and the most gruesome of the three, its eyelids half-closed, its lips pulled away from the teeth as if frozen in a rictus of agony. At the back of the neck, Sebastian could see quite clearly a deep cut above the one that had severed the head from the body, where the executioner’s first stroke had obviously failed in its object.

The case was unlabeled.

“Who is this?” asked Sebastian.

“This was Father’s most recent acquisition. It’s believed to be the Duke of Suffolk-father to Lady Jane Grey. He was executed by Queen Mary in the Tower of London.”

“So were a lot of other people. One would think you could fill a room with the heads of Elizabeth’s victims alone.”

“True. But their heads didn’t usually survive. They were typically parboiled, set up on pikes above London Bridge, and then eventually thrown into the river.”

“But not Suffolk?”

“No. His head was buried with the rest of his body at Holy Trinity in the Minories. Father said it probably survived so well because it fell into a box of sawdust, and the tannins preserved it.”

Sebastian let his gaze drift, again, around that macabre cabinet of curiosities, but he didn’t see anything similar to the metal band he’d found at Bloody Bridge.

He said, “What do you know of an old piece of thin lead, perhaps a foot and a half in length and three or four inches wide, bearing the inscription ‘King Charles, 1648’?”

She looked puzzled. “I’ve never heard of such a thing. Why?”

“It was found near where your father was killed.”

She was reaching to draw the curtain across the display pedestals. But at his words, she paused, her fist clenching on the rich velvet cloth. “Is it true, what they’re saying-that whoever killed Father also cut off his head?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Who would do such a thing?”

“Can you think of anyone with whom your father might have quarreled recently?”

“No. No one,” she said quickly.

Too quickly.

“You’re certain?” he asked, watching her closely.

“Yes. Of course.”

“If you think of anyone, you will let me know?”

“If I think of anyone.”

She busied herself with closing the curtain. But he noticed that her hand was no longer steady, and it was obvious that the nervousness he’d glimpsed earlier had returned, tightening the features of her face and agitating her breathing. At first, he had mistaken her nervousness for the shyness of a young woman who felt ill at ease in company. Now he realized it was because she was afraid-afraid of him .

And of what he might learn.

“He collected heads ?” Sir Henry Lovejoy’s already high-pitched voice rose to a shrill squeak. “Men should be buried-not put on display as if they were in the same category as hunting trophies!”

“I suspect he didn’t see the heads as all that different from the daggers and pincushions he also collected,” said Sebastian.

The two men were walking up Bow Street toward the public office. The footpaths were still dark and wet from the latest rain, with gray clouds pressing low on the city and promising more. Lovejoy was silent for a moment, as if trying-and failing-to understand such a mentality. “It’s a disturbing coincidence-that the man should collect the heads of historical figures, only to have someone cut off his own.”

“If it is a coincidence.”

Sir Henry hunched his shoulders against the damp, blustery wind. “Most of Preston’s servants had a half day off on Sunday. But according to the butler, Preston went out for some hours on the day of his death. Unfortunately, he took a hackney rather than his own carriage, so unless we can trace the jarvey, we’re unlikely to know where he went. He returned at approximately four in the afternoon and spent some time puttering around with his collections until dining with his daughter at seven. Then, at something like nine in the evening-or perhaps half past-he went out again, walking this time, and stopped in an old public house just off Sloane Street.”

“The Monster?”

“As it happens, yes. You’ve heard of it?”

“Molly Watson told me he went there regularly. It sounds like the sort of place likely to appeal to someone with Preston’s interests.”

Sir Henry nodded. “It dates back to the days of the Dissolution. They say the name is actually a corruption of ‘the Monastery.’”

“How long was he there?”