C. Harris: Who Buries the Dead

He said, “Do you have a moment? There’s something I’d like you to see.”

“Of course.” Slipping off her pelisse, she followed him into the library, where he’d left the ancient metal strap on his desk.

“I found this not far from Preston’s body.” He handed her the length of lead and gave her a brief description of the scene at the bridge.

“‘King Charles, 1648,’” she read, then looked up at him. “I don’t understand. What is it?”

“I could be wrong, but I’ve seen strips of metal like this before, wrapped around old coffins.”

“Surely you’re not suggesting this came from the coffin of Charles I?”

“I don’t know. But it’s telling the inscription reads, ‘King Charles’ rather than ‘Charles I,’ and 1648 rather than 1649. Where exactly is Charles I buried? I’ve realized I have no idea.”

“No one does. After the execution, there was talk of interring him in Westminster Abbey. But Cromwell refused to allow it, so the King’s men took the body away at night and buried it in secret. There are conflicting reports about what they did with him. I’ve heard speculation he may be somewhere in St. George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle. But no one knows for certain.” She frowned. “What were Preston’s politics?”

“I’d be surprised if he nourished any secret nostalgia for the Stuarts, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

She ran her fingertips over the scrolled engraving, her features composed but thoughtful. “Do you mind if I show it to Jarvis?” she asked, reaching for her pelisse again.

“He’s not going to like my involving you in another murder investigation.”

“Don’t worry,” she said as Sebastian took the pelisse from her hands to help her with it. “I seriously doubt he could dislike you more than he already does.”

He laughed at that. Then he turned her in his arms, his hands lingering on her shoulders, his laughter stilling.

“What?” she asked, watching him.

“Just that. . whoever killed Stanley Preston was either driven by a rage bordering on madness, or he is mad. And of the two, I’m not certain which makes him more dangerous.”

“Madness is always frightening, I suppose because it is so incomprehensible. Yet I think I’d fear more the man who is brutal but sane, and therefore capable of shrewd, cold calculation.”

“Because he’s clever?”

“That, and because he’s less likely to make mistakes.”

Sebastian ordered his curricle brought round and came out of the house half an hour later to find Tom walking the grays up and down Brook Street. It had rained again sometime in the early morning hours, leaving the pavement wet, with dull, heavy clouds that pressed down on the city’s crowded rooftops and soaring chimneys. The horses’ breath showed white in the cold.

“If you fall asleep and tumble off your perch,” said Sebastian, taking the reins, “I won’t stop and pick you up.”

But Tom simply laughed and scrambled back to his place.

They headed south, curling around the edge of Hyde Park, where faint wisps of mist still drifted through the trees and the distant clumps of shrubs were no more than blurred shadows.

There’d been a time not so long ago when Knightsbridge and Hans Town were sleepy, pleasant villages lying several miles beyond the sprawl of London. Now, neat terrace houses of three and five stories-plus basements and attics-lined spacious squares and a broad thoroughfare called Sloane Street that stretched from Knightsbridge down toward Chelsea and the Thames. This was a district favored by prosperous barristers, physicians, and bankers, with a scattering of respectable lodging houses and workshops and a few more modest but comfortable homes for tradesmen.

Reluctant to disturb Preston’s grieving daughter so early in the day, Sebastian went instead to the Rose and Crown. A well-tended inn built of brick in the last years of the eighteenth century, it had a freshly whitewashed arch leading to a bustling yard and a public room that smelled of bacon and wood smoke and hearty ale. A buxom, dark-haired, dark-eyed girl of perhaps sixteen was wiping the tables when Sebastian walked in.

“You’re Molly?” he asked.

She turned, a smile lighting up her pretty face as she let her gaze rove over him in frank assessment. “I am. Who’re you?”

“Devlin. I wonder if I might ask you a few questions about last night?”

The smile disappeared and she retreated behind the gleaming oak counter that stretched along one wall. “What you want t’ know fer? You don’t look like no beak t’ me.”

“I’m not.” He laid a coin on the counter between them, the metal clicking softly against the polished wood. “I’m told you recognized Mr. Preston last night. Did he come here often?”

Her hand flashed out, and the coin disappeared. “Sometimes. Though he mostly favored the Monster.”

“The Monster?”

She jerked her head toward the west. “It’s just off Sloane Street.” She wrinkled her little button of a nose. “The place is so old you have t’ walk down a couple of steps to get in the front door.”

Sebastian let his gaze wander around the taproom, with its neat round tables and straight-backed chairs and gleaming wainscoting. “Did Mr. Preston come in here last night?”

“Nah. Ain’t seen him for a fortnight or more.”

“When he would come in, what did he drink?”

“Ale, mostly. But he weren’t no lush, if that’s what you’re askin’. Usually, he’d just pop in for a quick pint of an evenin’, then leave.”

Sebastian brought his gaze back to her pretty, expressive face. “I understand you’re the one who told the magistrate what you’d found at the bridge. But someone else was with you, wasn’t he? Someone from the stables?”

“Cian O’Neal.” Her voice dripped scorn. “Took one look at that head sittin’ up there and started screamin’ like he weren’t never gonna stop. When I said, ‘We gotta go tell Sir Thomas,’ he took t’ shakin’ all over, and his eyes got so big I thought they was gonna pop right out of his head. I grabbed hold of his arm, but he jerked away and run off. Never even looked back.”

“Did you see anyone else near the bridge?”

She stared at him. “What’re you thinkin’? That there was two heads there?”

“I was wondering if you might have seen someone running away as you walked up the lane.”

“No. I remember laughin’ at Cian because it was so dark and quiet, he was scared even before we seen the head.”

“Can you think of any reason for Mr. Preston to have been at the bridge at that time of night?”

Her eyes widened slightly. “Never thought about that, but. . Well, no. Truth is, most folks around here tend t’ avoid Bloody Bridge after dark.”

“Bloody Bridge?”

“That’s what it’s called, you know.”

“No, I didn’t know.”

She sniffed, nearly as contemptuous of his ignorance as she was of poor Cian O’Neal’s terror. “Folks say it’s haunted by those who’ve died there over the years.”

“Yet you weren’t afraid to go there,” said Sebastian.

She shrugged. “It’s the quickest way t’ get t’ Five Fields, ain’t it?”

“And why would you want to go to Five Fields at night?”

She gave him an impish smile and raised her eyebrows in a knowing look. “I won’t be goin’ there with Cian again, that’s fer sure.”

“Tell me, what did you think of Mr. Preston?”

She shrugged. “He never give me no trouble, the way some of ’em do, if that’s what yer askin’.”

“Have you heard anyone speculating about what they think might have happened to him?”

“Most folks’re sayin’ footpads must’ve done it, which just goes t’ show what they know.”