C. Harris - Who Buries the Dead

Their society was one of infinitesimally exact gradations, with each individual acutely aware of his or her own place in relation to all others. Grand nobles such as Sebastian’s aunt Henrietta were casually contemptuous of mere landed gentry such as Stanley Preston. Yet Preston had considered himself fully justified in despising-and protecting his daughter from-the likes of Captain Hugh Wyeth, who might be gently born but was nevertheless woefully impoverished.

Intelligence, moral fiber, education, talent-all counted for little without birth and wealth. What mattered in their world was a carefully calibrated interplay of those two vital attributes. It was a delicate equation that would no doubt baffle an outsider, but never those who lived within it, who grew up instinctively attuned to the implications of their subtlest gradations.

And then there were those without either birth or land, those engaged in that shameful thing called trade . Make enough money and a man could buy an estate and in a few short generations convince his peers to forget his plebian origins, his ties to that great horde who actually worked for a living. Yet even the common multitude had their own distinct gradations in rank. Merchants, craftsmen, innkeepers, laborers, costermongers, prostitutes-all knew their exact place in society and considered themselves superior to those ranked below them. Even the thieves had their elites and their dregs, with highwaymen looking down on the housebreakers, who in turn despised the mere cutpurses and pickpockets.

By all reports, Stanley Preston had been both painfully aware and deeply resentful of what he saw as his own inadequate position in the grand scheme of things. Desperate to claw his way higher up the social ladder, he had married a lord’s daughter and fought hard to secure advantageous marriages for his children, all the while surrounding himself with artifacts of the great nobles and kings and queens of the past. And yet fewer than twelve hours before someone cut off his head and set it up on the parapet of Bloody Bridge, he’d traveled across London to a mean lane off Fish Street Hill to interact in some unknown way with a tall, dusky-skinned woman with turquoise eyes who despised him.

Why?

She was no simple prostitute; of that Sebastian was fairly certain. The neighborhood was one favored by costermongers, who tended to cluster together close to the markets they visited at dawn to buy their stock. From her dress, Sebastian suspected the unknown woman of Bucket Lane was a coster herself, while her appearance and remarks suggested that at least one of her grandparents had been of African blood. Was that significant?

Perhaps.

A new theory was forming in his imagination, outlandish, improbable even, and yet. .

What he needed, he realized, was to speak to someone who knew Preston well. Really knew him. And that meant not his daughter, Anne, but his longtime friend, Sir Galen Knightly.

Newly changed into doeskin breeches and a well-tailored dark blue coat, with his hair still damp, Sebastian knocked on the door of Sir Galen Knightly’s town house in Half Moon Street to find the Baronet standing in the stately, old-fashioned hall with his gloves in one hand and a walking stick tucked up under his arm.

“I beg your pardon,” said Sebastian. “Have I caught you on the verge of going out?”

Sir Galen looked vaguely chagrined. “Well. . actually, yes. Did you need something?”

“I had a few more questions about Preston I was hoping you might be able to answer.”

The Baronet glanced at the hall clock. “Would you mind walking with me toward Bond Street?”

It was Sir Galen’s practice, Sebastian recalled, to dine at Stevens every Wednesday and Sunday at half past six. “Of course,” said Sebastian, and the older man’s face cleared.

Sebastian let his gaze drift around the hall while Knightly conferred for a moment with his butler. From the looks of things, the house had been little altered since the days of Sir Galen’s grandfather. The Baronet’s tragic young bride, who had survived her wedding by only ten months before dying in childbirth, hadn’t lived long enough to make many changes, and her grief-stricken widower had obviously been content to leave things as they were.

“Have you made some progress in your investigations?” asked Sir Galen as they descended the front steps and turned toward the east.

“Some. I was wondering if you know what might have taken Stanley Preston to Fish Street Hill last Sunday-to a wretched alley called Bucket Lane.”

“Fish Street Hill?” Knightly glanced over at him in surprise. “Good heavens; no. I can’t imagine. You’re certain?”

“Yes.”

“How very odd.”

“Is it?”

“Very. Stanley had what you might call an aversion to those of low birth. In general, he avoided them as much as possible.”

“Low birth and low means?”

“Well, yes. Of course.”

Sebastian paused to hand a penny to the young crossing sweep who was busy clearing manure from the intersection with a ragged broom. “It’s been how long since Preston’s wife died?”

“Eight years, I believe. Why?”

“He was still a fairly young man at the time of her death. Yet he never remarried.”

“No. But then, he was sincerely attached to his late wife. I honestly don’t think he ever looked at another woman-before or after her death. He worshipped her.”

“No mistresses?”

“No. Never. And if you’re thinking that might be what took Stanley to this Bucket Lane, then I’m afraid you really don’t understand the man who was Stanley Preston. If Stanley had been inclined to take a mistress-which he never did, of course, but if he had-he would never have chosen some common Billingsgate trollop. I remember hearing him say once that for a gentleman to lie down with a baseborn wench was tantamount to miscegenation.”

Sebastian thought of the Bucket Lane woman’s flawless, dusky skin and exquisite bone structure and wondered if Sir Galen actually knew his old friend as well as he thought he did. “An interesting choice of words,” said Sebastian. “Miscegenation. Do I take it he never had any interest in the enslaved women who worked his plantations in Jamaica either?”

“Good God, no!”

“Yet it’s not uncommon, is it?”

“It is amongst gentlemen of honor.”

Sebastian watched a ponderous coal wagon making its way up the street and said nothing.

Sir Galen cleared his throat. “To my knowledge, Stanley Preston seldom ventured east of Bond Street except on business at the bank or exchange. I can’t imagine what might have taken him to an area such as Fish Street Hill.”

“Yet he did business with the likes of Priss Mulligan.”

Knightly’s brows drew together in a puzzled frown. “Who?”

“Priss Mulligan-a decidedly unsavory woman who keeps a secondhand shop in Houndsditch.”

“Ah, yes; I remember hearing him speak of her. But then, I suspect Stanley would have ventured into Hades and done business with Satan himself if the devil happened to possess something Stanley wanted for his collection.” The Baronet’s eyes widened as if inspired by a sudden thought. “Perhaps that’s what he was doing in this Bucket Lane. Buying some relic or another.”

“The area’s inhabitants are costers and fishmongers. Not thieves and fences.”

“Some costers have been known to deal in stolen goods.”

“Stolen hams and bolts of cloth, perhaps. Not priceless relics.”

“Perhaps one got lucky.”

“Perhaps. Only, how would he know to offer it to Preston?”

“True; I hadn’t thought of that.” He shrugged. “Then I’m afraid I have no explanation.” He hesitated a moment, then said, “Are you no closer to discovering who might have killed him?”