C. Harris: Who Buries the Dead

“What?” said Tom as Sebastian swung around again to study the overgrown thicket of shrubbery that choked both banks of the stream to the north of the bridge.

“Preston was stabbed in the back. That means that he either deliberately turned his back on his killer-which is unlikely if that person had recently threatened to kill him-or the killer crept up behind him. I’ve been thinking the killer probably followed Preston from the Monster. Except that, if he had, Preston would surely have seen him as he stared back toward the square, watching for Toop. Which means that whoever killed Preston must have known he was planning to meet Rowan Toop at Bloody Bridge that night and was already here waiting for him, probably in the shadows of that shrubbery.”

The tiger’s face lit up with quick comprehension. “So who knew Preston was gonna be ’ere?”

“It’s possible Thistlewood learned of the meeting from Toop, but I doubt it. I also find it unlikely that Henry Austen was privy to Preston’s clandestine activities. Preston’s daughter, Anne, claims she had no idea what he was doing at Bloody Bridge that night but could easily be lying.”

“So she could’ve told Cap’n Wyeth?”

“She could have. Although I think it more likely she hired Diggory Flynn and sent him to kill Preston.”

Tom’s jaw sagged. “Ye think she done fer ’er own da? Gor. ”

“She’s definitely been moved into the suspects’ column,” said Sebastian. “But men like Diggory Flynn are trained to learn other people’s secrets. So it’s conceivable that Flynn could have found out about the assignation even if he was working for Priss Mulligan or Lord Oliphant.”

Sebastian’s gaze returned to the square, where a gentlewoman had emerged from Sloane Street to turn along the side of the square and enter the lane leading to the bridge. She wore a plain brown pelisse and a sensible hat, and her gait was the strong, easy stride of someone accustomed to walking miles along country lanes and across fields. She had her head bowed and appeared lost in thought. But when she looked up and saw him, she smiled.

“Lord Devlin,” said Jane Austen. “I wasn’t expecting to meet you again.”

He moved toward her. “Miss Austen. What brings you this way?”

“I try to take a walk every morning, either to the river or through Five Fields. There’s a small country chapel, just there, with a lovely churchyard.” She nodded toward the bell tower barely visible above the distant clump of trees. Then her gaze fell on the bridge, and a shadow crossed her small, even features. “It was one of Anne’s favorite walks as well. But I doubt she’ll ever want to come this way again.”

“And how is Miss Preston?” he asked.

The question was not as idle as it seemed.

“To be frank, she’s making herself ill with the fear you mean to see Captain Wyeth hang for her father’s murder.”

“I don’t believe Captain Wyeth killed Stanley Preston,” he said, studying the novelist’s round, small-featured face. He wished he could say the same thing about Anne, but he kept that thought to himself.

“May I tell her that?” said Miss Austen.

“Of course. Although I obviously don’t speak for Bow Street.”

“I think Anne is more afraid of you than she is of the authorities.”

“Oh?”

“That surprises you? My cousin Eliza likewise fears that you may still suspect Henry.”

“I don’t think your brother has anything to worry about either,” he said. “How is Mrs. Austen today?”

A pinched, bleak light came into Miss Austen’s face. “I’m afraid it’s only a matter of time.”

“I’m sorry.”

She blinked rapidly and nodded, her throat working as she swallowed.

He said, “You wouldn’t by chance know a man named Diggory Flynn-a somewhat disheveled character with an oddly crooked face?”

“I don’t believe so, no. Why? You think he could be involved in what happened here?”

“He may be.”

She tipped her head to one side. “May I ask why you’ve changed your mind about Captain Wyeth?”

“Largely because I’ve come to believe he is precisely the honorable, conscientious man he appears.”

“That is good to hear,” she said with a soft smile. “Anne deserves to be happy.”

“Let’s hope she will be,” he said, just as the bells of the distant country chapel began to toll.

Sebastian’s next stop was the Rose and Crown, where he discovered that Cian O’Neal had never returned to work in the stables.

He finally found the former stableboy hoeing rows of newly sprouting vegetables in the kitchen gardens of Chelsea Hospital. At the sight of Sebastian, he froze, his fists tightening around the handle of his hoe and his chest jerking on a quickly indrawn breath.

“What ye want wit’ me?”

“I need to ask you a few questions,” said Sebastian, pausing some feet away when the boy looked as if he might bolt.

“I already told that other feller, I didn’t see nothin’. Nothin’!”

Sebastian studied the lad’s tight, strained face. “What other fellow?”

“The feller from Bow Street.”

“The one who spoke to you before?”

“No. A different one.”

“Did he ask about the Dullahan?”

Cian stared at him, eyes wide and afraid.

“You saw it, didn’t you?” said Sebastian.

“Nobody sees the Dullahan and lives.”

“So perhaps what you saw wasn’t the Dullahan. Perhaps it was simply a man.”

“But he was carryin’ a h-” Cian broke off and dropped his gaze to the ground, his cheeks flaming with his shame.

“A head? Is that what you saw? Not the severed head at the end of the bridge, but another head?”

The boy wiped one ragged cuff across the end of his nose and nodded. “Won’t nobody believe me, but ’tis true.”

“I believe you,” said Sebastian. “Where was this man when you saw him?”

Cian kept his gaze on his feet, his voice barely more than a whisper. “The other side of the bridge. Not far from the barn we was goin’ to.”

“What did he look like?”

“I dunno. It was dark, and he was wearin’ some sort of flowin’ black robes with a floppy hat on his head.”

“You mean, on the head attached to his own shoulders? Not on the head he carried?”

The color in the boy’s cheeks deepened. “Aye.”

“So it couldn’t have been the Dullahan. It was simply a man dressed in a black cassock and carrying a head.”

The boy looked up, his features contorted with a swirling inner agony of confusion and a nameless fear that wasn’t going to go away. “But whose head? You tell me that. Ain’t no other body missin’ a head that I heard of.”

“Did you see anyone else at the bridge that night? Perhaps nothing more than a shadow moving in the shrubbery edging the stream?”

The boy took a step back, then another. He was sweating now, although the day was cold, the wind flattening the thin cloth of his smock against his chest. “I don’t know what I seen no more! I told that fellow from Bow Street: It was dark, and the wind was blowin’ the trees somethin’ fierce.”

Sebastian frowned. “This man from Bow Street; when was he here asking you questions?”

“I dunno. Some days ago.”

“What did he look like?”

“Dressed fine, he was, like a gentleman. Not flashy; but real fine.”

“How old?”

The boy shrugged. “Older’n you, I s’pose. But not by too much.”

“Dark or fair? Tall or short? Thin or fleshy?”

The lad’s features contorted with the effort of memory. “’Bout as tall as me and dark headed, but I wouldn’t say he was either overly thin or fleshy.”