C. Harris - What Darkness Brings

“Are you saying you don’t know?”

“As a matter of fact, I don’t. The bastard must have written it all down somewhere, but I’ll be damned if I can find his ledgers. He obviously hid them.”

“That’s one possibility,” said Sebastian.

“Are you suggesting there’s another?”

“Whoever shot Eisler could have taken them.”

Perlman gave another of his derisive little laughs. “My uncle was shot by Russell Yates. And everyone in London knows it. . except you, apparently.”

Sebastian shifted his gaze to the large canvas beside them, a biblical scene complete with plumed Roman soldiers, fainting women, and an angry bearded man with a bare, heavily muscled chest who may or may not have been Samson. “Looks like a Van Dyke.”

Perlman opened his eyes in astonishment. “Impressive.”

“But that doesn’t mean it is.”

Sebastian turned toward the door.

He’d taken two steps when Perlman stopped him by saying, “I do know the name of one man who owed my uncle money. Beresford. Blair Beresford.”

Sebastian paused. “I thought you said you consider that sort of information privileged.”

A gleam of what looked suspiciously like sly triumph flared in the other man’s eyes. “I know I can rely upon you to exercise the utmost discretion with the information I have provided you.”

“Have something against Beresford, do you?”

But Perlman only smiled faintly and returned to his study of the oil.

It took Sebastian a while, but he finally tracked Blair Beresford to Bond Street, where the Irishman waited outside the bow-fronted establishment of one of London’s most fashionable milliners. The rain had finally eased up, the clouds breaking apart to show pale aquamarine streaks of clear sky above. Beresford was leaning against the side of Louisa Hope’s elegant barouche, his arms folded at his chest, his chin sunk in his cravat, his thoughts evidently far, far away.

“Ah, there you are,” said Sebastian, walking up to him.

Beresford straightened with a jerk, his eyes going wide in a way that told Sebastian the young Irishman had obviously at some time in the past several hours had an interesting conversation with his friend Matt Tyson. “Actually, I was just about to go see if Louisa-”

“Not to worry,” said Sebastian, ruthlessly turning the younger man’s steps toward Oxford Street. “I won’t take but a moment of your time. I’m just wondering if you could explain something for me.”

Beresford cast an apprehensive glance over his shoulder, toward the milliner’s shop. “I can try.”

“Good. You see, I’ve been wondering: Why would someone whose cousin is married to one of the richest men in England need to go to a bloodsucker like Daniel Eisler to borrow money?”

Sebastian watched as all the color drained from the younger man’s face to leave him pale and visibly shaken. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He drew up abruptly. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, I really must-”

“Cut line,” said Sebastian, swinging to face him. “You can answer the question, or I can ask it of Louisa Hope. Which do you prefer?”

Beresford met his gaze, then looked away, his lower jaw thrust out as he exhaled a long, painful breath. “Louisa doesn’t know anything about any of this,” he said quietly.

“Why Eisler? Why not go to Hope?”

Beresford continued walking, his soft blue eyes fixed on the wet pavement before them. “I did. The first time.”

“Go on.”

“It all happened one night right after I first came to London. I fell in with some friends from Oxford. They wanted to try a gaming hell near Portland Place, so I went with them. The stakes were. . high. Almost before I knew it, I’d lost a thousand pounds.” He gave a nearly hysterical laugh. “A thousand pounds! My father only clears twelve hundred pounds in a good year.”

“So you went to Hope?”

Beresford nodded. “He behaved remarkably well, under the circumstances. Read me a lecture, of course, but nothing I didn’t deserve. When he handed me the money, he warned me there would be no second time.”

“Don’t tell me you went back to the same hell again?”

Beresford’s lips crimped into a painfully thin line. “Hope told me I didn’t need to repay him. But. . it didn’t sit right with me to just take his money. The problem was, I knew the only way I could ever get my hands on that much blunt would be to win it.”

“How much did you lose the second time?”

“Five hundred pounds. I was winning at first-”

“You always do.”

“But then my luck turned. Quite suddenly and rather disastrously. I did have the sense to quit. Only, not soon enough.”

“If you’d had any sense, you wouldn’t have gone back there at all.”

Beresford’s eyes flashed with resentment. “You think I don’t know that now? I came damned close to putting a pistol in my mouth. There was no way I could go to Hope and admit I’d lost another five hundred pounds.”

“So you went to Eisler instead. How the devil did you imagine you would ever repay him? Were you planning to take to the high toby next?”

The rat-a-tat-tat of a drum sounded from the top of the street, accompanied by the tramp of marching feet. Beresford glanced toward the sound, a deep stain of shame spreading across his fair cheeks. “He. . I. . That is to say, I agreed to perform certain services for him.”

Sebastian was beginning to understand at least part of Perlman’s motivation in sending him to Beresford. “You mean, you undertook to regularly provide him with whores.”

Beresford’s eyes widened, his throat working painfully as he swallowed. “How did you know?”

“Call it a good guess. Did you provide Eisler with a whore last Sunday?”

“Sunday? No. But I know he had at least one other person doing the same thing I was.”

Sebastian studied the younger man’s handsome, strained face. He struck Sebastian as earnest and basically decent, if dangerously inexperienced and naive. For the most part, he was probably telling the truth.

But only for the most part.

Sebastian said, “Where were you that evening?”

“You mean when Eisler was shot? I was with Matt Tyson, at his rooms in St. James’s. We were drinking wine. . playing a friendly game of whist. . that sort of thing.”

Not for the first time, Sebastian found himself wondering at the friendship between the older, battle-hardened lieutenant and this young, fresh-faced Irish boy barely down from Oxford. “How long have you known Tyson?”

“Six weeks or so, I suppose. We met at a musical evening given by a mutual acquaintance.” His gaze darted back to where his cousin had appeared in the doorway of the milliner’s shop, her head turned as she conversed with someone behind her. “There’s Louisa. I really must-”

“One more question,” said Sebastian as a column of soldiers swung into view, red uniforms clean and new, brass buttons glinting in a gleam of sunshine. “What can you tell me about the blue diamond Eisler was selling for the Hopes?”

The younger man’s features slackened in a convincing expression of puzzlement. “Blue diamond?” He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I don’t know anything about it. Henry Philip Hope is the one who collects gems, and I’ve only met him a few times.”

“It’s possible Thomas Hope purchased this diamond five or six years ago, perhaps for your cousin.”

Beresford looked thoughtful. “I know he gave Louisa some ridiculously expensive pieces when he was courting her-I remember my mother referring to them rather sardonically as ‘bribes.’ But I couldn’t say exactly what they were. I never saw them. And Louisa actually prefers to wear smaller, more delicate jewelry.”