C. Harris - What Darkness Brings

“You just said you saw him.”

“That don’t mean I know who ’e was!”

Sebastian tamped down a spurt of impatience. “But you can tell me what he looked like.”

Jenny shook her matted hair out of her face. “Course I can. A death’s-’ead on a mopstick, ’e was.”

Sebastian stared at her, not understanding. “A what?”

She huffed her breath and rolled her eyes. “Ye know, a tall, skinny cove what looks like ’e ain’t long for this world. An’ ’e ’ad one of them cavalry mustaches.”

Sebastian stared at her with the heavy heart of a man who has just had one of his worst fears confirmed.

“If ye ask me,” Jenny was saying, “’e weren’t right in the ’ead. ’E come in wavin’ that gun around and sayin’ ’e were there t’ bell the cat.”

“And then what happened?” asked Sebastian, keeping his voice even with difficulty.

“That old goat, ’e laughed at the cove, wanted to know ’ow exactly did ’e propose t’ do that ? Only, just then someone else come poundin’ on the front door real hard. The skinny cove got spooked and looked around, and the old goat pounced on him. That’s when the gun went off.”

“And what did the, er, skinny cove do then?”

“Why, ’e bolted out the back door, just afore these other two coves come in, one after the other, with the chinless, curly-’eaded one hollerin’ ‘murder.’”

“And the diamond?” asked Blair Beresford from where he sat on the floor, a lock of golden hair tumbled across his dusty forehead. “What happened to the diamond?”

Jenny Davie pushed out her lips, opened her eyes wide, and shook her head. “I keep tellin’ ye, I don’t know nothin’ about no diamond.”

“Then why are you hiding here, in Covent Garden?” asked Sebastian. “Why didn’t you go to the magistrates and tell them what you know?”

He saw the leap of fear in her wide gray eyes, saw her small pointed chin jut forward in determination, and knew his mistake an instant too late.

“Hold on to her!” he shouted at Drummer, just as Jenny hauled back her fist and punched the boy in the nose.

“Ow,” he cried, tears starting in his eyes, blood spurting as he let go of the girl to cup both hands over his face.

“Stop her!” Sebastian yelled as Jenny bolted for the stairs. “Bloody hell.”

Sebastian pelted after her, half running, half falling down the steep, narrow staircase. He reached the entrance passage just in time to see the girl squeeze through a boisterous knot of drovers trying to shove into the taproom.

By the time Sebastian pushed his way into the street, Jenny Davie had disappeared, swallowed up by the fog.

Sebastian returned to the Pope’s Head to find both Drummer and Blair Beresford long gone.

But the crossing sweep had simply returned to the carriage at the end of the lane and was waiting there for Sebastian. He had his head tipped back, the bridge of his nose pinched between one thumb and forefinger as he sought to stem the blood that still trickled from his nostrils. “Do I get my guinea?” he asked, his voice muffled by his oversized sleeve. “Even though she got away from me in the end?”

Sebastian handed the boy his handkerchief and steered him toward the carriage steps. “Considering your battle wounds, I’d say you earned yourself two guineas for this night’s work.”

The boy’s eyes grew round above the voluminous folds of Sebastian’s handkerchief. “Cor.”

Sebastian pressed the coins into the boy’s hand and turned to his coachman. “Take the lad back to Brook Street and ask Lady Devlin to see that he is attended to.”

Drummer stuck his head back out the open door. “Ye ain’t comin’?”

“I shall be along directly,” said Sebastian, closing the door on him.

He nodded to the coachman, then went in search of a hackney to take him to Kensington.

The curtains were not yet drawn at the Yeoman’s Row lodgings of Annie and Emma Wilkinson, allowing a warm, golden glow to spill from the parlor and light up the cool, misty night. Sebastian paused for a moment on the footpath outside. At the end of the street, the fenced gardens of Kensington Square lay dark and silent. But for a moment, he thought he could hear the echo of a child’s chant, “‘When will you pay me?’ say the bells of Old Bailey.”

“Wait here for me,” Sebastian told the hackney driver and moved with an aching sadness to ring his old friend’s bell.

“Devlin!” A delighted smile lit up Annie Wilkinson’s features as she came toward him. “What a pleasant surprise. Julie”-she turned to the housemaid who had escorted him up the stairs-“put the kettle on and bring his lordship some of that cake we-”

Sebastian squeezed her hands, then let her go. “Thank you, but I don’t need anything.”

She turned to the wine carafe that stood with a tray of glasses on a table near the front windows. “At least let me get you a glass of burgundy.”

“Annie. . We need to talk.”

She looked up from pouring the wine. Something in his tone must have alerted her, because she set the carafe aside and said with a forced smile, “You’re sounding very serious, Devlin.”

He went to stand with his back to the small fire burning on the hearth. “I had an interesting conversation this evening with a young girl named Jenny Davie.”

Annie looked puzzled. “I don’t believe I recognize the name. Should I?”

“I wouldn’t think so. She is what’s popularly dismissed by polite society as ‘Haymarket ware.’ A week ago, her services were engaged by a rather nasty old St. Botolph-Aldgate diamond merchant named Daniel Eisler.” He paused. “You do recognize that name, don’t you?”

She held herself very still. “What are you trying to say, Devlin?”

“Last Sunday evening at approximately half past eight, Daniel Eisler was shot to death by a tall, ill-looking man with a cavalry mustache. Now, I suppose there could be any number of men in London who fit that description. But this particular man seems to have had a fondness for old fables. He told Eisler that he’d come to bell the cat.”

She forced a husky laugh. “It’s a common enough tale.”

“True. But I’ve seen Eisler’s account books, Annie.”

She went to stand beside the window, one hand raised to clutch the worn cloth as if she were about to close it, her back held painfully straight.

Sebastian said, “You knew, didn’t you? You knew Rhys had killed him.”

She shook her head back and forth, her throat working as she swallowed. “No.”

“Annie, you said Rhys went out for a walk that night at half past eight and never came back. But Emma told me that her papa didn’t get home in time to tell her a story that night. What’s Emma’s bedtime, Annie? Seven? Eight? She’s in bed now, isn’t she?”

“Seven.” Annie turned toward him, her face haggard. “I didn’t know what he’d done. I swear I didn’t. I’ll admit I suspected, but I didn’t know . Not until today.”

“Why today?”

“I’ll show you,” she said, and strode quickly from the room.

She was back in a moment, carrying a flintlock pistol loosely wrapped in a square of old flannel. When she held it out to him, he caught the sulfuric stench of burnt powder.

“You know what Rhys was like,” she said. “He’d spent half his life in the army. He knew the importance of taking care of his gun. He never fired it without cleaning it before he put it away. So as soon as I saw it like this, I knew. .”

Sebastian carefully folded back the cloth. It was an old Elliot pattern flintlock pistol with a nine-inch barrel and the gently curving grip favored by the Light Dragoons.