C. Harris - What Darkness Brings

She said, “I didn’t even know Rhys had borrowed money until he was already behind on the interest. That’s when Eisler said he’d heard Rhys had a pretty wife, and that he was willing to forgive the interest on the debt if I. . if Rhys would agree. .”

“I know all about the way Eisler abused the women who found themselves in his debt,” Sebastian said softly. “Did you do it, Annie?”

She drew back as if he had slapped her. “No!”

“But you were tempted?”

She pressed her fist to her lips, her eyes squeezing shut as she nodded. “We were so desperate.”

“Annie. . You could have come to me at any time. I would have been more than happy to help. I told you that.”

She dropped her hand to her side and sniffed, her lips pressing into a thin line. “I would never do that, and neither would Rhys.”

Sebastian searched her tightly held face. “So what happened?”

“Rhys was so appalled by the proposal that he started looking into Eisler. You say you know about the way he used people, but we’d had no idea. One night, when Rhys was telling me of the things he’d learned, I said, ‘Something needs to be done about that bastard. There must be some way to warn other people to steer clear of his traps.’ I didn’t mean anything by it-I was just thinking out loud. Only, Rhys said there was no way for the mice to bell the cat. That the only way to stop a man like Eisler was to kill him.”

Her gaze dropped to the gun in Sebastian’s hands, her breath backing up in her throat. “He’d been talking a lot lately about how much better it would be for Emma and me if he were dead-that Eisler wouldn’t be able to pursue the debt, that Emma and I could go live with my grandmother, that I’d be free to remarry.” She swallowed. “I always begged him not to talk like that, but. .”

“When was the last time you saw Rhys, Annie?”

She blinked, and the tears swimming in her eyes spilled over to stream unchecked down her face. “It must have been half past nine. He. . he came home, shut himself in the bedroom for a few minutes, then left, saying he was going for a walk. I knew he had a bottle of laudanum he kept in a drawer beside the bed. After he left, I went and checked. It was a new bottle-he’d found an apothecary willing to mix it especially strong, just for him. It was gone.”

“That’s when you contacted me and asked for my help in finding him?”

She nodded silently.

“Annie, Annie. . Why didn’t you tell me all this before?”

“I was afraid. . and ashamed. Perhaps more ashamed than afraid.”

“And when you saw in Monday’s papers that Eisler had been killed?”

“I don’t know. . I–I hoped it was just a coincidence. I mean, everyone was saying Russell Yates was found standing over the man’s dead body. I didn’t know then about the pistol. Not until today.”

“What made you decide to look for it today?”

She scrubbed the heel of her hand across one wet cheek. “The chief magistrate from Lambeth Street Public Office came to see me.”

“Bertram Leigh-Jones?” Sebastian felt his heart begin to beat faster. “What did he want?”

“He wanted to know when I’d last seen Rhys. I lied. I told him the same thing I’ve told everyone else-that Rhys went out for a walk at half past eight and never came back. But as soon as he left, I went to the bedroom and looked in the drawer where I knew Rhys kept his pistol. When I saw it, I knew.”

She turned away, her arms wrapping across her chest to hug herself. “At the time, I couldn’t understand what had made Leigh-Jones suspect Rhys. But I suppose this girl you were talking about-this Jenny Davie-must have told him what she told you.”

Sebastian shook his head. “No. I think Leigh-Jones got the information out of Jud Foy. Right before he killed him.”

Annie shook her head, not understanding. “Who is Foy?”

“A half-mad ex-rifleman who was watching Eisler’s house the night he died.”

“But. . why would Leigh-Jones kill him?”

“For the same reason he killed an old French jewel thief named Jacques Collot: because the chief magistrate at Lambeth Street has a dangerous secret he’ll do anything to protect.”

She looked at him blankly.

Sebastian said, “I think Bertram Leigh-Jones is working for Napoleon to recover a gem Eisler had in his possession-a rare blue diamond that once formed part of the French Crown Jewels and is now missing. The assumption has always been that whoever killed Eisler stole the diamond. At first, Leigh-Jones thought he had Eisler’s killer-Yates-in prison. But something seems to have convinced Leigh-Jones that he had the wrong man. He started asking questions, and that led him to Foy. I think Foy told Leigh-Jones about Rhys, and that’s why he came to see you today.”

“You’re saying that Rhys stole some diamond? But Rhys would never do anything like that! You know Rhys.”

“I know. I think Jenny Davie has it. And unless I can stop him, she’s liable to be Leigh-Jones’s next victim.”

It took what felt like an age for Sebastian’s hackney driver to battle through the city’s Saturday night traffic to the St. Botolph-Aldgate home of Bertram Leigh-Jones. Then the housemaid who opened the door to Sebastian’s curt knock dropped an apologetic curtsy and said, “Begging your lordship’s pardon, but Mr. Leigh-Jones isn’t here.”

“This is rather important,” said Sebastian, aware of a rising sense of urgency. “Would you happen to know where he’s gone?”

“I’m afraid he didn’t say, my lord. Some Frenchman come to see him maybe half an hour ago, and they all went off in his gig.”

“‘All’? Was someone else with them?”

The housemaid nodded. “Oh, yes, my lord. The Frenchman brung a girl with him. A tiny slip of a thing, she was, and so scared.”

Jenny, thought Sebastian. Damn, damn, damn.

Aloud, he said, “You have no idea where they might have gone?”

The housemaid screwed up her face with the effort of thought. “I think they might have said something about Southwark, but I couldn’t tell you more than that.”

“Southwark?”

“Yes, my lord,” she said.

But Sebastian was already running to his hackney.

The ancient abbey of St. Saviour in Bermondsey, on the southern bank of the Thames, had once ranked amongst the proudest religious houses in England, patronized by kings and favored by widowed queens in need of a place of refuge. Now only the lay church, a crumbling gatehouse, and a row of abandoned, half-demolished dwellings survived, their age-battered stone walls and broken slate roofs gleaming wet in the fitful, misty moonlight.

Why Leigh-Jones and his pockmarked French cohort would bring Jenny Davie here, to her old childhood home, Sebastian could only guess. But as his hackney swept around the curve of the ancient elevated causeway that once led to the priory, he caught sight of a gig drawn up beside what was now the parish church of St. Mary Magdalen. The gig was empty, the bay between the shafts grazing contentedly in the rank grass that grew along the wayside. Sebastian could see a narrow beam of light, as if from a shuttered lantern, weaving amongst the mossy gray tombs and tumbled headstones of the dark, fog-shrouded churchyard beyond.

“Pull up here,” Sebastian ordered.

The hackney driver obliged. “Ye want I should wait fer ye again, yer lordship?” he asked hopefully. He obviously considered a night of dozing on the box far preferable to one spent constantly hustling new fares.

“Just take care to keep out of sight.” Sebastian dropped quietly to the ground, then handed up his card to the jarvey. “And if anything should happen to me, take this to Sir Henry Lovejoy in Bow Street and tell him what you know of this night’s work.”