C. Harris - What Darkness Brings

The butler held Sebastian’s card at arm’s length and squinted. “No. No, he did not.” Not a single muscle in the old man’s face altered, but he opened the door wide and executed a somewhat creaky bow. “How may I be of assistance to you, my lord?”

Sebastian stepped into a soaring, medieval-style hall with darkly paneled walls, an uneven, badly cracked flagged floor, and an elaborately coffered, smoke-blackened ceiling. The space was vast, yet hopelessly cluttered with an odd assortment of dusty but exquisite furniture: sandalwood consoles with delicate inlay; a dark Renaissance chest carved with mythical beasts; gilded chairs that looked as if they might have come from Versailles. Row after row of dark paintings in heavy, mildew-flecked gilded frames filled virtually every wall surface, while on the far side of the hall, a worn, steep staircase angled toward the first floor. Through a limestone-cased archway beside it, Sebastian could see a dark passage that disappeared toward the rear of the house. A second arch, also framed in chipped, grimy stone, led to what looked like an old-fashioned parlor. The tattered brocade drapes at the window were tightly drawn, but as Sebastian’s eyes adjusted to the gloom, he could easily make out the stain that disfigured the parlor’s threadbare carpet.

“Mr. Eisler was found in there,” said Campbell, nodding toward the parlor as he carefully closed and locked the front door behind him. “Took the shot square in his chest. Made ever such a mess.”

“You were here last night, were you?”

“I was, my lord. Only, as I told Mr. Leigh-Jones, it is the practice of Mrs. Campbell and I to retire to our rooms by eight o’clock. The first we knew anything was amiss was when the constables came pounding on our door in the attic.”

“So you didn’t hear the shot?”

“No, my lord. My hearing’s not what it used to be-nor Mrs. Campbell’s.”

Sebastian let his gaze drift, again, around the old hall, assessing the distance from the front door to the staircase and the passage beyond. If Yates had been standing on the stoop as he claimed when he heard the shot, and then rushed inside to find Eisler dead, would the killer have had time to escape the parlor and run down the shadowy passage-or up the stairs-without being seen?

Sebastian doubted it.

He said, “Is there a door that leads from this floor to the rear yard?”

“There is, yes. At the end of the passage there.”

“May I see it?”

The butler gave another of his creaky bows. “If you will follow me, my lord?”

Moving with doddering slowness, he led the way down a narrow corridor made even narrower by more furniture lined up on either side. Sebastian counted four doors opening off the passage, plus a set of steep, narrow steps leading down to what he assumed was the basement kitchen. The entire house reeked of decay and stale cooking grease mingled with the smell of an old man’s unwashed clothes and some other, indefinable odor to which Sebastian could not put a name.

“I’ve heard of you, you know,” said the butler, drawing back a heavy iron bolt on the door at the end of the passage. It was an old door, Sebastian noted, shrunken and warped by age, so that it did not fit its frame. “In fact, I’ve followed your career with a certain morbid fascination. And I must say, it’s interesting you should ask about this door.”

“Oh? Why’s that?”

“After the constables left last night, I naturally checked to make certain that all the windows and doors were secure.”

“And?”

“This door was open.”

“You mean, the bolt was drawn?”

“More than that, my lord. The door itself was standing quite ajar. It’s possible, of course, that the constables threw it open in their search for the suspect-he ran off, you know, as soon as Mr. Perlman came and discovered him standing over the body. But I did find it peculiar. I mean, I myself heard Mr. Perlman say the blackguard ran out the front door. So why would they bother? And if it was the constables who opened the door, then why didn’t they close it? Shockingly bad form, if you ask me.” Campbell dragged open the door and bowed as a chorus of birdsong filled the air. “After you, my lord.”

Sebastian stepped onto a terrace of uneven slates strewn with dead leaves and broken branches and crowded with row after row of birdcages. In the largest cage near the door, half a dozen black crows flapped their wings in frustration. Other cages held everything from sparrows and doves to a white owl and one very disgruntled-looking, long-haired black cat with a long bushy tail and glinting green eyes.

“Mr. Eisler was fond of birds?” said Sebastian, going to stand before the cat’s cage. The cat blinked and stared back at him in sulky discontent.

Campbell cleared his throat. “I don’t know as I’d say he was exactly fond of them, my lord. But he was always buying them.”

Sebastian glanced over at the wooden-faced butler. “And doing what with them?”

The butler stared out over the overgrown ruin of a garden, toward a crumbling brick wall and the collapsed roof of what might once have been a stable. “That I couldn’t say, my lord.”

Sebastian studied the aged retainer’s carefully composed features, then turned back toward the house. “Do you know if Mr. Eisler was expecting any visitors last night?”

Campbell waited until they were back inside and the door was carefully relocked before saying, “Mr. Eisler frequently had visitors.”

“Oh? Anyone in particular you remember?”

“I’m afraid my memory isn’t what it used to be, my lord.”

“Like your hearing.”

Campbell slid the bolt home with quavering fingers. “Just so, my lord.”

Sebastian let his gaze drift around the cluttered space. Many of the paintings, he now realized, were priceless; he spotted a Van Eyck, a Fouquet, and, half-hidden behind the open door to the kitchen stairs, a massive Tintoretto. “The only staircase to the first floor is the one in the hall?”

“Yes, my lord.” Frowning, the butler leaned toward him, a suddenly arrested expression sharpening his features as he peered up into Sebastian’s face.

“What is it?” Sebastian asked.

“Have you by chance been here before, my lord?”

“No. Why do you ask?”

“You’re quite certain you didn’t come one day last week, to see Mr. Eisler?”

“Quite certain.”

The butler pursed his lips, his brow furrowing as he subjected Sebastian to a narrow-eyed study. “Yes, you’re right, of course. Now that I think about it, I believe the gentleman in question was slightly darker and perhaps a few years older- and not exactly a gentleman, if you get my drift, my lord? But for all that, there’s no denying the individual in question looked enough like you to be your own brother. . If you don’t mind my saying so, my lord?”

Sebastian was aware of a strange sensation, like a rush of burning liquid that coursed through his veins, tingling his fingertips and dulling all external sound. As if from a long way off, he heard the old man say, “You don’t by chance have a brother, do you, my lord?”

“A brother?” Somehow, Sebastian managed to keep his voice calm and even. “Not living, no.” At least, not to my knowledge, he thought, although he didn’t say it. He turned deliberately toward the darkened parlor beside them. “You say Mr. Eisler was found in here?”

“He was, my lord.” Campbell went to open the faded drapes at the front windows, filling the room with dust and a dim light half-obscured by thick wavy glass coated with the grime of ages. “Sprawled on his back just there. Quite ruined the rug, I’m afraid.”