C Harris - When maidens mourn

`So there is. But there must be several dozen or more calico printers scattered across London. So if you're thinking there's any connection between the calico printer's cart I hear those four escaping French officers were taken up in and my tavern, then let me tell you right now, you re fair and far out.'

`I might have believed you if I hadn't discovered that Philippe Arceneaux was present at that little set-to you had with Miss Tennyson last Thursday at the York Steps. I'm thinking there's a reason you left that detail out, and this is it.'

Knox stood with his hands on his slim hips, his cheeks slightly hollowed, a faint smile dancing around his mouth as if he were amused.

Sebastian said, `You see, I'm thinking there were originally supposed to be six Frenchmen in that cart, with Arceneaux being one of them. Only, somehow the woman he loved - that would be Miss Tennyson, by the way - found out he was planning to escape and begged him to stay. So he backed out.'

`An interesting theory, to be sure. Although I fail to see what the hell any of this has to do with me.'

Sebastian watched the team of heavy dapple grays hitched to Kno' s beer wagon lean into their collars. `I m told that six hundred and ninety-two paroled French officers have escaped or attempted to escape from England in the past three years. That's an extraordinary number of men. Is that how you pay for the French wine and brandy you smuggle in? With escaped prisoners of war?'

The rain drummed around them, pounding on the puddles in the courtyard and sluicing off the brewery's high roof. Knox stared back at him, silent, watchful.

Sebastian said, `It's a clever, lucrative rig you re running, but it's also dangerous. Did Gabrielle Tennyson discover what you were doing? Is that why you were quarreling with her by the York Steps last Thursday? Because there's some men who might consider that kind of threat a good motive for murder, if they thought a woman was going to give their game away. Did Arceneaux accuse you of killing her, I wonder? Did you decide to kill him before he could cause you any trouble?'

A cold, dangerous light glittered in the depths of the rifleman's eyes. `And the two lads? Am I to have killed them too, just for the sport of it?'

`In my experience there's a certain kind of man who can turn decidedly lethal when he's feeling cornered. Maybe you saw an opportunity to strike against her and you didn't let the fact that the boys were there, too, stop you.'

`And what was I doing out at that moat with Miss Tennyson and the two brats? Mmm? You tell me that. You think she drove out there with me? Her in love with Arceneaux and thinking me a smuggler and all-around degenerate character?'

It was the one inescapable flaw in Sebastian's theory, and he'd known it when he decided to approach the rifleman.

`I don't know why she went out there with you. Maybe you followed her. Maybe she wasn't even killed at the moat. Maybe that's why the two lads bodies have never been found, because you killed and buried them someplace else.'

The tight smile was back around Knox's lips. `Someplace such as St. Helen's churchyard, perhaps? Now, there's a clever place to hide a couple of bodies, don't you think? In a graveyard full of moldering corpses?'

`Perhaps, said Sebastian. Then again, it's always possible you didn't kill Miss Tennyson at all - that someone else killed her for a different reason entirely. But Arceneaux would have no way of knowing that, would he? Something he said to me the other day suggested he was afraid he might be responsible for what had happened to her. So maybe he accused you of killing her, even when you hadn't. Maybe he threatened to expose you once his friends escaped. The timing of his death is curious, wouldn't you agree?'

All trace of amusement had drained from the rifleman's face, leaving it hard and tight. `I've killed many men in my day; what soldier hasn't? But I've never killed a woman or a child, and I've never murdered a man in cold blood.'

The two men stared at each other. The rain poured around them, loud in Sebastian's ears. He settled his hat lower on his forehead. `If I find out you shot Philippe Arceneaux, I'll see you hang for it.'

Brother or no brother, he thought. But he didn't say it.

Sebastian stood at the top of the Cole Harbour Steps, the storm-churned waters of the Thames slapping the ancient masonry at his feet. Behind him loomed the soot-covered brick walls of the brewery and the steelyard beyond that. Dark clouds pressed down on the city, heavy with the promise of rain.

More and more, he was beginning to think there was something in Gabrielle Tennyson's life that he was missing, something that would explain the puzzle that was her death and the mysterious disappearance of her two young cousins. He had pieced together much of it her love for the scholarly young French lieutenant, the conflicts swirling around her work on the legends of King Arthur and Camelot, the ill-fated escape attempt by Arceneaux's fellow officers. But something still eluded him. And he couldn't shake the growing conviction that the missing children were the key.

Had Gabrielle and the two boys driven up to Camlet Moat in the company of their killer? Or was her body simply planted there for reasons Sebastian could only guess at? Why would the killer leave Gabrielle at the moat and then take her young cousins elsewhere to kill or bury them? Had the cousins been killed, or were they even now out there, somewhere, alive?

Sebastian turned, his gaze narrowing as he stared up the river. From here he could look beyond the soot-blackened expanse of Blackfriars Bridge to the distant bend marked by the rising arches of the new Strand Bridge. Farther beyond that, lost in the mist, lay the imposing facade of the Adelphi. An idea was forming in his mind, a scenario that made more sense as the different possibilities he was looking at spiraled narrower and narrower.

Swinging away from the river, he darted through the rain to Upper Thames Street, where he flagged down a hackney and directed the driver to Tower Hill.

`Come to collect your dog, have you?' asked Gibson, limping ahead of Sebastian down his narrow hall.

Sebastian swung off his wet cloak and swiped his sleeve across his dripping face. `Is he going to be all right, then?'

Gibson led the way into his tattered, cluttered parlor, where the little black and brown dog raised his head, his tail thumping against the worn rug in welcome. But Chien made no effort to get up, and Sebastian could see blood still seeping through the thick bandage at his shoulder.

`It might be better if you left him with me a wee bit longer, just so I can keep an eye on him.' Gibson rasped a hand across his chin, which from the looks of things he hadn't bothered to shave that morning. `Although there's no denying he's a sore trial.'

`What have you been doing, Chien? Hmm?' Sebastian went to hunker down beside the dog. `Stealing the ham Mrs. Federico had intended for our good surgeon's dinner?'

`As a matter of fact, he tried. But that's not the worst of it. I let him out in the yard to answer nature's call, and what does he do but bring me back a bone. Thankfully, he wasn't chewing on it, just presented it to me like he'd found something precious and expected a reward.'

`Did Mrs. Federico see it?' Gibson's housekeeper, Mrs. Federico, was both extraordinarily squeamish about her employer's activities and blissfully ignorant of what lay buried in his yard.

`Fortunately, no. But if he starts digging holes out there, I'm going to be in trouble.' Gibson eyed Sebastian darkly. `Go on, then, laugh if you want. But if you're not here for the dog, then why are you here?'

`Do you still have the clothes Gabrielle Tennyson was wearing when she was murdered?'