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Barrington picked up the letter and read it.

“I see, Mr. Treviscoe. There is no gainsaying the opinion of such a worthy man as Bishop Willes. You have quite persuaded me. I shall write to Snodgrace, instructing him to give Paskett a proper Christian burial, with the full benediction of the Church of England.”

“I thank you, your Grace, with all my heart. As to your instructions to the Reverend Snodgrace, may I say that I shall be only too pleased to convey them thither myself?”

“You are en route to Amesbury? But why? Surely, as saith Isaiah, your warfare is accomplished.”

Treviscoe smiled and bowed. “There is still to be determined the cause behind the ghastly circumstances of Francis Paskett’s death, sir, and I am strictly commissioned to discover same, or else find no rest.”

“But we may be assured, then, that it was never the work of the Devil, but of men,” Barrington said.

“I do not purpose to contradict you on such matters, your Grace... but in my experience, murder is always the work of the Devil.”

Nightingale had not reacted to Treviscoe’s theological excuse for the Luciferians’ name during their interview with Barrington, but once they were mounted again and on their way, his temper flared.

“I had thought you a gentleman, Mr. Treviscoe,” he said, scowling. “I should never have conceived that you would lie so perfidiously to a lord of the Church.”

“Perfidy? I do not so consider it. What was wanted was a pretext for allowing your cousin a decent burial,” Treviscoe replied, “just as there was a pretext for denying him same. We both know that he was never a Devil-worshipper, but in this case the simple truth would not have served us, as it could never have satisfied the Bishop. Aye, it was a lie, as you say — but a lie to counteract a much more perfidious one. You are a warrior, sir — how stand you on the use of ruses de guerre? For so it was.”

“That is altogether different,” Nightingale said, squaring his shoulders and sitting up proudly. “A ruse de guerre is a deception against an enemy. You cannot consider the Bishop of Salisbury an enemy.”

“Rather an adversary, I should say, and if not to ourselves, then to our mission. But if I were so inclined, I might very well regard him as enemy — you heard him say that he thought it just that men of my faith should be denied political power on strictly theological grounds. I do not regard myself as less English than you, sirrah, nor more prone to betray my King and country, because I am a Catholic.”

“Nonsense. You would put the King in thrall to a tyrant, had you your way.”

“This is not the seventeenth century, Mr. Nightingale. We are not at war with Rome — and as for thralldom, even Catholic monarchs have righteously opposed Papal authority in battle.”

“Falderal. I believe that you have no scruples at all.”

Treviscoe frowned. Such insults often led to pistols at dawn. Narrowing his eyes, he carefully regarded his companion. “None? Then you do not know me at all. Jesus told Pilate, regnum meum non est de mundo — ‘my kingdom is not of this world.’ But we, sir, live in the kingdom of this world, as should our scruples.”

Nightingale had solved the problem of their lodgings by the simple expedient of taking over the local town-house rented by Francis Paskett, just off Amesbury’s High Street. Treviscoe could tell from the most cursory examination that it had been used as little more than what his French cousins would call a pied-à-terre, a mere convenience, and that Paskett had spent very little time there, except to sleep and, apparently, to read. The first three volumes of Joseph Priestley’s Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air (“Ha! So much for his detesting Unitarians,” Nightingale exclaimed when he saw it in Treviscoe’s hands), bound copies of Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier’s Sur la combustion en général, Considerations Générales sur la Nature des Acides, and Réflexions sur le Phlogistique, as well as various papers to the Royal Society by Henry Cavendish, were to be found scattered around the parlour, marked up by pencil in what Nightingale assured Treviscoe was Paskett’s own shorthand.

There was a long letter from Hero at the Post Office. Treviscoe pocketed this, and he and Nightingale then called on the vicarage.

They were not welcomed with any warmth, but they could hardly be refused, as Treviscoe bore Bishop Barrington’s letter. The Reverend Thomas Snodgrace was a large man of middle years, whose heavy face was unfashionably framed by a full-bottom wig, whose voice boomed like a kettle drum, and who suffered no opinion but his own to prevail in any conversation. In short, he was the worst kind of bully, one who used his physical presence as well as his erudition to browbeat dissent. He was not pleased with the Bishop’s letter, but did not dare to disobey the injunction it contained. Notwithstanding, he had no intention of easing the task.

“I cannot possibly lend you my sexton to help exhume the coffin,” he declared. “His duties demand his presence here.”

“We can hardly dig him up by ourselves,” Nightingale objected. “We are gentlemen, as you see.”

“Well, perhaps you can hire some of the local churls to abet you.”

“Is there someone specific to whom we might apply?” Treviscoe asked.

“Try the stonemason, Theodore Sault,” Snodgrace said. “He employs most of the strong backs hereabout.”

“And as we are about our business, you must have yours. Of course you will be prepared to receive the reliquiae once we have recovered them,” Treviscoe said. “I don’t misdoubt that one of the tasks to which you must set the sexton is a new grave.”

Snodgrace’s face went sour.

Sault, almost as ostentatious a personage as the vicar, gladly provided them with three men, Will Jackson, Peter Figg, and Nat Spurlock, and exacted a handsome fee in return. The men were sullen and distrustful — they were among the many who had believed the deceased to have been a malevolent sorcerer. Spurlock in particular seemed fearful of what they might find, and wasted no time in telling Treviscoe of the baleful omen he had witnessed the night of Paskett’s death to punctuate his misgivings. Treviscoe listened intently.

“Surely you had seen shooting stars ere then. What was so unusual about this apparition?”

“Weren’t no shooting star, sir. ’Twas a flash of hellfire, on my oath.”

“Mayhap like the discharge of a cannon?”

“Nor cannon, sir. Hellfire, sure.”

The Amesbury potter’s field was unkempt, but Paskett’s grave was reasonably fresh and the work went quickly. Soon they heard the thump of spades against the box of the coffin, but just as quickly the diggers scrambled out of the hole, their eyes wide with fright.

“God save us all,” Figg said, mashing his cap in his strong hands.

“What is it?” Nightingale asked, staring down into the dark cavity. “What is wrong?”

“Which it’s empty,” Jackson said, nodding sagely. “The Devil’s took him, hasn’t he?”

Treviscoe frowned with disgust and lowered himself into the grave to see for himself.

The top half of the coffin’s lid had been sheared off and roughly placed atop it. The body was obviously gone. Treviscoe lifted the tom plank to see more. There was nothing inside but long sharp splinters and a bundle of clothes, stained with blood, wrapped around a pair of shoes.

Treviscoe gathered the clothes and placed them carefully on the edge of the pit before hauling himself out, irritated that none of the workers so much as offered to assist him. Instead they backed away, as if he were a demon climbing up out of the depths of hell.