Take em home and baby em, he said, handing Tom the reins.
Aye, gov nor. Tom scrambled into the seat as Sebastian hopped down to the narrow footpath. You want I should come back with the grays?
Sebastian shook his head. I ll send for you if I need you.
He stood for a moment, watching the lad expertly wind his way westward through the press of carts and coal wagons. Near the base of the hill, a ragged boy with a drum tapped a steady beat to attract customers to the street seller who stood beside him hawking fried fish. Nearby, a woman with a cart peddled eel jelly, while a thin man in a buff-colored coat watered a nondescript roan at an old fountain built against the wall of the corner house. Then, realizing he was only delaying the inevitable, Sebastian turned to cut through the noisome, high-walled passage that led to the unkempt yard behind Gibson s surgery.
At the base of the yard lay a small stone outbuilding used by the surgeon both for his official postmortems and for a series of surreptitious dissections performed on cadavers snatched from the city s graveyards under the cover of darkness by stealthy, dangerous men. As Sebastian neared the open door of the building, he could see the remains of a woman lying on the cold, hard granite slab in the center of the single, high-windowed room.
Even in death, Miss Gabrielle Tennyson was a handsome woman, her features gracefully molded, her mouth generous, her upper lip short and gently cleft, her chestnut hair thick and luxuriously wavy. He paused in the doorway, his gaze on her face.
Ah, there you are, said Gibson, looking up. He set aside his scalpel with a clatter and reached for a rag to wipe his hands. I thought I might be seeing you.
A slim man of medium height in his early thirties, Paul Gibson had dark hair and green eyes bright with an irrepressible glint of mischief that almost but not quite hid the dull ache of chronic pain lurking in their nuanced depths. Irish by birth, he had honed his craft on the battlefields of Europe, learning the secrets of life and death from an endless parade of bodies slashed open and torn asunder. Then a French cannonball had shattered his own lower left leg, leaving him with a painful stump and a weakness for the sweet relief to be found in an elixir of poppies. He now divided his time between teaching anatomy to the medical students at St. Thomas s Hospital and consulting with patients at his own private surgery here in the shadows of the Tower of London.
Can you tell me anything yet? asked Sebastian, looking pointedly away from what Gibson had been doing to the cadaver. Like Gibson, Sebastian had worn the King s colors, fighting for God and country from Italy to the West Indies to the Peninsula. But he had never become inured to the sight or smell of death.
Not much, I m afraid, although I m only just getting started. I might have more for you in a wee bit. Gibson limped from behind the table, his peg leg tap-tapping on the uneven flagged flooring. He pointed to a jagged purple slit that marred the milky flesh of the body s left breast. You can see where she was stabbed. The blade was perhaps eight or ten inches long and an inch wide. Either her killer knew what he was doing or he got lucky. He hit her heart with just one thrust.
She died right away?
Almost instantly.
Sebastian dropped his gaze to the long, tapered fingers that lay curled beside the body s hips. The nails were carefully manicured and unbroken.
No sign of a struggle?
None that I ve found.
So she may have known her attacker?
Perhaps. Gibson tossed the rag aside. Lovejoy s constable said she was found drifting in a dinghy outside London?
Sebastian nodded. On an old moat near Enfield. Any idea how long she s been dead?
Roughly twenty-four hours, I d say, perhaps a few hours more or a little less. But beyond that it s difficult to determine.
Sebastian studied the reddish purple discoloration along the visible portions of the body s flanks and back. He knew from his own experience on the battlefield that blood tended to pool in the lower portions of a cadaver. Any chance she could have been killed someplace else and then put in that boat?
I haven t found anything to suggest it, no. The livor mortis is consistent with the position in which I m told she was found.
Sebastian s gaze shifted to the half boots of peach-colored suede, the delicate stockings, the froth of white muslin neatly folded on a nearby shelf. These are hers?
Yes.
He reached out to finger the dark reddish brown stain that stiffened the delicate lace edging of the bodice. Suddenly the dank, death-tinged air of the place seemed to reach out and wrap itself around him, smothering him. He dropped his hand to his side and went to stand outside in the yard, the buzz of insects loud in the rank grass of the neglected garden as he drew in a deep breath of fresh air.
He was aware of his friend coming to stand beside him. Gibson said, Lovejoy tells me Miss Jar I mean, Lady Devlin was acquainted with the victim.
They were quite close, yes.
Sebastian stared up at the hot, brittle blue sky overhead. When the messenger from Bow Street arrived in Brook Street that morning, Sebastian thought he had never seen Hero more devastated. Yet she hadn t wept, and she had turned down his suggestion that she drive up to Camlet Moat with him. He did not understand why. But then, how much did he really know about the woman he had married?
Hero and this dead woman had shared so much in common an enthusiasm for scholarship and research, a willingness to challenge societal expectations and prejudices, and a rejection of marriage and motherhood as the only acceptable choice for a woman. He could understand Hero s grief and anger at the loss of her friend. But he couldn t shake the uncomfortable sense that something else was going on with her, something he couldn t even begin to guess at.
Gibson said, This must be difficult for her. Any leads yet on the two lads?
Sebastian glanced over at him, not understanding. What lads?
The two boys Miss Tennyson had spending the summer with her. Gibson must have read the confusion in Sebastian s face, because he added, You mean to say you haven t heard?
Sebastian could feel his heart beating in his ears like a thrumming of dread. Heard what?
The news has been all over town this past hour or more. The children have vanished. No one s seen them since yesterday morning.
Chapter 8
The Adelphi Terrace or Royal Terrace, as it was sometimes called stretched along the bank of the Thames overlooking the vast Adelphi Wharves. A long block of elegant neoclassical town houses built by the Adams brothers late in the previous century, the address was popular with the city s rising gentry class, particularly with Harley Street physicians and successful barristers such as Gabrielle Tennyson s brother. As Sebastian rounded the corner from Adams Street, he found Sir Henry Lovejoy exiting the Tennysons front door.
You ve heard about the missing children? asked Sir Henry, his homely face troubled as he waited for Sebastian to come up to him.
Just now, from Gibson.
Sir Henry blew out a long, painful breath. I needn t scruple to tell you this adds a very troubling dimension to the case. A very troubling dimension indeed.
You ve found no trace of them?
Nothing. Nothing at all. Right now, we re hoping the children witnessed the murder and ran away to hide in the woods in fright. The alternative is Well, it s not something I m looking forward to dealing with.
They turned to walk along the terrace fronting onto the wharves below. The fierce midday sun glinted off the broad surface of the river beside them and the air filled with the rough shouts of bargemen working the river and the rattle of carts on the coal wharf.
We ve had constables knocking on doors up and down the street, said Sir Henry, in the hopes someone might be able to tell us what time Miss Tennyson and the children left the house, or perhaps even with whom. Unfortunately, the heat has driven most of the residents into the country, and of those who remain, no one recalls having seen anything.