Chapter 55

It didn't take him long to locate the Three Feathers, a surprisingly elegant little inn located on a cul-de-sac just off Barton Street. With some persuasion—not all that tactfully applied, for Sebastian was tired—the innkeeper divulged that Hugh Gordon and an unidentified, heavily veiled lady had indeed spent the previous Tuesday night in the inn's best chamber.

But the Three Feathers was a busy establishment; the innkeeper had no way of knowing whether or not the actor had stayed at his lady's side all evening. And Barton Street was just around the corner from Great Peter Street and the ancient church of St. Matthew of the Fields.

Leaving Westminster, Sebastian caught a hackney to Tower Hill. "Ah. There you are," said Paul Gibson when he opened the door to Sebastian's knock half an hour later. "So Tom found you, did he?"

"No," said Sebastian, quickly closing the door against the acrid cold of the coming night. "I haven't seen the boy since this morning. Why? Have you discovered something?"

"Not as much as I might have wished." The doctor led the way down the narrow hall to the parlor, where he poured Sebastian a measure of mulled wine from the bowl warming near the fire. "You're looking decidedly the worse for wear."

Sinking into one of the seats beside the fire, Sebastian grasped the cup in both hands. "So everyone keeps saying." He took a sip of the warm wine, then leaned his head against the back of the chair and closed his eyes. "I feel as if I've been chased across London and back again for the past hundred years."

Gibson smiled. "Which probably explains why Tom didn't find you." He poured himself some of the mulled wine and came to take the other chair. "I tracked down the woman who did Rachel York's laying out. A horse-faced old battle-ax by the name of Molly O'Hara."

Sebastian brought his head forward and opened his eyes. "And?"

"Rachel York had a man's fob clutched in her fist. Unfortunately, by the time I found her, our dear Molly had already sold the trinket. She remembered little about it, beyond the fact that its swivel was broken."

"Rachel must have torn it from her attacker's waistcoat, just as he slit her throat."

"Yes, that's the way I figure it. The goldsmith Molly sold the trinket to used the damage to drive a hard bargain with her." The doctor drew a square of paper from his pocket. "A Mr. Sal Levitz. In Grace Church Street."

"You went to see him?"

"Yes, although I fear I didn't handle it as well as I should have."

"Let me guess. He claims he sold the trinket some fifteen minutes before you walked in his door."

Gibson gave a wry smile. "I'm afraid so. All I managed to get out of him was a rough sketch of the piece." Unfolding the paper, he smoothed it open on the arm of his chair. "Rather than a seal, the fob carried a charm, a Corinthian column worked in eighteen-carat solid gold. Whoever Rachel York's attacker was, he was obviously a gentleman. Or at least very wealthy."

Sebastian reached for the paper. "You do realize, of course, that your Mr. Levitz probably melted the damn thing down the instant you were out the door." Sebastian gazed at the sketch. "A foppish affectation. Prinny himself started the fad for these columns some months ago. Without the actual piece to trace, it's of no use at all."

"I'm afraid not."

Standing up, Sebastian began to pace the small room. " Bloody hell ," he said suddenly, his hand tightening to crush the drawing into a tight ball. "I had this incredible conceit, this belief that if I could trace the pattern of Rachel York's life through her last days, if I could understand why she went to that church—what dangerous game she was involved in—then I'd know who killed her. Not simply know it, but be able to prove it." He let out a hoarse laugh and tossed the crumpled paper onto a nearby table. "What hubris."

" Do you understand what she was involved in?"

"I think so, yes." Coming back to the fire, Sebastian quickly summed up the conversations with Gordon and Donatelli, then the death of Lord Frederick and the meeting with Jarvis.

"I'd still put my money on the Frenchman," said Gibson, when Sebastian had finished. "He could easily have found out Rachel was cooperating with Jarvis, and that she was the one responsible for the theft of his documents. Not only that, but he would have had a reason to go looking for the maid, Mary Grant, to get the remaining documents from her."

"So would Hugh Gordon," said Sebastian. "We know he was in Westminster last Tuesday. And while the innkeeper at the Three Feathers confirmed Gordon was there, he could easily have slipped out at some point during the evening."

The doctor pushed up from his chair to go stir the bowl of mulled wine. "I still don't understand the part Lord Jarvis played in all this."

Sebastian smiled and drained his cup. "That's because you don't have Jarvis's devious mind. Lord Jarvis knew Pierrepont was the French spy-master in London—according to my father, it's been known for over a year. Jarvis must have realized Lord Frederick was falling into one of the Frenchman's carefully spun traps. Only instead of warning the man, Jarvis developed a plan of his own, a plan to discredit the Whigs and prevent them from taking over the government when the Regency was proclaimed."

"So he—what? Approached Rachel and threatened her with a traitor's gruesome end if she didn't deliver one of the letters Fairchild wrote to his young lover? I can see how that might discredit Fairchild. What I can't see is how it implicates him and the Whigs with the French."

"Ah. But Jarvis didn't immediately take the letter to the Prince, remember? He waited until today, when the Prince is doubtless in a high fret over tomorrow's installation. Then, acting as if he's only recently discovered Pierrepont's activities, Jarvis ordered the Frenchman's townhouse raided. Only then did he produce the letter and tell the Prince it was found in Pierrepont's possession. And because Pierrepont has conveniently disappeared, there's no danger of the Frenchman spilling the truth."

Gibson carefully ladled more steaming wine into Sebastian's cup. "But if Jarvis was planning to expose Pierrepont and raid his townhouse anyway, why pressure Rachel York to produce one of the letters ahead of time? Why not simply seize the letters in the raid?"

"Because there was always the possibility that the letters wouldn't be found, and a man like Jarvis doesn't leave that sort of thing to chance." Sebastian took the warm drink in both hands. "And remember, the letter wasn't the only thing implicating Lord Frederick. The fool was meeting his lover in the rooms of a woman known to be working with the French."

"Poor girl," said Paul Gibson, refilling his own mug. "So Jarvis intended to betray her anyway?"

"I suspect so. Except that Rachel was smart enough to realize she was in danger. She decided she needed to get away and she came up with a plan of her own—to take the rest of Fairchild's letters, and the document about my mother, and God knows what else, and sell them to the interested parties."

"Huh," said the doctor, easing back down in his chair. "If you ask me, the killer could be any one of them—Pierrepont, Gordon, Donatelli—even bloody Jarvis himself."

"You're forgetting Bayard," said Sebastian, going to stand beside the hearth. "He might have been falling down drunk when his father took him home at nine. But we have only Amanda's word for it that he stayed there. It's not beyond belief that he went out again, looking for Rachel. He could have followed her to that church and killed her."

"But why would Bayard go after the maid, Mary Grant? Pierrepont and Gordon both had a good reason to want to get their hands on the rest of those documents. Even Donatelli admits he went looking for them. But Bayard knew nothing of them."

"True," said Sebastian, his gaze on the glowing coals on the hearth. "Yet of them all, Bayard is the one I'd say is unbalanced enough to slake his lust on a woman's dead body."

"How well do you know the others? Mmmm? When it comes right down to it? We know Hugh Gordon is prone to violence against women, while Pierrepont must have witnessed enough horrors during the Revolution in Paris to turn anyone's mind. In fact, of them all, the only one I can't see committing such an act of unbridled emotion is Lord Jarvis. He's too damnably cool and calm and in control."

"Rather like his daughter," Sebastian said wryly.

A hint of amusement eased the worried lines on the Irishman's forehead. "You know what they say: the apple doesn't fall very far from the tree."

Sebastian spun around. "Say that again."

"What? Say what?"

" Apples and trees ," said Sebastian, crossing the room to snatch up the crumpled goldsmith's sketch. "Good God. Why didn't I see it before?"