What Remains Of Heaven Part 11

They paused beside a medicinal stall selling everything from leeches and dried herbs to snails for a healing broth. "Yet they attributed the man's disappearance to highwaymen?" said Sebastian. "Seems a bit of a stretch, does it not? When was the last time you heard of thieves leaving a purebred horse and saddle, and stealing their victim's dead body?"

"The authorities a.s.sumed the horse bolted when Sir Nigel was set upon. Hounslow Heath was particularly notorious in those days."

"Was there no suspicion at the time that the Baronet might have met with foul play at the hands of some enemy?"

"Oh, yes, there was considerable speculation. I gather Sir Nigel had a rather unsavory reputation."

"I've heard he was a member of the h.e.l.lfire Club."

"That, too." The magistrate peered thoughtfully at a mound of dried mint on the table before them. "He seems to have had a talent for arousing the pa.s.sions of his enemies."

"Somewhat like his brother," observed Sebastian. "Although not, obviously, for the same reasons."

"How true." Lovejoy paid for a measure of the mint, and slipped the packet into his pocket. "I understand that, at first, suspicion focused on the son of a former tenant who was nursing a powerful grudge against the Baronet. But the lad possessed a solid alibi for the evening in question."

"What sort of alibi?"

They turned back toward Bow Street. "He was locked up in a roundhouse here in London."

Sebastian thought about the Renaissance dagger that had been found in Sir Nigel's corpse. He could see a disgruntled farmer taking a sickle to the Baronet's back. But an antique Italian dagger? Aloud, he said, "What was the nature of the lad's grudge?"

"Seems his father had quarreled with Sir Nigel over some trifle. Sir Nigel retaliated by having the family evicted from their cottage. It was in the midst of a dreadful snowstorm and the entire family froze to death on the heath trying to make it into London. Mother, father, two young girls. The only reason the lad survived was because some uncle had arranged for him to be apprenticed to a butcher in London, so he wasn't with them."

Sebastian drew up short, the tumult of the busy square swirling around him. "You say the lad was a butcher's apprentice?"

Lovejoy looked over at him in surprise. "That's right. Why?"

"Do you know his name?"

"Slade. Jack Slade."

Something of Sebastian's reaction must have shown in his face, because Lovejoy said, "You know him?"

"I know him," said Sebastian.

Chapter 20.

Finding the butcher shop on Monkwell Street closed, Se bastian tracked Jack Slade to the nearby vast livestock market of Smithfield.

Once, these death-haunted acres had echoed with the crackle of burning f.a.ggots, the jeers of angry mobs, the shrieks of dying martyrs as Protestant monarchs burned Papists, and Catholic monarchs burned heretics. Now the open ground was crowded with pens of bleating sheep separated by foul lanes where long lines of cattle stood, their heads tied to the rails.

Working his way down a narrow pathway, Sebastian found Jack Slade with his foot propped up on the nearest low rail, a drover's boy beside him as they inspected a long-horned Spanish cow tied up outside the sprawling bulk of St. Bartholomew's Hospital. The air was heavy with the smell of manure and wet hides and unwashed men.

At a nod from Sebastian, the drover's boy drew back, his jaw slack with wonder. This time, Sebastian had made no effort to disguise who or what he was.

"You didn't tell me you grew up on Prescott Grange," said Sebastian.

His foot sliding off the rail, Slade straightened slowly, his eyes narrowing as he took in Sebastian's blue coat of superfine, the exquisitely tailored doeskin breeches, and gleaming Hessians. But all he said was, "Ye dinna ask."

Sebastian hooked one elbow over the top rail of the fence beside him, his gaze drifting over the sheep milling in the pen. "You still maintain you went to see Bishop Prescott on Monday afternoon to take him some pork chops?"

Slade sucked on the plug of tobacco distending his lower lip. "Why else would I go see him?"

"I'm told you threatened to kill his brother thirty years ago."

Slade pursed his lips and spat a thick stream of tobacco juice that hit the cobbles in a yellowish brown splat. "That were no threat. That were a promise. And I'd o' done it, too, if somebody hadna beat me to it."

Beside them, the cattle shifted restlessly, steam rising from their hides. A roar of voices from a nearby public house mingled with the barking of dogs and the whistling of the drovers and the frightened chorus of bellowing and bleats coming from the doomed animals.

Slade spat again. "What ye thinkin'? That I done for Sir Nigel thirty years ago, then went after the Bishop on Tuesday night? I had no quarrel with the Bishop. He was a good, G.o.d fearin' man. Unlike his h.e.l.l's sp.a.w.n o' a brother."

"Where were you Tuesday night?"

"With me mates at the local. Why?"

"What time did you get there?"

Slade smiled, revealing two rows of rotten, tobacco-stained teeth. "What time did the good Bishop get hisself killed? Because whene'er it was, I've a dozen mates who'll swear I was at the public house the whole night."

Sebastian watched a hawker working the crowd, his tray piled high with sausages. "I hear you were locked up in a watch house the night Sir Nigel disappeared."

"Yeah. On the Strand. What of it?"

"Convenient."

"Weren't it just?"

Sebastian studied the butcher's creased, sun-darkened face. "Who do you think killed him?"

"You mean Sir Nigel?" Slade sniffed. "I don't know. But if I did, I'd buy the b.a.s.t.a.r.d a b.l.o.o.d.y drink."

"That seems to be a common sentiment."

"Yeah? Well, that tells ye somethin', don't it?"

"I a.s.sume you've heard by now that Sir Nigel's body has been found?"

A muscle bunched along the butcher's prominent jaw. "No. Where?"

"In the crypt of St. Margaret's. It seems he was murdered down there, not long before the crypt was sealed."

To Sebastian's surprise, Jack Slade threw back his head and laughed.

Sebastian said, "That's amusing?"

"Course it's amusin'." He glanced sideways at Sebastian. "Ye don't find it amusin'?"

"I'm obviously missing something."

Slade laid a forefinger beside his nose and winked. "Seems our good Bishop had more'n his fair share o' secrets, hmm?"

"Did he?"

"Kinda makes ye wonder, don't it, why he ordered that crypt bricked up all them years ago?"

"The Bishop?" Sebastian frowned. "What did the Bishop of London have to do with the decision to seal the crypt of St. Margaret's?"

Amus.e.m.e.nt danced in the other man's small, dark eyes. "Ye don't know, do ye?"

"Evidently not," said Sebastian dryly.

Slade used his tongue to shift his plug of tobacco to his cheek. "Who ye think was the priest in residence at St. Margaret's thirty years ago?"

Sebastian said, "The Bishop began his ecclesiastical career as a doctor of cla.s.sics at Oxford."

"Maybe." Slade leaned toward him, his breath heavy with the odors of rotten teeth and half-masticated tobacco. "But I knows what I knows. Ye look into it. Ye'll see." He paused, his small eyes practically disappearing into the folds of flesh as he smiled. "Captain Lord Devlin."

"You've been talking to your son," said Sebastian, his gaze drifting over the lowing cows, the pens of milling, bleating, terrified sheep. "I don't see him around today."

"Nope. But that don't mean he ain't here, watching ye." Slade ran his hand down the Spanish cow's flank. The cow shied away, bellowing, its hooves churning the mud and muck of the pa.s.sage. "Ye think about that," he said, and walked off into the noisy, pushing throng of men and beasts.

It seemed at first improbable to Sebastian that the Bishop of London might be the shadowy reverend who ordered the crypt of St. Margaret's bricked up all those years ago. Yet the more he thought about it, the less certain he became. The exact year of the closing of the crypt had been forgotten, and no one had bothered to inquire too closely into the Bishop's own past.

Leaving the market at Smithfield, Sebastian turned his horses toward the West End, to London House in St. James's Square.

He found the Bishop's chaplain seated on the floor of the Bishop's official chambers, surrounded by piles of paper and looking harried. "I beg your pardon, my lord," he said, shifting a large stack of folders, "but now is not a good time."

"Just one question," said Sebastian, pausing in the doorway of the disheveled chambers. "Was Bishop Prescott ever the priest in residence at St. Margaret's in Tanfield Hill?"

Frown lines appeared in the Chaplain's forehead. "Why, yes, of course. Back in-" He broke off suddenly, his eyes widening as comprehension dawned. "Good heavens."

"Exactly."

They went for a walk in the Square, skirting the perimeter of the octagonal-shaped iron fence that railed off the vast circular pond in the center.

"I was under the impression," said Sebastian, "that the Bishop began his career at Oxford."

"He did." The Chaplain clasped his hands together behind his back, the black skirts of his ca.s.sock swirling around his ankles as he walked. "He believed, initially, that his vocation lay in scholarship. But then he discovered he possessed an affinity for ministry. When the benefice at Tanfield Hill fell vacant, it was given to him."

"St. Margaret's is in the Prescott family's gift?" More than half the livings in England were under the control of private landowners, who either gave them to a younger son or cousin, or sold them like an investment.

"Yes. Before Francis Prescott took it up, I believe it was in the possession of a distant cousin."

"When exactly was this?"

"That Dr. Prescott was in residence at St. Margaret's?" The Chaplain thought about it a moment. "From sometime in the late 1770s until the end of 1782, I believe."

"So it would have been Prescott's decision to seal the crypt at St. Margaret's?"

The Chaplain blew out his breath in a long sigh. "I suppose it must have been, although I couldn't say for certain without looking at the records." He glanced over at Sebastian. "I know what you're thinking, but you're wrong. The Bishop was a man of G.o.d. A good, gentle soul, repulsed by violence. He could never have killed his own brother and then bricked up the crypt to hide the deed."

Sebastian studied the Chaplain's pale, troubled features. In his experience, most people were capable of murder, if pushed hard enough. And Sir Nigel certainly sounded like the kind of man who had pushed many men hard enough to goad one of them into murder.

"I was acquainted with him, you know," said the Chaplain.

Sebastian glanced over at him in surprise. "You mean Sir Nigel?"

The Chaplain nodded. "I was only a child when he disappeared, but he was . . . most memorable. A huge man, loud and rather frightening, actually."

"How did the two brothers get along?"

"Sir Nigel was . . ." The Chaplain hesitated, searching for the right words. He eventually settled on," . . . a difficult man."

"In what way?"

The Chaplain's lips tightened into a thin line. "I see no point in speaking ill of the dead."

"Even when one is dealing with murder?"

They walked along in silence for a moment, the Chaplain's features set in troubled lines. After a time, he said, "Sir Nigel could be charming, even gracious. Yet he could also be quick-tempered, vicious, and vindictive. He was cruel to everyone, from his wife and servants to his dogs. The only creatures I ever saw him treat with any restraint and affection were his horses. As a child, I soon learned to avoid him whenever possible."

"How did he get along with his brother Francis?" Sebastian asked again.

"Bishop Prescott was the youngest of five brothers and two sisters, with Sir Nigel the eldest. Given the large difference in the two men's ages, I doubt there was much interaction between them."

"But that would have changed, surely, when Francis Prescott took up the living at St. Margaret's?"

"I suppose." They had completed their circ.u.mambulation of the pond. The Chaplain glanced up at the crepe-hung facade of London House. "I wish I could help you more. But it was all so long ago."

Sebastian nodded. "Thank you. You've been a tremendous help." He turned toward where Tom was waiting with the horses, then paused to look back and say, "Did the Bishop ever talk much about his time at St. Margaret's?"

"No. To be honest, I can't recall ever having heard him mention it. I suppose that's why I didn't make the connection sooner."

"You don't find that unusual?"

The Chaplain frowned. "That he didn't talk about it, you mean? At the time, I didn't. But now that I think about it?" He let out a long sigh that left him looking suddenly older than his years, and considerably more likable. "It's worrisome, yes. Very worrisome."

Chapter 21.