Why Mermaids Sing (11 page)

S
ebastian noticed the man right away.

He stood with one shoulder propped against the trunk of a chestnut tree near the banks of the river, his head half turned away so that Sebastian could see only his profile. Young and of medium height and build, the man wore a double-breasted olive coat with wide-flaring lapels, full sleeves, and a long-tailed skirt. Once the coat must have come from a Bond Street tailor. But Sebastian suspected the coat, like the man’s wide-brimmed hat and shiny leather breeches, had passed through one or two used-clothing dealers before reaching its present owner.

Sebastian had seen the man before, amongst the handful of fellow passengers on the hoy down from London. At the time Sebastian had paid him little heed. Now, without looking at the man again, Sebastian closed Bellamy’s gate behind him and turned toward the cluster of elegant eighteenth-century buildings that formed the heart of Greenwich. The olive-coated man lingered for a time looking out over the wide expanse of the river. Then he pushed away from the tree to follow at a distance.

The day was cool and overcast with high white clouds. Sebastian crossed into the park, his gaze scanning the tree-shaded hillside for his tiger. He finally found the boy in a crowd of laughing children gathered before a Punch and Judy show. Tom threw one last look at the puppets, then came on the run, one elbow crooked skyward as he clapped his tiger’s hat to his head.

“Walk with me toward the top of the hill,” said Sebastian as Tom came up to him. “There’s a man following us—no, don’t look back,” he added hastily when Tom’s head jerked to do just that.

“Who is ’e?”

“I don’t know. He followed us from London.”

At the top of the hill, they paused to look back toward the river. From here, they could see the white jewel known as the Queen’s House and, beyond that, the stately bulk of Wren’s Naval College on the banks of the river. London was a vast, crowded sprawl to the west, bristling with spires and towers. “See him now?” asked Sebastian, his gaze on the distant city.

“Aye.”

“Did you notice him earlier, when you were asking questions around town?”

Tom shook his head. “No.”

“Learn anything interesting about Captain and Mrs. Bellamy during the course of your perambulations?”

“Of my what?”

“Perambulations. Travels or inspections by foot.”

“Oh. Well, I ’eared this Mrs. Bellamy ain’t the dead Lieutenant’s mum. She’s Captain Bellamy’s second wife. The Captain’s first wife died of consumption back in ninety-seven. It’s ’er ’ouse they’re living in now. Belonged to ’er da.”

“And the neighbors are suspicious of the new Mrs. Bellamy because she’s a foreigner.”

Tom looked up in surprise. “How’d ye know?”

“Lucky guess. What else do they say about her?”

“Not much, ’cept that the Captain is ’eld to ’ave married beneath ’im.”

“Because she’s from Brazil?”

“Because she can’t read or write.”

“Really? That’s interesting.”

“They’ve got a little girl. Name o’ Francesca. Seems the Lieutenant fair doted on ’er, even if she is ’alf foreign.”

“What do they say of the Lieutenant himself?”

“Sounds to ’ave been a likable sort of lad when ’e were younger. Folks ain’t seen ’im much since ’e joined the Navy.”

“And the Captain?”

“I’m thinkin’ there’s somethin’ queer about ’im, although no one would come right out and say it. ’E’s been retired these last five years or so, ever since ’e lost ’is last ship.”

Sebastian brought his full attention back to the tiger. “Really? What happened?”

“Come to grief in a storm. It were an East Indiaman, name o’ the
Harmony
.” Tom shifted restlessly from one foot to the other, his gaze drifting from the olive-coated man now watching the Punch and Judy show to the twin turrets of Flamsteed House. “What we gonna do about that cove?”

“Let him follow us to the Observatory, if he likes.”

Tom’s eyes shone with excitement.

They turned together to descend the hill toward the neat seventeenth-century house designed by Wren himself. Sebastian’s gaze narrowed as he studied the thunderheads building to the west. “According to Adrian Bellamy’s little sister, the Lieutenant always came to see her whenever he was in port. Yet he didn’t come this time. Instead Captain Bellamy went to see him as soon as his ship docked. I’m wondering if Captain Bellamy didn’t perhaps warn his son not to leave the ship—that his life was at risk.”

“But the Lieutenant did leave ’is ship.”

“Someone sent him a note saying he was needed at home.”

Tom did a little skip. “Maybe the killer’s getting tired of ’aving to follow these young gentlemen all over the place.”

“Perhaps,” said Sebastian. “Or perhaps he feels he’s running out of time.”

The wind was stiffening when they boarded the hoy for the return journey up the Thames, the clouds hanging low and ominous. The river had turned into a dancing cauldron of choppy waves that filled the air with spray and set the small, eighty-foot-long boat to rocking and pitching against its moorings.

Tom lurched up the gangplank, laughing as the deck rose up to meet him, then fell away sharply. While the boy darted across the deck, talking nonstop to the skipper and his mate and setting the boat’s dog to barking with excitement, Sebastian went to stand near the forward hatchway, his face turned toward the wind.

The man in the olive coat was one of the last passengers to board. He went to lounge at the stern, his collar turned up against the mist-filled wind as the mate cast off and the hoy pulled away from the wharf. The wind filled the brown canvas, setting the sails to snapping against the gray sky. Olive Coat braced his legs wide against the steep pitch and fall of the deck, like a man who’d spent his share of time at sea.

It was some ten minutes later that Sebastian noticed Tom had grown increasingly quiet. His mouth hung slack, and his skin had taken on a greenish hue. Sebastian hauled the boy up from behind the crate where he’d sought shelter and half steered, half carried him to the bow.

“You need air. Lots of air. No, don’t watch the deck. Keep your eyes on the horizon. Pick a point in the distance and concentrate on it. It’s no different from riding in a well-sprung carriage.”

“I never wanted to empty my breadbasket in no carriage,” said Tom, wiping his sleeve across his mouth.

Sebastian cast a glance back at the stern. Olive Coat was still there, his attention seemingly focused on the stately East Indiaman just off their port side, making its way downstream.

“How much longer?” said Tom in a small, reedy voice.

Sebastian put a hand on the boy’s shoulder and squeezed. “A while. The hoy’s leeboards allow for a fairly effective windward performance, but she’s sitting low in the water. Her cargo’s heavy.”

Tom groaned.

The boy lost it a few times over the side, but he stayed at the rail, grim-faced and plucky until the hoy bumped up against its London wharf. The air filled with the whine of lines being uncoiled, the salt-cracked voice of the skipper shouting his orders, the scrape of the gangplank being slid out at midship.

“Can I get off now?” asked Tom.

Sebastian glanced down at the boy’s ashen cheeks. “You go ahead. I’ll stay behind and keep an eye on our olive-coated friend. Just be careful on the gangplank. The spray will have made it slippery.”

Tom nodded, his step unsteady as he lurched to midship.

Sebastian hung back, letting most of the other passengers push past him. He was aware of his olive-coated shadow doing the same, falling behind him as Sebastian moved toward the gangplank. Sebastian had taken one step, two, out onto the gangplank when he felt a rough hand clap on his shoulder.

“He’s got a knife!”
screamed Tom from the wharf.

Sebastian dropped to one knee and spun around, his hands coming up to close on the man’s outstretched arm and jerk him sideways. Caught off balance, the man staggered, his feet sliding on the wet wood, the knife clattering as it fell.

Sebastian let go and ducked back. For one unforgettable moment, their gazes locked. The young man’s gray eyes widened with quick comprehension and terror, his arms windmilling as he sought to catch his balance. Sebastian surged up, reaching for him, but it was too late. The man pitched sideways off the gangplank to splash into the narrow triangle of water between the wharf and the hoy’s hull.

The air filled with the snap of canvas, the creak of timbers as the wind caught the hoy and swung it toward the wharf. The man’s head surged up to break water, his eyes wild, his arms flailing as he sought to kick out of the way. The hoy’s black hull loomed over him, smashing him against the wooden embankment with a grinding, sickening
thwump
that shook the wharf and ended the man’s scream.

“Bloody hell,” whispered Tom.

“Y
our inquiries are obviously making someone nervous,” said Paul Gibson, leaning back in his chair. They were in a coffee shop near the Mall. The morning’s fog had returned to settle over the city like a cold, wet blanket that spoke of the coming end to summer’s balmy days and soft sunshine.

“Obviously,” said Sebastian with a wry smile. “The question is, who?”

The surgeon stared down at the hot steam rising from his coffee. “Are you so certain this latest killing near the river is related to the other three? The docks are a dangerous place.”

“What sort of dockside killer takes the time to stuff a mandrake root in his victim’s mouth but doesn’t bother to relieve him of his purse and watch?”

“You do have a point. But the method of killing is entirely different. And there was no draining of the blood, no butchery of the corpse.”

Sebastian leaned forward. “You talked to the surgeon who performed Bellamy’s postmortem?”

A slow smile touched Gibson’s eyes. “I thought you might be interested.”

“And?”

“The consulting surgeon found nothing beyond the stab wound. And the mandrake root, of course.”

Sebastian frowned. “Perhaps the killer was interrupted. The other young men—Thornton, Carmichael, and Stanton—all seem to have been waylaid and taken elsewhere to be killed. If Bellamy tried to resist his attacker, the murderer might have been forced to kill him on the spot. He wouldn’t have been able to butcher the body in such a public place, so he simply left the mandrake root and fled.”

The tramp of marching feet brought Sebastian’s head around. Through the paned glass of the coffee shop’s front window, he could see a troop of pressed men marching down the street on their way to the docks and a life of service in His Majesty’s Navy. Hemmed in close by their press-gang, the men looked to range in age from fifteen to fifty, their faces haggard with fear, their wrists manacled like criminals.

“Poor bastards,” murmured Gibson, following Sebastian’s gaze. “I never see the unlucky sods without thinking of that line from ‘Rule, Britannia.’ You know the one…‘Britons never, never, never shall be slaves’?”

Sebastian choked on his coffee, while Gibson leaned forward suddenly, his face intent. “That poem you were telling me about, the one by Donne. It suggests a life spent in travel. Perhaps this Lieutenant Adrian Bellamy is the key to it all.”

Sebastian shook his head. “The man was at sea for half his life, since he was a lad. What kind of contact could he have had with the other three? No, I think the answer lies with the murdered men’s fathers—or their mothers.”

“An unfaithful woman?”

“Or unfaithful women.”

Gibson ran a finger thoughtfully up and down the side of his cup. “You say Reverend Thornton, Sir Humphrey Carmichael, and Captain Edward Bellamy have all visited India. What about Lord Stanton?”

“I don’t know yet. But they’re all obviously hiding something. And at least one of them seems willing to kill me in order to conceal it.”

“What kind of man continues to hide a secret that puts his own children at risk?”

“All manner of men, or so it would seem.”

Gibson stared out at the street, empty now in the flat light of the dying afternoon. “It must be a terrible secret,” he said, draining his cup to the dregs. “A terrible secret indeed.”

Sebastian was walking up the Mall, headed for the public office in Queen Square, when he became aware of an elegant town carriage slowing beside him. Glancing sideways, Sebastian recognized the crest of Charles, Lord Jarvis emblazoned on the carriage door. He kept walking.

“My lord.” A footman descended to hurry after him. “Lord Devlin! Lord Jarvis would like a word with you.”

Sebastian kept walking. “Tell his lordship I’m not interested.”

He turned the corner. He was aware of the carriage turning with him, then heard the sound of a window being let down. Lord Jarvis’s voice was pitched low, but Sebastian had no difficulty hearing his words over the clip-clop of horses’ hooves and the rumble of passing carriage wheels. “I know of your visit to Greenwich. I know Sir Henry Lovejoy asked for your assistance in solving this rather lurid series of murders, and I know that while Sir Henry has been removed from the investigation, you are obviously still determined to catch this killer.”

Sebastian swung to face him. “And?”

Jarvis gave a grim smile. “And I know something that can help you.”

T
hey faced each other across the elegant expanse of the library in Lord Jarvis’s massive Berkeley Square town house.

“Why?” Sebastian demanded. “What is your interest in any of this?”

Jarvis drew a gold enameled snuffbox from his pocket. “Have a seat.”

“Thank you. What is your interest in this?” Sebastian demanded again.

Jarvis flicked open the snuffbox with one deft finger. “I’ve brought you here because I’m concerned for the safety of my daughter, Hero.”

“Miss Jarvis?” The answer caught Sebastian by surprise. “What has she to do with any of this?”

Jarvis lifted a pinch of snuff to one nostril and sniffed. “I had a son once, David. David was a year younger than Hero.” Jarvis tucked his snuffbox away and dusted his fingers. “He was a strange child. Very…dreamy. At the age of eight he announced he wanted to be a poet, but by the time he was ten, he’d decided he preferred to be an artist.”

Sebastian studied the big man’s curling lip and narrowed eyes, but said nothing. Sebastian knew only too well what it was like for a son to disappoint his father, to never quite measure up to expectations.

“He spent several years at Oxford,” Jarvis was saying, “but found nothing to hold his interest. Six years ago, I sent David to my wife’s younger brother, Sidney Spencer. Spencer’s regiment was in India, and I thought the experience would do the boy good. Toughen him up a bit.”

Sebastian sat forward, his attention now well caught. “And?”

“The climate didn’t agree with David. He was always sickly as a child, although it was my opinion that his mother and grandmother coddled him.” Jarvis’s jaw tightened. “After eight months, Spencer decided to send him home.”

Sebastian thought he knew where this was going. “Let me guess. The ship was the
Harmony
, captained by Edward Bellamy.”

“That’s right. All went well at first. But three days out of Cape Town, the ship was struck by a fierce storm that lasted days. Her sails were ripped asunder, her masts lost, her timbers strained and leaking badly. It seemed obvious to all aboard that the ship was sinking. Captain Bellamy prepared to abandon ship. But most of the ship’s boats had been lost in the storm. Recognizing that there was not enough space for all those left alive, the ship’s crew mutinied.”

“And took the remaining boat?”

Jarvis nodded. “Along with most of the food and water. The Captain, his officers, and the passengers were left to die.”

“So what happened?”

Jarvis went to stand beside the empty hearth, one arm resting along the mantel. “The ship didn’t sink. The Captain and his officers managed to rig up a makeshift mast and sails, but it was useless. They were becalmed.”

“How long did it take the food and water to run out?”

“Not long. They were a day or two from death when they were rescued by a naval frigate that happened to come upon them. The HMS
Sovereign
.”

“And your son?”

Jarvis turned his head away to stare down at the empty hearth. “David was injured in the mutiny. He died within hours of their rescue.”

Sebastian studied the big man’s half-averted profile. His grief appeared genuine enough. Yet things were rarely as they seemed with this man. “I understand the connection to Adrian Bellamy. But what does any of this have to do with the murders of Dominic Stanton, Barclay Carmichael, and Nicholas Thornton?”

Jarvis’s head came up. “I don’t know about Thornton, but Lord Stanton and Sir Humphrey Carmichael were both passengers on the
Harmony
.”

Sebastian frowned. When he’d asked Captain Bellamy if he’d known either Stanton or Carmichael, the Captain had answered no. “You’re certain?”

“Of course I’m certain. Both men testified at the mutineers’ trial.”

“The crew was caught?”

“Caught and hanged. Four years ago. The trial caused something of a sensation.”

Sebastian’s eyes narrowed. Four years ago he had been in the Army on the Continent. “What makes you think Miss Jarvis is in danger? You weren’t on that ship; her brother was.”

“And it’s not Captain Bellamy, Sir Humphrey, or Lord Stanton who have died, but their sons. David had no son, but Hero is his sister.”

From the street outside came a hawker’s cry: “Chairs to mend! Old chairs to mend!”

“How did you know I’d taken an interest in the murders?”

“I know,” Jarvis said simply.

Sebastian turned toward the door. “Then I suggest you take some of your spies off the streets and set them to guarding your daughter. Good day, my lord.”

He expected Jarvis to stop him. He did not. But then it occurred to Sebastian that the big man had probably said all he’d intended to say: it was up to Sebastian to use the information or not, as he chose.

He was crossing the hall when he encountered Miss Jarvis herself. She was a tall woman with plain brown hair, a direct gray gaze, and her father’s aquiline nose. If ever there was a woman who could take care of herself, Sebastian had always thought, it was Jarvis’s formidable daughter.

“Good heavens,” she said, pausing at the sight of him, “what are you doing here?” She tilted her head, making a show of studying him. “And not a gun or a knife in sight.”

The first time he’d encountered her here, in her father’s house, he’d held a gun to her head and kidnapped her. He held up his empty hands and gave her a smile that showed his teeth. “Not in sight.”

The smile was not returned. The fiercely intelligent eyes narrowed. “What
are
you doing here?”

“I suggest you ask your father.”

“I believe I shall.” She headed toward the library door, pausing only to say over her shoulder, “Oh. Do kindly refrain from kidnapping any of the maidservants on your way out, if you please?”