blast at Waterloo had permanently damaged the hearing on Seb’s left side. Alex had lost a portion of his peripheral vision in the same explosion.
The carriage lurched to a stop at the end of a dark alley. The three of them got out, eliciting a slew of bawdy comments from a couple of whores on the corner.
“Ooh! Come ’ere, gents. Sally’ll show you a good time.”
Ben ignored them and headed for the front door of the tavern. “I’ll talk to the landlord.”
Seb nodded to the man posted at the alley entrance to protect the crime scene and slipped between the overhanging buildings, followed by Alex.
Here, in the stinking slums that clustered round the Thames docks, murder was commonplace. Human life was cheap. Seb wrinkled his nose against the rank smell of piss and stale beer that mixed with the fetid odor of the nearby river to create a nauseating miasma. The creak of ships moored at the water’s edge could be heard above the rattle of carts and the occasional angry shout. A rat scurried behind a pile of refuse.
Blood and death didn’t bother him. He’d seen so much of it during his years in the Rifles, he’d become immune. Sometimes the fact that it didn’t affect him worried him a little. His emotions, good and bad, seemed distant, unimportant. Had he lost the ability to be horrified or surprised by anything anymore?
Seb dismissed the thought and crouched down, careful to avoid the black pool of blood that glistened on the filthy cobbles. No point ruining a good pair of boots. The dead man wore plain clothes, nothing flash that would have attracted the attention of a thief. He lay sprawled like a marionette whose strings had been cut. Seb searched the man’s pockets and withdrew a leather money purse. “This wasn’t a robbery.”
Alex pointed at the man’s hand. “He’s still wearing a ring on his little finger too. Someone wanted him dead, but not for gold.”
Seb tugged the ring from the corpse and squinted at it in the dim light. It was too dark to see the markings on it, so he slipped it into his waistcoat pocket. “I’ll take this home and look at it there.”
Alex bent to examine the man’s neck. “It’s a clean wound, almost professional. Someone knows their way around a blade. There’s not much evidence of a struggle. The poor bastard probably never suspected a thing.”
Seb straightened, imagining the scene. “He did it from behind. Put an arm across his neck and cut, then dropped the body. No sound. Very efficient. Sneaky bastard.” He flicked a glance at the dead man’s face and experienced a fleeting stab of pity. He was young, barely thirty, maybe the same age as himself. Too young to die. Especially like this, so far from home.
Benedict appeared at the far end of the alley.
“Do we have a description of the suspect?” Alex asked.
“The innkeeper says he was wearing a hat pulled low over his face and a heavy overcoat. Said he was big, maybe six feet, with pale hair.”
Seb rolled his eyes. “A big blond Russian. Well, that certainly narrows it down.”
Alex grinned at his sarcasm. “There are Russian immigrants all over the city. It could be someone with military experience, a former soldier maybe, considering the precision of the wound.”
“He might not even be Russian,” Seb said irritably. “The innkeeper could have been mistaken. They could’ve been speaking Cornish or Welsh. We’re wasting our time.”
Ben shrugged. “Well, I doubt there’s any more to learn here, at any rate. Let’s go. The locals can take it from here.”
Back in the carriage, Seb said, “So, Conant wants us to listen out for Russian gossip, does he? At the Tricorn?”
The Tricorn, the gambling club the three of them had opened following their return from Waterloo, had become one of the most popular gaming houses in London. Seb, Alex, and Benedict had lived there together until Alex and Ben had both found themselves wives and moved out a few months ago.
Seb would never have admitted it aloud, but he missed them. Despite the constant noise and excitement of the club itself, the private apartments were depressingly quiet. He never brought women back there; he enjoyed the privacy of his personal domain, but it was rather dull, with just him and the servants rattling around.
Not that he was lonely. Of course not. But maybe he should take in a lodger? There must be hundreds of chaps who’d jump at the chance of living