Who Speaks for the Damned (Sebastian St. Cyr #15) - C. S. Harris Page 0,12
for the purse.
“Don’t see how it could be,” agreed Gibson. “Footpads wouldn’t have bothered to stab him more than once; they’d simply grab that purse and run. Why waste time sticking around to make certain the fellow’s dead?”
Sebastian studied the scattering of disparate personal objects on the platter: a few loose coins; a silk handkerchief; a small metal disk of some kind; an ivory toothpick in an enameled brass case. “No watch?”
“No.”
Sebastian picked up the bronze disk, which was about the size of a large coin and decorated with a relief of an ancient-looking stone building with a row of arched windows and an exotic dome; the other side was the same. “Must be a token of some kind. It looks vaguely familiar, but I can’t place it.”
“Does it? Don’t think I’ve seen it before.”
Sebastian bounced the token up and down in his palm. “If you were an escaped convict fresh off a ship from Canton, where would you stay?”
“Canton? Is that where he’s been?”
“For most of the time, yes.”
Gibson looked thoughtful. “I think I’d be tempted to go back to someplace that was familiar, but not so familiar that I’d need to worry about people I didn’t trust recognizing me.” He paused. “Although if Hayes was worried about being recognized, why come back at all?”
“Whatever his reason, it was obviously important to him—important enough to risk being caught and dying for.”
“What’s important enough to lure a man into risking both his freedom and his life?”
Sebastian closed his fist around the token and brought his gaze back to the dead man’s silent, yet oddly peaceful-looking face. “Maybe the question isn’t, What? Maybe the question is, Who?”
Chapter 10
Oxford Market lay just to the north of Oxford Street. A large, sunlit square of stalls and shops bordering an old wooden arcade, it was a popular spot for a variety of street performers, from hurdy-gurdy players and barrel organ grinders to fire-eaters, conjurers, street singers, jugglers, and a little old man with three trained dogs.
Strolling through the market early that morning with a broad parasol to protect her from the sun, Hero found her attention caught by a tall, dark-haired, copper-skinned man dressed in a loose knee-length tunic over trousers of the same cloth. He had with him a slim boy of perhaps six or seven—also dark haired but much lighter skinned—who wiggled through the crowd with a cup to collect offerings while the father sang a haunting, undulating melody and beat out the rhythm on a barrel-shaped drum.
Joining the crowd gathered around him to watch and listen, Hero caught the little boy’s attention and bent down to his eye level while holding up a shilling. “Tell your papa he can have three more of these if he’ll talk to me for a few minutes.”
The boy’s eyes widened and he nodded as his fist closed around the coin.
She watched him dart back to his father. The man glanced over at Hero, then finished his song with a flourish.
His name, she learned, was Dinesh Chakravarty, and his English surprised her. “You want to know how I came to do what I do?” he said when Hero explained she wanted to interview him for an article.
“I do, yes.”
“That is very strange.”
Hero laughed out loud. “The article is on London’s street musicians.” It was hard not to ask the man right away if he knew anything about Ji, but Hero suspected she’d have a better chance of getting an honest answer if she approached the subject in a more roundabout way. “Where were you born?”
The man’s teeth flashed in a wide smile. “Calcutta.”
“How long have you been in England?”
“Eight years. I came here as a servant to a British Army officer.” The smile faded. “He died.”
“That’s when you became a street musician?”
“Not at first, no, my lady. I tried to get another position as a manservant. But with my last master dead, I had no letter to recommend me. You can’t get a position without a character reference, so I bought the drum.” He cocked his head and beat a little flourish on the drumhead.
“Do you make a good living?”
“Good?” Again, the smile. “No. I did better at first. That’s the way it always is, you know? When something is new and different, everyone stops to watch and listen. But now I’m lucky if I make six or eight shillings a week. Winters are always worse.”
Hero found herself looking at the little boy. “It must be hard to keep a family on that.”