Who Speaks for the Damned (Sebastian St. Cyr #15) - C. S. Harris Page 0,15
studied the woman’s hard, carefully shuttered face. The particulars of her life were unknown to him, but no one reached her position in London’s dangerous, cutthroat underworld without being tough and brutal and very, very clever. “Why let him stay? He was a danger to you.”
“If he’d been caught, you mean?” She gave a dismissive twitch of one shoulder. “Who’s t’ say I knew who he was? The last twenty years been hard on him, that’s for sure.”
“Did anyone come to see him while he was here?”
Grace Calhoun cast a questioning look at the barman, who spat again and said, “Didn’t see nobody ’cept that boy ’e brung wit him.”
“You mean Ji?”
“Aye.”
“Is the boy here now?”
Grace Calhoun shook her head. “We ain’t seen him since yesterday.”
The faint hope Sebastian had nourished that he’d find the boy here, safe, died. “Do you know the name of the man Hayes was planning to meet in Somer’s Town yesterday?”
“No. Why would I?”
“Because you’re far more knowledgeable than you like to appear.”
She remained silent, but a faint gleam of what might have been amusement lit up her dark eyes.
He said, “May I see Hayes’s room?”
“What for?”
“It might help me figure out who killed him.”
Her head tilted to one side. “Why you care who killed him?”
“I care,” said Sebastian.
She was silent for a moment, considering his request and its various ramifications. Then she glanced at the ex-boxer standing nearby with his arms folded at his chest. “Show him.”
Chapter 12
S ebastian followed the silent barman up two narrow flights of stairs to a room overlooking the Fleet. Furnished with a heavy old bed and a smaller trundle for the boy, the room was both neat and noticeably cleaner than the rest of the inn. A Chinese porcelain shaving cup, a razor, and other personal items were lined up on the washstand; two sets of silk slippers—one pair large, the other small—were visible beneath the edge of the mattress, their toes embroidered with colorful butterflies and birds. On a table beside the bed rested a chinois enameled frame containing a miniature portrait of a young Chinese woman.
“Do you know anything about the woman?” asked Sebastian, going to pick up the miniature. She’d been painted with her face turned partly away and a faint smile curling her lips. She was lovely.
The barman shook his head. “’E didn’t talk much, that cove.”
Curled up beside the portrait lay what Sebastian recognized as a set of Buddhist prayer beads. Made from the wood of the bodhi tree, they were worn and obviously well used. Two talismans or amulets flanked the beads’ decorative tassel: one a silver spiral, the other a symbol Sebastian didn’t recognize. He stared at it a long moment, then turned away to begin searching the room.
The shelves of the wardrobe contained spare clothing for both the dead man and the missing child. Hayes’s clothes were all European in style, but there were a small changshan and a magua, presumably for Ji. Sebastian fingered the fine, colorful silk, wondering again about the relationship between man and child. A stack of well-read books rested on the top shelf, and he scanned the titles: Milton’s Paradise Lost; Shakespeare’s Tragedies; Plato’s Republic. Interesting reading for a man infamous for kidnapping an heiress and killing a French countess.
“Ye ’bout done there?” demanded the barman, shifting restlessly.
“Almost.”
The bed was easy enough to search, its lumpy mattress resting directly on leather slings. A sea chest stood at the footboard, but it was nearly empty, containing only a winter greatcoat small enough to fit the child and a few other miscellaneous pieces of clothing. At the very bottom, tucked beneath a scarf, was an unloaded flintlock pistol and a powder horn, along with a leather kit containing a brass funnel, lead shot, extra flints, cloth patches, and cleaning materials. The pistol was not new, and Sebastian found himself wondering why the hell Hayes hadn’t taken the weapon with him to Somer’s Town. The man had obviously misjudged whomever he went to meet.
Leaving the gun where he’d found it, Sebastian was replacing the clothing when a folded sheet of newspaper fluttered to the floor. Picking it up, he realized he was holding the third and fourth pages from the Morning Post for the last Tuesday in May. Densely printed, the pages contained everything from notices of property sales and upcoming horse auctions to a section headed “Fashionable Arrangements for the Week.” He quickly skimmed the list.
THIS EVENING: the Countess of Balcarra’s rout, Cumberland Place