Who Speaks for the Damned (Sebastian St. Cyr #15) - C. S. Harris Page 0,19
wondering how.
“Brandy?” offered his host.
“Please.”
The Count went to a small inlaid table bearing a crystal carafe and glasses. “You’re here because of Hayes, I take it?”
“How did you know?”
“Seaforth was also at Ascot.”
“Of course.”
He eased the stopper from the carafe. “So it’s true, what they’re saying in the papers? That the dead man found up in Somer’s Town really is Hayes?”
“I believe so.”
“How very odd.”
“When was the last time you saw Nicholas Hayes?”
“Me?” LaRivière poured brandy into two glasses. “Eighteen years ago I watched him sentenced to death for murdering my wife. And then, much to my disgust, I saw that sentence commuted to transportation for life.”
“Did you know he had returned to England?”
The Frenchman handed Sebastian one of the glasses. “I thought he was dead.”
“Any idea why he might have come back?”
LaRivière sipped his drink, then ran his tongue across his upper lip. “Some men are simply irrational. There is no coherent, linear thought behind their actions. Their behavior is as unpredictable as a dog deciding which of a thousand flea bites to scratch, or the direction of a playbill fluttering in a whirlwind.”
“You’re suggesting Hayes risked his life by returning to England for no reason?”
“Presumably the flea-bitten dog has a reason for his selection. But I doubt the ability of anyone to divine it.”
Sebastian took a slow swallow of his own brandy. “How well did you know Hayes?”
“Not well. I was better acquainted with his brother Crispin.” LaRivière brought up one hand to rub his forehead, and it was a moment before he could go on. “I beg your pardon. I find thinking about those days trying. It may have been eighteen years ago, yet in so many ways it seems like only yesterday.”
“I’m sorry,” said Sebastian. “I understand this is painful. You say you didn’t know Nicholas Hayes. But I take it he knew your late wife?”
LaRivière let his hand drop, his lips tightening. “She knew who he was, of course. But they were hardly friends, if that’s what you’re suggesting. Chantal was a very beautiful woman. Men sometimes became obsessively infatuated with her. It could be awkward.”
“You’re saying Nicholas Hayes became infatuated with her?”
“Embarrassingly so, to the point he made her uncomfortable.”
“Why? What did he do?”
“The usual—staring at her, following her around. That sort of thing. She avoided him when she could, but he was alarmingly persistent.”
“Where was she killed?”
“Here in this house. Upstairs in the drawing room.” LaRivière went to stand at the window overlooking the street, his gaze on a passing donkey and cart, one hand playing with the gold fob on his watch chain. It was a moment before he continued, his voice cracking with the strain of emotion. “I blame myself. I sought to save her, but in the end she was killed.”
The words, like the pose, were tragic: the aging widower still struggling to come to terms with a crushing burden of guilt for what he considered his own failing. And yet . . . And yet somehow it all didn’t quite ring true, even if Sebastian couldn’t put his finger on precisely why.
He said, “I’m told Hayes claimed there was an argument between him and you. He said that argument led to a struggle, during which the gun went off.”
LaRivière’s face hardened. “That’s what he claimed, yes. Although he couldn’t even manage to come up with a believable explanation for this mythical argument.” He drained his glass in one long pull. “The man was a rogue. Months before he killed my wife, he abducted some heiress.”
“Do you know her name?”
“No. The point is, he didn’t belong in polite company. I don’t understand how he managed to escape from Botany Bay, but it’s where he belonged, and I’m glad he’s now dead. He should have been hanged eighteen years ago.”
“Do you know of anyone who might have wanted to see him dead?”
“Besides me, you mean?” A faint hint of a smile touched one corner of the Frenchman’s thin lips. “I take it that is why you are here?”
“Do you know of anyone?”
LaRivière shook his head. “As I told you, my acquaintance with the man was limited.”
Sebastian set his brandy aside. “Thank you for agreeing to speak with me. I understand those days must be difficult to revisit.”
The Count met his gaze and held it. “Do you?”
“Yes.”
Sebastian turned to go, then paused to draw Hayes’s strange bronze disk from his pocket and say, “Do you know what this is?”