Who Speaks for the Damned (Sebastian St. Cyr #15) - C. S. Harris Page 0,55
houseboats jammed one next to the other and occupied by people who lived their entire lives on water. Ji still found it amazing that there were no houseboats clogging this river.
But today’s parade of carved, gilded barges with their flapping silk banners and rich carpets felt familiar to Ji—an ostentatious display of wealth and privilege that seemed expressly designed to emphasize the existence of a gulf much wider than the expanse of mere water that separated these special beings from the ragged, hungry crowds who cheered them from every bridge and wharf.
Ji had played the bamboo flute for the first time that morning. It was a form of begging, really, and that knowledge had brought feelings of great shame. But the battered old tin cup Ji had bought from a street stall filled quickly—too quickly, for the lilting, haunting music was so strange to English ears that it drew a great deal of attention. And too much attention could be deadly.
Ji would need to be careful, playing the flute just enough to buy a safe place to sleep at night and keep from going hungry, but not so much as to attract the man Poole.
Poole and whatever dangerous enemy had hired him.
Chapter 34
I think he’s hiding something,” said Sebastian later that afternoon as he and Hero walked the shady gravel paths of Grosvenor Square with Simon.
Hero looked over at him in surprise. “Major McHenry? What could he possibly be hiding?”
“I don’t know. But the story he tells doesn’t quite hang together.”
She was silent for a moment, obviously considering this. “You didn’t even know the man existed until he came to Brook Street yesterday. Why would he seek you out, only to lie to you?”
Sebastian smiled as he watched Simon hunker down to study a pretty pebble in the gravel that caught his eye. “You have a point there.”
“Perhaps what you sensed was his embarrassment over having lain with another man’s wife.”
“Perhaps. There’s no denying it’s an ugly tale. What do you think happened to cause Crispin Hayes to throw himself into the Thames that night?”
Hero reached out to catch Simon’s hand before he could put the rock in his mouth. “Presumably he discovered the lovely Chantal de LaRivière was trifling with him.”
“Would that be enough, you think?”
“For some men. Although I suppose it’s also possible the Count de Compans gave Crispin a little push into the water.”
Simon started to fuss at the sudden loss of his rock, and Sebastian swung the boy up onto his hip. “I feel like I’m missing something. Something that should be obvious.”
“Only one thing?”
He huffed a laugh. “Multiple things.” Shifting Simon’s weight, he reached into his pocket to draw out the folded page from the Morning Post he’d found in Nicholas Hayes’s room at the Red Lion. “When I first saw this, I immediately focused on the Count de Compans’s name. My assumption at the time was that Hayes kept the page so he’d have Compans’s address. But the Count told me he’s still living in the same house where Chantal was killed, which means Nicholas already knew exactly where to find him.”
Hero reached to take the page. “So why did Nicholas save it?”
“Look at the June second entry under ‘Fashionable Arrangements for the Week.’”
“‘Lady Forbes’s rout, St. James’s Square,’” Hero read, then glanced up. “Good heavens.”
Sebastian nodded. “I skimmed right over it at first because I didn’t know about Hayes’s connection to Lady Forbes.”
“Do you think he approached her?”
“Possibly. Although it’s also possible he simply couldn’t resist trying to catch a glimpse of her from afar.”
A faint breeze had come up, and Hero was silent for a moment, watching the limbs of the trees shift against the hard blue sky. “What a tragedy it all was.”
Sebastian nodded. “What I find particularly interesting is that when I arrived at Carlton House on the night of Nicholas’s murder, I found Seaforth talking to Sir Lindsey Forbes. It meant nothing to me at the time. But then this morning, when Seaforth walked into the Swan for the inquest, the first person he paused to speak to was, once again, Forbes. That strikes me as an unlikely coincidence.”
“It does, doesn’t it? What could possibly be the connection between the two men?”
“I don’t know. But I intend to find out.” Simon began to squirm to get down, his tears forgotten. Sebastian set the boy back on his feet, then looked up at Hero. “Care to go to tonight’s ball for the Allied Sovereigns?”