time I was there, which you might find relevant.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
“A woman was leaving Fountain Lane just as I arrived. A young, nicely dressed gentlewoman. I couldn’t tell you who she was—she was heavily veiled and got into a hack that was waiting for her. I assumed at first she was there for much the same reason I was—to sell Eisler a piece of her jewelry, probably to pay off a gaming debt. Then I saw Eisler.”
“And?”
“The old goat had his flap buttoned awry. He must have taken her right there in the parlor because I could still smell the stink of his lust in the air. I’ve since heard it’s where he always took his women—whores and ladies alike.”
“You’re saying he made a practice of it?”
“Didn’t you know?” Smug amusement bordering on derision suffused the other man’s face. “He was quite the nasty old sot, your Eisler. He’d loan money to pretty young things, and then when they couldn’t pay his ruinous interest rates, he’d offer them a choice: Either let him tumble them on that ratty old couch or have whatever trinket they’d pledged declared forfeit. He offered the same deal to men who were late on their payments—if they had a pretty wife.”
When Sebastian remained silent, Tyson laughed out loud. “Don’t believe me? Ask that sybaritic nephew of his.”
“You mean Perlman? What would he know of it?”
“Far more than you might think. I’ve heard that one of the ways Perlman kept in his uncle’s good graces was by providing him with whores.” Tyson paused as the church bells of the city began to chime the hour, one after the other ringing out over the wet streets. “And now, you really must excuse me. I did mention I was meeting someone at four.”
Sebastian let him go.
Under ordinary circumstances, he’d have been inclined to doubt just about anything a man like Tyson said. But he kept remembering that dank, foul room with its heavy, old-fashioned chimneypiece and a small pair of cheap blue satin slippers peeking out from beneath a worn horsehair sofa.
Chapter 29
T
he discovery that Eisler had been engaging in a nasty combination of blackmail and sexual exploitation had the potential to open up a vast array of new suspects, most of them unfortunately both nameless and faceless. If Yates and Tyson were telling the truth—and Sebastian suspected that in this, at least, they were—then London must be so full of men and women who’d nursed a secret but powerful reason to murder the old bastard that it was difficult to know where to start.
Sebastian was seated in the drawing room, the blue satin slipper held thoughtfully in his hands, when Hero came in yanking off her wet bonnet and gloves.
“I’ve been looking for the black cat,” she said. “I can’t find him anywhere.”
“Calling what? ‘Here, cat, cat, cat’? You need to give him a name.”
“He’s not my cat; he’s yours.” She went to stand at the window, her gaze on the rain-washed pavement below. “One of the housemaids saw a man hanging around who sounds like Foy. She said he was trying to coax the cat to come to him with what looked like sardines.”
Sebastian knew a moment of disquiet. But all he said was, “The cat’s probably just taken shelter from the rain someplace. He’ll be back. Where else is he likely to get roast chicken and a bowl of cream?”
She gave him a tight, strained smile and nodded to the slipper in his hand. “What’s this?”
Sebastian held it up. “It’s one of a pair that I found tucked beneath a tattered old horsehair sofa in Daniel Eisler’s parlor.”
She lifted the shoe from his hand. “This is not a lady’s slipper.”
“No, it is not.”
She looked up at him. “You say both shoes were still there?”
“Yes.”
“How odd. I wonder if he gave their owner a new pair and she simply left the old ones.”
“Eisler? I suspect that old bastard never gave anyone anything—excepting perhaps an inclination for suicide.”
“Then I’d say the shoes’ owner must have left the premises precipitously.” She handed the shoe back to him. “Somewhat like Cinderella.”
“Only, I doubt this Cinderella was worried about her coach turning into a pumpkin at the stroke of midnight.”
Hero said, “Apart from the fact that walking in one’s stocking feet would be decidedly uncomfortable, these shoes—however cheap I might consider them—would nevertheless represent a significant investment for their owner. I doubt she left them behind willingly.”
“I’m thinking she might have been there when Eisler was shot.”
Hero frowned down at