arm and jerk him sideways. Caught off balance, the man staggered, his feet sliding on the wet wood, the knife clattering as it fell.
Sebastian let go and ducked back. For one unforgettable moment, their gazes locked. The young man’s gray eyes widened with quick comprehension and terror, his arms windmilling as he sought to catch his balance. Sebastian surged up, reaching for him, but it was too late. The man pitched sideways off the gangplank to splash into the narrow triangle of water between the wharf and the hoy’s hull.
The air filled with the snap of canvas, the creak of timbers as the wind caught the hoy and swung it toward the wharf. The man’s head surged up to break water, his eyes wild, his arms flailing as he sought to kick out of the way. The hoy’s black hull loomed over him, smashing him against the wooden embankment with a grinding, sickening
“Bloody hell,” whispered Tom.
“Your inquiries are obviously making someone nervous,” said Paul Gibson, leaning back in his chair. They were in a coffee shop near the Mall. The morning’s fog had returned to settle over the city like a cold, wet blanket that spoke of the coming end to summer’s balmy days and soft sunshine.
“Obviously,” said Sebastian with a wry smile. “The question is, who?”
The surgeon stared down at the hot steam rising from his coffee. “Are you so certain this latest killing near the river is related to the other three? The docks are a dangerous place.”
“What sort of dockside killer takes the time to stuff a mandrake root in his victim’s mouth but doesn’t bother to relieve him of his purse and watch?”
“You do have a point. But the method of killing is entirely different. And there was no draining of the blood, no butchery of the corpse.”
Sebastian leaned forward. “You talked to the surgeon who performed Bellamy’s postmortem?”
A slow smile touched Gibson’s eyes. “I thought you might be interested.”
“And?”
“The consulting surgeon found nothing beyond the stab wound. And the mandrake root, of course.”
Sebastian frowned. “Perhaps the killer was interrupted. The other young men—Thornton, Carmichael, and Stanton—all seem to have been waylaid and taken elsewhere to be killed. If Bellamy tried to resist his attacker, the murderer might have been forced to kill him on the spot. He wouldn’t have been able to butcher the body in such a public place, so he simply left the mandrake root and fled.”
The tramp of marching feet brought Sebastian’s head around. Through the paned glass of the coffee shop’s front window, he could see a troop of pressed men marching down the street on their way to the docks and a life of service in His Majesty’s Navy. Hemmed in close by their press-gang, the men looked to range in age from fifteen to fifty, their faces haggard with fear, their wrists manacled like criminals.
“Poor bastards,” murmured Gibson, following Sebastian’s gaze. “I never see the unlucky sods without thinking of that line from ‘Rule, Britannia.’ You know the one…‘Britons never, never, never shall be slaves’?”
Sebastian choked on his coffee, while Gibson leaned forward suddenly, his face intent. “That poem you were telling me about, the one by Donne. It suggests a life spent in travel. Perhaps this Lieutenant Adrian Bellamy is the key to it all.”
Sebastian shook his head. “The man was at sea for half his life, since he was a lad. What kind of contact could he have had with the other three? No, I think the answer lies with the murdered men’s fathers—or their mothers.”
“An unfaithful woman?”
“Or unfaithful women.”
Gibson ran a finger thoughtfully up and down the side of his cup. “You say Reverend Thornton, Sir Humphrey Carmichael, and Captain Edward Bellamy have all visited India. What about Lord Stanton?”
“I don’t know yet. But they’re all obviously hiding something. And at least one of them seems willing to kill me in order to conceal it.”
“What kind of man continues to hide a secret that puts his own children at risk?”
“All manner of men, or so it would seem.”
Gibson stared out at the street, empty now in the flat light of the dying afternoon. “It must be a terrible secret,” he said, draining his cup to the dregs. “A terrible secret indeed.”
Sebastian was walking up the Mall, headed for the public office in Queen Square, when he became aware of an elegant town carriage slowing beside him. Glancing sideways, Sebastian recognized the crest of Charles, Lord Jarvis emblazoned on the carriage door. He kept walking.
“My lord.” A footman descended to hurry after him. “Lord Devlin! Lord Jarvis would like a word with you.”
Sebastian kept walking. “Tell his lordship I’m not interested.”
He turned the corner. He was aware of the carriage turning with him, then heard the sound of a window being let down. Lord Jarvis’s voice was pitched low, but Sebastian had no difficulty hearing his words over the clip- clop of horses’ hooves and the rumble of passing carriage wheels. “I know of your visit to Greenwich. I know Sir Henry Lovejoy asked for your assistance in solving this rather lurid series of murders, and I know that while Sir Henry has been removed from the investigation, you are obviously still determined to catch this killer.”
Sebastian swung to face him. “And?”
Jarvis gave a grim smile. “And I know something that can help you.”
They faced each other across the elegant expanse of the library in Lord Jarvis’s massive Berkeley Square town house.
“Why?” Sebastian demanded. “What is your interest in any of this?”
Jarvis drew a gold enameled snuffbox from his pocket. “Have a seat.”
“Thank you. What is your interest in this?” Sebastian demanded again.
Jarvis flicked open the snuffbox with one deft finger. “I’ve brought you here because I’m concerned for the safety of my daughter, Hero.”
“Miss Jarvis?” The answer caught Sebastian by surprise. “What has she to do with any of this?”
Jarvis lifted a pinch of snuff to one nostril and sniffed. “I had a son once, David. David was a year younger than Hero.” Jarvis tucked his snuffbox away and dusted his fingers. “He was a strange child. Very…dreamy. At the age of eight he announced he wanted to be a poet, but by the time he was ten, he’d decided he preferred to be an artist.”
Sebastian studied the big man’s curling lip and narrowed eyes, but said nothing. Sebastian knew only too well what it was like for a son to disappoint his father, to never quite measure up to expectations.
“He spent several years at Oxford,” Jarvis was saying, “but found nothing to hold his interest. Six years ago, I sent David to my wife’s younger brother, Sidney Spencer. Spencer’s regiment was in India, and I thought the experience would do the boy good. Toughen him up a bit.”
Sebastian sat forward, his attention now well caught. “And?”
“The climate didn’t agree with David. He was always sickly as a child, although it was my opinion that his mother and grandmother coddled him.” Jarvis’s jaw tightened. “After eight months, Spencer decided to send him home.”
Sebastian thought he knew where this was going. “Let me guess. The ship was the
“That’s right. All went well at first. But three days out of Cape Town, the ship was struck by a fierce storm that lasted days. Her sails were ripped asunder, her masts lost, her timbers strained and leaking badly. It seemed obvious to all aboard that the ship was sinking. Captain Bellamy prepared to abandon ship. But most of the ship’s
