Why Mermaids Sing

boats had been lost in the storm. Recognizing that there was not enough space for all those left alive, the ship’s crew mutinied.”

“And took the remaining boat?”

Jarvis nodded. “Along with most of the food and water. The Captain, his officers, and the passengers were left to die.”

“So what happened?”

Jarvis went to stand beside the empty hearth, one arm resting along the mantel. “The ship didn’t sink. The Captain and his officers managed to rig up a makeshift mast and sails, but it was useless. They were becalmed.”

“How long did it take the food and water to run out?”

“Not long. They were a day or two from death when they were rescued by a naval frigate that happened to come upon them. The HMS Sovereign.”

“And your son?”

Jarvis turned his head away to stare down at the empty hearth. “David was injured in the mutiny. He died within hours of their rescue.”

Sebastian studied the big man’s half-averted profile. His grief appeared genuine enough. Yet things were rarely as they seemed with this man. “I understand the connection to Adrian Bellamy. But what does any of this have to do with the murders of Dominic Stanton, Barclay Carmichael, and Nicholas Thornton?”

Jarvis’s head came up. “I don’t know about Thornton, but Lord Stanton and Sir Humphrey Carmichael were both passengers on the Harmony.”

Sebastian frowned. When he’d asked Captain Bellamy if he’d known either Stanton or Carmichael, the Captain had answered no. “You’re certain?”

“Of course I’m certain. Both men testified at the mutineers’ trial.”

“The crew was caught?”

“Caught and hanged. Four years ago. The trial caused something of a sensation.”

Sebastian’s eyes narrowed. Four years ago he had been in the Army on the Continent. “What makes you think Miss Jarvis is in danger? You weren’t on that ship; her brother was.”

“And it’s not Captain Bellamy, Sir Humphrey, or Lord Stanton who have died, but their sons. David had no son, but Hero is his sister.”

From the street outside came a hawker’s cry: “Chairs to mend! Old chairs to mend!”

“How did you know I’d taken an interest in the murders?”

“I know,” Jarvis said simply.

Sebastian turned toward the door. “Then I suggest you take some of your spies off the streets and set them to guarding your daughter. Good day, my lord.”

He expected Jarvis to stop him. He did not. But then it occurred to Sebastian that the big man had probably said all he’d intended to say: it was up to Sebastian to use the information or not, as he chose.

He was crossing the hall when he encountered Miss Jarvis herself. She was a tall woman with plain brown hair, a direct gray gaze, and her father’s aquiline nose. If ever there was a woman who could take care of herself, Sebastian had always thought, it was Jarvis’s formidable daughter.

“Good heavens,” she said, pausing at the sight of him, “what are you doing here?” She tilted her head, making a show of studying him. “And not a gun or a knife in sight.”

The first time he’d encountered her here, in her father’s house, he’d held a gun to her head and kidnapped her. He held up his empty hands and gave her a smile that showed his teeth. “Not in sight.”

The smile was not returned. The fiercely intelligent eyes narrowed. “What are you doing here?”

“I suggest you ask your father.”

“I believe I shall.” She headed toward the library door, pausing only to say over her shoulder, “Oh. Do kindly refrain from kidnapping any of the maidservants on your way out, if you please?”

Chapter 32

For several years now, Sir Henry Lovejoy had made his home in a neat row house on Russell Square. The district was genteel but far from fashionable, which suited Henry just fine. Once Henry had been a moderately successful merchant. But the deaths of his wife and only daughter had wrought changes in his life. Henry had undergone a spiritual revelation that turned him toward the Reformist church, and he had decided to devote the remainder of his life to public service.

He sat now in his favorite chair beside the sitting room fireplace, a rug tucked around his lap to help ward off the cold as he read. The fire was not lit; Henry never allowed a fire to be laid in his house before October first or after March 31, no matter what the weather. But he felt the cold terribly and was about to get up and ring for a nice pot of hot tea when he heard a knock at the door below, followed by the sound of voices in the hall.

Mrs. McCoy, his housekeeper, appeared at the sitting room door. “There’s a Lord Devlin to see you, Sir Henry.”

“Good heavens.” Henry thrust aside the rug. “Show him up immediately, Mrs. McCoy. And bring us some tea, please.”

Lord Devlin appeared in the sitting room doorway, his lean frame elegantly clad in the buckskin breeches and exquisitely tailored silk waistcoat and dark blue coat of a gentleman.

“Well,” said Henry, “I see you’ve put off your Bow Street raiment.”

Amusement gleamed in the Viscount’s strange yellow eyes. “You’ve heard from Sir James, I take it?”

“And Sir William. Please have a seat, my lord.”

“Do they still doubt the relevance of Donne’s poem?” Devlin asked, settling himself in a nearby chair.

“At the moment, I think Bow Street would investigate the Archbishop of Canterbury himself if someone were to suggest it might be relevant to these murders. It seems Lord Jarvis has taken an interest in the case. An intense interest.”

“Ah. I’ve just had a rather remarkable conversation with the man myself.”

“Lord Jarvis?”

Sebastian nodded. “It seems his son was a passenger on a ship that sailed from India some five years ago. A merchantman named the Harmony, captained by Edward Bellamy. Among the other passengers were Sir Humphrey Carmichael and Lord Stanton.”

“Merciful heavens.” Henry sat up straighter. “I remember the Harmony. It was in all the papers.”

His lordship hesitated as Mrs. McCoy appeared in the doorway bearing a serviceable tray piled with a teapot and teacups and a plate of small cake slices. Lord Devlin waited until she had poured the tea and withdrawn; then he gave a terse recitation of his conversation with Jarvis.

“I wasn’t in England five years ago,” he finished. “But you say you recall the incident?”

“Oh, yes. It was quite the sensation.” Henry set aside his tea untasted and arose to pace thoughtfully up and down the small room. A lurid explanation was taking form in his imagination. He kept trying to push the idea from his mind, but the tie between the murders and the Harmony’s harrowing experience raised a grisly possibility he could not seem to banish. At last he said, “You know what this suggests, don’t you?” He turned to the Viscount. “The butchering of the bodies…the draining of the blood…” His voice trailed away.

Devlin met his gaze and held it. “Englishmen have resorted to cannibalism before when faced with starvation and death.”

Henry drew a handkerchief from his pocket and coughed into its snowy folds. “I don’t believe there was any suggestion that while they were becalmed the officers and passengers of the Harmony…”

“That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen,” said Devlin, when Henry left the rest of his sentence unsaid. “It’s an unwritten rule of the sea that the prohibition against cannibalism may be suspended in the case of shipwreck survivors or men becalmed. Think of the Peggy, or the raft of the Medusa. Sometimes the survivors admit to what they’ve done. At other times there is