Why Mermaids Sing

Henry slid the paper with the address across the desk to the Viscount. “I am no longer a part of the investigation, remember?”

The Viscount smiled and rose to leave.

“There is one other thing,” said Henry.

Devlin paused. “Yes?”

“Captain Quail. I’ve had another of my constables checking into his whereabouts on the nights of each of the murders.”

“And?”

“It seems the Captain was neither at home nor with the Horse Guards on any of the nights in question.” Henry peeled his glasses off his nose and rubbed the bridge. “I also looked into the Captain’s activities in the Army. I understand why you suspected him.”

“But there’s no connection between Quail and the Harmony. At least, not that I know of.”

“No.” Henry replaced his glasses and reached for his schedule again. “There does not appear to be, does there?”

Sebastian was halfway across the entrance hall of his Brook Street house, heading toward the stairs, when his majordomo cleared his throat apologetically.

“I trust you have not forgotten, my lord, that you have an interview with a gentleman’s gentleman scheduled for this morning?”

Sebastian paused with one foot on the bottom step, his hand on the newel post. “What? Good God.”

“I’ve taken the liberty of putting the gentleman in the library.”

Suppressing an oath, Sebastian turned toward the library. The prospective valet proved to be a tall, cadaverously thin man with a bony face and prominent, thick lips.

“My apologies for keeping you waiting,” said Sebastian, reaching for the valet’s credentials. Sebastian was heartily sick of this entire hiring process. Unless this candidate engaged in pagan sacrifices or wiped his nose on his sleeve, Sebastian was determined to hire him. “I understand you were most recently employed by Lord Bingham.”

The gentleman’s gentleman inclined his head. “That is correct.”

“And why, precisely, did you leave Lord Bingham’s service?”

“I’m afraid Lord Bingham shot himself last Tuesday.”

Sebastian looked up. He vaguely recalled hearing something about Lord Bingham earlier in the week, but had been too preoccupied to pay it much heed. “Right. Well, tell me—”

The sounds of an altercation in the hall reached them through the library’s closed door, Tom’s ringing cockney tones blending with Morey’s hissed “Not now. He’s with—”

The door burst open and Tom catapulted into the room. “Wait till you ’ear this, gov’nor. I been lookin’ into that cove, Quail, and you know ’ow ’e told you ’e didn’t know Barclay Carmichael? Well, it seems Carmichael won five hundred quid off ’im at faro right afore Carmichael was found butchered in the park last summer.”

The valet’s already pale skin bleached white. “Merciful heavens. It’s true, what they say.”

Sebastian swung to look at the man. “What? What do they say?”

The valet pushed to his feet and backed toward the door, his hat gripped tightly in both hands. “That you involve yourself in…in murder.”

Sebastian rose from behind his desk and took a step forward. “Yes, but never mind that. You’re hired. You can start work today. My majordomo will show you—”

But the gentleman’s gentleman had already bolted through the door.

“You didn’t want ’im anyway,” said Tom with a sniff. “’E looked like a queer cove to me.”

“All I get is queer coves. Obviously because word has gone out amongst the gentlemen’s gentlemen of the city that I am a queer cove.”

Tom sniffed again. “I checked ’afore I come here. Quail’s at ’is ’ouse. In Kensington, just off Nottinghill Gate. Want I should get the curricle?”

Chapter 46

Captain Peter Quail occupied a pretty little brick row house on Campden Hill Road, with a shiny black painted front door and a small garden filled with a profusion of late-blooming roses. As Sebastian reined in his chestnuts beside the gate, a delicate-looking young woman with a basket looped over one arm and a pair of secateurs in her hand looked up from deadheading a large shrub near the fence.

Sebastian handed the reins to Tom. “Walk them.”

The woman appeared to be in her midtwenties, with a finely featured face and soft blond curls that tumbled from beneath a straw bonnet tied at her chin with a cherry red ribbon. She wore a lightweight, cherry red spencer over a simple sprigged muslin morning gown, and watched Sebastian’s approach with the wary eyes of a woman whose fragile world has already been rocked too many times by the unpredictable activities of her erratic husband. “Mrs. Quail?” Sebastian asked, politely removing his hat as he opened the low front gate.

“Yes.”

He gave her a reassuring smile. “I’m Lord Devlin. I served in the same regiment as your husband in Portugal. Perhaps you’ve heard him speak of me.”

The wariness in her pale blue eyes receded, and she smiled. “I have heard Peter mention you, yes. How do you do, my lord? What brings you here?”

Sebastian let his gaze drift over the house’s curtained windows. “Is the Captain at home?”

Mrs. Quail closed her secateurs and laid them in the basket of roses. “Why, yes. If you’d like to—”

The front door jerked open to slam against the inside wall with a bang. Captain Quail clattered out onto the small porch and down the steps to advance on them with a quick, long-legged stride. He was only half dressed, the tails of his shirt untucked, the neck half open to reveal a triangle of bare chest.

“What have you told him?” he demanded, his handsome jaw clenched, his eyes hard on his wife’s face.

She took a step back. “Nothing. Lord Devlin just—”

“Get inside,” he ordered, his good arm swinging through the air to point back at the house.

Her face drained pale, then flushed scarlet. She threw Sebastian a quick, mortified glance, then looked away. “Excuse me, my lord.”

Sebastian watched her hurry toward the house, her head bent, and felt his hands curl into fists at his side.

“What are you doing at my house?”

Sebastian brought his gaze back to Quail’s handsome face, with its rugged chin and clear blue eyes and aquiline nose. “You lied to me. You told me you didn’t know Barclay Carmichael, when in fact he won five hundred pounds off you shortly before he was killed.”

The Captain’s jaw tightened. “Get off my property. Now.”

With deliberate slowness, Sebastian settled his hat back on his head and turned toward the gate. “You might warn your wife to expect the constables soon.”

“Constables?” Quail stood in the center of his yard, his empty shirtsleeve flapping in the cool breeze. “Why? I had nothing to do with that man’s death, I tell you. He was killed by the West End Butcher.”

Sebastian paused with one hand on the gate. “You didn’t by any chance have a younger brother, did you? A brother who served as a cabin boy on a merchant ship?”

Quail’s eyes narrowed. “No. What are you talking about?”

“The Harmony.”

“Never heard of it.”

Sebastian studied the man’s closed, hard face, and found only confusion and anger. He turned away.

“You don’t think it’s him, do you?” said Tom, scrambling back up onto his perch as Sebastian took the reins.

Sebastian gave his horses the office to start. “Unfortunately, no. Which means that however much I’d like to