She shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t know. They just did.”
Sebastian stared out the wavy-paned glass at what had been the Magdalene House’s entrance. “Did you see those men go in the house?”
She shook her head. “It got so foggy I couldn’t have seen the King himself if’n he’d been driving down the middle of the street.”
“What about after the fire started? Did you see the men then, in the crowd?”
Again, she shook her head. Dropping her voice even lower, she said, “But I did hear gunshots. Two of them. Right before the fire started.”
So many people in the area had denied hearing any shots that Sebastian would have begun to doubt Miss Jarvis’s tale if it hadn’t been backed up by Gibson’s medical observations. He said, “No one else will admit to having heard a thing. Why would that be?”
Again, that quick look over the shoulder. “Nobody liked havin’ that house here,” she whispered. “They wanted it gone.”
Sebastian studied the gentle lines of her young face, the baby-fine light brown hair that fell in artless disarray from beneath her mobcap. “So you’re saying—what?”
She drew in a quick gasp, her eyes widening as she realized how he might have interpreted what she’d just said. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m not sayin’ I think anyone around here had anything to do with what happened. I’m just sayin’ people complained about the house so much, maybe they’re afraid somebody might blame them if the constables start lookin’ into how that fire come about.”
Sebastian reached for his wrapped cheese and laid a generous payment on the counter. “Then why did you tell me?”
“Pippa?” A querulous voice came from the back of the shop. “You still servin’ that customer?”
Pippa began to back away.
“Why?” said Sebastian again. But the girl simply wheeled and disappeared through the curtained alcove.
He stepped out of the cheesemonger’s into a street filled with lengthening shadows and buffeted by a cold wind. As he turned toward his carriage, the familiar figure of a man separated itself from the gloom cast by a nearby coal wagon and moved to block Sebastian’s path.
“I’m surprised to see you here, Devlin,” said Colonel Bryce Epson-Smith. “I was under the impression you’d given up this rather curious hobby of yours in favor of drinking yourself to death.”
With deliberate slowness, Sebastian let his gaze travel over the former cavalry officer’s tall, elegant person, from the smartly curled brim of his beaver hat to his shiny black Hessians. When Jarvis had threatened Kat Boleyn with a traitor’s death, Epson-Smith had been his instrument. The man was smart, vicious, and lethal. “Which curious hobby were you referring to?”
“Your self-appointed role as avenger of fair maidens brought too early to the grave.” Epson-Smith nodded toward the blackened walls of the burned-out house across the street. “Only, these weren’t exactly maidens, now were they?”
“I take it you’re here on Lord Jarvis’s business.”
Epson-Smith hooked a thumb casually in the pocket of his silk waistcoat. “I’d have said that in this instance, at least, we’re about the same business.”
“Are we? I’m interested in seeing justice done. Your involvement suggests Lord Jarvis is intent on something else entirely.”
“Justice? For a half dozen worthless whores? What are they to you?”
“Eight,” corrected Sebastian. “There are eight women dead. And if they’re so worthless, why are you here?”
If the Colonel knew the real source of Jarvis’s interest, he was too adroit to betray it. All he said was, “We could cooperate, you know.”
“I don’t think so.”
His smile never slipping, Epson-Smith turned away. But he paused long enough to look back and say, “If you should change your mind, you know where to find me.”
Chapter 11
The night fell unseasonably cold but clear, with a brisk wind off the distant North Sea that blew away the last of the lingering clouds and the coal smoke that could sometimes smother the city at this time of year.
Leaving his town carriage at the corner of Portman Square, Sebastian walked the short distance up Orchard Street, his footsteps echoing on the stone cobbles. This was a mixed section of the city, close to the fine mansions of Mayfair but with scattered older streets slowly fading with the passage of time. Laughter blending with snatches of a melody drifted from a nearby music hall, while the pungent aromas of freshly ground beans and Blue Ruin wafted from the coffeehouse and gin shop across the street. As he passed a doorway, a woman stirred from the shadows, a nearby oil lamp throwing wavering golden light across her bare blond hair and thin face.
“Looking for company?” she asked, her smile trembling. She couldn’t have been more than fifteen, her eyes huge in a pale face. Sebastian shook his head and walked on.
The Orchard Street Academy was an ancient mansion set slightly back from the street. Flickering lamplight showed him a freshly blackened door and curtains drawn tightly at all the windows. But one of the gutters hung rotten and broken, and a musty smell of decay filled the air. He rapped sharply on the door, then stood, silent, while an unseen eye assessed his appearance. The guardians of such establishments were more skilled than any Bond Street beau at calculating in a glance the cost of a man’s cape, buckskin breeches, and top boots.
