“Check,” said Gibson, sitting back in his seat and reaching for the brandy bottle. “But it is highly suggestive.”
Sebastian crossed his arms at his chest and studied the board before him. “In the Levant, if a young woman disgraces her family by loose, immoral conduct, the only way the family can regain their honor is to kill her. Some people think it’s a Muslim custom, but it’s not. All the religions of the area do it—Christians, Jews, Muslims, Druze. It’s not religious. It’s tribal, and it goes back to prebiblical days when the Jews were just another Semitic tribe wandering the deserts of the Arabian peninsula.”
Gibson refilled their glasses and set the brandy bottle aside with a light
“No,” said Sebastian, moving his queen to e7. “But Englishmen have also been known to kill unfaithful wives and wayward daughters.”
Gibson frowned down at the board. “You think that’s why Rachel fled Orchard Street and took refuge at the Magdalene House? Because her father discovered where she was?”
“Her father or her brother. I’d say Cedric Fairchild knew his sister was in Covent Garden.”
“But why? That’s what doesn’t make sense about any of this. How did she end up there in the first place?
“That I haven’t figured out yet.”
Gibson leaned forward suddenly, his two hands coming up together. “She could have had a secret lover. Someone her father considered unsuitable. Rather than marry Ramsey, she fled to her lover, who then abandoned her and left her on the streets. Too ashamed to go home, she was forced into prostitution to survive.”
Sebastian sat back in his chair and laughed. “If you ever decide to give up medicine, you could make a fortune writing lurid romances.”
“It’s possible,” insisted Gibson.
“I suppose it is.” Sebastian watched his friend move his queen to d5. “The fact remains that however she came to be in Covent Garden, all three men have a motive for killing her. Both Lord Fairchild and Cedric Fairchild might well have wanted her dead for disgracing the family name, while Tristan Ramsey would hardly be the first man to kill a woman who rejected him.”
Gibson reached for his brandy glass. “What about the other man you were telling me about? This purchasing agent.”
“Luke O’Brian? His motive is roughly the same as Ramsey’s. He wanted her enough to try to buy her out of the Academy. According to Kane, she rejected him.”
“So he flew into a rage and threatened to kill her? That sounds logical. She fled Orchard Street to get away from him.”
“There’s just one little detail that doesn’t fit with any of these scenarios.”
Gibson frowned. “What’s that?”
“According to both Joshua Walden and Tasmin Poole, two women fled the Orchard Street Academy last Wednesday night—Rachel, and another Cyprian named Hannah Green.” Sebastian made his final move, and smiled. “Checkmate.”
Gibson stared at the board. “Bloody hell. Why didn’t I see that coming?”
Sebastian raised his head, his attention caught by the sound of a team driven at a fast clip up the street. There was a jingle of harness and the clatter of wheels over uneven cobbles as the carriage was reined in hard before the surgery. An instant later, a fist beat a lively tattoo on the street door.
“What the devil?” Gibson lurched awkwardly upright.
“I’ll get it,” said Sebastian, grabbing a brace of candles as he headed up the narrow hall.
The pounding came again, accompanied by a man’s shouted “Halloooo.”
Sebastian jerked back the bolt and yanked open the door. A liveried footman, his tricorner hat askew on his powdered hair, one fist raised to knock again, was caught off balance and practically fell into the hall. Sebastian gazed beyond him to the team of blood bays sidling nervously in the street, their plumed heads shaking. His eyes narrowing, Sebastian was studying the crest emblazoned on the carriage panel when the door was thrust open and an imperious female voice said, “Don’t just stand there. Help me.”
It took Sebastian a moment to realize she spoke not to him but to a second footman, who now scrambled to let down the carriage steps.
“George,” snapped the woman’s voice, recalling the first footman. “Come take the man’s shoulders while Richard takes his feet. Careful. He’s bleeding quite dreadfully.”
“Bleeding?” Gibson limped toward the unconscious man the two footmen were easing through the carriage door. “No, don’t lay him down in the street! Take him straight into the surgery. This way,” said Gibson, hurrying before them.
“Who is he?” asked Sebastian.
“A would-be assassin,” said Miss Hero Jarvis, appearing in the open carriage door. A picture in a demure cream silk confection with a high waist and a skirt sodden dark with blood, she held a beaded reticule in one hand and what looked like a carriage pistol in the other. “We left one dead on the road from Richmond, but this one’s still living. I’m hoping he’ll survive long enough to tell us who hired him.”
Sebastian stepped forward to offer her his hand down. “Who shot him?”
She handed him the carriage pistol as if somewhat surprised to find she was still clutching it. It was a double-barreled French flintlock, and he saw that both barrels had been fired.
“I did.”
