Henry.”
“The Magdalene House?” Tom’s eyes danced with sudden interest. “Ain’t that the place what burned last night?”
“That’s right.”
“You think there’s somethin’ not quite right about that fire?”
“Miss Jarvis claims it was murder.”
Sebastian found Sir Henry Lovejoy, Chief Magistrate at Queen Square Public Office, sitting at his desk reading the
A small man with a bald head and reading glasses, Sir Henry had been a merchant before the deaths of his wife and daughter shifted his interest to the law. They were unlikely friends, Sebastian and this earnest magistrate, with his serious demeanor and steadfast adherence to a rigid moral code worthy of a preacher. But friends they were.
“What can you tell me about last night’s fire at the Magdalene House?” Sebastian asked, taking the seat Sir Henry indicated.
Sir Henry peeled the small gold-framed spectacles from his face and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Terrible business, that. Last I heard, they’d already pulled four bodies from the rubble and there are probably more. According to the Quakers who run the place, seven soiled doves were staying at the establishment at the time of the tragedy, in addition to the woman in charge of the day-to-day operation of the house—a matron named Margaret Crowley. She apparently took refuge with the Friends some ten years ago herself and recently came back to help. She’s believed to be one of the victims.”
“Any sign the women might have been killed before the fire was set?”
“You mean, murdered?” Sir Henry had an almost comically high voice, and it now rose even higher. “Good heavens, no.”
Sebastian frowned. “How many survivors were there?”
“None that I know of.”
“You don’t find that strange? That none of the women managed to escape the fire? It was only—what?—five, six o’clock in the evening when the fire broke out.”
Sir Henry lifted his thin shoulders in a shrug. “The house was old and its timbers dry. It would have burned quickly. People frequently assume they have more time to get out than they actually do. They become disoriented and they perish.”
It was possible, Sebastian supposed. But he found it difficult to believe that none of those eight women had managed to stagger out of the smoke and flames into the night. “Bow Street is handling the investigation, I assume?” he asked casually.
Sir Henry nodded. “It’s not far from their offices, after all. I believe Lord Jarvis has requested Sir William take charge of the incident personally.”
“Lord Jarvis? What’s his interest in this?” Sebastian asked, curious to hear what the magistrate would say.
Sir Henry looked mildly surprised, as if the question hadn’t occurred to him. No one queried Lord Jarvis’s activities. “That I do not know.”
“And has Sir William ordered postmortems on the women?”
“I don’t believe so, no. Last I’d heard the bodies were to be turned over to the Friends for burial.” Sir Henry was looking troubled. After a moment, he said, “If I might be so bold as to inquire into your interest in this, my lord?”
Sebastian pushed to his feet. “I have no interest in it. I’m simply making inquiries on behalf of an acquaintance.” He turned toward the door, but paused to look back and ask, “You haven’t by any chance heard of a young prostitute named Rose Jones, have you? Eighteen, maybe nineteen years of age. Wellborn.”
Sir Henry thought a moment, then shook his head. “No. You think she was one of the victims?”
“She might have been.”
“Who was she?”
“That’s the problem,” said Sebastian. “I don’t know.”
Chapter 4
'We received reports this morning that the Luddites have burned another cotton mill in the West Riding,” said the Right Honorable Spencer Perceval, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. A small, thin man with a perpetually earnest expression, the Prime Minister paced nervously across the carpeted floor of the Carlton House chambers kept by Charles, Lord Jarvis.
“So I had heard,” said Jarvis, going to stand beside the window overlooking the Mall. He was a big man in every sense of the word. Tall of stature and wide through the shoulders, he carried perhaps twice the weight of the Prime Minister. He was also easily twice as powerful and infinitely more cunning. The reports from Jarvis’s own agents in Yorkshire had reached his desk the previous evening.
“Fortunately,” continued Perceval, still pacing back and forth, “by some miracle the local militia arrived quickly enough to arrest some score or more of the participants. We believe they’re the same men involved in smashing frames last month.”
“It was no miracle. Merely the careful planting of agents provocateurs.”
