burial ground was actually the intersection of two churchyards, that of St. Giles adjoining that of St. Pancras, said by antiquarians to be one of the oldest churches in England.
“You told me you’d sailed from America with my father,” said Sebastian. “What you didn’t tell me was that the Bishop of London’s brother was on that ship, as well.”
Franklin opened his eyes. “Didn’t seem important at the time. How was I to know Sir Nigel’s body had been found in that crypt, along with the Bishop’s?”
“You wouldn’t have any idea what Sir Nigel was doing down in that crypt, would you?”
“Me? No. Why would I?”
Sebastian studied the old man’s florid, sagging face, creased with lines left by eighty-odd years of laughter and heartache. “I think you know far more than you’re letting on.”
Franklin chuckled at that, his protuberant belly in its snuff-stained, old-fashioned waistcoat shaking up and down. Fumbling in his pocket, he came up with a battered snuffbox he flipped open with the practiced grace of a Macaroni.
Sebastian said, “I understand you and Sir Nigel quarreled during the course of the voyage.”
“Of course we quarreled. Sir Nigel was an abrasive, arrogant man. He quarreled with everyone—including your father.”
“Over what?”
“The war, mainly. Sir Nigel was adamant that the only reason the King hadn’t managed to put down the rebellion was a lack of firm resolve on the part of Parliament. He was convinced that a sustained surge in the number of troops on the ground would be sufficient to subdue the rebels once and for all.”
“You didn’t think so?”
Franklin lifted a pinch of snuff to one nostril. His hands shook with age, dusting the fine grains over his knees as he leaned forward. “As punishment for my decision to remain loyal to my king, the Revolutionary government seized everything I owned. My home. My estates. Even my liberty for two years. You think I didn’t want to see the King prevail in reestablishing control over the Colonies? But what a man wants and what he recognizes as within the realm of possibility aren’t necessarily the same thing.”
A whirl of pigeons, their wings beating the air as they rose up from beside the church walls, drew Sebastian’s gaze to the massive old west tower of St. Pancras, with its crumbling thirteenth-century arches and broken weather vane. He said, “Lord Jarvis sailed with you, as well?”
“Yes. Why?”
“Did he ever quarrel with Sir Nigel?”
“Jarvis? Not within my hearing, no.”
Sebastian had to keep reminding himself that thirty years ago, Lord Jarvis would have been a young man in his twenties, while Hendon wouldn’t have been much older than Sebastian himself. Would they have been any different, then? he wondered. Somehow, Sebastian doubted it.
He said, “Your ship docked . . . where? Portsmouth?”
“London. Thirty years ago this month.” Franklin dropped the snuffbox back into the pocket of his frock coat. He was silent for a moment, gnawing thoughtfully on the flesh of his inner cheek. At last, he glanced over at Sebastian and said, “You do know about the papers Sir Nigel was bringing back with him?”
Sebastian shook his head. “What kind of papers are we talking about?”
“Letters, actually. Letters from London, written to a member of the Confederation Congress. They were passed to Sir Nigel by a Loyalist from Philadelphia. A woman.”
“What woman?”
“Her name isn’t important. She’s long dead. It was my understanding she stole the letters from their original recipient.”
“Who wrote the letters?”
“I never knew. They were simply signed ‘Alcibiades.’ But from their contents, it was obvious they were written by someone either in the Foreign Office, or else very close to the King.”
“Someone passing on sensitive information to the rebels?”
“Yes.”
The pigeons on the roof of the dilapidated church began to coo. Sebastian squinted up at them, his eyes narrowing against the glare of the late-afternoon sun. “Why did Sir Nigel tell you about the letters?”
Franklin gave a wry smile. “To my knowledge, he didn’t tell anyone. I only knew of the letters’ existence due to my acquaintance with the woman who gave them to him.”
“But someone else could have known about them?”
“I suppose so. Sir Nigel and I were hardly intimates, now, were we?”
Sebastian studied the old man’s aged, paper-thin skin, the watery, nearly lashless eyes. “When Sir Nigel disappeared, it didn’t occur to you that it might have something to do with the letters he brought back from America?”
“Of course it occurred to me. Which is why I’m telling you about it now. Did I mention it to anyone at the time? No. Sir Nigel called me a traitor’s spawn and spat in my face. As far as I’m concerned, whoever killed him did the world a favor.”
“That seems to have been a common sentiment.”
Franklin grunted. “So why waste a perfectly fine July day sitting in a churchyard talking to an old man about long-ago events now best forgotten?”
“Because four nights ago, someone killed the Bishop of London in the exact same spot where his brother died thirty years ago. Unlike his brother, the Bishop was a man who accomplished much that was good in his life and would doubtless have accomplished more, had he lived. I don’t think the man who killed him did the world a favor.”
Franklin tightened his grip on the knobbed handle of his walking stick and pushed to his feet. “Yes, well . . . You know my opinion of the good Bishop.”
“We all have our faults.”
The aged, watery eyes blinked. “So we do. Perhaps when you know all the good Bishop’s faults, you’ll know who killed him.”
Sebastian watched the American walk away through the tumble of gray, moldering tombstones, his back still surprisingly straight, his gait solid and steady, despite his age. Then Sebastian’s gaze fell to the tombstone nearest the bench. Newer than all the others, its inscription was still crisp and easy to read:
HERE LYETH YE BODY OF
MARY FRANKLIN
BELOVED WIFE OF WILLIAM
DEPARTED THIS LIFE
SEPTEMBER 1811
Sebastian looked up. But the old man had gone.
Hendon sat with his chin propped on one fist, the scowl on his face deepening as he studied the chessboard before him.
“There is a way,” said Sebastian.
Hendon raised his brilliant blue eyes to his son’s face. “Don’t tell me that.”
Sebastian settled deeper into his seat and crossed his outstretched boots at the ankles. “It’s what you used to tell me.”
They were in the library of the vast St. Cyr townhouse on Grosvenor Square. It had become their habit of late to meet in the afternoons when both were free for a game of chess, as they had done so often when Sebastian was a boy. A warm breeze billowed the curtain at the open window, bringing them the
