Roman mosaic.'
`You don't believe him?'
`No. But I don't understand how he fits into anything else I've learned, either.'
`I'll see what I can find out.' The door to a tavern near the corner opened, spilling light and voices and laughter into the street. `Has Knox seen you?'
`Why do you ask?'
Her gaze met his. `You know why.'
They had reached the arch where her carriage awaited. Sebastian said, `A few weeks ago, I met a man in Chelsea who told me I reminded him of a highwayman who'd once held up his carriage on Hounslow Heath.'
`You believe that was Knox?'
`I'm told he took to the High Toby for a time after he left the Rifles. I wouldn't want to think there are three of us walking around.'
He said it lightly, but his words drew no answering smile from her. She said, `I know you've had men on the Continent, searching for your mother. Have they found her?'
`No.'
`You can't simply let it go, Sebastian?'
He searched her pale, beloved face. `All those years when you didn't know the identity of your father, if you thought you had the truth within reach, could you have let it go?'
`Yes.' She did smile then, a sweet, sad smile.
`But then, my demons are different from yours.' Reaching up on tiptoe, she brushed her lips against his cheek, then turned away. `Good night, Sebastian. Keep yourself safe.'
He walked down increasingly empty streets. The sky above was dark and starless, the air close; the oil lamps mounted high on the dark, looming walls of the tightly packed, grimy brick houses and shops flickered with his passing. At one point he was aware of two men falling into step behind him. He tightened his grip on the walking stick he carried tucked beneath one arm. But they melted away down a noisome side alley, their footfalls echoing softly into the night.
He walked on, rounding the corner toward Long Street. He could hear the thin, reedy wail of a babe somewhere in the distance, the jingle of an off-tune piano, the rattle of carriage wheels passing in the next block. And from the murky shadows of a narrow passageway up ahead came a soft whisper.
`C'est lui.'
He drew up just as the same two men burst from the passage and fanned out to take up positions, one in front of him, the other to his rear. Whirling, Sebastian saw the glint of a knife in the hand of one; the other, a big, fair-haired man in dark trousers and high leather boots, carried a cudgel he slapped tauntingly against his left palm.
`Watch!' shouted Sebastian as the man raised the club over his head. `Watch, I say!'
Before the man could bring the club down, Sebastian rushed him, the walking stick whistling through the air toward the assailant's head. The man threw up his left arm, blocking Sebastian's blow at the last instant. The impact shattered the ebony shaft of the walking stick, shearing it off some eight inches from Sebastian's fist. But the shock of the unexpected counterattack was enough to send the man staggering back. He lost his footing and went down.
His companion growled, `Bâtard!
`Watch!' shouted Sebastian again, swinging around just as the second man - smaller, leaner, darker than his companion - lunged, his knife held in an underhanded grip.
Sebastian tried to parry the man's thrust with the broken shaft of the walking stick and felt the blade slip off the wood to slice along his forearm. Then the man on the ground closed his hands around Sebastian's ankle and yanked.
Lurching backward, Sebastian stumbled over the fallen man and went down, bruising his hip on a loose cobblestone as he rolled. Swearing long and hard, he grabbed the cobblestone as he surged up onto his knees.
The man with the cudgel took a swipe. Sebastian ducked, then came up to smash the stone into the side of his attacker's head with a bone crushing twunk. The man reeled back, eyes rolling up, the side of his face a sheet of gore. Panting hard, Sebastian reached into his boot and yanked his own dagger from its hidden sheath.
The knife clenched in one hand, the bloody rock still gripped in the other, he rose into a low crouch. `Come on, you bastard,' he spat, his gaze locking with that of his remaining assailant.
The man was clean-shaven and relatively young, no more than thirty, his coat worn but clean, his cravat simply but neatly tied. He licked his lower lip, his gaze flicking from Sebastian to the still figure lying between them in a spreading pool of blood.
His nostrils flared on a quickly indrawn breath.
`Well?' said Sebastian.
The man turned and ran.
Sebastian slumped back against the brick wall, his injured arm cradled against his chest, his blood thrumming in his ears, his gaze on the dead man beside him.
Chapter 23
`Ghastly,' said Sir Henry Lovejoy, peering down at the gory head of the dead man sprawled on the pavement at their feet. The watch had arrived, panting, only moments after the attack on the Viscount, who sent the man running to Bow Street, just blocks away. Now Sir Henry shifted his glance to Lord Devlin. `Who is he? Do you know?'
`Never saw him before,' said Devlin, stripping off his cravat to wind around his bleeding arm.
`And his companion who fled?'
`Was also unfamiliar to me.'
Lovejoy forced himself to look more closely at the dead man.
`I suppose they could have been common footpads after your pocketbook.'
`They could have been.'
`But you don't think so. I must confess, he does not exactly have the look of a footpad.'
`He's also French.'
`French? Oh, dear; I don't like the sound of that. Do you think there could be some connection between this incident and the Tennyson murders?'
`If there is, I'll be damned if I can see it.' Devlin looked up from wrapping his arm. `Have you found the children's bodies, then?'
`What? Oh, no. Not yet. But with each passing day, it becomes increasingly difficult to believe that they could still be alive.' Lovejoy nodded to the men from the dead house who had arrived with a shell, then stood watching them shift the body.
`We've begun to look into the backgrounds of the various men involved in the excavations up at the moat. Some disturbing things are coming to light about this man Rory Forster.'
Devlin finished tying off the ends of his makeshift bandage.
`Such as?'
`He's said to have quite a temper, for one thing. And he's not above using his fists on women.'
`That doesn't surprise me.'
`Of course, his wife backs up his claim that he was home with her Sunday afternoon and evening. But I wouldn't put it beyond him to bully her into saying it. The problem is, I don't see how he could possibly be the killer.'
Devlin flexed the hand of his injured arm, testing it. `Why's that?'
`Because if he is, how did the Tennysons get up to the moat in the first place? The logical conclusion is they could only have driven up there in the company of their murderer.'
`The same could be said of Sir Stanley Winthrop. If he is the killer, then how the devil did the Tennysons get to Enfield?'