bounding enthusiastically at his side. The Squire wiped his nose again, his eyes narrowing with suspicion. `Who did you say that fellow was?'
`My dog handler.'
`That's your dog?'
`It is.'
`Huh. Fellow's got a Frenchy look about him, if you ask me. They're saying it was a Frenchman who killed that gentlewoman, you know. What is this fellow doing with that dog, exactly?'
`I was hoping the dog might pick up some trace of the missing Tennyson children.'
When the Squire still looked doubtful, Sebastian added, `It s a... a Strand hound. They're famous for their ability to track missing persons. This one is particularly well trained and talented.'
`Well trained, you say?' asked the Squire, just as Chien flushed up a rabbit and tore off after it through the underbrush.
Behind him, Arceneaux shouted, `Chien! À moi. Imbécile.'
`He is sometimes distracted by the local fauna,' Sebastian admitted.
The Squire sniffed. `Best keep him away from Forster here. Don't reckon Bow Street would fancy dog prints all over the place.'
Sebastian hunkered down again to study the dead man's charred clothing and gaping raw wound. The flies were already busy, and he brushed them away with his hand. He didn't need Gibson to tell him that the man had been shot and at close quarters. But whatever other secrets the dead man had to reveal would need to wait for the anatomist's examination. After a moment, Sebastian said, `I'm told Forster married a local widow this past year.'
`That's right. Rachel Clark, of Hollyhock Farm. I sent one of the lads over there to warn her, just in case what your tiger was telling me turned out to be true.' The Squire sniffed again. `She could've done a sight better, if you ask me. Very prosperous property, Hollyhock Farm. But then, there's no denying Forster was a handsome man. And when it comes to good-looking men, it's a rare woman who doesn't make a fool of herself.' The Squire's lips pursed as he shifted his brooding gaze to Sebastian. `Course, it's even worse when they deck themselves out like a Bond Street beau and drive a fancy sporting carriage.'
Sebastian cleared his throat and pushed to his feet. `Yes, well I'd best remove my Strand hound and his handler before they contaminate the scene.' He motioned to Arceneaux, who dragged Chien from where he was now intently following the hopping progress of a toad and hauled the reluctant canine off toward the curricle.
For one moment, Sebastian considered as a courtesy telling the Squire of his intention to visit the twice- widowed Rachel of Hollyhock Farm. Then the Squire added darkly, `And a title, of course. Just let a man have looks and a title, and when it comes to the ladies, it doesn't matter what sort of a dastardly reputation the sot might have.'
Sebastian touched his hat and bowed. `Squire John.'
As they drove away, he was aware of the Squire still standing at the water's edge, the shade of the ancient grove pooling heavily around him, one meaty hand swiping the air before his face as he batted at the thickening cloud of flies.
`I would like to apologize,' said Arceneaux stiffly, one hand resting around the damp, happy dog as they drove toward Hollyhock Farm. `I put you through all this, and for what? Chien found no trace of the boys. Nothing.'
Sebastian glanced over at him. `It was worth a try.'
The Frenchman stared straight ahead, his face troubled. `None of this makes any sense. What could have happened to them? How could they have simply disappeared like this? And why?'
But it was a question Sebastian could not begin to answer.
Hero found the area around Covent Garden's vast square crowded with a swarm of fruit and vegetable sellers. Vendors cries of `Ripe cher-ries, sixpence a pound' and `Buy my primroses, two bunches a penny' echoed through the narrow streets; the scent of freshly cut flowers and damp earth and unwashed, closely packed bodies hung heavily in the air. As they pushed their way closer to the market, the coachman was forced to check his horses to a crawl.
She kept her gaze focused straight ahead, ignoring the pleading cries of the urchins who leapt up to press their faces against her carriage windows and the roar of laughter from the ragged crowd gathered around a Punch and Judy show on the church steps. By day, the classical piazza laid out before St. Paul's by Inigo Jones was the site of London's largest produce market. But later, when the shadows of evening stretched across the cobblestones and the square's motley collection of stalls and lean-tos closed for the night, willing ladies in tawdry satins with plunging necklines and husky crooning voices would emerge to loiter beneath the colonnades and soaring porticos and hiss their lewd invitations to passersby.
Slowly inching through the throng, the carriage finally swung onto King Street and then drew up before a once grand mansion now divided into lodgings. Hero lowered her hat's veil and waited while her footman knocked on the house's warped, cracked door. It wasn't until the door was opened and the large, familiar form of Molly O'Keefe, the house's mistress, filled the entrance that the footman came to let down the carriage steps.
The two women had come to know each other months earlier, when Hero was researching a theory on the economic causes of the recent explosion in the number of prostitutes in the city. Clucking at the sight of her, Molly whisked Hero into a dilapidated hall with stained, once grand paneling and a broken chandelier that dangled precariously overhead, then slammed the door in the faces of her gawking neighbors.
`Yer ladyship! Sakes alive, I ne'er thought to be seeing ye again.'
`Molly, I need your help,' said Hero, and drew the portrait of Bevin Childe from her sketch pad.
Chapter 34
True to its name, Hollyhock Farm proved to be a rambling brick cottage with a low slate roof and white- painted windows surrounded by a riot of hollyhocks and lavender and fat pink cabbage roses as big as Sebastian's fist. At the edge of the garden curled a lazy stream spanned by an old, honeysuckle-draped wooden bridge. A flock of white geese waddling along the stream's banks looked up, the warm wind ruffling their feathers, their necks arching in alarm as Chien stood up on the curricle's seat and let out a woof in their direction.
`Do try to keep that hell-born hound out of the geese, will you?' said Sebastian, dropping lightly to the gravel verge outside the garden.
`Chien,' whispered Arceneaux, pulling the dog's head around. `Behave.'
Sebastian had expected to find the widow of Hollyhock Farm surrounded in her grief by family and neighbors. But she was alone in her garden, her arms wrapped across her chest, the skirts of her simple muslin gown brushing the trailing plantings of lady's mantle and alyssum as she paced the cottage's flagstone paths. She was obviously past the first blush of youth, perhaps even a year or two older than her dead husband, but still slim and attractive, with softly waving golden hair and a sweet, heart-shaped face.
`Mrs. Forster,' said Sebastian, drawing up a few feet away from her. `If I might have a word with you?'
The face she turned to him was dry-eyed, a pale mask of shock and grief and something else something that looked suspiciously like relief, as if she were slowly wakening from a seductive nightmare. She nodded and swallowed hard, her throat cording with the effort. `They're saying Rory might be dead. That his body was found by some London lord out at Camlet Moat. Is it true, then?'
`It is, yes. I m sorry. Please allow me to offer my condolences on the loss of your husband.'
She sucked in a deep breath that shuddered her chest. But otherwise she struck him as remarkably composed. `Thank you.'
`I know the timing is awkward, but would you mind if I asked a few questions?'
She shook her head and drew in another of those shaky breaths.
`No. Although I don't know what I can tell you that would be of any use to you. I didn't even know Rory was going out to the moat this morning. He said he was planning to work on the roof of the cow shed. Lord knows it's needed mending these past six weeks or more.'
`I would imagine things have been rather neglected around the farm, with your husband working for Sir
