“Probably not. But there might be something here we’re missing. Something important.”
Hero was aware of Abigail fixing her with a steady stare. “I gather Lord Devlin has taken an interest in Daniel Eisler’s death?”
Hero nodded. “He doesn’t believe that Russell Yates—the man who has been arrested for the crime—is guilty.”
“Ah.” Her friend’s gaze shifted again to the children playing in the garden. For a moment, Hero thought she was about to say something. But she didn’t.
Hero said, “Do you know where I could find an English version of The Key of Solomon?”
Miss McBean rose to her feet in a waft of lavender mixed oddly with musk. “I have several. I’d be happy to lend you one.”
“Thank you, but I couldn’t let you do that.”
“No, please; none of the copies I have are especially valuable. Let me do this.”
“All right. Thank you.”
The version she lent Hero was smaller, only about eight inches tall, but written in a beautiful, flowing hand and exquisitely illustrated in rich shades of ultramarine and cinnabar and vermilion. Hero glanced through it, her eyes widening. “You said most spells deal with wealth, sex, power, or revenge. Which would you say interested Eisler the most?”
Miss McBean thought about it a moment. “He seemed particularly obsessed with invocations to constrain the spirits of the dead.”
“Invocations to— Good Lord.”
“I’m not so sure the good Lord has aught to do with any of this,” said Abigail McBean, her plump, pretty face taking on an oddly pinched look, her frizzy red hair like a flame in the rainy day’s gloom. “Read the book. You’ll see.”
Outside Abigail McBean’s deceptively normal-looking little house, a faint drizzle was still falling from the gray sky. The air hung heavy with the smell of wet grass and fading roses and the acrid bite of smoke from the endless rows of chimneys. As she walked down the short garden path to where her carriage waited at the kerb, Hero’s attention was all for the task of keeping the rain off the two manuscripts in her arms. She didn’t notice the dark-haired man in the slouch hat and too-big coat until he reared up before her.
“There y’are. Been waitin’ for you, I have,” he said, his grin wide and vacuous, like a man who laughs at his own private joke—or long ago took leave of his senses.
Hero’s gaze flew to her yellow-bodied carriage, the horses’ hides gleaming blue-black in the rain. She saw her footman, George, start forward, face going slack with sudden alarm. She knew she was in no real danger. Yet she felt her skin crawl, her breath quicken in that way common to all living things when confronted with evidence of madness.
“Excuse me,” she said, making to go around him.
Bony and filthy, his hand snaked out, his fingers digging into the sleeve of her carriage dress. “Don’t go yet. Got a message for the captain.”
Quivering with revulsion, Hero jerked her arm away from the man’s grasp with such force that she nearly sent the two manuscripts in her hands flying. “What captain?”
“Captain Lord Devlin. Tell him I’m owed what I’m owed, and he ought by rights to see that I get it. Maybe he don’t remember Jud Foy. But he should. Oh, yes, he should.”
“My lady?” said George, coming up beside her. “Is this person bothering you?”
Foy held his splayed hands up and out to his sides. His grin never faltered and his gaze never wavered from Hero’s face. “You tell him. Hmm?”
Then he thrust his hands into the pockets of his coat and sauntered away, elbows swinging, lips puckered into a tuneless whistle quickly lost in the patter of the rain.
Chapter 27
S
ebastian arrived back at Brook Street to find Hero seated at the library table calmly cleaning a tiny muff flintlock with a burnished walnut stock and engraved gilt mounts that had been a gift from her father.
He said, “Is this general maintenance, or did you shoot some-
one?”
She looked up at him. There was no humor in her face, only a cold purposefulness that reminded him disconcertingly of Lord Jarvis. “Ever hear of a man named Jud Foy?”
He thought about it a moment, then shook his head. “I don’t believe so. Why do you ask?”
“Because he was waiting for me when I came out of Abigail McBean’s house today—the same man who was watching this house last night. He said his name is Jud Foy, and he wanted me to give you a message.”
“Bloody hell. How did he know where you were?”
She shook her head. “I’ve no notion. But he called you ‘captain.’ He said, ‘Tell the captain I’m owed what I’m owed.’”
“‘Owed’? What does he think he’s owed?”
“He didn’t specify. Whatever it is, though, he seems to believe it’s your responsibility to see that he gets it. You may not remember him, but he obviously thinks you should.”