“No. To be frank, I still don’t know who killed Eisler. Or why.”
Hope sank his upper teeth into his lip and worried it back and forth, as if summoning the courage to speak. “I fear I’ve not been entirely honest with you.”
“Oh?”
“I told you I didn’t know if Eisler had a buyer interested in my diamond. That was not strictly true.”
Sebastian waited.
Hope sucked in a deep breath, then blurted out, “Prinny. Prinny was interested. Most definitely interested.”
Sebastian said, “I had rather suspected that.”
“You did?”
“I don’t imagine there can be many potential buyers for a stone of that caliber.”
“True, true. But there is one thing you may not know: The Prince’s representative was scheduled to meet with Eisler in Fountain Lane the very night he was killed.”
“Do you know the identity of that individual?”
Hope shook his head. “Unfortunately, no. But I should think it would not be all that difficult to discover. I believe Lord Jarvis was also involved in the negotiations.”
“Jarvis?”
Hope blinked rapidly several times, so that Sebastian wondered what the man saw in his face. “Yes, my lord.”
Sebastian’s history with his father-in-law was defined by a level of antagonism that had included—but was not limited to—physical assault, larceny, attempted murder, and a certain memorable kidnapping incident.
In one sense, Sebastian could not help but admire the big man’s dedication to the preservation of England and her monarchy. But he had no illusions about the level of Jarvis’s ruthlessness. The King’s powerful cousin could have taught Machiavelli a thing or two about duplicity, cunning, and the unswerving elevation of expediency over such maudlin notions as sentiment, principle, and morality.
To Sebastian’s knowledge, Jarvis possessed only one humanizing trait, and that was his affection for his sole surviving child, Hero. The man despised his aged, grasping mother and his two foolish sisters and would probably have consigned his addlebrained wife to Bedlam had it not been for Hero.
But when Sebastian reached Carlton House, it was to discover that Lord Jarvis was not there.
Swearing softly to himself, Sebastian turned toward his father-in-law’s Grosvenor Square town house.
His peal at the door was answered by a trim, wooden-faced butler named Grisham whom Sebastian suspected had not yet forgiven him for a certain incident a few weeks before, when Sebastian had hauled a dead body up the curving staircase to dump it on Lord Jarvis’s drawing room carpet.
“My lord,” said Grisham, his professional mask firmly in place. “I am afraid Lady Devlin is no longer here, having left shortly after her conversation with his lordship this morning.”
“Actually, it’s Lord Jarvis I was interested in seeing.”
A breath of wariness clouded the butler’s normally impassive features. “Unfortunately, his lordship is unavailable at the moment, as he has retired to his dressing room in preparation for an important audience with—”
“That’s quite all right,” said Sebastian, brushing past the butler and heading for the stairs. “I won’t be but a moment.”
There was a time when such an intrusion would have motivated Grisham to call the constables. Now he had to content himself with closing the front door with unusual force.
Sebastian took the stairs two at a time and entered the dressing room without knocking.
Jarvis was standing before his dressing table, his back to the door. Pausing in the act of fastening his cuffs, he looked up, his gaze meeting Sebastian’s in the mirror. He calmly straightened his cuffs and glanced over at his valet.
“Leave us.”
The man bowed and carefully laid the neckcloths he’d been holding over the nearby daybed. “Yes, my lord.”
Jarvis waited until the man had closed the door. Then he turned to select one of the cravats. “Well?”
“The Prince’s representative who was to meet with Eisler the night he was killed—who was it?”
Jarvis carefully eased the length of starched linen around his neck. “Heard about that, did you?”
“Yes.”
“To be frank, I’m somewhat surprised you didn’t make this discovery days ago.”
Sebastian gave his father-in-law a hard, gritty smile. “His name?”
“The gentleman’s identity is immaterial—an amateur although highly knowledgeable lapidary who had agreed to inspect the gem prior to its formal presentation to the Prince by Eisler at the Palace.”
“Which was scheduled for when?”
“Tuesday.”
“When one is dealing with murder, no potential witness—or suspect—is ‘immaterial.’”