She gave him a tight, unpleasant smile. “I was under the impression that was your job.”
Sebastian shifted his gaze to where Sterling’s bloodless head rested in a basin on the shelf, and for a moment, all he could think about was the tale Knox had told him, of the smuggler who’d come home to find his wife missing and his little boys hideously dismembered.
He said, “Where’s Gibson?”
She shook her head. “You don’t want to see him.”
“No. But I think I should.”
Her gaze met his, but her eyes were hooded and he could not begin to guess at her thoughts.
Then she said, “He’s in the parlor.”
He found Gibson sprawled in one of the old cracked leather chairs beside the cold hearth, his coat rumpled, his cravat gone, the collar of his shirt stained with sweat. Sebastian thought his friend lost in an opium-induced stupor. Then the Irishman looked up, his eyes hazy, his smile dreamy.
“Devlin.”
Sebastian walked over to pour himself a brandy, then gulped it down in one long pull.
“You’re here about this latest headless fellow, I suppose.” Gibson waved one hand vaguely in the direction of the yard. “Haven’t started yet, I’m afraid.”
Sebastian poured himself another drink. “Alexi Sauvage has almost finished the postmortem.”
Something flickered across Gibson’s features, then faded into bland contentment. “Has she, now? She’s very clever. Wish she’d marry me. But she won’t.”
“She says your leg has been troubling you.”
“My leg?” Gibson’s fuzzy smile never slipped. “I think about it sometimes, still over there, doubtless a bare, weathered bone by now. While I’m here. Not yet a pile of bare bones.”
When Sebastian said nothing, the surgeon drew in a slow, even breath that eased out like a sigh. “It’s a bit like a woman, you know. Opium, I mean. Soft. Caressing . . . Deceptive. A delightful exaltation of the spirit mingled with cloudless serenity. Truly a gift from the gods.”
“That can kill,” said Sebastian.
Gibson’s smile grew lopsided. “The gifts of the gods are often double-edged, are they not?”
“Did you look at Sterling yourself at all?”
“Who?” said Gibson, his head lolling against the back of the chair. “Sometimes I wish I were a poet—or maybe a composer—so I could share this joy and beauty. Everything’s so much clearer. Brighter. More intense. Delicious . . .”
His voice faded and his gaze grew unfocused again, his face slack.
A soft step in the passage drew Sebastian’s gaze to the doorway.
“He wouldn’t have wanted you to see him like this,” said Alexi Sauvage, her hands cupping her bent elbows close to her body, her voice low.
Sebastian turned toward her, aware of a powerful rush of fear and guilt all twisted up into a helpless rage that somehow ended up being directed at her. “God damn you. Why don’t you help him?”
“I told you: He won’t let me.”
“Why not?”
She shifted her gaze to the man now lost in a cloud of opium-hued bliss. “Fear. Embarrassment. A man’s peculiar notion of pride. I don’t know. You tell me; you’re a man—his friend. All I know is, he can’t keep going on like this. It’s destroying his mind and body. Killing him.”
“When will he be . . .”
“Normal?” she shrugged. “He’ll sleep for some time now. When he wakes, he’ll be listless, depressed. Nauseous. Tomorrow will be better than tonight.”
Sebastian set aside his second brandy untouched. “Then I’ll be back tomorrow.”
Chapter 31
“What we doin’ ’ere?” asked Tom as Sebastian drew his curricle to a halt at the side of the lane leading to Bloody Bridge.
The sky was light blue and marbled with ripples of white clouds, the spring air rich with the smell of freshly turned earth and budding leaves and the smoke rising from the chimneys of the nearby cottages. Sebastian handed the boy his reins. “Thinking,” he said, and dropped lightly to the ground.
He could feel the drying, muddy ruts of the roadway crumble beneath his boots as he walked toward the bridge, his gaze drifting over the expanse of market and nursery gardens that stretched away to the east. The tolling bell of a small country chapel, its tower barely visible above a distant cluster of trees, was carried on the cool breeze. Frowning, he turned to look back at Sloane Square, now drenched with a rich golden sunlight.
“So whatcha thinkin’?” asked Tom, watching him.
“No one seems to be able to tell me what Stanley Preston was doing here on a rainy Sunday night.”
“Some folks just like t’ walk in the rain,” said Tom. “Never made no sense to me, but ’tis a fact.”