“More than you might think,” said Sebastian.
He was turning away when Wyeth’s fist caught him high on the side of his cheek.
“You let him hit you?” said Hero, holding a twisted cloth filled with ice against the rapidly purpling bruise.
“Not exactly,” said Sebastian, wincing. “But I did provoke him. It didn’t seem right to hit him back.”
“You’re going to end up with a black eye.”
“It won’t be the first.”
She made an incoherent noise deep in her throat and went to refill her cloth from the bucket of ice provided by Calhoun. “If he were clever, Captain Wyeth would be trying to convince you that Preston had agreed to let him marry Anne. Instead, he insists Preston would never have consented, then goes on to detail why a man of honor would never marry Anne without her inheritance. It’s as if he were determined to tie a noose around his own neck and hang himself.”
“I know. Which, ironically enough, makes me think he probably didn’t kill Stanley Preston.” Sebastian went to peer at his discolored face in the washstand mirror. “I wish I could say I felt the same way about Miss Anne Preston.”
Hero turned to look at him, the ice-filled cloth held slack in her hand. “You can’t be serious.”
“Oh, I don’t mean that she personally stabbed Preston and Sterling and cut off their heads. But she wouldn’t be the first woman to hire someone to do her dirty work for her. Someone such as, say, Diggory Flynn.”
“Surely she can’t be that diabolical? To kill her own father . . .”
Sebastian shrugged. “Patricide, matricide, fratricide: They seem so unnatural that we’re repelled by the very thought. Yet they happen—often enough that we’ve even coined words for them. Anne Preston wanted Captain Hugh Wyeth, but she knew he’d never marry her without her inheritance. Not because he’s a greedy fortune hunter, but because he saw what poverty did to his mother and he’s too noble to do that to a woman he loves.”
“So she removes Stanley Preston, and now she’s free to marry her captain and receive her inheritance? Is that what you’re suggesting? His noble qualms are stilled, and she never needs to worry about having to wash her own clothes in a muddy stream in some backward part of the world? Yes; it makes sense—if she’s that shockingly selfish and coldhearted. But it doesn’t give her a reason to kill Douglas Sterling.”
“Just because we don’t know of a reason doesn’t mean one doesn’t exist.”
Hero set aside the ice-filled cloth. “Why order the killer to cut off his victims’ heads?”
“Perhaps that was his own embellishment. Or perhaps she thought a more gruesome killing would help deflect suspicion from her.”
“Surely she can’t be that . . . evil.”
“I wouldn’t have said so. But I’ve been wrong about people before.” He took the ice-filled cloth and carefully pressed it against his face. “The problem is, it still doesn’t explain why Stanley Preston made a most uncharacteristic visit to Bucket Lane just hours before he was killed.”
“That could be entirely unrelated to anything.”
“It could be,” said Sebastian, remembering the dusky-skinned woman with the long neck and the strange, turquoise eyes. “But I doubt it. And if it is related, then whoever Preston went to see that day might very well be in danger—although they probably don’t know it.”
Hero went to hunker down beside the black cat curled up before the dressing room fire. “One of the costermongers I interviewed lives near Fish Street Hill,” she said, her hand trailing down the cat’s back. “I could ask him to look into it. They all seem to know each other.” She shifted her hand to scratch behind the cat’s ears. “And Rowan Toop? How do you think he fits into all this?”
“I think he stole the royal relics from the crypt and was selling them to Preston. They’d arranged to meet at Bloody Bridge, except by the time Toop arrived, Preston was already dead. Toop was probably so horrified by what he discovered that he ran off—dropping the inscribed coffin strap in the process. It’s hard to say whether or not he saw—or knew—something that could have identified the killer. But the killer obviously thought he did. And killed him too.”
Hero kept her gaze on the cat. “Or Toop could have been so rattled by recent events that he simply slipped in the mud while taking his dog for a walk and pitched into the Thames—without anyone’s help.”
“True.” Sebastian set aside the melting ice and reached for a clean cloth to dry his face. “I’m hoping Gibson will have an answer when I see him tomorrow.”
If he’s not lost in an opium-induced fog, thought Sebastian.
Chapter 43
Monday, 29 March
A fter some thirty-six hours, Rowan Toop’s corpse had taken on the vague odor of rotting fish.