Aunt Henrietta could keep silent no longer. “Well?” she demanded. “Will you do it?”
Sebastian turned to meet his aunt’s anxious stare. If the Archbishop had come alone to request Sebastian’s assistance, Sebastian would have turned him down without hesitation. Exaggerated appeals to his patriotism inevitably fell flat, while the true nature of Sebastian’s spiritual beliefs would doubtless give the old cleric a severe shock. Yet the wily old Archbishop was obviously shrewd enough to guess some of it, which was why he had brought his dear old friend the Duchess of Claiborne here with him.
She might be gruff and ruthlessly unsentimental, but of all the members of Sebastian’s family she was the only one who had never let him down, whose love he’d always known was pure and unconditional. Sebastian could not refuse her.
He raised his brandy to his lips and drained the glass. “I’ll do it.”
Chapter 4
The village of Tanfield Hill lay about half a mile to the south of the main post road between London and the West Country, just beyond the notorious, highwayman-infested stretch of open land known as Hounslow Heath. Here, the scrub and gorse of the heath began to give way to open, rolling woodland of oak and silver birch. The village itself was a picturesque collection of thatched cottages and whitewashed stone shops strung out along a cobbled high street and a few flanking lanes.
Driving himself in his curricle, Sebastian rattled over a narrow stone bridge spanning the quiet millstream and into the village at around half past ten that morning. The sun was up strong now, bathing the old stone walls in a warm, bucolic glow and filling the air with the sweet scent of roses and honeysuckle tumbling over garden fences and scrambling up neat lattices. From here he could see the low, solid nave and single spire of the ancient Norman church of St. Margaret’s crowning a gentle hill covered with daisy-strewn grass and a scattering of aged, moss-covered tombstones.
He turned his chestnuts up the slope, toward the gravel sweep before the church, where Sir Henry Lovejoy stood talking to a workman dressed in a rough smock. A diminutive, middle-aged man with a baldhead and a serious demeanor, Sir Henry was the newest of Bow Street’s three stipendiary magistrates. At the sight of Sebastian, he dismissed the workman with a nod and started across the gravel toward the curricle.
“Find someplace to water and rest them,” Sebastian told his tiger, handing the young groom the chestnuts’ reins. “We’ll be here awhile.”
“I’ll take care of ’em, gov’nor,” said Tom, scrambling from his perch at the rear of the carriage. “Ne’er you fear.”
“Oh, and Tom—ask around a bit while you’re at it. I’d like to hear what the locals are saying about all this.”
“Aye, gov’nor.”
“Lord Devlin,” called Sir Henry, coming up to him. “So the Archbishop convinced you to take an interest in the investigation after all, did he? I feared he might not succeed. This isn’t exactly your normal type of murder.”
Sebastian hopped down from the curricle’s high seat. “I didn’t know I had a normal type of murder.” Once, this earnest little magistrate had sought Sebastian’s own arrest. But over the past year and a half the sternly religious magistrate and the urbane, irreverent Viscount had built an odd friendship, founded on mutual respect and a strong, abiding sense of trust. Sebastian said, “Bow Street didn’t object to the suggestion that I become involved?”
One corner of the magistrate’s thin lips twitched with the faintest suggestion of a smile. “I wouldn’t exactly describe Sir James’s reaction as pleased. But when the Archbishop of Canterbury personally intervenes in an investigation, not even the Chief Magistrate would dare complain.”
“And you?”
“Me?” Turning, Lovejoy led the way to the northern side of the ancient parish church, where scattered piles of building rubble lay deserted beneath the strengthening sun. “When it comes to murder in the upper reaches of society and government, I know our limits. A delicate business, this. And puzzling. Most puzzling.”
Sebastian’s head tipped back, his eyes narrowing as he scanned the worn, age-darkened stone walls of the church. The nave of St. Margaret’s had the narrow, round-topped windows and heavy masonry typical of the early Norman period. Only the tower was noticeably lighter and more delicate, its spire probably added in early Tudor times.
He let his gaze fall to the rubble at their feet. Through the remnants of a broken wall he could see the upper reaches of a set of worn stone steps that disappeared down into a well of black. “How long ago was the crypt bricked up?” he asked, peering into the darkness. His voice echoed back at him from below.
“As near as anyone can remember, it was around the time of the revolt in America.” The magistrate had an unnaturally high-pitched voice that had a tendency to squeak when he became excited or nervous. He was squeaking now.
“So, thirty or forty years ago.”
“Something like that, yes.” A lantern rested on a large, flat-topped stone near the broken wall. Stooping, Lovejoy flipped open the door and began to kindle his tinderbox. “According to the workmen, an old charnel house stood here. They were in the process of demolishing it when they stumbled upon the entrance to the crypt. It’s been closed off for so long that people had forgotten the stairs were here. I gather it was a bit of a shock when the workmen broke through the wall. And even more of a shock when a couple of the lads decided to go exploring and tripped over the body of a man, dressed in the velvets and lace of the last century and with a knife sticking out his back. According to the workmen, the Reverend took one look at the body and left almost immediately for London.”
Sebastian stared off down the hill, to where the millstream curled lazily around a stand of willows. “It seems a curious thing to have done. Why go to the Bishop? Why not the local magistrate?”
Lovejoy frowned over his task. “From what I understand, Reverend Earnshaw is of a somewhat, shall we say, excitable disposition.”
Sebastian raised one eyebrow in surprise. “You haven’t actually spoken to him?”
The magistrate was still struggling with his tinderbox. “Not yet, unfortunately. The discovery of the Bishop’s body on top of the other horrors of the crypt seems to have been too much for the man. He managed to stagger over to the Manor and tell his tale to Douglas Pyle—that’s the local magistrate, by the way: a typical village squire, far more interested in horses and hounds than in solving murders. Anyway, as soon as the Reverend told Pyle where to find the bodies, he simply went home and dosed himself with laudanum. Liberally.” The magistrate’s flame went out, and he had to try again. “He’s still insensible.”
Sebastian resisted the urge to take the tinderbox from Lovejoy’s hands and light it for him. The magistrate was uncharacteristically shaken. “You say Earnshaw found the Bishop?”
“That’s right.”
“But if the Reverend himself went to London to get Prescott, then what was the Bishop doing down in the crypt alone?”
Lovejoy grunted with satisfaction as the lantern’s wick finally caught. “According to what we’ve been able to ascertain, Reverend Earnshaw returned immediately to Tanfield Hill in his own gig, while the Bishop followed later in his coach.”
“So where was the Bishop’s coachman while the Bishop was getting his head bashed in?”
“He remained on his box, as per the Bishop’s instructions. The man says he neither saw nor heard anything out of the ordinary.” Lovejoy tucked away his tinderbox and flipped the lantern’s small door closed. “Although if you ask me, he probably dozed off, and awakened only when the Reverend set up a shout. Seems the Reverend spotted the Bishop’s light in the crypt and ventured down there again, alone, only to discover the Bishop lying nearly atop the earlier victim’s body.”