Why?
She was no simple prostitute; of that Sebastian was fairly certain. The neighborhood was one favored by costermongers, who tended to cluster together close to the markets they visited at dawn to buy their stock. From her dress, Sebastian suspected the unknown woman of Bucket Lane was a coster herself, while her appearance and remarks suggested that at least one of her grandparents had been of African blood. Was that significant?
Perhaps.
A new theory was forming in his imagination, outlandish, improbable even, and yet. .
What he needed, he realized, was to speak to someone who knew Preston well. Really knew him. And that meant not his daughter, Anne, but his longtime friend, Sir Galen Knightly.
Chapter 41
Newly changed into doeskin breeches and a well-tailored dark blue coat, with his hair still damp, Sebastian knocked on the door of Sir Galen Knightly’s town house in Half Moon Street to find the Baronet standing in the stately, old-fashioned hall with his gloves in one hand and a walking stick tucked up under his arm.
“I beg your pardon,” said Sebastian. “Have I caught you on the verge of going out?”
Sir Galen looked vaguely chagrined. “Well. . actually, yes. Did you need something?”
“I had a few more questions about Preston I was hoping you might be able to answer.”
The Baronet glanced at the hall clock. “Would you mind walking with me toward Bond Street?”
It was Sir Galen’s practice, Sebastian recalled, to dine at Stevens every Wednesday and Sunday at half past six. “Of course,” said Sebastian, and the older man’s face cleared.
Sebastian let his gaze drift around the hall while Knightly conferred for a moment with his butler. From the looks of things, the house had been little altered since the days of Sir Galen’s grandfather. The Baronet’s tragic young bride, who had survived her wedding by only ten months before dying in childbirth, hadn’t lived long enough to make many changes, and her grief-stricken widower had obviously been content to leave things as they were.
“Have you made some progress in your investigations?” asked Sir Galen as they descended the front steps and turned toward the east.
“Some. I was wondering if you know what might have taken Stanley Preston to Fish Street Hill last Sunday-to a wretched alley called Bucket Lane.”
“Fish Street Hill?” Knightly glanced over at him in surprise. “Good heavens; no. I can’t imagine. You’re certain?”
“Yes.”
“How very odd.”
“Is it?”
“Very. Stanley had what you might call an aversion to those of low birth. In general, he avoided them as much as possible.”
“Low birth and low means?”
“Well, yes. Of course.”
Sebastian paused to hand a penny to the young crossing sweep who was busy clearing manure from the intersection with a ragged broom. “It’s been how long since Preston’s wife died?”
“Eight years, I believe. Why?”
“He was still a fairly young man at the time of her death. Yet he never remarried.”
“No. But then, he was sincerely attached to his late wife. I honestly don’t think he ever looked at another woman-before or after her death. He worshipped her.”
“No mistresses?”
“No. Never. And if you’re thinking that might be what took Stanley to this Bucket Lane, then I’m afraid you really don’t understand the man who was Stanley Preston. If Stanley had been inclined to take a mistress-which he never did, of course, but if he had-he would never have chosen some common Billingsgate trollop. I remember hearing him say once that for a gentleman to lie down with a baseborn wench was tantamount to miscegenation.”
Sebastian thought of the Bucket Lane woman’s flawless, dusky skin and exquisite bone structure and wondered if Sir Galen actually knew his old friend as well as he thought he did. “An interesting choice of words,” said Sebastian. “Miscegenation. Do I take it he never had any interest in the enslaved women who worked his plantations in Jamaica either?”
“Good God, no!”
“Yet it’s not uncommon, is it?”
“It is amongst gentlemen of honor.”
Sebastian watched a ponderous coal wagon making its way up the street and said nothing.
Sir Galen cleared his throat. “To my knowledge, Stanley Preston seldom ventured east of Bond Street except on business at the bank or exchange. I can’t imagine what might have taken him to an area such as Fish Street Hill.”
“Yet he did business with the likes of Priss Mulligan.”
Knightly’s brows drew together in a puzzled frown. “Who?”
“Priss Mulligan-a decidedly unsavory woman who keeps a secondhand shop in Houndsditch.”
“Ah, yes; I remember hearing him speak of her. But then, I suspect Stanley would have ventured into Hades and done business with Satan himself if the devil happened to possess something Stanley wanted for his collection.” The Baronet’s eyes widened as if inspired by a sudden thought. “Perhaps that’s what he was doing in this Bucket Lane. Buying some relic or another.”
“The area’s inhabitants are costers and fishmongers. Not thieves and fences.”
“Some costers have been known to deal in stolen goods.”
“Stolen hams and bolts of cloth, perhaps. Not priceless relics.”
“Perhaps one got lucky.”
“Perhaps. Only, how would he know to offer it to Preston?”
“True; I hadn’t thought of that.” He shrugged. “Then I’m afraid I have no explanation.” He hesitated a moment, then said, “Are you no closer to discovering who might have killed him?”
“I’m afraid not.”
Knightly pushed out a long, pained sigh. “And now Dr. Sterling is dead too. It’s beyond ghastly.”
“You were acquainted with Sterling?”
Knightly shrugged. “Jamaica is a very small island.”
Sebastian stared at him. “Are you saying Douglas Sterling spent time in Jamaica?”
“Yes. You didn’t know?”
“When?”
“He practiced there as a young man. And he still goes out every few years to visit a daughter who married a merchant in Kingston.” Knightly paused. “Although I suppose I should say he used to go.”
“That’s a long voyage for a man of his age.”
“It was, yes. But he always claimed the sea air was good for him-that it more than made up for the fatigue of the journey. Said it was the London fog that was going to kill him.” Knightly shook his head sadly at the implications of his own words.
“When was Sterling last in Jamaica? Do you know?”
“Recently, I believe. Although I couldn’t say precisely when.”
“During Sinclair Oliphant’s period as governor?”
“It must have been, I suppose.” Knightly drew up on the footpath before the Stevens. “You think that’s significant?”
“It may be. I don’t know.”
Knightly nodded, then glanced surreptitiously at his watch as a nearby clock tower chimed the quarter hour. “Would you care to join me for dinner?”
“Thank you, but I’m afraid I have a previous engagement.”
It was only partially a lie. Sebastian’s engagement was with Sinclair Oliphant.
The colonel just didn’t know about it yet.
Dressed now in satin knee breeches and an evening coat, with a chapeaux bras and a silver-headed walking stick that concealed a sharp, deadly dagger, Sebastian trolled the pleasure grounds of London’s haut ton: the gentlemen’s clubs and gaming rooms and glittering, elegant ballrooms that provided evening entertainment to the city’s most bored, most pampered residents. He finally came upon his quarry at the highly fashionable ball being given by Lady Davenport.