“It looks to me like you’re working.”
“Wot ye want from me? Yer kind don’t buy furniture from the likes of me.”
“I understand you know Alexandrie Sauvage.”
Bullock tossed aside his plane. “That’s wot ye’re here for, is it? I heard wot happened to her-her and that French doctor.” He raised one hand to point a meaty finger at Sebastian. “Think yer gonna lay the blame for that on me, do ye? Well, I ain’t been near St. Katharine’s. Nowhere near it.”
“So where were you last Thursday night?”
“I was home in me bed, asleep. Where else would a good, God-fearin’ workin’man be on a Thursday night?”
Sebastian studied the cabinetmaker’s mulish, set features and watched his eyes slide away.
Sebastian said, “I understand you had a dispute of sorts with Madame Sauvage.”
“Dispute? That wot ye want to call it? The bloody bitch killed me brother.”
“How?”
“Wot do you mean, how?”
“Are you suggesting she poisoned him?”
“I ain’t never said no such thing.”
“It’s my understanding he died of gaol fever, in Newgate. Was she treating him?”
“Of course she weren’t physicking him! It were because o’ that interfering little strumpet that Abel was in Newgate in the first place.”
“Oh? What was he accused of having done?”
Bullock’s small eyes grew dark and hard. “I ain’t got nothing t’ say t’ ye,” he muttered, and reached for his plane.
Sebastian said, “You do realize you’ve been seen hanging around Golden Square. Following her. Threatening her.”
Bullock thrust out his heavy jaw, the puckered flesh of his scar darkening from red to an angry purple. “I got nothin’ t’ hide. I ain’t denying I spoke me mind t’ her-and why the hell shouldn’t I? But I ain’t never threatened her, and anyone tells ye I did is a bloody liar.”
“You didn’t threaten to make her pay?”
“Who told ye that? Her?”
“No.”
Bullock curled his lip in a sneer. “Me, I think ye got the wrong idea about the bitch. T’ hear people talk, she’s some bloody angel of mercy or some such thing. But she’s no angel, not by a long shot. She’s got a temper on her, that one. Why, I’ve heard her threaten t’ gut a man with a fish knife, I have, jist because she didn’t like the way he were lookin’ at his own wife.”
Sebastian thought about the fiercely passionate woman he had known in Portugal and had no difficulty imagining such a scene.
“I can tell ye plenty o’ things about that woman I bet ye don’t know,” Bullock was saying. “There’s a fair number o’ Frogs live about here, ye see. I’ve heard ’em talking about her-about how she was with Boney’s army in Spain, and about how her lover was a French lieutenant. Not her lawful husband, mind you. Her lover.”
“I know about the Peninsula,” said Sebastian simply.
Bullock grunted, the sound reverberating deeply in his massive chest.
Sebastian let his gaze drift around the workshop, with its carcasses of half-finished cabinets, its piles of lumber, its rows of tools kept well oiled and carefully honed. “I’m still not exactly clear on the reason behind your animosity toward Madame Sauvage.”
“I told ye! It was because o’ her that me brother Abel was in Newgate.”
“What had he done?”
“He didn’t do a bleedin’ thing.”
“So what did she accuse him of doing?”
“Why don’t ye ask her?” snarled Bullock. Then he turned pointedly back to his board, the muscles in his strong shoulders and arms bunching and flexing as he ran the plane over its surface, again and again.
Sebastian watched the curls of wood shavings scatter in fragrant drifts. If Alexandrie Sauvage had been found with her head brutally beaten to a pulp, Bullock would have seemed the obvious suspect. But she was not the main target of Thursday night’s attack, and there was nothing to tie this brutish cabinetmaker to Damion Pelletan.
Sebastian should have been able to discount the possibility of the hulking tradesman’s involvement out of hand, for he could think of no logical reason why Bullock would have allowed Alexandrie Sauvage to live, only to vent his wrath on her unknown French companion, instead.
Yet Sebastian could not discount him. There was a rank odor of malevolence about the man, an ugly gleam in his small black eyes that Sebastian recognized, for he had seen it before. Men like Sampson Bullock didn’t simply exploit their extraordinary size and strength; they reveled in the fear it inspired in others, and they used that fear to bully and intimidate their way through life. And when the intimidation failed to achieve its intended result-or sometimes when they were simply feeling particularly mean-they killed.
And they enjoyed it.
Chapter 19
At five minutes after ten, Sebastian stood near the gates of the Carlton House Gardens and watched as the French clerk, Camille Bondurant, strode purposefully up the Mall, his arms swinging, his features wearing the blank expression of a man whose thoughts are far, far away. He wore a heavy, drab greatcoat with a thick scarf knit of shockingly blue wool wrapped around his throat; his exhalations left little white puffs in the cold air that drifted away into nothing.
Once a long sweep of crushed shells where the kings of England were fond of playing a French game called palle maille, the Mall lay to the north of St. James’s Park. A broad gravel walkway planted with rows of lime and elm, it was mirrored on the far side of the park by what was known as Birdcage Walk. Due to its proximity to the Gifford Arms, Birdcage Walk would have seemed the more logical choice for a resident of the inn in search of exercise. But that walkway had a reputation that must have inspired Bondurant to avoid it.
“Bracing day for a walk,” said Sebastian, falling into step beside him.
The Frenchman cast Sebastian a quick glance and kept walking. He was a tall, cadaverously thin man with greasy black hair and a rawboned face. His eyes were nearly lashless and squinted, either from habit or in an effort to see Sebastian more clearly. “Do I know you?” he asked, his English guttural and heavily accented.
“I was at Damion Pelletan’s funeral.”
“I do not recall seeing you.”
“Probably because you were reading,” said Sebastian pleasantly.
The clerk drew up and swung to face him. “What do you want from me?”
“You do realize that Pelletan was murdered, don’t you?”
“Of course I realize it! What do you take me for? A fool?”
“Do you know why he was killed?”
“Because he was unwise enough to venture into a dangerous section of an unfamiliar city at night? Because he was French? Because someone took exception to the cut of his coat? How should I know? And I fail to see how it is any of your affair anyway.”
“Had he quarreled with anyone recently?”
“Pelletan? With whom would he quarrel? The man had no opinions on anything of importance that I could discern. Try to engage him in a discussion of Rousseau or Montesquieu, and all he would do is laugh and say that the philosophical speculations of dead men were of no interest to him.”
“So what did interest him?”
“The sick-especially the poor ones.” Bondurant’s face twisted with contempt. “He could become quite maudlin.”
“You’re not fond of philanthropy, I take it?”
“No, I am not. The sooner the poor are allowed to die off, the better for society. Why encourage them to procreate?”
“Kings and emperors need to get their soldiers from somewhere,” said Sebastian.
“True. The lower orders are at least good for cannon fodder.”
“Something the Emperor Napoleon seems to go through at an astonishing rate.”