What Darkness Brings

Chapter 25

By the time Sebastian finally tracked Samuel Perlman to Tattersall’s Subscription Rooms, he had learned much about Daniel Eisler’s flamboyant nephew.

Despite Francillon’s use of the term “lad,” Perlman was actually forty-two years old. A patron of the most exclusive establishments in Bond Street and Savile Row, he lived with his new bride in a lavish mansion on the north side of Hanover Square. The source of his wealth was a vast mercantile empire he had inherited from his own father some ten years before and then immediately turned over to competent managers, preferring to devote himself to a life of pleasure and excess. As far as Sebastian could discover, he did not gamble, he kept no mistress, and he was not in debt.

Perlman was looking over the points of a delicate white-stockinged bay mare in Tattersall’s yard when Sebastian walked up to him. The rain might have eased off, but the colonnaded open market still glistened with scattered puddles through which men and horseflesh splashed. For one intense moment, Perlman’s gaze met Sebastian’s over the back of the mare. Then he rolled his eyes, blew out a weary, bored sigh, and said, “Oh, God, you’ve found me.”

“Were you hiding from me?” Sebastian asked pleasantly, propping one shoulder against a nearby column and crossing his arms at his chest.

Perlman huffed an incredulous laugh and returned his attention to the mare. “Hiding? What a fatiguing-not to mention decidedly plebian-activity. Hardly.”

He was tall and gangly, with curly dark hair framing a balding pate, and a sadly receding chin-a defect unfortunately accentuated by the excessively high shirt points and extravagantly tied cravat he affected. His coat was made skintight and nipped in at the waist; his pantaloons were of the palest yellow, his waistcoat of figured silk. Daniel Eisler’s extravagant nephew obviously had pretensions to dandyism.

Sebastian smiled. “If you know I’ve been looking for you, then I assume you also know why.”

“I gather you’ve taken an interest in my uncle’s murder. Although to be frank, I can’t imagine why, given that the brute responsible is already locked up fast in Newgate awaiting execution.”

“You mean awaiting trial.”

Perlman waived one long-fingered, exquisitely gloved hand through the air. “Technicality. The man is clearly guilty. I myself found him standing over my poor uncle’s lifeless body.”

“So I’m told. I was wondering: Why were you there?”

Perlman froze. “I beg your pardon?”

“Why did you choose to visit your uncle that night?”

“Why not? He is-or, I suppose one should say, he was-my only near relative.”

“And he disliked you excessively.”

Perlman gave up inspecting the horse and turned toward him. “I don’t know if I’d go that far, although I won’t deny we weren’t close. Still, one must do one’s duty to one’s elderly relatives, you know.”

“Especially when one has expectations from those elderly relatives.”

“What a decidedly vulgar consideration.”

“The truth frequently is rather vulgar, I’m afraid.” Sebastian reached out to run his hand down the mare’s white-blazed nose. “I’m told your uncle threatened to disinherit you.”

Perlman gave a tight-lipped smile. “Only every other day. He swore if I didn’t mend what he liked to call my ‘extravagant ways’ that he’d leave everything he owned to charity. But it was never going to happen.”

“So certain?”

“My uncle didn’t believe in charity. He’d burn down his house and everything in it before he’d give one penny to the poor and needy.” He drawled the words “poor and needy” the way another man might say “flotsam and jetsam.”

“He could always have decided to leave his fortune to someone else. Someone he liked. . better.”

“He didn’t like anyone better. Yes, my uncle despised me, but then, he despised everyone. The difference is, I am his sister’s son. And when all was said and done, that mattered to him. Not much, mind you. I doubt he’d have walked across the street to save my life. But he believed in keeping money in the family. So if you’re trying to insinuate that I might have had reason to kill my uncle, I’m afraid you’re sadly wide of the mark-in addition to being damned insulting.”

“I would imagine Russell Yates finds your accusation of murder rather insulting, as well.”

Perlman’s nostrils flared, his fashionably pale face now infused with angry color. Every affectation of boredom and insouciance had disappeared, leaving him trembling with fury and something else, something that looked very much like fear. “I walked into my uncle’s house and found Yates standing over the body. How the devil are you imagining I might have been the one who shot him?”

“It’s fairly simple, actually. You shoot him. Yates knocks at the door. You panic, run out the back, and then nip around to come charging in the front and accuse Yates of what you yourself have done.”

“That is the most preposterous thing I have ever heard. I know nothing about guns. I’ve received no military training. I’m not even a sporting man!”

“You don’t need to be an expert shot to hit someone who is standing right in front of you.”

The rain had started up again, pounding on the gallery roof and rapidly clearing the yard of men and horses. Perlman squinted up at the lowering sky. “Enough of this nonsense. I’m not going to stand here and listen to this drivel.” He nodded curtly to the mare’s handler and started to turn away.

Sebastian stopped him by saying, “Tell me about the blue diamond.”

Perlman pivoted slowly toward him again. If his face had been red before, it was now white. “I beg your pardon?”

“The big, brilliant-cut blue diamond your uncle was selling. You do know about it, don’t you? I would imagine it’s worth a tidy sum.”

“My uncle had no blue diamond.”

“Oh, but I’m afraid he did. At least, he had it in his possession while he arranged a sale for its proper owner. You’re not telling me it’s been lost, are you?”

The tip of Perlman’s tongue flicked out to wet his lips. “I’m afraid you’ve been misinformed, or perhaps you have simply misunderstood something that was said to you.”

“Perhaps.” Sebastian smiled. “I hope for your sake that’s true. Otherwise, things might become. . awkward, hmm? I mean, when the diamond’s original owner attempts to reclaim his property from the estate?”

Still vaguely smiling, Sebastian walked away, leaving Perlman standing in the open yard, oblivious to the driving rain that splattered mud on his pale yellow pantaloons and melted the high starched points of his ridiculous collar.