What Remains of Heaven

Chapter 14

“Never tell me Obadiah Slade is involved in this?” said Paul Gibson, glancing up from the naked, eviscerated corpse stretched out on the stone slab before him.

Sebastian had driven here, to Gibson’s surgery on Tower Hill, from Monkwell Street. Now he took one look at what Gibson was doing in the eighteenth-century cadaver’s bowels, and shifted his gaze to the unkempt yard outside. “Maybe. Maybe not. But his father is definitely hiding something.”

“Is the father anything like the son?”

“Yes.”

“Then I suggest you be careful, my friend.”

“I intend to.”

With effort, Sebastian brought his gaze back to the grinning fright on the slab. “What can you tell us about this one?”

“Well . . . judging by his teeth and certain other features, I’d say our friend here was about forty years old when someone stuck that dagger in his back. He was an unusually large man, well over six feet tall, and probably twenty-five or more stone.”

“A very large man,” said Sebastian.

“From the condition of his internal organs, it’s obvious he ate too much and drank too much.”

“Not exactly unusual.”

“Unfortunately, no. He still had most of his teeth, but at some point he must have broken his left forearm. It didn’t heal well. See?”

Sebastian studied the discernible kink in the man’s left arm, just below the elbow. “Anything of interest amongst his clothes?”

“Nothing to give us the man’s name. He had a fine gold pocket watch in his waistcoat, although unfortunately it wasn’t engraved. His fob was in the shape of a rampant lion, rather than a family crest. And his purse contained only a few banknotes dated from 1778 and 1781. I’ve sent the lot over to Bow Street.”

“From 1781? At least that narrows the date of death some.” Sebastian studied the cadaver’s dark, leathery face. “Any wounds besides the knife in his back?”

“Take a look for yourself.” Heaving the corpse onto its side, Gibson pointed to a slit just below the left shoulder blade. “This is where I found the blade. But he was also stabbed here.” He indicated another tear, toward the left. “And here.”

“Three times. All in the back.”

“The first two wounds were not particularly deep.” Gibson eased the shriveled corpse onto its back again. “There may be more that I missed, given the condition of the body.”

“No clue as to who might have killed him, or why?”

“Sorry.”

Sebastian cast a quick look around the small, dank room. “Where’s the Bishop?”

“Lying in state at London House.”

“Ah. When’s the funeral?”

“Next week sometime.”

“Next week?”

Gibson shrugged. “The church needs to allow time for everyone to assemble the proper mourning clothes.”

“At least the grave robbers won’t have much interest in him by then.”

An amused crease appeared in the Irish doctor’s cheek. “Not in this weather.”

Sebastian brought his attention back to the time-blackened corpse before them. “Anything that might connect the two murders?”

“I’m afraid not.” Gibson rested his hips against the bench, his arms crossed at his chest. “It could simply be a coincidence, you know—the two bodies being found in the same place. The Bishop hurries out to Tanfield Hill to investigate the discovery of the original murder victim, and either surprises someone in the act of robbing the crypt, or is followed by some enemy who decides to take advantage of the darkness and bash our good bishop over the head.”

Sebastian rubbed one bent knuckle against the side of his nose. “I don’t like coincidences.”

“Yet they happen.”

“They do.” Hunkering down, he studied the cadaver’s distorted, sunken face, with its gaping mouth and shriveled nostrils and empty eye sockets. After a moment, he said, “Think anyone who knew this man thirty years ago would recognize him if they saw him today?”

“In a word? No.”

“That’s what I was thinking.” Sebastian pushed to his feet. “You say you sent his clothes over to Bow Street?”

“Yes. Why?”

“It occurs to me that even if someone couldn’t recognize our friend’s face, they might remember his clothes. Or at least his watch and fob.”

“After all this time?”

“If someone you loved disappeared into thin air, you don’t think you’d remember what he was wearing—even after thirty or forty years?”

Gibson thought about it a moment. “You might have a point.”

Sebastian walked around the slab, studying the withered cadaver from every angle. But from any angle, none of it made any sense.

Gibson said, “It seems to me that when you come right down to it, there are basically two possibilities. Either our eighteenth-century gentleman was killed by someone who had nothing to do with the Bishop’s death, or they were both killed by the same man.”

Sebastian looked up. “Why would a murderer wait thirty years or more to go after his second victim?”

“I don’t know; you’re the expert on murderers. I just read their victims’ bodies.”

“There is one other alternative,” said Sebastian slowly.

Gibson frowned. “What?”

“That the Bishop killed our eighteenth-century gentleman. And then someone else killed the Bishop. In revenge.”

When the information from London House failed to arrive by one o’clock on Thursday afternoon, Hero set forth for St. James’s Square in her carriage, accompanied by her long-suffering maid.

“My dear Miss Jarvis,” exclaimed the Bishop’s chaplain, all obsequious goodwill as he received her in his chambers. “I was just now preparing to send the details you requested around to Berkeley Square. I am most dreadfully sorry for the delay, but the diary secretary only this instant completed making the necessary copies.”

“Thank you,” she said, slipping the packet he handed her into her reticule.

“You have heard, of course, that Archbishop Moore has requested the help of Viscount Devlin in investigating the Bishop’s death?” He said the Viscount’s name in the tone churchmen typically reserved for words like “Jezebel,” and “heathen,” and “Satan.” Devlin had obviously not ingratiated himself with the Chaplain. Or perhaps his reputation for hard living had simply preceded him.

“I had heard,” she said with a great show of sympathy. “How distressing for you.”

He gave a soulful tut-tut. “It is, it is. But it is what the Archbishop wants, so we must, of course, do what we can to facilitate the arrangement.”

“I suppose Devlin wanted to know all about the events of Tuesday night.”

“Indeed he did. I told him everything, from the Reverend Earnshaw’s arrival to the Bishop’s own departure in his chaise.”

“Everything?” said Miss Jarvis with a smile.

The Chaplain gnawed thoughtfully on the inside of one cheek. Then he seemed to come to a decision. “Well,” he said, leaning forward as he dropped his voice to a whisper. “I did leave out one or two little details about Monday.”

Hero listened to the Chaplain’s words with an outward show of calm interest. But inside, she was anything but calm.

When he had finished, she said, “I’m convinced you were quite right to keep these, er, details to yourself. I can see no need for Devlin to know of them.”

The Chaplain sat back and heaved a relieved sigh, although he still looked vaguely troubled. “I’m so glad to hear you agree.”

Sebastian was eating a light nuncheon in his own dining room when he heard a distant, timid tap-tap at the front door. A moment later, his dour-faced majordomo, Morey, appeared to clear his throat apologetically and say, “A gentleman to see you, my lord. A clerical gentleman, in a high state of nervous agitation. He says his name is Mr. Earnshaw, from St. Margaret’s in Tanfield Hill.”

Sebastian pushed back his chair. “Show him into the drawing room. I’ll be with him in a moment.”

He found the reverend of St. Margaret’s hovering before the empty hearth. A small, softly fleshy man with slightly protruding eyes and a receding chin, he held his black hat gripped in both hands before him like a shield.

“Mr. Earnshaw. An unexpected pleasure. May I offer you a glass of sherry? Or do you prefer port?”

A quiver of want passed over the man’s features, but he said primly, “Nothing, thank you.”

Sebastian indicated the cane chairs near the room’s front bow window. “Please have a seat.”

The Reverend shook his head back and forth in short, sharp jerks. “No, thank you. I’ve come to apologize for not being in a fit state to receive you yesterday.”

“It’s understandable,” said Sebastian, pouring himself a glass of port. “You’re certain you won’t have something?”

Again, that quick, jerking shake of the head. “I’m told the Archbishop has requested your assistance in dealing with this . . . unpleasantness. I am therefore here to answer any questions you might have.”

The Archbishop had obviously expressed his displeasure at his underling’s thoughtlessness in drugging himself into a twenty-four-hour stupor. One did not displease the Archbishop of Canterbury, even if that archbishop was old and dying.

“I think I’ve been able to piece together most of what happened that night,” said Sebastian. “I gather that after the discovery of the body in the crypt, you traveled up to London to acquaint the Bishop with the situation?”

“That’s right. Unfortunately, the Bishop had an important appointment scheduled for six that evening. Rather than return with me immediately to St. Margaret’s, he arranged to drive out to Tanfield Hill afterward. It was my intention to meet him at the church, but . . .” The Reverend’s voice faded away.

“But?” prompted Sebastian.

“One of my parishioners. Mrs. Cummings. She was ill. By the time I returned, the Bishop had already arrived. And it was too late.”

The small, protuberant eyes blinked rapidly several times in succession. “I just keep thinking that if only Bishop Prescott could have returned with me to St. Margaret’s right away, none of this would have happened!”

Sebastian took a slow sip of his wine. “Did the Bishop happen to mention the nature of the appointment he had that evening?”

“No. Only that he didn’t feel he could cancel it. Something about an old friend in need of counseling.”

Sebastian’s fist tightened around his glass. “Really?” What had Miss Jarvis said? The Bishop asked for my assistance in preparing the speech he was to give before the House of Lords this Thursday.

The Reverend nodded again, his head moving up and down in a way that reminded Sebastian of a pigeon pecking at seed.

Sebastian took another sip of his wine. “It seems a strange thing to have done—rushing off to the Bishop simply because some workmen had stumbled upon an old crypt. I mean, why the Bishop?”

“Because of the body, of course.”

“You were concerned about . . . what? A scandal? Over a decades-old murder victim?”

Mr. Earnshaw’s eyes bulged alarmingly. “Good heavens. Can it be that you do not know?”

“Don’t know what?”

“About the ring!”

“What ring?”

“Sir Nigel’s ring! I recognized it.”

Sebastian set aside his drink with a click. “You’re saying you recognized a ring on the body in the crypt?”

“Yes, yes. An ancient Roman profile, carved in black onyx and mounted in a setting of filigreed silver. Sir Nigel wore it always on his right little finger.”

“Who is Sir Nigel?”

The Reverend stared at him. “Why, Sir Nigel Prescott. Bishop Prescott’s eldest brother!”