What Remains of Heaven

Chapter 25

“The Squire discovered the corpse himself,” said Lovejoy as they drove in Sebastian’s curricle toward the village, with Tom clinging to his perch at the rear. “Seems someone stuffed the Reverend’s remains in a cupboard in the vestry. One wonders how the searchers failed to find him sooner.”

“Not a likely place to look for a missing priest, I suppose,” observed Sebastian.

“There is that.”

The setting sun had sent the temperature dropping, and Lovejoy had wrapped himself in a greatcoat for the drive. As they crested a ridge, a brisk wind buffeted the carriage, and the magistrate settled deeper into his coat. “It makes one wonder if perhaps our investigation into the Bishop’s death has veered off in a faulty direction. Perhaps Bishop Prescott’s murder has less to do with events in the Bishop’s own life than with the ecclesiastical affairs of St. Margaret’s.”

“Perhaps,” said Sebastian, steadying his horses for the curve ahead.

Lovejoy glanced over at him. “What other explanation is there?”

Rounding the bend, Sebastian dropped his hands, giving the chestnuts their heads as they raced across the heath. Thick bands of clouds obscured the moon and cast the road into deep shadow. But Sebastian had the night vision of a cat or a wolf; even without the moon he could see quite clearly for miles.

He said, “Perhaps Reverend Earnshaw knew something he failed to disclose to us. Something that could have led us to Prescott’s killer.”

Lovejoy frowned. “But why would the man keep such information back?”

“He may not have realized the significance of what he knew. At least, not until it was too late.”

Sebastian stood just inside the door to the vestry, his arms crossed at his chest, and watched Sir Henry peer into the gloom, eyes narrowed to a squint, his candlestick held high.

The light flickered over a bloated, pale face and wide, sight-less eyes. “Good God,” exclaimed the magistrate, jerking back so violently that the candle splashed hot wax over his hand.

“It’s a ghoulish sight, no doubt about it,” agreed Squire Pyle, raising his own horn lantern high to better illuminate the scene before them.

The air in the vestry was chill and close, the stale scent of old incense overlaid by the pungent odors of dried blood and death. A small chamber built to one side of St. Margaret’s main altar, it was lined with cupboard doors and chests with wide, shallow drawers in which were stored the church’s vestments. At the narrow end of the room, a tall locker had been thrown open to expose its grisly contents.

Some five and a half feet high and perhaps four feet wide, the cupboard had a row of hooks that ran across the top. One of these hooks had been thrust through the back of the Reverend’s collar so that his body hung there, head squashed to one side. Sebastian found the effect disconcertingly similar to a side of beef hung up for display in a butcher shop.

“I thought it best to leave him like that till you got here,” said the Squire, wiping one hand across his lower face. “So’s you could see it yourself.”

“Yes . . . well . . . we’ve seen it.” Lovejoy took another step back, holding his candlestick more carefully. “Pray, take him down now.”

Pyle nodded to his constable, a big, burly man in a leather waistcoat, who hefted the Reverend’s body off its hook. Rigid with rigor mortis, the corpse thumped awkwardly against a nearby bench before crashing to the floor.

“Sorry,” mumbled the constable.

Lovejoy dabbed at his lips with a wadded-up handkerchief and swallowed.

Sebastian said, “Any indication as to how he was killed?”

Pyle jerked his chin toward the Reverend’s bloodstained waistcoat. “There’s a neat slice in his waistcoat and shirt, just above his heart. I’d say he was stabbed. But then, I’m no doctor.”

Lovejoy tucked away his handkerchief. “We’ll have the corpse conveyed to Paul Gibson, at Tower Hill, for a full postmortem.”

Pyle nodded to his constable. “Aye. I’ll get the lads on it right away.”

Sebastian glanced around the vestry. “A wound like that would have bled significantly. Any traces of blood elsewhere in the church?”

“The cleaning lady found a bit near the altar. Looks as if somebody took the trouble to try to clean it up, which is why we didn’t notice it sooner. You can see something of a trail from there to the vestry, although it was pretty much wiped up, too.”

“Show us,” said Lovejoy.

Lovejoy studied the smeared stains near the altar, his head bent, his hands clasped behind his back as he followed the smudges back to the vestry. Then he walked outside to stand beneath the aged porch and draw the cool air of the night deep into his lungs.

“Why hang up the Reverend’s corpse in his own vestry cupboard?” he asked when Sebastian walked up behind him.

Sebastian stared out over the shadowy churchyard, with its pale, tumbled tombstones glowing faintly beneath the darkened canopy of oaks that shifted in the growing wind. “To delay discovery, one presumes.”

“Yes, I suppose.” Lovejoy was silent a moment, huddled deep in his coat, lost in his own thoughts. The wind gusted up even stronger, banging a shutter someplace in the night. He shivered, and turned toward where Tom walked the chestnuts. “And people claim London is a dangerous place.”

By the time they dropped the magistrate at his house on Russell Square, the wind had grown increasingly violent, churning the heavy clouds overhead and bringing with it the smell of coming rain.

“Out with it,” Sebastian said to his tiger as the tired chestnuts turned toward Brook Street.

Tom made his eyes go round with innocence. “Gov’nor?”

“You’ve been looking smug ever since we left Tanfield Hill. What have you discovered?”

Tom grinned. “While you and Sir ’Enry was in the church, I got to talkin’ to one of the ostlers at the Dog ’n’ Duck.”

“The what?”

“The Dog ’n’ Duck. It’s the inn down by the millstream.”

“Ah. Go on.”

“This ostler—’is name is Jeb, by the way: Jeb Cooper. Anyway, it seems ’e was a groom in the stables at the Grange thirty years ago.”

Sebastian swung onto Bond Street. The footpaths and pavement were eerily dark and empty, the unpleasant wind having driven most of the city’s inhabitants indoors. “You mean when Sir Nigel was still alive?”

“Aye.” A gust snatched at Tom’s hat, and he smashed it down on his head with his free hand. “ ’ E remembers the night Sir Peter’s da disappeared weery well. Weery well, indeed. Says there were strange goings-on at the Grange that night. Weery strange.”

“How’s that?”

“ ’ E says Sir Nigel didn’t jist ride into town that night. Says ’e took off in a ’igh dudgeon. That’s why nobody thought much about it when ’e dinna come back. Not till the next day, when ’is ’orse was found wanderin’ on the ’eath.”

Sebastian blew out a long breath. “Why is it,” he said, drawing up in front of his house on Brook Street, “that every time I begin to think I’m getting a handle on the events surrounding this murder, I suddenly discover I really don’t know what’s going on at all?”

The street was unnaturally dark, the wind having blown out a good half of the tall oil lamps that marched in a line up the block. But thanks to Morey’s vigilance, the two lamps bracketing Sebastian’s front door still burned brightly, casting a pool of light over the short flight of steps and the pavement before it.

“Give ’em a good rubdown,” said Sebastian, handing the tiger the reins. “I’ll drive the grays tomorrow.”

Tom scrambled into the seat. “Ye’ll be goin’ back out to Tanfield ’Ill?”

“Sounds as if I need to have a conversation with this ost—” Sebastian broke off, his head turning as the booming discharge of a long gun crackled through the night.