Why Mermaids Sing

Chapter 9

Leading Dominic Stanton’s gray mare, Sebastian arrived at the White Monk in Merton Abbey to discover that Sir Henry Lovejoy’s constables had already done a commendable job of setting up the backs of every one of the White Monk’s ostlers and serving maids.

Located on the outskirts of town, the White Monk was a rambling, half-timbered country inn with an old-fashioned cobbled yard and busy stables. “We musta ’ad a ’undred or more carriages and gigs through ’ere yesterday after the fight,” said the head ostler, fixing Sebastian with a malevolent glare. “Which one you askin’ about?”

Sebastian bounced a half crown in his palm. “The one whose driver was behaving in some way out of the ordinary.”

The ostler eyed the coin with undisguised longing. He was a thin, wiry man in his late fifties with gray stubble shadowing his cheeks and a prominent Adam’s apple that bobbed when he swallowed. “Didn’t see that one.”

Sebastian tossed the coin into the air and caught it. “Do you recall which ostler took care of this gray?”

“Aye. That were me.”

“Really? Did you notice anything amiss with the saddle?”

“Course not. Why you ask?”

“Look at it now.”

The ostler cast Sebastian a quizzing glance, then went to run an expert’s hand over the rig. At the sight of the cinch, he froze. He fingered the neatly sliced edge, his back held rigid, then swung slowly to face Sebastian.

“You think I did this?”

“No. I think you want this half crown. Who really took care of the mare?”

The ostler hesitated, his chest rising with his labored breathing. At last he said, “It were me. But I swear to you, there weren’t nothin’ wrong with the cinch when I brung this horse to the young gentleman.”

“At the time Mr. Stanton called for his mare, was there a crowd in the yard?”

“Aye. More than a few. Why?”

“Do you think one of them could have sliced the cinch?”

The ostler squinted off across the cobbled yard to where a pair of geese was coming in to land on the holding pond, the rich light of the evening sun turning their outstretched white wings to gold. “I suppose it’s possible. But I didn’t see nothin’.”

“Did you notice exactly who was in the yard at the time?”

“No.” He shook his head with what looked like genuine regret. “Not that I recall.”

The geese filled the air with their plaintive calls. “You’ve been most helpful,” said Sebastian, pressing the coin into the ostler’s palm. “Thank you.”

Sebastian spent the next hour drinking a couple of pints of dark ale in the White Monk’s public room. Tonight, the patrons were all locals. But yesterday’s fight had brought a crowd of young men such as Dominic Stanton and his friends. Sebastian talked to a farmer with ruddy cheeks and a bulbous nose who remembered the young gentlemen clearly.

“I’ve a son about their age myself,” said the farmer, wiping the foam from his upper lip with the back of one hand. “Those lads were in high spirits, to be sure. But no harm in that. A man’s only young once, I always say.”

“They didn’t quarrel with anyone?” Sebastian asked.

“Not that I saw.”

Sebastian spent the next hour buying drinks and talking to the inn’s various patrons. But they all told him the same tale.

Calling for his horse, he checked the cinch, then rode back to London, Dominic Stanton’s pretty little gray trotting contentedly behind him.

Sebastian employed numerous servants, both at his house in London and at the small estate near Winchester left him by a maiden great-aunt. Many were family retainers; almost all were solid, respectable employees. Only one—a twelve-year-old former street urchin named Tom whom Sebastian had taken on as his tiger—was neither.

Returning to the mews behind his Brook Street town house, Sebastian handed his black Arab into the care of one of his grooms. But he entrusted Dominic Stanton’s mare to Tom.

“I suppose by now you know all about the body found in Old Palace Yard this morning,” said Sebastian.

“Aye.” Tom ran an expert’s hand down the gray’s near flank and bent to study a gash Sebastian hadn’t even noticed. “Butchered like a side o’ beef, from what I ’ear. They’re callin’ the cove what did it the ‘Butcher o’ the West End.’”

“Huh. Sir Henry won’t like that.”

Tom’s nearly lashless gray eyes sparkled with expectation. “’E’s asked fer yer help, ain’t ’e?”

“Hasn’t he,” corrected Sebastian absently. “How did you know that?”

“I knows.”

Sebastian eyed the brown-haired, sharp-faced lad beside him. “Any speculation on the streets as to who might be behind all of this?”

“Oh, there’s plenty o’ spec-u-la-tion,” said Tom, pronouncing the word carefully. “People are sayin’ it’s everything from French devil worshippers to witches. But nobody really knows nothin’.” He patted the gray’s neck. “This ’is ’orse?”

Sebastian nodded. “I found her just off the road to Merton Abbey.”

Tom fingered the cut cinch and pushed a low whistle through the gap in his front teeth. “Look at that.”

“Look at that, indeed.” Sebastian turned toward the house. “I want you to take the mare to Sir Henry in Queen Square. Tell him I have a few possibilities I intend to pursue.”

“So we’re gonna be lookin’ into these murders, are we?” said Tom with obvious delight.

Sebastian swung back around. “We?”

But Tom only laughed.