Page 36 of Who Will Remember (Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery #20)
Later that afternoon, Sebastian paid a visit to the King’s Theatre in the Haymarket, looking for a certain young violinist. Even with the opera closed for the season, he managed to find an aged carpenter who was able to give him the address of a cheap lodging house in Piccadilly. After drawing a blank there, Sebastian started making the rounds of public houses known to be the haunts of a group of radical reformers known as the Spenceans. But by the time he left the Cock in Soho, he was running out of options.
At some point in the last several hours the heavy clouds that had been pressing down on the rooftops all day had blown away, leaving the air fresh and the sky a clear periwinkle blue. Then the church bells of the city began to toll the hour, one mournful tone after another, until the low bong s drifted away into silence.
Sebastian found himself pausing, his head turning toward the west. And for reasons he couldn’t quite have explained, he knew where Damion Pitcairn was.
Because the exclusive Mayfair church of St. George’s, Hanover Square, was hemmed in on all four sides by streets, it had no churchyard. The parish was thus forced to inter its dead in completely separate, isolated burial grounds, the newest of which lay on the outskirts of the city, just off Uxbridge Road beyond the Tyburn Turnpike.
Reached through an archway beside a cluster of houses known as St. George’s Row, the cemetery was unusually large, taking up all of what had once, within living memory, been a farmer’s field. As he wove his way through the labyrinth of ivy-draped table tombs, weathering headstones, and weeping marble maidens, Sebastian could hear the haunting strains of a violin concerto drifting over the otherwise silent burial ground. The last time he’d heard this particular piece, its composer told him it wasn’t finished yet.
It was surely finished now.
Following the music, Sebastian came to where the violinist stood before an elaborate marble tomb made in the style of a miniature Greek temple and inscribed on the pediment with the name McInnis . The musician was young, in his early twenties, built tall and slim, with tawny skin and a classic profile that always reminded Sebastian of the relief carvings of ancient pharaohs he’d seen half-buried in the sands of Egypt. The man had his eyes closed, his body moving with the fluid, supple grace of a born dancer or master swordsman. And so total was his absorption in his music, and so palpable his grief, that Sebastian regretted coming. He was turning away when the music ended and the man named Damion Pitcairn opened his eyes.
For a long moment they simply stared at each other, the younger man’s chest jerking with the agitation of his breathing. Then he said, “How did you know where to find me?”
“A hunch. But I apologize for intruding. We can speak some other time.”
“No.” Damion lowered his violin. “Now is as good a time as any.”
Sebastian glanced at the tomb, remembering the beautiful sixteen-year-old girl and her mother who now lay there. “Do you come here often?”
“Not often, no.” Damion crouched down to lay his violin and bow in the case at his feet. “Why did you want to talk to me?”
The first time Sebastian had seen Damion Pitcairn, he’d been taking part in a fencing exhibition staged at Carlton House for the entertainment of the Prince Regent, for in addition to being a talented musician and composer, the young man was brilliant at swordplay. If Damion had been white, he’d have had a promising future ahead of him. But as the son of a Scottish plantation owner and an enslaved woman of Ethiopian and Arab ancestry, his options would forever be limited.
Sebastian found himself hesitating. “I wanted to ask if you still hold fencing lessons in the courtyard of those old ruins in Swallow Street.”
Damion’s head fell back, his eyes narrowing as he stared up at Sebastian. “What are you thinking? That maybe I killed the bastard they found hanging upside down there?”
“No. But I was wondering if you’d ever seen him around the old house or its chapel. Or if you had any idea why he might have gone there the night he was killed.”
Damion shook his head. “It’s been so damned wet lately I haven’t been there myself in months. I have a friend with a house near Fleet Street who’s been letting me use his attic for lessons.”
Sebastian watched the younger man fasten the straps of his case. “How do you know Farnsworth was a bastard? Did you ever tangle with him?”
“Me, personally? No. But I know people he’s gone after. Good people. And he destroyed them.” Damion pushed to his feet. “Why do you care who killed him? The world’s a far better place without that rotter in it.”
“You aren’t the first person who’s said that to me. Who do you know that Farnsworth went after?”
For a moment, Sebastian didn’t think the man was going to answer. Then he readjusted his hold on his violin case and said, “Ever hear of Barnabas Price?”
“The man who used to print the Poor Man’s Weekly ?”
Pitcairn nodded. “That’s right. He also used to publish things like Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man and Common Sense in cheap editions that workingmen could afford. Farnsworth hated him. As far as his lordship was concerned, Price was Robespierre, Pontius Pilate, and Beelzebub all rolled into one. It took a while, but Farnsworth finally managed to have Barnabas arrested and convicted of blasphemy, libel, and sedition. Except that while Barnabas was in prison, his wife, Beth, kept publishing the paper. So then Farnsworth went after her .”
He paused, his jaw hardening. “She was just twenty-three years old, brilliant, funny, kindhearted, and fiercely passionate about the need for reform and the ending of ancient privileges. She was also very pretty, so Farnsworth offered to make sure she didn’t go to prison if she’d fuck him.”
“Did she?”
“She spit in his face. So Farnsworth had the Society prosecute her. She died in Newgate of jail fever.”
“When was this?
“That she died? Maybe a year ago.”
“And Barnabas Price? Is he still in prison?”
Damion shook his head. “His sentence expired a couple of months ago. Last I heard, he was planning to emigrate to America.”
“Did he actually go?”
“Why would he stay here?” Damion threw Sebastian a hard look. “What are you thinking now? That Price might have killed the man?” He jerked his chin toward the city that stretched out far to their east. “There must be hundreds of people out there who hated Lord Preston Farnsworth. Hundreds. Any one of them could have killed him.”
“How many of them do you think are familiar with the tarot?”
Something flickered in the younger man’s eyes, something quickly hidden by the downward sweep of his lashes. “That I don’t know.”
As the two men turned to walk toward the gate, Sebastian said, “Did Farnsworth do that often? Offer to keep women out of prison in exchange for sexual favors, I mean.”
“It’s the only instance I know the particulars of. But the man had a reputation on the streets.”
“A reputation for what?”
“Abusing women. Hurting them. Not just hurting them, but humiliating them.” Damion paused and turned to face him again. “You find that hard to believe?”
“No, not at all,” said Sebastian. “Do you know if he kept rooms someplace? Someplace where he could take women?”
“I don’t know, but it makes sense that he would, doesn’t it? I mean, what was he going to do? Take them back to that grand house on St. James’s Square that he shared with his sister?”
“Who would know? Can you think of anyone?”
“Me? No. And to be honest, I’m not sure I’d tell you even if I did.”
“I don’t intend to allow some innocent man to be hanged for this murder, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”
For a long moment, Damion stared at him. Then, with a swordsman’s uncanny ability to read an opponent, he said, “That’s why you’re doing this, isn’t it? Because someone you know is a suspect.”
“That’s part of it, yes.”
Sebastian thought he might ask about the other part, but he didn’t.