Page 38 of Who Will Remember (Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery #20)
Robinson’s Hotel lay on the eastern, less fashionable side of Jermyn Street, near a section that was scheduled to be demolished when the Regent’s New Street plowed through here to create what was envisioned as a grand circle on Piccadilly. A four-story building with a new stuccoed front, the hotel boasted a wide central doorway and an iron-railed balcony that stretched across the long windows of its second story.
Dressed once again in a collection of shabby clothes culled from the secondhand stalls of Rosemary Lane, Sebastian lounged with his shoulders propped against the doorway of a shuttered apothecary’s across from the hotel. He had a wide-brimmed, floppy hat pulled low over his eyes and the stem of an unlit clay pipe clenched between his back teeth. An elderly jarvey dozed on the seat of a hackney drawn up near one end of the street; a second hackney waited nearby, pointed in the opposite direction.
Cupping the bowl of his pipe in one hand, Sebastian shifted his position. He had watched the man who called himself No?l Cartier enter the hotel some forty-five minutes earlier. It was another half hour before the man walked out again.
He paid no attention to the scruffy workman loitering across the street.
Sebastian watched the Frenchman hail a hackney; heard his instructions to the driver. The man was still climbing up into his carriage when Sebastian signaled the elderly jarvey, who was not as asleep as he appeared.
They followed the Frenchman up to Piccadilly, where he turned eastward before threading over to the Haymarket, then south to the Strand. Heading east again, they had almost reached Somerset Place when the Frenchman’s hackney drew up.
“Wait here,” Sebastian told his jarvey and hopped down.
Blending easily into the medley of costermongers, shopkeepers, actors, musicians, prostitutes, and thieves who populated the area around the theaters and Covent Garden Market, Sebastian trailed his quarry up Catherine Street. He thought the Frenchman might be headed to Drury Lane, but at Russell Street the man turned left, then immediately swung right again onto Bow Street.
“Bloody hell,” whispered Sebastian as he watched the Frenchman cross the street toward the public office.
A man Sebastian recognized was standing in front of the steps of the Bow Street Public Office: a plump, ordinary-looking man with thinning gray hair, rounded shoulders, and a short neck. Officially, John Stafford was Bow Street’s chief clerk, a man known and admired for his understanding of criminal law and his skill at framing indictments. But Stafford was far more powerful and important than that simple description might imply. It was Stafford who directed the Home Office’s domestic spies, who recruited its legion of informants and agents provocateurs, and who worked closely with Sidmouth and Jarvis to mastermind the destruction of the various reform movements that threatened to undermine the dominance of the aristocracy.
As Sebastian watched, the Frenchman walked right up to the Bow Street clerk. The two spoke for a moment; then Stafford nodded and they crossed the street together to disappear into the Bear.
“My lord!” yelped Jarvis’s clerk, jumping up from behind his desk as Sebastian strode past him toward the inner sanctum of the Carlton House apartments provided by the Prince Regent for his powerful cousin’s exclusive use. “You can’t— Not again!”
Sebastian flung open the door.
Jarvis looked up from where he sat reading dispatches in a comfortable chair beside the empty hearth. For a long moment, he stared at Sebastian. Then he turned to his anxiously hovering underling. “Close the door behind you when you leave,” he told the clerk. Deliberately laying aside his papers, Jarvis laced his fingers together, tilted his head back against his chair, and said in a weary tone, “You’re looking decidedly martial this afternoon. What is it now?”
“The French assassin,” said Sebastian. “The one who calls himself No?l Cartier. I just watched him meet with John Stafford.”
Something flickered behind the wintry gray eyes that were so much like Hero’s. “And this surprises you? No, not surprises; angers you. How very…fatiguing.”
“What does Cartier have to do with the murder of Lord Preston Farnsworth?”
“What makes you think he has anything to do with it?”
“Angélique.”
Jarvis frowned. “Angélique?”
“Don’t pretend you don’t know who she is.”
Moving slowly, Jarvis reached into a pocket and withdrew an enameled gold snuffbox. He flicked open the lid with one finger, then said, “I understand you’ve developed an interest in a certain French priest, one Father Ambrose de Sancerre.”
Sebastian knew a flicker of surprise. “What is he to you?”
“I assume you’re aware that, despite being nobly born, he was an ardent revolutionary?”
“At one time—as were many others, including the French King’s own ill-fated cousin Philippe d’Orléans. That changed when the Revolution changed.”
“For some. But not for others.” Jarvis lifted a pinch of snuff to one nostril and sniffed. “How much do you know about Angélique?”
“Only that Farnsworth was interested in her—as is your assassin.”
Jarvis’s lips tightened in a rare betrayal of annoyance. “He is not my assassin.”
“Right. He’s employed by your friends, and you’re more than happy to help him when necessary.”
Jarvis closed the snuffbox with a snap. “That’s the way these things work. Surely you’re not so naive as to think otherwise?”
“Who is Angélique?” Sebastian said again, tightening his jaw.
Jarvis tucked the snuffbox back into his pocket. “At one time she was a French nun, one of the many thousands driven out into the world when their convents were closed by the revolutionaries. Except that, rather than being lost and traumatized as were so many such innocents, Angélique embraced the Revolution with a rare fervor. Eventually, of course, she was forced to flee France for Spain. That’s where she and the priest, Father Ambrose, became lovers.”
Sebastian was careful to keep his reaction off his face. “So why exactly do the Bourbons want to kill her? Because she supported their removal twenty-five years ago?”
Jarvis braced his hands on the arms of his chair and rose to his feet. “You don’t know what you’re interfering in here.”
“Oh? So tell me. What does this Angélique have to do with Farnsworth’s murder?”
“I fail to understand what makes you think she has anything to do with it.”
The two men stared at each other.
Sebastian said, “There is some connection. I may not know what it is yet, but I will.” He turned toward the door.
“You’re overreaching,” said Jarvis. “You know that, don’t you? And if you think your marriage to my daughter will protect you, you’re wrong.”
Sebastian paused at the door to look back at him. “I know what you’re capable of.”
Jarvis snorted and picked up his dispatches. “You flatter yourself.”