Page 45 of Who Will Remember (Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery #20)

S ir Windle Barr was in the rear garden of his elegant house on Oxford Street, shaking his head over a row of yellowing, sickly-looking rosebushes, when his butler showed Sebastian out to the Chief Magistrate.

“Please accept my apologies for disturbing you on a Sunday,” said Sebastian, pausing at the edge of the bluestone terrace.

“Just look at this black spot, will you?” said Barr, throwing up his hands in disgust. He was dressed in old buckskin breeches and a coat so worn that he might almost have been mistaken for one of his own gardeners. “This bloody rain has already killed a lovely pink China I bought last year, and these three damasks have barely a dozen leaves left between them—if that.” He drew a deep breath and let his hands fall, his mobile mouth tightening into a wry smile. “But I don’t suppose you’ve come here today to discuss the woes of my roses.” He set to work yanking off his heavy rose gauntlets as he turned to mount the steps toward Sebastian. “How may I help you, my lord?”

“I’m wondering what you can tell me about a young woman who was pulled dead from the Thames last June. Gallagher was her name; Jenny Gallagher.”

Sir Windle paused at the top of the steps, his bushy gray brows drawing together in a thoughtful frown. “Gallagher? Hmm. Gallagher…”

“Young; quite pretty. She’d only recently been released from the Tothill Fields Bridewell.”

“Ah, yes; I remember her now.” The magistrate shook his head sadly. “Tragic case, that one. Gave her six months in the Bridewell for trying to abandon a babe she’d just birthed out of wedlock. The child died while she was in there—doubtless smothered by its own unnatural mother. And then, once she’d been let out, what does the fool girl do but go and throw herself into the embrace of Old Father Thames.” He heaved a heavy sigh. “Frailty, I fear thy name truly is woman.”

“How do you know she threw herself in the river? Did someone see her jump?”

“Unfortunately, no. When someone sees them, they can occasionally be saved in time.”

“So if no one saw her jump, it’s possible she was pushed—or thrown into the river already dead.”

“Murdered, you mean? Nah. We’re always finding young women who’ve drowned themselves.”

“How often?”

“What do you mean?”

“How often are dead young women pulled from the Thames?”

The heavy gray brows came together again. “Not certain I could say. I suppose we might have six or eight of them brought into the Mount Street deadhouse every year. It’s the designated destination for bodies pulled from this part of the river, you know, but I couldn’t tell you how many are found in the river as a whole. The ones found farther east and west are taken elsewhere.”

“The inquest ruled that Jenny’s death was a suicide?”

“It did, yes, but she was fortunate. The vicar, Mr. Carmichael, was able to convince the coroner she was of unsound mind when she took her life, so she wasn’t dumped naked at the crossroads with a stake through her heart. Her family were allowed to bury her.”

“How kind of him. Was a postmortem ordered?”

“Oh, yes. We aren’t as hasty about such things as some are, you know. The surgeon said her lungs were full of water; there was no doubt that she’d drowned.” He heaved another sigh. “From time immemorial, women have been killing themselves when they find themselves in trouble. It’s sad, but understandable.”

“Except that Jenny wasn’t ‘in trouble.’ She’d already birthed her babe.”

“And, as I said, in all likelihood killed it when they were in the Bridewell. I’ve seen cases of women who jumped into the river with their newborn babes in their arms.” He looked away, blinking. “Those are the ones that really rip you apart.”

The magistrate fell silent for a moment, then brought his gaze back to Sebastian. “Look, I know the families of some of these young women like to think their daughters and sisters didn’t kill themselves, particularly when they consider themselves good Christians. They convince themselves that someone must have murdered their little girl. But it’s just wishful thinking; that’s all.” His eyes narrowed. “What’s your interest in some dead Irish trollop, anyway? I thought you were looking into what happened to Lord Preston.”

Sebastian nodded. “Did you know Lord Preston kept rooms in Saville Street?”

“No, but I can’t say I’m surprised. Preston was a decent, morally upright man, but he was no monk. With his sister living with him like that, what else was he supposed to do after his wife ran off and left him?”

“He could have divorced his wife and remarried.” Or eliminated her another way, thought Sebastian, although he didn’t say it.

Sir Windle huffed what might have been a low laugh. “Just because a man likes a woman in his bed now and then doesn’t mean he wants to find himself leg-shackled to one for life. Can you blame him, after what happened with Lady Tess?”

“Perhaps not,” said Sebastian.

Sir Windle brought up one hand to rub thoughtfully at the skin above his left eyebrow. “Saville Street, you say? That’s right around the corner from the chapel on Swallow Street, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

The magistrate turned to stare out over his waterlogged garden and said softly, “Well, I’ll be damned.”

Heading next to Tower Hill, Sebastian found Paul Gibson seated at his kitchen table, his hands wrapped around a thick, half-eaten sandwich piled high with roast beef.

“Have a seat,” said the surgeon around a mouthful of sandwich. “Didn’t expect you to get here this fast.”

“What do you mean?” said Sebastian, sliding onto the opposite bench.

Gibson looked puzzled. “I sent you a message maybe half an hour ago. You didn’t get it?”

“No. I was thinking about that Quaker you were telling me about, the one who asked you to try to identify the body of a young woman he’d found washed up on his property down by Rotherhithe. You said he’d found two other such young women in the last couple of years?”

“That’s right. What makes you interested in him?”

“I’m not interested in him. But I’m told that an unusual number of young women have been pulled from the Thames in the last year or two. Do you know anything about that?”

Gibson stared at him a moment, then swallowed hard. “You’re thinking they might have been murdered?”

“I am, actually.”

Gibson set his sandwich down on his plate. “I’ve seen maybe two or three myself—not counting the one from the other day.” He was silent a moment, then pushed the plate away. “I remember one in particular…Maddie was her name. She was a tiny thing, little more than a child, really. Alexi had delivered the girl’s baby maybe six months before. The girl’s mother was a widow with five other children, and Alexi thought the girl was helping feed the family by working the streets.”

“And then the girl was fished out of the Thames?”

Gibson nodded. “There was no doubt in my mind she’d drowned, but she had bruises on her wrists and arms. I pointed them out, of course.” He gave a low huff of something that was not amusement. “I remember Sir Nathaniel saying they were immaterial, that she’d probably acquired them in the pursuit of her ‘profession.’ Either that or she must have hit a pier of whatever bridge or dock she’d thrown herself off. Then he warned me that if I made too much of it at the inquest, they were liable to refuse to allow her to be given a proper burial.”

“And dump her at the crossroads naked, with a stake through her heart instead?”

“Yes.”

Sebastian went to stand at the mullioned casement window overlooking the garden with its rain-soaked roses, honeysuckle, and dark, dark secrets. It was a moment before he said, “Why did you send me a message, anyway?”

“Ah. That was on account of the body Bow Street sent me this morning. It’s a woman, not exactly young, but not old, either. So far she’s unidentified.”

“And what makes you think I’d be interested?”

Gibson leaned back to swing his truncated left leg awkwardly over the bench, then his right leg, before pushing up. “Come, and I’ll show you.”

It was raining again, soft drops that pattered on the leaves and battered blossoms around them as they followed the wet, winding path toward the old stone outbuilding at the base of the garden. The door of the building stood open, so that Sebastian could see the still, sheet-covered body lying on the granite slab within.

“Recognize her?” said Gibson, going to flip the sheet back from the woman’s face and bare shoulders.

She looked to be somewhere in her late thirties or early forties, with stylishly cropped fair hair and a thin, not unattractive face. The thick, ugly bruise encircling her slim white neck left little doubt as to how she had died.

“No,” said Sebastian, one hand coming up to rest against the doorframe beside him. “Where was she found?”

“A night soil man came upon her body dumped in the middle of the Strand early this morning. He thought at first she’d simply collapsed.”

Sebastian’s gaze shifted to the woman’s pink velvet spencer, fine muslin gown, and delicate underthings piled up on a nearby shelf, along with a pair of half boots in a soft pink kid. “Nice clothes.”

“Oh, yes,” said Gibson, going to pluck something from the enameled basin resting beside the clothes. “They’re all new.”

“So what made you send for me?”

Gibson held out a thin piece of card stock. “This.”

Sebastian found himself staring at a small rectangular card with a familiar green, white, and red patterned back. Reaching out, he took the card and turned it over to reveal the image of a sobbing, fair-haired woman in a red dress and lace-trimmed shawl who sat huddled on the ground, her head bowed, her face buried in her hands. Before her loomed the large, naked figure of a man, his penis erect and prominent. He held one hand stretched out over the woman’s head as if he were a puppeteer controlling a web of invisible strings that held her in his thrall. Except of course he was not really a man, for his fingers were like claws, his legs ended in hooves, and horns grew from the top of his head.

And below the image, in bold black letters, was printed XV: Il Diavolo.

The Devil.