Page 47 of Who Will Remember (Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery #20)

S ebastian stood for a time beside his library fire, thoughtfully fingering his friend’s message. Then he tossed the note aside and went to where he had left Rasim Ataman’s Bassano tarot deck resting on his desk.

Turning the cards over one at a time in his hands, he selected three images that he laid face up in a row on his desktop.

A hanging man.

A collapsing tower.

A naked devil.

Then, setting aside the Bassano deck, he retrieved his original Marseille-style cards from the desk’s bottom drawer, found its version of the hanging man, and laid it beside the Bassano card. Because the Marseille-style deck was French, the card was labeled Le Pendu , the Hanged Man, rather than Il Traditore , the Traitor, like the Bassano card. But that wasn’t the only difference.

“Well, hell,” said Sebastian softly.

He was aware of the sounds of Hero coming in from her most recent interview, heard her speaking to Morey in the entry hall, then looked up as she paused in the doorway to the library, her arms crossed at her chest with her hands cupping her elbows to hold them close against the sides of her somber gray carriage dress. “Is what I’m hearing true?” she said. “That Letitia Lamont has been found dead?”

He nodded. “She was released from the Bridewell yesterday morning. She then bought herself some grand new clothes, had her hair cut in a smart new crop, and somehow managed to get herself strangled, all in less than twenty-four hours.”

“How bizarre.” Reaching up, Hero untied the ribbons of her hat and tossed it aside. “But surely her death can’t have anything to do with what happened to Lord Preston. A woman like that must have had many enemies. Dangerous enemies.”

“No doubt. Except whoever killed her wanted to make certain we knew it was his handiwork.” Sebastian held up the Devil card from the Bassano deck. “He left one of these in her pocket. It’s from the same deck as the card that was left on Half-Hanged Harry.”

“Dear God,” whispered Hero, pushing away from the doorframe to come take the card and stare down at it thoughtfully. “What a horrible image.” She looked up. “What does it mean? Do you know?”

“According to the vaguely unsettling astrologer who sold me this deck, the card stands for temptation, addiction, excess, vice, and, basically, evil.”

Hero set the card back on the desktop. “I must say, that does sound appropriate for Letitia.”

“It does, indeed. But here’s the interesting thing.” Sebastian reached for the Hanged Man from the Marseille deck and held it up. “Lord Preston was posed exactly like this: suspended by his left foot, with his arms tied behind his back. His killer even bent his right leg and tied that foot behind his left knee in order to precisely echo the posture of the man in the card.” He picked up Il Traditore from the new deck. “Here’s the same card from the Bassano deck.”

“They are quite different, aren’t they?” said Hero, taking both cards to hold them up side by side. “Not only is the man in the Italian card hanging from his right foot instead of his left, but his hands are dangling down over his head, not tied at all. And his other leg is swinging sideways rather than bent back to his knee.”

Sebastian nodded. “It reminds me of the Renaissance-era red chalk sketch Mr. Carmichael showed me the other day.”

She looked up, her lips parting on a quick breath. “Surely we couldn’t be dealing with two different—” She broke off, as if unwilling to put the inevitable conclusion into words.

“Two different killers?” he said, finishing for her. “I suppose it’s possible, although I find it hard to believe. But it does rather beg an important question.” He tapped the image of the hanged man from the Marseille deck. “If Lord Preston’s killer deliberately posed his victim’s body in the exact posture used in the style of decks typical of southern France, why did he then leave cards from the Bassano deck when he killed Harry McGregor and Letitia Lamont?”

“Perhaps he simply decided to use that deck.”

“Perhaps.” Sebastian began to gather the scattered cards together, putting them back in order. “Except that most of the Bassano decks printed by Gumppenberg were destroyed by the Austrians when they overran Milan. I’m told the only other deck in England besides this one is in the hands of a cartomancer who lives in Golden Square.”

“Madame Blanchette,” said Hero softly. “But there must be another deck. She still has her deck’s Tower card. You saw it.”

“Yes.”

“So where did the killer get his deck?”

“Presumably, he also ordered one in advance from Gumppenberg. What I can’t understand is why he’s leaving us a trail of cards from a deck so rare that he must surely know it could potentially lead us back to him.”

“Perhaps he knows enough about the tarot to be aware of the various cards’ meanings but not enough to realize that the deck he’s using is dangerously rare.”

“But if that’s the case,” said Sebastian, looking up to meet her worried gaze, “then how does he come to have such a rare deck?”