Why Kill the Innocent (Sebastian St. Cyr #13)(25)

Godwin, who once had been as famous and influential a thinker as Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine, now lived above the children’s bookstore and publishing house he kept with his second wife. When Sebastian pushed open the front door with a jingle of its bell, the writer himself was straightening a stack of Greek and Roman fables displayed on a table beneath the frost-covered front window. He was in his late fifties, his hair graying and receding, his once sharp features softened by the slow accumulation of pounds. He looked up as Sebastian shut the door against a gust of frigid air, and frowned. “I assume you’re here for a reason.”

Sebastian carefully knocked the snow off his hat. It wasn’t a particularly promising beginning. “I have some questions I’d like to ask you, if I might have a moment of your time?”

Godwin grunted and returned his attention to the display table. “Now, why would the son and heir of the great Earl of Hendon be wanting to speak to me?”

“A woman named Jane Ambrose was found dead near here, in Shepherds’ Lane.”

Godwin nodded with a sigh. “Yes, I know. Sad, isn’t it? The streets have been most treacherous lately.”

“They can be. Except that Jane Ambrose didn’t slip and hit her head. She was already dead when someone dumped her body in the snow.”

Godwin gave up straightening the display and turned to face Sebastian, his hands dangling limply at his sides. “You can’t think I had anything to do with that.”

“No, I didn’t mean to imply that. I’m here because I’m interested in what you can tell me about the newspaper Liam Maxwell used to publish with Jane Ambrose’s brother, Christian Somerset.”

Godwin began shifting a pile of children’s atlases from a crate onto a nearby shelf. “Why? That was long ago. Surely you can’t think it has anything to do with what happened?”

“At this point, I don’t know. What was the paper called?”

“The Poor Man’s Advocate.”

“Was it stamped?” The required stamp tax added four pence to a newspaper’s cost, which was a staggering sum for papers targeting anyone but the affluent. As a result, papers aimed at the lowest classes were typically sold illegally, unstamped.

“Oh, it was stamped, all right, which obviously had the effect of limiting its circulation—the poor of England seldom having excess coins to spend on reading material. But then, that’s precisely why our benighted government puts such a high tax on newspapers in the first place, isn’t it? Can’t have the masses discovering that others not only share their discontent but are advocating radical solutions to the nation’s problems.”

“How radical was it?”

Godwin gave a slow smile. “Compared to what? They argued that Parliament should be representative of the entire Kingdom rather than a tool of the privileged and maintained that England’s true strength lies with the labor of her people rather than the activities of our rapacious aristocracy.”

“So what sort of reforms were they calling for? A republican government?”

Godwin finished straightening the atlases and leaned back against the counter, his arms folded at his chest. “I’ve no doubt it’s what both men wanted. But they never called for it, if that’s what you’re asking. They mainly focused on things like secret ballots and manhood suffrage—and freedom of the press, of course.”

“Such as the right to call Prinny a fat bastard without landing in prison for two years?”

“Something like that, yes.”

“And Maxwell now publishes a different paper?”

“At least one—or so they say. He’s the publisher of The Intelligencer.”

Sebastian nodded. The Intelligencer printed unvarnished but careful reports of parliamentary debates and government acts, leavened by sensational accounts of the city’s most gruesome crimes and accidents. “And the other?”

When Godwin simply pursed his lips and remained silent, Sebastian said, “Anything you tell me will go no further. My sole purpose is to understand how and why Jane Ambrose died.”

Godwin gave a pained sigh. “Word on the street says he’s also responsible for The Pigs’ Trough.”

“Good Lord,” said Sebastian. The Pigs’ Trough was a truly radical unstamped periodical calling for everything from the abolition of the monarchy to the redistribution of property. Typically hawked in alleys at night, its name was an irreverent reference to Edmund Burke’s fondness for the phrase “the swinish multitude.”

“I’m not saying the rumors are true, mind you. How would I know? I simply write, publish, and sell children’s books.”

“What about Somerset?” asked Sebastian. “Is he involved with The Pigs’ Trough?”

“Christian? Not likely. These days he confines his publishing business to romances, guide books, and floral stationery. He does still write occasionally for the Chronicle, but he’s careful what he says.”

Sebastian studied the older man’s gentle, troubled face. “Did you know Jane Ambrose?”

Godwin drew a ragged breath that jerked his chest. “Of course I knew her. She taught my daughter Mary piano for years.”

“She was still teaching her?”

“Yes. Why?”

“On what days?”