Why Kill the Innocent (Sebastian St. Cyr #13)(56)

“Yesterday afternoon. Amazing, is it not?”

Sir Henry nodded, although he looked more troubled than impressed. “There’s talk of setting up a Frost Fair. Personally, I fail to see the attraction of freezing in a tent pitched on ice simply to experience the dubious pleasure of drinking expensive beer or purchasing a useless trinket at twice its worth so that one may afterward boast that it was acquired on the Thames.”

Sebastian laughed just as a constable came bustling into the taproom, clapped his hands loudly, and said, “Right, then, let’s get this started, shall we?”



As expected, the inquest returned a verdict of homicide by person unknown.

Afterward, Sebastian joined Lovejoy for a ploughman’s lunch in the inn’s public room. The pub was crowded with a motley assortment of hangers-on from the inquest—shopkeepers and tradesmen, costermongers and apprentices, all loud and boisterous with lingering excitement from the morning’s entertainment.

“I’ll never understand it,” said Lovejoy, nibbling without much appetite at a heel of bread. “Why would anyone want to deliberately look at the bloody corpse of a murdered man?”

“Presumably for the same reason they attend hangings,” said Sebastian, his thoughts on the ordeal he knew Hero was going through.

“I’ve never understood that, either. We hang felons in public as a warning to all potential lawbreakers; the spectacle is intended to put the fear of God into them. But in reality, all we do is provide the city’s pickpockets with a distracted crowd enjoying a free show.”

Sebastian found himself smiling. “You’re suggesting public hangings might not work as a deterrent?”

“One would deduce. As for hanging a man—let alone a woman or child—for stealing a handkerchief or a pheasant? I fear future generations will conclude we place little value on the lives of England’s poor.”

Sebastian drained his ale and set it aside. “Future generations will be right.”



Sebastian spent the next hour trying to find Edward Ambrose.

The playwright’s nervous servants claimed ignorance of his whereabouts. In the end, Sebastian tracked Jane’s widower to a low tavern on Compton Street. From the looks of it, the place dated back to the last years of the seventeenth century, with low, dark beams overhead and sawdust on the floor and a wide hearth beside which Ambrose sat slumped. He had one hand wrapped around a bottle of cheap Scotch, and he looked up lazily when Sebastian slid into the opposite bench.

“Ah. It wanted only that,” said Ambrose, raising the bottle to his lips without bothering to use the glass that stood near his elbow.

“Bit early, isn’t it?”

“Is it?”

“So, are you drowning your sorrows or assuaging your guilt?” asked Sebastian.

“You say that as if the two were mutually exclusive.”

When Sebastian remained silent, Ambrose took another drink, then wiped his wet lips with the back of one hand. “I was a rotten husband to her. She was brilliant and beautiful and giving, and I took it all without appreciating any of it.”

“And you hit her.”

Something flared in Ambrose’s eyes, something that was hidden when he dropped his gaze to the bottle again.

“Exactly how deeply in debt are you?” said Sebastian, then added when Ambrose’s head jerked up, “And don’t even think about trying to deny it.”

Ambrose slumped back in his seat. “How the devil did you discover that?”

“Did you think I would not?”

Ambrose shook his head and swallowed hard.

Sebastian said, “How deep?”

Ambrose’s face twitched. “Nearly five thousand pounds. A large but not insurmountable sum for a man in my position. Theoretically.”

“Theoretically.”

“I did not kill my wife,” said Ambrose, his lips pulling away from his teeth as he enunciated each word carefully. “That is why you’re here, isn’t it? You think my debts somehow implicate me in her death. Well, believe me, you couldn’t be more wrong.”

“Why the bloody hell should I believe you?”

“Why?” Ambrose gave a ragged laugh. “Because only a fool would kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.” He leaned forward, his voice dropping. “You don’t understand, do you? Oh, I had a couple of plays produced before Jane and I married, but their reception was only lukewarm. It wasn’t until I turned my hand to opera that I had real success. Lancelot and Guinevere opened a week after our first wedding anniversary.”

“You’re saying—what? That Jane was your muse?”

Ambrose gave a ringing laugh. “My muse? God, that’s rich. For all intents and purposes, Jane was Edward Ambrose. Oh, I wrote some of the libretto. But the music—that glorious music was all Jane’s. Not mine. Jane’s.”

Sebastian watched the playwright bring the bottle to his lips and drink deeply, a rivulet of alcohol escaping to run down the side of his chin. “Did no one ever suspect?”

Ambrose set down the bottle with studied care. “Her twin, James, knew the truth. She couldn’t hide it from him; he knew the instant he heard that first opera that the music was hers. She never told Christian, but I think he pretty much figured it out, too.” He brought up trembling hands to rake the disheveled hair from his face with splayed fingers. “So you see, I’m the last person who’d ever want Jane dead.”