Why Kill the Innocent (Sebastian St. Cyr #13)(70)

“Thank you,” said Sebastian.

The lad simply stared back at him, his face taut and troubled.



Leaving the river, Sebastian climbed the hill to Maxwell’s printing shop in a cluttered ancient court off Fleet Street. It was a far different establishment from that of his former partner: cramped and dirty, with no elegant bookshop and bindery attached. But the workroom was locked up and deserted.

After that, Sebastian tried every public room and tavern in the area, all without success.

Liam Maxwell obviously didn’t want to be found.



The whistled refrain of what sounded suspiciously like “Alasdair MacColla,” an old Irish rebel song, floated across the snow-filled yard as Sebastian plowed his way to the door of the surgeon’s stone outbuilding. He banged on the old warped panels, and Gibson broke off to shout, “Go away. I’m busy.”

Sebastian pushed open the door to find the Irishman leaning against the stone slab in the center of the room, a saw in one hand. The only thing on the table before him was a human leg neatly sliced in two just above the knee.

“Ah, it’s you,” said Gibson, setting aside the saw with a clatter. “Thought it might be someone I didn’t want seeing this.”

“What is that?”

“And what does it look like, then?” said Gibson, reaching for a rag to wipe his hands. “It’s a leg. I’ve been practicing a new amputation technique.”

“Lovely.” Sebastian closed the door against the cold. “I won’t ask where you got it.” He looked beyond the Irishman to where what was left of Valentino Vescovi rested on a low shelf. “Finished with him, have you?”

“I have.”

“Learn anything?”

“Nothing you didn’t know.” Gibson tossed aside the rag. “He was stabbed in the back by someone who either knew what he was doing or got lucky.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“Bloody hell.” Sebastian slapped one hand against the doorframe. “How the devil am I supposed to figure out who’s doing this?”

“His clothes are there,” said Gibson, nodding to the jumbled pile on a nearby shelf. “If you care to go through them.”

Sebastian had checked the musician’s pockets last night while waiting for Lovejoy. But he went over everything again anyway, this time examining the seams and linings, as well.

He found nothing.

“His death might not be related to what happened to Jane Ambrose,” said Gibson, watching him. “People really do occasionally get killed by footpads in London.”

Sebastian carefully folded the harpist’s red scarf and rested it atop his serviceable, slightly worn clothing. “This wasn’t footpads.”



On his way back to Brook Street, Sebastian decided to swing past the church of St. Anne’s, Soho.

And it was there he finally found Liam Maxwell, sitting hunched over at the top of the steep stone steps leading down to the crypt, his hands thrust between his knees and his face wet with tears that slid unchecked down his cheeks.





Chapter 40

The church was bitterly cold and filled with shadows, for the morning’s weak sunshine had long since disappeared behind a thick cover of heavy white clouds.

Sebastian went to stand with his hands braced against the crypt’s iron railing, his nostrils filling with the scent of dank stone and old death. Liam Maxwell did not look up. But after a moment he drew a shaky breath and said, “I can’t believe she’s down there. I can’t believe she’s down there, dead, and I’ll never see her again.” His voice cracked. “How can that be?”

Sebastian shook his head, for there was no answer to give. “Why didn’t you admit you were in love with her—and she with you?”

Maxwell squeezed his eyes shut. “I don’t know. I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea about her—about the kind of woman she was.”

It was possible, Sebastian thought. But he could also think of another explanation that was considerably more damning. “Were you lovers?”

Maxwell swiped his sleeve across his wet eyes. “No. I swear to God, no.”

“Yet you asked her to leave her husband?”

“Who told you that?”

“Is it true?”

The journalist hesitated, then nodded. “She wouldn’t do it, though—for all he made her as miserable as a woman can be.”

“How long? How long have you been in love with her?”

A ghost of a smile touched his features. “Since the September I was fifteen. I went with Christian to watch a regatta on the Thames, and she was there. I remember she was wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat and a white muslin dress with little puff sleeves and a blue sash, and I fell hopelessly, irretrievably in love with her—even though she was twenty years old and married and she treated me like her little brother’s awkward school friend. Which is precisely what I was.”

“When did that change?”

“I don’t know. It happened slowly, over time. I think if I hadn’t been so much younger than she, and her brother’s friend, it never would have come to be. As it was, it simply . . . crept up on her unawares. When Christian and I were in prison, she used to come see us, and we would talk for hours.” He drew a deep, shuddering breath. “That’s when I first realized Ambrose hit her. One time she came, she had a black eye. She refused to admit he’d done it, but Jane never was very good at lying. He was furious with her for visiting her brother in prison.” Maxwell huffed a sound that was not a laugh. “What a bloody bastard.”