Why Kill the Innocent (Sebastian St. Cyr #13)(87)

“I spent some time out at Clerkenwell yesterday,” Alexi Sauvage told Hero as the two women walked the snowy paths of Berkeley Square. A large private garden the size of several city blocks, the square was maintained by the area’s residents and had a high fence of iron palings to keep out the riffraff.

“How is Jenny Sanborn?” asked Hero, looking over at her friend.

“As well as one might expect, I suppose. Although she wasn’t the only reason I went there. I was hoping the residents around Shepherds’ Lane might be more willing to open up to me than to Bow Street or his lordship.”

“And?”

Alexi shook her head, her flame-colored hair curling wildly in the moist air. “I couldn’t find anyone willing to admit they either knew Jane Ambrose or had seen her in the streets that day.”

Hero stared off across the square’s ice-covered clusters of shrubs and soaring plane trees. With the rising temperatures, the snow was beginning to melt, filling the air with a chorus of drips and plops. It was warm enough that Hero withdrew one hand from the new black fur muff she’d taken to carrying and reached up to open the top clasp of her pelisse. “I have the most wretched, demoralizing feeling that we’re never going to figure out who killed her. That whoever took her life and left her in that lane for us to find will simply be free to go on living his life as if she’d never existed.”

“I know,” said Alexi, her voice more troubled than Hero could remember hearing it. “We like to believe the world arcs toward justice—I suppose because it reassures us and makes us think there’s some sort of order to our existence. But what if we’re wrong? What if it’s all meaningless chaos and chance?”

“Even if it is, that doesn’t mean justice isn’t worth striving for. Less inevitable, perhaps, but not impossible.” Hero paused, then added, “Hopefully.”

Alexi gave a soft laugh. “Hopefully.”

The sound of approaching footfalls drew Hero’s attention to a dense clump of shrubs that hid the path ahead, and for some reason she couldn’t have named she felt again that vague, uneasy sense of being watched that had troubled her before.

“I think we should go,” she said, slipping her right hand back into her muff just as a fashionable man in a caped greatcoat and glossy high-topped boots came around the bend in the path. He drew up a moment as if in surprise, then sauntered toward them.

“Ladies,” said Peter van der Pals, touching his tall beaver hat in a casual salute. “This is unexpected.”

“Mr. van der Pals,” said Hero, inclining her head. “I didn’t know you lived in Berkeley Square.”

He shifted his grip on the silver-headed walking stick he carried, bringing it up in a way that caught her attention. “I don’t.”

“Ah. Unfortunately, this is a private garden.”

He gave a slow, lazy smile that brought dimples to his cheeks and showed his even white teeth. “I know. And at this time of day all the neighborhood nursemaids have obligingly shooed their little charges home for tea, leaving it quite conveniently deserted.” With a flick of the wrist, he released his walking stick’s hidden stiletto and drew away the sheath. He was no longer smiling.

“Mon Dieu,” whispered Alexi, taking a step back.

The Dutch courtier kept his gaze on Hero. “I’m told his lordship is inordinately fond of his ridiculously tall bluestocking wife.”

“So this is—what?” said Hero. “Revenge for some insult or imagined slight? Or merely a taunt?” She could hear the ragged sound of her own breathing as she let her left hand fall from her elegant fur muff and shifted its angle. She spoke loudly, hoping the combination of her voice and the hand warmer’s thick fur would deaden the telltale click as she carefully eased back the hammer of the small muff pistol she held hidden within it. “You have two intended victims but only one knife.”

Van der Pals gave a ringing laugh that sounded genuinely amused. “Do you seriously think two women are capable of fighting off a man my s—”

Hero squeezed the trigger.

The loud report of the pistol shot echoed around the square, sending up a flurry of frightened pigeons that took flight against the darkening sky. A crimson stain bloomed around the neat hole in the chest of the courtier’s exquisitely tailored greatcoat. Hero saw his eyes widen, saw the features of his face go slack. For a moment he swayed, his hand clenching around the handle of his dagger. Then he pitched forward to land facedown in the snow, his arms flung out above his head, the knife falling beside him.

Hero leapt to kick it beyond his grasp. “Is he dead?”

Alexi knelt in the snow beside the still body. “Not yet. But he will be soon.”

Hero sucked in a deep breath tainted with the stench of fresh blood and burning fur. “Good.”

Alexi looked up at her. “Your muff is on fire.”

“Drat,” said Hero, dropping the flaming fur into the melting snow. “I just purchased it.”



Sebastian arrived back at Brook Street to find Hero seated at his desk, once again cleaning her small muff gun.

“I’ve shot Peter van der Pals,” she said calmly.

“Dead?”

She looked up, her eyes cold and hard, her hands admirably steady at their task. “Quite.”