What Angels Fear: A Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery

himself, missed, and went down on one knee on the second step. His top hat landed beside him.
    He had pretensions to dandyism, this constable, with his artfully tousled blond curls and high shirt points and intricately arranged cravat. Clapping the hat back on his head, he straightened slowly, a dirty tear running down one leg of his expensive buff-colored breeches.
    “ Why, you bloody bastard .” Maitland’s jaw tightened, his nostrils flaring. But it was his hands Sebastian was watching. London constables didn’t usually to carry knives, although some of the more aggressive ones did. Maitland’s knife was a small, wicked thing, with a honed blade that shone even in the faint light of a dull afternoon. The constable smiled. “Try something like that again and you won’t live long enough to hang. My lord .”
    It was all for bluster and effect; Sebastian knew that. But the younger constable—the one with the open face and big, oxlike body—threw a quick, worried glance toward the street, where Lovejoy stood with his back turned and one foot on the hackney step. “Good God, Maitland. Put that thing away before Sir Henry sees.”
    He lurched forward, intending perhaps to shield the knife from the magistrate’s view. But he was big and clumsy, the wet granite steps treacherous. His feet slid out from beneath him in turn. With a startled cry, he pitched forward, straight into Maitland’s blade.
    Sebastian watched the young man’s eyes widen with surprise, his face go slack.
    “ Jesus Christ .” Maitland let go of the knife’s hilt, his own features twisting with horror.
    The young constable wavered on his feet, his gaze caught by the knife still protruding from his chest. A thin trickle of blood spilled from his mouth. “You’ve killed me,” he whispered, his gaze lifting to Maitland’s, his legs buckling beneath him.
    Sebastian caught the young man as he fell. Blood spilled over Sebastian’s hands, down the front of his greatcoat. Lowering the gasping constable to the footpath, Sebastian ripped off his own neckcloth, pressed it to the bubbling wound in the constable’s chest. The fine linen turned red and sodden in his hand.
    “Good God,” whispered Maitland, staggering down the last step, his face ashen.
    “Get a doctor. Quickly,” snapped Sebastian.
    Maitland stood with one arm wrapped around the area railing as if for support, his eyes wide and staring.
    “ Bloody hell . Sir Henry, if you would—”
    Sebastian pivoted on one knee to find Lovejoy standing on the hackney’s steps, his little face pinched with shock. “My lord,” said the magistrate. “What have you done?”
    “What have I done?” said Sebastian.
    Still grasping the railing, Constable Maitland’s wide-eyed gaze lifted from Simplot to the magistrate. “He stabbed him,” Maitland suddenly shouted. “He stabbed Simplot!”
    Sebastian stared down at the man in his arms. A cold, misty rain had begun to fall, bringing a dark sheen to the paving stones and dampening the graying face of the dying man. Sebastian had seen enough death, from Italy and the West Indies, to Portugal, to recognize the signs when he saw them. The man would die, and Sebastian would be blamed for this death, just as he was already being blamed for the murder of a West End actress he had barely known.
    He had considered that a misunderstanding, an inconvenience simply dealt with. Not so simple now, he thought. Easing his hands from beneath the constable’s shoulders, Sebastian rose to his feet.
    Brook Street, once empty, now resounded with the tramp ofapproaching footsteps as two Inns of Court Volunteers, dressed in scarlet with yellow facings, white waistcoats and breeches, and black gaiters, appeared around the corner from Davies Street. “You men,” shouted Sir Henry Lovejoy from the carriage’s open doorway, one trembling hand extended to point, damningly, at Sebastian. “Seize that gentleman. Constable Maitland . Snap out of it.”
    Shaking his head as if to clear it, Maitland pushed away from the railing in a clumsy rush. Sebastian stopped him with a right hook that caught the constable under the chin and sent him reeling back to slam against the stucco wall.
    The rain was falling harder now. Someone shouted. The footsteps broke into a run. Sebastian spun around. Calculating the distance to the hackney’s box, he leapt, landing beside the startled jarvey with a force that set the old landau rocking on its sagging straps.
    “ ’Ere,