What Angels Fear: A Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery

care to avoid stepping in them as he walkedslowly about the chapel. There’d been so many big, careless feet tramping in and out of the chapel in the past six hours that it would be impossible to accurately reconstruct what the floor had looked like, before the sexton’s arrival. But it seemed somehow disrespectful, a violation of that poor girl lying there against the wall, to be tromping heedlessly through what had once been her life’s blood. So Lovejoy tried to avoid it.
    He stopped in front of the small altar’s white marble steps. The blood was thickest here, where she’d been found. A lantern lay on its side, its glass shattered. He twisted around to glance back at his constable. “Any idea who was the last person to use the Lady Chapel?”
    Once again, Maitland thumbed through his notebook. It was all for effect, Lovejoy knew. Edward Maitland could recite the entire contents of his notebook from memory. But he thought it gave weight to his pronouncements, to be seen looking up each fact or figure. “We’re still checking,” he said with a slowness that was again for effect, “but it was probably a Mrs. William Nackery. She’s a haberdasher’s widow. Comes to the Lady Chapel here every evening at about half past four and prays for some twenty to thirty minutes. She says the church was empty when she left, just afore five.”
    Lovejoy lifted his gaze to the blood-spattered walls, his lips tightening into a smile that had nothing to do with humor. “It appears to be a fairly safe assumption to say she was killed here.”
    Warily, Maitland cleared his throat. He always grew uncomfortable when Lovejoy began stating the obvious. “I should think so, sir.”
    “Which seems to place our murder between the hours of five and eight last night.”
    “That’s the way we figured it, sir.” The constable cleared his throat again. “We found her reticule some two or three feet from the body. It was open, so most of the contents had spilled out. But her pocketbook was still there, undisturbed. And that’s a fine gold necklace and earrings she’s wearing.”
    “In other words, no robbery.”
    “No, sir.”
    “But you say the reticule was open? I wonder if it simply fell open when she dropped it, or if our killer was searching for something?”Lovejoy glanced again around the cold chapel, felt the damp chill of the stones seeping up through the soles of his boots. He shoved his gloved hands deep into the pockets of his greatcoat, and wished he hadn’t forgotten his scarf. “I’m waiting, Constable.”
    The planes of Edward Maitland’s broad, handsome face pinched with puzzlement. “Sir?”
    “For you to tell me why you felt it necessary that I come here myself.”
    The frown eased into a self-satisfied smile. “Because we’ve figured out who did it, sir.”
    “Really?”
    “It was this what told us where to look.” Maitland took a small flintlock pistol from his pocket and held it out. “There’s no doubt it was dropped by our murderer. One of the lads found it mixed up in the folds of her cloak.”
    Lovejoy took the weapon and balanced it thoughtfully in his hand. It was an exquisite piece, of high-grade steel, with a polished mahogany grip and a brass trigger guard intricately worked with the design of a serpent wrapped around a sword. Forty-four caliber, he decided, from the looks of it, with a rifled bore and a plate that read W . REDDELL , LONDON . There was still enough blood on the barrel to leave a dark smudge across the palm of his kid glove.
    “You’ll notice the trigger guard, sir. The serpent and the sword?”
    Lovejoy ran the thumb of his left hand across the stain. “Yes, I did notice it, Constable.”
    “It’s the device of Viscount Devlin, sir.”
    Lovejoy’s grip tightened on the pistol in an involuntary, convulsive movement. There were few in London who hadn’t heard of Sebastian, Viscount Devlin. Or of his father Lord Hendon, chancellor of the exchequer and trusted confidant of the poor old mad King’s Tory prime minister, Spencer Perceval.
    Lovejoy flipped the pistol around to hold it out, butt first, to his constable. “Careful, Constable. We’re treading on dangerous ground here. It won’t do to go leaping to any hasty conclusions.”
    Maitland met his gaze steadily. He made no move to take the pistol from Lovejoy’s grasp. “There’s more, sir.”
    Lovejoy dropped the pistol into his own greatcoat pocket. “Let me hear it.”
    “We’ve spoken to Rachel