What Angels Fear: A Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery

Matron Snyder was bustling about, getting the children lined up two by two at the chapel doors. “An unusual activity for such a woman, surely?”
    “You mean, for a successful actress?” The old reverend lifted one thin shoulder in a shrug. “Rachel was an unusual woman. Most people, when they have the good fortune to pull themselves up from a bad situation, they soon forget where they came from. Rachel didn’t.”
    “But Rachel was never a foundling.”
    “No. But she knew what it was like to be a child alone and friendless in this world.” The reverend paused, his features pinched and troubled. “I sometimes wonder . . .”
    “Wonder what?”
    At the end of the quadrangle, the chapel’s lone bell began to ring, a solemn, steady toll. The old man’s eyes narrowed as he stared up at the small spire above them. “This past month or so, Rachel seemed different somehow. Preoccupied. It was almost as if she were afraid of something. But I never said anything to her about it. These last few days, after what happened . . . Well, I can’t help but wonder if I made a mistake. If perhaps I could have helped her in some way, if I had only asked.”
    “You don’t have any idea what she was afraid of?”
    Finley shook his head. “No. I wish she had confided in me, but she didn’t.”
    “Did you know she was planning to leave London?”
    The old man glanced around in surprise. “No. I’d no notion.”
    “Any thoughts as to where she might have been planning to go?”
    He considered this for a moment, but shook his head. “No. I could hardly see her going back to Worcestershire.”
    No, Sebastian thought; she wouldn’t have gone back to Worcestershire. “Was there a man in her life, do you think? A man she maybe was afraid of?”
    Most of the children were in the chapel now. Only three or four stragglers remained, hurried along by Matron Snyder, who cast a quick, disapproving glance at the two men.
    The Reverend Finley turned toward the open chapel doors. “We never spoke of such things, of course, but I’d have said yes, Rachel was in love with someone—although I don’t think it was anyone she was afraid of. She had that look a woman gets when she’s happy in love.” A sad, almost wistful smile touched the old man’s lips. “You might think I’m too old to recognize that look, but we were all young once, you know.”

     
    Sebastian walked through the cold, windblown streets of Lambeth to the banks of the Thames, where he took a scull that carried him across the river to the steps just below Tower Hill. From there it was but a short distance to Paul Gibson’s surgery.
    He found his friend wrapped in a tattered quilt and sitting in a cracked leather armchair beside the parlor fire, his staring gaze fixed on the glowing coals.
    “Leg bad, is it?” said Sebastian, sinking onto the ragged chair opposite.
    “A wee bit.” Gibson looked up, his eyes bright with the unholy fires of the opium eater. It was an addiction far too many wounded men carried home with them from the war. Normally the Irishman could keep his compulsion under control, but there were times when memories of what he’d seen in the war would loom unbearable or the remnants of shrapnel in his leg would twist and bleed, and he would disappear for days into a drug-induced fog. “But I’ve finished your postmortem, never fear.”
    “And?”
    Gibson shook his head. “Nothing more, I’m afraid. If she’d been brought to me directly, there might have been some sort of evidence. But as it is. . .”
    Sebastian nodded, swallowing his disappointment. He’d known it was a long shot. “I was wondering if you could get in touch with Jumpin’ Jack for me.”
    “Cochran?” Gibson huffed a soft laugh. “Looking to steal another body, are you?”
    Sebastian grinned and shook his head. “It’s information I’m interested in this time. I’m wondering if those in the resurrection trade have heard of anyone expressing a specific interest in female corpses.”
    Paul Gibson nodded thoughtfully. “Think to come at your man from that angle, do you?”
    “It’s worth a try.” Sebastian pushed to his feet, his hand grasping his friend’s shoulder for a moment before he turned toward the door. “I’ll drop by again in a few days. See how you’re getting on.”
    He was reaching for the knob when Gibson stopped him by saying, “There is one thing my more complete examination of the body did reveal. It may or may not have a