What Angels Fear: A Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery

Sebastian hesitated, then turned his steps toward the East End.
    Housed in a soot-blackened cluster of ancient stone buildings that had once been a Franciscan monastery, the Chalks Street Almshouse lay on the edge of Spitalfields, not far from Shepherds’ Place. Run by a private benevolent society as a humane alternative to the city’s public workhouses and poorhouses, the almshouse provided clothing and food and limited shelter to the area’s poor. Paul Gibson could often be found there at odd hours, bandaging workingmen’s wounds, examining infants that refused to thrive, and surreptitiously dispensing preventatives to the district’s growing population of prostitutes.
    “They get younger and younger every year,” said Gibson with a sigh, as he drew Sebastian into the small, unheated alcove allotted to him bythe almshouse directors. “I don’t think I’ve seen one over the age of sixteen today.”
    Through the room’s single, grime-incrusted leaded window, Sebastian watched the doctor’s last patient dart furtively across the street. The girl looked all of twelve. “It’s not a vocation conducive to longevity.”
    “Unfortunately, no,” said Gibson, his eyes blessedly clear and bright this morning. “It occurred to me the area’s filles de joie might be a good source of information about gentlemen with certain vile tastes, but I haven’t turned up anything of use in that respect so far.” Gibson wiped his hands on a towel and went to close the door to the cabinet where he kept a few meager supplies. “There is one thing I thought you should know about, though. I’ve had this nagging feeling ever since I finished Rachel York’s autopsy—this feeling that I was overlooking something. For the longest time I couldn’t figure out what it was, but then last night when I was giving my lecture at St. Thomas’s on musculature, it came to me.”
    Sebastian swung away from the window, his gaze searching his friend’s face. “What’s that?”
    “One of the first things I noticed when I was bathing Rachel York’s body was that her hand had been broken. From the nature of the break, it was obvious it had occurred after rigor mortis had set in, which is why I didn’t attach much importance to it at first. I simply assumed it was done by the woman hired to lay out the body—it’s often necessary, you know. But last night, I got to thinking . . .”
    “Yes?”
    “If the laying-out woman had to break Rachel’s hand to get it open, then it must have been clenched. Like this.” Gibson held up his fist. “But we know Rachel was scratching at her attacker.” He uncurled his fingers into a clawing position. “Like this.” He relaxed his hand. “If she’d been raped before death, then I’d say perhaps she clenched her fists at the end, the way a person tends to do when they’re trying to endure something painful. But we know that’s not the case.”
    “So what are you saying? That she died clasping something in her hand?”
    Gibson nodded. “I suspect so. Of course it could have been something as innocuous as a clump of hair she’d torn from her attacker.”
    “Or it could have been something considerably more significant. There’s no way we’ll ever know now.”
    “Maybe. Maybe not. I’m trying to locate the woman who laid out the body. If I can convince her I don’t mean to prosecute her for theft, she might tell me.”
    Sebastian went to stand again beside the window overlooking the narrow, refuse-filled street. Dark gray clouds hung low over the city, promising rain. After a moment, the Irishman came to stand beside him, his gaze, like Sebastian’s, on the lowering sky. “Have you given any more thought to taking a little vacation in America?”
    Sebastian gave a soft laugh. “I’m not likely to have much luck finding Rachel York’s killer in some place like Baltimore or Philadelphia, now am I?”
    “It’s not Rachel York I’m thinking about. She’s dead. It’s Sebastian St. Cyr who’s worrying me.”
    Sebastian shook his head. “I can’t leave, Paul. There’s more involved in this than I realized at first. Far more.”
    Paul Gibson perched on a nearby stool while Sebastian outlined Rachel’s involvement with Leo Pierrepont. “So what do you think?” said the Irishman when Sebastian had finished. “That Pierrepont found out she’d taken the papers from him and killed her?”
    “Either him, or one of the men against whom the French were collecting damaging