Page 11 of Who Cries for the Lost

“Earlier that evening. She says he went out somewhere around half past six or seven and never returned. His valet confirms it.”

“And yet she never reported him missing?”

Lovejoy’s stern moral principles were frequently troubled by the behavior of his fellow men, and he cleared his throat now awkwardly. “She says she assumed he was busy with what she referred to as his ‘personal affairs.’ ”

“What sort of personal affairs?”

“She didn’t specify. But I gather he sometimes stayed away for several days at a time without warning her beforehand that he would be gone.”

“Suggestive,” said Sebastian. “Do we know the name of his mistress yet? Because I’ve no doubt he had one.”

Lovejoy looked pained. “Not yet, but we are looking.”

“And how is his wife taking his death?”

“Better than one might expect.”

“Huh. I suppose one’s expectations would depend on how well one knew Miles Sedgewick.”

“Yes, I can see that,” said Lovejoy. “Have you any idea as to who might have killed him?”

Sebastian shook his head. “Not really. But I thought I might try talking to one of our former comrades who knew him better than I did, a man named Monty McPherson.”

“You mean Sir Montgomery?”

“That’s right; I keep forgetting he’s a baronet now. His brother was still alive when we were in the Peninsula. How do you come to know him?”

“I wouldn’t exactly say I know him, but we have met. He’s a member of the Royal Scientific Society, although I believe his main passion is folklore.”

Sebastian nodded. “When we were in the Peninsula, he and Sedgewick spent hours recording as many of the local folktales, superstitions, and traditional ballads as they could find. Monty was always fretting that an entire rich oral heritage was being lost.”

“And you say Captain Sedgewick took part in this venture? From what I’ve heard of him, it’s not something I would have expected of the man.”

Sebastian squinted across the water at the tumbling gray clouds beginning to re-form on the horizon. “Sedgewick was a complicated man. Just when you thought you knew and understood him, he’d say or do something, and you’d suddenly realize you didn’t actually know him at all.”

Lovejoy looked thoughtful. “Couldn’t the same be said of many?”

“Perhaps,” said Sebastian, meeting the magistrate’s troubled gaze. “But some more than others.”

Chapter 7

Sir Montgomery McPherson, late of His Majesty’s 25th Light Dragoons, was pushing his way into the crowded tavern known as Cribb’s Parlor when Sebastian finally tracked him down. A solidly built man of average height somewhere in his thirties, he had thickly curling light red hair, ruddy cheeks, and a ready grin.

Like Sebastian, he’d been born a younger son—in McPherson’s case into an old but not particularly prominent family with a rambling Elizabethan manor house on an estate in eastern Yorkshire. With his own way to make in the world, he’d bought a pair of colors at the age of sixteen with a bequest left to him by a maiden great-aunt. Over the course of the following twelve years he’d nearly died of fever three times, first in India, then in Flanders, and again in the West Indies; he’d been captured by the French but escaped twice, been shipwrecked, and once, in Spain, had his horse shot out from under him four times in three days. He liked to say he couldn’t decide if he was very lucky or very unlucky, but he figured that as long as he was still alive with all his appendages and bits attached, he was happy with it. He was, in general, the kind of lighthearted, good-natured, cheerful soul that many had believed Sedgewick to be—without Sedgewick’s dark side.

At the sight of Sebastian, his eyes crinkled into a smile and he shifted direction to come over and playfully punch his old comrade on the upper arm. “Devlin! It’s been a long time. You’ll let me buy you a drink?” The smile faded. “You’ve heard what happened to Sedgewick?”

“I have, yes,” said Sebastian.

“Bloody awful, isn’t it? Who’d have thought he’d go through all those years at war only to end up with a knife stuck under his ribs in London, of all places?”

“When was the last time you saw him?” Sebastian asked as they threaded their way through the crowd of fashionably dressed young bucks to an empty table near the back.

“Me? Oh, hell, it’s been a while. Why?”

“Bow Street is still trying to figure out exactly when he was killed.”

He was aware of McPherson studying him, his eyebrows drawing together in a frown as he took a chair. “I’ve heard you do this—help solve murders, I mean. Why?”

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