Sebastian said, “Do I look like a Bow Street runner?”
Campbell studied Sebastian’s exquisitely tailored coat and flawlessly tied cravat, his doeskin breeches and polished Hessians. “You don’t, no. But you could be one of those fellows from the newspaper offices. Mr. Leigh-Jones also directed us most particularly not to be talking to any of them either.”
Sebastian extracted a card from his case and held it out between two fingers. “I am Devlin. I trust Mr. Leigh-Jones didn’t direct you not to speak to me?”
The butler held Sebastian’s card at arm’s length and squinted. “No. No, he did not.” Not a single muscle in the old man’s face altered, but he opened the door wide and executed a somewhat creaky bow. “How may I be of assistance to you, my lord?”
Sebastian stepped into a soaring, medieval-style hall with darkly paneled walls, an uneven, badly cracked flagged floor, and an elaborately coffered, smoke-blackened ceiling. The space was vast, yet hopelessly cluttered with an odd assortment of dusty but exquisite furniture: sandalwood consoles with delicate inlay; a dark Renaissance chest carved with mythical beasts; gilded chairs that looked as if they might have come from Versailles. Row after row of dark paintings in heavy, mildew-flecked gilded frames filled virtually every wall surface, while on the far side of the hall, a worn, steep staircase angled toward the first floor. Through a limestone-cased archway beside it, Sebastian could see a dark passage that disappeared toward the rear of the house. A second arch, also framed in chipped, grimy stone, led to what looked like an old-fashioned parlor. The tattered brocade drapes at the window were tightly drawn, but as Sebastian’s eyes adjusted to the gloom, he could easily make out the stain that disfigured the parlor’s threadbare carpet.
“Mr. Eisler was found in there,” said Campbell, nodding toward the parlor as he carefully closed and locked the front door behind him. “Took the shot square in his chest. Made ever such a mess.”
“You were here last night, were you?”
“I was, my lord. Only, as I told Mr. Leigh-Jones, it is the practice of Mrs. Campbell and I to retire to our rooms by eight o’clock. The first we knew anything was amiss was when the constables came pounding on our door in the attic.”
“So you didn’t hear the shot?”
“No, my lord. My hearing’s not what it used to be—nor Mrs. Campbell’s.”
Sebastian let his gaze drift, again, around the old hall, assessing the distance from the front door to the staircase and the passage beyond. If Yates had been standing on the stoop as he claimed when he heard the shot, and then rushed inside to find Eisler dead, would the killer have had time to escape the parlor and run down the shadowy passage—or up the stairs—without being seen?
Sebastian doubted it.
He said, “Is there a door that leads from this floor to the rear yard?”
“There is, yes. At the end of the passage there.”
“May I see it?”
The butler gave another of his creaky bows. “If you will follow me, my lord?”
Moving with doddering slowness, he led the way down a narrow corridor made even narrower by more furniture lined up on either side. Sebastian counted four doors opening off the passage, plus a set of steep, narrow steps leading down to what he assumed was the basement kitchen. The entire house reeked of decay and stale cooking grease mingled with the smell of an old man’s unwashed clothes and some other, indefinable odor to which Sebastian could not put a name.
“I’ve heard of you, you know,” said the butler, drawing back a heavy iron bolt on the door at the end of the passage. It was an old door, Sebastian noted, shrunken and warped by age, so that it did not fit its frame. “In fact, I’ve followed your career with a certain morbid fascination. And I must say, it’s interesting you should ask about this door.”
“Oh? Why’s that?”
“After the constables left last night, I naturally checked to make certain that all the windows and doors were secure.”
“And?”
“This door was open.”
“You mean, the bolt was drawn?”