What Remains of Heaven Read Online Free PDF Page A

them?”
    Sebastian had no explanation, of course, although he found it difficult to believe that two men could be murdered in almost exactly the same spot without there being some connection between them—even if their murders did take place decades apart. “It does seem unlikely,” he agreed.
    Lovejoy started up the steps, the crypt plunging into darkness again as the lantern light quivered over the old whitewashed stones of the stair vault. “Alternatively, someone could have been following the Bishop, intending to do him harm. He seized the opportunity offered by the Bishop’s descent alone into the crypt, and killed him.”
    “You’re aware that Prescott was a serious contender to be named the next Archbishop of Canterbury?” said Sebastian, following him.
    Reaching the top of the stairs, the magistrate scrambled through the broken wall. “The Archbishop did mention it, yes. Although I received the impression that he was inclined to agree with Sir James’s assessment—that the Bishop simply fell victim to a chance-met thief.”
    Sebastian followed him out of the rank chill of the stairwell into the clean, wholesome warmth of the sunny June day. “I suspect the Archbishop was being diplomatic.”
    Lovejoy snuffed out his lantern. “What makes you say that?”
    Sebastian stared off down the hill toward the rambling, slate-roofed vicarage, where a middle-aged matron in a starched white cap and a high-necked black bombazine gown was standing on the back stoop, watching them. “Because if the Archbishop genuinely believes the Bishop of London was killed by a simple thief, then why did he come to me?”

Chapter 5
     
    While Lovejoy set about organizing a party of constables to conduct a more thorough search of the crypt, Sebastian walked down the hill to the vicarage, to inquire after the Reverend Malcolm Earnshaw.
    “He’s still abed,” said the matron in black bombazine, who proved to be the Reverend’s wife. She was a hatchet-faced woman, her features as plain as her gown and just as no-nonsense. “He’s received a terrible shock. Simply terrible. I’ve had Dr. Bliss in to see him, and he agrees it’s best to keep the Reverend quiet for a time, lest the incident overset his mind.”
    She gave Sebastian a fierce, uncompromising scowl and refused to budge. The Reverend’s wife was obviously made of sterner stuff than the Reverend. Sebastian had no choice but to admit defeat and withdraw.
    His next stop was the small but graceful eighteenth-century brick manor house that stood on the edge of the village, near the millstream. He found the local magistrate, Douglas Pyle, behind the house, in his kennel.
    He was a typical Middlesex squire, booted and spurred, full of jowl and wide of girth, with the ruddy, weathered face and squinting gray eyes of a man who spent his days tending his herds and fields, and riding to hounds. “You’ve no objection to talking to me while I supervise the feeding of the hounds?” said the Squire, his voice deep and rough. Sebastian took him to be somewhere in his early fifties, his brown hair mingled liberally with gray.
    “Not at all,” said Sebastian, stooping to tug the ears of a liver-colored bitch that loped up to sniff at him.
    “She smells the crypt on you,” said the Squire, watching the dog. “My wife swears she’ll never get the reek of it out of the clothes I had on last night.”
    “It’s a fine pack of hounds you’ve got here.”
    “They’re Irish,” said the Squire, nodding to the kennel boy.
    “And rogues, the lot of ’em. They’ll bring down a cow if you turn your back on ’em. But they can’t be beat on a hunt.”
    The two men watched as the kennel boy dumped boiled meat into the trough, the hounds jostling and scrabbling for position.
    “I suppose you’re here to talk about the murder,” said the Squire, not looking around.
    “Murders,” said Sebastian. “There were two bodies, after all.”
    “Oh, aye. Two.” The Squire grunted.