What Remains of Heaven Read Online Free PDF Page B

Prescott brothers used to play in that crypt all the time when they were boys. All five of them.”
    “Five?”
    “Aye. Five of ’em, God rest their souls. Some cousin or other had the living back then, and they used to steal the key to the gates off his belt when he was dozing in the sacristy.” Turning to the kennel boy, Pyle said, “Open the door and let ’em have a run.”
    The kennel boy opened the door and called, “Come, hounds!”
    Sebastian stepped back, his gaze on the Squire’s full, weathered face. “You went down there with them, did you?”
    A self-conscious grin crinkled the fleshy corners of the Squire’s pale eyes. “Well, of course I did. Even played deer stalker and blindman’s wand down there with them.”
    Sir Douglas watched the hounds sweep through the open door, his smile fading as they raced off in joyous, fluid leaps. “But I never liked it,” he said. Then he said it again, as if once weren’t enough. “I never liked it.”
     
     
    “Learn anything?” Sebastian asked Tom when the tiger brought up the curricle.
    “Nobody in the village seen or ’eard a thing last night,” said Tom, scrambling onto his perch as Sebastian gave the horses the office to start. “Not till the Reverend started screeching, at any rate.”
    Sebastian nodded. “I gather the combination of a murdered Bishop and legions of old, half-decayed corpses was too much for the man’s delicate sensi—What?” he said, breaking off when Tom leaned forward to give an audible sniff. “What is it?”
    Tom’s nose wrinkled. “What’s that smell?”
    “The crypt. I’m told the odor is rather pervasive.”
    “Per-what?”
    “Pervasive. It sinks in and doesn’t go away.”
    “I don’t know about that, but there’s no denying it stinks.” He cast a wistful gaze over his shoulder as they started on the road back to London. “I’d like to ’ave seen it.”
    “Would you indeed? Frankly, I think it’s the best argument in favor of cremation I’ve ever encountered.”
    “Cre-what?”
    “Cremation. It’s a method of body disposal practiced by the Hindus in India. The deceased is placed on a pile of wood, and burned.”
    “ Burned? But that’s ’orrible. Why, it’s . . . it’s unchristian, it is.”
    Sebastian laughed. “You think that’s horrible, you should see what thirty or forty years in a crypt will do to you.” As they reached the outskirts of the village, he dropped his hands and let the chestnuts spring forward. “I tell you what: When we get to Paul Gibson’s surgery, you can have a look at the mummified body they brought out of that crypt. Make up your own mind.”
    Tom stared at him. “I can?”
    “You can.”
    “Gor,” said Tom, and gave a little shiver of anticipatory delight.
    But by the time they reached the narrow winding lanes and ancient stone shops of Tower Hill, the sun was high in the sky and the coats of the horses gleamed dark with sweat.
    “If you’re gonna be ’ere long, I reckon I should take the chestnuts back to Brook Street,” said Tom, unable to keep the disappointment out of his voice.
    Sebastian hopped down to the lane’s worn footpath. “Yes, take them home. They’ve had a good run. See them put up, and then bring the curricle back with the grays.”
    Tom’s face cleared. “And then can I see the mummy?”
    “And then you can see the mummy.”
    “Thank you, my lord!”
    Sebastian stood for a moment, watching the former street urchin negotiate his way through the lane’s traffic with admirable skill. Then Sebastian turned to cut through the noisome alley that ran along one side of the surgery to a neglected rear garden and the low stone building where Paul Gibson performed his autopsies. It was also here where the surgeon expanded his understanding of the human body with surreptitious dissections performed on a covert supply of cadavers, culled from the city’s churchyards and sold by masked, dangerous men who did their best work on dark and