Justice Hall - Laurie R. King [112]
The kitchen was pure Victorian, a gloomy servant’s quarter without the servant. The shelves and cupboards had been painted a peculiar and unappetising shade of green long before Victoria died—perhaps even while Albert was still alive. The fluttering gas lamps reflected off that paint made our host look like a corpse, moving between hob and cupboards.
“Will you take coffee?” he asked over his shoulder, sounding as if he hoped the answer would be negative so he could drink in peace.
“Thank you,” Holmes answered for us both. Hastings had yet to acknowledge my presence; however, three cups appeared on the tray. In silence, he spooned and stirred and filtered the fragrant beverage into a dented silver pot gone black with tarnish, and carried the tray out of the room as if we were not there. Obediently, we trailed after.
The sitting room needed the gas up even in the middle of the morning. The coals in the grate smoked in a sullen fashion, as if they’d been put on wet, and the lamp on the wall behind me flickered badly. Hastings laid the tray on a low table, took what was obviously his customary chair beside a taller table piled high with books, and bent forward to pour into the three cups. He took his black, and left us to add sugar or milk as we wished. The milk in the jug looked dubious, so I satisfied myself with three sugars. I stirred, sipped, and coughed in astonishment.
For the first time, Hastings noted my presence enough to glance at me. “Is there something wrong with it?”
“No, no—not at all,” I assured him. “It’s delicious.”
Actually, it was, but also powerful. The dim light and lack of cream had not prepared me for a brew nearly the equivalent of the thick Arabic stuff Mahmoud had made. It was not what I would have expected from such a frail creature.
“I drink it strong,” he told us. “It keeps me from sleep.”
Holmes glanced up sharply, as the dread permeating the word “sleep” slapped into the room. Hastings might as well have substituted the word “nightmares.”
Holmes set down his cup and got the ordeal under way.
“Reverend Mr Hastings, as I told you in my letter, I am making enquiries for the Duke of Beauville into the death of his nephew, Gabriel Hughenfort. I was given your name as chaplain to the regiment in which Hughenfort was serving at the time of his execution.”
Hastings jerked so sharply at the last word that some of the coffee splashed out of the cup onto his knee. He did not notice.
“You can’t—,” he said. “I can’t—oh my dear Lord, he was only a child, nothing more than a child!”
And then he was weeping. An aged man carrying a burden of pain raw enough to reduce him to hard sobs is a terrifying thing to behold, and Holmes and I exchanged a horrified glance before he shot out one hand to rescue the cup. I reached for the throw on the back of my seat and draped it across Hastings’ shoulders, a pointless gesture but the only sort of comfort I could come up with at the moment.
“Perhaps some tea, Russell?” Holmes murmured. “If you can find some fresher milk?”
I slid away gratefully to the kitchen, located some more promising milk in the cooler portion of the pantry, and found that he had left the kettle simmering away. In bare minutes I was back, and Holmes thrust the hot, sweet tea into the man’s hands.
The gentler stimulant did its work. When the cup held only a sludge of sugar at the bottom, Hastings drew a shaky breath and handed it over to be refilled. When that cup was halfway down, he summoned the strength to begin his tale.
“They were such children, by that point in the War—red-cheeked and frightened, trying so hard to keep a brave face, for themselves and the others. In the early days, of course, that wasn’t the case. I offered my services as soon as war was declared, so I saw