“That would have been only six years or so after Mr.Darwin publishedOn the Origin of Species,” I mused. “A new fossil would certainly have added fuel to the particular fires his book ignited.” “Conflagration” might have been a better choice of word. Mr.Darwin’s book had challenged the understood order of things, setting forth ideas that had been circulating for some time amongst natural historians but which were met with alarm if not outright violence by the general public.Charges of indecency and blasphemy were leveled against scientists as a result.
“What happened to the fossil?” I enquired.
Tiberius spread his hands. “Lost.”
Stoker spoke up. “The cliffs were like sugar, crumbling to bits. That is how the beast came to light in the first place. There were storms that summer, sudden and violent. One uncovered it, and another washed it away.”
“Away?” My voice rose in dismay.
“The cliffside where it sat was badly eroded,” Stoker told me. “A particularly nasty storm saw it fall into the sea, taking the bones with it. There were a few rough sketches made, but no evidence of it remained.”
“It was lost in the storm—as was Lorenzo,” Tiberius added softly.
“Surely he would have known it was a dangerous undertaking,” I ventured.
“A child would have known,” Tiberius said dryly. “The cliff was unstable at the best of times. It grew far more precarious over the years, and periodically Father would order the thing roped off until a fresh rockfall rendered it stable again by sloughing off the rotten bits. He was most reluctant to let Lorenzo and Kaspar go pottering about, but they were so enthusiastic, he finally gave way. After the first storm exposed the dinosaur, Kaspar had a nasty little accident—a slip that might have hurled him into the sea. He managed to catch himself but he strained his shoulder badly—dislocated it, if memory serves. He went about looking pale and tragic with his arm in a sling. But it was enough to alarm Father, and he ordered ropes put up. He didn’t want any of the village children from Dearsley falling into the sea.”
“Not because he had any concern for them,” Stoker put in. “He simply didn’t want to pay off their parents if one of them was dashed on the rocks below.”
“That was his primary motivation,” Tiberius admitted. “Of course, it drove Lorenzo wild with frustration. All he wanted was to get his dinosaur safely dug out of the cliffside. But it was terribly wet at the end of that summer, thunderstorms almost every day, and bit by bit, the exposed cliff face was falling to pieces. Lorenzo feared if he didn’t excavate it at once, it would be lost forever. So, one night when a tempest was upon us, he apparently left the house after everyone else had retired.”
“Apparently?” I asked quickly.
“No one saw him go. There is a garden entrance at the back of the house. It gives directly onto a rose alley which ends at a path leading to the cliffs. The main doors are bolted shut every night, but the butler discovered the garden door was unlocked and told Father at once. The house was searched to see if someone had burgled us, but we realised almost instantly that Lorenzo’s bed had not been slept in. We were organising a search party when one of the village fishermen arrived. He had come in early with his catch and seen Lorenzo.” He stopped abruptly and Stoker filled in the rest.
“The sea has been lapping at those cliffs for centuries, and from time to time, a bit of the land falls away, leaving a treacherous collection of boulders, some rising just above the level of the water. Lorenzo had landed there. I was forbidden from going to look, but—” He paused with a shrug. I understood only too well the pull of the macabre to an imaginative child. “He lay on the rocks, just as he had landed. It was not a pretty death,” Stoker concluded. “He looked...”
He turned to his brother, and Tiberius finished the sentence with a shudder. “He looked as if he had been flung there by the hand of God.”
CHAPTER
4
There was nothing to be done,” Tiberius went on wearily. “His body was retrieved, and Father, in his capacity as magistrate, ensured an immediate verdict of accidental death was returned at the inquest. It was all quite straightforward.”
I spread my hands. “It seems itwasan accident, Tiberius. A tragic one, but an accident nonetheless. If anyone is to hold responsibility for it, surely it must be Lorenzo d’Ambrogio himself.”
He hesitated before shaking his head slowly. “I don’t know. It was a simple matter at the time to believe it an accident, but I was uneasy.”
“About?” Stoker asked.
“I cannot say. It was only ever a vague sense of disquiet. I did not examine it closely then. We were young and all of us bereft at his loss. His things were packed up and sent to his parents and the rest of us dispersed. We went our separate ways and that was the end of it. I wrote a letter of condolence to the d’Ambrogios. They had been enormously kind during our stay in their castello. Lorenzo was their only son, and I knew they would take the news very badly. He had been their pride and joy, you see. You know what Italians are. The d’Ambrogios wanted a dozen children, but in the end, they had only Lorenzo and a much younger sister, Stella.”His mouth curved into a smile. “A monster, spoilt beyond belief, but Lorenzo adored her. The rest of us thought she was diabolical, always putting salt into our wine or toads in our beds. Very unlike Kaspar’s sisters—the most delectable Rhine maidens with golden braids and the ruthless stamina of Valkyries. I dallied with both of them and it was highly instructive,” he said, his voice trailing off as he reminisced.
I snapped my fingers in front of his face. “The d’Ambrogios,” I reminded him. “You wrote them a letter of condolence?”
He shrugged. “I hardly knew what to say to them. In the end, I wrote some nonsense about those whom the gods love dying young. I cannot think it was any consolation to them. I heard nothing in return, and I was not much surprised. No doubt they wanted to put all memory of us behind them.”
I nodded to the cutting with its melodramatic notation.VENGEANCE FOR LORENZO. “If someone is targeting the former Sinners, then someone who loved Lorenzo is the likeliest candidate. Who better than his family to avenge him?”
Tiberius shook his head. “A tidy solution but impossible. The parents and sister died within a year or two of Lorenzo—an outbreak of fever, I heard, but I think it must have been something else.”
“A heart can be broken so badly that the body can no longer recover,” Stoker put in. I dared not look at him, but Tiberius held his gaze.
“Just so.”
He paused a moment, in silent homage to the fallen house of d’Ambrogio, I fancied. When he went on, he seemed to collect himself a little. “The house party broke up as soon as Lorenzo was buried, the rest of us scattering to the four winds. James was newly engaged and he went off to marry his Augusta. Alexandre and Kaspar returned to the Continent, as did Pietro. Benedict decided to embark upon a series of missionary trips, and I applied myself, rather too successfully, to a period of studied debauchery in Paris and Vienna. I confess, I did wonder a time or twoabout the oddness of Lorenzo’s death, but the longer I stayed away and the more I drank and dallied, the less often I thought of it.”
“But why would someone hold you—or any of the other Sinners—responsible for Lorenzo’s death?” I asked. “It was an accident.”
