What Remains of Heaven by C. S. Harris Read Free Book Online Page A

Canterbury had been chaplain to the Bishop of Durham. Serving as a Bishop’s chaplain was an important step up the ecclesiastical ladder.
    “I assume you’ll wish to begin with—” The Chaplain broke off, his thin nose twitching.
    “It’s the crypt,” said Sebastian, letting his gaze drift around the entry with its gleaming marble floors, its soaring wall panels, its rows of heavy oils framed in gilt and hung with more black crepe. Yards and yards of black crepe. “I’m told the odor lingers.”
    “Yes, well . . .” The Chaplain cleared his throat and ges tured with one hand toward the stairs. “The Bishop’s official chambers are this way. If you’ll come with me?”
    Sebastian followed the black-robed man up the grand staircase, their footsteps echoing in the stillness of the vast house. “The Bishop was here yesterday?”
    “Most of the day, yes,” said the Chaplain, pausing on the first floor to throw open the doors to a set of apartments to the left of the stairs. “He had a number of appointments. We weren’t scheduled to move to Lambeth Palace—the Bishop’s summer residence—for another fortnight.”
    These rooms, like those below, were in shadow, the blinds drawn fast. But Sebastian’s eyes were unusually well adapted to the dark. Pausing just inside the entrance, he let his gaze wander over the wainscoted anteroom, its gilded, velvet-covered benches and unlit branches of wax candles in gleaming brass sconces. Beyond the anteroom lay a second, smaller chamber with a broad desk. Sebastian had taken two steps toward it when the Chaplain cleared his throat again.
    “You’ll understand, of course, that ecclesiastical affairs are often of a, shall we say, delicate nature?”
    Sebastian looked around. “Meaning?”
    “Meaning, the Archbishop has delegated to me the task of going through the Bishop’s papers. I can assure you that if I find anything that appears relevant to his death, I will of course pass it on to you.”
    “In other words, the Archbishop would rather I refrain from rifling through the Bishop’s drawers? Is that what you’re saying?”
    The Chaplain gave a nervous titter, but didn’t contradict him.
    Sebastian wandered the rooms, his hands clasped behind his back. The Chaplain trailed at a distance of six or seven feet, a handkerchief pressed surreptitiously to his nose. But there was little enough for Sebastian to see. As an administrator, Prescott had obviously possessed a passion for neatness; the surface of his desk was clean and polished, every drawer carefully closed. If the Bishop had any skeletons in his life, he’d kept them tucked away, out of sight.
    “What about the Bishop’s private apartments?” said Sebastian.
    “They’re upstairs. This way.”
    The Bishop’s private chambers on the second floor were more relaxed and informal, for it was here that Prescott had passed his leisure hours. A riding quirt and a pair of gloves rested beside a snuffbox on the gleaming surface of the inlaid round table at the center of the room, as if their owner had just stepped out and would return in a moment. Near the hearth, a book lay open across the arm of an overstuffed chair. Sebastian glanced at the title. The Libation Bearers , by Aeschylus.
    He turned in a slow circle. Most of the walls not taken up with windows were covered by vast floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Running his gaze over the titles, he was surprised to see the works of Cicero and Aristotle, Plato and Seneca, nestled beside the more predictable volumes on Aquinas and Augustine.
    “An interesting collection,” said Sebastian.
    “The Bishop began his career as a classics scholar at Christ’s College, in Cambridge.”
    “He had no family?”
    “A nephew only. His wife passed away some eight or nine years ago. There were never any children.”
    “Was he close to his nephew?”
    “Very. Sir Peter was like a son to him.”
    Sebastian swung around to look back at the Chaplain. “The Bishop’s nephew