Seventy-Four Billion Reasons

Chapter Four: The Empty Chapel

They buried Barnaby Larkin three days later from St. Anselm's, a crumbling stone chapel at the bottom of Gilder's Row with a leaking roof and pews for sixty. Darius chose it because his grandfather used to eat his lunch on its front steps, and he invited no one. He had spent three days reading the names in those ledgers, and he wanted no condolences from people who owed the old man money.

When he told Basil, the steward only nodded. "You may find the chapel fuller than you expect," was all he said.

At ten o'clock it held exactly three people and a plain oak coffin. Darius stood at the front in a borrowed black suit, Basil waited beside him in his grey coat, and an elderly priest leafed through his notes while rain drummed on the roof and dripped steadily into a bucket by the altar.

Then the door swung open, and the Fairfaxes walked in shaking out their umbrellas.

Cordelia came first, in black silk and pearls, as if she had dressed for a society luncheon. Reginald followed her, a heavy man with tired eyes who looked as though he would rather be anywhere else. Cordelia marched straight up the aisle and held out a cream envelope.

"Eighty thousand dollars," she said. "The ballroom, the catering, the quartet. We lent it to you in good faith for an engagement that turned out to be a fraud. I expect it repaid."

Darius looked at the envelope without taking it. The Fairfaxes had insisted on paying for that party, because they didn't want their friends to see what a watchmaker's grandson could afford. Now, apparently, it had become a loan.

Before he could answer, the door opened again. Jasper Ellingham walked in with Sienna on his arm, both dressed in perfect black. Sienna wore dark glasses and didn't take them off. Jasper strolled up the aisle as if he owned the building and stopped beside Cordelia with an easy smile.

"My condolences, Darius," he said. "Truly. I came to make you an offer." He nodded toward the street. "That little shop on Gilder's Row. Developers have been circling the Lower Town for years, and I'm feeling generous. Two hundred thousand, cash, by Friday." He lowered his voice. "Penrose may have folded, but the pension fund's lawyers haven't. Think of it as help with your legal fees."

The land alone was worth ten times that, and they both knew it.

Cordelia turned slowly, taking in the empty pews, the bucket by the altar and the single wreath Basil had placed on the coffin. Then she laughed, a light little sound that echoed off the stone walls.

"Eighty-two years," she said. "Eighty-two years of life, and not one person came to say goodbye. I suppose that tells you everything you need to know about the man."

Sienna looked away. Reginald shifted uncomfortably. Darius said nothing at all, because he wasn't looking at any of them. He was watching the door.

The first engine came at a quarter past ten. Then another, and another, until the low rumble of motors filled Gilder's Row and the rain outside was lit by headlights. Black cars rolled down the narrow street one after another and stopped nose to tail, stretching back past the shuttered bakery and around the corner.

The mayor of Ostley was first through the chapel door. Behind him came the governor of the Ostley Central Bank, two judges of the High Court still wearing their court collars beneath their coats, and a cluster of shipping magnates whose family names were painted on half the cranes in the harbor. Dr. Okoye, the surgeon who had tried so hard to save Barnaby, came in with his head bowed. Commissioner Penrose followed in full dress uniform.

They kept coming. Within minutes, three hundred of the most powerful people in Ostley were packed into a chapel built for sixty. They filled every pew and lined the walls, stood shoulder to shoulder in the aisle, and spilled out onto the steps, where they waited in the rain without complaint.

Each of them carried a single white chrysanthemum. One by one they walked to the front, laid the flower on Barnaby's coffin, and then turned to Darius and bowed. It wasn't a polite nod. It was a real bow, slow and deliberate, from people who didn't bow to anyone. Soon the coffin disappeared beneath a mound of white petals.

The Fairfaxes had been pushed back against the wall by the crowd. Cordelia's mouth hung open. "Reginald," she whispered, "is that the mayor? Why is the mayor here for a watchmaker?" Sienna had taken off her glasses and was staring at the coffin.

They had no idea what they were seeing, but Jasper did. Darius watched the understanding hit him, watched his easy smile fail as the city's elite bowed one after another to the man he had tried to send to prison.

Severin Ellingham arrived last.

The crowd parted for him without being asked. He was tall and silver-haired, past sixty, in a long black coat, and he moved with the unhurried calm of a man who expected doors to open before he reached them. Jasper stepped forward. "Father," he began, but Severin walked past him without a glance, as though his son were part of the wall.

He laid his chrysanthemum on the coffin and stood there for a long moment. Then he turned to Darius and spoke so softly that no one else could hear.

"Your grandfather and I had an understanding for a great many years, Mr. Larkin. I hope that you and I can reach one too."

He removed his glove and offered his hand. On his finger was a heavy silver ring shaped like a crow, its wings folded and its eyes set with tiny black stones. Darius thought of the feather sitting in the inside pocket of his borrowed suit. He shook the hand anyway, and he didn't look away first.

The priest kept the service short. When it ended, the mourners began filing out into the rain, and many stopped to pay their respects again on the way. A heavyset man with a gray beard, the chairman of Coldridge Bank, paused in front of Darius and bowed his head.

"My deepest condolences, Keeper," he said quietly.

Reginald Fairfax was standing close enough to hear it, and the word stopped him where he stood.

Last spring, Fairfax Construction had been three weeks from bankruptcy. Every bank in Ostley had turned him away. Then, overnight, a private lender had appeared with fair terms, enough money to save everything, and one strict condition of absolute secrecy. Reginald had never met the lender. He had never even learned who it was.

He grabbed his wife's arm so hard that she winced. "Cordelia," he whispered hoarsely. "The loan that saved us last year. Every page of that contract was signed with one name."

She stared at him. "What name?"

Reginald looked across the chapel at the young man standing beside the coffin.

"Larkin."