Matthew Corbett 02 - The Queen of Bedlam mc-2

by Robert R. McCammon

  “Yessir, that would be the thing to do. I ought to go get some help, though.”

  “All right, but be careful. Oh, and listen: will you inform High Constable Lillehorne of this, and tell him I’d be happy to help him in any way possible?”

  “I will, sir. You ought to get in yourself now, Mr. Kippering. Work such as this ought to be left to the professionals.”

  “My thoughts exactly. Goodnight, Giles.”

  “’Night, sir.”

  Kippering closed the door, rebolted it, and turned to face Matthew. “As I said, all blood smears look the same.” He glanced at the open trunk. “What are you searching for now? Costumes for the dance?”

  “There are clothes in here,” Matthew said, his voice tight.

  “Yes, there are.”

  “There are gloves in here.” Matthew held up a pair. They were black and made of thin cloth.

  “Your powers of observation are stunning. You might also observe that those are women’s gowns and underclothing.” He held up a large hand, took two strides forward, and demonstrated how small the glove was. It looked to fit a child. “Women’s gloves. I think there may be some men’s shirts and a coat or two down there at the bottom, but I haven’t gone all the way through. You’ll note that everything is moldering and musty and is probably over twenty years old.”

  Matthew was flustered. He was so eager to believe he’d found the Masker’s hidden cache of clothes that the first black gown on top had addled his brain. “Well…where did all this come from?”

  “We’re not sure, but we think one of Gorendyke’s clients used the trunk as payment for legal services. Or it might have come from the estate of someone who died aboard ship on the way over. We’re going to throw it out, sooner or later. Are you done?”

  Matthew nodded, his brow furrowed.

  Kippering closed the lid. “If you didn’t hear, I showed Giles Wintergarten the blood smear and I told him to inform Lillehorne. I think the Masker either really did try to get in-though I didn’t hear anything as I’ve been upstairs for at least an hour-or being such a clever murderer as you feel him to be, he deliberately left a mark for your benefit.”

  “For my benefit? Why?”

  “Well, he stopped your following him, didn’t he?”

  “He couldn’t have known I would see the mark,” Matthew said.

  “No, but he might have reasoned the odds were on his side that you would.” Kippering gave a smile, which on his usually handsome but now dark-shadowed face seemed a little ghastly. “I think the Masker might also be a gambler. Don’t you?”

  Matthew cast his eyes down. He didn’t know what to think. As he was pondering what to him was an appalling lack of mental acuity, he saw his candlelight gleam on an object that leaned against one of the shelves. It was a strange object to be down here, he thought. A pair of hammered-brass firetongs, yet there was certainly no fireplace in the cellar.

  He walked to the firetongs and picked them up. The business end of the tongs had been thinned by some scraping instrument or grinding wheel, it appeared. “What’s this for?”

  Kippering took the tongs, turned away, and reached up to a top shelf to grasp a packet of papers, which he brought down trailing dust. He waved the papers in front of Matthew’s face before returning them to where they’d been likely situated for years.

  Matthew sniffed, holding back a sneeze, and rubbed his nose.

  “Want a drink?” Kippering asked. “I’ve got that half-bottle of brandy left. You can help me celebrate the fact that I only lost five shillings and eight pence at gambling tonight, and that I overpaid by twice for a cheap bottle of wine at Madam Blossom’s.”

  “No,” Matthew said, already feeling thoroughly debilitated. “Thank you.”

  “Then may I give you some free legal advice?” Kippering waited for Matthew to give him his full attention. “I would refrain from mentioning to anyone that you discovered Ausley’s body. That is, if you wish to remain free to walk around town.”

  “Pardon?”

  “You were nearly first on the scene with Mr. Deverick, weren’t you? And now first to find Ausley? I’d hate to think what Lillehorne might do with that, since he seems to consider you such an outspoken boon to his authority.”

  “I didn’t murder anyone. Why should I not tell Lillehorne?”

  “Because,” Kippering said, “the high constable will find your presence at both murders so interesting that he will wish to know what you were doing out tonight. And even though you and I may believe that Lillehorne is not entirely up to the job, he is relentless when it suits him to be. Thus he will wish to know in exacting detail your progress through this night, and he may well feel you are best questioned behind the security of iron bars. He will ask questions here and there and there and here, and sooner or later he’ll find out that you and the future husband of our good reverend’s daughter were meeting at a rather dismal little drinking and gambling establishment festooned with whores. For privacy, did you say? Do you see my direction?”

  Matthew did, but he remained sullenly silent.

  “Of course you do,” Kippering went on. “Now I don’t know what you and Mr. Five were talking about in that back room, but you can be sure Lillehorne will find out.”

  “That has nothing to do with the Masker. It’s private business.”

  “Yes, you keep using that word, and that will only feed Lillehorne’s desire to root out whatever secret you have.” He paused to let Matthew feel the sting of that particular fish-hook. “Now in a few minutes I’m going to put on my official lawyer’s face, straighten my suit and comb my hair, and walk out to stand alongside Ausley’s corpse until the body-cart pulls up. I suggest you go home, go to bed, and in the morning you are as surprised to hear of Eben Ausley’s death as anyone in New York. How does that settle with you?”

  Matthew thought about it, though there wasn’t a lot of thinking to be done. It wouldn’t do for questions to be asked about Matthew’s jaunts this night, not with Reverend Wade’s problem still unknown. He said quietly, “It settles.”

  “Good. Incidentally, I’m sure Giles will carry that information about the blood smear straight to Lillehorne, in case you’re thinking this is an attempt to keep you from telling anyone. I assure you I couldn’t care less, just so long as he doesn’t come up behind me on a dark night.” Kippering motioned Matthew toward the stairs.

  At the front, Matthew hesitated in the doorway before Kippering could shut him out. He gazed up at the candle-illuminated window. “Tell me, if you will,” he said, “why you’re at work so late.”

  Kippering kept the faint smile on his face. “I don’t sleep very well. Never have. Goodnight. Oh…two last things: I should avoid the crowd up there on Barrack, and I should beware not the Masker but some frightened rabbit with a blunderbuss.” So saying, he pushed the door shut and Matthew heard the latch fall.

  Matthew looked toward City Hall and saw the wash of candlelight in two of the attic’s small square windows. He’d never been up there before, as access to that area was by invitation only; that portion was the office and also the living quarters of Ashton McCaggers, whose abilities as coroner more than made up for his eccentricities. It appeared McCaggers was awake and preparing for another session in the cold room.

  Zed would be hauling the body-cart past here soon. It was time to go.

  Matthew crossed Broad Street to Princes Street, intending to go back up Smith and then to the Broad Way and home, thus bypassing that noisy rabble gathered around the corpse of Eben Ausley. As he made his way past the late-flickering lamps on their cornerposts, the warm breeze moving about him with its leathery smells of dockside tar and sewer ditch, he knew he would find sleep a troubling companion this night. There would be many echoes in his mind calling for recognition or resolve, and many that might never be resolved. In truth, he felt fortunate to have survived not only a gunshot and dog attack but the Masker himself, who might easily have turned on him and cut him to pieces with a hooked b
lade.

  As for Ausley, he felt…nothing.

  No anger, no sadness, no loss, no gain, no sense of justice, no exultation at the death of a wicked man.

  He felt as if a slate within him upon which he’d marked balances for such a very long time had been wiped clean. Just that.

  When he reached the safety of the pottery, he left the walking-stick on the ground alongside the building. He intended to rise with the sun, take the stick out to the East River, and consign it to dark water, where it might vanish in time from sight and memory like its late owner.

  Matthew went up to bed, remembering to wash his hands.

  Seventeen

  Because at breakfast the Stokelys had not yet heard about the murder of Eben Ausley, Matthew’s first real test of monitoring his mouth came when he took his clothes to his laundress, the widow Sherwyn, as was his habit every Friday.

  She was a big, robust, white-haired woman who’d outlived two husbands, owned a little stone house and attached laundry shop on Queen Street, and who collected gossips and town-tales as someone else might pin butterflies onto black velvet. Furthermore, she was an excellent laundress and very fair in her prices, so even at this early morning hour she’d already had half-a-dozen customers bringing in not only stained gowns and dirtied shirts but all the news of the night. It was for no little reason that Marmaduke Grigsby brought his clothes here and lingered over apple cider and gingerbread to trade topics, as when he left here he had enough bustarole to fill a month of Earwigs though if he printed most of it he’d have been either shot or hanged.

  “Baaaaad night,” said Widow Sherwyn as Matthew entered the shop with his bundle. It was said with grim foreboding, yet the color in her cheeks was as merry as a three-penny play. “But I suppose you’ve already heard?”

  “Pardon?” was all he could say.

  “Another murder,” she explained. “Happened on Barrack Street, around midnight I hear. And guess who’s the dead gent?”

  “Um…I’m not good at guessing, madam. You’ll have to tell me.”

  She waved a hand at him to say he was no fun. “Eben Ausley. The headmaster at the orphanage. Well, you ought to look more shocked than that! Didn’t you say you grew up in that wretched place?”

  “It wasn’t so wretched…” He almost said before Ausley got there. “…when I was growing up,” he finished. “I regret Ausley’s death, of course. I have four shirts and three pair of breeches today.” The shirt that had been bloodied by Phillip Covey was not among them, as it was now only suited for rags.

  “What about that shirt you’re wearing? Right wicked stain on the front.”

  Courtesy of Joplin Pollard’s tipsy hand, Matthew thought. He’d put water on it when he’d gotten home, but too late. Actually he counted himself lucky the Thorn Bush ale hadn’t burned a hole in it. “My last shirt,” he said. “Have to do.”

  “Liquor stain?” she asked, narrowing her eyes. “You out and about last night?”

  “Yes and yes.”

  “I can smell the pipe smoke. Gentlemen’s habits, indeed! You fellows mess up, we women clean up. All right then, I’ll have these ready for you on Monday. Tuesday if I fall behind. Hey.” She beckoned him closer with a forefinger. “Have you seen my Marmaduke lately?”

  “Mr. Grigsby? Yes.” My Marmaduke? Evidently these two had more going on than the sharing of tidbits.

  “Well, when you see him again, tell him I have it on good authority that some fine lady on Golden Hill ordered a silver service that arrived yesterday from Amsterdam and when the bill was presented her husband made a cannon sound meek. Well, she shot one back at him too. Then the battle began. You could hear them wrangling from there to Long Island. Almost put out on the street, is what happened.”

  “Who? The wife?”

  “Naw! The husband! Shosh, everybody knows Princess rules that-oopsie, look what you’ve made me go out and spill! I never said that name, now, Matthew!”

  “Princess Lillehorne?”

  “Never never never did I say that name! Go on about your business, now! But don’t believe that everything on Golden Hill is gold! You’ll pass that along to ’Duke, won’t you?”

  “Very well.” Matthew started for the door, but sometimes getting away from Widow Sherwyn was like walking through a puddle of tar.

  “What tavern did you acquaint last night, Matthew?”

  There was no need for a lie, as she could run one down like a hound after a hare. “I spent some time at the Thorn Bush.”

  “My lord!” Her sky-blue eyes widened. “Have you put aside those celestial books and decided to join the rest of us earthbound heathens?”

  “I hope that one night and one stain doesn’t mean a fall from grace.”

  “Well, you might have fallen into Grace! That’s the name of Polly’s new whore, you know. Grace Hester. She’s been working the Thorn Bush.”

  “I’m sure I didn’t know.” Suddenly Matthew was struck by the fact that not a teacup could be filled, broken, or peed in without Widow Sherwyn hearing of it. Her outsized personality was a lamp-no, a lighthouse-that drew to her the tales of joy, sorrow, and intrigue that no magistrate nor constable would ever hear. He realized then what a treasure she was, particularly for someone in his new-found profession of problem solver. And, also, how useful she might be simply as a sounding-board.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked, pausing in her folding of clothes from one basket to another.

  “No reason,” Matthew answered. “Just thinking how you know everyone, and how much you know about everyone. You’ve been in this location for how long?”

  “Twenty-eight years in the town. Twelve years here. Proud of every day of it.”

  “Well you should be.” He offered her his best smile. “I’m sure I couldn’t get along without you.”

  “Sure you could. There are three other laundresses in New York, take your pick. Except don’t go to Jane Neville, she’s too expensive by half. Thievery, I call it. Outright larceny, and she doesn’t even boil enough fat in her soap.” Widow Sherwyn stopped herself, as the dawn of understanding bloomed on her face. “Oh, I see your drift. You’re wanting to know what about whom?”

  Matthew glanced toward the door to make sure no one else was coming in. “General impressions. Andrew Kippering.”

  “Why?”

  “I saw him at the Thorn Bush last night. He and his partner, Pollard. In fact, this stain came from Pollard’s tankard of ale. They were both gambling at one of the dice tables.”

  “You still haven’t said why.” The widow’s expression was now solidly serious.

  “I’m curious,” Matthew explained, “as to why attorney Kippering keeps such late hours.” He decided to leave it at that.

  Widow Sherwyn cocked her head and stared at him intently. “If you’re wanting to mingle with the ordinary folk,” she said, “I expect you shouldn’t start with Kippering, as from what I hear he might drag you into an early grave.”

  “He leads an active life, I presume?”

  “Drinking, gambling, and whoring, probably not in that order. But that’s common knowledge, isn’t it?”

  “Tell me something that’s not,” Matthew urged.

  “Kippering is not one of my customers. Neither is Pollard. But Fitzgerald comes in regularly. I’ll tell you something about him, if you wish to know.”

  “I do.”

  “Fitzgerald is a serious young man with a wife and two children. Lives on Crown Street, in a simple house. If one is to believe Fitzgerald-and I do-he does most of the work. The ‘cleaning-up,’ as he once put it, for both his partners. Is paid very well also, but he and his wife are of Puritan stock and they have no want for luxuries…beyond my service, I mean. So my impression of all three of those gentlemen is that Pollard is the one with ambition, Fitzgerald the one with brains, and Kippering the one trying to kill himself.”

  “To kill himself?” Matthew asked.

  “Surely. And this doesn’t come from Fitz
gerald, but I have it from a good source that Kippering is one of Polly’s best customers. Stands to reason, of course, but there’s a misery to it. He comes in drunk, sleeps with a whore-and sometimes just sleeps-and then off again. Sometimes stays there the whole night. Keeps a room in Mary Belovaire’s house across from Sally Almond’s tavern. Cot and a desk, is what I hear. In and out all hours. Mary’s had to help him up the steps many nights, or many early mornings as might be. Pays his bills all right, but he gambles an awful lot. It’ll catch up to him, sooner or later. Has no desire for a wife and family-though Lord knows Mary’s got a line of ladies wanting to meet him, or used to before he got so sotted. Even the most foolish of the young pretties don’t want to ride a rumpot stallion. So he drinks himself into stupors, throws his money away gambling, and almost has his name burned on a door at Polly Blossom’s. Doesn’t that sound to you like someone who pretends to enjoy life but really is in a great hurry to die?”

  “It sounds to me,” said Matthew, “like how three-quarters of the young men in New York would live, if they could.”

  Widow Sherwyn gave a mocking smile. “He’s supposed to be smarter than most. And he’s not that young.”

  “Interesting,” Matthew said, but inwardly he gave a shudder. He had to wonder what Widow Sherwyn would say about him, if someone were to inquire.

  “Now you owe me,” she announced.

  “Owe you?” He realized this woman reduced him to sounding like a dunce.

  “Yes, indeedy. Did you think this caboodle was free? You pass along a good word for me to ’Duke, and when you come back to pick up your clothes you bring me a tidbit I don’t know.”

  “The first is easy. I’m afraid the second may be impossible.”

  “I’ll accept that as a compliment, but not as a bribe. Find me something of interest. Now scat, tomcat!”

  Matthew got out of the place before he had to promise up his first-born child. It was another beautiful morning, the sky bright blue with only hints of wispy clouds. The scents of gardens and good earth wafted on the breeze. Even the smells of rotting timbers of old Dutch wharfs and a dead turtle the size of a cart-wheel had not dismayed Matthew this morning, as he’d consigned Ausley’s stick to the East River at sunup. He turned right, intending to follow Queen Street to the Broad Way and then south into the bustling town. His plan was to go to City Hall and do his clerking for Magistrate Powers in the case of the rowdy George Knox. His arm was still a little sore but the yarrow oil had done wonders for it, and he did think his hand could manage a quill without wandering out of line.