Matthew Corbett 02 - The Queen of Bedlam mc-2

by Robert R. McCammon

  Ah, Matthew thought. Here they were, then. The last possessions of Eben Ausley as he was carved out of the earth to reap his reward. His clothes wrapped in the paper. The vial had to be the sickening cloves cologne. The keys to the locks of the orphanage. The pencil to record Ausley’s gambling losses, meals, comings-and-goings, and whatever else lay in his mind’s brackish swamp.

  “I haven’t, no,” Matthew answered. He felt a little itch at the back of his brain.

  “I presume someone will come along, eventually. The second-in-charge at the almshouse, perhaps. Or I’ll just put all this in a box and store it away.” McCaggers closed the drawer. “Did he never talk about a family?”

  Matthew shook his head. And then he realized what was making his brain itch. “Pardon me, but would you open that again?”

  McCaggers did, and stepped aside as Matthew approached.

  It only took a few seconds, actually. Hardly an inspection to see what was missing. “Ausley’s notebook,” Matthew said. “Where is it?”

  “I’m sorry? Where is what?”

  “Ausley always carried a small black notebook with gold ornamentation on the cover. I don’t see it here.” He looked into the coroner’s face. “Might it be wrapped up with the clothes?”

  “Positively not. Zed is meticulous in his removal of items from the clothing.”

  Far be it from Matthew to question Zed’s meticulosity. In fact, he had the keen sensation of being watched and when he glanced up at the roof hatch he saw the slave standing there staring down at him with an expression one might afford a tadpole in a teacup.

  Matthew looked at the objects in the drawer again, but he didn’t really see them for his eyes were clouded. “The notebook isn’t here,” he said quietly, mostly to himself.

  “If it isn’t here,” McCaggers offered, “it wasn’t on the body.” He pushed the drawer shut once more, and then walked to the weapons rack and chose another two pistols. He took them to a small round table where Matthew saw a box of lead balls, a powderhorn, and a number of flints arranged in readiness for the next assault on Elsie. “Would you care to take a shot?” he asked.

  “No, thank you. I do appreciate your time, though.” Matthew was already moving toward the door. He’d noted several holes in the wall beyond Elsie and two broken windowpanes. It amazed him that some gentleman or lady hadn’t gotten a sting in the wig by now.

  “Good day, then. Please feel free to come up from time to time, as I enjoy your company.”

  Coming from the eccentric-some would say half-mad-coroner, that was high praise indeed, Matthew thought. But now it was time to bite the lead ball and see if he could get out of this building without unpleasantries in the form of a diminutive high constable or a blowhard chief prosecutor. He left the attic, closed the door behind him, and descended toward the cruel and common earth.

  Nineteen

  Before Matthew could proceed with his intent to have lunch at the Gallop and settle into what would hopefully be a quiet afternoon, even as some in the town were organizing protests against the forthcoming Clear Streets Decree, he had a mission to complete.

  He’d been considering what he was to tell John Five about the reverend’s journey last night, and still-as one step after another took him nearer to Master Ross’ blacksmithery-he was unsure. It wouldn’t do to wait for John Five to come to him. As Matthew had been asked in all good faith to perform this duty, he felt obligated to report on his findings with proper speed, but yet…had he really made any findings? Of course he’d seen Wade sob in front of Madam Blossom’s house, but what did it mean? Sometimes, Matthew knew, there was a vast gulf between what was seen and what there was to be understood, and therein lay his problem.

  He entered the sullen heat of the smith’s shop, found John Five at his usual labor, and invited him outside to speak. The ritual of asking a few minutes from Master Ross was repeated, and shortly Matthew and John Five were standing together at about the same spot they’d been on Tuesday morning.

  “So,” John Five began, when Matthew was hesitant in speaking. “You followed him?”

  “I did.”

  “Busy night, that was. A terrible night, for Ausley.”

  “It was,” Matthew agreed.

  They were silent for a moment. Pedestrians passed on the sidewalk, a wagon carrying sacks of grain trundled by, and two children ran along rolling a stick-and-hoop.

  “Are you gonna tell me, or not?” John asked.

  Matthew decided to say, “Not.”

  John frowned. “And why not?”

  “I did discover his destination. But I’m not sure it was his usual destination. I don’t feel ready to tell you where it was, or what I witnessed there.”

  “Did you not understand how serious this thing is?”

  “Oh, I did and do understand. That’s exactly why I need more time.”

  “More time?” John Five thought about that. “You’re sayin’ you’re gonna follow him again?”

  “Yes,” Matthew said. “I want to see if he goes to the same place. If he does…I may wish to speak to him first. Then, according to how things progress, he may tell either you or Constance himself.”

  John ran a hand through his hair, his expression perplexed. “It must be bad.”

  “Right now, it’s neither good nor bad. My observations are unsupported, and thus I have to refrain from saying any more.” Matthew realized John Five was waiting for something else-anything he might grasp upon as a spar of hope-and so Matthew said, “There’s likely going to be a Clear Streets Decree tonight. The taverns will be closing early and there’ll be more constables on the streets. I doubt if Reverend Wade will be making his late-night walks until the decree is lifted, and when that will be I have no idea.”

  “He might not walk,” John said, “but his trouble won’t go away so easy.”

  “I think you’re absolutely right in that regard. For the time being, though, there’s nothing either of us can do.”

  “All right,” John Five said in a dispirited voice. “I don’t like it, but I guess it’ll have to be.”

  Matthew agreed that it would, wished his friend a good day, and promptly walked farther along the street to Tobias Winekoop’s stable where he secured Suvie for the next morning at six-thirty. His Saturday training session with Hudson Greathouse was looming ever more darkly in his mind, but at least he knew what to expect.

  Now there was one more errand he wished to conduct before lunch and this one had been prompted by Widow Sherwyn’s gossip of Golden Hill. Among the fine houses there was the red brick mansion belonging to the Deverick family. Matthew doubted that Lillehorne had spent much time-if any-interviewing Deverick’s widow Esther and son Robert about the elder man’s business affairs. Even if they were near neighbors, the Lillehornes and Devericks were not cut from the same cloth. It seemed to Matthew that if a connection was to be found between Dr. Godwin, Deverick, and now-of all unlikely persons-Ausley, such a link might be discovered in the business realm. He realized he might indeed be far off the mark, as how in the world could an orphanage headmaster with a gambling fetish be involved with a wealthy goods broker who had clawed his way up from the bitter streets of London? And furthermore, then, how was an eminent and much-admired physician involved with both of them?

  He intended to at least, as McCaggers might have said, take a shot at it. He started off northward toward the area known as Golden Hill, which was a row of palatial houses and gardens east of the Broad Way the length of Golden Hill Street between Crown and Fair.

  As Matthew approached this avenue of opulence he sidestepped a farmer’s wagon bringing hogs to market and looked up toward the heights where the rich folk lived. Golden Hill Street might be made of plain hard-packed dirt, but the residences were inhabited by the town’s gilded families. And what residences they were! Two-storied with ornate constructions of red, white, or yellow brick, cream-colored stone and gray rock, with balconies, terraces, and cupolas and cut-glass windows that gazed in all direc
tions upon harbor, townscape, and woodland as if marking what had passed and what was to pass in the history and future of New York. No doubt about it, these were the families who had created something of great value to this enterprise and were justly rewarded for their influence and financial bravery. All except Lillehorne, of course, who lived in the smallest house at the western end of the street and whose money came from his father-in-law, yet it was in the interest of those other stalwarts that a high constable be kept among the club if only as errand-boy.

  Here the street was neatly raked and kept free of those irritating mounds of manure otherwise endured by the ordinary joseph and josephine. Huge shade trees invited lingering where no lingering was tolerated, and bursts of flowers in geometric gardens wafted into the warm air complex aromas that seemed perhaps a little too sophisticated for nostrils assailed by dockyard tar and fried sausages in the small chaos called life down below.

  Matthew advanced eastward on the sidewalk, passing through pools of shade and again into bright sunlight. Everything seemed quieter up here, more restrained, tighter somehow. He could almost hear from marbled vestibules the thrum of pendulum clocks that were old before he was born, marking time for the servants as they moved from room to room. Even with his penchant for getting into places where he wasn’t welcomed, Matthew was a bit awed by these displays of wealth. He’d walked on Golden Hill Street many times, of course, but he’d never been on such a mission as this where he’d actually intended to go knocking at a door dismantled from a Scottish castle. Warehouse captain, sugar mill general, credit and loan earl, lumberyard duke, slave trade baron, real estate prince, and shipyard emperor all lived here where the grass was green and the gravel of the carriage driveways smooth and white as infants’ teeth.

  He came along a five-foot-high wrought-iron fence topped with spear-tips and there was the simple iron nameplate Deverick. He faced a gate that challenged him from continuing up a fieldstone walkway to the front door yet it was unlocked and easily conquered. He noted how quiet were the hinges as they allowed him entry; he’d been almost expecting a scream of outrage. Then he went up the walkway and under the blue bloom of a canopy above the front steps. He climbed them, six in number, and as he reached for the polished brass door knocker he had a moment of self-doubt in that he was still, after all, a simple clerk. What business did he have bothering the Devericks when this ought to be the high constable’s task? It was up to Lillehorne to pursue the Masker, as part of his official duty.

  True, all true. Yet Matthew knew from past observation how the high constable’s mind worked, in square circles and circular squares. If one waited on him to put paid to the Masker’s bill, even the outlandish idea of a daily Earwig couldn’t keep up with the murders. There was something to this link between the doctor, the broker, and the orphanage chief that Matthew thought only he might uncover, and now this new fact that nettled him like a mosquito in the mind: what had become of Ausley’s notebook?

  He pulled his willpower back up to his ears again, took firm hold of the knocker, and let it be known Matthew Corbett had come to call.

  Promptly the door was opened. An austere whipcord of a woman wearing a gray dress with lace around the throat peered out at him. She was about forty years of age, had a severe cap of ash-blond hair and deep-set hazel eyes that looked him up and down-lingering on the shirt stain-and shot out a negative opinion on seemingly everything from his forehead scar to the scuffs on his shoes. She didn’t speak.

  “I’d like to see Mr. Deverick, please,” Matthew said.

  “Mr. Davarick,” she replied with a heavy foreign accent that Matthew thought might be Austrian or Prussian but certainly from somewhere in old Europe, “iss decissed. He iss bean bearit thiss afternun at two o’cluck.”

  “I’d like to see the younger Mr. Deverick,” Matthew corrected.

  “Iss nut pozzible. Goot day.” She started to close the door on him, but he reached out and put his hand against it.

  “May I ask why it’s not possible?”

  “Mrs. Davarick iss oot. I am nut giffen parmizzion.”

  “Gretl? Who is that?” came a voice from beyond the servant woman.

  “It’s Matthew Corbett!” he took the opportunity to shout, a bit too loudly for this quiet neighborhood because Gretl looked as if she wished to kick him where it hurt with one of her polished square-toed black boots. “May I have a moment?”

  “My mother’s not home,” Robert said, still standing out of sight.

  “I haf tolt him ssso, sssir.” That one was almost a spit in Matthew’s face.

  “It’s you I’d like to speak with,” Matthew persisted, braving the elements. “Concerning your father’s…” He had a choice of words here, and he chose “…murder.”

  Gretl glared at him, waiting for Robert’s reaction. When young Deverick gave none, she said “Goot day” again and began to push the door shut with a strength that Matthew thought might break his elbow were he to try and resist.

  “Let him in.” Robert now made an appearance, if only as a shadow in the cool dimness of the house.

  “I am nut giffen par-”

  “I’ll give you permission. Let him in.”

  Gretl gave a little stiff-necked lowering of the head, though her eyes flashed with fire. She opened the door, Matthew walked past her almost expecting a boot up the arse, and Robert came forward on the dark parquet floor to meet him.

  Matthew held his hand out and Robert shook it. “I regret bothering you today, as”-the door was rather roughly closed and Gretl glided past Matthew into a carpeted hallway-“obviously you have much on your mind,” Matthew continued, “but thank you for the time.”

  “I can only give you a few minutes. My mother’s out.”

  Matthew could only respond with a nod. Robert’s curly brown hair had been neatly brushed and he wore an immaculate black suit and waistcoat, cravat and crisp white shirt, yet at close range his face was chalky and his gray eyes dark-shadowed and unfocused. Matthew thought he looked years older than he’d appeared at the meeting on Tuesday. The shock of a brutal murder had sapped his youth, and from what Matthew had heard of this family, Robert’s eighteen-year-old spirit had long ago been damaged by his father’s heavy hand.

  “The parlor,” Robert said. “This way.”

  Matthew followed the younger man into a room with a high vaulted ceiling and a fireplace made of black marble with two Greek goddesses holding what appeared to be ancient wine amphoras. The rug on the floor was blood-red trimmed with gold circles, the walls made of varnished dark timbers. The furniture-writing desk, chairs, an octagonal table with clawed feet-were all fashioned of glossy black wood save for a red fabric sofa set in front of the hearth. The room was as deep as the house, for one diamond-paned glass window gave a view onto Golden Hill Street while a second window of the same design looked out upon a flowering garden decorated with white statues and a small pond. The wealth this single room represented was enough to almost steal Matthew’s breath away. He doubted if in his entire life he would ever hold enough money to even buy such a fireplace, which seemed large enough to burn tree trunks. But then again, he wondered why he would ever want to; it seemed to him that pineknots kept one just as warm, and everything beyond that was wasteful. Still, it was a magnificent chamber in a majestic house, and Robert must have seen this awestruck expression before because he said almost apologetically, “It’s just a room.” He motioned toward a chair. “Please sit down.”

  Matthew sat carefully, as if the chair might bite him for being ill-born.

  Robert also sat down, in the chair at the writing desk. He rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand, and Matthew thought he was trying to clear his mind before the conversation began.

  Matthew was coming up with his first sentence when Robert said, his eyes still hazy, “You found my father.”

  “No, not exactly. I mean to say, I was there, but actually-”

  “Is that the new broadsheet?”

  “Yes, it is. W
ould you care to see it?” Matthew got up and placed the Earwig on the desktop blotter, then returned to his seat.

  Robert spent a moment reading the article concerning his father’s demise. His expression never changed; it remained almost blank, only faintly touched with sadness at the edges of the mouth. When he finished reading he turned the paper over. “Mr. Grigsby told me it was coming out today. I enjoyed his last edition.” His gaze briefly flickered toward Matthew and then away again. “I understand there was another killing last night. I heard my mother talking about it, with Mr. Pollard.”

  “Mr. Pollard? He was here this morning?”

  “He came for her. He’s our lawyer, you know.”

  “And she went somewhere with Mr. Pollard?”

  “To City Hall. There was going to be a meeting, Mr. Pollard said. About the taverns, and a Clear Streets Decree. He told my mother about Mr. Ausley. I expect that’s why Lord Cornbury wants to close the taverns early, isn’t that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mr. Pollard told my mother she should be there with him at the meeting. He said she should wear her funeral gown, the better to remind Lord Cornbury that she also has been a victim, but that she wishes the taverns and the town to operate as usual just the same. It’s a lot of money for us, you know.”

  “I would imagine so,” Matthew said.

  On the desktop were a number of envelopes and a blue glass ball paperweight. Robert picked up the ball and gazed into it as if searching for something there. “My father has said many times that we are enriched whenever a candle is lighted in the taverns, or a glass of wine drunk. Whenever a cup cracks, or a platter breaks.” He looked over the ball at Matthew. “You see, that is a lot of money.”

  “I’m sure a fortune’s been made on many Saturday nights alone.”

  “But it’s a difficult task, as well,” Robert went on, almost as if speaking to himself. “Getting the best price for the goods. Dealing with the suppliers, keeping everything moving as it should. Some items have to come across the sea, you know. Then there’s the warehouse and the inventory. The wine barrels have to be inspected. The food animals chosen and prepared. There are so many details to keep up with. It’s not as if we wish these things and make them happen.”