Speaks the Nightbird

by Robert R. McCammon

  He saw now a flinch of true pain on Johnstone’s face, as this nerve was so deeply struck. “I suspect you found some items when you posed as the surveyor, and those financed your schoolmaster’s suits. A wagon and horses, too? And clothes for your cardboard wife? Then I presume you also had items to finance your passage back to and from England, and to be able to show Lancaster what was awaiting him. Did you also show him the blade that was awaiting his throat?”

  “My God!” Dr. Shields said, aghast. “I…always thought Alan came from a wealthy family! I saw a gold ring he owned…with a ruby in it! And a gold pocket watch he had, inscribed with his initials!”

  “Really? I’d say the ring was something he’d found. Perhaps he purchased the pocket watch in Charles Town before he came here, and had those initials inscribed to further advance his false identity.” Matthew’s eyebrows lifted. “Or was it a watch you had previously murdered someone to get, and those initials prompted your choice of a name?”

  “You,” Johnstone said, his mouth twisting, “are absolutely a fool.”

  “I have been called so, sir, but never let it be said that I am fooled. At least not for very long. But you are a smart man, sir. I swear you are. If I were to ask Mr. Green to sit in your lap, and take Mr. Bidwell and Mr. Winston for a thorough search of your house, would we find a sapphire brooch there? A book on ancient Egypt? Would we find the ratcatcher’s five-bladed device? You know, that was a crowning move! The claw marks! A deception only a talented thespian could construct! And to create a ratcatcher out of John Lancaster…well, it was an inspiration. Did you know that he had experience with training rats? Had you seen his circus act? You knew Fount Royal was in need of a ratcatcher…therefore, instant acceptance by the town. Was it you or Lancaster who created the poppets? Those, too, were very convincing. Just rough-edged enough to appear real.”

  “I shall…lose my mind, listening to you,” Johnstone said. He blinked slowly. “Lose my mind…altogether.”

  “You decided Rachel was perfect witch material. You knew, as everyone knows, what occurred at Salem. But you, with your sterling abilities to manipulate an audience, realized how such mass fear might be scripted, act upon act. The only problem is that you, sir, are a man who has the command of a crowd’s mind, yet you needed a man with the command of the individual mind. The point being to seed this terror in Fount Royal by using selected persons, and thus to ruin the town and cause it to be abandoned. After which you—and Lancaster, or so he believed—might remove the riches.”

  Johnstone lifted a hand and touched his forehead. He rocked slightly back and forth in his chair.

  “As to the murder of Daniel Howarth,” Matthew said, “I suspect you lured him out of the house that night to a prearranged meeting? Something he would not have mentioned to Rachel? She told me that the night of his murder he asked her if she loved him. She said it was rare for him to be so…well…needful. He already had fears that Nicholas Paine was interested in Rachel. Did you fan those flames, by intimating that Rachel might also have feelings for Paine? Did you promise to meet him in a private place, to exchange information that should not be overheard? Of course he wouldn’t have known what you were planning. I’m sure your power of persuasion might have directed Daniel to any place you chose, at any time. Who cut his throat, then? You or Lancaster?”

  When Johnstone didn’t answer, Matthew said, “You, I think. I presume you then applied the five-bladed device to Daniel’s dead or dying body? I’m sure Lancaster never would have imagined he’d meet his end the same way. He panicked when he learned he’d been discovered, didn’t he? Did he want to leave?” Matthew smiled grimly. “But no, you couldn’t have that, could you? You couldn’t let him leave, knowing what he knew. Had you always planned to murder him, after he’d helped you remove the treasure and Fount Royal was your own private fortress?”

  “Damn you,” Bidwell said to Johnstone, his face reddening. “Damn your eyes, and heart, and soul. Damn you to a slow death, as you would have made me a murderer too!”

  “Calm yourself,” Matthew advised. “He shall be damned, as I understand the colonial prison is one step above a hellhole and dungheap. Which is where he shall spend some days before he hangs, if I have anything to do with it.”

  “That,” Johnstone said wanly, “may be true.” Matthew sensed the man was now willing to speak. “But,” Johnstone continued, “I have survived Newgate itself, and so I doubt I shall be much inconvenienced.”

  “Ahhhhh!” Matthew nodded. He leaned against the wall opposite the man. “A graduate not of Oxford, but of Newgate prison! How did your attendance in such a school come about?”

  “Debts. Political associations. And friends,” he said, staring at the floor, “with knives. My career was ruined. And I did have a good career. Oh…not that I was ever a major lamp, but I did have aspirations. I hoped…at some point…to have enough money to invest in a theater troupe of my own.” He sighed heavily. “My candle was extinguished by jealous colleagues. But was I not…credible in my performance?” He lifted his sweat-slick face to Matthew, and offered a faint smile.

  “You are deserving of applause. From the hangman, at least.”

  “I take that as a backhanded compliment. Allow me to deliver one of my own: you have a fair to middling mind. With some work, you might become a thinker.”

  “I shall take such into consideration.”

  “This beast.” Johnstone put his hand on the convexity on his leg. “It does pain me. I am glad, in that regard, to get it off once and for all.” He unbuttoned the breeches at the knee, rolled down the stocking, and began to unstrap the leather brace. All present could see that the kneecap was perfectly formed. “You’re correct. It was candle wax. I spent a whole night shaping it before I was satisfied with the damn thing. Here: a trophy.” He tossed the brace to the floor at Matthew’s feet.

  Matthew couldn’t help but think it was much more palatable than the trophy of a carved-out, horrible-smelling bear’s head he’d been presented with at the celebration last night. Also a much more satisfying one.

  Johnstone winced as he stretched the leg out straight and briskly massaged the knee. “I was suffering a muscle cramp the other night that near put me on the floor. Had to wear a similar apparatus for a role I played…oh…ten years ago. One of my last roles, with the Paradigm Players. A comedy, actually. Unfortunately there was nothing funny about it, if you discount the humor of having the audience pelt you with tomatoes and horse-shit.”

  “By God, I ought to strangle you myself!” Bidwell raged. “I ought to save the hangman a penny rope!”

  Johnstone said, “Strangle yourself while you’re at it. You were the one in such a rush to burn the woman.” This statement, delivered so offhandedly, was the straw that broke Bidwell’s back. The master of dead Fount Royal gave a shouted oath and lunged from his chair at Johnstone, seizing the actor’s throat with both hands.

  They went to the floor in a tangle and crash. At once Matthew and Winston rushed forward to disengage them, as Green looked on from his position guarding the door and Shields clung to his chair. Bidwell was pulled away from Johnstone, but not before delivering two blows that bloodied the actor’s nostrils.

  “Sit down,” Matthew told Bidwell, who angrily jerked out of his grasp. Winston righted Johnstone’s chair and helped him into it, then immediately retreated to a corner of the library as if he feared contamination from having touched the man. Johnstone wiped his bleeding nose with his sleeve and picked up his cane, which had also fallen to the floor.

  “I ought to kill you!” Bidwell shouted, the veins standing out in his neck. “Tear you to pieces myself, for what you’ve done!”

  “The law will take care of him, sir,” Matthew said. “Now please…sit down and keep your dignity.”

  Reluctantly, Bidwell returned to his chair and thumped down into it. He glowered straight ahead, ideas of vengeance still crackling like flames in his mind.

  “Well, you should feel very pleased with
yourself,” Johnstone said to Matthew. He leaned his head back and sniffled. “The hero of the day, and all that. Am I your stepping-stone to the judicial robes?”

  Matthew realized Johnstone the manipulator was yet at work, trying to move him into a defensive position. “The treasure,” he said, ignoring the man’s remark. “How come you to know about it?”

  “I believe my nose is broken.”

  “The treasure,” Matthew insisted. “Now is not the time to play games.”

  “Ah, the treasure! Yes, that.” He closed his eyes and sniffled blood again. “Tell me, Matthew, have you ever set foot inside Newgate prison?”

  “No.”

  “Pray to God you never do.” Johnstone’s eyes opened. “I was there for one year, three months, and twenty-eight days, serving restitution for my debts. The prisoners have the run of the place. There are guards, yes, but they withdraw for their own throats. Everyone—debtors, thieves, drunks and lunatics, murderers, child fuckers and mother rapers…they’re all thrown together, like animals in a pit, and…believe me…you do what you must to survive. You know why?”

  He brought his head forward and grinned at Matthew, and when he did fresh crimson oozed from both nostrils. “Because no one…no one…cares whether you live or die but yourself. Yourself,” he hissed, and again that vulpine, cruel shadow passed quickly across his face. He nodded, his tongue flicking out and tasting the blood that glistened in the candlelight. “When they come at you—three or four at a time—and hold you down, it is not because they wish you well. I have seen men killed in such a fashion, battered until they are mortally torn inside. And still they go on, as the corpse is not yet cold. Still they go on. And you must—you must—sink to their level and join them if you wish to live another day. You must shout and shriek and howl like a beast, and strike and thrust…and want to kill…for if you show any weakness at all, they will turn upon you and it will be your broken corpse being thrown upon the garbage pile at first light.”

  The fox leaned toward his captor, heedless now of his bleeding nose. “Sewage runs right along the floor there. We knew it had rained outside, and how hard, when the sewage rose to our ankles. I saw two men fight to the death over a pack of playing cards. The fight ended when one drowned the other in that indescribable filth. Wouldn’t that be a lovely way to end your life, Matthew? Drowned in human shit?”

  “Is there a point to this recitation, sir?”

  “Oh, indeed there is!” Johnstone grinned broadly, blood on his lips and the shine of his eyes verging on madness. “No words are vile enough, nor do they carry enough weight of bestiality, to describe Newgate prison, but I wished you to know the circumstances in which I found myself. The days were sufficiently horrible…but then came the nights! Oh, the joyous bliss of the darkness! I can feel it even now! Listen!” he whispered. “Hear them? Starting to stir? Starting to crawl from their mattresses and stalk the night fantastic? Hear them? The creak of a bed-frame here—and one over there, as well! Oh, listen…someone weeps! Someone calls out for God…but it is always the Devil who answers.” Johnstone’s savage grin faltered and slipped away.

  “Even if it was so terrible a place,” Matthew said, “you still survived it.”

  “Did I?” Johnstone asked, and let the question hang. He stood up, wincing as he put weight on his unbraced knee. He supported himself with his cane. “I pay for wearing that damn brace, you may be sure. Yes, I did live through Newgate prison, as I realized I might offer the assembled animals something to entertain them besides carnage. I might offer them plays. Or, rather, scenes from plays. I did all the parts, in different voices and dialects. What I didn’t know I made up. They never knew the difference, nor did they care. They were particularly pleased at any scene that involved the disgrace or degradation of court officials, and as there are a pittance of those in our catalogue, I found myself concocting the scenes as I played them out. Suddenly I was a very popular man. A celebrity, among the rabble.”

  Johnstone stood with the cane on the floor and both hands on the cane, and Matthew realized he had—as was his nature—again taken center stage before his audience. “I came into the favor of a very large and very mean individual we called the Meatgrinder, as he…um…had used such a device to dispose of his wife’s body. But—lo and behold!—he was a fan of the stagelamps! I was elevated to the prospect of command performances, and also found myself protected from the threat of harm.”

  As Matthew had known he sooner or later would, Johnstone now swivelled his body so as to have a view of the other men in the room. Or rather, so they would have a full view of the thespian’s expressions. “Near the end of my term,” Johnstone went on, “I came into the acquaintance of a certain man. He was my age or therebouts, but looked very much older. He was sick, too. Coughing up blood. Well, needless to say a sick man in Newgate prison is like a warm piece of liver to wolves. It’s an interesting thing to behold, actually. They beat him because he was an easy target, and also because they wanted him to go ahead and die lest they fall sick themselves. I tell you, you can learn quite a lot about the human condition at Newgate; you ought to put yourself there for a night and make a study of it.”

  “I’m sure there are less dangerous universities,” Matthew said.

  “Yes, but none teaches as quickly as Newgate.” Johnstone flashed a sharp smile. “And the lessons are very well learned. But: this man I was telling you about. He realized the Meatgrinder’s power in our little community, yet the Meatgrinder was…well, he’d rather kill a man than smell his breath, shall we say. Therefore this sick and beaten individual asked me to intercede on his behalf, as a gentleman. He actually was quite educated himself. Had once been a dealer in antiques, in London. He asked me to intercede to save him further beatings or other indignities…in exchange for some very interesting information concerning a waterhole across the Atlantic.”

  “Ah,” Matthew said. “He knew of the treasure.”

  “Not only knew, he helped place the fortune there. He was a member of the crew. Oh, he told me all about it, in fascinating detail. Told me he’d never revealed it to a soul, because he was going to go back for it someday. Someday, he said. And I might be his partner and share it with him, if I would protect his life. Told me that the spring was forty feet deep, told me that the treasure had been lowered in wicker baskets and burlap bags…told enough to put a sea voyage in the mind of a poor starving ex-thespian who had no prospects, no family, and absolutely no belief in that straw poppet you call God.” Again, Johnstone displayed a knife-edged smile. “This man…this crewman…said there’d been a storm at sea. The ship had been wrecked. He and five or six others survived, and reached an island. Pirates being as they are, I suppose stones and coconuts did the job of knives and pistols. At last, one man survived to light a fire for a passing English frigate.” Johnstone shrugged. “What did I have to lose to at least come look for myself? Oh…he had an inscribed gold pocket watch hidden in his mattress that he also gave to me. You see, that man’s name was Alan Johnstone.”

  “What’s your name, then?” Bidwell asked.

  “Julius Caesar. William Shakespeare. Lord Bott Fucking Tott. Take your pick, what does it matter?”

  “And what happened to the real Alan Johnstone?” Matthew inquired, though he already had an idea. It had dawned on him, as well, that the turtles—reed-eaters by nature—had probably loved feasting on all those baskets and bags.

  “The beatings ceased. I had to prove my worth to him. He survived for a time. Then he grew very, very ill. Sick unto death, really. I was able to get the coordinates of the waterhole’s latitude and longitude from him…something I’d been trying to do for a month or more without seeming overly demanding. Then someone told the Meatgrinder that very night…someone…a little shadow of a someone…that the sick man coughing up all that blood over there in the corner…well, it was dangerous to everyone. Such disease might wipe out our little community, and we were so fond of it. By morning, alas, my partner had set off on h
is final voyage, alone and unlamented.”

  “By Christ,” Matthew said softly, his guts twisting. “Little wonder you decided to invent the witchcraft scheme. You’re on regular speaking terms with Satan, aren’t you?”

  Johnstone—for want of a better name—laughed quietly. He threw his head back, his eyes gleaming, and laughed louder.

  There was a faintly audible click.

  And suddenly, moving with a speed that belied his stiff leg, Johnstone lunged forward. He pressed against Matthew’s throat the pointed edge of a five-inch blade that had been concealed within the cane’s shaft.

  “Be still!” Johnstone hissed, his eyes boring into Matthew’s. Bidwell had stood up, and now Winston and Dr. Shields rose to their feet. “Everyone, be still!”

  Green crossed the threshold, pistol in hand. Johnstone reached out, grasped Matthew’s shirt, and turned him so the thespian’s back was to the wall and Matthew’s back was in danger of a pistol ball should Green lose his head. “No, no!” Johnstone said, as if scolding a wayward pupil. “Green, stand where you are.”

  The red-bearded giant halted. The blade pressed perilously near entering the flesh. Though he was quaking inside, Matthew was able to keep a calm mask. “This will do you no good.”

  “It will do me less good to be sent to prison and have my neck stretched!” Johnstone’s face was damp, a pulse beating rapidly at his temple. Blood still stained his nostrils and upper lip. “No, I can’t bear that. Not prison.” He shook his head with finality. “One season in Hell is enough for any man.”