The men might have persisted, might have forced their way into the room, had not their leader, a weathered sailor with a gut that had braved the fiercest storms, vomited. Those behind him retreated, a rush of uncertain feet and laughter from the men too far back to have seen the remains.
“Don’t touch a thing!” Clementius commanded. He stepped into the room. “Bring a lantern!” he cried to the servant girl, who still crouched by the door, tears blinding her to the sight, perhaps even the stench of the room.
“Fetch it now!” Clementius said. The girl looked at Richard, who stared vacantly at his wife’s one intact shoe. The flesh of Gardenia’s foot still gave form to the cloth and the bronze buckle remained tightly fastened.
“She was drinking when I left her. She had a flask in one hand and a tankard of ale in the other. She was alive.” Hands clasped, Richard might have fallen to his knees, save for the slime that covered the floor and reminded him of his dignity.
“A fiery death!” the doctor said. The tail of his night robe swung as he shifted his weight, surveying the dim room. “And yet — the wooden barrels are intact. And the blanket.” He ran a finger over the wall behind him where a mucuslike substance had begun to congeal.
“’Tis the curse of her family,” Richard said, both hands now covering his tearstained cheeks. “Her father died in flames, and his father before him. The bedchamber caught fire. A curse. We are cursed!”
The doctor sniffed his fingers and held them aloft so that the dim light from the kitchen fire could illuminate them. “It’s as I’ve read,” he said. “Exactly as I’ve read.”
“I loved her,” Richard added. “Loved her with all my heart.”
The bright light of a lamp, held aloft from somewhere in the kitchen and approaching rapidly, filled the room and confirmed that the slimy matter coating the floor and stone walls had a dull yellow cast.
Richard jumped back, nearly colliding with the doctor, who had turned to order the servant girl forward.
But the approaching figure was not the servant girl. Leading a half-dozen sailors, the constable stood twice as wide as the expected party, his shirt and slacks stuck fast to his skin, drenched by the night’s driving rain.
“Richard Shaftsbury?” The constable’s eyes found the innkeeper and never once turned to Gardenia’s sole remaining leg, a fact that suggested that the lawman had been apprised of the situation and knew better than to stare directly at the dead woman. Behind the constable, the sailors leaned forward to watch the arrest. “You can come with me peacefully, or I shall be obliged to use force.”
Lamplight drew his face in shadowed lines, and Richard, eyes locked with the constable’s, believed he saw the outline of iron bars.
“I’ve done nothing,” he said. But he did not resist when the constable took his shoulder and led him to the stairway.
Upstairs in the kitchen, the servant girl — perhaps hoping for an explanation, perhaps the answer to an unasked question — watched Richard as the constable charged an unthinkable crime: murder. Even the sailors remained silent.
“I must have the corpse,” the doctor whispered before the constable yanked Richard away. “Promise me the corpse.”
“What little remains,” Richard said over his shoulder. “If it is mine to give.”
“Your innocence is assured,” the doctor said firmly. “Only science can explain the night’s happening.”
THE WEEKLY GAZETTE reported Gardenia Shaftsbury’s grotesque death on the front page beneath the headline “His Bowells shall be Removed and Burnt,” a punishment which the writer decided fitting for the crime. Not every one agreed, though most all of New York had an opinion. Some felt that Richard should be drawn and quartered; others felt he should hang. Very few knew about Doctor Clementius Steenwyck’s investigation, or that the doctor adamantly maintained that Richard was not guilty.
The day of the trial dawned clouded and cold. Hoarfrost covered the cobblestones and icicles hung like blades from the boughs of the trees along Broadway. Only a small crowd amassed before the courthouse. Trials held less interest than executions, and that morning the weather encouraged many to remain beside fires. Most came merely to socialize and would disperse long before the proceedings finished.
Inside the Supreme Court of Judicature, the jury had assembled — men with grim faces and questioning eyes. The eldest, a white-haired man in a knee-length jacket, chewed a slab of smoked beef, which perfumed the room with hickory. The youngest, still red from a rigorous scrubbing, looked to be no more than eighteen. The magistrate had not yet entered, but the witnesses sat ready: the servant girl, four mariners, the constable, and Doctor Clementius Steenwycks.
Richard waited, as all accused men before him, across from the magistrate’s bench. Long nights in prison had worn on the innkeeper, his clothing dusty and torn, his face gaunt, his eyes wild beneath unruly brows. He clasped his hands across his lap and looked neither to the left, where a guard ensured he would not escape, nor the right, where the doctor sat, as he’d promised, with a leather case thick with files.
When the magistrate entered, Richard stood. The clerk read the charge.
“The prisoner has submitted a written defense?” the magistrate asked, though he held the answer to this question, a single sheet of paper, between the fingers of his left hand.
Richard nodded, and the judge turned to examine the paper. One of the jurors nervously tapped the wooden bench, but otherwise the room remained silent.
“The hand is illegible,” the magistrate declared at last, his eyebrows meeting to form a single dark line that crossed his pale forehead.
Richard examined the floor, which had discolored where the rains leaked through the ceiling. The court was not sealed. At any moment justice might escape, pounding through the alleys, the taverns, the inns, just as his illiterate heart now pounded, the beats so loud he could hear them echo. “I —” he began.
“Silence!” The magistrate lifted his palm. “We will hear from the first witness.”
The constable stood, borrowed jacket pulling tight over his shoulders. He related the crime as it had been told him: Richard and Gardenia had fought. She’d run screaming through the tavern before her husband captured her and threw her into the cellar with force enough that the men in the tavern could hear the bones crack. The smell of burned flesh brought the men to the crime scene, where they beheld Richard bent over his wife’s scant remains, an evil grin commanding his lips.
“And you witnessed these events?” the magistrate said.
“No, sir. But I have examined the —”
“Very good,” the magistrate said. “You may sit down.” He called each of the four sailors in turn, their testimony touching upon the number of drinks consumed that evening as well as the moment they’d first heard screams — two declaring that the sound had come early in the evening, and one admitting that he’d heard no screams. The fourth said the screams came after the remains had been discovered and that the wronged wife haunted the tavern.
Richard rested his face between uncertain hands. His knees, pressed together and exposed to the jury and judge, had locked.
The servant girl stood. She wore a dark gray gown, much finer than any she’d worn to the tavern. Her cheeks retained their crime-night pallor, but her lips shown red and plump. Kissable. Richard might have forgotten that he sat accused of murder had not distress commanded his thoughts. She spoke one-word answers to the magistrate’s questions: Were you working the night of the crime? Yes. Did you witness the murder? No. Do you believe Richard Shaftsbury innocent? Silence, then, “No, sir. I shan’t return to the King’s Inn, ever.”
Richard raised a shaking hand to his heart, and the magistrate dismissed the girl with a wave.
Doctor Clementius Steenwycks now stood. He’d donned a smart frock coat for the occasion, and even the magistrate looked shoddy by comparison. The doctor’s angular chin, which most people had dismissed as odd or severe, now looked authoritative, undeniable, strong. The
doctor waved a finely trained hand, and his words filled the courtroom with confident calm. He spoke eloquent words, long words: alcohol saturation makes one flammable … fat causes the body to burn … intemperance … evidence from scientific journals … a case in the south of France.
“She has most certainly combusted spontaneously,” he said, the passion of his testimony calling sweat to his brow. He took a medical journal from his bag, and the jurors watched him, jaws slack with amazement, as he began to translate an excerpt from a recent Dutch study. The reported victim had consumed four pints of sherry, he read, and soon thereafter combusted, leaving only a fatty, yellow-gold substance on the walls and floor.
The sailors nodded, their recollections of the cellar confirming the article’s descriptions.
“This man must not hang for a crime that is no crime at all,” the doctor concluded, and the magistrate accepted the doctor’s statement with a thoughtful nod.
Richard turned to Clementius, years of small resentments — lost revenue and loosely shared secrets — torn from the dark cove where he’d harbored them. For a moment he felt even love for the doctor.
RICHARD RETURNED TO the King’s Inn the next morning, a free man, though the brief time in prison had lent his features new angles, and he seemed older by some years. He poured two cups of cider and slid one across the table to Clementius.
“To justice,” Clementius said. “And soon, very soon, I shall publish my findings.”
Richard nodded, tossed his drink back and poured a second. Empty of customers, the tavern felt as if it hadn’t been occupied for years. Daylight lit the room, illuminating only the unclean tables and the tracked mud covering the floors.
The servant girl would not return to the inn, and Richard surveyed the room with hours in mind: four to scrape and mop the floor, two to clean the dishes, three to prepare an evening meal. The tasks piled, too many for his weary hands.
“Aye,” he said, deciding that one more drink might help.
By evening, he’d done no more than light a fire and wipe the rim of his own cup. He leaned against his wooden bar, resting a throbbing forehead in the palm of his left hand. The night sky stretched clear and cold, whiskey weather, and on past nights, the inn would have burst with customers. That night only Clementius arrived, forced to dine upon the crusty remains of a loaf of bread, which he found in the kitchen and sliced himself.
“Too much ale tonight?” he asked, and Richard glared at him. “Round town they’re saying this place has a ghost.” Clementius laughed, about to comment upon the ignorance of his fellow man, when Richard turned and unsteadily made his way to the kitchen.
“A ghost!” Clementius called after him. “Imagine!”
But Richard did not need to imagine. He clearly heard Gardenia’s shrill cry, and when he closed his eyes, he saw her: coarse hair tangled, skin rough with unwashed dirt, eyes moist with an uncomprehending fear. He knew she lay in the cellar. She’d fallen again. She wanted ale, bread, and molasses.
“Yes, darling,” he whispered. And he knew, for the first time since the burning, that he had not killed — could never have killed — Gardenia.
“Death is certain, since it is inevitable, but also uncertain, since its diagnosis is sometimes fallible.”
—JACQUES-BÉNIGNE WINSLOW, 1740
from Buried Alive, by Jan Bondeson
HAPPY EFFECTS
Constable Morris, already burdened with New York’s most conspicuous gut, carried Nicolas into the Heathcote home on Bridge Street. Pale and limp, the cradled youth looked more like an unwashed linen than an eighteen-year-old merchant, though the boy did oversee the family business, counting wooden crates of sugar — white gold — as if they were already hard pocket currency. He’d left for the docks at sunrise, as his father once did, with a smile and a promise to return before sundown.
The clock struck one, the fine mahogany case vibrating slightly, and the boy’s mother lay in bed dreaming of fur and brocade silk as she did most afternoons. She’d spent the morning bent over a metal tub pouring cups of strong tea and lemon water through her hair, a process that made her dizzy, but which the ladies assured would straighten the tight curls that had troubled her since childhood.
“Sarah Heathcote!” The Constable’s voice roared through the parlor, reaching Sarah with an unwelcome harshness. Where was the servant girl? Why was the Constable, whose rasping breath was so well known throughout the South Ward that she recognized it from her bedchamber, standing in her front parlor?
She rose hastily, fastening her dress without her usual hooped petticoat and, pausing only to powder her face and apply a drop of rose oil, which she was certain made her seem youthful once more, stepped out to receive the Constable.
“My dear Mr. Morris,” she began, but at the sight of her son draped limply in the large man’s arms, she silenced.
The Constable brushed past her, laying the boy on the settee reserved for company.
“Nicolas!” She realized her voice had risen — she may have shrieked — her curls as unruly as the servant girl’s. “Nicolas!” she called again, but the boy did not respond.
She took her son’s hand between her palms. He had no visible injury, a few patches of black soot on his sleeve, nothing the servant girl couldn’t brush away. And where was that girl? Why wasn’t she here to bring water? That was all the boy needed. A glass of water.
“Nan!” Sarah cried. “Nan!”
Young Nan, hair fastened back in a tight white kerchief, dark skin covered in dust, emerged from the back of the house. Her cheeks were heavy, despite her lithe form, and she moved with the slow step of a much older woman. “I’s sweeping the cobweb —” she began, but she stopped when she saw Nicolas stretched out on the settee.
“I’m very sorry.” The Constable placed a hand on Sarah’s shoulder. “I’m very sorry. He died in the fires.”
“Mister Nicolas!” Tears streaked Nan’s face, and she threw herself on the floor beside the body. “He pass, he pass!”
“Fetch some water,” Sarah said, turning her head slightly, as if to brace herself against the girl’s outpouring of sorrow. “We don’t know he’s dead. Not yet.”
Nan, still sobbing despite Sarah’s assurance, rose and raced from the room.
“They set fire to the stables,” the Constable explained. “For days, the city has battled the blazes — one at the governor’s house, another at the chapel, another at the Warren home, another at the docks. Only arson can account for them. And only one thing can account for the arson: the slaves are rising.”
“To think,” Sarah agreed. Her thoughts on the matter — that the Negroes had entirely too much freedom already and that the slave market on Wall Street, where all sorts of dark-skinned men entered New York, was too close to her home for comfort — required no further expression to be understood. She wrapped a sallow arm around her son’s chest. His head, balanced unsteadily on the edge of the settee, rolled sideways, turning his gray-blue gaze toward the Constable. She remembered when the boy, a pale, perfect child, climbed the lip of the well and tumbled down — not into the well, which was covered of course, but onto the hard cobblestone. She’d run to him then, just as now. And he’d lain just as deathly, even more so, as the impact had drawn blood from his nose. But he had risen.
“Call the doctor!” Sarah cried.
The Constable, who must have realized that he was far more able to call upon a medical man than the tearful Nan, who’d returned with a brimming pitcher of water, stepped forward.
“Nicolas moved,” Sarah explained. Nan, setting the pitcher on the side table and raising one sleeved arm to her nose, nodded her support. The Constable should know better than to make claims about life and its end. His job was to prevent death, not diagnose it. Medical matters were better left to medical men, and Sarah Heathcote knew exactly whom she needed. Not just any medical man would do.
“Fetch Doctor Steenwycks,” she said firmly.
DOCTOR STEENWYCKS RUSHED throug
h the front door of the Heathcote house, his rough-weave, floor-length cape and round brimmed hat, oddities that made the ladies titter, alive with the speed of his gait. Tall and gaunt, he could easily have lit the chandelier without resorting so much as to tiptoes, despite the fact that his shoulders stooped and his arms hung forward like some exotic monkey’s. His narrow, pointed chin was reminiscent of his father’s — a little-known medical man who lived and died above a ramshackle tavern.
“Jan Steenwycks,” he said by way of introduction, nodding first to Sarah, then to Nan, who stood behind her mistress like a bashful child.
The doctor and Sarah had never met, though Sarah knew him from her Thursday night suppers. Since opening his practice two years earlier, and despite his dress and manners, he’d won the respect of the finest society. At dinner parties, he was known for his gracious toasts and long diatribes regarding the foolishness of his father’s medicine. Witchery nonsense, he called it, not empirical science, and even old men whose only experience of doctors and medicine was the cures discovered in worn copies of The Poor Planter’s Physician nodded. Doctor Steenwycks knew best. Only he could determine if a man were truly dead. Just last month the good doctor had pulled a drowned girl from the East River and brought her back to life with an air technique, the details of which the ladies were uncertain, though that did not stop them from vividly imagining the event. These days, no gentleman or lady was buried without a visit from Doctor Steenwycks, who was doing so well for himself that he’d purchased a large plot of land near Ranelagh Gardens and constructed a two-story home with a triangular pediment for his wife and young children.
The doctor dropped his walking stick, mahogany with mother-of-pearl insets, and bent low over Sarah’s shoulder to examine the patient. “How long has he been so?” he asked.
Sarah, who had not moved from her son’s side, stretched to read the grandfather clock that stood like a watchful soldier beside the sideboard containing her good china. “Three hours,” she said, though it seemed only minutes ago that the Constable had set forth to fetch the doctor. Nan, who stood beside Sarah, addressed the doctor directly.
Doctor Olaf van Schuler's Brain Page 3
