The Golden Flask ps-3

by Jim DeFelice

  Van Clynne was starting to think the hat might escape notice — and be recovered — when he heard the doctor's distinct voice through the window. It was close enough to make his heart thump like the broken arm of a windmill smacking against the ground.

  "This hat. Whose is it?"

  A simple question, surely. But those are always the most dangerous.

  "The h-hat," stuttered Quinton. "Well, some customer must have left it. Honestly, I am not sure. Would you like it? I can let you have it for a low price — no, let me give it to you. Yes, take it as a present."

  Silence followed. Van Clynne imagined Keen taking up the beaver and examining it.

  "I recently was acquainted with a fellow who had a hat very similar," said the doctor, the restraint in his voice obvious even outside. "Had I not seen him burn in a building, I would swear this was his."

  "There are many hats like this," said the tailor nervously. "It is a common style."

  "The owner was a Dutchman," said Keen. He was no longer bothering to control his venom; van Clynne felt his own body fairly warmed by it. "And do not lie to me or your tongue will be tread on by half the British soldiers quartered at King's College.”

  "Now that you mention it," answered the tailor, his voice trembling. "It does seem familiar."

  The squire did not tarry to hear himself betrayed. He swept from the alley, bowed quickly at the mounted guard, and walked with as much balance as he could muster southward. He was nearly a block away when Keen's temper rose in a mighty fit; van Clynne could hear the sound of crashing tables and glass as he turned the corner and began running with all his might.

  Van Clynne arrived at the infirmary just as Alison was trying to persuade Culper that she could serve the Cause as one of his agents in town instead of "visiting" a relative of his in Westchester, as he suggested. The girl had taken a flintlock pistol from the armory in the medicine closet. Seated at the large pine table that held the middle of the second floor wardroom, she was demonstrating her knowledge of its working parts by stripping it with the aid of a very large and pointed knife.

  "Blindfold me, if you wish," she told the spymaster, waving the knife as if it were a harmless twig. "I will do it again. I can do it behind my back."

  "It's a very useful skill," allowed the patriot leader. "I'm sure we will find great use for it. But first, we will have to make some arrangements for you."

  "I don't want to be sent behind the lines."

  "Quickly, there is no time to waste," blustered van Clynne, bursting up the unguarded stairwell so fast he nearly broke three spokes on the oaken baluster. "Where is Jake?"

  "He's gone to the engineer's office," said Culper. "What business is it of yours?"

  "A great enemy of ours is loose in the city," said van Clynne. "Quickly, he must be warned."

  "Who is this enemy? What are you talking about?"

  "Keen, Doctor Quack Keen, a man given to the most obnoxious poisons and a disgrace to his profession. He is heading for this Alain fellow, this engineering lordship. If Keen finds Jake there he will cover his body with leeches and set him on fire, and then prepare a proper torture."

  "Jake told my men Keen was dead."

  "Believe me, sir, he is very much alive. And I distinctly heard him mention Lord Alain."

  "I've already sent the last men I can spare on other jobs."

  "I'll go!" shouted Alison, starting for the stairs.

  Culper grabbed her by the shoulder. "You're not going anywhere."

  "You said I could serve the Cause. Here is my chance."

  "I intend on warning Jake myself," said van Clynne. "I will enter the house under other pretense and sneak into the office to warn him away. I require only swift transportation, and a map of the place, if possible."

  "There are two floors," said Culper hastily, necessity forcing him to put aside his doubts about the Dutchman. "Jake was to sneak upstairs into the offices while Alain was downstairs eating."

  "I will warn him."

  "How?" asked Alison. "You won't be able to climb up the side of the building."

  "I will go in the front door, child, on some simple pretext," said van Clynne. There were no hatchets handy, and so he had to settle for the pistol Alison had just assembled. "There is no need for me to burglarize the place."

  "Then you need an assistant to sneak upstairs," she said, volunteering. "I can easily slip away on some pretext."

  The Dutchman threw her a doubtful look.

  "Please," she said, taking up his hand. "Let me prove myself. I am very brave."

  "I cannot dawdle."

  "Let's go then," she said, running to the door.

  "I will find Daltoons and have him organize reinforcements," said Culper, as van Clynne followed her down the stairs with a series of oaths.

  "A girl and a Dutchman," the spymaster added as they disappeared through the door. "What will Washington send me next?"

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Wherein, Jake does some impromptu carpentering

  .

  About roughly the same time that Claus van Clynne spied the crooked red bricks at the front of the tailor shop, a carpenter was walking in his oversized smock and apron down the city's east ward. He cut a tangled path toward the wharf used by the ferry from Brooklyn, smiling from beneath his broad-brimmed, if somewhat tattered, felt hat. Whistling a jaunty air — it might be "British Grenadiers," it might be "Yankee Doodle" — he headed back up the hill and, just as supper hour approached, found a large, dilapidated former creamery and set up shop on its rear porch.

  It might be said that his chisel was strong but his saw not half as sharp as typical of the breed, for though he worked steadily for half an hour, he made so little progress that many a journeyman would have hailed him as an accomplished master.

  The significance of this porch for our story is that it lay directly behind the painted brick building used by the British engineers to house some of their more important drawings and least important staff. The carpenter, who soon gave up his work to slip a long narrow bar and a pistol beneath his smock and apron, was none other than the well-disguised hero of our tale, Jake Gibbs.

  Besides the costume and hat, Jake had added a wide bandage to his chin, wrapping it once around the bottom quarter of his face to obscure the rounded, often smiling jaw that was among his best features. Rubbing it, he made his way up the alley, crouching behind a barrel as the lone guard assigned to watch the building made his founds in front.

  A young maple tree, tall but too slender to provide more than token support, stood nearby. A window with a solid-looking brick ledge and frame would give Jake a good boost to the second story, where his metal shim ought to make short work of the hall opening.

  The guard's pace wasn't exactly up to parade-field specifications. It was more a mopey snuffle, difficult to time exactly but ripe with the sort of lackadaisical effort that promised the alley would be unsupervised for long stretches. In addition, the guard had recently acquired a new set of boots, and so his approach was easy to avoid — the leather soles made a sharp sound as they scraped the pavement stones. As they became louder, Jake dropped to his knees and made sure his body was well behind the barrel.

  Once the scrapes began heading in the other direction, Jake rose and peered in the window. As Culper's diagram had predicted, it looked in on the dining room. The table had been set, which meant that the secretary would soon be down for supper.

  Jake was about midway up when the guard's soles began scraping again in his direction. He hurried upward, reaching the window that according to Culper opened into a small storage room.

  Unfortunately, Culper's information was wrong. It opened into an upstairs hallway, in full view of the office where his lordship worked.

  Or rather, the office where he was just now emerging.

  Jake ducked away so quickly his grip loosened and his fingers slipped from the ledge. The distance to the ground was not enormous, but he still met the earth with a resounding smack, his le
gs groaning from the unexpected shock.

  Jake groaned as well. He fell to his back, holding his breath as the scraping from the front of the house stopped, then resumed with much greater vigor.

  The Segallas, cleaned and reloaded after the plunge in the river, was secreted at the top of his right sock. As he reached for it, the guard appeared over him and ordered him to stand upright.

  "I am trying," said Jake. "But I have had a wicked bee sting here, and cannot even stand up." He rolled over, scratching at his leg as if injured — and hoping for a chance to remove the pistol.

  "Never mind that," said the sentry. "Explain who you are."

  "I am a poor carpenter," said Jake. "As you can see from my tools on the porch."

  "What is a carpenter doing working on a brick building?"

  "Begging your pardon, sir, but I am working on that porch there," gestured the spy. "A man named Baxter hired me to do some work. I was chased here by a nest of bees."

  "Baxter? That building belongs to an old woman named Fife."

  Jake grimaced. "Baxter was the name of the fellow who hired me." He rose. "Jesus, the damn thing is back," he said, swatting at the air.

  The soldier was not fooled. But Jake was able to duck the butt of his gun as he swatted. He pulled his pry bar from his belt and smashed it across the man's face. A harder smash to his skull knocked him senseless.

  Jake took off his apron and used its strings to truss the redcoat. Pulling him back to the porch, he fastened him below the steps, blindfolding and gagging him so he could not call out when he awoke. Jake judged it would be several hours, if not longer, before he managed to free himself.

  By the time the patriot returned to the window, Alain was entering the dining room. Jake gripped the brickwork and hoisted himself quickly upwards on the side, his fingers clinging to the smooth clay like barnacles to a ship's bottom. He was at the upstairs hall window in a trice, pushing his slender metal bar between the sill and the sash and gently nudging it upwards. In the next second, he had slipped inside, confident that he would soon be on his way back to Washington with the whole story of Howe's pending invasion.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Wherein, Jake examines diverse maps, drawings and a maid’s fine lips.

  The chestnut floor planks were covered with a thin, fairly worn carpet, which provided little cushion for Jake's footsteps. With the first creak, he realized he had best proceed barefoot, and leaned against the wall to gingerly unbuckle and remove his shoes.

  His destination was only a few feet away, not far from the top of the stairs. The house's owner, a hearty patriot, had taken the precaution of removing not only his furniture but many of his finely trimmed doors and shutters before fleeing. Thus anyone coming up the stairs would have an unobstructed view of the office, with Jake inside.

  There was nothing to do but pray that wouldn't happen. Jake tiptoed across the hallway, shoes in one hand and cocked pistol in the other. Tucking the shoes by the door, he posted his gun on a chair within easy grasp and sized up the office.

  Culper's intelligence had pegged the room as the most likely place plans for an invasion or other helpful records might be kept. In truth, this was but a guess based on its use by the senior staff. Jake realized at a glance that only a thorough search would confirm or deny it. The place was hardly a model of bureaucratic efficiency. There were three small desks, each covered with a variety of books, loose papers, and sketch upon sketch of maps. The center of the room was filled by a large table, whose smooth wood surface was neatly overhung by several layers of charts. Important papers and maps were stored without obvious order throughout the room, and indeed, throughout the entire house. The rumors of English efficiency were, in this department at least, greatly exaggerated.

  Jake moved first to the central table; the pile proved a collection of various fanciful plans of world cosmology, replete with mermaids, phoenixes, and centaurs — obviously the sort of project a young subordinate filled idle hours with while his boss was far away. Much pain had been taken with several of these; on one edge of the table were tacked a series of studies for heads and faces. Jake had gained an appreciation for art while in Oxford for his schooling, and realized immediately that these drafts displayed considerable dexterity.

  They were of little importance now, however. He turned his attention to the documents and books on the desks, going through them as rapidly as possible without creating too much noise. For the most part, the papers were plans for bridges and bivouacs that could be put into use anywhere on the continent; not one showed any geography or features that might hint where Howe was heading.

  Jake's inspection was suspended by a knock so loud on the door below that it felt as if it were made at his shoulder. This was followed by a familiar

  harrumph,

  a not altogether pleasant clearing of the throat, and a general "hello there." The heavy steps of a butler sounded up the stairwell as van Clynne's voice boomed out, inquiring after his "good friend, the distinguished Lord of Marquedom, Count Alain, peer to the realm."

  Had any other patriot knocked on Alain's door, Jake would have immediately guessed that trouble was afoot. But his long experience with van Clynne led him to believe that the Dutchman, as usual, was merely showing his face where it did not belong. Jake cursed silently, then told himself that at least van Clynne's loud voice would distract the servants and his lordship from any noise he might make upstairs. Jake returned to the desks and began pulling open the drawers to examine their contents.

  He was into the second desk when he heard a light foot treading on the stairs. There was no chance to escape; his only option was to hide next to the door and hope whoever was coming up the stairs passed by.

  Vain hope. Jake crushed himself against the wall as the room filled with the light scent of pot marjoram. A woman in her early twenties followed. She looked down and asked aloud where the shoes had come from.

  "They're mine, I'm afraid," said Jake, putting his hand quickly over her mouth. As she began to struggle, he found it necessary to use both arms to keep her still; as it was necessary to cover her mouth, he used the only device handy — his mouth.

  Her lips were quite soft and surprisingly compliant, and in a moment he felt her body slacken into surrender.

  Claus van Clynne, meanwhile, made his way through the house with characteristic bluster. The butler who answered his knock gave the bearded, russet-clad visitor a quizzical look, as if he had opened a door and come face-to-face with a ghost of the island's past.

  The Dutchman saw the man's apprehension as an invitation to proceed.

  "Good evening, sir. Claus van Clynne at your service, here to express my severe condolences to his fine young lordship. His marquessship is at home, I assume."

  "Allow me to introduce my young assistant, Al Stone." Here van Clynne swept toward Alison, still on the doorstep."Despite his tender age, my friend is quite a lion with arithmetic. He can multiply the nines and even the odd eight as if they were tens, which is a considerable talent in business. Hmmm, do I detect the scent of roast capon?”

  "It is quail, sir."

  "Quail!" thundered van Clynne. "Properly prepared quail will triple the life span!"

  Van Clynne led Alison and the attendant to the dining room, where the young lord was seated at the table with the air of a North Sea walrus awaiting his mollusk. Ever mindful of his manners, the Dutchman put his hand to his head, then belatedly realized he no longer had a hat. No matter — he swept an imaginary one off his head with the smooth gesture of a dancer opening a show for His Majesty himself.

  "Lord Peter Alain! Greetings and cheery health, your most lordly lordship!"

  The British ships advancing against the Spanish armada showed more reserve than van Clynne demonstrated as he swooped in on the young lord. Alain's only protection was an elaborate candelabra and a half-finished bowl of onion soup, his first course, resting on a pure silver plate.

  "Claus van Clynne," said the Dutchman. "I am su
re you are much too young to remember me. Your father appointed me to oversee his interests in the colonies. An excellent decision on his part, if I do say so myself. What is that you're eating?"

  "That is odd," said the young man. "My father had no interest in the colonies."

  "Of course not," said van Clynne with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Once I gave him my advice, he saw it would be foolish to even entertain the idea. Managing property and trade over an ocean — bad business, son, bad business. Your lordship, that is. Al, take your hat off as a sign of respect for his honor. Bend low — that's a good boy."

  Alison did as she was told, which helped her suppress a certain look of displeasure at van Clynne's tactics. In truth, she rather shared Culper's opinion of van Clynne. The portly Dutchman was of a type her inn-keeping father used to complain of as being late on bills and doubly long on gab. But the girl would have obeyed Satan himself to help rescue Jake.

  Alain's attitude was one of unmitigated confusion. Unlike his older, now deceased brother, he had never been allowed much access to his father's affairs. Though he deemed it unlikely, he hadn't the slightest idea whether the Dutchman before him actually had anything to do with them. But he did like the slight blush on the youth's cheeks, and saw in Al's face the inviting naivete of a young schoolboy, barely his junior. So he made a gesture that the servant behind him understood to mean two more places should be set at the table.

  "I would shake your hands, sirs," he told them politely, "but there are many diseases about and we must take precautions. My man will bring you a bowl to cleanse yourselves."

  "No need," declared van Clynne as he pulled out his seat. "We were well advised of Your Lordship's precautions and washed before coming. We even took baths."