by Mike Ashley
To the side, a second chair had been set out for van Dincklagen, but he was not present. John Tatlock, his arm in a sling and intent on not being observed, sat a distance away perspiring profusely.
Tonneman, brushing snow from his coat, looked about the room. Except for Tatlock and Pos, none of the others who had been invited to attend were present. He sat in the grand chair at the banquet table, then rose.
“Go round them all up,” he told Pos.
A short time later, Pos ushered Old Lady Oopdyk and her son Jacobus to their seats. Oopdyk wore an obsequious smile, had a cut on his forehead, a bloody lip, and a blackened eye. His mother’s shawl was torn and filthy. She was taking in the opulent surroundings as if putting a price on every item.
Van Dincklagen followed, a huge entity who by himself took up most of the space in the room. He seemed oblivious to the long rent in the sleeve of his coat. He set the large bundle he carried on the banquet table and unwrapped it, revealing a giant wheel of cheese. Old Lady Oopdyk jabbed her son with her sharp elbow. Immediately Oopdyk cut a healthy wedge of cheese for his mother, which she chewed much like a furtive rat.
Bridge was the last to arrive. He was breathing hard. His hat was askew. “What is this about, Tonneman? I thought you talked with the Governor.”
“I have the Governor’s approval. Be seated, Bridge.”
Bridge, fuming, took the bench Pos brought over for him.
“Are we all here?” Tonneman asked.
“Everyone but Baalde,” Pos said.
“Invite him to join us,” Tonneman said.
“Murderers should be hanged,” Bridge said, smugly.
“What are we here for?” Old Lady Oopdyk demanded.
“Consider this an inquest into the fraud conducted by persons I will soon name that led to the deaths of Gretchen Goderis and Willem Stael.”
“My son and I had nothing to do with any of that,” the old woman said, tucking a dank grey strand of hair under her cap. She rose to her feet and motioned for her son, who was cutting yet another wedge from the wheel of cheese.
“Sit down. Deputy Pos will be back shortly with our last guest, and we will begin.”
“And while we wait, we’ll have cider and cheese,” van Dincklagen said. “Helga will serve.”
Tonneman stepped outside to wait for Pos, who was conveying the prisoner, Baalde. Snow came down like fine grains of sand, almost obliterating sight. He heard Pos before he saw him. The Deputy was on the run and alone. Something had gone wrong with Tonneman’s plan.
“Hanged,” Pos yelled. “In his cell.”
“Suicide?”
“I think not. He had a knob on his head the size of a duck egg. But it would have taken strength to get that fat neck in a noose. What will we do now?”
“Christ’s blood!” Tonneman said. “I thought you posted a guard.”
“I did, but I didn’t account for Evertsen suddenly offering free drinks from the King Charles.”
“Did he now? Surely not a coincidence.”
“Whatever it was, my two guards were gulping down the free drinks without a thought to their duty.”
“All right. We’ll make it up as we go along. Tatlock will help us.”
“I’m glad you’re so sanguine,” Pos replied.
They returned to the great room and found everyone standing, eating and drinking, as if it were a social occasion.
“Everybody sit, please.” Tonneman seated himself behind the banquet table. Pos remained near the doorway.
“Let’s get this over with quickly,” Bridge said, officiously. “I have the Governor’s business to attend.”
“The Governor has charged me with investigating the death of Gretchen Goderis, who inherited the van Lundt estate as specified in the Widow van Lundt’s last will. Am I right, Lubbertus?”
“Correct,” van Dincklagen said. “There being no legitimate heirs.”
“No sooner was Gretchen dead, than a so-called legitimate heir appeared, calling himself John Lundt. You will see the young man sitting over there, who called himself John Lundt and claimed to be the nephew and heir. His real name is John Tatlock.”
Everyone turned to stare at Tatlock, who grew pale and shrank into his chair.
“How did you come to present yourself, sir, as John Lundt?”
Tatlock opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out. He tried again. “I was hired to do so, in New Haven,” he said, shamefaced. “I was down on my luck.”
“Pos?” Tonneman said.
“The Sheriff sent me to New Haven to learn what I could about young Lundt.”
“And what did you find?”
“That young Lundt’s real name is John Tatlock, that he was in debtors prison in New Haven, and that his debts were paid by the man who hired him to represent himself as the heir to the van Lundt estate.”
“This is taking too long, Tonneman,” Bridge said getting to his feet. “Just put this fraud into jail along with Baalde.”
“Not so fast, Bridge. We’re just beginning.”
Pos came and stood behind Bridge and Bridge sat down.
“Tatlock, what do you have to say for yourself?”
“I am deeply sorry for my part in this, sir.”
“Yes,” Tonneman said. “Did you have anything to do with Gretchen Goderis’s murder?”
“No, sir. I didn’t even know about her.”
“What about the murder of the post rider, Willem Stael?”
“I didn’t know him either, sir. And I was with you when we came upon him.”
“This is true,” Tonneman said. “Stael was murdered because he was paid not to ride his assigned route. He was also paid to report hostile Indians in the vicinity. In English money. The Governor would then summon everyone into town for safety and Gretchen Goderis could be murdered in the forest with no one to know. Were it not for the noise of the hawks that I was sent to investigate, there would have been nothing left of her by the time the curfew ended.”
“So the murderer is not one of us,” Oopdyk said. “We have nothing to do with this.” He reached out a hand to his mother, but she pushed it away and stood up solidly.
“Sit down, Oopdyk.”
Jacobus Oopdyk sat. His mother did not. “I’m weary,” she said.
Pos put her bench behind her knees and, surprised, she sat. “No, no,” she protested.
“Baalde reported his horse and cart stolen, but it was a ruse. It was his arrow that killed Gretchen. He transported her to the woods in the cart he later reported stolen.”
“And who, if you know so much, killed Stael?” Bridge said.
“Jacobus Oopdyk and his mother,” Tonneman said, signalling van Dincklagen to guard them.
“That’s it, then,” Bridge said.
“No. There’s more. I’m sure you’ll want to hear it.”
“This is not all our doing,” Old Lady Oopdyk cried.
“Yes, you are right, Vrouw Oopdyk. I’m coming to that. But first, I want to tell a little story, which Pos will complete. In the van Lundt house, I saw a painting of a young Margarieta van Lundt and in the painting was a moon-faced child. To my knowledge, the van Lundts were childless. After I sent Pos off to New Haven, I went to see old Reverend Megapolensis, who told me there was a child, a strange child, who died with a maidservant when Indians raided the outlying farms and slaughtered settlers. The van Lundts had been in the village at the time and were spared.”
“So there is no true heir,” Bridge said.
“Pos, will you continue,” Tonneman said, ignoring Bridge.
Pos picked up the story. “John Tatlock?”
“Sir?”
“Were the Tatlocks your real parents?”
“They took me in when I was but a babe.”
“Took you in?”
“I was found in a church in New Haven.”
“A white infant,” Pos said, “wrapped in Indian swaddling, was delivered by an ancient woman in Indian dress. The minister was told that the infant�
��s father, now dead, had been stolen by the Iroquois from a farm near New Amsterdam when he was very young.”
John Tatlock looked surprised. “I didn’t know this. I was told only that I was given to the Tatlocks who had no children. They brought me up as their own boy. But I brought them no joy before they died. I was a drunkard and a gambler. I ended up in debtors prison. But I am no murderer.” He wiped a tear from his eye.
Blue eye and green eye, Tonneman thought. What had old Reverend Megapolensis said? Eyes peculiar, unnatural. Was it possible? Had the Indians taken the strange van Lundt child? He looked over at Pos, who was nodding.
“The infant was white, you say?” Bridge said. “This Tatlock has a ruddy complexion.”
Pos said, “It was the child’s eyes. One blue, one green. No Indian child would have such.”
“The van Lundts’s child was thought to have died when the Iroquois raided and burned their farm. That child had peculiar, unnatural eyes, old Reverend Megapolensis told me.”
A gasp came from Tatlock.
“I think, sir,” Tonneman said, “that you are the rightful heir, that your name is John van Lundt.”
“Then why are we here?” Bridge said, rising again. “The wrongful heir is the rightful heir. Baalde and Oopdyk are the murderers –”
“Ah, but we haven’t found the greedy culprit who set everything in motion.”
“Well, you won’t find him here.”
“Oh, but we will.” The Sheriff jerked his chin at Pos. “Bridge, I am arresting you for contriving the plot and the murders of Gretchen Goderis and Willem Stael, and for the murder of your accomplice, Dirk Baalde, who was ready to give it all up, and for scheming to get your hands on the riches of the van Lundts by hiring a fraudulent heir.”
“Outrageous!” Bridge cried. “You can’t arrest me. I am English.”
Tonneman laughed. “Well, we all are now, aren’t we?”
If Serpents Envious
Clayton Emery
Clayton Emery describes himself as “an umpteen-generations Yankee, Navy brat, and aging hippie”. He’s probably best known for his stories in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine featuring Robin Hood and Maid Marian, which began with “Dowsing the Demon” in 1994. His hard-boiled detective story “Totaled”, featuring Susan “Tyger” Blake, was short-listed for an Edgar Award as one of the best short stories of 2002. He has also written a series set in Colonial America featuring Joseph Fisher which began with the following powerful tale.
Seagulls flapped and pecked around an iron cage hanging from a post. The grey-white birds were frustrated by something black that fouled their beaks. Joseph Fisher stopped and the birds flapped away. The cage was a gibbet. Propped inside was a dead man, neck elongated by hanging, body coated with tar. Joseph reached with a bony finger, touched a black foot. Tar pulled loose in a string.
“ ‘Hurl’d headlong . . . to bottomless perdition, there to dwell in adamantine chains and penal fire, who durst defy th’ Omnipotent to arms,’ ” murmured the student. Wiping his finger, he trudged into Newport. What the Narragansett Indians had called Aquidneck, “Isle of Peace”.
The road was dusty and deeply rutted, almost impassible even dry, and wandered between stone walls and pastures and maple trees that nodded great green heads uneasily. Seeking food and escape from the blistering sun, Joseph aimed for the first store.
On a narrow porch of warped unpainted boards blackened by salt hunched an Indian, face slack and cracked from drinking, in a filthy shirt with breechclout and leggins. At the feel of footsteps he extended a shaking hand, begging for anything but mostly rum. The stuporous Indian blinked when the young white man addressed him in Algonquin tangy as pine sap. “Seek you the woods, brother, and drink the water that flows from the headlands.”
The shop had two ends. The front, anchored to the road, bore farm implements – singletrees, harness, grain buckets, feedbags, horse liniments. The rear hung over the harbour on pilings with a dock below, contained chandler’s supplies: boathooks, cordage, buckets of tar and oakum, fishhooks, oars. The store was hot, any loafers dispersed. The lonely proprietor in a cocked hat and flour-dusty apron of green baize braided something from rope and codline. From a back pantry came the squawling of a baby.
The storekeeper ran his eye over Joseph, peered into his pockets. The student was short and thin, shabby in a brown waistcoat and breeches with small pewter buttons, tattered hose and broken shoes. A blanket roll and and chunky satchel marked him as a traveller, yet he wore no hat and let his long brown hair fall free. His complexion was fish-belly white with deep-sunk burning eyes. A man not long for the world, who sought day-old bread and green cheese that wept in the heat.
With pennies in the till, the shopkeeper talked as he knotted. Where was Joseph from, where bound, what the news? Boston, just travelling, new blue laws heaped on sinful heads by the Massachusetts Legislature. Out loud, the Scottish Presbyterian thanked God he lived in godless Rhode Island.
Joseph munched bread and sipped cider. The baby screamed on and on, and he wondered idly where its mother had gone. Instead he asked what the storekeeper braided.
“Nigger whip.” Codline wrapped a rope handle that split into seven thick strands ending in overhand knots. The owner slapped the scarred counter like pistol shots. “Had three in stock and sold ’em this morning. The old sailor who made ’em took to selling ’em on the street, damn his eyes, so I must fashion my own. But t’ain’t hard. Not fancy like a horse whip: you shouldn’t never hit a horse. Just stiff enough to smart but not break the skin. Say, you wouldn’t care to buy a baby?”
“A baby?” Joseph choked on crumbs, racking and hacking, so badly the shopkeeper splashed rum into his cider from a jug under the counter.
“No charge. Here, I’ll show you.”
The shopkeeper fetched the shrilling infant, toting it by the ankles. He spread a bloodstained butcher’s sheet and laid out the child like a smoked ham. Naked and dusky, the boy had black hair flat and straight above a purple face. It clenched its fists and screamed.
“He’s mostly nigger. Got some Indian in him, but that’ll help him tolerate the winters. Good lungs, good grip, good size. Stick it on a wetnurse and in three, four years, it could help around the house and dooryard. Raise it right, don’t spare the rod, and it’ll suit better than any scrawny bound boy off the ship from London.”
Numbly Joseph regarded the screaming infant. It kicked and thrashed, too young to even roll off the counter. “Where is its mother?”
The shopkeeper prevaricated, finally sighed. “In jail. She’s to be burned at the stake tomorrow. That’s her mate ripening out there.” He nodded towards the distant gibbet. “That’s why I’m stuck with this brat. Their goods was forfeit, and the mistress bade me take them all, including this’n. No one wants it, reckon it’s bad luck. But I don’t hold with that.”
Joseph nodded absently. Only Negroes were burned at the stake, and he could guess the couple’s crime. “They killed their master?”
“Aye. You must’a heard. They fed him a snake in his sleep. A timber rattler. Bit his insides and poisoned him. He screamed from dawn till dusk. But it’s an ill wind. Lots of folks’ve never seen a burning, so they’ll flock in from all over the colony. And everyone’s beating their niggers for fear of an uprising, so I’m clean out of whips.”
He had to speak over the baby’s squawling. He tried slapping the child’s face lightly, then harder to stun it, but the infant only howled louder. Finally he pulled the jug from under the counter, soaked a bar rag to squeeze rum into the baby’s mouth. “Some Mother’s Mercy might –”
His hand was arrested by Joseph’s, slim and cold but surprisingly strong. “I’ll buy the child.”
“Well, now, that’s mighty fine.” A broad smile. “I’d say it’s worth –”
“Two shillings.”
“Oh no, I don’t think so. A bonny bairn like this –”
“Two and six, and a swaddling cloth.”
The
shopkeeper shrugged in largesse and fetched a rag crusted with pine pitch and shavings. “You won’t be sorry. Raise ’em right and they’re loyal as puppies. I’m glad you took him. I’d’a strangled it for the dogs or pitched it off the wharf for the crabs.” The shopkeeper wrapped the baby neatly and handed it to Joseph. “There, enjoy it. You’re a good Christian, son.”
“ ‘Christ, conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary: suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried.’ ” But Joseph quoted in Aramaic, and the shopkeeper only looked puzzled.
Shouldering his blanket roll and book satchel, hugging the screaming baby to his chest, the student stepped into the hammer of summer sun. The wasted Indian by the door stuck out his palsied hand. Angry with the world, Joseph snapped, “Fly to the wilderness, far from this Gehenna, where backsliders sacrifice children to Moloch and Baal!”
Aware only that he got nothing, the Indian slouched against the wall. Joseph stalked into Newport. The child’s crying brought seagulls keening overhead as if in sympathy, but in fact seeking a meal at the source of distress.
At the first stream that cut the road, Joseph squatted and dipped his finger. Immediately the child stopped bawling to suck. Spooning more, Joseph traced a cross on the child’s forehead. “I never completed my studies, child, and am more French than English regarding baptism, but I reckon you need succour, spiritual and corporeal.”
Thirst slaked, the child’s hunger set it crying loud as before. The student tucked the baby close and steered down the widest street. Newport jammed a narrow spit jutting into Narragansett Bay, which itself was hemmed by bluffs of purple and red-grey granite before reaching the ocean in the south. Some hundred white gambrels with barns made up the town. Warehouses encroached on the water, and half a hundred wharves pointed to a forest of masts in the harbour: sailing ships returned from Europe and the Caribbean and Africa, fishing smacks no bigger than a wagon. Heat made people veer for shade. Joseph hailed a black girl in a head scarf and patched apron who carried a basket of blue crabs. She told of a Negro wetnurse named Maroca who lived along Butcher’s Brook.
