Virginian

by Mark J Rose

  “Noble deeds, m’lady, for you and your children.”

  Matt bowed, and she answered with a curtsy. She put her arm out for Palmer to take and they joined the queue for the theater. Matt went to close the carriage and saw something red sparkle on the black leather cushion. He reached in and picked it up: a solid gold bracelet adorned with three large rubies. He turned it in his fingers to see the engraving inside: Robert Dunmeade, October 17, 1751. Matt turned back to the theater to see that Scarlett and Palmer were nearly inside.

  “M’lady,” Matt called, then louder, “M'lady.” Scarlett turned, and Matt waved her to him. The people in line were staring, probably trying to determine what sort of royalty this beautiful redhead was. Scarlett returned to the carriage, clearly uncomfortable under the crowd’s scrutiny, while Palmer held their place in line.

  She was mildly exasperated when she reached Matt. “Mr. Bradshaw. I was quite manifest regarding lord and lady?”

  “Old habits are hard to break, m’lady.”

  “What is it?” she asked, resigned.

  Matt held the bracelet up. “Drop something?”

  “My bracelet! I would have been so upset to have lost it.”

  Matt set it in her outstretched hand and watched her fasten it on her wrist.

  “How much do I owe you?”

  Matt rolled his eyes and smiled. “Noble deeds, m’lady…though I would take the story of the name and date engraved inside.”

  “My father,” she said. “And the day that he died. It was a cold winter.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss, m’lady, but I’m glad to be able to return something so precious.”

  Scarlett smiled and curtsied. “Good day, Mr. Bradshaw.”

  “To you as well, Miss Dunmeade.”

  Matt watched her walk away. She glanced down at the bracelet before she and Palmer disappeared into the theater.

  When Matt turned to leave, a man was climbing into his cab, saying, “Bedford Street.” Matt glanced at the long line and decided to take the fare. He drove down Bridges until it hit Strand, and then turned left.

  “It’s there, you idiot,” his passenger called, pointing.

  Matt pulled the horses up short. “Get out,” he called. “Find another cab.”

  “You’re going the wrong way.”

  “This one’s broken.” Matt stepped down and opened the door. He waited patiently until the man finally climbed out of the cab, then regained the driver’s seat, tore the fake beard from his face, and smacked the horses with the reins. He would ride as fast as he could to Dorset Street. There was evidence there that proved Palmer had bombed the opera house; Matt was sure of it.

  Chapter 53

  3 Dorset Street

  The twenty minutes it took Matt to return to Palmer’s home felt like hours, but eventually, Matt arrived and pulled the carriage into the same alley where Palmer had walked to meet them. The trough had hay, and there was a water pump. Matt filled the water, and the horses settled in to drink and eat. There was enough there to keep them happy for half an hour, which is how long Matt hoped to be in Palmer’s home.

  Matt left the horses and walked around to the garden behind the house. From outside the fence, it seemed about the size and shape of the yard behind Franklin’s house on Craven. An eight-foot-high wood fence, though, surrounded this one. Matt pushed at the wooden gate, and it swung open easily. Inside was a well-maintained collection of trimmed grasses, flowering bushes, and intermittently spaced Roman and Greek statues. Matt closed the gate behind him making sure to latch it, and scanned the surrounding buildings for anyone who might be able to watch. There was no one, and a black shutter covered the one and only window in the home directly behind Palmer’s house. Matt was mostly satisfied that he could explore the rear of the house, unseen.

  Matt began looking for a way in. He stepped to the solid oak doors that opened into the backyard. He knew before he touched them that they’d be locked, but jiggled them anyway. Burglars roamed the London streets at night, so doors and locks tended to be sturdy and people spent an excessive amount of time securing their homes before they left or went to bed. Matt stepped back out into the center of the garden and considered all possible ways he could break in. He had seen Palmer lock and check the front door, and Dorset Street was too busy for someone not to notice a man crawling up the front of a house.

  Matt opened the wooden gate and went back out into the alley. The windows there were a second story or higher, and all looked shut, and the wall on this side was too smooth to climb. There was a ledge, but no easy way to reach it. He’d have to pull the carriage back, stand on it, and hope there were enough footholds to work his way up the side of the building. He decided it was nearly impossible.

  Matt returned to the garden. At least two of the windows here were accessible if he could reach the second-story ledge. The only liability was that Matt would be visible from the yards of some of the other rowhomes, so he’d have to work fast. The sun was low in the sky so he could stay hidden in the dark shadows that now enveloped the back of the building. Move!

  Matt walked to the fence close to the house and jumped high enough to grab onto the top, and gradually pulled himself up. The effort that it took to span the fence reminded him that he had gained some weight since he’d arrived in London. Even so, he was soon balancing and leaning against the side of the brick house. The alley and horses were immediately below him on his right. It was easy, then, to step out onto the brick ledge and work his way along the wall to the windows.

  Matt shimmied his way across. He reached the first window and tried to push it in, but it was solid. Matt pulled his closed fist back, ready to smash the glass, but caught himself, thinking to try another window before risking noise. He shimmied past this first window and to the second. He reached up to push it solidly with his open palm, not prepared for it to give. When it released easily, Matt lost his footing and stumbled off the ledge. Luckily, he caught hold of the sill of the open window and was able to save himself from falling back into the garden.

  Matt pulled himself back up onto the ledge and up into the window, straddling its opening on his stomach, and then let himself fall softly, headfirst onto the second story of Palmer’s home.

  Chapter 54

  Evidence

  Once he was in Palmer’s house, Matt got to his feet to look and listen. A guard dog or anything else that might broadcast his break-in would be a disaster. Robbing a house was a severe offense in eighteenth-century London, and repeat offenders had taken a trip to the gallows for crimes like the one he was committing now. Matt had witnessed one of these three-mile “gallows parades” the second week that he was in London. He had asked Franklin why they were celebrating so many men riding in horse-drawn carts, almost as if they’d won some national sporting championship. Franklin had explained that the fifteen criminals were headed to the gallows at Tyburn. It was five or so miles north of where Matt was now.

  Hearing nothing, Matt decided that he was alone and began to look around. This area of the house was unfurnished, so he stepped softly toward the closed door and placed his right ear against its solid wood to listen. Again, there was only the sound of silence, so he turned the knob and gently pulled the door open. Windows at both ends filled the hallway with light. Matt padded into the hall to open the next door. There was nothing in this room or the next.

  Matt tiptoed down the steps to the ground floor and opened the door to the area nearest to the front of the house. The drapes were already open, and so it was well lit. It had a desk with stacked parchment and old newspapers. He rifled through them but found no immediate clues. Growing impatient with the large stack, he resolved to return if he discovered no evidence in the remainder of the house.

  Mitt smiled with satisfaction when he entered the hearth room. There was a small open slit in the curtains providing enough light to see explosives and weapons. There were kegs of black powder, a box of fuses, three flintlock rifles, two muzzle-loading handguns, and a sm
all cannon pointing at him from the corner. Four cannonball shaped bombs, midway through construction were on a wooden table. Matt slid the curtains open to fill the room with light, hoping for written evidence linking Palmer to the opera house bombing. There were no papers, diagrams, or anything else that indicated plans, but the contents here might be enough to incriminate. Matt closed the curtains and left the hearth room with the satisfaction that he was near to putting a cap on Palmer’s activities.

  The next room was completely dark, so Matt opened the door wider to let light stream in from the hall. He jumped back when he saw that someone was standing inside, before realizing that there was a tailor’s mannequin, in the middle of the floor, similar to the one used by Henry Duncan in Richmond to sew men’s suits. It wore a formal looking dark grey suit of the kind eighteenth-century socialites wore to parties, trimmed in gold bands, and complete with matching white and gold satin gloves. One glove was missing, so the mannequin’s right hand was bare.

  There was a table, next to the suited mannequin, with a stack of paper containing printed opera programs. Matt began to page through them, one after another. The program for the opera on the day of the bombing was there with the date circled. Matt couldn’t believe his luck. There was a diagram of the opera house floorplan inside the program. Looking at it closely, he saw that an “x” marked the wall that held Ferguson’s box. This was all Matt needed to go to the authorities. He carefully placed the entire program back into its original place in the stack.

  Matt’s need to escape, then, was almost overwhelming, but he made himself walk deliberately and calmly as a huge sense of victory filled his body. He had outsmarted both Palmer and Ferguson; he had the advantage. The faster he wrapped this up, the faster he returned home to his injured wife. I’ll never leave her again. The future can go to hell! Matt double-checked everything, making sure to close any drapes or doors, and that he left everything as he had found it. He didn’t want to give Palmer any reason to slip away before the police had a chance to surround this place.

  Matt’s excitement was almost overwhelming; he’d incriminate Palmer and get Ferguson off his back. Happy that the first floor was in order, Matt tiptoed up the steps. Heavy pounding on the front door froze him in his tracks. Matt stood paralyzed on the stairs at the sound. “Matthew Miller,” a man yelled through the door. “Bow Street Police! Let us in, you rascal or we’ll break the door down!”

  Chapter 55

  Bow Street

  Pounding on the door of his jail cell woke Matt the next morning. “Wake up murderer,” a voice said through the door. Matt watched the square portal in the door slide open. There was a man’s face there now. “Make yourself presentable,” he commanded. “You’re to be interviewed.”

  Matt pivoted to an upright position sitting on the hard wooden bench that had served as his bed in the Spartan jail cell. He wanted to be ready for whoever came through the door. The irons on his ankles made an almost musical clink as they slid off his shins and onto the grey stone floor. The weight of the shackles on his wrists dug the cuffs into his flesh, so he eased the chains gently onto his lap.

  Aside from his restraints, they had treated him reasonably well. One of the guards had even come by to give him a pad to serve as a pillow on the hardwood bench, though no one had offered him anything resembling a blanket. It had been a mostly a sleepless night anyway as he tried to sort out what had happened, but he had dozed off for the last few hours of the morning.

  “Let me use the pot,” Matt said. “I’ll be ready. Can I have some water?”

  “Make haste,” the man said. “There’s water out here.”

  “Food?” Matt asked.

  There was no answer.

  Matt knocked on the door when he was ready and only had to wait a moment for the guard to return. Matt shimmied back to the bench before the door swung open. Two burly Runners were there to escort him. “Come on,” one said. The runner walked to Matt and grabbed under Matt’s arm to yank him upward. The chains slipped from Matt’s grasp, and the wrist cuffs cut into his flesh again.

  “Ease up,” Matt said irritated. “I’m not guilty.”

  “Who do you think you are, criminal?” the guard said. “Best learn your place.” The guard’s tone was enough for Matt to reevaluate his attitude. Matt couldn’t afford to have one of these men punch him in the face. Aside from it being a punch in the face, it would bring back the headaches, the hallucinations, and visions. He needed to keep his wits.

  “I’m sorry,” Matt replied humbly. The guard acknowledged him with a nod, then stepped and motioned Matt to the door. Matt waddled his way to the interrogation room in his shackles. The whole experience of prison was horrible, but forcing someone to walk any distance in chains, in front of an entire room of people, took misery and dehumanizing to a new level.

  When Matt reached the room, they sat him at a table facing the open door and then stepped outside. The room was dingy and dirty, as was the brown wooden table where he was sitting. The wood surface on his side of the table was worn smooth, no doubt from the combination of human sweat, oil and the rubbing of shackles and chains. Matt sat there waiting in silence. His nerves were more ragged than he wanted, considering his complete innocence.

  **********

  Matt stood up in his shackles as soon as William Morley appeared in the doorway. Morley instructed the guards. After he spoke, the guard on Morley’s left turned and went. Morley walked to the table and reached his hand out. Matt dragged the chains across the table to meet his palm. Morley noticed Matt’s grimace as the shackles dug, once more, into his wrists.

  “Irons were never intended to be comfortable,” Morley said.

  “I guess these are perfect, then,” Matt replied. He gave a painful smile. Morley motioned for Matt to take his seat. Matt gently laid the chains on the table to make as little noise as possible and sat. Matt looked Morley up and down as he took the chair across from him. He was a balding, middle-aged man of about average height, but of a narrow build. His physique contrasted considerably with the burly guards who waited outside the interrogation room. He wore a tan suit that was on the edge of being threadbare, along with a discolored cotton shirt. They were the clothes of a man who had grown weary of getting dressed.

  Morley looked into Matt’s eyes once he had situated himself in his chair and said, “What motivated you to murder two people?”

  “I didn’t murder anyone,” Matt replied. “I was set up by a man named Brian Palmer.”

  Morley had never shut the door behind him, so Matt was still able to see into the lobby of the Bow Street offices. He tried not to look at the men moving around in the hall, but the officers, colorful criminals and vagrants passing through his line of vision were a constant distraction.

  “You expect us to believe you’re innocent?” Morley asked. “We’ve evidence of the man you murdered at the dock and your explosion at the opera house. We recovered everything at your apartments.”

  “What evidence?”

  “Mr. Evans, please,” Morley called over his shoulder.

  A twenty-something man walked in to stand next to Morley. He was tall and thin with a long mop of dark-brown hair. “Yes sir,” he said. Morley pointed at a side table, and Matt’s eyes followed. A grey sheet covered a pile that Matt hadn’t noticed until the moment that Morley pointed.

  “Please shew the evidence to Mr. Miller,” Morley instructed. Evans pulled the blanket aside to reveal items that Matt recognized from Palmer’s house.

  Morley eyed Matt. “Mr. Evans was at your apartment when the evidence was collected.”

  “That’s Palmer’s apartment,” Matt insisted. “Not mine.”

  “And your purpose there?”

  “I broke in looking for this same evidence.”

  Morley gave Matt his version of an eye roll. Matt reminded himself that Morley had probably heard enough false declarations of innocence to fill a set of bound novels. Nonetheless, Matt was going to defend himself at every opportunity
. Evans removed the sheet entirely, placed it aside, and then turned to face the stack. He grabbed a white satin glove and then reached it out across the table so that Matt could have a closer look. “This white glove was found at the crime scene,” Evans said. “It matches the one on your mannequin.”

  “It’s not my mannequin,” Matt replied. He tried to sound confident despite the mountain of evidence sitting on the table.

  “Quite your gammoning, Mr. Miller,” Morley said. “This is your glove.”

  Morley picked up a black overcoat, trimmed in red with silver buttons. “Found in your carriage. Same coat as was reported by the opera house staff the night Lady Ferguson was murdered,” Morley said. “Do you expect us to believe that you and the murderer possess the same coat?”

  “It’s not mine,” Matt said.

  “You’re a tall man, Mr. Miller,” Morley observed. He motioned for Evans to bring the coat to the table. After he had taken it from Evans, he dropped it on the table in front of Matt. Matt lifted his wrists to emphasize the shackles. Evans stepped to him with a key and Matt watched patiently as he unlocked the sharp iron bracelets. Matt flexed his wrists when they were off and then swept the chains to one side of the table, hoping to make it inconvenient for them to put them back on.

  Matt had never seen this coat before. It was made of high-quality wool. The red trim was elegant, striking, and unique enough for someone to remember. There was almost no chance that this type of coat would randomly fit, especially considering that Matt was about four inches taller than the average eighteenth-century Londoner. Matt was somehow sure that it would. He put one arm through the coat sleeve then the other as he said, “If someone is trying to frame me, it’ll be perfect.”

  “Or, ‘tis yours,” Evans corrected.

  Matt flexed his shoulders around in the coat and then let his arms fall to the side. The sleeves reached down to just past his wrists. Whoever had tailored the coat had gotten his dimensions precisely. Matt tried to remember if there had been a time when someone could have taken his measurements. The stolen jacket! His jacket had disappeared one night when he and Franklin were at the pub during his first week in London.