“A nice speech,” said Julian. “You just…you just don’t want to have to handle that team by yourself.”
“That’s also true,” Matthew said.
There came a knock at the door. Varney looked in. “Matthew, there’s someone here to speak with you.”
“To speak with me? Who?”
“Sheriff Lancer. From Whistler Green. He’s waiting in the parlor.”
Matthew stood up. His heart was beating harder. A sheriff, here to probably ask questions? Who had told him? Doctor Clark, of course. Two constables escorting a triple murderer to trial in Bristol. Oh shit! Matthew thought.
“Matthew?” Julian said as he started to follow Varney. “Thank you.”
“Just make up your mind that a bed in a coach inn is not a suitable place for a man of your talents to die,” Matthew told him. “Now be still and rest.” He left the room, quietly closed the door and went out with Varney to the parlor, where a broad-shouldered man in a dove’s-gray cloak and a black tricorn with a crimson band was standing before the hearth smoking a pipe that had a black bowl the size of Samson Lash’s fist.
“Matthew Corbett, Sheriff Gideon Lancer,” said Varney.
The sheriff shook Matthew’s offered hand with a grip that Matthew thought he would feel until the new year. “Smells good, whatever Ann’s cooking,” Lancer told Varney.
“You’re welcome to stay with us and have a plate.”
“That wouldn’t suit Becca. She’s already hung the pot over the fire and she’s furious I came out here to see this young…constable,” he answered, deliberately laying in the pause. He smiled, showing teeth that looked to Matthew like the jaws of a bear trap. “So I’ll pass this time, but some other?”
“Of course.”
“Fine. Now…might I have a moment with this Mr. Corbett?”
Varney retreated, leaving Matthew in the clutches of a man whom the New York problem-solver instantly thought could see through the entire charade before a word was spoken. Gideon Lancer removed his tricorn and cloak and hung them up beside the door. He wore a gray jacket with black patches at the elbows, black breeches, white stockings and a plain white blouse. There was nothing about him that might be called ostentatious, except that the pipe’s bowl was awfully big. Matthew judged him to be in his mid-forties. He was of medium height with a stocky build, had a scalp covered with gray sand and owned a pair of deep-set brown eyes that Matthew thought could go from warm to accusing at the hint of a lie. His nose was the rugged, crooked sort seen on street brawlers, and a small scar curved upward across his rock of a chin.
All in all, the man scared Matthew to the marrow of his bones.
“Sit,” said Lancer, motioning toward one of the two brown leather chairs on either side of a small table before the hearth. Matthew did, and Lancer took the other chair. The sheriff spent a moment firing up his plain pewter tinderbox to relight his pipe, and then he blew out a curlicue of blue smoke and said, “What’s the story?”
“Pardon?”
“Story,” Lancer repeated. “Doctor Clark came to my office yesterday afternoon. Said there were two constables from Bristol out here, both of them damaged and one most severely. Said one of them had broken ribs and the other had a bullet crease across his right cheek. I see that’s you. Doctor Clark said these two constables were escorting to Bristol from London a man who had committed three murders. So…what’s the story?”
“Well…sir…that is the story.”
“That is a story,” Lancer corrected. He put the pipe’s bit in his mouth and chewed on it. His brown eyes had taken on a chill. “The coach you constables came in on…that’s quite a vehicle. I’m sure there’s a story behind that, too.”
“We had to steal the coach. We had to spirit our man away from the house his…” Think, think! Matthew told himself. “His gang was holed up in. We didn’t have much choice.”
“Where was this house?”
“In London. Of course.”
“The area. Where?”
“Um…Endsleigh Park Road.”
“Hm.” Puff, puff. The smoke, smelling of spicy Virginia tobacco, wafted past Matthew’s face. “I know that area. I lived in London for many years. My two sons live there now. That area is a fine neighborhood. Not a place where one usually finds gangs of killers.”
“Nevertheless,” said Matthew, “that’s where it was.”
“And you and your other…constable…were charged by the court in Bristol to attack this house on Endsleigh Park Road and arrest this murderer? What about the rest of his…” He puffed smoke again. “Gang,” he said.
“They came to bad ends,” was Matthew’s reply.
“Pardon my saying, but you don’t look the type to be attacking a murderous gang.”
“Well,” said Matthew with a tight smile, “I suppose that makes me all the more valuable.” Before Sheriff Lancer could respond, Matthew plowed on: “As a matter of fact, sir, I am more than a constable. And as a matter of fact, I am an associate of the Herrald Agency. Have you ever heard of that organization?”
Lancer smoked his pipe in silence. He watched the smoke slide into the fireplace and slip up the chimney.
“Certainly,” said the sheriff, his expression blank. He took two more pulls on his pipe before he spoke again. “When I lived in London, I was an associate of the Herrald Agency for…oh…was it five years? No. Six years. And four months. Yes, almost exactly four.”
Matthew sat still, but his mouth had dropped open.
“I suppose, as an associate of the Herrald Agency,” said Lancer, “you know the first name of its founder.”
Matthew found his missing tongue. “Richard. Unfortunately passed away.”
“And you must know his charming widow, Caroline.”
“His charming and gracious widow, Katherine,” said Matthew.
“Oh yes.” Lancer nodded. “So she is.”
Matthew didn’t know what else to say, so he just sat there like a frog on a log and waited.
“Those were the days,” said the sheriff of Whistler Green. “Dangerous days, to be sure. I was not married then. I wouldn’t have put a wife through that. When I married, I settled down. I started out as a lawyer in London, actually. But I wanted action, and lawyering…well, not so much action. Intrigue, yes, but not what I desired. An interesting thing though, Matthew—if I may call you Matthew?—is that as sheriff of a small town, I find both intrigue and action. Oh you wouldn’t believe what goes on in a small town.”
“I think I would,” said Matthew. “I live in New York. That’s in the colonies.”
“Yes,” Lancer replied, and his gaze for the moment was colder than the December night. “I do know where New York is, son.”
“I meant no offense.”
“None taken.” He shrugged and went back to smoking. “Very interesting work, being a sheriff. A cry in the night from an empty house…a runaway horse with a dead man roped to it…a scarecrow in a field that turns out to be a bit more gruesome than straw…a man dressed as a jester who has lost his memory but cannot cease laughing…a woman who continually dreams a warlock has commanded her to kill the sheriff of Whistler Green, or her own family will die…very interesting work. Now, as for your work…and your being here with the other man who has suffered the broken ribs, and you with the bullet wound and all bruised up, and the biggest and most ornate coach I have ever seen, and one door torn off it, and a loaded pistol lying in the baggage compartment, and dried blood and what I believe to be brain matter stuck up on the back of the coach, and this story about a Bristol murderer that I think is complete…how shall I put it politely?…bull figs, and I thought that immediately upon hearing it from Doctor Clark…well…you understand my position.”
Matthew swallowed hard. Merda’s second pistol, forgotten in the baggage compartment? And Merda’s brain matter, splattered there by Matth
ew’s shot?
“Anything to say?” the sheriff asked, behind a cloud of smoke.
Matthew was at a loss, but something came out. “Hudson Greathouse is my friend.”
Smoke spun slowly around Lancer’s head.
“If I—we—don’t get to where we’re going, Hudson will be in danger. He is in danger now. I can’t…and I won’t…tell you anything more.”
The words were spoken quietly: “Hudson’s in Bristol?”
“No, not Bristol. That’s not our destination.”
A long pause followed. Then: “Do you need help?”
Matthew thought about it. He said, “I would like a letter of passage, signed by you stating that my friend and I are constables en route with a murderer to Bristol. We will likely have to stop at least twice more at inns. It would help if we didn’t draw the attention of any more sheriffs.”
“A letter like that would need more than my signature. It would need an official wax stamp.” He lowered the pipe. “Otherwise, easily forged.”
Matthew waited for more, but it seemed that Lancer was also waiting. Matthew asked, “Will you help me in that way?”
The sheriff folded his hands together and regarded the knuckles, which Matthew noted were as scarred as Hudson’s. It was a time before he spoke. “I do recall my days with the agency. I was fortunate to get out alive from some of those escapades. Many I wouldn’t dream of telling Becca about.” He gave a wry smile. “Most I wouldn’t tell her about. But…I do also remember that sometimes I was called upon to do things that…well…the law might frown on, and might serve to put me behind bars. Hudson the same. It was all for the good in the long run, and I suppose that’s what you’re looking at now.”
“Correct, sir,” said Matthew.
“Yes,” Lancer replied, but whether he was simply affirming Matthew’s comment or saying he would supply the document, Matthew could not ascertain. Suddenly Lancer stood up. “Edmond!” he called. “I’m shoving off!”
Varney and Ann came out from the kitchen. There was a bit of small talk about the season and Becca Lancer’s own holiday feast preparations, some conversation about a missing blacksmith and a bag of money, and then Lancer took his coat and tricorn from their hooks and put them on. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Corbett,” the sheriff said, and once more there was a handshake that Matthew thought could crack bones with just a fraction more pressure. “Enjoy the company of these fine people. Here’s hoping the other constable regains his health very soon, for you both to move on with your…catch,” he said. “Good day to you all.” With that and a last puff of pipe smoke, the sheriff of Whistler Green left the house and walked out through the flurries to where his fine-looking dappled buckskin horse was tethered to a hitching post. Matthew watched from a window as the man mounted up and rode away toward the west.
“A productive meeting?” Varney inquired.
“We’ll see,” said Matthew.
thirty-two.
Christmas Day dawned with sun across the snow. The clouds had cleared, the morning was bright and the sky a dazzling blue. Edmond and Ann Varney sat before the fire, with Matthew seated nearby, and over cups of hot tea spiced with cinnamon the innkeeper read the story of Christ’s birth from the Bible, which Matthew figured was a tradition in the house.
Matthew took a bowl of oatmeal in to Firebaugh, who had also enjoyed a plate of the pheasant, yams and fried corncakes from the evening before, and found the doctor still engrossed in the book of potions. The better for all that, Matthew thought as he left Firebaugh to his reading. Then Matthew went in to see Julian and noted that there was no change in the sleeping man’s condition, at least not any he could detect. A touch to his forehead showed the fever was still there. Julian stirred and moaned but didn’t awaken. He had not eaten yesterday but had gotten down a half-cup of tea, and one good thing—Matthew supposed, though Doctor Clark might disagree—was that Julian was no longer expelling blood.
Matthew left him, put on a woolen cap and one of Varney’s coats with a warm fleece lining and took a walk across the snowy field outside. He wandered over to where he’d thrown the bloody polar bear coat and found it vanished beneath the new snow of the previous days. It was a wonder, he thought, that Sheriff Lancer hadn’t discovered it. Or…perhaps he had.
With his hands in his pockets, Matthew walked on.
His sleep lately had not only been haunted by Lash and Black, but by the others as well: Merda, Lioness Sauvage, Krakowski, Montague, and even Victor and Bogen. Making their presences known in his nightmares were also Brux and Pellegar, who kept knocking and knocking at the door of their closet, and though they never physically appeared in all their gruesome glory Matthew was struck with terror that they would come lurching from the closet and want their wigs back.
He had dreamed of sitting in the coach with Elizabeth Mulloy, and her relating her life’s story. And while she was speaking Matthew had sensed another presence in the coach, and looking to his right had seen RakeHell Lizzie sitting there wearing her bladed claws, her face waxy and blank and her dark eyes shining. Suddenly then, as Elizabeth spoke, RakeHell Lizzie began to claw at herself, to cut away her flesh in red ribbons that whirled off as if by a demonic wind, and as she whittled herself down to her core there sat at her center a little girl with terrified eyes, who whimpered and drew herself into a tight knot of self-protection that could never again be unravelled.
And he dreamed of Berry.
She was as he had known her before the drug: beautiful, vibrant…a bit headstrong…no, much headstrong…but that was her. They were walking together in a park of some kind, and oddly enough it seemed very clearly to be autumn, for the passing breeze blew red and yellow leaves from the trees. She put her hand in his and her shoulder against his own, and then she said—again, very clearly and right up into his ear—Help me.
Yes, he’d answered in the dream. I will, I promise it.
And there in his dream before them was a small pond of shining silver, calm and unrippled even as the breeze blew past. As they stood together at the pond’s edge, the pond itself began to rise up from the earth, to elongate and change shape, until it was standing upright and reflecting both their figures. It had become a mirror, and as both Matthew and Berry looked upon it something dark and terribly dangerous—something hideous and vile—began to stir in the glass, began to loom larger and larger, to spread wings and grow the wart of a head, and amid streaks of lightning that shot through the glass and wound about the reflections of Matthew and the woman he loved like the tentacles of Professor Fell’s man-eating octopus, Matthew saw that the grotesque figure wore a raven’s-wing coat and had the face of Cardinal Black.
He wasn’t sleeping much.
He walked through the snow, the sun upon his face and yet the cold bracing and in its own fashion exhilarating. How lucky he was to be alive, after all that. How Fate had smiled upon him—or, at least, had offered him a chance for success that he had to risk taking. Returning to Fell’s village with the book and the chemist…looking back, it had seemed impossible. And Julian? Without Julian it would have truly been impossible. Without a bad man guiding the way…impossible.
In the middle of a snowy field where the footprints were his alone, Matthew sent up a prayer for Julian Devane. He did not linger on it, because if someone were listening his heart had already been heard. It seemed to him that maybe a bad man needed a prayer more than the good. So there it was, and after standing for a while with the sun as warm as summer on his face and his shadow still in winter he turned about and retraced his steps.
As the afternoon progressed, a rider dismounted his horse in front of the Flying Dragon and tied his steed to the hitching post. He was a young man, bundled up in a new woolen coat and an equally new woolen cap, both Christmas gifts from his mother and father in Whistler Green. He took from a saddle bag a leather cylinder, approached the front door and rang the bell.
“Hello, Billy!” said Varney when he opened the door. “Come in and have a cup!”
“No, sir, but thankee,” said the young man. “Got to get back. I’ve been sent from Sheriff Lancer. He said to give this to Mr. Corbett.” He opened the cylinder and handed a roll of parchment paper to Varney, who knew that Matthew at the moment was sitting at the bedside of his fellow constable. “Official business, y’know,” said Billy.
“I’ll see that he gets it. The good day has been a blessing, I hope?”
“Fine, sir. And for you and the missus?”
“Oh, yes. As always. Sure you don’t want a cup to warm you on the way back?”
“I’m sure, sir. Just out and home again, I promised the folks.”
“All right, then. Do give greetings to the family.”
“Yes sir, I will.” Billy started off with the cylinder in his hand and then turned back toward Varney before the door could close. “Oh…sir…I meant to say…a message from Sheriff Lancer to Mr. Corbett.”
“What might that be?”
“Merry Christmas,” said Billy, and then he went to his horse.
****
In the small hours of the following morning, Matthew was jarred awake by another nightmare, this one of a feeling of impending doom and the visions of indistinct faces moving in and out like dark smears against a darker background. He got up from the cotton sleeping pad on the floor at the foot of Firebaugh’s bed, where Firebaugh was sleeping as peacefully as a monk who had never known a conflict in his sheltered life. As Ann Varney had most graciously offered to wash both Matthew’s and Julian’s clothing—yet had not offered the same for the clothes of the triple murderer Matthew was charged to guard—Matthew put on the banyan robe that had been given to him from the innkeeper’s closet and quietly left the room for a breath of cold air to clear his head of phantoms.
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