“Albion?” Hudson finally asked. “What kind of name is that?”
“The made up identity of a murderer who goes around in a hooded cape wearing a golden mask. I am told he strikes usually around midnight or in the early hours. No one has seen his face.”
“Damn,” said Hudson. He was aware then that Berry had grasped hold of his arm and he was the only thing holding her up. He put his arm around her, the better to keep her from falling. “About faces, then.” He spoke to the clerk. “Who was the messenger yesterday? Someone you know?”
Steven shook his head. “This is particularly where I failed. I didn’t recognize the man, but he told me he was new to the department. He was very convincing. He knew the proper names and the positions, when I inquired who he was working with.”
“A description, please?”
“What, you think it might be someone you know?” Archer asked. “And you just recently arrived? Mr. Jessley has already given myself and Patterson a description, and it’s no messenger we’ve ever seen.”
“Let me say,” Lillehorne ventured timidly, “that Mr. Greathouse is, like Matthew Corbett, an associate of the Herrald Agency.”
“Oh my Lord!” came the reply. “Yes, we certainly need more hands stirring this bowl of confusion, so by all means stir away!”
When it had appeared the judge was giving his consent to continue, Steven said, “A young man, he was.” He pressed a hand against his left temple, as if that might further sharpen his recollection. “Maybe twenty or so. Around my age. Of medium-height and slender build. Well-dressed. Neat in appearance. Brown hair, pulled back in a queue. Brown eyes…I suppose. Maybe they were more gray than brown. He seemed intelligent and capable, but otherwise simply a common messenger.” Steven shrugged, ending the labor of memory.
“Scars?” Hudson asked. “A cleft in the chin? Anything irregular at all?”
“No, sir.”
“Eureka!” said Hudson, with a false smile that became a grimace. “I suppose that narrows it down to several ten thousands!”
“The City of London is not paying any associate of the Herrald Agency for assistance in this sorry matter, sir,” Archer advised, sending forth another fiery glare. “Both and I and Sir Patterson have Mr. Jessley’s testimony consigned to paper, and that didn’t cost us a bent shilling.”
“I’d like to see this document,” said Lillehorne. And then, as if fearful he’d pressed too hard, “At your convenience, I mean.”
“Of course. Your name is well-forged on it, too. It’s a first-class job. I’m going to have it framed to keep with my other remembrances…that is, until it’s brought before the court as evidence and someone pays the price for this crime.” Archer’s gaze travelled to the clerk. “You’re all right now, young man?”
“Yes, sir. I didn’t sleep too soundly last night. I think I must’ve had a premonition that something was wrong.”
“See that you get some rest tonight. Drink yourself into a stupor if you have to, but be sharp tomorrow. Good day to you, sir, and to you, miss. Lillehorne, if you want to take a gander at the parchment come with me.”
“Just a moment!” Hudson protested. “Is that all?”
“All what?”
“All to be said and done? With Matthew out there, maybe in the clutches of a murderer?”
“What would you have us do?”
“Search for him!”
“Hmmm,” said the judge, with a finger tapping his chin, “I’m sure our army of constables will get on it right away, as soon as the hundred and ninety-four other murders, assaults, abductions and various other violences committed in the last two days have been remedied. By the way,” he said to Lillehorne, “how goes the investigation into Madam Candoleri’s kidnapping? I was too preoccupied this morning to ask.”
“The same as before. Not a word demanding ransom.”
“That makes no sense! Why would anyone kidnap her unless they wanted money?”
“Perhaps,” said Lillehorne, “they desired a private opera performance?”
Hudson jumped at this. “What, you’ve got a missing opera singer on your hands?”
“If she was on our hands, she wouldn’t be missing,” Archer said coldly. “Teachers of logic must sorely be lacking in the colonies.”
“We make up for that,” Berry was able to answer, “by teaching good manners.”
“That and six pence will buy you a cup of sour cream. Now go about your business and leave us to ours. Can you find your own way to the street?”
“We’ll go by the coal chute,” said Hudson, “since we’re being shovelled out.”
“Then slide on and be gone,” Archer said, and Lillehorne followed him from the office with a last quick helpless glance at Hudson that said I have done all I can.
“Is he always such a prick?” Hudson asked the clerk after the sound of their shoes on the corridor’s floor had clacked away.
“He’s a very able man. A little prickly, yes, but he has the necessary temper for this job.”
“I’ll take your word for that. Is there nothing more you can recall about the messenger?”
“Nothing more than what I’ve already related.” The young man’s eyes behind the square-lensed spectacles went to Berry. “I…presume you have a…special interest in Mr. Corbett?”
“Yes,” she said firmly. “I do.”
“And come such a long way. Indeed it must be special.”
“She loves him, that’s the interest,” Hudson blurted out. “And he loves her too, but he’s too stupid to tell her.”
“Oh,” said Steven, and he seemed for a moment to be examining his own hands. When he looked up at her, his face had softened. “I regret what has happened. Judge Archer does too, but he…he has his own way of expressing things. If it’s any help to you, Mr. Corbett seemed to me an extremely capable man. I mean, I only saw him in this office for a few minutes, but in that short time he seemed very sturdy. I would think he is a…I suppose the word would be survivor.”
“Yes, he is that,” said Berry. “But even so, I can’t bear to think of him out there at the mercy of some creature of the night.”
“Well,” the lad said, “it’s daylight now, so he’s in no danger from Albion.”
“I wish we knew that for certain,” Hudson said. He motioned toward the office’s oval window. “And you call that daylight? I’d forgotten what London gloom was like.”
“One gets used to the gray. If there’s anything else?” Steven pulled a sheet of paper toward himself and picked up a quill.
“Nothing else,” Hudson said. “Good day.”
“And to you, sir, and miss.”
On the way out, they were halfway down the central staircase when Hudson said, “This is a damned strange barrel of pickles.”
“An understatement,” Berry answered. “Lord, I’m tired…but I couldn’t sleep unless I was knocked unconscious.”
“We both need to eat something. Get a cup of tea or coffee somewhere. Figure out what to do next.” He shook his head as they descended the stairs. “All that about Albion…the messenger and the forged order…what has Matthew gotten himself into now?”
“Something I pray to God he can get himself out of.” She stopped suddenly, a few risers from the bottom, and Hudson paused two steps further down. Her cheeks appeared a bit flushed. “He…loves me, you say?”
“I do say.”
“He has a very peculiar way of showing love.”
“Perhaps so. It’s something we need to talk about, but first let’s go find a meal.”
“All right,” she said, with a faint smile that held hope, and she followed him toward the courthouse’s set of finely-painted white doors while he tried to figure out how to keep her mind off the fact that the man she loved—and who certainly loved her—might be by this time long dead.
“I think he’s comin’ ’round.”
The voice—not quite a voice, but the mere echo of a voice—made Matthew realize he was returning to life
, though it did flit through his aching brain that the voice was feminine, and might belong to an angel, thus he was dead and by God’s grace gone far from London, unless the Devil was tricking him for past misdeeds and bad wishes, and when he opened his eyes they would be greeted by—
“Yep, he’s turned color. Comin’ ’round, he is. Hey, wake up!”
A hand grasped his arm and jostled him, none too gently.
“Give him a pinch, see if that don’t do it.” That was a male voice.
And another male voice: “Pinch his pecker, that oughta make ’im jump.”
Instinctively, Matthew’s hand went south to protect his privacy. He discovered it was already stolen. He was as naked down there as the man in the moon.
His eyes opened. Bleary light shut them again. His head felt as heavy as an anvil, his neck a fragile stalk of wheat.
“Almost there,” said the girl, for indeed the voice was girlish. “Come on, fella, try it again.”
“Lemme pee in his face,” said one of the men. “That always works.”
“A moment,” Matthew was able to say, though it was the weakest whisper. “A moment,” he said, louder. “Hold your water, please.”
They laughed. Two men and a girl, laughing.
Of all the indignities he had lately suffered, being laughed at was the one that galled Matthew the most. It flamed his temper, and by that heat and power he climbed out of the darkness to which he recalled being consigned by an unfriendly boot. He opened his eyes. Swimming into focus came three faces, daubed yellow by lamplight. The rest of the chamber, wherever he was, remained dark.
“There you are,” said the girl, and in her blurred face he saw the offering of an honest, toothy smile.
“Where is…there?” Matthew managed to ask. He found he was covered over by a thin blanket and lying on a mattress that was lumpy with straw.
“Our cellar,” said one of the men. “’Bout two blocks from where we put you under.”
“Yeah, Roger’s quite sorry for that,” said the other male, a higher and more nasally voice than the first. “But it was your head got in the way, so he can’t be too contrite.”
“My head. Yes.” Matthew brought a hand out from the blanket and felt the side of his jaw. Every hair of his beard registered pain. He was swollen up pretty good, so there was no use in examining himself any further. But—strangely enough—he felt clean and a bit raw, as if his skin and scalp had been rather violently scrubbed. Also…was that a soapy scent he was smelling? “Have I been given a bath?” he asked the three still-indistinct faces.
“And it was a messy job, too,” said the girl. “Turnin’ a half-dead body back and forth to get at all that nastiness. Time it was done I filled up a bucket we can use for hard core, plug some of the holes ’round here.”
Time, Matthew thought.
Midnight at the Three Sisters! Flint Alley! Half of him shouted to leap up, the other half was his own sea anchor.
He did try to get up at least on his elbows, which was itself a difficult task. “What time is it?” he asked one of the faces.
“Here now, do I look like a fuckin’ clock?” The first of the men had spoken.
“Go soft on him, Kevin,” said the girl. “He still ain’t all to earth yet. Well…I’m thinkin’ it’s likely past eleven.”
“Got to get to the Three Sisters. Flint Alley. Have to be there by midnight.”
“By midnight?” She gave a small chuckle. “You got some time, then. More’n twelve hours, and Flint Alley’s just a few minutes’ walk.”
“Twelve hours?” It dawned on him. “You mean…it’s past eleven in the morning.”
“Right-o.”
“Oh,” said Matthew. He sank back down again into the lumps. His appointment, directed by Albion, was lost. “Damn,” he said quietly.
“The Three Sisters ain’t goin’ nowhere,” Kevin told him. “Neither are you, by the looks of you.”
Matthew could apply no comment to this. It occurred to him that not only had the boot knocked him out for so long, but his weakness and lack of decent sleep had combined with the blow to keep him insensate.
“You must’ve been mighty thirsty for tavern brew,” said the girl. “That explains why you started twitchin’ and turnin’ somethin’ awful ’round about midnight. I know, ’cause I was sittin’ in here with you and saw it.” She turned her head to speak to one of the others. “Rory oughta know he’s come up.”
“I’ll fetch him,” said the second male, and there was the noise of boots clumping away across a stone floor.
“Lots ’a questions to ask you,” the girl said to Matthew. “Figure to wait on Rory for that.”
“By all means,” Matthew muttered, still cursing himself for missing the meeting and, furthermore, for missing a chance to clear up some of this mystery. “Let’s wait on Rory. In the meantime…” He had to pause a few seconds, because to his swollen jaw speaking all these words was like chewing on cannonballs. “You say…Flint Alley’s a few minutes away? I realize I’m in a cellar…but…who are you people?”
The girl’s face came out of the dimmer dark, was fully illuminated by the light of an oil lamp sitting on a crate beside Matthew’s head, and she looked down upon him like an angel from above.
“We’re your new fam’ly,” she said, “if it pleases you to be so.”
Matthew’s vision had almost completely cleared. He saw she was first of all maybe sixteen or seventeen, was slightly-built and had curly brown hair cropped short like a boy’s. In a heart-shaped face with untended, wild dark eyebrows her brown eyes caught the light and showed glints that could only be described as golden. Except her right eye was bruised and puffed, there was a purple knot on her scraped chin, her right cheek bore the bruise of a couple of knuckles and a small cut lay across the bridge of her pug nose.
This, Matthew realized, was the person he’d thought was a young boy suffering an attack by three bullies. Her statement, given earnestly, made not a whit of sense to him, but then again very little did these days. “What’s your name?” he asked.
“Pie Puddin,” she said, and her good and wounded eyes searched his face with intense interest. “What’s yours?”
“Matthew Corbett.”
“’lo, Matthew,” she said, and her bruised face smiled again.
“Hello…Pie,” he answered.
“Has our brave but foolish and very lucky warrior come to his senses?” The voice echoed in the cellar, as its owner had not yet reached Matthew’s side. Matthew heard the clump of a number of boots again, the girl named Pie moved away, and a man stood next to him. “Roger, look what’cha done,” the man said, speaking to someone out of Matthew’s field of vision.
“Pity,” returned yet another voice. “’Course it was just a graze. The next kick got that buster square in the chops. Sorry, mate,” he said to Matthew. “No hard feelin’s?”
“My choppers are still there. Didn’t bite my tongue through. Little hard to talk, but…no hard feelings.”
“Just what we want to hear.” The new arrival knelt down beside Matthew, uncorked a bottle and offered it. “Gift to you,” he said. “Best rum we could get on a moment’s notice.”
Matthew took the bottle and had no hesitation in drinking. In fact, he wouldn’t mind getting extremely drunk. The rum burned his mouth and throat and sizzled in his stomach but he thought he’d never tasted finer.
“His name’s Matthew Corbett,” said Pie Puddin.
“Rory Keen,” the new man told him. “I’m what y’might call lord of the manor.”
Matthew took another long swallow. “Lord of what manor?”
“All you see here below, and above. Three blocks to the south, three to the west, four to the east, two to the north. Workin’ presently on increasin’ our territorial holdin’s, in a manner a’ speakin’.” His ruddy face grinned, showing three silver teeth in the upper front and two in the lower. His deep-set, fierce pale blue eyes were frightening in their fervor. “You’re in the lan
d of the Black-Eyed Broodies, and welcome to such a gallant soul. Wadin’ in there and savin’ our Pie—though she didn’t need no savin’—was quite the show a’ balls. I like balls, though not in the way some do.”
Another girl in the group who had entered the cellar laughed, and ended the laugh with a most unmaidenly snort.
“Now,” said Rory Keen, who had hair the color of flames and so thick, wild and wiry it appeared that trying to use a comb on it might’ve reduced the instrument to char. “Drink up plenty, friend Matthew, and we’ve got plenty a’ questions to ask you, and we hope you answer ’em all right as rain, ’cause we would sorely hate to think kindly of you one minute, then the next send you to your grave with a second mouth in that throat a’ yours.”
And, so saying, he placed a wicked-looking knife upon the crate next to Matthew’s head, and Matthew noted with some distress that its hooked blade already wore a proud crust of some enemy’s dried blood.
Seventeen
PERHAPS it was the potent rum. Perhaps it was the fact that Matthew was coldly enraged at himself for missing his midnight meeting. What it most likely was, was the fact that a few seconds after Rory Keen had spoken and the knife set down upon the crate, a whirlwind of memories whipped through Matthew’s mind, of all the things he had done and seen, all the tight scrapes he’d gotten out of, all the people he’d loved who had died, all the pain of having to keep Berry at a distance and the continual fear of that greatest shark in the sea of sharks, Professor Fell.
Therefore with all these in mind, and with Rory Keen staring holes through him and an instrument of violent death about twelve inches from his head, Matthew looked into the ruddy face of the master of the Black-Eyed Broodies and said with tightly-controlled fury, “Don’t you dare threaten me.”
Freedom of the Mask Page 21