Matthew Corbett 02 - The Queen of Bedlam mc-2

by Robert R. McCammon

  “I’ll have my report for you this afternoon,” McCaggers said to the high constable. He took off his spectacles and rubbed his eyes. His hands were still shaking. Matthew reasoned that he would never overcome his dread of blood and death, even were he to examine forty corpses a year.

  “May I see that report as well?” Grigsby asked.

  “You may not, sir.” Lillehorne turned his attention once more to the young Deverick. He handed over the wallet and gold pocketwatch. “These are yours now, I think. I’ll go up and speak to your mother with you, if you like.”

  “Yes, I’d appreciate that. I wouldn’t know what to say by myself.”

  “Gentlemen?” Lillehorne motioned Matthew and Grigsby up toward the door.

  Without turning from the notes he was writing, McCaggers said, “I’ll speak to Mr. Corbett.”

  Lillehorne’s backbone went rigid, his lips so tight he could hardly squeeze a word between them. “I don’t think it wise to-”

  “I’ll speak to Mr. Corbett,” came the reply, both an order and a curt dismissal. It was obvious to Matthew that in this lower realm McCaggers was king and the high constable at best a jester.

  Still, Lillehorne had his ton of pride. “I shall have a word with Chief Prosecutor Bynes over this misplacement of loyalty to the office.”

  “Whatever that means, you may do so. Goodnight to you. Rather…good morning.”

  With no further protest other than a little angry exhalation of air, Lillehorne escorted Grigsby and the young Deverick up the stairs. At the top, Grigsby reached back and firmly closed the door.

  Matthew stood watching McCaggers write his notes, look at the body, write again, check with the calipers, write, and have his sweating face mopped with a wet cloth by the silent and impassive Zed.

  “I attended the meeting today,” said McCaggers, when Matthew thought the man’s concentration had forced out all memory of his being there. McCaggers continued to work as if indeed he, Zed, and the corpse were a trio. “What do you make of Lord Cornbury?”

  Matthew shrugged, though McCaggers didn’t see it. “An interesting choice of hats, I’d say.”

  “I know some of his history. He has a reputation as a meddler and a buffoon. I doubt he’ll be with us very long.” McCaggers paused to take another drink from his bottle of courage, and he allowed Zed to once more blot the sweatbeads from his forehead. “Your suggestions were well-put. And well-needed, too, I might say. I hope they’ll be implemented.”

  “As do I. Especially now.”

  “Yes, especially now.” McCaggers leaned over to peer closer at the corpse’s face, and then he gave an involuntary shudder and returned to his writing. “Tell me, Mr. Corbett. Is it true, what’s said of you?”

  “What’s said of me?”

  “The witchcraft business, in the Carolina colony. That you resisted the will of a magistrate and sought to have a woman freed from a death sentence?”

  “It is.”

  “Well?”

  Matthew paused. “Well what, sir?”

  McCaggers turned to look at him, the candlelight sparking on his spectacles and his damp cheeks. “Was she a witch?”

  “No, she was not.”

  “And you just a clerk? How is it you had such conviction?”

  “I’ve never cared for unanswered questions,” Matthew replied. “I suppose I was born that way.”

  “A freak of birth, then. Most accept the easiest answer to the most difficult question. It’s more comforting, don’t you agree?”

  “No sir, not for me.”

  McCaggers grunted. Then: “I presume Mr. Grigsby wishes to write another article in his sheet? On ‘The Masker,’ as he so colorfully states?”

  “He does.”

  “Well, he missed half of what I told him last time.” McCaggers put down his crayon and turned, with an agitated look, toward Matthew. “How can a man publish a sheet if he has tin ears and his eyes can’t see what’s in front of him?”

  “I don’t know, sir,” said Matthew, becoming a little disturbed at McCaggers’ sudden vivacity. Or perhaps more disturbing was the fact that Zed was staring at him with those black and fathomless eyes. Matthew understood that Zed had arrived tongueless at the marketplace; if one knew the slave’s history, it might be a tale for a night’s horror.

  “I told him it wasn’t an ordinary knife. It was a knife with a hooked blade. A backhanded strike, drawn from left to right.” McCaggers placed a finger on the red crayon of the throat cut to demonstrate the motion. “This is a knife designed to slice through the throat of an animal. Drawn with no hesitation and with full strength. I would look for someone who has experience in a slaughterhouse.”

  “Oh. I see,” said Matthew.

  “Pardon me.” McCaggers, who had gone pale with his own recitation of violence, stopped to press the wet cloth up against his mouth.

  “The cuttings around the eyes,” Matthew ventured. “Do you have any idea what-”

  McCaggers shook his head and held up a hand palm-outward to beseech Matthew’s silence.

  Matthew waited uneasily as McCaggers composed himself and Zed stared at him like the living visage of some massive and ominous African carving.

  “A statement, of course,” McCaggers said quietly when he lowered the cloth and took a breath. “Exactly the same as delivered to Julius Godwin. In the Italian tradition, carnival masks are sometimes decorated with colored diamond or triangle shapes around the eyes. Particularly the harlequin masks of Venice.” He saw that Matthew was waiting for more. “That’s all I have, concerning the marks. But come closer and look here.”

  Matthew walked nearer the corpse and the immobile Zed. McCaggers stayed where he was beside the easel. “Look at the left temple. Here is the place.” He chose another red crayon from the jar and drew a circle on the outlined-figure’s head. Matthew looked at the body at that spot and saw on the swollen flesh a black bruise about three inches long.

  “That blow to the head began the play,” McCaggers explained. “Mr. Deverick was dazed and unable to cry out, but not dead. I believe the killer lowered him to the ground on his back, put away the cudgel-a small one, easily concealed-took hold of Mr. Deverick’s hair to steady the target, and did his work. Then the marks around the eyes saved for last, is my best guess. Mr. Deverick was left laid out; your friend got the blood on his hands and then onto that wretched shirt of yours. Am I correct?”

  “The part about the shirt, for certain.”

  “The whole thing probably took only a matter of seconds. As I say, he is an experienced cutter. Also, by way of Dr. Godwin, an experienced murderer.”

  Matthew was staring closely at the imprint of the cudgel, the dead face before him now simply an item of clinical interest and a question unanswered. “You say his throat was cut from the front? A backhanded motion?”

  “I can tell that from the depth of the wound. Deep to shallow, the severed cords and clots of tissue pushed to the killer’s right. Hold a moment.” McCaggers swayed and trembled and stared down at the floor until his fit of dread had passed. Zed offered the wet cloth, but McCaggers shook his head.

  “How do you know his throat wasn’t cut from behind?” Matthew asked.

  “The killer would have had to be left-handed. I think he was-is-right-handed. If he’d come up behind Mr. Deverick, he likely would’ve used his cudgel to squarely strike the back of the skull. And look at Mr. Deverick’s right hand.”

  Matthew did. The rigid hand that lay across the belly, the fingers and thumb spread. Acceptance, he’d thought at the scene of the crime. It came clear to him in an instant. “He was about to shake his killer’s hand.”

  “The shock of the blow splayed his fingers. Should we be looking for a gentleman? Someone Mr. Deverick knew and respected?”

  The impact of this brought something else clearly to Matthew’s mind. It was chilling, in its implication of evil. “Whoever did this wished Mr. Deverick to see his face. To know, perhaps, that he was about to die. Yes?”<
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  “Possibly, but you might have it the wrong way about,” McCaggers said. “The killer might have wished to make sure he saw Mr. Deverick’s face, probably because he wasn’t carrying a lantern. I think this is not the random act of a madman, and neither was the murder of Dr. Godwin. Because Dr. Godwin was also struck on the left temple, leaving that same bruise in almost exactly the same place.”

  Matthew couldn’t reply, for he was left thinking about the preparations the killer must have made in order to be quiet, quick, and successful. Wear dark clothes, no lantern, cudgel at the ready, perhaps a belt under a nightblack cloak to hold the instrument, then the blade in a sheath close at hand. From the ground, the blood wouldn’t have spurted so far up that the killer-who was also ready for that fountain of gore-couldn’t have avoided most of it. Gloves, of course, in case the knife handle did become slick. The cuttings around the eyes, and gone back into the dark.

  “What was the connection between Dr. Godwin and Mr. Deverick?” Matthew asked, only if to hear himself voice the question.

  “You find it,” said McCaggers. Then with an air of finality he turned his back on Matthew to concentrate solely on his notations.

  Matthew waited for a few moments longer, but it was clear his welcome had passed. When McCaggers made a motion to Zed and the slave began cutting away the dead man’s clothes with an expertly applied razor, Matthew knew it was time to pick up his lantern from the floor, its candle burned to a stub, and return to the world of the living.

  His ascent toward the door, however, was briefly interrupted. “Sometimes,” McCaggers said, and Matthew knew from the echo of the voice that his back was still turned, “it’s not wise to reveal all to a watchful eye. I leave to your judgment what to tell Grigsby and what to keep concealed.”

  “Yes sir,” Matthew answered, and with that he left the cold room.

  Eight

  “Well? Let’s have it!”

  Matthew had barely gotten through the door of City Hall before Marmaduke Grigsby collared him. The printmaster got alongside, step-for-step, but had to struggle to keep up with Matthew’s long strides. “What did McCaggers think? Did he say more about the murder weapon?”

  “I think we should not turn this into a public forum,” Matthew cautioned, for even at this hour long past midnight there were still a few men-refugees from the taverns, no doubt-gathered on the street puffing their pipes and discoursing on the callous quickness of the pale rider. Matthew kept walking and turned the corner onto the Broad Way with Grigsby at his elbow. Even as he did, he thought that he had quite a distance to travel on such a dark night, with the Masker now blooded by two killings. The street-corner lanterns had almost burned themselves out, and clouds had slipped in on a damp seabreeze to blank the moon. He slowed his pace. Though he carried his own meager light and occasionally could be seen a lantern here and there as another nocturnal citizen moved about, he decided it was best to have company after all.

  “We should not let this linger,” Grigsby said. “We should compare notes and come up with an article for the Earwig at once. I have other announcements and sundry items to fill up the sheet, but this by far merits the ink.”

  “I have a full day tomorrow. Today, I mean. Possibly I can help you on Thursday.”

  “I’ll go ahead and write what I know to be true. You can go over the article and add your facts and impressions afterward. Then we’ll get to work setting the type. You will help me with that, won’t you?”

  It was a tedious task that nearly blinded a person, since the type had to be set up backward. It could take-regardless of what he’d told Magistrate Powers was “an afternoon’s work”-the whole of a day and well into the night. But the operation did require at least two men, one to “beat” the type with ink and the other to “pull” the lever that pressed the page.

  “Yes, I’ll help,” Matthew agreed. He did like Mr. Grigsby and certainly admired his spirit. He also enjoyed having a hand in putting the sheet together, and being the first eyes to see some of the items Grigsby had written concerning drunken tavern brawls, fights between husbands and wives, chases of bulls and horses loose in the streets, who was seen dining at what eating-house in the company of whom, and the more mundane stories of what cargo had arrived and what was shipping out, what vessels were due in port from which destination, and the like.

  “I knew I could count on you. We’ll need to speak with Phillip Covey, of course, since I understand he was first on the scene. And you second there, how fortunate for me! For the sheet, I mean. Then perhaps we can get an official statement from Lillehorne. Improbable, but not impossible. You know, I think we might even gather a statement from Lord Cornbury, this being such a…”

  Matthew had just about stopped listening at the phrase first on the scene. As Grigsby rambled on with his grandiose plans, Matthew was thinking about who had really been second and third on the scene. He recalled Reverend Wade saying to Dr. Vanderbrocken We have to leave him.

  And go where?

  He decided this was an instance of what perhaps should not be shared with Grigsby, at least until he’d had a chance to hear what Lillehorne would learn about those two gentlemen, and where they’d been going that was more important than waiting for a constable at a murder scene. Had perhaps they heard or seen something that bore telling? If so, they were poor witnesses to be such town pillars, for they’d surely disappeared this night.

  “How did Mrs. Deverick take the news?” Matthew asked as they neared Trinity Church.

  “Stoically,” remarked Grigsby. “But then, Esther Deverick has never been known to display emotion in public. She lifted her handkerchief and hid her eyes, but whether she shed a tear or not is up for question.”

  “I should like to interview Robert again. Surely he knows something about who might have wished his father harm. Or maybe he knows, but doesn’t realize it.”

  “You’re making the assumption, then, that the Masker”-Grigsby was aware of how his voice carried down the Broad Way’s silent length, and he lessened the volume considerably-“that the Masker has a plan and a purpose? How do you come to the conclusion that we don’t simply have a lunatic in our midst?”

  “I didn’t say the killer wasn’t a lunatic, or at least half-mad. It’s the other half that concerns me and ought to equally concern Lillehorne. If two people have been murdered by the same hand, why shouldn’t we expect a third, or a fourth, or…however many. But I’m not sure this is so random.”

  “Why? Because of some information McCaggers gave you?”

  Matthew could feel Grigsby tensed like a lightning rod. Once the printer’s ink got in a man’s veins, it ran there through all of life’s ambitions. “I can get the final report through Magistrate Powers,” he said, not wishing to comment on the possibility that Deverick might have been struck down in the process of recognizing a fellow gentleman or-God forbid-business leader. It had come to Matthew that the Masker might indeed wear his own mask of community service and industry fellowship, and that this “half-madness” had been festering into action for months if not years. “I think it best to wait for McCaggers’ opinions before we-”

  Both he and Grigsby were startled as a well-dressed man in a beige suit and tricorn hat came around the corner of King Street, quickly walked past them without a word, and disappeared into the further dark. Matthew had just had a few seconds to register that the man was even there, but he’d thought he recognized him as the individual who’d thrown apples so viciously into the face of Ebenezer Grooder.

  What was more interesting, however, was that in the breeze of the man’s passage Matthew imagined he caught the faint aroma of clove-scented cologne.

  But then again, Ausley’s realm was only a block to the east, where the iron fence and gate stood around the building of leprous-colored walls on the corner of King and Smith. Whenever Matthew walked so near to that place, his skin crawled and his nostrils flared, so perhaps Ausley’s reek emanated from the yellow bricks here, or from the very air as i
t moved past the shuttered windows and darkened doors.

  “Um…Matthew,” Grigsby said, as he looked at the little flickering flame from the tallowcandle lamp on the cornerpost. “Please don’t think me cowardly in my elder age, but…would you mind walking with me a little further on?” He correctly read Matthew’s hesitation to leave his own straight route home. “I do have something important to ask of you.”

  Matthew wasn’t certain what was important enough to get killed for, on an early morning when New York seemed not quite the familiar town it had been yesterday, but he did think that whoever the Masker was, the murder of Mr. Deverick might have been to him as much an aid to sated sleep as a hot toddy. “All right,” he agreed.

  Soon they were walking past the almshouse. Grigsby didn’t speak, perhaps in deference to Matthew’s history there, though of course he knew nothing of Ausley’s nocturnal punishments to his charges. Matthew looked neither right nor left, but kept his gaze fixed upon the middle distance. What had been one orphanage building in Matthew’s time had now expanded to become three buildings, though still known collectively as the “almshouse.” The eldest and largest still housed the boys of the streets, the castoffs of broken families, the victims of violence both by Indian and colonist hands, those who were sometimes nameless and bore no recollection of a past nor hope for a happy future. The second building kept orphaned girls and was watched over by a Madam Patterson and her staff, who’d come from England sponsored by Trinity Church for the purpose. The third building, the most recently constructed but still ugly for its gray brick and black slate roof, was under the jurisdiction of the chief prosecutor and contained those debtors and impoverished miscreants whose actions were not exactly criminal but who would be expected to work the blemishes off their records by physical labor on behalf of the town. This building, with its low squat structure and barred windows, had lately become better known as the “poorhouse” and was guaranteed to give a shiver down the spine of every working man and woman whose coins could not equal their credit when the bills came due.