Matthew Corbett 02 - The Queen of Bedlam mc-2

by Robert R. McCammon

  Within the walls of dark wood were bookshelves, a writing desk with quills and inkpot, a chair at the desk, and two other chairs. Across the back of one chair he saw hung in a leather scabbard a rapier with a bone-white grip and an undecorated metal handguard and pommel. A workman’s sword, he thought. Made for use instead of threat. A man’s coat hung on a wallhook across the room, next to a closed door.

  Then he heard voices approaching from the other side, and he thought it wise to retreat behind the drapes and stay as still and quiet as mind over nerves would allow.

  “…unfortunate, really,” said a man’s muffled voice. “He gave it away so…” and here the door opened and the voice became clear “…easily. He practically showed me where it was.”

  “And how was that?” A woman’s voice, behind the man.

  Matthew had to grin just a bit. It seemed that Mrs. Herrald would not be at the Dock House Inn at seven o’clock.

  “He touched his coat pocket,” said the highwayman, whose voice had become much less that of the raven of the road and much more the English gentleman. “The outside of it, here.” He was displaying the motion for Mrs. Herrald. “Furthermore, as I took the envelope he told me what it contained. He altogether lost his nerve.”

  Matthew decided to say Better than losing my knee, but he wished to make a grand entrance. He pushed aside the drapes, stepped forward…and two things happened in a blur.

  Mrs. Herrald, who had removed her riding-hat since arriving at the house, gave a startled cry. In the next instant the supposed highwayman, still a huge man no matter his masquerade, moved faster than Matthew had ever seen a human being react in his life. There was a hissing sound of leather spitting steel, a bright spark of sunlight leaped in an arc across the walls, and very suddenly Matthew had the sharp tip at the end of thirty inches of rapier up under his throat where all the life flowed.

  Matthew froze. The swordsman also became a statue, as did Mrs. Herrald, but the weapon did not waver a nose-hair.

  “I surrender,” Matthew said, and slowly lifted his hands palm-out. “By God!” the man thundered, shaking the glass in the door panes. “Are you insane? I almost ran your neck through!”

  “I thank you for your hesitation in that regard.” Matthew tried to swallow and found his Adam’s-apple in jeopardy. “I have a delivery for a Mr. Hudson Greathouse.”

  “A delivery? What are you-”

  “Mr. Greathouse,” said Mrs. Herrald quietly, “please lower your sword from our courier’s throat.” Her face was still blanched but some humor had returned to her eyes, and Matthew thought that even by what the man Greathouse had told her, she knew his trick.

  The sword dropped, but Greathouse kept it at his side unsheathed. Matthew felt it was a compliment, in a way. The man’s rugged, hawk-nosed face bore the rather dazed and confused expression Matthew had seen on six-month-long sea voyage passengers as they staggered onto the dock encountering long-forgotten stability.

  “May I deliver the envelope?” Matthew asked.

  “I already took it,” growled Greathouse.

  “Yes sir, but…no, sir. You did take an envelope, yes. But the right one, no.” Matthew shrugged off his coat, reached back underneath his waistcoat, and retrieved the envelope where it was lodged between shirt and breeches-band. “I apologize,” he said as he handed it over. “It’s a little sweat-damp.”

  Greathouse turned the envelope to look at the red wax seal with its embossed H. “This can’t be! I broke the seal on the envelope I took from his pocket!”

  “That envelope did have a wax seal, yes sir. The color of red used on the real envelope is probably a shade or two lighter than that used in Magistrate Powers’ office, where I did the work before I left. But I didn’t believe it would be a problem. I think, Mrs. Herrald, that you’ve bought your envelopes from the same source as does City Hall, namely Mr. Ellery’s Stationer’s Shop on Queen Street. If not, the envelopes are nearly the same in size.” He looked back and forth between Mrs. Herrald and Hudson Greathouse. “I couldn’t duplicate the correct seal, of course,” he said, enjoying their silence, “so I had to divert the highwayman’s…um…Mr. Greathouse’s attention from examining it too closely before it was broken. Then again, if he’d seen it was not embossed with an H and he’d shown any reaction, he would’ve given himself away even before he pretended to read official signatures on a blank piece of paper.”

  “Really?” Mrs. Herrald’s eyes sparkled, as she was obviously relishing the display.

  “Yes, madam. His six paces stepped backward might have been far enough to keep me from seeing there was nothing written on the paper, but I already knew there wasn’t.” That part had been comical to Matthew, and he’d had to put his hand over his mouth to hide a wicked smile as the “highwayman” had read the “signatures” and boasted of his forger “friends in Boston.” They had to be quite some forgers, to forge names out of nothing.

  “And how did you know I wasn’t a real highwayman?” Greathouse asked. “How did you know that when I saw a blank piece of paper I wouldn’t just cave your head in?”

  Matthew shrugged. “I didn’t. But you had my wallet and the watch. Why should you get so upset over nothing?”

  Mrs. Herrald nodded. “Prior preparation, using the envelope and wax. Very clever. Misdirection, with your hand over your pocket. Again, clever, but Mr. Greathouse should have been aware of that old trick. Anything else?”

  “Yes madam, the fact that you were arriving was very clear. Mr. Greathouse threw the torn envelope down onto the road as a signal to let you know the game had been played out, in case I walked so far to find my horse that you missed me on my supposed trip back to town.”

  “True. All true. But for one small hitch-knot, young man. Mr. Greathouse, would you open your delivery?”

  Greathouse broke the seal and opened the envelope. A smile flickered at the edges of his mouth. “Oh,” he said. “I see the amendments to the deed came.” He held up an official parchment written in an expansive, flowing hand and bearing half-a-dozen fat-fingered signatures.

  “It arrived by ship’s post, two hours before my meeting with Mr. Corbett,” Mrs. Herrald said, still speaking to Greathouse. “I was unfortunately unable to tell you in time that our courier would be protecting a real, and very valuable, document.”

  Matthew looked down at the floor’s oak boards and tasted a little sour remnant of his Gold Compass codfish.

  “I should sign it now, while it’s in front of me.” Mrs. Herrald took the parchment, sat down at the desk, dabbed quill into ink, and wrote her name in stately script below the other names.

  “This is your house?” Matthew asked.

  “Yes. Oh, there’s a matter of some landholdings, but this settles it once it’s back in London.” She smiled up at him. “I’ll take it to the post myself.”

  “You smacked me, boy!” hollered Greathouse, who slapped Matthew on the back so hard Matthew thought he might wind up head-over-heels in the garden. The man grinned with square white teeth that looked cut from DeKonty’s quarry. “Well done!”

  When Matthew had gotten all the wind back in his lungs and could speak again, he said, “Pardon, Mrs. Herrald, but…if your plan was for me to be waylaid on the road and the envelope taken, then what was the point of all this?”

  She spent a moment refolding the parchment. Then she looked up at him and in her eyes Matthew thought he saw a new appreciation. Or respect, as the case might be. She said, “I know your history from Nathaniel Powers. I know your motivations concerning that situation in Fount Royal, and I know your desire for success. What I didn’t know was how you would deal with failure.”

  She stood up, now regarding him face-to-face. “As a member of the Herrald Agency, you will do your best to succeed, but in spite of that, many times you will fail. That is the nature of the world, and the truth of life. But when you find your horse again, will you go back, or will you go forward? That was what I had to know.

  “Welcome,” she said,
and she offered her hand.

  Matthew realized he stood at an important crossroads, and one that should not be lightly negotiated. If dealing with a false highwayman was the worst of it, fine; yet Matthew thought today’s incident was likely a frivolity, considering the danger of this line of work. Yet, for the chance to use his mind and his instincts, to further the career that Magistrate Woodward had begun by removing him from the orphanage, to make something of himself in this rowdy and riotous world, wasn’t it worth at least a try?

  It was, he decided, though he knew he’d decided this when he’d left town by the Post Road.

  It was.

  He took Mrs. Herrald’s hand, and right away received another slap on the back from Hudson Greathouse that made him think he couldn’t survive many more congratulations.

  “You’ll stay for dinner,” Mrs. Herrald announced. “Mr. Greathouse will make his famous Irish beef and ale stew. I presume your horse is somewhere nearby, so I’d suggest you go ride it properly up here, get it watered and settled in the barn. The key to the gate is hanging on a peg next to the front door.” She motioned him off. “Go!”

  As twilight gathered, the stormclouds grew and thickened and at last the devilishly playful showers of the day became a driving rain. In the dining-room of Mrs. Herrald’s house, candles burned as rain beat against the windows and Matthew sat at the polished walnut table realizing that Mr. Greathouse’s stew was not so famous for its beef as for its ale, which had been poured in by the brewer’s jug. Matthew ate lightly and Mrs. Herrald more lightly still, yet Greathouse drank a mug of ale to go along with his ale and showed no effect other than a proclivity to fill up the room with his voice.

  Matthew had not been told directly, but he surmised as they talked about various things-the state of the town, the new governor, the high constable and such chit-chat-that they were employer and employee, yes, but also something more. Not so personally involved as sharing a professional…what would be the word? Matthew thought. Elan, possibly? A bond of purpose? That they greatly respected each other was obvious and paramount, in their patterns of speech and their responses to the other’s comments, but again there was something more than respect present here. Matthew had the impression that Greathouse was Mrs. Herrald’s “right-hand man,” so to speak, and might even be second-in-command of the agency. In any case, she listened intently when he spoke and he did the same for her, and Matthew thought this was not simply a professional courtesy but rather a deep alliance of kindred minds.

  As Greathouse quaffed his ale and talked about how he and Mrs. Herrald were trying to decide between two suitable office locations on either Stone Street or New Street, Matthew studied him and wondered what his history might be. Sitting there with the sleeves of his white shirt rolled up to the elbows and his full head of gray hair pulled back into a queue and tied with a black ribbon, Greathouse might have been a schoolmaster discoursing on geometrics. Yet his voice had a military quality about it; that is, Matthew thought, his voice had a patina of confidence and an edge of urgency that might be suited to battlefield command. Certainly his physical size and quickness spoke of an active life, as did the jagged scar through his left eyebrow and his familiarity with the rapier. Greathouse also bore one telltale sign of a man who had wielded a sword in earnest: the forearm of his right hand, his sword arm, swelled larger than the left.

  He appeared to be a man who pretended to be more rough-hewn than he was, Matthew decided. Sometimes Greathouse started to reach for the napkin to dab his mouth and seemed to remind himself not to; or sometimes he did it anyway, while speaking. A man with an education in manners who played his role with a more common touch. Matthew wondered if he might be an aristocrat, raised amid wealth, who for one reason or another felt more comfortable in the light of a lesser candle. Matthew guessed his age in the mid-to-late forties, probably just a bit younger than Mrs. Herrald.

  And he could surely go on, once he got started. “Did you know,” he said, “that we’re near the place this island got its name? Some of the first settlers brought kegs of brandy in for the Indians and everyone wound up soused at a ceremonial feast. When the settlers later asked the name of the island, the Indians made it up on the spot: Manahacktantenk. In their lingo it meant ‘the place where everybody got drunk.’”

  He lifted his ale mug high. “To Manahacktantenk,” he said, and drank it down.

  Toward the end of their dinner, with darkness fully fallen and rain still tapping on the windows, Mrs. Herrald said, “Matthew, I wish to ask your opinion on something. Excuse me.” She rose from her chair, as did the two gentlemen, and she left them for a moment at the table. When she returned, she had with her to Matthew’s great surprise an item with which he was most familiar.

  She seated herself again and put down upon the table a copy-smudged, one of the imperfect dogs that had gotten loose, but still legible-of the Bedbug. “I was most interested in this broadsheet. I was wondering if you knew the printer.”

  “I do. His name is Marmaduke Grigsby. In fact, I helped him lay down the type and work the press.”

  “A man of many occupations, it seems,” said Greathouse, eating another portion of his famous stew.

  “Just helping a friend, that’s all. But what of it?”

  “I was wondering how many he prints, and when he’s printing the next sheet. Do you know?”

  “I believe we printed three-hundred copies of that one.” And every six-hundred back-and-fronts recalled by the muscles of his shoulder in levering that damned press down upon the typeface form and holding each one at pressure for fifteen seconds. “I understand Mr. Grigsby wants to print the next sheet within a few days, if possible.”

  “Even though we’re still negotiating for an office, I think we should consider asking your friend to run a notice for us. Something quiet, of course. Just that the Herrald Agency is opening soon, and that we specialize in finding…” She paused. “What is lost,” she decided. “And finding answers to delicate questions.”

  “I’d like to see the response to that,” Greathouse said, as he pressed the napkin to each corner of his mouth with a huge hand. “Farmer Jones wishes to know the answer to why his daughter Lovey comes to dinner with hay in her hair.”

  “To start, one must begin,” Mrs. Herrald answered, with a slight shrug. “Isn’t that true?” She’d directed the question to Matthew.

  “It is,” he agreed, “but I do wonder why you’ve chosen this place, at this time. I understand much valuable cargo passes through New York, and many wealthy people with items of value. But, after all, New York isn’t London. I can verify that the criminal element here is not exactly overpowering the judicial system.” He realized he was echoing the statement of High Constable Lillehorne. “Why, exactly, have you chosen New York?”

  Mrs. Herrald stared into his eyes, and by the steady candlelight Matthew thought there was a serenity and certainty of purpose about her that was almost unsettling, being from a woman. He wondered if those who sat in the presence of Queen Anne felt such an emanation of cool willpower as he felt now from Katherine Herrald. He had to sit back in his chair a bit, for the force of it was almost like a fist against his chest.

  “Now you’ve asked for it.” Greathouse stood up. “Want a glass of wine?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “I’ll help myself, then. Don’t mind me.” He clomped off toward the rear of the house.

  Mrs. Herrald said, her eyes still fixed on his, “Matthew, New York is the town.”

  “Yes, madam, I know it’s the town.”

  “Not just any town,” she corrected. “The town. I’ve kept up with the colonies. With the other towns in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and down through Virginia and Carolina. I’ve educated myself on the reports that find their way from this new world to the old one. The census figures. The harbor logbooks. The credits and payments that bear international stamps and are fussed over by all the Queen’s men. I do have friends in places both high and low, Matthew, and they tell
me what I already know: this is the town.”

  “Pardon,” Matthew said, feeling he must be thick-headed, “but I’m not following you.”

  “The future,” she replied patiently, “is here. In New York. Now please don’t misunderstand. Boston will become a great city, as will Philadelphia. Even New Rochelle, most likely, and Orangeburg too. But I look at New York, and I see an uncommon city that will not be matched by any town on the coast. Boston is growing by leaps and bounds, yes, but the weather there is more inclement and the Puritans still run the place. Philadelphia has its potential as a world port, but the Free Society of Traders went bankrupt there twenty years ago, so the jury is still out. The Dutch set up a very organized system of international trade in New York, and we English took that over when we took the colony. I think the Dutch were relieved, really. Now they can make money as business partners and not have to spend it on maintaining a colony.”

  “I see,” Matthew said, though he was waiting for her point.

  She gave it to him. “New York is the future business center of perhaps the entire English endeavor. It’s not much to look at now, no, though it has its certain…charms. But I believe that in ten years, twenty years, or thirty…however long it takes…this town will be a city that may even dare to rival London.”

  “Rival London?” Matthew almost laughed at that one, but he kept a straight face. “I agree that the town has potential, but New York has a long way to go before it rivals London. Half the streets are still dirt!”

  “I didn’t say it would happen soon. London was born at the dawn of time, if you listen to the balladeers on Golding Lane. But New York will find its time, and I believe there will be fortunes to be made and lost here, even with half the streets dirt.”

  Matthew nodded pensively. “I’m glad you have such belief in the town’s future. So that’s why you wish to open the office?”