Matthew Corbett 03 - Mister Slaughter mc-3

by Robert R. McCammon

  Several women and the occasional man visited the cemetery that stood behind a black iron fence alongside Trinity Church. There in the shade of the yellow trees, a flower or a quiet word was delivered to a loved one who had journeyed on from this earthly vale. Not much time was taken to linger here, however, for all knew that God accepted the worthy pilgrims with open arms, and life indeed was for the living.

  Fishing boats in the rivers pulled up nets shimmering with striped bass, shad, flounder and snapper. The ferry between Van Dam's shipyard on King Street and the landing over the Hudson in Weehawken was always active for travelers and traders, who often found that the winds or currents could make even such a simple trip a three-hour adventure.

  Across the city the multitudinous fires of commerce-be they from blacksmith's furnaces or tallow chandler's pots-burned brightly all the day, sending their signatures of smoke up through a mason's delight of chimneys. Closer to earth, workmen labored at new buildings that showed the northward progress of civilization. The boom of mallets and scrape of sawblades seemed never ceasing, and caused several of the eldest Dutch residents to recall the quiet of the good old days.

  Of particular interest was the fact that the new mayor, Phillip French, was a solid, foursquare individual whose aim was to put his shoulder to the wheel and get more of the city's streets paved with cobblestones; this enterprise, too, was directed northward past Wall Street, but as it cost money from the treasury, the task was being currently stalled in paperwork by Governor Lord Cornbury, who was seldom seen in public these days outside the walls of his mansion in Fort William Henry.

  All these events were of the common clay of New York. In one form or fashion, they were repeated as surely as dawn and dusk. But one event happening this afternoon, at four o'clock by Matthew's silver watch, had never before taken place: the ascent of Berry Grigsby up a narrow set of stairs in City Hall, toward Ashton McCaggers' realm in the attic above.

  "Careful," Matthew said lest she lose her footing, but with an-other step it was he who stumbled behind Berry and found himself grasping a handful of her skirt to prevent a fall.

  "Excuse you," she told him crisply, and pulled her skirt free at the same time as his hand flew away like a bird that had landed on a griddlecake iron. Then she gathered her grace and continued up the rest of the steps, where she came to the door at the top. She glanced back at him, he nodded, and she knocked at the door just as he'd instructed.

  These days their relationship was, as a problem-solver might say, complicated. It was known to both of them that her grandfather had invited Berry to come from England in order to find her not necessarily a position, but a proposition. Up at the zenith of the list of eligible marriage candidates, at least in Marmaduke's conniving mind, was a certain citizen of New York named Corbett, and thus had Matthew been invited to make the dairyhouse his own miniature mansion, and to enjoy meals and companionship with the Grigsby clan, they being only a few steps from his own front door. Just show her around the town a little, Marmaduke had urged. Escort her to a dance or two. Would that kill you?

  Matthew wasn't sure. Her last escort, his friend and chess companion Effrem Owles, the tailor's son, had stepped into a muskrat hole while walking Berry home beside the East River one evening, and his dancing days were over until the swelling of his ankle subsided. But whenever Matthew saw his friend lately, either sitting at the Trot Then Gallop or limping along the street on a crutch, Effrem's eyes widened behind his round spectacles and he wanted to know what Berry was wearing today, and where was she going, and did she ever say anything about him, and all such buffle-headed chatter as that.

  I certainly don't know! Matthew had answered, a bit too stridently. I'm not her keeper! And I don't have time for even talking about her, anyhow.

  But Matthew, Matthew! And it really was pitiful, the way Effrem hobbled on that crutch. Don't you think she's the prettiest girl you ever saw?

  Matthew wasn't sure about that, either, but he did know that standing this close to her, here in the narrow little stairway awaiting an answer to the knock on McCaggers' door, she smelled very nice. It was perhaps the scent of the cinammon soap with which she washed the curly tresses of her coppery-red hair, or the faintly-sweet aroma of the blue wildflowers that adorned the rim of her straw hat. She was nineteen years old, her birthday being in the last week of June; it had been celebrated, if one was to put it suchly, aboard the ill-fated vessel that had brought her across the Atlantic and deposited her as a moldy mess staggering down the gangplank in midsummer, which was the first sight Matthew had had of her. But that was then and now was now, and so much the better. Berry's cheeks and her finely-chiseled nose were dusted with freckles, her jaw firm and resolute, her eyes dark blue and just as curious about the world as those of her esteemed grandfather. She wore a lavender-hued dress with a lace shawl about her shoulders, for last night's rain had brought a chill to the air. Before their initial meeting, Matthew had expected her to be a gnome to match Marmaduke's misshapen proportions, yet she stood almost at his own height and was anything but gnomely. In fact, Matthew did find her to be pretty. And more than that, actually. He found her to be interesting. Her descriptions of London, its citizens, and her travels-and misadventures-across the English countryside kept him enthralled during their mealtimes together at Marmaduke's table. He hoped to someday see that enormous city, which appealed to him not only for its variety but for its atmosphere of intrigue and danger gleaned from his readings of the London Gazette. Of course, he hoped to live long enough to get there, as he had intrigues and dangers enough in New York.

  "Why are you looking at me like that?" Berry asked.

  "Like what?" He'd let his mind wander and his eyes linger, and so he immediately brought himself back to the business at hand. In answer to Berry's knock, a small square aperture in the door flipped up and an eye-glassed dark brown eye peered out. The first time Matthew had visited up here, he'd been witness to McCaggers' experiments with pistols on Elsie and Rosalind, the two dress-maker's forms that served for target practice. Not to mention the other items behind that door. In another minute or two, Berry was going to be beating a hasty retreat back down the stairs.

  The door opened. Ashton McCaggers said, in a light and pleasant voice, "Good afternoon. Please come in."

  Matthew motioned for Berry to enter, but she was paying no attention to him anyway and had already started across the threshold. Matthew followed her, McCaggers closed the door, and then Matthew had almost run smack into Berry because she was standing there, quite still, taking stock of the coroner's heaven.

  The light through the attic's windows streamed upon what hung suspended from the rafters above their heads. McCaggers' "angels", as he'd once described them to Matthew, were four human skeletons, three adult-sized and one a child. Adorning the walls of this macabre chamber were twenty or more skulls of different sizes, some whole and some missing jawbones or other portions. Wired-together bones of legs, arms, ribcages and hands served as strange decorations that only a coroner could abide. In the room, which was quite large, stood a row of honey-colored file cabinets atop which were arranged more bone displays. There were animal skeletons as well, showing that McCaggers gathered bones for the sake of their shapes and variety. Next to a long table topped with beakers of fluid in which objects of uncertain-but certainly disturbing-origin floated was McCaggers' rack of swords, axes, knives, muskets, pistols and cruder weapons such as clubs studded with frightful-looking nails. It was before this assortment of things that turned human beings into boneyards that Hudson Greathouse stood, holding in one hand an ornately-decorated pistol he was in the process of admiring.

  He looked now from the pistol at Berry, and said with a faint smile, "Ah. Miss Grigsby."

  Berry didn't answer. She was yet motionless, still studying the grisly surroundings, and Matthew wondered if she could find her tongue.

  "Mr. McCaggers' collections," Matthew heard himself say, as if it would do any good.

  A silence
stretched, and finally McCaggers said, "Can I get anyone some tea? It's cold, but-"

  "What a magnificent " Berry paused, seeking the correct word. "Gallery," she decided. Her voice was calm and clear and she stretched out an arm toward the child-sized skeleton that hung nearest her. Matthew winced, thinking she was going to touch its hand, but of course it was too high for her to reach. Though not by much. She turned her gaze toward the coroner, and as Matthew walked quietly around to one side he could see her mind at work, examining the man who lived amid such a museum. "I presume these were unclaimed corpses, and the cemetery is not filling up so quickly in New York that there's no more room?"

  "Indeed, not, and you presume correctly." McCaggers allowed himself a hint of a smile. He took off his spectacles and cleaned them on a handkerchief from the pocket of his black breeches. The better to see Berry more clearly, Matthew thought. McCaggers was only three years older than Matthew, was pale and of medium height and had light brown hair receding from a high forehead. He wore a plain white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and was perpetually a day or two away from a decent shave. In spite of that, he kept himself and his attic as neat as Sally Almond's kitchen. He put his spectacles back on, and seemed to view Berry in a new light. "I don't have many visitors here. The ones I do have usually cringe, and can't wait to get out. Most people are you know so afraid of death."

  "Well," Berry answered, "I'm not fond of the idea," and she gave Matthew a quick glance that said she still hadn't quite gotten over their brush with mortality in the form of hawk talons and killers' knives at the Chapel estate. "But for the sake of form, your specimens are very interesting. One might say artful."

  "Oh, absolutely!" McCaggers almost grinned, obviously pleased to have discovered a kindred spirit. "The bones are beautiful, aren't they? As I once told Matthew, to me they represent everything fascinating about life and death." He gazed up at the skeletons with an expression of pride that made Matthew's flesh crawl. "The young man and woman-those two there-came with me from Bristol. The little girl and older man were found here. My father was a coroner in Bristol, you know. As was my grandfather before-"

  There came the loud snap of the pistol's trigger being pulled, which served to stop McCaggers' recitation of his family history.

  "Our business at hand," said Greathouse, who nodded toward a table across the attic where Zed sat in a spill of light cleaning and polishing some of the forceps, calipers and little blades that were tools of the coroner's trade. Zed's attire was a gray shirt and brown breeches, far removed from his suit of last night. When he looked up and saw everyone staring at him he returned the attention impassively, and then shifted his chair so his broad back was presented to his audience. He continued his work with admirable dignity.

  "So," McCaggers went on, again concentrating on Berry. "You have an appreciation for art?"

  Oh for Lord's sake! Matthew thought. If Effrem were present, the tailor's son might feel a twinge of jealousy at this obvious play for Berry's interest.

  "I do, sir," Berry answered. "Most certainly."

  Matthew could have told McCaggers how Berry's talent for drawing had helped solve the puzzle of the Queen of Bedlam, but he hadn't been asked. He shot a glance at Greathouse, who looked as if he were ready to shoot the coroner.

  "Ah!" It was spoken by McCaggers as a sublime statement. Behind his spectacles his eyes took in Berry from shoetoe to hat brim. "And as a teacher, you have a curiosity for shall we say the unusual?"

  Now Berry did appear a little flustered. "Pardon me?"

  "The unusual," McCaggers repeated. "Not just in forms of art, but forms of creation?"

  Berry looked to Matthew for help, but Matthew shrugged; he had no earthly idea what McCaggers was driving at.

  "Listen," Greathouse spoke up. "In case you've forgotten, we're here about-"

  "I don't forget anything," came the reply, which carried a touch of frost. "Ever. Miss Grigsby?" His voice warmed again with her name. "May I show you my greatest treasure?"

  "Well I'm not sure I'm-"

  "Of course you're worthy. Being interested in forms of art, and creation, and a teacher as well. Also, I think you might like to see a mystery that has no answer. Would you?"

  "All mysteries have answers," Greathouse said. "It's just finding the one that fits."

  "So you say." With that remark, McCaggers turned away and walked past a bookcase full of ancient-looking tomes bound in scabby leather. He went to a massive old black chest-of-drawers, which stood next to a cubbyhole arrangement that held rolled-up scrolls of paper. From the bottom drawer of the chest, McCaggers removed a small red velvet box. He came back to Berry bearing the red box as if it held the finest emerald from the mines of Brazil. "This is my greatest treasure," he said quietly. "A mystery that has no answer. It was given to my grandfather, as payment for work done. My father passed it along to me. And now " He paused, about to open the box. Matthew noted that even Zed had put aside his work and was watching intently. "I've never shown this to anyone else, Miss Grigsby. May I call you 'Berry'?"

  She nodded, staring at the box.

  "God creates all," McCaggers said, his spectacles reflecting red. "And all suits God's purpose. What then, is this?"

  He raised the velvet lid, and both Berry and Matthew saw what was inside as McCaggers tilted the box toward them.

  It was an ugly piece of dark brown wood, curved and scored and about five inches long, that came to a bladelike point.

  "Hm," Matthew said, with a lift of his eyebrows that betrayed his amusement at McCaggers' folly. "Very interesting."

  "And of course, by that tone of voice, you tell me you have no idea what you're looking at. Berry, would you care to guess what this is?"

  Greathouse had put aside the pistol and come nearer. He offered his comment without being asked. "A tent stake, I'd say. Wouldn't care to stake my tent on it in a windstorm, though."

  "I'll tell you where this was found," McCaggers said, as he drew a finger along the item's length. "Are you familiar with the bell pits of Somerset?"

  "The coalfield? Yes, I know that area."

  McCaggers nodded. He picked the item up and held it before them. "This was found sixty feet underground, in the wall of a bell pit near Nettlebridge. It's a tooth."

  There was a span of silence, which after a few seconds was broken by Greathouse's rude guffaw. "A tooth! Sixty feet under? In a coalmine?"

  "That's correct. I know a tooth when I see one, Mr. Greathouse. This is very old. A thousand years? Five thousand? Who can say? But you're missing the larger picture, so to speak."

  "Which is?"

  Berry answered, in a quiet voice: "The size of the tooth. If-from one tooth-you speculate the size of the jaw and then the head "

  "Correct," the coroner said. "It must have belonged to what I can only say would have been " He hesitated, and fixed his gaze on the vicious point. "A monster," he finished.

  "A monster!" Greathouse laughed again, but this time it didn't have the same force or conviction. "Where do you keep your rum barrel up here?"

  "From what I understand," McCaggers continued, "the Somerset miners occasionally bring up bones that none of the locals can identify as being from any animal anyone's ever seen. They're considered to be ill omens, and so they're disposed of however one would dispose of such things. This tooth escaped destruction. Would you care to hold it?" He offered it toward Greathouse, who in spite of his courage in all things swords or fistic seemed to blanch a bit and recoiled from the gift.

  Matthew found himself stepping forward. He opened his hand and McCaggers placed the tooth in his palm. It was as heavy as a stone of that size might be, yet it was surely no stone. Matthew could see serrations along one edge that might still do damage to flesh.

  Berry pressed against his shoulder, peering at the object, and Matthew made no move to widen the distance between them.

  "A dragon's tooth," Berry said at last, the sound of both excitement and awe in her voice. "That's what it must
be. Yes?" She looked at McCaggers for confirmation.

  "Some might say that. Those who believe in dragons, I mean."

  "What else could it be, then?"

  "A dragon-if such existed outside mythology-might be considered to conquer its enemies with fire. This creature was a killer made to tear away huge pieces of meat. A supreme carnivore. You see the edge on that tooth? A masterpiece of form and function. Do you have any idea what a jaw full of those could do to say a side of beef?"

  "Dragons! Carnivores!" Greathouse had recovered his wits and his color. "This is nonsense, McCaggers! I mean no disrespect, but I think your grandfather has passed along something from a scoundrel's workshop!"

  McCaggers regarded him somberly and then took the object from Matthew's palm. "That may well be," he said as he returned it to the velvet box, "but then again perhaps it's evidence of what God told Job."

  Greathouse frowned. "What are you on about now?"

  "God spoke to Job," McCaggers said, "from the whirlwind. He told Job about the behemoth and the leviathan. Unimaginable creatures of size and power. He told Job to gird up his loins like a man, and face what was to come. He said, I will demand of thee." McCaggers saw that none of this was getting through to Greathouse. "Don't you know your Bible?"