“Interesting,” said Mrs. Herrald, who motioned for both gentlemen to be seated again. She gave Matthew a bemused smile. “I mean to say your impressions on this are interesting. You have correctly identified the questions involved, but you jump to a strange conclusion. Even if the young lady is as…hideous as you suggest, surely a man might be found to escort her to a ball for somewhat less than fifty pounds.”
“I’m thinking the local gents don’t wish their reputations to be sullied. Even for such a sum,” Matthew said as he sat down at his desk.
“Possibly not. But you surprise me, Matthew. You are presented with a…” She paused, obviously debating some nuance of language. Then, satisfied with her decision, she went on. “A Pandora’s box of mysteries. It seems to me this is a simple matter, yet one I’d think you’d surely consider taking on if just to answer these questions for yourself. You have nothing pressing, it seems. I think you have a respite from the attentions of Professor Fell, who will certainly be busy cleaning up the mess you’ve delivered to him. Not to say he won’t be attentive to you in the future, but for now…I believe he’s busy in England, trying to repair the damage. I wouldn’t have sent Lady Cutter to Boston, if I didn’t think she would be secure in her travels. Again, I say…for now.” A white-gloved hand motioned toward the windows that looked toward the green New Jersey hills and meadowlands. “But Matthew, you should take advantage of the season! You ought to enjoy this opportunity for some safe travel yourself. Consider granting the gentleman’s request, won’t you?”
Matthew shrugged. “I’ll give it some thought,” he decided, though he wished he were on his way north to Boston rather than planning a southern trip.
“You might take some extra time in Charles Town,” Mrs. Herrald continued. “Rest and recover in the breezes. I know what you’ve been through.” She offered him a saintly smile. “You should be kinder to yourself, Matthew.”
“Just what I’ve been telling him,” said the Great One, who made it sound as if he were the wisest physician of the age.
Matthew discounted Greathouse’s bluster and turned his attention to a more important—and more personally disturbing—matter. “I would ask if you’ve had any news?”
“Nothing positive,” came the woman’s answer. “I’ve sent off a dozen letters. So far three have come back from my contacts in Philadelphia and Boston. None of them have ever heard of Brazio Valeriani. But I’m hoping my associates in London can shed some light on it.”
“Hopefully,” said Matthew. Now this was a problem worth the solving…and perhaps, Matthew thought, it had to be solved before Professor Fell lay hands upon this man, for whatever foul reason. Replies from London might take more than a year to arrive in New York, and Matthew had the feeling that time was of the essence. At a dinner one night during Matthew’s enforced stay on Pendulum Island, the professor in the guise of a masked automaton had offered the statement and challenge: I am searching for a man. His name is Brazio Valeriani. He was last seen one year ago in Florence, and has since vanished. I seek this man. That for the present is all you need to know. I shall pay five thousand pounds to the person who locates Brazio Valeriani. I shall pay ten thousand pounds to the person who brings him to me. Force may be necessary. You are my eyes and my hands.
Seek, the professor had said, and ye shall find.
It sounded to Matthew as if Brazio Valeriani did not wish to be found. And mayhaps there was some desperation in Valeriani’s disappearance from Florence. Fear of Professor Fell? Of course…but exactly why did the professor want him? Certainly not dead, but brought before him by force to the tune of ten thousand pounds?
And Professor Fell had even approached Matthew directly about finding his quarry with the declaration: If you found him I would pay you enough to own that little town of yours. So the question remained: who was Brazio Valeriani, and why did the emperor of crime want him so badly? Badly being the operative word here, Matthew mused.
“Beautiful flowers,” said Mrs. Herrald as she surveyed the vase in the hearth. “Some of the most beautiful are often the most trouble to gather. Don’t you agree, Matthew?”
The problem-solver had no clue. He wondered who might be filling the woman’s ear about his difficult relationship with Berry Grigsby, if indeed this was her point. He decided at that clear and precise moment that he didn’t wish to be around Berry and her new beau. He didn’t wish to see them walking together and find them sitting at Sally Almond’s or drinking coffee at Robert Deverick’s establishment. No, Heaven forbid! It would be torture to have that sight thrust before him day after day!
Matthew sighed. It was the sound of a soul in pain, yet to Mrs. Herrald and the Great One it was simply a sigh of resignation.
“I believe I will go to Charles Town,” said Matthew. He nodded, his face more grim than gracious for this sterling opportunity. “Yes. I will pack my bag and take the packet boat.” He slapped his palms upon his desk for emphasis. “I do need a change of scenery. Do me some good, I think.”
“There you are!” grinned Greathouse. “The young man at last has come to his senses! And,” he continued with a slyer smile, “added at least fifty pounds to our coffers!”
“Far be it from me,” Matthew relented, “to stand between a fool and his money.” Which made Greathouse’s smile slip a notch simply because Hudson wasn’t sure if he was the fool in reference or if it was Sedgeworth Prisskitt, but the morning was bright and the hills were green and the birds were singing and soon it would be time for a bowl of hearty corn soup and a mug of apple beer at Sally Almond’s, so all was right with the world.
That had been three weeks ago. Now, as Matthew stood beneath the Sword of Damocles and stared up into the black-bearded and ferocious visage of Magnus Muldoon, all was not so right with the world, even though the ballroom was ringed with silver candelabras that shed golden light and the air was perfumed with lemons and the faint tang of the Atlantic from Charles Town’s harbor only a few blocks to the east.
The challenge had been made. The duel offered. Matthew stood alone, as both the most beautiful woman in the world and her father had withdrawn to a more comfortable distance.
“What weapon then, you little piece of puff?” growled the Magnus mountain. His eyes were as sharp as two bits of flint, and ready to strike fire. “What do you wish to die by?”
Matthew cleared his throat. It was a polite sound. The problem-solver was ready to speak.
Three
"Would you agree, sir,” said Matthew in a quiet voice, “that any implement causing injury can be considered a weapon?”
Muldoon scratched his beard. Possibly it was a trick of the light, but a few fleas appeared to jump out. “Reckon…I agree,” he said, as cautiously as a human could speak it.
“And also that ‘death’ can have various meanings?”
“Hold up!” A huge palm was thrust toward Matthew’s face. “This is smellin’ of trickery!”
Matthew thought that at least the mountainous blackbeard was not a simpleton. “If I’m going to propose a weapon that might cause my death, sir, please allow me the ability to make the definitions clear.”
A roar emerged from the cave of the man’s mouth that might have sent a bear running. “Are we gonna fight, or ain’t we?”
“We’re going to duel, yes,” said Matthew, with composure that even he felt was admirable. In truth, his stomach was churning and he was damp in his armpits. He glanced toward the tapestry of comedy and tragedy, not quite certain in which arena he was a player. Surely, both were rivers from the same fount, and both could easily capsize the most careful of boats. He returned his attention to Magnus Muldoon, who Matthew had realized in the last few soul-jarring minutes was the reason Sedgeworth Prisskitt had to pay an exorbitant fee for an escort for his daughter to the society balls and bring a young man from such a far distance.
He recalled his first visit to the fine Prisskitt estate and mansion three miles to the northwest, beyond the stone walls that made up the
fortress of Charles Town. He had ridden up on a chestnut steed in the bright hot sunshine, fully expecting this day to turn dismal when he looked upon dear Pandora. And yet…when the servant had taken him to the red-carpeted parlor room, and the stately elder gentleman Sedgeworth had come to greet him and offer him a glass of spicy Sir Richard, and drinking this agreeable and quite head-spinning liquor Matthew had been guided out upon a glassed-in conservatory that overlooked meadows sloping down to the Ashley River…and yet Matthew was entranced by the hospitality and by such a beautiful vista, so much so that he forgot his trepidation and the sick little roll of his cabin in the packet boat and began to consider this task a pleasure.
He had not been half through his rum and only an eighth through Mr. Prisskitt’s recitation of the family’s huge fortune in timber and brickworks when spinet music began to issue from within the house. “Ah!” Prisskitt had said, with a proud and civilized smile. “That would be Pandora, playing her favorite hymn! Shall we make the introduction, Mr. Corbett?”
Matthew of course recognized the music as A Mighty Fortress Is Our God. He smiled also, his lips oiled by the rum, and pretended not to notice all the bad notes. It was indeed time for the introduction. No matter how homely Pandora was, Matthew was bound and determined to be the grandest escort the poor girl had ever had. Nay, he would be the King of all Escorts! He would kiss her hand and bow before her, and to blazes with Berry Grigsby and Ashton McCaggers, may they both be happy in his attic tomb of grisly curiosities. So there.
But yes, he would be the greatest escort ever to escort anyone. Ever. To the Sword of Damocles Ball. He wished he might have another jolt of Sir Richard, but now Prisskitt had him by the elbow and was pulling him to his doom. Or…meaning to say…room.
Matthew did not consider himself to be so superficial as he now found in the next moment that he was. For upon being pulled—escorted by the elbow, so to speak—into the music room and seeing the young woman who sat playing the intricately-etched Italian spinet he felt suddenly weak in the knees, not because of the assault of off-key notes but because…
…because if this vision was indeed Pandora Prisskitt, he was just about to be introduced to the most beautiful woman in the world.
It was amazing, how mangled notes could be healed by the smile of a violet-eyed goddess. Her lustrous sable-brown hair was done up in what Matthew presumed was the latest Charles Town fashion, its curly ringlets arranged about her shoulders and decorated with green ribbons. She wore a sea-green gown and a choker of perfect white pearls, probably worth the packet boat Matthew had rolled in on. Her face was fit to make any artist into a master of beauty, if such could be captured on canvas. Which Matthew doubted, for Pandora’s serene loveliness would have unsettled the hand that held the brush and made the otherworldly into the commonplace, for her mouth, her cheekbones, the curve of her nose, the small dimples in her cheeks, the sleek arcs of her eyebrows and the violet coloring of the eyes…all would be too much for a brush to match. Matthew thought even Michelangelo might cry for his lack of talent in assigning the young woman’s features to the body of an angel. Indeed, he thought as he staggered a bit beneath her steady gaze and the heavy presence of Sir Richard, she might be the most beautiful woman who had ever lived. Yes, she was that much. And another glass of this rum and he would be surely undone, and what might issue from his mouth would not be the refinements of an escort from New York but the gibbering of the orphan boy he used to be.
“Mr. Matthew Corbett,” said Prisskitt, “meet my daughter Pandora.”
And the vision had risen from her seat at the spinet and offered him her soft hand. Opening a Chinese fan before her face she had batted her eyes at him, lowered her head and said in a voice as sweet as the honey crust on a cinnamon cake, “I am so enchanted, Mr. Corbett.”
In the two days to come before the ball, Matthew was the one who found himself enchanted by Pandora’s manners and presence. He did find it odd, however, that such a creature should be lacking for a local escort, but an afternoon’s ride along the river with Pandora’s father had cleared up the mystery. It seemed that Pandora was so beautiful she had no suitors. “Too striking for the local men!” said Sedgeworth. “Can you fathom that! Yes, it’s true! My daughter absolutely loves to attend the social events…and you do know it’s important for a young woman of her status to be seen at these gatherings…but, Matthew—may I call you Matthew, as I feel I know you so well?—she is never asked by anyone! That’s why I was forced to hire you. Yes, forced to hire a young gent all the way from New York, because no man in this town will ask my daughter to anything! And it’s a shame on them, Matthew! Oh, I don’t understand this younger generation! Well…I mean…you are of the younger generation, but…of course…you’re a sophisticated sort, aren’t you? Listen to me prattling on! Why don’t we retire to the shaded porch, have us another glass—or two—of Sir Richard and relax as Pandora plays us a few hymns. Would that suit you, Matthew?”
“Oh, yes sir!” said the sophisticated sort, who didn’t realize the power of the Southern sun upon his noggin. “I am well-suited for a stirring hymn!”
“Indeed you are, my boy,” Prisskitt had replied, as he’d turned his horse back toward the stable. “Indeed you are.”
One of the tapers in a silver candelabra to Matthew’s left spat sparks, as above his head the breeze through the open garden door made the sword of Damocles sway back and forth…back and forth…
“Death,” said Matthew, “can have many definitions as applied to the human condition, sir. For instance, there is the death of an idea. Or the death of hope. Do you agree that someone can be said to die of shame?”
“Of shame? What are you goin’ on about? Either a man dies or he don’t!”
“Precisely so, but there can be the death of the spirit as well as of the body…may I call you Mr. Muldoon?”
“Reckon. What’s your name?”
“Matthew Corbett, at your service.”
“Pleased to meet you.”
“The same.”
“Now listen here!” Muldoon roared again, the beast taking up its vengeful burden. “What are we gonna fight with?”
And here was the question that needed answering. Matthew had realized that Magnus Muldoon was the real reason no young man of Charles Town offered to squire the lady Prisskitt to any of these socials. No young man of Charles Town wished to wind up in the graveyard or laughed out of town for refusing this monster’s challenge. A glance at the dandies and dames in this dignified dungeon told Matthew that there were a few too many grinning faces and glinting teeth for a civilized gathering. He had no doubt that several gents had been laid onto the banquet table for worms due to Muldoon and his fixation on the angel of the room, but probably many more had run for their lives. Matthew had seen in Muldoon’s eyes that the man expected him to run…no…really, wanted him to. For the beast was not a born killer, it was just that he was somewhat bewitched by the awesome beauty of Pandora Prisskitt. And who was it who once said there was no such thing as witches?
Matthew had not desired to be the center of the evening’s entertainment, but he stepped up to the task.
“My weapon of choice,” he said firmly, “is a comb.”
Muldoon cupped a hand behind one of his ears, which was hidden by his matted mane and might well be plugged by a thumb’s-length of wax. “Must be goin’ deef. Thought you said your weapon of choice is a comb.”
“You heard correctly. A comb it is.”
Magnus Muldoon shook his head as if he’d already been axed in the brainpan. “A comb. For the hair?”
“Exactly so. And I prefer to have satisfaction right now, at this moment.” Matthew reached into a pocket of his waistcoat and withdrew his own simple wooden comb, and then he surveyed the onlookers. “Might one of you have a comb Mr. Muldoon and I can use in our—”
“You’re crazy!” It was still a growl, but somewhat weakened. “How can a comb be a weapon in a duel?”
“I think you’re
about to find out, sir. Ah, thank you!” An older gentleman with a shock of white hair had brought a tortoise-shell comb also from his waistcoat and offered it to Matthew. “I will be glad to pay for the comb,” said the problem-solver, realizing the fate of one of these implements.
“Are you suffering some insanity?” came the voice of Sedgeworth Prisskitt. The question was a polite repeat of Muldoon’s. “What’s a comb got to do with duelling?”
Matthew preferred not to answer the man nor give him and his daughter a glance. Suddenly Pandora was not so beautiful to him. After all, this entire scene had been set with him in mind as a sacrifice, just so dear Pandora could attend the ball. He could either wind up dead or running like a rabbit out of town, but it was all for the woman’s vanity. He didn’t think fifty pounds was enough for this job. Still…it was a challenge, and never more so than at this moment.
“Choose one, if you dare,” Matthew told the mountain. There was hesitation in the black-bearded ogre. “Come on!” urged the piece of puff, in a voice that sounded like a man who had fought one or two uneven battles in his life and, in truth, didn’t mind a little scuffle in the dirt. He held the combs forth. “If you have any courage, you’ll take one of these. If not…get out.”
With that taunt, Magnus Muldoon bloomed red at his cheeks and came forward like a thunderstorm. He reached for the tortoise-shell comb first, but then his hand paused. He snatched up Matthew’s wooden implement. “What am I supposed to do with this?” he asked, as if biting off a hunk of meat from a bone.
“My challenge to you,” said Matthew, “is simply to comb your hair. Yes,” he allowed to Muldoon’s expression of bafflement, “that’s all. I say that whoever can draw their comb completely through their hair is the winner of this duel. Oh…you’re not afraid, are you?”
“Hell, no! Not feared of nothin’ that walks on two legs or four, crawls on its belly or flies on the wing!”
The River of Souls Page 3