Mister Slaughter

by Robert R. McCammon

  “The doctors.” Greathouse gave a fierce tug at his brown woolen cap. “You know what I think of them, and their asylum. I suppose you’re still visiting the lady?”

  “I am. And she is getting better. At least she knows her own name now, and she’s beginning to understand her circumstances.”

  “Good for her, but that doesn’t change what I think of housing a bunch of lunatics out here in the woods.” The wagon, as slow as it was, had left Westerwicke behind and was now moving along the forest road, which was still the Philadelphia Pike and would be called so all the forty-odd miles to that city. Up ahead, little more than a quarter mile on the right, would be the turnoff to the hospital. The sun was strengthening, casting yellow and red tendrils through the trees. Birds were singing and the air was crisp; it was a very lovely morning, save for some dark clouds to the west. “What a man must do for gold,” Greathouse said, almost to himself.

  Matthew didn’t reply. What a man must do, indeed. He had already worked out a plan for his riches. Over the course of time he would take a few coins to Philadelphia by packet boat, and there buy some items so as to break the five-pound pieces into smaller change. He was even thinking of coming up with a new identity for himself, for his Philadelphia visits. It wouldn’t do for anyone in New York to know of his sudden wealth; besides, it was no one’s business but his own. He’d almost perished on that estate. Did he not deserve some reward for all he’d gone through? For now, the money was hidden in his house—not that anyone was going to get through the lock on his door, but he felt easier knowing all those gold pieces were tucked into the straw of his mattress.

  Today was Wednesday. Yesterday morning, a young messenger had arrived at Number Seven Stone Street with a summons for Matthew and Greathouse to make haste to Gardner Lillehorne’s office at City Hall, for the high constable had urgent business. Greathouse’s reply was that neither one of them could be called like cattle from a pasture, and that if Lillehorne wished to conduct business it would be at Number Seven.

  “I think you’re pushing your luck with Lillehorne,” Matthew had said after the messenger was gone. He picked up a broom and began to sweep the floor, as it was his usual task and—newfound riches or not—he at least wished to keep clean the area around his own desk.

  “Do you? And what is he going to do to me for standing up to him?”

  “He has his methods. And his connections.” Matthew swept the dust into a wooden tray, which he would later dump out the pair of windows that afforded a view of New York to the northwest, and beyond the wide river, brown cliffs and golden hills of New Jersey. “You were very cavalier to him that night at the Cock’a’tail. I’m still amazed we didn’t end up in the gaol, because after all was said and done we were breaking the law.”

  “Course we were. But don’t fret about it. Lillehorne’s not going to do anything to either one of us. Certainly not put me where I can’t be useful.”

  “Can’t be useful?” Matthew stopped his sweeping and looked at Greathouse, who was leaning back in his chair with his big boots—dusty boots, too—propped up on his desk. “Meaning what?” He had a flash of insight when Greathouse just tapped his forefinger against his chin. I have an errand to run, Greathouse had said on Friday morning, there on Nassau Street. “You’re working on something for him.”

  “I am.”

  “Something for him as high constable? Or something as an ordinary citizen?”

  “A citizen, the same as any man off the street might have come up to me at Sally Almond’s a week ago Monday, offered to buy me breakfast, and then asked me to consider doing him a favor. I told him favors cost money, and the larger the favor the larger the sum. We made an agreement for a favor of moderate size, and there you have it.”

  “And what exactly was the favor?”

  “Is the favor,” Greathouse corrected. “A work in progress, with no answer just yet.” He frowned. “Why exactly should I be telling you, anyway? You didn’t tell me you were riding up to the Chapel estate, did you? No, you didn’t care to share with me what might have been your last trip on earth. Well, I’ll tell you what! When Lillehorne gets here, you can tell him all about the tunnel. Or are you saving the story for Marmaduke and the next Earwig?”

  “I didn’t go for that reason.”

  Greathouse wore a steely glare. “Are you absolutely sure of that?”

  Matthew was about to reply in the positive, but the bottom fell out of his resolve. Was he absolutely sure? Had he indeed been thinking of telling Marmaduke, so as to be the centerpiece of another story? No, of course not! But…maybe…just a little bit? He stood with motes of dust shimmering in the air around him. Was it true that…maybe…just a little bit…he was no longer content to be only Matthew Corbett, magistrate’s clerk become problem-solver, but wished the company of both wealth and attention? It seemed to him that attention could become as potent a drink as Skelly’s apple brandy, and make one just as insensible. It seemed to him that one could be overcome by it, and without it would become as weak-willed and desperate as any half-penny drunkard. Was that part of why he’d ridden to the estate? No. Absolutely not.

  But a few days ago he might have thought that if he’d ever found a bagful of gold coins, he would have first and foremost told…who? Berry? She had also shared the ordeal; should she not share the reward? No, no; it was complicated. Very complicated, and he would have to consider this subject again when he had a clearer head, and anyway this dust in the air was about to make him sneeze.

  “I regret telling you,” he said to Greathouse, in a voice as steely as the other man’s glare continued to be.

  “Why did you, then?”

  Matthew almost told him. That maybe he’d gone into the tunnel to prove his courage, once and for all; or that he’d simply thought Greathouse would approve of his decision to go forward, and trust in his instincts. But the moment came and went and Matthew did not say any of this; instead, he said, “Because I wanted you to know I don’t need a bodyguard.”

  “Your opinion. All I know is, Zed could help us both, if he could be taught correctly. It’s a damned waste for that man to be hauling ship timbers for the rest of his life.” He waved a dismissive hand at Matthew. “Now don’t get me started on that, I’ll have to go out and get a drink.”

  Matthew returned to his sweeping, thinking that it was best to let some secrets lie undisturbed.

  Less than a half-hour later, Gardner Lillehorne had arrived like a burst of sunlight in his yellow suit and stockings, his yellow tricorn adorned with a small blue feather. His disposition was rather more stormy, however, and as he marched up to Greathouse’s desk his face bore the scowl of a particularly dark cloud. He placed a brown envelope sealed with gray wax before Greathouse. “You’re required for an official task,” he said, and cast a quick glance at Matthew. “The both of you.”

  “What official task?” Greathouse picked up the envelope, inspected the seal, and started to open it.

  Lillehorne put his black-lacquered cane against Greathouse’s hand. “The envelope is to remain sealed,” he said, “until you pick up the prisoner. When you take possession of him, you are to read the contents to both him and the witnesses, as a formality of official…” He cast about for a word. “Possession.”

  “You’d best rein in your runaways,” Greathouse cautioned, and moved the cane aside. “What prisoner? And where is he?”

  “The messenger from those two doctors said you would know. He came to my office yesterday afternoon. I have a wagon ready for you at Winekoop’s stable. It’s the best I can offer. The irons are ready, in the wagon. Here’s the key.” He reached into a pocket of that blazing and slightly-nauseating suit jacket and brought out the item, which he also placed on the desk in front of Greathouse.

  “The two doctors?” Greathouse looked at Matthew. “Do you have any idea what he’s going on about?”

  Matthew did, but before he could say so Lillehorne went on, as if eager to be done with the responsibility. “Rams
endell and Hulzen, at the New Jersey Colony’s Publick Hospital for the Mentally Infirm. Near Westerwicke. You know it, of course. The order for removal has come. A constable representing the Crown will be arriving on the Endurance at the end of this month to take him into custody. I want the prisoner’s boots on the next ship leaving for England, and good riddance to him.”

  “Wait, wait, wait!” Greathouse stood up, the envelope in hand. “Are you talking about that lunatic we saw in the window down there? That…what was his name, Matthew?”

  “His name is Tyranthus Slaughter,” Lillehorne answered. “Wanted for murder, robbery and other crimes, all laid out in the article of possession. The messenger said the doctors had already mentioned to the both of you the fact that Slaughter would be transferred from the hospital to the New York gaol, to await the Crown’s constable. Well, the time’s come.”

  Matthew recalled the first occasion he and Greathouse had gone to the Westerwicke hospital, during the investigation of the Queen of Bedlam. The two doctors who ran the place had introduced them to an inmate behind one of the barred windows. Sent to us almost a year ago from the Quaker institution in Philadelphia. The Quakers have found out he was a barber in London and he may have been involved with a dozen murders. We’re expecting a letter in the autumn instructing us to take him to the New York gaol to wait for ship transfer to England. You know, if this business goes well with the Queen, you gentlemen might consider our hiring you to escort Mr. Slaughter to New York.

  Greathouse brought forth a fierce grin that Matthew thought was one of his more disturbing expressions, because it meant the man was considering violence. “Are you out of your mind? You can’t come in here and give orders!”

  “You will see,” said Lillehorne quietly, as he gazed about the office and his thin nostrils wrinkled with distaste, “that I’m not the person giving the orders. Don’t you recognize Governor Lord Cornbury’s seal?”

  Greathouse took another look at it and dropped the envelope onto his desk. “That doesn’t mean anything to me.”

  “Your doctor friends received two letters, both from the Crown’s constable. One told them to prepare the prisoner for removal. The other was to be presented to Lord Cornbury, directing him to have the man brought here and held in irons. Lord Cornbury has been told to use the best possible men at his disposal. That’s at least what he informed me when he dumped the mess in my lap. You two were specifically requested by Ramsendell and Hulzen. So…here you are.”

  “We’re a private concern,” Greathouse said, with a thrust of his chin. “We don’t work for the city, or the New Jersey colony. Certainly not for Lord Cornbury!”

  “Ah, yes. The matter of who you do work for.” Lillehorne reached into a pocket and brought out a small brown bag tied with a leather cord. He shook it, so that the coins might jingle. “Mister Three-Pounds. Have you made his acquaintance lately?”

  Matthew kept his mouth closed.

  “There are official transfer papers in that envelope,” Lillehorne went on. “They require the signatures of both yourselves and the two doctors. Upon your acceptance of the prisoner, the doctors have agreed to pay you an additional two pounds. Can you do the mathematics, sir?”

  Greathouse snorted. “They must want to get rid of him very badly.” He paused, regarding the bag of coins with a hungry eye. “He must be dangerous. No, I’m not sure five pounds is enough.” He shook his head. “Send some of your constables to get him. A half-dozen of them ought to do the job.”

  “My constables, as Mr. Corbett has pointed out before, are not fully suited to more demanding tasks. After all, are you not so proud to be the professionals?” He let that comment float in the air before he continued. “And you’re laboring under the mistaken presumption that this is a request from Lord Cornbury. You might realize by now that he wishes to…shall we say…show himself able before his cousin, the Queen. I wish to show myself able before Lord Cornbury. And so it goes. You see?”

  “Five pounds is not enough,” Greathouse repeated, with some force behind it.

  “For two days’ work? My God, what are they paying you people these days?” Lillehorne took note of the broom that stood in the corner. “A poor little office like this could be swept away with the rubbish. Lord Cornbury can put a lock on any door he chooses, Greathouse. If I were you—which I know I am not—I would gladly take this very generous amount and consider that Lord Cornbury can be useful to you, if you get on his good side.”

  “He has a good side?”

  “He can be managed. And if you do a favor for him, I’m sure he might someday do a favor for you.”

  “A favor,” Greathouse said, and Matthew saw his eyes narrow in thought.

  “Two days’ work. If you could leave within the hour, you might make Westerwicke by nightfall.” Lillehorne inspected the silver lion’s-head that topped his cane. “You won’t be gone long enough to…um…miss any opportunities for further business.” A reference, Matthew assumed, to the mysterious work that Greathouse was doing for his latest client.

  It was another moment before Greathouse returned from his mental wanderings. He said, “I don’t like the idea of going back there. To that hospital, with all those lunatics. What do you say, Matthew?” What could he say? Therefore he kept silent and shrugged. “You could use the money, I know. Maybe I could use a little goodwill from Cornbury. Tell me, Lillehorne: have you ever seen him wearing a man’s clothes?”

  “I have. Unfortunately, in them he is equally as…unfortunate.”

  Greathouse nodded, and then he said, “The irons.”

  “Pardon?”

  “The irons had better not have any rusted links.”

  They didn’t. The sturdy cuffs and chains were now in a burlap bag in the back of the wagon. Matthew turned the horses onto the branch road leading off the Philadelphia Pike and through a grove of trees. The three buildings of the Publick Hospital stood just ahead.

  It was a quiet place, with birds singing in the trees and a soft wind whispering. Still, Greathouse shifted uneasily on the seat and kept his eyes averted from the buildings, as if not wishing to think about what went on behind the walls. The second and largest building, made of rough stones and resembling a grainhouse or meeting-hall, held all the inmates except for a few who resided in the third structure, which was a white-painted house that faced a garden. Some of the second building’s windows were shuttered and some were open but barred, and a few faces peered out at the wagon’s approach. The pastoral quiet was broken when someone in there started hollering and a second, more shrill voice, joined the commotion.

  “We must be here,” Greathouse said dryly, working his hands together. Matthew knew from past experience that this place—even though it was run efficiently and in a humane manner by the two doctors—made Greathouse as jumpy as a cat on a carpet of razors.

  Matthew pulled the team up in front of the first building, which was painted white and appeared to be simply a normal house. As Matthew climbed down to let the horses drink from a nearby trough, the first building’s door opened and a stocky man in a dark brown suit and waistcoat emerged. He lifted his hand in greeting, at the same time removing the clay pipe that was clenched between his teeth.

  “Greetings, gentlemen,” said Dr. Curtis Hulzen. He had gray hair and spectacles perched on a hooked nose. “It seems the day has arrived.”

  Greathouse muttered something, but Matthew couldn’t hear what he said and wasn’t sure he wanted to.

  “Jacob!” Hulzen called into the house, and a man in gray clothes and a brown leather waistcoat came out. “Will you go fetch Dr. Ramsendell, please? And tell him the escorts are here?”

  “Sir,” answered Jacob, with a quick nod, and he strode along a well-worn pathway toward Matthew, who had met this particular patient on his first visit here. Jacob suddenly stopped right in front of the horse trough and said to Matthew in a mangled voice, “Have you come to take me home?” The left side of Jacob’s temple was crushed inward, and an old jagged
scar began at his right cheek and continued up across a concave patch on his scalp where the hair no longer grew. His eyes were bright and glassy, and fixed upon Matthew with pitiful hope. A sawmill accident had done this, Ramsendell had told Matthew, and Jacob could never again live “out there”, as the doctor had put it, with his wife and two children.

  When he realized Hulzen wasn’t going to intercede for him, Matthew said as kindly as he could, “No, I’m afraid not.”

  Jacob shrugged, as if this news was expected, but perhaps there was a glint of pain in the eyes. “It’s all right,” he said, with a crooked grin. “I hear music in my head.” Then he continued along the path toward the second building, brought a ring of keys from within his waistcoat, unlocked the big wooden slab of a door and disappeared inside.

  “You’re liberal with your keys around here,” Greathouse remarked, as he stepped down from the wagon. “I wouldn’t be surprised if all your lunatics got out into the woods someday, and then what would you do?”

  “Bring them back.” Hulzen had returned the pipe to his mouth and blew smoke in Greathouse’s direction, as those two had had their verbal clashes before. “The ones that ran away, which would be few. You don’t seem to realize that most of our patients are like children.”

  Greathouse produced the sealed envelope from within his tan-colored coat and held it aloft. “This tells me at least one of them isn’t too child-like. We’re supposed to have you sign some papers.”

  “Come in, then.”

  Matthew tied the horses to a hitching-post, put down the brake and followed Hulzen and Greathouse into the first building, which was the doctors’ office and consultation area. Inside, there were two desks, a larger conference table with six chairs, a file cabinet, shelves full of books and on the floor a dark green woven rug. Hulzen closed the front door and motioned them to the table, where there was a quill pen and an inkpot. Another door at the back led to what Matthew had noted on his initial visit was an examination room and a place where drugs or medical instruments were stored.