Matthew and Greathouse looked at each other. Their unspoken question was Can it be done?
“There’s another thing you might find of interest.” Ramsendell walked to the table where the Earwig lay. He picked the broadsheet up and held it for the visitors to see. “As I said, Madam likes to be read to. Occasionally she nods or makes a soft sound that I take to be approval as I’m reading the Bible or one of the other books. On Friday evening after supper I was reading to her from this sheet. For the first time, she repeated a word that she heard me say.”
“A word? What was it?” Greathouse asked.
“To be exact, it was a name.” Ramsendell put his finger upon the news item. “Deverick.”
Matthew remained silent.
“I read the article again, but there was no response,” said Ramsendell. “No spoken response, that is. I saw by the lamplight that Madam was weeping. Have you ever seen anyone weep without making a noise, sirs? Or changing their expression from what it is day in and day out, hour after hour? But there were the tears, crawling down her cheeks. She demonstrated an emotional reaction to that name, which is extremely remarkable because we’ve seen no emotion from her for the four years of her residence.”
Matthew stared down at the woman’s profile. She was perfectly immobile, not even her lips moving to betray the secret thoughts.
“I read the article to her several times with no further incident. I’ve spoken the name to her and gotten only a sigh or shift of position. But I saw your notice and I began to wonder if you might help, for this is certainly a problem to be solved. So Curtis and I discussed this, I went to New York on Saturday, left the inquiry, and came back yesterday.”
“The mention of one name doesn’t mean anything,” Greathouse scoffed. “I’m surely no expert, but if she’s not right in the head, then why should the name have meaning for her?”
“It’s the fact that she made the effort.” Hulzen’s face was daubed orange as he put another match to his pipe. “Also the evidence of the tears. We feel very strongly that she does know that name, and in her own way was trying to tell us something.”
Now Greathouse began to get his back up. “Beg pardon, but if that evidence was stuffing for a mattress you’d be sleeping on a board.”
Matthew decided to do one simple thing before the wrangling could grow into argument. He knelt down beside the woman, looked at her profile, which was as still as a portrait, and said quietly, “Pennford Deverick.”
Was there a brief flicker of the eye? Just the merest tightening of the mouth, as a line deepened almost imperceptibly at its corner?
“Pennford Deverick,” he repeated.
The two doctors and Hudson Greathouse watched him without comment.
There was no response from Madam that Matthew could tell, yet…did her left hand clutch the armrest a fraction more firmly?
He leaned closer. He said, “Pennford Deverick is dead.”
Her head suddenly and smoothly turned and Matthew was looking directly into her face. The abruptness of this made him gasp and almost topple backward, but he held his position.
“Young man,” she said in a clear, strong voice, and though her expression was exactly the same as when she’d been watching the fireflies her tone carried an edge of irritation, “has the king’s reply yet arrived?”
“The…king’s reply?”
“That was my question. Would you answer, please?”
Matthew looked to the doctors for help, but neither spoke nor offered assistance. Hulzen continued to smoke his pipe. It occurred to Matthew that they had heard this question before. “No, madam,” he nervously responded.
“Come fetch me when it does,” she said, and then her face turned toward the window again and Matthew felt her moving away from him even though the physical distance did not alter an atom. In another few seconds she was somewhere very far away.
Ramsendell said, “That’s why she’s called the Queen. She asks that question several times a week. She asked Charles one day if the king’s reply had arrived, and he told the others.”
Matthew tried again, for the sake of attempt. “Madam, what was your question to the king?”
There was no reaction from her whatsoever.
Matthew stood up. He was still thoughtfully absorbed in watching her face, which had now become that of a statue. “Have you ever told her the reply had arrived?”
“I have,” Hulzen said. “Just as an experiment. She seemed to be waiting for some other action on my part. When I failed to do whatever it was she expected, she went back into her dream state.”
“Dream state,” Greathouse muttered under his breath.
Matthew was suddenly aware that, as he stared at the Queen of Bedlam, he was also being keenly watched in turn by four other faces.
He looked up, at what caught yellow lamplight there on the opposite wall next to the window.
His mouth was very dry.
He said with what seemed an effort, “What are those?”
“Oh.” Ramsendell motioned toward them. “Her masks.”
Matthew was already walking around behind the Queen’s chair, past Greathouse and the two doctors to the four masks that hung upon the wall. He hadn’t seen them before, as his attention had been so firmly fixed upon the lady. Two of the masks were plain white, one red with black diamond shapes upon the cheeks, and the fourth black with the shapes of red diamonds framing the eyeholes.
“They came with her,” Ramsendell said. “I think they may be Italian.”
“No doubt,” Matthew murmured; he was thinking of what Ashton McCaggers had told him: In the Italian tradition, carnival masks are sometimes decorated with colored diamond or triangle shapes around the eyes. Particularly the harlequin masks of—
“Venice,” Matthew said, and looked across the room at the blue-toned painting that depicted the city of canals. “She may have visited there, at some time.” He was speaking mostly to himself. Again he regarded the quartet of masks. Then back to the woman’s face. Then at the copy of the Earwig still clutched in Ramsendell’s hand.
Matthew was, in a way, measuring the distance between all these things as surely as if he were a surveyor’s compass. Not the physical distance, but the space between them in terms of meaning. The Queen’s face in calm tranquility, the masks upon the wall, the broadsheet, and back and forth and forth and back. From Deverick to masks, he thought. Or should that be from Deverick to Masker?
“What is it?” asked Greathouse, sensing turbulence where Matthew was standing.
Matthew traced with a finger the red diamond shapes around the eyes of the black mask. Yes, they were similar—identical?—to the wounds on the faces of the Masker’s victims. He turned around again to look at the Queen, and to clarify what was beginning to form in his mind.
That she sat in her chair, a sad yet regal presence, at the center of this unknown geometry between Pennford Deverick and his killer.
Two facts made his brain burn.
Whoever had put her here cared for her—loved her?—deeply, and wished her to be watched over in some semblance of the previous wealthy life she must have enjoyed, yet this same person had gone to the length of chiselling away the maker’s marks from the furniture to prevent her identity being traced.
Why?
Did she really recognize the Deverick name, from somewhere in the locked room her mind occupied? If so, again, why had that name caused her to shed silent tears?
Deverick to Masker and Masker to Deverick. But was the proper geometry really Queen of Bedlam to Masker to Dr. Godwin to Pennford Deverick to Eben Ausley?
“May I ask what you’re thinking?” It was Ramsendell’s voice.
“I’m thinking that I may be looking at a pentagon,” Matthew replied.
“What?” asked Hulzen, as a thread of smoke leaked over his chin.
Matthew didn’t answer, for he was still calculating. Not distances of meaning this time, but whether or not he thought there was any possibility of success at
solving this particular problem. Where to begin? How to begin?
“So.” Greathouse made the word sound like a note of portent. “Does she think herself to be Queen Mary? Waiting for a message from King William?” He scratched his chin, which was in need of a shave. “Doesn’t anyone have the heart to tell her that William is deceased?”
Matthew had come to a conclusion. “I think we will accept this problem, sirs.”
“Wait just one moment!” Greathouse flared up, before the doctors could respond. “I haven’t agreed to that!”
“Well?” Matthew turned a cool gaze toward him. “Why wouldn’t you?”
“Because…because we ought to talk about it first, that’s why!”
“Gentlemen, if you wish to return with your answer in the morning, we’d be most grateful,” said Ramsendell. “You can find rooms at the Constant Friend, but I have to say that the food is better at Mrs. DePaul’s eating-house.”
“Just so I can get a very large and very strong drink,” Greathouse muttered. Then, more loudly and directed to Ramsendell: “Our fee would be three crowns and expenses. One crown to be paid upon agreement.”
Ramsendell looked for advice to Hulzen, who shrugged. “Expensive,” Ramsendell replied, “but I believe we can manage that if your expenses are reasonable.”
“They may or may not be. It all depends.” Greathouse, Matthew knew, was trying to break the deal before it was sealed. The rogue of swords was definitely unnerved by the shadow of madness; it was, after all, not something he could fight with fists, pistol, or rapier.
Ramsendell nodded. “We’ll trust your judgment. After all, you’re the professionals.”
“Yes.” Greathouse might have puffed his chest up a bit, but it was clear to Matthew that the matter of the fee had been settled. “Yes, we are.”
Before they departed from the room, Matthew paused to again take in the rich appointments, the elegant furniture and paintings. Where was the woman’s husband? he wondered. There was a lot of money on display here. What occupation had earned it?
He looked once more at the group of Italian masks, and then at the woman’s immobile profile. She wore her own mask, he thought. Behind it might be a mindless blank, or a tortured memory.
Young man, has the king’s reply yet arrived?
“Good evening to you,” Matthew said to the silent Queen of Bedlam, and followed the others out the door.
twenty-seven
MY OPINION said Hudson Greathouse as he broke a silence that had stretched over half-an-hour, “is that it can’t be done, no matter if you think the contrary. After all, I’ve had a little more experience in this profession than you.”
Matthew let the comment sit. They were on the Philadelphia Pike, riding for New York. It was just after ten o’clock by Matthew’s watch. The sun was peeking out from behind gray clouds and glinting off wet trees and puddles on the road. They had left Westerwicke this morning after a breakfast meeting with the two doctors at Mrs. DePaul’s eating-house. During the night, while a thunderstorm blew and rain slammed against the shutters of the Constant Friend, Matthew and Greathouse had wrangled over the odds of finding a satisfactory solution to the Queen’s identity. Greathouse had said Mrs. Herrald would have considered this problem a lost cause, while Matthew had maintained that no cause was lost until it was abandoned. At last, realizing that Matthew was not going to retreat from his position, Greathouse had shrugged his shoulders, said, “It’s on your account then, as far as I’m concerned,” and had taken a bottle of rum upstairs to his room. Matthew had listened to the storm wail for a while, drank a last cup of ginger tea, and gone to his own bed to mull the connections of that peculiar pentagon until sleep had rescued him from his own mind past midnight.
“Where are you to begin with this?” Greathouse asked, riding alongside Matthew. “Do you even have any idea?”
“I do.”
“My ears are open.”
“Philadelphia,” Matthew said. He guided Dante around a puddle that looked like a swamp ready to swallow the horse to its bit. “To be specific, the office of Icabod Primm.”
“Oh, really?” Now Greathouse gave a harsh laugh. “Well, that will please our clients, won’t it? Didn’t you hear them say Primm’s not supposed to know anything about this?”
“My ears are also open, but I don’t believe Mr. Primm is…” He paused, searching for the term.
“On the level?” Greathouse supplied.
“Exactly. If Primm’s client cares so much about the lady’s welfare, he—or she—is not going to take her out of there, no matter what Primm threatens. Where else would the lady go, to be treated so royally? Primm’s client wants two things: the lady hidden out of the way, and also protected.”
“I don’t think those doctors will approve of it.”
“They don’t have to know, do they?”
Greathouse was quiet for a while. Sunlight was beginning to stream through the woods and the humid air was getting warmer. “This whole thing stinks, if you ask me,” Greathouse started up again. “Those lunatics walking around without chains on their ankles. All that hogshit about mental disorders and dream states and such. You know what my father would’ve used on me if I’d gone into a damned dream state? A bullwhip to wake me up with, that’s what! Seems to me that’s what some of those people need, not coddling like they’re tender violets.”
“I assume, then,” said Matthew dryly, “that you would give Jacob the bullwhip treatment?”
“You know what I mean! Hell, call a loon a loon and be done with it!”
“I’m sure there are many so-called doctors in the asylums of England who would agree with you. Then again, they would have no need for our services.” Matthew glanced quickly at Greathouse to gauge his expression—which was dour—and then looked toward the road again. “Don’t you think it’s admirable that Ramsendell and Hulzen want to help their patients?”
“I think it’s foolish and we were wrong to come here. People with mind disease can’t be helped.”
“Oh, I see. Mind disease, is it?”
“Yes, and don’t be cocky about it, either. I had an uncle on my mother’s side who got the mind disease. At fifty years of age he liked to sit around and whittle on little wooden horses. Sat me down once and went on about how he saw gnomes in his garden. And him an ex-military man, a cavalry captain! You know, you remind me of him, in a way.”
“What way?”
“He was always playing chess. By himself. He set up his games and played both sides, talking to himself all the while.”
“Imagine that,” Matthew said, and gave Greathouse a sidelong glance.
“All right, then. Suppose you go to Philadelphia and see this Primm bastard. There’s no law that says he has to tell you who the woman is. I expect he’ll throw you out on your mental disorder. What will you do then? Eh?” When Matthew didn’t respond, Greathouse pressed onward. “Are you going to walk the streets collaring people? Asking if they know a little old white-haired lady who thinks she’s Queen Mary sitting in a loonhouse waiting for a message from King William? I can see the Quakers taking in a new boarder at their own asylum. And not to mention that Philadelphia is a larger town than New York. If you’re going to make appointments with all the people there, the next time I see you you’ll have a gray beard down to your shoes.”
“What? You won’t go to help me ask everyone in Philadelphia?”
“I’m serious! I said last night this is on your account. When Mrs. Herrald hears about this—about me letting you agree to this thing—I may wind up sharpening pencils with a dull knife for the next six months. So no, I will not go to Philadelphia on a fool’s errand.”
“It seems to me,” Matthew said, “that you took their money willingly enough.” He speared Greathouse with a chilly gaze. “And are you telling me, sir, that after all your blowhard speeches about being tough of body, mind, and spirit that you are weak in the face of a challenge?”
“A challenge is one thing. This is an
impossible quest. And mind who you’re calling weak, boy, because I could knock you off that horse with my little finger.”
Before Matthew could think twice about it, he was wheeling Dante in front of Greathouse’s horse. Matthew’s cheeks had flamed red, his heart was pounding, and he had had enough of the dish Greathouse was so eager to spoon out. Greathouse’s mount snorted and backed up as Dante stood his ground. Matthew sat in the saddle seething with anger.
“What the hell’s wrong with you?” Greathouse shouted. “You might have caused my horse to—”
“You hold your tongue,” Matthew said.
“What?”
“I said, you hold your tongue.”
“Well, well.” Greathouse wore a tight grin. “The boy has finally cracked.”
“Not cracked. Just ready to tell you what I think of you.”
“Really? This should be entertaining. Shall I get off my horse and prepare to twist you around that tree over there?”
Matthew felt his nerve faltering. He had to go ahead and speak before his good sense forbade it. “You’re going to sit there and listen. If you want to try to twist me around a tree when I’m done, so be it. I have no doubt you could do that, or knock me off my horse with your little finger as you so eloquently spoke, but I’ll be damned if I’ll let you talk down to me anymore.”
Greathouse narrowed his eyes. “What’s gotten up your bum?”
“Mrs. Herrald has chosen me for a reason. A very good reason. I’m fairly intelligent and I have a history that intrigues her. No, more than fairly intelligent. I’m very smart, Mr. Greathouse. Probably smarter than you, and you know that. Now I can’t fight as well as you can, or use a rapier worth a damn, and I haven’t stopped any assassination attempts in the last few months, but I have saved a woman from being burned at the stake as a witch, and I have uncovered a murderer and a plot to destroy an entire town. I think that counts for something. Don’t you?”
The Queen of Bedlam Page 35