City of Glory

by Beverly Swerling

  Dinner was delayed by their talk, but eventually they’d been fed a stew of beef and onions provided by the housekeeper—Mrs. Hays was away seeing to the needs of a daughter who had just presented them with a grandchild—and when it was over, Hays belched loudly and offered what appeared to be his final assessment of the situation. “Money’s what Gornt Blakeman’s about, not politics. He’s no interest at all in what makes a country, or the rights o’ the folks as live in it.”

  “He’s not alone in that, High Constable. Most people don’t have time to think of such things until they feel those rights threatened. Too busy earning their livings.”

  “Aye. And nothing wrong with that neither. Same for the ordinary and the higher types, come to that. Course, depends on how you earn it, don’t it?”

  “What depends?” Joyful’s head was wreathed in the smoke of the cigar he’d accepted after the meal.

  Hays’s cigar was no longer lit, but he kept the stub between his teeth, moving it from one side of his mouth to the other while he spoke. “Depends whether a man’s on my good side or my bad. Gambling and wenching, for instance. That’s the kind o’ thing as causes no end o’ trouble for me and my men.” He looked straight at his guest when he said it.

  “I can see where they might.” There was no hint of apology or excuse in Joyful’s tone. “If the enterprise is not well organized and well managed.”

  “Aye, better that way, I admit. Still there’s things as are much safer, leastwise as concerns the law. For example, Dr. Turner, I hear tell there’s someone thinking o’ selling his share o’ the Tontine. Now that’s a respectable choice for a gentleman seeking to make his way. Course, t’other members get to vote on whoever wants to buy into their private arrangement. And likely, being the sort of men they are, some of ’em think Gornt Blakeman’s way.”

  “I’ve no doubt some of them did think his way. But given how well the money men generally read the wind, there are probably none so inclined after today, High Constable. Half the town heard you charge Blakeman with high treason and threaten to hang him. Just now he’s a fugitive. I doubt he’ll have any allies at the Tontine.”

  Hays sat back and considered Joyful for a few long moments. “Clever,” he said softly, speaking, it seemed, more to himself than to his guest. “Trouble with young men like you, they can be too clever by half. Figure Blakeman’s done with, do you?”

  “Yes, Mr. Hays, I do. Don’t you think the same?”

  “Maybe, maybe not. But if I were you, I’d have my eyes open for—”

  The housekeeper poked her head around the door. “Gentleman to see you, sir. Says it’s urgent.” Hays stood up. “Not you, High Constable,” the woman said. “It’s your visitor is wanted. Dr. Turner.”

  “How did you find me here, Cousin Andrew?”

  “Young Jesse and I have been looking all over for you.” They were outside on the Common, on a path between the gaol and the almshouse, both buildings looming large in the slant of the late afternoon sun. Andrew’s trap was parked a few feet away, and Jesse Edwards had hold of the reins. “We finally came across someone who said they saw you leave Five Points with the High Constable, so we came here.”

  “Hays wanted to talk to me after the riot,” Joyful said. “He wanted to know what…” He let the words trail away and took a step closer to the rig. “What happened, Jesse? You look as if you were in a fight.”

  “I was up at Five Points in the riot, Dr. Turner, sir. But that’s not why we came. It’s Miss Manon, Gornt Blakeman’s got her.”

  “How could I let him take her?” Maurice Vionne kept saying. “How could I?”

  Joyful, Andrew, Jesse Edwards, and Adele Tremont were in the goldsmith’s front room, the small space crowded not so much by their bodies as by their anxiety. “You mustn’t blame yourself, Monsieur Vionne.” The Widow Tremont spoke while making a bad job of replacing the bloody bandage on Vionne’s arm. “You gentlemen must understand that. There was truly no way we could resist.”

  “I’ve seen Mr. Vinegar Clifford at work,” Andrew said. “I’m quite sure there was nothing you could have done. Here, madam, allow me.” He took over the business of changing the bandage.

  Joyful stood by the window, staring out into the street and paying little attention to what the others were saying or doing. They had gone to Hanover Street first. The countinghouse was locked up tight, and he knew for certain there was no one upstairs because he’d climbed the damned tree and broken into Blakeman’s private quarters to convince himself. So where would he take her? He turned to face the others. “Jesse says Blakeman had a couple of leather-apron boys with him. Occurs to me he might go up to the Bowery and—”

  “Gornt Blakeman,” Adele Tremont said, as if it were the first time she’d heard the name. “I should have guessed.”

  “Guessed what?” Vionne demanded.

  “I suppose I knew it was him,” Madame Tremont admitted. “I simply didn’t think about it until now.”

  “What didn’t you think about?”

  It was wicked of Manon to have ruined her petite marmite with salt, but perhaps it did not warrant a fate such as this. “Madame Eugenie Fischer,” Adele said. “I sew all her dresses. She will have no one else.”

  Joyful looked directly at her for the first time since they were introduced. The woman had been Manon’s nemesis these past few days, but it was possible she might be able, however unwillingly, to help her now. “What about Eugenie Fischer?” he demanded. “Do you think Blakeman may have taken her to Mistress Fischer’s house?”

  Such a handsome gentleman, and a hero as well as a healer. He must be the reason Manon was uninterested in Monsieur DeFane’s nephew and refused Gornt Blakeman. Ah, if she were twenty years younger…However, she was not, and Maurice would be in her debt if she assisted in this matter in any way possible. “If Mr. Blakeman brought a young woman who looked like Mademoiselle Manon to the home of Eugenie Fischer, she would murder them both. It is not the sort of situation in which Madame Fischer would conspire, Dr. Turner, because she would not shine by comparison.”

  “And she cares what Blakeman thinks of her?”

  Men did not know how much they lost by not being privy to the gossip of servants. “Forgive my indelicacy, Dr. Turner, but in this situation…Mr. Blakeman is everywhere rumored to be the lover of Madame Fischer.” Adele shot a quick look at Maurice, in case he might think badly of her for making such a remark. He was instead hanging on her every word. “You must understand, normally I do not approve of gossip, but—The other night, Wednesday it was, Madame Fischer summoned me to her house in the evening. After seven. Very unusual, but she said she must be fitted for a new frock immediately. Well, I had some lovely green silk that I got at Mr. Blakeman’s sale Thursday last, and I mentioned that. I mean because I knew she and Mr. Blakeman were—”

  “Yes, yes. You’ve told us. We understand.” Vionne could barely contain his impatience. “What is this to do with my Manon?”

  Joyful put a restraining hand on Vionne’s shoulder. “Go on, madam. We’re listening.”

  “Well, you see, I am observant. It’s simply my nature. While I was fitting Madame Fischer, I developed the impression she had not brought me to her house at such an hour because of a frock. Normally, Madame Fischer is interested only in herself. That night it seemed she was interested in everyone else. Even women with whom she would normally have no intercourse whatever. A…Forgive me, gentlemen, but I can say it no other way. A brothel keeper.”

  “By the name of Delight Higgins,” Joyful said, his voice very quiet, his monumental anguish turning to a rage no less fierce because it was so carefully controlled. “A mulatto woman. Runs a place called the Dancing Knave.”

  “Yes, that’s correct. I’m sure a gentleman like yourself would never frequent such an establishment. But you know how other men are, I’m sure, Dr. Turner.”

  “Indeed. Tell me, Madame Tremont, exactly what did Eugenie Fischer wish to know about Miss Higgins?”

 
; “Who sewed for her. And as it happens, I was able to tell her. Of course, I would never invite such custom myself, but there are some who are not so particular, and among us mantua makers…” She shrugged and kept talking, but Joyful had stopped listening.

  Had Blakeman put Eugenie up to the business of finding out who sewed for Delight? Somehow Blakeman was seeking to use Delight to further his ends. The night they played bezique, when Delight so openly invited Joyful to her bed and he equally openly refused, Blakeman would have known about that. He’d figure Delight would go along with whatever he wanted because she was angry. But why seek out the name of the woman who sewed her gowns? What difference…Christ, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that Blakeman was the spider at the center of the web and Manon was caught in it. Damn your soul, Gornt Blakeman. This time you’ve miscalculated. This time we fight to the death.

  He’d make much better time on horseback than in Andrew’s trap. Vionne lent him a horse, taking the moment they were alone together while they saddled her to say, “You’re the gentleman my Manon has been meeting, aren’t you? Last Sunday, when she left church…”

  “It was to meet me, yes. I’m sorry, sir. We never meant to deceive you. I wish to marry your daughter.” Said at last, and what a time for it.

  “We will speak later, Dr. Turner. For now, only know that I am grateful.” He gave Joyful a leg up and watched while he galloped up the road.

  It was not yet half seven when Joyful got to Rivington Street, still too early for custom at the Knave. There were no carriages, and his was the only horse tethered at the hitching post. He strode up the front steps, knowing the bar would not be across the front door at this hour, and used his key to let himself in, shouting Delight’s name as soon as he was inside. “I must speak with you, Delight! It’s urgent.”

  His voice echoed in the empty hall. “Delight!” Joyful threw open the door to the gaming salon. It was deserted. Dice and cards lay abandoned on most of the tables; glasses and tankards were everywhere, many containing the dregs of a drink. The spittoons had not been emptied; neither had the large crockery bowls provided for the convenience of smokers. The whole place reeked of last night’s pleasure. He’d never known the gaming salon not to be fresh and spotless and ready by this time of day. “Delight! Where in Hades are you!” He strode across the hall to the Ladies’ Parlor. It was equally slovenly. Delight’s normal practice was to roust all the women from their beds by two and set them to cleaning. She’d sack anyone who didn’t comply. “Delight!” Still no answer. Sweet Christ, what was going on?

  Manon had been taken because Blakeman wanted to get at him. But what was the connection with Delight? He heard a sound behind him and turned to see Bearded Agnes coming down the stairs.

  They talked in the Ladies’ Parlor, surrounded by the soiled cups and saucers and glasses of the night before, an abandoned hand of cards turned facedown on the little table between them. “Blackbirders,” Joyful said. “You’re sure?”

  “Course I’m sure.” Agnes’s eyes were red with weeping. “Terrified of ’em, she was. You must o’ known that, Dr. Turner.”

  He nodded. “Yes, I did. But how—You say she was abducted from inside the house. How could that happen? Where were the the chuckers-out? Where were all the rest of you?”

  “Asleep, like I told you,” Agnes said. “Only Preservation Shay and me and Miss Higgins was up and about. She was in her private rooms with the mantua maker. She was being fitted and—”

  Joyful leaned across the table and gripped Agnes’s wrist. “Are you saying her mantua maker was with her when she was taken?”

  “That’s what I’m tryin’ to tell you, Dr. Turner. Only you won’t let me get the story out.”

  He let her go. “I’m sorry. In your own words, then. I’m listening.”

  “The mantua maker brought a girl with her, an assistant. Least that’s what we thought. Turned out to be a man, one of them pirates with cutlasses and guns the mantua maker was screaming about, and—”

  Sweet Christ, the pieces were starting to come together. “Tintin,” Joyful said. “The Baratarian. He put the woman up to it.”

  Agnes nodded. “Pirates threatened to kill her babies, she said. Besides, everyone knows pirates are the worst blackbirders there are. And that Tintin, he was always following Miss Higgins about, baiting her, since the first night he walked into the place.”

  It was Blakeman who staked Tintin to a substantial wager that same first time the pirate appeared at the club. “Agnes, Gornt Blakeman, the man I played bezique with a few nights past, the one who—”

  “I know who he is.”

  There was something in the way she said it. Not looking at him, embarrassed. It would take a lot to embarrass Bearded Agnes. “Delight invited him up to the third floor, didn’t she?”

  “You weren’t coming around anymore, Dr. Turner. Not the way you used to. She was unhappy. A woman like Miss Higgins…”

  “Yes, I understand.” Blakeman and Tintin, Delight a pawn for both of them. “Tell me how the blackbirders got her out of the house.”

  “I’ll show you,” she said, and took him up to Delight’s boudoir and led him to the rope ladder still hanging from the window. A ship’s ladder.

  Joyful spent less than ten seconds examining it, then started for the stairs. “Don’t open for business tonight, Agnes, but get this place cleaned up. Miss Higgins will have a fit if she comes home and finds it like this.”

  “You think she’ll be coming—”

  “I guarantee it.” If she was alive. If Manon was…He wouldn’t let himself think about it. “Spotless,” he called over his shoulder as he went out the door, as loudly as he could so they’d all hear him. “Spotless from top to bottom. Otherwise every one of you gets the sack.”

  He was again whistling past the graveyard, but as always it made him feel better.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  New York City,

  Maiden Lane, 7 P.M.

  “TINTIN,” Joyful said. “A pirate. He showed up at the Dancing Knave a bit over a week ago. Blakeman backed him in a high-stakes wager. He’s in league with them. It’s some part of his scheme for breaking the Union.” Andrew, Vionne, the Widow Tremont, and young Jesse Edwards—they were all still in Vionne’s front room, exactly as he’d left them a bit over an hour ago. Looking at Joyful and trying to understand the utility of the information he’d brought back.

  “What has any of this to do with my daughter?” Vionne asked.

  “It tells us where Blakeman has taken her. Tintin has a ship—”

  Andrew shook his head. “You can’t know that. Perhaps this Tintin came overland.”

  “I do know it,” Joyful said. “I saw the rope ladder he used to abduct Delight from her private quarters.” Christ, look at the expression on Vionne’s face. The man who wanted to marry Manon was apparently on close terms with a brothel keeper. “It was a ship’s ladder, covered in barnacles and disgracefully frayed. A pirate ship’s the only kind that wouldn’t have tossed it into the sea ages ago.”

  “Then why hasn’t this pirate ship been spotted?” Andrew demanded. “The harbor’s chock full of seamen with nowhere to go and nothing to do but keep an eye out. A strange craft, surely—”

  “I agree. Which has to mean the pirates aren’t in the harbor and have hidden their ship somewhere else.” He found it hard not to let his discouragement show. “How in God’s name do we find a ship that’s—Yes, Jesse, what is it?” The boy was tugging at his coat.

  “I know someone as can find any ship anywhere near here, Dr. Turner. That’s his job o’work. Been doing it every day for three years. I can take you to him if you like.”

  Andrew insisted on driving Joyful and Jesse to Devrey’s South Street premises, flogging his horse as if the trap were a stagecoach chased by a gang of thieves, though they raced through semideserted streets. The city had spent itself in the activities of the day; now everything was hush and calm. Both the dock and the warehouse looked dese
rted. Joyful cursed himself for a fool, so desperate for hope he was willing to snatch at any straw. “Looks like your friend’s left for the day, Jesse.”

  “No sir, Dr. Turner. I’m sure he’s not done that. He’s always here until full dark. Look up there.” Jesse pointed to the tall tower. “That’s where Will is. He’s Bastard Devrey’s lookout boy.”

  “No he’s not,” Joyful said, confidence flooding back. “He’s mine. Give him a shout, Jesse. Tell him to come down.”

  “Workers on this here dock answer to me, gents. You’ll not be shouting any of ’em down or up lest I say so.” The man’s wooden leg made a tapping sound on the boards as he approached them.

  “Peggety Jack, isn’t it?” Joyful said.

  “Aye. And you’re Dr. Joyful Turner, and”—he turned to face Andrew—“and the senior Dr. Turner. I knows you both by reputation, gents. But this here be Mr. Lansing Devrey’s wharf, and ye won’t be—”

  “You work for me, Peggety, not Bastard. I own the controlling interest in Devrey Shipping”—ignoring Andrew’s startled glance.

  “No one’s told me nothin’ about that.”

  “I think they have, Peggety. I think you know pretty much everything that’s gone on. But in any case, I’ve no time to argue with you. Hail down the lad in the tower. I’ve something I want him to do.”

  “I can’t—”

  Joyful grabbed the front of the tar’s checked shirt and pulled him close. “Hail him down, old man. Now. Else I’ll cut off the other leg.”

  “You can’t—”

  “Let poor old Peggety go, Cousin Joyful.” Bastard Devrey came out of the warehouse and walked toward them. “He’s useful, as you’ll discover. Good evening to you, and to you, Cousin Andrew.”