The Golden Flask

by Jim DeFelice

"As I am now."

  The two men jabbed at each other for a good five minutes. In the end, Quinton agreed to accept four guilders for the work in two months' time, or five in three, along with a goodly supply of cloth at a reduced rate, when this could be arranged by mutual consent. He took up some thread and needle and promptly began the close stitch to repair the tear which ran along one pocket. In truth, his skills justified his fee, as he could put upwards of twenty-five stitches per inch. His stitches always looked more decoration than patch.

  Van Clynne's efforts to elicit information about General Howe, offered as small bits of conversation as the man worked, were not nearly as efficient. In fact, they ended abruptly when the squire asked if the tailor had seen the general of late.

  "Do not mention that damned bastard," exclaimed Quinton, dabbing the air with his needle. "He owes me twenty pounds since Christmas! Do you know the material I purchased for him? He looked at it and waved his hand, saying he did not like it now that he saw it. Now that he saw it! Did not like it! I have a near acre of chartreuse cloth. What shall I do with it?"

  "A tent, perhaps?"

  Further comments indicated that Howe had not been at the shop since midwinter. Van Clynne sank into his chair and began thinking how he might shave a half-guilder off his debt and sample some of Quintan's fine beer besides when he happened to glance out the window. A white-painted carriage with elaborate molding and inlay was just pulling up in front, heading a procession of mounted redcoat dragoons and a second carriage.

  The squire staggered to his feet, his face white and his strength suddenly sapped.

  "What's wrong, Claus?"

  "I, er, seem to have something caught in my throat," said the squire. "Would you have any water?"

  "Not in the shop."

  "Well then, let me use your back door."

  "My back door?"

  "And I'll take my coat. The repairs look quite excellent."

  "But what about the rip at the sleeve?"

  "What is a small tear among friends?"

  * * *

  Van Clynne's sudden interest in leaving was due entirely to the similarity of the carriage outside with one owned by Major Dr. Harland Keen, a man known to van Clynne as a rather dubious doctor and member of the British secret department. At one memorable juncture, Keen had subjected him to a full-body bloodletting, covering nearly every inch of his skin with leeches. The Dutchman liked a sanguinary experience as much as the next man, but this had been a bit extreme.

  Van Clynne had taken Jake's word that Keen had drowned when he went over the falls. But who then was the man descending from the coach, his white hair pressed back, his coattails flaring with typical British audacity?

  "I have a great need of your back door," said van Clynne, coughing as loudly as he could. "Quickly!"

  "Don't choke to death. Come."

  Van Clynne just managed to whisk through the door into the back room as the bell attached to the front door clanged as it opened. The tailor hesitated, but van Clynne pushed forward, confident that he would find the way on his own.

  He had only just crossed from the back into the side alley when he realized he had left his gray-toned black beaver hat behind.

  As a general rule, Claus van Clynne was not overly sentimental. He was, however, especially fond of his hat, which had accompanied him through considerable travail and was fairly unique in its appearance and construction.

  Which meant it must surely be recognized by the all-too-perceptive Keen.

  Easing up the side alley, just out of view of the mounted escort that remained in the street, van Clynne heard his recent host fill the room with honey-coated praise of his Loyalist and British guests.

  "My good Earl Buckmaster," he heard Quinton say, "your suit, sir, is ready as promised. You see that I have taken less than a full day. It was an honor to prepare it for you. I think no tailor in this city so honored. And you will note the handsome stitching.”

  To relate more would surely sicken the reader nearly as much as it did van Clynne. It developed that the tailor was familiar with Keen, whom he presented with a shirt ordered several fortnights before, "and preserved, sir, against your return to our shop."

  "Yes, well, hurry with it. We have several more stops, and my sister must see to a dress," said Bauer. He turned and addressed his brother-in-law and Keen. "Even with my man holding our seats, we must arrive at the theater before General Clinton. He creates such a god-awful scene. With luck, the little fop Alain will have finished eating before we get to the engineering office. His table manners are enough to turn the stomach upside down."

  Van Clynne was starting to think the hat might escape notice — and be recovered — when he heard the doctor's distinct voice through the window. It was close enough to make his heart thump like the broken arm of a windmill smacking against the ground.

  "This hat. Whose is it?"

  A simple question, surely. But those are always the most dangerous.

  "The h-hat," stuttered Quinton. "Well, some customer must have left it. Honestly, I am not sure. Would you like it? I can let you have it for a low price — no, let me give it to you. Yes, take it as a present."

  Silence followed. Van Clynne imagined Keen taking up the beaver and examining it.

  "I recently was acquainted with a fellow who had a hat very similar," said the doctor, the restraint in his voice obvious even outside. "Had I not seen him burn in a building, I would swear this was his."

  "There are many hats like this," said the tailor nervously. "It is a common style."

  "The owner was a Dutchman," said Keen. He was no longer bothering to control his venom; van Clynne felt his own body fairly warmed by it. "And do not lie to me or your tongue will be tread on by half the British soldiers quartered at King's College.”

  "Now that you mention it," answered the tailor, his voice trembling. "It does seem familiar."

  The squire did not tarry to hear himself betrayed. He swept from the alley, bowed quickly at the mounted guard, and walked with as much balance as he could muster southward. He was nearly a block away when Keen's temper rose in a mighty fit; van Clynne could hear the sound of crashing tables and glass as he turned the corner and began running with all his might.

  * * *

  Van Clynne arrived at the infirmary just as Alison was trying to persuade Culper that she could serve the Cause as one of his agents in town instead of "visiting" a relative of his in Westchester, as he suggested. The girl had taken a flintlock pistol from the armory in the medicine closet. Seated at the large pine table that held the middle of the second floor wardroom, she was demonstrating her knowledge of its working parts by stripping it with the aid of a very large and pointed knife.

  "Blindfold me, if you wish," she told the spymaster, waving the knife as if it were a harmless twig. "I will do it again. I can do it behind my back."

  "It's a very useful skill," allowed the patriot leader. "I'm sure we will find great use for it. But first, we will have to make some arrangements for you."

  "I don't want to be sent behind the lines."

  "Quickly, there is no time to waste," blustered van Clynne, bursting up the unguarded stairwell so fast he nearly broke three spokes on the oaken baluster. "Where is Jake?"

  "He's gone to the engineer's office," said Culper. "What business is it of yours?"

  "A great enemy of ours is loose in the city," said van Clynne. "Quickly, he must be warned."

  "Who is this enemy? What are you talking about?"

  "Keen, Doctor Quack Keen, a man given to the most obnoxious poisons and a disgrace to his profession. He is heading for this Alain fellow, this engineering lordship. If Keen finds Jake there he will cover his body with leeches and set him on fire, and then prepare a proper torture."

  "Jake told my men Keen was dead."

  "Believe me, sir, he is very much alive. And I distinctly heard him mention Lord Alain."

  "I've already sent the last men I can spare on other jobs."

  "I'
ll go!" shouted Alison, starting for the stairs.

  Culper grabbed her by the shoulder. "You're not going anywhere."

  "You said I could serve the Cause. Here is my chance."

  "I intend on warning Jake myself," said van Clynne. "I will enter the house under other pretense and sneak into the office to warn him away. I require only swift transportation, and a map of the place, if possible."

  "There are two floors," said Culper hastily, necessity forcing him to put aside his doubts about the Dutchman. "Jake was to sneak upstairs into the offices while Alain was downstairs eating."

  "I will warn him."

  "How?" asked Alison. "You won't be able to climb up the side of the building."

  "I will go in the front door, child, on some simple pretext," said van Clynne. There were no hatchets handy, and so he had to settle for the pistol Alison had just assembled. "There is no need for me to burglarize the place."

  "Then you need an assistant to sneak upstairs," she said, volunteering. "I can easily slip away on some pretext."

  The Dutchman threw her a doubtful look.

  "Please," she said, taking up his hand. "Let me prove myself. I am very brave."

  "I cannot dawdle."

  "Let's go then," she said, running to the door.

  "I will find Daltoons and have him organize reinforcements," said Culper, as van Clynne followed her down the stairs with a series of oaths.

  "A girl and a Dutchman," the spymaster added as they disappeared through the door. "What will Washington send me next?"

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Wherein, Jake does some impromptu carpentering.

  About roughly the same time that Claus van Clynne spied the crooked red bricks at the front of the tailor shop, a carpenter was walking in his oversized smock and apron down the city's east ward. He cut a tangled path toward the wharf used by the ferry from Brooklyn, smiling from beneath his broad-brimmed, if somewhat tattered, felt hat. Whistling a jaunty air — it might be "British Grenadiers," it might be "Yankee Doodle" — he headed back up the hill and, just as supper hour approached, found a large, dilapidated former creamery and set up shop on its rear porch.

  It might be said that his chisel was strong but his saw not half as sharp as typical of the breed, for though he worked steadily for half an hour, he made so little progress that many a journeyman would have hailed him as an accomplished master.

  The significance of this porch for our story is that it lay directly behind the painted brick building used by the British engineers to house some of their more important drawings and least important staff. The carpenter, who soon gave up his work to slip a long narrow bar and a pistol beneath his smock and apron, was none other than the well-disguised hero of our tale, Jake Gibbs.

  Besides the costume and hat, Jake had added a wide bandage to his chin, wrapping it once around the bottom quarter of his face to obscure the rounded, often smiling jaw that was among his best features. Rubbing it, he made his way up the alley, crouching behind a barrel as the lone guard assigned to watch the building made his founds in front.

  A young maple tree, tall but too slender to provide more than token support, stood nearby. A window with a solid-looking brick ledge and frame would give Jake a good boost to the second story, where his metal shim ought to make short work of the hall opening.

  The guard's pace wasn't exactly up to parade-field specifications. It was more a mopey snuffle, difficult to time exactly but ripe with the sort of lackadaisical effort that promised the alley would be unsupervised for long stretches. In addition, the guard had recently acquired a new set of boots, and so his approach was easy to avoid — the leather soles made a sharp sound as they scraped the pavement stones. As they became louder, Jake dropped to his knees and made sure his body was well behind the barrel.

  Once the scrapes began heading in the other direction, Jake rose and peered in the window. As Culper's diagram had predicted, it looked in on the dining room. The table had been set, which meant that the secretary would soon be down for supper.

  Jake was about midway up when the guard's soles began scraping again in his direction. He hurried upward, reaching the window that according to Culper opened into a small storage room.

  Unfortunately, Culper's information was wrong. It opened into an upstairs hallway, in full view of the office where his lordship worked.

  Or rather, the office where he was just now emerging.

  Jake ducked away so quickly his grip loosened and his fingers slipped from the ledge. The distance to the ground was not enormous, but he still met the earth with a resounding smack, his legs groaning from the unexpected shock.

  Jake groaned as well. He fell to his back, holding his breath as the scraping from the front of the house stopped, then resumed with much greater vigor.

  The Segallas, cleaned and reloaded after the plunge in the river, was secreted at the top of his right sock. As he reached for it, the guard appeared over him and ordered him to stand upright.

  "I am trying," said Jake. "But I have had a wicked bee sting here, and cannot even stand up." He rolled over, scratching at his leg as if injured — and hoping for a chance to remove the pistol.

  "Never mind that," said the sentry. "Explain who you are."

  "I am a poor carpenter," said Jake. "As you can see from my tools on the porch."

  "What is a carpenter doing working on a brick building?"

  "Begging your pardon, sir, but I am working on that porch there," gestured the spy. "A man named Baxter hired me to do some work. I was chased here by a nest of bees."

  "Baxter? That building belongs to an old woman named Fife."

  Jake grimaced. "Baxter was the name of the fellow who hired me." He rose. "Jesus, the damn thing is back," he said, swatting at the air.

  The soldier was not fooled. But Jake was able to duck the butt of his gun as he swatted. He pulled his pry bar from his belt and smashed it across the man's face. A harder smash to his skull knocked him senseless.

  Jake took off his apron and used its strings to truss the redcoat. Pulling him back to the porch, he fastened him below the steps, blindfolding and gagging him so he could not call out when he awoke. Jake judged it would be several hours, if not longer, before he managed to free himself.

  By the time the patriot returned to the window, Alain was entering the dining room. Jake gripped the brickwork and hoisted himself quickly upwards on the side, his fingers clinging to the smooth clay like barnacles to a ship's bottom. He was at the upstairs hall window in a trice, pushing his slender metal bar between the sill and the sash and gently nudging it upwards. In the next second, he had slipped inside, confident that he would soon be on his way back to Washington with the whole story of Howe's pending invasion.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Wherein, Jake examines diverse maps, drawings and a maid’s fine lips.

  The chestnut floor planks were covered with a thin, fairly worn carpet, which provided little cushion for Jake's footsteps. With the first creak, he realized he had best proceed barefoot, and leaned against the wall to gingerly unbuckle and remove his shoes.

  His destination was only a few feet away, not far from the top of the stairs. The house's owner, a hearty patriot, had taken the precaution of removing not only his furniture but many of his finely trimmed doors and shutters before fleeing. Thus anyone coming up the stairs would have an unobstructed view of the office, with Jake inside.

  There was nothing to do but pray that wouldn't happen. Jake tiptoed across the hallway, shoes in one hand and cocked pistol in the other. Tucking the shoes by the door, he posted his gun on a chair within easy grasp and sized up the office.

  Culper's intelligence had pegged the room as the most likely place plans for an invasion or other helpful records might be kept. In truth, this was but a guess based on its use by the senior staff. Jake realized at a glance that only a thorough search would confirm or deny it. The place was hardly a model of bureaucratic efficiency. There were three small desks, each c
overed with a variety of books, loose papers, and sketch upon sketch of maps. The center of the room was filled by a large table, whose smooth wood surface was neatly overhung by several layers of charts. Important papers and maps were stored without obvious order throughout the room, and indeed, throughout the entire house. The rumors of English efficiency were, in this department at least, greatly exaggerated.

  Jake moved first to the central table; the pile proved a collection of various fanciful plans of world cosmology, replete with mermaids, phoenixes, and centaurs — obviously the sort of project a young subordinate filled idle hours with while his boss was far away. Much pain had been taken with several of these; on one edge of the table were tacked a series of studies for heads and faces. Jake had gained an appreciation for art while in Oxford for his schooling, and realized immediately that these drafts displayed considerable dexterity.

  They were of little importance now, however. He turned his attention to the documents and books on the desks, going through them as rapidly as possible without creating too much noise. For the most part, the papers were plans for bridges and bivouacs that could be put into use anywhere on the continent; not one showed any geography or features that might hint where Howe was heading.

  Jake's inspection was suspended by a knock so loud on the door below that it felt as if it were made at his shoulder. This was followed by a familiar harrumph, a not altogether pleasant clearing of the throat, and a general "hello there." The heavy steps of a butler sounded up the stairwell as van Clynne's voice boomed out, inquiring after his "good friend, the distinguished Lord of Marquedom, Count Alain, peer to the realm."

  Had any other patriot knocked on Alain's door, Jake would have immediately guessed that trouble was afoot. But his long experience with van Clynne led him to believe that the Dutchman, as usual, was merely showing his face where it did not belong. Jake cursed silently, then told himself that at least van Clynne's loud voice would distract the servants and his lordship from any noise he might make upstairs. Jake returned to the desks and began pulling open the drawers to examine their contents.