The Queen of Bedlam (27 page)

Matthew felt a bit weak-kneed under this barrage, but he steeled himself and said, “My own authority, madam. I want to know who killed Dr. Godwin, your husband, and Eben Ausley, and I intend to pursue the matter to the best of my ability.”

“I forgot to tell you,” Pollard offered, “that Mr. Corbett has the unfortunate reputation of being what might be called in impolite circles a ‘sammy rooster.’ His crowing and bluster seem to exceed his good taste.”

“I consider myself a competent judge of taste, good or bad,” came the rather stinging reply. “Mr. Corbett, how is it that you think yourself suited to pursue this subject when the town has a high constable employed to do so? Isn’t that a presumption on your part?”

“I imagine it is. I’m presuming from prior experience and observation that Mr. Lillehorne couldn’t pursue his path from his bed to his bedpan.”

Pollard rolled his eyes, but the lady of the house showed no response.

“I think there was a common bond among the three victims,” Matthew went on, before he lost his momentum. “I think the Masker is not an errant lunatic, but a cunning and very sane killer-if one may call murder an act of sanity-determined to make some kind of statement. If I can deduce that statement, I believe I can unmask the Masker, as it were. Others may yet die before that happens, I don’t know. I assume the Clear Streets Decree is going through?”

Still Mrs. Deverick didn’t speak. At last Pollard said, “Tonight the taverns will close at eight o’clock. The decree begins at half past eight. We’re going to fight it with a petition, of course, and we fully expect to have this unfounded burden lifted after-”

“Save your red rag for the court.” Mrs. Deverick continued to stare forcefully into Matthew’s eyes. “Why have I never heard of you?”

“We turn in different circles,” Matthew said, with a slight bow of respect.

“And what’s in this for you? Money? Fame? Oh.” Now a light seemed to appear in those eyes and a fleeting smile crossed the thin pursed lips. “You want to show Lillehorne up, don’t you?”

“I have no need to show anyone up. I strive for the solution of the matter, that’s all.” But even as he said this, he realized he’d been stuck with a small sharp knife of truth. Maybe he did want to “show Lillehorne up,” as she so acidly put it; or, more to the point, he wanted to demonstrate to the town that Lillehorne was ineffectual, buffle-headed, and probably corrupt as well.

“I don’t believe you,” Mrs. Deverick replied, and let it hang. Then she cocked her head to one side as if inspecting an interesting new growth that had sprouted in her garden. She was trying to decide if it was a flowering plant or a noxious weed. When Pollard made a noise to speak, Mrs. Deverick lifted that single commanding finger again and he instantly shut his mumbler.

To Matthew Mrs. Deverick said in a low, calm voice, “There are three things that greatly displease me. The first being an uninvited visitor. The second being the theory that my husband was in any way associated with the two deplorable men whose names you have spoken. The third being a certain imposter to civility on this street named Maude Lillehorne.” She paused and, for the first time it seemed to Matthew, blinked. “I will choose to overlook the first according to your motive and I will grant you a certain small amount of leeway on the second according to your curiosity. As to the third,” she said, “I will pay you ten shillings to discover the Masker’s identity before there’s another killing.”

“What?” Pollard sounded as if he’d been struck in the belly-pipes.

“Every night the decree continues, the Deverick family will lose money,” the woman continued, still solely addressing Matthew. “I agree that the high constable is beyond his depth in this situation. I would like to see him-and by extenuation his wife-skewered on the wit of a magistrate’s clerk. If you have wit enough, which will remain to be seen. Therefore I wish this problem to be solved before Lord Cornbury is given more reason to drag the decree out, court or no court. Ten shillings is my offer, and it is an offer of which I believe my husband-God rest him-would have approved.”

Pollard said, “Madam, may I give advice that you not-”

“The time for advice is over. It is time for action, and I believe this young man may save the day for us.” She turned her face toward Pollard. “My husband lies dead, sir. He will not rise like Lazarus. It is up to me now, to guide this endeavor until Thomas arrives.” She didn’t even pretend to acknowledge that Robert stood only a few feet away. Then, once more facing Matthew, “Ten shillings. Find this murderer before he strikes again. Yes or no?”

Ten shillings, Matthew thought. It was an outlandish amount. It was more money than he’d ever been paid in one sum in his life. He thought he must be dreaming, but of course he said, “Yes.”

“If there’s another killing, you get not a duit. If the high constable achieves the unlikely goal of solving this problem, you get not a duit. If the individual is uncovered by any other citizen, you-”

“Get not a duit,” Matthew said. “I understand.”

“Good. Then there’s one further thing. I wish to know first. Not for the sake of revenge or any un-Christian motive, but…if there is indeed any connection between the three, I wish to be notified before Mr. Grigsby can print it for the town to devour.”

“Forgive me,” Matthew said, “but that sounds as if you might…how shall I say this?…have some reason to be concerned.”

“My husband kept much to himself,” she replied. “It was his nature. Now please leave, as I must rest before the funeral.”

“May I return at a more convenient time and continue the interview? Both with yourself and your son?”

“You may write your questions down, give them to Mr. Pollard, and they will be contemplated.”

Contemplated did not necessarily mean answered, Matthew thought, but he was in no position to contradict. “Very well.”

“Good day, then. And I shall add good hunting.” With that curt dismissal, she moved past him with a stormy rustle of stiffened fabric and lace, motioning for Robert to accompany her.

On Matthew’s way out the door, which Gretl held wide for his exit, Pollard said, “Wait at the curb a moment and I’ll give you a lift. I’m heading back to the office.”

“No thank you,” Matthew decided. “I think better when I walk.” He went out and the door was shut at his back with a resounding finality. He didn’t care. He strode in the sunlight past the waiting carriage and driver along Golden Hill Street west toward the Broad Way.

It occurred to him that, Herrald Agency or not, he’d just been hired to solve his first problem as a private investigator.

Twenty

By ten o’clock on Saturday morning, Matthew reckoned that he had lunged forward and stabbed a bale of hay with his rapier about a hundred times. Now, approaching twelve, he was going through slow-motion fencing lessons with Hudson Greathouse in the carriage-house, as pigeons spectated from the rafters and the heat-sweat rolled down Matthew’s face and back under his sodden shirt.

Greathouse seemed above such concerns as sweltering heat and physical discomfort. While Matthew struggled to keep his breath and his balance, Greathouse breathed with ease and moved nimbly to demonstrate the half-pace, whole-pace, slope-pace, encroachment, and circular-pace, and when Matthew happened to relax his grip he found his sword flicked from his hand by a sudden powerful movement that left his fingers thrumming and his face screwed up with anger.

“How many times do I have to tell you to keep that thumb locked down? And getting mad won’t help you win a fight,” Greathouse said, pausing to mop his forehead with a cotton cloth. “Just the opposite. If you try to play chess in anger, what happens? You stop thinking and start reacting, and then you’re playing to your opponent’s pace. The key to this is keeping your mind calm, your rhythm intact, and your options open. If your opponent steals your rhythm, you are dead.” He pushed his sword down into the soft ground and rested his hand on the pommel. “Is any of this getting through?”

Matthew shrugged. His right arm and shoulder were just dull throbbing pieces of meat, but damned if he was going to do any complaining.

“If you want to say something,” Greathouse growled, “then say it.”

“All right.” Matthew pushed his sword down into the ground as well. He felt as if his face was twice its size and the color of a ripe tomato. “I don’t know why I’m having to do this. I’ll never become a swordsman. You can teach me all day and all year about these foot-movements and circulations and what-not, but I don’t see the reason.”

Greathouse nodded, his expression calm and impassive. “You don’t see the reason.” It was a statement, not a question.

“No sir.”

“Well then, I’ll try to explain this in a fashion you might understand. First of all, Mrs. Herrald requires this training. She has some strange notion that there may be danger in your prospective line of work, and she expects you to live beyond your initial encounter with a frog-bellied ruffian who wields his sword like a hayseed’s pitchfork. Secondly, I require this of you, both as an education in self-confidence and as a reawakening of the physical strength you have put to sleep amid your drowsy books. Thirdly…” Here he stopped, his brow knit. “You know,” he said after a few seconds’ pause, “you may be right, Matthew. All these time-honored and rational foundations of fencing technique may be just so much fundament to you. What care you for the thwart, or the imbrocatta, or the understanding of wards? After all, you are such a smart young man.” He pulled his rapier up from the ground and brushed dirt off the gleaming steel. “I imagine you can only learn and appreciate the use of a rapier the same way you learned to play chess, is that correct?”

“And what way would that be?” Matthew asked.

“Trial and error,” came the reply.

It was followed by a tongue of lightning that came at him so fast he barely had time to suck in a breath, much less jump back out of range. He realized in a split-second of decision that this time Greathouse’s rapier was not going to feint in and withdraw; the shimmering blade-tip was aimed straight for the middle button on his shirt and just that fast his aching shoulder drew his arm up and the two swords rang together. The hum of the blades vibrated up Matthew’s arm, down his spine, and through his ribs as the attacking rapier was turned aside. Then Greathouse was lunging forward again, crowding Matthew’s space, angling his body slightly so the blade was going to strike Matthew’s left hip. Matthew watched the sword coming in as if in slow-motion, his singular power of concentration taking hold to shut out everything in the world save the rapier intent on piercing his soul-cage. He stepped back, keeping his form for that was the most efficient use of speed, and struck aside the blow but almost too late, as the blade grazed his hip and snagged breeches-cloth in its passage.

“Damn it!” Matthew shouted, backing away toward the wall. “Are you mad?”

“I am!” Greathouse hollered in return. His eyes were wild and his lips tight. “Let’s see what you’ve got, Chess Boy!” With a look of determination that scared Matthew out of all sense of pain or fatigue, Greathouse pressed in to the attack.

The first move was a feint to his left side that Matthew misjudged and tried to parry. Greathouse’s blade came sweeping past Matthew’s shoulder in a forehand cut that made the air sizzle like a sausage on a hot pan. Matthew staggered back, almost falling over the haybale he’d so thoroughly killed earlier in the day. Greathouse drove in at him again, the rapier’s wicked point coming for his face, and it was all Matthew could do to knock the blade aside the best he could and back away another few steps to find breathing room.

Now Greathouse, grinning like a demon, cut at Matthew’s legs but Matthew saw the strike coming, locked his thumb down, and parried the blade away with a blow that sounded more like the crack of a pistol than the meeting of steel. For an instant Greathouse’s torso was open and Matthew thought to bring his blade back in line, lunge forward, and give the brute a scare, but almost as soon as the thought took hold his rapier was knocked aside and he jerked his head back as a glint of steel flashed two inches away from the tip of his nose. It would not do to return to New York noseless, Matthew thought as he again retreated, the sweat beaded on his face and not all of it from simple exertion.

Still Greathouse came on, feinting left and right though Matthew had begun to read cues in the man’s movements-extension of shoulder and set of the forward knee-to determine strike from disguise. Greathouse suddenly went low and then angled the rapier upward in a lunge that Matthew thought would have driven through a man’s lower jaw and out the back of his neck, but fortunately Matthew was having none of it and had put more distance between them.

“Ha!” Greathouse suddenly shouted, combining the noise of insane joviality with a thrust at Matthew’s ribs on the right side that Matthew was just able to clash aside. But it was a weak blow, for Greathouse’s sword swung around like a deadly wheel and now came for Matthew’s ribs on the side sinister. This time Matthew stood his ground. He gritted his teeth and parried the strike with his rapier as the man had taught him, forte against feeble.

Yet there was nothing remotely feeble about Hudson Greathouse. He backed up a step only and then came on the attack again with tremendous power, a lion in its element of mortal combat. When Matthew parried the blade-this time only by the thin whisker of a skinny man’s beard-he felt the strength of Greathouse’s blow nearly not only remove the sword from his hand but his shoulder from its socket. Another strike darted in at his face almost before Matthew could see it coming, more a silvery glint like a fish streaking through dark water. Matthew jerked his head aside but felt a bite as his left ear was nicked before he could get his own rapier up on guard.

My God! he thought with a surge of mortifying fear. I’m bleeding!

He backed away again, his knees gone wobbly.

Greathouse slowly advanced, his rapier held out at extension, his face damp with sweat, and his red-shot eyes turned toward some remembered battlefield where heads and limbs lay in bloody heaps.

It came to Matthew to shout for help. The man had lost his mind. Surely if Matthew yelled loudly enough, Mrs. Herrald would hear it. He presumed she was in the house, though he hadn’t seen her today. God only hope she was in the house! He started to open his mouth to let loose a caterwaul and then the frightening mass of Hudson Greathouse sprang upon him swinging the rapier’s brutal edge at Matthew’s head.

Matthew could only respond instinctively, trying to put order to the collection of bewildering sword-facts that rattled in his brain. He locked his thumb down tight, tighter than tight, breaking-point tight, judged the distance and speed, and deflected the attacking rapier with his own blade. But suddenly Greathouse’s sword was coming at him from a lower angle-a silver blur, a murderous comet-and yet once more Matthew turned aside the blow, the noise ringing through the carriage-house and the shock almost loosening his teeth. Greathouse himself seemed to be a distortion of the heated air, a monstrous creature half-human and half-weapon as the rapier flashed and feinted high, feinted low, flicked to left and right, and then struck like a serpent. Again Matthew parried it aside just short of his chest, but when he retreated two more steps his back met a wall.

He had no time to scurry away from this trap, for his enraged teacher was on him as the thunder follows the lightning. Matthew just had an instant to get his sword angled up across his body and then Greathouse’s blade slammed into his rapier, locked forte to forte as the man pushed in on him with crushing strength. Matthew held on to his sword, trying to resist what he knew to be Greathouse’s intention to tear it from his hand by brute power alone. The blades made a shrieking sound as they fought each other, steel sliding against steel. Matthew feared his wrist was about to break. Greathouse’s face and glaring eyes seemed as big as demonic planets, and it occurred to Matthew at this moment near bone-breakage that the man smelled like a goat.

Abruptly the pressure against his rapier was gone. Greathouse said, “You are dead.”

Matthew blinked. He felt something sharp jabbing into his stomach and when he looked down he saw the black handle of a six-inch-long dagger gripped in the man’s left hand.

“Some hide documents,” Greathouse said, with a tight smile. “Others hide knives. I just sliced your stomach open. Your insides should begin to boil out in a few seconds, depending on how much you scream.”

“Lovely,” Matthew managed to reply.

Greathouse stepped back and lowered both rapier and dagger. “You never let your opponent get that close to you. Do you understand? You do whatever you have to do to keep a sword’s distance. You see my thumb, how it’s locked on that handle?” He lifted the dagger to show Matthew his grip. “Nothing but a broken wrist could stop me from driving that blade all the way through your bread-basket and, believe me, into the stomach is where a knife will go when you’re caught at close quarters. The wound is painful and gruesome and puts an end to all arguments.”

Matthew took a deep breath and felt the carriage-house spin around him. If he fell down right now he’d never hear the end of it, so by God he was not going to fall. One knee may have sagged and his back bent, but he kept on his feet.

“You all right?” Greathouse asked.

“Yes,” Matthew answered, with as much grit as he could muster. He wiped sweat out of his eyebrows with the back of his hand. “Doesn’t seem a very gentlemanly way to kill someone.”

“There is no gentlemanly way to kill.” Greathouse slid the dagger into the sheath at his lower back. “You see now what a real fight is like. If you can remember your technique and use it, fine. That would put you at an advantage. But a real fight, when it’s either kill or be killed, is a nasty, brutish, and usually very quick encounter. Gentlemen may duel to draw blood, but I can promise-warn is the better word, I suppose-that you’ll someday cross swords with a villain who’ll long to get a short blade in your belly. You’ll know him, when the time comes.”

“Speaking of gentlemen and time,” came a quiet voice from the doorway, and Matthew looked over to see Mrs. Herrald standing framed in the sunlight. He had no idea how long she’d been there. “I believe it’s lunchtime for you two gentlemen. By the way, Matthew, your left ear is bleeding.” She turned around and, regal as ever in a dark blue dress with white lace at the collar and cuffs, walked away toward the house.

Greathouse threw a clean cloth to Matthew. “Just a nick. You dodged the wrong way.”

“But I did do well, didn’t I?” Matthew took note of the man’s sour expression. “All right then, fairly well?”

“You only struck one offensive blow. Or attempted to strike one, that is. It was weak and completely undisciplined. You did not keep your form, as your body was too wide a target. You have to remember to keep your body thin. Never once did you step forward to meet an attack, even as a feint. Your footwork was pure panic, and you were always retreating.” He took the rapier from Matthew and wiped it down before placing it in its scabbard.

“So,” Matthew said a little indignantly to hide his disappointment, “I did nothing right?”

“I didn’t say that.” Greathouse put Matthew’s rapier on the armory’s hooks. “You met two of my best blows with very well-done parries and you were reading some of my feints. The rest I let you get away with. In fighting even a middling swordsman, you would have been punctured at least six times. On the other hand, I left myself open several times and you did nothing to seize the advantage.” He looked at Matthew as he wiped down his own rapier. “Don’t tell me you didn’t see your opportunities.”

“I told you before, I’m not a swordsman.” The more he fiddled with his ear, which was cut near the top, the more it stung so he left it alone. The cloth was marked with a blotch of blood, but the wound was not so large nor as grievous as it felt.

“That may be so.” Greathouse sheathed his sword and put it on the hooks. “But I intend to make you one, in spite of yourself. You have a natural speed and balance that I find very promising. Also, you have a good sense of measure. I like how you kept your sword up and didn’t let it fall. And you’re a lot stronger than you look, I’ll say that for you. The most important thing is that you didn’t let me run over you, and twice I really tried to knock that sword out of your hand.” Greathouse motioned with a lift of his chin. “Come on, let’s get our lunch and we’ll return to this in an hour or so.”