No Rest for the Dove (5 page)

“Ah!” said Longfellow. “Since we may all soon be neighbors—Mr. Caleb Knox, farmer and son of Bracebridge.
Caleb, this is Signor Gian Carlo Lahte, a gentleman of Milan.”

Lahte stepped forward and graciously offered a hand, which was gingerly taken.

In another few moments, anxious to tell a yeasty story that had risen into a substantial loaf, the farmer disappeared around the corner of the large house, on his way back to the Blue Boar.

“This thing may well have one or two points of interest,” Longfellow mused, looking more closely at the moist coins in his hand. “Will you come, Lahte? Good. Cicero? I thought not. Mrs. Willett, will you wait for us here or return to your own chores?”

“If we’re to suppose this unfortunate man traveled here to meet someone, as you say,” she replied, “then it might be better if I went with you. For what if he came to see me?”

“To buy a pound of butter? Unlikely, but as good a reason as any, I suppose, to examine a corpse. Come along then, Carlotta. But wait a moment….”

Longfellow strode past Cicero into the kitchen. On his return, he carried a small box of coals.

“For fumigation,” he explained. “Now I believe we’re ready.”

With that, the small party started off across the fields, leaving Cicero sitting silhouetted under the cool green vines, finishing the plate of pears.

I
T’S A CONVENIENCE
built this spring,” said Richard Longfellow as they walked between weathered headstones, along a shaded path.

He went on to explain that the subterranean chamber behind the burial ground had seemed a useful idea, when suggested by a pair of men in need of work. The selectmen had gladly approved the digging of a temporary site where they might leave the dead, when circumstances kept the unfortunate souls from being immediately interred in the churchyard. Everyone knew it was no easy thing to take a pick to frozen earth; nor did anyone want to worry about the spread of putrid fever in warmer weather.

“Down these steps, and leave the door open; I’ll just touch this scrap of paper to the coals, and light the pair of candles. No, I don’t know this man. Do you, Mrs. Willett?”

Charlotte, too, descended into the close, timbered space, where the aroma of damp earth vied with something less wholesome. She saw the body lying on a trestle table, and looked instinctively to the closed eyelids, then at the waxy face. The man’s pale features suggested someone of perhaps forty-five, possibly fifty. Clearly, this wasn’t a farmer who’d spent his days in the sun. His oily hair had a reddish hue, as did the short curls on the knuckles of his smooth, unbruised, and unadorned hands. The nails were surprisingly clean—a benefit of long gnawing by their owner. She speculated he was a person whose fortunes had fluctuated. Though his apparel was quite worn, it seemed to be made of thin-stranded and tightly woven fabric, surely not home-loomed. It looked as if the cut of the coat was original, and the stitchwork good; yet there was something unfamiliar in the proportions of the garments, as well as their finishing details. Over much of this clothing there was a dark stain—which accounted for the smell.

Looking up, Charlotte at last shook her head to Longfellow’s question, while noting that Signor Lahte stared hard into the stranger’s face, as she had. He then pulled himself together with a start.

“Can it be,” Longfellow asked in surprise, “that
you
know this man, Gian Carlo?” A brief wave dismissed the idea. But Longfellow persisted in his concern.

“You seem unwell. The stench is strong, and the stagnation of the air may have caused it to lose its potency—er—well. Perhaps we should move on.”

Lahte now attempted an explanation of his own. “Richard, a man of art … of strong feeling … he can be—” The musico suddenly fumbled for his handkerchief, and held it tightly over his distressed features.

“Something of a shock, I would agree. I, too, have little stomach for viewing death. Though something tells me Mrs. Willett will linger a while longer.”

Charlotte looked up from examining a marred hat she’d found on the beaten dirt of the floor. “Surely, offering a prayer would be appropriate?”

“Hmmm,” Longfellow responded as he led Signor Lahte up the wooden steps set into the soil, both of them rising once more toward warmth and light.

When she was alone, Charlotte closed her eyes for a moment. The tallow candles continued to smoke and sputter. Then, she opened her eyes and slipped behind the table, to lift the head of the corpse with her hands. The neck seemed whole, but the top of the skull
was
damaged. Even more strange was the fact that the indented area was not at all swollen. This told her he must have died very soon after his injury occurred. Of course, he might also have died from inhaling what he could not swallow.

Nearly overcome by this horrible thought, and the odor, Charlotte looked away; but soon, she forced herself to examine a patch of the matter on the coat more closely. It was unusually dark, and the observation caused her to feel a new shiver of unease.

In another moment she heard a phantom echo of the angelic voice of Gian Carlo Lahte come into her questioning mind, and she felt a sudden rush of warmth.
Did he know this stranger?
Or had her imagination, too, become overly active? Longfellow had also wondered if his visitor was acquainted with the man—yet why would Signor Lahte not say so, if it was true?

Blowing out both candles, Mrs. Willett climbed the steps and pulled the door closed behind her. At her appearance Longfellow strode forward, while his guest continued to pace slowly among the stones some distance away.

“Are you satisfied, Carlotta? It seems clear to me that he was thrown onto his head.”

“Yes, but—”

“You question, too, where he’s come from. I’ll make a sketch, and send it off to Montagu in Boston. But I believe the signs point to an unsuccessful fellow less than a gentleman, lately arrived from abroad. You will have seen that his hair and skin are similar to those of many Scots and Irishmen … yet somehow, the face reminds me more of the Alps. However, as you’ll agree, physiognomy is not yet a true science. I would much prefer to see a sample of his hand. It’s unfortunate that he carried no papers.”

“The clothing—” she began again.

“That, too, is curious, but inconclusive. As to his pockets—these coins could have come from a number of places, if the gold ducats do suggest the Italian trade. Have you an idea of your own?”

“He appears to have lost some wine, which I presume he drank while on the way here.”

“I will give you no argument there.”

“But when?”

“When?”

“He could hardly have vomited the wine up, I think, after a fall—at least, not if his death was due to the obvious injury. The blow must have come only moments before his heart ceased to beat.”

“Do you refer to the lack of fluid within the depression? You’re probably right. Well, the man’s stomach could have rebelled first. Or he could have gotten off his horse, then lost his stomach, and stumbled. If he next fell back onto a rock …?”

“But how would that explain the great force of the blow? From what I saw, I can hardly believe—”

“All right, he was thrown
after
he regurgitated, which he managed to do while still
on
his horse.”

“Perhaps, then, his death was caused by choking, and
not the fall. At least that would remove blame from a poor horse—”

“In either case, it would have been accidental; thus, it is no further concern of ours.”

“Still, I wonder. Wouldn’t the village rest more easily if a physician examined him?”

“I suppose it might. Nothing, I hope, points to anything more unusual in your mind?”

“Only the face. Didn’t it seem to you to be quite haggard? He could have suffered a recent illness—perhaps a mortal one. Richard, if the dark matter I saw—”

“He hardly seems jaundiced, if you next mean to tell me he died of yellow fever! And he would have been ill, indeed, probably in the last stages of the disease, to produce what the Spanish call the
vomito negro
. In that case, I doubt he could have sat a horse all the way from Boston.”

“That’s true.
But did he look well to you?
”

Longfellow examined her familiar features closely, before he gave his answer.

“It might be best, after all, to post a sign warning others not to enter. Many ills race swiftly through a population … especially, as I think of it, in August and September. And, as Boston is a seaport—yes, I’ll make a sketch, and when I send off my handiwork I’ll enclose a request for Warren to come, just to be safe. It will give him a healthy ride. Now, where has Il Colombo got to? There he is, next to all the Proctors. Shall we take him home? He, too, seems not entirely well; I hope melancholy is all that is wrong with
him
today.”

As they joined Signor Lahte, they saw that his spirits had already returned. This was fortunate, for Reverend Rowe approached them along the main road.

“Gian Carlo,” his host called. “Are you sufficiently restored
to be presented to what passes in Massachusetts for a holy man?”

“I will be delighted,” the musico answered.

“I doubt that,” said Longfellow, “but we shall see.”

“
SO. I ASSUME
you were born a Roman Catholic, signor?”

Christian Rowe, clothed in his usual ill-fitting suit of black broadcloth, pronounced the strange title with great distaste, after receiving what he supposed was a sinfully excessive bow.

“I was raised in the Church, good Father, but I now dispute the many laws of Rome—and I strongly repent of partaking in its superstitious ceremonies.”

“Oh?” Rowe brightened a little, while he adjusted his stiff round hat over a halo of golden hair. “Then am I to presume you are now a Protestant?”

“I protest much in this sad life, Father, and pray you will take me into your flock. For like the poor sheep, I must look for guidance. I must tell you that I learned of your wisdom even before coming here.”

“Really!” the reverend responded, rising on his toes. He gave a fond sigh for several slim volumes of his sermons, copies printed the previous winter and left in a King Street shop. Perhaps not all of them had languished, after all. “That is gratifying,” he allowed, giving the gentleman before him a faint smile. “Although as a minister, rather than a popish priest, I should be addressed as ‘Reverend,’ or simply ‘sir.’ We do not see our spiritual leaders as all-powerful, yet make no mistake, sir—ministers
are
well respected here, for their wisdom and learning.”

“But of course!”

“You do realize,” Rowe interrupted with a new suspicion,
“that there is no question of a Roman mass ever being said in Massachusetts?”

“Who, Reverend sir, would dare to so pollute such a grave and holy place?”

After that, Rowe’s face beamed with a beatific mildness … until a slight movement drew his attention, and his expression changed once more.

“Madam, have
you, too
, gone down to examine that man’s body?”

“I was convinced it was my duty, sir, to examine his face, since no one yet knows who he is.”

“Duty! A word one rarely hears on your lips, Mrs. Willett—”

Longfellow caught the preacher’s eye; then, he turned to gaze at a new slate roof on the stone manse behind them, a recent, and expensive, gift.

“But you are entirely correct,” Christian Rowe continued, “in suggesting it is the duty of us all to help our fellow creatures. Someone, somewhere, must be searching for this man—whose death, I am told, was an accident?” The preacher relaxed only when several nods assured him he would receive no more unsettling news.

“Well, then, that’s that,” Longfellow concluded with evident satisfaction. Like Rowe, he had no desire to add to their previous experience of crime, and punishment. “It won’t be necessary for you to take more than a brief look at the body, Reverend. As it is the height of summer, I have some fear of contagion. In fact, I believe I’ll call for a physician to see to him, at the town’s expense. I plan to take the likeness of the corpse myself, so that they can ask in town who he was. It seems to me he came here by way of the Boston road, and I suppose Town House will soon hear a complaint; if not, there will be plenty of lodging houses to examine.”