The Scent of Death (14 page)

Sir, I believe I have one of the soldiers who were of service to you in November. Pray send me word if you still desire to speak to him. I am, sir, etc. R. Marryot.

The man that Marryot had found was a corporal from the 23rd, the Royal Welch Fusiliers. On the strength of one word –
boyo
– that I had heard a soldier say I had been expecting a Welshman, a small dark fellow called Lewis or Jones, perhaps; and the name of his regiment reinforced my preconception.

But the corporal’s name was Grantford; he was well over six feet in height and as thin as a musket. Judging by the stubble on his chin, he had red hair; and judging by his voice when he snapped to attention and announced his name and rank, he came from Yorkshire.

‘Make yourself easy,’ I said. ‘You are not on parade.’

Still in coat and hat, I was sitting at the table in my private office in Broad Street with the chair drawn close to the small stove and a muffler around my neck. The windowpanes were rimmed with ice on the inside.

Grantford remained at attention.

‘I’m in your debt, Corporal,’ I said. ‘You and your comrade saved my purse and possibly my life.’

‘Sir,’ said Grantford, as if acknowledging an order.

‘Warm yourself at the stove. Why did it take you so long to come forward? Major Marryot said he made enquiries in November.’

Grantford moved a step nearer the warmth. ‘We were up in the Debatable Ground on patrol, your honour, and then I fell ill. Pleurisy, they called it.’

‘In all events, it’s better late than never. You are quite restored, I hope?’

‘Yes, your honour. Can’t say as much for poor Ifor, though, God rest his soul.’

Run, boyo, run?
‘Your comrade? He had pleurisy too?’

‘No, sir. One of their Skinners shot him in the back when we were up in Westchester County.’ Grantford’s mouth worked, as if he would have liked to spit. ‘The cowards pretended to surrender then shot him in the back. I’d hang the lot of them if I could, so help me God. They’re no better than savages up there.’

The Skinners were the irregulars who haunted the Debatable Ground searching for livestock to provision the Continental Army, and for whatever else took their fancy. We had our own Cowboys who did the same for our side.

‘It was because of him I found you, you know,’ I said. ‘I heard him call out as you chased my attackers away. I heard the Welshness in his voice.’

‘He was the one who first went after them, your honour. Always up for a fight or a bit of fun. Like a terrier in a barn full of rats.’

‘Tell me what happened. And tell me how you chanced to be there.’

Grantford scratched his chin, considering. ‘We’d been at sea all autumn with the navy, sir, and then we moved into quarters on Staten Island with the rest of the army. Our company came up for guard duty in Brooklyn, and at the end of that they gave us a furlough in the city on the way back to barracks. We made a night of it, if you take my meaning.’

‘So you were merry?’ I said, smiling.

‘In a manner of speaking, your honour. And for Ifor, the drink always brought out his fighting spirit. So when we heard an Englishman shouting for help, he was off like a ball from a musket. With me at his heels to try to stop him.’

‘The street was ill lit.’

‘Aye, sir, but we could see enough to know a pair of negros had set upon a gentleman. When we came running, they went off like all the devils in hell were after them. Which in a manner of speaking they were, because when Ifor’s blood was up there’s no saying what he’d do.’

Grantford was beginning to relax, and he provided more and more detail and needed less and less prompting. The two negros had zigzagged through alleys linking the streets. The Fusiliers had caught up with them on the fringes of Canvas Town. After a running fight, they cornered their quarry in the shell of an outhouse.

‘I was trying to get Ifor away, your honour,’ Grantford said. ‘You never know what’s going to come at you in Canvas Town. But it was like trying to stop a fighting cock that’s tasted blood.’

In the near darkness, the negros had come at them with knives. The bigger of the two had a stick of some sort. But the soldiers were capable fellows. Grantford thought it probable that Ifor had wounded, perhaps even killed, the smaller negro before being himself knocked insensible by the other one.

‘Then the big fellow made a run for it. But I had to get Ifor out of there in one piece. I put him over my shoulder and by the grace of God I met a patrol before I’d gone far, or they’d have had me for sure.’

‘Did you get a clear view of them?’ I asked. ‘Did you see their faces?’

‘All look the same to me, them black heathens.’ He paused. ‘That’s why Ifor noticed the scars.’

I rubbed at a spot of grease on my breeches. ‘What scars, pray?’

‘The negros were just ahead of us, sir, and they went by
the door of a tavern. And the big one looked back, just as
t
he
door open
ed. Ifor said he’d know him again because he had a scar on each cheek. Like this’ – Grantford traced a line from the outer corner of his eye to the corner of his lips – ‘on both sides. It was a devil’s face, Ifor said. Fit to give you nightmares.’

‘A tall man, you said, I think? And well built?’

‘Aye, sir, and ugly as sin.’

I continued to question him for a few minutes longer but learned nothing more of significance. I sent Grantford on his way with a guinea in his pocket for his trouble.

For half an hour afterwards, I sat shivering, huddled over the stove, much to the annoyance of the people waiting in the outer office to see me.

The big negro with the scarred face seemed to haunt me like a malevolent spirit. He had been there on my very first day in New York, along with the mulatto boy, Benjamin Taggart, and the milch goat that might have been stolen from the Wintours. The negro had been watching when the soldiers loaded Pickett’s body on to the cart.

The negro had been there again, a few days later, playing the penny whistle for the crowd outside the Upper Barracks on the morning when Virgil, the little runaway, had been hanged for Pickett’s murder. The lad had been with him again on that occasion, with a tray of fresh goat meat. Was that the remains of the Wintours’ milch goat?

According to Townley, the mulatto, Taggart, was the Government informer who had led Marryot to Virgil as Pickett’s murderer. In October, Taggart had been found drowned near the Paulus Hook ferry.

Finally, a big negro with a scarred face had been one of the men who assaulted me in November. But I could not be sure of this, I reminded myself, for the identification rested on Grantford’s report of what his comrade claimed to have glimpsed, and on a dark night, too.

Thoughts swirled in my mind. There must surely be an underlying design to this. Was all this to do with Pickett’s murder? But why should a negro from Canvas Town turn his murderous thoughts towards a harmless English official like me, who had not even been in New York when Pickett had been killed?

That was the worst feature of this business. Somehow, I had contrived to earn the animosity of the scar-faced negro. I knew nothing about him for certain. All I had were suspicions: that he might already be a double murderer and that, quite possibly, he had tried to murder me.

If I was right, did it not follow as night follows day that he would try again?

After my interview with Corporal Grantford, I took precautions when I went abroad. I was at pains to avoid walking alone at night; if I could not go in company, I took a coach or a chair. Even in the day, I was wary of secluded places and of crowds where the press of people might allow a man to wield a knife or pick a pocket in perfect tranquillity.

Wild speculations circled and swooped in my mind like predatory crows about a sheep’s carcass. I felt as if I had wandered into the borders of madness and, like many a lunatic, would soon imagine every man’s hand to be against me.

My best course of action, I decided in the end, was the obvious one. I saw Grantford on a Wednesday. As it happened, the Judge had invited both Marryot and Townley to dine at Warren Street on the following Friday. Mrs Townley had been invited too, as a matter of course, but she had declined, pleading ill health.

‘Ill fiddlesticks,’ Captain Wintour said to me in a loud whisper while his mother and his wife were greeting the guests. ‘He’s ashamed of her. It’s as plain as the nose on my face. They say he only married her for the dowry and she’s about as genteel as a mule. Twenty thousand pounds he got by her, and he had the worse of the bargain.’

So there were seven of us at table – the four Wintours, Marryot, Townley and me. The Wintours rarely entertained now, but the Judge felt that his family had received so many kindnesses from Mr Townley and the Major that a show of hospitality was long overdue. The shutters were up and candles made pools of warm, yellow light among the shadows. The flames were reflected in old silver, in waxed mahogany and in the rippling, tarnished glass of the great mirror above the mantelshelf.

The food was plain and indifferent but the wine was good, for which Mr Townley was largely responsible. Mrs Wintour murmured to herself while Miriam cut up her food and helped her eat. The Judge held forth about the iniquities of the rebels and the pusillanimity of the Peace Commissioners who were trying ineffectually to negotiate a settlement between the two sides. When these subjects palled, he turned to the incompetence of the administration and the self-seeking behaviour of certain members of the New York judiciary, whose loyalty to the King was clearly tempered by their loyalty to themselves.

Captain Wintour talked, as usual, about Captain Wintour, though his eyes flickered constantly between his wife and his guests. He often addressed his conversation to me; since our backgammon party before Christmas he had conceived a kindness for me and considered me a friend, though not, I fear, an equal. Marryot and Townley played a lesser part in the conversation while the ladies were with us but their
attention
was never far from Mrs Arabella.

It was curious how she dominated the room. She ate sparingly
and said little, though what she did say was to the point. Townley and Marryot vied with each other to monopolize her. Indeed, she looked very fine that evening for she was dressed for company and candles are always kind to the ladies; so I suppose it was not to be wondered at.

While playing the hostess with her guests, she ensured that Miriam did everything necessary for Mrs Wintour’s comfort and that Josiah and Abraham kept up an uninterrupted flow of dishes and wine. She addressed none of her remarks to Captain Wintour.

Nor did she speak to me. A large silver-gilt candlestick stood between us on the table, which made it difficult to talk directly to each other without awkwardness. Perhaps she did not wish to. Once, however, I caught her looking at me with a cold, calculating expression on her face as though I were a set of household accounts which would not balance quite as they should. As soon as our eyes met, she looked away.

After the meal, the cloth was withdrawn and the ladies withdrew. ‘Hetty-Petty,’ Mrs Wintour murmured to me with a gracious inclination of her head as I held open the door for them. Then again, with an interrogatory inflection: ‘Hetty-Petty?’

‘Hush, Mother,’ Mrs Arabella said, and her eyes met mine. Then the ladies were gone, leaving only a hint of otto of roses in the air to mark their passage.

At the Judge’s suggestion, the gentlemen drew up their chairs around the fire. Now the ladies had left us, I intended to raise the subject of Grantford’s visit, but Marryot was there before me.

‘Was the fusilier I sent you of service, sir?’ he asked, loudly enough for the others to hear.

‘Yes, indeed. I was glad to have the opportunity to show my gratitude to him.’ I turned to the Wintours and Townley. ‘The Major was able to discover one of the soldiers who came to my rescue when I was set upon in the street before Christmas.’

‘Disgraceful,’ said Mr Wintour. ‘These attacks have become a daily occurrence. There is no respect for the law.’

‘Did you learn anything from him?’ Townley asked.

I set down my glass. ‘Yes. Though I do not know quite how much weight to put upon it. He and his comrade chased the rogues into Canvas Town but they did not get a good view of them.’

‘Negros, I think you said, sir?’

‘I believe so. And the soldier confirmed it – his comrade caught a glimpse of one of them in the light. He noted one feature in particular: the man had a scarred face – one scar on each cheek, running down from the eye to the mouth.’

Captain Wintour reached for the bottle. ‘Send a patrol into Canvas Town, sir,’ he said to Marryot. ‘That’s what I’d do. You’d soon flush the devil out.’

‘Easier said than done, sir.’ Marryot’s face was dark red, perhaps from the wine or the fire, perhaps from irritation. ‘There are twenty or thirty thousand people in the city now, and half of them have gone to roost in Canvas Town.’

‘I have seen a negro with a scarred face before,’ I said. I did not add that I saw him sometimes in my dreams. ‘On several occasions. He watched us take away the body of poor Mr Pickett from Canvas Town. And again, he was outside the Upper Barracks when the runaway was hanged for the murder.’

‘Very probably the same man,’ Townley said. ‘They are attracted to trouble like bedbugs to blood.’

‘But is it not strange?’

Townley smiled; he looked rather bored. ‘One might almost argue it would have been stranger if the rogue had not been there.’

‘Mr Savill, sir,’ Captain Wintour cried. ‘The honour of a glass of wine with you. We shall drink damnation to the knaves who set upon you.’

The conversation became general and moved away to the war. I sat in silence, wondering whether I had made a fool of myself by allowing my fears to overmaster my reason. But soon, I reassured myself, the matter would resolve itself. It was already February. In a month or so – eight or ten weeks at the outside, I would sail for home and enjoy the fruits of my labours in this unhappy city: I would have a home of my own with Augusta and Lizzie, and a career that, with Mr Rampton’s benevolent assistance, would flourish in London.