The Scent of Death (25 page)

I took a walnut from the bowl before me. ‘Captain Wintour showed me the portrait of himself as a boy, sir.’

‘The one in his chamber?’ The Judge passed me the nutcrackers. ‘A man from Philadelphia did it. A considerable expense, but Mrs Wintour wanted the best. John insisted that Juvenal be in it too.’

‘The slave boy?’

‘Yes – they were never out of each other’s company in those days. Always up to some mischief or another.’

The nut exploded, and fragments of shell scattered across the table. ‘What happened to him?’

‘Juvenal?’ The cheerfulness ebbed from Mr Wintour’s face. ‘It was a sad business. John left him at Mount George with Bella and Mr Froude when he went away to the war. And he went to the bad. Infected by the poisonous spirit of these revolutionary times? Bad blood coming out? I don’t know. You never know what is passing in their heads, do you? Negros, I mean. Even the best of them.’

He motioned to Josiah with his finger. The old servant leaned forward and refilled my glass.

‘Yes,’ the Judge went on. ‘First he decamped, taking money – and this in a most dangerous time of the war, mark you, leaving his mistress and her old father quite alone with only a few servants, and the country around them full of disaffected rebel soldiers. And Bella was in poor health at the time as well.’

He drank more wine.

‘And that wasn’t the worst of it, sir. To compound his disloyalty, the rogue came back in the dead of night. He had robbery in mind, no doubt, and perhaps revenge for some fancied slight. God knows what – he had nothing but kindness from us. And then—’

He broke off, his face working with emotion.

‘Sir, you must not distress yourself. I—’

‘And then the black devil murdered poor Froude. I believe he would have murdered poor Bella herself, given half a chance. But thank God! Miriam shot him.’

‘Forgive me, sir – I should not have touched on so painful a memory. I had no idea.’

He waved away my apologies. ‘How could you know? We must be grateful that Bella at least was saved. We live in terrible times, do we not? But pray keep this to yourself, sir – we do not care to have the details widely known.’

When I went upstairs to bed that night, I heard movement in the ladies’ sitting room. It was too late for me to enquire about the volume of
The Spectator
, which I was minded to do to test the truth of Noak’s story. Nevertheless, I paused for a moment on the landing.

A woman was weeping on the other side of the door.

Towards the end of May, Mr Townley took a pleasure party to Long Island for the races and invited me to join them. We crossed the river by the ferry to Brooklyn, where hired horses were waiting for us.

A stream of coaches, riders and foot-passengers travelled eastwards to the extensive heathlands where the race meeting was held. Everyone was in a holiday mood that day. Sedan chairs bobbed among the throng. There were half a dozen in our party, and we were more than a little merry, like boys released from school.

It was curious to think that a few miles to the north the prison hulks with their grim cargo below decks rotted in Wallabout Bay, while the eastern section of Long Island was a great stretch of ravaged territory constantly harried by the raids of rebel whaleboats from Connecticut. But God knows it was often like this in New York – the gayest diversions and the luxurious habits of peace lived side by side with the darkest consequences of war.

A great crowd had assembled on an area of the heath called Ascot after its rather better-established English equivalent. A temporary town of tents, booths and stalls had mushroomed around the racetrack. All ranks of society rubbed shoulders in the throng.

As we were riding along the lane to the concourse, I heard the raucous screech of a trumpet intermingled with the beating of a drum. Gradually we drew closer to the source of the sounds – a little man in a blue coat encrusted with tarnished gold lace. He had lost his left leg below the knee and wore a wooden substitute. Despite this handicap, he moved with ungainly speed among the press with the help of a crutch that served as much a weapon to clear the way as a support. A small drum was attached to his neck with a leather strap. When he was not blowing the trumpet, he used the instrument as a stick to beat the drum.

Beside him strode an enormous figure swathed in a superstructure with canvas curtains that swayed from side to side as they moved along the road. At some point in its history the canvas had been daubed with stripes, approximately red and approximately vertical, by someone with inadequate supplies of both paint and skill. The curtains hung down almost to the ground. Apart from his bare, pale calves and shoes, the man within was entirely concealed from view.

As our party overtook them, the man in the blue coat tucked his trumpet under his arm and doffed his broad-brimmed hat.

‘At your service, your honours,’ he cried. ‘The finest dramatic entertainment you’ll see outside Drury Lane.’

Townley bared his teeth. ‘If you don’t get out of our way, I’ll have you thrown in the Provost for obstructing the King’s highway.’

The man cackled as if Townley had made a joke. But he and his companion flattened themselves against the hedge at the side of the road. As we passed, I glimpsed the white, sweating face of the second man, framed by the rectangle of the theatre he carried on his shoulders. He stared open-mouthed at us with melancholy brown eyes as if we were the spectacle and he the audience.

We reached the racetrack shortly after ten o’clock. Townley guided us towards a refreshment tent with a striped awning. His servant took our horses. We found a table and sat down to quench our thirst.

The conversation was almost exclusively about the relative merits of the horses that would be racing that day. I did not play much part in this, for I was not a gambling man and had little knowledge of the sport. But there was plenty to occupy my attention in the holiday crowd that ebbed and flowed about our tent.

It so happened that the showmen we had encountered on the road settled themselves within sight of us. The man inside the tent set it down on the ground and mopped his brow. His broad face glistened like a harvest moon. He was no taller than his colleague but almost twice as broad. As well as the travelling booth, he had carried a large box attached to his shoulder, which he now set carefully on the ground. He tied up the top flap at the front. Soon the complete puppet theatre was revealed. He opened the box and, one by one, laid out the marionettes on the grass.

An audience gathered in front of them. But the one-legged man made sure to keep a clear avenue between the miniature stage and the refreshment tent where we sat.

All the while, he beat his drum and blew his trumpet. ‘The tragic history of Punch and Joan,’ he shouted when he tired of the trumpet. ‘Complete with the Devil and the Executioner!’

Townley glanced irritably in their direction. ‘Why do they make such a damned racket?’ He summoned the waiter and indicated the puppet theatre. ‘Move them away, would you. I can’t hear myself think.’

The waiter began to demur but the manager of the establishment, who knew Townley’s identity, hurried over and soon arranged matters to his patron’s satisfaction. The puppeteers moved away.

We did not have long to wait. The races began at eleven o’clock. There were four that day, all of which consisted of gentlemen riding their own horses. I am no judge of horseflesh but I put ten shillings to win on a horse in the third race. I chose a bay with a blaze on his nose for no better reason than that my father had had a horse with similar markings when I was a boy.

It was not the favourite – the odds quoted to me were seven to one. There were twelve horses in the race, with a purse of thirty guineas and an elegant saddle worth another twenty for the winner. Fool’s luck was with me and the horse romped home by a length and a half. I was the only one of our party to win anything.

We dined at the racetrack and then rode back to Brooklyn. Near the ferry stood a big tavern built of stone, which was an uncommon material in this locality. The establishment’s fish suppers were famous and Townley’s servant had commanded a table for us.

It was the middle of the evening by the time we had finished. The ferry back to the city was not due to leave for another three-quarters of an hour. It had grown intolerably stuffy in the parlour. I left my companions drinking toasts and went out to take the air.

The village was packed with holiday-makers returning from the heath. Many were drunk, some to the point of insensibility, and the merriment had grown wilder and in some cases more vicious in character.

Among the throng was the booth of the puppet theatre. The marionettes were engaged in a frenzy of activity. The one-legged man was encouraging his audience to give generously and promising them a rare jest in return. A tall, thin man was lying on the ground immediately below the booth. He was snoring loudly. I wandered closer.

‘Trouble with Mrs Joan,’ the one-legged man was saying in a hoarse, confidential tone, ‘is that she needs to piss at the most inconvenient moments.’ His voice rose to a squeak that was intended to pass as ladylike. ‘It’s not very genteel, is it? Mr Punch ain’t pleased.’

On the tiny stage, Punch was belabouring Joan with his stick and saying, in his peculiar voice, that he hoped the devil would take her away to the place where she belonged for her shameful impudence. Joan pleaded necessity and at last turned her back on the audience, bent over and lifted her skirts. I glimpsed part of a small leather pipe. A thin stream of water spurted out with surprising force, some of it spattering the leg of the sleeping man. The closest spectators jumped back to avoid being splashed, some holding their noses. A howl of mirth arose. The drunk stirred for a moment and then lay still.

The one-legged man hopped up and down in excitement.

‘I do hope that Mrs Joan can control her bowels!’ cried the concealed performer, still in his confidential character. ‘Otherwise I may be obliged to faint!’

At that moment the crowd shifted in front of me and, for the first time, I had a clear view of the victim’s face. He had lost his hat and wig. He had a week’s growth of beard. It was the colour of rust with a few streaks of grey.

The snoring stopped. The man opened his eyes. He stared up at the booth towering over him and at the ring of faces staring down at him.

In that instant, I recognized him.

‘Stop,’ I shouted. I stepped forward and laid my hand on the shoulder of the one-legged man. ‘That’s enough. Move away.’

He stared up at me, baring his teeth. ‘Why should I?’

The spectators hissed and one of them pushed me. The drunk wriggled away from the booth and into a sitting position.

‘Because if you do I shall make it more than worth your while,’ I said. ‘And if you don’t I shall summon my friend Mr Townley, the Deputy Superintendent of Police, and have you committed to the Provost. I’ve just been supping with him in the tavern. You know Mr Townley. He’s already had cause to send you about your business today.’

The hissing was quieter now. The drunk tried to stand but fell back with a groan and rubbed his right arm.

The one-legged man’s eyes moved to and fro. ‘Worth our while?’ he said.

I lowered my voice so he alone could hear. ‘Five shillings. Or the police and the Provost. Which is it to be?’

‘Let’s see your money, sir.’

I took out a handful of silver. He made as if to take it. I closed my fingers over the coins.

‘Well?’ I said.

He nodded. ‘Well enough.’

The crowd was dissolving. I dropped the coins into the showman’s hand. He looked up at me and shrugged, his scorn no less obvious for being mute. His companion was already laying the puppets in their box.

I turned back to the man on the ground. He and I were alone now. Frowning, he stared at me.

‘Get up, Corporal Grantford,’ I said.

Grantford was waiting for me when I arrived at my office the following morning.

He was a very different man from the one I had encountered yesterday evening in Brooklyn. He was dressed in a suit of black clothes – faded and shiny with age, but neat and clean. He wore a scruffy wig, a little too small for him. He was freshly shaved, and the smooth skin of his cheeks showed the angry burn of the razor. He stood just inside the door of the anteroom, upright as a post and not much fatter. His right arm was in a sling.

I unlocked the door of the private room and beckoned him to follow me inside. I sat down at the table and looked up at him. Despite his debauches yesterday he appeared perfectly sober. His countenance did not betray the marks of a habitual drinker.

‘I wasn’t sure you would come,’ I said.

He did not speak. Yesterday evening I had given him a few shillings and told him to come to my office in the morning. But I thought it possible that he would drink the money away.

‘The last time you were in this room, you were a corporal in the Twenty-third,’ I said. ‘Now it seems you are not. What happened?’

‘Invalided out, your honour.’ He touched his right arm. ‘Honourable discharge.’

‘A wound, I apprehend?’

‘Musket ball in the arm, sir. Not long after I saw you here.’

‘Why were you discharged?’ I asked. ‘Hasn’t it healed?’

‘Yes, sir, but it’s not right. The arm don’t have the movement any more.’ He demonstrated his inability to raise the arm above his shoulder or to flex it rapidly or to swivel from side to side. ‘I can fire a musket as straight as the next man but I can’t do the arms drill. Can’t salute an officer.’

The story emerged in fits and starts, with much prodding from me, for Grantford was a Northerner and did not talk easily to strangers, even to well-disposed ones. In March he had been on patrol in the Debatable Ground and had been hit by rebel snipers as they were withdrawing towards King’s Bridge.

When the nature of Grantford’s wound became apparent, his colonel had discharged him from the service and given him a testimonial. Grantford had also received a gratuity, he told me, but he had drunk half of it away and then tried to repair his fortunes at the races yesterday. This plan had ended in disaster so he had comforted himself with rum. He had been robbed of the money was left to him while he lay insensible in Brooklyn. The thief had also taken the other contents of his pockets, including his pocket knife and his testimonial.