The Scent of Death (42 page)

‘You will not object if we rough it like a pair of old campaigners, sir,’ he said with smile. ‘We shall be more comfortable without the people of the house always coming and going.’

We ate and drank very well – indeed, the food was so good and so varied that one would not have known that winter and General Washington had the city in their grip. I said as much to my host.

‘Mrs Chawley is a fascinating woman,’ Townley replied, caressing his great nose. ‘She has many friends at Headquarters who are anxious to oblige her in any way they can. One can do nothing in this town without friends, can one?’

I nodded and smiled, sensing that Mr Townley was steering our conversation into deeper waters than before.

‘It must be the same in London, of course,’ he went on. ‘Which reminds me: I heard a rumour that Mr Rampton has foolishly grown cool towards you. I trust it’s no more than tittle-tattle? You have only to say the word and I shall contradict it.’

‘It’s always hard to know what they are thinking in London.’

I helped Mr Townley to wine to give myself a moment’s grace. The news of Augusta’s elopement had been in the parcel of London papers that reached New York in October. Newcomers from England must have garnished the scandal with further details, real and imaginary.

‘But I will not conceal from you, sir,’ I went on, ‘that matters in London are not quite as I should wish them.’

‘Ah well.’ He refilled my glass and then his own before going on in the same casual tone: ‘Of course London is not the world.’

‘For me it is, sir, in a sense: it’s where the American Department is.’

‘But a man of your parts could settle anywhere, Mr Savill, and do anything. When this tiresome war has run its course you might even consider settling in America. There are fortunes to be made in New York with a little application – and with the assistance of a few friends.’

I bowed. ‘As you said earlier, one can do nothing without friends.’

He smiled at me and sipped his wine. He had drunk at least twice as much as I had but there was no trace of intoxi-cation in his manner or his speech.

‘The young lady you were talking to just now – what was her name? Miss Clarissa? – She seemed greatly taken with you.’

‘No doubt she is easily pleased,’ I said.

‘I doubt that. But she’s a lovely girl, is she not?’

‘Charming in all respects.’

‘I am sure she would be enchanted to continue your conversation. Would you like me to have a word with Mrs Chawley and see if something can be arranged? It would be no trouble. There are some quiet and very comfortable rooms upstairs where a lady and a gentleman may converse undisturbed for as long as they wish.’

‘Thank you but no,’ I said, though I was tempted. For who would care a jot if I said yes?

‘Perhaps you may change your mind later,’ Townley said. ‘But to go back to our discussion of friendship. You have made many friends in New York, you know, and you have it in your power to make many more if you wish it.’

‘Is this to do with Mr Noak?’ I said.

Something changed in Townley’s face: the eyes momentarily narrowed, I think, and movement made the candlelight flare in the black reflections of his pupils.

‘Noak?’ He laughed. ‘Good God, no, of course not – though he has always stood your friend, ever since you came over together. He sings your praises. And he’s not alone – he tells me the Wintours confide in you quite as if you were one of the family.’

I did not speak. Mr Townley had not said whether Ingham had told him of my visit to the warehouse in Long Island. But these flattering overtures only made sense if he had learned that I had been enquiring about his connection with Mr Noak.

‘We could do so much together,’ Townley said; and his drawling voice had a hypnotic quality, like the purring of a great cat. ‘You and I. The war will not last for ever. We should look beyond it. In a sense, it does not matter if the thirteen colonies govern themselves or not. The inhabitants of North America have far too much in common with the mother country to sever their ties with it.’

‘No doubt, sir.’ The wine tasted sour now. ‘But – would you excuse me? – I have had a long day, and I fear I cannot be good company.’

He tried to persuade me to remain. When that failed he suggested that I might find Miss Clarissa’s company a soothing distraction, and that if I felt sleepy he was sure that Mrs Chawley would be delighted for me to stay the night.

But I would not be dissuaded. Townley accepted my decision with the best of grace. I said my farewells to the ladies and then he accompanied me downstairs. The footmen wrapped me with tender solicitude against the cold. Townley told the porter to find me a hackney chair.

‘You will not want to walk on a night like this,’ he said, turning back to me. ‘And of course you cannot go alone.’ He smiled and raised his eyebrows. ‘Unless you do not go at all. It’s not too late to change your mind.’

I declined but with an answering smile, for Townley was very charming and there was a part of me that felt I had been churlish – or even foolish – to treat his hospitality so ungraciously.

A knock announced the arrival of the sedan chair. The porter swung open the street door. The chairmen set down their burden. There was a third man holding aloft a lantern; the chairmen often worked in teams of three for they knew there was safety in numbers. The lantern-bearer was a tall fellow with what looked like a weighted stick in his belt. With his free hand he opened the door at the front of the chair for me.

‘Warren Street,’ Townley told them from the house doorway. ‘Judge Wintour’s house. Mind you don’t slip, my men. Good God, it’s colder than ever.’

I climbed into the chair and sat on the narrow bench. ‘Thank you and goodnight,’ I said.

‘A safe journey, my friend. And God bless you.’

I knocked at the ceiling of the chair with the head of my stick as a signal to depart. The man with the lantern closed the door. The other men lifted the poles and I lurched a foot into the air. I lowered the glass at the side and waved to Townley, who raised his hand in farewell. I pulled up the glass and sat back on the unyielding seat.

One of the men slipped as we rounded the corner towards Trinity. The chair canted sharply to the right. The glass clattered down, for I had failed to secure it properly with the strap at the top. I swore, fearing that in another moment they would overset the chair and throw me into the freezing filth of the street.

The lantern-bearer, who was still walking alongside, glanced at me. Like the other two men, he was muffled to the eyes against the cold. But the sudden movement had loosened the scarf around the lower part of his face. He and I were only a few inches apart, staring at each other through the open window. His face was illuminated by his own lantern.

I saw a large black man with angry scars running from the corners of his eyes to the corners of his mouth.

Scarface.

I had no inclination for bravery. I acted with the instinctive desperation of a terrified rabbit.

I kicked the door open. I threw myself out of the chair. The door collided with the broad back of the leading bearer. I was outside now but trapped by the chair behind, the poles on either side and the fellow in front of me.

He had already begun to turn his head. I had my stick in both hands. I rammed its weighted head up against his jaw. He cried out and dropped the poles. The bearer at the back lost control. The chair tipped sideways, colliding with the man with the lantern.

Scarface.

I pushed the man in front of me aside and burst free. For a few precious seconds, the three men were entangled with the chair and its poles.

It was almost entirely dark. I ran forward, skidding on ice. I nearly fell but righted myself and plunged onward. The men behind me were shouting.

After a few yards there was an intersection with a wider street. At the far end of it I saw flickering lights. I swung towards them. The freezing air tore at my lungs. The running footsteps were gaining on me.

I could barely distinguish the outlines of the buildings on either side. Hardly any lights were showing. Were they part of the ruins of Canvas Town? If so, I was running away from safety.

There was the sound of a heavy fall behind me. A man shouted, a wordless, angry howl.

I staggered on. My chest was a mass of pain. A woman in a doorway laughed at me.

The lights ahead were nearer. A shadowy man on a shadowy horse moved slowly across the mouth of the street. I heard the distant strains of a drinking song.

The footsteps behind me had stopped.

I ran on, driven by fear and by the strange energy it provides. The lights came from a lantern suspended over a tavern door and from the window of a pie-shop over the road.

I thrust open the tavern’s outer door and stumbled against a burly porter, who sat smoking a clay pipe and guarding the inner door that led to the barroom. His face flared with anger. He stood up, his hand tightening around his staff.

He would have thrown me out if my clothes hadn’t proclaimed that I had a certain station in life. But it was a near thing – I was hatless, panting like a winded horse; and my expression must have looked truly desperate. He tried to question me but I waved him into silence until I had recovered.

‘I was set upon by footpads,’ I said at last. ‘Where’s this place?’

‘Corner of Queen Street, sir.’

Thank God. In a moment I could be in Broadway. I felt for my purse, which was in a inner pocket.

‘Tot of rum, sir? Settles the nerves.’

‘I want to go to Headquarters. I need a man who will escort me there.’ I took out the purse and weighed in my gloved hand. ‘In case the rogues are minded to try their luck again.’

The porter’s manner became markedly more respectful. ‘If you allow me a moment, your honour, I can take you there myself.’

We came to an arrangement soon enough. Ten minutes later we walked side by side up to Broadway and turned right towards Fort George and the Battery. The street was still busy, even in this weather and at this time.

I retained my bodyguard until I had reached the sentries and shown my pass to the sergeant of the guard. I gave him half a guinea for his trouble.

Once I was within the gates, a blessed sense of security washed over me. I found the duty officer and learned that Major Marryot was still here. This did not surprise me for he often worked late and indeed sometimes would have a camp-bed set up for himself in his private room.

I found him at his papers, huddled over his stove with a blanket over his legs and a muffler round his throat. The air in the room was fragrant with the smell of rum punch. Glass in hand, he rose to his feet and bowed awkwardly, swaying as his wounded leg refused to obey him.

‘I’ve been attacked,’ I said without preamble, coming forward to warm myself by the stove.

‘Eh? By whom?’

‘The black man we called Scarface. You remember?’

He motioned me to a chair and we sat down. He did not offer me a bumper of punch, though the bowl was steaming on the hearth at the foot of the stove.

‘I thought he was long gone,’ he said. ‘Where was this?’

‘Outside Mrs Chawley’s. I took a chair from there tonight. He was carrying a lantern to light the bearers. The three of them were working together.’

Marryot frowned. ‘Mrs Chawley? The … the lady who has that establishment near Trinity church?’

‘Yes. Townley had asked me to sup with him there.’

‘I see,’ he said, in a tone suggesting that he saw something he did not much care for. ‘Well, in that case I suppose it’s not to be wondered at.’

‘I don’t take your meaning.’

He toyed with his glass. ‘Rogues are drawn to an establishment of that nature. They queue at the door and wait for the gulls to fall into their hands. What happened?’

‘We’d just left and I glimpsed his face. I realized what they were about and I ran off.’

‘Thank you for informing me,’ he said stiffly. ‘I’ll put the word out again for him.’

‘You don’t think it was more than coincidence?’

‘That he attacked you, sir? You suggest that the people of the house were in collusion with Scarface?’ Marryot’s face twisted into a sneer. ‘It hardly seems likely, does it? Mrs Chawley’s engaged in quite a different line of business.’

‘But—’

I broke off. Another moment and it would have been too late: I should have blurted out more than I wanted Marryot to know. For I knew there had been nothing coincidental in this attack. I had just turned down Townley’s ill-defined offer of an alliance. He had been aware that I was suspicious of his connection with Mr Noak. He had learned this evening that I was not easily to be cozened or bribed into silence. He had summoned the chair for me; no doubt the porter was in his pay.

But I could not say this to Major Marryot because, in order for it to make sense, I should also have to tell him the whole – including those things I had concealed from him earlier. He knew nothing of the connection between Roger Pickett and Mrs Arabella’s father, nothing of Mr Froude’s murder and Captain Wintour’s real motive for going to Mount George, and nothing about Noak’s prying and his secret connection with Townley.

Even if I could convince him of the truth, that would mean admitting that I had concealed the information for months, which would lay me open to the severest censure from the authorities both here and in London. Besides, the gold was not my secret, I reminded myself, but Mrs Arabella’s. In any case, I already had done my duty by telling Marryot the important point, the one he needed to know: that Scarface was still at large in New York.

‘No, sir,’ Marryot said, ‘I cannot believe that Mrs Chawley is in league with a gang of footpads. She has no need of that. But I’m obliged to you for warning me that Scarface is about.’ He took up one of his papers and pretended to glance over its contents. ‘And now, sir, if there’s nothing else … ?’

I stared blankly at him. The implications were wider and more disturbing than I had at first thought. Every way I looked, there was danger. It was as if I had woken from a bad dream only to find myself trapped inside another, far worse nightmare.