The Scent of Death (7 page)

‘Master, for pity’s sake, I never saw—’

‘Hold your peace – I didn’t tell you to speak to me. You will have your chance later. And for God’s sake, stop snivelling or I’ll have you whipped.’

Noak scribbled.

‘Strike those last words out, Mr Noak,’ Marryot snapped. ‘They are not part of the record.’

Townley leaned back in his chair. ‘What evidence is against the man?’

‘All in good time, sir.’ Marryot put his elbows on the table and leaned towards the prisoner. ‘Tell me where you were last Sunday. Tell me what you did, what you saw.’

‘I was in Canvas Town, your honour. And I walked about the city looking for work. And then I went back to Canvas Town and fell asleep with nothing in my belly.’

‘Your belly looks plump enough to me,’ Townley observed, fanning himself with his handkerchief.

Marryot ignored the interruption. ‘That may be where you were but it’s not what you did. You’re a thief, a damned pickpocket. There were two empty purses in your bundle. And those shoes you had on your feet – well, they tell their own story, don’t they?’

‘Eh?’ Townley said. ‘What shoes? Nobody mentioned any shoes.’

‘Mr Noak,’ Marryot said. ‘Have the goodness to open the press and bring us what you find on the third shelf down.’

The press was a tall cupboard in an alcove by the empty fireplace. Noak took out a pair of black round-toed shoes with plain steel buckles on the flaps. He set them down on the table. The prisoner moaned softly at the sight of them. Marryot stretched out a hand and removed a small leather bag from one of the shoes.

‘So,’ he said. ‘When they brought you in last night, these shoes were on your feet.’

I picked up one of the shoes. The uppers were scuffed and creased. The sole needed reheeling. But the leather was good.

‘We had information that these shoes belonged to Mr Pickett,’ Marryot said. ‘I had them sent over to Beekman Street this morning. The kitchen boy who cleans the shoes is sure that these were Pickett’s.’

‘Information?’ I said. ‘From whom, sir?’

‘It don’t signify, sir. All that signifies is that the information is good. You’ll grant me that, I hope?’

Virgil lifted his head and, for the first time, looked directly at me.

‘You need not enter Mr Savill’s questions into the record either, Noak,’ Marryot said.

He untied the drawstring that fastened the bag and upended it. A heavy gold ring dropped on the palm of his hand.

‘It’s a seal ring,’ he said, holding it up between finger and thumb. ‘It has a stag incised on it. The woman at the house where he lodges, the Widow Muller, swears it’s Pickett’s. He wore it on his left hand and she noted it most particularly – he was behind with what he owed, and when he said he could not pay directly, she asked him why he did not turn his ring into guineas and be done with it.’

‘I never seen it, master, I swear, sir. Hope to die, God’s my—’

‘But the shoes?’ I interrupted. ‘You’ve seen those before?’

The prisoner glanced at me again. ‘Yes, sir.’

‘Of course he had,’ Marryot put in. ‘They were on his damned feet when they arrested him.’

‘And where did you get them, Virgil?’ I said.

‘I – I found them, your honour.’

‘On Mr Pickett’s body?’

‘Yes, sir. Poor gentleman was lying there, all dead. I thought he didn’t need them, so what’s the harm? Look, sir.’ He pointed down at his feet. ‘I lost a toe to frostbite last winter.’

‘He was dead because you’d killed him,’ Marryot said. ‘That’s how you knew, eh? So you helped yourself to his shoes and took the ring off his finger as well.’

‘No, sir, weren’t no ring when I found him.’

‘Then why was the ring in your bundle?’

Virgil shook his head violently. ‘Didn’t put it there, master, swear by—’

‘Hold your tongue, damn you.’ Marryot looked at the soldiers, who were staring blankly at the wall behind the table. ‘Take him away. Keep him in irons.’

No one spoke until the guards had led out the prisoner. Marryot stood up and went to the window.

‘Well, gentlemen,’ he said, still with his back to the room. ‘This need not detain us much longer, I think? The evidence points to the knave’s guilt.’

‘No rational man could entertain a doubt about it,’ Townley said, yawning. ‘If someone else had killed him, he would not have left the ring on Pickett’s finger. Shall Noak write you out a fair copy of the proceedings?’

‘I’d be obliged.’

Mr Noak dipped his head.

‘When you write it up, you should mention that Mr Savill of the American Department was present as an observer,’ Marryot went on, turning to face us. ‘But anything he said may be omitted.’

‘Now what?’ I said.

‘Why, sir, what do you think?’ Marryot said. ‘We wait and let the law take its course. Martial law, that is.’

On the night of Wednesday, I heard the child crying again. In the morning, I mentioned it to Josiah, the older of the two manservants. It must be one of the neighbour’s infants in the slave quarters, he said – he would investigate and have the nuisance abated. I said he should not trouble himself; it did not matter in the least.

The administration had found me an apartment to use as an office in a house it leased at the eastern end of Broad Street, not far from the City Hall. It was a pokey chamber up two pairs of stairs. My first caller was already waiting for me – a clergyman from Connecticut whom the rebels had turned out of his parsonage and parish. His crime had been to preach a sermon whose text had been Luke Chapter 20, verse 25. ‘And he said unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which be Caesar’s, and unto God the things which be God’s.’ Caesar in this case was intended to be taken as George III rather than Congress. The poor man had lost all he owned, including a farm he had inherited from an uncle.

Shortly before dinnertime, Townley swept into the room. ‘Why, sir,’ he said without any preamble, ‘I have just this moment heard from the Major and I clapped on my hat at once and said to myself I should give myself the pleasure of bringing the news to you directly.’

I rose to my feet. ‘What news? A battle?’

‘Nothing of that nature. It’s the negro – Virgil. He came before the court this morning and they found him guilty of Pickett’s murder. Marryot says the fellow is to hang tomorrow morning. Sir Henry Clinton has confirmed the sentence. They say the Commander-in-Chief wishes to make an example of this man to deter other slaves.’

‘Is justice always so swift in New York?’

Townley shrugged. ‘Military courts have this to be said for them, at least: they do not drag their heels. Besides, at this time especially, when the city is awash with rumours about rebel incendiarists within our lines, it does no harm to show that we have the city firmly in our control. Will you come, sir?’

‘What? To the hanging?’

‘Of course – I am obliged to attend for the city and I thought it might interest you to accompany me. It’s as well to know how these things are done. Matters have arranged themselves very neatly. It’s at eight o’clock, and they will give us breakfast afterwards. They keep a good table.’ Townley took out his watch. ‘Talking of which, my dear sir, I believe it is time to dine.’

After dining with Townley, I had walked back towards my office, skirting the fringe of Canvas Town. It was very hot and I did not hurry. I was not yet sure of my way, and by chance I found myself passing Van Cortlandt’s Sugar House.

I turned into Trinity churchyard. The air seemed a little cooler here. Despite its proximity to the prison, the grassy enclosure was used as a place of resort, and at least a score of people were strolling among the gravestones. Indeed, it was more like a pleasure garden than a churchyard, with a broad, gravelled walk lined with benches, hooks for lanterns on the trees and even a platform for an orchestra amid the ruins. As I came up to the church, a familiar figure ambled round the corner of the tower at the west end.

‘Judge!’ I uncovered and bowed. ‘How do you do, sir? It is unconscionably hot, is it not?’

Wintour blinked up at me. ‘Ah – Mr Savill. Your servant, sir. You took me by surprise.’

‘Do you come here to take the air?’

‘No. In point of fact, I am looking for my goat.’

‘I beg your pardon, sir. I do not quite—’

‘My milch goat. It is the most charming animal imaginable. Mrs Wintour has a particular taste for its milk. Josiah tethered it here on Monday morning. Just there, sir, attached to those railings you see by the path. He swears he only turned his back for a moment, but in that moment it vanished.’

‘I am sorry to hear it, sir.’ I felt a memory shifting like shingle in the depths of my mind.

‘It is our own family burying ground, too. Which makes the theft somehow worse, as though the perpetrator had committed a sort of burglary. My poor brother is here, you see, and that is why Josiah brought the goat in the first place.’ Mr Wintour saw the lack of comprehension on my face and smiled at me. ‘I beg your pardon, sir – I have presented you with an unnecessary enigma.’

‘Your brother is buried here?’

‘Just so. He was as steadfast as any man in his attachment to the Crown.’ The old man’s face crumpled for a moment. ‘Alas, even as a boy, he was impetuous, and liable to speak his mind without counting the likely cost of it. That was his undoing. The rebels killed him, you know, whatever they say.’

‘Did he die in the fighting, sir?’ I asked.

‘No, sir, he did not.’

While the Judge was talking, he drifted closer to the railings and stared at the memorials they enclosed. I followed him. One of the inscriptions had been more recently cut than the others:

Erected in Memory

of

Francis de Lancey Wintour, D.D., M.A.

Fellow of King’s College, New York

Son of William Wintour, Esqre

Died 21 June 1776

Aged 57 years

‘When the rebels occupied this city at the start of the war,’ Wintour said, ‘they inflamed the Republican riff-raff and sought out all the prominent Tories they could find. Age and infirmity was no barrier to them. My poor brother Francis spoke his mind to the Whigs, just as he had done before the war. He urged them to lay down their arms and return to their natural allegiance.’ Wintour gripped one of the spikes of the railings and turned aside. ‘And then,’ he continued in a lower voice, ‘the mob came to his house, and broke down the door, and dragged him in his nightshirt into the street. He cried out, “God bless King George.” They placed him on a rail and paraded him through the streets with loud huzzas. Yes, and there were soldiers there too, and city militia men who had dined at my own table, though afterwards they denied it. They were laughing, sir – can you credit it? They were laughing while they persecuted an old, infirm scholar in the name of what they call liberty and the rights of man.’

I took Mr Wintour’s arm. ‘My dear sir – pray, you must not distress yourself any more. Let us walk home.’

‘No.’ He shook off my hand. ‘No, sir – it is better you should know all. They paraded my unhappy brother outside General Washington’s windows, and that gallant officer raised his hat to them and returned their huzzas. They had it in mind to plunge poor Francis in the Fresh Water Pond and then to run him out of the city. But God was merciful to my brother and permitted death to supervene. He suffered a rush of blood to the head and he died instantly of an apoplexy.’

‘Let us go home, sir,’ I said. ‘I am so sorry.’

‘But I wish I could find the goat.’ He released the railing and stood straight. ‘She was my brother’s, you see, and a particular favourite. And Josiah too – our father gave him to my brother when he was a boy. After my brother died, they both came to me with what was left of his estate. The man and the goat. And Josiah likes to bring the goat here sometimes to see her old master and his resting place. It is – it is a harmless practice, is it not? I could not find it in myself to forbid it. Perhaps the animal has simply strayed. Josiah is most upset. I shall place an advertisement in the newspaper.’

He allowed me to lead him away from the grave. Once we had left the churchyard, he released my arm and stepped out almost briskly in the direction of Warren Street.

‘I had some news today, sir,’ I said, hoping to steer the old man’s attention to safer subjects. ‘The court has tried the man accused of Mr Pickett’s killing. They found him guilty.’

Wintour stopped abruptly. ‘Really? So he will hang?’

‘Yes, sir. Tomorrow morning.’

‘God rest his soul. There is no doubt about his guilt, I suppose?’

‘I attended the preliminary hearing,’ I said. ‘He was wearing Mr Pickett’s shoes and had his ring.’

‘Did he confess?’

‘Only to theft, and only of the shoes. He claims that he stumbled across the body.’

Mr Wintour shrugged. ‘Well, the court must go by the evidence, not what an accused man says in his own defence. Though one can hardly call it a court in any proper sense, since the judges sit without a jury and none of them has more than a smattering of the law. Still – poor Pickett – an unhappy end to an unhappy life.’

‘I thought perhaps that, in view of the acquaintance, Mrs Wintour and Mrs Arabella should be told.’

‘You may leave that to me, Mr Savill. I take it kindly that you have given us a little warning. I should not have liked them to have come across it in a newspaper or from a friend’s gossip.’ He stopped and shook me warmly by the hand. ‘I shall trouble you no further, sir. I am quite restored now.’

We said goodbye. I resumed my walk back to my office. It was only as I was turning into Broadway that I remembered the goat.

On Monday morning, Josiah had lost his master’s goat in Trinity churchyard. In the early evening of the same day, I had seen another goat not far away in the remains of Deyes Street. A mulatto boy had been leading it over a pile of rubble.

The same goat?

That night I did not hear the crying child. I turned this way and that on the overstuffed feather mattress, drifting in and out of a doze. I woke to full consciousness before five o’clock and could not settle to sleep again.