Good Man Friday (20 page)

‘Sleepin'.' Like Jem, this man had the slurry lowland accent of Virginia. January guessed they'd both been purchased at the same time as the house. ‘Miz Rowena keeps sayin' how he'll be all right, but he sure lost a bucket of blood. Mr Oldmixton up with Miz Rowena now.'

‘Has a doctor been sent for?' January held up his satchel. ‘I'm staying at the same house with Mede, my name's Ben January. I trained as a surgeon in Paris. I came in case—'

Some of the tension went out of the cook's round face, and he rose to shake January's hand. ‘Lord bless you for comin', sir. I don't know if Mr Oldmixton sent for anybody, and neither does Tommy here—' He nodded toward the strange coachman. ‘But Miz Rowena keeps sayin' how Marse Luke don't need no doctor just for a
fool accident
with a
saber
.' His glance moved toward Tommy the coachman:
He doesn't know
.

And the British Minister's coachman returned the look with tired eyes that said,
Oh, the hell I don't
.

January followed Mede up the back stairs.

Luke Bray slept in the sort of chamber that was referred to in polite circles as ‘the gentleman's dressing room', lest anyone be prompted to faint with horror at the thought that the master and mistress of the house didn't sleep in the same bed the way honest yeoman farmers were supposed to. Among the French, Spanish, and African Creoles of Louisiana, houses of any size were divided into the men's side and the women's. January routinely slept in his wife's room and bed, but had his own bedchamber and study on the other side of the parlor, and the American arrangement struck him as schoolgirlish.

Like many such chambers – including January's back on Rue Esplanade – Bray's was small and plainly furnished, containing the obligatory single bed, a washstand, an armoire, a single chair, and not much else. The chair had been moved over beside the bed and bore three lamps, only one of which was now alight. Bandages, scissors, pins and sticking plaster piled a corner of the washstand. The bowl and ewer were missing –
carried to the scullery to be rinsed?
The bedlinen had been recently changed, too, but when January lit the other two lamps, the brighter glow showed smudges of blood on the wallpaper. The whole room stank of it.

Bray's face was wax pale and filmed with sweat. His breath rasped through gray lips, and his shut eyes had a sunken look. Mede whispered, ‘Oh, dear God!' sank to his knees beside the bed and took his brother's hand. ‘I'm here, Marse Luke. Your Good Man Friday's here.'

Both arms were tightly bandaged.

‘Can you do something for him, Mr J? Give him something?'

January brought the lamp nearer and retracted the patient's eyelid, saw that the pupil was barely a pinpoint in the blue iris.

Oh, indeed?

There was no sign of a laudanum bottle anywhere in the room.

‘When he wakes he'll need water. Broth, if it's available. Can you go down and ask the cook to make some? Beef or chicken, it doesn't matter … And bring me some water on your way up, if you would. Where would his valet – Peter, Jem said? – put his clothing?' Even as Mede darted from the room, January saw coat, trousers, waistcoat folded beside the washstand. When he went to look at them he understood why they hadn't been replaced in the armoire. They reeked of alcohol, as if someone had emptied a bottle over them.

In fact, he thought, very much as if someone had emptied a bottle over them.

He went through the pockets quickly. Money, visiting cards – dumped in loose, not stored in a card case – a handkerchief in the coat. More visiting cards and a watch in the vest. January opened the watch, and saw that a piece of notepaper had been folded small and jammed tightly into the case.

He unfolded it.

Magic squares
.

‘What the—?'

January turned. Pitcher in hands, Mede stood at his side.

‘It's them things that were in Mr Singletary's notebook.'

‘They are,' agreed January. ‘But this isn't a page from the notebook—'

‘No, sir, I know. That's Mrs Bray's stationery from her desk. I get sent to buy it from Moffatt's all the time. But that's Mr Luke's hand, the way he shapes his numbers, with the four open at the top.'

‘Did he ever see Singletary's notebook?'

‘No, sir. He never even spoke to Mr Singletary, but the once. And then afterwards he's laughing about him – not mean, just shakin' his head over him goin' on the way he did about French money and Turkish money to a total stranger he'd never met before, in a lady's parlor. And it was kind of funny,' added Mede, with the tiniest ghost of a reminiscent grin.

Voices in the stairwell outside: ‘—isn't any reason for you to remain,' said Mr Oldmixton, like coffee-brown velvet. ‘I shall be leaving the moment Congress adjourns and won't return until December. I can easily escort you back …'

‘It's kind of you to offer, sir.' Rowena Bray's voice was faint, but steady. ‘But I think we both know that my place is here. It's just that I'm afraid—'

Mede stepped quickly to the doorway of the chamber. ‘Mrs Bray—'

‘Mede!' Through the half-opened door, January saw Mrs Bray run from the top of the stair and clasp the young valet's hands. ‘Oh, thank God you've come!'

‘M'am, please forgive me if I've done what I shouldn't. I brought a fellow who stays at the same boarding house as me, a surgeon, Mr January. He trained in Paris—'

Mrs Bray looked startled, as if trying to work out what a black man was doing staying in the same boarding house with a surgeon, but Oldmixton clapped Mede on the shoulder and said, ‘Good man! Quick thinking!' He strode into the little bedchamber as January tucked all the cards, and the sheet of notepaper, into his vest pockets, and stepped away from the folded clothing.

‘Mr January—' Oldmixton paused on the threshold, his hand extended. It wasn't an American's frown of startled disapproval (
What's this Negro doing in Mr Bray's bedchamber and where's this surgeon Mede spoke of?
), but only the momentary puzzlement of unexpected recognition.

And then, ‘Good Heavens!' as he clasped January's hand. ‘I'd never have thought … You play like a professional, sir.'

‘I
am
a professional, sir,' January replied. ‘You don't think anyone in this country would hire a black surgeon, do you?' He turned back to the bed. ‘How long before anyone found him?'

‘Not long, I don't believe.' The Englishman knelt beside the bed, studied Bray's slack face in the lamplight. ‘He's lost a shocking amount of blood, of course. Isn't there some new operation they're doing now in cases like these, to infuse the blood of a healthy man into the veins of one who's lost a great deal?'

‘Is that true, sir?' Mede's eyes blazed with such hope that he looked almost foolish. ‘Can you do that?'

‘It's been done,' said January. ‘But in at least half the cases the patient dies.'

In the doorway, Rowena Bray made a small noise, like a sob, and pressed her lace-mitted hand to her lips.

‘I won't know anything for certain until I can see Mr Bray in daylight,' January went on. ‘But I think if he's lived this long, he'll survive. I've seen men survive worse after battle – or duels.' He turned to the woman, dressed, he noticed, in a day-gown of blue delaine. Even her hair had been neatly combed, braided and coiled on the back of her head.

Probably in the hour between the discovery of Bray's attempt and the arrival of Mr Oldmixton. Such, he supposed, was the strictness of a girl's upbringing, that even crisis must not discover her in her own home undressed.

‘Do you feel able to talk about this, M'am?' he asked. ‘Or would you rather send for Mr Bray's valet? I understand it was he who found your husband.'

‘It was …' She caught the jamb of the door as if to support herself, groped in her pocket for something, probably smelling salts.

Oldmixton shifted the lamps to the washstand and brought the chair around for her to sit on, then gathered the medical detritus and bore it out into the hall.

‘We had spent the evening at Mr Pageot's. Mr Bray passed most of the evening gambling with the other gentlemen, for shockingly high stakes, I'm afraid. Mr Bray was … was severely intoxicated, worse than I've ever seen him. In the carriage he kept saying over and over again that we were ruined. I don't know—' She fought to keep her voice steady. ‘I don't know whether this is true or not. He's said this before.'

She passed her hand briefly over her mouth, as if in thought but, January suspected, to keep anyone from seeing how her lips trembled.

‘I was … I was exasperated with him and went to bed. I knew nothing more until I heard Peter shouting. I ran into Mr Bray's room and found him lying …'

Her voice pinched off, but her eyes went to the corner nearest the bed, where a thick ribbon of cloth hung down, ending in a seedy tassel. Blood smudged the wall, stained the floor beneath. She fumbled again in her pockets, found the vinaigrette this time. Her hands shook so badly that she could barely get the top off.

‘He'd emptied his pockets. There were notes of his gambling losses all over the floor. I'm afraid I fainted—'

‘I've added up the notes.' Oldmixton returned empty-handed to the room. ‘They come to about fifteen hundred dollars, which is not a shocking amount, given the stakes that men play for in this town. Hardly enough to slit one's wrists over, if one were in one's right mind.'

January looked for a time at the still face against the pillow linen, at Mede's molasses-colored curls resting beside it.

Mrs Bray took another whiff of her phial. ‘I knew we were often without money. Last month he sold two of the carriage horses, and – and one of the maids. It's been my impression that the situation has been worsening.' Lamplight glistened in her tears of shock and mortification. ‘And in these last few months he has been … He has not been himself. He acts the part among his friends, and with the men he knows at the Navy Department, but I know him. He's been deeply troubled in his mind, prey to moods of terrible despair. I've spoken to you—'

She reached toward Oldmixton, who took her hand reassuringly. ‘Every time I speak to him about gambling, he puts me off. He says that in this country a man must gamble, and must show himself game and unafraid. I have feared …'

Her voice thinned to nothing, and she sat trembling.

‘Forgive me for asking this, M'am,' said January at length. ‘But did your husband have money on this ball game that Mede is playing in this afternoon?'

Mede's head came up sharply. ‘I couldn't—'

‘If you don't,' January said, ‘I think it may make the situation worse, as far as Mr Bray is concerned.'

‘He does,' the lady whispered. ‘How much, I have no idea, but … a great deal, I think. Oh, Mede,
can
you play?
Could
you?'

‘Of course, M'am,' responded Mede at once. ‘He gave me my freedom, for me to play this game.' He turned to January. ‘I'll be at the field at four. Mr Springer at Blodgett's gave me today off …'

‘If you'll be playing –' January laid a hand on Mede's shoulder – ‘especially now, you need as much rest as you can get. Please excuse us, M'am,' he added, as Mrs Bray began to speak, and, rising, led the younger man into the hall.

‘
He needs me
.' Mede said this as if it explained everything.

January lowered his voice almost to a whisper. ‘It may be that's what someone counted on. Did Mr Bray ever take opium? Or drink laudanum?'

‘No, sir!' Mede sounded shocked.

‘Did you ever know him to get so drunk he spilled liquor on his clothes? I didn't think so – but his clothes smell too much. As if someone took him aside and sprinkled him.'

Mede only stared at him, not understanding.

‘I don't think Mr Bray got himself that drunk,' said January softly, ‘and I don't think Mr Bray slit his own wrists. He doesn't sleep with Mrs Bray, does he?'

Had the light in the hallway had been better, January guessed he'd have seen blood flush up under the young man's skin. ‘No, sir. Not for the longest. Sometimes when he's drunk he'll … But she keeps her door locked.'

‘So someone knew if he got falling-down, stinking drunk at the Pageot's soirée he'd be in his bedroom alone.'

‘Who—?'

‘Someone who had a thousand dollars bet on today's game? Slitting a man's wrists isn't the way to kill him, Mede. As suicides go, it's a poor choice, and an even worse one for murder. It might be that someone did this simply to make sure
you
weren't in fit shape to play. Either because you hadn't had any sleep … or because you'd be coming across the Paper Mill bridge late tomorrow afternoon by yourself.'