Seven for a Secret (16 page)

If Silkie Marsh was here, it was about me. The woman wants me dead. And barring dead, eviscerated and longing for the grave. The scent of violets lingered behind her as if it were an artfully crafted curse, conjuring her voice in my head.

I wonder if you know, Mr. Wilde, just how very far a man can be ruined without being killed. You’ll understand what I mean one day
.

“Has that woman ever testified for Varker before?” I whispered to Higgins.

“She’s one of his regular performers. What, you know her?”

Madam Marsh sat down. Her movements were hesitant, as if the courtroom unsettled her. She’d gathered her blonde hair at the nape of her neck beneath a hat with a single feather, her sweet face was free of rouge and kohl, and her lips formed a regretful pink bow. I wondered if Valentine had ever found her thus, unadorned and fresh as May, when she’d been his mistress. It was like watching a viper slither into a lambskin and then gaze prettily at you. She ought to be beautiful, I admit, as milk-skinned and delicate-featured as she is, but all it takes is her looking right at you for the illusion to fracture.

Silkie Marsh’s eyes, pale hazel with a startling ring of blue at the centers, met mine for a moment. It was like staring into a bottomless pit.

“Name?” the clerk inquired.

“Selina Ann Marsh.” Her lashes fell shyly. “Most know me as Silkie.”

“Residence?”

“I live on Greene Street.”

“In just what sort of house?” I demanded.

“Quiet!” Judge Sivell snapped.

“He’s right. Mr. Wilde and I are acquainted. I keep a club of sorts there . . . for gentlemen.” Her face colored as if she were a girl of seventeen. “I didn’t like to mention that in court, Your Honor, for I’m a lawful woman otherwise, and a great friend of the Democrats. Mr. Wilde’s brand of abolitionism—he is most passionate, sir, regarding vice as well as slavery. I’m sorry for it, but my presence offends him.”

A skittish hummingbird thrill shot down my spine. Because that was
masterful.
In seconds, she’d turned me from a disreputable abolitionist into a religious fanatic. Where lies are concerned, Silkie Marsh is twenty-four-karat talent. Uncharitable whispers drifted through the court.

“And what have you to do with any of this?” Judge Sivell asked Madam Marsh, shuffling papers.

“Mr. Varker here sought me out, saying he may need my help to see justice done. I find myself acquainted with many Southerners, you understand. Upstanding citizens to a man, Your Honor, and very dedicated to keeping the peace between our lands. So I came to know these gentlemen, and also . . . Mr. St. Claire himself is known to me, sir.” She hesitated, wetting her lips. “He once called upon me when in New York for an extended stay—there was no vice in it, I assure you, as I was hosting a small affair for Party contributors and he’d business with some of the gentlemen. That troubled colored boy was with him, to be auctioned on their way back through the Capital. I later heard that Mr. St. Claire had a change of heart when it came to the point of actually selling Coffee, however, the dear old gentleman. I admired him greatly for his temperance and patience.”

I felt like clapping. Or clapping her in a Tombs lockup. One of the two, at any rate.

“This is ridiculous,” I said sharply.

Judge Sivell’s beaky nose swiveled, ready to impale me on its point. “My courtroom is
ridiculous
, Mr. Wilde?”

“No, but listening to a parcel of pure flam from a brothel madam—”

George Higgins, behind me and just to my left, kicked my shin so hard I nearly stumbled.

“Closing statements,” the judge droned. “I have cases of considerably more import to try today. This ought to have taken five minutes. Miss Marsh, have you anything further to add?”

Silkie Marsh shook her head, eyes downcast as if in shame at being the center of attention at a public proceeding.

“Mr. Varker and Mr. Coles?”

The fixed smile pinned to Varker’s rosy cheeks brightened to actual joy. “I’d never dream of wasting your time further, Your Honor. The facts of the case sure enough speak for themselves.”

“Thank you for your consideration,” Long Luke added with a revolting flourish of his hat.

“You, then.” Judge Sivell swung his attention to—of all people—Julius Carpenter. “Have you anything to say for yourself?”

Julius looked at the judge. His eyes were bloodshot, carriage agonized, attire smeared with God knows what and hanging in tatters. But his voice, when he spoke, was the same eloquent instrument I’d been half listening to since I was all of seventeen years old.

“I was born and bred here. Never seen Florida in my life,” he said. “And I could act like a big man, tell Your Honor that I don’t care about what they’ve promised they’ll do to me if I testify in court that I’m free. But that would be a lie. I could even tell you I don’t care what they’ve done already, when I refused to admit I was Coffee St. Claire. But saying I don’t mind being handled worse than a thieving cur for knowing my own name would be perjury.” He leveled a stare at the two slave catchers. “My name belongs to me, and it’s Julius Carpenter. If what they want is the skin off my back, they can have more of it. But they can’t have my name.”

The air shifted, a tangible change in mood. Judge Sivell looked almost sympathetic. “I’m sorry for your state, but by the looks of things it can’t be helped. Let this be a lesson for you as an honest Christian. You’ll grow used to plantation life again soon enough, I’d wager.”

“
Do
something, you idiot,” Higgins hissed at me in desperation.

“I have this man’s free papers
in my hand
,” I insisted, waving them as if they were a battle standard. “All signed and in perfect order. If you would only
look
at them—”

“Free papers can be forged, and you have proven yourself to be a biased party, Mr. Wilde,” the judge answered. “I have told you more than once to cease disrupting proceedings.”

George Higgins jumped forward. “I’ve known Julius Carpenter since we were children at our lessons. He’s my closest friend. We were born on the same street, I’ll swear it on a Bible.”

“Inadmissible. Come now, whoever you are, you know better than to put your oar in where it isn’t allowed.”

Julius closed his eyes. Not a flinch or an admission. Just as if he couldn’t be expected to watch any longer while his life was surgically extracted from his person.

“Thank you for your wisdom in this matter, Your Honor,” Varker called out, gathering his belongings with his uninjured hand. Coles, by his side, grunted hearty agreement.

Silkie Marsh had disappeared by this time. Silent as the devil and twice as wicked.

“Pistols on the way to the ship it is, then,” Higgins grated out. He meant it, too.

Think.
I shut my eyes as Julius had, holding the rail before me with both hands as if on a ship’s deck in a tempest.

Think, you cocky little runt, if you’re so bloody clever. Think.

“Very well.” The judge belatedly adjusted his wig. “As to custody, this man is released under supervision of Mr. Varker and Mr. Coles, to be escorted to—”

“Look at his feet!”
I cried.

All eyes turned to me. Meanwhile, I was past caring about procedure. I thrust the free papers at Higgins’s chest for safekeeping and vaulted over the barrier to stand in the open between Julius and Judge Sivell.

“This man is meant to have been captured on his first day in the city.” The words came tumbling helter-skelter, even as I thought them. “Look, his togs are falling off. He’s penniless. He made it from Florida all the way to New York, running through fields and swamps and forests. I admit he may have ridden partway, but never the entire distance, and
he hasn’t any shoes.
Look! Take one single look, I’m begging you. Are these the feet of a shoeless field hand? Are they the feet of a barefoot runaway?”

Judge Sivell raised himself from his chair to peer over my head. Grasping in a pocket for spectacles, he slid them up the formidable cliff of his nose.

The feet in question were not merely clean. They were uncallused, neither scraped nor blistered, and owned the narrow appearance of having been thrust into boots for upward of three decades.

When Julius left off studying his toes, he looked up at me and winked.

Judge Sivell removed his spectacles and resumed his seat.

“Mr. Varker,” he said ominously, “are you attempting to make a fool of me?”

Pandemonium of a chattering, speculating kind erupted in the courtroom. I could hear Varker expostulating, Coles emitting a string of profanity and threats in my direction. George Higgins followed me over the railing and set the papers before the magistrate.

The chaos settled seconds later, with a rap of the gavel. Judge Sivell studied the paperwork as Higgins, Julius, and I studied him. The silence was thicker than blood.

“Mr. Varker, doubtless your enthusiasm is commendable,” Judge Sivell announced, passing Higgins back Julius’s certificate. “But if I discover you have made such an egregious mistake again, I will grow very uncivil. This prisoner is free on his own recognizance. I will adjourn for ten minutes, and then hear the next case.”

“Oh, Christ,” I muttered senselessly, and resumed breathing. The room buzzed around me, a wasps’ nest freshly kicked.

“We need to get him away from all this,” Higgins said in my ear.

In truth, Julius looked close to collapse. Higgins took his arm and began walking while I opened the little gate in the railing that neither of us had previously bothered over. The hostile skepticism of the crowd had disintegrated. Spinsters wept, foreigners took notes, gentlemen glowed with civic pride, poor laborers hooted about freedom and republicanism and booed the slaveholding tyrants of the South. It was all very fine.

“Are they on our side now?” Higgins marveled.

“I wouldn’t exactly set my watch by them,” I answered. “Julius, when you were held captive—were you alone?”

“As alone as is possible.”

So they aren’t imprisoned in Corlears Hook,
I thought.
Where can they be? Already aboard ship? In hiding? Dead?
The slave catchers were attempting to regain the attention of the judge, and thus didn’t hinder us making for the door. For an instant, I thought to confront them.

Tell me what you’ve done. Tell me where you’ve taken Delia Wright and Jonas Adams or I will make your life a hell.

Tempting. Had I not just that morning removed a corpse from Val’s bed. Caution muzzled me. With an uncomfortable churn of the stomach, I realized I couldn’t even tell the Vigilance Committee men what I’d discovered. Not yet. I’d have confided in Julius alone in a heartbeat, but he needed medical attention. I elbowed two weedy British tourists—abolitionists keen after an interview for their circular—to the side, and we hurried toward the exit.

“Did you have to wait until the
very
last moment, Timothy?” Julius inquired mildly.

Higgins laughed at this, a short and dry exclamation. “He took his time all right. But when you’re not being dense, you’re extraordinarily keen, Mr. Wilde.”

“So my brother tells me. Often.” I couldn’t even object to being ragged, relieved as I was. “How far can you make it sans shoes?” I asked Julius.

His answer would have been
As far as needs going.
The man is stubborn as a canker sore. It’s one of the reasons I like him so thoroughly. But Julius Carpenter lost consciousness less than a second later, so he was saved the trouble of replying to my inane queries.

•   •   •

I kept Julius
under guard
in my office while Higgins ran for a stretcher. A wheelbarrow, a handcart, a sleigh. A dog and a sled. Anything. Thankfully, when he proved unsuccessful, the pair of spindly British abolitionists still lurking about like playgoers at a stage door offered their private carriage to convey the freed man to the residence of Mr. George Higgins. That gentleman—of course he was a gentleman, the things that emerge from my mouth at times genuinely frighten me—having insisted that Reverend Brown’s medical care would be much preferable to suffering the smallpox aroma wafting through the colored wing of New York Hospital.

Higgins was right. So I didn’t argue with him. Learning quickly is one of the few redeeming aspects of my character. Anyhow, from my own brief but careful emergency investigation in my office, Julius’s injuries required more nursing than doctoring. They seemed to be upward of forty lashes, a head injury that explained the fainting spell, and a cigar burn on the right forearm.

I’ve no wish to diminish the extent to which those injuries pained Julius. They must have been excruciating. But they hurt me too, in another sense, and George Higgins was likewise inwardly smoldering when between us we deposited our friend on the seat of the abolitionists’ carriage. The starch-collared Britishers looked as if they’d won a lottery prize of some sort as they drove off. That was bully. At least someone was having a pleasant afternoon.

The plummeting violet darkness of February greeted me when I found myself alone on the Tombs steps in the late afternoon, staring at the tracks left by the enthusiastic abolitionists’ carriage. Finding Val could wait no longer. Diving back into Franklin Street, I headed north toward the Ward Eight station house. A narrow alley divides the block between White and Franklin, a common shortcut for the copper stars, and I took it, pulling my muffler up to my ears and attempting to ignore the faintly nauseous feeling of not having eaten since dawn.

Then a shadow crossed the path ahead, and I paused.

A hulking figure loomed at the end of the alleyway. Its posture in stillness was weighted to one side—a threatening, almost feral stance. Nevertheless, there was elegance in the curve of the heavy hand, in the unhurried gravity of such a large, potentially clumsy form.

I’d envied that unstudied air of cool savagery for decades. Even when it infuriated me.

“Val,” I said. A monumental weight left my shoulders just at the sight of him. Only to crash back into place.

He didn’t know. Couldn’t know.

“Evening, Tim.” My brother’s voice was calm. But he doesn’t normally stand like a pugilist for my benefit, and there was no one else in the corridor. “I gather you’ve spent your holiday at policing.”