The Investigations of Avram Davidson (32 page)

“‘…
a
Seaman of this city, and a Man of Color, is
known to
me on good evidence to be a FREE MAN, and I
do further
Enjoin all Men of whatsoever Cities, States, Territories, and Nations, to recognize him in such
Status and
—,' and so forth. We give these to the Black seamen in case they put in to a port of a slave state or a slave-holding colony or country, to keep them from being seized and sold. Now, what does it tell you?”

“That the man who killed the Captain was a Black seaman?”

“Not necessarily—but it hints at that, very powerfully, yes. Some one who wanted the papers of a free Negro sailor was here to see Pierce—he grabbed for it—but Pierce held on tight—it tore. Let's follow the obvious trail first. We know that Captain Lem had come into money lately. We know the same of Tim Scott and Roaring Roberts. Pierce spent his on the sloop. The other two poured it out like wine. Now. Do you know of any Colored sailors who've been known to spend lavishly of late?”

The wake of a passing vessel rocked the sloop. The cabin-lamp stayed level in its gimbals, but its light trembled a bit just the same, sending shadows across the High Constable's craggy face.

“No, not lavishly—that's to say, not foolishly. But now that I think about it,” Breakstone mused aloud, “Cudjo Washington used to sail, on and off. And just a little while ago he opened an oyster-cellar in lower Collect-street, not far south of Anthony. A dicty place, as I think of it now—dicty for an oyster-cellar in Collect-street, that is. It must have cost him something.”

Hays summoned the two Night Constables who had been standing guard at the foot of Bayard's Wharf and the one next to it, told one to rattle at the Coroner's shutters, and the other one to stand by the body—a task he plainly had no fancy for, but plainly he had even less fancy to refuse Old Hays.

“And now,” said Old Hays, “we'll call on Cudjo Washington. I could relish a basin of little-necks or cherry-stones, I believe. But I'd relish information even more.”

*   *   *

T
HERE WERE MORE
men about that night than was usual for the hour, and presently some one called out from a little group which was gathered under a lamp-post.

“Jacob! Hello, there! Stop a bit.” Hays crossed over and recognized Alderman Ter Williger, Mr. Jenkins, Mr. Jonathan Goodhue the fancy dry-goods importer, and his partner, Mr. Perit.

“These are late hours, gentlemen,” Hays commented, “for merchants who must be up early tomorrow.”

“Ah, it's to-morrow that keeps us up so late to-night,” said Ter Williger genially. “To-morrow is the first of the month—that means tonight is packet-night—we've all been staying late at our counting-houses getting everything in order against the packet-vessels' sailing in the morning. Come and take a glass of lager-beer with us, Jacob: join us in a well-earned quarter-hour of ease.” And, with a
Yes, yes,
and a
Do, sir,
Messrs. Goodhue and Perit seconded the invitation.

But Hays shook his head. “I'm off to Collect-street on business. And while lager is available there, I'll not invite you to join me. An ugly business and an ugly neighborhood.”

Ter Williger, Goodhue, and Perit pursed their lips and raised their eyebrows. Jenkins drew out a segar, a match, and a piece of glassed paper, struck fire and lit up.

“Is that one of the new Congreve matches?” Mr. Perit asked. Jenkins, his mouth occupied with drawing smoke, didn't answer.

“Yes, it is,” said Goodhue. “A great improvement over the old acid bottle. Well, well, then, Mr. Hays, we daren't detain you. Another time, perhaps.”

“To be sure. Yes, we must go now. A good-night, gentlemen.”

Collect-street, below Anthony-street, while not offering the amenities of, say, Washington-square, was still a cut or two above the Five-Points. A stranger might be lured into a room here, and beaten and robbed, and he might die of it; but he was not likely to be murdered in the open street for fun.

Several fences operated almost openly, ready to buy anything from a dead man's dirty shirt for a penny to a nob's gold watch for a dollar. There were the usual saloons and “grocery” stores, including that of the infamous Rosanna Spears. But tonight only one place of business on the street interested Jacob Hays. It was easy enough to spot; its lights were brighter and its paint fresher than the rest.

The Great Republic Oyster-Cellar, by C. Washington,
stated a sign-board; and continued,
Fresh and Pickled Oysters, Clams, Hard-shell and Soft-shell Crabs, Garnished Lobsters. Fringed Hams, Fresh Country Fruit.

The interior was neat and clean and contained several tables, a row of booths along one wall, and even the unusual glory of a glass-fronted show-case in which reposed half of a fringed ham, a huge platter heaped high with fried soft-shell crabs, bowls of fruit, and part of a roasted pig with a lemon in its mouth. A whitewashed keg displayed the necks of bottles of ginger-beer, porter, lager-beer, and mead, the rest of the bottles being concealed by cracked ice. On the rear wall were large steel engravings of Generals Washington and Jackson, and a smaller one of Governor Clinton.

It was, indeed, “rather a dicty place for Collect-street.” It could not very well have been furnished and provisioned on the savings from a seaman's wages.

Present in the room were a Negro couple, evidently the proprietor and his wife, and several white couples, the men and women dressed in clothes which managed to look at the same time both flashy and bedraggled. The customers glanced up from their refreshments, sat for a moment transfixed at the sight of Hays and Breakstone, tensed, exchanged glances, and then as it was made obvious that the door was not being blocked and that none of them was engaging the attention of the law—relaxed somewhat: that is, if slouching in their seats and hiding their faces with arms propped on elbows may be considered relaxing.

The proprietor, a powerfully-built man in his early middle years, pressed himself back against the wall with something clenched in his fist. His wife retreated wordlessly to a corner.

“Cudjo Washington,” said Hays, advancing and holding out his staff, “I call upon you, as a citizen of this city, to lay down that oyster-knife.” The implement fell with a clatter.

After a second Washington said, “Before the Lord, I didn't know it was you, gentlemen. I thought—” He ran his tongue over his lips, then came forward to the counter with a mechanical smile and an attitude of well-practised deference. “What will you gentlemen be pleased to have?” he asked.

“A few words with you in your back-room. Your wife can stay here to wait on the patrons.” Breakstone posted himself outside.

“Well?” asked Hays. It was dark in the room. Only a small piece of candle burned in a saucer.

“I didn't know what they was up to, Mr. High Constable. I never found out until it was too late.” The man's voice was low, but it came from a huge chest and throat, and rumbled out into the shadows. As to what he meant by what he had said, Jacob Hays had no idea at all. He generally avoided opening a conversation with a suspected man in terms of accusing him of a specific crime.
Well?
was usually opening enough. Often the single syllable put mind and tongue to something quite different from what the High Constable had been thinking of, something of which the High Constable had known nothing. One could, after all, always take up later the matter which had prompted the inquiry in the first place.

“He hadn't no right to keep hold of my papers. No right a-tall,” Cudjo was saying. But this was not exactly what Hays was expecting him to say. Ah, well, wait a bit. Let the man talk. But all the talk, it became obvious, was on lines other than the first comment. Had Cudjo realized that he had started to give himself away? And, so considering, Hays realized that he himself was no longer thinking in terms of a simple murder.

He
would
have to lead the conversation, after all. Well, so be it. “What were they up to, Cudjo, and just when did you find it out?”

The man's eyes seemed red in the candle-light. Was there cunning in them? “You says—what, sir?” Hays repeated his words. “I mean to say,” Cudjo evaded, “what was he up to, keeping my papers? Now, they was mine, legal. So—”

“So you killed him.”

A confident laugh. “Cap'n Pierce? No, sir! He too mean to die!”

“Not when he'd gotten a knife in his throat, he wasn't.” The laugh ebbed away, the man scanned Hays's face. His huge chest swelled. He shook his head dumbly. “Mr. Breakstone! Send the woman in here.… Now, what time did your husband come back tonight?”

“Why 'twas about—” She checked herself and looked at her husband. But he sat still, utterly still. Her voice dropped a notch, became uncertain. “Why, master, he was here all night. He never go out.” She looked from Hays to her husband, pleadingly. But neither offered aught for her comfort. She began to wail.

Cudjo accompanied them quietly to the Watch-house.

“If you didn't kill Captain Pierce,” Hays asked, and asked over and over again, “then why were you so afraid when we walked in? Why did you pick up the oyster-knife? You said, ‘I didn't know it was you. I thought—'
What
did you think? Who were you expecting? Who are the ‘they' you talked about? What was it you ‘found out they were up to'? Why was it ‘too late' by then?”

Then, still getting no response, Hays put to him the brutally suggestive, but terribly pertinent, question, “Cudjo, have you ever seen a man hanged?”

Sweat popped out on the man's broad face. He began to shake his head—and continued to shake it. It seemed he could not stop. Soon his whole body was shaking from side to side. He essayed speech, but his voice clicked in his throat. Hays brought him a mug of water, and he swallowed it greedily.

“I will tell you, master,” he said, after a moment. “I see there is no help for it. I will tell you everything. It begin two, three months ago.”

*   *   *

T
WO OR THREE
months previously, Cudjo had been living in a corner of a room in the Shambles tenement on Cherry-street, in the Fourth Ward. He had had no job in a long time, and only the pittance which his wife earned by peddling hot-roasted corn through the streets kept them from actual starvation. Captain Lemuel Pierce came and offered him a berth for a coasting voyage, and Cudjo had jumped at it.

“You got your free papers, don't you, Cudj?” There had been no slaves in New-York State since the Emancipation of 1827, and Cudjo had been free even before then, for his owner had brought him North and manumitted him. He knew that Captain Pierce must be referring to his seaman's papers.

“Yes, sir. I got'm. We going South, Cap'n?”

Pierce smiled, showed yellow teeth. “We ain't goin' to Nova-Scoshy. Better hand them papers over to me for safekeeping, Cudj. That way, I c'n take care.”

Pierce was obliging enough to advance $2 on wages, which were given to Phoebe Washington, and to promise warm clothes as soon as they got aboard. The two proceeded to Staten-Island, where the
Sarah
was lying off a small creek which emptied into the Kill-Van-Kull. Roaring Roberts was first mate. Tim Scott and Billy Walters made up the rest of the crew. They put out to sea on the next tide.

“He never come out of the cabin till the second day,” said Cudjo. “But I knew his face.”

“Whose?” Hays asked.

“Mr. Jones's.” And who was he and what did he look like? He was a big man with a red face. Cudjo had “seen him around”; more he knew not. Mentally Hays ran over all the Joneses he could think of, from Ap Jones the cow-keeper to Zimri Jones, who sold woollens. None fitted the picture.

The
Sarah
was dirty, but Captain Pierce had kept her in good shape otherwise. He and Mr. Jones had had words right from the start. Jones, who apparently had chartered the sloop, objected to any one's—particularly the Captain's—drinking “until the job's done.” Pierce had said that he was master aboard his own vessel and would drink what and when he pleased; forthwith he applied himself to his demijohn.

Neither Cudjo nor any of the three White sailors had any idea of where they were bound, except that it was, in Pierce's words, “Somewhere South and warm.” It was after they had passed Cape Fear that Pierce and Jones revealed their destination to him. “They had to,” Washington said. “They needed me. Cap'n Pierce knew I was born in Brunswick and had sailed all those waters.”

“You ought to know St. Simon's Sound pretty well, I guess,” said Pierce.

“Oh, yes, sir. My old master—”

“Damn your old master!” said Pierce. “Do you know where Remington's Landing is? You do. All right. You'll pilot us there.”

They lay well off shore till dark, then entered St. Simon's Sound, then Tuppah Cove. Remington's Landing lay up an inlet into the Cove. The moon was full and bright. Captain Pierce, aided by the winds, had planned well.

“Take care, Cudj,” he said; and then a while before they came up to the wharf, “you—no noise!”

The ship's-lamps were extinguished. Silent as a ghost ship, the sloop moored. The shed by the wharf was full of baled cotton. Without words, directed by gestures, they all set to work loading it aboard. Even Pierce and Jones took off their coats and pitched in.

After a while—Cudjo didn't know how long—they became aware that some one was looking at them. It was the Negro watchman. Evidently he had been taking a nap on one of the bales. He stared at the scene—and an eerie scene it must have been, too—the six strange men toiling silently in the pool of moonlight. His voice, when he spoke, was tremulous.

“What—what are you White men doing with that there cotton? It belongs to Master Remington, and I know it ain't done been sold!”