The Queen of Bedlam (47 page)

Simon Chapel. The name of course meant nothing to him, but for Ausley’s notations. It was a farce that Charity LeClaire was Ausley’s niece. That deception had been for the coroner’s benefit. The documents must have been well-forged, for McCaggers to be taken in by them. It all seemed like an elaborate effort, but what was the purpose?

Matthew went back inside and sat down to enjoy the bacon, biscuits, and a dab of apple jelly, for the mind would be sluggish without nourishment. He also had the feeling he was going to need his full complement of wits about him. Soon Evans returned bearing a silver tray that held a glass of very dark red wine and a pitcher of water.

“Anything more you require?” the man asked.

“Nothing more, thank you.” Matthew tried the wine. It was somewhat thick to be an afternoon libation but otherwise satisfying. “This is the estate’s grape?”

“Unfortunately not. That particular bottle was purchased in New York. Our vines have yet to produce a grape worthy of Mr. Chapel’s approval.”

“Oh.” That led to a question he’d been hoping to ask. “How long has the vineyard been here?”

“Many years. Mr. Chapel purchased the estate from a Dutchman who actually made his fortune in the shipping trade and let his son grow the grapes. They did produce a wine, though we consider it to be beneath our standards. The soil’s a problem, you see. But Mr. Chapel has great aspirations.”

“He must enjoy a challenge.”

“He does.”

Matthew wasn’t content to let Evans retreat without another try. “So the vineyard is Mr. Chapel’s chief occupation?” he asked as he spread jelly on a biscuit with a silver knife.

“Oh, no sir. Just one of many. If you’ll pardon me now, I do have some tasks at hand.” Evans offered up an easy smile. “I’d suggest you take a moment to browse the library downstairs, just to the right along the corridor.”

“I do enjoy books. Oh…might I walk in the garden?”

“Of course. The entrance to the garden is through the dining-room at the rear of the house. Dinner is served at seven o’clock. You’ll hear the bell being rung. Good afternoon, sir.” And then Chapel’s assistant was out the door before he could be troubled with any further questions.

Matthew took his leisure finishing the food. At length he drank the last of the wine followed by a glass of water and then stood up. He had brought his silver watch, in the pocket opposite where his key currently resided, and checking it he saw the hour hand neared four o’clock. Chapel’s hospitality was excellent, but it was time to explore this velvet cage.

He returned the watch to his pocket and went out into the corridor, where he followed the Persian runner back to the staircase. The house was quiet; if there were other servants about, they were discreet to the point of invisibility. He walked downstairs, making no effort at stealthy treading, for after all he was an invited guest. Then he went back along the tapestry-adorned corridor, past other rooms and alcoves, and going through an archway he found himself presented with the dining-room Evans had mentioned. He stopped and took stock of the place.

To call this a dining-room was like calling City Hall a meeting house. A long table suited for a dozen guests stood at the room’s center, its stocky legs carved in the shapes of fish. Six elaborate brass candelabras taller than Matthew were placed at intervals around the room, ready to throw light from ten wicks apiece. The plank-and-peg floor was the color of honey and indicated a healthy history, though it appeared many of the bootmarks had been eased by judicious sanding. A large fireplace of red and gray bricks, in keeping with the external construction of the house, held logs behind a brass firescreen. Above the table, a simple oval-ring chandelier held eight more candles. When this room was fully lit up, Matthew mused, tinted glasses would be required.

But what both interested him most and caused not a little twinge of concern was the room’s display of weaponry. Above the fireplace and on either side of it were gleaming swords, displayed business-tip northward and fixed in place in fan-shaped arrangements under small crested shields. There were six swords in each display. Eighteen swords, and not all of them rapiers. A few of them had darkened blades and looked as if they’d tasted blood.

This was not a room in which to linger, he decided. Ahead of him, at the far end of the chamber, was a closed door off to the left and a set of glass-paned doors between wine-red drapes. He crossed past the fireplace and the swords, which seemed to hiss at him as he went by. The double doors were unlocked, and he stepped out into the warm sunlight onto a brick terrace that had a wrought-iron railing and a set of steps leading down to a garden path.

Just below the terrace was a small pond where goldfish swam amid waterplants. A turtle eased off a rock and vanished into the murk. Matthew followed the path deeper into the garden, walking between all manner of flowers and shrubs, through the cool of the shadows of trees and then into sunlight again. Birds chirped and called from all sides. An occasional bench was positioned to welcome the wanderer, but Matthew was not inclined to do any more sitting after that jolting coach ride.

Soon, by following one path that intersected with another, he came to a hedge wall. He walked along it a distance and discovered an iron gate about six feet high, topped with spear-points. Beyond the gate the path continued through an untamed thicket. A chain and padlock told him he was not going out this particular way. Further on he found a second gate in the hedge wall, also similarly locked. He paused and rubbed his chin. Evidently his explorations were meant to be contained, and this realization struck him like a glove smack across the face. After all, it was not only Mr. Chapel who enjoyed a challenge.

Matthew continued walking, mindful that he was now definitely seeking a way out. After a few further paces, his attention was caught by the glimpse of a red cardinal in the lower branches of a nearby tree. He saw the cardinal take flight, perhaps alarmed by his approach, and as it soared up into the sunlight Matthew took a moment to admire its grace and color.

Suddenly something darted in like a blur and hit the cardinal in midair. There was a sound of impact, like a fist on flesh. Red feathers whirled down.

The cardinal was gone.

Matthew caught sight of a large brown-and-white bird speeding away with a crimson mass clutched up underneath it. It sailed off to the right and was lost from view beyond the higher trees.

Some kind of hunting bird, he’d realized. Most likely one of the favorite predators of the medieval monarchs, a falcon or a hawk.

The speed of that flight and the quickness of the kill was stunning. The intrusion of violent death-even the demise of a cardinal-on this sunny afternoon, in this hedge-walled garden with locked gates, gave him a crawl of unease deep in his belly. He hoped it wasn’t an omen of his night to come with Simon Chapel. He thought it wise to turn around and go back to the house, which seemed to loom over him like a threat, but what was it Mrs. Herrald had said about going forward? In any case, he wanted out of the garden and he didn’t intend to let a lock or two stop him.

When he found the third padlocked gate, he decided he was climbing it. He looked around and saw a bench under a nearby tree. Dragging it to the gate, he stood up on it and set about trying to clamber over and avoid the spear-points, which were distressingly sharp. Careful, careful! he thought as a point snagged his breeches at the crotch. One slip and a fall on this thing and he’d be known henceforth as Mattina. But then he had pulled himself over and landed on the ground in not too untidy a splay. Before him the path went through vines and thicket. He dared not glance back at the house, because he didn’t care to see Evans or some other person watching him from a balcony. He set off along the path.

There was nothing to see but woods on both sides. The path curved to the right. Matthew didn’t know what he was expecting, but he had to be going somewhere Chapel didn’t want him going. He’d been walking for two or three minutes when he heard the distinct crack of a musket shot, somewhere off to the right and farther distant, but the noise was enough to make him stand stock-still until he could make his lungs pull in air again. He went on, more cautiously now, watching the underbrush for any sign of a human predator.

The path emerged from the woods. Before him was a dirt road, and on the other side more forest. Matthew noted mounds of horse manure steaming in the sun. The coach team had gone this way, probably heading to the stable. He reasoned that if he went left along the road it would lead him to the vineyard and the buildings there. He knelt down, pondering if he should risk his luck anymore. After all, what was he thinking to find?

An answer, he thought, and he stood up.

He had taken two paces toward the road when a hard voice said, “I think you’d best stand where you are.”

Matthew froze. A few yards to the left and across the road, a man stood at the edge of the woods. He was dressed in dark brown breeches and boots, a gray shirt and a brown leather waistcoat, and he wore a wide-brimmed leather hat. He was shouldering a musket. At his side, gripped in his left hand, was a hunter’s pole from which dangled four dead hares.

“Out a distance from the house, aren’t you?” the man asked. And then he added, as an afterthought with a sneer in it: “Sir.”

“I was just walking,” Matthew answered. The hunter’s face was shadowed by the wide brim, but there was something familiar about it. The deep-sunken eyes. The voice, too…familiar…unsettling.

“Just walking could get you shot. What if I’d put a hole through you?”

Matthew stepped toward the man, who stood his ground. The musket came off the shoulder and even though its death-snout pointed away, Matthew stopped.

“Do I know you?” Matthew asked, sure that he did. From somewhere…

“Get back to the house. Go on. That way.” The chin jerked to Matthew’s right.

Matthew had no desire to argue with a gun. He said, “Very well, I’ll go.” He felt a stirring of anger and from it he said sarcastically, “Thank you for your hospitality.” Then he turned and began walking in the direction of the house, wishing to get as much distance from a musket ball as quickly as possible.

“My pleasure,” the hunter replied, with equal disdain.

And then Matthew knew him.

He had heard that same phrase, just before his face was thrust down into the pile of horse figs on Sloat Lane. He turned around. The man had not moved. Matthew said coldly, “Which one are you? Bromfield or Carver?”

“Sir?”

“What’s your name? So I might compliment Mr. Chapel for his choice in servants.”

“My name,” said the hunter with perhaps the slash of a dangerous smile in the hatbrim’s shadow, “is trouble. Do you want some?” Now the musket’s stock came to rest against the man’s knee and the barrel drifted a few inches toward Matthew before it was checked.

Bromfield or Carver, one or the other. Ausley’s stomperboys. On loan to him that night from Simon Chapel to do a roughneck’s work? Matthew and the man stared at each other, neither one willing to yield. But Matthew realized it was a fool who taunted a musket, and he didn’t wish to be someone’s tragic accident. He gave a mock bow, turned around again, and began walking away. The small of his back tensed, as if the muscles there expected a hammerblow.

“Corbett!” the hunter called. “My compliments to Mr. Chapel for his choice in guests! Make sure you wash your face before dinner!”

Matthew kept going. Well, at least the bastard had been drawn out enough to make that last comment, which secured the fact. Before the road curved, Matthew glanced back and saw that his rude acquaintance had disappeared. He had no doubt the man was not far away, though. Watching him. As perhaps other eyes were, as well.

He looked forward to dinner. One could fence without using a sword, and he expected this night would see a match that would make even Hudson Greathouse quake.

Thirty-Five

When the doorbell rang, Matthew was just finishing his shave before the oval mirror. He rinsed the blade off in the washbasin, wiped the remainder of soap from his face with the damp washcloth, and then combed his hair. Regarding his reflection in the polished glass, he knew he had come a long way from the orphanage to this moment. He was looking at a gentleman who had in his eyes not only the bright spark of curiosity but also the steely glint of determination. He was no longer who he once had been, and though he was not yet suited to a sword he doubted he would be fully suited to a pen ever again.

Time to go downstairs and meet the man in Ausley’s notebook.

He breathed deeply a few times to clear his head, and then he walked out of the room.

Lawrence Evans had been aghast this afternoon when he’d answered Matthew’s knock at the front door, which had obviously been key-latched to keep the guest from straying. Oh sir, how did you get out there? You shouldn’t have gone out the front, sir. It’s not wise to go roaming, as there are wild hogs on the property.

“Yes,” Matthew had replied. “I did meet a pig on the road.”

You’ll keep this to yourself, won’t you, sir? If Mr. Chapel found out I let you roam around, he’d be most displeased.

“I won’t tell him,” Matthew had said, though he’d wondered if word would get back to the estate’s master through the road-pig.

Now, as Matthew came down the staircase and turned along the corridor, he heard voices from the dining-room. They were hushed, almost like whispers of wind. Matthew braced himself for the moment, squared his shoulders, and walked with as much confidence as he could muster into the candle-flamed room of eighteen swords.

“Ah, here’s our young nobleman!” said the man who sat at the head of the table, as he scraped his chair back and stood up to greet their guest. He walked toward Matthew with a large hand offered in friendship, his boots clumping thunderously on the planks. “Simon Chapel, sir! Very pleased to meet you!”

Matthew took the hand, which nearly crushed his own into a lifeless cuttlefish. The man was huge, standing at least six-foot-three and as solidly built as a brickwagon. He had a sturdy jaw and grinned with a set of peglike teeth that might bite a bulldog in half. His eyes, a shade approaching topaz, were large and luminous under spectacles with square frames. In contest to his physical magnitude, his nose was a small English heirloom turned up at the tip as if smelling spoiled violets. Above it the forehead was a slab of blue-veined marble, his hair a scatter of sparkling gray sand upon a skull slightly pointed at the crest as if suited for a battering-ram. His mouth twisted and twitched with some explosive remarks still being formed. He wore a royal-blue suit with a cream-colored waistcoat, a white shirt, and a blue silk cravat with small red and cream squares upon it.

He was a picture to behold, yet Matthew didn’t know quite what he was looking at.

“Sit!” Chapel said. “Right there!” He clapped Matthew on the shoulder with his right hand and with the left pointed to a place set for him on the other side of the table next to the chair he’d so energetically vacated.

Matthew took stock of the three other members of the dinner party. At the long table, which gleamed with silver trays, bowls, utensils, dishes, and cups under the fury of orange candlelight, sat Charity LeClaire, positioned directly to the right of Matthew’s waiting chair. Across from her, and also standing to greet Matthew, was Lawrence Evans, whose presence here indicated he was several leagues above being a mere servant.

It was the other man at the table, the man who had chosen not to stand, who riveted Matthew’s attention. He was eating an apple that had been cut into slices on a small silver fruit tray about the size of an open hand. He was a slim dandy, perhaps thirty years old or thereabouts, with hair so pale blond it was almost white. The hair was pulled back into a queue and tied with a beige ribbon. His eyes were piercing green, yet lifeless as they examined Matthew. The face was both handsome for its regal gentility and fearsome for its utter lack of expression. He wore a light brown suit and waistcoat, and flowing waves of European lace spilled from the front of his crisp white shirt and cuffs.

Matthew had last seen this man at night, walking around the corner of King Street near the almshouse, and had first seen him firing apples into the face of Ebenezer Grooder at the pillory before City Hall.

The pitiless grenadier, Matthew thought. He nodded at the man, who watched him but did not return the gesture.

“Allow me to introduce Count Anton Mannerheim Dahlgren,” said Chapel, as he steered Matthew toward the head of the table. The blond-haired man now gave the slightest nod, but his relaxed and almost somnolent posture said he was not interested in introductions. He continued eating an apple slice with small birdlike pecks and staring at Matthew as Matthew took the seat across from him.

Chapel sat down again, the grin fixed in place. “I fear Count Dahlgren doesn’t speak much English. He’s come over from Prussia and he’s very…well…Prussian, if you know what I mean. Yes?” That last word was directed to Dahlgren.

“Yas,” came the quiet reply in an accent as thick as the Black Forest, with a brief show of gray teeth. “Var’ Prussian.”

Chapel picked up a little silver bell next to his platter and rang it. “Let’s eat, shall we? Matthew, I hope you’re hungry?”

“I am, sir.” If he could get anything into his stomach, which was so tense amid this crew that it felt squeezed by iron bands.

Presently through a door at the right side of the room came the first wave of this feast: a procession of bowls, platters, and trays filled with sliced melons, stewed apples, honeyed strawberries, green salads, and other enticements brought in by three boys about fourteen or fifteen years of age, dressed in white shirts and black breeches, and two older women wearing kitchen aprons. Wine red and white was poured into glasses and Chapel proposed a toast with his glass lifted high: “To new friends and new prosperity!” Everyone drank. The glasses were immediately filled again by one of the boys, a wiry youth with shoulder-length brown hair that looked to have been brushed back from his face with bee’s-wax pomade. His purpose seemed to be standing nearby over a cartful of wine bottles, ready to pour when a glass showed its bottom.

The meal progressed, as candlelight flashed off the fine silver and was reflected upon the walls like streaking comets. Matthew was aware of the swords at his back while he carried on a conversation about the weather with Miss LeClaire, Chapel offered some observations about the size and shape of clouds, Evans borrowed a remark or two and reworked it so it sounded as if he’d come up with it on his own, and Count Dahlgren drank a glass of white wine and watched Matthew over the brim. The conversation then turned to the beauty of Chapel’s silverware, and when he stated between sips of wine that his father had impressed upon him the idea that no gentleman was a true gentleman without fine silver on the dinner table Miss LeClaire clapped her hands as if he’d made a pronouncement of discovering a medical cure for dropsy.

Then came the second wave, this one a flotilla of bowls bearing soups and chowders: mushroom and bacon, oyster and corn, she-crab and cream. Chapel took pinches of pepper from a mound in a silver bowl and threw them with gusto into his food, so much so that the lady had a fit of sneezing that a napkin could hardly contain. Evans went the salt route, while Dahlgren ignored his spoon and drank directly but delicately from the bowl in what Matthew thought must be the Prussian way.

Matthew was waiting for the first sound of a blade sliding out of its sheath, and twenty minutes into the feast Chapel cleared his throat with a peppery rumble.

Evans and Miss LeClaire had been chattering about the value of oysters to a healthy diet. Both of them suddenly went mute.

Chapel reached into his coat, brought out an object, and laid it on the table in front of Matthew, after which he returned to his pepperpot.

It was Ausley’s notebook. Matthew’s heart twisted on its root. He feared the book might have been the one in his possession, and stolen from the dairyhouse even as he’d been brought here today. But no…compose yourself, he thought. He could see there was no dried blood on it. This was one of Ausley’s less recent books, but identical in every way to the one Matthew had.

“You know what this is, I presume?” Chapel asked. There was a little ting as Dahlgren tapped the rim of his wineglass with a fingernail.

Matthew had had his fill of mushroom-and-bacon soup. He pushed the bowl aside. “I do.” Careful! he cautioned himself. “I’ve seen Ausley writing in it.”

“Not this particular one, maybe. He had a box full of them, under the bed in his room. A strange bastard, wasn’t he? Scribbled notes on everything under God’s sun. You know, I once knew of a lunatic in London who made balls of dust. Hundreds of them. Kept them in his attic. It was in the Gazette, wasn’t it, Lawrence?”

“Yes sir.”

Chapel nodded his conical head with satisfaction that his memory had been served. “I think Ausley was one notebook away from dust balls. All that about his gambling debts and his bowel habits…ridiculous. Of course you suspect by now that dear Charity here is not in any way related to Ausley, unless you consider nymph’s itch as a kind of lunacy.” He showed his peg-teeth to the lady, who looked straight ahead and continued drinking her white wine with no sign of perturbance except for a metallic glint of the eyes. “We found the box of notebooks when we searched his room,” Chapel went on, speaking to Matthew again, “but as he was known to always carry one on his person, there was-and remains-the notebook missing from his personal belongings.” He smiled faintly. “Do you have any idea where it might be, Matthew?”

“No sir,” came the steady reply.

“I’m sorry to hear that, for it would have made things so much easier. Now we have to go about searching for it. And where to begin? With his murderer? Do you think his murderer might have taken the notebook, Matthew?”

“I have no idea.”

“Oh, but you must have an idea! An opinion, at least. Why would his murderer have taken the notebook but left his wallet? Eh?”

Matthew knew Chapel was waiting for a response, so one must be given. “I suspect Ausley’s killer wished to read it.”

“Exactly!” Chapel lifted a thick forefinger. He was grinning as if all this was the most wonderful merriment, but the topaz eyes were stone-hard. “So this was someone who killed Ausley for a purpose, just as he’s killed Dr. Godwin and Mr. Deverick. Their wallets were likewise left undisturbed? Lawrence, the sheet please.” He held out a hand. Evans reached into his own coat with an eagerness that bordered on the frantic; from an inside pocket he brought out a many-times-folded sheet of paper that Matthew already knew was the Earwig. Evans unfolded it, smoothed it out, and slid it past Matthew and Count Dahlgren to the smiling host.

“A long way to go, to match the Gazette,” Chapel said as he looked over the article on Deverick’s murder. “But a good beginning, I’d say. I suppose there’ll be another sheet out soon with an article about Ausley? Or is he old news by now?”

“I’m sure there’ll be another sheet out within a few days. Mr. Grigsby has to gather enough news to fit first.”

“Of course. Economy must be observed, and why would Ausley rate a sheet all to himself? You know, we found your name in several of those notebooks. He had a very interesting combination of respect for your intellect and hatred for your principles. I think actually he was afraid of you. In any event, he was glad to be rid of you to that Magistrate Woodward.”

Matthew was shocked. “He was keeping notebooks that long ago?”

“Indeed. Only he didn’t write as much in them or go through them as quickly as later, when he went off the pier’s end with his gambling and personal lecheries. But as I say, he was afraid of you.” Chapel returned to his soup and dabbed a little she-crab from his chin with a white napkin. “He feared you were going to get another boy as witness to tell everything to Magistrate Powers and then the church might step in. Also, you made him nervous just following him around like that, night after night. He made a convincing argument for my help, so that’s why I let him use Carver and Bromfield, my hunters. I think you saw Bromfield this afternoon?”

Matthew glanced quickly at Evans but said nothing.

“Oh, don’t mind what Lawrence told you. It’s no matter. I would’ve been highly disappointed in you if you hadn’t gotten out and exploring. You did take a risk, though. Bromfield has a nasty streak. Are we ready for the main course, friends? Let’s be at it, then!” He rang the little silver bell again, as Count Dahlgren held out his wineglass to be refilled.

More platters and trays were brought to the table. This time the offerings were substantial: grilled lamb with dill pickles, sweetbreads in mustard sauce, a hunk of red meat that Matthew thought must be a calf’s tongue, and thickly sliced ham with a burnt sugar glaze. Accompanying these stomach-busters was wild rice, creamed corn, and a pile of biscuits. Matthew looked in vain for the hares. Who had Bromfield been hunting for?

But it was all Matthew could do to keep his mind about him, for this scene of feast coupled to the strange conversation with Simon Chapel was more like a dream than reality. He was full already, and the serving boys were loading up another plate for him. Then, quite suddenly, one of the boys spilled wild rice over the front of Matthew’s breeches and cried out, “Pardon, sir! Pardon, sir!” as he wiped the offending food away with a napkin. Matthew stood up from the table as the boy’s hand rapidly darted here and there to clean off the debris and Matthew finally said, “It’s all right. Really. I’m fine.” He brushed the last bits off himself and returned to his seat, while the boy-a small-boned lad with a mass of curly brown hair and the fast movements of a weasel-wadded up the napkin in his fist and started toward the door that presumably led to the kitchen.