The Queen of Bedlam (59 page)

“Let her sleep,” Chapel instructed when Jeremy bent down to tend to his source of that which starts with p and ends in y. “God knows we all could use the rest. You first down the stairs, Jeremy. Don’t step in blood and get it on my carpet, for the sake of Christ! All right, move along. You next, Mr. Ripley.” Matthew noted that even Chapel drew back from the young creeper. “After you, miss,” he told Berry, who started to plant her feet obstinately but was pushed forward by Lawrence Evans with a hand gripped to her neck. “Mr. Corbett and Count Dahlgren, please proceed.”

In the dining-room, the group waited for Chapel to descend the stairs. He came down as a whistling, convivial spirit. All was right with Simon Chapel’s little world. Matthew watched as he closed the office door behind him, took a key from a coat pocket, locked the door, and returned the key to its home. Miss LeClaire probably wouldn’t wake up until September.

Matthew threw a glance at Berry, who caught it and returned one of her own that said, in quite explicit language: What the hell are we going to do?

He didn’t know. What he did know, he didn’t intend sharing with Berry. The cords around their wrists, at once lighter and more strongly woven than regular barn or household rope, were the same as had bound the wrists of Billy Hodges.

“We’re off,” beamed Chapel, as the bell kept ringing.

“Sir,” Matthew said before Count Dahlgren could shove him along again, “don’t you think we ought to wait? I mean, just to be sure I’ve told you the truth about Dippen Nack?”

“Why?” Chapel’s face loomed, moonlike, into Matthew’s. “Was it not the truth?” To Matthew’s contemplation of how to respond to this knitting-needle of a question, Chapel laughed explosively and clapped his prisoner’s shoulder. “Your problem,” he said with damnable good humor, “is that you’re much too honest. Come along, now.”

Forty-Six

It was a long walk to a bad end, with the bell pealing a spritely dirge.

Matthew and Berry were side-by-side as they progressed along the road toward the vineyard. Ahead of them strode Chapel, deep in conversation with Evans. Arrayed around the hapless prisoners in a dangerous triangle were Jeremy, Ripley, and Count Dahlgren. And keeping pace were the boys, hooting and laughing with joyful glee, jostling one another for closer looks at Berry, darting in and plucking at Matthew’s coat or Berry’s dress and then being chased back by an almost playful feint from Jeremy’s knife or a backhanded threat and Prussian yell from the count. No one bothered Ripley and Ripley reacted to no one; he’d put on dark-tinted spectacles to shield his eyes from the sun and walked with a solemn but inexorable forward motion.

“What are they going to do to us?” Berry pressed up close beside Matthew, flinching as a yellow-haired boy of about fourteen ran in and pulled at her dress. She started to turn and shout at him, as she’d done to several others, but as that had just brought about a storm of laughter she decided it was wasted breath.

Matthew wanted to say I don’t know but the time for that lie was well and truly done. After all, he was so damned honest. “They’re going to kill us,” he said.

Berry stopped. She stood gaping at him, her blue eyes scorching holes through his head, until Dahlgren gave her a shove that almost propelled her into Matthew. Oh, how the boys did convulse themselves! One-a little brown-haired imp not over twelve-started massaging the front of his breeches and grinningly pranced a jig, his boots kicking up dustpuffs.

“Kill us?” she gasped when she could speak. “Kill us? What have you got me into?”

“An adventure,” he replied. “I thought you liked those.”

“I like adventures I can live through!” Her mouth was so close to his right ear Matthew thought she was going to bite it off. Her hair was wild and tangled and whitened by dust. She looked desperately around and saw only woods beyond the laughing faces and capering figures. “We can run, can’t we?”

“Not faster than they can catch us.”

“They’re not going to kill us!” Her mouth twisted. Her eyes were wet. “They’re just going to frighten us, aren’t they?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think I could be any more frightened.”

“You’re supposed to do something!” she insisted, again right up at his ear.

Matthew just grunted. What are you going to do, moonbeam?

He could cry, he thought. Break down in tears and let them see his real courage. Let them see what happens when a chess-loving moonbeam plays…what was that word he’d conjured up in Philadelphia? Detective. Ho, ho, what a joke! One has to survive his first investigation, Matthew thought grimly. He gave another pull at his bonds, as he’d done at least half-a-dozen times, but the cords were only going to come off when his wrists had thinned a little more.

“Someone’s coming, aren’t they?” Berry pleaded. Her voice cracked and she caught herself. “Tell me. Someone’s coming.”

“No one’s coming. And the gate’s locked.” Was he being too cruel? He thought to put an arm around her, but found how quickly he had forgotten about the cords. His mind was swimming in the blood of the future. The very near future. Well, his heart might explode and he might fall down and die without further injury.

But not further insult, for he realized he had just stepped into a pile of manure left by the coach horses on their way to the stable. The laughter and hollering swelled up and someone called him a “shitfoot.” Could someone actually die of embarrassment? he wondered. Regrettably, no.

“Mister!” Berry shouted. Then, louder to be heard over death-bell and merriment, “Mister Chapel!”

Chapel interrupted his discussion with Evans and drifted back. “Yes, miss?”

“We won’t say anything!” she told him.

“That’s right,” he agreed.

“I mean it! We’ll be quiet! Won’t we, Matthew?”

“Yes, you’ll be very quiet,” Chapel said.

Berry suddenly sat down on the ground. At once Chapel motioned for help and a swarm of boys rushed in to oblige. Matthew thought Berry’s clothes were going to be torn off, and her breasts and private area squeezed and felt by every hand on an arm. She got up red-faced, swollen-eyed, and fighting, until Count Dahlgren came forward, grabbed a handful of her hair, shook her head back and forth, and hollered, “You vill valk!” into her ear. His fist was ready to strike before her forehead could. Matthew saw her eyes go blank and her mouth slack, and a pain beyond agony pierced his heart as she staggered forward and the little parade marched on.

“She’s not doing well,” Chapel remarked as he walked at Matthew’s side.

“This is her first time to be murdered,” he answered, in a stronger voice than he’d ever imagined he could summon up, if he’d ever imagined such a situation at all.

“Just don’t run very far,” Chapel advised, in the manner of a friendly confidant. “Far enough to give them some exercise. Then just lie down and let them have at it. It won’t take long.”

“Am I being murdered or having a tooth pulled?”

Chapel laughed softly. The bell stopped, which made Matthew’s guts churn like a barrel of fresh-caught cod. “Being disposed of,” the man replied. “As any commodity might be used up and thrown away. That’s what all human beings are, really, when you get down to things. Correct?”

“If I said yes, would I and the girl live?”

Again that soft laugh.

“So that’s what all this is about?” Matthew saw at the end of the road the vineyard and the arrangement of buildings all constructed from chalkwhite stone. One of the buildings had a small belltower. “Creating commodities for use by Professor Fell?”

“Yes, and for use by anyone willing to pay. Come on, Matthew! Surely you understand how important it is for the…how shall I phrase it…?”

“Criminal underworld?” Matthew supplied.

“Brotherhood,” said Chapel, “and sisterhood, also, to replenish itself. We are commodities, too. All our talents make us valuable to different degrees and different worths. Take Billy Hodges, for instance. As I said, he did some wonderful work for us and became an instructor in the screever’s art. See that building off to the left, there? Beside the one with the belltower? That would be our primary classroom. Billy taught his pupils in there. Some of them advanced to take other positions in the colonies, where they are waiting for certain signals. Some have been sent to England to work. The same as with all our classes: the art of self-defense, the study of finance, the techniques of human management, the art of communication…and on and on until you get to the more defined studies of assassination, arson, blackmail, theft, extortion, cardsharping, dipping, forgery, and-”

“Poisoning?” Matthew interrupted. “How to concoct drugs to kill five innocent people in a Philadelphia tavern?”

“Oh, those five people were unfortunate byproducts of the contract. Someone had to drink that wine. We couldn’t exactly ruin Swanscott and his business if no one was poisoned, could we?”

“Lovely.”

“Necessary. Don’t you see that this is a business? Really, Matthew! This is a business with a great future. It’s been sailing along in England and Europe for many, many generations. Now, with the new world opening up and all its potential ahead, we’d be pretty foolish not to want to get in the door too, wouldn’t we?” He sighed, because he knew he wasn’t making much of an impression. “As for the poisoning, you might be interested to know that when Mr. Nack committed his acts of revenge, only Mr. Deverick had any idea why he might be getting his throat cut.” He slid a sidelong glance at Matthew to gauge his interest, then went ahead anyway when Matthew showed none. “Ausley only supplied the human commodities, without knowing their exact use. As for Godwin, the doctor was involved with a young whore in London after his wife died. We found out her name was Susan. He fawned over her, and she used him as her ponce. Made a real fool out of him, as the tale goes. I suppose he’d do anything to stay around her, for that is the illusion we call love. Me, I would have ripped her gutless and thrown her out a window. But Godwin must have thought himself a noble soul who would someday wean his sweetheart off the throbbing cocks of other men and lead her to a better life. Until she got herself knocked up and he killed both his sweet Susan and the little bastard on the abortion table. An accident, I’m sure. But you know, he was always drawn to the doves. A sad episode in an otherwise exemplary life. However, we thrive on such episodes. They make our business so much simpler. Therefore when we approached the good doctor about making a small batch of poison for us-out of belladonna he purchased at the Smith Street Apothecary, by the way-he was at first very reluctant until we brought all that up about Susan. Could we prove it? Witnesses could be found and letters written, we said.” Chapel gave a broad wink. “We have ladies with great imagination and not a little experience. But Godwin was a weak nut. Guilt-ridden and pliable, so not much pressure had to be applied. We were going to kill him ourselves, if he tried to approach the high constable. We would have found someone else. A commodity. You see?”

“A tragedy,” Matthew replied.

“A business. Like any other, except…” Chapel thought about it. “It made me, a poor but ambitious tinker’s son, very wealthy.”

The boys suddenly rushed ahead. Ominously so, Matthew thought. They disappeared around the corner of the belltower building.

“Ah, the ragged schools give us such dedicated pupils,” Chapel said, with a hint of wicked delight. “Now listen, do as I say. Run a little bit to get them excited, then lie down. Tell the girl, if she’s in any state to hear you. But you won’t be able to run very far, anyway.”

“What’ll you do to us afterward? Throw our bodies in the river?”

“Certainly not. Billy jumped off that cliff over there,” and here Chapel motioned in the direction of the Hudson, “before he could be stopped. He was half-blind, as it was. Couldn’t see where he was running to or from. Ordinarily, we would have buried him back in the woods where we bury all our mistakes and failures. Which are unfortunately many, as we have very exacting standards, the same as any university. Out of all the candidates sold to us by Ausley, we only pass through about six a year. Now this Ausley situation is a problem. We’re going to have to find a replacement for him and get our own representative heading up the girls’ orphanage, so we have a lot of work to do the next few months.”

Matthew’s mind had latched on to something Chapel had just said. “Half-blind? What do you mean, Billy was half-blind?”

“Oh, his eyes were all torn up. The birds, you know.”

“The birds?”

“That’s right. My hawks.” And then they turned the corner and there around a large canopy-shaded aviary the pack of boys were waiting. Three of the biggest ones had hooded brown-and-white birds of prey perched on their leather gloves and forearm-guards.

Berry made a sound as if she’d taken a blow to the stomach. Her knees buckled, but the gentlemanly Count shoved her forward with sadistic relish.

“You are one bastard,” Matthew said to Chapel, his teeth gritted so hard they were about to break. Chapel shrugged, as if this were a compliment.

“Young men!” Lawrence Evans had picked up a basket and was passing it around. “Arm yourselves, please. Watch the blades, we don’t want any accidents.”

The boys, who Matthew noted had removed their colored badges so all were equal in this endeavor, were reaching in and coming up with knives. There was a disturbing variety of blades: short, long, hooked up or down, wide, thin, stubby, elegantly evil. The boys walked around sticking and stabbing the air, some delivering a brutal twist, some slashing as if trying to destroy the last vestiges of childhood before they stepped across the threshold of no return.

They all appeared to have done this before, though several-including the light-fingered Silas-looked just a bit green around the gills. But they too hacked and sliced the air with abandon.

“Your version of the professor’s gauntlet,” Matthew said to Chapel; or more correctly, heard himself say, as his face and mouth seemed numbed by frost.

“Correct. My version, utilizing a long-cherished hobby. Mr. Greathouse has been schooling you well. He’ll be out here soon enough himself, you can mark that.” He waited for Dahlgren to shove Berry into earshot, though she still looked too dazed to comprehend their fate. “Mr. Edgar? Where’s Mr. Edgar?”

“Here, sir,” said a large, stocky young man with close-cropped dark brown hair. He came forward out of the building’s shadow cradling a small lamb in the crook of a meaty arm, and in the other hand a wooden bucket that held of all things a paintbrush. Edgar had a slight limp and a pock-marked face, his eyes also dark brown and obviously nervous for he was blinking rapidly. When he reached Chapel, he glanced up and said almost shyly, “Hello, Matthew.”

Matthew was struck dumb for a few seconds. Then his mouth moved and he said, “Hello, Jerrod.”

“I heard you might be coming out. How’ve you been?”

“Fine, thank you. And you?”

“I’m all right.” Jerrod Edgar nodded. His dull eyes did not show the most intelligence in the world, but Matthew had known him as a decent fellow in 1694, when Matthew was fifteen and Jerrod twelve. Jerrod had unfortunately been the target of some of Ausley’s most frequent and intense attentions, and Matthew had watched him withdraw into himself and pull all his shame and anger into the shell with him. Then Jerrod had stolen a burning-glass that Ausley lit his pipe with during one of the punishment sessions, and afterward he was always setting fire to either leaves or donated prayer book pages or grasshoppers or his own plucked-out hair. When another boy had tried to steal it, the boy had left the orphanage for the King Street hospital folded up in a cart and obviously died there, as he’d never returned. “I guess I’m doin’ all right,” Jerrod repeated, as he gave the lamb to Simon Chapel.