The Scent of Death (18 page)

Mrs Arabella turned her head. I was watching her closely and I saw her face – and saw how it changed when she caught sight of her maid: a look of mild curiosity gave way first to one of alarm, so swift as to be almost imperceptible, and then to a studiously blank expression as though she had willed herself in an instant to purge all trace of emotion from her face.

Captain Wintour slept on.

She tore open the note and leaned forward to read it by the light cast up from the blaze of candles on the stage below. I caught a glimpse of the paper – enough to gain an impression that there was only a line or two of writing; but of course I was too far away to read any of the words.

The next moment, Mrs Arabella was rising to her feet. The rest of us, with the exception of Captain Wintour, automatically followed suit. Othello, strutting and declaiming on the stage below, paused in mid flow and raised his face to see what the commotion was, the whites of his eyes unnaturally bright in his blackened face.

‘Forgive me, sir,’ Mrs Arabella murmured to the Judge, ‘I must leave you. Pray do not disturb yourself. There is a difficulty in the slave quarters, and I do not wish Mrs Wintour to be troubled with it.’

‘But, my dear, you cannot very well go alone with only Miriam to look after you, it—’

‘Abraham is below, sir, with a hired carriage.’

Major Marryot, Mr Townley and I each offered to escort her, but Mrs Arabella rejected us and was out of the box before the Judge had time to raise further objections.

‘Well, well,’ Mr Wintour said, sinking back on his chair, ‘I cannot say I like it at all – why she would not wait a moment, I—’

‘Hush!’ hissed a voice from the stage below.

Captain Wintour stirred, snorted and fell silent. Several members of Othello’s entourage glanced up at our box, their expressions a mixture of disapproval and curiosity.

After that it was difficult to concentrate on the play. During the last act, one of the footmen attached to the theatre came up to the box with a note from Mrs Arabella. She wrote that there was no reason for concern but that she would remain at Warren Street now because she had a headache. She regretted that she would have to cry off Mr Townley’s supper and begged that the entertainment would continue in her absence.

Captain Wintour woke up as the play was drawing to a close. He rubbed his eyes. ‘Is the Moor not dead yet?’ he whispered to me.

‘He has not long in this world, sir.’

‘Good. Then we shall soon have supper. Where’s my wife?’

I explained the circumstances of Mrs Arabella’s departure.

Captain Wintour yawned. ‘Perhaps it’s as well – we shall be without the Fair Sex at supper entirely. And sometimes that’s more agreeable.’ He dug his elbow into my ribs. ‘Eh? Or does a sly dog like you prefer the company of the ladies?’

‘I kissed thee ere I killed thee,’ cried Othello in a hoarse voice, plucking a large dagger from the bosom of his velvet doublet.

He fell upon the corpse of Desdemona, which was lying at his feet. The corpse emitted a gasp, for Othello was a well-built gentleman.

‘Killing myself to die upon a kiss,’ he roared, jabbing the dagger into his side.

He reared up in a rictus of agony and gave Desdemona a smacking kiss on the cheek. She twitched as she tried to avoid the thrashing limbs of her dying husband. Othello at last collapsed beside her and rolled on to his back. The dagger fell from his lifeless hand and landed with a dull, wooden clunk on the stage.

‘Thank God for that,’ Captain Wintour said; and he smiled at me.

Townley had hired a private room at Fraunces’s Tavern on Pearl Street. The parlour was snug, our supper well chosen and the wine, as ever when Townley was at table, flowed generously.

Afterwards our host called for the punchbowl. He turned to me. ‘Have you been introduced to rumbo, sir?’

‘I believe not,’ I said. ‘What is it?’

‘It is something of a speciality of ours in New York. A punch based on rum.’

‘Principally rum,’ said Captain Wintour, pronouncing the consonants with enthusiasm. ‘Pray sit by me, Mr Savill, and I will show you how we prepare it.’

It looked as if the evening would stretch without apparent effort into the further reaches of Saturday morning. Captain Wintour, waving the silver porringer used to strain the punch as a conductor waves his baton, broke into song; but the rest of us declined to join him and at length he returned to drinking and talking.

It did not surprise me that the Captain and Townley were happy to make an evening of it, for I had rarely seen either of them very far away from a glass and a bottle after midday. Marryot seemed disposed to join them on this occasion; he was no toper but, as I had noticed on Monday in the Bunch of Grapes, when he had a mind for it he was capable of drinking deeply and quickly.

However, I had not expected Judge Wintour to join them with such enthusiasm. Hitherto I had seen only the sober side of the old gentleman. This evening, I glimpsed the ghost of another, younger man. Perhaps it was because he was away from the cares of home and family and untrammelled by the society of ladies. Or perhaps he drank to drown his sorrows, for God knows the poor man had enough of them, with more sorrows in store.

Rumbo was so strong that a man could drown any amount of sorrows in the shortest possible time. Mr Wintour drank so hard and so fast that his constitution revolted, and he was forced to withdraw behind the screen for some time. When he returned, pale but nothing daunted, he drank more.

‘A toast, sir,’ cried his son. ‘To the restoration of what is ours. Come, Mr Savill, I know you will join us.’

They drank and we drank. The Judge drank more but not for long. His constitution had grown unaccustomed to excess. This time sleep was his enemy. His head sank slowly down his waistcoat until it came to rest on the table, dislodging his wig. He fell into a deep slumber among the crumbs and nutshells scattered across the mahogany.

‘The old gentleman had better go to his bed,’ Townley said, enunciating his words with care. ‘A man needs his rest.’

‘But the night is young,’ Captain Wintour said. ‘My father will do well enough where he is for the time being. Let us have another bowl.’

Marryot grunted and ladled more punch into his glass. ‘In my opinion he’d do better in his own bed.’

I pushed back my chair. ‘Certainly I believe I should. I must be up in good time in the morning.’

‘You’ve time for another glass, sir,’ Townley said. ‘They will need a moment to bring the carriage round. Then you will be home directly and in perfect safety.’

‘Thank you. And, in that case, shall I take Mr Wintour with me?’

‘A capital plan, sir,’ the Captain said. ‘And I’m sure my father will thank you for it in the morning. I’m obliged to you, Savill, truly I am – it’s the act of a true friend. I’d expect no less of you, of course.’

‘It’s nothing, sir.’

He laid his hand on my arm. ‘But Townley’s in the right of it – you must wet your whistle before you go. A toast to friendship, eh?’

I took another glass with them for fellowship’s sake. When the carriage was at the door, Mr Townley’s footman and two of the tavern’s manservants bundled the old man downstairs. He stirred but did not wake. They settled him in a corner and he snored all the way home.

The cold night air invigorated me. I had drunk less than the others and now I felt misleadingly sober – I knew this must in fact be an illusion for the fumes of rumbo were still rising in my brain and no doubt clinging to my person.

It was true that I had to be up early in the morning, for a deputation of disgruntled Loyalists from North Carolina were due to call on me at the office. But I had another reason to leave, though I did not acknowledge it to myself at the time. In the back of my mind there lurked the possibility that Mrs Arabella might not have retired to bed and that perhaps I might have a few words with her. I did not altogether believe in the existence of her headache.

When we reached Warren Street, it took an age for Josiah to unlock and unbar the front door. He and Abraham helped their master into the house. They set Mr Wintour in a chair and he fell into a doze. Josiah secured the door and Abraham knelt to unbuckle the old man’s shoes.

‘Is Mrs Arabella still about?’ I asked.

‘No, your honour,’ Abraham said, glancing up at me. ‘She retired an hour or so ago. But Mr Noak is in the library.’

‘Why on earth is he here?’

‘I understand he had some work to do for Master, sir.’

Josiah and Abraham draped the Judge’s arms across their shoulders and took him upstairs. His stockinged feet bumped against the treads. I went down the hall to the library door, which was shut. There was a faint glow beneath it. I turned the handle and threw open the door.

Quill in hand, Samuel Noak was standing by the big table where earlier in the week the Judge had sat with Mr Froude’s estate map of Mount George. His face was turned towards the door and was lit from below by the flame of a single candle. His mouth was open, with his lips pursed into a perfect O, as if he were on the verge of whistling.

He looked up. The candle flame created a flickering globe of light over the table and threw his misshapen shadow on to the bookcases lining the wall behind him. The shadow shifted in an ungainly dance, mocking every movement of his small, neat body. The fire had burned out. He wore a muffler and mittens against the cold.

‘Good evening, sir,’ he said. He laid down the quill and bowed.

‘What are you doing here?’

‘Mr Wintour desired me to sort his correspondence.’ His voice was mild and he appeared unaware of my rudeness. ‘I am compiling an index to it.’

‘At this hour?’

‘Mr Townley sometimes finds it inconvenient to spare me during the day, sir. I understand he arranged with the Judge for me to come this evening.’

‘Neither of them said anything about it.’

Noak waited long enough for me to reflect that there was no particular reason why either man should have mentioned the circumstance to me. ‘Has Mr Wintour returned, sir?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then perhaps I should lock up his secretary now and return his key to him.’

It was only then that I realized that the flap of the desk was down. This was part of the secretary, a large piece of furniture made of cherrywood with drawers beneath and bookcase with glazed doors above. At the back of the desk itself was a complicated array of pigeonholes and miniature drawers.

‘The Judge has retired to bed,’ I said. ‘As have the ladies. Captain Wintour has not yet returned. I think you had better give the key to me.’

He allowed another pause to develop. ‘Very good, sir.’ He fell to tidying the papers on the table.

I could not let this go. ‘Mr Wintour usually keeps the key of his secretary on his person. Did he entrust it to you?’

Noak continued to tie a red ribbon around one of the bundles. ‘No, sir,’ he said. ‘He did not. He had already laid out the papers on the table.’ He looked up. ‘But when I arrived this evening, I found the secretary standing open, as you see it now, with the key in the lock. I did not like to close it.’

He asked permission to write a note for the Judge. It occurred to me that he must have heard Townley’s servant knocking on the street door ten minutes earlier; and he must have heard the sounds of voices in the hall and therefore deduced that at least some of the party had returned. His conduct had been that of an innocent man going about his duties, who had nothing to fear from discovery. On the other hand, he would have had ample time to conceal anything that needed concealment.

He left the note he had written unfolded on one of the piles of loose papers. He set a paperweight on top of it and capped the inkpot. Carrying the candle, he went to the desk, closed the flap and locked it.

‘I have finished here, sir,’ he said to me. As always, his tone was civil but not in the least deferential. He handed me the key. ‘Will there be anything more?’

I shook my head and stood aside to allow him to leave the room.

‘How will you get home?’ I asked. I knew that he now lodged at Townley’s house in Hanover Square.

‘Abraham will light me there, sir. It is all arranged.’

Noak gave me the candle and bid me goodnight. I watched as he went through the door leading to the servants’ part of the house. Indeed he was such a frequent visitor that he had become almost one of the family.

Something was wrong.

I knew I was tired and perhaps a little drunk. I knew that Mr Noak’s explanations for his presence in the library were perfectly reasonable. Indeed, I could not put my finger on anything that could truly be called suspicious. But instead a cumulative uneasiness about him had crept over me. This evening’s encounter had brought it to a point where I could not quite ignore it – though not to a point where I could quite justify it, even to myself.

Lit by the single candle, the library seemed larger than by day. I had never been in here by myself. It was a square and high-ceilinged room with bookcases on two walls, the fireplace on the third and the secretary beside the window on the fourth.

I went first to the table in the middle and looked at the papers lying on it in their neat piles and bundles. Most of them had to do with Mr Wintour’s activities before the war. Some concerned cases he had presided over in the province’s courts. Others related to the Governor’s Council, for he had been a member of this body in the early years of the decade.

Here, too, was the index that Mr Noak was compiling for him. It classified the correspondence by date and then by subject. The Judge contemplated the composition of a great work to be called
The History of New York in Recent Times
, and his own papers would provide an important source of materials for it. Looked at from one angle, the enterprise was a form of vain if harmless drudgery; but, from another, it amounted to an old man’s forlorn attempt to make sense of a world gone mad. There was something of folly to it, something of sense, and something of honour too.