to kill quickly. This was meant to linger. Also, you'll note there are no claw marks, as in the other killings. This was done with a very sharp blade by a hand that was both vengeful and... shall we say... experienced in the craft of cutting.'
'Oh my God... what shall we do?' Bidwell lifted a trembling hand to his forehead, his wig tilted to one side on his pate. 'If the citizens find out about this... that we have another murderer among us... we won't have a soul in Fount Royal by the end of the day!'
'That, ' Matthew said, 'is true. It will do no good to advertise this crime. Therefore, don't expose it.'
'What do you suggest? Hiding the corpse?'
'The details, I'm sure, are better left to you. But yes, I propose wrapping the corpse in a bedsheet and disposing of it at a later date. The later, of course, the more... disagreeable the task will be.'
'We cannot just pretend Paine has left Fount Royal! He has friends here! And he at least deserves a Christian burial!'
Matthew aimed his stare at Bidwell. 'It is your choice, sir. And your responsibility. After all, you are his employer and you direct his comings and goings.' He walked around the body again and approached the door, which Bidwell stood against. 'If you'll excuse me?'
'Where are you going?' A flare of panic leaped in Bidwell's eyes. 'You can't leave!'
'Yes, I can. Don't concern yourself with my speaking about this to anyone, for I vow I shall not.' Except for one person, he might have added. The person he now intended to confront.
'Please... I need your help.'
'By that, if you mean you need a pair of hands to strip the pallet, roll Paine up in the sheet, and scrub the floor with ashes and tar soap... then I must deny your noble request. Winston might help you, but I doubt if any amount of coercion or threat will make him cross that threshold again.' Matthew smiled tightly. 'Therefore... speaking to a man who so abhors failure... I sincerely hope you are successful at your present challenge. Good day to you, sir.' Matthew thought he was going to have to bodily pry Bidwell away from the door, which might have been a labor fit for Hercules, but at last the master of Fount Royal moved aside.
As Matthew started to open the door, Bidwell said in a small voice, 'You say... ashes and tar soap, then?'
'Some sand, too, ' Matthew advised. 'Isn't that how they scrub blood off the deck of a ship?' Bidwell didn't answer, but stood looking at the corpse with his handkerchief pressed against his mouth.
Outside, the air had never smelled sweeter. Matthew closed the door again, his stomach still roiling and what felt like cold sweat down the valley of his spine. He approached Winston, who stood in the shadow of an oak tree a few yards away.
'How did you come to find him?' Matthew asked.
Winston still appeared dazed, his color not yet returned. 'I... intended... to ask Nicholas to escort me to Charles Town. On the pretense of negotiating for supplies.'
'After which, you intended not to return here?'
'Yes. I planned on leaving Nicholas while I went to see Danforth. Then... I would simply lose myself in Charles Town.'
'Well, half of your intent has come to fruition, ' Matthew said. 'You are indeed lost. Good day.' He turned away from Winston and walked back along Harmony Street in the direction they'd come, as he had seen the infirmary in passing.
Presently Matthew stood before the door and pulled the bell-cord. There was no response to the first pull, nor to the fifth. Matthew tried the door, found it unlatched from within, and entered the doctor's domain.
The parlor held two canaries in a gilded cage, both singing happily toward the shafts of light that filtered through the white shutters. Matthew saw another door and knocked at it, but again there was no reply. He opened it and ventured into a hallway. Ahead there were three rooms, the doors of the first two ajar. In the initial room stood the barber's chair and leather razor-sharpening strop; in the second room there was a trio of beds, all of which were neatly made and unoccupied. Matthew continued down the hallway to the third door, where he knocked once more.
When there was no response he pushed the door open and faced what appeared to be the doctor's chemistry study, judging from all the arcane bottles and beakers. The chamber held a single shuttered window through which the rays of bright sunlight streamed, though hazed by a pall of blue-tinged smoke.
Benjamin Shields sat in a chair with his back against the wall, holding a small object in a clamplike instrument in his right hand. The object was smoldering, emitting a thin smoke plume. Matthew thought the clouded air smelled of a combination of burnt peanuts and a rope that had been set afire.
The doctor's face was veiled by shadow, though stripes of contaminated light lay across the right shoulder and arm of his tan-colored suit. His spectacles had been placed atop a stack of two leatherbound books that sat on the desk to his right. His legs were crossed at the ankles, in a most casual pose. Matthew didn't speak. He watched as the doctor lifted the burning object—some kind of wrapped tobacco stick, it appeared—to his lips and pulled in a long, slow draw.
'Paine has been found, ' Matthew said. Just as slowly as he had drawn the smoke, the doctor released it from his mouth. It floated in a shimmering cloud through the angled sunrays.
'I thought your creed was to save lives, not take them, ' Matthew went on. Again, Shields drew from the stick, held it, then let the smoke dribble out.
Matthew looked around at the vessels of the doctor's craft, the glass bottles and vials and beakers. 'Sir, ' he said, 'you are as transparent as these implements. For what earthly reason did you commit such an atrocity?'
Still there was no reply.
Matthew felt as if he'd entered a tiger's den, and the tiger was playing with him like a housecat before it bared its fangs and claws and sprang at him. He kept firmly in mind the position of the door behind him. The savagery of Paine's death was undeniable, and therefore the ability of savagery lay within the man who sat not ten feet away. 'May I offer a possible scenario?' Matthew asked, and continued anyway when the doctor refused to speak. 'Paine committed some terrible offense against you—or your family—some years ago. Did he murder a family member? A son or a daughter?' A pause did not coax a reaction, except for a further cloud of smoke.
'Evidently he did, ' Matthew said. 'By a gunshot wound, it seems. But Paine was wounded first, therefore I'm inclined to believe his victim was male. Paine must have had cause to find a doctor to treat his injury. Is that how you followed his trail? You searched for the doctor who treated him, and tracked Paine from that point? How many months did it take? Longer than that? Years?' Matthew nodded. 'Yes, I'd suspect several years. Many seasons of festering hatred. It must have taken that long, for a man of healing to give himself over so completely to the urge for destruction.'
Shields regarded the burning tip of his tobacco stick.
'You learned the circumstances of the death of Paine's wife, ' Matthew said. 'But Paine, in wishing to put the past behind him, had never told anyone in Fount Royal that he'd ever been married. He must have been astounded when he realized you knew his history... and, Paine being an intelligent man, he also realized why you knew. So you went to his house sometime around midnight, is that correct? I presume you had all the ropes and blades you needed in your bag, but you probably left that outside. Did you offer to keep your silence if Paine would write a confession and immediately leave Fount Royal?'
Smoke drifted slowly through the light.
'Paine never dreamt you'd gone there to kill him. He assumed you were interested in unmasking him before Bidwell and the town, and that the confession was the whole point of it. So you let Paine sit down and begin writing, and you took the opportunity to bash him in the head with a blunt instrument. Was it something you had hidden on you or something already there?'
No response was forthcoming.
'And then came the moment you relished, ' Matthew said.
'You must have relished it, to have performed it so artfully. Did you taunt him as you opened his veins? His mouth was gagged, his head near cracked, and his blood running out in streams. He must have been too weak to overturn the chair, but what would it have mattered? He probably did hear you taunting him as he died, though. Does that knowledge give you a feeling of great joy, sir?' Matthew raised his eyebrows. 'Is this one of the happiest mornings of your life, now that the man you've sought so long and steadfastly is a blood-drained husk?'
Shields took another draw from the stick, released the smoke, and then leaned forward. Light touched his
