my name down anywhere. I wanted there to be no trail of paper leading to me. Hate those. Well, what do we find when we get the notebooks from under his bed? Yes, there it was, all right! My name, in glorious scribble! I had a suspicion, after Bromfield and Carver told me they got a glimpse of one of those damned books the night they hired out to him, that my name was in them somewhere. Now it may have been true that just my family name is there and possibly no one would ever have connected me to the scheme, but still…care saves trouble, as my father used to say. I have not advanced to my present situation by lack of planning, I promise you.”
Matthew nodded. This information didn’t surprise him in the least. But what of the numbers? The code Ausley had written down? Of course he couldn’t ask, though he nearly had to lock his teeth together.
“I’m not a monster,” Chapel continued. He knifed butter from a silver tray and bathed a biscuit with it. “The boys here are all volunteers. No one has to stay if they don’t like it. How many are here presently, Lawrence?”
“Nineteen, sir.” Evans was trying to free himself from the hands that were earnestly working at the buttons of his breeches front.
“Many various ages, from twelve on up,” Chapel said. “They live in a very comfortable building at the vineyard. When they reach the age of eighteen, they are free to go out into the world on their own if they choose. I had a ready source of labor, Ausley got his money, and all was right with Simon Chapel’s little world.” His visage darkened. “Until this Masker came along. And who the devil is he, anyway? Why these three men, Matthew? Does anyone have any ideas?” His gray eyebrows went up. “Do you?”
It wasn’t right, Matthew thought as he pushed his plate aside and folded his hands on the table. Something…was…not…right. Why should the Masker be interested in Ausley’s scheme with Chapel? He remembered that before Dippen Nack had scared the Masker away, there’d been a whispered Eben Ausley was…
What was the finish of that declaration to be?
Eben Ausley was selling orphans as vineyard workers? As household and grounds staff?
Why in the world should the Masker have a care for what Ausley did with the orphans?
It wasn’t right, Matthew thought. No.
“Tell me about this, then,” said Chapel, as he slid the Earwig toward Matthew. His index finger tapped a small item. Matthew saw the broadsheet had been turned to its second page, and Chapel’s finger was on the lines of print that read The Herrald Agency. Problem-Solving. Letters of Inquiry to go to the Dock House Inn.
Thirty-Six
“The printmaster’s your friend, isn’t he?” Chapel looked at his fingertip and found it was marred by a small darkening of ink. He wiped it on his napkin. “Do you know who brought that item to him?”
Matthew was startled as Count Dahlgren suddenly got up from his chair, walked across the room with a half-glass of white wine in his left hand, and with his other pulled a sword from the display on the right side of the fireplace. It came out with a shrieking sound.
“Tell me,” Chapel said, his intense topaz gaze fixed upon Matthew. The reflection of orange candleflames on his spectacle lenses made it appear that his eyeballs were burning.
Behind Matthew, Dahlgren began to thrust and parry at a phantom opponent. Matthew dared not turn around, but could hear the sword’s high whicking noise as air was cleaved left and right.
“Do you know these agency people yourself, Matthew? Have you met them?”
“I…” What a pit had been opened for him! Would that it not become a grave where he might lie rotting and filled up with roaches. He swallowed hard as Dahlgren swung his blade through a candle and the waxen stump flew over Matthew’s head into the wild rice. “I have-”
He didn’t know what he was going to say, but before he could say it a drunken load of woman jumped into his lap, driving the breath out of him and almost causing him to spew forth sliced melons, stewed apples, salad, mushroom-and-bacon soup, and every other foodstuff deposited in his belly-bank. This leap of wanton faith was accompanied an instant later by a tongue-of the feminine human variety-winnowing itself into his mouth like a river eel. He tried to push her off but she was stuck fast, her arms going around his neck and her fleshy red rag nearly down his throat. He had the feeling that he might strangle on it, while as if in some nightmare formed from bad codfish Count Dahlgren lunged around the room whacking candles, Evans grabbed the itching nymph to give Matthew some air and Chapel said sourly, “Well, damn it all,” and beckoned the wine-boy over for another glass.
When Evans got Miss LeClaire unsealed and unseated and she began to try to get his breeches pulled down, Chapel leaned toward the hard-breathing and red-faced young nobleman and said, “Listen now, Matthew. Very important. Will you run a simple errand for me when you get back to town?”
“What…” He ducked as the upper half of a candle, its wick still smoking, sailed between them. “What is it?”
“Don’t mind Count Dahlgren.” Chapel waved a dismissive hand in the swordsman’s direction. “This is obviously some kind of Prussian after-dinner thing. But about the errand: will you go for me to the Dock House Inn and find out if anyone named Herrald is staying there?”
“Herrald?” Matthew asked, as Dahlgren began to deliver an unintelligible chant in a strange, staccato rhythm while he swung the sword back and forth with lightning speed, the blade hardly a blur. Matthew saw him switch hands, whirl around, almost drop to the floor, and then smoothly switch hands again and strike out as if piercing an enemy’s heart.
“The Herrald Agency. The item. Wake up, is the wine taking you under? I want to know specifically if a Mrs. Katherine Herrald is staying there, or has lately been there. I also want to know who’s gone to see her and what company she keeps.” Chapel grasped Matthew’s shoulder with a steely claw that reminded him of Jack One Eye the bear. “Also, get what you can from the printmaster. Bring me back this information within three or four days and I’ll make it worth your while.”
“Worth my while, sir?”
“That’s right. How about a pound sterling, to start with?” Chapel waited for the sound of that immense sum to sink in. “We’ve got to get you away from that outhouse somehow, and this seems a good place to begin.”
“All right,” Matthew said, for he wished to return to New York in a single package. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“That’s the boy! Also keep your eyes and ears open about that notebook, won’t you?”
“I will.”
“And please, not a word to anyone. You wouldn’t want old Simon in the pillory, would you?”
“No.”
“Excellent! Let’s have a drink on it! Jeremy, open the new bottle!”
The wine-boy uncorked a hitherto untasted vintage, poured thick red liquid into two fresh glasses, and set them before Matthew and Chapel. “To victory!” Chapel said, lifting his glass. Matthew wasn’t sure what battle was in the future, but he also lifted his glass and drank.
“Now, now!” Chapel chided when Matthew started to put his drink aside. “Bottoms up, young Corbett! Bottoms up!”
Matthew saw no option but to finish the glass, knowing that at least this bizarre dinner was almost over and he could get up to bed. But then came the servers again, this time bearing a huge white-iced cake, some kind of fruit pie, and a plateful of sugared cookies. The sight of the sweets diverted Miss LeClaire from her mission of removing Evans’ breeches, and with a cry of girlish delight she staggered drunkenly toward the cake, her hair hanging in her face. As the lady attacked the cake with her fingers, Evans hoisted up his breeches, Count Dahlgren chanted and fenced, and Chapel watched everything with firelit eyes and a thin-lipped smile, Matthew thought he knew the real meaning of the word bedlam.
A piece of cake the size of a brick was placed before Matthew, who had not the stomach for a pebble. Following this was a slice of pie from which red cherries oozed. He noted that the room’s furious light had faded somewhat, as Dahlgren continued to chop away at candles. The smells of burnt tallow and smoke whirled about him, scorching his nostrils. At the back of his throat, now that the acidic tang of the wine had subsided, was a sulphurous taste. Whatever vintage he’d just drunk, he thought, it was not yet suited for public consumption.
He heard Miss LeClaire laugh with her mouth full and then Evans said something he picked up only as a
