a boy!”
“Sir?” Matthew had decided to stand firm, though the lion’s head was trying to shove him off-balance. “The magistrate had nothing to do with this. I spoke for myself, pure and simply.”
Lillehorne produced a mocking half-smile. “Pure? I doubt it. Simple-minded, yes. The time wasn’t right to bring this issue to the forefront. I have the governor’s ear, I could make these changes in our system gradually.”
“We might not be able to wait for such gradual change,” Matthew said. “Time and the criminal element may overtake us, and whatever system you believe we have.”
“You are an impudent fool.” Lillehorne gave Matthew’s chest a painful thrust with the cane and then, thinking better of any further public display, brought the instrument down to his side. “And don’t think I won’t be watching you in case you want to overstep your bounds again, clerk.”
“You’re missing the point, Gardner,” said Powers in an easy, nonthreatening voice. “We’re all on the same side, aren’t we?”
“And what side might that be?”
“The law.”
It wasn’t common that Lillehorne couldn’t come up with a stinging response, but this time he fell silent. Suddenly an even worse visage came up alongside the high constable’s shoulder. A hand touched the shoulder.
“Tonight at the Blind Eye?” Ausley inquired, pretending that neither Matthew nor the magistrate stood before him. “Montgomery’s vowing to go double-or-nothing at Ombre.”
“I shall bring my wallet, in order to hold the winnings from Montgomery’s and your own.”
“Good afternoon, then.” Ausley touched the brim of his tricorn and glanced at Powers. “And good afternoon to you, sir.” Then he waddled along with the stream of citizens past Matthew, leaving in his wake the overpowering odor of cloves.
“Just remember your place,” the high constable warned Matthew, not without some heat, and Matthew thought he might be pissed on yet. But Lillehorne suddenly put an odious smile on his face, called to one of the sugar mill owners, and sidled away from Matthew and Powers to put the grab on another man of greater financial influence.
They got out of the chamber, out of the building, and onto the street where the sunlight was still bright and groups of people stood about discussing what they’d witnessed.
The magistrate, who looked tired and worn in the more glaring illumination, said he was going home to have a spot of tea in his rum, put his backside in a chair, and ponder on the differences not only between men and women but between talkers and doers. Then Matthew himself started up the incline hill of the Broad Way toward home, figuring there were always pots to be done and that the wheel and the work had a wonderful way of smoothing even the wicked edges of the world into a more comfortable shape.
Six
Upon awakening from his dream of murdering Eben Ausley, Matthew lay on his bed in the dark and pondered how easy it would be to murder Eben Ausley.
Think of it. To wait for him to emerge from a tavern-the Blind Eye, say-after a long night of gambling and drinking, and then fall in behind him and keep away from the lamps. Better still, to go on ahead and lie in wait at a place of one’s choice. Here come the footsteps, heavy on the stones. Best to be sure it’s him, though, before you strike. Sniff the air. Rotten cloves? That’s our man.
Closer he comes, and closer yet. Let him come on, as we decide how to do the deed. We must have an implement, of course. A knife. Terribly messy. Turn on a bone and he escapes, screaming for his life. Blood all over the place. A hideous misfortune. Well then, a strangulation cord. Yes, and best of luck getting a rope around that fat neck; he’d shake you off like a flea before you got his eyes popped.
A club, then. Yes, a nice heavy bastard of a club with skull-cleaving knots all over it. The kind of club the blackguards sell to each other in the murder dens of Magpie Alley, according to the Gazette. Here you may offer your coins to the shadow-faced villains and take your pick of brainers. Ah, there’s the one we want! The one with a hard ridge running the length of the bopper, the better to bust with. Right there, under the monkey’s-claw blade and the little fist-sized bag of nails.
Matthew sat up, lit a match from his tinderbox on the bedside table, and touched the candle in its brown clay holder. As the welcomed light spread, so fled the ridiculous-and rather sickening, really-images of murder. In his dream, everything had been flailing blurred motion, but he’d known he was following Ausley for the dark purpose and when he came up behind him he killed the man. He wasn’t sure how, or with what, but he did remember seeing Ausley’s face staring up from the stones, the eyes glazed and the mocking little lip-twisted smile gone crooked as if he’d seen what the Devil had waiting for him down in the fire-hole.
Matthew sighed and rubbed his forehead. He might wish to with all his heart and soul, but he could no more kill Ausley than be alone in a room with him.
You ought to find somethin’ better than this to hold on to, John Five had said. Somethin’ with a future to it.
“Damn it,” Matthew heard himself mutter, without realizing he was going to say it.
John Five was nothing, if not to the point.
The point being, it was over. Matthew had long ago realized his hopes of seeing Ausley brought to justice balanced on a slender thread. If only he’d been able to get one of the others-Galt, Covey, or Robertson-to bear witness. Just one, and then Ausley’s pot would’ve been cracked. But think now what had befallen Nathan Spencer, who’d seen better to hang himself than let everyone in New York know how he’d been brutalized. What sense was there in that? Nathan had been a quiet, timid boy; too quiet and too timid, it seemed, for even as Matthew had offered him a hand out of the morass Nathan had been contemplating suicide.
“Damn it,” he repeated, in spite of all reason. He didn’t want to think, as John Five had maintained, that his intrusions into Nathan Spencer’s life had aided the death-wish along. No, no; it was better not to think along that line, or one might become too cozy with the idea of death-wishes.
You ought to find somethin’ better than this to hold on to. Matthew sat on the edge of his bed. How long had he been asleep? An hour or two? He didn’t feel very sleepy anymore, even after murdering Eben Ausley. Through his windows there was no hint of dawn. He could go down and check the clock in the pottery shop, but he had the feeling just from repetition of sleep and time that it was not yet midnight. He stood up, his nightshirt flagging about him, lit a second candle for the company of light, and looked out the window that faced the Broad Way. Everything quiet out there, and mostly dark but for the few squares of other candlelit windows. No, no; hear that? Fiddle music, very faint. Laughter carried on the night breeze, then gone. As Lord Cornbury had put it, the last gentleman had not yet staggered out.
At supper this evening the Stokelys, who’d attended the governor’s address but had been back in the crowd closer to the street, had praised Matthew’s suggestions for the constables. It was past time the town got up to snuff in that regard, Hiram had said; the thing about the station where they were to meet made sense, too. Why hadn’t Lillehorne thought of that?
As for Lord Cornbury’s appearance, Hiram and Patience were less positive. The man might be meaning to represent the Queen, Hiram said, but couldn’t he have worn a man’s clothes just as well? It was a peculiar day, Patience said, when the governor of New York town was dressed in more ribbons and puffs than Polly Blossom.
Meanwhile, under the table, Cecily kept knocking her snout against Matthew’s knees, reminding him that whatever premonition she foresaw had not yet come to pass.
Matthew turned from the window and surveyed his room. It was not large nor particularly small, just a garret tucked behind a trapdoor at the top of a ladder above the shop. There was a narrow bed, a chair, a clothes chest, the bedside table, and another table on which rested his washbasin. In a hot summer one could cook up here and in a cold winter the thickness of a blanket spared him from frostbite, but one didn’t complain about such things. Everything was clean and neat, well-swept and well-ordered. He could cross from wall to wall with six steps, yet this was a favorite part of his world because of the bookcase.
