“The killer would have had to be left-handed. I think he was-is-right-handed. If he’d come up behind Mr. Deverick, he likely would’ve used his cudgel to squarely strike the back of the skull. And look at Mr. Deverick’s right hand.”
Matthew did. The rigid hand that lay across the belly, the fingers and thumb spread. Acceptance, he’d thought at the scene of the crime. It came clear to him in an instant. “He was about to shake his killer’s hand.”
“The shock of the blow splayed his fingers. Should we be looking for a gentleman? Someone Mr. Deverick knew and respected?”
The impact of this brought something else clearly to Matthew’s mind. It was chilling, in its implication of evil. “Whoever did this wished Mr. Deverick to see his face. To know, perhaps, that he was about to die. Yes?”
“Possibly, but you might have it the wrong way about,” McCaggers said. “The killer might have wished to make sure he saw Mr. Deverick’s face, probably because he wasn’t carrying a lantern. I think this is not the random act of a madman, and neither was the murder of Dr. Godwin. Because Dr. Godwin was also struck on the left temple, leaving that same bruise in almost exactly the same place.”
Matthew couldn’t reply, for he was left thinking about the preparations the killer must have made in order to be quiet, quick, and successful. Wear dark clothes, no lantern, cudgel at the ready, perhaps a belt under a nightblack cloak to hold the instrument, then the blade in a sheath close at hand. From the ground, the blood wouldn’t have spurted so far up that the killer-who was also ready for that fountain of gore-couldn’t have avoided most of it. Gloves, of course, in case the knife handle did become slick. The cuttings around the eyes, and gone back into the dark.
“What was the connection between Dr. Godwin and Mr. Deverick?” Matthew asked, only if to hear himself voice the question.
“You find it,” said McCaggers. Then with an air of finality he turned his back on Matthew to concentrate solely on his notations.
Matthew waited for a few moments longer, but it was clear his welcome had passed. When McCaggers made a motion to Zed and the slave began cutting away the dead man’s clothes with an expertly applied razor, Matthew knew it was time to pick up his lantern from the floor, its candle burned to a stub, and return to the world of the living.
His ascent toward the door, however, was briefly interrupted. “Sometimes,” McCaggers said, and Matthew knew from the echo of the voice that his back was still turned, “it’s not wise to reveal all to a watchful eye. I leave to your judgment what to tell Grigsby and what to keep concealed.”
“Yes sir,” Matthew answered, and with that he left the cold room.
Eight
“Well? Let’s have it!”
Matthew had barely gotten through the door of City Hall before Marmaduke Grigsby collared him. The printmaster got alongside, step-for-step, but had to struggle to keep up with Matthew’s long strides. “What did McCaggers think? Did he say more about the murder weapon?”
“I think we should not turn this into a public forum,” Matthew cautioned, for even at this hour long past midnight there were still a few men-refugees from the taverns, no doubt-gathered on the street puffing their pipes and discoursing on the callous quickness of the pale rider. Matthew kept walking and turned the corner onto the Broad Way with Grigsby at his elbow. Even as he did, he thought that he had quite a distance to travel on such a dark night, with the Masker now blooded by two killings. The street-corner lanterns had almost burned themselves out, and clouds had slipped in on a damp seabreeze to blank the moon. He slowed his pace. Though he carried his own meager light and occasionally could be seen a lantern here and there as another nocturnal citizen moved about, he decided it was best to have company after all.
“We should not let this linger,” Grigsby said. “We should compare notes and come up with an article for the Earwig at once. I have other announcements and sundry items to fill up the sheet, but this by far merits the ink.”
“I have a full day tomorrow. Today, I mean. Possibly I can help you on Thursday.”
“I’ll go ahead and write what I know to be true. You can go over the article and add your facts and impressions afterward. Then we’ll get to work setting the type. You will help me with that, won’t you?”
It was a tedious task that nearly blinded a person, since the type had to be set up backward. It could take- regardless of what he’d told Magistrate Powers was “an afternoon’s work”-the whole of a day and well into the night. But the operation did require at least two men, one to “beat” the type with ink and the other to “pull” the lever that pressed the page.
“Yes, I’ll help,” Matthew agreed. He did like Mr. Grigsby and certainly admired his spirit. He also enjoyed having a hand in putting the sheet together, and being the first eyes to see some of the items Grigsby had written concerning drunken tavern brawls, fights between husbands and wives, chases of bulls and horses loose in the streets, who was seen dining at what eating-house in the company of whom, and the more mundane stories of what cargo had arrived and what was shipping out, what vessels were due in port from which destination, and the like.
“I knew I could count on you. We’ll need to speak with Phillip Covey, of course, since I understand he was first on the scene. And you second there, how fortunate for me! For the sheet, I mean. Then perhaps we can get an official statement from Lillehorne. Improbable, but not impossible. You know, I think we might even gather a statement from Lord Cornbury, this being such a…”
Matthew had just about stopped listening at the phrase first on the scene. As Grigsby rambled on with his grandiose plans, Matthew was thinking about who had really been second and third on the scene. He recalled Reverend Wade saying to Dr. Vanderbrocken We have to leave him.
And go where?
He decided this was an instance of what perhaps should not be shared with Grigsby, at least until he’d had a chance to hear what Lillehorne would learn about those two gentlemen, and where they’d been going that was more important than waiting for a constable at a murder scene. Had perhaps they heard or seen something that bore telling? If so, they were poor witnesses to be such town pillars, for they’d surely disappeared this night.
“How did Mrs. Deverick take the news?” Matthew asked as they neared Trinity Church.
“Stoically,” remarked Grigsby. “But then, Esther Deverick has never been known to display emotion in public. She lifted her handkerchief and hid her eyes, but whether she shed a tear or not is up for question.”
“I should like to interview Robert again. Surely he knows something about who might have wished his father harm. Or maybe he knows, but doesn’t realize it.”
“You’re making the assumption, then, that the Masker”-Grigsby was aware of how his voice carried down the Broad Way’s silent length, and he lessened the volume considerably-“that the Masker has a plan and a purpose? How do you come to the conclusion that we don’t simply have a lunatic in our midst?”
“I didn’t say the killer wasn’t a lunatic, or at least half-mad. It’s the other half that concerns me and ought to equally concern Lillehorne. If two people have been murdered by the same hand, why shouldn’t we expect a third, or a fourth, or…however many. But I’m not sure this is so random.”
“Why? Because of some information McCaggers gave you?”
Matthew could feel Grigsby tensed like a lightning rod. Once the printer’s ink got in a man’s veins, it ran there through all of life’s ambitions. “I can get the final report through Magistrate Powers,” he said, not wishing to comment on the possibility that Deverick might have been struck down in the process of recognizing a fellow gentleman or-God forbid-business leader. It had come to Matthew that the Masker might indeed wear his own mask of community service and industry fellowship, and that this “half-madness” had been festering into action for months if not years. “I think it best to wait for McCaggers’ opinions before we-”
Both he and Grigsby were startled as a well-dressed man in a beige suit and tricorn hat came around the corner of King Street, quickly walked past them without a word, and disappeared into the further dark. Matthew had just had a few seconds to register that the man was even there, but he’d thought he recognized him as the individual who’d thrown apples so viciously into the face of Ebenezer Grooder.
What was more interesting, however, was that in the breeze of the man’s passage Matthew imagined he
