accented with gold buttons. On her head was a cocked riding-hat, the same hue as her gown, with no feather or ornamentation. She was a trim woman, about fifty years old, her features sharp and her blue eyes clear and unwavering as she also took in her examination of him. There were lines of age around her eyes and across her forehead yet there was nothing aged about her, for she was straight-backed and elegant and seemed perfectly comfortable in her own skin. Her dark gray hair, with streaks of pure white at the temples and at a pronounced widow’s-peak, was fashionably combed and arranged yet not piled high and glittering with golden geegaws as Matthew had seen done by many older women of means. And there was no doubt she was a woman of means; to book an accommodation at the Dock House one had to have money, and there was just something about Mrs. Herrald-the lift of the square chin, the cool appraisal of the intelligent eyes, the confidence the woman seemed to have in herself-that indicated she was used to the greater privileges of the world. Tucked at her side was a small black leather case, the kind in which Matthew had seen wealthy men carrying their important contracts and introduction letters.
“What do you think of me?” she asked.
The question took him aback, but he kept his composure. “I suppose I should ask what you think of me.”
“Fair enough.” She steepled her fingers together. The expression in her eyes was not altogether lacking mischief. “I think you are a smart young man, raised rather crudely in the orphanage here, and you wish to advance in the world but at present you don’t know your next step. I think you are well-read, thoughtful, trustworthy though a bit lacking in your organization of time-even though I always consider late to be better than never-and I think you are older than your years would proclaim. In fact, I think you’ve never really been a youth, have you?”
Matthew didn’t reply. Of course he knew she’d gotten all this from Magistrate Powers, but he was interested in the road she was travelling.
Mrs. Herrald paused, waiting for his response. Then she nodded and went on. “I think you have always felt responsible. For whom or what, I don’t know. But responsible to others, in some way. That’s why you’ve never been a youth, Mr. Corbett, for responsibility makes the young aged. It unfortunately also separates one from his peers. Sets him apart, causes him to perhaps retreat inward even more than the hardships of life already have. Therefore, without true friends or a sense of his place in the world, he turns to still further serious and steadying influences. Voracious reading, say. The mental workings of chess, or imagined problems that must somehow be solved. Without a sense of purpose, those imagined problems might become overwhelming, and command the mind day and night…to no resolution. From that point one begins to wander a path that leads to a very bleak and unrewarding future. Do you agree?”
Matthew not only had no answer, but he was also aware that he wasn’t just damp from the rain. He was sweating under his arms. He shifted in his chair, feeling like a cod on a hook. Had the woman made the rounds of New York inquiring about him? He didn’t know whether to feel flattered by her attention or flattened by such crushing insights. She had to have gone around town discovering his habits! Damn it, he ought to put on a face of effrontery, rise from his chair, and stalk out of here.
But instead he kept his expression mild, his eyes calm, and he stayed where he was.
“So do you now have an opinion of me?” she asked, in a buttery voice.
“I think…you enjoy the process of discovery,” he replied, and that was all.
“How true,” came her answer. Then they sat staring at each other as darkness grew in the room, a sudden shower pelted the window, the shadows moved, and sunlight streamed down again through the paned glass.
“I am a businesswoman,” Mrs. Herrald said. “I’m sure Nathaniel…I mean to say…Magistrate Powers told you?”
“He told me you were in business, yes. But not what kind of business, or why you might be interested in me.”
“It’s because of your responsibility. That’s why I’m interested. Your youth, even your lack of youth. Your mind. Your pursuits. Even your history with Magistrate Woodward.”
Matthew couldn’t suppress a start. Now this maddening woman was really treading too near a grave. “Magistrate Powers told you about that, as well? To what extent?” He remembered his manners. “If I may ask?”
“Of course. He told me the whole story. Why would he not, if I asked? It was a difficult time for you, yes? But you certainly kept to your convictions, even though it caused grief to both yourself and to your…shall I call him your mentor? I’m sure you had a strong allegiance to him, since he secured you from the orphanage. Did you consider what you were doing a betrayal?”
“I considered what I was doing,” Matthew said evenly, though he wished to grit his teeth, “as a search for justice.”
“And you assumed that in this case you knew more than the experienced and highly competent Magistrate Woodward?”
Matthew looked at his hands and worked his knuckles. He could feel Mrs. Herrald carefully watching him, perhaps looking for a sign of weakness or a flaw in what had been until now a well-maintained veneer. He concentrated on breathing steadily and quietly, and in showing not a whit of emotion. Then he was ready. He looked up and squarely met her cool gaze.
“I believed that I was right,” he said, “based on not only the existing evidence but the lack of evidence. In my experience-a rather limited experience, as you so correctly point out-sometimes the questions easily answered are not the right questions. Sometimes the questions easily answered are meant to lead one into darkness. Therefore, to get my light-as it were-I look to the questions that no one else might ask. The unpopular questions. The uncivil, impolite questions. I harp on them and I pound on them, and often my strategy is to drive into the ground those who refuse to answer what I wish to know. I grant that I don’t have many friends and I grant that I have perhaps retreated too much into myself, but-” He stopped, because he realized he’d walked right into the little devious snare of self-revelation that Mrs. Herrald had set out for him. She made me angry, he thought. She broke my control, and now I am spilled.
“Go on,” she urged, still in a quiet voice. “You were speaking of impolite questions.”
“Yes, impolite.” Matthew had to take a few seconds to gather his wits. “In Fount Royal, with Magistrate Woodward…everything was moving so quickly. Moving toward a burning at the stake. I didn’t…I didn’t feel some… many…of the more difficult questions had been answered. And yes, he was my mentor. My friend, as well. But…I couldn’t let those unanswered questions lie there. I couldn’t. Not with those townspeople so eager to take her life.”
“Her life?”
“Rachel Howarth was her name. The accused woman.”
Mrs. Herrald nodded and looked out the window toward the forest of masts for a time. Then she asked, “What was the first thing you did this morning?”
“Well…I ate breakfast with the Stokelys. I live above their pottery-”
“After that,” she interrupted.
He frowned, puzzled. “I…walked to work.”
“Is that completely true? Or did you go somewhere before that?”
He realized what she was getting at. “I walked down Smith Street to where Mr. Deverick’s body was found.”
“Why?”
“I wished to see it in daylight. To see if there might be anything in the dirt that…may have been left. A button, for instance, from the killer’s coat. Anything, I suppose.”
“And you found what?”
“Nothing. Sand had already been spread to blot up the blood, and the dirt raked. I suppose that was on the high constable’s order, getting things back to normal.”
“Hardly normal,” she said. “Two murders within the space of as many weeks? Who do you think the high constable should be looking for?”
Before Matthew could think about it, he spoke what had been on his mind since awakening this morning: “A gentleman executioner.”
“Hm,” she said, but offered no more. Then she cleared her throat, angled her head, and looked at him as if clearly for the first time. “I presume you’ve never heard of the Herrald Agency?”
