jeopardy. “I have a delivery for a Mr. Hudson Greathouse.”
“A delivery? What are you-”
“Mr. Greathouse,” said Mrs. Herrald quietly, “please lower your sword from our courier’s throat.” Her face was still blanched but some humor had returned to her eyes, and Matthew thought that even by what the man Greathouse had told her, she knew his trick.
The sword dropped, but Greathouse kept it at his side unsheathed. Matthew felt it was a compliment, in a way. The man’s rugged, hawk-nosed face bore the rather dazed and confused expression Matthew had seen on six-month-long sea voyage passengers as they staggered onto the dock encountering long-forgotten stability.
“May I deliver the envelope?” Matthew asked.
“I already took it,” growled Greathouse.
“Yes sir, but…no, sir. You did take an envelope, yes. But the right one, no.” Matthew shrugged off his coat, reached back underneath his waistcoat, and retrieved the envelope where it was lodged between shirt and breeches-band. “I apologize,” he said as he handed it over. “It’s a little sweat-damp.”
Greathouse turned the envelope to look at the red wax seal with its embossed H. “This can’t be! I broke the seal on the envelope I took from his pocket!”
“That envelope did have a wax seal, yes sir. The color of red used on the real envelope is probably a shade or two lighter than that used in Magistrate Powers’ office, where I did the work before I left. But I didn’t believe it would be a problem. I think, Mrs. Herrald, that you’ve bought your envelopes from the same source as does City Hall, namely Mr. Ellery’s Stationer’s Shop on Queen Street. If not, the envelopes are nearly the same in size.” He looked back and forth between Mrs. Herrald and Hudson Greathouse. “I couldn’t duplicate the correct seal, of course,” he said, enjoying their silence, “so I had to divert the highwayman’s…um…Mr. Greathouse’s attention from examining it too closely before it was broken. Then again, if he’d seen it was not embossed with an H and he’d shown any reaction, he would’ve given himself away even before he pretended to read official signatures on a blank piece of paper.”
“Really?” Mrs. Herrald’s eyes sparkled, as she was obviously relishing the display.
“Yes, madam. His six paces stepped backward might have been far enough to keep me from seeing there was nothing written on the paper, but I already knew there wasn’t.” That part had been comical to Matthew, and he’d had to put his hand over his mouth to hide a wicked smile as the “highwayman” had read the “signatures” and boasted of his forger “friends in Boston.” They had to be quite some forgers, to forge names out of nothing.
“And how did you know I wasn’t a real highwayman?” Greathouse asked. “How did you know that when I saw a blank piece of paper I wouldn’t just cave your head in?”
Matthew shrugged. “I didn’t. But you had my wallet and the watch. Why should you get so upset over nothing?”
Mrs. Herrald nodded. “Prior preparation, using the envelope and wax. Very clever. Misdirection, with your hand over your pocket. Again, clever, but Mr. Greathouse should have been aware of that old trick. Anything else?”
“Yes madam, the fact that you were arriving was very clear. Mr. Greathouse threw the torn envelope down onto the road as a signal to let you know the game had been played out, in case I walked so far to find my horse that you missed me on my supposed trip back to town.”
“True. All true. But for one small hitch-knot, young man. Mr. Greathouse, would you open your delivery?”
Greathouse broke the seal and opened the envelope. A smile flickered at the edges of his mouth. “Oh,” he said. “I see the amendments to the deed came.” He held up an official parchment written in an expansive, flowing hand and bearing half-a-dozen fat-fingered signatures.
“It arrived by ship’s post, two hours before my meeting with Mr. Corbett,” Mrs. Herrald said, still speaking to Greathouse. “I was unfortunately unable to tell you in time that our courier would be protecting a real, and very valuable, document.”
Matthew looked down at the floor’s oak boards and tasted a little sour remnant of his Gold Compass codfish.
“I should sign it now, while it’s in front of me.” Mrs. Herrald took the parchment, sat down at the desk, dabbed quill into ink, and wrote her name in stately script below the other names.
“This is your house?” Matthew asked.
“Yes. Oh, there’s a matter of some landholdings, but this settles it once it’s back in London.” She smiled up at him. “I’ll take it to the post myself.”
“You smacked me, boy!” hollered Greathouse, who slapped Matthew on the back so hard Matthew thought he might wind up head-over-heels in the garden. The man grinned with square white teeth that looked cut from DeKonty’s quarry. “Well done!”
When Matthew had gotten all the wind back in his lungs and could speak again, he said, “Pardon, Mrs. Herrald, but…if your plan was for me to be waylaid on the road and the envelope taken, then what was the point of all this?”
She spent a moment refolding the parchment. Then she looked up at him and in her eyes Matthew thought he saw a new appreciation. Or respect, as the case might be. She said, “I know your history from Nathaniel Powers. I know your motivations concerning that situation in Fount Royal, and I know your desire for success. What I didn’t know was how you would deal with failure.”
She stood up, now regarding him face-to-face. “As a member of the Herrald Agency, you will do your best to succeed, but in spite of that, many times you will fail. That is the nature of the world, and the truth of life. But when you find your horse again, will you go back, or will you go forward? That was what I had to know.
“Welcome,” she said, and she offered her hand.
Matthew realized he stood at an important crossroads, and one that should not be lightly negotiated. If dealing with a false highwayman was the worst of it, fine; yet Matthew thought today’s incident was likely a frivolity, considering the danger of this line of work. Yet, for the chance to use his mind and his instincts, to further the career that Magistrate Woodward had begun by removing him from the orphanage, to make something of himself in this rowdy and riotous world, wasn’t it worth at least a try?
It was, he decided, though he knew he’d decided this when he’d left town by the Post Road.
It was.
He took Mrs. Herrald’s hand, and right away received another slap on the back from Hudson Greathouse that made him think he couldn’t survive many more congratulations.
“You’ll stay for dinner,” Mrs. Herrald announced. “Mr. Greathouse will make his famous Irish beef and ale stew. I presume your horse is somewhere nearby, so I’d suggest you go ride it properly up here, get it watered and settled in the barn. The key to the gate is hanging on a peg next to the front door.” She motioned him off. “Go!”
As twilight gathered, the stormclouds grew and thickened and at last the devilishly playful showers of the day became a driving rain. In the dining-room of Mrs. Herrald’s house, candles burned as rain beat against the windows and Matthew sat at the polished walnut table realizing that Mr. Greathouse’s stew was not so famous for its beef as for its ale, which had been poured in by the brewer’s jug. Matthew ate lightly and Mrs. Herrald more lightly still, yet Greathouse drank a mug of ale to go along with his ale and showed no effect other than a proclivity to fill up the room with his voice.
Matthew had not been told directly, but he surmised as they talked about various things-the state of the town, the new governor, the high constable and such chit-chat-that they were employer and employee, yes, but also something more. Not so personally involved as sharing a professional…what would be the word? Matthew thought. Elan, possibly? A bond of purpose? That they greatly respected each other was obvious and paramount, in their patterns of speech and their responses to the other’s comments, but again there was something more than respect present here. Matthew had the impression that Greathouse was Mrs. Herrald’s “right-hand man,” so to speak, and might even be second-in-command of the agency. In any case, she listened intently when he spoke and he did the same for her, and Matthew thought this was not simply a professional courtesy but rather a deep alliance of kindred minds.
As Greathouse quaffed his ale and talked about how he and Mrs. Herrald were trying to decide between two suitable office locations on either Stone Street or New Street, Matthew studied him and wondered what his history might be. Sitting there with the sleeves of his white shirt rolled up to the elbows and his full head of gray hair pulled
