Ausley sat in the company of three other men, but Matthew didn’t recognize any of them as the stomperboys who’d gotten the better of him on Monday night. The gamblers were focused on the play as cards were being dealt. Matthew noted that Ausley’s pile of silver was the smallest of the lot, and sweat sparkled on the man’s jowls and forehead. His white wig was crooked.
As Matthew watched, more transfixed by the enemy’s presence rather than interested in the game, he saw the gamblers throw down their coins and cards, there was a great hurrah from one of the men, and Ausley scowled as if a snake had crawled out of the ale tankard on his right. Ausley blew out a big breath that might have been disgust or despair, reached for his omnipresent black notebook with its gold-ornamented cover, opened it, and began to scribble there with his string-wrapped pencil. Marking his losses, Matthew thought. May they ever increase.
Suddenly, like a feral beast sensing it was being observed, Ausley looked up from his notebook directly into Matthew’s eyes. They stared at each other through the shifting smoke while at other tables cards were played and dice tossed, winners shouted and losers cursed, prostitutes whispered and even a brown dog scurried around trying to steal a scrap.
Then, just as abruptly, Ausley dismissed him, finished his note-writing, closed the book with a little slap, and pounded the table with his hammy fist for the next round to be dealt.
Matthew also turned away. He got out to the front room, where John Five had just signed his credit for the tavern-keeper.
“I thought I’d lost you in that crowd,” John said. “Are you all right?”
“I am,” Matthew answered, “but I could use some fresh air.” He walked onto the Broad Way, his mind now turning from Eben Ausley to the task he needed to perform tonight, and John Five joined him, oblivious to the small and silent scene that had just played out.
Fifteen
Near ten o’clock, Dippen Nack stopped at the well in the middle of Maiden Lane. He put aside his lantern and short-handled pitchfork, lowered the well’s bucket, and took a drink of water, which he then followed with a tremendous gulp from a leather flask produced from under his coat. Then he retrieved his items and circled the well, swinging his lamplight back and forth over the house and storefronts with his pitchfork at the ready and calling that a decent inspection. He walked off along Maiden Lane to the west, heading in the direction of the Broad Way.
Matthew edged around the corner of Jacob Wingate’s wig shop, where he’d been hiding, to watch the insufferable little man strut away like a bantam cock. Nack was one of the constables Matthew felt gave the position a bad name. Quick to accuse an innocent citizen and quick to flee from any perceived danger, Nack also had a mean disposition. He’d been warned by several of the magistrates-among them Magistrate Powers-to refrain from filching the gaol-keeper’s keys and going into the gaol late at night to piss on the prisoners as they slept.
Keeping watch on Reverend Wade’s house was more difficult than Matthew had expected, for Nack was the second constable he’d recognized on Maiden Lane within an hour. The other one, Sylvester Coppins, had been armed with an axe. It wouldn’t do to allow himself to be seen skulking around, but fortunately there was a three- foot-wide space between Wingate’s shop and the next structure, a house, which was sufficient to hide him within its depth. Very few structures fit up exactly alongside one another on these streets, and Matthew wondered if the Masker hid from public view just in the same way, moving from concealment to concealment as he fled the murder scenes. It seemed to Matthew, though, that perhaps the constables had been instructed to walk more quickly on their rounds than usual, which meant either that Lillehorne wanted more of a display of protection for the citizens or that the constables themselves were in a hurry to keep moving. Nack’s drink of water before he downed his jolt told Matthew the man wished to stay more alert than was normal for a cowardly drunkard, even one armed with a pitchfork.
Matthew wished he at least had a lamp, but on this night he courted the dark. He might have done with a rapier or pistol, as well. Even a slingshot, for that matter. He was very aware of his lack of defenses, thus he took care to watch his back lest anything swoop on him out of the same space that gave shelter.
It was really madness to be out here, he’d thought more than once. A few citizens had gone past, several of them stumbling drunk, others striding with quick purpose to get indoors. He doubted that the bravery of the constables would last much after eleven, as the lantern candles melted down. It might be also that Reverend Wade didn’t come out tonight, for though he was a man of God he was fully cognizant of what the Devil could do.
Perhaps it was best to go home at ten-thirty, Matthew decided as his watch ticked in his pocket. Then a movement from the right caught his attention, his heart jumped, and he swiftly retreated to his hiding-place. Two gentlemen carrying lanterns and walking-sticks crossed his field of vision and continued at a brisk pace until they were beyond sight. New York was a nervous town, and Grigsby’s Earwig wasn’t even out yet. Matthew had spent some time at the Gallop after leaving John Five and had learned from the usuals there that Effrem Owles was indeed helping Grigsby with the printing tonight, a task that would likely continue into the early hours.
Time passed. Matthew thought it must nearly be ten-thirty. There’d been no movement on Maiden Lane since the two men had walked by. He crouched down to rest his legs and then stood up again a while later when his knees began to protest. By habit he looked left and right, then over his shoulder, but he kept his attention fixed on the door of the Wade house across the street and up two houses.
Eleven o’clock, he decided it must be. There wasn’t enough light here to see his watch. Just a little longer and he would call it quits.
Perhaps three minutes after he’d made that decision, he saw a candle pass by one of Reverend Wade’s front windows. He waited, now hoping that either the minister or his daughter was just moving around in the house and there would be no nocturnal journey.
But suddenly the door opened and the stiff-backed and somber figure in a black suit and black tricorn emerged from the house in the yellow circle of the punched-tin lantern he was carrying. William Wade closed the door behind him, came down the four front steps to the street, and walked past Matthew, heading east at a pace neither rapid nor what might be called languid, as Matthew pressed himself against the wig shop’s wall. Wade turned right onto Smith Street, and the pursuit had begun.
Matthew followed but gave the reverend plenty of room to get well ahead. They were alone on Smith Street as they passed, one before the other, the place where Deverick had been murdered. Matthew felt his spine crawl and imagined himself to be watched just as he watched Reverend Wade. He’d thought of taking a lantern from one of the cornerposts, but to remove town property was a crime that could result in the branding of the T on the right hand. Also he didn’t wish to show a light to his quarry. Night had never before seemed so dark, but for better or worse he was at its mercy.
He soon discovered that, murderous Masker or not, some of the town’s citizens refused to go home. Lively fiddle music came from the Cat’s Paw, just along Wall Street to the left. Across Wall Street and down near the wharfside slave market, a group of men stood outside the Cock’a’ Tail, their voices rising, tangling in argument or spirited discussion, and then fading away again. The place drew both rowdies and high-pockets, and more than one man had been killed down there in those spirited discussions over such mundanes as speculation on the prices of corn meal and whale oil.
Still Reverend Wade walked south along Smith Street and Matthew followed at a respectful distance. Several other men in groups of twos and threes passed, going in the opposite direction, but Wade kept his head lowered and his stride purposeful. Matthew as well looked into no one’s face, for anyway just about everyone he passed seemed if not drunk then at least tipsy. But no one looked into his face, either, and Matthew considered that though these nighttime ramblers played a fine game they were-as was he-gripped by fear of the unknown.
They passed the flickering lantern on the cornerpost of Sloat Lane, where Matthew had trailed Ausley to that nasty encounter on Monday night. It came to him that he was likely following the “mystery man” in black clothes and tricorn who’d paused to watch him on that occasion. Matthew wondered if the reverend had recognized him or had simply recognized some kind of danger brewing in that dark and burnt passageway. In any event, Wade’s destination that night had probably caused him to hold his tongue.
Reverend Wade turned right onto Princes Street, just past the gunsmith’s shop, and Matthew took the turn as well but at a cautious pace. They were walking west toward Broad Street and passed the Blind Eye, another infamous den of gambling that Matthew understood was one of Gardner Lillehorne’s favorite haunts. The place was
