dirt, but the residences were inhabited by the town’s gilded families. And what residences they were! Two-storied with ornate constructions of red, white, or yellow brick, cream-colored stone and gray rock, with balconies, terraces, and cupolas and cut-glass windows that gazed in all directions upon harbor, townscape, and woodland as if marking what had passed and what was to pass in the history and future of New York. No doubt about it, these were the families who had created something of great value to this enterprise and were justly rewarded for their influence and financial bravery. All except Lillehorne, of course, who lived in the smallest house at the western end of the street and whose money came from his father-in-law, yet it was in the interest of those other stalwarts that a high constable be kept among the club if only as errand-boy.
Here the street was neatly raked and kept free of those irritating mounds of manure otherwise endured by the ordinary joseph and josephine. Huge shade trees invited lingering where no lingering was tolerated, and bursts of flowers in geometric gardens wafted into the warm air complex aromas that seemed perhaps a little too sophisticated for nostrils assailed by dockyard tar and fried sausages in the small chaos called life down below.
Matthew advanced eastward on the sidewalk, passing through pools of shade and again into bright sunlight. Everything seemed quieter up here, more restrained, tighter somehow. He could almost hear from marbled vestibules the thrum of pendulum clocks that were old before he was born, marking time for the servants as they moved from room to room. Even with his penchant for getting into places where he wasn’t welcomed, Matthew was a bit awed by these displays of wealth. He’d walked on Golden Hill Street many times, of course, but he’d never been on such a mission as this where he’d actually intended to go knocking at a door dismantled from a Scottish castle. Warehouse captain, sugar mill general, credit and loan earl, lumberyard duke, slave trade baron, real estate prince, and shipyard emperor all lived here where the grass was green and the gravel of the carriage driveways smooth and white as infants’ teeth.
He came along a five-foot-high wrought-iron fence topped with spear-tips and there was the simple iron nameplate Deverick. He faced a gate that challenged him from continuing up a fieldstone walkway to the front door yet it was unlocked and easily conquered. He noted how quiet were the hinges as they allowed him entry; he’d been almost expecting a scream of outrage. Then he went up the walkway and under the blue bloom of a canopy above the front steps. He climbed them, six in number, and as he reached for the polished brass door knocker he had a moment of self-doubt in that he was still, after all, a simple clerk. What business did he have bothering the Devericks when this ought to be the high constable’s task? It was up to Lillehorne to pursue the Masker, as part of his official duty.
True, all true. Yet Matthew knew from past observation how the high constable’s mind worked, in square circles and circular squares. If one waited on him to put paid to the Masker’s bill, even the outlandish idea of a daily Earwig couldn’t keep up with the murders. There was something to this link between the doctor, the broker, and the orphanage chief that Matthew thought only he might uncover, and now this new fact that nettled him like a mosquito in the mind: what had become of Ausley’s notebook?
He pulled his willpower back up to his ears again, took firm hold of the knocker, and let it be known Matthew Corbett had come to call.
Promptly the door was opened. An austere whipcord of a woman wearing a gray dress with lace around the throat peered out at him. She was about forty years of age, had a severe cap of ash-blond hair and deep-set hazel eyes that looked him up and down-lingering on the shirt stain-and shot out a negative opinion on seemingly everything from his forehead scar to the scuffs on his shoes. She didn’t speak.
“I’d like to see Mr. Deverick, please,” Matthew said.
“Mr. Davarick,” she replied with a heavy foreign accent that Matthew thought might be Austrian or Prussian but certainly from somewhere in old Europe, “iss decissed. He iss bean bearit thiss afternun at two o’cluck.”
“I’d like to see the younger Mr. Deverick,” Matthew corrected.
“Iss nut pozzible. Goot day.” She started to close the door on him, but he reached out and put his hand against it.
“May I ask why it’s not possible?”
“Mrs. Davarick iss oot. I am nut giffen parmizzion.”
“Gretl? Who is that?” came a voice from beyond the servant woman.
“It’s Matthew Corbett!” he took the opportunity to shout, a bit too loudly for this quiet neighborhood because Gretl looked as if she wished to kick him where it hurt with one of her polished square-toed black boots. “May I have a moment?”
“My mother’s not home,” Robert said, still standing out of sight.
“I haf tolt him ssso, sssir.” That one was almost a spit in Matthew’s face.
“It’s you I’d like to speak with,” Matthew persisted, braving the elements. “Concerning your father’s…” He had a choice of words here, and he chose “…murder.”
Gretl glared at him, waiting for Robert’s reaction. When young Deverick gave none, she said “Goot day” again and began to push the door shut with a strength that Matthew thought might break his elbow were he to try and resist.
“Let him in.” Robert now made an appearance, if only as a shadow in the cool dimness of the house.
“I am nut giffen par-”
“I’ll give you permission. Let him in.”
Gretl gave a little stiff-necked lowering of the head, though her eyes flashed with fire. She opened the door, Matthew walked past her almost expecting a boot up the arse, and Robert came forward on the dark parquet floor to meet him.
Matthew held his hand out and Robert shook it. “I regret bothering you today, as”-the door was rather roughly closed and Gretl glided past Matthew into a carpeted hallway-“obviously you have much on your mind,” Matthew continued, “but thank you for the time.”
“I can only give you a few minutes. My mother’s out.”
Matthew could only respond with a nod. Robert’s curly brown hair had been neatly brushed and he wore an immaculate black suit and waistcoat, cravat and crisp white shirt, yet at close range his face was chalky and his gray eyes dark-shadowed and unfocused. Matthew thought he looked years older than he’d appeared at the meeting on Tuesday. The shock of a brutal murder had sapped his youth, and from what Matthew had heard of this family, Robert’s eighteen-year-old spirit had long ago been damaged by his father’s heavy hand.
“The parlor,” Robert said. “This way.”
Matthew followed the younger man into a room with a high vaulted ceiling and a fireplace made of black marble with two Greek goddesses holding what appeared to be ancient wine amphoras. The rug on the floor was blood-red trimmed with gold circles, the walls made of varnished dark timbers. The furniture-writing desk, chairs, an octagonal table with clawed feet-were all fashioned of glossy black wood save for a red fabric sofa set in front of the hearth. The room was as deep as the house, for one diamond-paned glass window gave a view onto Golden Hill Street while a second window of the same design looked out upon a flowering garden decorated with white statues and a small pond. The wealth this single room represented was enough to almost steal Matthew’s breath away. He doubted if in his entire life he would ever hold enough money to even buy such a fireplace, which seemed large enough to burn tree trunks. But then again, he wondered why he would ever want to; it seemed to him that pineknots kept one just as warm, and everything beyond that was wasteful. Still, it was a magnificent chamber in a majestic house, and Robert must have seen this awestruck expression before because he said almost apologetically, “It’s just a room.” He motioned toward a chair. “Please sit down.”
Matthew sat carefully, as if the chair might bite him for being ill-born.
Robert also sat down, in the chair at the writing desk. He rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand, and Matthew thought he was trying to clear his mind before the conversation began.
Matthew was coming up with his first sentence when Robert said, his eyes still hazy, “You found my father.”
“No, not exactly. I mean to say, I was there, but actually-”
“Is that the new broadsheet?”
“Yes, it is. Would you care to see it?” Matthew got up and placed the Earwig on the desktop blotter, then returned to his seat.
Robert spent a moment reading the article concerning his father’s demise. His expression never changed; it remained almost blank, only faintly touched with sadness at the edges of the mouth. When he finished reading he
