overlook the first according to your motive and I will grant you a certain small amount of leeway on the second according to your curiosity. As to the third,” she said, “I will pay you ten shillings to discover the Masker’s identity before there’s another killing.”
“What?” Pollard sounded as if he’d been struck in the belly-pipes.
“Every night the decree continues, the Deverick family will lose money,” the woman continued, still solely addressing Matthew. “I agree that the high constable is beyond his depth in this situation. I would like to see him- and by extenuation his wife-skewered on the wit of a magistrate’s clerk. If you have wit enough, which will remain to be seen. Therefore I wish this problem to be solved before Lord Cornbury is given more reason to drag the decree out, court or no court. Ten shillings is my offer, and it is an offer of which I believe my husband-God rest him-would have approved.”
Pollard said, “Madam, may I give advice that you not-”
“The time for advice is over. It is time for action, and I believe this young man may save the day for us.” She turned her face toward Pollard. “My husband lies dead, sir. He will not rise like Lazarus. It is up to me now, to guide this endeavor until Thomas arrives.” She didn’t even pretend to acknowledge that Robert stood only a few feet away. Then, once more facing Matthew, “Ten shillings. Find this murderer before he strikes again. Yes or no?”
Ten shillings, Matthew thought. It was an outlandish amount. It was more money than he’d ever been paid in one sum in his life. He thought he must be dreaming, but of course he said, “Yes.”
“If there’s another killing, you get not a duit. If the high constable achieves the unlikely goal of solving this problem, you get not a duit. If the individual is uncovered by any other citizen, you-”
“Get not a duit,” Matthew said. “I understand.”
“Good. Then there’s one further thing. I wish to know first. Not for the sake of revenge or any un-Christian motive, but…if there is indeed any connection between the three, I wish to be notified before Mr. Grigsby can print it for the town to devour.”
“Forgive me,” Matthew said, “but that sounds as if you might…how shall I say this?…have some reason to be concerned.”
“My husband kept much to himself,” she replied. “It was his nature. Now please leave, as I must rest before the funeral.”
“May I return at a more convenient time and continue the interview? Both with yourself and your son?”
“You may write your questions down, give them to Mr. Pollard, and they will be contemplated.”
Contemplated did not necessarily mean answered, Matthew thought, but he was in no position to contradict. “Very well.”
“Good day, then. And I shall add good hunting.” With that curt dismissal, she moved past him with a stormy rustle of stiffened fabric and lace, motioning for Robert to accompany her.
On Matthew’s way out the door, which Gretl held wide for his exit, Pollard said, “Wait at the curb a moment and I’ll give you a lift. I’m heading back to the office.”
“No thank you,” Matthew decided. “I think better when I walk.” He went out and the door was shut at his back with a resounding finality. He didn’t care. He strode in the sunlight past the waiting carriage and driver along Golden Hill Street west toward the Broad Way.
It occurred to him that, Herrald Agency or not, he’d just been hired to solve his first problem as a private investigator.
Twenty
By ten o’clock on Saturday morning, Matthew reckoned that he had lunged forward and stabbed a bale of hay with his rapier about a hundred times. Now, approaching twelve, he was going through slow-motion fencing lessons with Hudson Greathouse in the carriage-house, as pigeons spectated from the rafters and the heat-sweat rolled down Matthew’s face and back under his sodden shirt.
Greathouse seemed above such concerns as sweltering heat and physical discomfort. While Matthew struggled to keep his breath and his balance, Greathouse breathed with ease and moved nimbly to demonstrate the half-pace, whole-pace, slope-pace, encroachment, and circular-pace, and when Matthew happened to relax his grip he found his sword flicked from his hand by a sudden powerful movement that left his fingers thrumming and his face screwed up with anger.
“How many times do I have to tell you to keep that thumb locked down? And getting mad won’t help you win a fight,” Greathouse said, pausing to mop his forehead with a cotton cloth. “Just the opposite. If you try to play chess in anger, what happens? You stop thinking and start reacting, and then you’re playing to your opponent’s pace. The key to this is keeping your mind calm, your rhythm intact, and your options open. If your opponent steals your rhythm, you are dead.” He pushed his sword down into the soft ground and rested his hand on the pommel. “Is any of this getting through?”
Matthew shrugged. His right arm and shoulder were just dull throbbing pieces of meat, but damned if he was going to do any complaining.
“If you want to say something,” Greathouse growled, “then say it.”
“All right.” Matthew pushed his sword down into the ground as well. He felt as if his face was twice its size and the color of a ripe tomato. “I don’t know why I’m having to do this. I’ll never become a swordsman. You can teach me all day and all year about these foot-movements and circulations and what-not, but I don’t see the reason.”
Greathouse nodded, his expression calm and impassive. “You don’t see the reason.” It was a statement, not a question.
“No sir.”
“Well then, I’ll try to explain this in a fashion you might understand. First of all, Mrs. Herrald requires this training. She has some strange notion that there may be danger in your prospective line of work, and she expects you to live beyond your initial encounter with a frog-bellied ruffian who wields his sword like a hayseed’s pitchfork. Secondly, I require this of you, both as an education in self-confidence and as a reawakening of the physical strength you have put to sleep amid your drowsy books. Thirdly…” Here he stopped, his brow knit. “You know,” he said after a few seconds’ pause, “you may be right, Matthew. All these time-honored and rational foundations of fencing technique may be just so much fundament to you. What care you for the thwart, or the imbrocatta, or the understanding of wards? After all, you are such a smart young man.” He pulled his rapier up from the ground and brushed dirt off the gleaming steel. “I imagine you can only learn and appreciate the use of a rapier the same way you learned to play chess, is that correct?”
“And what way would that be?” Matthew asked.
“Trial and error,” came the reply.
It was followed by a tongue of lightning that came at him so fast he barely had time to suck in a breath, much less jump back out of range. He realized in a split-second of decision that this time Greathouse’s rapier was not going to feint in and withdraw; the shimmering blade-tip was aimed straight for the middle button on his shirt and just that fast his aching shoulder drew his arm up and the two swords rang together. The hum of the blades vibrated up Matthew’s arm, down his spine, and through his ribs as the attacking rapier was turned aside. Then Greathouse was lunging forward again, crowding Matthew’s space, angling his body slightly so the blade was going to strike Matthew’s left hip. Matthew watched the sword coming in as if in slow-motion, his singular power of concentration taking hold to shut out everything in the world save the rapier intent on piercing his soul-cage. He stepped back, keeping his form for that was the most efficient use of speed, and struck aside the blow but almost too late, as the blade grazed his hip and snagged breeches-cloth in its passage.
“Damn it!” Matthew shouted, backing away toward the wall. “Are you mad?”
“I am!” Greathouse hollered in return. His eyes were wild and his lips tight. “Let’s see what you’ve got, Chess Boy!” With a look of determination that scared Matthew out of all sense of pain or fatigue, Greathouse pressed in to the attack.
The first move was a feint to his left side that Matthew misjudged and tried to parry. Greathouse’s blade came sweeping past Matthew’s shoulder in a forehand cut that made the air sizzle like a sausage on a hot pan. Matthew staggered back, almost falling over the haybale he’d so thoroughly killed earlier in the day. Greathouse drove in at him again, the rapier’s wicked point coming for his face, and it was all Matthew could do to knock the
