back, which caused them all to lurch as one and almost go down again. “Two weeks out of Portsmouth, and she knocks Reverend Patrickson right o’r the side! That’s when all our troubles started up, that’s when we hit the leviathan and all Hell broke loose!”
Beryl was standing up, though with the splayed-leg grace of a gin-house dolly.
“That piece a’ meat stuck there at the bow, and them sea lawyers swimmin’ round and round day and night!” The captain’s voice was harsh and strangled and altogether deranged. “You know you done it! You know you put the wrath of God on us!”
“I know,” said Beryl, her own voice hoarse but remarkably calm, “I only dropped the soap.”
“Only dropped the soap, she says!” the captain shouted to the onlookers. “Only dropped the soap!” Then he seemed to go completely paddy-whacky, as he tore loose from those arms restraining him and began to spin in a circle and remove his clothes as he whirled. He had his shirt and shoes thrown off and his breeches down around his ankles and was hopping along the pier clad only in stockings and tattoos when several of the townsmen seized him for the sake of propriety and someone tried to wrap a horse blanket around him. This was a failed objective, as the captain broke free, kicked off his impediments to nudity, and began to run along the dock in the direction of Hanover Square yelling “Only dropped the soap! Only dropped the soap!” with eight or ten men and three dogs chasing him down.
“That’s all I did, Grandda,” said Beryl, as she leaned heavily against Grigsby. She sounded listless and near fainting. “I promise…that’s all.”
“We’ll get you home,” Grigsby promised, his face flushed. “Get some food in you, and let you rest. Dear Christ, I thought I’d never lay eyes on you again! Matthew, would you be a friend and carry her bags to the house?”
“I will.” He picked them up off the planks and found them so heavy he doubted Hudson Greathouse could have shouldered such a load, but he was determined to manage it. Grigsby began guiding his granddaughter off the dock and Matthew followed until he noted Andrew Kippering standing amid the remaining knot of people watching this sorry spectacle. Kippering squinted in the sun. He looked as if he’d just awakened from a long sleep in his wrinkled clothes.
“Marmaduke!” Matthew called. “I’ll be along in a few minutes!” Grigsby waved and went on with Beryl nearly dragging at his side, and then Matthew approached the whore-mongering lawyer.
“This is a fine commotion, isn’t it?” Kippering asked, his eyes bleary from perhaps the depths of a drunken stupor. Matthew guessed the man had neither combed his hair, taken a bath, nor shaved since Thursday night. “Can’t a fellow get any sleep on a Sunday afternoon?”
“I have a favor to ask.” Matthew set down the bags, reached into his coat, and brought out the letter. “Would you give this to Mr. Pollard?”
Kippering made no move to accept it. “What is it?”
“It’s for Mr. Pollard to give to Mrs. Deverick. Would you please make sure that he gets it? Today, if you happen to see him.”
“I doubt I will. Haven’t seen him since Friday afternoon. He’s off on an errand for another client.”
“Well then, would you keep it for him? And make sure he gets it first thing in the morning?”
Kippering scratched his head and yawned. He watched the harbor crew at work taking mildewed boxes and crates off the Sarah Embry. “I’m not working today and I want no responsibilities. Get it to Pollard yourself.”
Matthew lost his temper like the flash of a powder cartridge. It perhaps had been building since Mrs. Deverick had so rudely spurned the letter, treating him like a mongrel in need of a lesson in manners, and now he struck out at this insufferable man partly because he had not stood his ground with the woman and partly because he envied Kippering’s status as a lawyer, yet Kippering was seemingly intent on throwing away a career that once had been Matthew’s most cherished ambition. “Oh, excuse me. I thought you were just as much Mrs. Deverick’s lawyer as is Mr. Pollard.” Matthew felt his mouth curve into a sarcastic smile. “But I’m sure you’d rather spend your otherwise productive time with a bottle of rum and…” He caught hold of the name supplied to him by the widow Sherwyn. “Grace Hester.”
Kippering stared fixedly at the ship being unloaded. More people were still coming off the Embry, whether passengers or crewmen of this broken vessel it was hard to say, for they all were equally reeling as they stepped upon dear solidity.
Suddenly Kippering’s eyes turned upon Matthew and something had crept into them that had not been present a few seconds before. Matthew couldn’t say exactly what it was, but their icy blue now had centers of cold fire.
“How do you know that name?” Kippering asked, and though he meant it to sound like a relaxed, easy question-a passing inquiry between two gentlemen on a Sunday afternoon-there was just the quietest note of tension in the voice.
Matthew had the sensation of watching Greathouse approach him with the rapier, ready to carve him into small pieces if he didn’t quickly learn how to defend himself. He realized Kippering had just pushed forth a pawn, and now Matthew must reply, for this game had taken a turn he didn’t understand yet had to play out. “Grace Hester,” he repeated slowly, searching Kippering’s eyes for a further reaction. To the lawyer’s credit, there was none. Matthew decided to offer a pawn of his own, and if it was a mistake he would soon know. Assuming that the dark-haired young prostitute who’d been hanging off Kippering might be the belle in question, Matthew said, “She was with you at the Thorn Bush.”
“Was she?” Kippering now wore a lopsided and completely false smile.
“I think you’d better go back to Madam Blossom’s and finish your bottle,” Matthew said. He decided to follow Greathouse’s advice and attack, if just with a sharp little dagger. “I’m sure Miss Hester would appreciate the company.”
Matthew had had enough of this gent. It was a sin for him to have risen through education and hard work to the position of attorney and then do his best to throw away all his sense and sensibilities. Trying to kill himself, the widow Sherwyn had said. Matthew leaned down to pick up the two canvas bags and felt Kippering’s arm go across his shoulders and lock with a strength no sot should possess. Before Matthew could brace his legs, Kippering was pulling him along the pier into the shadows thrown by merchant masts and looming hulls, the Mighty Walls of Empire.
After they’d gone a distance from the onlookers, Kippering released his shoulders but kept a hand clenched to Matthew’s left arm. The lawyer’s head leaned forward, his eyes keen and face as composed as that in an oil- painting and equally daubed with tones of somber blues and grays. “Corbett,” he said, in a voice meant to travel only to Matthew’s ear and no further. “I don’t fully understand you or what you’re about. I’m trying, but you’re a difficult nut. Now tell me this, and I ask you to be as truthful to me as you would be to your magistrate: what is it you know about Grace Hester?”
Matthew was at a loss. At the risk of being cracked, he decided to stall. “You’re not my magistrate.”
“No, I’m not. But I want to be your friend. I fear you’re making that a little difficult right now.”
The pressure on Matthew’s arm had become a bit more intense, as if in emphasis of that last statement. Matthew saw people standing about twenty yards away, beyond the edge of the ships’ shadows. Kippering wasn’t going to become too violent, but what the hell was this all about? “I’d appreciate not being mauled or threatened today, sir,” Matthew said calmly. And then he added, “What I know about Grace Hester doesn’t merit a shout for a constable, does it?”
Instantly Kippering’s grip relaxed. The man stepped away from Matthew a few paces, giving them both room to breathe. Then Kippering suddenly turned upon Matthew again, his mouth partway open and a glint of realization in his eyes. “John Five found out, didn’t he? And that’s what your so-called meeting was about that night?”
Matthew shrugged. He felt as if he were balancing on a razor.
“Don’t try to be evasive,” came the stern reply. “Has he told Constance?”
Here was a question he thought he should answer as honestly as possible. “No.”
“So what is it you two are after? Money? If you’re thinking of picking the reverend’s pockets, I can tell you they’re very shallow. I thought that damned one-eared blacksmith was so much in love with her.”
“He is. Money is not the issue.”
“What, then?” Kippering advanced on him once more, but Matthew did not retreat. “Who else knows? And how did John find out?”
Matthew held out a hand, palm thrust outward, to stop the man’s approach. Kippering obeyed. This certainly
