“All right, then. Suppose you go to Philadelphia and see this Primm bastard. There’s no law that says he has to tell you who the woman is. I expect he’ll throw you out on your mental disorder. What will you do then? Eh?” When Matthew didn’t respond, Greathouse pressed onward. “Are you going to walk the streets collaring people? Asking if they know a little old white-haired lady who thinks she’s Queen Mary sitting in a loonhouse waiting for a message from King William? I can see the Quakers taking in a new boarder at their own asylum. And not to mention that Philadelphia is a larger town than New York. If you’re going to make appointments with all the people there, the next time I see you you’ll have a gray beard down to your shoes.”
“What? You won’t go to help me ask everyone in Philadelphia?”
“I’m serious! I said last night this is on your account. When Mrs. Herrald hears about this-about me letting you agree to this thing-I may wind up sharpening pencils with a dull knife for the next six months. So no, I will not go to Philadelphia on a fool’s errand.”
“It seems to me,” Matthew said, “that you took their money willingly enough.” He speared Greathouse with a chilly gaze. “And are you telling me, sir, that after all your blowhard speeches about being tough of body, mind, and spirit that you are weak in the face of a challenge?”
“A challenge is one thing. This is an impossible quest. And mind who you’re calling weak, boy, because I could knock you off that horse with my little finger.”
Before Matthew could think twice about it, he was wheeling Dante in front of Greathouse’s horse. Matthew’s cheeks had flamed red, his heart was pounding, and he had had enough of the dish Greathouse was so eager to spoon out. Greathouse’s mount snorted and backed up as Dante stood his ground. Matthew sat in the saddle seething with anger.
“What the hell’s wrong with you?” Greathouse shouted. “You might have caused my horse to-”
“You hold your tongue,” Matthew said.
“What?”
“I said, you hold your tongue.”
“Well, well.” Greathouse wore a tight grin. “The boy has finally cracked.”
“Not cracked. Just ready to tell you what I think of you.”
“Really? This should be entertaining. Shall I get off my horse and prepare to twist you around that tree over there?”
Matthew felt his nerve faltering. He had to go ahead and speak before his good sense forbade it. “You’re going to sit there and listen. If you want to try to twist me around a tree when I’m done, so be it. I have no doubt you could do that, or knock me off my horse with your little finger as you so eloquently spoke, but I’ll be damned if I’ll let you talk down to me anymore.”
Greathouse narrowed his eyes. “What’s gotten up your bum?”
“Mrs. Herrald has chosen me for a reason. A very good reason. I’m fairly intelligent and I have a history that intrigues her. No, more than fairly intelligent. I’m very smart, Mr. Greathouse. Probably smarter than you, and you know that. Now I can’t fight as well as you can, or use a rapier worth a damn, and I haven’t stopped any assassination attempts in the last few months, but I have saved a woman from being burned at the stake as a witch, and I have uncovered a murderer and a plot to destroy an entire town. I think that counts for something. Don’t you?”
“I suppose it-”
“I’m not finished,” Matthew plowed on, and Greathouse was silent. “I don’t have your experience or your physical strength-and maybe I never will-but I intend to get one thing from you that you seem unwilling to offer: your respect. Not because I turn into who you want me to be, but because of who I am. Now Mrs. Herrald seems to trust my judgment, so why shouldn’t you when I tell you I can find out who that woman in the hospital is. And not only that, but I think it’s vital to find out, because I believe she has some knowledge of Mr. Deverick’s death and perhaps even of the Masker.”
“That’s stretching things, don’t you think?”
“I won’t know until I explore it further.”
“Explore away, then!” Greathouse gave a sweep of his arm that Matthew thought would have knocked him to Sunday if it had hit him. “What the hell should I care if you go off on a goose-chase and squander Mrs. Herrald’s coin?”
“It’s not her coin,” Matthew reminded him. “The doctors are paying expenses.”
Greathouse squinted and looked toward the sun, perhaps to burn from his eyes the image of a fool. Then he focused his attention on Matthew again and he said gruffly, “All right, now it’s my turn to speak. Yes, Mrs. Herrald has confidence in you. More than I do, by the way, but that ought to be obvious. There’s more to this business than mind-work. I’ve known several very smart gents who walked into a blind alley believing there was an open door at the end of it, and now they lie in graves so only the worms appreciate the size of their brains. Experience counts for a lot of this, yes, but also something you haven’t got, which is instinct. I have an instinct you’re going to fail at finding out who this woman was-is-and you’ll cause more harm than good trying to do it. As far as respect, sir Corbett, you get that from me by one way and one way only: by earning it. So you might be riding a tall horse today, and feel all the flush for your height, but I can tell you that the earth is very hard and unforgiving when you take a fall.”
“I’ll have to fall to find out then, won’t I?”
“Yes, but at least fall doing something with a possibility of success.”
Matthew nodded. He refused to look away from Greathouse’s baleful stare. “I think we should agree to disagree, sir, because contrary to your opinion I have the instinct that the Queen has a connection to both Pennford Deverick and the Masker and I intend to find out what it is.”
“And I think her Highness is a lunatic whose family put her away to keep her from drooling on the breakfast bacon.”
“Something more than that, I believe,” said Matthew. “Much more. The maker’s marks being either rubbed or chiseled off the furniture tells me she was put there to be invisible. Actually, it sounds more to me that Mr. Primm’s client fears having the lady’s identity discovered. Why should that be?”
“I don’t know. You being the chief investigator on this, you enlighten me.”
“People who wish to draw a curtain over their activities usually have a secret to hide. I should like to find out what that secret is.”
“Now we’ve gone from finding out identities to finding out supposed secrets.”
“Well,” Matthew said, “call it an instinct.”
Greathouse snorted. “Boy, I’ll bet you could drive someone mad with that attitude of yours.”
“You have your blades,” Matthew answered, “and I have mine.”
“So you do.” Greathouse regarded Matthew with perhaps a hint of new appreciation, but if it had really been there it was gone in an instant. “You’ll notice that while we’ve been jawing, the road to New York has not gotten any shorter.”
They rode on, with Dante now taking the lead by a nose.
The clouds parted and drifted away like so much mist, the sun strengthened and thrust golden swords between the trees, the air shimmered with insects, and the birds sang their delight at life in the modern century. The only other disruption during the trip was the wait for about an hour for the ferry at Weehawken, as an oar had broken on a drifting treetrunk on the New York side, but then the trip was made and Matthew and Greathouse at last guided their horses off the flatboat onto Manhattan mud.
Greathouse said he would report back to Mrs. Herrald and also return to town within the next couple of days to get the list of the upper island residents Magistrate Powers was procuring for him, and then he wished Matthew well and bid him good day. At the stable Matthew relinquished Dante-a “very good horse I hope to use again,” he told Mr. Winekoop-and walked up the Broad Way hill for home in the deepening shadows of afternoon. He was used to long rides, for with Powers he’d made many trips to deliver legal documents or scribe cases being heard by the magistrate in smaller towns, but his ass was hurting. A three-day jaunt to Philadelphia was not something he wished to consider at this point in his discomfort.
He was mulling over the fact of the four masks on the wall of the Queen’s room-and wondering if his so- called instinct in asserting his determination to solve this problem in front of Greathouse wouldn’t result in that topple from a tall horse before all was said and done-when he heard a voice to his right call, “Matthew! Ho there, Matthew!”
