days there and three back-when he heard a crunch behind him.
It came to him that it was the noise of a boot on gravel or an oyster shell, and he was about to be-
At the same instant as the hair raised on the back of his neck and he started to twist around, an arm seized him by the throat, bodily lifted him off the ground, and pulled him hard against the rough brick wall of a shopfront to his left. He had dropped his bag, for he was fighting for voice and breath and could find neither. His legs kicked, his body thrashed to no avail, and then a voice muffled by a wrapping of cloth whispered, very close to his ear, “Be quiet and still. Just listen.”
Matthew was in no mood to listen. He was trying to get the wind back in his lungs to shout for help, but the arm around his throat tightened and he felt the blood pound at his temples. His vision swam.
“I have something for you,” said the voice. An object was pressed into Matthew’s right hand, which convulsively gripped and then opened again to let the thing fall. “I have marked a page. Pay heed to it.”
Matthew was near passing out. His head felt about to explode.
The muffled voice whispered, “Eben Ausley was-”
A moving lantern came around the corner of King Street, and suddenly the pressure of the arm was gone. As Matthew slumped to the ground, his eyes full of red sparks and blue pinwheels, he heard the noise of someone running south. Then the noise abruptly vanished and his thought through the mindfog was that whoever it was had slipped between buildings farther along the street.
The Masker’s trick, he realized.
He must have made a sound of some kind-possibly an animalish grunt or a ragged whistle as he drew air into his lungs-because suddenly the lamplight was directed down at him as he sat there stupidly blinking his eyes and rubbing his throat.
“Oh, looky here!” said the man behind the lantern. It was the nasty voice of a predatory little bully. “Who do we have but the clerk?”
A black billyclub came down and rested on Matthew’s left shoulder. Matthew made a gasping noise but still could not speak.
Dippen Nack leaned forward and sniffed the air. “Drunk, are you? And so near the clearin’ of streets, too. What am I to make o’ this?”
“Help me,” Matthew managed to say. His eyes had watered and he tried to get his legs under him but was having no success. “Help me up.”
“I’ll help you up, a’right. I’ll help you right to the gaol. I thought you were such an abider of the law, Corbett. What’s old Powers gonna say about this, eh?”
The billyclub rapped Matthew on the shoulder, which made him determined to get up the next time he tried. As he put his hand down to the ground for support he felt the object that had been forced upon him. He retrieved it and saw it was a small rectangular shape wrapped in brown paper. Sealed with plain white wax, he noted. He angled it toward Nack’s light and saw quilled on the paper in block letters his name: Corbett.
“Come on. Up. I’d say not only are you stinkin’ drunk, but you’ve violated Cornhole’s decree.” Again the billyclub struck Matthew’s shoulder, harder this time. A sting of pain coursed along Matthew’s arm. “Five seconds and I’m draggin’ you up by the hair.”
Matthew got up. The world spun around him a few revolutions, but he lowered his head and gulped in air and the dizziness passed. He held the brown-paper object in his right hand and dug for his watch with the left.
“I’m arrestin’ you, in case it’s so hard to figger out. Start walkin’,” Nack commanded.
Matthew opened the watch and offered it to the light. “It’s eight-twenty.”
“Well, maybe I can’t afford a fancy watch like that-and Lord only knows how you got it-but I don’t need one to know my duty. You’re drunk and it’s a good walk to the gaol. ’Bout a ten-or twelve-minute walk if I know my streets.”
“I’m not drunk. I was attacked.”
“Oh, were you, now? Who attacked you?” Nack gave a chortle. “The fuckin’ Masker?”
“Maybe it was him, I don’t know.”
Nack thrust the lantern into Matthew’s face. “So why aren’t you dead?”
Matthew couldn’t supply an answer.
“Let’s go,” said Nack, and pressed the billyclub’s tip up against Matthew’s throat.
Matthew stiffened his legs so he would not be moved. “I’m not going to the gaol,” he said. “I’m going home, because I’m not in violation of the decree.” Home being a windowless Dutch dairy or not, he planned on waking up in the morning a free man.
“You’re resistin’ arrest, is that it?”
“I’m telling you what I’m going to do and advising that you go about your business.”
“Is that so?”
“Let’s just forget this, shall we? And thank you for your help.”
Nack wore a crooked grin. “I think you need to be knocked down a peg.” He lifted the club and Matthew realized the man meant to brain him.
But if Nack thought that Matthew was drunk and incapable of defense, the brutish constable was presently and unpleasantly surprised, for Matthew shifted the paper-wrapped object to his left hand and used his right fist to protest violently against Nack’s mouth. The sound was like a fat codfish being smacked with an oar. Nack staggered, his eyes wide, and the billyclub cleaved empty air where Matthew had stepped aside.
Nack had perhaps three seconds of stunned immobility. Then the constable’s face took on the enraged snarl of an animal-a maddened muskrat, perhaps-and he came in again, once more lifting the club. Matthew stood firm. Something that Hudson Greathouse had said during their first fencing lesson came to him very clearly: you must take dominance of the action from your opponent. Matthew figured that applied to fist-fighting as well as rapiers. He took a step in to block the blow with his left forearm and let fly with his right fist into Nack’s nose. There was a wet-sounding pop. The constable fell back, almost skidding on his bootheels. He coughed and snorted and blood spurted from both nostrils, and then he cupped a hand over his wounded snout as the tears of pain flooded out of his eyes.
Matthew showed Nack his fist, cocked for another greeting. “Do you wish some more, sir?”
Nack just made a mewling noise. Matthew waited for another attack, which tonight would be the third he’d endured. Then Nack lowered his head, turned around, and walked swiftly back the way he’d come, taking the left onto King Street and carrying the lantern’s light with him.
Good riddance! Matthew almost shouted at the man’s back, but now with the light gone he didn’t feel so brave. Whether Nack would go running to find another constable, Matthew didn’t know nor did he particularly care. He picked up his bag, looked behind him to make sure no one was sweeping in on him again to lock an iron arm around his throat, and began walking at his own rapid pace toward Grigsby’s house.
Never had Matthew been so glad to see a light, even if it was just the punched-tin lantern sitting on the ground beside the outbuilding’s door. The cord with the key hung on the doorhandle, as promised. Matthew unlocked the door, went down three steps with the lantern, and found himself in a space about half that of the garret. The hard-packed dirt on the ground was the color of cinnamon. The walls were plastered and painted, suitably, a cream color. An uncomfortable-looking deerskin cot had been set up for him. Well, it was better than the dirt. Or was it? To the credit of Grigsby’s hospitality, though, Matthew saw that he’d been supplied a small round table on which sat a waterbowl, a few matches, and a tinderbox. On the floor next to the cot was a chamberpot. He would have to share the space with a stack of wooden boxes, some buckets, an assortment of press parts, a shovel, axe, and other implements and unknown items wrapped up with canvas. Because the floor was so low and there were air-vents in the bricks just below the roof, the place was comfortably cool. For one night, it would do. The only problem, he realized soon enough, was that there was no latch on this side of the door. It would stay closed, but of course would not be locked. He would have to figure out how to somehow secure it.
Matthew then turned his attention to the object that had been so roughly gifted to him. He opened the wax seal and the paper unfolded to reveal a small black notebook with gold leaf ornamentation on the cover. His heart gave a kick that Brutus might have envied. He’d never seen the gold leaf design up close before. It was a square of scrollwork, too elegant for its owner.
Eben Ausley’s missing notebook. Here in his hands. Given to him by whom?
The Masker?
Matthew sat down on the cot, pulled the table near, and put the lantern on top of it with the lid open to
