Matthew Corbett 03 - Mister Slaughter

did look as if she might turn and run.

'Don't go,' Matthew said. 'Just listen.'

So close to running so close

'Mrs. Lovejoy may be in some trouble.' Matthew kept his voice low, but he was also very aware of their surroundings, that no one-especially the mistress of Paradise or her Noggin-would come along the path unheard.

Opal regarded him as he had regarded the rattlesnake beneath his tricorn. 'Who are you?'

'I'm going to ask the questions. Has there been a male visitor here lately for Mrs. Lovejoy? Say in the past five days?'

'A visitor? Who?'

'Listen to me, Opal. In the past five days. Has a man come to visit her? A big man, with broad shoulders.' Only true when he swelled himself up, Matthew thought. 'Reddish-blond hair, parted down the middle. Going gray on the sides. He would have a bandage probably on the left side of his head, just above the ear. Very pale blue eyes. Like ice. Have you seen anyone like that?'

'Here?' she asked.

'Yes, here. Please, Opal, it's important.'

'Why is it important?'

Oh Christ! he thought.

'If this is about Kitt, I don't know anything,' Opal said.

'Kitt? Who's Kitt?' Matthew felt as if he were back in the night wilderness and unable to see his hand in front of his face.

'I don't know anything.'

'All right, then.' Matthew held out a hand to steady her, even though she was more than ten feet away. 'Tell me about Noggin. He lives somewhere else?' When she nodded, he asked, 'Where?'

She shook her head.

He tried for a flintlock shot in the dark, thinking that there might possibly be some connection between the fact that Slaughter's safebox-bought by Mrs. Lovejoy-had been wrapped up in a Mrs. Sutch sausage bag, and now a Mrs. Sutch sausage bag appears in the back of her handyman's wagon. 'Do you know the name Sutch?'

'Who?'

The sausages were likely too expensive for her purse, he thought. And too expensive for Noggin's, as well? 'Back to Noggin. And use yours, please.' He waved away whatever she was going to say before she could open her mouth. 'Has Noggin brought a man here to see Mrs. Lovejoy? In the past five days? Or after dark?' But how would she know? he wondered. Where the girls lived was a good distance away from Mrs. Lovejoy's house.

Opal just stared at him, her eyes wide. Matthew thought she was trying to make a decision. Whatever it was, it wasn't easy.

'I am investigating Mrs. Lovejoy,' Matthew said. 'It's better that you don't know my name. But I believe that a man I'm looking for may have-'

'Kitt found out Noggin didn't bury Mr. White,' she blurted out. 'She told me. Everythin' she saw that night.'

Matthew had stopped speaking at this bizarre assertion; he had no idea what she was talking about, but it seemed very important-urgent-to her. He said, 'Go on.'

'Mr. White was laid out in his coffin, in the church,' Opal said. 'For the service. Kitt said for me to look, that Ginger had dressed him up in that fine lace cravat he always wore, and it was a shame such a nice piece of lace was gonna get buried. She had a mind to come back before Noggin put him under and get it, but I said if Mizz Lovejoy caught her she was out on her ear.' She paused, making sure Matthew was following.

'Ginger being another servant?' Matthew asked.

'Yeah, she's gone now. But Kitt said she wanted that lace, and she wanted me to go get it with her after we'd fed 'em their suppers. I wasn't havin' no part of it. So Kitt said she was gonna hurry to the church, sneak in and get the lace before Noggin wheeled the coffin out.'

'Wheeled it out?'

'He's got a cart with wheels on it, that's how he moves the coffin about. See, he makes the coffins, too. So Kitt went back just as dark was fallin', but she told me she was too late because she saw Noggin's lanterns burnin'. And the thing is the thing is she saw Noggin right there pushin' the coffin into the back of the wagon, and she didn't know what to make of this so she slipped into the woods to watch.'

'He'd already dug the grave?'

'That's not what I'm gettin' at,' Opal said. 'Kitt told me she saw him open the coffin and look in it for a time. Then he reached in, lifted up Mr. White's head-she said she could see his hair in the lamplight-and all of a sudden, whisk! He pulled that lace cravat off Mr. White and wrapped it around his own neck. Then he closed the lid, and he walked back to the graveyard as nervy as you please.'

'Then he hadn't yet dug the grave?'

'No, just listen!' She came closer, until she was right in front of him a hand's reach away. 'Kitt couldn't make tits nor teeth out of this, so she followed him. And there was Noggin in the graveyard, tampin' the last of the dirt down on Mr. White's pile. He'd finished it. But Mr. White was still in his coffin, sittin' in the wagon!'

'Noggin didn't bury him,' Matthew said.

'That's right! He didn't bury him! But he'd made it look so! Well, Kitt figures she ought not to be where she is, and she starts off along the path away from there. Then all of a sudden somebody comes out of the woods right in front of her, right smack dab, a lantern's pushed in her face, and she said she hollered so loud she was surprised I didn't hear it way down where I was. She said she just turned tail and ran. And she said, 'Opal, don't you breathe a word of this, and I'm forgettin' I saw anything either.' And I said, 'Well, what is it you saw?' And she said, 'I don't know what I saw, but I didn't see it.''

'Saving money on their coffins, I suppose,' Matthew ventured. 'Using the same one over and over in the funeral service.'

'Yeah, I thought that.' She leaned in to him, her eyes wide again. 'But what became of Mr. White?'

Her question begged another. Matthew wondered if any of those forty-nine graves were really occupied. Were the bodies actually buried somewhere else? Or just dumped into the woods beyond Paradise? If so, what the hell was this about?

'The next day,' Opal said, 'I went and looked for myself. Sure enough, the grave was dug and filled and there was a new marker planted. And I started wonderin' right then is anybody to home in there?'

'Interesting,' Matthew agreed, but this was totally off the subject of Tyranthus Slaughter. Except for the fact that if Mrs. Lovejoy knew about this fraud, it indicated a larcenous frame of mind. Still, what did she stand to gain from something like that? A few shillings saved on the wood for a coffin? 'Have you or Kitt told anyone else?'

'Not me, for sure. I can't say for Kitt. 'Specially since she up and ran away about three days after it happened. So says Mizz Lovejoy to the staff. Says Kitt must've gotten sick of the work and bolted in the middle of the night. She wouldn't have been the first, just took out for the road. Well, I looked and all her clothes were gone out of her room, and her travelin' bag gone too.' Opal held up a finger. 'But,' she said, 'Kitt never would've left without sayin' good-bye to me. Never. I just know it in my bones. So right after that Mizz Lovejoy says she wants to see the staff one-by-one, to find out what might have made Kitt bolt like she did, without even drawin' her week's coin. Find out what might have been so heavy a weight on Kitt, she says. Me, I sat in there across from Mizz Lovejoy and all I thought about was who it might have been come up on Kitt and shone a lamp in her face. And I kept my mouth sealed tight. There you have it.' Opal looked in all directions to make sure no one had crept close enough to overhear.