Part 6 (1/2)

Matthew watched while Lillehorne bent over the body, taking care not to get his boots in the blood. Lillehorne waved away the flies with his bell-hand. It would just be a few seconds before...and yes, there it was.

Matthew saw the high constable's head give a slight jerk, as if he'd been struck by a fist somewhere in the area of the upper chest.

He knew, as Matthew clearly did, that the Masker had claimed a second kill.

Seven.

Tuesday night became Wednesday morning. Thirteen steps down, Matthew stood in the grim domain of Ashton McCaggers.

The cold room, reached by a door behind the City Hall's central staircase, was lined with gray stone and had a floor of hard-packed brown clay. Originally an area to store foodstuffs in case of emergency, the chamber was deemed by McCaggers cool enough, even in the heat of midsummer, to delay the deterioration of a human body. However, no reckoning had yet been taken of how long a corpse might lie here on the wooden slab of a table before it broke down into the primordial ooze.

The table itself, at the center of the twenty-two-foot-wide chamber, had been prepared to host the body of Pennford Deverick by being covered with a sheet of burlap and then a layer of crushed chestnut hulls and flax and millet seeds so as to soak up the fluids. Matthew and the others commanded to be present by Gardner Lillehorne-including Effrem and Benjamin Owles, a still-woozy Phillip Covey, Felix Sudbury, and the onerous first-constable-on-the-scene Dippen Nack-had stood under a wrought-iron chandelier that held eight candles and watched as the corpse had slid down a metal chute from a square opening at the rear of the building. Then McCaggers' slave, the formidable bald-headed and silent man known only as Zed, had come down the thirteen stone steps after his task of wheeling the body-cart along Smith Street and had proceeded to lift the dead man onto another wheeled table. After this, Zed then prepared the examination table, pushed the body over, and lifted Deverick-still fully clothed so that the master of investigation might see the corpse as it was discovered-onto the bed of hulls and seeds. Zed worked diligently and without even glancing at his audience. His physical strength was awesome and his silence absolute, for he had no tongue.

To say the least, it was disturbing to all to see Pennford Deverick in such condition. His body was stiffening, and beneath the yellow candlelight he looked to be no longer truly human but rather a wax effigy whose facial features had melted and been re-formed with a mallet.

”I'm going to heave again, Matthew,” Covey croaked. ”I swear I am.”

”No, you're not.” Matthew caught his arm. ”Just look at the floor.”

There was nothing wrong with Zed's ears, but he paid the visitors no heed. All his attention was directed to the dead. He went about lighting four candles with tin reflectors behind them, and these he placed on the table one on either side of the corpse and one above the head and below the feet. He next opened the lid of a barrel, scooped two buckets into it, and placed the buckets-full of ordinary water, Matthew saw-on top of the wheeled table. A third bucket, empty, was placed along with them. From a cupboard he brought several pieces of folded white linen and placed these also beside the three buckets.

Next, he brought an artist's easel from its place in a corner and set this up alongside the corpse, as well as a pad of white doc.u.ment sheets and a clay jar that held black and red wax crayons. After this was done, he seemed to go to sleep standing up, his thick arms at his sides and his eyes half-closed. Under the candlelight, the strange upraised tribal scars that covered his face were deep purple against the ebony flesh, and somewhere in those markings were the stylized Z, E, and D shapes for which McCaggers had named him.

The death-jurists didn't have much longer to wait. Lillehorne came down the stairs, followed by a pale young man of medium height, whose light brown hair was receding from a high forehead and who wore an unremarkable suit of nearly the same hue. McCaggers, who was only three years Matthew's senior, carried a brown leather case with tortoise-sh.e.l.l clasps. He wore spectacles, had deep-set dark eyes, and was in need of a shave. As he descended the stairs he was the picture of cool and poised professionalism, but Matthew knew-as they all knew-what would happen when he reached the floor.

”He's a mess,” Lillehorne said, referring to the corpse and not to McCaggers, though he well could be. ”The blade almost took his head off.”

McCaggers didn't reply, but as he came off the bottom step and his eyes found the body the sweat beads leaped from the pores of his face and in a matter of seconds he was as wet as if he'd been dowsed. His entire form had begun to s.h.i.+ver and quake, and when he put his toolcase up onto the table beside the buckets he had so much trouble with the clasps that Zed quickly and with practised grace opened it for him.

From the leather case gleamed and glinted calipers, forceps, little saws, knives of various shapes and sizes, tweezers, probes, and things that resembled many-p.r.o.nged forks. The first item McCaggers chose, with a trembling hand, was a silver bottle. He uncapped it, drank down a good chug, and waved it under his nose.

He gave a quick glance at the corpse and then away. ”We are absolutely certain the deceased”-his frail voice cracked on that word, which he repeated-”deceased individual is Mr. Pennford Deverick? Does anyone wish to verify?”

”I'll verify,” said the high constable.

”Witnesses?” asked McCaggers.

”I'll verify,” Matthew said.

”Then...I p.r.o.nounce Mr. Deverick dead.” He cleared his throat. ”Dead. Verify?”

”Yes, I verify,” said Lillehorne.

”Witnesses?”

”Dead as a fish in a frypan,” said Felix Sudbury. ”But listen, shouldn't we wait for his wife and boy? I mean...before anything else is done?”

”A messenger's been sent,” Lillehorne said. ”In any case, I wouldn't want Mrs. Deverick to see him as he is, would you?”

”She may wish to see him.”

”Robert can make that decision, after he”-Lillehorne was momentarily interrupted by the noise of McCaggers vomiting into the empty bucket, but then he forged ahead-”views the body.”

”I'm feelin' awful faint,” Covey said, his knees starting to sag.

”Just hold up.” Matthew was still supporting him. He watched as Zed dipped one of the linen cloths into a water bucket and moistened his master's pallid, agonized face. McCaggers took another snort and sniff of his stimulant.

It was the town's fortune-for good or otherwise-to have a man who was so skilled in anatomy, art, and memory as Ashton McCaggers, for it was said McCaggers could speak to you on Monday and on Sat.u.r.day recite to you the exact time of day you'd spoken and virtually every line of your speech. He had been a promising art student, that much was clear, as well as a promising medical student-up until the moment of dealing with anything having to do with blood or dead flesh, and then he was a carriage wreck.

Still, his skills outweighed his deficiencies in the position the town had given him, and though he was no physician-and never would be, until blood became rum and flesh cinnamon cake-he would do his best, no matter how many buckets he filled.

This, Matthew thought, looked like a four-bucket job.

Zed was staring solemnly at his master, waiting for a signal. McCaggers nodded, and Zed went to work cleaning the clotted blood away from the dead man's face with another cloth dipped into the second water bucket. Matthew saw the point of the bucket trio now: one for the water to clean the body, one for water to revive McCaggers, and one for...the other.

”We are all in accord, then, as to the cause of death?” McCaggers asked Lillehorne, the sweat bright on his face once again.

”A blade to the throat. Say you?” The high constable regarded his jurists.

”Blade to the th'oat,” croaked Dippen Nack, and the others gave either a nod or a vocal agreement.

”Duly noted,” McCaggers said. He watched the cloth Zed used becoming dark with gore, and then he gave a lurch and turned once more to the bucket of other.

”This one picked Mr. Deverick's pockets, sir!” Nack put his billyclub up against Matthew's chin. ”Caught him redhanded with the booty!”

”I told you, Reverend Wade gave this to me to hold. He and Dr. Vanderbrocken were examining the body.”

”Therefore, what became of the good reverend and doctor?” Lillehorne lifted his thin black eyebrows. ”Did anyone else see them?” he asked the group.

”I saw someone,” Sudbury offered. ”Two men, over the body.”

”The reverend and the doctor?”

”I couldn't really tell who they were. Then of a sudden, with all that crowd around, I didn't see them anymore.”

”Corbett?” Lillehorne peered into Matthew's eyes. ”Why did they not stay on the scene? Don't you think it odd that both of those ill.u.s.trious men should...shall we say...slip away into the crowd as they've supposedly done?”

”You'll have to ask them. Perhaps they had somewhere else to go.”

”Somewhere more important than where Pennford Deverick lay dead on the ground? I should like to hear that story.” Lillehorne took the wallet and gold watch from Matthew's hand.

”May I point out that this wasn't a robbery?” Matthew asked.

”You may point out that it might have been an interrupted robbery, yes. Covey!”

Phillip Covey almost shot out of his shoes. ”Yes sir?”