Part 6 (2/2)
”You say you were drunk and you almost tripped over the body, is that correct?”
”Yes sir. Correct, sir.”
”You were coming from which tavern?”
”The...uh...the...I'm sorry, sir, I'm a bit nerved about all this. I was coming from...the...uh...the Gold Compa.s.s, sir. No, wait...it was the Laughing Cat, sir. Yessir, the Laughing Cat.”
”The Laughing Cat is on Bridge Street. You live on Mill Street, don't you? How was it that you'd gone completely past Mill Street and were walking up Smith Street in the opposite direction of your house?”
”I don't know, sir. I suppose I was on my way to another tavern.”
”There are many taverns between Bridge Street and where you supposedly almost tripped over the body. Why did you not go into one of those?”
”I...I guess I was-”
”How did you find the body resting?” McCaggers suddenly asked.
”Resting, sir? Well...on its back, sir. I mean, his back. I nearly stepped on him.”
”And you got the blood on your hands how?”
”I tried to wake him up, sir.” What came out next was in frantic haste. ”I thought it was...you know...another drunk, lying there asleep. So I got down with him, trying to wake him up. Just for somebody to pal with, I guess. I took hold of his s.h.i.+rt...and then I saw what I'd gotten into.”
McCaggers paused to dip a hand into the water bucket and cool his forehead. ”Did you search this young man for a knife, Gardner?”
”I did. Nothing was found, but he could easily have tossed it.”
”Did you find anything else on him?”
”Some coins, that's all.” Lillehorne frowned. ”Should I have found anything else?”
McCaggers must have felt something rising, for he hurriedly leaned over the bucket. He made a retching noise, but it was clear he was coming to the end of the second tasting of his supper. ”Gloves to guide a slippery knife handle,” McCaggers said, when he could manage it. ”A blade-sheath. Anything of value belonging to the victim. A motive. The young man didn't kill Mr. Deverick. Nor did he kill Dr. G.o.dwin.”
”Dr. G.o.dwin? What are-”
”No need to play at denial. The same person who did this murdered Dr. G.o.dwin.”
There was a long silence during which Lillehorne watched Zed as the cleaning progressed, cloth to blood, to bucket, wrung out, back to blood once more. Now Deverick's face was almost scrubbed.
Lillehorne's voice was hollow when he finally spoke. ”Go home, all of you.”
Dippen Nack was first up the stairs, followed by Covey. As Matthew started to go up after Mr. Sudbury, Effrem, and Mr. Owles, Lillehorne said, ”All except you, clerk.”
Matthew stopped. He'd known he wasn't going to get out of here that easily.
”h.e.l.lo? h.e.l.lo? May I come down?”
The voice was unmistakable. Lillehorne winced. Marmaduke Grigsby appeared at the top of the stairs, his s.h.i.+rtsleeves rolled up to say he was ready for work.
”You're not needed here, Grigsby. Go home.”
”Pardon, sir, but there's a frightful rabble of people out front milling about. I did my best to escort Mrs. Deverick and Robert through the crowd. Shall I bring them down?”
”Just the boy. I mean...send him down, and keep Mrs. Deverick-”
”The high constable wishes to see your son first, if you please, madam,” they heard Grigsby say to the family beyond the door. Then young Robert-looking shocked and wan, his eyes puffed from sleep and his curly dark brown hair in disarray-came into view and slowly, dreadfully descended the stairs. Grigsby followed like a bulldog. ”Shut that door!” Lillehorne commanded. ”From the other side!”
”Oh yes sir, how disrespectful of me.” Grigsby closed the door with a solid thunk but he remained on the cold room side. He came down, his face resolute.
Matthew saw that now Zed was cleaning the throat wound. McCaggers, who was still beset by fits of trembling, had regained some composure and with a black crayon was drawing on a sheet of paper a precise outline of the body as it lay on the table.
Robert Deverick, wearing a dark blue cloak studded with gold b.u.t.tons over a blue-striped nights.h.i.+rt, stopped at the foot of the stairs. His eyes moved from Lillehorne to the table and back again, and his lips moved but made no sound.
”Your father was murdered on Smith Street,” Lillehorne said quietly but with force. ”It happened”-he opened the watch, having the same idea as Matthew-”between ten o'clock and ten-thirty, it appears. Can you tell me where he'd been tonight?”
”Father...” Robert's voice faltered. His eyes glittered, but if there were tears it was hard to tell. ”Father...who could've murdered my father?”
”Please. Where had he been?”
The young man continued to stare at the corpse, transfixed perhaps by the violence that had been inflicted upon human flesh. Matthew thought how much difference twelve hours could make; yesterday afternoon at the meeting Penn Deverick had been vibrant, boastful, and arrogant-his usual self, or so Matthew had heard-and now he was as cold and insensate as the clay underfoot. Matthew watched Robert trying to gain control of himself. Veins in the throat twitched, a muscle in the jaw jumped, the eyes narrowed and swam. Matthew understood that remaining in London were an elder brother and two sisters. Deverick had been a goods broker there, as well, and Robert's brother now ran that business.
”Taverns,” Robert managed at last. Grigsby slid past him, ignoring Lillehorne's look of absolute scorn, and sidled up next to the corpse. ”He went out. Before eight o'clock. To make the rounds of the taverns.”
”For what reason?”
”He was...infuriated...about Lord Cornbury's opinion...that the taverns should be closed early. He intended to fight the governor. With a pet.i.tion. Signed by all the tavern owners and...” Robert drifted off, for the deep and hideous wound that had been his father's throat was being fully revealed to the light. McCaggers, his face slick with sweat and his hands trembling, leaned over and measured the cut with his calipers. Matthew saw that in McCaggers' eyes was the mad gleam of a terror no one should have to endure, yet he carried on.
”Go on, please,” Lillehorne urged.
”Yes. I'm sorry...I'm...” Robert put his hand to his forehead to steady himself. He closed his eyes. ”The taverns,” he said. ”He wished to get support...to fight Lord Cornbury's edict, should it be made official. That's where he was tonight.”
”It would be beneficial,” Matthew offered before he thought better of it, ”to find out the last tavern he visited, what time, and who he might have-”
”Already in mind,” the high constable interrupted. ”Now Robert, let me ask you this: do you have an idea-any inkling-of who might have wished your father harm?”
Again with grim fascination the young man watched McCaggers at work. McCaggers was using a probe to examine the exposed tissues, after which he gagged and leaned over his bucket once more yet nothing came up. When McCaggers went back to his examination his face was as gray as a wh.o.r.e's sheet and his eyes behind the spectacles were two small black bits of coal.
”My father,” said Robert, ”used to have a credo. He said...business is war. And he fervently believed it. So...yes, he had enemies, I'm sure. But in London, not here.”
”And how can you be so sure?”
”Here he had no compet.i.tion.”
”But then, perhaps he did. Perhaps someone wanted him out of his position, so-”
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