Part 20 (1/2)

”Don't mind Gretl. She's been the housekeeper here for years and she thinks she runs the place. Well, perhaps she does. But the last time I looked, my name was still Deverick and this was my house, too, so no, you're not a problem.”

Matthew thought it was time he presented his questions to Robert, as he was beginning to fear the consequences if the widow Deverick returned and found him here without ”parmizzion.” He said, ”I won't take up too much more of your time. I know you have an unfortunate task this afternoon and a lot weighing on your mind, but I'd like to ask you to think about this: can you identify any connection whatsoever between Dr. G.o.dwin, your father, and Eben Ausley?”

”No,” Robert said almost at once. ”None.”

”Just consider it for a moment. Sometimes things aren't so obvious. For instance, did your father-and excuse me for being indelicate about this-like to go to the taverns himself and perhaps play the dice or cards?”

”Never.” Again, it was spoken quickly and with resolve.

”He didn't gamble?”

”My father despised gambling. He thought it was a sure route for fools to throw their money away.”

”All right.” That seemed to close that particular avenue of advancement, but Matthew had to wonder what the deceased would have said about his dice-throwing young lawyers. ”Do you know if your father ever visited Dr. G.o.dwin? Either professionally or socially?”

”Our physician for years has been Dr. Edmonds. Besides, my mother couldn't stand Dr. G.o.dwin.”

”Really? May I ask why?”

”Well, everyone knows,” Robert said.

”Everyone but me, then.” Matthew gave a patient smile.

”The ladies,” Robert said. ”You know. At Polly Blossom's.”

”I know there are prost.i.tutes at Polly Blossom's house, yes. Is there something else?”

Robert waved a hand at him, as if in irritation at Matthew's thick skull. ”My mother says everyone knows Dr. G.o.dwin is physician to the ladies. Was, I mean. She says she wouldn't let him put a finger on her.”

”Hm,” Matthew replied, more of a thoughtful response than a word. He hadn't known that Dr. G.o.dwin was physician-on-call to Polly Blossom's investments, but then again such an item would not necessarily have crossed his horizon as a topic of conversation. He marked the information, though, as something to pursue.

”If your next question is to be whether or not my father dallied at Polly Blossom's, I can tell you emphatically that he did not,” said Robert, a little haughtiness husking his voice. ”My father and mother-while not exactly the picture of pa.s.sion-were devoted to one another. I mean...no one has a perfect life, do they?”

”I'm sure no one does,” Matthew agreed, and he let that sit like a bone in a stewpot for a few seconds before he said, ”I a.s.sume, then, that you won't be taking over the business?”

Robert's eyes were unfocused again. He seemed to be staring past Matthew. ”A letter was sent to my brother Thomas in London yesterday morning. I expect he'll be here by October.”

”But who'll be in charge between now and then?”

”We have capable managers. My mother says. She says everything will be taken care of. The business will go on, I'll return to school in August, and Thomas will take over. But you know, I was being groomed for it. Supposedly. Groomed with my business education. But my father said...” Here Robert hesitated, a muscle clenching in his jaw. ”My father said...for all my education, something was left out of me. Isn't that humorous?” He smiled, but on that strained and bitter face it was more tragedy than comedy. ”With all the grades I've been getting, all that studying in a cubbyhole night after night to make him...make them both...proud...that he should say something was left out of me? Oh yes, he had proper words for me. When I dealt with the man who shortchanged our beef order, last month. I had not made him afraid enough, my father said. I had not plunged the dagger in and twisted it, to make that man fear the Deverick name. That's what it's about, you know: power and fear. We step on the heads of those below us, they step on the lower heads, and down and down until the snails are crushed in their sh.e.l.ls. That's what it will always be about.”

”Your father didn't think you were hard enough with a swindler? Is that it?”

”My father always said business is war. A businessman should be a warrior, he said, and if someone dares to challenge you then...destruction has to be the only response.” Robert blinked heavily. ”I suppose school can't put that into a person's soul, if it's not there. All the grades in the world...all the honors...nothing can put that there, if you're not born with it.”

”You're describing a man who must have made a lot of enemies over the course of his career.”

”He had them. But mostly they were compet.i.tors in London. As I've told you before, here he had no compet.i.tors.” There came the noise of horse hooves on the street. Matthew saw through the front window a black carriage pulling up to the curb. ”My mother's returned,” Robert said, listlessly.

With almost frightening speed the gruesome Gretl was out the front door and striding toward Mrs. Deverick's carriage to, Matthew presumed, fry his bacon. Matthew considered his options. He could either try to get out like a scalded dog or face the situation like a gentleman. In another moment, however, the scalded-dog option was out the window because just as Matthew had risen to his feet and was walking out of the parlor, Mrs. Deverick entered the vestibule with Joplin Pollard following behind and Gretl in the rear almost s...o...b..ring with evil antic.i.p.ation of a fiery scene.

”I tolt him!” Gretl was hissing, even though there were no esses to be hissed. ”Thet rud boy!”

”And here he stands,” Pollard said, with a dry smile that did not involve the eyes. ”h.e.l.lo, Mr. Corbett. Just leaving, I presume?”

”Just leaving, Mr. Pollard.”

But before Matthew could get out the door there was a formidable presence in a black funeral gown and hat with a black-lace veil over the face that had to be pa.s.sed, and this was going to be no easy voyage. Mrs. Deverick set herself between him and the outside world, and one of her black-gloved hands rose up in front of his face with a lifted index finger that had the power, like the wand of a witch, to stop him in his tracks.

”One moment,” Esther Deverick said quietly, her voice as frosty as a January eve. ”What are you doing here, on our day of sorrow?”

Matthew dug deep but couldn't find anything to say. He saw Gretl grinning beyond Joplin Pollard.

”Mother?” Robert stepped forward. ”Mr. Corbett was kind enough to bring us the new broadsheet.” He lifted his right hand, and in it was the Earwig.

”I have one already.” Mrs. Deverick lifted her black-gloved left hand, and in it was the Earwig. ”Would someone care to tell me who this young man is?”

”Matthew Corbett is his name,” Pollard spoke up. ”A clerk for Magistrate Powers.”

”A clark!” Gretl nearly cackled.

”He's the young man featured in the article,” said Pollard. ”You said you wished to meet him, not an hour ago. Here he is, at your command.”

”Yes, isn't that so very convenient.” The woman lifted her veil. Her narrow dark brown eyes under thin-penciled brows and her white, high-cheekboned face made Matthew think of an insect, one of those preying things that ate their mates. Her hair, a fixed ma.s.s of elaborate curls, was so black it had to be either a wig or poured from a bottle of India ink. She was thin and small, actually, with a fas.h.i.+onably cinched waist for a woman her age, which Matthew guessed at between fifty and fifty-five, about three or four years her deceased husband's junior. It was as much the voluminous folds of the gown as her queenly bearing that made her seem to fill up the vestibule with no possible escape for Matthew until she deigned to free him. Which she did not. ”I asked you what business you have here. Close that door, Mr. Pollard.”

Thunk, it went.

”Speak,” said Mrs. Deverick.

Matthew had to first clear his throat. He was painfully aware of all the eyes watching him. ”Pardon my intrusion, madam. I...well, I was going to say I was pa.s.sing by, but that would be an untruth. I came here for the purpose of interviewing your son concerning Mr. Deverick's murder.”

”Now is probably not the time, Corbett,” Pollard cautioned.

”Did I require you to intercede for me, sir?” The narrow dark eyes flicked at Pollard like a whipstrike and then returned to Matthew. ”On whose authority do you conduct this so-called interview? The printmaster? The high constable? Talk, if you have a tongue!”

Matthew felt a bit weak-kneed under this barrage, but he steeled himself and said, ”My own authority, madam. I want to know who killed Dr. G.o.dwin, your husband, and Eben Ausley, and I intend to pursue the matter to the best of my ability.”

”I forgot to tell you,” Pollard offered, ”that Mr. Corbett has the unfortunate reputation of being what might be called in impolite circles a 'sammy rooster.' His crowing and bl.u.s.ter seem to exceed his good taste.”

”I consider myself a competent judge of taste, good or bad,” came the rather stinging reply. ”Mr. Corbett, how is it that you think yourself suited to pursue this subject when the town has a high constable employed to do so? Isn't that a presumption on your part?”

”I imagine it is. I'm presuming from prior experience and observation that Mr. Lillehorne couldn't pursue his path from his bed to his bedpan.”

Pollard rolled his eyes, but the lady of the house showed no response.

”I think there was a common bond among the three victims,” Matthew went on, before he lost his momentum. ”I think the Masker is not an errant lunatic, but a cunning and very sane killer-if one may call murder an act of sanity-determined to make some kind of statement. If I can deduce that statement, I believe I can unmask the Masker, as it were. Others may yet die before that happens, I don't know. I a.s.sume the Clear Streets Decree is going through?”