Part 24 (1/2)
”Come on. The letter. I'll go put it on Joplin's desk, if it's so important.”
For all his suspicions and anger toward Kippering, Matthew did feel the man could be trusted. ”My thanks,” he said, as he gave the letter over.
Kippering inspected the writing on the front of the envelope. ”Joplin told me you fancied yourself a...how shall I put this...?”
”A sammy rooster?” Matthew supplied.
”A smart young man who can put two and two together.” Kippering held the letter down at his side. ”Joplin says you probably wish to become high constable yourself, someday. Is that your ambition?”
”Hardly. I did wish to be a lawyer at one time. Now I...” He decided to forgo any mention of the agency. ”I have other plans.”
”So I take it from my impressions of you that some career involving justice is your ambition?”
”Yes.”
Kippering grunted. ”Well, being a lawyer is not all that and a pot of porridge. Many times I've had to stand and watch justice-call it fair play, in the world of business schemes and contracts-be subverted due to a lying tongue or a bag of dirty money. No matter how highly you begin, such things have a way of chewing your lofty ideals down to the size of rum bottles and any warm female body you can afford, so please don't begrudge my choice of exquisite brainwash.”
”I don't begrudge anything. I just think a professional man in your position should fly a straighter course.”
”Oh, I see.” A faint mocking smile moved across Kippering's face. ”The professional man should keep his hands clean, is that it? For the sake of honor? Nice sentiment, if you can live in the realm of dreams.” His smile went away. ”I can't.”
There seemed nothing more to say, for Kippering waved a hand at him as if to dismiss all of Matthew's precepts of gentlemanly and professional behavior. Matthew decided it was best to retreat before he made a verbal slip that would suggest he knew nothing of the mysterious Grace Hester but the name. As Matthew turned to walk along the dock and retrieve Beryl's bags, Kippering said in a hollow voice, ”I'm trusting you and John not to cause Reverend Wade any further distress or complications. Do I have your word?”
”You do,” Matthew replied without hesitation. ”And my word for John, as well. He wouldn't think of doing anything to cause Constance grief.” He had an instant of wis.h.i.+ng he'd used the more simple word worry here, but his streak of bluffing still held.
”The reverend will come out of this, sooner or later. You can mark that.”
”I will. Good day, sir.” Matthew walked away from Kippering toward the canvas bags still lying where he'd left them. He felt light-headed. Large drops of sweat were crawling like beetles from his armpits down his sides. When he dared to glance back at Kippering he couldn't tell the man from the shadows. Then he hefted the bags and, his mind about to burst with questions that could not yet be answered, he started off toward the printmaster's house.
Twenty-Four.
Magistrate powers had been a.s.signed by the chief prosecutor a portion of the cases involving decree-breakers, and Matthew was writing down the names in a ledger book when Hudson Greathouse entered the office just after eight o'clock on Monday morning.
Matthew wondered who could be more surprised at this appearance, he or the magistrate. ”Hudson!” Powers said as he laid aside his own quill and stood up. Obviously he hadn't been expecting the visitor. ”Good morning!”
”Morning to you, Nathaniel.” Greathouse came forward and as he shook Powers' hand he also clasped the magistrate's shoulder. He gave Matthew a quick nod but did not speak. Matthew thought he looked as if sleep had not been kind to him since their grave-digging excursion.
”Glad to see you as always,” Powers said. ”What may I do for you?”
”You can take a walk with me,” came the reply.
”Of course.” The magistrate had quickly guessed, as had Matthew, that whatever the occasion of this visit, the situation was serious. And also deserving of privacy. He went to the two pegs next to the door and shrugged into his gray-striped suit coat, then put on his dove's-gray tricorn. ”Excuse us, Matthew. I'll be back as soon as possible.”
”Yes sir.”
Powers and Greathouse left the office. Matthew wrote down another name and then paused to take stock of what the ”walk” might entail. Possibly Greathouse wanted to tell the magistrate about the body, and about his suspicions concerning Professor Fell. If this chairman of crime held a grudge against Powers, it was likely Greathouse was advising him that an even earlier retirement than the end of September might be judicious.
Matthew turned his chair around to gaze out the window. Enough rain had fallen before sunrise to wet the streets, but had stopped before Matthew had gone to get his laundry from the widow Sherwyn. Now the rain was holding off, though the sky was low and milky-white. He wished he hadn't told her about the dead man, but when she'd caught him full-bore with those piercing blue eyes, pressed her hand down upon his bundle of clean s.h.i.+rts and breeches, leaned toward him, and said, ”Well? What bit do you have for me? Hm?” he'd felt spun up by a whirlwind.
At first he'd attempted to play dumb. ”Madam, I'm sorry to say I don't have anything. I was very busy over the last two days and-”
”Bullc.o.c.ks and hogwash,” she snapped. ”You have something.” Unsmiling, she was more a fearsome ogress than a mischievous laundress. ”In fact,” she sniffed at the s.h.i.+rt he wore and instinctively he stepped back, ”you have been into something. What died?”
Matthew had washed this s.h.i.+rt in a soapbucket twice on Sat.u.r.day night and had detected no further odor of the grave. The woman possessed an educated nose, to say the least.
”Listen here,” she told him. ”I know just about everything that goes on in this town. Things that are easy to know, things that are hard to find out. I give you something, you give me something. That's my rule.” She tapped his chest. ”You might wish to know someone's secret some time, and who will you go to? Me. But if you don't want to have such an arrangement-and I don't offer it to everyone-you can walk right out of here and take your business to Jane Neville, for all I care.”
”Well...why do you offer this particular service to me?”
”Because,” she said slowly, as if enunciating for a simpleton, ”you obviously have a use for it. I saw that right off. You didn't ask about Andrew Kippering for the sake of idle gossip, did you? Well, some would of course, but you're not that type. Your questions have a purpose, am I not right?”
”You are.” There was no use trying to hide anything from this woman. She knew the secrets in every dirty collar.
”Have to do with your work, I suppose? At the magistrate's office?”
”My work, yes,” Matthew said.
”Then you understand how I could be of value to you. An ear to the ground, so to speak. And all I ask is some little bit of information in return.” She looked up toward the door, as she'd thought someone was coming in, but the shadow pa.s.sed. ”So. A bit for a bit. What do you have?”
Matthew did indeed realize the widow Sherwyn could be of value to him, if she could ferret out information useful to the Herrald Agency. But could she be trusted to be discreet? He said, ”You do realize that this information pa.s.sed between us must be...how shall I say...”
”Kept on the low,” she suggested.
”Exactly. For instance, I wouldn't want anyone to know I'd been asking questions.”
”Wouldn't want your water to be boiled,” she said.
”Right. Very uncomfortable to be sitting in boiling water. So I'd ask you to keep any inquiry I might offer here as the utmost secrecy.” It occurred to him that he might even pay her a few coins, if he was ever paid, but best not to mention that possibility yet.
”Absolute secrecy.” Her eyes were bright and s.h.i.+ning again. ”So what do you have?”
”Well...Mr. Grigsby's granddaughter Beryl arrived yesterday. It seems that two weeks out of port, the women were-”
”Was.h.i.+ng their hair on deck while the Reverend Patrickson stood up on a stool giving a sermon. The girl dropped the soap, another woman stepped on it, slip-slid into Captain Billops and then he fell right into the preacher and knocked the man over the side. Either the preacher busted his head on the railing or he filled up with water pretty quick, because he went right down. Then they hit the whale.”
Matthew nodded. He'd heard all this from one of the mildewed pa.s.sengers at the Trot yesterday afternoon, but it was fascinating to him how Widow Sherwyn gathered news so quickly and completely.
”The whale was already b.l.o.o.d.y. Bit by sharks, most like. Anyway, the Embry plows right into this whale before a hard wind and a piece of meat the size of a haywagon gets jammed right in the bow boards. Awful mess, must've been. Then the sharks came by the hundreds. Swimming 'round and 'round that s.h.i.+p, day and night. Whittling that whale meat down to nothing, and the Embry taking water at the bow and getting lower and lower every hour.”
”You've heard this already,” Matthew said.
”No sooner did they get the bow sh.o.r.ed up, but the rain comes. Then the lightning, the thunder and the big waves.” The widow, her own storm, kept on rolling. ”That's when the mainmast cracked and fell. And after the tempest, the sun beat down and the wind went dead and there they sat on a sea of gla.s.s for day after day. That captain went crazy and wanted to throw the girl over the side, but the others stopped him because they knew it had just been an accident. Anyway, he was the one who knocked the preacher over. So yes, I've already heard this, and what else do you have?”