Part 37 (1/2)
The pitiless grenadier, Matthew thought. He nodded at the man, who watched him but did not return the gesture.
”Allow me to introduce Count Anton Mannerheim Dahlgren,” said Chapel, as he steered Matthew toward the head of the table. The blond-haired man now gave the slightest nod, but his relaxed and almost somnolent posture said he was not interested in introductions. He continued eating an apple slice with small birdlike pecks and staring at Matthew as Matthew took the seat across from him.
Chapel sat down again, the grin fixed in place. ”I fear Count Dahlgren doesn't speak much English. He's come over from Prussia and he's very...well...Prussian, if you know what I mean. Yes?” That last word was directed to Dahlgren.
”Yas,” came the quiet reply in an accent as thick as the Black Forest, with a brief show of gray teeth. ”Var' Prussian.”
Chapel picked up a little silver bell next to his platter and rang it. ”Let's eat, shall we? Matthew, I hope you're hungry?”
”I am, sir.” If he could get anything into his stomach, which was so tense amid this crew that it felt squeezed by iron bands.
Presently through a door at the right side of the room came the first wave of this feast: a procession of bowls, platters, and trays filled with sliced melons, stewed apples, honeyed strawberries, green salads, and other enticements brought in by three boys about fourteen or fifteen years of age, dressed in white s.h.i.+rts and black breeches, and two older women wearing kitchen ap.r.o.ns. Wine red and white was poured into gla.s.ses and Chapel proposed a toast with his gla.s.s lifted high: ”To new friends and new prosperity!” Everyone drank. The gla.s.ses were immediately filled again by one of the boys, a wiry youth with shoulder-length brown hair that looked to have been brushed back from his face with bee's-wax pomade. His purpose seemed to be standing nearby over a cartful of wine bottles, ready to pour when a gla.s.s showed its bottom.
The meal progressed, as candlelight flashed off the fine silver and was reflected upon the walls like streaking comets. Matthew was aware of the swords at his back while he carried on a conversation about the weather with Miss LeClaire, Chapel offered some observations about the size and shape of clouds, Evans borrowed a remark or two and reworked it so it sounded as if he'd come up with it on his own, and Count Dahlgren drank a gla.s.s of white wine and watched Matthew over the brim. The conversation then turned to the beauty of Chapel's silverware, and when he stated between sips of wine that his father had impressed upon him the idea that no gentleman was a true gentleman without fine silver on the dinner table Miss LeClaire clapped her hands as if he'd made a p.r.o.nouncement of discovering a medical cure for dropsy.
Then came the second wave, this one a flotilla of bowls bearing soups and chowders: mushroom and bacon, oyster and corn, she-crab and cream. Chapel took pinches of pepper from a mound in a silver bowl and threw them with gusto into his food, so much so that the lady had a fit of sneezing that a napkin could hardly contain. Evans went the salt route, while Dahlgren ignored his spoon and drank directly but delicately from the bowl in what Matthew thought must be the Prussian way.
Matthew was waiting for the first sound of a blade sliding out of its sheath, and twenty minutes into the feast Chapel cleared his throat with a peppery rumble.
Evans and Miss LeClaire had been chattering about the value of oysters to a healthy diet. Both of them suddenly went mute.
Chapel reached into his coat, brought out an object, and laid it on the table in front of Matthew, after which he returned to his pepperpot.
It was Ausley's notebook. Matthew's heart twisted on its root. He feared the book might have been the one in his possession, and stolen from the dairyhouse even as he'd been brought here today. But no...compose yourself, he thought. He could see there was no dried blood on it. This was one of Ausley's less recent books, but identical in every way to the one Matthew had.
”You know what this is, I presume?” Chapel asked. There was a little ting as Dahlgren tapped the rim of his winegla.s.s with a fingernail.
Matthew had had his fill of mushroom-and-bacon soup. He pushed the bowl aside. ”I do.” Careful! he cautioned himself. ”I've seen Ausley writing in it.”
”Not this particular one, maybe. He had a box full of them, under the bed in his room. A strange b.a.s.t.a.r.d, wasn't he? Scribbled notes on everything under G.o.d's sun. You know, I once knew of a lunatic in London who made b.a.l.l.s of dust. Hundreds of them. Kept them in his attic. It was in the Gazette, wasn't it, Lawrence?”
”Yes sir.”
Chapel nodded his conical head with satisfaction that his memory had been served. ”I think Ausley was one notebook away from dust b.a.l.l.s. All that about his gambling debts and his bowel habits...ridiculous. Of course you suspect by now that dear Charity here is not in any way related to Ausley, unless you consider nymph's itch as a kind of lunacy.” He showed his peg-teeth to the lady, who looked straight ahead and continued drinking her white wine with no sign of perturbance except for a metallic glint of the eyes. ”We found the box of notebooks when we searched his room,” Chapel went on, speaking to Matthew again, ”but as he was known to always carry one on his person, there was-and remains-the notebook missing from his personal belongings.” He smiled faintly. ”Do you have any idea where it might be, Matthew?”
”No sir,” came the steady reply.
”I'm sorry to hear that, for it would have made things so much easier. Now we have to go about searching for it. And where to begin? With his murderer? Do you think his murderer might have taken the notebook, Matthew?”
”I have no idea.”
”Oh, but you must have an idea! An opinion, at least. Why would his murderer have taken the notebook but left his wallet? Eh?”
Matthew knew Chapel was waiting for a response, so one must be given. ”I suspect Ausley's killer wished to read it.”
”Exactly!” Chapel lifted a thick forefinger. He was grinning as if all this was the most wonderful merriment, but the topaz eyes were stone-hard. ”So this was someone who killed Ausley for a purpose, just as he's killed Dr. G.o.dwin and Mr. Deverick. Their wallets were likewise left undisturbed? Lawrence, the sheet please.” He held out a hand. Evans reached into his own coat with an eagerness that bordered on the frantic; from an inside pocket he brought out a many-times-folded sheet of paper that Matthew already knew was the Earwig. Evans unfolded it, smoothed it out, and slid it past Matthew and Count Dahlgren to the smiling host.
”A long way to go, to match the Gazette,” Chapel said as he looked over the article on Deverick's murder. ”But a good beginning, I'd say. I suppose there'll be another sheet out soon with an article about Ausley? Or is he old news by now?”
”I'm sure there'll be another sheet out within a few days. Mr. Grigsby has to gather enough news to fit first.”
”Of course. Economy must be observed, and why would Ausley rate a sheet all to himself? You know, we found your name in several of those notebooks. He had a very interesting combination of respect for your intellect and hatred for your principles. I think actually he was afraid of you. In any event, he was glad to be rid of you to that Magistrate Woodward.”
Matthew was shocked. ”He was keeping notebooks that long ago?”
”Indeed. Only he didn't write as much in them or go through them as quickly as later, when he went off the pier's end with his gambling and personal lecheries. But as I say, he was afraid of you.” Chapel returned to his soup and dabbed a little she-crab from his chin with a white napkin. ”He feared you were going to get another boy as witness to tell everything to Magistrate Powers and then the church might step in. Also, you made him nervous just following him around like that, night after night. He made a convincing argument for my help, so that's why I let him use Carver and Bromfield, my hunters. I think you saw Bromfield this afternoon?”
Matthew glanced quickly at Evans but said nothing.
”Oh, don't mind what Lawrence told you. It's no matter. I would've been highly disappointed in you if you hadn't gotten out and exploring. You did take a risk, though. Bromfield has a nasty streak. Are we ready for the main course, friends? Let's be at it, then!” He rang the little silver bell again, as Count Dahlgren held out his winegla.s.s to be refilled.
More platters and trays were brought to the table. This time the offerings were substantial: grilled lamb with dill pickles, sweetbreads in mustard sauce, a hunk of red meat that Matthew thought must be a calf's tongue, and thickly sliced ham with a burnt sugar glaze. Accompanying these stomach-busters was wild rice, creamed corn, and a pile of biscuits. Matthew looked in vain for the hares. Who had Bromfield been hunting for?
But it was all Matthew could do to keep his mind about him, for this scene of feast coupled to the strange conversation with Simon Chapel was more like a dream than reality. He was full already, and the serving boys were loading up another plate for him. Then, quite suddenly, one of the boys spilled wild rice over the front of Matthew's breeches and cried out, ”Pardon, sir! Pardon, sir!” as he wiped the offending food away with a napkin. Matthew stood up from the table as the boy's hand rapidly darted here and there to clean off the debris and Matthew finally said, ”It's all right. Really. I'm fine.” He brushed the last bits off himself and returned to his seat, while the boy-a small-boned lad with a ma.s.s of curly brown hair and the fast movements of a weasel-wadded up the napkin in his fist and started toward the door that presumably led to the kitchen.
”Silas, Silas, Silas!” Chapel said, with an air of exasperation. ”Stop where you are, please!”
The boy obeyed and, turning around toward the master, had a crooked grin on his red-cheeked face.
”Give it up,” Chapel instructed. ”Whatever it is.”
”Give it up, Silas!” jeered the young wine-guardian.
”Now.” Chapel's voice had begun to lose its humor.
The boy's grin faded. ”I was jus' practisin',” he said. ”Gonna put 'em back later.”
”Return them to Mr. Corbett. This moment, or you and I will have some difficulties.”
”Ae you to have such an expensive time instrument?”
”It was a gift,” Matthew answered, aware he was again edging on shaky ground. ”From...” His wits failed him.
”Oh, it's not Mr. Deverick's watch, is it?” Chapel made a wide-eyed expression of mock horror that was almost comical. ”You're not the Masker, are you?”
”No.” His mind started up again, like Sa.s.safras running on the treadmill at Micah Reynaud's barbershop. ”It was a gift from the man who founded the town of Fount Royal, in the Carolina colony. Given for clearing up an important matter.”
”The witchcraft thing? Yes, Ausley told me. I might mention that my Carolina source says Fount Royal dried up and blew away last summer, so sad to relate. But life goes on, and so does time. Ah, what's this?” Chapel plucked up the dairyhouse key even as his mouth was gobbling tongue.
Matthew, who felt as if Dr. G.o.dwin's breeches were already about to burst at the belly, had pa.s.sed the tongue on down to Miss LeClaire, who stabbed herself a piece. Evans was intent on his small portion of ham and across from Matthew, Count Dahlgren put a fork to the grilled lamb and chewed steadily while watching Chapel inspect the key.
”This is an antique,” Chapel remarked once his mouth was clear. ”Charity tells me you live in an outhouse.”
”A dairyhouse,” Matthew corrected.