Part 43 (1/2)
Part Four: The Methods of Murder
Forty-One.
”Matthew!” said John Five, with as wide and free a smile as Matthew had ever seen on his friend's face. ”Good mornin'! Aren't you the dressed-up peac.o.c.k today!” Then John's smile fell a hitch, for Matthew knew his lack of sleep on the packet boat last night showed in dark hollows beneath his eyes and a gray countenance to his flesh.
”Good morning.” Matthew had only just left the packet boat, and was still wearing his dark blue suit, waistcoat, and tricorn and toting his valise. He'd come directly here to Master Ross' blacksmithery. In the seething heat of the forge, sparks spat and the coals glowed bright orange. John had been bending lengths of iron into pothooks on his anvil with the hammer, while the second apprentice and Master Ross were speaking to another customer across the smoke-hazed shop. ”A few minutes?” Matthew asked.
”Master Ross?” John called, and the elder blacksmith saw Matthew standing there and said in a crusty growl, ”Don't you ever work?”
”Yes sir, I do my share.”
”I doubt that very much, sir. Go on then, the both of you! Three minutes, John!”
Three minutes might not be enough, Matthew thought, but he would have to take what he could. Outside, in the bright warm suns.h.i.+ne of Thursday morning, John squinted and clapped Matthew hard on the shoulder. ”My thanks to you. I don't know what you did, but I think you must have had a part in the reverend's speech on Sunday. Where were you?”
”Working,” Matthew answered.
”On Sunday? I wouldn't let the reverend hear that, if I were you. But listen, he told us the whole story on Friday night. As much as Constance and I were knocked down to find it out, we were just as relieved. I mean...havin' a sick daughter who's led such a life as that is one thing, but at least Reverend Wade's not out of his mind. Not anymore, that is.”
”I'm glad to hear it.”
”It took courage for him to get up there and lay it all out. It's still takin' courage, for him to go in and see her like he's done. You know, yesterday mornin' he took Constance. She wanted to see her sister, and she wasn't gonna be denied.”
”I hope that went well.”
”It did. I reckon. She hasn't talked much about it.” John rubbed the back of his neck, as if working a muscle the hammer and anvil had perplexed. ”I mean, n.o.body's happy about where Grace is, and why she wants to stay there. She won't leave it, you know. But I guess everything'll take care of itself in time, just like the reverend said. I know he's got a fight on his hands with some of those elders, though.”
”But not all of them, I'm sure,” Matthew said.
”No, not all, that's true.” John c.o.c.ked his head to one side. ”I'd like to ask you what you knew about Grace, and when you knew it, but would you tell me?”
”I would not.”
”Didn't think so. Doesn't matter, does it?”
”I'd like to talk about something that does matter,” Matthew said, and his somber tone of voice made John Five draw up a frown. ”About the orphanage, to be exact.”
”The orphanage? Oh, Matthew! He's dead now. Can't you ever let it go?”
”It's not that. I left the orphanage in 1694, when I was fifteen. You were brought there by a parson, I recall, when you were about nine years old, and you stayed until you turned seventeen and Master Ross chose you as an apprentice. Is that correct?”
”Yes. What of it?”
”In the years from, say, 1696 to when you left, can you think of anything unusual happening there?”
”Unusual,” John repeated, with no emotion. Then he said heatedly, ”Listen, Matthew, you've got to give this up! Forget the d.a.m.ned place! It's not doin' you a bit a' good to-”
”Anything unusual,” Matthew plowed on, his eyes intense and perhaps a little haunted. ”I'm not talking about Ausley's personal habits now. I'm talking about something that would have required boys to leave the orphanage before they were placed with families or offered apprentices.h.i.+ps. Maybe some left and came back, I don't know.” He could tell John wasn't even trying to remember, probably because John's own experience at the hands of Ausley wouldn't let him go back to that terrible place even in his memory. ”Please, John. Think. Something that drew the boys away from the orphanage. Maybe you even went.”
”Oh. That,” said John, who breathed a sigh of fresh relief. ”That was nothin'. I wanted to go, but I didn't have any skills they were needin'.”
”Skills? What kind of skills?”
John shrugged his heavy-set shoulders. ”Readin' and writin'. Figurin' numbers. Copyin' drawin's and such. You remember Seth Barnwell? He went and came back. Said they got up in his face too much. Ran the place like an army camp. Seth wasn't there but a few days. He went to learn how to make keys, but the h.e.l.l of it was that for some reason they took a lot of fellas who liked to fight and cause mischief and after Seth got his nose busted a couple of times he'd had enough.”
”What was this place?”
”It was a trade school,” John said.
A trade school, Matthew thought grimly. Indeed. ”Was it up the river about fifteen miles?”
”I think so, yes. But like I said, I never went. One of my best friends went and stayed, though. You remember Billy Hodges? That long tall drink of water? He was two or three years younger than you, I guess.”
”I remember him.” Hodges had been a smart young man, but had always been plotting intricate ways to escape the orphanage and had great dreams of being a sea captain and sailing to the West Indies.
”He applied, and they took him. You know what they took him in for? Because he had such good handwritin'. Can you believe it? They wanted him so he could learn to be a scrivener. Keep records and such, they told him. And him with that missin' thumb.”
Matthew felt a cold shock slowly course through him. He thought his face had gone from gray to pasty-white in an instant. ”Missing thumb?” he heard himself ask.
”That's right. A year after you left, Billy was puttin' on his shoes one day when a spider bit his left thumb. Thing was in his shoe. I saw it, wasn't so big but it was awful black. Next thing, his thumb's turned blue and swelled up and his whole hand's killin' him. It went on for a while like that, brought him to tears and he was a tough nut, too. Anyway, by the time Ausley brought a doctor, Billy's thumb was as black as the spider. Took it off, so he wouldn't lose the whole hand. He was all right about it, though. I think he was prouder of showin' off the stump than he'd been of havin' a thumb.”
”Good thing it wasn't his scrivening hand,” Matthew said.
John grinned. ”See, that's the thing. It was his writin' hand. He had to learn to write all over again with his right hand. Maybe that helped when he had to copy the script.”
”Copy the script? What script?”
”Oh, some men would come now and again and give us tests. You know. Doin' numbers, copyin' script, figurin' out puzzles and such. They talked to us, too. Wantin' to know all about us and our lives and so on. What we wanted for the future. Were we sad, were we angry, did we carry grudges or get in fights. A man even came a couple of times to see if any of the older boys knew how to use a sword or a dagger. He was a Prussian fella, could hardly speak English. But he could handle a sword in both hands.”
The enigmatic Count Dahlgren, Matthew thought. Not teaching Chapel how to use a sword, but instead teaching younger and more pliable students. ”Whatever use would you have for a sword or dagger at a trade school?” he asked.
”One of the trades was learnin' how to sharpen swords and knives. I reckon they wanted somebody who showed an interest in blades.”
Master Ross suddenly peered out through the entryway, and he looked none too happy. ”Mr. Five, are you comin' back to your labors anytime today?”
”Oh, yes sir. Sorry.” When the smith had gone back in, John said, ”I've got to go. But why all this interest in the trade school? I'd nearly forgotten about it.”
”I think it was more than a trade school,” Matthew replied.
”More than a trade school? Meanin' what?”
”Mr. Five!” came the bellow from within.
John winced. ”Ouch. Well, his bark's worse than his bite. Usually. You ought to have dinner with Constance and me one evenin', Matthew. We'll talk then. All right?”