Part 44 (2/2)

”Your name was among them, Trevor. In your letter you'd told her the name of the s.h.i.+p on which you'd booked pa.s.sage. You came one month before your foster mother was put into the Westerwicke asylum. I a.s.sume you arranged everything with Icabod Primm. The removal of all personal items and the makers' marks from the furniture. You wished to hide her, didn't you? You wished no one to know who she was. I'm unclear on that part of it. Why go to all that trouble?”

Trevor Kirby shook his head. It was not denial, but a vain attempt at avoiding the wasps that stung his brain.

”Did you believe that the legal system had failed Mr. Swanscott?” Matthew asked. ”Did you set yourself up as an avenger? A righter of wrongs? Because his innocence could not be proven in court, did you decide to murder the men you felt responsible?” Matthew dared to move a few steps nearer the man. ”I realized, when I was sitting in Primm's office looking at his statue of Just.i.tia, that the cuts you made around the victims' eyes were not supposed to represent a mask, Trevor. They represented a blindfold. Your statement, I presume, that Lady Justice was never so blind as to allow those three men to escape the law?”

”Those three men,” came the nearly strangled reply, ”destroyed the only father and mother I ever knew.” He turned now toward Matthew, the light was cast upon his enraged face, and Matthew decided it best to stand very still and not speak.

Kirby was sweating. His face was damp, his eyes swollen with either hatred or torment. Probably both, Matthew thought. ”Yes, I did arrive too late. I went to the house and saw her sitting at a window, her head lolling. One of the servants had warned me how bad it was, but I wasn't ready. I could never have been. I stood there and I heard her cry out, calling for Father and Toby and Michael, but they were all dead. Then she started praying to G.o.d and speaking gibberish and sobbing, and I could not-could not-go to her side.” He blinked, his mouth slack for a moment until it could once more form words. ”I was afraid that when she looked at me I would see nothing in there but madness. And that is what tears me apart every day and every night. That is why I cannot stand to be with myself, and hear myself think. Because I was not there...” He seemed to waver on his feet, and had to start again. ”I was not there, when she needed me. When they both needed me. And I promised I would come and help Mr. Primm prove he was innocent, and I failed. More than that.” His face, once so handsome, was a thing of tortured angles wracked by a shudder. ”I was ashamed to speak to her, there in that room. She was so broken. It was an obscenity.”

He looked hopefully at Matthew, his expression begging for understanding. ”If you'd seen her, when she was in Italy! When we were all happy! If you'd seen her...what she was then... you'd know why I couldn't bear it. Selfish, I know.” He nodded vigorously. ”Yes, selfis.h.!.+ But as I watched...she gave a moan. One long...terrible moan, and she suddenly stopped crying and praying. It was as if everything...everything had departed from her. I was looking at an empty husk. Dear G.o.d.” Tears glistened. ”Oh dear Christ, dear Jesus. I turned away from there and I walked out, and I went...I went directly to Mr. Primm. And I said...take care of her. Find a place where she can be...the nearest place to home. If at all possible. Not one of those...those filthy, ugly asylums. Those horrendous bedlams. Find a place, I said. Money is no object. Find a place where she can have some of her pretty things, and no one will steal them. I said find a place that is safe.”

”And why safe to the degree of not even telling the doctors who she was?” Matthew asked. ”Why did you remove any possibility of identifying her?”

”Because of the three men,” Kirby replied. ”Because I already knew what they'd done, and I already knew who pulled the puppet strings.”

”Who?”

”A man. A shadow of a man. Known as Professor Fell.”

Forty-Three.

Matthew didn't say anything for a few seconds. Then: ”Go on.”

Kirby reached into a pocket and withdrew a white handkerchief, with which he began to blot the beads of sweat from his forehead. ”I didn't receive Mother's letter until November. I'd been in Scotland, working on a case. I had other commitments as well. I'd been planning on being married...to a wonderful young woman, the following summer. I was going to write Father and Mother, to let them know. Then I got the post. I dropped everything, of course. I shut my office, I told Margaret I'd be gone for a while, that my family needed me. A few months, I said. Then we'd pick our wedding plans up where we'd left them.” He began to carefully fold the handkerchief into a tight square.

”When I got the letter from Mother...I knew there had to be some other explanation,” Kirby said. ”I knew Father would never have made an error like that. No. He was a professional. He was clean. But if he hadn't made an error...then how was it done, and why?” He was silent, turning something over and over in his mind like a puzzle to be viewed from all sides.

”I had remembered...once when I visited them, a few years after they'd moved to Philadelphia...Father asked me my opinion of whether he should take the business into New York or not. There were two brothers who owned the White Stag tavern. They had plans for one to move to New York and open a second White Stag. In their research, they discovered that the brokerage prices commanded by Mr. Pennford Deverick were very much higher for the very same items that Father sold. They wanted him to consider expansion into the New York market, and they would wish to invest some money in the enterprise if he did. They were sure that Father could undercut Deverick's prices and still make a profit. So...he asked me that day what I thought.”

When Kirby hesitated, Matthew asked, ”What was your advice?”

”Not to go. I just didn't think the extra work would be worth it. They had a grand life, why should they disturb what they had? Besides, Father was never driven by greed. Far from it. He simply enjoyed the management process. I left him still considering the opportunity, but I don't think he was going to do it. I don't think Mother wanted it, either.”

Matthew nodded. ”So when you read in your mother's letter about the incident taking place at the White Stag, what did you think?”

”That it was very suspicious. Why that tavern, of all the others? Why only that tavern? It would be called, I suppose, killing two birds with one stone.”

Matthew thought Deverick's zeal for destruction might indeed have been set flaming by the news that an old rival was moving into his territory, whether it was only rumor heard round the New York taverns or not.

”When I got to Portsmouth, it was the height of the winter storm season,” Kirby said, blinking up at the lantern that hung from the ceiling beam. ”My departure was to be delayed for at least three weeks. I think I...had my own breakdown then. My first one. Knowing I had to do something, but could do nothing. I went to London. And I went with a vengeance, for as London is the center of the world, so it is the center of the underworld. Deverick had his motive, yet he needed the advice and aid of professionals. A contract might have been drawn up. Would anyone in London have any information? I decided to find out.

”I visited my attorney friends first, for names of contacts. That led me nowhere. Then...I suppose I might say I threw myself with a fervor into my research. My second breakdown, perhaps.” Kirby's eyes glistened, but they were dead. ”I went through every back alley ginpot I could find. I gambled, threw away money, drank with the reptiles, pegged the wh.o.r.es, and winnowed into every little s.h.i.+tpot that opened up for me. Suddenly two weeks had pa.s.sed, and I was bearded and filthy and the lice were jumping out of my hair.” He brought up a wicked smile. ”And do you know who was born, during that time? Andrew Kippering himself. Andrew for Father's hometown, Kippering for the tailor at the end of my street. I looked into the grimy gla.s.s of a half-pence wh.o.r.ehouse and lo and behold-there he stood, grinning back. Ready to get to work. To rub shoulders with the thugs and thieves, and announce that money was to be had for information. A lot of money.”

”I almost got my head bashed in outside the Black Tail Tavern,” Kirby said. ”Almost was caught by a band of men and would've been beaten to death in an alley if I hadn't been carrying a knife. Suddenly everything came back. The movement of the arm, the quickness of the strike. Even the smell of blood. I cut one right across the face, pretty as you please. The second one I got in the ribs. Then they ran, and the next night the Blind Boy found me.”

”The Blind Boy?”

”About thirteen or fourteen years old. Thin as a pole, but well-dressed. Dark gla.s.ses. Very articulate. Had a cane. Was he blind or not? I don't know, but his face was terribly scarred. A wh.o.r.e named Tender Judy brought him to my table. Said he could find out things, but it would cost me. Said he would tell me once, and I could ask no questions. Said I would never try to find him again, afterward, or it would be my death. I believed him.”

”A reasonable a.s.sumption,” Matthew agreed.

”I paid him half up front. Then he asked me what I wanted to know. I'd been thinking what to ask. It was very important, with these people, that you phrased things correctly. I said, 'I want to know about the contract on Nicholas Swanscott. How was it done, and who did it?' He said he had no idea what I was talking about, but he would make some inquiries.”

”And he delivered the information?” Matthew prodded.

”I was walking back to my room two nights later,” Kirby said. ”Long after midnight. I was nearly drunk on some filth or another. Suddenly there was a man beside me. Not a big man, but a tough gent who could handle himself. He seized my elbow before I could turn around and he said right up in my ear, 'Come with me. No noise.' I thought I was going to be killed, but we didn't have far to go. A few streets, a few alleys. I was pushed into a little room with yellow wallpaper, the Blind Boy was sitting on a throne of rags, and he beckoned me nearer. 'Now listen,' he said. 'No questions. After this, we are strangers. After this, you will die if you go asking anymore. Do you understand?'

”I said I did,” Kirby related. ”Then he said, 'The contract was paid for by a man named Deverick, who came from New York to have a problem solved. The problem being: how to destroy someone and their business at the same time, yet leave no trace?' Done with poison, he said. The poison had been made by a New York doctor. Goodwin or G.o.dwin, he thought was the name. There was something on the doctor in London, having to do with a prost.i.tute and a dead baby. The name he got was 'Susan.' An abortion gone bad, he said. Local talent for the job was provided by someone named Ausley. Two crows, a screever, and a lugger.”

”Pardon?” Matthew asked.

Kirby translated: ”Two lookouts, a forger, and someone to carry the materials.”

”Oh. Yes.” Matthew nodded, as if he'd known these street terms all along. ”Go ahead.”

”While the crows watched for constables, the others opened the lock with a key provided by an inside-man. A cask was chosen, opened, and the poison poured in. The cask was closed with a soft mallet. The screever had a blank paper inspection seal, which was forged on the spot and fixed to the cask with red wax. The inside-man had told them the correct color to use. Then the cask was returned to its place, the team got out, relocked the door, and it was all over in a few minutes.”

”And they didn't care how many people would be killed?”

Kirby didn't bother to answer. ”The Blind Boy said there was one loose end to the contract, which the hornpipe-a criminal attorney, if you will-suggested correcting. He said it involved Swanscott's wife. Her name, he said, was Emily.”

Matthew waited.

”The Blind Boy told me,” Kirby said, ”that this hornpipe considered that Mr. Swanscott would likely go to prison for many years. Would probably die there. But if the wife decided to rebuild the business, as a gesture of faith, she should promptly meet with an accident. If the contract called for destruction of the business, then destruction it should be. Signed, sealed, and delivered.”

”Very civilized of them.” Matthew was beginning to understand why Kirby had so desperately wanted to keep his mother hidden away.

”They have their own code.” Kirby stared intently at Matthew for a few seconds before he went on. ”The Blind Boy said he didn't know me-except that he knew my name was Andrew Kippering and I was a high ball playing low. He said, 'I'd like to give you some advice, sir. Go home where you belong. This contract was underwritten by the professor, and your interest in it disturbs me. Now, if you'll pay me my money, you'll be shown back to your door.'”

”Underwritten by the professor?” Matthew frowned. ”Why?”

”I didn't know who the Blind Boy meant. I asked Tender Judy about it, later. She told me as much as she knew, which was not very much. A shadow here, a shadow there. A black carriage pa.s.sing in the fog. Rumors and whispers, and a great amount of fear. Professor Fell, first name unknown. Age and description, unknown. But whoever he is, he had a hand in the ruin of my father. And I feared beyond anything that if Mother got well...if she came back to herself...someone might talk her into hiring managers and rebuilding the business again under the family name. So I did my best to prevent anyone from finding her, or to prevent anyone at that hospital from pursuing her ident.i.ty. I didn't want her attracting unwanted attention.” Kirby looked down at the ground, and Matthew could tell he was fighting a battle with the shame that must be festering in his soul. ”I didn't want her to get better,” he said softly. ”To come out of her sleep. There's just pain waiting for her, when she wakes up.”

”Not least of all, the fact that her son has murdered three men in the name of justice. Let me ask this: did you tell Mr. Primm what you'd found out?”

”No. Well...I did mention Pennford Deverick's name. I think I said...something about him being one of Father's fiercest compet.i.tors in London, and the fact that they'd had more than one public argument. I said it was peculiar, that Pennford Deverick now ruled New York's taverns only a hundred miles away, and this very suspect tragedy had destroyed my father. Primm didn't make any connection, and why should he? I had no proof whatsoever.”

Matthew remembered Primm's declaration: I consider proof to be the alpha and omega of my profession. Difficult to argue with that. Matthew was also thinking about something Pollard had said. ”Did you advise Primm to sell the business?”

”I did, and the sooner the better. The money could go into the fund I'd set up for Mother. Actually a buyer was already interested. I signed the papers before I left Philadelphia.”

”Who was the buyer?”

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