Part 48 (1/2)
”After which, you intended not to return here?”
”Yes. I planned on leaving Nicholas while I went to see Danforth. Then... I would simply lose myself in Charles Town.”
”Well, half of your intent has come to fruition, ” Matthew said. ”You are indeed lost. Good day.” He turned away from Winston and walked back along Harmony Street in the direction they'd come, as he had seen the infirmary in pa.s.sing.
Presently Matthew stood before the door and pulled the bell-cord. There was no response to the first pull, nor to the fifth. Matthew tried the door, found it unlatched from within, and entered the doctor's domain.
The parlor held two canaries in a gilded cage, both singing happily toward the shafts of light that filtered through the white shutters. Matthew saw another door and knocked at it, but again there was no reply. He opened it and ventured into a hallway. Ahead there were three rooms, the doors of the first two ajar. In the initial room stood the barber's chair and leather razor-sharpening strop; in the second room there was a trio of beds, all of which were neatly made and unoccupied. Matthew continued down the hallway to the third door, where he knocked once more.
When there was no response he pushed the door open and faced what appeared to be the doctor's chemistry study, judging from all the arcane bottles and beakers. The chamber held a single shuttered window through which the rays of bright sunlight streamed, though hazed by a pall of blue-tinged smoke.
Benjamin s.h.i.+elds sat in a chair with his back against the wall, holding a small object in a clamplike instrument in his right hand. The object was smoldering, emitting a thin smoke plume. Matthew thought the clouded air smelled of a combination of burnt peanuts and a rope that had been set afire.
The doctor's face was veiled by shadow, though stripes of contaminated light lay across the right shoulder and arm of his tan-colored suit. His spectacles had been placed atop a stack of two leatherbound books that sat on the desk to his right. His legs were crossed at the ankles, in a most casual pose. Matthew didn't speak. He watched as the doctor lifted the burning object-some kind of wrapped tobacco stick, it appeared-to his lips and pulled in a long, slow draw.
”Paine has been found, ” Matthew said. Just as slowly as he had drawn the smoke, the doctor released it from his mouth. It floated in a s.h.i.+mmering cloud through the angled sunrays.
”I thought your creed was to save lives, not take them, ” Matthew went on. Again, s.h.i.+elds drew from the stick, held it, then let the smoke dribble out.
Matthew looked around at the vessels of the doctor's craft, the gla.s.s bottles and vials and beakers. ”Sir, ” he said, ”you are as transparent as these implements. For what earthly reason did you commit such an atrocity?”
Still there was no reply.
Matthew felt as if he'd entered a tiger's den, and the tiger was playing with him like a housecat before it bared its fangs and claws and sprang at him. He kept firmly in mind the position of the door behind him. The savagery of Paine's death was undeniable, and therefore the ability of savagery lay within the man who sat not ten feet away. ”May I offer a possible scenario?” Matthew asked, and continued anyway when the doctor refused to speak. ”Paine committed some terrible offense against you-or your family-some years ago. Did he murder a family member? A son or a daughter?” A pause did not coax a reaction, except for a further cloud of smoke.
”Evidently he did, ” Matthew said. ”By a gunshot wound, it seems. But Paine was wounded first, therefore I'm inclined to believe his victim was male. Paine must have had cause to find a doctor to treat his injury. Is that how you followed his trail? You searched for the doctor who treated him, and tracked Paine from that point? How many months did it take? Longer than that? Years?” Matthew nodded. ”Yes, I'd suspect several years. Many seasons of festering hatred. It must have taken that long, for a man of healing to give himself over so completely to the urge for destruction.”
s.h.i.+elds regarded the burning tip of his tobacco stick.
”You learned the circ.u.mstances of the death of Paine's wife, ” Matthew said. ”But Paine, in wis.h.i.+ng to put the past behind him, had never told anyone in Fount Royal that he'd ever been married. He must have been astounded when he realized you knew his history... and, Paine being an intelligent man, he also realized why you knew. So you went to his house sometime around midnight, is that correct? I presume you had all the ropes and blades you needed in your bag, but you probably left that outside. Did you offer to keep your silence if Paine would write a confession and immediately leave Fount Royal?”
Smoke drifted slowly through the light.
”Paine never dreamt you'd gone there to kill him. He a.s.sumed you were interested in unmasking him before Bidwell and the town, and that the confession was the whole point of it. So you let Paine sit down and begin writing, and you took the opportunity to bash him in the head with a blunt instrument. Was it something you had hidden on you or something already there?”
No response was forthcoming.
”And then came the moment you relished, ” Matthew said.
”You must have relished it, to have performed it so artfully. Did you taunt him as you opened his veins? His mouth was gagged, his head near cracked, and his blood running out in streams. He must have been too weak to overturn the chair, but what would it have mattered? He probably did hear you taunting him as he died, though. Does that knowledge give you a feeling of great joy, sir?” Matthew raised his eyebrows. ”Is this one of the happiest mornings of your life, now that the man you've sought so long and steadfastly is a blood-drained husk?”
s.h.i.+elds took another draw from the stick, released the smoke, and then leaned forward. Light touched his moist, perspiring face, and revealed the dark violet hollows of near-madness beneath his eyes.
”Young man, ” the doctor said calmly, his voice thick with constrained emotion, ”I should like to tell you... that these baseless accusations are extremely ill advised. My attention should rightly be directed to the magistrate's health... rather than any other mental pressure. Therefore... if you desire the magistrate to live beyond this evening... what you ought to do is...” He paused to suck once more from the dwindling stick. ”... is make absolutely certain I am free to treat him.” He leaned back again, and the shadows claimed his countenance. ”But you have already decided that, have you not? Otherwise you never would have come here alone.”
Matthew watched the smoke move slowly across the room. ”Yes, ” he said, feeling that his soul had less foundation than those miniature clouds. ”I have already decided.”
”An excellent... splendid decision. How goes his health this morning?”
”Badly.” Matthew stared at the floor. ”He's been delirious.”
”Well... that may wax and wane. The fever, you see. I do believe the blistering will show a benefit, though. I intend to apply a colonic today, and that should aid in his recovery.”
”His recovery?” Matthew had spoken it with a shade of mockery. ”Do you honestly believe he's going to recover?”
”I honestly believe he has a chance, ” came the reply. ”A small chance, it is true... but I have seen patients come back from such an adverse condition. So... the best we can do is continue treatment and pray that Isaac will respond.”
It was insane, Matthew thought. Here he was, talking about the healing arts with a half-crazed butcher! And talking about prayer, to add another level of lunacy! But what choice did he have? Matthew remembered what Bidwell had said, and it had rung very true though he'd made a show of temper over it: The trip to Charles Town might well kill the poor wretch.
Springtime or not, the open air and the swamp humours it carried were dangerous to Woodward's remaining strength. The wagon trip over that road would be torture to him, no matter how firmly he was swaddled. In spite of how much he wished to the contrary, Matthew sincerely doubted that the magistrate would reach Charles Town alive.
So he was forced to trust this man. This doctor. This murderer. He had noted a mortar and pestle on the shelf, and he said, ”Can't you mix some medicine for him? Something that would break his fever?”
”Fever does not respond to medicine as much as it responds to the movement of blood, ” s.h.i.+elds said. ”And as a matter of record, the supply of medicine through Charles Town has become so pinched as to be withered. But I do have some vinegar, liverwort, and limonum. I could mix that with a cup of rum and opium and have him drink it... say... thrice daily. It might heat the blood enough to destroy the afflictions.”
”At this point, anything is worth trying... as long as it doesn't poison him.”
”I do know my chemicals, young man. You may rest a.s.sured of that.”
”I won't rest, ” Matthew said. ”And I am not a.s.sured.”
”As you please.” s.h.i.+elds continued smoking what was now only a stub. The blue clouds swirled around his face, obscuring it from scrutiny even the more.
Matthew released a long, heavy sigh. ”I don't doubt you had sufficient reason to kill Paine, but you certainly seemed to enjoy the process. The hangman's noose was a bit much, don't you think?”
s.h.i.+elds said, ”Our discussion of Isaac's treatment has ended. You may go.”
”Yes, I'll go. But all that you told me of leaving Boston because your practise was suffering... of wanting to aid in the construction of a settlement and having your name forever emblazoned upon this infirmary... those were all lies, weren't they?” Matthew waited, but he knew there would be no reply. ”The one true accomplishment you sought was the death of Nicholas Paine.” This had not been phrased as a question, because Matthew needed no answer to what he knew to be fact.
”You will pardon me, ” s.h.i.+elds said quietly, ”if I do not rise to show you out.”
There was nothing more to be said, and certainly nothing more to be gained. Matthew retreated from the doctor's study, closed the door, and walked back along the hallway in a mind-numbed daze. The burning-rope smell of that tobacco stick had leeched into his nostrils. When he got outside, the first thing he did was lift his face to the sunlight and draw in a great draught of air. Then he trudged the distance to Bidwell's mansion, his head yet clouded on this clear and perfect day.
Thirty.
”Mr. Vaughan?” He got up from his chair, where he'd been drowsing in the twilight of early evening, and opened the door. ”What does he want?”
Mrs. Nettles pursed her lips, as if in a silent scold for his deficient memory. ”He says he's come to escort you to his home for dinner, and that it shall be a'table at six o'clock.”
”Oh, I did forget! What time is it now?”
”Near ha' past five, by the mantel clock.”
”If there was ever an evening I didn't care to go out to dinner, this is it, ” Matthew said, rubbing his bleary eyes.
”That may be so, ” Mrs. Nettles said curtly, ”but as much as I do nae care for Lucretia Vaughan, I am also sure some effort has been made to show you hospitality. Ye ought nae to disappoint 'em.”