Sixteen

“Let me make sure I have heard you correctly. You just said Matthew Corbett has been sentenced to Newgate Prison?”

“Not sentenced,” Gardner Lillehorne answered, with but a slight quaver in his voice. “Sent there for containment.”

Berry Grigsby did not wait for Hudson to speak again. She had been silent during Lillehorne’s recitation of Matthew’s appearance before the judge and his subsequent banishment to Newgate, but now she found her face burning and her tongue wanting to burst through her clenched teeth. Even she knew the horrors of that prison, and this was more than she could bear. “How could you do it?” she asked, with a flame in her voice that nearly set fire to Lillehorne’s pale blue suit. “You stood there and let this so-called judge send Matthew into that hellpit? Oh my Christ! How long has he been there?”

“A few days, only,” came the weak response. Lillehorne had his desk between himself, Hudson Greathouse and the red-faced girl, and he gripped both hands to the desk’s edge as if he might have to heft it up and use it as a shield against feminine fury. “But … listen … I tried my best to help him. I swear I did. It’s just … well, he antagonized Judge Archer. It was a horrible scene.”

“As horrible as a few days—and nights—in Newgate? I doubt that very much!” Berry had come to the end of her patience. She was weary to her bones but ready to fight to their marrow. The travellers had finally arrived in London this morning, about an hour ago, had found rooms at the Soames Inn just off Fleet Street, and had come directly to the office of the assistant to the head constable as soon as they could get directions and hail a carriage. Berry’s coppery-red hair was a wild tangle of multiple birds-nests, her eyes were hot coals in a florid face, and her mouth was ready to bite off the head of a blue-suited snake coiled up behind a desk with a stupid simpering half-grin on his face.

“He must be let out at once!” Berry said, her voice rising to dangerous heights. “I swear to holy God and Mother Mary I’ll spend the rest of my days seeing you in that damned hole if you don’t get him—”

“Out?” said Lillehorne, with admirable calm in the face of this heated whirlwind. “I was about to tell you. He is already out.”

Those four words brought for a few seconds a sudden silence to this storm, but it was only the pause before a bigger blow.

“Christ’s blood!” Hudson thundered, himself on the edge of going berserk. “Why didn’t you say so in the first place?”

It was a moment—a precious moment, in which the assistant to the high constable evaluated his past life and determined he would like to live at least several more hours—before Lillehorne spoke again. His voice broke when he began, so he had to start over. “There is a problem,” he said. “I was just about to walk over to the court of sessions, it’s only across the courtyard.” He stood up; even his bones were trembling in the presence of the man and the woman who had come from New York to find Corbett and burst past his clerk into this office like human hurricanes, and surely in the next few minutes he would have to hang on to his skin. “Would you accompany me?”

“What’s the problem, then?” Hudson fired at him.

“Please. Just go with me, and all will be explained.” Which, Lillehorne thought, might be one of the biggest lies ever to leave his crimped lips.

Hudson and Berry left the office with Lillehorne, they descended a staircase to the courtyard and strode along one of its precise geometric paths under a low gray sky. They entered the massive courthouse and presently found themselves standing before the young straw-haired clerk named Steven, in an office with filing cabinets, bookshelves and on the white walls portraits of famous dead men.

“I know, I know,” said the young man as soon as he saw Lillehorne. He lifted a hand to remove his square-lensed spectacles. His eyes appeared dazed and beneath them were purple hollows. “How this has happened … I have no idea.”

“What’s happened?” Hudson nearly shouted. And then, restraining himself, he said, “I’m Hudson Greathouse and this is Berry Grigsby. We’ve come all the way from New York to find Matthew Corbett, and now we’re told he was sent to Newgate Prison. When was the trial?”

“There was no trial, sir,” said a voice from the doorway, and there appeared a slim but decidedly solid-looking man with blonde hair tied in a queue by a black ribbon, his apparel a dark blue suit with gleaming silver buttons, a gray waistcoat and white stockings. His aristocratic face was unsmiling. “I was on my way here when the power of your voice almost blew me back to my office. You might lower your volume so as not to blast the pigeons off the roof.”

“Judge William Atherton Archer,” said Lillehorne to his two New York acquaintances, and then he retreated a step as if wishing to merge into the wall behind him before this war truly began.

“Oh, so you’re the one!” Hudson brought up a wolfish grin that in its history had caused many men to count their moments. “The judge,” and he let that word drool out, “who sent my friend to Newgate. As I asked this clerk, when was the trial?”

Archer approached Hudson. When he got within the range of which any other man would stop, he kept coming two steps nearer, until he was looking up at the larger figure as a bulldog might stare up the nostrils of a bull. “And as I have already said, there was no trial. Sir,” he added, his expression impassive. “Do they still understand English in the colonies?”

“Yes, and they understand stupidity too, of which London judges need to be educated.”

Lillehorne gave a noise that sounded as if a great pain had issued deep in his bowels.

The clerk seemed to rouse himself and think it best to intercede. “Judge Archer, these two are asking about—”

“I know why they’re here!” The words were snapped at the clerk, but the intense dark blue eyes were still fully focused on Greathouse. “I heard the introductions. My ears are still ringing. Yes, I sent Corbett to Newgate. Without trial. That will come later, when he’s found.” A fly buzzed between himself and the other man’s face. Archer quickly brushed it away. “Look what you’ve let in here, Lillehorne!” It was said with the burning eyes still fixed upon Hudson’s fiery orbs. “A little flitting nuisance to add even more joy to my day!”

Near tears, Berry spoke up. “All we want to do is find Matthew!”

“Then you share my desire. Mr. Jessley, tell the tale.”

The clerk lowered his head. He took a deep breath. The fly circled his head and landed on his right cheek. He brushed it away with nerveless fingers and began. “Late yesterday afternoon … I received a messenger from the constable’s office. It was nearly time to close up and go home … all the judges had already gone, and I was on my own. The messenger brought a document. Judge Archer has already seen it.”

“A document on official parchment, bearing the official seal. It’s in my office right now,” Archer added. “Go on, Mr. Jessley.”

“The document,” said Steven, “requested an immediate transfer of the prisoner Matthew Corbett from Newgate Prison to Houndsditch prison, in Whitechapel. The way it was—is—worded … left no doubt that immediate meant just as it said. And … the devil of it … was that not only was it scribed on official parchment with the proper seal, but it bore three signatures: those of Master Constable Patterson, Assistant to the master Lillehorne, and—”

“My own,” the judge said tartly. “A forgery, of course, but very well forged.”

“Very well forged,” Steven agreed. “As was Sir Patterson’s and Mr. Lillehorne’s. I know I should have waited until morning, to ask you about it,” he said, addressing Archer, “but—”

The young man’s countenance was distraught, his blue eyes without their spectacles watery-looking and fixed on the judge. The fly came in toward his face again, and suddenly his hand streaked out and snatched the thing in midair seemingly without even looking at it. “I thought I’d been given a direct order,” he said, and all in the room heard a small crunch as the clerk’s fingers ended the life of a London pest. As if in a trance, he wiped a small smear across the front of his starched white shirt. “I’m sorry, sir. I have made a grave error.”

Archer released a long breath that he must have been holding for several seconds. He moved past Hudson and Berry, and he walked around the clerk’s desk and laid a hand on the young man’s shoulder. “Steady up,” he said quietly. “An error was made, yes, but with that document in hand, how would you know the order was not genuine?”

“All right, we’ve gotten that part,” said Hudson. “So Matthew is currently in Houndsditch prison, is that correct?”

“Lillehorne?” Archer prompted. Some of the acid had returned. “Since these are your people, you should do the honors.”

Lillehorne wore a pained expression, as if that disturbance in his bowels had risen to his throat. “We have had … a problem here recently. The last several months, as I understand it, though it predates my presence. So … I … have to tell you … that—”

“That a maniac who calls himself Albion,” Archer interrupted, “waylaid the prison coach last night, assaulted the driver and one of the two guards Mr. Jessley had assigned to take Corbett to Houndsditch, rousted your man out and disappeared with him. This after garbled and insane reports came out of Newgate saying that Albion had materialized inside the prison and made a threatening gesture toward Corbett.”

Neither Hudson nor Berry could speak. Hudson thought he heard a little whuff of air that might have been from either one of them trying to find words, but no words were produced.

“So … no, Corbett is not in Houndsditch,” Archer went on. He gave the clerk a pat on the shoulder, and Steven nodded a thank you for the gift of stability and put his spectacles back on. Hudson found himself staring, dumbly, at the little smear of fly guts on the young man’s shirt. “It is unknown where Corbett currently is,” said Archer, as he came back around the desk. “Or … and I have to say this … whether he is dead or alive. Since his first appearance in May Albion has murdered six men by the sword. I have myself interviewed one of the guards this morning. Albion’s sword was put to work on the other’s nose and neck, and I’d say both those men got off very lightly. Though … a mystery … Albion demanded that a cloak, a tricorn, a lantern and two money purses be handed over to Corbett, and the guard swears Albion spoke kindly to him, offering him help, which indicates … I don’t know what.”

“Albion?” Hudson finally asked. “What kind of name is that?”

“The made up identity of a murderer who goes around in a hooded cape wearing a golden mask. I am told he strikes usually around midnight or in the early hours. No one has seen his face.”

“Damn,” said Hudson. He was aware then that Berry had grasped hold of his arm and he was the only thing holding her up. He put his arm around her, the better to keep her from falling. “About faces, then.” He spoke to the clerk. “Who was the messenger yesterday? Someone you know?”

Steven shook his head. “This is particularly where I failed. I didn’t recognize the man, but he told me he was new to the department. He was very convincing. He knew the proper names and the positions, when I inquired who he was working with.”

“A description, please?”

“What, you think it might be someone you know?” Archer asked. “And you just recently arrived? Mr. Jessley has already given myself and Patterson a description, and it’s no messenger we’ve ever seen.”

“Let me say,” Lillehorne ventured timidly, “that Mr. Greathouse is, like Matthew Corbett, an associate of the Herrald Agency.”

“Oh my Lord!” came the reply. “Yes, we certainly need more hands stirring this bowl of confusion, so by all means stir away!”

When it had appeared the judge was giving his consent to continue, Steven said, “A young man, he was.” He pressed a hand against his left temple, as if that might further sharpen his recollection. “Maybe twenty or so. Around my age. Of medium-height and slender build. Well-dressed. Neat in appearance. Brown hair, pulled back in a queue. Brown eyes … I suppose. Maybe they were more gray than brown. He seemed intelligent and capable, but otherwise simply a common messenger.” Steven shrugged, ending the labor of memory.

“Scars?” Hudson asked. “A cleft in the chin? Anything irregular at all?”

“No, sir.”

“Eureka!” said Hudson, with a false smile that became a grimace. “I suppose that narrows it down to several ten thousands!”

“The City of London is not paying any associate of the Herrald Agency for assistance in this sorry matter, sir,” Archer advised, sending forth another fiery glare. “Both and I and Sir Patterson have Mr. Jessley’s testimony consigned to paper, and that didn’t cost us a bent shilling.”

“I’d like to see this document,” said Lillehorne. And then, as if fearful he’d pressed too hard, “At your convenience, I mean.”

“Of course. Your name is well-forged on it, too. It’s a first-class job. I’m going to have it framed to keep with my other remembrances … that is, until it’s brought before the court as evidence and someone pays the price for this crime.” Archer’s gaze travelled to the clerk. “You’re all right now, young man?”

“Yes, sir. I didn’t sleep too soundly last night. I think I must’ve had a premonition that something was wrong.”

“See that you get some rest tonight. Drink yourself into a stupor if you have to, but be sharp tomorrow. Good day to you, sir, and to you, miss. Lillehorne, if you want to take a gander at the parchment come with me.”

“Just a moment!” Hudson protested. “Is that all?”

“All what?”

“All to be said and done? With Matthew out there, maybe in the clutches of a murderer?”

“What would you have us do?”

“Search for him!”

“Hmmm,” said the judge, with a finger tapping his chin, “I’m sure our army of constables will get on it right away, as soon as the hundred and ninety-four other murders, assaults, abductions and various other violences committed in the last two days have been remedied. By the way,” he said to Lillehorne, “how goes the investigation into Madam Candoleri’s kidnapping? I was too preoccupied this morning to ask.”

“The same as before. Not a word demanding ransom.”

“That makes no sense! Why would anyone kidnap her unless they wanted money?”

“Perhaps,” said Lillehorne, “they desired a private opera performance?”

Hudson jumped at this. “What, you’ve got a missing opera singer on your hands?”

“If she was on our hands, she wouldn’t be missing,” Archer said coldly. “Teachers of logic must sorely be lacking in the colonies.”

“We make up for that,” Berry was able to answer, “by teaching good manners.”

“That and six pence will buy you a cup of sour cream. Now go about your business and leave us to ours. Can you find your own way to the street?”

“We’ll go by the coal chute,” said Hudson, “since we’re being shovelled out.”

“Then slide on and be gone,” Archer said, and Lillehorne followed him from the office with a last quick helpless glance at Hudson that said I have done all I can.

“Is he always such a prick?” Hudson asked the clerk after the sound of their shoes on the corridor’s floor had clacked away.

“He’s a very able man. A little prickly, yes, but he has the necessary temper for this job.”

“I’ll take your word for that. Is there nothing more you can recall about the messenger?”

“Nothing more than what I’ve already related.” The young man’s eyes behind the square-lensed spectacles went to Berry. “I … presume you have a … special interest in Mr. Corbett?”

“Yes,” she said firmly. “I do.”

“And come such a long way. Indeed it must be special.”

“She loves him, that’s the interest,” Hudson blurted out. “And he loves her too, but he’s too stupid to tell her.”

“Oh,” said Steven, and he seemed for a moment to be examining his own hands. When he looked up at her, his face had softened. “I regret what has happened. Judge Archer does too, but he … he has his own way of expressing things. If it’s any help to you, Mr. Corbett seemed to me an extremely capable man. I mean, I only saw him in this office for a few minutes, but in that short time he seemed very sturdy. I would think he is a … I suppose the word would be survivor.”

“Yes, he is that,” said Berry. “But even so, I can’t bear to think of him out there at the mercy of some creature of the night.”

“Well,” the lad said, “it’s daylight now, so he’s in no danger from Albion.”

“I wish we knew that for certain,” Hudson said. He motioned toward the office’s oval window. “And you call that daylight? I’d forgotten what London gloom was like.”

“One gets used to the gray. If there’s anything else?” Steven pulled a sheet of paper toward himself and picked up a quill.

“Nothing else,” Hudson said. “Good day.”

“And to you, sir, and miss.”

On the way out, they were halfway down the central staircase when Hudson said, “This is a damned strange barrel of pickles.”

“An understatement,” Berry answered. “Lord, I’m tired … but I couldn’t sleep unless I was knocked unconscious.”

“We both need to eat something. Get a cup of tea or coffee somewhere. Figure out what to do next.” He shook his head as they descended the stairs. “All that about Albion … the messenger and the forged order … what has Matthew gotten himself into now?”

“Something I pray to God he can get himself out of.” She stopped suddenly, a few risers from the bottom, and Hudson paused two steps further down. Her cheeks appeared a bit flushed. “He … loves me, you say?”

“I do say.”

“He has a very peculiar way of showing love.”

“Perhaps so. It’s something we need to talk about, but first let’s go find a meal.”

“All right,” she said, with a faint smile that held hope, and she followed him toward the courthouse’s set of finely-painted white doors while he tried to figure out how to keep her mind off the fact that the man she loved—and who certainly loved her—might be by this time long dead.

“I think he’s comin’ ’round.”

The voice—not quite a voice, but the mere echo of a voice—made Matthew realize he was returning to life, though it did flit through his aching brain that the voice was feminine, and might belong to an angel, thus he was dead and by God’s grace gone far from London, unless the Devil was tricking him for past misdeeds and bad wishes, and when he opened his eyes they would be greeted by—

“Yep, he’s turned color. Comin’ ’round, he is. Hey, wake up!”

A hand grasped his arm and jostled him, none too gently.

“Give him a pinch, see if that don’t do it.” That was a male voice.

And another male voice: “Pinch his pecker, that oughta make ’im jump.”

Instinctively, Matthew’s hand went south to protect his privacy. He discovered it was already stolen. He was as naked down there as the man in the moon.

His eyes opened. Bleary light shut them again. His head felt as heavy as an anvil, his neck a fragile stalk of wheat.

“Almost there,” said the girl, for indeed the voice was girlish. “Come on, fella, try it again.”

“Lemme pee in his face,” said one of the men. “That always works.”

“A moment,” Matthew was able to say, though it was the weakest whisper. “A moment,” he said, louder. “Hold your water, please.”

They laughed. Two men and a girl, laughing.

Of all the indignities he had lately suffered, being laughed at was the one that galled Matthew the most. It flamed his temper, and by that heat and power he climbed out of the darkness to which he recalled being consigned by an unfriendly boot. He opened his eyes. Swimming into focus came three faces, daubed yellow by lamplight. The rest of the chamber, wherever he was, remained dark.

“There you are,” said the girl, and in her blurred face he saw the offering of an honest, toothy smile.

“Where is … there?” Matthew managed to ask. He found he was covered over by a thin blanket and lying on a mattress that was lumpy with straw.

“Our cellar,” said one of the men. “’Bout two blocks from where we put you under.”

“Yeah, Roger’s quite sorry for that,” said the other male, a higher and more nasally voice than the first. “But it was your head got in the way, so he can’t be too contrite.”

“My head. Yes.” Matthew brought a hand out from the blanket and felt the side of his jaw. Every hair of his beard registered pain. He was swollen up pretty good, so there was no use in examining himself any further. But—strangely enough—he felt clean and a bit raw, as if his skin and scalp had been rather violently scrubbed. Also … was that a soapy scent he was smelling? “Have I been given a bath?” he asked the three still-indistinct faces.

“And it was a messy job, too,” said the girl. “Turnin’ a half-dead body back and forth to get at all that nastiness. Time it was done I filled up a bucket we can use for hard core, plug some of the holes ’round here.”

Time, Matthew thought.

Midnight at the Three Sisters! Flint Alley! Half of him shouted to leap up, the other half was his own sea anchor.

He did try to get up at least on his elbows, which was itself a difficult task. “What time is it?” he asked one of the faces.

“Here now, do I look like a fuckin’ clock?” The first of the men had spoken.

“Go soft on him, Kevin,” said the girl. “He still ain’t all to earth yet. Well … I’m thinkin’ it’s likely past eleven.”

“Got to get to the Three Sisters. Flint Alley. Have to be there by midnight.”

“By midnight?” She gave a small chuckle. “You got some time, then. More’n twelve hours, and Flint Alley’s just a few minutes’ walk.”

“Twelve hours?” It dawned on him. “You mean … it’s past eleven in the morning.”

“Right-o.”

“Oh,” said Matthew. He sank back down again into the lumps. His appointment, directed by Albion, was lost. “Damn,” he said quietly.

“The Three Sisters ain’t goin’ nowhere,” Kevin told him. “Neither are you, by the looks of you.”

Matthew could apply no comment to this. It occurred to him that not only had the boot knocked him out for so long, but his weakness and lack of decent sleep had combined with the blow to keep him insensate.

“You must’ve been mighty thirsty for tavern brew,” said the girl. “That explains why you started twitchin’ and turnin’ somethin’ awful ’round about midnight. I know, ’cause I was sittin’ in here with you and saw it.” She turned her head to speak to one of the others. “Rory oughta know he’s come up.”

“I’ll fetch him,” said the second male, and there was the noise of boots clumping away across a stone floor.

“Lots ’a questions to ask you,” the girl said to Matthew. “Figure to wait on Rory for that.”

“By all means,” Matthew muttered, still cursing himself for missing the meeting and, furthermore, for missing a chance to clear up some of this mystery. “Let’s wait on Rory. In the meantime …” He had to pause a few seconds, because to his swollen jaw speaking all these words was like chewing on cannonballs. “You say … Flint Alley’s a few minutes away? I realize I’m in a cellar … but … who are you people?”

The girl’s face came out of the dimmer dark, was fully illuminated by the light of an oil lamp sitting on a crate beside Matthew’s head, and she looked down upon him like an angel from above.

“We’re your new fam’ly,” she said, “if it pleases you to be so.”

Matthew’s vision had almost completely cleared. He saw she was first of all maybe sixteen or seventeen, was slightly-built and had curly brown hair cropped short like a boy’s. In a heart-shaped face with untended, wild dark eyebrows her brown eyes caught the light and showed glints that could only be described as golden. Except her right eye was bruised and puffed, there was a purple knot on her scraped chin, her right cheek bore the bruise of a couple of knuckles and a small cut lay across the bridge of her pug nose.

This, Matthew realized, was the person he’d thought was a young boy suffering an attack by three bullies. Her statement, given earnestly, made not a whit of sense to him, but then again very little did these days. “What’s your name?” he asked.

“Pie Puddin,” she said, and her good and wounded eyes searched his face with intense interest. “What’s yours?”

“Matthew Corbett.”

“’lo, Matthew,” she said, and her bruised face smiled again.

“Hello … Pie,” he answered.

“Has our brave but foolish and very lucky warrior come to his senses?” The voice echoed in the cellar, as its owner had not yet reached Matthew’s side. Matthew heard the clump of a number of boots again, the girl named Pie moved away, and a man stood next to him. “Roger, look what’cha done,” the man said, speaking to someone out of Matthew’s field of vision.

“Pity,” returned yet another voice. “’Course it was just a graze. The next kick got that buster square in the chops. Sorry, mate,” he said to Matthew. “No hard feelin’s?”

“My choppers are still there. Didn’t bite my tongue through. Little hard to talk, but … no hard feelings.”

“Just what we want to hear.” The new arrival knelt down beside Matthew, uncorked a bottle and offered it. “Gift to you,” he said. “Best rum we could get on a moment’s notice.”

Matthew took the bottle and had no hesitation in drinking. In fact, he wouldn’t mind getting extremely drunk. The rum burned his mouth and throat and sizzled in his stomach but he thought he’d never tasted finer.

“His name’s Matthew Corbett,” said Pie Puddin.

“Rory Keen,” the new man told him. “I’m what y’might call lord of the manor.”

Matthew took another long swallow. “Lord of what manor?”

“All you see here below, and above. Three blocks to the south, three to the west, four to the east, two to the north. Workin’ presently on increasin’ our territorial holdin’s, in a manner a’ speakin’.” His ruddy face grinned, showing three silver teeth in the upper front and two in the lower. His deep-set, fierce pale blue eyes were frightening in their fervor. “You’re in the land of the Black-Eyed Broodies, and welcome to such a gallant soul. Wadin’ in there and savin’ our Pie—though she didn’t need no savin’—was quite the show a’ balls. I like balls, though not in the way some do.”

Another girl in the group who had entered the cellar laughed, and ended the laugh with a most unmaidenly snort.

“Now,” said Rory Keen, who had hair the color of flames and so thick, wild and wiry it appeared that trying to use a comb on it might’ve reduced the instrument to char. “Drink up plenty, friend Matthew, and we’ve got plenty a’ questions to ask you, and we hope you answer ’em all right as rain, ’cause we would sorely hate to think kindly of you one minute, then the next send you to your grave with a second mouth in that throat a’ yours.”

And, so saying, he placed a wicked-looking knife upon the crate next to Matthew’s head, and Matthew noted with some distress that its hooked blade already wore a proud crust of some enemy’s dried blood.