Chapter 20

 

Which Concerns Itself with the Aftermath

 

It was not to be expected that Pickett would suffer no ill effects from his nocturnal adventures. He spent a very uncomfortable night on his temporary bed, and when he arose the following morning, he had to make a conscious effort not to let out a groan that echoed the protests of his sorely abused muscles. Alas, he lowered his guard too soon, for although he remembered to turn his back to his wife before pulling his nightshirt over his head, he reckoned without the mirror above her dressing table.

“John!” cried Julia, regarding his reflection with dismay. “What happened to you?”

He looked down the long length of his person, then, seeing where her gaze was fixed, looked up at his reflection in the mirror and saw the reason for her reaction. He had known, of course, that turning over on the camp bed had hurt like the very devil, but he had not expected the source of this pain to be so very large.

Or so very colorful. Near the center of his bare chest bloomed a hideous flower mottled with shades of red, blue, and purple. A further examination of his person disclosed a constellation of smaller contusions—souvenirs, no doubt, of his tumble down the narrow, uncarpeted stair.

Knowing that Julia would not be satisfied until she had an answer, Pickett equivocated. “How much do you know about last night?”

“I know Rogers heard a noise last night and came to fetch you, thinking—quite rightly—that you would want to investigate.”

Pickett cleared his throat. “Yes, well—”

“And I might as well tell you up front that I know there was someone in the house. You need not blame Rogers,” she added quickly but firmly. “He had to tell me something, when I woke up to discover him standing guard over the servants’ door with a large brass candlestick, and you nowhere in sight!”

“Yes, we had a housebreaker,” he conceded with a sigh, oddly grateful to the butler for sparing him the necessity of deciding whether or not to tell her—or, rather, how much to tell her, given that his last attempt to shield her had led to her being abducted—about the events of the previous night. “I followed him up the stairs as far as the attic, when I came upon him suddenly. I’m not sure which one of us was the more startled—no, on second thought, I think that would be me. He at least had the presence of mind to kick me down the stairs.”

Ignoring the end of this speech, Julia fixed on the same point that had so baffled him. “Why the attic?”

Pickett shook his head. “I have no idea. While I was picking myself up off the stairs, he climbed the ladder up to the roof. Thomas and Andrew went after him”—he made no mention of his own futile attempt at pursuit—“but they lost him in the dark.”

Julia frowned thoughtfully. “And nothing was taken?”

“Nothing at all,” he assured her. “So you see, there was no harm done.”

“I don’t know about that,” she said, eyeing his bruises with disfavor. “I rather liked your chest the way it was.”

There was only one way to respond to this claim, so he tossed his neglected shirt over the back of a chair, crossed the room, and sat on the edge of the bed, flinching only slightly when she flung herself into his arms.

“Oh, John, when I heard that gunshot—I thought it was you!” She buried her face in his shoulder, blinking back the tears that filled her eyes all too frequently these days.

“It was,” he said, stroking her hair soothingly. “Only I was the one behind the gun, not in front of it. I hit him, too, although I don’t know where he was shot, or how badly—obviously not very, since he was still able to climb the ladder and make his escape. Which reminds me, I need to go up on the roof and look about for traces of blood, or anything else he might have left behind.”

Still resting her head on his shoulder, she dabbed at her eyes with a corner of the counterpane. “And so you shall,” she agreed, “right after you’ve seen the doctor.”

* * *

“The good news is, nothing is broken.”

As Dr. Gilroy had delivered this diagnosis only after a thorough examination which consisted mostly of the physician-surgeon’s poking and prodding at his patient’s aching ribs, Pickett was led to wonder aloud whether the treatment was worse than the injury.

“Ach, I don’t doubt you’re sore, for you’ve bruised yourself up good and proper. What did you do this time? Were you kicked by a mule?”

“Something like that,” Pickett said cryptically, wincing as the doctor poked a particularly sensitive spot.

“I can bind your ribs if you like. It won’t make you heal any faster, but it might make you a bit more comfortable.”

Pickett declined this offer, explaining, “I don’t want to upset Julia by making more of the incident than it deserves. It won’t do to have her see me going about swathed in bandages.”

Dr. Gilroy shook his head. “Aye, this sort of thing can’t be good for her.”

Pickett paused in the act of pulling his shirt back on and regarded the doctor in some indignation. “It wasn’t much good for me, either!”

“Very likely not. Still, I can’t say I’m sorry you had cause to summon me, for I was on the point of writing a note to send ’round. I had dinner with Friedrich Kellermann last night, and he was intrigued by this little puzzle of yours. I gave him the sample, and he promises to run a complete analysis on it as soon as may be.”

Which meant, Pickett supposed, that he could expect to hear nothing until the chemist’s lecture series was over and he had returned to the university where he taught—and where, presumably, he would have ready access to a laboratory.

“Thank you, doctor. I’m obliged to you.”

Inwardly, however, Pickett sighed. He’d hoped to have his father’s affairs settled before Julia’s confinement—which meant within days, rather than weeks or even months. He reminded himself that it was only dirt; there was no reason why he couldn’t dump it into the garden and toss the empty vial and have done with the whole business. Still, his father had clearly thought it worth bringing back to England—and, given what Mr. Colquhoun had said about the rumors that occasionally swept through the colony, Pickett could now form a very good idea of why. Da had been convinced he’d come into a fortune; it had stuck out all over him. Perhaps it was a good thing he hadn’t lived long enough to see his supposed riches turn, quite literally, to dust.

* * *

Pickett sat back on his haunches, regarding with satisfaction the last of the dark brown spots that formed a trail stretching from the trapdoor of his own roof across the rooftops of the house adjacent to it, and the house adjacent to that one. The drops of dried blood came to an abrupt end behind the chimney of the fourth house in the terrace row. Pickett was under no illusion that a grown man had somehow made his escape down a chimney so narrow that a careless climbing boy might find himself stuck in it; still less did he believe the man had disappeared into thin air. It was far more likely that, having put some distance between himself and his pursuers, he had hidden behind the chimney while he did what he could to stanch the flow of blood that he must know would mark his trail once the sun rose. Whatever the intruder’s purpose had been, Pickett hoped he’d been given such a fright that he would think twice before making a second attempt. In the meantime, he had his own plans for the day: He intended to pay another call on Sullivan Bradley and see what the former clerk thought of Mr. Mathers and his continued—and increasingly expensive—attempts to buy a property that, according to Sully, was worthless.

Descending the ladder was not quite as excruciating a procedure as climbing it had been, and so it wasn’t long that, after stopping by Julia’s bedside to give her a farewell kiss, he gingerly made his way down the front stairs to the foyer just in time to hear Rogers addressing an unseen caller with excruciating courtesy.

“If, ma’am, the young master is indeed on your roof as you say, then you may be sure he has good reason to be.”

“I would give much to know what it is, then,” retorted an irate female voice which Pickett readily identified as their neighbor from two doors down—upon whose roof he had indeed been walking less than fifteen minutes earlier. “This was a quiet, respectable street, until Lady Fieldhurst brought that man here!”

Having reached the bottom of the stairs, Pickett gritted his teeth against the pain in his ribs and strode across the foyer, a devil of mischief lurking in his brown eyes. “Good morning, Mrs. Pitney-Hughes,” he said cheerfully. “Did you see me up on your roof? I’m sorry if I gave you a fright.”

“Fright?” she echoed in frigid tones. “It’s my opinion that you must be mad!”

“Not at all,” he assured her. “We had an uninvited ‘guest’ last night who made his escape through the hatch to the roof, and across the roofs of the neighboring houses, if the trail of blood he left behind is anything to judge by. I hope the gunshot didn’t disturb you.”

The ostrich plumes adorning her stylish hat fairly quivered in indignation, but the angry face beneath it paled visibly. “Blood? Gunshot? I should like to know just what has been going on here!”

Pickett heaved a sigh of regret. “I’m afraid I shot him, ma’am. I confess, I may have acted too precipitously, for he didn’t take anything, so far as I can tell. Now that I think of it, he couldn’t have been a burglar, for what could a poor Bow Street Runner have that would be worth stealing?” While the lady pondered this rhetorical question, Pickett delivered his coup de grâce. “Unless, of course, he mistook our house for another on this same street.”

“You don’t frighten me, sir!” she retorted, although her voice lacked conviction.

“Frighten you? I should hope not! Now,” Pickett said, in the tone of one who considers the subject closed, “were you coming to call on my wife, or may I give you my arm back to your own house?” Suiting the word to the deed, he offered his arm.

“I thank you sir,” she said, although her voice contained nothing indicative of gratitude, “but I shall see myself home.”

And with these words, she turned on her heel (drawing the skirts of her wool pelisse close as if fearful of contamination) and marched back down the street to the next house but one. Pickett waited only long enough to hear the firm click of the latch as her door closed before turning to address the butler.

“I’m going to be gone for a bit, Rogers. If anything happens”—a quick glance toward the ceiling, and the bedchamber above it, made it clear just what sort of happening Pickett anticipated—“I’ll be in Limehouse, at the boardinghouse in Narrow Street where Mr. Sullivan Bradley is staying.”

“Very good, sir,” Rogers said, then added, “Begging your pardon, sir, but surely you don’t intend to walk all that way!”

“Walk? Oh, no. I’m only walking as far as Piccadilly. It should be easier to hail a hackney from there. Although”—he made an anticipatory grimace—“I might find it easier to walk than to hoist myself into a carriage.”

To Pickett’s misfortune, this prediction proved to be all too accurate. Once the climb into the hackney was achieved, however, he was free to collapse against the squabs and recruit his strength not only for the climb down from the vehicle, but also for the much longer climb up the narrow staircase to Sully’s second-floor room. By the time this latter was accomplished, Pickett’s knees were weak and he was gasping for breath, clinging to the banister with one hand while he pressed the other to his aching ribs. He knocked on Sully’s door, then quickly pulled the handkerchief from the pocket of his coat and wiped off the perspiration that dotted his brow in great drops. He stuffed the handkerchief back into his coat pocket, and by the time a voice on the other side of the door called for him to “Come in!”, no one who saw Pickett stroll into the room would have imagined that the previous night could have held anything for him but complete repose.

“Well, if it isn’t Jack’s b-boy!” Sully, seated at the small table with paper, quill, and ink spread out before him, made no move to rise, but his greeting held as warm a welcome as anyone might wish. “This is a p-pleasant surprise, ’pon my w-word it is! Come in, won’t you?”

Pickett obeyed this behest, striding across the small room to shake hands with his host across the width of the table.

“I’m glad I found you at home,” he began, only to be cut off by another invitation.

“Sit d-down, sit down!” Sully urged, waving Pickett not toward the worn horsehair sofa where he’d sat on his earlier visit, but to a rickety straight chair adjacent to his own. “Doesn’t look like much, b-but it’s sturdy enough. But what b-brings you to Limehouse? No t-trouble regarding Jack’s affairs, I hope.”

“Well, yes and no,” Pickett confessed, pulling out the chair and very cautiously easing himself onto it. “No trouble, exactly, but a curious thing has happened, and I thought you might be the best man to advise me.”

Sully shook his head in ready sympathy. “It’s a sad b-business, and you with no b-brothers or sisters to share the b-burden. Well, anything I can do to help Jack’s boy, you can be sure I’ll do it.”

“I’m obliged to you,” Pickett said, accepting this offer with real gratitude. “It’s about this property Da left.”

“What about it?”

“I know you said it’s worthless, but there’s this fellow named Mathers who’s called twice at my house to—what?” Pickett broke off, puzzled by the former clerk’s rather knowing smile.

“So Mathers c-called at your house, d-did he?” Sully’s smile broadened into a grin.

“Yes,” said Pickett, unamused. “You find that funny? I should like to know why.”

Now it was Sully’s turn to be puzzled. “You m-mean your employer’s house, d-don’t you?” Reading the answer in Pickett’s face, he said in some confusion, “I b-beg your pardon, John, but I thought you were j-just j-joking. At the inquest, when you g-gave your residence as C-Curzon Street, I thought you must be a f-footman, like your father had b-been many years ago, long b-before I knew him. I m-meant no d-disrespect.”

“It’s an honest mistake,” Pickett said, although in fact he was more than a bit nettled by the man’s assumption. “The house came to me when I married.” He kept to himself the fact that the house had belonged to Julia until she had married him, at which point it, along with all the rest of her earthly possessions, became his in the eyes of the law.

Sully nodded in understanding. “Now that we’ve g-got that sorted, t-tell me about this Mathers fellow. You say he’s c-called on you t-twice? Why? What d-does he want?”

“He wants to buy Da’s property.”

His host seemed to see no difficulties with Pickett’s dilemma; in fact, he was quite enthusiastic. “How much d-did he offer?”

“Twenty pounds, sight unseen. He calls himself a land speculator—a man who buys land and sells it later at a profit.”

Sully’s eyes grew round, and his stammer became so pronounced that he could hardly speak at all. “T-T-Take it! W-What are you w-w-waiting for?”

Pickett sighed. “Believe me, I asked myself the same question after he’d gone. I suppose that, since it constitutes the whole of my inheritance, I didn’t want to dispose of it without giving it a bit more thought.”

“F-Fair enough.” Sully acknowledged the wisdom of this decision—or, rather, indecision—with a nod. “But you said he c-called t-twice?”

“On his second visit, he increased his offer to twenty-five pounds, then thirty, and then forty pounds.”

As Sully’s only response to this was a long, low whistle, Pickett continued. “He said forty was his final offer, but I can’t help thinking I haven’t seen the last of him.”

“Play him as you w-would a f-fish on a line,” recommended Sully. “See if you can g-get him up to f-fifty, that’s my advice.”

“Yes, but that’s beside the point,” Pickett said impatiently. “Why is he willing to pay so much for land you say is worthless?”

Sully shrugged. “M-Maybe I’m wrong; this Mathers f-fellow obviously thinks so. Or maybe he’s wrong, and you need t-to snap up his offer b-before he d-discovers his mistake. You know what they say about a f-fool and his m-money.”

Pickett was still not entirely convinced, but he recognized the futility of discussing the matter further, and so made no objection when the other man changed the subject. Upon discovering that his host had been engaged in writing letters to potential employers, he told Sully that he himself had spent almost a month working as a clerk for the very same shipping company that had provided transportation back to England for Sully as well as his own father.

“I pity the man who has to spend his entire career there,” he said, shuddering to think how close he himself had come to that fate. “Still, it might suffice until you can find something better.”

For the next quarter hour, the two men exchanged anecdotes from their respective careers as brethren of the quill, until Sully suddenly remembered his duties as host.

“Here I’ve b-been prosing on when I p-promised you a c-cup of t-tea! Or would you rather have c-coffee?” Without waiting for an answer, he strode across the room to the fireplace, where he snatched up the poker and stirred coals back to life.

“No, no, you need not trouble yourself on my account,” Pickett protested. “I need to be getting back home in any case. I don’t like leaving my wife for long, not with her confinement so near at hand.”

“As you w-wish, then,” Sully conceded, setting the poker aside. “Some other d-day, perhaps.”

Pickett agreed to this, but as he rose from the rickety chair, Sully’s eyes widened in distress. “I s-say, you’re rather young to b-be m-moving so stiffly. Have you s-suffered an injury since I last saw you?”

“Only my own carelessness,” Pickett said with a shrug. “In fact, we had a housebreaker last night. I tried to catch the fellow, lost my footing, and tumbled down a few steps in the dark.”

“Oh, b-bad luck!”

“Very bad luck,” Pickett concurred, wincing at the memory.

“I t-trust nothing was s-stolen?” The slight lift on the last word gave Pickett to understand that this was a question, and not merely an observation.

“No, nothing so far as I can tell. In fact, I think the fellow must have got into our house by mistake. These terrace houses all look alike, at least from the outside, and, well, what do I have that would be worth stealing?”

Sully chuckled, but offered no answer to this purely rhetorical question. “I d-daresay you’ve scared the f-fellow off, anyway.”

“Very likely,” Pickett agreed somewhat sheepishly, “for I made enough noise to wake the dead.”

After saying all that was proper, he thanked Sully for his advice (agreeing to his host’s request that he be told how much Pickett was finally able to wring out of that Mathers fellow), and took his leave.

Once the door had closed behind him, however, he lingered in the corridor with a thoughtful frown creasing his brow. Was it only coincidence that as Sully had crossed the room to the fireplace, his gait had betrayed a slight but unmistakable limp?