The Queen of Bedlam (36 page)

“Just so I can get a very large and very strong drink,” Greathouse muttered. Then, more loudly and directed to Ramsendell: “Our fee would be three crowns and expenses. One crown to be paid upon agreement.”

Ramsendell looked for advice to Hulzen, who shrugged. “Expensive,” Ramsendell replied, “but I believe we can manage that if your expenses are reasonable.”

“They may or may not be. It all depends.” Greathouse, Matthew knew, was trying to break the deal before it was sealed. The rogue of swords was definitely unnerved by the shadow of madness; it was, after all, not something he could fight with fists, pistol, or rapier.

Ramsendell nodded. “We’ll trust your judgment. After all, you’re the professionals.”

“Yes.” Greathouse might have puffed his chest up a bit, but it was clear to Matthew that the matter of the fee had been settled. “Yes, we are.”

Before they departed from the room, Matthew paused to again take in the rich appointments, the elegant furniture and paintings. Where was the woman’s husband? he wondered. There was a lot of money on display here. What occupation had earned it?

He looked once more at the group of Italian masks, and then at the woman’s immobile profile. She wore her own mask, he thought. Behind it might be a mindless blank, or a tortured memory.

Young man, has the king’s reply yet arrived?

“Good evening to you,” Matthew said to the silent Queen of Bedlam, and followed the others out the door.

Twenty-Seven

“My opinion,” said Hudson Greathouse as he broke a silence that had stretched over half-an-hour, “is that it can’t be done, no matter if you think the contrary. After all, I’ve had a little more experience in this profession than you.”

Matthew let the comment sit. They were on the Philadelphia Pike, riding for New York. It was just after ten o’clock by Matthew’s watch. The sun was peeking out from behind gray clouds and glinting off wet trees and puddles on the road. They had left Westerwicke this morning after a breakfast meeting with the two doctors at Mrs. DePaul’s eating-house. During the night, while a thunderstorm blew and rain slammed against the shutters of the Constant Friend, Matthew and Greathouse had wrangled over the odds of finding a satisfactory solution to the Queen’s identity. Greathouse had said Mrs. Herrald would have considered this problem a lost cause, while Matthew had maintained that no cause was lost until it was abandoned. At last, realizing that Matthew was not going to retreat from his position, Greathouse had shrugged his shoulders, said, “It’s on your account then, as far as I’m concerned,” and had taken a bottle of rum upstairs to his room. Matthew had listened to the storm wail for a while, drank a last cup of ginger tea, and gone to his own bed to mull the connections of that peculiar pentagon until sleep had rescued him from his own mind past midnight.

“Where are you to begin with this?” Greathouse asked, riding alongside Matthew. “Do you even have any idea?”

“I do.”

“My ears are open.”

“Philadelphia,” Matthew said. He guided Dante around a puddle that looked like a swamp ready to swallow the horse to its bit. “To be specific, the office of Icabod Primm.”

“Oh, really?” Now Greathouse gave a harsh laugh. “Well, that will please our clients, won’t it? Didn’t you hear them say Primm’s not supposed to know anything about this?”

“My ears are also open, but I don’t believe Mr. Primm is…” He paused, searching for the term.

“On the level?” Greathouse supplied.

“Exactly. If Primm’s client cares so much about the lady’s welfare, he-or she-is not going to take her out of there, no matter what Primm threatens. Where else would the lady go, to be treated so royally? Primm’s client wants two things: the lady hidden out of the way, and also protected.”

“I don’t think those doctors will approve of it.”

“They don’t have to know, do they?”

Greathouse was quiet for a while. Sunlight was beginning to stream through the woods and the humid air was getting warmer. “This whole thing stinks, if you ask me,” Greathouse started up again. “Those lunatics walking around without chains on their ankles. All that hogshit about mental disorders and dream states and such. You know what my father would’ve used on me if I’d gone into a damned dream state? A bullwhip to wake me up with, that’s what! Seems to me that’s what some of those people need, not coddling like they’re tender violets.”

“I assume, then,” said Matthew dryly, “that you would give Jacob the bullwhip treatment?”

“You know what I mean! Hell, call a loon a loon and be done with it!”

“I’m sure there are many so-called doctors in the asylums of England who would agree with you. Then again, they would have no need for our services.” Matthew glanced quickly at Greathouse to gauge his expression-which was dour-and then looked toward the road again. “Don’t you think it’s admirable that Ramsendell and Hulzen want to help their patients?”

“I think it’s foolish and we were wrong to come here. People with mind disease can’t be helped.”

“Oh, I see. Mind disease, is it?”

“Yes, and don’t be cocky about it, either. I had an uncle on my mother’s side who got the mind disease. At fifty years of age he liked to sit around and whittle on little wooden horses. Sat me down once and went on about how he saw gnomes in his garden. And him an ex-military man, a cavalry captain! You know, you remind me of him, in a way.”

“What way?”

“He was always playing chess. By himself. He set up his games and played both sides, talking to himself all the while.”

“Imagine that,” Matthew said, and gave Greathouse a sidelong glance.

“All right, then. Suppose you go to Philadelphia and see this Primm bastard. There’s no law that says he has to tell you who the woman is. I expect he’ll throw you out on your mental disorder. What will you do then? Eh?” When Matthew didn’t respond, Greathouse pressed onward. “Are you going to walk the streets collaring people? Asking if they know a little old white-haired lady who thinks she’s Queen Mary sitting in a loonhouse waiting for a message from King William? I can see the Quakers taking in a new boarder at their own asylum. And not to mention that Philadelphia is a larger town than New York. If you’re going to make appointments with all the people there, the next time I see you you’ll have a gray beard down to your shoes.”

“What? You won’t go to help me ask everyone in Philadelphia?”

“I’m serious! I said last night this is on your account. When Mrs. Herrald hears about this-about me letting you agree to this thing-I may wind up sharpening pencils with a dull knife for the next six months. So no, I will not go to Philadelphia on a fool’s errand.”

“It seems to me,” Matthew said, “that you took their money willingly enough.” He speared Greathouse with a chilly gaze. “And are you telling me, sir, that after all your blowhard speeches about being tough of body, mind, and spirit that you are weak in the face of a challenge?”

“A challenge is one thing. This is an impossible quest. And mind who you’re calling weak, boy, because I could knock you off that horse with my little finger.”

Before Matthew could think twice about it, he was wheeling Dante in front of Greathouse’s horse. Matthew’s cheeks had flamed red, his heart was pounding, and he had had enough of the dish Greathouse was so eager to spoon out. Greathouse’s mount snorted and backed up as Dante stood his ground. Matthew sat in the saddle seething with anger.

“What the hell’s wrong with you?” Greathouse shouted. “You might have caused my horse to-”

“You hold your tongue,” Matthew said.

“What?”

“I said, you hold your tongue.”

“Well, well.” Greathouse wore a tight grin. “The boy has finally cracked.”

“Not cracked. Just ready to tell you what I think of you.”

“Really? This should be entertaining. Shall I get off my horse and prepare to twist you around that tree over there?”

Matthew felt his nerve faltering. He had to go ahead and speak before his good sense forbade it. “You’re going to sit there and listen. If you want to try to twist me around a tree when I’m done, so be it. I have no doubt you could do that, or knock me off my horse with your little finger as you so eloquently spoke, but I’ll be damned if I’ll let you talk down to me anymore.”

Greathouse narrowed his eyes. “What’s gotten up your bum?”

“Mrs. Herrald has chosen me for a reason. A very good reason. I’m fairly intelligent and I have a history that intrigues her. No, more than fairly intelligent. I’m very smart, Mr. Greathouse. Probably smarter than you, and you know that. Now I can’t fight as well as you can, or use a rapier worth a damn, and I haven’t stopped any assassination attempts in the last few months, but I have saved a woman from being burned at the stake as a witch, and I have uncovered a murderer and a plot to destroy an entire town. I think that counts for something. Don’t you?”

“I suppose it-”

“I’m not finished,” Matthew plowed on, and Greathouse was silent. “I don’t have your experience or your physical strength-and maybe I never will-but I intend to get one thing from you that you seem unwilling to offer: your respect. Not because I turn into who you want me to be, but because of who I am. Now Mrs. Herrald seems to trust my judgment, so why shouldn’t you when I tell you I can find out who that woman in the hospital is. And not only that, but I think it’s vital to find out, because I believe she has some knowledge of Mr. Deverick’s death and perhaps even of the Masker.”

“That’s stretching things, don’t you think?”

“I won’t know until I explore it further.”

“Explore away, then!” Greathouse gave a sweep of his arm that Matthew thought would have knocked him to Sunday if it had hit him. “What the hell should I care if you go off on a goose-chase and squander Mrs. Herrald’s coin?”

“It’s not her coin,” Matthew reminded him. “The doctors are paying expenses.”

Greathouse squinted and looked toward the sun, perhaps to burn from his eyes the image of a fool. Then he focused his attention on Matthew again and he said gruffly, “All right, now it’s my turn to speak. Yes, Mrs. Herrald has confidence in you. More than I do, by the way, but that ought to be obvious. There’s more to this business than mind-work. I’ve known several very smart gents who walked into a blind alley believing there was an open door at the end of it, and now they lie in graves so only the worms appreciate the size of their brains. Experience counts for a lot of this, yes, but also something you haven’t got, which is instinct. I have an instinct you’re going to fail at finding out who this woman was-is-and you’ll cause more harm than good trying to do it. As far as respect, sir Corbett, you get that from me by one way and one way only: by earning it. So you might be riding a tall horse today, and feel all the flush for your height, but I can tell you that the earth is very hard and unforgiving when you take a fall.”

“I’ll have to fall to find out then, won’t I?”

“Yes, but at least fall doing something with a possibility of success.”

Matthew nodded. He refused to look away from Greathouse’s baleful stare. “I think we should agree to disagree, sir, because contrary to your opinion I have the instinct that the Queen has a connection to both Pennford Deverick and the Masker and I intend to find out what it is.”

“And I think her Highness is a lunatic whose family put her away to keep her from drooling on the breakfast bacon.”

“Something more than that, I believe,” said Matthew. “Much more. The maker’s marks being either rubbed or chiseled off the furniture tells me she was put there to be invisible. Actually, it sounds more to me that Mr. Primm’s client fears having the lady’s identity discovered. Why should that be?”

“I don’t know. You being the chief investigator on this, you enlighten me.”

“People who wish to draw a curtain over their activities usually have a secret to hide. I should like to find out what that secret is.”

“Now we’ve gone from finding out identities to finding out supposed secrets.”

“Well,” Matthew said, “call it an instinct.”

Greathouse snorted. “Boy, I’ll bet you could drive someone mad with that attitude of yours.”

“You have your blades,” Matthew answered, “and I have mine.”

“So you do.” Greathouse regarded Matthew with perhaps a hint of new appreciation, but if it had really been there it was gone in an instant. “You’ll notice that while we’ve been jawing, the road to New York has not gotten any shorter.”

They rode on, with Dante now taking the lead by a nose.

The clouds parted and drifted away like so much mist, the sun strengthened and thrust golden swords between the trees, the air shimmered with insects, and the birds sang their delight at life in the modern century. The only other disruption during the trip was the wait for about an hour for the ferry at Weehawken, as an oar had broken on a drifting treetrunk on the New York side, but then the trip was made and Matthew and Greathouse at last guided their horses off the flatboat onto Manhattan mud.

Greathouse said he would report back to Mrs. Herrald and also return to town within the next couple of days to get the list of the upper island residents Magistrate Powers was procuring for him, and then he wished Matthew well and bid him good day. At the stable Matthew relinquished Dante-a “very good horse I hope to use again,” he told Mr. Winekoop-and walked up the Broad Way hill for home in the deepening shadows of afternoon. He was used to long rides, for with Powers he’d made many trips to deliver legal documents or scribe cases being heard by the magistrate in smaller towns, but his ass was hurting. A three-day jaunt to Philadelphia was not something he wished to consider at this point in his discomfort.

He was mulling over the fact of the four masks on the wall of the Queen’s room-and wondering if his so-called instinct in asserting his determination to solve this problem in front of Greathouse wouldn’t result in that topple from a tall horse before all was said and done-when he heard a voice to his right call, “Matthew! Ho there, Matthew!”

He looked around and saw two figures approaching him from the corner of Maiden Lane. A wagon went past, hauling barrels. Matthew stepped back to let the vehicle trundle by. Then the two figures were crossing the Broad Way toward him and he saw Marmaduke Grigsby’s gap-toothed grin and stoop-shouldered shamble. The other person wore a round-brimmed straw hat and a bright violet-colored gown decorated with rather loud examples of green lace at the throat and sleeves. Matthew realized he was about to be formally introduced to Beryl Grigsby, whose taste in colors made him feel vaguely seasick.

The last he’d seen of Grigsby’s granddaughter was as a mud-colored lump fainting down with relief and exhaustion into a chair at the printmaster’s house. Matthew had put the girl’s bags on the floor, wished everyone well, and gotten out of there before he caught a bad case of mildew.