E turn,
"And how do ye figure that 'un, son?"
"Allow me to introduce myself," said van Clynne, taking the opportunity to slip down from the carriage on the side opposite the soldier. "Claus van Clynne, Esquire. You have undoubtedly heard of me."
"Whether I heard of ye or not, it dan't matter. Ye slain the colonel, and I'll be making mince pie of ye in return." The redcoat pushed his horse forward and took another slash, nipping the oversized beaver hat but not its owner. Van Clynne threw himself on the ground and rolled beneath the wheels of the cart, using it for protection. No matter which way the redcoat attacked, van Clynne flew to the other side. Granted, he suffered a few close nicks and scratches, and the ground was not very soft or smooth, but the soldier could not get close enough to strike a serious blow without dismounting.
"Come out, ye damn coward. Out, or I will kill your wee pony."
"A true Scotsman would not harm a pony born on the heath," claimed van Clynne.
The soldier knitted his brow. He had never heard of a pony imported to America from the heath, nor was he altogether certain what distinguishing marks, if any, a Scots pony would bear. Nonetheless, he held all equines in high esteem and felt it beneath him to attack this poor animal, just because its owner was a treacherous, murdering rebel.
Besides, the pony would fetch a nice price back at the city.
"All right then," said the redcoat, jumping from his horse. "But you yourself will get no mercy."
Van Clynne just made it out from under the cart as the redcoat charged. He slipped onto the other side as the sword crashed so heavily against the wood that three inches of it were splintered.
"Stand and fight like a man!" declared the Scotsman.
"Oh gladly, sir," answered van Clynne. "But the odds are little lopsided, given that you have a sword and I have only my wits to protect me."
"Ye dan't object when ye had the gun and axes."
"I am only saying that I will put aside my wit, if you put aside your sword."
This rather generous offer was answered by a vigorous flail of the sword. But as van Clynne circled the cart and the terms of the standoff became clear, the redcoat took a new assessment of the situation. Clearly, he could defeat the rotund Dutchman if they fought hand to hand — even without the dirk he had secreted in his belt.
"All right, laddie," he said, holding the sword at his side. "I will fight you fair, like a man."
He dropped the sword in the dust.
"Oh, you want to play at fisticuffs," said van Clynne, edging to his right. "I should warn you, sir: I am Dutch."
"So?"
Van Clynne's answer was a feint toward the sword. The Scotsman grabbed his knife as he performed a spectacular front-roll to the ground in front of the saber. He landed on his feet in a fighting position, quite prepared to take on an entire regiment of rebels, if need be.
He needn't. For the Dutchman had taken the opportunity to bolt not for the sword, but the soldier's nearby horse.
"As you were not prepared to completely abandon your weapons, I did not forsake mine," shouted van Clynne as he leaped aboard and thundered away.
Chapter Thirty-two
The battering at the engineer’s office left Major Dr. Keen in the foulest mood of his life. It was one thing to discover that Jake Gibbs had fooled him; Gibbs was surely the Americans' finest agent, a man trusted by Washington with only the most delicate missions. He had been schooled in England and came from a wealthy if not noble family. In some ways he reminded Keen of himself as a young man.
But to find van Clynne alive and running through the streets of New York as freely as a rat — the humiliation was nearly too much to bear.
By the time Keen's horses finally stopped their panicked flight they were nearly trampling the rough wood of the docks. His eyes fairly closed by bruises, the doctor saw no alternative but to slink into some lair and lick his wounds. He did not want to rejoin Clayton Bauer and his relatives under any circumstances, as he would then be obliged to offer some sort of explanation for the tumult. Even the most convincing lie would be a degrading embarrassment.
Rarely had the doctor found himself in such mental disarray. He could not repair to his apartments on the city's west side for fear that someone — perhaps an agent of Bacon's — would seek him out there. Nor could he rule out the possibility that Gibbs had been sent to assassinate him, in a reversal of their previous roles. And so Keen spent a miserable night shivering in a shack owned by an acquaintance midway between Rutger's land and Corlear's Hook. The wind and sea ravaged his ears with their unrelenting drone as he pitched in the narrow cradle of his bed, wrapped in a thin and threadbare cotton cloth. Not even his potions could allow him a fitless sleep.
Still, the doctor had passed hard nights before, and the morrow brought him some hope and new priorities. He decided that he would no longer worry about Bacon and the consequences of the premature message announcing the death of his two enemies. There was nothing to be done about it one way or the other; he would have to accept whatever Fate delivered.
That decision gave him a certain amount of peace, and allowed him to reach his next: he would find and eliminate van Clynne before attending to Gibbs.
Van Clynne embodied nearly everything that Keen loathed, and yet he had beaten Keen consistently, escaping every encounter. To kill him, to rip the man's immense liver from his body and hold it above his head, to strip his gallbladder with a serrated knife and feed it to the rutting pigs. . Keen nearly frothed contemplating such joyful enterprises.
He knew that van Clynne had a great propensity for drink and trusted that he would not be difficult to trace. The doctor began the day by making the rounds of the taverns and inns in the vicinity, gradually widening his net. All manner of owners and keepers knew his prey; van Clynne seemed to owe each inhabitant of the island at least five-shillings. But the Dutchman's comings and goings were not regular, and none of Keen's interviews produced definite news.
Until, in mid-afternoon, he stopped at Fraunces Tavern.
"Owes you too, eh?" said the proprietor after Keen had one of the servers fetch him.
"He has owed me a great deal in the past," Keen told the aristocratic-looking man before him. He was aware that the middle-aged Fraunces shaded to the Whig side but was nonetheless confident he could be fooled. "In all honesty, it is I who owe him at present. I have business in Europe, and want to settle up before leaving."
Though the story seemed plausible and even admirable in theory, Keen could not have hit on a tale that would have made Fraunces more suspicious. To his knowledge, van Clynne never, ever loaned money; it was a violation of the Dutchman's most sacred principles. But Fraunces had considerable experience tending bar, and nodded with a face that would have fooled Saint Thomas himself.
"You are unlucky to have missed him," said the proprietor. "He was here before midday, and was speaking of going to Brooklyn. I believe he was paying off a debt among tavern owners there."
Keen did not bother to finish his Madeira before leaving.
"Add a shilling to van Clynne's bill," Fraunces told his bookkeeper when he returned upstairs. "I have just saved his life."
"Overvalued by half," remarked the man.
Clayton Bauer pulled back the pistol lock's hammer and steadied his aim, endeavoring to ignore his sister. "Clayton," she insisted, "it is nearly mid-afternoon. Your dinner has become cold."
The pistol shot rent the air, but the paper Bauer had placed on the tree as a target remained untouched.
"Damn."
"It's a fine ham," said Lady Patricia.