The fourth man in the room pursed his lips and let out a sound like a wet fart.
“You wish to speak, Mr. Greathouse?” the governor asked.
“I wish to complain,” the great one answered. He wasn’t leaning on his stick this morning; it was crossed over his right shoulder. Matthew had noted the dark hollows beneath his tarpit eyes. It appeared to him that Hudson had fought his own fire last night, after being roused out of Abby Donovan’s cottage by the conflagration and noise, and the more intimate flames had fairly scorched him. “As a character witness for Matthew, I—”
“Why exactly are you here, sir?” came the interruption, which Matthew knew dared violence, even against a lord in a dress.
“I’m here,” came back the response, which was dangerously close to a sneer, “because I was in our office when the high-and-mighty constable barged in there and all but arrested my associate. Then dragged him over here for what he called a ‘hearing.’ Well, I came along of my own free will.”
“Couldn’t stop him, I fear,” said Lillehorne.
“Couldn’t be stopped,” said Greathouse, his grim gaze directed to the gowned governor. “I don’t know what happened last night and neither does Matthew. Yes, his name was painted on a wall across from the fire. But he had nothing to do with that! With any of it! How could he, when he was at Sally Almond’s tavern dancing when that building…blew up, or whatever happened to it.”
“There was a dance last night?” Lord Cornbury asked Lillehorne, with a plaintive note in his voice. “My wife and I love to dance.”
“The common folk’s dance, my lord. Not to your liking, I’m sure.”
Matthew had to sigh at this exchange. True, he’d been brought here by Lillehorne from the Herrald Agency’s office at Number Seven Stone Street about thirty minutes ago. To avoid having to look at this scene of foolishness, he gazed out the window to his right, which gave a view of the town along the Broad Way. A light snow had begun falling before dawn, and now in the gray glow of nine o’clock the roofs were white. A few wagons trundled up and down the Broad Way. Citizens wrapped up in their coats were going about their business. The steeple of Trinity Church was outlined in white, and white robes covered the sleepers in Trinity’s graveyard. At Wall Street, City Hall was getting a white frosting upon its yellow-cake paint, and Matthew wondered if up in his attic wonderworld of skeletons and grotesqueries the eccentric coroner Ashton McCaggers was firing his pistol at one of his dress dummies in order to measure the bullet hole.
“Why do you two always seem to be…” Cornbury paused, tapping his chin with a finger in order to urge the proper word loose. “Afflicted? With trouble,” he quickly added, seeing the storm brewing in Greathouse’s face. “I mean to say, why are you always followed by trouble?”
“It’s our business,” Greathouse answered. “Just as yours is sitting here trying to blame Matthew Corbett for something he had no part in.”
“Mind your mouth, please!” Lillehorne warned, though it came out more as a shaky request.
“I’m not blaming anyone, sir.” When he needed to, Cornbury could display ample composure. His bosom seemed somewhat ample today as well, but Matthew chose not to linger a gaze or thought on that subject very long. “I’m simply trying to understand why his name was there. As in: who painted it upon the bricks? And also: for what reason? You must admit, this is a very peculiar situation. First that…that Gillespie person nearly faints dead away telling me he has seen a red signal lamp drawing a Dutch armada in to the attack, that he’d…how did he put it?…‘pulled a boner’ on his cannon, and that the phantom of Oyster Island stole his codfish.”
“Three mackerel and a striper,” Greathouse corrected.
“All right, whatever they were. Then this warehouse burns to the ground and the young man’s name is there on the opposite wall. And I will tell you, sir, that Johannis Feeg was first in my office this morning, with his lawyer, and the talk of monetary restitution reached a rather high volume.”
“Monetary restitution?” Greathouse’s scowl was a fearsome sight. “From whom? Matthew? Feeg and his lawhound will have to bore a hole through my body to get past me!”
“Let me hear,” said Cornbury in a quiet voice, “the silent one speak. Mr. Corbett, do you have anything to say?”
Matthew was still staring out the window, watching the snowflakes fall. He wished he were a thousand miles away from this ridiculous room. Again, since becoming a killer everything seemed so small and unimportant. Ludicrous, really. He mused on the fact that Professor Fell had not only controlled Lyra Sutch and Tyranthus Slaughter, but now also had a hand in his own destiny. Matthew was not who he had been, and he wondered if he would ever find his way back.
“Mr. Corbett?” Cornbury urged.
“Yes?” Then Matthew realized what was being asked of him. His mental wheels were clogged today. Three hours of fitful sleep would muddy up the best brain. He rubbed his forehead, where the crescent scar of a bear’s claw would forever remind him of the price of being someone’s champion. “Oh. All right,” he said hazily. “I was dancing at Sally Almond’s. No,” he corrected, “I was standing at the table that had gone over. Everything spilled. Effrem was there. The girl. Opal. And she cut one of her fingers on the glass.”
There was a short pause.
“Oh dear,” said the governor to Lillehorne. “Is he related to that Gillespie creature?”
By an effort of will and concentration, Matthew righted his foundering ship. “I had nothing to do with that fire,” he said, with some heat behind it. “Yes, my name was painted on the wall. By someone.” Or more than one, he thought. But the Mallorys had been at the dance when the warehouse had gone up. How could they have been responsible, and what would be the point? “Someone wished to…implicate me, I suppose? Or something else? Because I had dozens of witnesses and, besides, why would I be fool enough to sign my name to a warehouse-burning? Why would I want to set fire to a storehouse of ropes?” He waited for a reply. When there was none, he shot the question at them again: “Why?”
“Listen to him,” said Greathouse, the loyal friend.
The moment hung.
With a rustle of stiffened muslin, Lord Cornbury rose to his high-heeled feet. He went to the window and aimed his shadowed stare at the dance of white flakes that swooped and swirled from the gray ceiling of clouds.
After a measure of reflection, the governor said in a low voice not suiting his suit, “Damn this. I understand none of it.”
Welcome to my world, Matthew thought.
After a spell of what seemed like deliberation but may have only been hapless and aimless thought of what color sash went with what color gown, Lord Cornbury turned toward the high constable. “Can you handle this, Lillehorne?”
For once, the high constable sought his rightful level of truth. “I’m not certain, sir.”
“Hm,” came the reply; a decision had been made. The rather unsettling gaze ticked between Matthew and Greathouse. “You two are the problem-solvers. Solve the problem.”
“We’d like to do that,” Greathouse replied without hesitation, “but our business requires a fee.”
“Your usual fee, then. Nothing too exorbitant for the town’s coffers, I trust.” A gloved finger was lifted. “Now both of you listen to me before I dismiss you. If I discover that you have worked this situation in order to wrench money from my pockets, I shall have your stones boiled in oil before they’re cut off with a dull knife. Do you understand me?”
Greathouse shrugged, his way of saying he did. Matthew was still wondering where Cornbury’s pockets were.