“Strange business, your name upon that wall,” said Greathouse, at last coming around to the problem at hand. It wasn’t the first time they’d discussed it, but now they were problem-solvers under warranty to the governor and, of course, the townspeople who would be paying their fee. “Let’s walk,” Greathouse suggested—more of a command, really—and again they were off under the bowsprits of the nested vessels.
After a few strides measured by Greathouse’s stick, the question came: “Do you have any ideas?”
Yes I do, Matthew thought at once. I have an idea a snake disguised as a doctor and his equally-reptilious wife have something to do with this, yet I have no proof and I have no sense of what their motive might be. Minus either of those, I am as far from solving this problem as Zed is from walking on the shore of Africa.
Therefore he answered, “No, I don’t.”
“Someone,” said Greathouse, “doesn’t like you.”
Yes, Matthew again thought, his jaw set and grim, his face whipped by a cold wind. And that club seems to be getting larger by the day.
They came upon a new ship that had evidently just arrived in the past hour or so, for the gangplank was lashed down and the crew was staggering off one after the other in search of their landlegs. A pair of empty wagons stood at the ready, but no cargo was being served to them. On the wagons were painted in red the slogan The Tully Company. Referring, as the problem-solvers knew, to Solomon Tully, the sugar merchant, he of the false choppers and a grand and glorious windbag to boot. Yet he was not such a bad sort when reciting his tales of visits to the Caribbean sugarcane plantations, for he could bring forth a heartening description of the tropical sun and the azure water and thus was welcome in any tavern on a winter’s day. And there stood on the wharf the stout and ruddy-cheeked man himself, wearing a brown tricorn and over what was assuredly an expensive suit a beautifully-made tan-colored overcoat of the finest weave from the Owleses’ tailor shop on Crown Street. Solomon Tully was very wealthy, very gregarious and usually very happy. This morn, however, he was sorely lacking that third attribute.
“Damn it, Jameson! Damn it all to Hell!” Tully was raging at an unfortunate, thin and ragged individual whose beard appeared to be formed from different colors of mold. “I pay you a fine sum for this sort of thing?”
“Sorry, sir…sorry, sir…sorry,” the unfortunate Jameson replied, eyes downcast and demeanor wretched.
“Go on and get cleaned up, then! File a report in the office! Go on, before I change my mind and send you packing!” As Jameson trudged away, Tully looked toward Matthew and Greathouse. “Ho, there! You two! Wait a moment!”
Tully was on them before they could decide whether to stand still or pretend they hadn’t heard. Tully’s face was flaming with the last of his anger. “Damn this day!” he raged. “Do you know how much money I’ve lost this morning?” His false teeth with their Swiss-made gears might appear perfect, Matthew thought, but they made strange little metallic whining noises as Tully spoke. Matthew wondered if the springs were too tight, and if they broke would Tully’s teeth fly from his head and snap through the air until they bit hold of something.
“How much?” Greathouse asked, against his better judgement.
“Too much, sir!” came the heated reply. Steam was wafting around Tully’s head. Suddenly Tully leaned toward them in a conspiratorial pose. “Listen,” he said more quietly, with an expression of pleading, “you two are the problem-solvers—”
Who seem to be much in demand today, Matthew thought.
“—so do me the favor of thinking something over, will you?”
Greathouse cleared his throat, a warning rumble. “Mr. Tully, we do charge a fee for such efforts.”
“All right, hang the damned fee! Whatever you feel is proper! Just hear me out, will you?” Tully looked as if he might stomp his feet on the dock timbers like a child deprived of a sweet. “I’m a man in distress, can’t you see?”
“Very well,” said Greathouse, the picture of calm solidity. “How can we help you?”
“You can tell me,” Tully replied, either tears or snowflakes melting on his cheeks, “what kind of pirate it is that steals a cargo of sugar but leaves everything else untouched?”
“Pardon?”
“Pirate,” Tully repeated. “Who steals sugar. My sugar. The third shipment in as many months. But left behind are items you’d think any brigand of the sea would throw into his bottomless pot of greed! Like the captain’s silverware, or the pistols and ammunition, and anything else of value not nailed to the deck! No, this ocean wolf just takes my sugar! Barrels of it! And I’m not the only one affected by this either! It’s happened to Micah Bergman in Philadelphia and the brothers Pallister in Charles Town! So think on this for me, gentlemen…why does a rat of the waves wish to steal my sugar between Barbados and New York? And only sugar?”
Greathouse had no answer but a shrug. Therefore Matthew stepped into the breech. “Possibly to resell it? Or to…” Now Matthew had to shrug. “Bake a huge birthday cake for the Pirate King?” As soon as he spoke it, he knew he had not done a very good thing.
Greathouse suffered a sudden fit of coughing and had to turn away, while Solomon Tully looked as if his most-trusted dog had just peed on his boots.
“Matthew, this is no laughing matter,” said the sugar merchant, every word spaced out like cold earth between graves. “This is my life!” The force with which that word was spoken caused a spronging noise from within Tully’s mouth. “My God, I’m losing fistfuls of money! I have a family to support! I have obligations! Which, as I understand, you gentlemen do not share. But I’ll tell you…something’s very strange about this situation, and you can laugh all you please, Matthew, and you can cover up a laugh with a cough, Mr. Greathouse, but there’s something wicked afoot with this constant stealing of sugar! I don’t know where it’s going, or why, and it troubles me no end! Haven’t you two ever faced something you had to know, and it was just grinding your guts to find out?”
“Never,” said Greathouse, which immediately collided with Matthew’s “Often.”
“A two-headed answer from a one-headed beast,” was Tully’s observation. “Well, I’m telling you, it’s a problem to be solved. Now I don’t expect you to ship yourselves to the sugar islands, but can’t you put some thought to this and tell me the why of it? Also, what I might do to prevent this from happening next month?”
“It’s a bit out of our realm,” Greathouse offered. “But I’d suggest the crew taking those pistols and ammunition that are likely locked up in a chest and using them to blast the shit from between a pirate’s ears. That ought to do the trick.”
“Very good advice, sir,” said Tully with a solemn expression and a curt nod. “And surely they would appreciate that advice from their watery graves, since the damned sea roaches have already made it clear that cannons win over pistols any day, even on the Sabbath.” He touched the brim of his tricorn with a forefinger. “I’m going home now to have a drink of hot rum. And if one drink becomes two and two become three and on and on, I’ll see you sometime next week.” So saying, he turned himself about and began to trudge off toward his fine house on Golden Hill Street. In another moment he was a vague figure in the flurries, and a moment after that it was just flurries and no figure.
“I share the need for some hot rum,” said Greathouse. “How about a stop at the Gallop?”
“Fine with me,” Matthew answered. He might peg a game of chess there, to get his brain working as it should be.