At that pronouncement, Croydon and the other jackal unrolled the brown cloth and held the stretcher between them. Sirki moved aside so Matthew could do as instructed.
Matthew hesitated. He swallowed hard. His bruises pulsed, and his pulse felt bruised. For all the fear that danced its Mad Robin within him, he couldn’t suppress a grim smile. How many times had he felt alone at midnight, with the hard dark pressing in and no sign of morning? Many times before, and with luck he would survive this one as he had survived the others.
No, he decided. With more than luck.
With every skill of reasoning and power of concentration he had.
That, plus some good old fashioned lowdown strength of will.
He glared into Sirki’s eyes. “Get out of the way,” he told the giant. “I’ll walk.”
Sirki obeyed at once. “I thought you would, young sir. That is why I placed your boots and clothing on the floor before I woke you.” The dark eyes darted toward Croydon’s fart-partner. “Squibbs, find Matthew a cloak or a blanket worth its weight in wool. A heavy coat might do, which you’ll find hanging in the room where the sleepers doze. Move, please. It disturbs me to think my voice goes unheard.”
The way the East Indian killer said that, Squibbs might well have let loose another buttock-blast. However, Squibbs moved forthwith at the speed of terror.
Matthew eased himself to a sitting position on the side of the bed. The pain came up his sides like metal clamps snapping shut rib-by-rib. A red haze whirled before his eyes. Damned if he’d let himself pass out. He bit his lower lip until the blood nearly oozed.
“Croydon,” said Sirki. “Help the young gentleman put his boots on, and then hand him his clothes.”
Croydon wasted no time in following the command, and Matthew realized a Corbett had suddenly become royalty, of a strange kind.
The boots were struggled into, the smoke-pungent clothing put on, and then it was time to stand up. Matthew took a long, deep breath. He slid off the bed and took the weight on his legs and his knees ached and his thigh muscles tightened and shrieked for a few agonizing seconds but then he was up and, after wavering ever so slightly, had secured his balance in an insane world.
“Very good,” was the killer’s comment.
Squibbs returned with a brown coat and, in addition, a gray blanket. He helped Matthew get the coat on and then wrapped the blanket around him with the care of a man who suddenly wanted to seem excellently careful. Sirki tucked the stretcher up under one long and dangerous arm. He spoke Croydon’s name, and Croydon was off with a lantern in hand, obviously heading for Matthew’s dairyhouse to fetch more clothes for the young sir’s journey.
“Where are we going?” Matthew asked as he hobbled out onto the bracing cold of King Street, with Squibbs holding a lantern on one side and Sirki on the other.
“To a ship that will deliver you to an island,” Sirki answered. “You will find the weather much more pleasant there. Step lightly, young sir. We don’t wish you to sprain anything.”
Between them, they steered Matthew’s path toward the waterfront, and soon they were only two gleams of yellow lamplight in the dark and sleeping town.
Because she was still angry at Matthew Corbett, she had not gone to visit him today. Because she had not gone to visit him today, she missed seeing him and was in turn angry at herself for missing him. Because she was angry in so many areas at once, she could not sleep very soundly. And so because she could not sleep very soundly and had gotten out of bed to have a cup of water and eat a corn muffin, Berry Grigsby saw through the kitchen window the glimmer of light as someone carrying a lantern came out of Matthew’s house.
Her first thought, unladylike as it might have been, was: Damn! What’s this about? She blew out her own candle to avoid being seen. Her heartbeat had quickened and she felt the breath rasp in her lungs. She watched as the figure strode away, carrying what might have been a bundle of some kind.
Carrying it to where? she wondered. And to whom? To Matthew? At this time of night? It must have been Hudson Greathouse, she reasoned. Yes. Of course. Hudson Greathouse. Go back to bed, she told herself.
She could still see the swing of the man’s lantern as he walked south along Queen Street. Heading toward the King Street Publick Hospital, of course.
But…at this time of night?
Was someone robbing Matthew’s house?
She only had a few seconds to decide what to do. Her decision was rapidly made, and though she thought it might be the wrong one in the light of day it was perfectly right by the dark of night.
She rushed into her bedroom, where she knocked her knee on a table in her haste to get dressed. In her hurry, she pulled on a shift, then a petticoat and an old blue dress trimmed with yellow that she often wore when she was painting. Her stockings and shoes went on, also in a hurry, and then a dark blue woolen cloak and cap of the same color and material. Mittens for her hands, and she was ready. Her intent was to catch up with the thief, if at all possible, and then start calling for a constable. She lit a lantern from the steadily-burning candle in her bedroom and on the way to the front door had a thought to awaken Marmaduke, but her grandfather’s snoring buzzed behind his own bedroom door and she decided enough time had been lost. This was her…adventure, perhaps? Yes, she thought. And never let it be said that the high-and-mighty Matthew Corbett would not appreciate her coming to the rescue of his stolen items.
So there.
Berry left the house, and stepped into bitter cold.
She followed her lantern’s glow along Queen Street, heading south in the same direction as the thief. It crossed her mind that she was foolish out here in the wintry dark, chasing what was most likely Hudson Greathouse fetching some item of clothing for Matthew, but still…if one could not be foolish sometimes, what was the point of life? And…if it wasn’t Greathouse, then…who? Well, she would see what she would see, and furthermore she was determined to show Matthew she could be a help to him and not a hindrance.
For not so very far ahead, closer toward the masted ships that sat moored to the harbor, three lantern lights were showing. She slowed her pace as she approached. If she were an animal, she would be sniffing the wind for the smells of thievery, but she could only trust what she could see. At each street corner she passed she looked in vain for the green lantern of a constable; no, they were all warming themselves before fires somewhere, so in essence Berry Grigsby was her own constable this frigid midnight.
She got close enough to make out four figures at the wharfside, and one of them a giant wearing a multi-colored coat or robe of some fashion and a turban. The figures all had their backs to her. They were walking out along a pier. And…in the middle there, the third figure…yes, it was. She would know his walk anywhere. He was walking stiffly, still in pain, and he was bundled up in what appeared to be a gray blanket. He was following the giant, and behind him was a man holding a bundle of clothes under one arm and in the opposite hand a lantern. They were going toward a small skiff tied to the pier.
She didn’t like the looks of this.
A wind had picked up, bringing a touch of ice. Or she felt an icy touch at her heart, for she had the sure feeling Matthew was being taken where he did not wish to go. She looked desperately for any sign of a constable’s lantern, but there was no green glow to be seen. No, this night she was on her own.
As was Matthew. Or so he might think. He was being guided into the skiff, which was big enough for five or six men unless one of them was a turbaned giant. Matthew had his head down. In concentration or defeat? she wondered. Whichever…she wasn’t going to let him be taken away like this, in the dead of night by villains unknown. For they had to be villains, to be stealing away from her the man she loved.