Gone too far, he thought. Too far by many steps.
But he had no choice now, only to keep walking the path. What he would have liked to say to Berry was lost to him. He would have liked to tell her that as long as Professor Fell was alive or at the least uncaged, he must fear the unsleeping eye and the stealthy hand that held a dagger aimed for the heart. And not only fear a sudden death for himself, but for others who dared to befriend him. He didn’t worry much about Hudson Greathouse, who knew what he was getting into when he signed on with the Herrald Agency. No, it was those like Berry—and especially Berry—whom Matthew thought the professor would target, as a method of revenge. Matthew had already led her along dark passages and into dangerous situations that he regretted; to lead her into more intrigues and dangers would mean he did not care for her nearly as much as he really did. Therefore…the silence.
Silence, however, was not Hudson’s forte.
“Here you are,” said the Great One, “with an opportunity to refresh yourself with a minor task to carry out—something I’d surely do if I was up to the dance, my lady was more understanding and I was as young as you—and you spurn it as if you were given a horse-shit pudding. There’s nothing so vital on your schedule! Go to Charles Town and relax! Get that episode of Pendulum Island out of your sails! And bring us back a nice chunk of money, for nothing more dangerous than escorting a rich man’s daughter to—” He checked the letter again. “The Sword of Damocles Ball.” A little chuckle rolled from the corner of his mouth. “Some imaginations, these Carolinians have. And, it appears, a little too much money. Why Mister Sedgeworth Prisskitt can’t find a local escort for his daughter is a mystery.” He stared at Matthew with a more serious intent. “Don’t you wish to find the answer?”
“I wish to enjoy the summer in my own way. I have several books to read.” The truth was, Matthew might be interested in the why of this situation, but his inclination for travel had been dulled by that sea voyage to the Bermudas imposed upon him. At this late date, he would have to take the packet boat from here to Charles Town. He and Berry had worked as crew on the Nightflyer during the passage home, and during his own night flying Matthew was still awakened by the ringing of phantom ship’s bells, the hum and thrum of wind through rigging and the creaking of sea-strained timbers. It seemed at times his little residence was pitching back and forth as if in a white-capped sea.
“I think the answer,” Matthew ventured, “is that Pandora Prisskitt is so homely no man will be seen in public with her. Far be it from me to upset that equilibrium.” He returned to his own desk and sat down, ignoring his friend’s snort of derision. He had nothing on the docket that shook his earth. Three letters…two requests for a rider to safeguard property papers between New York and smaller towns, and one missive from a farmer in Albany asking for help in unmasking the fiend who had stolen his scarecrow. None of those inflamed Matthew’s imagination, enticed him to act as a champion for justice or caused him to want to travel any of the hard roads out of town. Still…he did wish to be active in some way, to get his mind back onto the business of problem-solving. And of course because his abode—which used to be a dairy-house belonging to New York’s prickly printmaster Marmaduke Grigsby—was just steps away from Berry’s door, the house she shared with her grandfather, Matthew was painfully aware of how long a short distance could be. On the matter of distance, the best news of the season was that the spindly-framed High Constable Gardner Lillehorne had announced he was leaving for London with his shrewish wife ‘the Princess’ at the end of the month to accept a position as Assistant to the High Constable in that teeming city. The surprise to this was that the little red-faced bully Dippen Nack was going with Lillehorne to become his assistant. Matthew thought London must certainly be desperate for assistants these days.
He shuffled some papers while Hudson busied himself answering a letter from a woman in the town of Huntington inquiring as to help in finding a missing horse, the animal having been taken from her barn in the middle of the night. Perhaps, Matthew thought as his mind wandered, its current rider was a scarecrow.
He recalled quite vividly the day that Zed departed New York aboard Captain Falco’s ship. His recollection was keened by the fact that after the ship had parted ways with the harbor, Berry had left the scene arm-in-arm with Ashton McCaggers. This time, though Matthew might have fervently wished it, neither of McCaggers’ shoe heels snapped, and neither did the coroner step into a hole or a mud puddle or suffer any disaster of Berry’s supposed “bad luck”. Which perplexed and bothered Matthew no end, though he wasn’t sure exactly why.
“You are not here,” said Hudson, looking up from his letter and frowning. His frown made a thundercloud appear jolly. “You are not there, either. So the question is…where are you?”
Matthew replied after a moment of reflection, “Neither here nor there, it seems.”
“Exactly. Which is why you should find a destination. I’d think you would want to—” He was interrupted by the sound of the door at the bottom of the narrow stairs opening and then closing. Came the noise of someone ascending, and in another moment the inner door opened and there stood the grand dame of the Herrald Agency, Katherine Herrald herself.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” she said, with an uptilt of her solid chin. She was wearing a pale blue gown nearly the same shade as her eyes, which with a single sweep took survey of the office and her two associates. She wore white gloves. Her right hand held a red clay vase that brimmed with yellow flowers. Though she was about fifty years of age, Katherine Herrald was trim-figured, straight-backed and elegant. She wore tipped at a jaunty angle a pale blue hat with red piping, her dark gray hair streaked with pure white at the temples and at a pronounced widow’s peak. She was, lamentably, a true widow; her husband Richard had originated the agency and been brutally murdered in his pursuit of the enigmatic and viperous Professor Fell.
“Good morning, madam,” replied Hudson, who pushed back his chair and rose to his feet at the same time as did Matthew. Hudson, a broad-shouldered and some might say supremely over-confident bull of a man, stood three inches over six feet and wore a plain white shirt with rolled-up sleeves, tan-colored trousers and white stockings. His thick iron-gray hair was pulled back in a queue and tied with a black ribbon. He was forty-eight years old and had a ruggedly handsome, craggy face that had quickened the hearts of many women before the widow Donovan. The scars he wore attested to his dealings in the world of men armed with swords, daggers and muskets, but actually the scar that cut across his left eyebrow had been caused by the treachery of a broken teacup thrown by his third wife. Hearing the tales of Greathouse’s exploits, Matthew had often wondered how the man had stayed alive so long. Indeed, in one case involving the killer Tyranthus Slaughter, Matthew had almost been the cause of the Great One’s demise. For a time Hudson had counted on the support of a cane to get around; a knife plunged repeatedly into the back followed by near-drowning at the bottom of a well did tend to make the legs unsteady. Happily now in these warmer days, however, Hudson showed his mettle by no longer depending on the cane as much, and he was getting more nimble at taking the stairs up from Stone Street.
“I have seen Lady Cutter off,” said Madam Herrald, with a quick glance at Matthew. “And I’ve brought something to brighten your day.” She walked to the small hearth of rough gray and tan stones, unused now these last two weeks. She leaned down to place within it the red vase of flowers. “There!” she announced. “An improvement over cold ashes, wouldn’t you say?”