They were not quite to Young’s Corners when Herstraw decided he could go no farther, and pulled off at a large “ordinary” or inn along the road. Jake and van Clynne allowed themselves to be guided by his movements; though he sneered, the upper-class English gentleman in him expected nothing less.
A figure at the edge of the road nodded in their direction as they stopped. Herstraw, as charming as ever, ignored the man’s greeting. Van Clynne made up for his companion’s deficit in manners by strolling over for a chat that began with a complaint about how darkness was no longer as dark as it once was.
Following Herstraw inside, Jake watched the care with which he placed his hunting sack next to his chair and hooked its strap around the leg. He might just as well have pasted a sign around it, saying the bullet was there. The American took a seat nearby, waiting to pounce as soon as Herstraw left the room.
“ Strange fellow,” complained van Clynne, entering the room presently. “Claimed to have business! No time to talk.”
“ What a surprise,” said Jake.
“ At least he agreed with me about the lack of shine in the stars.”
It was a long-accepted if unwritten law that the inns throughout New York must have come equipped with a pretty young woman to soothe travelers’ woes. This inn proved the rule unfortunately by being an exception — to call the woman who waited on them in the great room around the small fire unattractive was to call a mountain lion a house cat. The parts of her narrow figure seemed ill-acquainted with each other. The main distinguishing mark of her face was a nose that could have been aligned properly only by being broken in three places. She’s suffered the pox as a child; the disease had left scars the size of large coins in the corners of her eyes. Her teeth were ragged, with one missing toward either side.
How then to explain van Clynne’s rising color when he saw her? Or the fact that when she offered to soothe his feet in some salts, he became so flustered he seemed close to fainting?
“ Is she not the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?” van Clynne whispered as she left the room to fetch a basin.
Jake wiped the top of his lip, partly in amazement, mostly to keep from laughing out loud. “Is she Dutch?”
“ Who cares?”
Van Clynne sat back in his seat, eyes watering as the maid — a guess, but surely no proof is needed on that account — undid the thick buckles on his shoes and reached up to his calf to unfurl his stockings. The water in the basin literally hissed when he put his foot in.
The women, with a gentle smile that would have scared a full flock of grizzled vultures, told van Clynne that he could call her Jane. She began rubbing his toes with a cloth, caressing each stubby little piglet as if it were a newborn fresh from its mother.
Herstraw, meanwhile, had procured himself a rum and taken out a small pipe for a smoke. He sat stiffly upright in the Windsor-style chair, his eyes seemingly unfocused but undoubtedly examining everything in the room. The heavy beams absorbed what little light the fire and a few candles on the wall gave off; the low-ceilinged room was nearly as dark as a dungeon.
The inn’s only other patrons were a pair of older gentlemen in the corner bent over a checkerboard. They pushed their pieces forward with quick, sharp moves in rapid succession, as if playing out a game they had gone through many times before.
The innkeeper, a jolly bald-headed fellow by the name of Prisco, made the rounds with a pitcher of malt beer, glancing to make sure all cups were filled. He raised an eyebrow when he swathe girl working over van Clynne’s feet.
“ My niece,” he said to Jake, inspecting his mug. “She seems to have taken a shine to your friend.”
“ It appears mutual.”
The man winked at him. “I was recently made a justice of the peace, so a union could be quickly arranged.”
“ You’d have to take that up with Claus.”
“ And where are you bound, sir?” asked the keeper.
“ Down the road a bit.” Jake overemphasized his discomfort for Herstraw’s benefit. “I have some family business to attend to. A dead brother, killed by the Indians in the north.”
“ Sorry to hear,” said Prisco. “These are dangerous days.”
“ They are indeed.”
Jake sat back with some satisfaction. In a few hours he would make the exchange and set off for Albany. Once there, a few sips of wine with the general — and a few long draughts with Sarah — would be an ample reward for his troubles. He might even get a chance to sleep for more than a half hour.
The innkeeper went over to the checker players, silently filling their mugs before disappearing into the back room. Jake watched with some astonishment as well as amusement as van Clynne leaned up and whispered something to the girl, who blushed in response.
He could not imagine what the Dutchman might have said. But then, he didn’t have much time to consider the possibilities, for at that moment the room was invaded by a knot of Continental soldiers in power-blue uniforms.
Invaded was not too strong a word. The men, armed with Pennsylvania long rifles and pistols, plunged in with weapons loaded and ready, flailing them around as if they expected at any moment a troop of redcoats to burst from the fireplace. They shouted conflicting commands — don’t’ move, hands up, you’re all under arrest, stay where you are, against the wall. Their commanding officer trailed in behind them, sword in hand.
Jake did not know every commanding officer in the American army, of course, but he had some reasonable expectation of knowing a few this lose to New York City, more so since some of the local detachments had been under the command of General Benedict Arnold not too long before. But this man and his ill-fitting bag wig were strangers.
That perhaps was just as well. Realizing he was once again about to be arrested, Jake cursed to himself but resolved to go quietly, preserving his secret identity until he was outside.
Nonetheless, he was disappointed that van Clynne — who else could it be? — had not believed him and sold him out, which undoubtedly had been the true purpose of his brief conversation outside. Jake was surprised at his own misjudging of character — he had truly believed van Clynne was sincere when he said he would help him.
With great restraint, he stayed mute in his chair, noting that Herstraw did likewise. Even the two old men took the interruption calmly — until one of the soldiers made the mistake of overturning the game board with his rifle barrel.
The man who’d been winning came within an inch of strangling the soldier before being restrained. The other remained sitting, though his passionless expression had changed to a great smile.
Van Clynne reacted to the commotion with casual aplomb, falling from the chair with a start. One of the soldiers’ weapons discharged, which brought the innkeeper running into the room with his pitcher of beer. It was not until the innkeeper’s wife appeared with a rolling pin in her hand and a very stern expression on her face that the scene quieted.
There were two soldiers for every civilian in the room. They took up positions and trained their weapons as the major straightened his uniform and strode before the fireplace. Jake rose slowly from his chair, stepping over van Clynne to approach the major.
“ Sir — “ started Jake, but the major put up his hand to silence him.
“ You there,” he said to Herstraw. “What’s your name?”
Herstraw identified himself, and was told to empty his coat pockets. He laid the contents on the table — a handkerchief, a small penknife, and a coin. The officer inspected each item carefully, pausing over the last. He then announced that Herstraw was under arrest as a spy for “His Majesty the King.”
“ You can’t arrest him,” protested van Clynne from the floor.
Jake silenced him with a stiff kick in the side. Herstraw, with the look of a man who knows the jig is up, began walking with the soldiers out the door. The innkeeper briefly started to protest, but the soldier pushed him back in the doorway. Jake, desiring a closer look at the major’s face in case he still might recognize him, grabbed his arm and asked why Herstraw was being arrested.