He walked amid the trees and thicket. All this area had been gone over before, of course. But he wondered if somewhere in this woods there might be a place the searchers had not found. A shelter, somehow disguised as surely as a book could be a lockbox. An emergency hiding-place, if one was ever needed. Then, when the danger had gone, the occupants could emerge and either slip out by way of the gate or-more improbably due to Dahlgren's broken wrist-climb over the wall.
It was a shot in the dark, but Matthew was determined to at least take aim.
Walking through the woods was peaceful this time, as before it had been a race for life for both himself and Berry. He saw nothing but trees and low brush, the ground gently rising and falling. He started even kicking aside leaves and looking for trapdoors in the earth itself, to no avail.
There was a gully ahead. Matthew recalled he and Berry running along its edge. He stopped now and peered down into it. The thing was about ten feet deep at its bottom and walled with sharp-edged boulders. He thought what might have happened if either he or Berry had fallen in; a broken ankle would've been the least of it.
As Matthew stared into the abyss, he wondered if the searchers had also feared for their bones, and so had not made the descent.
But there was nothing down there except rocks. It was a perfectly ordinary gully, as might be found in any woods.
He continued walking along the edge, but now his daydreams and the moneybag were thrust out of his mind completely. He was focused on the gully, and specifically on how one might get down into it without falling on the rocks.
It was getti ng deeper as it progressed across the forest. Twelve or fifteen feet to the bottom, Matthew thought. In places shadow filled up the gully like a black pond. And, then, not too far ahead, he saw what might have served as steps in the rock. His imagination? Possibly, but he could definitely get down to the bottom here. Grasping the moneybag tightly, he demonstrated in another moment that one could negotiate the steps using only one hand to hold balance against the boulders.
He continued along the bottom, which was also covered with rocks. And perhaps twenty yards further on, as the gully took a turn to the right, he drew a sharp breath as he discovered in the wall beside him an opening about five feet tall and wide enough for a man to squeeze into sideways.
A cave, he realized, as he let the breath go.
He crouched down and looked in. How far back it went, he had no idea. There was nothing but dark in there. Yet he felt the movement of air on his face. What portion of the cave's floor he could see was hard-packed clay, littered with leaves.
He held his free arm through the opening, feeling the air moving across his fingertips. Coming from within the cave.
Not a cave, he thought. A tunnel.
No light. Snakes were about, possibly. Could be a nest of them in there. He asked himself what Greathouse would do in this situation. Retire, and never know the truth? Or blunder ahead, like a great fool?
Well, snakes couldn't bite through his boots. Unless he stepped in a hole and fell down, and then they could get at his face. He would walk as cautiously as if upon the roof of City Hall, blindfolded. He paused just a moment, herding his courage before it came to its senses and galloped away. Then he gritted his teeth, pushed himself through and was immediately able to stand, if at a crouch. He was glad he still gripped the moneybag; it could give something a good clout, if need be. It came to him, with enough force to almost buckle his knees: I am rich. He felt his mouth twist in a grin, though his heart was beating hard and the sweat of fear was upon his neck. He fervently hoped to live through the next few minutes to enjoy his wealth. Using one hand and an elbow to gauge the walls, Matthew started his progress into the unknown.
PART TWO: The Valley of Destruction
Six
"A pity about Matthew Corbett. Dead at such a young age," said Hudson Greathouse. He shrugged. "I really didn't know him very well. Had only worked with him since July. So what more can I say, other than that he poked his curiosity into one dark hole too many."
The wagon, pulled by two sway-backed horses that seemed to move only with the slow but dignified agony of age, had just left the stable in Westerwicke. The town stood along the Philadelphia Pike, some thirty miles from New York; it was a small but well-groomed place, with two churches, houses of wood and brick and beyond them farmfields and orchards carved from the New Jersey forests. A farmer selling pumpkins from a cart waved, and Greathouse waved back.
"Yes," Greathouse said, looking up at the clouds that sailed like huge white ships across the morning sky, "too bad about Matthew, that his life was cut so short due to the fact he had neither sense nor bodyguard to protect him." He cut his gaze sideways, at the driver. "Would that have been a good enough speech at your funeral?"
"I have already admitted," Matthew spoke up, as he flicked the reins to urge a little more speed to horses that only hung their heads lower as if to beg for mercy, "that I should not have gone in that tunnel alone." He felt heat in his cheeks. "How long are you going to play this tune?"
"Until you realize you're not ready to go off risking your life foolishly. And for what? To prove a point? That you're so much smarter than everyone else?"
"It's awfully early for this." In fact, it was not much after six o'clock. Matthew was tired and cranky and wished he were anywhere on earth but sitting in this wagon beside Greathouse. By God, he'd even take the tunnel again. At least it had been quiet in there. He now knew the real meaning of torture; it was having to share a room with Greathouse at The Constant Friend tavern, as had been done last night in Westerwicke because the other two rooms were taken, and not being able to get to sleep before a snoring began that started like a cannon's boom and ended like a cat's squall. Long past midnight, when at last Matthew did slumber, Greathouse gave out a holler that almost made Matthew jump out of bed fearing for his life, but not even the subsequent angry knocking on the wall of the next room's occupant brought Greathouse up from his netherworld. More galling, the great one would not let this incident of the tunnel go. Danger this, and danger that, and what might have happened if it had not been a tunnel that led under the estate to the river, but instead to a cave where he could have gotten lost in the dark and been wanderi ng until he had a beard down to his boots. What then, Mr. Corbett? Do speak a little louder, I can't hear you.
"You're right," said Greathouse after a brief reflection, which served only to make Matthew expect another volley was being loaded. "It is early. Have a drink." He passed over a leather flask of brandy, at which he'd already been nipping since the first threads of sunrise. Matthew took it and swallowed enough to make his eyes swim and his throat burn, and then he returned it to its owner. Greathouse corked it and slid it under the plank seat, next to the pistol. "Maybe I can't say I wouldn't have done the same. But I'm me, and I have experience at such things. Didn't you think to tie a rope to something to find your way back by?"
"It would have been a very long rope." Very long indeed. The tunnel, a natural feature of the Chapel estate, had been in Matthew's estimation almost a quarter-mile long. At one point it had descended at an alarming angle but by then Matthew could see light ahead. It had emerged from the riverside cliffs among boulders, and a path could be negotiated to the nearest woods. He surmised that not all the members of Chapel's little party had been privy to knowing about the escape route, but that was how those particular four had gotten out.