"Eight-thirty it is."
"Good." Greathouse started out, but he turned back to the table and stood over Matthew. "I did hear what you told me about finding the money," he said quietly. "The eighty pounds worth of gold coins, in the lockbox at the Chapel estate. You found that on your own time. It belongs to you, no question. And I would have done exactly the same thing," he said. "But you're still paying back what you owe me, and buying me breakfast. Hear?"
"I hear," Matthew said.
"Tomorrow, then." Greathouse stopped at the door to get his woolen cap from a wallpeg and wrap his cloak around his shoulders, and then he walked out of the Trot for home.
It was awhile before Matthew finished his wine and decided he ought to go. He bid goodnight to his friends, got his tricorn and his warm ash-gray cloak and bundled himself up, for it was a chilly night. He left the Trot, but instead of going north to his dwelling behind the Grigsby house he turned south. There was some business to attend to.
He had memorized the letter in his coat pocket.
Beginning with a place name and date-Boston, the fifteenth of August-it read in a flowing script: Dear Mrs. Sutch, Please carry out the usual preparations regarding one Matthew Corbett, of NewYork town in the New York colony. Se advised that Mr. Corbett resides on Queen Street, in-and I fear this is no jest-a dairy house behind the residence of one Mr. Grigsby, the local printmaster. Also be advised that the professor has been here lately in the aftermath of the unfortunate Chapel project, and will be returning to the island toward mid-September.
The professor requires resolution of this matter by the final week of November, as Mr. Corbett has been deemed a potentially-dangerous distraction. As always, we bowbefore your experience in these matters of honor.
At the bottom it was signed, Sirki.
The letter had been in Mrs. Sutch's safebox, among papers detailing mundane business things such as money paid for delivery agents to carry orders of sausages to Sally Almond's in New York and both the Squire's Inn and the Old Bucket tavern in Philadelphia, as well as-interestingly enough-the Peartree Inn on the Philadelphia Pike at Hoornbeck. The deliverymen, contacted by the decent and hard-nosed constable from Nicholsburg, were simply locals who had been recruited by Mrs. Sutch to do the work, and they were amazed that anyone would have murdered Mrs. Sutch and Noggin and burned the place to the ground. But then again, these were evil times, and God save Nicholsburg.
Also in the box had been a half-dozen small white cards, identical to the one Matthew had received in the second week of September excepting the fact that his had borne the bloody fingerprint.
Matters of honor, indeed.
He had tried to reason this out. The best he could figure was that Mrs. Sutch was given the command by Professor Fell-or whoever this Sirki was-to carry out these preparations. It was likely she gave Noggin-or an unknown someone else?-the card and put him on a packet boat from Philadelphia. Then, depending on the professor's pleasure, time passed while the intended victim was left to squirm. Only in Matthew's case, the professor had decided to resolve the matter of honor by the end of November, this very month, in order to remove a potentially-dangerous distraction.
Matthew didn't know whether to be pleased or insulted by that. It also irritated his craw that they were laughing about his house.
He walked south along Broad Street, passing City Hall. Lights showed in the attic windows. The sky was full of sparkling stars, and Matthew wondered if on this crisp and quiet night Zed was not sitting up there, maybe with a blanket draped around him, thinking of nights spent with loved ones under those same celestial banners.
Lanterns gleamed from wooden posts on the street corners. The constables were out, carrying their green lamps. Matthew saw one coming north further along Broad, the lantern swinging back and forth to check nooks and crannies. Matthew turned to the right onto Stone Street, took from his pocket the key he'd gotten from home, and unlocked the door to Number Seven.
He fired the tinderbox that sat on a table beside the door, and with its flame touched the wicks of three tapers in a triple-armed candleholder also on the table. He locked the door, picked up the candles and climbed the steep stairs.
As he reached the top he heard a soft little thump. The ghosts were greeting him, in their own way.
Passing through the oak-paneled outer room with its cubbyhole-chest and its windows that looked toward the Great Dock, Matthew entered another door that held his and Greathouse's desks. He left the door open and lit four candles in an eight-armed wrought-iron chandelier overhead. The unshuttered windows in this office gave a view of New York to the northwest. The room held three wooden file cabinets and a small fireplace of rough gray and tan stones sure to see much use when the really cold weather began. It was good to be home.
Matthew sat the triple-candleholder on his desk. Relishing his return, he peered for a while through the windows at the comforting view of the little lamps scattered across the expanse of town. Then he removed his hat and cloak and hung them up, situated himself at his desk, took the letter from Sirki to Sutch out of his pocket, and smoothed it down before him. Opening the top drawer of his desk, he brought out the magnifying glass that was a gift from Katherine Herrald, and studied the handwriting with closer scrutiny.
A man's hand, he decided. Flowing, yes, but with very little elaboration except for a flourish beneath the name. What ki nd of name was Sirki? And what was that about returning to the island toward mid-September? Matthew could see where the quill had paused from time to time for another dip of ink. The paper had been twice folded to fit an envelope. It was light brown, not as thick as parchment. He held it up before the candleglow, and there he saw something that made him turn it over and look again.
He brought from his drawer a pencil and scratched lead over what seemed to be a faint impression on the back of the paper.
Before him appeared the stylized shape of an octopus, its eight tentacles stretched out wide as if to seize the world.
It was the impression of the wax stamp that had been used to seal the envelope. He heard a quiet noise, almost a sigh. Something bit him on the side of his neck. A little sting, no more.
He put his hand there and felt a small object in his flesh. When he pulled it out, he was looking at a wooden dart about three inches long with a smear of yellowish paste on its stinger tip and on the other end a piece of hollowed-out cork.
A ghost stirred in the corner beside the file cabinets, where the shadows lay thickest.
This ghost, as it emerged, wore a long black cloak and tricorn and had silky hair the color of dust. He was of indeterminate age, small-boned, pale of skin and weirdly fragile. A long thin scar ran up through his right eyebrow into his hairline, and his eye on that side was a cold milky-white orb. He held a wooden tube, which he now set atop one of the filing cabinets. His black-gloved hand went into his cloak-his movements slow and horribly deliberate-and reappeared with a long, sharp knitting needle that glinted blue in the candlelight.
Matthew stood up, dropping the dart to the floor. His throat was cold, his neck prickling where the tip had entered.
"Stay where you are," he said. He was aware that his tongue was starting to freeze.
Ripley, the young assassin-in-training, advanced as in a nightmare. Obviously he had graduated to using a blowpipe and a dart smeared with frog venom. Matthew recalled with terror what Mrs. Sutch had told Slaughter: " causes the muscles to stiffen and the throat to constrict. Within seconds, the victim cannot move "