Seven Shades of Evil: Stories

Book 9: The Matthew Corbett Novels

by Robert McCammon

Genres: Horror; Historical Thrillers; Supernatural suspense; Historical Mysteries

Synopsis

The New York Times–bestselling author continues his colonial-era thriller series with eight tales of mystery, adventure, and supernatural suspense.

From his first appearance in Speaks the Nightbird to his latest adventure in The King of Shadows, Matthew Corbett has faced enemies of all kinds, from serial killers to sorcerers. Now author Robert McCammon presents eight gripping stories featuring the professional problem solver and his associates that take place between the popular novels.

Seven Shades of Evil includes four original stories, including “Wandering Mary,” and four additional tales that previously appeared in limited form and are no longer available elsewhere. Ranging from twisting murder plots to ominous portents of the paranormal, these stories are an intriguing blend of everything that has drawn readers to the Matthew Corbett series for more than twenty years.

This volume includes:
• “The Four Lamplighters”
• “Night Ride”
• “The House at the Edge of the World”
• “The Scorpion’s Eye”
• “Skeleton Crew”
• “The Pale Pipe Smoker”
• “Wandering Mary”
• “Incident on the Lady Barbara”

 

Read more

Release date: October 31, 2023

Publisher: Open Road Media

Print pages: 597

Sample

The Four Lamplighters

August 1702

 

One

“If this is music,” said Hudson Greathouse in a voice not so sotto voce, “I’ll eat my boots.”

His declaration of both melodic revulsion and strange appetite was met with a faint spit of hissing, as if a small nest of snakes had been disturbed in their reptilian raptures. The display of displeasure came not from creatures of the scaly community, but from the females sitting in the audience dressed in as much finery as they could sculpt upon themselves—high wigs, waist-choking bodices, and festoons of lace—so that they appeared more like birds of vibrantly colored feathers than the ladies Hudson and Matthew Corbett saw every day in the shops and on the streets of New York.

“Well?” the irritable critic continued, seated beside Matthew. His knitted brows told the tale. “Do you think this is music?”

“Hush!” commanded—and indeed a whisper may be commanding, if delivered through gritted teeth—the person sitting on the other side of Greathouse, who this day happened to be Sarah Goodenall, who secondly happened to be a strolling guitarist at Sally Almond’s tavern on Nassau Street, and who thirdly happened to be Hudson’s romantic interest of the moment. Greathouse returned a scowl that meant the interest was in jeopardy but otherwise kept his next remark in his throat, and Matthew decided to keep his own opinion in silence.

Silence was not the order of the day. This August afternoon, Hudson and Matthew sat amid the audience of forty or so citizens—again, mostly women—in the concert room of the Dock House Inn, a chamber offering pews sawn from the best local oak, drapes the color of purple passion itself (chosen specifically by the inn’s fastidious proprietor Gilliam Vincent) and an upraised stage upon which now stood the four performers whose musical abilities irked Hudson Greathouse and brought a—necessarily guarded—smile of amusement to the face of Matthew Corbett.

They called themselves the Four Lamplighters, and whose lamps they were currently determined to light were the females in the audience, who by their squeals, giggles, and shifting in their seats told Matthew that the wicks were being well-flamed. The first song in this performance had been titled “Fishing for Beauties on a Summer’s Eve” and after many proclamations of how long and sturdy were the poles of the Lamplighters, things had gone in the further general direction of southern titillations.

But Matthew had to admit that they were quite a sight. The lead singer and guitarist, who had announced himself as Lawrence Love, had introduced the others of this traveling troupe: Rollie Dell on the second guitar, Adrian Foxglove playing the fiddle, and Ben Dover banging away on a pair of drums mounted on stands accompanied by a rather extraordinary cymbal contraption that he operated with a foot pedal. What made them quite a sight, however, was their manner of dress: Love all in burning red, Dell in eye-scorching blue, Foxglove in a shade of sea green, and Dover in a nearly luminous purple that put Gilliam Vincent’s drapes to pitiful shame.

And then there were the wigs.

Were they wigs, or constructions of powdered cake swirled round and round by a mad London baker to ridiculous heights? No, they were certainly wigs, and what wigs they were! Love’s was a bonfire to match his suit and ruffled shirt, Dell’s was a blue scream, Foxglove wore the hue of the green-creamed waves that rolled into New York’s harbor, and Dover wore the color of the bruises and abrasions that had only recently disappeared from Matthew’s body after his fight with the sinister swordsman Count Dahlgren at Simon Chapel’s school for young criminals.

It was because of the aftermath of that near misadventure that he was sitting in this audience. Greathouse had come to his doorstep—the little dairy house behind the Grigsby home—not to chide him for being a “moonbeam” or demand that he continue his lessons in swordplay—but to ask him to accompany himself and the Lady Goodenall to this musical farrago.

“I wouldn’t be caught dead at a concert,” Greathouse had steamed, “but Sarah’s bound and determined, and I think it wise to go along. If I don’t, what would that tell her of my interest in her music?”

“The truth?” Matthew asked. “That is … nothing at all?”

“I can’t admit that! She’s

too good of a cook and I am very fond of her roasted chicken! Also, she affords me a cut rate on my dining at Sally Almond’s!”

“So very valuable to you, I’m sure.”

“Yes, valuable! And I don’t like that tone, Corbett! So get yourself to the Dock House on Friday afternoon at two o’clock, as I don’t wish to be assaulted by this dubious performance alone! Your ticket has already been purchased!”

Misery desires company, Matthew had thought. Further argument was futile, and he had decided it was best not to rile this walking mountain, as there was more training to be done as a new associate of the Herrald Agency, and it could be as rough as Greathouse pleased.

But there was another reason Matthew now sat among this audience, which connected with the strange ending of his deeds regarding the elderly woman he had come to know as the Queen of Bedlam. The blood card delivered to him as a portent of death from the hand of the mysterious Professor Fell weighed heavily upon him night and day, burdening his step in the sunlight and blighting his sleep. In truth, Matthew thought of Hudson Greathouse as a bullying lout with only a modicum of intelligence … but a bullying lout with only a modicum of intelligence who could be counted upon to deflect a bludgeon, blade, bullet, or choke-rope from one of Fell’s hidden assassins, therefore Matthew deemed it wise to tag along whenever the opportunity presented itself.

The Lamplighters were in full voice now, Love’s lead singing being supported by the harmonies of Dell and Foxglove. What was amazing to Matthew—and to the rest of the gallery, he was sure—was that the Lamplighters stood for their performance and actually moved back and forth upon the stage. It seemed also that they liked to shake their wigs, which brought forth further animation from the ladies while the menfolk sullenly smoked their pipes as if to befog the chamber. The Lamplighters were all young men, in their early twenties the same as Matthew, and all might be called handsome but for the drummer Dover whose leviathan of a nose could be a hook for a tricorn hat … or two, or three.

They had begun a new ditty, with the accompaniment of banging drums and harmonies from the green and the blue:

“My name is Love!

(His name is Love)

My name is Love!

(His name is Love)

And I thank the stars in Heaven above, that every time I set my cap, I can lie in any lady’s lap! My name is Love!

(His name is Love)

My name is Love!”

“Groan,” said Greathouse, followed by a little whuff when Sarah put an elbow in his ribs.

And another tune followed,

 or rather tumbled forth:

“Oh, the merry month of May, is the time when the ladies lay,

Down their troubles and their woes,

And feel the grass between their toes,

Oh, how I wish I were grass!”

“You’re an ass! Does that count?” Greathouse suddenly rumbled, loud enough to cause snickers from the men, sneers from the women, and evil eyes from the Lamplighters, but the foursome was undaunted and the rhythm never wavered.

“Oh, the merry month of May, is the time when the ladies play,

With their trinkets and their toys,

And all the bright and handsome boys,

Oh, how I wish I were … but I am! So fiddle-dee-dee, fiddle-dee-dee, fiddle-dee-dee, sweet ma’am!”

“Good Christ,” was Greathouse’s twisted-mouth response, though it was delivered in a guttural funk.

“Thank you, fair ladies, and you fine gentlemen who possess good manners, and you know who you are!” proclaimed Lawrence Love when the song and the applause—all from feminine hands—had ended. “We would now like to share a song that has been a great part of our performance since we came together as musicians in Liverpool three years ago! Since then, we have played the stages of some of the most majestic halls of England—”

“I didn’t know horse barns had stages,” said Greathouse directly into Matthew’s ear, keeping his volume low and therefore his ribs free from attack.

“—and thus we find ourselves on tour in these glorious colonies,” Love went on, “and straight here we have come from a smashing concert appearance in the great town of Boston. So without further pause, here is the tune that one might say put the Four Lamplighters on the path to fame and the wonderful opportunity to meet such gracious, noble, and … yes, of course! … beautiful company. Here is ‘The Ballad of the Rutting Ram.’”

“God save us,” said Greathouse, again only for Matthew’s ear, but Matthew had the thought that if the man could sing and play a guitar this might be the very kind of tune that would spill forth.

With a wigshake, a strum, a drumbeat, more strumming, and a wide-legged stance that Matthew thought might bring the fair ladies to fainting, Lawrence Love began:

“A ram he stood in the pasture there,

(Oh, hi-oh, hi-oh)

Spotted he a dame with long blonde hair,

(Oh, hi-oh, hi-oh)

Said the ram to the damsel fair,

Might I have a locket of 

hair,

To soothe me through the winter nights,

And take my desires to their heights,

For I am a rutting ram,

And I’m horny as can be,

(Yes, he is a rutting ram)

And I’m horny as can—”

“CEASE THIS OBSCENITY!” came a shout from the back of the chamber that made nearly everyone—Matthew and Greathouse included—fly up out of their seats. It was followed by the crashing of what sounded like a giant’s timber smacking the oak hull of a sixty-cannon warship, and in this caterwaul the Lamplighters went silent, and everyone wrenched their necks around to see what parade had just marched into the show.

It was a brigade, not a parade. Leading the pack was High Constable Gardner Lillehorne, resplendent in his own sky-blue suit with clouds of ruffles at the neck and cuffs, his blue tricorn topped by a sunny yellow feather; yet there was no sunshine in his countenance, for his narrow, pale, and black-goateed face wore an expression of the deepest disgust, and his hammering at the nearest pew with his ebony cane was summer thunder.

But pounding the hardest with his own evil black billy club was the vile—at least to Matthew’s senses—squat, red-haired, and stocky so-called constable Dippen Nack, whose usually rum-sloshed mouth opened to holler accord with his master’s voice: “Obscenity! Obscenity! Obscenity!”

As if he even knew what the word meant.

By this time, everyone was on their feet and chaos ensued. Some of the women had regained their senses and were screaming their outrage at this intrusion, while the pipe puffers just kept smoking up the place. Coming in behind Lillehorne and Nack were three more burly gents Matthew recognized as constables, telling him that this had been a well-planned attack on the musical talents of the Lamplighters. The performers themselves remained uncharacteristically mute, but for Dover stomping the cymbal pedal once as a last shimmering note.

But one person was far from becoming mute. From the front row of pews, there sprang an imp of a man perhaps five feet in height at most, sixty or so years of age, with a single white sprig of hair atop his pate that stood erect to emulate the goatee at his chin, which ended as sharply as a white dagger. His eye sockets were nearly shadowed over by his brows, which met above the bridge of his bulbous nose like a battle between two armies, each conflicting with the other in shaggy combat.

“Here, here!” the imp shouted, with even more vigorous volume than had Lillehorne. “What’s the meaning of this outrage!” And before he’d finished that rather needless question, he had scrambled up to the high constable and from his low

position appeared to be about to bite into Lillehorne’s knobby blue-stockinged knees.

“Obscenity!” returned the shout of Dippen Nack, who shoved the little man back with his billy club to the center of the chest and then, grinning, looked around to make sure everyone noted his prowess with the bludgeon.

“Gentlemen, gentlemen!” fretted Gilliam Vincent, who was racing around the chamber doing his impression of the nearest windmill. The shouts and screams of the enraged females were growing to a fever pitch, and Matthew caught sight of two of Polly Blossom’s more hefty ladies of the evening who looked as if they were preparing to roll up their lace sleeves and start battering some constables’ faces into tomorrow’s mush.

“Silence! Silence, I say!” But Lillehorne’s command went unheeded, and Matthew was amused to see lighting upon the expressions of high constable and brutish bully a flicker of fear before the advancing petticoated warriors.

Then there glided through the open double doors another petticoated figure, tall and lanky in stature, who lifted up two green-gloved hands and said in his manly tone, “By my order, this wretched performance has ended, and anyone who protests may be spending a night behind bars along with these four beasts!”

It was probably the wrong thing to say, and Governor Edward Hyde, Lord Cornbury, likely knew it at once, for here came a wall of women throwing themselves forward even as their hapless menfolk tried to restrain the assaults.

“Home detention, I should clarify!” Lord Cornbury was showing that as a politician he knew how to fry an egg before it was thrown at him, also that he was fashionable in his pale green gown and curly white wig, his makeup and eyeshadow immaculate. “But iron bars for these four purveyors of obscenity!”

“Damn your eyes, lady!” yelled the imp. And instantly, awash in his boat of confusion: “I mean … man. They’re making music, not—”

“I know full well what they’re doing, sir!” returned the governor. “And I presume you are their manager? Sidney Sodd by name?”

“And a name known in the entertainment world as a star shines in Heaven! This is a damned outrage I’ve never seen the like of!”

“Oh, really? You mean you’ve already forgotten that four days ago you and this bunch of yours were hauled behind bars in Boston for just such depravity as you’ve displayed here? And a messenger was sent by packet boat from that upstanding town to warn us just what would ensue at this …” The long thin nose wrinkled. “… event?”

“If he wants to see depravity,” Greathouse whispered to Matthew, “he should come with me on a late-night tour of the taverns.”

“I protest this treatment!” Sodd plowed on. “In London, these young men are considered artists of the finest merit! The Boston Puritans have no sense of art!”

“I have no opinion on that subject, sir, but I do know this is New York, not New London, and obscenity will never have a purchase in this fair haven! Lillehorne, do your

 duty and take these offenders away! A night in the gaol should cool their ardors!”

“We are due in Philadelphia in two days! You cannot detain us!”

“Listen to him prattle, Lillehorne! Yes, I’ve seen those broadsheets you’ve passed around and I am aware of your schedule. Next Philadelphia and then Charles Town. I’m sure the authorities in those locales will appreciate our adherence to proper social conduct. Away with you!”

“I refuse to be taken away like a common criminal! My charges likewise refuse to be—”

Sodd abruptly stopped speaking. Two men Matthew didn’t recognize had come into the chamber behind the constables. One was husky and bearlike, the other smaller with pinched features and a hawk’s beak of a nose. They simply stood staring at Sodd, who Matthew saw gave the men a fretful glance.

“All right, then!” Sodd said in what was nearly a tangle of three words. “We’ll go peacefully. Yes, we’ll go! Bring your instruments, boys! A night in the gaol won’t be so terrible, will it?” And though this inquiry was aimed at Lord Cornbury, Sodd seemed to be speaking directly to the two newcomers.

“All the comforts afforded to masters of perversion will be yours. Lillehorne, take them away! And mind that billy club, Nack! We want no damage done to our visitors!”

The grin on Nack’s face drooped.

As the fivesome were herded out of the hall, Matthew noted the two men spoke quietly to each other and followed at a distance. Lord Cornbury remained behind, his civic duty not yet fulfilled. “Go about your business, ladies and gentlemen! Be aware that I, as your governor, am always on the alert to provide safety and security, as is my station. These so-called musicians will be out of our town by tomorrow afternoon … and good riddance to them!” His eyes took on a bit of a shine. “Though I have to say I do admire their wigs. Now good day to all!”

Out upon the Broad Way in the rather hot sunshine and humid air, Matthew walked alongside Greathouse and Sarah, who was giving her escort a dose of flaming protestations to this scene that might have served as another charge of obscenities. Greathouse said nothing, showing that he might possess more than a modicum of intelligence.

But Matthew saw the two men following the procession on their way to the gaolhouse, though the pair had a languid, unhurried pace. The smaller one stopped to light a pipe. They both stood watching Sodd and the Lamplighters be taken away, and then they strode off in another direction.

Which wound Matthew’s clock of curiosity and set it ticking.

 

Two

“It’s odd. Don’t you think?”

“No.”

“Meaning you don’t think it’s odd? Or meaning that you don’t think?”

Greathouse lifted his gaze from the papers on his desk. He had been scribing the details of a case involving a man who feared his wife was romantically involved with a traveling preacher she was seen several times meeting, but it had turned out that the woman had been trying to persuade the sackcloth-and-ashes fire-breather to cast the fear of God on her husband as a means of stopping his all-too-regular visits to Polly Blossom’s house of ill repute. It amused Matthew that Polly’s house was free of any obscenity charges since her donations to Lord Cornbury’s “service fund” had helped purchase his luxurious wardrobe. Such could not be said of the Lamplighters, who had spent the night behind bars and would soon be a footnote in the history of New York.

“Listen, Corbett,” said Greathouse, in that tone he used to scare little children and wild bulls. “You might be full of yourself after that Chapel incident and be wearing those fine suits Effrem Owles is sewing for you … and getting all those ridiculous stories about yourself in the Earwig, but as far as I’m concerned you’re still a milksop moonbeam and one slap across the face from me will finish this unwise experiment Mrs. Herrald has foisted upon the world. In other words, shut up.”

“Spoken out of true boredom,” said Matthew, though he decided it was best not to go any further. Still … one foot further: “I surmise you have nothing else to do?”

“Keep talking. My slapping hand is getting twitchy.”

From a far shadowed corner of this upstairs office at Number Seven Stone Street, there came a thump and clatter along with what might have been a man’s muffled grunt.

“See what you’ve done?” Greathouse asked, his quill poised over the inkwell. “You’ve gotten them riled up.”

“I think the air of threatened violence has done the trick,” was Matthew’s retort. The two ghosts that inhabited this space along with the Herrald Agency were perpetually fighting over burnt coffee beans, the earthly battle that had ended with their broken necks down the flight of stairs to the street not being enough to calm the spiritual tempers. “But really,” Matthew continued as Greathouse returned to his scribing, “don’t you think it was strange that Sidney Sodd protested going to the gaol until those two men entered the chamber, and then it seemed he was eager to get himself and the Lamplighters behind bars?”

Greathouse finished another pair of lines before he responded. “I presume you’ve been gnawing on this all night?”

“Not all night. A few hours.”

“The waste of a few hours. I care not a sardine’s whisker about Sodd, the Lamplighters, or the two men. Case closed.”

Matthew leaned back in his chair. Though all windows that could be opened were so, the summer’s heat in the upstairs loft was oppressive. Noise from the carts and wagons trundling past on the Broad Way rose from the street, as well as the odiferous aromas from the livestock that hauled them. But there was nothing to be done about that, and sweat went with any job that had to be undertaken, even sitting on one’s behind with nothing to be done. Except, perhaps, think on something that might have no meaning at all.

To Matthew’s surprise, Greathouse was not finished with the subject. “If Cornbury wanted to find obscenities, he might walk the docks at any hour of the day. Particularly in the heat of August. I suspect he felt he had to do something because those Puritans up there were watching. And the Lamplighters will get an equal kick in the ass from the Quakers down in Philadelphia. But I agree with throwing them behind bars for a night. Such subjects should not be cast about in front of ladies.”

“I think the ladies enjoyed the casting. And wouldn’t you say sexual subjects have a long history in the arts?”

“I wouldn’t know about that. All I know is, women should be protected from such.”

“Really?” Matthew’s brows lifted. “How many taverns have you been in where sexual subjects were simply dripping off the walls, and the ladies there were helping apply the glue?”

“That’s different,” Greathouse

 huffed. “Women who work in taverns are not what I call ladies.”

“I hope Sarah never hears you say that. Your chicken will be roasted well and proper.”

“You know what I mean.”

“No, I don’t. Tighten your noose a little more.”

Greathouse slapped down his quill, throwing forth a few black droplets of ink to match his rising ire. But he swallowed what he was going to say first and instead did a little riposte: “Have you seen that girl lately?”

“What girl?”

“Oh, come now!” His wolfish grin emerged. “Grigsby’s granddaughter! The one who nearly got killed along with yourself!”

“I haven’t seen her lately, no.”

“I find that hard to believe! You living right in their backyard, so to speak! I thought you were having your meals with them!”

“I’ve been dining in the taverns lately.”

“Wasting your money as well as your hours, then. What changed?”

“Pardon?” Matthew feigned incomprehension, though he knew exactly where this was going.

“What changed,” Greathouse repeated, as if speaking to a halfwit, “in your relationship with the Grigsbys? Particularly with that girl.”

“We have no relationship, other than living knee to elbow.”

“Hm. You know, she’s not bad-looking. In fact, she’s very good-looking. You saved her from death, you might well claim a reward of some kind.”

“Beryl Grigsby,” said Matthew with as much stuffiness as he could conjure, “is an unfortunate bearer of bad luck to whomever she touches. Therefore, I’d rather not be touched, nor touch her.” His frown deepened. “A reward? Believe me, if I never see the girl again, that’s enough reward.”

“Methinks you complain too much,” Greathouse said. “You like that? ‘Methinks’? I read that in the Earwig, in one of Grigsby’s gushing accolades of your prowess as a ‘problem-solver.’ Since you’ve got him hoodwinked, you should try to hoodwink the girl too.”

Matthew saw no sense in giving any respect to such a statement, so he remained silent and shifted his chair so he might avoid Greathouse’s face and view the distant green cliffs of New Jersey, shimmering in the heat.

The truth: Berry Grigsby would hardly speak to him and seemed to be doing her best to avoid him for the two weeks since saving her life on the Chapel estate from bloodthirsty hawks had involved a liberal application of horse manure to the face. Then she’d lately come around to his dairy house with obviously a new attitude and invited him to a social at Sally Almond’s, which he’d declined. So now the ice was back frosting the cup. Though it was grand for him to be hailed as such a hero in the Earwig he did not feel so heroic in the presence of Berry Grigsby, who easily could have been killed being involved with him in that dangerous situation. My guardian, she’d called him. It seemed to him that the best guarding would be to keep his distance from

 her, lest her impetuous nature draw her into further peril regarding his position as a problem-solver.

He was lost in thought about this when both men heard the door open and close at the bottom of the stairs. Then came the sound of bootsteps ascending. Greathouse set his quill into its rest and said, “A situation, I hope,” to mean more interesting than a fire-breathing preacher, a wronged wife, and a whoremongering gallivant.

Who should enter the office but Sidney Sodd, looking none the worse for a night’s rest in the gaol. He was wearing a nice tan suit with dark blue piping, and as he came in, he removed his brown tricorn to reveal the single spike of hair sticking up on his pate like an exclamation.

“Gentlemen,” he said with a nod to each. “I am Sidney Sodd, and I’ve been given the information that you are in the business of ‘problem-solving’?”

“Correct,” said Matthew, who stood up as a measure of respect. Greathouse did not repeat the measure. “I am Matthew Corbett, and this is my associate—”

“Hudson Greathouse, and Mr. Corbett is my associate,” came the interruption in what was nearly a bark. “What do you want?”

“It seems … I do have a problem.”

“I can guess,” said Greathouse, “but restoring the hearing to deaf ears is not among our abilities.”

Sodd looked stunned for a few seconds, and then his face folded in a smile and a quiet laugh came out. “Oh, you’re making a joke! Ah yes … I recall seeing both of you at the concert yesterday!”

“Was that what it was? I thought it was an assault by two armies with my head caught in the middle!”

Sodd remained smiling, though the edges of it did fray a little.

“Pardon Mr. Greathouse, sir,” said Matthew, “as he’s currently scribing the results of a problem that has taxed his brain and given him no rest for at least forty minutes. Would you like to have a seat?” He motioned toward an extra chair that faced his own desk. As Sodd sat down, so did Matthew. Greathouse reached for his quill again but at the last second his fingers denied it.

“All right then,” Greathouse said with a look of anguished resignation. He wiped the heat sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. “What’s your problem?” He drove on before Sodd could reply. “I thought you and that troupe of yours would be gone to Philadelphia by now.”

“Yes. Well … the Four Lamplighters and I have booked passage on the packet boat that leaves at three o’clock. I am told that with a fair wind we will reach the town by tomorrow evening and our first concert there is scheduled for the night afterward. So actually, our schedule has been unaffected.”

“I doubt those Quakers will allow you to finish a single concert, with what I heard. Don’t you think the Lamplighters are a bit saucy for a mixed audience?”

“Saucy, sir?”

“Yes! Saucy, Sodd! To put it mildly!”

“Saucy,” the little man repeated, as if relishing the word. Swirls of color surfaced on his cheeks, and he leaned toward Greathouse with what might have been a giddy grin. “Yes, sir! You’ve hit it directly! That is the heart of it, the lungs and the brain too! Saucy! And Christ keep the Lamplighters full of sauce and more in days to come, for then you’ll see the fire of it!”

“And here we thought we had a client,” said Greathouse to Matthew, “when this gent needs to be led gently to an asylum bed.”

“I do think you should explain yourself, sir,” Matthew urged, and Sodd nodded with a nearly feverish eagerness.

“What seems saucy today,” he said, “is mere pap tomorrow. This is the heart, the lungs, and the brain of music, sirs! Of performance! Of the arts themselves! The true artist must keep pushing forward, ever forward! As my charges do … ever forward! Oh, I saw in them greatness, gentlemen! Do you know what I saw?”

“Greatness,” said Greathouse, with no enthusiasm.

“I saw … what has never been seen before! And that is the crux of it! What has never been seen before is what must be seen! What has never been heard before must be heard! Their songs, their appearance, their command of the stage and the audience … and yes, gentlemen, their sauce! You know they came up with the idea of moving back and forth upon the stage on their own, and let me tell you I have seen dozens of women lose their senses and rush forth simply to kiss a ruffled sleeve! I have seen tears in their eyes, and—”

“Corks in their ears?” Greathouse asked.

“All right, their music is not for everyone! Certainly not for the elder! It is for the young, as every art begins its journey through mankind, for the young have not the calcified minds and stiffness of sensibilities that impair free thinking and action! If not for the young, the world itself would calcify and crumble to pieces, for the minds of the young keep it fresh and vigorous! So yes, the music of the Four Lamplighters is for the young, and I praise my fate that I am here to guide them along.”

“Do you practice this speech before a mirror?” was Greathouse’s reply.

“Make merry if you like, sir, but what may be termed obscenities suited Shakespeare well in both comedies and tragedies, and you might look to the Bible itself to find what some might call perversions, as in the Song of Solomon. He owned a harem of one hundred and forty women, later expanded to one thousand. Would your Lord Cornbury place Solomon behind bars for his exuberant tastes?”

“Probably,” said Greathouse.

“I’m simply saying that the Four Lamplighters represent the future of music … the mixture of song and performance to stir the emotions of an audience, and thus win their hearts. They are the future, like it or not, and their path will continue to evolve from artist to artist long after we are dust in the grave.”

“I shudder to think,” said

Greathouse. “Not of the grave, but of the future of music if that bunch is the vanguard.”

“I understand your meaning,” Matthew offered to Sodd, “but besides this expounding upon art and the evolution of music … what is your problem?”

“Simply put,” said Sodd, “we are in need of a bodyguard. Two would be best, and I have the coin to pay.”

“Guarding against whom, exactly?” Greathouse prodded, his interest obviously renewed.

Sodd was slow in answering, his gaze on the floorboards, so Matthew decided to do some prodding of his own. “The pair of men following you. Who are they?”

Sodd’s gaze came up from the floor. “Pair of men?”

“You know who I mean. The two men whose presence made you decide yourself and your charges would be safer in the gaol than not. Do you know their names?”

Again, Sodd was slow in his response, but at last he chewed on his lower lip and said, “The larger one is named Graw. The smaller one is Sprain. To answer your next question, they are hired killers.”

“Hired by whom?” When Sodd didn’t reply, Matthew pressed on: “Sir, we need to hear the whole story, or I doubt we will be much use to you. Who has hired the killers, and who is the target?”

“All right. Hired by Edgar Allerby, and the target—I believe—is Ben Dover, our drummer and also one of our songwriters.”

“Go on,” Matthew urged.

Sodd shifted in his chair. “Allerby owns a number of coffee houses in London, and also in other English cities. The Lamplighters were contracted to offer concerts in several of those establishments. You must know that Allerby is more fond of rum than of coffee, but he is very wealthy. Also, that he is a corpulent bully who married a woman twenty years younger than himself … and there is the problem. As things progressed, Ben and Allerby’s wife … enjoyed a dalliance. More than a dalliance. Ben has that effect upon women.”

“That fellow with the mile-long nose?” Greathouse asked. “That one?”

“You know what they say about big noses, sir,” said Sodd, which made Greathouse either consciously or by instinct feel the length and width of his own before he realized what he was doing and dropped his hand.

“To continue,” said the little man. “Allerby’s wife, Alice, was so smitten with Ben that she decided to throw aside her marriage and follow the troupe, thus Ben—the others and myself, also—have inspired the undying hatred of the wounded husband. And speaking of dying, Allerby’s wife disappeared two weeks before we left England. She was going to make the trip to the colonies on her own, as Ben … well, Ben has a roving eye, and he never intended to take matters beyond a dalliance. He made that clear to her. But her visits to our concerts at other establishments ceased, as did her rather impassioned letters to Ben once he told her we were definitely undertaking this tour.”

“Maybe she returned to her husband?” Greathouse asked.

“Knowing Allerby’s reputation, I doubt he would’ve taken her back as—shall we say—spoiled goods. It’s possible she returned, yes, but her attendance at our last three concerts was replaced by the presence of the men Mr. Corbett noted yesterday. They followed us to our inn, and we noted them skulking around. Just before we boarded the ship for Boston, we were returning from a performance one night, we heard a cat’s squall from an alley—which alerted us to the fact that something was afoot—and an instant later a pistol ball nearly parted Ben’s scalp. We could’ve been fired upon a second time, had not a constable been near. I made some inquiries from associates who might have gotten a whiff of things, their positions being so near to the dirt, and the word was that Allerby had contracted two killers to exact his revenge upon Ben … and, by result of murder, the other Lamplighters as well.”

“Did you see them in Boston?” Matthew asked.

“No. They must’ve taken the next ship after ours. It would be no hard task to follow us, as before the killers entered into this matter, I had printed up in the London Gazette details of our upcoming tour. Publicity, you know. I thought by leaving England for a while a hot situation with Allerby’s anger might have time to cool. I imagine Graw and Sprain went to Boston, found they’d missed us, and located one of the many broadsheets I had circulated around that spelled out our towns of performance. I was shocked to see them here yesterday, and actually relieved that we all might spend a night of safety behind bars. But you see, gentlemen, why I need your services. I am well aware that Graw and Sprain are following our movements, though they might not be seen by myself or the others.” Sodd looked from Matthew to Greathouse and back again, his expression dour and the two hairy eyebrows at war. “We do need your help, sirs, to prevent further acts of violence upon my boys.”

“Understood,” said Matthew. “But why not take a coach to Philadelphia? I think that’s probably a faster trip than the packet boat, which has to go around Delaware and up the river.”

“Maybe not,” Greathouse asserted. “It depends on the ferry boats. Sometimes you have to wait for hours while they get their problems sorted out and everyone across.”

Sodd nodded. “And another reason … do you have any idea what damage can be done to musical instruments on a coach? Broken guitars, a fiddle, and drums would be the devil to pay, and over here I daresay the repair shops are few and far between. No, we must take to a smoother voyage by water.”

“Well, why didn’t you take the morning boat?” Greathouse asked. “It sailed at six.”

“We weren’t released until eight,” was Sodd’s answer, “and I had to make haste as it was to find a boat with available cabins. Thus, the current situation.”

Matthew and Greathouse

were silent for a while. Sodd presented the final question: “What is your decision, sirs?”

“I hate your music, if it can be called that,” said Greathouse, “but a water trip would be a cooler experience than New York in August. You say first Philadelphia and then Charles Town?”

“And we’d hoped to play Philadelphia, New York, and Boston again on the return, but we’ll have to see.”

“Matthew?” Greathouse asked. He was checking his pocket watch. “Four hours before the packet boat leaves. You’ll need enough for two weeks’ trip, I’d say. No, better make it three just in case. Why don’t you go on home and get ready? I’ll stay with Sodd and the ‘boys’ until you’ve finished, then we can split the task.”

“We’re at Mrs. Jorgenson’s boardinghouse,” said Sodd, who stood up to his full diminutive height, but he seemed already relieved of a heavy weight. “Thank you, gentlemen. You shall not regret doing this good deed.”

“Hang the good deed.” Greathouse was already pushing aside his scribing of that last and to him crushingly boring case. “We’re in it for the money.”

 

Three

“Welcome aboard! Welcome, all!” was Captain Rufus Guidenmeyer’s greeting to his passengers as they crossed the gangplank onto the ninety-foot schooner Summer Breeze, which the red-bearded, gap-toothed, and gregarious Guidenmeyer renamed as per the seasons: Autumn Wind, Winter Solstice, and Springtime Joy.

Guidenmeyer’s exuberance did not translate well to either Matthew or Hudson; each spending their own short time in the presence of the Four Lamplighters while packing up for this voyage made them both wish not to light the lamps but to break them. The young men without their garish costumes, wigs, and a stage upon which to parade themselves were the zenith—or might it be nadir?—of sullen bad manners and taciturn lack of personality. When they did speak among themselves, it was a language about chords and melodies, delivered with snorts and sneers, that spoke of how little they seemed to like anything, in particular their own music, Sidney Sodd, each other, and this tour they were apparently forced into taking under threat of the murders of their entire families, if one might surmise so from their behavior.

In Matthew’s opinion, the Romeo of this group was the most abhorrent. Ben Dover’s arrogance seethed through his skin, in the way he looked with his heavy-lidded eyes down his huge beak of a proboscis at Matthew the way one would look not least of all at the hired help, but also at a toad one might consider smashing under a heavy boot. He uttered the few words he seemed to know in what must be the tar-thick accent of the Liverpool wharf. About the only thing Matthew could make out was the repeated use of the word “mate,” which Matthew considered in the present circumstances to mean “friend,” if he had any. For the Lamplighters might be bandmates, but their association seemed all business and little camaraderie.

Thus, this afternoon the Lamplighters were boarding the Breeze with their baggage, instruments, and their manager, who seemed to be shrinking even smaller in the fierce heat. Along with this bunch, the boat with its crew of six, including Guidenmeyer’s wife, was taking on as passengers the broomcorn businessman Simms Richmond with his wife, Joanna, and the lawyer Thomas Brodine: all in all, a full bucket.

As everyone stood on the deck while other cargo was being loaded by the wharfmen, Guidenmeyer set about assigning cabins to those who’d paid the premium. Of the four cabins available, the Richmonds got number one, Brodine number two, Foxglove, Dell and Dover in number three, and Love and Sodd in number four … which left Matthew and Greathouse consigned to the forward hammock spaces shared by the crew, sure to be sweltering though an afternoon and evening voyage in this weather was considerably more agreeable than Captain Faber’s six o’clock boat, by now having cooked its passengers into hard-skinned sausages.

“We’ll be gettin’ underway,” Guidenmeyer announced, “soon as we’re loaded up and two more late passengers get here, if they’s a mind to travel to … well, here they’re comin’!”

And so they were. Matthew and Greathouse heard a gasp from Sidney Sodd, and the Lamplighters looked as if they’d swallowed their instruments, because trudging along the dock with their canvas bags in hand were the two killers, Graw and Sprain.

Before the pair could cross the gangplank, Greathouse’s bulk blocked the way. “You’re not taking this boat today, gents.”

The two pulled up short but did not retreat. The larger Graw was nearly the size of Greathouse and had a forehead like a slab of stone under a Devil’s tangle of curly black hair that hung about his shoulders, while the much smaller Sprain was ruddy-faced, whip-thin, and in addition to his hawk’s-beak nose had what appeared to be a sand-colored animal’s furry pelt laid haphazardly across his scalp, though Matthew realized it was simply the man’s unkempt hair. Now Graw took a step toward Greathouse and grunted in a rumbling basso, “Move aside, we got our tickets!”

“Toss them, they’re no good.”

“Listen, you big ox!” Sprain had pushed past his companion and stood looking up at Greathouse, though he might sprain his neck in doing so. His voice was so high-pitched it was near soprano. “We’re sailin’ to Philadelphia and there ain’t nought you can do about it!”

“Here, here!” Guidenmeyer had come to Greathouse’s side. “What’s this about? These gentlemen have

paid their way!”

“I say they’re not going; they can take the next boat in the morning.”

“That’s ridiculous! They’re here and we’ve got room in the hammocks! They’ve paid and we’re ready to set sail!”

“We’re sailing without these two.”

“What’s gotten into you, Greathouse?” Guidenmeyer frowned. “Has the heat baked your brain? I’ll remind you that I’m the master of this ship!”

“They’re not aboard yet,” Greathouse fired back, “and they’re turning tail if they know what’s good for them.”

“Yeah?” Graw rumbled.

“Yeah,” said Greathouse.

“Yeah?” It was Sprain’s turn to get up under Greathouse’s chin again.

“What’s this problem?” Thomas Brodine had stepped forward. He was a young man, only a few years older than Matthew, and it appeared that in his cream-colored suit, blue stockings, and blue-ruffled shirt he was the very picture of cool command. “Gentlemen, I am a lawyer,” he said, addressing the two new arrivals. “Do you need my services to make certain you have not wasted your hard-earned money on a false promise of transportation?”

“You stay out of this!” Greathouse barked. He had already remarked to Matthew that he thought New York was being overrun by lawyers shipping over from England. More than four lawyers and a town is ruined, he’d said.

“I know the law, sir,” was the retort.

“And I know that these two men are—”

“Musicians,” interrupted Sprain, with his hands on his hips. “That’s what we are, ya big buffoon!”

“That’s a damnable lie!” Sodd had nearly shouted it.

“Oh, I swoon from the heat!” the slim and stately Lady Richmond cried out, hanging onto her husband as if a fall to the deck were imminent. “What is all this turmoil, Simms?”

“Musicians, my tail!” Greathouse sneered. “What do you play, the skin flutes?”

“Sir!” was Simms Richmond’s shout. “You are in the presence of a lady!”

Matthew thought that this was one hell of a voyage, and the ship hadn’t even thrown its ropes yet.

“To be more exact,” Sprain barreled on, “we write songs! Yeah! Don’t we, Graw?” He looked to the larger man for affirmation, but Graw just stared dumbly ahead. “We write songs,” Sprain continued, “and we’ve been trackin’ this bunch for

a while hopin’ to … y’know … get ’em alone where they might hear one or two of ’em without bein’… y’know … disturbanced.”

“Likely story, you lying villains!” Sodd spouted.

“You ain’t thinkin’ of killin’ me, mate?” Dover suddenly asked.

“Killin’ you? Hell, naw! Just wantin’ to sell you some songs if you’ll have ’em.”

“We write our own songs,” said Lawrence Love, who when not bellowing on stage spoke in a voice that sounded muffled by a heavy glove.

“Well … yes,” said Sodd, “but … we could always use fresh material.” He shook his head as if shaking off the beginnings of a trance. “Heavens, what am I thinking? No, no, a thousand times no! And I concur with Mr. Greathouse that you should not board this vessel!”

“Gentlemen, I charge by the hour, and we shall sue everyone involved!” Brodine’s cry had the sound of if not legal triumph then the joy of newfound coinage. “An added suit will address the mental and heat-related harm done to Mrs. Richmond, who wilts away as we stand here in argument!”

“Oh, for God’s sake!” Greathouse looked about to spray a spit on the lawyer’s shiny black boots.

“I have a suggestion,” said Matthew, who stepped forward not necessarily to assert himself but to catch a sliver of shade from the nearest boom and furled sail. “Captain Guidenmeyer, am I mistaken that you offer your passengers a small meal in the galley before the bedtime bell?”

“I do. It’s biscuits and beef jerky prepared by my Gretchen, along with a little taste of rum.”

Matthew nodded. “At this nautical feast, while we are all gathered in the galley, perhaps these gentlemen might present a song or two of their own creation to prove both their aptitude and their intentions?” He raised a hand to silence the protests from Greathouse and Sodd before they could be launched. “I will remind all that Greathouse and I shall be sharing space in the crew’s quarters with our songwriters, and thus within distance to prevent any wrong notes tonight. Also that if we wish to reach Philadelphia before the first snowfall we do need to resolve our situation.”

A silence descended but for the skreeling of seagulls overhead as they fluttered around and around the wharf in white flags of eager hunger.

Greathouse aimed himself at the two targets of the moment. “I’ll grant that,” he said. “And if you don’t come up with something, I’m throwing you both over the side. How about that?”

“Please!” Sodd said. “Do you think it’s wise to allow them—”

“We’ve got this in hand,” Greathouse interrupted. “Your tickets still good, or not?”

After a short but possibly revealing hesitation, Sprain said through gritted teeth, “They’re good.” And added: “Ya monstrous hunk a’ cabbage!”

Greathouse stepped aside. Graw and Sprain came aboard with their bags, and Matthew noted that all the Lamplighters and Sodd retreated before them as if the two men carried the plague … and possibly they did, if the intent to murder might be called such.

“Thank God, we can get underway then!” said the captain, who motioned the group toward the midships hatch. “Come on, bring your bags and I’ll show you to your

quarters.”

On the way to the ladder, Greathouse halted, blocking Matthew’s path. Matthew thought that his countenance might have frightened Exodus Jerusalem into true religion.

“Moonbeam, I have a bad feeling about this,” Greathouse said. “If anything goes wrong tonight, it’s on you.”

And he punctuated that statement with a finger stab to the chest that Matthew was sure would leave a mark. ...