Mister Slaughter (49 page)

A ghost? The marbles hadn't been ghostly. They'd clattered loud enough when they'd hit, and one had given him a substantial sting to the neck. Or had they been only pebbles, after all?

When this was over and the local constable informed that Mrs. Lovejoy's dead guests did not stay in their graves, Matthew had decided he would go back to that watermill and find out if either marbles or pebbles lay on the floor. But first there was this . . . and Mrs. Lovejoy was going to have to explain how her thief trap had ended up holding Slaughter's buried treasure. Mrs. Lovejoy? Mrs. Sutch?

What did the mistress of Paradise have to do with the queen of spicy sausages?

He thought of something Opal had said, about the pepper plants:
Mizz Lovejoy feeds 'em to her guests. Grinds 'em up in every damn thing, excuse my French. Even gives 'em pepper juice to drink, mornin', noon and night.

Matthew watched the lanterns far ahead. He saw them sway with the wagon.

Is anybody to home in there
?
had been Opal's question about the cemetery.

He had the mental image of Hudson Greathouse sitting in Sally Almond's, eating some of Mrs. Sutch's sausages for breakfast.
Whew, this is hot!
he'd said, as he'd blotted sweat from his forehead with his napkin.

And Evelyn Shelton, saying,
Only
have 'em a few days a month as is, so if you want 'em
you'd best get your order in
!

Matthew whispered, "Easy, easy," to his horse, though it was he who had given a start, as if a cold hand had suddenly been laid across the back of his neck.

He refused to consider what had just gone through his mind. Refused it. Shut the book on it. Closed the coffin. Mrs. Sutch owned a hog farm up north of Nicholsburg. A
hog farm
. Pork. Hear me?

Opal's voice came to him, asking,
But
what became of Mr. White
?

And, the real question: What may have become of all forty-nine people supposedly buried over a period of five years in Paradise?

Mrs. Lovejoy? Mrs. Sutch?

Sisters in crime? Or one and the same?

Matthew had no idea. He banished these wild, unsettling, and downright sickening suppositions from his mind, as best he could, and concentrated on the glint of Noggin's lamps. The wagon moved on, the horse and rider following at a distance behind and cloaked by the night.

Two hours passed, during which Matthew drew no closer nor fell back no further. In a shift of the chill breeze he caught the rank scent of hog filth, and by that he knew Noggin was near his destination.

The wagon turned to the left. Its lanterns suddenly disappeared. Matthew picked up his horse's pace, and in a few minutes came to the forest track that Noggin had followed. Through the trees Matthew could see no lights, but the smell of the hogs was overpowering. He urged his mount forward, though even the steadfast horse grumbled and didn't seem to want to proceed. About fifty or sixty yards along the track, with dense woods on either side, Matthew caught sight of lanterns. He instantly dismounted, led his horse among the trees and tied the animal up. When he had sufficiently bolstered his courage, he left his tricorn and cloak with the horse and crept through the forest into what appeared to be yellow layers of smoke hanging in the sullied air, the stomach-turning miasma of hog stench.

It was developing into a delightful evening.

Through the trees and low underbrush, Matthew saw that Noggin's wagon had pulled up alongside a one-story house painted dull gray. The house had a front porch with a rope handhold up the woodblock steps, and window shutters painted the same gray as the walls. Light showed in the windows and a lantern hung on a hook next to the door, which was shut. Matthew wondered if Noggin had crafted the house, for though it seemed at first glance to be of good construction it began to dawn on him that the structure was somewhat malformed, that the walls were crooked, and none of the windows were the same size. A stone chimney spat smoke from the yellow roof, which sat like a crumpled hat on the head of a blowsy drunk. Matthew thought Noggin might be an able handyman, but house building was not his talent.

A black horse with a white star on its forehead stood tied to a hitching-post on the far side of the house. Matthew saw the dark shapes of other structures beyond the house, back where a few fitful lanterns burned and the haze was thick enough to choke a mule. From what he could tell there looked to be a barn, a long shedlike structure that probably was part of the hog pens, another utility building of some kind—the slaughterhouse?—and finally a scabby-looking rectangular building that might be a smokehouse. The noise of hogs gobbling and grunting came from the pens.

The domain of Mrs. Sutch. Matthew thought it was very far indeed from Paradise.

Noggin was nowhere in sight. The coffin's lid was open. Matthew shifted his position a few feet and saw an open cellar door. A faint glow of dirty light washed out upon the boards.

He knelt down, mulling his situation. It would be a simple matter now to ride back to the village of Nicholsburg and knock on doors until he roused someone who had something to do with the law. He could get there in about twenty minutes. Go from door to door and raise hell, if he had to.
Sorry to wake you up, sir, but Mrs. Sutch's handyman Noggin is stealing dead guests from Mrs. Lovejoy's Paradise and carting them up here to the hog farm, where he's taking them into the cellar, and would you please lower that musket from my face, sir
?

Noggin suddenly came up through the cellar door, which caused Matthew to duck even though he was already on the ground. Matthew had a glimpse of Noggin's dark-stained leather apron before the handyman trudged on toward the buildings out back. The haze swallowed him up.

Something moved behind Matthew. He sensed it first before he heard it. The back of his neck rippled, and then came the quiet sound of brush being stirred by a body. Matthew whirled around, his eyes wide, for he thought surely someone he hadn't counted on being there was going to jump him, and he would have to fight for his life.

But no . . . there was no one there.

Matthew's heart was racing. He had to struggle to regain his breath. An animal of some kind had just skittered past, he thought. Damn if it hadn't turned his temples gray.

He saw Noggin returning to the house, carrying a bucket in each hand. Noggin went back unhurriedly into the cellar, like any workman doing a job he's done many times before.

This would be number fifty, Matthew thought.

He no longer felt safe out here. His skin was still crawling. In another moment Noggin was going to come back and shut the cellar door. Matthew stood up. In back of the wagon would be the shovel, the pickaxe and the mallet, if Noggin hadn't already taken them inside. Matthew figured those items stayed in the wagon. He had to make a quick decision that might end his life right here and now. The longer he delayed, the worse. He pushed out through the brush, crept up to the wagon, debated for about three seconds which of the items he could use, decided against his first choice, the pickaxe, because he didn't want to burst Noggin's skull, and picked up the mallet. He stood at the cellar door, the mallet upraised, waiting for Noggin to appear.

He waited.

No Noggin.

From within, at a distance, he heard what sounded like an axe at work. On what, he dreaded to think, but it didn't sound like wood.

Matthew took a deep breath and peered inside. A few lanterns hung from beams overhead. The cellar had dirt walls, and looked to be a warren of small rooms and passages. Like the diggings of a rat's nest, Matthew thought. Or the tunnels of a coal mine. In the larger chamber before him stood a number of barrels, coils of rope and chains, a cupboard in the corner and on the floor a stack of burlap bags with Mrs. Sutch's legend already painted on them in red.

The chopping noise was coming from the right. He eased down the cellar's steps and saw along the passageway a shadow thrown by lamplight from one of the rooms. It had a shadow axe, and was cleaving a shadow something that appeared to be hanging from the ceiling. Matthew heard liquid running into a bucket. He decided this was not where he wished to be.

" . . . can't go back and pick up like it was only yesterday . . . "

The muffled voice was coming from above Matthew's head. A woman's voice.

Thunk
 . . .
thunk
 . . .
thunk
went the axe.

" . . . if you would help me, that particular door might not be . . . "

A man's voice, responding.

That voice was very familiar. Sickeningly familiar, in fact.

"Ty, listen to me!" said the woman sharply. "He won't take you back. Not now, not ever."

Ty's voice pitched lower, became silken in its cajoling. Whatever Ty wanted help with, he meant to get it. Matthew had lifted the mallet, as if to strike at the speaker though separated by a floor of uneven boards. His heart was pounding, and a sheen of cold sweat glistened on his forehead. He knew the voice of Tyranthus Slaughter, all right. And the woman calling him "Ty" sounded like Gemini Lovejoy, but less genteel now and more hard-edged.

In the room along the passage, Noggin kept chopping. Further in the cellar, Matthew saw a set of steps going up to a door. When he took the second one, it let out a squeal that made his blood curdle; he froze in place, expecting either the door to open or Noggin to come rushing along the passage, but the voices kept muttering and wrangling. The two Lovejoys were having a dispute, it seemed. He intended to find out what issue stood between the loving harmony of a killer and a . . . whatever she was. He eased up the steps and peered through a crack where door and wall should have met. He could see nothing but yellow lamplight in a room with dark brown wallpaper, so he put his ear to the crack instead and listened to the Lovejoys fuss.

" . . . shouldn't have come here," she said. "Of all places."

"I told you, I'd worn out my welcome in that boarding house. Chester is not my idea of a fascinating destination."

"Be
damned
with that!" she snapped. Matthew heard a chair scrape. Were they both sitting down? At a table? "I told
you
, long ago, that I was done with you! I couldn't help you anymore!"

"Ah, Lyra!" Slaughter's voice was like warm honey. "Couldn't, or wouldn't?"

"
Both
. Now we've been going over this all afternoon. How much longer are you going to stir the pot?"

"Oh," he said, and Matthew could imagine him shrugging and giving a cold smile, "until the stew is ready."

She was silent. Then: "Your head's leaking again."

"Yes, that happens when I become disturbed. The stitches were put in by a country idiot, what do you expect? Would you get me a fresh cloth?"

Matthew's nerves jangled. The chopping noise had stopped. But now it began again, and Matthew could relax a little because at least he knew where Noggin was. He heard Mrs. Gemini Lovejoy—also her own twin, Mrs. Sutch—walk across the floor and return. The chair scraped once more, and Matthew presumed she had seated herself. He thought they might be sitting at a kitchen table, because there was also the clink of a plate or a glass.

"Thank you," said Slaughter. "You should have seen me, Lyra! All the old fire and ability came back. Makes a man delight in living, to know he hasn't lost a step."

"I still don't believe you. About the three constables and the Indian."

"Three of the hardest constables you ever set eyes on," he insisted. "Militia soldiers, every one. Took me out of that madhouse and treated me like a common criminal. The Indian came later, as I said. But I killed them all, I did. Outsmarted them, and put them down. The Indian got me, yes, but I polished him off, too, when push came to shove. That's when I'm at my best, Lyra. When my back's against the wall. As it is now, dear one. As it is now."

"I'm not your 'dear one'. And stop crowing. I know your abilities. That's not the problem."

"The problem," Slaughter said, "is that you're telling me he has no need for my abilities. When we both know I was his favored one. We both know he relied on me to settle his accounts, more than any other." Mrs. Sutch was quiet, and Slaughter added, "Look how neatly I polished off Richard Herrald. That still counts for something, doesn't it?"

Matthew's knees almost buckled. Polished off
Richard Herrald
? What madness was
this
?

"Professor Fell will take me back," Slaughter said, in the room beyond. "He's not going to let a talent like mine go to waste."

Truly, Matthew nearly had to sit down. He put his eye to the crack, but still saw nothing of the two villains. He thought they were sitting just to the right of his position. He was aware that Noggin had ceased chopping; now there came a scraping noise, blade against bone.

Matthew's brain crackled as he took it all in: Tyranthus Slaughter had been an assassin working for Professor Fell in England. Settling the professor's accounts, which included murdering Fell's enemies who received the blood cards. Richard Herrald, Katherine's husband and founder of the Herrald Agency, had been on Fell's murder list, and had met a hideous fate in London about ten years ago.

Greathouse
, Slaughter had said at Reverend Burton's cabin.
I don't know that name, but I swear you're familiar.

Probably because Greathouse looked enough like his elder half-brother for Slaughter to have his memory jogged, though he couldn't connect one man to the other.

Slaughter had murdered Richard Herrald, on behalf of his employer Professor Fell. His very strict employer, who had the habit of having associates killed once they landed in gaol, to ensure the secrecy of his operations. Thus Slaughter had preferred a stay at the Westerwicke public hospital, and a pretense of being mad, rather than spending any time whatsoever in a gaol.

As Greathouse himself had said,
No one makes Professor Fell angry and lives very long
.

Not even, evidently, the professor's own assassins.

"You did that job a long time ago," Mrs. Sutch countered. Matthew heard the clink of glass against glass; was she pouring from a bottle of wine? "And that was before he found out you were working for
yourself
. Masquerading as a nobleman and killing those girls! Really, Ty! Without his permission, and without paying him a percentage! You knew you were dead if you stayed there, and you know you can't ever go back again."