The Scent of Death

Chapter Four

Mr Townley had arranged for a room to be set aside at the Merchants Coffee House. The place was on the corner with a fine view of the masts and rigging of ships in the harbour, which lay at the far end of Wall Street. It was a genteel establishment with a balcony running along the tall windows of the principal assembly rooms upstairs.

‘They know me pretty well here,’ Townley said as we went inside. ‘I think I can promise you a tolerable dinner.’

Ceiling fans turned slowly in the big room on the ground floor. It was packed with gentlemen, many of whom seemed acquainted with Mr Townley and anxious to exchange bows with him. But Townley refused to be diverted. He led me through the throng, past a row of booths whose privacy was guarded with green-baize curtains, and up the stairs. On the landing, a negro footman in livery was waiting to show us into a small parlour where a table was laid for three.

‘I had hoped that Major Marryot would join us,’ Townley explained. ‘No matter. We can talk more confidentially without him.’

There was a tap on the door and the servants brought in the dinner. While we ate, Mr Townley asked me for news from London. He was eager to hear what people were thinking and doing, and the more I told him, the more pleased he was.

‘You must pardon my appetite for information,’ he said. ‘We are starved for it. It’s bad enough in peacetime when the mails are better. But nowadays we fasten like leeches on every newcomer and suck him dry as fast as we can.’

When the cloth had been withdrawn, Townley pushed back his chair, crossed his legs and passed me the bottle. ‘And now we can be comfortable, sir. What are they saying about the war in the American Department? I know Lord George has no secrets from Mr Rampton, and Mr Rampton can have no secrets from you.’ His left eyelid drooped in a wink and he nudged my arm.

I inclined my head but said nothing.

‘There’s much to be said for keeping these things in the family,’ Townley went on. ‘It is a question of loyalty, quite aside from anything else. Whom can one trust but one’s own kin and their connections?’

‘Indeed,’ I said, though I rather doubted Mr Rampton trusted anybody at all.

‘And – apart from the domestic felicity that no doubt lies in store for you on your return to England – this must mean you are quite the coming man in the Department.’

Our conversation turned to the war. Earlier this year, the entry of France on the rebel side had come as a heavy blow. No longer could we take our control of the American seaboard for granted; and there was the constant threat that the French would compel us to divert our resources to the West Indies or even further afield.

‘Sir Henry Clinton keeps his own counsel,’ Townley said. ‘Between ourselves, sir, there are many Loyalists in this city who cannot understand the General’s inactivity.’

‘But you do not doubt our ability to win, sir?’

‘Of course not. Congress will lose this war in the end: it lacks the gold it needs to buy weapons and pay its men and feed its people. None of us can do without money, eh? It’s a bitter pill for those damned Whigs to swallow – their soldiers want guineas, for all they carry the King’s head on them. The dollar is a laughing stock, barely worth the paper it is printed on. If we Tories but hold our nerve, sir, and prosecute the war with determination, we cannot help but win.’

Townley hammered the table in his enthusiasm and proposed that we drink His Majesty’s health again. Afterwards, he turned the conversation to Major Marryot.

‘It is providential that he could not be here with us,’ he said. ‘A word in your private ear before you meet may not come amiss. You may find him – how shall I put it? – a little brusque. He may not be disposed to make your task less burdensome, even if it lies within his power.’

‘Why, sir? I have no quarrel with the Major.’

My host fanned himself with his handkerchief, now stained with wine. ‘You know what soldiers are. Marryot instinctively distrusts any man who doesn’t wear a red coat. He was wounded at White Plains, you know, and as a result is quite lame in the left leg, which has not improved a temper already inclined towards the choleric. Add to this the usual prejudices of a true-born Englishman …’

‘Forgive me, sir,’ I said, ‘but I do not understand how this would influence his behaviour towards me.’

Townley dabbed with his handkerchief at the moisture on his forehead, which ran in gleaming rivulets through the powder that had fallen from his wig. ‘He does not have much time for the American Department,’ he said. ‘Particularly when it bestirs itself to protect in some small way the interests of the Loyalists.’ He paused, and then added, ‘His father was killed at Minden. He served in the Twenty-third.’

‘Ah,’ I said. ‘Yes, I see.’

All of us in the Department knew the power of that one word, Minden. Lord George Germain had everything the world could offer – rank, wealth, position, the confidence of his sovereign – but the memory of the battle of Minden was a curse on him he had never contrived to exorcise. Nearly twenty years earlier, he had commanded the British cavalry against the French at the battle. He was widely believed to have disobeyed an order to attack, which had led to many casualties. He had been court-martialled and censured; some said he was lucky to have escaped execution, others that he had been cruelly misjudged. His wealth, connections and ability had enabled him to put the affair behind him. But the army remembered.

‘Putting that on one side for a moment, sir,’ I said quickly. ‘You implied on our way here that Judge Wintour has had his difficulties.’

‘Poor man. He has suffered a deal of sorrow in the last few years. He does not go much abroad now, either – so you may find he is not au courant with—’

There was a knock at the door. A footman entered with a letter. Murmuring an apology, Mr Townley broke the seal and unfolded the sheet of paper. Breathing heavily, he held it at arm’s length and read the contents with a frown deepening on his forehead.

He looked up. ‘I regret, sir, I’m called away.’ He tapped the letter. ‘Talk of the devil, eh? This comes from the Major himself. They have found a body in Canvas Town. So that was why he was not in the way at Headquarters.’

‘Perhaps I should accompany you, sir? After all …’

He nodded, taking my meaning, for his understanding was as quick as any man’s. ‘Indeed – if you are not too fatigued, of course. This is just the sort of affair for you. By the way, Marryot writes that, judging by his dress, the dead man was a gentleman. And I’m afraid there’s no doubt about it: the poor fellow met his end by violent means.’

Chapter Five

The eyes were open, though the orbs were now dull, dry and speckled with dust. The irises were a cloudy blue. The whites were fretted with networks of red veins as delicate as a spider’s thread.

‘Not much blood,’ Townley said. ‘I’d have expected more.’

It was very hot. The sweat was pouring off me. I stared at the sightless eyes. It was better than looking at the terrible wound on the neck.

Another dead body, I told myself, that is all. But this body was worse than the first of the day, the decaying merman floating in the harbour. Standing on the deck of the Earl of Sandwich, Noak and I had been safely removed from the corpse in the water; and then the kindly tide had borne it away into the ocean, out of sight and out of mind. But this body was so near that, if I had wished, I could have bent down and touched its stockinged feet. This body still looked like someone.

A fly landed on the corpse’s left eye but transferred itself almost at once to the dark, dried blood on the neck. My stomach heaved. Hand on mouth, I ducked away from the knot of men around the body and vomited up what I could of our long, luxurious dinner. One of the soldiers began to laugh but strangled the sound at birth.

‘For God’s sake,’ Marryot said, not troubling to lower his voice. ‘Sergeant, cover the face. It distresses Mr Savill.’

‘Who is the man?’ Townley said, perhaps in a charitable attempt to divert attention from me. ‘Do you know?’

‘No idea. Nothing in the pockets. No rings, though there’s the mark of one on his right hand.’

‘They’ve picked him clean.’

‘It would be strange if they hadn’t. If he’d been here an hour or two longer, he’d have been as naked as the day he was born. The people here are no better than jackals.’

The sergeant stepped back, having arranged a cloth over the corpse’s face.

‘I think I’ve seen him before,’ Townley said. ‘I’m not perfectly convinced of it, mind you, but I believe he was in church yesterday.’

‘Newly arrived?’

‘Probably. In which case the Commandant will have a note of him.’

I straightened up and wiped my mouth. Townley smiled at me. We were standing in a rectangular enclosure of soot-stained bricks, formerly the cellar of a house, one of those destroyed in the great fire of ’76. The only traces of it now were the blackened stumps of what had once been the joists supporting the floor above. A ragged canvas sheet, the remains of a patched sail, had been draped across one corner to make a primitive shelter. They had found the body there – not exactly concealed, but not in plain sight from above, either.

Marryot turned to the sergeant. ‘Have them bring the door. Look sharp.’

The body lay in an unnaturally contorted huddle of limbs, one shoulder against the wall. The man was short and thickset, with a yellowy, unhealthy complexion like old wax. He had been stabbed at least twice, once in the neck and once in the back. He wore a grey suit of clothes, the breeches much soiled. He had lost his wig along with his hat, but there were still traces of powder on his face and on the stubble on the scalp. I wondered what had happened to his shoes.

Two soldiers lowered a panelled door into the cellar. The sergeant and another soldier each took a leg of the corpse and dragged it on to the makeshift litter. The jaw of the dead man fell open, revealing the stumps of three blackened teeth. Townley covered his nose with his wine-stained handkerchief.

‘Christ,’ Marryot said. ‘I swear he’s beginning to smell already. This damned heat. The sooner we get him underground the better.’

The soldiers heaved the body on to the door. A white speck danced across the earth floor where the body had lain and came to rest against the wall. I bent down and picked it up.

‘Mr Savill?’ Townley said. ‘What have you found?’

I held out my hand, palm upwards.

Marryot turned towards us. ‘What’s this?’

‘A die,’ I said. ‘It was either under the body or lodged in the clothes.’

‘A gambler, and the game went awry?’ The Major addressed his words to Townley. ‘We’ll make enquiries, but I doubt we’ll ever know for certain.’

‘You do not think he might have had something to do with the fire?’ Townley asked.

‘I don’t think anything at all if I can help it,’ Marryot said. ‘Not in this goddam heat.’

He limped away, dragging his left leg behind him, and led the way up the steps at one end of the cellar into what had once been the yard at the back of the house. I dropped the little die in my pocket and followed with Townley.

The long afternoon had turned into evening. It was still light but the sun was now low in the sky. To the south-west were a few wisps of smoke, the remnants of the fire.

I looked about me. I had never seen a landscape of such utter desolation. According to Townley, this area had been the heart of the first fire, two years earlier, which had broken out near Whitehall Slip and, driven by changing winds, had spread a swathe of destruction through much of the city. The authorities had been ill-prepared for the conflagration and, to make matters worse, many of the buildings had been partly of wood, as dry as tinder from the long summer heat. Reconstruction had been postponed until after the war.

The ruins had long since been looted of anything of value that their owners had left behind. Now, Townley had told me, much of the area was known as Canvas Town, for it had become home to the worst elements in New York – deserters, vagrants, pickpockets, whores, murderers – in short, all the riff-raff of peace allied to the rogues and vagabonds of war. Temporary sailcloth shelters had sprung up, propped against chimneystacks and ruined walls. Respectable citizens rarely ventured into this piecemeal and provisional quarter of the city, particularly after nightfall.

Three more private soldiers, the rest of Marryot’s patrol, were waiting at ground level. One of them was standing on the roadway, holding the head of a broken-down nag that stood between the shafts of a small cart. They were not alone. A score or so of ragged men and women were watching the proceedings from a safe distance. Among them was a gaunt little boy, a tawny-skinned mulatto of ten or eleven years of age, leading a goat by a rope. A sign on the wall said that this was, or had been, Deyes Street.

‘Scarcely human, are they?’ Townley murmured in my ear. ‘But what can we do? If we had them thrown into gaol, the charge to the city would be intolerable. Besides, the gaols are full of rebels already. In my view, sir, these knaves should be rounded up and hanged – or be turned loose to fend for themselves in the Debatable Ground. It would be kindness to them and a relief to the respectable class of citizen.’

The watchers scattered as the rest of the party appeared from the cellar. The goat had a bell around its neck and it tinkled as it followed the boy. Only one man lingered – a tall negro wearing the faded red coat of a British soldier. He stared with strange hauteur at the men beside the cart, as though he were a person of consequence in this commonwealth of knaves and unfortunates. His dignity was marred by the pink scars that ran from his eyes to his mouth, one on either side of his nose. They twisted the face into the semblance of a smile.

The soldiers brought the body into the street and rolled it into the cart. The sergeant threw a tarpaulin over it. The negro sauntered into the empty doorway of a roofless house.

Marryot gave the slightest of bows and turned smartly away, gesturing to the sergeant to move off.

‘A moment, sir, if you please,’ I said.

The Major stopped and, for the first time, looked directly at me. He was below medium height but made up for his lack of inches in other ways, for he was broad in the chest and decisive in his movements.

‘What enquiries will you make in this matter?’ I asked.

‘That’s my business, sir. Mine and the City Commandant’s, unless Sir Henry Clinton decides otherwise.’

‘Mine too, sir. Under the terms of my commission I am obliged to report on the administration of justice in the city in all its aspects – and in particular upon the authority that the military power exercises over the civilian population.’

Marryot’s colour darkened. ‘Need I remind you that we are at war?’

‘The American Department is well aware of that, sir. And so am I.’

The Major glanced at Townley. ‘Sir, would you have the goodness to explain to Mr Savill that this is a city under martial law? Capital crimes are tried in courts martial, as Lord George Germain knows from personal experience.’

Townley smiled impartially and shrugged his shoulders.

‘I do not dispute that capital crimes come under military jurisdiction, sir.’ I spoke in an intentionally quiet voice, purged of emotion. ‘I do not wish to interfere. Merely to have an oversight.’

Marryot’s grip tightened around his cane. ‘If wishes were horses, sir, then beggars would ride.’

‘If you deny me in this, sir,’ I said quietly, ‘I shall complain formally both to Sir Henry here in New York and Lord George Germain in London. My orders are signed by Lord George, and his authority in this matter derives directly from His Majesty.’

‘I’m damned if—’

‘I repeat, sir. I do not wish to interfere with the discharge of your duties in any way. My orders are to observe, nothing more. I have my commission here, if you would like a sight of it.’

The Major’s forehead was scored with three vertical lines that sprang from the bridge of his nose. When he frowned, the lines deepened. He did not speak for a moment. Then he held out his hand.

‘You may show me your wretched scrap of paper.’

He read the commission slowly, while Townley paced up and down, fanning himself with his hat and whistling softly. The soldiers clustered around the cart in silence. They must have gathered something of what was going on, for Marryot’s voice was naturally loud and harsh, and he had made no attempt to moderate its volume.

He handed back the letter of authorization. ‘I warn you, sir, it will be a waste of your time and mine. But what can one expect when our affairs in America are at the mercy of a man who hides behind a desk three thousand miles away?’

I had no desire to fight other people’s battles. ‘And how will you proceed in this matter?’

‘We’ll find out who the man is, if we are lucky. Then at least he can be buried under his own name. As to his murderer: I do not hold out much hope there, sir, unless someone lays information. If a man looks for his pleasures in Canvas Town, he runs the risk of paying heavily for them.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ I said. ‘I’m much obliged.’

Townley smiled at us. ‘I’m rejoiced to see you such good friends, gentlemen.’ He pulled out his watch. ‘Mr Savill, I do not wish to hurry you, but we should be on our way. I fancy the Wintours keep early hours.’

‘Eh?’ Marryot said. ‘You are engaged at Judge Wintour’s?’

Townley bowed. ‘In a manner of speaking. Mr Savill will be lodging there during his stay in New York.’

Marryot coloured again. ‘Pray – ah – pray give my compliments to the Judge and his ladies. Tell them that I hope to do myself the honour of calling on them to see how they do.’

The three of us, followed by the soldiers and the cart, walked down to Broadway, where we separated. Townley and I turned left and made our way slowly eastwards in the direction of St Paul’s Chapel.

‘Well,’ Townley said, ‘you are quite the Daniel, I perceive, and have ventured into the lion’s den and emerged unscathed. I have seen Major Marryot make grown men quail.’ He smiled at me. ‘But have a care, sir. He is a man of some importance in this city and you should mind how you cross him.’

We strolled in silence the length of another block. Then Townley added: ‘Oh – and by the by – they say he has a certain tendresse for young Mrs Wintour.’

Chapter Six

The high-ceilinged room was a place of shadows. Despite the heat, the windows were shut and the curtains closed – because, old Mrs Wintour said, the smell of the great fire was become intolerable and the street below so noisy.

Ten candles burned on brackets attached to the walls but they served mainly to accentuate the surrounding gloom. A heavy moth, drunk with desire, circled one of the flames. I could not drag my eyes away from it. The candle singed first one wing, then the other. At last, and with supernatural strength, the besotted insect reached the fatal flame again. There was a faint sizzling sound. The moth fell to the pier table immediately beneath the bracket and lay there, twitching.

‘More tea, sir?’ Mrs Wintour asked, pale and indistinct on a sofa.

‘Thank you, ma’am, but no.’

I rubbed sweating palms on my breeches. The Judge let slip a long, rumbling snore from the recesses of his high-backed armchair. Only his legs were visible.

Having discharged her duties as a hostess, Mrs Wintour sat back and did not speak. I could not tell whether her eyes were open or closed. From somewhere below came a clatter as though a pot had fallen on the floor. The moth gave up its unequal struggle with the world and expired. The air in the room seemed to condense into a dark, swaying liquid, trapping the humans like three curious natural specimens suspended in alcohol.

Would it always be like this, I wondered? Would I sit in silence, night after night, in this smothering subaqueous fog? The memory of the corpse in the harbour drifted into my mind, and I saw again the decaying face of the merman. Perhaps the poor fellow now lay in just such a stifling semi-darkness at the bottom of the ocean.

It was past ten o’clock. In a moment the grandfather clock in the hall must chime the quarter. It seemed as if days or even weeks had passed since it had last chimed the hour. A frugal supper had been served at nine by a manservant out of livery and a maid. I had been here since eight o’clock. Townley had introduced me to the Judge and had then slipped away, promising to call for me in the morning.

The drawing-room door opened. Mrs Wintour twitched in her chair and emitted a little cry as though someone had pinched her. A lady entered.

‘Ah, my dear,’ the Judge said, levering himself up with the help of the tea table. ‘There you are, Bella, bless my soul. Are you quite restored?’

I rose to my feet. The light was so poor that the woman’s face was barely visible. I was aware only that she was small and slim, and she brought with her the smell of otto of roses.

‘You startled me,’ Mrs Wintour said. ‘Why is everything so loud nowadays?’

‘Bella,’ the Judge went on, ‘allow me to name Mr Savill of the American Department. And, Mr Savill, here at last is my dear daughter, my son’s wife, Mrs Arabella.’

I bowed over the lady’s hand.

‘Mr Savill,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I am happy to meet you.’

‘Come and sit with us, my dear,’ the Judge said, stretching out his hand to her. ‘We shall send for fresh tea.’

‘Would you excuse me this once, sir?’ Mrs Arabella took the Judge’s hand in both of hers. ‘My head is still splitting – it is this terrible heat, I think.’ She stroked her father-in-law’s hand as though it were a small animal in need of reassurance. ‘I came down for a moment to welcome Mr Savill. I would not want him to think us unmannerly.’

‘Never that, madam,’ I said. ‘You are politeness itself. But I am sorry you are indisposed.’

‘You must take something,’ the Judge said. ‘Have Miriam mix you up a James’s Powder. I’m sure it will answer.’

‘Yes, sir, you may be sure I shall.’

Mrs Arabella kissed her parents-in-law. She curtsied to me and left the room.

‘The dear child should not overdo it,’ the Judge observed, sinking back into his chair.

The flurry of movement gave me the opportunity to withdraw. I had been up at dawn, I explained, and my first day ashore had been a tiring one.

‘Be so good as to ring the bell, sir,’ the Judge said. ‘Josiah will bring a candle and take you up to your chamber.’

The manservant conducted me up the stairs. My room was at the back of the house on the second floor. Square and low-ceilinged, it was dominated by a high bed with an enormous feather mattress. My bags and boxes had been brought up during the day.

I dismissed the man for the night. It struck me that it was only now, for the first time in over five weeks, that I was alone. Noak had always been there on the Earl of Sandwich, usually within arm’s reach. Even in the ship’s heads, someone else had generally been beside me or at least within sight and sound. Nor had I been alone today. Indeed, my overwhelming impression was that this was a city where it would be almost impossible to be solitary, for the streets and buildings were packed with people – townsfolk, refugees, British and Loyalist soldiers, and the crowds of followers that accumulate around an army.

I undressed, allowing my clothes to lie where they fell. For a moment I stood naked at the foot of the bed, hoping for a draught to cool my skin. But the air was warm and motionless.

I was too tired to read. Leaving the bed-curtains tied back, I climbed into bed. I laid myself on top of the bedclothes. The mattress enveloped me. I pinched out the candle.

The darkness was soft and caressing. I found myself thinking of Mrs Arabella. Because the drawing room had been so dimly lit, and because she had not come close to any of the candles, I had not seen her face clearly – it had been no more than a pale smudge floating above her body.

My impression of her derived from information provided by other senses. First, there had been the scent of otto of roses: but the smell of it had combined with the private odours of Mrs Arabella herself to form something richer and denser. Second, I remembered her voice, which had not been like any other I knew. This was partly because she spoke with an American accent, though it was not the broad twang used by so many people I had heard today. Also, of course, she was a woman, with the soft, insinuating tone that certain women possessed.

There had been no women aboard the Earl of Sandwich. To my surprise I felt my naked body responding even to this largely formless memory of Mrs Arabella with a rush of blood that both disconcerted and embarrassed me.

Hastily I directed my attention to my wife, Augusta. I imagined her walking in the park or reading or talking about the clothes and homes of other ladies, as she seemed interminably to do; and by degrees I grew calmer.

In the silence and the darkness, I thought about my daughter. Lizzie had wept when I left her. She was five now, and living with my sister in Shepperton, for her mother had remained in London. I prayed for my daughter’s happiness and for her preservation from all harm, as I did every night.

As I lay there, I became aware that the silence was no longer as absolute as it had been. Somewhere in the distance, a barely distinguishable sound rose and fell in volume in a series of irregular ululations.

The wind in the chimney? A bird of the night? An animal in pain? I did not recognize the sound but that was not strange in itself, for I was in a strange house in a strange city on the coast of a strange continent.

A minute or so slipped by. The sound grew fainter and then stopped altogether.

By that time I was sliding into sleep. My last conscious thought was that the sound might have been a weeping child. But, God be thanked, someone had dried her tears.