The Scent of Death

By the time I reached the pastry-cook’s, there was no sign of the woman and the girl. I could no longer hear the child’s cries. Either the two of them were obscured by the throng of passers-by or they had turned into another shop or down one of the narrow alleys that punctuated the line of buildings.

Why such apparently furtive behaviour? Was Miriam outside the house on some unlicensed errand? Was it possible that she was married? Could the child be hers? I began to doubt it had been Miriam – after all, I had barely glimpsed the young woman and the light had been poor.

I returned to Warren Street. Josiah answered my knock on the street door. The old man helped me remove my hat and greatcoat, murmuring gently that the ladies were in the drawing room and Judge Wintour was at work in his library. He turned aside to dispose of my coat.

‘Josiah?’

‘Sir?

‘I saw Miriam this evening. At least I believe I did.’

Josiah hung my coat without undue haste. He faced me and bowed, his face expressionless.

‘She was with a child – a negro girl, an infant. Has Miriam a daughter?’

‘No, sir.’

Josiah bowed again and retreated into the shadows at the back of the hall.

It cannot have been more than a week later that Captain John Wintour came home. I have a note of the date: it was on Thursday, 12 November. He had been badly wounded at Saratoga and, by his own account, had spent many months on the borders of life and death. An old and feeble-witted woman stumbled across him half dead in a wood when she was gathering kindling near her cottage. She had nursed him back to health.

Eventually he had reached Canada and found his way to Kingstown, where there were cousins of his mother who were able to shelter him; but his health had broken down again. Fortunately he had, in his own words, the constitution of a horse and had recovered sufficiently to be able to undertake the voyage home.

He arrived in Warren Street in the evening. It was the dead hour before supper. As chance would have it, when he knocked at the door I was descending the stairs on my way to the parlour.

The younger manservant, Abraham, let him in, trying to say a few words of welcome. Wintour pushed past him and stood in the middle of the hall, legs apart and hands in the pockets of his patched greatcoat, which had clearly been made for someone much smaller. He was a spare man of about thirty, with flushed, bony features and deep-set eyes, which were an unusually bright blue. He stared at me.

‘And who the devil are you?’ he demanded, swaying as he spoke.

‘My name is Savill, sir. Have I the honour of meeting Captain Wintour?’

‘Indeed, sir. The honour is entirely mine.’ Wintour attempted a bow, staggered forward and righted himself. ‘You must be the gentleman from the American Department. My father told me.’

‘Yes, sir. You have—’

The parlour door opened and Mrs Wintour almost ran to her son, an extraordinary exhibition of physical energy from the old lady. She embraced him. The Captain closed his eyes and patted her shoulder. With his other hand he scratched his nose.

Next came the Judge, more slowly. He looked his son up and down.

‘I am happy to see you home, John,’ he said.

‘Yes, sir. And – and I to be here.’

‘You are – you are fatigued?’

‘It has been a long day, sir, and my health is not yet quite restored.’

‘Then perhaps you should rest – after you have seen Bella, of course. Let Abraham take your coat.’

Mr Wintour took his wife’s arm and drew her from her son. The Captain held out his arms and let the slave ease the coat away from him.

No one looked in my direction. I thought they had forgotten me.

There were footsteps on the stairs. I turned. Mrs Arabella was rounding the bend at the half-landing. She paused at the top of the last flight down to the hall.

First she must have seen me. She let her eyes drift past me to the group in the hall below. I could not see her expression because the light was dim and the flame of the candle she held was below the level of her chin.

But the candlelight revealed two things about Mrs Arabella. It showed her slim white neck. It showed that she was swallowing repeatedly, as if trying to force down an unpalatable morsel. And the flame also picked out her hand holding the top of the newel post, and how the fingers gripped it so tightly that the skin wrinkled.

The Captain looked up. ‘Ah – there you are, madam. My pretty, witty wife.’

Chapter Nineteen

Townley was a hospitable man, who talked easily to anyone, and perhaps let his tongue wag more freely than a gentleman should. But I enjoyed his company because he was almost always cheerful and had a pleasant wit.

I would sometimes sup with him, either alone or with two or three of his friends. On those occasions I saw another side of New York, for the gentlemen around the table were Loyalists of course but, unlike those who came up to my office in Broad Street, they were on the whole content with their lives.

‘I bless the day,’ Townley confided to me in a fit of drunken confidence, ‘when those damned Yankees dumped the tea in Boston Harbour. Indeed, sir, it has been the making of us here.’

We were sitting at table in a small private room in the King’s Arms. The shutters were up and a fire of unseasoned wood crackled and spluttered in the grate. Two other men, a contractor and a commissioner for the harbour administration, made up the party. But they were oblivious to our conversation for they were engaged in an animated discussion about the need to bring in professional actresses at the John Street Theatre.

‘Surely it must be difficult for you,’ I said to Townley. ‘Since so many goods are in short supply, there must be a constant—’

‘Supply and demand, sir,’ Townley interrupted. ‘That’s what the students of political economy call it. It is a beautiful thing, for the supplier at least. If the available stock diminishes, you raise the price of what you have. Or, if demand remains keen when the supply is exhausted, you simply sell promises instead, which is like selling air. No, for a man with his wits about him, this war has been a blessing.’

He hesitated, frowning. I ran my finger round the rim of my glass and tried not to smile.

‘Of course, sir, I do not mean to suggest that the war is – well, in any way, even in the slightest, a desirable thing, but – taken, as a whole, you understand, considered in the round – there is no harm in a man looking to his own interests.’ Townley wagged his forefinger in front of my face. ‘Always with the proviso, my dear sir, that His Majesty’s interests must be served, first and foremost, without fear or favour, in any—’

‘Sir,’ I said gently, ‘I believe I understand you perfectly. Should we drink a toast to His Majesty?’

‘Indeed.’ Townley seized the bottle and burst out laughing from sheer animal spirits. ‘And damnation to his enemies. Good God, I had not realized it was so early. Shall we call for the punchbowl?’

By the time the party broke up it was nearly midnight. As we went outside, I almost recoiled from the cold. November was well advanced now, and so was winter.

Townley and one of the other men had servants to light them home. The third man took a waiting hackney chair. I decided to walk back to Warren Street. It was only a step away and the exercise would clear my head. Despite the lateness of the hour, the streets were still busy, for the city came alive at night with theatre parties, musical entertainments, suppers and dances. I knew my way perfectly and I believed, if a man was cautious, there could be no danger.

On the other side of the road, facing the fields, I saw the silhouettes of the prison and the poorhouse looming square and black against the sky. As I drew level with them, I turned up towards King’s College.

It was darker here and there were fewer people about. Someone ahead was whistling. A dog barked in the distance, somewhere near Freshwater Pond. The ferrule of my stick tapped against the paving stones. The change of direction brought me into the wind, which was blowing hard from the north. I felt its chilly bite on my neck above the collar of the greatcoat, and it cut through the thin silk of my stockings.

It was the wind that saved me. It was the wind that made me slacken my pace to adjust my muffler, which had worked loose.

Directly ahead, a man shot out from a dark entry between two buildings. But for my change of pace, he would have collided with me. Simultaneously, I heard footsteps behind me, whose presence I had already registered, footsteps that now were speeding up.

‘It’s him,’ said a man’s voice behind me.

I’m trapped.