Doug Allyn - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 125, No. 6. Whole No. 766, June 2005

“When will you leave for New York?”

“Tomorrow. Perhaps a good conversation with Pierre Facon will settle the matter.”

It had been some years since Alexander Swift last visited New York. The nation’s capital had moved to a more central location in Philadelphia, and the city on the Hudson brought back unpleasant memories of his first wife, Amanda. She’d left him for a British officer, Major Jack Jordan, and when he was subsequently killed she’d married for a third time. Now a happily married husband and father himself, Alex had no desire to seek her out. He knew she now lived not far from Greenwich Street and he hoped their paths would not cross.

The coach had brought him to the ferry in New Jersey, and Alex crossed the Hudson River to land at the Cortlandt Street dock in late afternoon. It was only a few blocks up Greenwich Street to the Ring boardinghouse, the place advertised on the handbill in his pocket. It was a large house with three stories plus an attic, and could probably accommodate more than a dozen borders at a time. A wooden canopy stretched forward across the wide sidewalk to a street with a convenient water pump at the corner.

Alex carried a saddlebag with a few necessities in it. When he stopped at the desk inside the door, a middle-aged woman glanced up from her ledger and said, “I’m Mrs. Ring. Are you looking for a room?”

“I was to meet someone here. I’m not certain I have the right place.”

“What’s his name?” Her tone was almost indifferent, as if she didn’t care whether he stayed or left.

“Pierre Facon.”

“No one here by that name.”

“A Frenchman, middle-aged, walks with a limp.”

“Can’t help you,” she said, returning to her ledger.

“He might work as a barber.”

“There is a barber down in the next block,” she admitted. “He would be closed now, though.”

“Is that a place where you left this handbill?” he asked, showing her the printed side.

“It might have been.”

Alex took a room for the night, deciding it was useless to continue the search before morning. He paid in advance and she gave him a key, directing him to Room Seven on the second floor. The bed was lumpy and uncomfortable but he had slept on worse. Mostly he missed the pleasure of sleeping with Molly in their own bed back home.

Alex was up early, breakfasting on the meager fare offered by Mrs. Ring before venturing onto the street. The boardinghouse was quite close to the docks, and even at an early hour there were seamen about, some returning to their ships after a night in town. He spotted the striped barber pole in the next block and headed in that direction. The shop with its sign Dijon Barber was already open at eight in the morning, with a customer in the chair. A gold-headed cane stood against the wall by the customer’s coat.

The barber motioned him to have a seat, but instead he asked, “Is there a Pierre Facon who works here?”

The barber, a grizzled man in his forties with at least one gold tooth, shook his head. “I’m Matthew Dijon. I cut hair as well as he does.”

“I’m sure you do. Where can I find him?”

“Ask Meg Wycliff. Sometimes she takes him in.”

“Doesn’t he work at a barbershop?” Alex was noticing some of Mrs. Ring’s handbills on a shelf next to the door. Facon had picked one up somewhere to write his note to Adams.

Matthew kept the scissors flying as he answered. “Works for me off and on, when he feels like it. If you find him, tell him I could use an extra hand for a few days while the ships are in.”

“Where can I find this Meg Wycliff?”

The barber glanced at his wall clock. “If she’s up yet she’d likely be having breakfast with Prester Gamecock at the Purple Seal.”

“Who?”

“You’re new around the docks,” Matthew remarked. “That’s the name he uses. Prester Gamecock deals in fighting cocks. Everyone bets with him.” He finished with the customer, who paid him, grabbed his coat from a hook, and hurried out to the street.

Alex thanked the barber and went on his way, thinking about Prester Gamecock. He decided he’d been away from the city too long — or not long enough.

He did know the Purple Seal, though, a long-time hangout for sailors off the merchant ships. It was only a few blocks down the street, near the dock where a large fishing schooner lay at anchor. He entered the place casually, well aware that his city clothing immediately set him apart from these dock-dwellers out for a morning’s food and drink. He stopped a barmaid carrying two tankards of ale and asked, “Is Prester Gamecock here yet?”

Her lips tightened into a grim line as she motioned toward a back booth. Alex saw a large man with a mottled face, wearing a blue bandanna around his head. He was seated with a dark-haired, green-eyed young woman who might have been twenty or a bit younger. He must have overheard Alex’s question because his head came up slowly until their eyes met. “Looking for me?” he asked in a rasping voice that seemed to go with his face.

“Looking for Meg Wycliff. They said she might be with you.”

He placed his arm possessively around the dark-haired woman. “How much is she worth to you?”

“I only want to talk,” Alex said, slipping into the other side of the booth. “You are Meg Wycliff?”

“I am,” she announced with some pride.

“My name is Alexander Swift and I come from our nation’s capital. I’m seeking a friend of yours, the French barber named Pierre Facon.”

The woman and man exchanged quick glances. “I know him. He has not been seen lately,” she replied.

“Why do you seek him?” the man called Gamecock wanted to know.

Remembering John Adams’ offer of money, he said, “I might be able to help him if he’s in financial difficulties.”

“He is that!” Meg Wycliff confirmed. “Are you a friend?”

“I’ve never met him, but I bring a message from someone who has, our Vice President. Could you tell me where I might find him?”

It was Prester Gamecock who answered. “We see him on occasion. Perhaps even tonight. I have a prize cock fighting at the Men’s Sporting Parlor in the Bowery, and that usually attracts him.”

“I may come there,” Alex told them. “Where is it located?”

“In Patsy Hearn’s Five Points grogshop. Anyone can direct you to it.”

Alex spent the remainder of the morning searching the dock area and nearby boardinghouses for Facon, without success. Gamecock and Meg Wycliff seemed to be the only leads he had. He prowled the city’s center, stopping to inspect the stocks and whipping posts as well as the nearby gallows designed to resemble a Chinese pagoda. Hanging, he knew, was still the punishment for burglary, arson, and forgery, as well as for murder. Further along he encountered a pair of pigs running wild in the street. Perhaps pigs, like people, were enjoying their freedom from British rule.

By afternoon his travels around the city had extended east to John Street, where he knew Amanda and her present husband resided. He was not especially surprised to recognize her entering a greengrocer’s halfway down the block. Avoiding an encounter would have been easy enough, but he realized that he wanted to see her again after all, to learn how her life had been.

She did not notice him in the shop until he spoke. “It is a bit late in the season for the best greens, Amanda.”

She looked up, startled, and relaxed only when she recognized him. “Alex! What brings you to New York?” She was still a handsome woman, even with the bits of gray creeping into her hair.

“I’m here on business, just for a day or two. I recognized you entering the shop and thought I’d say hello.”

Her face had relaxed now into the smile he remembered. “It’s good to see you again. Are you happy?”