Eliot Pattison - Bone Rattler

“A man in cheer may take a shot of whiskey and smash the glass,” the keeper suggested.

“Too small for a dram cup. More like a vial,” Duncan said, and suddenly realized exactly what the shards were from. It had been a dosing cup, one of the small columns used for administering medicines to the sick. He lifted the biggest shard to his nose. It offered a faintly acrid scent. “Was the professor ill?”

“Never a sign of it.”

But there had been someone ill, Duncan realized. The woman who had jumped off the ship.

Duncan studied the big man. During their long voyage Cameron had shown nothing but contempt for Duncan. “Why do you tell me this?”

“I watch the post box for the Company, log in the letters, give them to the ship’s clerk. That bastard Woolford, he took a letter of mine. The men in the hold know what is happening. We know when we get to the colonies one of us is to be hanged.” Cameron stepped closer, reaching into his pocket to extract a folded paper. “But there be another letter I haven’t shown them.”

With a wrench of his heart Duncan saw it was his own letter, in which he had cursed the king and all things English. The dollop of candle wax he had used to seal it was broken. “Everyone knows ye were free that morning Evering’s body was found.”

“I was the one who discovered him,” Duncan pointed out.

“Just the kind of clever trick a killer with a gentleman’s education might use, to divert attention.”

“I didn’t kill him.”

Cameron feigned a look of disappointment. “Let’s not waste our time, McCallum. You and I both know all they want is a nice story for one of Reverend Arnold’s sermons, then a proper hanging to make certain the men heed their new master. So you keep my name out of it and I’ll keep yours out.” Cameron waved the letter before Duncan’s face, then returned it to his pocket. “Do we have an understanding?”

“It’s only a letter.”

Cameron seemed pleased with Duncan’s resistance. “There was another piece of paper, a fragment which Mr. Lister took. Only he don’t know I saw it first. I might write out a statement, all legal-like, attesting to what I saw. All about the professor’s appointment with McCallum at the hour of his death.”

Duncan buried his head in his hands a moment before looking up and nodding.

“But I have questions to be answered, Cameron.”

The keeper shrugged. “I wish it over as much as ye.”

“You were in charge of the prisoners scrubbing the forward deck the day before Adam died.”

“Aye. Frasier and myself.”

“Someone on that work party picked the lock on Lieutenant Woolford’s chest.”

Cameron’s body seemed to tense. “Why would you say such a thing?”

“I saw some of your gleanings when they first appeared. Some were still wet. Because someone had placed them in a wash bucket to hide them. The trunk had foodstuffs from England. Cones of sugar that could be slipped into a pocket. An irresistible temptation to some.”

The keeper’s face clouded. “Young Frasier has a terrible sweet tooth.”

“Young Frasier,” Duncan agreed, “was sucking on a piece of sugar an hour later. And you were suddenly brimming over with trinkets for wagering. It was you who started the betting contests that day. Reverend Arnold would be disappointed to learn his keepers were involved in the thefts on the ship.”

The keeper’s face hardened. His hand went to the letter, as if to remind Duncan.

“Why then? Why force the trunk on the day Woolford announced the Company’s destination? Like you said,” Duncan added when Cameron did not reply, “we have a bargain, you and I.”

“Wasn’t my idea. I just helped the lad. Frasier allowed how he couldn’t do it without help.”

Help indeed, Duncan told himself. Frasier not only could not have achieved such a clever theft alone, he could not have conjured up the idea of seeking out the trunk packed with Woolford’s deliveries for America. “You were there before. In America. What was it like?”

For a moment the big man seemed to shrink. “It was a fine farm, in the north of Pennsylvania, the Wyoming Valley they call it. But I still have nightmares. They killed my wife and two young children in front of me, left me for dead when the militia came running.” He turned his head and lifted the locks that hung over the side of his face, revealing a knot of scar tissue at his hairline.

“And that is why you came to be Reverend Arnold’s top keeper?”

“I was one of the first on board. I asked for prayers. The vicar heard my story and took pity. I know the way of things in America.”

The way of things in America, Duncan decided, was already ripping the Company apart. He studied the shards on the table. “Evering had a good black waistcoat and a gold watch. Where are they?”

“Stolen, like the chart pinned over his bunk.”

“What kind of chart?”

“I used to see it when I cleaned his cabin. Calculations and such. Things a tutor might be planning for his wee pupils, I suspect.”

“What else was in the professor’s chamber?”

“Usual things. Books. Clothing. A locked trunk. Boxes of things.”

“What things exactly?”

“He had collections. Bits of nature. He was a natural philosopher.”

“You mean like bones. And feathers.”

Cameron nodded.

“Do you ever see the sick woman?”

“Only that day she tried to fly. She stays abed. Food goes in on trays. They watch her close as a newborn.”

“Who watches?”

“The vicar. The lieutenant. The captain’s wife sometimes. The professor did, before.”

“Tell me something about the savages, Cameron. Do they have witches?”

The question seemed to shake the big Scot. He looked into the shadows before answering. “Aye. Terrible demon men, and women too, who can take the shape of animals. Fly like a bird. Swim like a fish. Wizards. Shamans, they call them.”

“And these witches, these shamans who can fly out over oceans, do they use rituals with blood and bone?”

Cameron’s eyes flared for a moment, but as he gazed into the shadows his anger changed to worry.

Duncan lifted a quill to continue his work. “You’ll need to lock me back in my cell in an hour, Cameron. Meanwhile, ask the ship’s carpenter if he is missing a hammer. And bring the log of Company letters submitted for the mails.”

When the keeper returned, Duncan handed him the bundle of folded papers to convey to Arnold and quickly scanned the mail log. There were two lists of letters, labeled Eastbound and Westbound, with the names of the passing ships that had slowed to retrieve them. The few westbound letters included half a dozen addressed to William Ramsey, Esq., all from Arnold. Adam Munroe had written two letters addressed to an inn in New York town, both to the same man, a name that Duncan stared at in confusion. Socrates Moon. The mysterious Greek who had gone to England with their suicidal passenger six months earlier.

But most curious of all was another, also addressed to Socrates Moon, entered for the mails the day after Adam’s death. It had no return name, only the words Tutor, Ramsey Company.

As the keeper escorted Duncan to his cell, he produced the stub of a candle, lit it, and handed it to Duncan. “Carpenter lost his best hammer,” Cameron reported as he locked the cell door. “Was in the hold with the timber stores, but when he went for repairs after the storm it was gone.”

“Tell me this, Mr. Cameron, in your log do you record the names exactly as written on the letters?”

“Aye. ’Tis an official thing.”

A dark foreboding seized Duncan. Evering had sent a letter to the mysterious Greek but identified himself only as the tutor, as if it would mean something to the man, as if this Socrates Moon expected something of the tutor, whether it be Evering or his successor.