Robert McCammon - Mister Slaughter

But he didn't return it to the box, nor did he do anything but run the back of his hand across his mouth for his lips suddenly felt parched.

He knew he had to decide, and the decision was important. He felt the time ticking away. The distance between this house and his own life in New York had never seemed greater.

He feared not only breaking the seal, but opening the bag. He listened, in the silence. Was there no one to tell him what to do? No good advice on what was the right and what was the wrong? Where were the voices of Magistrates Woodward and Powers when he needed them? Not there. Only silence. But then again, it was just paper, wasn't it? Just the shape of an octopus delivered from a wax impression? And look how long this had sat here in its box. No one was coming for it; it had been forgotten.

He didn't need Greathouse, he told himself. After all, he was a full partner in the Herrald Agency, and he had the letter of congratulations from Katherine Herrald and a magnifying glass to prove it.

Without giving himself further time to ponder, he tore the seal. The wax octopus cracked and opened for him. Then he untied the drawstring and peered into the bag, his eyes widening as sunlight from the library's windows touched all that gold and nearly blinded him.

He picked out one of the coins and examined it more closely. On the obverse it bore the double heads of William and Mary, and on the reverse a crowned shield of arms. The date was 1692. Matthew weighed the coin in the palm of his hand. He had seen two of these coins in his entire life, both of them recovered from the robbery of a fur merchant when he'd been clerking for Nathaniel Powers. It was a five-guinea piece, worth a few shillings over five pounds, and was the most valuable coin minted by the realm. The bag held how many? It was hard to count, with all that shine. He upended the bag over the table, spilled out sixteen coins, and realized that he was looking at the sum of more than eighty pounds.

"My God," he heard himself say, in a stunned whisper.

For stunned he was. It was a fortune. An amount of money even expert craftsmen might not see in the span of a year. A young lawyer would not make that much per annum, and certainly not a young problem-solver.

And here it was, lying right before him.

Matthew felt light-headed. He looked around at the library's debris, and then back at the shelf where the lockbox had been hidden in plain sight. Emergency money, he thought. That was what Lawrence Evans, Chapel's henchman, had been returning to the house to get when he was struck down by Dippen Nack's billyclub. Emergency money, in a black leather bag with what might be the seal of an underworld bank or possibly Professor Fell's own personal mark.

Chapel's estate, but Fell's enterprise.

Eighty pounds. Who should it be taken to? Lillehorne? Oh, certainly! The high constable and his wife would make short work of even such a large amount. He was already insufferable enough without being enriched from Matthew's risk, and indeed Matthew felt he'd taken a risk just to come back here. What about Greathouse, then? Oh, yes; Greathouse would take the lion's share for himself and the agency, and throw him a pittance. There was all that nonsense about Zed being bought from van Kowenhoven and made into a bodyguard, which Matthew definitely did not need.

Who, then, should take possession of this money?

He who needed it the most, Matthew thought. He who had found it. The process of discovery had been well-met, this day. And richly deserved, too. It would take him a long time to spend it all, if he was careful. But the question next to deal with was how to spend even one coin without attracting suspicion, for these were not seen beyond the lofty heights of Golden Hill.

His hands were actually trembling as he returned the coins to the bag. He pulled the drawstring tight and knotted it. Then he picked up the torn paper seal with its imprint of an octopus, crumpled it in a fist, and dropped it among the black ashes and broken bindings in the fireplace. For a moment he felt nearly delirious, and had to steady himself with a hand to the wall.

A few books were chosen, almost at random, from his pile of candidates. Enough to give equal weight for Dante, one saddlebag to another.

But once outside and after the books were stowed away, Matthew balked at giving up the money just yet. He still had the question that had brought him here to begin with, and he realized that once he rode through that gate he might not be back, books or no. The time was getting on into afternoon, the sun shining fiercely through the trees. He didn't wish to leave the money with Dante, in case anyone else rode in. Carrying the moneybag with him, he started walking along the driveway in the direction of the vineyard, and specifically toward the place where he'd last seen Chapel stretched out, beaten and battered, in the dust.

He'd been pondering for awhile the assumption that Chapel had been trying to get to the stable. Why would that have necessarily been so? With all that was going on, how did Chapel think he would have time to put a saddle and bridle on a horse? But if Chapel was not going to the stable along this driveway, then where was he heading? The vineyard? The woods?

Matthew had decided to find the place where Chapel had been laid out on the ground, and enter the woods at that location. As he marked the spot where he recalled Chapel to have been and left the driveway there for the red glow of the forest, he realized he had to get his mind fixed on his purpose, for his thoughts were wandering into daydreams like beautiful paintings in golden frames.

He walked amid the trees and thicket. All this area had been gone over before, of course. But he wondered if somewhere in this woods there might be a place the searchers had not found. A shelter, somehow disguised as surely as a book could be a lockbox. An emergency hiding-place, if one was ever needed. Then, when the danger had gone, the occupants could emerge and either slip out by way of the gate or-more improbably due to Dahlgren's broken wrist-climb over the wall.

It was a shot in the dark, but Matthew was determined to at least take aim.

Walking through the woods was peaceful this time, as before it had been a race for life for both himself and Berry. He saw nothing but trees and low brush, the ground gently rising and falling. He started even kicking aside leaves and looking for trapdoors in the earth itself, to no avail.

There was a gully ahead. Matthew recalled he and Berry running along its edge. He stopped now and peered down into it. The thing was about ten feet deep at its bottom and walled with sharp-edged boulders. He thought what might have happened if either he or Berry had fallen in; a broken ankle would've been the least of it.

As Matthew stared into the abyss, he wondered if the searchers had also feared for their bones, and so had not made the descent.

But there was nothing down there except rocks. It was a perfectly ordinary gully, as might be found in any woods.

He continued walking along the edge, but now his daydreams and the moneybag were thrust out of his mind completely. He was focused on the gully, and specifically on how one might get down into it without falling on the rocks.

It was getti ng deeper as it progressed across the forest. Twelve or fifteen feet to the bottom, Matthew thought. In places shadow filled up the gully like a black pond. And, then, not too far ahead, he saw what might have served as steps in the rock. His imagination? Possibly, but he could definitely get down to the bottom here. Grasping the moneybag tightly, he demonstrated in another moment that one could negotiate the steps using only one hand to hold balance against the boulders.

He continued along the bottom, which was also covered with rocks. And perhaps twenty yards further on, as the gully took a turn to the right, he drew a sharp breath as he discovered in the wall beside him an opening about five feet tall and wide enough for a man to squeeze into sideways.