Conjurer (32 page)

Kelman thinks. “What's your interest in this, Mr. Simms?”

Again the question seems to surprise Owen Simms. “Why, Martha's welfare, of course.”

“Paladino is in custody. What harm can he pose to Miss Beale?” Both men recognize the difficulty with which Kelman pronounces the name, but neither overtly reacts.

“As you know, Kelman, my Martha was duped into traveling with this criminal in a coach, where he made the most base of suggestions, inventing certain sexual—”

“In all likelihood, the conjurer will hang in connection with John Durand's death. He'll no longer be a threat to your future wife, Mr. Simms—”

But Simms interrupts with another argument. “And in the midst of those foul mutterings he made reference to Lemuel Beale—which reference had originally induced her to accompany the loathsome fellow. Poor dear, she was desperate to gain news of her father—no matter how dubious the source.”

“Paladino was questioned about Lemuel Beale, Mr. Simms. I promise you he knows nothing about the financier's fate.”

“I wish I were as confident of that fact as you are.”

“Are you critiquing the constabulary, sir?”

“As Miss Beale's future husband, I would like to be … I
must
be familiar with every aspect of this investigation.”

Kelman stares at Owen Simms. “You wish to query Paladino yourself?”

“I do.”

“Then why did you not apply directly to the mayor? Why waste time explaining your desires to me?”

“I speak to you, Kelman, because I know what a very special interest you have taken in this sorry business.” With that, Owen Simms rises. “I would like you to conduct me to the Moyamensing Prison yourself.”

Down they march, down and down into the cold cellar rooms of the Moyamensing Prison. Although newly constructed, it's already overcrowded with those awaiting trial, the men and women and children who have committed the large and petty crimes of the city: the pickpockets, the cutpurses, the forgers, the public drunkards, the pimps and cutthroats. All are jumbled together in the malodorous semi-gloom regardless of age or sex; and all make noise as Kelman and Simms pass. Were it not for the turnkeys, the prisoners would throw whatever they had at hand, and Simms might find himself lamenting the night soil that ruined the handsome hat he now holds in his hands as he stoops to avoid the low rafters and stone vaulting.

The sergeant at Kelman's side growls for silence, and the clamor lessens but doesn't fully cease. At length, the three reach the cell in which Paladino and his assistant have been chained to wooden benches.

“Go ahead, Mr. Simms,” Kelman states with no further introduction. “There's your man. Pose what queries you will.”

Italian words fill the air before Simms has a chance to speak, but the sergeant interrupts with a peremptory “Translator, on your feet. We'll have none of this gibberish now.”

“Thank you, Sergeant” is Simms's smooth reply. It's a gentleman's tone, and it sounds like money. “Please ask the prisoner what he knows of Lemuel Beale.”

“Ask him yourself,” Kelman insists.

Simms does so, but his effort has little effect. The mesmerist merely gazes dumbly ahead while his assistant whimpers an apologetic “The Great Paladino can no longer communicate with the man you want, sir. When the atmosphere is—”

Owen Simms bangs his silver-tipped cane hard upon the earthen floor. “I was told your master conjured up Beale in a séance at the Ilsley home, that he spoke in plain English.”

“Signor
Paladino speaks what his spirit guides dictate, sir. If those guides are not present or if the atmosphere is not conducive—”

“Damn it, man! I want answers. Tell me what Paladino knows of Lemuel Beale.”

“Sir, my master's gift—”

“Trickery, you mean,” Simms sneers. His cane bangs the floor again. “And trickery which he used upon Mr. Beale's innocent daughter. Luring her into a carriage journey where he described in the most insensitive detail a woman who had been wretchedly maltreated by her own brother—”

“My master no longer retains the original vision of the lady.”

Owen Simms glares through the darkness. Kelman can feel some change in his mood but is uncertain what the alteration signifies.

“The woman was raped repeatedly,” Simms states, although his tone is calmer. “Ask
Signor
Paladino what he recalls of that disgusting claim.”

The assistant again appeals to the clairvoyant, who again makes no reply.

“So there was no woman?” Simms demands. “Your master invented a phantom simply in order to terrorize Miss Beale—and then further misused her by feigning to have information regarding her father?”

Paladino doesn't answer.

“Admit it, conjurer. Admit that your own evil brain created these fictions—just as you defiled those little girls—”

“Enough, sir,” Kelman interjects, but Simms will not be interrupted.

“Tell these gentlemen the truth, damn you!”

“Mr. Simms, I tell you—”

“The truth, damn it—!”

In the midst of this order, Eusapio Paladino suddenly falls to the floor, his body writhing and his chest heaving in rapid pants as though he were gulping for air.
“Morto!”
he screams out while he stares at Owen Simms. “You!
Morto! Morto!
”

“Pipe down, you!” the sergeant yells while Simms draws himself erect, nearly banging his head on the stone ceiling.

“You're correct, Kelman. The man is a fraud. Let him hang for however many murders you believe he committed; he knows nothing of Lemuel Beale.” Then Simms turns away, holding his cane and hat in front of him as he prepares to exit the cell.

But Kelman stops him. “Is the name Robey familiar to you?”

“I've never heard it before in my life,” Simms states as the sergeant locks the iron door behind them.

Kelman studies the man who will marry Martha Beale. For a moment he's silent, causing both the sergeant and Simms to wait in the gloom. “There's another death I'm investigating … but no matter … Given your wide range of acquaintances—and those of your master—I thought you might have met a person by that name.”

Ruth is turned out on the street, the door to Dutch Kat's establishment closed forever behind her. Sympathetic though the procuress may have claimed to be, in the end, she's a business woman; a bed's a bed; a bed must turn a profit.

Ruth understands Kat's logic, and the realization of her own culpability in the decision suddenly enervates her. She knows she has no one to blame but herself, no one to rail at, no one to whom she can appeal. She plunks herself down on the fancy house's top entry step in order to think where she might next venture, but a man hurries up to the establishment, pushing past her as if she were a stiff and toothless dog. Then the door to Dutch Kat's opens, and the madam orders a rough “Move along there, girl, or I'll have you hauled away for a vagrant! You've done enough damage here, already.”

Ruth does as she's told.

A failure as a housemaid
, she recites silently as her feet tread aimlessly northward.
A failure as a thief. A failure as a lady of pleasure. A failure as a mother
. Ruth has become too blasted by hopelessness to cry.

She walks and walks some more; and at length her shambling steps carry her to a rum cellar where the sound of laughter emanating from its depths arrests her.

“It's a penny a glass, missus,” a voice beside her whispers. “I'll show you some happy times, if you'll return the favor.”

Ruth nods in dumb acceptance, then moves down the stairs, stepping onto an earthen floor.

“Or perhaps you have a place you'd like to take me?”

“I have no place.”

“Ah, well, we'll resort to a quaint little alley I know of. You and me will be Adam and Eve—out in the open air.”

Ruth bobs an imitation of a coquette's curtsy, then drains the proffered glass in one swift gulp and follows the man back up the stairs—only to follow a second and third back down the same steps and back into the same fetid lane.

When she emerges from her final encounter, her benefactor remains behind. He doesn't speak a word of parting; nor does she. She merely dusts the dirt from her skirt, straightens her shawl, and reenters the street. The sunlight spreading down this broader concourse makes her squint and jerk her head in surprise.

She turns toward the source, the west and the slowly reclining sun. Her head is spinning, her footsteps none too steady, and the smile that has affixed itself to her face is practiced and empty. She puts out a beggar's palm to a married couple that pass and comes away empty-handed. She tries again with a young gentleman walking toward her at a brisk pace, and again with an older and stooped fellow hobbling rigidly along. It's at that moment that she suddenly remembers the lame tailor and the girl, Ella.
Why, it's so simple
, Ruth's woozy brain declares.
How many pairs like them can be living hereabouts? I'll find those two if it takes a week
—
or a month. I'll discover where the tailor's hiding and alert the day watch. And the night watch, too. That I will. And I'll be rewarded. Handsomely rewarded for helping to recapture a dangerous prisoner. How else could I be treated except as the good and loyal Ruth that I am?

Assuring herself of that happy future, Ruth lurches down the street on her determined quest.

Silently and Without Question

T
HE MAN WHOM THOMAS KELMAN
, Pliny Earle, Daniel the tailor, and his young charge, Ella, call Mr. Robey unlocks the door to his private domicile, enters and then quickly replaces the key in the latch. Inside the house, all is silent—as it should be. Robey hesitates in the foyer, making certain this is the case. The first rule he imposed upon Daniel after installing him and the girl in the residence was that quiet should reign whenever their master was present. He didn't wish to hear the sound of speech from either of them; if they moved about in their quarters at the top of the house or in the kitchen or pantry or laundry, they must do so with stealthy steps.

“My dictums are for Mary's edification,” he'd told them. “I aspire to teach her to be a lady, and ladies are composed and meek in everything they undertake. The child cannot hope to comprehend or appreciate what my actions mean now; she's too raw, too fresh from the … from the countryside, but she'll understand and thank me when she grows older.”

Ella—or Mary, as she's now called—had listened to this speech in disbelieving silence. She remembered everything about her first encounter with the man, and although she would never reveal the ugly tale to Daniel, who depended upon his patron's largesse, she guessed Mr. Robey meant her harm. She also suspected, although nothing had been said, that her new master intended to remove his tailor from the house as soon as he was certain his “ward” would not escape. Daniel wondered about that, too—although the two didn't speak of the possibility. Not even during the nights and daytimes when Mr. Robey was gone from the house.

In fact, they seldom spoke more than a few monosyllables even when their master was absent. Fear kept Ella constantly watching and waiting. Remorse tortured Daniel into a near-catatonic state; and the pallid hope he had of providing Ella with a better future began ebbing away until he grew to fear that Robey's claims for his ward's eventual betterment might well be false.

In the attic rooms where they reside, Ella and Daniel now hear Mr. Robey enter. Both have been stitching him a glorious new wardrobe, fashioned of the finest fabrics and cut in the latest style. Immediately, they put down their needles and scissors; then, without a sound between them, Daniel creeps down the rear service stairs toward the kitchen while Ella pulls off her warmer dress and dons the flimsy garb Robey wishes her to wear while in his presence.

Daniel has told her that the gown makes her “look like an angel” and that “Mr. Robey likes it because he's a most religious man”; Ella believes otherwise, but then she heard a number of odd tales about gentlemen and their unusual desires during her days at the fancy house. What she knows for certain is that the thin white garment—without the flannelette chemise and pantaloons she wears under her other dress—is no protection against the cold.

In her bare feet, she tiptoes down the chilly front stairway until she stands outside the shut parlor doors behind which Mr. Robey has ensconced himself. She can smell pipe tobacco and
eau de cologne
and soap. He's a gentleman who's extremely particular about cleanliness. She recalled that vividly from their first unhappy meeting, but he's reminded her many times since as if she were too stupid to learn such a simple lesson.

She raps once upon the door as she's been instructed to do, and waits discreetly as she's also been told she should. And then waits, and waits some more until her icy toes grow numb from standing, and she finally sinks down into a crouch, hugging her knees to her chest in order to keep off the dreadful cold of the hall.

Robey, inside his cozy lair, listens to her knock, and then eventually hears the small creak of the floorboards that means she's slipped into a sitting position while attending his summons.

He considers calling her; he aches to have her in the room: her transparent little gown flicking around her naked body, her eyes wide and grateful when she stands, at last, by the health-giving fire, her mouth growing pinker and wetter as the blood floods back into her cheeks, her childish odor returning while she basks in the heat.

And then what? Will he tell her to climb onto his lap? And will she soundlessly wriggle close at this command, caressing him with her small and willing buttocks, playing innocently with his shirt and trouser buttons while he whispers “Mary … my beloved …” into her ear? Will she then keep silent as he exposes himself, and finally thrusts upward between her soft, thin legs?