Falco finished the lime before he spoke again. “What in God’s name have you gotten yourself into?”
The question was so direct it stunned Matthew for a few seconds. “Sir?”
“I don’t repeat myself.” Smoke roiled through the air.
A silence stretched, as one waited and one considered.
At last Matthew said, “I really don’t know yet.”
“You’d best find out in a hurry. Day after tomorrow, we reach Pendulum.”
Matthew wasn’t sure he’d heard correctly. He frowned. “Pendulum?”
“Pendulum Island. One of the Bermudas. It belongs to…but you know who it belongs to. Don’t you?”
“I do.”
Falco nodded, the pipe’s stem clenched between his teeth. The eyes had an expression in them both sinister and jovial. Mocking, it might be, Matthew thought. Or carefully curious. “Are you afraid?” Falco asked.
There was no sense in lying to the lion. “Yes.”
“And you should be. My employer, I understand, is to be feared.”
“You understand? You’ve never met him?”
“Never met him. Never seen him. I take my orders from him through Sirki.” The eyes had become heavy-lidded, and smoke swirled between the captain and Matthew. Falco poured himself a drink and removed the pipe from his mouth to take a sip. “I know he…commands many people, and directs many things. Some I’ve heard about, but I have ears that can remain closed when I choose. Also, my mouth can remain closed when need be. Which is most of the time.” Another drink of copious strength went down the hatch, and then the pipe’s stem was returned between the teeth.
“You’re not one of his criminals, then?” It was a daring question, but Matthew felt it was the right thing to ask.
“I am the captain of my ship,” came the measured reply. “How long I wished to be a captain, I cannot tell you. How long I labored for this position, again…a long time. He has given me the Nightflyer. He has placed me in the position I desired,” Falco amended. “And pays me what I am worth.”
“To do what, exactly? Sail from where to where?”
“From here to there and everywhere. To ferry passengers and carry cargo and pouches of letters. You see, I’m not like those others.”
“What others?”
Falco spewed smoke in a long stream toward the ceiling. He took another drink. “His other captains. The ones who—” He paused, with his head slightly cocked to one side and his gaze sharp once again. “The ones who do more than ferry passengers,” he finished.
“What more would there be?” Matthew asked, hungry for as much information concerning Professor Fell as he could consume. He reasoned that the more he knew, the stronger his armor.
“More,” said Falco, with a faint and passing smile his eyes did not share. “But I asked you here because I wished to know what your purpose is on Pendulum Island. I wasn’t told. My orders were to expect a passenger. One passenger, not three. Then there was some business with the signal lamp, and I saw fires burning in your town. Evidently the gunpowder bombs Sirki brought along in a wooden crate were put to use. I chose not to know anything further.”
“But you’re curious about my reason for being here?” Matthew prodded. “Why is that?”
Falco drew in more smoke and released it. He drank again before he answered. “You are out of place here. You are not…” He hesitated, hunting the rest of what he was trying to express. “The type I usually see,” he said. “Far from it. And the young girl and the Ga warrior? They shouldn’t be here. I can’t understand this picture I’m seeing. You stood up to that woman in the brig. And you stood up to her for the right reason. My friends, you said. You see, this is what puzzles me: the kind of person I ferry for my employer has no friends, young man. To risk anything for anyone else…well, I’ve never seen that happen before on this ship. So I have to wonder…what in God’s name have you gotten yourself into?”
Matthew pondered the question. His reply was, “I’m a problem-solver. I’ve been summoned by Professor Fell to solve a problem for him. Do you have any idea what that might be?”
“No. And why would I? I keep out of his business.” Falco nodded at some inner comment he’d made to himself. “There. You see? I knew you were different. You’re not of his world, if you get my meaning. But take care that his world doesn’t get into you, because there’s a lot of money in it.”
“Dirty money, to be sure.”
“Clean or dirty, it buys what you please when you please. It’ll buy me a ship of my own one day. I’ll start my own cargo business. That’s what I’m in it for.”
“A reasonable plan,” said Matthew. He decided to try again at a question he wanted answered: “What do the other captains do? Besides ferrying passengers?”
For a time Falco did not answer, instead relighting his pipe from the candleflame. Matthew thought the question was going to go unheeded, and then Falco said, “There are four others. A very nice fleet, the professor has. The other ships carry cannons, which I have said I will not do. I want a clean and fast ship, unburdened by that heavy iron. But the others are also in the business of taking prizes on the high seas.”
“Pirates?”
“They fly no flag,” Falco corrected. “They are in the professor’s employ.”
This scheme was becoming clearer to Matthew, and the picture fascinated him. “So the professor gets a major portion of the prize for affording these…um…other captains a safe harbor?”
“As I said, he pays well. And lately the prizes have been something he obviously finds of great value.”
“What? Treasure boxes of gold coins?”
“Not at all.” Falco drew on his pipe and the blue-tinged Virginia fumes rolled from a corner of his mouth. “In the past few months the professor has been interested in ships carrying loads of sugar from the Caribbean.”
“Sugar?” Matthew had to sit back in his chair on that one, for he’d had the image of Solomon Tully having a temper fit on the Great Dock, and asking the question of Matthew and Hudson Greathouse: What kind of pirate is it that steals a cargo of sugar but leaves everything else untouched?
The third shipment in as many months, Tully had moaned in his disconsolate agony of lost commerce. And I’m not the only one affected by this either! It’s happened to Micah Bergman in Philadelphia and the brothers Pallister in Charles Town!
Professor Fell at work, Matthew thought. Sending his captains out to the trade routes to intercept the sugar boats.
“Why?” Matthew asked, through the smoke that hung in layers between himself and Captain Falco.
“I have no idea. I only know the sugar is brought into that harbor on the northernmost point and taken away in wagons.” He offered Matthew a thin smile that looked like a razor cut. “Possibly this is also of interest to a problem-solver?”
Matthew remembered something else Solomon Tully had said, that cold day there on the Great Dock: There’s something wicked afoot with this constant stealing of sugar! I don’t know where it’s going, or why, and it troubles me no end! Haven’t you two ever faced something you had to know, and it was just grinding your guts to find out?
Looking across the table at Jerrell Falco, Matthew realized the Nightflyer’s captain was also troubled by this unanswered question. Perhaps Falco had sensed a change in the wind, or a shift in the direction of his life toward darker and deeper currents.
And, perhaps, he had decided…far down in his soul, where every man lived…that he didn’t wish to go there.
He was asking Matthew to find out what was happening to the sugar. Because he too, like Solomon Tully, was confronted with something he felt had to be tinged with evil, and if Professor Fell desired shipload after shipload of it…was there any doubt?
“I may look into it,” said Matthew.
“As you please,” said the captain. “With one eye forward and one eye behind, I trust?”
“Always,” Matthew answered.
“Finish your drink
,” Falco advised. “Take a slice of lime if you like.”
Matthew drank the rest of the very good brandy. He chose a slice of lime and, like the captain, chewed it down rind and all. Then, realizing he was being dismissed, he stood up from his chair and said goodnight.
“Goodnight, Mr. Corbett,” Falco answered, behind his swirling screen of smoke. “I do hope you solve the problems facing you.”
Matthew nodded. It was a sincere wish, and certainly Matthew shared it. He left the cabin and walked back along the corridor to his own little room on the sea.
Upon opening the door, he found three people waiting for him by the light of the hanging lanterns. Sirki and Jonathan Gentry occupied chairs in his chamber, while Aria Chillany lounged on the edge of the bed. They were sitting as if waiting for a concert or theater program to begin, and the show being a bit late Doctor Gentry was playing a solitaire version of cat’s-cradle with string between his fingers. The giant Sirki stood up, tall and dignified in his white turban and robes, as Matthew entered the room, and the madam pursed her lips and seemed to stretch her legs out a little as if to trip Matthew as he passed.
Matthew only needed a few seconds to compose himself, though seeing these three in his room had given him a severe jolt. “Good evening,” he said, his face expressionless. No need to let them see any hint of nerves. Nathan Spade surely wouldn’t have broken a sweat. “Making yourselves comfortable?” He closed the door at his back, a further sign of confidence he did not entirely embrace.
“Yes,” Sirki said to the question. “Very. So good to see you. I presume you’ve been walking the deck?”
“I fear there’s not much else to do for amusement aboard this ship. I’ve finished the books.”
“Ah.” Sirki nodded. Matthew felt the eyes of the other two on him. “Amusement,” Sirki repeated, in a dry voice. “We are here just in time, it seems, to amuse you. Also to instruct. We shall be reaching our…will you stop that?” Sirki had shot a glare at Gentry, who was still playing with his cat’s-cradle. The hands went down into Gentry’s lap, while the doctor’s mouth crimped with sullen indignation. To further the indignity, Madam Chillany gave a hard little laugh that sounded like clippers snipping off a pair of balls.
Matthew thought that the sea voyage was wearing on his hosts just as it wore on himself. He crossed to his dresser and poured himself a cup of fresh water from the pitcher there. Would Nathan Spade offer his guests a drink? No.
Sirki softly cleared his throat before he spoke again. “Have you been smoking?”
Matthew waited until he’d finished his water, taking leisurely sips in order to prepare his mind. He didn’t really want these three to know he’d been talking to Captain Falco, in case they decided to find out exactly why Falco had summoned him. Falco’s sudden discovery of curiosity and, perhaps, a desire to know the depth of his employer’s evil would not go well for him with this triad of terror-makers. Matthew asked, “Excuse me?”
“Smoking.” Sirki came upon him, nostrils flared. “I smell tobacco smoke on you.”
“Hm,” said Matthew, with raised brows. “I suppose I walked through a cloud or two.”
“On deck? It seems a windy night for smoke clouds.”
“It seems,” Matthew said, meeting Sirki’s dark stare with as much willpower and steadiness as he could find in an otherwise trembly soul, “windy in here. What’s this about?”
“For fuck’s sake!” squalled the woman, reduced to her true sensibilities due to either the buzz of snoring in her ears or the noxious aromas of her cabin companion. “Tell him!”
Sirki paid her no attention, but kept his focus solely on Matthew. “In the morning,” he said after a pause, “the tailor will bring you two suits. Both will fit you very finely. You will wear one of them—your choice—when we dock at Pendulum and leave this ship. From that moment on, you will be Nathan Spade. There will be no more Matthew Corbett until you reboard this ship to be taken back to New York. Is that understood?”
“Somewhat,” Matthew said, with a disinterested shrug to hide his seething curiosity.
Sirki took a stride forward and closed his hand upon Matthew’s collar. “Listen to me, young sir,” said the quiet and deathly voice. “There will be no mistakes made. No slips.” The eyes bored into Matthew’s. “Too much money has been spent to secure you to allow for a mistake. And bear this in mind: you will be a small fish in a pool of predators when you leave this ship. They can smell weakness. Just as I smell tobacco smoke in your clothes, and wonder who you’ve been spending time with tonight and why. They can smell…how shall I put this?…blood in the water. They will eagerly eat you alive, if you show any part of yourself that is not Nathan Spade. Now: is that understood?” Sirki released his grip on Matthew’s collar, and though Matthew’s first impulse was to put his back against a wall he instead set his chin and stood his ground.
“No,” said Matthew. “I don’t understand any of it. So tell me right now. What am I getting into?”
It was Madam Chillany’s cool, rather taunting voice that replied: “Dearest boy, you are entering the professor’s world as one of his own. You are going to attend a gathering. A business meeting, I suppose you’d call it. The professor’s associates from England and Europe are coming to Pendulum Island for a…a…” Here she lost her power of description.
“Conference,” Sirki supplied. “Some have already been there several weeks, waiting for the others to arrive. This has been planned for many months. Your inability to follow directions has made us late to the party, but it can’t begin without you.”
Matthew was still trying to get past the sentence about the professor’s associates from England and Europe coming to Pendulum Island. He felt as if he’d taken a blow to the basket. A convergence of Fell’s criminals, with Matthew Corbett—no, make that Nathan Spade—among the dishonorable guests.
My God, Matthew thought. I’ve stepped into deep—
“Water,” said the woman languidly. “Matthew, would you pour me a cup?”
He did so, as he was not so far gone as to be heedless to good manners. And as Matthew offered the cup to Madam Chillany, Sirki swept it disdainfully from his hand and the cup broke to pieces against strong oak planking that bore the heelmarks of many passengers before himself.
“It’s time,” said Sirki, his glare like embers about to burst into dangerous flames, “that you learned to answer only to the name Nathan.”
Matthew regarded the bits of broken clay. He said easily, “That was a damned fine cup. I presume you’ll bring me yours to correct this unfortunate situation?” He turned his own hot gaze upon Sirki, and let it burn. “In fact, I insist on it.”
“You’re a cocky little bastard!” sneered Doctor Gentry, but there was some humorous admiration in it.
“Oh, now that’s my Nathan!” came Aria’s voice. Her admiration seemed a bit lower. “Give him room, Sirki. I think he’s big enough for the part.”
Matthew had no comment on that remark, but he wondered if his parts were big enough to make a whole.
Sirki smiled faintly, enough to display a glimmer of diamonds. “I think you’re right, Aria.” The smile vanished, like a busker’s conjuring trick. “But so much remains to be seen.” He pulled toward himself the chair he’d vacated, turned it around and sat astride it. “I’ll tell you,” he said, addressing Matthew, “that when we dock, your beauty and her beast will be kept aboard this ship after you have left it. When darkness falls, so as not to draw any undue attention, they will be put into a carriage and taken to a place of confinement. It would not do for any of the other associates to see them, and wonder who they might be. The type of person we’re dealing with here has a high degree of suspicion and a higher degree of cunning. We want no questions left in the air.”
“A place of confinement?” Matthew frowned. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
“Whether you do or not is of no concern to me, but I’ll tell you also that they will be in comfort and well looked-after.”
“Behind bars, I take it?”
“No bars. But locks and a guard or two, yes. I’ll see to that arrangement. They’ll be near the main house and out of the way, but they’ll also be out of danger.”
“What kind of danger?”
“The same that faces you if anyone discovers you are an imposter. Some of these people make Nathan Spade appear a saint. They kill for sport. And trust me, I can think of two or three who will be doing their best to unravel your rope.”
“This sounds less like a conference as it sounds to be a gathering of…” Sharks, Matthew was about to say. All the smaller sharks—deadly enough in their own oceans—have gathered around the big shark, and so they have swum even here…
Well said, Hudson, he thought. Well said.
“Do not push anyone,” Aria offered, standing up from the bed. She came to Matthew’s side. He thought she smelled of fire and brimstone. Smiling—if that could be called so—she pushed a finger into his right cheek. “But do not let yourself be pushed, either.” Her finger moved to gently trace the outline of the wound underneath his left eye, where the traces of stitchery could still be seen. “This will do you splendidly. They like evidences of violence. It makes them feel all warm inside.”
How does it make you feel? he nearly asked. But he reckoned that she was waiting for him to ask that question, and he was not that much Nathan Spade. Yet. God forbid.
“If these associates are so cunning,” Matthew said, looking at the woman but speaking to the East Indian giant, “then they’ll soon find out I’m not the blackhearted whoremonger I’m supposed to be. A few questions regarding my relations with the Last Chancers and the…um…ins and outs of my particular business, and—”
“No one will ask those questions,” Sirki interrupted. “They know not to know too much. Consider the professor’s organization like a ship. Everyone is on board, yet all have their cabins.”