A Masquerade in the Moonlight(110)
Maxwell pushed back his chair and stood, looking down at Sir Ralph. He reached into his pocket and drew out the money packet, tossing it onto the table. “Farewell, my friend.”
“No! Wait!” Sir Ralph was out of his own chair, catching at Maxwell’s arm as he reached the door. “I didn’t mean it, Maxwell, I swear it. Please, come back. I’ll do anything you say. Anything! I only know real peace when you’re near. I’m sorry. Forgive me.”
Maxwell stared deeply into Harewood’s eyes, drawing out all the worry and fear and replacing those emotions with a deep contentment, so that Sir Ralph knew if he so much as blinked his lids would close heavily and he would fall into a deep sleep. “Please, Maxwell.”
“Very well.” Maxwell returned to the table and picked up the packet. “Listen carefully, my friend, for I will only say this once. You are to write your confession, making your break with the past, and then seal it in this envelope.” He reached into his waistcoat once more, withdrew and unfolded a large brown envelope, tossing it onto the table. “Tomorrow, at midnight, you will meet me in Green Park, just at the Chelsea Waterworks, There, my friend, we will burn the envelope, transferring your guilt and sins to another host, allowing your rebirth.”
Sir Ralph spread his hands. “A host? What sort of host? I don’t understand.”
Maxwell smiled. “Understanding is not necessary to the exercise, my friend. I will provide the host, which you will kill, then inter there in the park with the ashes.”
“I’ll kill no man, Maxwell!” Sir Ralph declared coldly, daring to say what he had never dared with William.
“Such misplaced vehemence! You’ll kill a rooster, my friend,” Maxwell told him, heading for the door once more. “Until tomorrow at midnight?”
“A rooster?” Sir Ralph rose from the chair to look at Maxwell’s departing back. “Why didn’t I guess it before? You’re a Gypsy, aren’t you?”
Maxwell turned, smiling. “I am one of the Lords of Egypt, as we prefer to be called. Good day to you, my friend. Sleep well this night—for your trials are nearly over. Good-bye.”
Dooley liked Thomas, he really did, but there were times when he wished he had stayed home in Philadelphia, smoking his pipe while sitting in his favorite chair after dinner, listening to his beloved Bridget and his mother-in-law bully the children the way the two women usually bullied him.
But he had come to London, had volunteered to aid his country’s cause, exchanging petticoat tyranny for dubious intrigue. The pity of it was that dubious intrigue could sometimes be plaguey boring, propping up walls and lampposts while waiting for something to happen, and then when it did happen he still had to rely upon Thomas to explain it to him.
He had spent the majority of the afternoon outside Sir Ralph Harewood’s domicile, stepping out of the way of passersby and explaining to an endless parade of hawkers that, no, he did not wish to buy their cherries or have any brooms mended or have the dents knocked out of any of his pots. He had seen fewer people and suffered less noise on his weary ears the month he and Bridget had all six of the kiddies down with spots and been run off their feet caring for them.
But Thomas had been right. Again. The man of the frayed cuffs appeared at Harewood’s domicile more than two hours after Dooley had taken up his post, and stayed for some minutes before taking himself off again, a spring in his step that boded no good for Sir Ralph, Dooley wagered himself silently.
Dooley brushed the crumbs of the seedcake he had purchased and eaten—just to pass the time, he’d told himself—from his neck cloth and pushed himself away from the brick wall he had been leaning against, jammed his curly-brimmed beaver down farther on his head, and began to follow the man with the odd, single eyebrow.
He kept his distance, doing his best to blend in with the other people crowding the flagway, stopping now and again to look up at one of the buildings, as if only out for a stroll, before swinging his gold-knobbed cane and continuing on, always careful to keep the man in sight.
The man moved quickly, being at least a score younger and three stone lighter than the Irishman, so that Dooley arrived, breathless, at the Covent Garden market only after the fellow already had a live rooster in hand, the bird in a cage he carried with him as he passed by Dooley, once more on the move.
Fifteen minutes later, Dooley was standing outside a rundown-looking inn near the Thames, watching man and bird disappear inside. “I can hardly wait to tell Tommie this one,” he said out loud, swinging the cane one last time before heading for the corner and, hopefully, a hackney cab that would take him back to the Pulteney. “And if he can make sense of it, I’ll kiss Bridget’s ma square on the lips when next I see her!”