The Masque of a Murderer by Susanna Calkins Read Free Book Online Page A

letter. She bid me to come see her. That was where I was going when I was pushed.”
    Lucy sat back, her hand to her lips. “You believe that a Quaker, a Friend, a lover of peace, would have pushed you in front of a cart?”
    “I can see thou dost not believe me. I understand, what I am saying seems preposterous.” His voice dropped further, and Lucy leaned in even closer to hear him. “I’m afraid now that the person who came after me might threaten my wife. I tried to tell her, but she did not believe me. The Quakers have been such friends to her, I could not bear to break her heart.”
    He grabbed her arm. “Please, tell Adam to talk to my sister. Have my murderer brought to justice. I must protect my wife from harm. She has no one else, and I’m afraid she will turn to the wrong person. Promise me that thou wilt tell Adam what I told thee, but no one else!”
    Hardly knowing what she was saying, Lucy nodded her head. “I promise, Mr. Whitby,” she whispered. “I promise.”
    Jacob began to cough then, and could speak no more. Lucy brought the cup to his lips, but he could not swallow. “My time has come!” he said, his voice raspy. “Oh Lord! My time has come. I feel no pain. I have seen his glory and tasted of his most precious Truth, and it is sweet unto my taste. Judge me, Lord. Judge me.” His voiced faded away.
    “Mrs. Whitby! Miss Sarah!” Lucy went to the door and called out in fear, then returned to his bedside.
    The women burst back into the room. Esther threw herself on her husband’s form. “Oh, dear husband,” she called to him, weeping. Lucy backed up against the wall, still shocked from what she had just learned.
    Sarah backed off. Lucy slipped her hand in hers. Together they all watched Jacob take his last dying breath.
    “Did he say anything else?” Esther demanded, turning back to Lucy. Her purple eyes glowed with tears. “Any other message?”
    “No.” Lucy gulped. “Just that his last thoughts were of you and that”—she could not keep her voice from breaking—“he felt his time had been called too soon.”
    Even as she spoke, Lucy could hear the man’s last whispered words over and over in her mind, as though he were still there to utter them. Their significance began to settle more deeply upon her. Mr. Whitby had been murdered, and no one knew it but her.

 
    4
    The next two hours passed in a strange blur of tears, shrieks, and general confusion. Never in her life, not even when she saw neighbors and friends felled by the plague, had Lucy witnessed such wild, unchecked distress.
    Esther Whitby had begun to tremble and shake in the most alarming way—“Quaking in the presence of the Lord,” she said. Joan had begun to shriek outright, half praying, half crying, proclaiming her gratitude to the Lord for relieving Jacob of his suffering. Deborah had begun speaking in what seemed like another tongue; Joan, regaining her own lucidity, called her name sharply, and the young Quaker continued her lament in English.
    At some point Theodora and Sam returned. Theodora took one glance into the room and began to wail much as Joan had done. Sam let out one sad gulp and sat back on a bench, preferring to remain in the shadows with his sorrow.
    Amid it all, Sarah sat silently, staring at Jacob’s corpse, tears slipping down her pale cheeks.
    Since the Whitbys had no servants, Lucy began to do what she knew best, more to calm her own tumultuous thoughts than anything else. Creeping down to the kitchen, she prepared a soothing brew of chamomile, lemon peel, and nutmeg. She wished for a bit of wormwood, but she could see none in the Whitbys’ bare stores. Instead she took the last drops of Jacob’s restorative and added them to the concoction, then began to pass it out among the Quakers, pressing a mug into Sarah’s cold hands first.
    Jacob’s last words weighed heavily on Lucy. As she walked into Esther’s bedchamber with two steaming mugs, she looked at the Quaker lying facedown