Speaks the Nightbird by Robert R McCammon

Author:Robert R McCammon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2013-12-02T16:00:00+00:00

twenty-two

MRS. NETTLES CAUGHT MATTHEW at the staircase when he returned to the mansion after his visit with Dr. Shields. “The magistrate asked that you see him directly ye arrived. I ha’ to tell you that the preacher’s been here, and he was might loud.”

“I expected it. Thank you.” He braced himself for what was ahead and started up the stairs.

“Oh, sir!” Mrs. Nettles said before he’d gotten more than halfway up. “I recalled somethin’ I thought you might find of interest. About Rev’rend Grove.”

“Go on,” Matthew urged.

“Well, sir…you asked if the rev’rend had any enemies, and I said he had none I knew of. But I was thinkin’ over it some, and I recall a strange thing happened—oh, I’d say it was three or four days ’fore he was killed.”

“What was it?”

“He’d come for dinner,” she said. “Had some business ’bout the church to talk over with Mr. Bidwell and Mr. Winston, so his wife had stayed home. I remember they were talkin’ there in the parlor, with the fire goin’.” She nodded toward that room. “Mr. Bidwell had walked with Mr. Winston out to the carriage. I had come in to ask the rev’rend if I could refresh his cup, and he said no, that he was fine as he was. I turned my back and started to leave, and he says, ‘Mrs. Nettles? What would you do if you knew a thing, and tellin’ it might be right but it would serve no good purpose?’ That’s what he said.”

“Did you ask what he meant?”

“No sir, that would not have been proper. I told him I was nae one to be givin’ advice to a man a’ God, but that it depended on what it was he knew.”

“And what was the reverend’s response?”

“He just sat there, lookin’ at the fire. I started out again, on my way to the kitchen, and then I heard him say, ‘No Latin.’ That was all, and he’d said it so quiet I hardly heard it. But I said, ‘Sir?’ ’cause I didn’t know what he meant. He didn’t answer; he was just sittin’ there, lookin’ at the fire and thinkin’.”

“Hm,” Matthew grunted. “You’re sure he spoke those words, and not something else?”

“I heard him say, ‘No Latin.’ At least, it sounded like that to me. Then Mr. Bidwell came back in, and I went about my business.”

“And you say Reverend Grove was killed three or four days afterward?”

“Yes sir, he was. His wife found him, lyin’ there on the church floor.” She frowned. “What do ye think he meant?”

“I have no idea,” Matthew said, “but his question to you may mean that someone of physical rather than spectral nature had cause to wish him harm. I’d very much like to find out what it might have been he knew. May I ask why you’ve not brought this up before?”

“I’d forgot it, ’til this mornin’. Bein’ who he was, the rev’rend knew a lot of things about a lot of people,” she said. “But like I told ye, he had no enemies.

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