"He told the watch his name. And then begged that he might speak with my father, and said somewhat more of justice being done, and they said he commended his soul unto God, and there was some other word, but not clear, and when they would lift him to carry him the blood came up in his mouth, they said, and he choked, and died. He was stabbed, they said, stabbed in the back, stabbed in a dozen places."
Constable Malachi Derry, a sad man with excellent muscle disguised by a concave chest, a willowy neck and a jaw like a pick-axe, commonly described himself as slow to wrath, but he could be angry, and Ben saw that he was now, as he drooped on a three-legged stool in Mr. Kenny's office and tried to find space for surplus leg where the uncompromising feet of Captain Peter Jenks allowed not another inch of it and would not budge. Mr. Derry was a ship chandler by trade. Chosen for the thankless position of constable, he had done his level New England best to wriggle out of it, until informed by Governor Dudley himself that he would serve, or else pay a fine of not less than ten pounds, possibly more. Faced with that, Mr. Derry did the next best thing—tried to be a good constable.
It came hard, leaving him scant time for his rightful labors. He must waste hours in the courts, bustle about serving warrants, seeing to the daytime peace of his district, while the chandlery went to ruin. On the Sabbath, engaged in preventing others from ungodliness, how could he find proper time to look to his own soul? The supplementary emoluments, in view of the damage to his trade, were dem'd low. Besides, the work was dangerous. Still trying to find room for his legs, he rumbled on to a peroration: "I was compelled, Mr. Kenny, to say this morning to Madam Dyckman herself, poor woman: 'We do what we may, more we cannot.' I have heard Judge Sewall himself declare that disorder increaseth continually, but doth the power of my office increase also? Not at all, sir, the while this very air of the water front, as it were, spawns evildoers, the cutthroat, the footpad, the blasphemer, the piratically inclined—mostly foreigners, you understand."
"I understand," said John Kenny, "that you hold out small hope of discovering the ruffian who hath murdered the mate of my ketch Artemis and so taken from me and my captain a good friend."
Captain Jenks slammed his fist down on his knee and said nothing. To Ben this morning he was almost unrecognizable as the same man who had come ashore in a flood of sunlight. His whole broad face was darkly flushed, the red skin raddled with a thousand lines. When his thick hands were not jumping like those of an old man with the palsy, a fine tremor possessed them. Bags hung like flabby udders below his bloodshot blue eyes, and the eyes were cold with wrath and confusion: a man goaded by much pain, unable to understand the source of it; a stricken leviathan unable to see the harpoon that has pierced it.
"That's true," said Mr. Derry—"small hope, I fear. You understand, sir, a cobblestone takes no footprint, a knife-blade leaves no signature. We know he was scurvily set upon, robbed, slain. But are you aware, sir, there may be as many as two or three hundred evil livers in and about the city who might have done this, and for no reason but the scent of whatever money or goods he had upon him?"
"Well..." Mr. Kenny rested his head on his shriveled hands. Reuben had drawn up a chair to sit by him at the desk, unbidden except by a silent glance that Ben had seen. Lounging across the room, Ben felt the coolness of the light, always dusty in this small office, pouring over their faces, the old man and the boy, the sick man and the well-meaning officer of the law. The stirring of pain within himself was so vague he could not know whether it was a foolish jealousy because Uncle John had sent that message to Reuben and not to him, or merely that unreasonable stab of loneliness which may assail any person at certain times. "Well," said Mr. Kenny, "I see no profit in summoning the watch. I take it, Mr. Derry, you've told us everything Mr. Dyckman was able to say before he died?"
"I think so, sir. Sadly little, seeing he was in the last extremity. He spoke his name, he begged to be taken to Captain Jenks. All of the men, sir, heard him say: 'God's will be done!' And as they were endeavoring to lift him, Mr. Dyckman did speak some word of his wife and children, but the men could scarce hear it, and that was all."
Ben fidgeted. He knew he should have spoken during the journey from Roxbury; Charity's distracted presence had restrained him. When they left her at home and the Captain took her place in the coach, certainly he ought to have spoken. Captain Jenks had made a difficult and vaguely courageous thing of the journey from the house steps to the coach, winning each step like an old man, his face rigid, red and terrible. Waiting in the coach and looking the other way, Uncle John had murmured to Ben: "Don't offer your hand to aid him into the seat." And once the Captain was installed there, Ben had barely room to breathe, let alone speak. But now in the slightly less crowded office he managed to blurt out: "Uncle John...."