About this story
In Newgate a condemned card-sharp writes nine pages and lights his bed-warmer charcoal, and the last page names a grave in Lisbon and a living daughter. Forty-eight chapters carry a nameless coffin to an heir off the Lisbon packet.
How it opens
A sealed morning letter asked you to attend a burial in Chapelizod church at eleven that stormy night.
You have read the request three times and found less comfort on every reading.
The writer names neither the dead woman nor the gentleman bringing her from Dublin.
John TracyLanterns are ready, Doctor, though rain has turned the road into a second river.
You required witnesses as well as lanterns, so Bob Martin and Zekiel Irons waited beside John.
Then go clearly, Father, and do not let secrecy make you careless.