Dr. Sam Johnson, Detector

by Lillian de la Torre

  “Why, so,” says Dr. Johnson, “this is a docket indeed, and George Selwyn himself could not have told it better; though indeed it falls something short of the great affairs I thought you big with.”

  This was my opportunity.

  “Pray, sir,” I said quietly, “what news would content you? How if I tell you that the Great Seal of England has been stolen, and that I was by when the loss was discovered?”

  Dr. Johnson was thunderstruck. A staunch Tory, and a great supporter of kingly authority, he appreciated to the full the infamy of the deed. I presented Lord Thurlow’s request for the assistance of my friend’s known acumen; to which he replied:

  “I am an old man, Bozzy, and my infirmities gain upon me; but I solemnly declare that I will neither repose nor recruit till I shall have put the Great Seal of England into Lord Thurlow’s hand.”

  Rising, he summoned Francis Barber to bring his cloathes; and as he dressed and broke his fast with me, I told him all the circumstances of the audacious theft.

  He heard me through in silence, shaking his head and rolling his great frame the while. Only when I had finished did he question me.

  “The domestick offices are on the lowest floor?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And the writing-bureau on the floor above?”

  “That is so, sir.”

  “The bars of the window were dislodged and fell to the ground?”

  “Yes, sir. I ought to say that the window faces the open fields, whence the housebreakers are supposed to have come.”

  “And plaster and rubbish lay on the kitchen floor? Sparse, or thick? Under the window, or more generally dispersed?”

  “Thick, sir, under the window, and sparser where it had been tracked into the passage.”

  “Footprints?”

  “No, sir, only a line of faint smudges, as it might be off the boots of a man who had stood in plaster; and indeed Lord Thurlow and I made such another track when we came away from the window.”

  “The servants?”

  “All in their beds. Lord Thurlow rouzed them as we came away.”

  “Had they heard aught in the night?”

  “Nothing, they said.”

  “Yet a band of Whigs broke in and abstracted the Great Seal. Pray, whom of his household has Lord Thurlow about him?”

  “I know not. His irregular connexion with Mrs. Hervey is well-known; but I never saw her, nor any of her children.”

  Dr. Johnson shook his head in dissatisfaction. There was a summons below, and my friend’s black servant announced Lord Thurlow. We descended to him in the panelled drawing-room, where the sage and the politician greeted one another with great mutual respect.

  Though separated in age by upwards of twenty years, these two famous men were not unlike: Thurlow tall, strong-built, of a saturnine cast, with sharp black eyes under beetling brows; Johnson as tall, but more massive, his heavy face marred by the King’s evil. If Johnson roared, Thurlow thundered. The one had met his match in the other, and they were mighty civil and polite together.

  “Well, Dr. Johnson, what think you of this outrage?” demanded the Lord Chancellor. “But the d– –d thieving Whigs shan’t make good their purpose, I promise you. I have taken the opinions of Gower and Kenyon; a new Seal is making, and Parliament shall be prorogued tomorrow. So all is happily resolved, and we’ll send the d– –d Whigs home to stay in spite of their teeth. Mr. Boswell, Dr. Johnson, I thank you for your good offices in this matter, and beg that you’ll discommode yourselves no further over it.”

  “Surely, Lord Thurlow,” protested my Tory friend, “the matter is not to end thus. Have you taken no steps for the apprehension of the thief?”

  “You mistake me, Dr. Johnson,” replied Lord Thurlow, “one Lee, a notorious receiver of stolen goods, is under our eye. We think to take him in the fact, if we but have patience. But my first care is to send the rascally Whigs packing; and this we may do, for the new Seal will be ready by nightfall.”

  “Pray, Lord Thurlow,” replied Dr. Johnson, “indulge me. I am no thief-taker; but I have had my successes as a detector of cheats, and I have sworn to lay the stolen Seal in your hand. Pray let me have your answer to a question or two.”

  “I will do so, Dr. Johnson; but pray be brief, for I have yet to wait upon his Majesty.”

  “Tell me, then: the Great Seal was customarily preserved in a bag?”

  “Two bags, Dr. Johnson, of silk and of leather, the one within the other.”

  “How were they secured?”

  “With a thong or draw-string.”

  “The silk bag was costly?”

  “That is so. It is enriched with gems and bullion, and cost upwards of fifty guineas.”

  “So that the thief,” said Dr. Johnson meditatively, “though ’twas worth his life to be found there, lingered so long as would serve to untie, not one bag, but two, that he might leave behind him fifty guineas worth of booty; when he might in a single motion have pocketed bags, Seal, and all, and made good his escape. This is a strange sort of thief, and one who cannot hope to rise in his profession. A practised thief will disdain no loot that comes to his hand.”

  “Nor did he so,” said Lord Thurlow quickly, “for he carried off my silver sword-hilts, and a matter of £35 in fees, that were laid up in the writing-bureau.”

  I looked my surprise at this news.

  “’Tis a bagatelle, to the loss of the Seal,” continued Thurlow, “and I have given it scant attention; but such is my personal loss, out of the drawers that were ransacked.”

  “One more question, then,” said Dr. Johnson. “Who of your family were at home with you in Great Ormonde Street?”

  Thurlow looked like a thundercloud.

  “How can this be to the purpose, Dr. Johnson?” he enquired stiffly.

  “Pray, my lord, do not hinder me,” said Dr. Johnson firmly, “for I am resolved to get to the bottom of this matter, whatever I may find there.”

  Thurlow looked blacker still, but he replied to the question:

  “Why sir, Mrs. Hervey is taking the waters at Bath, and my little girl with her. My household at present is only my daughters Catharine and Caroline, and my cousin Gooch’s boy, Ned Durban.”

  “What’s he?”

  “Why, sir, he’s a young springald come to me for old times’ sake to be made a man of fashion; though indeed ’tis all in vain, for the d– –d stubborn young dog is a Whig and a gamester, and I can make nothing of him.”

  “Pray, Lord Thurlow, make these young people known to me.”

  Lord Thurlow rose from his place.

  “Very well, Dr. Johnson, if you wish it. Will you come down to Great Ormonde Street?”

  “No, sir, I will not. I am a dropsical old man, and I cannot gallop about London like a Bow Street runner. You must be my courier, and send Great Ormonde’ Street to me.”

  “Let it be as you wish,” said Lord Thurlow coldly; and left us with scant ceremony.

  The morning was half gone when a coach deposited a young lady and a young gentleman at the mouth of Bolt Court. I watched them from the two-pair-of-stairs window as they crossed the court. The young lady was sombrely dressed and cloaked in black to her heels. Her companion, thin and shambling, was gorgeous in mulberry brocade from his wig to his buckled shoes. He made play with a muff and a clouded cane. He handed his companion carefully up the steps and supported her into the withdrawing room, where Dr. Johnson received them.

  “Your servant, Dr. Johnson,” lisped he of the clouded cane, and made a leg, “Ned Durban at your service. Here’s Caroline.”

  “Miss Thurlow,” said Dr. Johnson gently, “I bid you welcome.”

  The girl in the black cape looked at him mutely. She was very young, not more than fifteen, with pale ivory skin shewing dark shadows under the eyes. She wore her own soft dark hair, not a made head, but swept back any how. She was dressed in grey tabby, without ornament.

  Gravely Dr. Johnson led her to his deep wing chair. She sat g
ingerly on the edge, and looked at Ned Durban. The exquisite youth came to her, and took her hand.

  “Never fear, my dear,” he said gently, “you are to answer what Dr. Johnson asks; he won’t hurt you. He only wants to find the Great Seal.”

  The dark eyes turned to Dr. Johnson.

  “Truly, truly, sir, I know nothing of the Seal.”

  “Nor I, sir,” added Durban; “but ask me what you please.”

  I was liking the shambling exquisite a little better, when he fell to sucking the head of his cane.

  “Then tell me, pray,” began Dr. Johnson, “how you have spent your time since yesterday.”

  Durban left off sucking his cane, and replied:

  “Strap me, sir, ’twas a rare night for me, for I never once saw the inside of Brooks’s, though I have a card there, and seldom miss. But last night I carried my cousins to sup at Ranelagh, and so on to the masquerade; and so it fell out we three were together till the east shewed grey.”

  “All the time?”

  “From supper till morning.”

  “Pray tell me, sir, is it your custom to squire your ladies so closely?”

  Durban cackled, and replied:

  “There you have me, Dr. Johnson. ’Twas the first masquerade from which I have failed to follow one or other devastating little mask and let the rest go hang. But, d’ye see, sir, little Caroline here was half beside herself, and Cathy and I in dejection, and we just sat one by another and watched the masquers, until near dawn we could bear it no longer and came away home together.”

  “How late?”

  “Perhaps an hour before sunrise.”

  “And you then retired?” enquired Dr. Johnson.

  “Yes, sir. I had half a mind to the hanging, but the thought of it was so deuced dumpish and depressing, in the end I carried a bottle to bed with me, and the next thing I remember my Uncle Thurlow was shaking me and bidding me rise and come down to Bolt Court.”

  “And you, my dear?” Dr. Johnson turned to Caroline Thurlow.

  She looked at Ned, and he squeezed her hand and nodded at her.

  “’Twas as Ned said,” she faltered.

  “And after? When you came home?”

  “I went to my bed.”

  “Do you lie alone? Or with your sister?”

  “With my sister,” whispered the white-faced girl.

  “Well, my dear, and so you fell asleep and slept till mid-morning.”

  “No, sir. I lay awake and watched the day break. I couldn’t sleep.”

  “And you heard nothing?”

  “Yes, sir, I heard a great clatter and a rending sound. It made me afraid. My window fronts the fields, and sometimes men fight there.”

  “Did you look out?”

  “Oh, good lack, no sir. I hid my head under the counterpane.”

  “What an unlucky chance,” I exclaimed. “You might else have detected the thieves.”

  “When was this rending sound, my dear?” enquired Dr. Johnson.

  “I cannot say, sir. I had lain awake for hours, and the sun was risen.”

  “And your sister slept by you?”

  “All the night, sir. But it was morning before I slept, and when I awoke she was gone.”

  “Whither?”

  Caroline looked at my benevolent friend without speaking. Durban answered for her.

  “O lud, sir, who knows where a lady goes o’ mornings? To the milliners, to pay calls, I know not what. She is to follow us when she returns.”

  “She comes pat upon her cue, sir,” I reported from the window, “for here is Lord Thurlow crossing the court, and with him a most exquisite lady of fashion.”

  “’Tis Cathy,” said little Miss Thurlow wistfully, “for Cathy’s eighteen, and a reigning toast.”

  Cathy came into the sombre panelled room like a queen. She wore lavender lutestring, and a made head full twelve inches high, powdered and picked out with plumes. She was a sparkling girl with her father’s eyes. I bent over her hand as Dr. Johnson saluted the Lord Chancellor.

  “Why, Cathy,” said Caroline. “Where ever have you been? All the time I lay awake you were snoring, and as soon as I slept you rose up and left me.”

  “Nowhere,” said Cathy. “Everywhere. What do you think, Carly, the mantua-maker has the impudence to be indisposed! What am I to wear to the ball tonight?”

  Thurlow greeted his little daughter tenderly.

  “What, poppet, look up, my dear. Never fret about the Seal. The new one is as good as made, and there’s no harm done.”

  “Nevertheless the Seal is to be found,” said Dr. Johnson. “I have taken so much upon myself.”

  “I take this resolve very kindly of you,” said Thurlow cordially, “nevertheless I would not have you fatigue yourself unduly.”

  “Nay, sir,” replied Dr. Johnson, “we progress, and without fatigue. I have learned much about this strange thief, who does his housebreaking by daylight, who takes the Seal and leaves the Mace and the jewelled bag. Pray, answer me one question more: when did you last see the Great Seal?”

  “Why,” says Thurlow, “last sealing-day.”

  “Recollect yourself, sir. I think it was when you sealed Mannering’s pardon.”

  “That is so, sir,” replied Thurlow instantly.

  “And I think that was done last night, else how comes it that it nearly came too late?”

  “Prodigious, Dr. Johnson! Again you are right. The document came late from the engrosser’s. ’Twas close on midnight, and I sealed it then and there and sent it by hand to the unfortunate man’s friends.”

  “And did you then deposit the Seal in the bureau?”

  “I did, sir,” replied Thurlow.

  “And was anybody by to observe these transactions?”

  “Sir!” began Thurlow angrily.

  “Pray, Papa, no heroics,” said Cathy languidly. “I was by, Dr. Johnson. I helped. I served as chaffwax, as I have often done before—haven’t I, Carly?—Carly!”

  Every head turned to the winged chair. Caroline’s face was the colour of lead. Her eyes were closed, and her breath came shallow.

  “The child’s fainted!” cried Thurlow angrily. “Come, Dr. Johnson, a truce to this inquisition.”

  Catharine moved stiffly to her sister—stiffly from the effort of carrying her stately powdered head—and cut her stays with despatch and decision. Ned Durban laid her tenderly on the sofa, and gradually her breath and her colour returned. She opened her eyes, looked into his face above her, and burst into a storm of weeping. As he smiled tenderly into Caroline’s eyes, muff or no muff, I liked the boy.

  Miss Thurlow’s indisposition put an end to my acute friend’s researches for that while. Catharine donned a green baize apron belonging among Francis Barber’s kitchen gear, and with her own hands made a posset for her sister; and very strange she looked in her lavender lutestring with the plumes in her powdered head.

  Soon Caroline was sitting up. Her weeping fit had done her good. There was pink in her cheeks, and a smile began to play about her lips. Nevertheless, Dr. Johnson swore that she must not be moved, but the whole company must stay and dine. Thurlow excused himself on the ground of much business; but Caroline consented, and Ned and Catharine elected to stay with her. Francis Barber was to be sent to the ordinary to bespeak chickens and sweetbreads.

  The Lord Chancellor then took his leave, promising Dr. Johnson a sight of the new Seal before supper-time. I offered to accompany him, if I could be of use; and he gratefully closed with my offer. So I departed with the Lord Chancellor; and of my doings that afternoon suffice it to say, that my usefulness was all in fetching and carrying, fetching and carrying.

  I returned to Bolt Court as evening was falling. I found Dr. Johnson on the step taking leave of a visitor; and so I greeted for the second time that day Charles James Fox, the fascinating and beloved Whig leader.

  This was a different Fox, however; fresh from the hands of his man, wigged and point-device; with his irresistible smile on h
is broad lively-looking face.

  “You may set your mind at rest, sir,” Dr. Johnson was saying. “I promise you no one shall suffer for the sequestration of the Great Seal, save alone him who destroys it.”

  “Then I will promise you,” rejoined Fox in his rich voice, “that no Whig has it, no Whig took it, and no Whig will destroy it. ’Tis my belief, Dr. Johnson, that the surly Chancellor himself could tell us much, if he would.”

  “Lord Thurlow has already told me much,” replied Dr. Johnson, “and the matter approaches its end. But pray gratify my curiosity in one particular. Boswell here tells me that Thurlow spent last night with you at Brooks’s. How can this be, that a staunch Tory should be found in the Whig stronghold?”

  Fox laughed.

  “He came by that way after supper,” he replied, “to threaten me, in his amiable way, about Ned Durban, who is personally attached to my party, and of great use to me. When he was announced, Jack Wilkes tipped me a wink, and laid me guineas to crowns I could not make so good a Whig of him as to keep him in the club till dawn. Well, sir, I never refuse a wager; and a hundred guineas is more than curling paper money. It took all my finesse to get him to the tables; and there I guarded him like gold till the night was spent. ’Twas hardest of all to see him winning, and lay no stakes myself, but I dared not. Had I begun gaming, he might have walked away, and I would never have followed. Jack Wilkes was by, and saw fair play; and when the light began to come in at the windows, he paid down my guineas on the nail, and I got Thurlow out of Brooks’s and consigned him to the Devil, for I don’t like the man.”

  “You never left his side?”