An Experiment in Treason

by Alexander, Bruce

  Having said that, he rose from the chair and prepared to depart. Sir John then did also rise.

  “We shall do what we can with what you have provided us with, Mr. Slade. Who knows? Perhaps we shall prove lucky. Jeremy, will you see our visitor to the door?”

  They shook hands once again, and I led William Slade out of Sir John’s chambers and down the long hall.

  “Your Sir John is a remarkable man,” said he. “His blindness seems to bother him little. But … can he truly get by as a proper magistrate outside his courtroom?”

  “If you mean by that, can he take an active role in investigations, the answer is emphatically yes.”

  “Yet can he see the details which I should think are so important to every criminal inquiry?”

  “Indeed he can, for I, sir, am his eyes.” That may have sounded a bit impertinent, but I wanted him to understand that Sir John was at no disadvantage.

  He took it as no impertinence. He threw back his head and laughed as one might when told a most delicious joke.

  “Well, I meant no disrespect,” said he as we parted at Bow Street.

  “Nor did I.”

  He waved and went on his way.

  I then hurried back to Sir John and revealed to him my fears that I had myself unwittingly collaborated in the disappearance, or worse, the death of Isaac Kidd. I told him nearly all — from my sally to Burkett that the entire burglary plot had been hatched in the King’s Pleasure; to naming the principals in that plot — Skinner and Ferguson, Isaac Kidd, and Arthur Lee. Yet I did withhold all mention of Burkett’s angry threat against Mr. Perkins. That, it seemed to me, was the constable’s to tell.

  “And you told me, did you not, that this man Burkett had already been by Arthur Lee’s place of residence to inquire after him.”

  “That’s right, sir, and he found that Lee had already left for America.”

  “We may assume then that he will go after Skinner and Ferguson.”

  “Or Dr. Franklin.”

  Sir John heaved a deep, despairing sign.

  “I blame myself,” said I. “If I had not been quite so free with names and locations, then Kidd might …” I did not finish the sentence, for I was loath to pronounce Isaac Kidd dead.

  “Well, Jeremy, you should not feel guilt in this, for the Lord Chief Justice himself did instruct us to give Burkett whatever help he might need in finding those who had burglarized Lord Hillsborough’s house and murdered his manservant. No indeed, Jeremy, you are not at fault — nor in all likelihood is Lord Mansfield. He himself was no doubt duped.”

  “Lord Hillsborough then?”

  “I fear so,” Sir John observed a somber silence. “What could have led Lord Hillsborough to hire such a man? What sort of thief-taker could Burkett be?”

  “Not a thief-taker at all,” said I. “He revealed to Mr. Perkins and me that he is the leading slave-chaser of Georgia.”

  “A slave-chaser? Oh, my God, that damned institution raises its head once again. Well, we deserve it. We send our trash off to the colonies, and what do they send us in return? The likes of Burkett and — what is his name? — William Slade.”

  “Slade?” I echoed. “How does he figure into this?”

  “Didn’t you catch what he said? That I was famous across oceans and continents? Specifically he had heard my name in Jamaica and Trinidad and the Ivory Coast. What sort of merchant visits such places?”

  Of a sudden, was it quite plain to me. “Why, a slaver!” said I.

  “Precisely. When a man comes to London, suddenly wealthy, yet very mysterious about the sources of that wealth, you can bet that he was engaged in some unsavory trade; and in my mind, at least, there is no trade more unsavory than the slave trade.”

  “Do you suppose that Isaac Kidd is alive or dead, sir?” I asked.

  “Oh, dead — unquestionably so.”

  “Where do you think the body has been hidden?”

  “Too bad it is winter. If ‘twere summer we should begin smelling him in a day or two. They’re harder to hide in the summer.”

  Sir John sent me off to the Globe and Anchor to invite Mr. Burkett to visit us and tell us how he is faring in the task given him by Lord Hillsborough. I was to ask him if he had information to share. In general, he wished me to entice Burkett to visit. “It might then be possible to interrogate him properly,” said Sir John.

  And so did I dutifully tramp off to the Globe and Anchor, where I was told by the major-domo behind the desk that Mr. George Burkett was no longer a guest at the hostelry.

  “He woj here, was he not?” I asked.

  “Oh, indeed he was, yet he left us quite suddenly yesterday morning.”

  “Did he say where he was going?”

  “Not a word of it.”

  Then did I return to Number 4 Bow Street and report this to Sir John. He seemed not in the least surprised.

  “No, on the contrary,” said he, “I should have been surprised if he had been there.”

  “If that is so, sir, then why did you send me?”

  “Because, Jeremy, it was a necessary step — a precaution.”

  “I see what you mean, sir. I suppose it was.”

  “You might tell Mr. Perkins, when he comes in, of these developments. And perhaps on his travels tonight, he could stop off at that place, the King’s … what is it?”

  “Pleasure, sir.”

  “That’s it. Perhaps he could stop there and question the innkeeper and anyone else who might know something about Isaac Kidd’s disappearance — and so on — that sort of thing. That is probably all that can be done for now.”

  “Would you consider informing the Lord Chief Justice, perhaps by letter, of what Burkett has been up to?”

  “No, nothing can yet be proven.”

  Early on the second day following the disappearance of Isaac Kidd, his body was found by a waterman; it was submerged but trapped upon a stanchion supporting the Manchester Stairs. The waterman, a young fellow from Kent (by the sound of his words), had delivered the corpus in a wagon and asked if we wanted it. I had come out to Bow Street at his invitation and saw that the open wagon had a canvas thrown over what was doubtless a dead body.

  “We’ll take him only if he died violently.”

  “Oh, he did that,” said the waterman with an emphatic nod. He seemed awfully sure of it.

  “I think it best for you to take it direct to Gabriel Donnelly. He’s the medical examiner for Westminster. He’s right over in Drury Lane — Number 12.”

  “Well, don’t I get a reward or something?”

  “Not that I’ve heard of. I think this is the first time anybody ever delivered a body to our door.”

  “Well, what about the wagon? Can’t you at least pay me what it cost to rent the wagon?”

  It seemed a reasonable request. “How much was it?”

  “A shilling for the morning.”

  I paid him the shilling, and gave him thruppence for his trouble.

  But before he left for Mr. Donnelly’s, I asked to see the face of the corpus. He threw back the canvas about a foot to show me.

  “The face is in pretty fair shape,” said he. “I doubt he’s been in the water a terribly long time. Queer thing is, he was wrapped like this when I found him.”

  Indeed, the face was recognizable. I saw that it was Isaac Kidd. His eyes were closed, his mouth open, yet somehow the expression upon his features conveyed a sense of shock and horror.

  “He don’t look like he died happy, does he?”

  “No, truly he does not.”

  With that, we parted. He climbed up on the wagon box and urged the team into motion. I called after him, repeating Mr. Donnelly’s address. He waved his understanding and continued on his way.

  I ran back to Sir John’s chambers and informed him of what had just happened. He was most amused, laughing long and hard as one might if tickled by a feather.

  “He just pulled up in front of our door, did he?” Sir John asked, once he had regained c
ontrol.

  “Oh, indeed sir, he did.”

  “I’ll wager the passersby stared queerly when you took a look at his face, did they not?”

  “Oh, yes sir,” said I. “But Sir John?”

  “Yes, Jeremy?”

  “It was truly Isaac Kidd there in the wagon. I did see his face. Would you mind, sir, if I went to Mr. Donnelly’s surgery to find out just how Kidd died? I promise to be back in plenty of time to attend to my duties as clerk of the magistrate’s court.”

  “Oh, go if you must, but I’ll expect you back an hour before court time.”

  With that, I left him, and running once again, I burst through the door and out into Bow Street. I did not stop running, in fact, until I spied the wagon with its grisly cargo pulled up just at Number 12 Drury Lane.

  Mr. Donnelly and the waterman were wresting the body from the back of the wagon. The surgeon was tugging away at the canvas-wrapped feet, and already the legs had cleared the tailgate. Would the young fellow be able to jump down in time from the wagon to save the body from tumbling to the cobblestones? I sped cross Drury Lane to help and arrived just in time to grasp Isaac Kidd at the shoulders at just the right moment.

  “Sailed!” shouted Mr. Donnelly; and then, to my surprise, I heard a round of applause and a cheer or two.

  Looking round me, I saw that a small crowd had gathered beyond the wagon and the team of horses, which had obscured them at first from my vision.

  “Well done, Jeremy!”

  “He hooked on this nail, he did,” said the waterman. “Then when we got him loose …”

  “As long as we’ve got him, let’s take him on up to my surgery, shall we?”

  Calling a good-bye to the young fellow, and to those of the crowd still hanging about, we struggled inside with the corpus. I kicked the street door shut behind me, and then we took on the challenge of the stairway to the first floor. In the end we met that challenge, though not without a good deal of effort and the usual cautionary cries as we worked our way through tight corners. As we passed through waiting room, I was gratified to see that it was empty; except in extreme emergencies, Mr. Donnelly did not usually take patients before ten. His examination room came next, and that — thank God — was the end of our journey. We threw our burden up upon the table and took a moment to catch our breath.

  “Where was this one? ” asked Mr. Donnelly whilst panting.

  “In the river,” said I.

  “Waterlogged, watersoaked, et cetera. I suppose Sir John wants a complete report in ten minutes?”

  “Nothing so demanding,” said I. “We know a good deal about him already. If you can just tell us how long he’s been dead, and the probable cause of death, that should suffice.”

  “Well,” said the medico, “let’s get this package unwrapped, shall we?”

  In truth, it was necessary to unwrap the body in much the same way (as I later discovered) that a baby is separated from its bunting. Near as I could tell, the canvas had been wound round the corpus two and a half, or perhaps three times. Then it was strapped with rope, top and bottom, perhaps three times. It took a bit of trouble and the right sort of concentration, so that when Isaac Kidd was at last free of his shroud we did not at that moment notice the horror that was revealed.

  Twas Mr. Donnelly spied it first. “Good God,” said he, “just look at that, won’t you?”

  “At what? ‘ said I, for I did not, even then, quite understand the reason for his alarm.

  “At this,” said he, grabbing Kidd’s arm near the shoulder and bringing it up for me to see. “Now look at the one on your side.”

  I did as he said, and so shocked was I that I actually found it necessary to take a step back, feeling a pressure upon my chest as if I had been given a push.

  The point of all this is that each arm had been cut off — nay, chopped off — at the elbow. Where forearm and hand should have been, there was naught but … sinew, stanched blood, and ligament. It was quite the most ghastly sight I had put my eyes upon in all of my years with Sir John Fielding.

  “There’s your cause of death,” said Mr. Donnelly, pointing at the mutilated arm. “That alone would have killed him, no doubt.”

  “Truly so?”

  “Certainly. The shock to the body, the loss of blood. In the Navy, I saw men who were so affected by the loss of a limb that they simply keeled over and within minutes did die. Think of it. How would you feel if you knew that the leg lying on the deck was your leg?”

  “I should be greatly affrighted, ” said I.

  “Oh, indeed you would — at leojt that. Tell me, was this man tortured for information? I see no other lethal wounds on his body.”

  “Yes, well, I suppose he was tortured.”

  “Well, what we see there would be sufficient to wring answers from even the most stubborn.” He paused, then asked: “But why were 60th arms hacked off? “

  “I believe I know the answer to that, but I must discuss this with Sir John before …”

  “I understand,”

  “Yet tell me, when would you place the time of death?”

  “Oh, a day and a half to two days ago, I suppose. The skin, the face are still in good shape. If he had been in the water much longer.

  there would have been a general breakdown, a kind of melting of the flesh. Do you understand?”

  “Oh yes, I understand. But now I must hasten to inform Sir John of all this.”

  He held up a hand. “Ah,” said he, “wait, Jeremy. I must have your help in carrying this poor, armless creature into the backroom. What do you suppose my patients would think if they found this fellow on the table when they come in to tell me of their fainting spells?”

  I told Sir John quite directly of what Mr. Donnelly and I had discovered upon unwrapping the body of Isaac Kidd. Even he, who seemed to take the most gruesome tales with equanimity, registered mild shock at this one. Yet when told of the angry threat directed by Burkett at Mr. Perkins, he seemed most deeply disturbed.

  “You should have told me of this before,” said he to me.

  “Well, it was Mr. Perkins’s matter — or so I told myself — and so I felt it was not up to me to tell you. I believe he would have resented it.”

  No doubt he would have, but what’s a little resentment if his life is in the balance?”

  Do you feel that it is?”

  I’m not sure, just as you were not when you failed to notify me,” said Sir John. “But I mean to be on the safe side and protect him as well as I can. Just how I shall accomplish that is the question that I must now consider. But it is time for you to make preparations for my court session. Mr. Fuller has a number of prisoners — five, I think. Interview them. Get what you can from them for me. In the meantime, I shall consider what shall be done regarding Mr. Perkins. Oh, and it may be that a letter to the Lord Chief Justice is in order to let him know what sort of villain Burkett is, or perhaps something more than a letter, eh?”

  And so it was, reader. The session of his court was handled without difficulty or complication. Though there were five prisoners, each was charged with a misdemeanor — and only that. There was a dispute to be settled between two greengrocers of Covent Garden, yet it was a dispute between two reasonable men, and it was settled by Sir John with a reasonable compromise. All left the courtroom fairly happy: Quite an ideal day in court it was, according to Sir John.

  As for the letter, he dictated that to me as per usual. In it, he made plain his dismay that one hired by Lord Hillsborough should turn out to be naught but a hired killer. Care was taken, I noted, not to blame the Lord Chief Justice directly.

  “We may need his help before this is done, ” said Sir John.

  He also surprised me by declaring that he would accompany me to the home of Lord Mansfield.

  “Do you feel the need for a bit of exercise?”

  “I always feel the need. It is finding the will to act upon it where I fall down.”

  It is true that he had fallen down a bit, negle
cting his usual habit of touring Covent Garden whenever he pleased. He now restricted himself to a morning walk of not much more than a mile. The truth was, as he confided to me once, that he was troubled by arthritis in his left hip, and he now leaned heavily upon the walking stick which he had heretofore used as little more than decoration. Nevertheless, once we were out and on the street, he seemed as quick as ever upon his feet. Though his hand rested upon my arm in such a way that I seemed to be helping him along, the truth was, I had to press myself and keep a fast pace in order to match his own.

  Thus it seemed to take little time to reach Lord Mansfield’s house in Bloomsbury Square. Along the way, he had explained that his reason for accompanying me was that he hoped to present himself, uninvited, and ask for an audience with Lord Mansfield. If the Lord Chief Justice were absent, or if he were conferring with another, or could not otherwise be disturbed, then we would leave the letter and return posthaste to Number 4 Bow Street. And so, inevitably, we came face-to-face with Lord Mansfield’s butler, the keeper of the gate.

  “Yes, what will you — oh, it is you. Sir John. How may I help you?” He was never so polite to me; and there was even a touch of unaccustomed warmth in his voice.

  “Well,” said Sir John, “something has come up, you see, and I wish to inform the Lord Chief Justice of it, and perhaps discuss it, if need be. Is he in? Can he see me? Offer my apologies for disturbing him.”

  “Certainly. In the meantime, won’t you and your assistant step inside? Sit down on the bench, if you like.”

  Having, said that, he threw the door wide, and we took our places inside.

  The butler then closed the door behind us, and, promising to be no more than a minute, he set off to inform Lord Mansfield of our unexpected visit. Neither of us showed any wish to sit down.

  “Jeremy, I cannot suppose why you so frequently clash with that butler of Lord Mansfield’s. It’s a thankless job at best, and he seems to do it as well as any.”