Jack, Knave and Fool

by Alexander, Bruce

  “And grateful I am to you both,” said Mr. Donnelly.

  “On the other hand,” said Sir John, “the order of events prior to his collapse, again described to me by Jeremy, were such that the possibility of an unnatural death cannot be dismissed.”

  “But why?” said Mr. Goldsmith, ever the doubter.

  “Yes, why?” echoed Mr. Humber. “Lord Laningham was most certainly of an age for dying —seventy-five years, as I understand. He’d a bad heart and one attack of apoplexy known to me.”

  “You seem to know a good deal about his former state of health,” said Sir John.

  “That, Jack,” said Mr. Humber, “is because I had been critical a year past of Laningham’s behavior at the concerts, and I was told all this by a medico who happened to be at my table. It was his opinion that Lord Laningham was attempting with all his foolish jumping about to prove himself fit and hale in spite of his years.”

  “There, you see, sir?” said Mr. Goldsmith. “That seems well vouched for. In light of all that, how is it you still harbor a suspicion —be it even a mild one?”

  “Well, first of all, Mr. Goldsmith —and you also, Alfred —because I am a magistrate, it is my place and my duty to harbor suspicions of all sorts. It is true that I often put a dark interpretation upon a set of facts —yet also true that as often as not such a view is proven justified. When in the back of my mind I have some doubt —not a thought but a feeling —there is usually good reason for it. I have come to trust my doubts.”

  “But at this point,” said Mr. Goldsmith, “you have merely feelings … doubts? Not yet a good reason for such?”

  “Well, let us consider the sequence of events, shall we? As I understand them, Lord Laningham quite hopped up to the stage when introduced by the innkeeper. He frisked about the stage for a good half of an hour until there came a break, at which time the choir came upon stage for the singing of the Saint Cecilia ode. As this transpired, he sat himself upon a chair to rest, and having developed a thirst, hailed a server and sent him off to fetch a bottle of wine. Now, where that bottle came from we cannot at this point be absolutely certain, for I have not yet had the opportunity to speak with the server. The innkeeper, however, volunteered to me that he was near certain it would have come from Lord Laningham’s own table, for it was Laningham’s habit to bring wines from his private stock to the Crown and Anchor on concert Sundays. The innkeeper has promised to ask among the servers until he has found the one who brought the wine and then to send him to us. Why should this be of such importance? Because Lord Laningham drank greedily of that bottle of wine, and it was only after he did so that he began to show signs of distress.”

  “But,” objected Mr. Goldsmith, “those signs were by no means immediate. The better part of an hour passed before the spectacle of his collapse upon the stage.”

  “Oh? Truly? I had judged it to be not near so long as that, myself,” said Sir John. “How long would you estimate the time that elapsed between the lord’s first taste of the wine and the moment he fell to the floor and vomited, Alfred?”

  Mr. Humber considered. “Closer to half an hour, I should say, perhaps less.” Then, giving the matter a moment’s further thought, he added: “We could find out from the choirmaster or the concertmaster just how far along they were in the piece. That might help in making a more accurate estimate.

  “Indeed it might,” said Sir John. “If it becomes a point of prime importance, we might consult with them. But leave it that it was only after he had drunk of the wine that he began to act, according to Jeremy’s description, ‘queer’ —to wit, that he wandered a bit aimlessly, let drag his staff, and staggered about before returning to his chair and suffering that final episode which we have chosen to call his ‘collapse.’”

  “Yes, I seem to recall those earlier signs that all was not right with him,” said Mr. Humber. “You’re saying, Jack, that he was at least affected not long after drinking from that bottle? Well, it was indeed plain that he was less lively after the wine than before.”

  It seemed that Mr. Humber, who had begun in doubt, was coming round to Sir John’s way of thinking on this matter. Mr. Goldsmith, however, remained firmly in opposition.

  “The wine! the wine!” he blustered. “Ifyou will forgive me, Sir John—and I mean no disrespect —but your argument is not reasonable. It is based upon a logical fallacy — ” And here did Mr. Goldsmith raise a finger and point above him as he quoted: “Post hoc, ergo propter hoc.”

  “I have little Latin,” said Sir John, “but enough, I think, to English that. Roughly, what you have said means, ‘after which, therefore because of which.’ Am I correct?”

  “Indeed. You seem to feel — “

  “Oh, I understand right enough,” said Sir John, cutting him off sharply. “You suggest I argue that the bottle of wine from which he drank accounts for his death. Nothing of the kind! I offer no argument, neither fallacious nor logical. I merely seek to account for my doubts. Yet I do concede, Mr. Goldsmith, that if the appearance of that bottle of wine were all I had to support my doubts, then it would certainly not be enough.”

  Thinking he had won a point, Mr. Goldsmith puffed up a bit and smiled a smile that could only be termed self-satisfied. “Good of you to say so, Sir John,” said he.

  “Nevertheless,” continued the magistrate, “when we consider the appearance of that bottle of wine along with its sudden and complete ^/appearance during that space of time when Lord Laningham was stricken and all did crowd around him, then — then, I say, there is quite sufficient support for doubt.”

  “Come now, Jack,” said Mr. Humber. “A ‘disappearance, you say? Is that not too strong, too dramatic a word? Say, rather, that it was not afterward to be seen.”

  “Yet it was searched for. Jeremy —I take it that you are still here —did you not search?”

  “I did indeed, sir,” said I, “for ten minutes’ time and over every foot of the stage.”

  “But good God,” said Goldsmith in evident exasperation, “there must have been near a hundred people up there —musicians, singers, Lord Laningham’s family, some of the Crown and Anchor staff, and the … the merely curious — all of them crowding in. I daresay a server may have picked up the bottle which we saw rolling around on the floor and spilling its contents, picked it up and simply disposed of it. That would be the most logical explanation for what you call its disappearance.”

  Sir John then let forth a sigh, a rather melancholy sound in that room lit by only three candles. The depth and force of it extinguished the one on his desk and made the number two. Silence for a moment; then said he: “I shall, however, hold to my doubts. But Mr. Donnelly?”

  “Yes, Sir John?” The surgeon spoke up almost reluctantly. He sat somewhat apart from the rest and had listened to the debate abstractedly, as if his mind were elsewhere.

  “We have not heard from you. I had hoped you could enlighten us a bit on the nature of Lord Laningham’s death, a few facts perhaps. For instance, if you will indulge this maggot that nags at my brain, how long after he drank of that bottle of wine did he die?”

  “About an hour, I should say.”

  “Would you describe the nature of his death —his symptoms, so to speak?”

  “Well, you noted the vomiting, of course.”

  “Aye!” crowed Mr. Humber. “Like it or not, we all saw that!”

  “Alfred, please, let Mr. Donnelly continue.”

  And continue he did: “Like Jeremy, I’d noticed earlier signs —apparent dizziness and discomfort — but I counted them to his drunken state. Following his collapse and vomiting— By the bye, it was a true collapse, for he seemed to have little control over himself afterward, and it seemed there was nothing I could do for him. But after the collapse, I turned him over and loosened his collar to aid his breathing, which gave him obvious difficulty. There he lay, conscious but quite overcome, for a good many minutes. His wife arrived and tried to communicate with him, but he was unable to answer. Whether or n
ot he grasped what she said to him —messages of endearment and encouragement they were —I really have no idea. He went into convulsions and then a state of coma, from which he could not be roused. I should say that last stage was of a duration of near ten minutes. His pulse grew weaker, and finally his heart stopped altogether.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Donnelly,” said Sir John. “I should call that grim description up to your usual high standard —precise, graphic, and dispassionate. Now, again, simply to indulge me in this matter, do you know of any poison —to utter the word at last —which could cause a death such as the one you described?”

  “No, Sir John, I do not.”

  “There! You see?” hooted Mr. Goldsmith. “He knows ol none!

  “But,” said Mr. Donnelly, raising his voice, overriding him somewhat, “I must make it clear that I know next to naught of poisons. They did not figure in my career with the Navy as a ship’s surgeon. As for my abortive practice in Lancashire, who knows? Perhaps some of those deaths I deemed natural may have been hurried on by henbane or foxglove. I had no reason to suspect, in any case.”

  “I quite understand,” said Sir John. “But you have at your disposal books such as might give some light on the matter?”

  “I do, yes, and I mean to study them tonight in order to explore this possibility, this ‘doubt’ of yours. In all truth, I was quite dissatisfied with the opinion I gave to Lady Laningham as to the cause of her husband’s death. I told her that her husband had died of circulatory failure. This is very like saying that he died because his heart stopped beating. That, of course, is the ultimate cause of all death.”

  “Would you hazard a guess as to the penultimate?”

  “I should be reluctant to do so. It seemed to be a gastric disturbance of some terrible proportion. What might cause such has me quite baffled. Barring further study of the kind I mentioned, and barring an autopsy of Lord Laningham s corpus, there would seem to be no way …” Mr. Donnelly paused, a frown upon his face, a look of frustration.

  “What is it, sir? Something has occurred to you.”

  “Indeed something did occur—though now quite useless to us. It came to me that had we saved that which Lord Laningham vomited from his stomach and brought it to a competent chemist for analysis, he might have told us if there was some foreign element in it which could have caused such a violent reaction. But you, Sir John, gave permission to the innkeeper to clean up the stage after the body had been removed.”

  “Ah, so I did. It seemed only proper.”

  “As we left, I happened to notice one of his servers with mop and pail making rid of the mess.”

  “Well, perhaps another time —though indeed I hope there be no other time.”

  Through this conversation which took place between Sir John Fielding and Mr. Gabriel Donnelly, the two other gentlemen had remained silent—yet their attitudes differed greatly. For his part, Mr. Humber was clearly fascinated by all that passed between them. Mr. Goldsmith, on the other hand, seemed merely tolerant, bound by his affection for his friend Mr. Donnelly and his respect for Sir John to let them have their say. When a brief silence ensued upon their conclusion, I was in no wise surprised when it was Mr. Goldsmith who broke it.

  “I have but one more objection to make, if I may.”

  “Make it then, by all means,” said Sir John, flapping a hand indifferently in the air.

  “It is this, a simple appeal to good sense: If one were to wish to poison another, one would not choose a setting as public as these Sunday concerts. After all, up there on the stage? With hundreds looking on? It makes no sense, sir.”

  “Yes, yes,” said Mr. Humber, swayed once again in the other direction, “Mr. Goldsmith brought that up on our walk from the Crown and Anchor. It does seem a good point, Jack.”

  “Ah, but is it?” questioned Sir John. “What was it that those hundreds saw? An old man of seventy-five who had probably eaten too much and certainly drunk too much, up there before them, prancing about as one his age should not have done, playing the fool as he had often done in the past, overexerting himself. Many there knew he was not a well man. There could have been little surprise at his collapse. Some indeed may have made such dire predictions, attending simply in the expectation that it would one day happen just as it did and they might be there to see.” He shook his great head and quaffed the last of his brandy. “No, I reject Mr. Goldsmith’s final point more emphatically than his others. I believe contrariwise, that if one were to wish to poison another —that other being Lord Laningham — he would choose just such a time and place as the Crown and Anchor stage within the process of a Sunday concert.”

  As we climbed the back stairs to the kitchen, I heard the voices of Annie and Lady Fielding raised in such a way that it seemed they were quarreling. While that proved not quite to be so, they were certainly in disagreement.

  “But Annie, you must!” Lady Fielding’s voice rang insistently as we reached the top of the stairs. “It is a great honor to be chosen.”

  Then, as I opened the door and Sir John followed, Annie, her back to us, responded vehemently, “M’lady, that is just what I was told by Mr. Wills, the choirmaster. But how can it be an honor when it will only lead to my shame?”

  We two walked into the kitchen, and the two females fell silent for a moment—but only for a moment, for both turned to us, each to argue her case. Sir John stood in bafflement, preparing himself for the assault.

  “Jack,” said Lady Fielding, “you must talk a bit of sense to this girl.”

  “Sense, is it? It seems just now to have come in high fashion. Forgive me that remark, Kate. I have just now left a discussion in which many appeals were made to good sense. My adversary seemed to think I lacked all trace of it. But let that pass. What is the trouble?”

  “Annie here was invited to join the Handel Choir specially by the choirmaster. The other two volunteers were dismissed with thanks after the sadly aborted performance. But our girl Annie was asked to become a permanent member of the choir. He was most flattering about her voice —she admits that —told her it was quite outstanding. And do you know how she replied? She told him that she was employed as our cook and had no time lor racfa things.”

  “Well … does she? That is to say, we do depend upon her for our meals, do we not?”

  “Of course we do. But it seems that she told him in such a way as to offend him —I hope not overmuch —as if to say that music was of little importance when put against her daily duties.”

  “Why, I think that quite admirable. Bravo, Annie, good, loyal girl!”

  “Jack, no! She has a talent. It has been recognized. She should be given the opportunity to cultivate it. I have put myself forward to fill in for her here in the kitchen on those Sundays on which concerts are to be given. There are rehearsals, but they take place during the day.”

  “Well, yes, I see what you mean, Kate. Only on Sundays, eh?”

  “And not every Sunday— only on concert Sundays in the season. In fact, we have taken advantage of her willing nature since she has been with us. In many households, cook is given Sunday—or allowed to prepare an early meal so she may have the rest of the day to herself.”

  “Ah, yes, hmmm, I see.” Sir John rubbed his chin in thought, nodded in much the same way as he might when weighing testimony in his courtroom. “This must, however, be Annie’s matter to decide. We cannot force her to go off Sundays and sing Handel merely because we think she should. Perhaps it was not because she wished to serve us better that she gave this as her reason to the choirmaster. Perhaps that was merely an excuse to cover another, more personal.” Then did he turn in her direction. “Annie, tell me, as I entered just now did I not hear you mention ‘shame? I believe you asked, ‘How can this be an honor when it will only bring me shame?’ —or words to that effect. You did say that?”

  “I did. Yes, Sir John.”

  “What did you mean? How would it bring you shame?”

  “She cannot read music,” put in Lady
Fielding.

  “No, it’s true I can’t. When they handed me the music sheets, all the notes was like so many flyspecks upon the page. One of the ladies sang me my part, and I got it right enough as far as she was able to take me — I’ve a good ear for a tune —yet we had soon to go on the stage, and she could only take me so far. No farther could I go. Mr. Wills, he said he knew right when I quit, for the life went right out of the sopranos. Which was meant as flattery, but indeed it made me feel ashamed that I could only open and close my mouth and pretend to be singing with the rest.”

  “I see. Well, perhaps at a proper rehearsal you could be taught the rest and sing it entire.”

  “P’rhaps,” said she, “but it is long and has many tunes in it. But then, there’s this other thing that shames me even more.”

  “And what is that?”

  Her lower lip trembled, she sniffled a bit, yet she plunged on: “Even when I was singing I could only go ah-ah-ah, for I could not even read the words upon the page. Some of them I made out, for Jeremy has worked with me a bit, but I fear I’m not a good scholar.”

  “She is a good scholar,” said I, seized by guilt and blurting it out. “It is I who am not a good teacher. I lack patience.”

  “I often do myself,” said Sir John. Then did he return to rubbing his chin as he considered the matter. “You wish to learn reading, do you?”

  “More than anything, sir. I feel such a dunce in this house having no letters.”

  Then did a thought strike me, one that should have come months before. “Sir John,” said I, “there is a Mr. Burnham who has worked a wonder in tutoring Jimmie Bunkins. With no more than a few months’ instruction, he has Bunkins reading from the Public Advertiser and has just put him to work on Rob’uwon Crudoe. No teacher before him could bring Bunkins even to the beginnings of literacy.”