Jack, Knave and Fool

by Alexander, Bruce

  “But you ain’t never kilt nobody, have you?”

  “No, nor would I want to.” Then, after thinking about that and in the interest of truth telling, I did add: “I once shot and wounded one, however.”

  “Truly so? A young fella like you?”

  “Yes, truly. He died, though not of the wound.”

  With that he fell silent for a long spell. Still, as we turned down Half-Moon Passage from Bedford, he roused himself and played the rustic clown once again.

  “This house wherein I dwells, it was built as an inn a hundred years ago or more, perhaps a thousand from the way it’s decayed and ramshackled, like. I don’t wonder a good wind will blow it down someday soon. Well, I did not live there long till I began to notice strange comings and goings and hear shouts and ugly laughing at night when a workingman such as myself needs to get his sleep. Well, I keep my ears open and my eyes open, and I asks around a bit, and I come to find this place I’m livin’ in is known as a great house for whores. Come summer, I’d go home at night, havin’ had my bub and grub, and I’d go down the hall, and here’s my women neighbors standin’ about in their doorways in their shifts and their altogethers, some of them, bubs hangin’ out, just advertisin’ what they got to sell. Oh, I tell you it was a sight. And even now, in the winter, I catches sight of them in the hall, visitin’ back and forth just so, without a care.”

  And then did he raise his arms and strut on the street in a female manner and say in mimicking falsetto: “Oh, Moll, may I wear your brown frock? My blue one got all muddy, and I ain’t had time to wash it.”

  I laughed quite in spite of myself, yet hung back, embarrassed, as he attracted gawking attention from the passersby with his foolish parade. Yet he returned to walk beside me. There could be no doubt that he was my companion.

  “I have seen them so, nekkid in the hall, or next thing to it. Ain’t that enough to give a man care? You can see why I must move to Southwark — or where was that other place?”

  “Clerkenwell,” said I.

  “Ah, so it was — Clerkenwell. Must remember that,” said he solemnly. Then did he brighten: “But here we are. It won’t take but a minute for me to get my tools. Then we’ll be off to Bloomsbury.”

  The place was as he had described it, certainly no better. I had passed it many times before but had thought it in no wise remarkable. There was a modest entrance, such as might once have accommodated horses and coach. It led into an interior court, whereon all manner of refuse and rubbish had been tossed. From it came an evil stench. Around the courtyard on three sides were two tiers of rooms, top and bottom. It was quite like the court in which poor old Moll Caulfield had lived that later blew down. And it seemed nearer two hundred years old than a hundred. In only one significant way did this court building differ from that one and most others: the surrounding tiers were walled over, so that the hall that Roundtree had described was interior and dark with only a small window to cut the gloom every twenty feet, or approximately so.

  We climbed a short flight of stairs to the level of the first tier, and he led the way down the hall.

  “Watch out now one of those nekkid women don’t reach out and pull you into her room. They can be mightily insistent.” He laughed a silly, cackling laugh at that. ‘“Twouldn’t do for a young fellow like you to get caught like that.”

  More laughter until at last we came to a door about halfway down the hall, and he reached down deep into his coat pocket and pulled out a key. He held it up to me as if it were a sort of talisman or some popish holy relic.

  “I keeps the door always locked. Whores is notorious thieves, and my tools and other b’longings are worth something.”

  In the dim light I could tell the key, though large, was old and rusty. If the lock to which it fitted was as old, his tools were not near as safe as he seemed to think them.

  He bent to insert the key and turned it in the lock. I must have been bending over him somewhat myself, for when of a sudden he looked sharp to the left, his head was quite near mine.

  “There’s one of them now,” he whispered urgently, “one of them nekkid women!”

  To my discredit, I turned to look. That was my great mistake. For with my attention uselessly averted (there was nothing to be seen), he uncoiled his lean body against me with surprising force and sent me sprawling in a heap against the far wall of the hall. Before I could regain my feet, the door was open, he was inside, and the door was shut again. By the time I righted myself and stumbled over to it, I had heard the key turn in the lock.

  I beat bootlessly upon the door with my fist. “Open up!” I shouted. “I’m to keep you in sight at all times!”

  Laughter was his response. “I’ll be out directly,” he called.

  Through the door I heard steps, movement, a great flurry of activity. It occurred to me that if I could hear through it so plain, the door must not be so very thick. Perhaps I could batter it down. And so, backing off to the Ear wall, I took two running steps and hurled myself against it, shoulder first.

  I felt it give somewhat, but I also felt a stab of pain pass through my shoulder. I might indeed be able to knock open the door, but I should likely cripple myself before I was done. There must be some better, faster method, I thought, then remembered what Constable Perkins had taught me not so long ago: that it was possible to destroy a lock with a shot from a gun. The trick, he said, was in the placement of the ball —not direct into the lock, but between the door and the doorframe, where the bolt of the lock fits into the hasp.

  I drew out a pistol from its holster and found the place I thought likeliest. Then, hauling back the hammer, I held the pistol close and pulled the trigger. It was a good-sized pistol which fired a good-sized ball. It jumped in my hand as the shot exploded loudly from it, so that I feared it may have hit above the mark. But no—as the smoke from the gunpowder cleared, I saw the ball was well placed. It had blown a hole of frightening dimension in the wood at just the spot at which I had aimed.

  I holstered the pistol, pulled out the club I had been given by Mr. Fuller, the gaoler, and gave a great kick to the door —and then another. Then did the door fly open, scattering bits of lock and ball over the floor of the room beyond.

  I leapt inside and looked about. I saw nothing of Roundtree —only a window with both panels opened wide. I ran to it and looked down. Indeed there he was, not more than ten feet below but hurrying without a look back down a narrow dirt passage to the street, toolbox and a few other belongings in hand.

  Pulling out my second pistol, I thought I might still get in a wounding shot, if indeed I did not kill him, but … Yes, “but” indeed. Was ten shillings worth wounding a man, possibly killing him? Angry as I was at him, furious as I was at myself, I could only answer that in the negative. I eased back the hammer of the pistol and tucked the weapon away.

  Though I had no expectation, nor even hope, of finding Thomas Roundtree there, I went direct to the residence of the Lord Chief Justice in Bloomsbury Square.

  Having hastened a fair distance in a high state of emotion, I was in a proper sweat by the time I took hold the great knocker and rapped loudly upon the door. As expected, the butler appeared. I resolved I would stand for none of the usual nonsense from him that morning.

  “Ah,” said he, “it is the boy from Bow Street. If you wish to see the Lord Chief Justice, I am afraid that is impossible dressed as you are. Goodness! You’re even wearing pistols — certainly not with pistols! You’d best give me the letter, and trust me to — “

  “No, I do not wish to see the Lord Chief Justice,” I shouted at him. “And I have no letter to deliver!”

  In response he stood and blinked three times. At last he spoke, apparently unperturbed: “What is it, then, that you wish?”

  “I believe you have a crew of carpenters working in the house installing a water closet.”

  “That is correct.”

  “Bring me their chief. I wish to speak with him.”

  A direct order. Re
ader, how good that felt!

  “Uh … well …yes, I shall. Would … would you care to wait in the vestibule? It’s rather chilly this morning.”

  That surprised me so that I very nearly failed to thank him. But thank him I did and stepped inside, taking a place beside the bench whereon I had waited on those occasions when the butler had deemed me properly dressed to enter the residence of the Lord Chief Justice.

  “You may seat yourself, if you like.”

  “No, I prefer to stand.”

  “As you wish,” said he, backing away. “Uh … tell me, is this about the vase?”

  “I know nothing of a vase. The chief carpenter, if you please.”

  He nodded, turned, and hurried off. It could not have been more than three minutes that elapsed before he returned with a short, wiry little man in tow. The chief carpenter was dressed roughly for work; I noted bits of sawdust on his breeches. He looked around him curiously as he approached, and it occurred to me likely that this was his first visit to this part of the house. At a certain point the butler hung back, though well within eavesdropping distance, and allowed the man to proceed to me.

  “What can I do foryez?” the fellow asked. He seemed to be Irish. So many in the building trades were.

  “First, let me ask you,” said I, “what is your name, sir?”

  “Dismas Cullen and proud of it. Now you must tell me the what of this matter.”

  “Gladly,” said I to him. “I am from the Bow Street Court. A man held prisoner on a minor matter of public drunkenness has escaped my custody. He said he was in your employ, and was on his way to borrow from you the ten shillings’ fine that would keep him out of gaol. I am sure he has not come here, for he well knows this is the first place I would look for him. But I have come to you first, to ask you to hold him for us if he does show his lace. And secondly, to ask you for information you may have that will aid us in finding him.”

  “It’s Thomas Roundtreeyou’re speaking of, now ain’t it?”

  “Did I not say so? Forgive me. Yes, it is.”

  “Well, let me set you straight. He ain’t in my employ no more. Friday night alter we left work here, they found a vase of some value, Chinese it was. had gone missing, and they let us know on Saturday morning that we was suspect.

  Now, I was damn certain I didn’t take it. And I was sure about three of the crew because they are my son, my brother, and my brother-in-law. I could vouch for all but Roundtree. So we marched him back to his room in Half-Moon Passage and looked the place through, but no such thing was to be found there. This I reported to the Lord Chief Justice hisself, and he said there was no certain evidence against the fellow, but he wanted him here no longer. Nor did I. So I pays him off, I did, and sends him on his way, all the time him telling us how innocent he is. We four family have worked in many homes of the gentry and the nobility and never had no trouble like this before.”

  “Soyou would not have loaned him the ten shillings in any case?”

  “Hah! No chance of it. The way the Lord Chief Justice handled the matter, he subtracts the worth of the vase from what he pays me when this job is done —five guineas, if you please! We’ll make precious little profit on this water closet. He said it was my fault for hiring him. And you look at it his way, and he’s right. Loan Roundtree ten shillings indeed! That’ll be a cold day in hell!”

  “Well,” I asked, ‘why did you hire him? What did you know of him?”

  “Not enough. My youngest brother went back to County Wexford to visit our mother, who’s terrible ill and old. He went for the rest of us. But that left us shorthanded for this job, so I posted a notice and several answered. Roundtree looked the best of the bunch, and he’d had journeyman’s papers for twelve years, so I hired him. In truth, he wasn’t a bad worker. But I rue the day I set eyes upon him.”

  “But nothing about him that would help me find him?”

  “Well, he lives in a terrible place in Half-Moon Passage, a den of thieves and whores.”

  “I know the place. I’ve been there.”

  “And —oh, let me think a bit —he’s from Lichfield. That’s where his journeyman papers was from.”

  “I knew that, too.”

  “Beyond that I cannot help you.” He shrugged. “Sorry, young fella, it seems we was both his victims.”

  As I thanked Mr. Cullen, the butler appeared suddenly at my elbow —materialized, rather, in a somewhat ghostly manner. He opened the door, making it plain that my time had run out. Having no alternative, I accepted that and had no retort to the whispered envoi with which he sent me out into the cold.

  “Losing a prisoner,” said he, then made a series of sucking pops with his tongue which I shall hereby render, “tdk, tdk, tdk, tdk. “

  THREE

  In Which I View

  an Unholy Sight

  in a Churchyard

  There was naught to do but return to Bow Street and inform Sir John of my failure. That I did, seated before him in his chambers, shoulders drooping and all apologetic. I told not all in detail, leaving out the device by which he distracted my attention as too shameful to admit, and said merely that Thomas Roundtree had cozened me and won my confidence until he knocked me down, fled inside the room, and locked me out. Then, describing how I had forced my entry, I told how I had raced to the open window and caught my last glimpse of him, running down the foot passage for the street. Yet more to tell, I gave an account of my visit to the residence of the Lord Chief Justice and all that I had learned there.

  Sir John listened silently through all, his face so impassive that I was unable to draw any hint from it of his response to this matter which embarrassed me so sorely. At last when I had done, he spoke. “I would not blame myself overmuch in this if I were you, Jeremy,” said he. “I no less than you misjudged the fellow. Did I not say that he seemed ‘docile’?”

  “Well, yes, but …”

  “These things happen from time to time. In this instance he will have been the cause of his own misfortune. He will wish many times over that he had served that month in the Fleet Prison, for when he is caught, he will be dealt with far more severely. Yet I daresay his intention in returning to his place in Half-Moon Passage was to recover that vase along with his tools.”

  “You see it so? Mr. Cullen, the chief carpenter, said they had searched the room thorough.”

  “Perhaps Mr. Roundtree is cleverer at hiding than Cullen and his family are at searching. A floorboard perhaps? I recall you bund quite a treasure beneath the floor in one house in Half-Moon Passage. Was it, by any chance, the same one?”

  “No, Polly Tarkin’s was two houses closer to the Strand. This one was in even worse repair.”

  “You don’t say so,” he mused. “Sometime another great fire or wind may come and take all such ancient and decrepit buildings. London may indeed be the better for it.” He paused. “You might go back for another look about his place. There might be there some hint of where he might have gone.”

  “Back to Lichfield perhaps,” I suggested.

  “Possibly—though I doubt it. There was Lichfield in his voice, though a strong layer of London atop it. I would venture that he has been here years, rather than months. In any case, I shall write the Magistrate of Lichfield, whoever he be, and ask that Roundtree be held for us, should he make an appearance there. We shall see. There are more urgent matters before us.”

  “And what are they, sir?”

  “I should like to indite a letter to our new coroner, Mr. Thomas Trezavant. Perhaps you, Jeremy, would take it down for me.”

  Responding that I should be happy to do so, I shifted my chair closer to his desk and took from him the paper and quill which he produced from his drawer; the inkwell stood, as it always did, at my side of the desk, at a safe remove from the sweeping gestures he sometimes made. I dipped the quill and told him I was ready.

  Yet he did not make an immediate start as was his usual. He sat a long moment, his chin raised, apparently deep in thought. I
considered it likely that in this instance he had given no prior attention to the exact wording of the letter and was composing it in his mind ere he gave it forth. But no, I was wrong.

  “That fellow Roundtree,” said he, “I must say he does intrigue me.”

  “Oh? How is that?”

  “Well, he is actor enough to have deceived us both as to his true nature. I make no boast to say that I am not easily deceived. And bold! Good God, one would indeed have to be bold to steal a vase from the home of the Lord Chief Justice. He has a reputation for severity that must surely have reached Roundtree.”

  “Yet even he admitted there was no direct evidence against him. Perhaps one of the house staff took the vase, knowing that with carpenters in the house blame would naturally fall upon them.”

  “That would certainly seem a possibility,” said Sir John, “but much less likely considering Roundtree’s escape from you. Interesting that the Lord Chief Justice settled simply for the value of the vase.” Then, with a shrug, he ended his musing with an “Ah, well,” then launched into the letter: “To Mr. Thomas Trezavant, Coroner, City of Westminster. Dear Mr. Trezavant …”

  Having thus begun, he recapitulated the doubts regarding Lord Laningham’s death he had stated the evening before to Messrs. Donnelly, Goldsmith, and Humber, and briefly supported them as he had with questions and an argument or two. Sir John spoke in an easy cadence of phrases which made it easy for me, as his amanuensis, to follow close behind his dictation. His powers of summary were such that when he concluded, asking if an inquest might not be in order and arguing for an autopsy, I had near half the sheet of foolscap left unwritten upon.

  “Do you wish to add anything?” I asked.

  “Has something been left out?”

  “Nooo, but there is much space left.”

  “Then I shall fill it with my signature.”

  And he very nearly did. I put the quill in his hand, placed it upon the paper, and he did the rest, even adding a rare flourish beneath.