Jack, Knave and Fool

by Alexander, Bruce

  In Which Permission

  Is Granted and an

  Autopsy Is Done

  We were out tramping the streets once again. Bunkins might have been content to pass an hour or more drinking grog in that primitive setting —he liked far too well spending his time so—yet I had reminded him that he must soon return for his afternoon lessons with Mr. Burnham. With a sigh, he had then agreed he must leave. He, warmed by the grog, and I, by the coffee, held out better against the chill than we had on our way to Bedford Street. He was, in any case, capable of more than cursing the cold. We prepared our course of action.

  Though he argued that all we had at that moment were suspicions, we agreed that our suspicions were strong. Sir John, I declared, would know just what must be done to turn suspicion to proper evidence. Could he say with certainty that the head in the jar once sat atop the body of George Bradbury? No, he could not —but Bradbury’s absence from his shop was indeed cause tor question. Were we certain that Jackie Carver had dispatched him? No, we were not—yet both Bunkins and I thought him capable of it, specially if it be done in any way for gain. Then did a terrible thought come to me.

  “Jimmie B.,” said I, “you must in no wise let a word escape to Sir John of my battle with Carver.”

  “But why not?” said he. “You beat him fair and square —better than fair, for he had a knife and you had only the club given you by Mr. Perkins.”

  “True enough, yet to hear that of me might prejudice him against the entire matter. He might think that I bore animosity against Carver still.”

  “Well, you do, don’t you?”

  “Not sufficient to name him a murderer.”

  “He would ve done murder to you that partic’lar night. I know it, and you know it, too. And all he’d have got from it was a coat. Who can say what he’s after this time?”

  “Even so, you must leave me out of it. If you were to tell the whole story, Mr. Perkins would suffer, as well.”

  “What am I supposed to say, then?”

  “Say only that you knew his evil reputation from your own days beyond the law. Tell Sir John that he often threatened with his knife and once did so to you. That much is the truth, is it not?”

  “It is, right enough.”

  “Then tell him that.”

  We had by then reached the corner of Bedford and Chandos Streets, which was our usual parting place. We had stopped, each facing the other, glancing round us at the unusually sparse crowd at this junction, no doubt depleted somewhat by the fierce cold. Bunkins hopped on one foot and then the other, his chin buried deep in his muffler. Though he said nothing, it seemed certain that there was something he wished to address. At last he spoke.

  “Listen, chum Jeremy, like I said when we started out, I ain’t real pleased to go back there where the Beak keeps his office. The gaoler don’t like me, and I don’t like him. Seems to me he’d like to pop me in his strong room just for a joke.” He paused a moment, then rushed on: “You couldn’t fix it so Sir John could come over and visit Mr. Bilbo, could you? Then I could take him aside before he goes and tell him all about this Bradbury business.”

  “I don’t see how I could do that, Jimmie B. He has duties at court.”

  “I didn’t really think that would work. Well, maybe you ought to tell him, ‘stead of me.”

  “He’d want you there to ask questions of you. I’m sure of that.”

  “I s’pose he would.”

  Then did a thought occur to me: “If you were to come between half past three and half past four, that’s when Mr. Fuller usually takes the prisoners off to the Fleet. There’s customarily nobody about except Sir John and Mr. Marsden. But I’ll be there to take you right to the Beak, just in case Mr. Fuller happens to be about.” I forced a smile. “Done?”

  Reluctantly, he bobbed his chin in the muffler. “Done,” said he.

  Then, with not a word more, he turned and hurried off in the direction of the Strand, which would take him on his route home.

  On my return to Number 4 Bow Street I was seized upon by Annie, who told me that the potatoes she had saved for the evening dinner had gone rotten on her. She had meat enough, but it might be good to have a few more carrots and turnips for next day’s stew. Since I was bound by Lady Fielding’s contract with her to do all the buying that need be done, I went off dutifully to Covent Garden to purchase all that she required. Annie, of course, remained safe and snug in the kitchen, tending to her studies.

  It was something of a problem, of course, keeping a proper store of vegetables in store in the winter. And it was even more of a problem buying wisely, for the sellers would do what they could to pass frozen for fresh to the unwitting purchaser. I had become wise in their ways and went from stall to stall, testing and squeezing beneath the sailcloth blankets they had tossed over their wares. As a result, my visit to the Garden took far longer than usual.

  I found, looking at the clock that ticked upon the wall opposite the strong room, that near an hour had elapsed since my departure. Mr. Fuller was then pulling on his greatcoat, making ready to conduct two prisoners off to the Fleet.

  “Cold out there, ain’t it, Jeremy?” he inquired.

  “A good deal colder than this morning —colder and colder by the minute, it seems.”

  “That’s as I s posed. I thought to get these two cods off to their new home before it gets much worse.”

  Then did I hear Sir John’s deep rumble from nearby: “Oh, Jeremy, come here, lad, if you will.”

  He was, as I suspected, in Mr. Marsden’s alcove. Magistrate and clerk had evidently been in conference for some time, for both were seated in relaxed postures. Mr. Marsden puffed upon his pipe. I eased down the canvas bag full of vegetables which had grown heavy in my hand.

  “Yes sir,” said I. Then adding, to account for my absence: “I was off buying in the Garden.”

  “Admirable,” said he, “for we must needs eat. I have news in which I believe you will take some interest.”

  “Oh? And what is that?”

  “Mr. Trezavant was as good as his word. His response to that great packet of letters you delivered him this morning came just before I began my court session. Mr. Marsden read it me, and I’m happy to say he has given permission to perform an autopsy on Lady Laningham. The corpus is now in transit to Mr. Donnelly’s surgery.”

  “But that is wonderful news, Sir John!”

  ‘Good news, certainly. To call it wonderful may be a bit much. Remember, Jeremy, one step at a time.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “The footman who delivered the letter to me inquired the address of Mr. Donnelly. I’d no idea of it. Luckily, Mr. Marsden had it filed away. Otherwise, we should have had to ask him to leave it for you to deliver. Where were you, by the bye? We sought you upstairs, but Annie said you’d gone out.

  “With Jimmie Bunkins, sir. He has a matter of importance he would like to discuss with you.”

  “Is he in trouble?” asked Sir John.

  Just as I opened my mouth to assure him otherwise, the voice of Mr. Fuller bleated forth from around the corner. “You can be sure of it! Once a thief, always a thief!”

  “Careful there, Mr. Fuller. That may be traditional wisdom,” said Sir John, “but it lacks something in charity.”

  “As you say, Sir John.” He grumbled it like a sullen old man.

  “Now, I must ask you again, Jeremy, hoping for no interruption this time, is he in trouble?”

  “No sir, quite the contrary. He has been investigating a matter and wishes to put his suspicions before you.”

  “They are suspicions only? What matter does he investigate?”

  “The matter is murder.”

  “Ah, well, murder, is it? Even suspicions of murder are of interest to me.”

  “He will visit you this afternoon.”

  “I await his report with interest.”

  “I’ll bring him to your chambers soon as ever he comes.”

  “Fine, if that is where I be. Oh,
but one thing more, Jeremy. A fellow from the post letter office dropped by to say there was a letter for me arrived from Lichfield, no doubt something to do with your fellow Roundtree. He, by the bye, has not yet had the grace to take advantage of Kate’s kind offer. He has not surrendered himself after — how many days?”

  “It’s been a week, Sir John,” said I, mumbling in embarrassment.

  “Why the fellow from the post did not simply drop it off, I don’t quite understand. He said he had all manner of letters and such for Mr. Garrick at the Drury Lane. Couldn’t be bothered with mine. You see how little the law is respected in London, lad? In any case, do go off and get it for me, will you? It may bear information that will help you find the fellow at last.”

  Thus it was that after I had delivered my sack of potatoes, carrots, and turnips to Annie on the floor above, I set off in haste for the post letter office, aware that if I did not hurry, I might not be able to keep my promise to Bunkins.

  As it happened, I did not. Delayed as I was by an incompetent clerk (no doubt a paid appointment, as are so many today), I did not return until nigh on four o’clock. Bunkins had arrived only a few minutes before me and had been forced to endure Mr. Fuller’s glare of contempt while Mr. Marsden led the way to Sir John’s chambers. Had he been alone, he might have waited for me, yet as it happened, he was not. Mr. Burnham had accompanied him, and was just seating himself beside Bunkins and opposite Sir John as I entered the room.

  This, as I later learned from Bunkins, is how he became involved in the matter:

  Bunkins was late for his afternoon lessons. Though it had been a near matter a number of times before, he had never previously violated the hour and minute set by Mr. Burnham. This was because, first of all, Mr. Burnham was quite insistent that instruction begin precisely at the appointed hour; he declared it to be “part and parcel of the process of education.” Secondly, Bunk-ins respected the times set by Mr. Burnham because he respected Mr. Burnham; he had learned well from him, while every other tutor he had had made him feel like some dull-headed dolt. Jimmie Bunkins wished, in short, to please him, yet he had indeed been late, and not only that, he had also come back with spirits on his breath. Mr. Burnham demanded an explanation, else he would put the entire matter before Mr. Bilbo.

  Having no choice, Bunkins told him the entire story, from our first glimpse of the human head in St. Andrew’s Churchyard to his activities with me that very day. All that was left out, I was gratified to hear, was my own earlier experience with Jackie Carver —Bunkins kept my secret. Mr. Burnham was fascinated. He asked, rather than demanded, to go along with his pupil to Number 4 Bow Street, for he was eager to know just how Sir John Fielding might deal with this information. Under the circumstances, Bunkins felt he could not but give his assent. And so, after hurrying through the matter for study that afternoon, the two set off together and arrived just before me.

  Once I had identified myself to Sir John, I, too, took a place before him and listened as my chum began to spin his tale. He told it well. No doubt having recited it once to Mr. Burnham had given him the opportunity to edit and shape it somewhat. However, his prime listener did put to him some questions along the way. The first few of them came not long after Bunkins had begun. He had told of our journey to St. Andrew’s Churchyard to view the head which had been there stuck on a pole. At this point Sir John raised his hand to halt the narrative.

  “Pardon me for interrupting,” said he, “but this gruesome object, you say, had attracted quite a crowd. I heard of the matter, of course, and as I understood it, Mr. Saunders Welch, the magistrate, had offered a reward to him who might identify the … well, the owner of the head. Is that correct, Bunkins?”

  “It is, sir, yes. That’s why all of them was out there lookin’ at it.”

  “And was it not found in the Fleet sewer, near Holbourn Bridge?”

  “That’s as I heard it, sir.”

  “Then should you not be telling your story to Mr. Welch? He has claimed a good deal of outer London as his territory, more or less. And since I believe it not the business of magistrates to compete, I respect that claim. Now both Holbourn and St. Andrews fall roughly on his side of the line — if indeed there be a line. Thus I repeat, should he not be told what you are telling me?”

  Yet Bunkins knew well enough already what Sir John had explained — knew it from his days of thieving — and he had a notion of just how jurisdictional interests might, in some matters, overlap.

  “I understand, Sir John, but I think you should hear me out, for there’s part of this comes right close here to Bow Street.”

  “Then,” said the Magistrate of the Bow Street Court, “by all means continue.”

  And indeed that is what Bunkins did, telling of his visit to Mr. Donnelly’s surgery, that he might have another look at the head; and of how, by means of the surgeon’s advice regarding the depredations of polluted water and putrefaction upon the object, he managed to make out the features of one who might once have been George Bradbury, the owner of a pawnshop in Bedford Street. And there did Sir John stop him again.

  “Bedford Street, you say?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “That is right close to home indeed. How well did you know this man Bradbury? Surely you are not in the habit of carrying off objects from Mr. Bilbo’s residence and pawning them?”

  In spite of the seriousness of the matter, Bunkins laughed quite heartily at the notion. Yet once he had got himself in control, he responded soberly: “Oh no, sir. I am as well provided for as ever a fellow could be. And besides, that would be thieving, and I have left all that behind me. But it was during my days on the scamp — I mean, when I was a thief—that I saw George Bradbury often. May God forgive me for snitchin’ if the man still lives, but the truth of it is I knew him as a fence for objects I had stole. Now, I gave all that up when Mr. Bilbo took me in, and that’s going on three years past, so I had not seen him all that time except for once I chanced to spy him in the street not so long ago.

  “Might you be more exact about when it was you saw him?”

  “I’d put it about a month past, sir, p’rhaps a few days more.”

  “You said (/the man still lives but a moment ago. I infer from that that your identification of the bodiless head was less than absolute and positive.”

  “No sir, I can’t say for sure certain it was old man Bradbury bobbin’ around in that jar. That’s why Jeremy and me went off from the doctor’s to Bradbury’s shop in Bedford Street.”

  “Oh you did, did you? Both of you? Well, I should like to hear about that.”

  Sir John’s wish was no sooner expressed than it was granted. Bunkins told colorfully of our visit to the pawnshop —a bit too colorfully, it seemed to me. It would have sufficed to say that I accompanied him into the place, but to say, as he did, that I had “come in all shifty and grimy, lookin’ the very picture of a village hustler” seemed to me more than was called for. In fact, it drew laughter from the magistrate.

  “Grimy, is it? Is this true, Jeremy? I have been assured by Kate that you always present a good appearance.” (Much mock concern in this.)

  In my defense I offered the truth. “I had just done cleaning the kitchen fireplace, Sir John. Bunkins helped. He was none too clean himself.”

  “Well and good. Continue, Mr. Bunkins.”

  That he did, telling first of Mrs. Bradbury’s hasty accounting for her husband’s absence (“She seemed to be making it up as she went along”), and then of her keen interest in the loot from the putative burglary which we were to cart in some future midnight.

  “Was it made clear to her that these would be stolen goods?” asked Sir John.

  “Oh, it was, for sure certain.”

  “Worth noting,” said he. “Proceed.”

  “Well, sir, this woman who says she’s Mrs. Bradbury — he weren’t married when I knew him before — she’s just a small thing, she is. Why, she didn’t near fill out the dress she was wearin’. I didn’t see how
such a woman as her could kill a man and cut off his head, and do God only knows what else with the rest of him. She’d need help from a man, now wouldn’t she?”

  “In the ordinary course of things, one would expect that, yes.”

  “Exactly what I was thinkin’ at the time,” Bunkins declared. “That’s why I decided to set up across from Bradbury’s pawnshop at odd hours of the day and see who came by — and stayed. And that is what I done.”

  “And you picked out a candidate?”

  “I did —one who is known hereabouts as Jackie Carver. I think it ain’t his real name exactly, more of a name he made up for himself like a threat, for he is right handy with a knife. He’s known for it around the Garden.”

  “And has he killed before?”

  “There’s talk. And he’s always threatenin’ with his knife. He threatened me once over a ring he took from me and sent me runnin’ for my life.”

  “This would have been some time past?”

  “Yes sir, when I was a thief.”

  “Well, if he be also a thief,” said Sir John, “then he would naturally seek out a fence for his stolen goods. This alone would not make him a murderer.”

  “No sir, true enough, but this one is not just a thief but a pimp, as well, and he don’t just visit the shop, he goes to stay —hours at a time —so I discovered.”

  “You’re suggesting, Mr. Bunkins, that this fellow Carver, if that be his name, has some hold over this woman, this Mrs. Bradbury?”

  “She might be one of his old molls.”

  “She might indeed. I see your point.” Sir John remained silent for a good long moment as he considered what he had heard. When he spoke again, it came in the nature of a summing up: “I admire the work you have done in this, Jimmie Bunkins. When Jeremy told me that you wished to present suspicions of murder, I did not, in all truth, expect much. Yet what you’ve given me here are very thoroughly investigated suspicions. I like it especially that you refuse to claim positive identification of the head. All your subsequent actions proceeded quite logically from that, and I respect what you offer as logical suspicions.” Again he paused.