Jack, Knave and Fool

by Alexander, Bruce

“Yes, Mr. Baker, and I’ll do as you say.”

  A minute or two more and Constable Cowley had returned, shaking his head. “He ain’t nowhere about out there —and yes, I looked in the privy. He had but a low wall to climb to get from here. No telling where he’d be now.”

  “Jeremy’s got a couple of ideas about that. You go with him, and do as he says.”

  Constable Cowley looked at me and then at Mr. Baker. “Yes sir, I’ll do it just so.”

  And so we started for the door to Bow Street. Mr. Cowley grabbed his greatcoat and was pulling it on when Annie, of all people, came racing down the stairs.

  “Jeremy,” said she, “have you seen Clarissa about?”

  I looked at her rather stupidly. “Down here? Why, no. Is she not upstairs?”

  “No, and I’ve looked everywhere.”

  “She’s not up top in my room?”

  “I’ve looked everywhere, I tell you —even in the sitting room, the dining room, and the bedroom of Sir John and Lady F. I’ve looked in cupboards and wardrobes — everywhere. She’s nowhere up there.”

  My thoughts raced. Did Clarissa perchance know that her father was in detention down here? Could she have known her father would escape? Could she have aided him in some way? Had not her last conversation with me had the tone of farewell? Yes, I had remarked that a little afterward. Then, from somewhere deep in my memory, came Roundtree’s voice in my head, and the words that echoed there were these: “Some way or other, I’ll get her in five days.” That was what he had said when he waylaid me outside the chemist’s shop. I inferred that it was in five days that their ship sailed for the colonies, nor had he gainsaid me. Then, counting back, I realized that tomorrow might be counted as the fifth day —or might so by Roundtree. This meant that their ship would depart tomorrow — no doubt on the morning tide. They thought to board her tonight and sail away undetected on the morrow.

  All this came to me in less than a minute. Annie stared at me impatiently, reasonably expecting some response from me. When she was about to turn away, I at last managed a reply.

  “She will be with her father,” said I to her.

  “Well and good,” said Annie, having no notion of the circumstances. “You must find her father then, lor she is not yet well enough to go about on such a night as this.”

  Then did she start back up the stairs.

  “Come along, Mr. Cowley,” said I. “We now have a third possible place to search for the prisoner.”

  And with neither a question nor an argument he followed along behind me out the door to Bow Street. As we tramped along together, I considered the situation of father and daughter in greater detail. It was just possible that Clarissa had known her father was down below in the strong room. If she had been in the kitchen, and the door to the stairs was open, she might have heard his voice —but that seemed unlikely. Could she have crept downstairs merely out of curiosity and unexpectedly found her father staring out at her from behind the bars? Could they then have made their plans together? Also unlikely, for neither Mr. Fuller in the daytime nor Mr. Baker at night (both of them quite vigilant) would have allowed her to go walking about, exploring their domain; even less would they have allowed her to talk to a prisoner. And had any such event occurred, I should have heard about it from either one of them, or from Sir John. No, I thought it far more likely that father and daughter had acted independently; each knew the date and time of the ship’s departure; their passage had been paid in advance; each had confidence in the other to meet—but where?

  We had made it past Russell Street and now walked along Tavistock Street. Not far along, I realized that in my haste I had set too swift a pace for Constable Cowley. Though he was taller than me by a good many inches and had a longer stride, he now moved with such a pronounced limp that he was having great difficulty keeping up. He had not complained, yet his face — his tight mouth and the determined set of his jaw —made plain the strain upon his wounded leg.

  “Here, Mr. Cowley,” said I, slowing to a pace not much better than a crawl, “let us not go so quick. I’ve a need to think, and I find it difficult to do so at such speed as is natural to you.”

  “Oh … sorry, Jeremy, I’d no idea.”

  “Your legs are longer than mine.”

  “Aye, so they are, but one of them’s got a hole punched in it with a knife by that villain Slade. Quite throbbin’ it is now. I’m happy to move along slower.”

  What I had said to him was, in one sense, true enough. I did need to think a bit on where we might go first to look. Had it been Roundtree alone we sought, I should have thought it likely he would go to Bradbury’s pawnshop — or go there first, at least. Though it was locked, he might gain admittance by breaking a back window or forcing the door. He would know where the cash was put, since he had kept shop for Mrs. Bradbury. Indeed he might even have some idea where the trove of treasure taken from the late George Bradbury was hid. He would reason that he and Clarissa needed money, as much of it as could be found, if they were off to start a new life in Boston or Baltimore, or wherever their ship might put in.

  I stood upon the corner of Maiden Lane with Mr. Cowley, still considering this urgent matter. To the right lay Bedford Street and the pawnshop; to the left was Half-Moon Passage and that sordid warren of a court wherein father and daughter had lived for months in a single room.

  What did Clarissa know of the pawnshop? Simply that it was the place where her father went to hide from the law—-if indeed she knew that. It seemed to me most likely that they would expect to meet in the room. They would collect their belongings, and then perhaps he would take her to the pawnshop to rob it.

  “Tell me, Mr. Cowley,” said I, “is it still January?”

  “So it is,” said he. “Tomorrow’s the last day of the month. Rent’s due.”

  Then the room would still be theirs. They would know that. They would meet there.

  “This way,” said I, starting off toward Half-Moon Passage. “We shall go here first, then try another place on Bedford if our first visit yields naught.”

  And if our visit to the pawnshop should also prove fruitless? That was another question altogether, one that I put to myself as we two trudged on, past the stable and into that fearful stretch where the street narrowed into a tight passage which came out into the Strand. I’d not visited this stretch at night, and I was grateful to have an armed constable with me on this occasion. Two or three men lurked in a passageway—to no good purpose, I was sure — and ahead I saw the great hulking figure of one even larger than Mr. Cowley. Could Clarissa have come this way? I doubted it.

  If Roundtree was not to be found here, nor in the pawnshop, then I must find which ship sailed for America on the morning tide. Who could tell me that? And then a sudden inspiration: Mr. Humber would know. He, a broker at Lloyd’s Coffee House, had all such information in his head; none knew sea commerce better than he. I would wake him, if need be, and learn the name and wharf of their ship.

  Yet it would have to be in the company of a different constable, I feared, for Mr. Cowley fared quite poorly. Even at a slow pace, a snail’s pace it was, he limped along badly. I doubted at that moment that he could even make it down Bedford Street to visit the pawnshop. Yet we had at last arrived at the old court building which was our destination.

  “This is the place, Mr. Cowley.” I pointed us in at the entrance.

  “And glad I am for it. This leg of mine …”

  Indeed that leg of his. He hobbled on with me into the stinking courtyard, yet when we came to the stairway he hesitated, then came to a full stop.

  “Jeremy,” said he, “stairs give me particular pain. You go ahead, why don’t you, and I’ll follow quick as I can.”

  Why not, after all? It was not at all certain that the two of them were up there — nor even that I might discover Roundtree alone. And should I find him, I vowed to use persuasion, rather than try to overpower him.

  “Very good, then,” said I. “Follow if and when you can
. If the prisoner is present, and he flees, I shall chase him, and he will have to come this way. Have your pistol out, threaten to shoot, and if shoot you must, shoot to wound. We need him for a witness.”

  “I’ll do it just so,” promised Constable Cowley.

  With that, I left him leaning on the balustrade, his wounded left leg elevated upon the first stair step. Indeed, I thought, I would chase Roundtree, if necessary —if he did not first jump out the window. No, I would not allow that. Somehow I would station myself between him and that exit. He would not elude me again in such a way.

  Proceeding up the long hallway, I went softly as I was able. It would not do to have them hear approaching footsteps. Them? I hoped to heaven that if I found Roundtree, his daughter would not also be present; Clarissa would likely do all she could to impede her father’s apprehension.

  I stood before the door, which was slightly ajar. Light flickered in the few inches of space where it stood open. I held my breath, listening — and what did I hear but the sound of weeping, a girl’s light sobs, followed by footsteps. I wondered, was Clarissa perhaps pleading with her father to return to Bow Street and give up this mad plan of escape? I should have liked to think that of her.

  How to enter the room? Quietly, or should I rush in and get myself between Roundtree and the window? Then, of a sudden, did such considerations seem meaningless. I simply threw open the door and walked swiftly into the room —yet not deep into it, for what I encountered therein surprised and shocked me so that I was no more than a few paces inside before I came to an abrupt halt.

  What I perceived first by candlelight was Thomas Roundtree on the floor, dead or dying, a great stain of blood upon his plaid waistcoat. Clarissa knelt over his body, mourning him in tears; I was uncertain whether she had even noted my entrance. There was another in the room—there had to be, those footsteps —and I had a sense of who it must be. Yet it was not until I had caught movement out the corner of my left eye that I had any idea where he might be. I whirled then to face him and found a figure about five and a half feet away.

  Little more than that did I see in the dim light — except the blurred glint of something in the right hand—for I was leapt at, charged, before my feet were set proper on the floor. Yet I pushed away with my left foot and staggered awkwardly out of range as my assailant lurched past me. Though he tried to stop himself, he could not. Tripping over Roundtree s body, he fell in a tumble with Clarissa beneath him. She fought to free herself and screamed a great, loud, full-throated scream.

  At the same time, I reached behind my coat to the small of my back, where I kept my club —and grasped at nothing. I realized instantly that when I bathed and changed clothes I had left it behind. How could I, remembering Bunkins’s warning, have done something so stupid? Now I would have to fight him with no more than fists and feet.

  Yet I was not even to have that chance, for as I was about to leap upon him, he righted himself and grabbed at Clarissa and pulled her to him in a passionate though loveless embrace. His knife was at her throat. They were then on their knees. He pulled her to her feet as he himself rose with some difficulty. There, where the candles burned on the fireplace mantelpiece, I saw his face plain.

  Jackie Carver it was, though from the moment I had spied Roundtree on the floor I knew it could be no other.

  “Make a move on me, chum,” said he, “and I’ll cut her throat.”

  I said nothing, merely backed away, giving him room, trying to think how I might detain him. Clarissa’s large eyes grew larger with fear — and fury.

  “Ever see anyone get his throat cut?” he taunted. “You get a gush of blood at the wound, but it comes out their mouth, too, like they’re drowning in it. You never seen such a lot of blood.”

  “I believe you’d do it, right enough,” said I to him. “You need not convince me. Only one as stupid as you would do such a thing.”

  “I ain’t stupid,” he snarled. “I kilt the only witness against me.”

  “And now you have two more witnesses to your killing of the first.”

  He frowned at that, as if he had not previously considered it. The fellow was truly not very bright.

  “I ain’t worried about that just now. You I’ll get some night when you’re out on the Beak’s business. Her I might not have to crap at all —give her a bit of the ol’ lovey-dovey, turn her out proper, and make her one of my bawds — just like I done with that little blowen Mariah. There’s them like a bawd young as this one here.”

  There were voices in the hall and footsteps. Clarissa’s scream had aroused her neighbors.

  “Now, what I want you to do is move away slow while me and her go to the door.”

  I did as he bade me, leaving a path open to him. He took it, dragging the girl along with him. I noted that he moved with a pronounced limp.

  “You’ll not get far on that leg,” said I, echoing Mr. Perkins’s prediction.

  The two stood in the doorway now. His back was to the hallway.

  “I owe you for that,” said he. “Oh, and I’ll pay up. Count upon it, chum. I ain’t been able to straighten that leg proper since you whacked me on it. Oh, but I’ll get you. I’ll get you some night for fair.”

  “Why not get me now?” said I, taking two swift steps toward him.

  “Easy, easy,” said he, grasping Clarissa tighter, putting the point of his knife to her just under her ear so that he drew blood. “Oooh, I seem to have made a tiny hole in er. Just think how she’d bleed if I cut her proper.”

  I made every effort to disguise my surprise and relief when I saw Constable Cowley appear in the doorway behind him, his pistol raised so I might see it —and yet I failed.

  “What’re you smilin’ at?”

  “I was just thinking how you’ll dance when the crap merchant hauls you up high.”

  To what purpose I know not, but at that point Clarissa shouted: “Will you two stop jawing and do something?”

  At that, Carver, quite nonplussed by her remark, turned his head and looked down at her in surprise.

  That must have given Mr. Cowley the more satisfactory angle he sought, for he then put his pistol to the back of Carver’s head and pulled the trigger.

  Simultaneous with the loud, dull report of the pistol, I saw Jackie Carver’s face—the top half of it, specifically — quite disintegrate before my eyes. Flesh, bits of skull and brain, were scattered across the room. The sudden eruption of blood stained Clarissa’s cape and frock, yet she did not scream as her former captor fell lifeless to the floor. She did no more than give a yelp of surprise and take but a moment to gape at the body at her feet; then did she begin quite mercilessly to belabor it with kicks, laughing a bit hysterically as she did.

  Once I had calmed her, I removed Clarissa to the hall and left her in the care of Bessie, the neighbor who had nursed her. Then did I make certain there was no life left in Roundtree—there was none —and pulled Carver’s body deeper into the room; I shut the door upon them both. Then did I attend to Mr. Cowley. He leaned against the wall of the hallway, his weight off his wounded leg. I saw that a dark stain had spread there on his breeches just above his knee. Something had to be done for him.

  “How do you fare?” I asked him.

  “Not good. I opened the wound coming up quick as I could when I heard the girl scream.”

  “Can you make it to the Strand? We can get a hackney there. We must get you to Bow Street.” I can try.

  “You did well to shoot him. He would have killed the girl soon as he got near.

  “I did well to shoot him because he’s the bastard punched this hole in my leg.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That’s Jonah Slade lying on the floor in there. I reco’nized him by his voice. I still remembers how he laughed and jeered at me as I tried to pursue him with his knife in my leg.”

  Why not? Jonah Slade? John Cutter? Jackie Carver? They were likely all false names. He had probably had his partners in crime give it out he had gone of
f to Ireland while he hid out at the pawnshop with Mrs. Bradbury.

  “Well and good,” said I. “He’s best dead whatever his name.”

  And so I assembled us for the journey back to Bow Street. Bessie fetched from the room the roll of clothing that Clarissa had put together for her voyage to the colonies, and she added one of her own frocks to the bundle. And as she did that, I explained sternly to Clarissa what must be done. She nodded and —rare for her —said not a word. We set out, supporting Mr. Cowley between us, I on his right side, giving greater help to the wounded leg which he could put little weight upon. For the most part, he hopped along down the hallway. The stairs were a problem, yet somehow we managed. In Half-Moon Passage that great, threatening figure materialized of a sudden from the darkness—a dark man who was near the size of Constable Bailey but built heavier.

  To Clarissa I said: “Keep going. Pay him no mind.”

  And, grabbing the loaded pistol from Mr. Cowley’s holster, I pointed at him who blocked our path.

  “Put it from your mind, friend,” said I.

  “Pass, brother — and a good evenin’ to you.”

  Then into the Strand, where a line of hackneys waited before that notorious brothel where the seamen from the H.M.S. Adventure had rioted a year or two before.

  I pointed to the nearest. Mr. Cowley hopped and hobbled to it between us. I demanded that the driver take us to Number 4 Bow Street.

  “I can’t,” said he. “It ain’t my turn in line. Go up to the head. Besides, how do I know you can pay, a lad like you?”

  “A lad I may be, but I am a lad with a pistol, and if you do not come down now and help us get this wounded constable inside, and then take us, I shall shoot one of your horses dead.”

  I then brandished the pistol, that he might take me in earnest, and reluctantly he climbed down and gave assistance.

  Thus went we to Bow Street, Clarissa and I sitting on facing seats and Mr. Cowley lying on the floor between us.

  At one point on our short journey, she leaned forward and, peering closely at me, asked: “Would you truly have shot the horse?”