Jack, Knave and Fool

by Alexander, Bruce

  “I don’t know,” said I in all honesty.

  Upon our arrival, I sent her inside to summon Constable Baker for his help in bringing Mr. Cowley inside. Together we eased him out, and with Clarissa opening doors before us, we managed to get him inside and into the chair nearest the entrance; as it happened, it rested opposite the strong room; Mrs. Bradbury was up from her corner and at the bars in a trice, determined to hear all. Well, thought I, let her.

  Sir John was summoned by Mr. Baker, and came hurrying back to us.

  “You are safe, both of you?” he asked. “But I understand Cowley is unwell?”

  “His wound has opened.”

  “At this late date? Someone feel his forehead.”

  Sir John himself groped toward his face, but Mr. Baker slapped a sure hand upon Cowley’s brow.

  “He’s burnin’ with fever, he is.”

  “How long have you been feverish, Mr. Cowley?”

  “A few days, sir.”

  “Then why did you — ” Sir John halted. “Wait! Who is here with us? I sense another present.”

  “It is I, Clarissa Roundtree,” said she, in a voice most subdued.

  “Well,” said he, “I understood from Annie that you had fled from us.”

  I had prepared my lie in advance. “No, Sir John, that was Annie’s mistake, as it was mine. Clarissa waited for us to join her. She informed us of where we might find her father. It was her intention to persuade him to return to bear witness and confess. She led us to him.”

  “Is this true, Mr. Cowley?”

  “It was her scream led me up there.” He said it weakly; quite near a faint he was.

  “And why did you scream, young lady?”

  “Because, sir, I found my poor father dead,” said she.

  Sir John seemed about to offer her a word or two of condolence when, of a sudden, a wild peal of laughter burst forth from behind us. It issued from Mrs. Bradbury, who had hung upon the bars of the strong room, listening close to every word spoken. Clarissa rushed to her and attempted to pummel that harpy through the bars. Yet the evil woman stepped back, smirking, and retired to her corner of the cell. Mr. Baker informed Sir John of what had just happened, and Sir John ordered Clarissa upstairs. She complied without a word of protest. The rest of our discussion was conducted in whispers.

  I told of how Jackie Carver, to call him by but one of his names, had threatened Clarissa’s life with a knife at her throat; and that Mr. Cowley had come up behind him quite undetected and put a bullet through his brain. Sir John could bare disguise his consternation at the news.

  “My last witness,” he whispered.

  Then did the door to Bow Street fly open, admitting a jubilant Mr. Donnelly.

  “I saved him, by God!” he crowed. “I believe I have brought him through.”

  He fair did a jig to us, so happy and proud was he.

  “You refer, of course, to Lord Laningham,” said Sir John.

  “I do, yes, and it was on the advice of an old professor on the medical faculty in Vienna. He wrote in answer to a letter I wrote some time back. ‘Geben Sie dem Ndchdten Milch, dovieler trinken kann.’”

  “Come, come, Mr. Donnelly, you know I have no German,” said Sir John.

  “Milk! Milk! No more than that. I kept pouring it down Laningham, and he has begun to rally. I believe he will pull through.”

  “Then, as I told you, sir, I will be suspicious. But that is neither here nor there for the moment, for we have another patient for you.”

  Mr. Donnelly looked down at Cowley, truly surprised. “What is the trouble here?”

  “That knife wound opened up, sir,” said he, pointing down at the stain on his breeches.

  “At this late date? Cut away his breeches. Let me look at it.”

  Mr. Baker produced a knife and began ripping away at the knee of Cowley’s breeches. When it was pulled back, a dirty bandage was exposed.

  A look of anger appeared upon the surgeon’s face. “Mr. Cowley,” said he, “this looks like the bandage I put upon the wound these many days past. I recognize the knot with which I tied it. Did you not change it every other day as I instructed? Did you not apply alcohol to it from the bottle I gave you?”

  “Well …” said Mr. Cowley, “my wife was afeared to touch it, and I thought ‘twould heal of itself. It was not so great a wound, after all.”

  “I trusted you to have the good sense to follow my instructions.” Mr. Donnelly clapped a professional hand upon his forehead. “You’ve a high fever from it. Cut away the bandage.”

  Again Mr. Baker did has he was told, and then, at the surgeon’s direction, ripped off the bandage. Mr. Cowley let out a howl of pain —and I could well understand why. The wound, though not large, had festered and swollen in a nasty way. Pink pus oozed from it, encrusting an area at least three inches round it. It smelled most foully.

  “Take him out to the hackney in front, and send word to his wife in the morning that he will not be coming home to her until he is well.”

  “Is there a hackney in front?” I asked.

  “Yes, the driver is yelling to be paid. Said he would not press his demand for fear his horse might be shot. Can you imagine such a thing?”

  When at last, having eaten my dinner, I prepared myself to sleep, I was fortunate enough to be given back my own bed. When Lady Fielding heard what Clarissa had experienced in that bare, shabby room in Half-Moon Passage, she pronounced the girl no longer infectious and sufficiently well to share Annie’s bed with her. The three of us —Clarissa, Annie, and myself— had by then put our heads together and revised the circumstances of our guest’s unexplained absence. When asked again, as I was sure we would be, we would at least all tell the same story.

  You may well ask, reader, why I had in the first place lied to Sir John. It was no impromptu fib: I had given consideration to it on the journey to Bow Street in the hackney coach. It seemed to me then, as it seems to me today as I write this, that had Sir John known that she had fled intending to sail with her father to the colonies (as she later admitted to me), then he would have sent her posthaste back to Lichfield and the parish poorhouse. To put it simply, I thought she deserved better than that. And so, though a liar, I felt justified in my lie, and I slept well in spite of it.

  Next morning early, I was sent off on the queerest errand I had ever been sent on by the magistrate. It included a visit to the Bilbo residence to learn the exact location of the destination I sought. It continued with a visit to the worst, the smelliest, the most squalid hovel in all London, I’m sure, where I made a purchase of—well, let us say, some animals. It concluded with the delivery of said animals to Sir John in his chambers. He then bade me go to Mr. Donnelly’s surgery and invite him to come to Bow Street at his earliest convenience. Mr. Donnelly agreed, saying that Cowley had just fallen asleep after a bad night and that he, the physician, would soon be leaving for the Laningham residence and would stop off on his way.

  He arrived at Bow Street only a few minutes after my return. Sir John had only just had time to outline his plan to me; I thought it bizarre in the extreme, yet sensible and -worthy. Mr. Donnelly knew nothing of it at all as he seated himself. I remained standing, for I, as I knew, was to take an active part in what Sir John was pleased to call his “experiment.”

  “Now,” said the magistrate, “you have said that there is no proper test for the presence of arsenic.”

  “That is what I have learned —no chemical test known, and I trust him who told me.”

  “Well and good,” said Sir John. “I propose now to make an experiment which, though not a proper chemical test, should nevertheless be convincing. As you know, sir, when Lord Laningham fell stricken after drinking from a bottle of wine, I suspected and suggested to you that he might have taken an ordinary emetic to cause the vomiting and have shammed all the rest. I told you that if he recovered I would be suspicious.”

  “And I told you,” put in Mr. Donnelly, “that if he recovered it would be due
to my skill as a physician, for I had by then received the advice of my old professor and meant to put it to practice.”

  “I quite understand. But because I had some notion of this little experiment, I asked Jeremy here to seize the bottle of claret from which Lord Laningham drank and take it here as evidence. Now, Jeremy, has the bottle been tampered with, or added to, in any way?”

  “No sir,” said I, “it has been under lock and key in Mr. Marsden’s evidence box.”

  “And what have you done with it to prepare for the experiment?”

  “I poured a good bit of its contents into this bowl, which contains chunks of bread from our kitchen. The bread is well soaked in wine now.”

  “Just one more question: Did you first shake the bottle of claret?”

  “Yes sir, just as I had seen Lord Laningham do before he poured and drank his second glass.”

  “There, you see, Mr. Donnelly, it’s all been prepared just so. Do you accept that?”

  “Yes, certainly, of course I do.”

  “Then, Jeremy, take the cover from the cage.”

  I did as he directed, revealing the three good-sized rats I had purchased from the ratcatcher who had so efficiently ratted Mr. Bilbo’s kitchen. So long as they were in the dark, they had lain dormant. Now, with the light upon them, they were stirred to activity. It took but a moment until they seemed in an absolute frenzy. Mr. Donnelly, at first startled by their sudden appearance, leaned forward and studied them, quite fascinated.

  “Now, Jeremy, drop the bits of bread into the cage —but I caution you, be careful. I would not have you bit by one of those filthy creatures.”

  I was careful as could be. I dropped the claret-soaked bread through the top of the cage. Each morsel fell with a wet plop to the bottom, so heavy was it with wine. The liquid spread. The rats lapped at it and tore at the bread. I continued to drop food to them until the bowl was empty, then I poured the residue of the liquid into the cage, where it splattered and ran.

  “They have it all now, Sir John,” said I.

  “Then,” said he, leaning back in his chair, “we have naught to do but sit back and wait for the result.”

  It did not take long for the ugly long-tailed, furry things to finish the bread and lick the floor of their cage dry. That I also reported.

  “It should not take long,” said Sir John. “You see the sense of this, do you not, Mr. Donnelly? If the rats are made sick merely, then the bottle of claret contains an emetic. If, however, they become sick and die, arsenic being the commonest rat poison, then I shall concede that arsenic is what the bottle contains, and I shall laud your healing powers to the very heavens.”

  By that time, the three creatures roamed their cage restlessly hoping in vain to find some morsel or drop that had earlier escaped their notice. Then, one after another, they began to stagger, fell down upon their bellies, and began to regurgitate the contents of their stomachs. All a purplish red it was, exactly the color of the wine and wine-soaked bread on which they had feasted only minutes before. Indeed they vomited so copiously that the bottom of the cage was soon awash in their foul puke. I informed Sir John of this development.

  He nodded, a patient smile upon his face. “They should be sick for a time, in great discomfort no doubt from the emetic, but as I predicted, they will recover. “

  Mr. Donnelly said nothing. He simply leaned forward and stared in fascination, waiting.

  Then one of the rats, the smallest of the three, rolled over, his tiny legs in the air, went rigid, and died.

  “Sir,” said I, “one of the rats has died.”

  ” What? Are you sure? He might revive.”

  “Oh, I think not, Sir John,” said Mr. Donnelly, “for there goes another.”

  It was so. And then the third. All three adopted the same unnatural posture in death —upside down and quite stiff.

  “I’m afraid, sir,” said Mr. Donnelly, “thatyou must begin now to praise my skill as a physician.”

  “Why, that I have always done, as you must know. But truly, sir, I am amazed, for that knave Paltrow, who has assumed the Laningham title, seemed to have arranged it all. He specified the bottle from which he drank. It was waiting for him to drink during the musical entertainment. I know this from the butler. Paltrow shook the bottle in a most suspicious way, according to Jeremy, who saw all. And God knows the fellow had motive enough for murder.”

  “Well, then, perhaps the butler did it —heaped in the arsenic before serving the bottle.”

  “Perhaps, yet I trust him far better than I do Paltrow.”

  “Or, since the bottle was waiting to be drunk, no doubt it had been uncorked, and any one of the household staff might have had access to it.”

  Sir John said nothing. He simply sat, shaking his head slowly.

  “Well, if you will now excuse me,” said Mr. Donnelly, rising from his chair, “I must attend him whose life I saved last night.”

  “Yes, yes, of course,” said Sir John. “Forgive me for wasting your time, sir.”

  “By no means was it time wasted. I concede that the effect of arsenic could have been counterfeited with an emetic. Now we know that it was not. Goodbye then, Sir John, Jeremy.”

  He picked up his bag and started for the door. Yet then did the magistrate detain him with a last query.

  “Mr. Donnelly, I cannot let you leave without inquiring after Mr. Cowley’s condition.”

  “Between us three,” said the physician, “it is not good. I’ve got all the pus from it I could and washed it down with alcohol. Now I have on it a poultice of fungus and leaves which I was given by an Indian medico, one of the few whom I respected.” He sighed. “The infection has entered Cowley’s body. I hope I can at least save his leg.”

  “Pray God you can.”

  With that, he departed, leaving us two to share a glum silence.

  “Well, Jeremy,” said Sir John, “it would seem that we must now take seriously the tale we were told about him who had sworn vengeance upon the entire Laningham line.”

  “Yes sir,” said I. Then, after a bit: “Shall I take the rats and perhaps bury them in the yard?”

  “Not immediately. I’m hoping yet that they will revive.”

  TWELVE

  In Which Lord

  Laningham Receives an

  Unexpected Visitor

  A day passed. As news came that Lord Laningham was swiftly recovering, Mr. Cowley’s condition steadily worsened. Whereas Mr. Donnelly had previously said he hoped he might save the constable’s leg, he now said he hoped merely to save his life. The leg had gone gangrenous; it would have to be amputated. Mr. Bailey and Mr. Brede, both of whom had assisted in such horrendous procedures on the battlefield, volunteered to assist the surgeon. It was to take place at night, that the constable’s screams, if and when they came, would not be heard by many. Two bottles of gin were purchased in hopes that they might not come at all. Mr. Cowley began drinking in the late afternoon. I heard later that by the time the operation was begun he was quite insensate.

  And indeed I heard little more than that. When Mr. Bailey and Mr. Brede returned at about eleven, exhausted and blood-spattered, they informed Sir John that all had gone well in that there were no unexpected complications. Mr. Brede, who was by nature quite taciturn, was moved to speak in praise of Mr. Donnelly.

  “He learned his craft well in the Navy, sir,” said he. “I never seen nor heard of it done better.”

  “Should I ever be needful in the same way, which God forbid,” said Benjamin Bailey, “I pray God it’s Mr. Donnelly does the job.”

  “Yet an ugly business at best,” said Sir John.

  “Aye, sir. But he gives young Cowley a good chance for recovery.”

  “Thank God for it. Go now, both of you. Your return to duty on this night will be a matter of your own choice.”

  With that they took their leave of us.

  “And so,” said Sir John, rising from his seat at the kitchen table where he had taken their report, �
�the awful thing is done.”

  “Yes sir.” Then did I come forth impulsively with a thought which had greatly troubled me: “I feel somewhat at fault in this, Sir John.”

  “Oh? How can that be?”

  “Had I not taken Mr. Cowley with me in the search for Roundtree, his wound might not have opened. And he — “

  “If it had not,” he interrupted me, “the poison from it might have taken an even firmer hold in his body and killed him outright. We heard the message passed on to us by Constable Bailey: Mr. Donnelly gives Cowley a good chance for recovery.”

  “Yes, but recovery with only one leg to stand on? What can he do? What will become of him —and his young wife?”

  “That, Jeremy, is a question to which I have given much thought and which I intend to address in a letter I shall dictate to you tomorrow morning early. But now, let us to our beds — for we both of us have gone short on sleep of late.”

  The letter to which Sir John referred was directed in his chambers to William Murray, the Lord Chief Justice. It plead in well-reasoned terms that a pension be bestowed upon Constable Cowley of no less than three-quarters of his pay as an active member of the Bow Street Runners until such time as he could find employment or earn by his own enterprise an amount comparable to his monthly salary. He made the point that even though the amputation was necessitated some time after the wound was inflicted, it had been inflicted in the line of duty. The infection had come about, said he, from Constable Cowley’s premature return to his duties. And even on the night on which he had become incapacitated, he had performed admirably, shooting dead a villain who, seeking his escape, had put a knife to the throat of a young girl of good character.

  (Glad I was to take down in dictation this description of Clarissa; I thought it boded well for her future.)

  He concluded: “I shall be happy to discuss this matter at your earliest convenience, and remain your humble and obedient servant, et cetera.”

  I presented it to him for his signature, which he did put where I placed the pen. Then did I fold it with my usual care, drip sealing wax upon it, and seal it with his signet.