Jack, Knave and Fool

by Alexander, Bruce

  Mr. Ogden, by contrast, was calm, the very voice of reason, as one by one he pointed out the flaws and gaps in the Crown’s case: that the identification of the head was uncertain; that no one had seen George Bradbury arrive on his white horse; that a white horse had been sold to a stable near the pawnshop, but he who had sold the horse could not be certainly identified as the one who was present when the Bow Street Runners made their raid on the pawnshop; and as to the hearsay confessions of Thomas Roundtree and Jackie Carver, that neither gave mention of Mrs. Bradbury in the alleged murder of George Bradbury. “We know not truly if such murder took place,” said Mr. Ogden, raising his voice just slightly, “because there id no body. It was good of Mrs. Bradbury in her reply to the prosecutor to remind us of an important point. Though even the Magistrate of Warwick seemed to think it unlikely that George Bradbury would return unscathed or indeed at all, he may indeed someday return. Will it be that he comes back the day after his wife has been hanged for his murder? Think of that possibility, gentlemen of the jury. The decision in this matter is yours, and yours alone.”

  As the Lord Chief Justice gave his summing-up and instructions to the jury, it had the tone of a second statement from the prosecution. Nevertheless, he seemed in a sense almost apologetic for the flimsy case brought by the Crown, noting that, yes, it was unusual to try a case of homicide when the victim’s body was nowhere to be found, yet a head had been discovered and given approximate identification — and if it was not George Bradbury’s head, then whose was it? None, to his knowledge, had reported one missing. (This brought uneasy laughter from some in the courtroom, though not from the jury.) And if the testimony regarding the murder was in part hearsay, he had admitted it because it was of a convincing nature and from a good source. (I puffed a bit at that.) It may be that it did not directly implicate Mary Brighton Bradbury, yet it proved to his satisfaction, at least, that murder had been committed —and what did they suppose she was doing as her husband was being killed and sawed in parts? Tending the shop below? And so on. The Lord Chief Justice had insisted on bringing the case to trial, and he had no wish to feel on the morrow that he had wasted two days of his life.

  And so the jury went out to determine the fate of Mrs. Bradbury. I, one among many, was prepared to wait to hear the verdict no matter how long it might take; nearly all in the courtroom, save those leading actors directly involved in the drama we had witnessed, reseated themselves, relaxing somewhat, beginning to talk in hushed, respectful tones.

  The fellow next me, perhaps a few years older than I, turned to me of a sudden and surprised me by telling me that he had been quite favorably impressed by my testimony.

  “How often have you given testimony before?” he asked.

  “This is my first time ever,” said I, in a manner quite naive, “that is, my first criminal trial. I’d never even visited this court before, though I’ve sat more often than I can count through Sir John Fielding’s sessions at the Bow Street Court.”

  “Why, then I’m doubly impressed —giving testimony at your first trial in Old Bailey —imagine! But after all, a magistrate’s court must be much different.

  “Not so much, no.”

  He was a good-looking chap, sandy-haired and well dressed, with an eager manner. “I was a little unclear as to your relationship to Sir John. It was not made specific.”

  Unable quite to help myself, I laughed at that, then said rather hastily: “Forgive me for laughing, but it is something I have wondered at myself. In truth, I am but one of his household, yet I help him sometimes in court matters.”

  “Did he truly allow you to question that man Roundtree?”

  “Yes, he trusts me sometimes to carry out such duties. He advised me on the approach I might take, and I followed it.”

  “With good results.”

  “Satisfactory,” said I, alas, a bit smugly. Then did I make bold to add: “I am preparing to read law with him.”

  “Ah! Preparing? In what way?”

  “He has assigned me the task of reading twice through Sir Edward Coke’s Instituted of the Law of England ‘—the first time to acquaint myself with the matter and the second time to take notes and prepare questions for next year, when we begin reading through it together. Then, he says, we shall be on to other things. But I have time. I am yet young.”

  “Fascinating,” said he, “but let me introduce myself. I am Archibald Talley, and I, too, am preparing for the law. I’m reading with my uncle Benjamin, who is a common-law judge. I clerk in his office, as well.”

  I quickly presented myself, and I said how pleased I was to meet one who, like myself, was aiming for the law.

  “But between us,” said he, “you know, surely, that your Sir John should never have sent such a weak case up to be tried in felony court.”

  “He argued against it to the Lord Chief Justice, and when he set me to writing drafts of the parts of it I knew best, I saw that he was right. It was indeed weak.”

  “You helped him prepare the case?”

  “A memorandum outlining it —and only the parts I knew well. It was the first time he had asked me to do so.”

  “Even so, that is most impressive. I envy you your participation, Mr. Proctor.”

  “But didn’t Mr. Ogden tear into it remarkably well?”

  “He was quite marvelous!” said Mr. Talley. “I’d heard he was worth coming to watch—and I certainly wasn’t disappointed.”

  We then spent well over an hour discussing the trial — or more specifically, Mr. Ogden’s handling of it. As we did so, I gradually became aware how beneficial it was to me to discuss such matters with one who was formally engaged in the reading of law. He brought an insight and a variety of reference to his comments that I could only envy. Yet he was neither pedant nor peacock. He did not parade his knowledge; it was simply there, and he used it to good advantage. I swore to myself that I would go at Coke more diligently in the coming months.

  Then, with the entrance of the bailiff and the clerk, came the first hint that the verdict of the jury would soon be forthcoming. Mrs. Bradbury, in the company of a second bailiff, the Crown prosecutor, and Mr. William Ogden followed them, and the room went silent as the jury filed in. All stood as the entrance of the Lord Chief Justice was announced; not until he, too, was seated did we resume our places. Then was the formal request made for the jury’s verdict. The foreman stood, a shopkeeper by the look of him, and after clearing his throat, said as follows: “M’lord, in the absence of a body, we find the defendant not guilty.”

  There was no demonstration of approval or disapproval in that august hall. The only emotional response came from the judge himself, whose expression turned from grave to sour as he dismissed the jury and called Mary Brighton Bradbury before him.

  “You, madam, are a very fortunate woman,” said he. “I, for one, was convinced of your guilt and am still. That, however, matters little, for the jury has spoken otherwise. You are free on this charge, but I return you to the Fleet Prison to serve the remainder of your sentence for conspiracy to receive stolen goods.”

  Then he brought down his gavel. Mrs. Bradbury was ushered out; then we all stood once again as William Murray, the Lord Chief Justice, made his departure.

  As we were taking our leave, Archibald Talley declared his pleasure in meeting me; and I impulsively invited him to come sometime for a visit so that I might introduce him to Sir John. (My true purpose, I confess, was to extend our acquaintance.) He brightened at the suggestion and promised to do so sometime soon. Then, pleading work awaiting him at his uncle’s, he hurried away with the crowd. I left Old Bailey that day with a sense of elation. Though a guilty woman had gone free, I had watched a brilliant barrister reveal the paltry nature of the case against her: the law had been served. And I had made the acquaintance of one who might prove a friend. I felt more certain of my future and the profession I had chosen than ever before.

  But to end the tale of Mary Brighton Bradbury, let me move swiftly a month ahea
d to her release from the Fleet Prison. It was said —and I’ve no reason to doubt it —that William Ogden was waiting for her at the prison gate when she passed through. They proceeded together to the pawnshop, which she opened with the keys that had been provided her by the Bow Street Court. Asking him to wait, she disappeared into the rear of the shop. After an absence of many minutes, she reappeared with his fee, doubled as promised, in gold guineas. He left with thanks. The next day she appeared at the offices of the Public Advertiser and purchased an advert putting the shop up for sale. She had a buyer within the month, and it was sold for a goodly price, lock and stock, and the building, as well. And then she disappeared —quite vanished, she did. None seemed to know where she had got to; none seemed to care. When I asked Sir John if he had any idea of her whereabouts, he simply shrugged and said, “More than likely to the colonies. They seem to accept most of our trash. If there be any true justice, perhaps she has been washed overboard on the voyage, or having arrived, been scalped to death by some red Indian.”

  Arthur Paltrow did not fare near so well. Though, as Sir John predicted, Mr. Donnelly had no difficulty removing the pistol bullets from his arm and shoulder, Mr. Perkins’s ball had broken the bone when it entered. It was necessary to set the left arm, causing Paltrow greater pain, and fashion a sling for it. The right shoulder wound was not near so serious, for the ball was embedded in the fleshy part and had nearly passed through altogether. It made quite a gouge, but Mr. Donnelly cleaned it thoroughly and bound it up.

  Next day he was indicted by Sir John for the murder of Peter Pugh and directed to Newgate to await trial at Old Bailey. Mr. Paltrow protested grandly, claiming the right to be tried in the House of Lords. Sir John, wishing all to be done properly, detained the prisoner an extra day in the strong room so that he might hear from Parliament on the matter. He was informed that while the House of Lords had received his “letter of patent” to the Laningham title, it had not yet issued to him the Writ of Summons to Parliament. Mr. Paltrow, in other words, had made his application, but as yet had not been given his invitation — nor would he be. It was proper, then, to try him in felony court and improper to address him by the title Lord Laningham. So oil he went to Newgate to await trial. It seemed strange to me that he should have wished to be tried in the House of Lords, for if found guilty, as he most certainly would have been, he would have surrendered his head to the executioner’s axe; hanging, the mode prescribed by the felony court, seemed infinitely preferable to me.

  Eventually, his case came up for trial. Lord Murray, who wanted no part of a matter involving anyone who had even a claim upon a title, handed the case to one of his lesser judges, Francis Seward. Having no such compunction, Justice Seward dealt swiftly with Mr. Paltrow. The defendant undertook his own defense. Among the witnesses called against aim wire Mr. Poole, Constable Bailey, and Mrs. Pugh. The first two established that the shooting had taken place, and that Peter Pugh was the victim, though Paltrow had sought to hide the identity of the man he had killed. Mrs. Pugh gave the motive for murder, repeated the confession she had heard from Paltrow’s lips, and told of the shot he had aimed at her. It became obvious in his cross-examination of Mrs. Pugh, or so I understood from Mr. Talley’s later report, that Mr. Paltrow’s line of defense was that he was justified in shooting Peter Pugh, for in demanding money from him Mr. Pugh was committing a crime. This was made quite explicit in a statement Paltrow had prepared in his own defense which the judge permitted him to read. “In effect,” his statement concluded, “this man Pugh was attempting to rob me of two hundred pounds, a considerable amount—a small fortune—just as surely as if he had held a knife to my throat. Had this happened on some dark street, would I not have been justified in protecting myself and my money? Of course I would! You, gentlemen of the jury, would have done the same, would you not? Of course you would!”

  He seemed most confident at that point, but later Justice Seward put to him a few questions which caused him some embarrassment.

  “Mr. Paltrow,” said the judge, “Mr. Pugh did not hold a knife to your throat, did he?”

  “No, I used that merely as an analogy.”

  “He used the force of revelation, did he not? That was the analogical knife to your throat? “

  “Well, yes, but I — “

  “Then this revelation must have had the strength of deadly force. Now we know from Mrs. Pugh’s testimony that the information with which her husband threatened you was your purchase of great amounts of arsenic, which is a poison. Why, sir, was it of such urgent importance to you to keep that information away from investigating authorities? Why did it have the strength of deadly force?”

  “With all due respect, my lord, I’d rather not go into that.”

  “You decline to answer? I must caution you that there is only one basis on which you may do that and that would be if, in answering, you ran the risk of incriminating yourself. Is it on that basis that you decline to answer?”

  A silence ensued. Arthur Paltrow seemed quite tortured by the decision put to him. At last said he: “Then, if I must, I decline on that basis.”

  Wherewith, Justice Seward charged the jury and sent them out to make their deliberations. They returned a verdict of guilty in about a quarter of an hour’s time. Mr. Paltrow was sentenced to be hanged the day next but one. All his property was made forfeit to the Crown.

  Allowed then to have a final word, the condemned man said something which struck me as strange and rather pathetic. “All I did,” said he, “was done for my daughters, that they might make good marriages.”

  Then was he carted off to Newgate, whence, the day next but one, he was hanged on Tyburn Hill in the company of thieves and burglars. His left arm was still in a sling when the noose was put about his neck.

  What became of his wife (the putative Lady Laningham), and the daughters for whom he did all, I never heard. Managing to salvage sufficient funds from the uncle’s fortune, perhaps they, too, may have shipped off for the American colonies.

  I recall the evening well. We had just supped well on mutton and spring potatoes. There were, as there had been for near two months, five of us round the table, for Clarissa Roundtree was still with us. Inquiries had been put out on her behalf to a number of houses; none seemed suitable —at least not to Lady Fielding. And so, the matter of her future had hung fire for a number of weeks. For her part, Clarissa was outwardly much different; physically, she was not just recovered from her illness but in the full bloom of good health, as well. She had put weight onto her spare frame, her cheeks had taken on some color, and her face had filled out a bit so that she no longer appeared quite so like a waif. Inwardly, however, it was difficult to tell, for she was one, it seemed to me, who hid her true feelings well. She would be laughing at table at some story of Annie’s of choir practice or her lessons with Mr. Burnham, and I would catch a watchful look in Clarissa’s eye as she glanced about the table, as if she might be asking herself if it was proper to laugh, or laugh quite so boldly. She seemed always anxious of the impression she might make upon the others. For that matter, she had made an excellent impression upon Lady Fielding. She pitched in to relieve Annie and me of some of our more burdensome household tasks, helping with the cooking and proving herself capable as a floor scrubber; indeed, after dinner each night she and Annie retired to their room, where she drilled her on her reading lessons; and she had made herself quite useful to Lady Fielding, both in our household and at the Magdalene Home, writing letters, running errands, doing in short whatever she was asked. With me, to whom she had come nearest to presenting her true self, she was for the most part unchanged. She was civil, even easy with me in the presence of others. Yet she had thrown up an invisible wall — nay, something more in the nature of a scrim —between us; I could not penetrate it, and she apparently had no wish to.

  And so we sat, all of us at table, on that particular evening. We had reached a kind of comfortable hiatus between the completion of our meal and the clearing of the ta
ble. It was in this space of time that Lady Fielding leaned forward toward Clarissa and said in a manner not in the least unfriendly, “My dear, I wonder, would you mind leaving the table and going upstairs to your bedroom?”

  Clarissa rose without hesitation, or even surprise, and said simply, “Yes, mum.” She moved swiftly across the kitchen and disappeared up the stairs. A moment later we heard the bedroom door close.

  “Was that necessary?” asked Sir John of his wife. “What is it we have to discuss that she ought not to hear?”

  “Yes, Jack,” said she, “I think it was necessary, for it is her future I wish to discuss, and I wish us all to feel free to speak without the restraint we should naturally feel if she were present and listening.”

  “Ah, well, I see. Since you have initiated this, you must have something quite particular to say. By all means, Kate, let us hear it.”

  With that, she took a deep breath and expended it all in a short sentence. “Jack, I need a secretary.”

  “A what?”

  “A secretary, one to help me at the Magdalene Home with correspondence and to keep things in order there, ordering my schedule, reminding me of what must be done on a particular day or during a certain week. And …” Here she hesitated but a moment, then went bravely on: “And young though she may be, I believe that Clarissa could perform such work for me. Why, she’s already demonstrated it! My office was in chaos, my desk piled with unanswered mail and unpaid bills, and in those days she has spent there with me, she has put everything right, showed me where I might look to find everything. The girl has a knack for it. It’s something that can’t be taught— or not easily, in any case. In short, I would like her to stay with us here. She could spend, oh, a certain number of days each week with me there, and the rest of the time she could help out with housework here.”