The Color of Death

by Alexander, Bruce

  He threw open the door to the little room just off the entrance hall; once a sewing room, it now served as the classroom in which Mr. Burnham drilled Jimmie Bunkins and Annie in their lessons. Bunkins, in fact, was inside, looking up from the book he had in hand, apparently startled by the intrusion.

  “There is a water closet just through that other door,” Mr. Burnham continued, “and a mirror of good size.”

  “A water closet!” cried Clarissa. “Oh, do let me see. Do you pull the chain to make it work?”

  “Come along,” said Annie. “I’ll show you how it’s done.” Though Annie could not have known the specific nature of Mr. Burnham’s difficulty, I surmised that she understood that something was amiss, and that he wished to create a delay. (That much was obvious even to me.) Annie grasped Clarissa by the arm and whisked her away through the door that had been pointed out to them.

  Lady Fielding stood in the middle of the room, frowning. The curiosity with which she regarded Mr. Burnham now seemed to have given way to suspicion.

  I myself started into the room, thinking to greet my friend Bunkins, but in mid-step I felt myself held back firmly. Looking round me, I saw that it was Mr. Burnham that had a firm grip on my shoulder. Then he bowed slightly to whisper, softly but earnestly, into my ear.

  “Jeremy, go upstairs now — second door on the right. You will see what must be done.”

  With that, he gave me a firm slap upon my back and sent me on my way. I jog-trotted to the stairway and took the steps two at a time. I felt thus obliged by the great urgency I sensed in what he had said.

  Nevertheless, my mind raced faster than my feet. Clearly, Sir John had been moved. I had left him the night before lying upon the sofa in that same little room below. And there could be little doubt, surely, that he had been moved into the room that lay behind the second door on the right. But what should I see that miut be done? What could be wrong with Sir John? When I had left him there, he seemed able to resist any lingering effects of the gunshot wound. And certainly Mr. Donnelly, with all his doctor’s art, was capable of treating such a hurt. Had he not said that he had treated hundreds like it during his time as surgeon in the Royal Navy? (But perhaps I should have asked him how many survived his ministrations.)

  With my mind thus preoccupied, I found I had walked past the second door and had reached the third. In fact, I was about to knock upon it when I realized my error. I hastened back and, dispensing with all formality, I did not trouble to knock but threw open the door and burst into the room.

  It would be no exaggeration, reader, to say that I had never before, nor have I since, experienced such a moment of shocking surprise as I did then and there. For in the bed, which took up much of the space in this modest-sized bedroom, I found Sir John contentedly ensconced beneath a comforter; he was resting as well as anyone could hope. This was as I had expected it. But beside him, sleeping just as soundly, was a woman, young and comely. In fact I recognized her: Her name was Nancy Plummer, and she was a hostess at Mr. Bilbo’s gaming establishment. She made her home at the Bilbo residence, as did a number of his other employees. I knew her to be a pleasant and obliging person. I hoped dearly that she would be pleasant and obliging enough to understand why I must now rout her out of bed and move her someplace else — at least for the length of Lady Fielding’s visit.

  I reached over and gave her shoulder a sound shake. (I noted that the shoulder was bare and thought that a bad sign.) Her response was simply to turn away from me and move even closer to Sir John. This, I thought, wouldn’t do at all.

  “Nancy!” I said, giving her another shake, “Nancy, you must awake and be quickly out of bed.”

  But I was too timid, not near loud enough. I would have to shout full in her ear if I were to have even a chance of waking her. I glanced uneasily at the door, fearing that were it open, I might be heard downstairs. But it was shut tight, and I was free to shout loud at her.

  “Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!”

  But that she absolutely refused to do. All that I could get from her were a few groans, a sniffle, and a cough. What was I to do? Again I shook her, and again it did naught. The situation seemed to be growing worse as each minute passed.

  At that instant the door opened and Jimmie Bunkins rushed into the room. He looked as agitated as I felt, though not near as desperate.

  “I can’t get her awake,” said I to him. “Nothing seems to work.”

  “Never surrender to circumstance,” said Bunkins. “That’s what Mr. Burnham always says. I’m here to lend a hand, chum. Nancy always was a sound sleeper.”

  “That’s missing it by half.”

  “I’m also come to warn you that Mr. Burnham can’t hold them much longer. They’ll be up here any minute.”

  “What’ll we do?”

  Bunkins took a moment to think, then nodded with a sudden assurance that I found quite inspiring. “Let’s pull her out of bed,” he said. “If we can get this blowen on her two feet, she has to wake up, don’t she?”

  “We can try it,” said I.

  And try it we did. Bunkins threw back the comforter, revealing a good deal more of her than I was prepared for. I stood for a moment in an awkward state, paralyzed by embarrassment.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Bunkins demanded as he took a firm grip on her feet. “Grab her, and let’s get on with it.”

  “Grab her? Where?”

  “Anywhere you want, but let’s get her out of bed and upright.”

  Yet still I hesitated, taxing Bunkins’s patience still further.

  “Listen,” said he, “don’t look if it bothers you all that much. But come now, together, you and me, Jeremy, let’s … li/tl”

  I grasped her at her armpits and tugged as Bunkins hauled her feet out of bed and put them down on the floor; then he grabbed her arms and pulled her up and toward him just so. Tugging, pulling, and lifting, we did manage to put her in a vertical position, more or less on her own two feet. Bunkins and I looked hopefully, one at the other. He nodded; I moved back, and he stepped away. But oughtn’t her eyes to open? I looked closely at her. Perhaps her eyelids were beginning to flutter just a little. Of a sudden I was aware of the beating of my heart. But just when it appeared that we were succeeding, she collapsed without warning upon the bed, first in a sitting position, then tumbling down onto her side into the horizontal. Bear in mind, reader, that through all this she had not spoken a word, nor could I claim that she had truly opened her eyes. Just as amazing, however, was the fact that Sir John himself had slept through it all. I was certain of that, for all during my unsuccessful efforts to rouse Nancy he had snored as loudly and constantly as some amateur on the bass viol, sawing away on the same two notes. Zoom-zoom, zoom-zoom, zoom-zoom …

  “I got one last idea,” said Bunkins. “If this don’t work, we’ll — ”

  As with so many other things in life, that too was lost, for as Jimmie Bunkins was offering to confide his “one last idea,” the door behind him which led to the hall opened very quietly and Lady Fielding came in on tiptoe. Hers was, after all, a sickroom visit. Would Sir John be awake? Would he be in pain?

  As she soon learned, he was neither. He slept most contentedly with a naked woman beside him. Her eyes accommodated this; it took her mind a moment longer to take it all in, and that was when she screamed. It was, reader, a fine, full-throated scream, one of the sort which, as they say, “could awaken the dead.” While there is no proof that any such miracle was accomplished, it seems likely that it woke all who slept in the Bilbo house.

  Sir John flung off his bedclothes and bounded out of bed, revealing himself in his white linen underbreeches. Unable to see either the reason for the scream, or its origin, he shouted out a warning against the Spanish and flailed the air with an imaginary sword. It occurred to me later that in his dream he had returned to the siege of Cartagena.

  Nancy, for her part, reacted contrariwise. Finding herself bare, she covered her body with the comforter, jerking it up to
her chin. She looked angrily at Bunkins and me, no doubt suspicioning the worst. Yet she saved her greatest scorn for Lady Fielding, whom she rightly fixed as the source of the loud noise that had roused her.

  “Whore you and what’re you doing in my bedroom?” she demanded.

  “Who’re you and what are you doing sleeping naked with my husband?” countered Lady Fielding.

  “How I sleeps is none of your affair. And what do you mean, I slept with your husband? I am very particular who I sleeps with, and I’m sure I wouldn’t sleep with nobody married to you.”

  “Well then, look upon him and tell me if he comes up to your high standard.”

  Wherewith Lady Fielding pointed rather dramatically at Sir John. (He had by then emerged from his dream state and at that moment appeared somewhat dazed as he attempted to orient himself.)

  “Kate,” said he in a small voice, “is that you I hear? I … I’ve a terrible headache.”

  “Quiet, please, Jack,” said she. “We’ll discuss this later.”

  Nancy laughed in spite of herself. “Why, it’s the Beak, so it is! Though he does look right fetchin’ in his kickseys, I’d never be so bold as to try to lead him astray. Wouldn’t even try.”

  “Then how did he get into your bed?”

  “How should I know?”

  The two simply glared one at the other as the small crowd that had gathered just outside the door grew larger. In the beginning, it was no more than three: Mr. Burnham, Annie, and Clarissa. Now, however, there were four or five more. Then did another appear, one dressed in a richly embroidered dressing gown, though otherwise rather disheveled and rumpled; his beard was matted, and hair (what there was of it) stood in spikes. It was the cove of the ken, Black Jack Bilbo. He seemed to have grasped the situation immediately as he came into the room.

  “Ah, Lady Fielding,” said he, playing the peacemaker, “let me assure you that Nancy ain’t to blame” — then did he cast a quick disapproving glance at his employee — “except perhaps for her sauciness and disrespect.”

  “Then who is, Mr. Bilbo?”

  “I fear that I am, m’lady,” said he. “Y’see, just after the surgeon left, your husband got a terrible chill, he did. He was shivering, and his teeth were chattering away. Mr. Burnham, who is more learned than I am, knew not what was to be done, did you, Mr. Burnham?”

  “Oh, no sir, I did not,” said the tutor.

  “But I, being a practical man and having some experience in such matters, decided he should be put in beside Nancy Plummer, who had then been asleep for some time. Now, what you must know is that when Nancy sleeps, she sleeps as sound as no other in this world. So she could neither object, nor could she trouble Sir John. All she could do was lend him, unbeknownst, the heat of her body. It seems to have had a beneficial effect upon him, gunshot wound or not.”

  “Do you expect me to believe that?” She asked that in a manner less bold than the words may indicate. Her manner of speech was uncertain. She looked to him for reassurance. There could be no doubt that Mr. Bilbo had swayed her.

  “I expect only that you believe the simple truth, and that I have just told you,” said he. “I myself was cured of a mortal chill in just such a way by a princess of the Siboney tribe.”

  There was naught but silence between them for a considerable space of time. But then did Sir John speak up in a voice which resounded with a bit of his old strength and authority.

  “That is all very well, Mr. Bilbo, but what did you do with my breeches? I shall need them for the trip home.”

  It took near an hour of preparations before Sir John was able to make that journey back to Bow Street. Not only was it necessary to fetch him his breeches, but he was also in need of a new shirt, for Mr. Donnelly had ripped the old one quite to shreds in the process of removing the bullet from his shoulder and treating the wound. It was finally decided that the shirt offered by Mr. Bilbo would do, even though the sleeves were much too long. Sir John wore his blood-stained coat home as a matter of pride, though Lady Fielding claimed that she was greatly embarrassed by it.

  Once the matter of dress had been settled, Sir John held conferences in the music room — two of them. The first was with Lady Fielding. Though I sat near the door, waiting to have a word with Sir John, I heard nothing of what was said between them. Their conversation was conducted in low tones for their ears alone. Sitting there, I happened to remember the report on last night’s robbery written by Constable Pat-ley, and passed on to me by Mr. Marsden just before we had left for Mr. Bilbo’s residence. I pulled it from my coat pocket, smoothed it out upon my knee (as it was given to me wrinkled, and had become further wrinkled in my pocket), and, with some difficulty, read as follows:

  I wad woken palmal wen afelo cum doun from St. Jamed Street an tot me Lord Liii’d houd wad robd an it wad the blakd did it. I tol him to go to Bow Street an tet Sir Jon whildt I wen to whar he cum frum. He ded huf nam wad Wiyam Wotrd. I tuk charch at the Lordd houd. I found out ther wad a man kilt too but I dint git hid nam.

  Clearly, reader, Constable Patley’s strength was not orthography. Once I had puzzled it through, I remembered Mr. Marsden’s complaint to the effect that all he had gotten from Patley’s report was a single name. Indeed he may well have fared better than I, for I could not, with any exactitude, puzzle out the name contained in this report, so-called. What could it be? William Waters was the most obvious possibility, but it could just as well be William Walters, or even William Walker — allowing for Patley’s faulty memory, or his inability to express such a name in letters. Did it matter? Probably it did not. But I, word-proud as I was, felt offended by such ignorance. After all, Sir John had stipulated that all constables who comprise the group known as the Bow Street Runners must have letters and numbers; they must know writing as well as reading. Had he been tested? No doubt Chief Constable Bailey had taken Patley’s word that he was literate — and in a way he was. I had, of course, gotten the sense of his message. I admitted that he had learned at least so far. The question was, whether or no he could be taught more. Would Mr. Burnham take him on as a scholar? Would Patley agree to it?

  Out came Sir John and Lady Fielding from the music room. The skin round her eyes was flushed pink; her eyes glistened. She had been weeping. Beneath the black silk band he wore, I knew that Sir John’s eyes were quite destroyed; he could not weep, nor would he. His jaw was set, however, and his mouth turned down in such a way that his face had a stern appearance.

  I bobbed up from the chair in which I had been sitting and approached him, hoping to detain him for some minutes longer, that I might have a few words with him. But again he worked one of his wonders of sightless seeing.

  “Is that you, Jeremy?”

  “Yes, it is, Sir John. If you have the time and the strength, I should like to talk with you. It should not take long.”

  “Of course,” said he. Then did he turn to Lady Fielding: “Kate, my dear, find Clarissa and prepare to leave. We shall all go off to Bow Street together.”

  She murmured her assent and, much subdued, went down the hall in search of her young charge. Sir John waved me to the door and took my arm.

  “Put me in a chair,” said he. “I’m unsure of myself in this room. I can’t seem to find my way around in it.”

  I did as he asked, kicking shut the door behind us. I found a comfortably padded chair for him and pulled over one of a plain design for me.

  “What will you then, Jeremy?”

  “I’ve two matters to discuss, sir. First of all, I would think it wise if you were to dictate a letter to Mr. Saunders Welch, asking him to take all your cases until such time as you are able to resume your duties. He has no doubt heard of last night’s event.”

  “No doubt,” said Sir John in a manner somewhat abstracted.

  “If we are to persuade him to take over today, we should probably get the letter to him immediately. I could take it in dictation right here, sir.”

  Oddly, he said nothing, simply sat.

/>   “Uh … I don’t see how he could refuse, sir.”

  Again, nothing for a moment. Then: “That is not the question, lad. It seems to me that whoever it was shot me is not absolutely certain if I am alive or dead. I think it of the utmost importance that I present myself in the Bow Street Court as usual today to prove that I am alive.”

  “But might he not try again?”

  “To shoot me? Oh, there is a chance, I suppose. But I think that highly unlikely. There is but the one street exit, and there will be armed men about.”

  “Mr. Fuller?”

  “Mr. Marsden, too. I’ll see to it he wears a brace of pistols — perhaps you, too, eh? Above all, Jeremy, it is important to demonstrate that wounding a magistrate will in no wise stop or even interrupt the dispensation of justice at Bow Street.”

  “As you will then, Sir John.”

  “And I will that there be no letter to Mr. Saunders Welch. Now what was the other matter you wished to talk about?”

  “About last night’s investigation,” said I.

  “Well, what about it?”

  “You wished to talk to him who reported the robbery and murder to Mr. Baker.”

  “Yes, and I was more than a little disappointed that our Constable Patley could not present him to us for interrogation. In fact, he could not even supply the fellow’s name.”

  “He must have gotten it from the butler there at the Lilley residence then, for he provided it in the written report he left with Mr. Marsden.”

  “Indeed? And what was the name?”

  “Waters — or possibly Walters, something like that. It was a little difficult making it out.”

  “This fellow, Patley, writes a poor hand I assume?”

  “You might say so, yes sir, but would you like me to interrogate Waters, or Walters, or whatever his name be?”

  Sir John gave that some thought. “I would,” said he. “Indeed I would. To be truthful, Jeremy, if I am to sit the court each day, as I intend to do, I’m quite sure it will take all the energy that I can muster. If we are to continue the investigation — as we must — then I fear the conduct of it falls upon you. I leave it in your hands. You may come to me for advice — consultation, if you will. In fact, I rather hope you will, but you will have to do the actual labor of interrogation, fact-gathering, and such.”