The Color of Death

by Alexander, Bruce

  As I posed such questions to myself and attempted to dig deeper that I might solve the mystery surrounding Crocker’s death, my eyes registered the curious street life before me there in Drury Lane. Though the theater (across the street and off to the right) had discharged its audience sometime before, there were many pedestrians teeming the walkways on both sides of the street. Most of them gave the impression that they were casual strollers, moving with easy indifference up and down the street. Nevertheless, I, who had by then lived years hard by Covent Garden, knew very well that though they seemed so unconcerned, they were truly a great gang of sharpers, pimps, whores, and pickpockets out on a darkey and on the lookout for flats and cods easily caught. The same faces appeared in the street from night to night; many of them, men and women, had spent nights in the strongroom at Number 4 Bow Street.

  And as they sauntered and ambled, all the while the coach horses hurried along, hooves and shoes clip-clopping on the cobblestones. Hackneys and private coaches with teams of two and four pranced smartly up and down the lane. I found the scene before me somewhat hypnotic. As I waited, I continued to watch. And as I watched, my head began to nod, and my eyelids drooped. I might have fallen asleep right there on Mr. Donnelly’s doorstep (and had my pocket picked right down to the last farthing as I dozed), but I was fortunate in that Mr. Donnelly chose that moment, when I was about to topple headlong into the arms of Morpheus, to make his return.

  And indeed, reader, he made it in style. He arrived in no mean hackney, but rather in a coach-and-four painted black with a great orange-colored device of some sort painted upon the door. Thus I could not be certain that Mr. Donnelly was within until the footman came round the coach and opened the door. And even then there was naught but a leg visible to the eye. Since I had never given particular attention to the shape of Mr. Donnelly’s leg, I was no better off than before. Nevertheless, the voice that came to me through the open door was recognizably his own. What the words were I could not be quite certain, yet the laugh that followed them I knew quite well. But whose was the other voice, the one that boomed forth from deep inside the coach? I had never heard a laugh to equal it in volume or grand hilarity. Such a laugh as that would bring a smile to the face of a mourner, or brighten the sour countenance of a Scottish judge.

  I rose to make my presence known and advanced toward the coach that I might catch a glimpse of Mr. Donnelly’s companion. As it happened, a glimpse was all I could manage, for just as I came near enough to see within, Mr. Donnelly finished with his leave-taking and climbed down; the footman slammed shut the door behind him.

  “Jeremy!” he exclaimed. “Is it you? What news do you bring? Nothing dire, I hope.”

  “Ah well, a body for you to examine, I fear. We must go to the Trezavant residence in Little Jermyn Street.”

  “The Trezavant residence? Is it my employer who has been killed?”

  “No sir — one of the servants, rather.”

  “Well, just give me a moment. I’ll go upstairs and get my bag.”

  With that, he disappeared into the building. I heard him rushing up the stairs, and not much more than a minute later, I heard him rushing down again.

  As I had described earlier, Drury Lane was so lively at that hour that there proved to be no difficulty whatever in finding a hackney coach available. We were thus on our way to the livery stable where I might hire a wagon and a driver, then on to Little Jermyn Street.

  Once we were settled in the hackney and bouncing about, Mr. Donnelly remarked to me that it was only by good fortune that he had returned at such an early hour.

  “Whose good fortune?” I asked in a bantering mode.

  “Why, yours, if you were determined to wait, and mine because I was given the chance to escape from a most dreary dinner party.”

  “Oh? Whose dreary dinner party was that?”

  “Lord Mansfield’s.”

  “Truly? I’d always felt that the Lord Chief Justice was anything but a dreary conversationalist — rude perhaps, even upon occasion dictatorial, but never dreary.”

  “Oh I know,” said Mr. Donnelly, “but he had made his invitations to the party a month ago, and since then he has taken on that blasted Somerset case, which has all London talking. All London, that is, except for Lord Mansfield.”

  “I don’t quite follow,” said I.

  “Well, since he is the presiding judge, and since the case is still in trial, he absolutely refused to discuss it, nor would he allow it to be discussed at his table.”

  “But Mr. Donnelly, that is quite customary.”

  “Well, I know, but the Somerset case is all his guests wished to discuss. Couldn’t he have loosened his restrictions for just this one night?”

  “I don’t think so. It wouldn’t have been proper.”

  “Well, perhaps so,” said he, the exasperation he had felt lending a certain tone to his voice, “but really, there must have been twenty of us there, and you’ve no idea what pathetic attempts were made at table talk. The evening would have been a total loss had it not been for that Dutchman.”

  “Dutchman?”

  “Indeed,” said he, “Zondervan is his name. He began telling some of the joiliest and funniest tales that ever I have heard. We were to imagine ourselves in this place — probably of his own invention — there in the lowlands. Oh, what was the name of it? Dingendam, something like that. But he told the stories, and he acted out all the parts, even the women. Oh, he did the women very well indeed, all in falsetto. Dear God, the man was do entertaining!”

  (This was high praise indeed, considering that it came from Mr. Donnelly, for he himself was one of the most entertaining men at table I have ever known. Many is the evening that he had us all rocking with laughter with his own tales of Dublin, Vienna, and the Royal Navy.)

  We were drawing near to the livery stable, but I was determined to pursue the matter that I might have my answer as swiftly as possible.

  “Mr. Donnelly,” said I, “this name, Zondervan, is it a very common one among the Dutch?”

  He took a moment to think before answering. “Why yes, it must be. I’ve known of a few in my time — one in Vienna, another in New York — used to be New Amsterdam, did you know that? The Dutch had it first. Did you know that, Jeremy? “

  “Uh, yes sir, I did, but — ”

  “Why do you ask? “

  “Well, I’d come across the name myself in the course of my investigations in St. James Street. Would it be the same Mr. Zondervan?”

  “Oh, I daresay it would. In fact, it was he who took me home.”

  “The man with the laugh?”

  “Indeed he does have a great, booming laugh, does he not? When he rose from Lord Mansfield’s table and said that he must be off to the wharves to check the manifest of a ship arrived today, I gave my apologies, as well, saying I must look at a patient of mine in St. Bart’s. We were both excused and left together. He offered me a ride to Drury Lane, saying that it was on his way, then he kept me laughing the entire distance with another tale of those fools of Dingendam.”

  “He’s a merchant then?”

  “Oh yes, and quite a successful one, too, I’m sure. And indeed, he must be the same man, for I now recall that he did mention that he lived in St. James Street.”

  The hackney in which we had been riding pulled to a halt. A glance out the window told me that we had reached the stable. I threw open the door and promised Mr. Donnelly that I should only be a moment or two. And as it proved, engaging the wagon, the team, and the driver took less than five minutes in all.

  The events of the rest of that long evening hardly warrant description. Even then, it seemed to me that I had spent many times like it before during my years with Sir John Fielding. Nothing conclusive was learned during the magistrate’s interrogation of Mrs. Trezavant’s maid, Hulda. All that was gained from Mr. Donnelly’s preliminary examination of Crocker’s body was that she had not been murdered where she lay beneath the tree, but dragged there from a place m
uch nearer to the house. Mr. Patley’s lantern revealed blood on the path at a spot much nearer to the back door of the house. When the wagon arrived from the livery stable, Mr. Patley and I carried Crocker’s body out to the front and placed it in the conveyance. It seemed to me that every step of the way the constable uttered some new curse or a threat under his breath at those who had done this awful deed. The driver threw a canvas cover over the girl’s form and made ready to go. Mr. Donnelly climbed up beside the driver and they set off for his surgery in Drury Lane, where he would conduct a postmortem examination. Only then did our party, which included the two constables and Mr. Johnson, take our leave from the Trezavant residence and venture forth to engage a hackney. The evening was done at last. I was so greatly tired by the long day and the many nights I had recently gone wanting for sleep that, when I climbed up to my little bedroom atop the house, I managed only to kick off my shoes before I collapsed upon the bed and sunk instantly into a sound sleep.

  And that, reader, is how Annie found me next morning. She shook me awake. Yet I came to myself only reluctantly, emerging from a dreamless sleep as from some deep, dark forest pool. I sat up, panting and gasping, doing my best to come to terms with the state of wakefulness into which I had been rudely hauled.

  “What… what… I…”

  I can only guess what I was trying to say to her at that moment, and I would venture that it had to do with the lateness of the hour. There was a sufficiency of light pouring in the two windows, so that the realization eventually came to me that I had overslept. I was, by custom, the first in the household to arise, for it was my duty to kindle the fire so that Annie might get up to a proper blaze and prepare breakfast. That is the way it had been even before Annie came into the household — since the time, that is, when Airs. Gredge ruled the kitchen. And during all those years — now nearly four — I could number the times I had overslept (and thus failed to do my duty) on the fingers of one hand. This was, I believe, only the third such occasion.

  “Do wake up, Jeremy, please,” said Annie.

  “I … I’m awake now,” said I. “Truly I am. I’ll have a fire for you in no time at all.”

  I swung my feet out of bed and stood as tall as I might, as if to prove to her that I was fully capable of doing what was required of me.

  “Don’t be silly, I’ve got one started. I’m quite capable of laying a fire myself. But I must talk to you now — while it’s quiet and everyone’s asleep.”

  “Oh,” said I, somewhat puzzled, “all right.”

  At her direction, I picked up my shoes and carried them down the stairs as I went tiptoeing in my hose. When I came into the kitchen, I found the fire burning bright and the kettle steaming away.

  “Would you like a cup of tea, Jeremy?”

  “I would, yes,” said I. Then, surveying the table as she poured the boiling water into the china teapot, I saw that she had baked scones, as well. “You’ve been up for well over an hour, haven’t you? Scones for breakfast? What’s the occasion, Annie?”

  “Ah well, I thought I’d give you something to remember me by.”

  “To remember you by? I don’t understand.”

  “I’m leaving, Jeremy. This will be my last day here at Number 4 Bow Street.”

  I looked at her, studied her face. I saw that she meant exactly what she said. “But why? What is your reason?”

  “Oh,” said she a bit sadly, “I think you know my reason well enough — or if not, you can guess it.”

  “You mean that matter with Mr. Burnham? Why, Annie, that’s nothing, nothing at all. Only Clarissa and I were privy to it, and you know that we’re your friends. We would say nothing of your embarrassment.”

  “That’s what Clarissa said — and in just about the same words.”

  “So you’ve talked with her about this?” In response she nodded, but then did an awful thought cross my mind: “You didn’t …” — How to put this? — “You’re not…”

  “No, I’m not pregnant,” said she. “Nor was Mr. Burnham ever anything but a gentleman toward me. Jeremy, I’ve given a good deal of thought to this — and to that embarrassing matter these years past with Tom Durham — and it seems to me that both times when I made a fool of myself it was me, not anyone else, who was to blame.”

  “Well, I see what you mean, but — ”

  She interrupted: “Let me tell you a story. When I was a girl of twelve in Kent, and my mother was about to give in to my pleading and put me in service in London, she took me aside, she did, and she said to me, ‘My girl, let me show you the face of the only one can get you into trouble.’ And then from behind her back she pulled a looking glass and held it up to me. And of course it was my face that I saw.”

  “Well,” said I, “I can see the sense of that, I suppose. She must have meant — ”

  Annie held up her hand and silenced me. “But she wasn’t through, for then she said, ‘Now let me show you the face of the only one can get you out of trouble.’ And again she puts the looking glass before me, and again it’s my own face that I saw.”

  She paused that I might understand the story better. She even took time to pour a cup of tea for me. Only then did she resume. “Now, for years,” said she, “I thought that she was telling me that when I left her, she washed her hands of me. But that wasn’t it, not really. What she was saying was that when I left, there was little she could do for me, so I would have to take control of myself and be responsible. Well, my first few years, as you know, I was none too responsible and not well-controlled, either. I kept hoping someone would rescue me. First I thought Tom Durham was the one, and then I thought it was Mr. Burnham would be my rescuer. But no, I’m the only one can do that — and by God, I’m going to try. I’ll rescue myself.”

  They were brave words — but then, she was a brave girl. I’d known her long enough that I might attest to that. Still, that did not relieve me of my worries.

  “How do you intend to go about rescuing yourself? ” I asked.

  “Oh, I’ve a plan. I’d rather not talk about it just now, though.”

  “You’ll need money, won’t you? Perhaps I could get some together for you if — ”

  “Jeremy, you’re much too good,” said she, laughing as she interrupted me. “But no, I’ll not need money, not for a while. Late yesterday, when I’d had a chance to think all this through, I went down to visit Sir John and told him I’d be leaving. It … it was good to talk to him. He gave me a bit of money for each year I’d worked here. He promised me a grand character, as well — ‘the very best,’ he declared.”

  “It seems as if I’m the last to know,” said I.

  “Oh, but I did not intend it so. You, of all people, have helped me more than I can reckon. You brought me here and convinced Lady Katherine I could cook, even when you did not know that yourself. And all the while I’ve been here, you’ve been like a brother to me. And … and … it’s because of you that I’ve learned to read and write.”

  “I could not teach you.”

  “No, but you saw that I went to the one who could.”

  There we stopped — or paused for a space of time. We looked at each other sadly, but said nothing until Annie flew round the table and embraced me, putting her cheek next to mine.

  “I shall miss you terribly,” said she to me.

  “Well, yes, I shall miss you, too,” said I, “particularly at dinnertime.”

  She laughed just as she was meant to.

  “But listen, Annie,” I continued, ” your mother sounds to me like a very sensible woman. Why don’t you go down to visit her and ask her advice? Even responsible people sometimes ask advice. I’d be happy to give you the price of the coach ride. That way you could keep what Sir John gave you for later on.”

  “Ah, that’s very kind of you, but did I never tell you? My mother died in the same year I came up to London. A tumor, it was, that killed her. I think she must have known she hadn’t long when I left.”

  “Oh … no, I didn’t kn
ow that.”

  She stepped away then with a sigh. “I must pack,” said she, and started to turn away; then, remembering, she came back to me.

  “Jeremy, there is just one more matter.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Clarissa.”

  “What about her?”

  “You should try to be a better friend to her. She quite admires you.”

  “So I’ve heard — though I daresay she has an odd way of showing it.”

  “Oh, that’s just her way. Pay no attention.”

  “What am I to pay attention to then?”

  “To her, to her good sense. There’s some girls, you know, who want to be known for the brains in their head and not the pretty face outside it. She’s one of those.”

  “I’ll remember that.”

  She shook a finger at me. “See that you do,” said she, and laughing, she left me.

  Later in the morning, when all had breakfasted and gone their separate ways, I returned with a farewell gift for Annie. It was a collection of verse by Elizabeth Rowe, one of those female poets whom she seemed most to admire; I had rescued it from the bin before a bookshop just east of Grub Street.

  Coming into the kitchen, I looked about but saw her not, nor did I receive a response to the call that I gave. Yet just to make certain, I jog-trotted up the stairs and went to the room she shared with Clarissa. Her bed had been stripped and the blankets piled at the foot of it; the doors of the wardrobe stood open, and half of it was empty. I saw that Annie had truly departed.

  The errand which took me in the vicinity of Grub Street took me to the Tower of London and the regimental headquarters of the King’s Carabineers. I had not visited the Tower so often that I had grown used to the military exercises inside its walls. And because the Carabineers were a mounted regiment, I was especially taken with the display of horsemanship out upon the parade ground. The four-legged members of the regiment were at least as well-drilled as the rest — walking in formation, cantering, wheeling left and right. I could have gawked and ogled at their maneuvers the entire morning, but I had places to go and things to do.