Bruce Alexander - [Sir John Fielding 01]

by Alexander, Bruce

  “She’s sleeping well,” said the surgeon.

  “And thank God for it,” said Sir John.

  “She’s not likely to rouse until past noon. Mrs. Gredge will attend to her then. I had thought to reduce the dose of opium a bit, but I’ve decided against that. Her comfort at this time seems paramount.” With that, Mr. Donnelly paused, then put forth a question: “Sir John, you said that Lady Fielding had been attended by a number of physicians, that there was agreement that a tumor was the cause of her complaint, yet none as to its location. Is that as I remember it?”

  “In the beginning,” said Sir John, “there was no such agreement. The first doctor said her difficulty was gallstones, the next kidney stones, yet when two others came together a month ago they agreed solemnly that her loss of weight indicated a tumor was the cause, then they fell to fighting over the where of it. One said it was on her womb, the other on her liver.”

  “Her liverV

  “Indeed, her liver. The two were at her mercilessly, poking and prodding, asking if this hurt, or that; and of course it all caused her pain. The poor woman burst into tears and begged only to be left alone. What angered me most, Mr. Donnelly, was that having done all they could to torment her, they assured me in her presence that there was nothing to be done for her. But hold! I say wrong. The champion of the liver was all for bleeding her so as to coax the befouled blood from her body; he thought thus to ‘drain’ the tumor. Yet considering her reduced condition, I thought it just as well that we not subject her to that. Furthermore, that notion had been offered as an afterthought, in a speculative manner. I preferred that he speculate over someone else.”

  “In my view,” said the surgeon, “bleeding does no good and can often do harm. But let me say, Sir John, that I am astonished that there should have been any doubt as to the location of the tumor. It is there to be seen, a tumor on her left ovary, a lump in her abdomen as big as a lemon. Nowhere near the liver.”

  Sir John sighed. “I was aware of it.”

  “Yet I fear that I, too, must concur in their prognosis.”

  “You see no hope for recovery, then?”

  “None.”

  “Ahhh!” It escaped him like a quiet wail. “My poor, sweet girl! I had no real hope for her, yet I would have welcomed any slight cause for optimism as a drowning man grasps a spar. You understand.”

  “Yes, I understand,” said the surgeon, “but it would be wrong to give you, or her, false hope. Indeed, I think the end is not far off. Her heart seems weaker and the beat slightly irregular. She’s grown quite weak.”

  “How near would you say? Today? Tomorrow? I’ll shut down the court, find another to sit in my place.”

  “No, not so near: a week perhaps; a month at the most. That she rests so well should extend her life rather than shorten it. This should give you time to prepare for what will surely come. My advice to you. Sir John, is to make those preparations and to continue with your work in all its aspects. It will not do for you to sit and wait for the end. Lady Fielding would not have it so.”

  The magistrate pondered this and concluded his considerations with an emphatic nod. “No doubt you’re right,” said he. “And I must say that of all the matters I have before me, this inquiry into the death of Lord Goodhope vexes and worries me most. I am troubled by the suspicion that if it is not concluded soon, it will not be successfully concluded at all.”

  “Let me assure you. Sir John, if there is anything I can do …”

  “Yes, I believe there is, Mr. Donnelly. It sticks in my memory that Lord Goodhope’s corpus has not been properly identified, at least not to my way of thinking. I recall from my first conversation with Lady Goodhope that she declined to enter the library on the night of his death and view the remains close at hand, understandable under the circumstances. That onerous task was left to the footman, who had just joined the household, and the butler, whom I frankly do not trust. Then, with the corpus removed, first to your surgery and then to the embalmer, I’ve come to doubt that she has looked upon it at all. I take it the body has been returned from the embalmer?”

  “It is to be returned this morning.”

  “The face has been somewhat repaired?”

  “We were assured that what could be done would be done.”

  “Well and good,” said Sir John. “You seem to have considerable influence upon her. I would like you to use it to persuade her to look upon the corpus and make a proper identification. You may act as my witness in this. I shall accept your word, and hers, without question.”

  “It may not be easy,” said Mr. Donnelly.

  “I realize that,” said Sir John, “for she is indeed a willful woman. But you may tell her for me that unless she makes such an identification, I will in no wise permit the burial of the corpus, whether in London or in Lancashire.”

  “That is indeed severe!”

  “It falls upon me, from time to time, to be severe.”

  “As you say. Sir John.”

  Mr. Donnelly pushed back from the table, rose, and made ready to leave.

  “I am curious,” said the magistrate. “Have there been callers?”

  “None to my knowledge.”

  “Messages of sympathy and condolence?”

  “Very few.”

  “It does seem passing strange, does it not? To be cut in life is common enough and of no great moment in Lord Goodhope’s society. Yet to be cut in death is to be cut deep indeed. I must find out about this, though I confess my contacts at court are nil.”

  “I wish you good fortune in the enterprise; in the inquiry as a whole. Now, if you will permit me, I shall take my leave. I have another call to make before looking in on Lady Goodhope and doing your bidding in that difficult matter.”

  Sir John rose and offered his hand, which Mr. Donnelly took firmly in his own. “May I ask,” said he, “has Mr. Martinez been of some help in setting accounts in order?”

  “He has been of great help. He has arranged a meeting at the office of Lord Goodhope’s solicitor, Mr. Blythe, this very afternoon. The situation will be discussed in detail.”

  “You will attend?”

  “As Lady Goodhope’s representative, yes.”

  “Then let me not keep you, for you have a busy .day ahead. Goodbye, Mr. Donnelly. You go with my deepest, sincerest thanks.”

  We were no more than a minute alone when Sir John, still on his feet, addressed me as though to the room at large. “Jeremy,” said he, “have you completed the tasks given you by Mrs. Gredge?”

  “I have, sir.”

  “Then get your hat and coat, boy, for I must now take you on a trip to an outer circle of hell.”

  When I climbed down from the hackney at Snow Hill, I beheld a structure the like of which I had never before even imagined. I had seen large buildings in my travels about London during the past few days, and this one was certainly among the largest. Yet it was not merely its size that I found so arresting, but rather its entire aspect which I found profoundly forbidding.

  As Sir John followed me down, surefooted as always, and settled with the hackney man, I took the opportunity to study the facade of the infamous Newgate Gaol. It stood some three or four levels high, though this, reader, was difficult for me to reckon due to the fact it had not many proper windows. Since it was destroyed during the riots of 1780 and thereafter rebuilt, it now has even fewer openings to the world outside. Built of gray stone, begrimed nearly to black, it was not without some manner of artistic decoration. Above its center arch was a grouping of emblematic figures, though what they emblemized I was never very sure. There in the middle of them, unmistakable because of the feline pet at his feet, stood a representation of the late Lord Mayor, Dick Whittington. Below that center arch was a barred gate wide enough to accommodate a carriage or a good-sized wagon. It was to that common entry that we proceeded.

  “Have I aimed us aright?” asked Sir John.

  “Straight as an arrow,” said I.

  His stick waving,
slightly extended, he found the gate and rattled the bars sharply. A man appeared, so ill clothed and in need of shaving that I at first took him to be a prisoner; yet he was the gatekeeper.

  “Well, look ye here, it’s Sir John Fielding come to pay a visit,” said he. He produced a ring of keys and jammed the largest of them home. “Bring us a guest for the keeping, did ye?”

  With a shock, I realized that he referred to me. Was this to be my punishment for hooking up Lucy Kilbourne’s bare back?

  “By no means,” said Sir John, relieving me greatly. “We are come to confer with one sent to you two days past: Dick Dillon by name.”

  “Well, we’ll look him up on the list and have you with him quick- like. One thing about the Sheriff’s Hotel, we always know where our guests is staying.”

  The gate was thrown open, and we entered. We were brought to the gate house where the list was produced and the name of Benjamin Bailey’s attacker found. A warder was summoned as our guide. He, only slightly more presentable than the gatekeeper, led us across a considerable courtyard and into the gaol proper, joking all the way as he chided Sir John for failing to fulfill some supposed quota. “How can you be so remiss?” said he quite boldly. “Us poor fellows depend on such as you send us for our livelihoods!” Then he cackled loudly, as though he had made a great jest.

  Sir John was not amused. “Though it may be so,” said he, “I would that it were not.”

  The warder continued cackling and giggling as he led us into the darkness. Ah yes, dark it was, the only light apparent coming from a few candles stuck here and about, and a torch at the end of the corridor. Though cloudy without and no sign of sunshine, it took me many moments to adjust my view to the all-pervading murk inside. And once the scene was visible, I wished that it was not, for along one side behind iron bars was a great common chamber of inmates, male and female. A few rushed to look upon us. Others lay inert on pallets against the wall. But the most ignored us, continuing their talk and browsing about among themselves, inured to indifference by all that did not directly affect them. And poor wretches they all were, clamoring for attention, moaning their woes, and snarling and laughing in a way that made both seem the same.

  Hands were thrust through the bars at us as their owners begged at us for coins. Money, as I was later instructed, was all that mattered in Newgate. One or two grabbed at my coat. I shrank back in fear, making my way in a creep along the wall. The candlelight flickering on the contorted faces lent an aspect not quite human to them. Sir John was recognized. His name was called, importuning and in simple greeting, and once with a curse. Yet he plunged on, acknowledging none, driven as I was by the desire to get past this incarcerated mob.

  But the smell, dear God, the stink of it! Any barnyard I’ve been in has smelt better, for there is something about human ordure that is more offensive to the nose than that of any other animal. Nor was that all, for added to it was an effluvium of decay that made me wonder, upon reflection, if some of those sleeping along the wall might not be dead; and if dead, how long.

  “What you got here,” said the warder, once we were past, “is your common felons—them as is serving short terms or waiting trial on lesser charges. Some waits a long time, it seems.” This seemed to be said for my instruction, for it was given me with a wink and a cackle. We had come to the spot where the torch burned. From it, a dark flight of stairs led to a level above. “The Master Felons Ward is up these stairs. They is all waiting trial on capital offenses. Your man Dillon is there.”

  With that, he pulled a candle from his coat pocket and lit it from the torch. Holding it aloft, he began his ascent and we behind him, I taking up the rear.

  “There’s not so many in this section,” the warder called out, “and they’re a quieter lot. Something to be quiet about, Fd hazard.”

  We emerged at the next level where it was not only quieter, but also a bit lighter. A torch burned; there were candles about, and there was also light streaming in from outside through two narrow windows placed together halfway down the corridor. This gave me a better view of those beyond the bars. There were perhaps a dozen there, among them two women who stood together in idle conversation. Two men sat against the wall, staring vacantly at some distant point. The rest were grouped together, sitting on the straw-scattered floor, drinking from cups, talking in low tones amongst themselves.

  There had been but a single warder stationed on the floor below. The Master Felons Ward merited two. Our man went over to one of them and informed him of Sir John’s mission. Dick Dillon’s name was called out, twice and loudly. At last a man in the group, one with his back toward us, bestirred himself, pitched himself up to stand unsteadily on his feet, then staggered over in our direction.

  A foolish smile of triumph spread over his slack features. “Well,” said he, “it’s the bleak, I mean the beak, I mean the blind beak. Ain’t this an honor to be visited here by the magistrate himself!”

  “You’re drunk,” said Sir John.

  “That’s as concerns me and not you, ain’t it? I had my turn before you, and once was enough. So if I chooses to imbibe myself a bit of gin from the Newgate taproom, it is my right to do so and no matter of yours.”

  “Perhaps I can make it my matter. Perhaps I can have your gin taken away.”

  “Not likely, not as long as I got money to pay.”

  “You could be relieved of that.”

  “Let them try.”

  With a bit of effort, Dillon pulled himself up to his full height, which was considerable, made two fists before him, and growled down deep in his throat as he looked from one warder to the next. And then he laughed.

  “Warders?”

  “Yes, Sir John?” said the two in chorus.

  “Be gone. I would talk to the prisoner in private.”

  They looked at each other, frowning. One of them shrugged. The other, our guide, removed his tricorn and scratched his head.

  “If we are to do that,” said he, “I must ask you. Sir John, to step back a good arm’s length from the bars, for I must remind you it was you put him here.”

  “No, warder,” said Sir John, stepping back as requested, “he put himself here, but now we have matters to discuss, and they are not for general knowledge.”

  “As you say. Sir John.” He seemed a bit reluctant.

  But the two removed themselves some considerable distance away. Sir John then turned in my direction.

  “Jeremy?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Have they gone? Can they hear?”

  “I would say that if you talk in your present voice, they cannot hear.”

  “Now, you, too, must step back, for the advice that was given was well given.”

  I did as he directed, and having heard, he nodded. Dillon once more growled, and once more he laughed.

  “You do well to laugh in your situation,” said Sir John.

  “I ain’t such a bad sort.”

  “Perhaps not, without a cutlass in your hand. This was, after all, your first arrest.”

  “Damned if it weren’t! And that little whoreson-bastard cheated at cards, or I’d not gone after him as I did. I did no murder on him, though he fair deserved it.”

  “So you consider yourself unjustly here?”

  “Yes, in a manner of speakin’, your magistrate, so I do.”

  “Even though you lied at the time of your arrest?”

  Dillon took great offense at that. He stretched out far through the bars, grasping at air, arms flailing at the two of us. Yet we were both just beyond his reach. At last he relaxed and drew back his long, strong arms.

  “Dick Dillon don’t cheat at cards, and he don’t lie,” he declared. “Did I not give my rightful name? My place of abode?”

  “True enough,” said Sir John quite mild, “but in the arrest report you gave yourself as unemployed.”

  “And so I am! Or so I was.”

  “Oh? What was then your relationship with Lord Richard Goodhope?”


  There was a pause, a silence from Dillon, when only a moment before the exchange between them had been most lively. When at last Dillon spoke up, he seemed to be choosing his words as carefully as his gin-addled brains allowed.

  “I was his former footman,” said he to Sir John. He added, with pride, “I did all the heavy hauling.”

  “That’s as it may be,” said Sir John, “but when were you last paid by him?”

  After that question, Dillon seemed to withdraw somewhat inside himself. There was much to be learned from his face as he stood before us. He worked slowly from defense, to suspicion, to hostility. “Yes, your magistrate,” said he, “I sees what you’re about. And you’ll not trap me. No, you’ll not trap Dick Dillon.”

  Sir John persisted in his line of questioning: “You left his employ quite suddenly. What was the reason?”

  “You are tryin’ to get from me for gratis what I shall only sell dear,” said Dillon. “We talked of this in your court. I wish transportation. I own I got information of interest to your magistrate. But I peach on no one, give no story to you or to anyone, unless it is I got a firm promise of transportation.”

  “Life on the plantations can be hard,” said Sir John.

  “I’ll take my chances, so I will. And I prefer it to the other.”

  “As would any man,” agreed Sir John. “But hear me through on this, Dick Dillon, for your very life may depend upon it. No magistrate can give absolute warrant that his recommendation will be followed, yet I have given my recommendations for leniency in the past, and they have never been ignored. I promise you faithfully, Dick Dillon, that I, John Fielding, magistrate of the Bow Street Court, will pass to Lord Mansfield, chief justice of the King’s Bench, my recommendation for transportation, rather than hanging, if you, in turn, provide me with material information dealing with the death of Lord Goodhope. What say you to that?”