The Price of Murder

by Bruce Alexander

  “Writers of romances know there is no such thing as ‘just a coincidence,’” said she smugly. “For what it’s worth, I didn’t like the looks of the fellow at all.”

  “I’ll tell you all that I know about him later on.”

  “See that you do.”

  Having come at last to a figure that suited them both, Mr. Deuteronomy and the vicar clasped hands. Then did the jockey count out the sum into the clergyman’s hand. Though I had not a good view, judging from the time it took to count it out, it must have been a considerable amount. He turned round then and came toward us, casting not a downward glance as he passed beside the open grave. Looking from one of us to the other, he made it plain that he wished to be introduced to Clarissa. I did the formalities with dispatch and (I thought) a bit of style, as well.

  “I wish to thank you both for coming to the service,” said Mr. Deuteronomy. “She got a proper sendoff, don’t you think?”

  Clarissa seemed puzzled. “She?”

  “Maggie, Margaret Mary—my niece.”

  “Oh,” said she. “Oh, yes of course—the funeral. It was all quite grand. I . . . I shall always remember it. The sermon!”

  “The choir,” said I.

  “Anyways,” said he, “it seemed like the least I could do for her.”

  “You . . .” I hesitated, not knowing quite how I might best frame the question. “You may not wish to go out today in search of your sister. I can well understand if you do not. Just say the word and—”

  “Oh no! No indeed,” said he, interrupting. “I would not think of deserting the hunt. Not now, not ever! Just give me time to duck back to me ken to change me duds, and I’ll meet you at that same coffee house we met at yestermorn. That suit you?”

  I nodded. “It suits me well.”

  “Good. Then it’s agreed, ain’t it? Oh, but one more thing. When we first met, you had a pistol you was carryin’ about. You recall, you took it from that Tiddle woman.”

  “I recall right enough.”

  “Bring it along again, would you?”

  “Why? Are the places we’ll visit today so dangerous that we must enter them armed?”

  “No, not so. I’ve got a notion about that pistol, so bring it along. I’ll tell you about it when I see you in the Haymarket. And bring along that last pawn ticket, will you? That’s part of my notion.”

  I spent the length of our walk to Number 4 Bow Street bringing Clarissa to date on aspects of the case. She wanted first to know all I could tell her about Walter Hogg—which, in truth, was not much.

  “What is most interesting about him,” said I to her, “is that he has appeared quite unexpectedly twice since he first doffed his hat to Deuteronomy Plummer here in Covent Garden.”

  “But, as I said earlier, Jeremy, there are no coincidences.”

  “Well, no doubt they are rare, but surely this is one.”

  “Perhaps—but I doubt it. Do you think he and Mr. Deuteronomy are acquainted?”

  “I doubt that very strongly. You recall I offered to introduce him to Mr. Deuteronomy? Well, it seemed to me then that the fellow was truly in awe of the jockey. Look upon it so, Clarissa. We may see Deuteronomy as no more than one who rides upon racing horses—though having seen him at it, I can well believe that he is the very best there is—nevertheless, Mr. Hogg sees him as something more, a source of money, dependable income. I doubt not that Hogg makes more by betting upon Mr. Deuteronomy each Sunday than he does from laboring the rest of the week for his embalmer.”

  Clarissa gave that some thought. “Do you mean, Jeremy, that there is so much to be made from wagering upon horses?”

  “I’d say there was no question of it. Why, I saw near as much cash changing hands at Shepherd’s Bush a day past as I saw of an evening at Black Jack Bilbo’s Gaming Club.”

  “Really? I’d no idea.”

  “And bear in mind,” I continued, “that the meet in Shepherd’s Bush was by no means one of the grand races—nothing, that is, compared to what’s held at Newmarket out on the heath. You heard what Hogg had to say about that, didn’t you?”

  “That all the best from all the counties would be there—horses, presumably.”

  “Horses indeed! And they’ll be there to run because the prize money is grandest there—though Mr. Patley insists that for the owners and breeders it’s the honor of winning that means most.”

  ’Twas when this was said that we left the Garden and struck off down Russell Street on our way to Bow Street, just round the corner—that much I recall exact, though I am not near so certain of the precise words of Clarissa that followed. I believe, however, that they went something like this:

  “Jeremy?”

  “Yes, Clarissa, what is it?”

  “That King’s Plate race in Newmarket—that’s next Sunday, is it not?”

  “So it is.”

  “Will you be going to it, as you did to Shepherd’s Bush, in order to keep an eye on our Mr. Deuteronomy?”

  “I doubt it,” said I. “First of all, Newmarket is quite some distance north—near Cambridge it is. And then, too, Deuteronomy has been so cooperative the last day or two that I, personally, think there’s no need to keep a close watch on the fellow.”

  “But say you were to go up there,” said she. “Since this is an all-England event, might it not be that there would be an even greater number of bettors, and consequently greater sums wagered?”

  What was she getting at, I wondered. “That would be a probable result,” said I.

  “Well then, Newmarket offers a great opportunity.”

  “An opportunity of what sort?”

  “Just think of it. If we were to combine your money with mine—we each have a little, after all—the combined amount would be, well, no longer just a little, but more than that.”

  “Yet still not a lot!”

  “Nevertheless,” she declared, “it could be enough to win us our fortune, given favorable odds.”

  “Favorable odds? Dear God, Clarissa, are you seriously proposing that we gamble away the little money we have in pursuit of making a fortune for ourselves? Why, that’s . . . that’s laughable.”

  “Not with favorable odds and the right attitude.”

  Though what she said was silly, somehow she did not appear silly saying it. No, the expression she wore on her face was one of quiet conviction. She believed profoundly in what she said.

  “And what, pray tell, is the right attitude?”

  “Prayerful and submissive.”

  At that I threw up my hands in dismay. “Oh, Clarissa, be serious, won’t you?”

  “I am being serious—and never more so. This is our future we’re discussing, is it not? Don’t you see? We could be married!”

  Arriving as I did in the Haymarket Coffee House only minutes after my departure from Number 4 Bow Street, I expected to pass a quarter of an hour or more sipping my favorite Jamaica brew before the arrival of Mr. Deuteronomy. Had I not hurried the distance that I might enjoy myself thus? Some men can spend a day drinking their good English bitter, others will consume gin or rum as long as they are upright. Yet my passion had been and always would be to drink coffee. It is in every way superior to those alcoholic beverages, for while they stupefy him who partakes of them, coffee quickens and sharpens the senses and improves the function of the brain. Let all who doubt me note that coffee is the favored refreshment in all such places as Lloyd’s and the Old Bailey, in which the leaders of commerce, business, and the law do gather. Now, the Haymarket’s patrons, while in no wise leaders in such fields, were in no wise in the same class as the louts, criminals, and drunkards, who frequented the dives and grog shops in Bedford Street and Seven Dials. It was, however, as one might suppose, just the sort of place that might be frequented by one such as Deuteronomy Plummer.

  And he was here already, having preceded me by half-a-mug of Jamaica brew. He was all for leaving at the moment of my arrival that we might continue our search for his sister. But pleading an early ris
ing time and the need to discuss his new notion regarding the pistol taken from Katy Tiddle, I managed to convince him that it would be best to discuss the next step to be taken before taking it. I ordered a coffee for myself.

  “Did you bring that pistol along?” he demanded. “The one I asked you to?”

  “Certainly I did,” said I, and, having said that, lifted it carefully out of my pocket and placed it on the table between us. The server came just then with my mug of coffee, and his eyes widened as he beheld the thing on the table—yet he said not a word. Indeed, it was a rather lethal-looking piece, was it not? Yet, it had a certain beauty to it, too—the engraving upon the hammer, the butt, even the barrel; and, of course, the evident signs of skill and craftsmanship that were to be seen in every detail of its construction.

  “And what about the pawn ticket? Have you brought that, too?” he asked in a manner most insistent.

  “Yes, of course.”

  I produced it and laid it down beside the pistol.

  “Good, that’s very good indeed. See here,” said he, looking about the coffee house and lowering his voice, “what I got in mind is this: The pawn ticket here ain’t no real pawn ticket at all.”

  “Then what is it?”

  “Why, it’s the sort of ticket you’re given in any sort of shop that serves the gentry when you bring in something that needs repair—to a tailor, a dressmaker—or to a gunsmith.”

  “I don’t understand,” said I. “What is it put you in mind of this?”

  “Well, the paper it’s on, for one thing. When we was passing it back and forth a day past, I happened to give it a careful look, and I noticed that it was printed upon substantial stuff and not the flimsy sort of the rest. Another thing—the numbers are just jotted down in pen and ink on the pawn tickets.”

  “Whereas on this one here . . .” I held up the small rectangle of stiff paper.

  “The number—what is it? twenty-nine?—is printed, well, stamped upon it, really. Now, it would take a very fancy shop to use such a device as one to make a stamp with different numbers, now wouldn’t it?”

  “I suppose it would, but how do you know that it’s a gunsmith’s shop?”

  “I don’t—not truly. ’Tis just a maggot that’s fixed itself within my head, but there’s good reason to think it, ain’t there? You said a while back that you took it away from that Tiddle woman. And just look at it. How would the likes of her come by such? That we don’t know, but we do know that she had naught in her possession of greater value, nothing that even came close. Why, if you added up the true value of all the items we looked at yesterday—I mean the things she pawned with no intention of redeeming—we’d probably find that all together they weren’t equal in worth to this pistol. So . . .”

  “So? What are you suggesting?”

  “That we try our luck at some of the gunsmith shops nearby. I know of a few. You probably do, too.”

  Since I could think of nothing better to suggest, I agreed to follow his suggestion, though not without some misgivings. What about Sir John’s warning against allowing Mr. Deuteronomy to take the investigation out of my hands? Why had I not planned for the next step in this peculiar search? It seemed that I could do little more than ride the coattails of him I had earlier permitted merely to help.

  I found Deuteronomy Plummer surprisingly knowledgeable in all matters pertaining to firearms, spouting information wherever we did go. The thought came to me, as we set off on what seemed to me a bootless effort, that my companion may simply have planned it all this way that he might escape the burden of what may have been for him simply another boring day.

  We thought it best to proceed on the same general principle as we had established the day before: that Katy Tiddle was too lazy and too besotted with booze to wander far from Seven Dials. So we would try those gunsmiths who were nearest first. I admit that I found the bits of gun lore I learned along the way quite anything but boring. I recall that in the first shop we visited—Wogdon’s, I believe, right there in the Haymarket—the clerk admired the pistol we showed him but said they had nothing like it in the shop. The clerk also said that the ticket we showed him was not one of theirs. But then, just as we were leaving, he asked if we might not like to see something “a little special.” Before I could decline, Mr. Deuteronomy had accepted the invitation and had us looking over an early-sixteenth-century hand cannon. When I said quite innocently that I’d no idea there were firearms quite so early, I was set a-right by both men who, together, lectured me at great length on the history of firearms in Europe. At the next, which was Nock’s, I received the word on firing devices—matchlocks, wheel locks, and flintlocks, and had to listen as Nock’s clerk puffed Henry Nock’s contribution to the history of firearms (his patented lock), which he called a “great step forward.” It slips my mind just now what it was I learned at Manton’s, but at the shop of Joseph Griffin in Bond Street I learned nothing at all.

  That was because when the clerk emerged from the rear of the shop, presenting himself all spruce and dapper, he took up the ticket I had placed upon the counter and smiled in recognition.

  “Ah,” said he, “I’d been wondering when someone might drop by for this. A pistol, isn’t it?”

  “No doubt it is, sir. It should be a mate for this.”

  And so saying, I hauled out the pistol that I had taken from Katy Tiddle and placed it on the counter.

  “Ah yes, of course. I shall be but a moment.” He then did turn and disappear behind the curtain into the rear of the shop.

  Saying nothing, yet wearing an I-told-you-so expression, Mr. Deuteronomy offered me a wink. We had not long to wait, for quick as Bob’s your uncle, the fellow was back, carrying a box about a foot square and half-a-foot deep.

  “Here we are,” said he, “a bent hammer, or so it says on the repair slip. I’ll not ask how it came to need fixing,” said he, chuckling as if he had made a great joke. “Perhaps you would like to check it over.” And having said that, he laid down the box before us and opened it. The thing did fairly gleam at us from its bed of plush. “If you like, I shall polish up the one you brought in whilst you inspect this one.”

  As I smiled and handed over the pistol I had pulled from my pocket, I happened to glance at my companion and, expecting him to be smiling in triumph, found him looking troubled instead. No, more than merely “troubled,” Mr. Deuteronomy seemed absolutely thunderstruck. He was reading the repair bill, and I wanted to ask him just what it was had so taken him aback, yet I thought it unwise to do so within the hearing of the clerk.

  When the latter returned from the buffer, the pistol in his hand seemed to sparkle and gleam like the one from the case that now rested in the right hand of Mr. Deuteronomy. Snap-snap-snap, it went—just as it should.

  “You see?” said the clerk. “It now works as well as its mate. Not much of a job, really.”

  “Well yes, I understand,” said I, “but how much will that be? You see, this is evidence—important evidence—in an important investigation conducted by the magistrate of the Bow Street Court.”

  An uneasy look appeared upon the face of the clerk. Clearly he did fear that I would simply claim the pistol, the case, and all, in the name of Sir John Fielding.

  “Never mind that, lad,” said Mr. Deuteronomy. “Let’s hear the cost of it, shall we?”

  “Just half a pound,” said the clerk. “Ten shillings.”

  “I’ve not got much with me,” I muttered sotto voce to Mr. Deuteronomy.

  “I have,” said he, wherewith he dug from his pocket and counted out the amount demanded by the clerk. “And well worth what you ask, I’m sure.”

  “We guarantee all our work,” said the other fellow smugly.

  As Mr. Deuteronomy began packing up the gun case, I realized that we were leaving a bit too quickly. I had a number of questions that should be answered. I informed the clerk of that and noted gratefully that he seemed eager to cooperate, if only to be rid of us the more quickly.

 
“Not quite so fast, if you please. There are some things I wish you to tell me. First of all, a remark you made when we came in did imply that the pistol has been here in the shop for quite some time. How long has it been here?”

  “Well, that’s easily answered,” said he, picking up the repair bill. “Right after the first of the year it was—January sixth. So we’ve had it here about four months.”

  “All right, fair enough. Who brought it in?”

  Again he looked at the repair bill. “A Mr. Bennett—or so it says here.”

  “Not good enough,” said I. “You must have some memory of the fellow. Or was it a fellow? Could it have been a woman brought it in?”

  “Not likely.”

  “Oh? And why not?”

  “Well, because ninety-nine out of a hundred who come in here are men.”

  “Then you have no memory of the fellow at all?”

  “None . . . Well, give me a moment. Let me think about that.”

  He did just that, covering his eyes, concentrating. “It seems to me,” said he, “that the man who brought it in was not the owner of the pistol—but a servant—something of that sort.”

  “What was he physically? Fat? thin? tall? short?”

  Again, hand over eyes, he went into a brief trance from which he emerged to say: “Of medium height, robust though not fat. I recall nothing of his face at all.”

  “Nothing of his nose? his eyes?”

  “No, nothing.”

  “But there—you see? You’ve remembered more than you thought you did.”

  He smiled at that as if surprised at himself. “So I have,” said he.

  “About the pistol itself,” said I, “is it of Joseph Griffin’s manufacture?”

  “Oh no, certainly not. This, as is its mate, is of French making.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “Well, first of all, look into the barrel—not when it is loaded, certainly—and you will see that it is rifled. It’s not done with English pistols—very rarely, in any case. And the bore is a good deal larger than what might be found in an English dueling pistol. From the look of them, I’d suspect that LePage was the maker, though for the life of me I can’t suppose why his name is not engraved upon the pistols or at least stamped someplace upon the case.”