The Price of Murder sjf-10

by Bruce Alexander

  “Now, you just wait, Jeremy,” said Mr. Baker. “Next two heats will go just like this one. Pegasus won’t win, but he’ll finish close enough that he’ll have a spot for himself in the final heat.”

  “And what will happen in that one?” I asked, though I’d guessed the answer, of course.

  “Why, he’ll win, bless you lad, he’ll win.”

  “And he’ll collect the prize of fifty pounds for his owner,” said Mr. Patley. “But I wonder if it ain’t your friend, Deuteronomy, deserves it more than the horse.”

  “Remember what I said just before the heat started?” said Baker. “About the horse? I said, he’s got the stuff to win, but he’s headstrong. If he just runs the kind of race his jockey tells him to run, he’ll do just fine. Well, he proved he can follow orders, so it’s a good bet he’ll win the final heat.”

  And that, reader, is just how it went. The only real test offered Pegasus and Mr. Deuteronomy that afternoon was in the last heat at the “Distance Post”-in other words, just beyond the cover afforded us by the cart. Horse and rider had then to establish their primacy, nor did they shrink from the task. They rode into the tight turn at near top speed. Deuteronomy fought his way forward by flailing left and right with his whip. And Pegasus did his part well by biting the leader that crowded him on the inside, causing the horse to shy into our cart and sending us into a frightening tip. Yet, thank God, we righted and saw Pegasus speed away from the tight turn. After that, they gave him space aplenty.

  Indeed, as predicted, Pegasus did win and this, I found out, was the first time ever he had raced. He received a drum-and-fife salute. His owner stepped forward to accept his fifty pounds, all of it in a jingling bag. When I spied the face of him who claimed the prize, my eyes widened and my face gave expression to my dismayed surprise.

  “What’s got into you, Jeremy?” Mr. Baker asked. “You look like you just bit into a sour apple.”

  “I feel like it, too. That man up there, the one who just collected the fifty pounds, he was damned rude to me when I asked him the time of day.”

  “Well,” said Mr. Patley, “there’s rude and there’s damned rude. Now, what was it qualified Lord Lamford for felony rudeness?”

  “Lord Lamford, is it? Wouldn’t it be so?” said I. Then did I proceed to tell them of the incident. And in truth, told so, it amounted to little. I could tell that neither man was greatly impressed by my anecdote. Yet had they been there and received his verbal slap in the face, I was certain that each would have reacted as I did.

  “Yes, well, Jeremy, these lords and ladies, they get pretty tetchy when you approach them just as you might anyone,” said Mr. Baker.

  “Oh, I know that, and I was polite as could be. It’s just. . Oh, let’s end it right there, shall we?”

  “Perhaps we’d best,” said Patley. “We got to collect our winnings before the oddsman does a scarper on us. We’ll meet you right here, and we’ll all ride back to town together. Suit you, Jeremy?” Then, as an afterthought: “Deuteronomy, by the bye, rides mostly for Lamford.”

  With that, they left me where I stood, and I moved a few steps closer to Lord Lamford-close enough, in any case, that I might hear him boast to his fellows in his self-assured drawl of how he had won the race:“. . told my man to hold him back till the last heat, and then-then did you see him go?” And did they not all crowd round him to listen to his braggadocio! One would think that Deuteronomy Plummer had just sat astride Pegasus all afternoon because the rules required it: all two-year-olds must be accompanied by an adult-something of that sort.

  As my mind went to Deuteronomy, so also did my eyes. He stood, saying naught, holding loosely onto the reins of the horse. I studied him at a distance of forty or fifty feet. He talked to no one and looked neither right nor left until; all of a sudden, he turned in my direction and looked straight at me. It was as though he had known all along that I was there. Then, staring at me in the expressionless manner he had looked at us when we applauded him, he handed the reins to a nearby groom and came straight over to me. When he arrived, he looked me up and down and said naught for a good long bit. When at last he did speak, he expressed doubt.

  “Are you really the Beak’s assistant?”

  “Yes,” said I, “yes I am. If you want to hear that confirmed, you can wait for those two men I was with to come back. They’re both constables at the Bow Street Court.”

  “No, if you say so, then I’ll believe you. Just keep that in mind, though, ’cause if you lie to me, I’ll find out, and then I’ll never believe you again. Even if you told me today was Easter Sunday, I’d say it wasn’t.”

  “All right, what do you want to know?”

  “I want to know if he’s going to do something about all this that has to do with Alice and-you know-my niece. Is he going to do something, or just shake his head and go on to the next thing?”

  “That’s not his way. If you’d seen him when I brought him word, then you’d know that.”

  “Did he shed a tear? I wept for that child all night long.”

  “No, that’s not his way, either. He can’t cry. It’s to do with his blindness.”

  “All right, put it like this: Has he got anybody working on it?”

  I hesitated but a moment. “I’m working on it right now.”

  He sniggered in spite of himself. “You? What’re you doing here? Investigating the horses?”

  “No, Sir John sent me here because he believed you were capable of killing your sister when you left him yester evening. He thought it would be good if I showed up here, so you’d see me and know that we were keeping an eye on you.”

  “I b’lieve I could have done her in if I’d come across her then.”

  “But not now?”

  “No, not now. Whilst I was busy shedding tears, I did some thinking. And it seemed to me that he-and prob’ly you, too-are better at investigating than I’ll ever be. So the best thing would be if we was to investigate together. You help me, and I’ll help you.”

  “After all,” said I, “whatever you think of your sister, it wasn’t she who killed her daughter. We’ll need her to find the one who did.”

  “That’s where I come in,” said he. “I’ve got some ideas where she might be. And I thought we might go together, that is, if you. .”

  “I’ll need all the help you can give me, Mr. Deuteronomy.”

  “All right then, what say we get us together and meet at the coffee house that faces onto Haymarket Square-say about eleven o’clock.”

  “I know the place. I’ll be there at eleven.”

  With that, he nodded, turned, and walked away. Well, I thought, there’ll be a lot to talk about with Sir John when I get back to Bow Street.

  On the contrary, my report to Sir John was given to him quickly in his study. He listened carefully to all that I had to say, nodding thoughtfully but making no comment. Even when I came at last to the offer made by Deuteronomy Plummer to join in the search for his sister, Sir John’s immediate response was simply a grunt. ’Twas only as I completed my recital and rose to return to the kitchen that the magistrate commented upon the information I had given him.

  “I take it you accepted Deuteronomy’s offer of help?”

  “Why, yes I did,” said I. “Is that not as you would have it?”

  “Oh yes, certainly it is. But let me give you a bit of advice.”

  “Please, sir.”

  “Simply put, it is this: Though he may have said that you know more than he about how to conduct an investigation, he will nevertheless try to wrest control of the investigation from you. Don’t allow him to do that. Remember that you have something specific that you had intended to attend to. One way or another, with him or without him, you must attend to it. You will, won’t you?”

  “I will, sir,” said I, yet still I hung on, unwilling to leave.

  “You may go, Jeremy. Your dinner may be cold, yet I think you will deem it one of the best you’ve eaten.”

  “I’m indeed l
ooking forward to it, sir, but. . well, may I ask, is there perhaps something wrong?”

  “Wrong? How do you mean that, Jeremy?”

  “You seemed so silent, so removed.”

  “Oh, I heard you well enough, but my mind was, I admit, upon other matters. It being Easter, I found myself thinking upon this Plummer case-the little girl pulled dead from the Thames, perhaps sold by her mother to a fate so hideous it cannot, should not, even be mentioned. I wondered what, if anything, God thinks of all this-if He may wonder from time to time if it was all worth the trouble.” He sighed a deep-oh, a profound sigh. And only then did he add, “I received Mr. Donnelly’s final autopsy report today. Mr. Marsden read it to me. It seems then that in spite of all that was done to her, Margaret Plummer died of asphyxiation. She was smothered.”

  With that, I bade him goodnight and went down to claim my dinner. A considerable slice of that glorious ham, of which Clarissa was so proud, had been warmed for me upon the fire in a pan. The potatoes and carrots, more difficult to warm, were served to me cold by her.

  Ah, but Clarissa was afterward anything but cold. We did hug and kiss, squeeze and fondle, for now that we were engaged to be engaged, she allowed me liberties (indeed, took a few herself) which were never before offered, nor even requested. Such was our situation: we carried on a courtship under the very noses of Sir John and Lady Fielding, altogether certain that they guessed naught of the change in our relations. But perhaps they knew more, and knew it earlier, than we had supposed.

  Next day, when I met with Deuteronomy Plummer at the Haymarket Coffee House, I spread out before him on the table all the numbered stubs and tickets that I had found in Katy Tiddle’s room.

  He glanced at them indifferently, shrugged, and said, “What about them?”

  “Well, what are they? I’ve studied them, and all I can tell you is that the numbers were written by diverse hands, and that, no matter how they are arranged and rearranged, they make no sense. That is to say, there was no code discernible. But how could there be, with so many numbers in so many different hands? After all-?”

  “Leave off, leave off,” said Mr. Deuteronomy in a way somewhat gruff. “You mean to tell me that you’ve no proper notion of what these here bits of paper might be?”

  “None at all.” I hesitated. “It’s been suggested to me that these may be pawn tickets, though somehow I doubt it.”

  “Well, that tells me more about you than it does about this Katy Tiddle woman. Of course they’re pawn tickets. Did you never pawn?”

  I was annoyed at the lordly manner he had, of a sudden, taken on. “What does that tell you about me?” I demanded.

  “It tells me you was brought up as a child of privilege, for one thing,” said he.

  “If it tells you that, it tells you false, for I am an orphan and nothing more. I work as I do for Sir John to pay my keep. I am the servant, and he my master.”

  That, reader, was by no means a fair summary of where I stood with regard to Sir John, nor he with me. If you have read thus far, then you know that he was to me far more in the nature of a teacher. And the things he taught did often exceed lessons in the law. It would not have been too much to claim him as my stepfather, yet I would not do so to Deuteronomy Plummer, for his remark had irritated me beyond telling. Child of privilege, indeed! I had all manner of household duties to perform. I served as Sir John’s amanuensis, writing the letters he dictated to me and often delivering them, as well. I served as the magistrate’s eyes during investigations of every sort, and, upon occasion, also as his bodyguard. And, finally, I had lately played substitute for Mr. Marsden, Sir John’s court clerk, during his recent bouts with influenza. And so on.

  Yet I told Mr. Deuteronomy none of this, for he gave me little opportunity to speak out, blurting forth so swiftly that I doubt he heard my voiced reply at all.

  “And what it tells me of Katy Tiddle is that she is a woman made poor by her drinking, as is my sister. I’ve met the woman upon occasion, she livin’ next door to my sister, and that is the opinion of her I have formed. Those numbered stubs and tickets-call them what you will-is from pawn shops hereabouts. It took two days time, and you still hadn’t figured out what they were, nor where they was from. Anybody don’t know what pawn tickets look like is a proper child of privilege, as far as I’m concerned. And anyways, why should we be chasing after what this woman pawned? Why ain’t we out chasing after Alice herself?”

  “Just how much did Sir John tell you about Katy Tiddle and how she fits into this case?”

  “Well, I. .” He hesitated, unable for a moment to express himself. Then did he begin again: “Truth of it is, after I heard about little Maggie, how she died and all, I didn’t get much after that. I remember he said something about Tiddle, but I’m afraid I didn’t take in what it was.”

  “I can understand that. But listen, we’ve good reason to think that Katy Tiddle brought the man who took Maggie away to your sister. She served as a sort of go-between. It seemed to me that he came back and killed her to keep her from naming him.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “From things she said when she identified the body. I thought we might go out to the pawn shops, at least a few of them, there around Seven Dials and take a look at the things she pawned to see if they give us any hints.”

  “Hints of what?”

  “Hints of just who this man was.”

  “Well, all right,” said he. “There’s a couple of places, taverns and inns thereabouts, places Alice drank, where we can stop and ask after her. But, well, she’s been gone awhile, ain’t she?”

  “She has,” said I with a sigh, “but drink up, and we’ll get started.”

  Having thus compromised, we set off for Cucumber Alley. It seemed best to work out in a sort of circle from there down into the heart of Seven Dials. And so we did. In a manner of speaking, there was little difference between the territory we explored and Bedford Street, which I knew far better. Yet there was this about Seven Dials: it attracted a lower class of inebriate. After observing the puffed faces and bleary eyes of passersby and of those sitting about on doorsteps, I asked him quite direct why he had chosen such a place as this to install his sister and niece. (This was a question, reader, which had plagued me ever since I had heard he paid the rent.)

  “That is a question easily answered,” said he, “for truth to tell, I did not choose it. She did. When at last I come to find her, she’d had Maggie and was sharing a room with a whore. I tempted her out of that situation, but she would not leave Seven Dials-oh no, young sir, she would not. So I got her into that room you saw and gave her a little each week so she wouldn’t have to whore.”

  “But what about Maggie?”

  “What about her?”

  “Well, such circumstances could not have been good for the child.”

  “No, they wasn’t, but Maggie never seemed to mind much-just so long as she had her dollies to play with. Truth to tell, Maggie wasn’t quite right in the head. I had a suspicion that Alice dropped her once or twice whilst she was carryin’ her about-but she said she never.”

  Though I have since heard worse, I recall thinking at the time that in the bare facts just given me by Mr. Deuteronomy, I had the saddest, squalidest, most wretched story I had ever heard. I recalled, too, something told us by Katy Tiddle when she went unwillingly with me to Mr. Donnelly’s surgery to identify the body of Maggie Plummer.

  “I am reminded,” said I to Deuteronomy, “of what was said by Katy Tiddle of the man who took your niece away.”

  “Oh?” said he, now quickly on guard. “And what was that?”

  “She told us that while it was true that your sister had probably taken money for little Maggie, it was also true that she was told that he would be bringing her to wealthy parents who would bring her up as one of their own. He told her Maggie would be happy with them, and Alice believed him.”

  “And what did Maggie say?”

  “That we were not told. But see h
ere, Mr. Deuteronomy, why not give your errant sister the benefit of the doubt? Perhaps she was aware of her shortcomings as a mother. Perhaps she did truly believe that Maggie would be better off with others. Perhaps-”

  He cut me off: “Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. Say whatever you like, but the child is still dead, ain’t she?”

  “Yes, but not at her mother’s hand.”

  To that he had no response.

  There were but three pawn shops in the vicinity of Seven Dials, yet by the time we had visited all three, we had disposed of all but one of the numbered bits of paper; there must have been about thirty in all. Though, as we learned, some (a very few) of the items pawned by Katy Tiddle had been sold to buyers off the street, the greater number were still available and in the shops. By invoking the name and authority of Sir John Fielding, I forced them to bring forth the items the woman had pawned. We examined them and found them to be, with only a few exceptions, the sort of treasures that might be fetched forth from a gentleman’s pocket-watches, watch chains, kerchiefs of silk, cameos, et cetera. So, it seemed that Katy Tiddle was more skilled as a pickpocket than as a prostitute. The exceptions-items too large to be carried about in a pocket-clocks, a looking glass in a gilt picture frame, a jade chess set, et cetera, left me wondering if Tiddle were not perhaps a burglar, as well. But perhaps not, for the few clocks were quite heavy-at least a stone each. She may have bargained her quim with a proper burglar for such as that.

  I learned much about the economics of the place. Seven Dials, it seemed, was supported by petty theft, for the most part. Bedford Street, by contrast, lived off grand theft, gambling, prostitution, and pimpery, and a hundred other more sophisticated and less legal enterprises; theirs was the more diverse economy.

  Then, by earlier agreement, we moved on to what Mr. Deuteronomy assured me were his sister’s favorite drinking spots; each, it turned out, was more dreary than the last. When I called this to his attention, he puffed his cheeks and blew air dismissively.