The Price of Murder sjf-10

by Bruce Alexander

  “There are two or three who could take Molly’s place,” said Lady Fielding, “if it ever came to that.”

  “Thank God it has not,” said Sir John. Then, lest that be taken amiss by Clarissa he complimented her on the stew, and of course all the table joined in, praising the meal as though it were some culinary masterpiece. Clarissa smiled graciously and acknowledged our thanks with a nod. However, once the meal was done, and we had the kitchen to ourselves, she did not hesitate to say what she truly believed. I recall that she had been sitting quietly at the table whilst I rubbed and scrubbed at the pot in which she had cooked our stew. All of a sudden she did speak. It was more than a remark; it was, rather, a pronouncement, a declaration.

  “False praise is worse than no praise at all,” said she.

  “What do you mean by that?” I asked her.

  “Just what I say! I was quite disappointed in you, Jeremy-the way you added your voice to the rest, lauding that mediocre meal when you knew as well as I just how good it was not.” She had me there, all right.

  “Well,” I replied, “I would admit that it was not up to your very best, but after all, Clarissa-”

  With a wave of her hand she silenced me. “Oh, never mind,” said she. “This has not been a good day for me, but you’re certainly not the cause of it.”

  “Then. . who is?”

  “I am, of course. I’ve no one to blame but myself. How could I have spoken up to Sir John and challenged him in his very own courtroom? What right had I? What sort of clerk was I to do such a thing?”

  “Oh, you mean that matter to do with the woman who’s buying up all of Covent Garden.”

  “But of course I didn’t know that, did I? Yet even so, I should not have spoken out as I did. Why must I always. . always. . be me?”

  My heart went out to her. Sitting there at the kitchen table she had wound herself round her chair in such a way that she seemed smaller than she truly was. She hung her head, avoiding my gaze. Still, I suspected that there were tears in her eyes once more. Women are such emotional creatures, are they not?

  I was about to say something to her-something of a comforting nature, I suppose, though I cannot now imagine what it might have been. That was when Sir John’s voice rang out from the floor above, summoning me to him.

  “Just finishing up here,” I called back to him. “I’ll be with you in a moment, sir.”

  That seemed to satisfy him, for I heard nothing more. Having scrubbed the pot well, I put it aside and made ready to go.

  “I’ll finish up for you,” said she to me, rising from her chair and dabbing at her eyes.

  “Well, all right,” said I. “Shall I tell Sir John how. . how you feel about all this?”

  She looked, of a sudden, quite horror-stricken at my suggestion. “Oh no,” said she, “say nothing of the kind. Whatever he wishes to say should be said-to me. Please, Jeremy, don’t play the peacemaker, not this time.”

  “All right,” said I. And, having said that, I saw there was nothing else to say. With a nod, I turned and hastened up the stairs.

  He was, as I expected, sitting in the darkened room he called his study. And, also as I expected, he urged me to light the candles on his desk if I’d a wish for more light. Naturally, I declined. I do not think those candles had been lit for a year or more. As soon as I had settled in the visitor’s chair, he put a question to me.

  “Where were we?”

  “Sir?”

  “As I recall, you had just told me that Deuteronomy Plummer had dropped off the pistol in its case a bit earlier than expected. And that was when Mr. Brede came in, confirming Kathleen Quigley’s story. . or part of it,” said Sir John with a proper harrumph.

  “Indeed, Sir John,” I agreed.

  “Then there were a number of other interruptions, followed by dinner, followed by me asking you where we were.”

  “Ah, of course. Well, there was a note to me in the case.”

  “A good place to start. What did he say in the note?”

  “I can fetch it for you and read it, if you like.”

  “Quite unnecessary. Please, just summarize.”

  “He simply said that he was returning the pistol early, as he had no further use for it. Then did he repeat that he was fair certain that his sister would make an appearance at Newmarket. Indeed so certain was he that he had taken the liberty of booking a room for me at an inn in the town-had rather an odd name, so it did.”

  “The Good Queen Bess, was it?”

  “How did you know, sir?”

  “Ah well, I’ve been to Newmarket a time or two, and I’ve stayed there.”

  “Is it the only place in town?”

  “Far from it. Nevertheless, it’s the only place for the racing crowd. You’ll no doubt enjoy your stay.”

  “Then I’m going?”

  “Oh yes. Had you not supposed that you would?”

  “When do we leave?” I asked rather excitedly. Indeed, I was rather excited by the prospect of such a trip.

  “Not ‘we,’” said he. “You’ll go alone-or not quite so, for a constable must accompany you, should you have the opportunity to make an arrest. It seems to me that we are working not so much on two separate cases but upon a single one, as will eventually be revealed when we are a bit further along with each of them. The way to solve this single big case, it seems to me, is to work hard to push both the two smaller ones along. Therefore, I shall remain in London and work upon the disappearance of Elizabeth Hooker, and you, it seems, would best pursue the mother of little Maggie Plummer up in Newmarket.”

  “Supposing I find Alice Plummer,” said I to him, “on what charge is she to be arrested?”

  “Ah, now Jeremy, you really are starting to think as a lawyer.” He speculated: “What charge indeed? Certainly not murder. We cannot even say with certainty that the child was murdered-and, in any case, she was not when under her mother’s supervision. My feeling is that she can only be arrested and held on a charge of slavery-specifically child-selling. The important thing is to get her back here so she may be questioned. But of course all this supposes that you and your constable can get round the matter of jurisdiction. You’ll do that as best you can, working in concert with the constable. Whom will you take with you?”

  “Constable Patley,” said I, “for he is the only one of the Runners who knows Alice Plummer by sight. As for the rest of it, Patley may not know much law, but he is resourceful.”

  “Then he is your man. You two will leave soon as Mr. Marsden returns.”

  Thinking the matter settled, I rose from my chair, only to be told most emphatically to sit down once again. I obeyed.

  He waited a moment, then leaned forward and lowered his voice. “What do you think of this Hooker girl?”

  “How do you mean, sir?”

  “Well, you must concede, surely, that two distinctly different versions of the girl have emerged.”

  I responded hesitantly: “I would say. . that much. . is evident. Clarissa’s Elizabeth is much different from Kathleen Quigley’s.”

  “Yes, quite. And Mistress Quigley has already passed the first test with Constable Brede.”

  “As I did say earlier in the coach, I am inclined to accept Mistress Quigley’s version of events and of Elizabeth’s character. She would have little to gain by lying.”

  “True,” said Sir John, “but Clarissa knew the girl longer and, presumably, better. And she said that the girl is naught but a bore-no ambitions, no dreams.” He held back a moment, but then came forth with it: “Tell me, Jeremy, what do you think of Clarissa as a judge of character?”

  I took a moment to glance behind me and make sure that the door to the hall was shut tight: it was. Nevertheless, I lowered my voice to address Sir John.

  “I think highly of her ability to judge people,” said I. “There have been a few times, I suppose, when she was off the mark, but in general I would say that she is far better than most at that sort of thing.”

  “I wo
uld have said the same,” said he. “But there is such a disparity between her view of Elizabeth and the girl who emerges from Mistress Quigley’s testimony that it is necessary to accept one or the other.”

  “Bear in mind though, sir, that the girls had not seen each other for near five years, or perhaps more. It could be that Clarissa was, without intending it, passing judgment upon the ten-year-old girl she had known then. Most of us, I think, are bored by ten-year-olds.”

  “Hmmm,” said he, “an interesting theory. Let me put it to her. Ask her to come in here, will you?”

  “That is all then, sir?”

  “I should think that quite a lot. ’Tis not every lad who gets himself sent off to Newmarket for a race meet.”

  “For which you may be certain that I am indeed grateful,” said I with a properly impudent grin upon my face.

  I was then up and out of the room before he could change his mind.

  Clarissa was in the kitchen, sitting at the table where I had left her. She looked up as I descended the stairs and entered the kitchen, relieved at my careless manner. It was only as she pointed to the chair beside hers with the pen in her hand that I noted that she had been writing in what she called her “journal-book.” After I had presented it to her the Christmas before, I had only glimpsed it two or three times as she carried it about. Not that she was secretive about it: nevertheless, there was a certain sense of privacy about it to which, in my mind, she was well entitled. I took the chair she had indicated and sat down. She was, I think about to speak.

  “He wants to see you,” said I.

  “Oh dear,” said she. “Is it. .” She left the sentence unfinished, just as she did the next: “You didn’t. .”

  “No, no, no,” said I. “Nothing like that. I think what he really wishes is to talk to you about Elizabeth Hooker.”

  “Oh, really?” She seemed let down somewhat, almost disappointed. “Well, all right”-laying her pen aside, closing the journal-book, and marking her place with a blotter-“That’s not so frightening.”

  She stood and, with a forced smile, she marched away and up the stairs. I watched her go.

  After the first few minutes of sitting and waiting for her to return, my eyes fastened upon Clarissa’s journal-book. Now, ordinarily, I would not think of invading her privacy by reading such a document. Nevertheless, there were other factors involved. First of all, when I face a period of waiting, I become quite desperate for something-anything! — to read. I recall having said something about this some months before. In any case, she knew of this; she had been forewarned. Secondly, she had left the journal-book out upon the kitchen table within my easy grasp. It was there before me as a temptation-nay, more, as a provocation. It was almost as though she wanted me to open it up and read. What was I to do? My eyes played over the book for some minutes (well, two or three, anyway), and, at last, I found that there was naught to do to solve the problem, but to reach out for it and open it up.

  What greeted me, at first, surprised me, for I found pictures-an abundance of them in nearly every corner and margin of every page. Pictures of what? Oh, flowers of one kind or another, buildings and trees. And faces-faces of all sorts, men, women, and children, some of them quite skillfully done. She was not without talent, certainly-yet she had quite successfully hidden it from all of us-or so I supposed.

  As for what she had written therein, the text wound about her drawings, in some instances taking on the shape of the object with which it shared the page. A number of them seemed to be books in synopsis, mere ideas for books, or the beginnings of books. And some of the faces that surrounded these entries might well have been the faces of the characters as she visualized them. Could the faces have come first? An interesting supposition, that.

  Thus entranced, I paged through more than half the journal-book, which is to say, near all that she had written in it. Yet ’twas not her text that stopped me and held me there: again, it was the drawings, the sketches, the pictures. One of them, that one of a bearded man, that could be none other than Black Jack Bilbo-and the face beside his, a woman, there was something about it-Marie-Helene? Of course! Then did I find on the overleaf a rather good sketch of Tom Durham, and below it, another male face, which I could not quite recognize. There was something familiar about it, yet. .

  I turned back to the beginning of this section and began to read:

  “Why not [she wrote] a book about Jeremy and me? It would be great fun and a considerable relief to write of events just as they happened. I would be relieved of the need to plot, which I find so difficult. And after all, the events of our lives, arranged in order, and perhaps tightened up a bit are just as exciting as any can be read in a romance, and the sentiments presented in it would be real as can be. I could include, perhaps even begin with, the capture of Marie-Helene by Black Jack Bilbo and their eventual escape. In a sense, that happened to Jeremy and to me as well as to them. But no, to begin there would be to lose too much of our story, Jeremy’s and mine-individually and in concert. Ah, how romantic it will be to trace our early history-the squabbles and the wrangles that persisted intolerably long until they end-as they will-in wedded bliss. Should I use real names? I’m not sure. In a way, it matters little what names I give them if they are well-described. To speak of a certain blind magistrate would surely bring only one man to mind. And if I were to describe another as a lexicographer from Lichfield, he would-

  There did her projections end, for at that point I must have appeared with the invitation from Sir John that she come and join him for a talk. And by a strange coincidence of events, I did hear her step upon the stairs at just that moment. Hurriedly I replaced her journal-book, making every effort to fix it in the exact angle in relation to the ink bottle. Afterward, I wondered why I was so careful to put the book back in place just as it had been, for I would have words with her about it, or know the reason why I should not.

  She appeared, stepping sprightly with a smile upon her face.“Well,” said she, “that was not so bad. No, not bad at all.”

  “I thought it would not be,” said I rather coolly.

  ’Twas not what I said, but the manner in which I said it that seemed to disturb her. She looked at me closely as if to find the reason for the slightly sullen expression written upon my face.

  “What ails you?” said she.

  I said naught but looked her straight in the eye.

  She settled down in the chair at the table wherein she sat before her interview with Sir John. Looking about her, she suddenly understood and started to laugh.

  “You’ve been looking at my journal-book, have you not?”

  “Well … I …”

  “Admit it,” said she with a proper chuckle. “I was half-hoping you would read through it in any case. What did you think of it?”

  “Well. . I. . that is. . I thought your drawings were very good,” said I, thinking it better to begin upon a positive note. “I’m amazed that you’ve kept your light under a bushel for so long. Have you no wish to study? To learn to paint?”

  “No, not a bit of it. Women publish books. They don’t paint portraits. I draw pictures to amuse myself and to help me in my writing.” With that, she leaned back and looked upon me with curiosity. “But that’s not what has set you going, now is it?”

  “Well, no,” I admitted.

  “What then? It was what I’d written, of course.”

  “I suppose it was.”

  “Were you surprised to find that I’d not made a diary of it-the kind all girls keep when they’re eleven or twelve?”

  “Perhaps a little.”

  “Disappointed?”

  “No!”

  “But what was it upset you so to find I’d made of it a repository for all my ideas for writing?” (But the question was rhetorical and not truly directed at me.) “I know! It was the last thing in the book, was it not? That upon which I was working when you brought to me Sir John’s summons. You object to having our life put before the world, do you? Well,
does it mean naught to you that I hold our lives to be as truly exciting and adventurous as any in a romance-or a book of any sort? Real life is grand, Jeremy. Don’t you-”

  “Still, Clarissa,” I said, interrupting her, “‘a certain blind magistrate,’ ‘a noted lexicographer from Lichfield?’ How could you?”

  “Oh pish-posh,” said she, “I was but having a bit of fun there.”

  “Well, your fun may be another’s misery.”

  “None of that now. Sir John and Samuel Johnson can defend themselves.”

  I was about to reply to that when she spoke up once more and uttered words that proved prophetic.

  “Sometime in the future, Jeremy, you yourself may write books about Sir John. And why not? What better memorial could he have? Until then, let us consider that he can and should be written about by one of us. Does that not seem reasonable?”

  I had to admit that it did. Perhaps, reader, I had already, at that early date, begun to think about writing this series of books. There we left the matter. I, for one, was quite exhausted by our quarrel-if quarrel it was. But, as Clarissa gathered up her things, I added what, for a while, I later came to regret.

  “It’s been decided,” said I to her, “that I shall be going up to Newmarket for the big race, as we discussed.”

  “I know,” said she. “Sir John told me.”

  What I later came to regret for a little while was that Clarissa had not given up that daft idea of hers of combining our savings and betting all upon the longest shot on the boards. She made that plain when, just as I was waiting to leave with Mr. Patley next day, she suddenly appeared and, from her large apron pocket, drew a great, jingling pile of coins tied up neatly in a kerchief.

  “Here,” said she, “you’ll find a pound and eleven shillings. You don’t need to count it, for I’ve done that over and over again. You’ve probably twice that amount. Just put it together with mine and wager it where it will do the most good.”

  “But Clarissa-”

  “Not a word, Jeremy! Just remember what I said: favorable odds and the right attitude. That will do it.”