The Price of Murder sjf-10

by Bruce Alexander

  Pegasus, on the other hand, was simply smarter than the rest. He and his rider, Mr. Deuteronomy, demonstrated that very early on. Of the nine horses at the line, three reared, and two otherwise shied at the starting gun, and so Pegasus, taking off as smoothly as a ship launched into the sea, had an immediate advantage over half the field. He kept it up to the brook, which flowed across the course at that point. All four of the leaders cleared it without difficulty, yet Deuteronomy was finding it hard to find a path through the leaders. He shouted something and somehow seemed to relax his grip on the reins, giving Pegasus his head. The horse broke to the outside, and, in this way, worked past the others, one by one, up to second place-behind Charade. Both those fine animals were galloping apparently for all they were worth. The crowd, many more than five thousand in number, cheered loudly at the sight of them beating their way down the stretch. And again, Deuteronomy shouted at Pegasus, and then, little by little, Pegasus began to move up and away from Charade.

  Pegasus won by a full length. There could be no disputing it. As that single, stunning fact was communicated to the vast assemblage of people all round us, they fell silent. To my ears, it seemed that Mr. Patley and I were the only two who rejoiced. And why should we not? We had suddenly become rich men.

  NINE

  In which we go back to London and find Elizabeth returned

  We narrowly made the post coach to London. What with collecting our winnings and storing banknotes in our luggage that we might travel with them without calling undue attention to ourselves, it was just on five in the afternoon when we came running up to the coach.

  “Here,” said the footman, reaching for my portmanteau, “you’ll want your bags up top, I’m sure.”

  Mr. Patley and I exchanged glances and thus found ourselves in agreement. I jerked it back from his grasp and politely declined.

  “I’ll hold it upon my lap, thank you.”

  He gave me a queer look, then turned to Mr. Patley. “And you?”

  “I’ll keep mine, too.”

  “All right, then. Into the coach with you both. We’ve got a schedule to keep.”

  Jumping inside, we arranged ourselves as best we could among the four other passengers (all of them quite respectable-looking) and made ready to go. After the footman had climbed up to his place beside the driver, there was no delay. A rowdy call, a crack of the whip, and we were off through the streets of Newmarket. It took only a few minutes for us to be out in the country on the road to Cambridge.

  Unlike the trip up to Newmarket, the return journey to London was spent by us in a state of intense wakefulness. I, for one, learned in the course of that one night alone what a remarkable burden a large amount of money can be. Yet no matter how heavy, we preferred to keep our baggage right there in our hands. I’ll not pretend that supporting the weight of our good fortune, as we were, ours was-or could have been-a comfortable trip. Nevertheless, that is how we made the trip, and no complaint was heard from either of us.

  We arrived at the Post Coach House in London well before sunrise, our legs so stiff and our backsides so battered that we could scarce walk. Yet as our muscles loosened a bit, we were able to pick up the pace, and it was not long till we found ourselves crossing Covent Garden. It occurred to me then that we might be on the very path taken by Elizabeth Hooker in the riskful company of her two young gallants. I wondered then-alas, for the first time! — what Sir John had turned up in his investigation of that odd situation. What had the girl at heart? Would we ever know? I realized then how glad I was to be back in London, working once again with Sir John. A life in the law was a life I had never dreamed of till I came here, to the city-and now I could imagine none other for me. Such thoughts never failed to put a smile upon my face. Yet then I thought of the report that I brought back with me-how we had found Alice Plummer and then lost her. In all truth, I was properly ashamed of how little we could claim for all the time we had spent there.

  Even in the dim dawn light, Bow Street appeared the same, and as we entered through the door of Number 4, I noted that the place even smelled the same-rock oil and strong soap. Catching first glimpse of us, Mr. Baker called out a greeting.

  “Which horse won at Newmarket?” he asked.

  “Ah well,” answered Mr. Patley, “we’ve a story ’twill shock you and delight you.”

  But I begged off: “Mr. Patley knows the story well as I. He’ll tell it better. I’m for a bit of a nap.”

  With that, I staggered up the stairs, hauling my portmanteau behind. I did not knock upon the door, which would have admitted me to our kitchen; rather, did I throw it open and, unintended, send Clarissa jumping from her chair in surprise.

  “Jeremy,” said she, “it’s you!”

  “Who else but me? And I sat up the entire night long on the bumpiest mail coach that I might see you a few hours earlier.”

  “Really?” She ran to me, threw her arms about my neck, and quite covered my face with kisses. I confess that I rather liked it.

  “Sit down, sit down,” said she. “You must be quite perishing with hunger. The breakfast tea is still hot, and I’ve just cut into a pan of Molly’s soda bread. Do sit down, Jeremy, and I’ll serve you.”

  I did as she urged and watched her whiz round the kitchen, throwing together my breakfast. Only moments before, she had been writing in her journal. There, indeed, it was, open, with quill and ink pot beside it. I wondered what she had written in my absence, though I suspected that she would never again be quite so free in allowing me opportunity to view its contents as she had been before, so that I might never know.

  Though hastily improvised, my breakfast was in no wise inferior: the tea was warm and tasty; Molly’s soda bread was beyond compare; and the butter I daubed upon it was as fine as could be. She took her place at the table just opposite me, and, with a hand propped beneath her chin, she stared at me for an interminable length of time. I felt embarrassed to be studied so. At last she spoke.

  “You’re back,” said she. “I’ve missed you even more than I expected.”

  “Things seem much as they were when I left, though. Not much changed?”

  “Oh no, on the contrary. Much has changed.”

  My first thought was to the case at hand: “Has Sir John got to the bottom of this perplexing matter with your friend Elizabeth?”

  “No, no, nothing of that. So far as I know, it remains unchanged. The news is much closer to us.” She looked up and about the room, as if seeking a place to start. Then, beginning again, she said, “Molly and Mr. Donnelly have made plain their intentions. They’ve announced to all their wish to marry. This was, I hasten to add, after he and Sir John had discussed the matter thoroughly-not exactly asking Sir John’s permission, but. . well, you understand.”

  “Not entirely, no, but I certainly catch the drift of it.”

  “Well, she’s a widow, this would be her second marriage, and all that Sir John could or would say is that he had no objection to it at all. He congratulated Mr. Donnelly and offered her a kiss upon the cheek and his best wishes for a long and fruitful union. It’s rather a delicate matter, after all.”

  “Oh? How so?”

  “The religion matter, of course. They must be married by a Roman Catholic priest-but of course officially there are none here in England. So they must either marry in secret or go off to Ireland to have it done. They favor having it done in Dublin, so that his family may meet her and all. But to me, marrying in a secret ceremony seems so much better-more romantic, literary, poetical.”

  “Oh,” said I, “you would view it so, I’m sure, but just imagine all of the complications, having to prove time after time that you are truly married.”

  Clarissa’s mouth flew open, as if she were about to argue the point with me. But then her expression softened, and she smiled a little smile.

  “Oh, Jeremy,” said she, “must you always be so practical?” Then did she sigh. “You’re right, of course.”

  “How did Lady Fielding take al
l this?”

  She lowered her voice to a whisper: “Not so well at first. She seemed to feel that Molly is somehow beneath him. She talked around all this just yesterday whilst we were at the Magdalene Home. Oh, but what does it matter? Mr. Goldsmith thinks it to be a fine idea. So does Benjamin Bailey. There seems to be some family relation there that I don’t quite understand. .”

  “Oh well, no matter,” said I.

  There discussion ended rather abruptly. Yet, the frown upon her face told me that there was a good deal more that she wished to say. It seemed to me that she was merely trying to decide if now were the right time for it to be said. Still, when had she ever shown herself to be faint of heart?

  “You realize, don’t you, Jeremy, what this means?”

  “It means a good many things, doesn’t it? We shall be getting a new cook, I suppose, and-”

  “Oh, Jeremy, you’re often just impossible! Do you not realize that an obstacle to our own wedding plans has just been removed?”

  I was teasing her, of course. “An obstacle,” said I, “but there are others.”

  I rose from my chair, hauled up my bag, and placed it upon the table.

  “Better move that inkpot,” said I to her as I unbuckled the straps to the portmanteau. Then, holding it together, I added, “As I recall, you were so deeply concerned about our financial situation that you entrusted your own paltry savings to me and urged me to bet them where the odds were most favorable. Isn’t that correct?”

  “Oh yes-that.” She seemed embarrassed that I had remembered. “Not one of my more reasonable ideas, I fear. I sometimes have these harebrained notions that Divine Intervention will rescue us. I hope that you did not put your money with mine, as I asked you to do.”

  “Truth to tell, I did,” said I. “And this, dear Clarissa, was the result.”

  I then threw open the portmanteau and revealed to her a profusion of banknotes, as impressive an array as I myself had ever seen. “Would you not say that Divine Intervention has struck?”

  She was open-mouthed with awe, speechless, breathless. At last, she did manage to say, “Dear God, Jeremy, is all of this ours?”

  “Unfortunately, no,” said I, “but one hundred fifty-one pounds and thirteen shillings of it is, which is more than you or I ever expected. I thought I would give you a glimpse of the full swack just to dazzle you proper before Mr. Deuteronomy takes his larger share.”

  “How much larger?” she asked in a small voice. “How much is here exactly?”

  “Well, there’s our hundred fifty-one pounds and Deuteronomy’s three thousand.”

  “Three thousand? But that’s a fortune!”

  “That’s right. He won on Pegasus, the horse he rode Easter at Shepherd’s Bush. He asked me to place a hundred-pound bet on Pegasus.”

  “And what were the odds?”

  “Thirty to one.”

  “I’ve never heard of such odds.”

  “Well, that’s what they were, and that’s what they paid.”

  I then asked a question that had been at the back of my mind ever since she first gave voice to her plan for making us rich.

  “Clarissa,” said I, “how did you learn about racing, and odds, and betting, all of that?”

  “I learned about it from my father, of course. How else might I have done?”

  Her reprobate father, the cause of so much misery for her, had, in this way, compensated in part for his mischief.

  “He was a confirmed bettor,” said she. “He kept promising to take me to all the race meets round London when first I arrived here. Yet in the end he never did.”

  I slapped the portmanteau together and buckled it up tight. “I doubt that I shall bet again,” said I, “unless I am well advised by Mr. Deuteronomy himself.”

  ’Twas not long afterward that Molly came down, rubbing her eyes and yawning. I made my excuses and, wishing to put off my report to Sir John as long as I might, I declared that I would sleep until summoned.

  The summons came from Sir John and was brought to me by Clarissa, who was most agitated by the message she carried.

  “Jeremy, come at once, oh do!”

  I’d heard her footsteps upon the stairs and was sitting up in bed when she came a-rushing into my garret room.

  “What? What is it?”

  “Elizabeth is returned!”

  “Who? Elizabeth? Who is-oh yes, Elizabeth Hooker.”

  “Sir John wants us both with him. She’s evidently much the worse for her ordeal.”

  “What ordeal? Tell me.”

  “No, get dressed. You’ll hear about it on the way.”

  I did as I was told. I could not have slept long-an hour or two perhaps-for my mind was foggy and my tongue was thick. There was little for me to say in such a state, and so I did the wise thing and simply listened as we sped across town to Number 5 Dawson’s Alley, where her mother kept a lodging house. She had sent a neighbor boy with the news of her daughter’s return. Sir John had got little from him, but that little he repeated to Clarissa and me as we rocked along over the cobblestones in our hackney coach.

  “From what I gather,” said he, “she was in a rather bad state when she appeared at her mother’s door. She was not fully dressed, though in no wise naked-in her shift, as I gather. She was altogether gaunt-lost weight noticeably in less than a week-again, according to the boy. The mother is understandably upset but seems to know little more than we do. If we can just keep the girl away from others, and more or less a ‘clean’ witness, then we may learn a good deal from her.”

  Clearly, this was his hope. He had often stressed to me the importance of seeing witnesses as quickly as possible and getting their story fresh from their lips. When many have talked to a witness before the investigator has his chance, then the story may have been edited in any number of ways to flatter the witness or to please the investigator. Or, worse still, the unauthorized questioner may suggest many things to the witness, which she, in turn, passes on to the investigator as having truly been seen or heard by her. Thus Sir John did continue to search for such a “clean” witness, though rarely did he find one.

  Though I had not asked the time of anyone, from the position of the sun in the sky I judged it to be not much after eight in the morning when we arrived at Number 5 Dawson’s Alley. The streets were crowded with pedestrians, as I had observed through the hackney window: the residents of London were hurrying off to their day’s employment. My two companions went to the door as I settled with the driver of the coach and then hurried after them. Just as I reached the step, the door to the lodging house swung open and a man of large proportions presented himself.

  “You must be Sir John of Bow Street,” he blurted out, “the Blind Beak, as they say.”

  “Why? Is there but one blind man in all of London?” Sir John asked belligerently. He was not at all fond of the epithet.

  The man who had loomed so large in the doorway now seemed to shrink before our eyes. “I didn’t mean no offense by it,” said he, stepping aside and opening the door wide.

  Clarissa and I exchanged glances. I noted that she had pursed her lips that she might not break into snickers. I winked; she winked back.

  “Jeremy?”

  With that Sir John called me into action. In a trice, I was by his side, my arm extended that he might grasp it as we followed the man up the stairs to the first and then to the second floor. All during our climb, our guide talked ceaselessly.

  “Aw, it’s a terrible thing, ain’t it?” said he, throwing the words back over his shoulder to us. “She come back in the middle of the night just weepin’ and cryin’ something terrible, and wakin’ up half the house. For myself-my room is right there next to where Mrs. Hooker dosses-I heard her right off. I was up and on my feet and sticking my head out my door even before she opened up to find out who was there.”

  “What time of the night was this?” asked Sir John.

  “Oh, I don’t know, round three, four o’clock at night, I reckon.”
<
br />   “Could you be a bit more exact than that?”

  “Oh I s’pose I could. It must have been closer to four than three, ’cause it wasn’t long till I heard the church bells strike four.”

  We kept climbing. It was not long till we heard something of a buzz above us. There was little to say between us: each had his own notion of the number of people who waited above. Yet none, I think, was prepared for the many we saw crowded round the Hooker door. And there must indeed have been more inside, for the attention of those in the hall was directed past the threshold and into the apartment. I will say for them, however, that, for such a group, they were reasonably quiet-listening.

  “. . and then did I at last admit to myself,” came a familiar voice, “that I could do naught but jump.” (It was Elizabeth, the heroine of her own story.)

  “Brave girl!” responded one of the audience in the hall.

  “You showed good English pluck, dearie. Didn’t she, all?”

  And to that there sounded a great affirmative chorus, even a scattering of applause from her listeners.

  “So I did what had to be done-and I jumped?!”

  Then did the scattering swell to an ovation, the like of which I had heard exceeded only at Mr. Garrick’s Drury Lane Theatre.

  We were not at their level, and though the crowd of people at the door, male and female, was even larger than I had expected, they were remarkably well behaved.

  “How many would you say there are?” Sir John whispered.

  “There are a good many, surely more than twenty,” I replied sotto voce. “Twenty-five at least.”

  “I shall count on you to make a path for me.”

  This was a task that so often came to me that I had developed a method for clearing the way for the magistrate. I did, first of all, speak in a voice much louder than was my wont. I kept in sight (though, naturally, I never used) the cosh that Mr. Marsden had given me; and, in general, I chose my words carefully.