The Price of Murder sjf-10

by Bruce Alexander

  “Why, yes I do.”

  “Well,” said he, “I’ve got a confession to make. Only it ain’t just mine, not even mostly mine, as you’ll see. But I know the facts, ’cause I was involved in it, so I’m the only one can tell it. Besides, Deuteronomy here says I got to.”

  I settled into a chair nearby, and Mr. Deuteronomy sat down in another. We prepared to listen to his tale. I know not how many times he had heard it, but I, hearing it for the first time, sat quite transfixed by what he told. This is what I heard:

  “Now I’m a fairly simple man, truth be told,” he began. “I come here from the country-out of Wiltshire, as it was. I didn’t know much, but I knew horses. Otherwise I’d never have got to work at Lord Lamford’s, or maybe just as a porter, or whatever. It was mainly Deuteronomy Plummer here, who got me the job. He knew he needed help managing this string of horses, and most of those sent out from the big house didn’t know a thing about them and were frightened of them.

  “So we worked on them together for over a year. He’d ride the horses each Sunday in races round London and exercise them and do whatever need be done. The stable boys and me fed them, kept them well and happy. And if that had been all there was to the job, we’d have been just as happy as any could be. But we had Lord Lamford to contend with, too. First, there was his ‘suggestions,’ as he called them, which were really orders, and they could come any time of the day or night. Right away it was drop anything you might happen to be tending to and do whatever little thing he might happen to want you to do. That dueling pistol I took into Griffin’s in London was a good example. We were doing trials, Mr. Deuteronomy and I, out in the little course we’d set up in the west pasture, preparing Pegasus for racing. Anyway, Lord Lamford had to have that pistol fixed, no matter what, and it couldn’t wait. He knew I didn’t know my way round London, but he sent me out with it.”

  I had listened in silence up to that moment, but when he mentioned the pistol I recalled that I had one of the two in question in my pocket at that very moment. I fetched it forth and handed it over to him, taking care to caution that it was loaded. He laid it down carefully upon a small table next to his chair.

  “I guess you know what happened to this one, the one that didn’t need no work done on it. I loaned it to Katy Tiddle, and there it sat with her. Might never have got it back, if she hadn’t got herself murdered.

  “But anyway, that wasn’t the worst of it with Lord Lamford. The worst was his personal habits, his ‘amusements,’ as he called them. There never was a Lady Lamford, but I don’t know that he would have been any different if there had been a wife, because in my opinion the man wasn’t right in his head. Maybe one of those mad doctors they got at Bedlam could have done something with him-but prob’ly not.”

  “Tell me about his ‘amusements,’” said I to him.

  At that, he sighed. “Well, I might as well get to it, for that’s what this is all about. I’d been there near a year when I started to hear rumors and little hints from the big-house staff about him-how he liked them young and didn’t care how much he had to pay, and so on. But I didn’t really understand what they meant by young until one day this little girl-couldn’t have been more than five or six-must’ve escaped from where they kept her locked up and come down to see the ‘horsies.’ I could tell by the way she talked that she was from London. Then this old bat, the housekeeper, she comes down and slaps her good and proper and tells her that Lord Lamford is going to be very unhappy with her. And so on. She told her that if she ever did this again, she couldn’t be his queen anymore. I could never quite figure out what he did when he was through with them. There must have been-oh, I don’t know how many in the time I was there. The truth is, I didn’t want to know. I looked the other way.

  “But Lord Lamford must have had some idea how I felt about him. Maybe I was a little careless and spoke out in front of one of them in the big house, and the word was passed on. Or maybe I wore the wrong sort of expression too often when I looked upon him, for truth to tell, the man disgusted me something horrible.

  “Anyway, he seemed determined to bring me into it, and he did it the worst way he could-by making me part of his crime from first to last. About a month ago he come out from the house at the end of the day just to tell me he had a request of me-a ‘request’ was even stronger than a ‘suggestion. ’ It meant, if you didn’t do it, and do it right, you might as well just leave and not come back. He told me to ride to Bermondsey and go halfway cross London Bridge. There I’d meet a fella named Hogg who had something for me to bring back to the big house. That’s how he put it.

  “Well, I did just like he said, and there at the midpoint in London Bridge, I come across the man named Hogg sheltering against the cold and holding on to the hand of a little girl. I thought she was about five or six, but later on I found out she was all of eight years.”

  “She always was small for her age,” put in Mr. Deuteronomy, thus confirming what I had suspected.

  Bennett nodded. “That’s right, Deuteronomy,” said he. “Just like I told you, it was Maggie, your niece.” Then did he return to his tale: “This fella didn’t say more than four or five words, just ‘Here’s what you came for.’ Then he lifted her up to me, and I held her close against the cold, ’cause by now ’twas after dark, and I feared she might catch a chill. She was quite the charmer, she was. She said she’d never been up top a horse before. And I told her I took care of the horses, and she wanted to know all about that, and so that was just about all we talked about all the way back to the big house.”

  At this point, Mr. Bennett stopped. He breathed deeply a time or two, as if to gain control of himself, then did he set his jaw before continuing. “The next part,” said he, “is hard to tell.” Yet he managed, by stopping from time to time, wiping his tears before they became a problem, and clearing his throat as necessary.

  “So we got there to the big house,” he resumed. “I carried her to the door, and the housekeeper came and took her from me. I heard no more of her or from her for quite some time, two weeks at least. But then at night I began to hear weeping; just the sort of tears to break you heart. Then there was nothing more until, toward the end, there was some screaming. Deuteronomy here didn’t hear none of it because it was always at night that the tears and the screams came, and by that time he was back here in the Haymarket. There was this one night it got terrible bad, just before Easter. But then it stopped, and somehow or other that seemed even worse.

  “They sent somebody down for me, and right at the door I was met by the housekeeper, and she takes me upstairs. She unlocks the door, and she takes me inside what seemed like a child’s room, a-what is it they call it? — a nursery. There was toys, dolls and such, all over it. The bed didn’t seem to have nobody in it, just blankets and a pillow. Only then, the housekeeper lifted up the pillow, and there was Maggie, the little girl I picked up on London Bridge. Dead. ‘Who done this?’ I asked the housekeeper. And she gave me a kind of smirk, and she says, ‘Who do you think?’ She took a blanket and wrapped the body in it, even covered her face up. Then she presents it to me. ‘Here,’ says she. ‘Lord Lamford wants you to dispose of this.’ I’d no choice but to take it from her. I went back to the stable, saddled up a horse, and took the trail to the river. There’s a place upriver with a shallow bank. I threw Maggie’s body into the Thames right there, and kept the blanket, as I was told to do.”

  Having said his piece, Mr. Bennett halted. He pulled from his pocket a kerchief and blew his nose loudly upon it.

  “When we came up with that ticket for the pistol at Griffin’s,” said Deuteronomy to me, “I was naturally pretty curious, because I could remember the very day that Bennett was sent off with it. As he said, we were just starting to train Pegasus for racing.”

  “Did you confront him with it immediately?”

  “No, I started to work on him, though. It wasn’t till the journey back from Newmarket that he started to see things my way. I told him to talk to you-tell
you the story-then you could sort of prepare the way for him with Sir John.”

  “I ask him, could I trust you, and he said he’d trusted you with all his winnings,” said Mr. Bennett to me. “I don’t know what laws I’ve broken, but I know I must have broken some, but what I did in getting rid of the body ain’t nothing compared to what Lord Lamford did in killing that child. But what I done has been on my conscience something terrible.”

  “When did you begin to suppose that the little girl you picked up on London Bridge was Mr. Deuteronomy’s niece?” I asked.

  “Well, he told the tale of Maggie disappearing and then his sister going off somewheres, and I began to wonder because the times matched up pretty fair. And then Deuteronomy showed me the dueling pistol I’d left off for repair and said the woman who had the mate to it-Katy Tiddle-lived in a room next to his sister and Maggie. But now Sir John Fielding had it and considered it property to do with the investigation of Katy’s murder.” Then he wailed: “Oh, how did I ever manage to get in with that drunken whore?”

  Bennett was so disturbed by the rhetorical challenge he had offered himself that I thought it likely that he might break into tears once again. Though he did not, I thought it wise to get him to Sir John immediately.

  “I fear your confession will be useless unless you make it direct to Sir John. Why not come with me now? He would, I’m sure, listen to you, no matter what the hour.”

  “Alas, I cannot. I think it likely that I might not return from such a trip. If I’m to go to Newgate, I shall need all my money to bribe the guards. I’ll go back and gather together what I can and return on the morrow soon as ever I can.”

  “Must we do it so?” I asked. “I can virtually guarantee that you would not be sent to Newgate, but rather to the Fleet.” I saw that made little impression upon him. I could not persuade him to go with me to Bow Street, and so I did urge him to come in the morning, if at all possible, all to no avail. He repeated that he would come soon as he could. He stood, bade me goodbye, and, pocketing the pistol, made for the door. Deuteronomy bounced out of his chair and accompanied Bennett to the door. There they exchanged a few words and Bennett left.

  “Well, what did you think of that?” Mr. Deuteronomy asked me.

  “Why, I believed him. Did you not?”

  “I’ve known him for two years, and I’ve yet to hear a lie pass his lips.”

  “When did you hear this from him?”

  “’Course I suspected ever since I saw that pistol, but it was just last night on the drive back from Newmarket that he told me all. He’s been carrying a terrible burden for over a month.”

  “I can see that,” said I. “He seems a man haunted by guilt.”

  And so did I return to Bow Street, quite bursting to tell Sir John of what I had just heard from Bennett. Yet upon my arrival, I discovered that it was far later than I had supposed. Past midnight it was, and not a soul awake in our upper floors of the court. I had not heart to wake anyone to tell them, though, I confess, the thought did cross my mind.

  Next morning, I was up at my usual early hour. I set the fire and lit it and waited a bit impatiently for Sir John to appear. He arrived last of all. As he sat down, I told him eagerly that last night I had heard news that would materially affect the prosecution of the Maggie Plummer case. He took that in his stride and suggested we talk about it just as soon as he had given adequate attention to his breakfast. He was not to be hurried. When at last he had finished, I sought to persuade him to go upstairs to his study that we might talk freely and without interruption. (That remark earned me a look of great annoyance from Clarissa.) Yet he thought it proper to hold our talk in his chambers. There we should find peace and quiet aplenty, said he, and be on hand should Mr. Marsden, his clerk, require anything of him. You will not be astonished, reader, to learn that we headed directly to Sir John’s chambers.

  I had barely begun to relate Mr. Bennett’s speech when a series of familiar sounds announced the arrival of William Murray, Earl of Mansfield, the Lord Chief Justice. First was there the slamming of the door to Bow Street, which was followed by the sound of Lord Mansfield’s heels clicking along the corridor, and then, last of all, Mr. Marsden’s vain attempt to persuade the visitor to allow the clerk to announce him to Sir John. Lord Mansfield would have none of it, of course, for in the next instant, he fair exploded through the door and into the magistrate’s chambers.

  We awaited him upon our feet: I, respectfully ready to surrender my chair to him, and Sir John already offering his hand. Lord Mansfield accepted Sir John’s hand and gave it a wiggle, but he declined my offer of a chair. He would remain standing (so, naturally, Sir John and I had also to remain upon our feet).

  “This won’t take long,” said he.

  “What then?” said Sir John. “How may we serve you m’lord?” There was an unmistakable touch of irony in that. Lord Mansfield ignored it.

  “I have stopped here on my way to Old Bailey to ask why in the world you did not return an indictment against that woman, Mother Jeffers? She is, as I understand it, naught but a madam, a keeper of bawds in a house out in Clerkenwell. Is this correct?”

  “Oh, no doubt,” said Sir John. “She did not deny that in so many words to me.”

  “Then why did you not indict her?”

  “Because, Lord Mansfield, that was not the complaint against her.”

  “Well, what was the complaint?”

  “I suppose that ‘unlawful imprisonment’ would have covered it.”

  “Then why did you not charge her with it and pass her on to me?”

  “Because, Lord Mansfield, I did not believe the complainant. She is a girl of no more than fifteen or sixteen, pregnant, two-faced, and caught in a number of lies in the course of a tour through that bawdy house in Clerkenwell. In fact, there is some doubt as to whether she had ever been through that place before her visit yesterday.”

  “You seem terribly certain, Sir John.”

  “Well, I am not, for I give no greater credence to Mrs. Jeffers than I do to Elizabeth Hooker. The old woman claims never to have seen the girl before. Well, I do not believe her. There is something-a great deal, perhaps-that she has held back. In such a circumstance, how could I bind over anyone for trial? No indeed, the only proper course to follow is to delay, allow things to cool off a bit, and investigate further.”

  “Well and good,” said Lord Mansfield, “and in theory I agree with you. Nevertheless, you know as well as I that I must consider other factors besides the law-not above the law, simply along with it. Among those factors is public opinion. I have heard from a few individuals on this matter of Mistress Hooker already. If I were to allow you to follow the course you propose-and mind you, sir, in many ways I think it the best one-I have good reason to believe that I would hear from many more.

  “Therefore,” he continued, all but shaking a finger in the air, “I have decided to relieve you of responsibility in this matter and present it to Mr. Saunders Welch. It has been pointed out to me that he, as magistrate for outer London, has some claim upon the case anyway, for the crime, if crime it be, was committed in Clerkenwell. You were called in, as I understand, because of some previous acquaintance of one of your staff with the girl in question. Is that correct?”

  “More or less.”

  “Then you can see the sense of this. I shall represent it so.”

  “Not on my account, I hope.”

  “Of course not. And let me assure you, Mr. Welch has made no overtures to me in this, nor has he made any sort of claim upon the case. I have, in fact, not spoken with him on this at all.”

  “Well, then,” said Sir John, “I am relieved of a burden.”

  “Good. Do think of it so.”

  Then, having spoken thus, the Lord Chief Justice said his goodbye to Sir John, and departed-click, click, clicking away down the hall, leaving as he had come.

  “Close the door, Jeremy.”

  I did as Sir John said and we resumed the chairs we had held ti
ll the coming of Lord Mansfield.

  “So,” said he to me, “what thought you of that?”

  “I thought it a terrible mistake-on Lord Mansfield’s part, of course. But at least Saunders Welch did not go behind your back to solicit the case.”

  “Oh? You think not? Well. .” He shrugged. “Perhaps it was just as the Chief Justice said, though if Welch got wind of this, he’d be off in pursuit of it like a hound. That’s my view of it.”

  “Why do you say that, sir?”

  “I say it because I believe it to be so. And why not? I’ve been hearing for about a year that he secretly covets a seat in Parliament and would run in a trice if ever a suitable seat came open. That man is a political animal, no doubt of it. He is hot after whatever will bring him notice.”

  “But is it not so with all men?”

  At that he pulled a sour face. “Not so with me. Comical, when you think of it, eh? To have a case taken away because you insist on following proper legal procedure.”

  There he let it rest. The visit of the Lord Chief Justice had so sullied the atmosphere that I thought that the present moment might be an even more propitious time to deliver to Sir John the news of my previous evening’s conversation with Mr. Bennett. He might then have something to cheer him.

  And so I told the magistrate just what I had heard from Bennett, and though I made no mention of the reason that brought me to Mr. Deuteronomy’s quarters for my meeting with Bennett, my report to Sir John was as full as otherwise could be. I told him of Bennett’s tears, his self-acknowledged guilt in the matter, and his plain-spoken accusation of Lord Lamford in the death of little Maggie Plummer.

  As for Sir John, he listened even at the beginning more carefully than I had known him to do before. By the time I told him of Bennett’s summons to the “big house,” he did hang upon my every word. To the extent that it was possible, I quoted Bennett exact. Yet I tried also to give some sense of my own reaction to the words of the man. Sir John was quite overcome.

  “Ah,” said he, “if only these poor, ruined eyes of mine permitted to weep, I would drown us both in a river of tears. What a sad, sad story you’ve told me.” He paused briefly. “And what an evil sort is this Lord Lamford! I have never met the man, have you?”