“I don’t know for sure. This is Philadelphia, James Bunce. Even if the local gossips think they know your every thought and action, it is easy to disappear in the crowd.’
Bunce acknowledged that the virgin capital of Pennsylvania was now as populous as some towns in the Old World. It would be hard to pass a day, even an hour, without brushing shoulders with the mix of humanity that had settled in Penn’s province. The city teemed with over two thousand souls, and sometimes it was easy to forget the normal courtesies. Bunce was a Bristolian by birth, and knew how anonymous a big, bustling city could be.
Of course, everyone here was an individual with his own peculiar ways. Philadelphia was a community made up of independent souls, who had been deemed too good or too bad not to be troublesome to the aristocratic and religious powers who held away in England after the Restoration. Dissidents mixed with debtors, and the oppressed with criminals and other failures from old England. But overall, they were individuals, but whose common ideas on reason, and liberty of conscience drew them together as a coherent whole. And this made solitary people like Adams all the more conspicuous in the circumstances that now appertained. Bunce clearly found himself in a dilemma, not wishing to believe the worst of his erstwhile friend. Uncertain how to proceed, he chose finally to answer Adams’s earlier question.
‘You asked how Rokesby died. He was hanged upside-down by his legs like a side of beef, and split near in twain with one of his own cleavers.”
3
The first death in Philadelphia had not initially seemed suspicious. Joshua Burewald had been out hunting north of the city. And it was only when he failed to return at dusk, that his son called on their neighbours, the Chapmans, to come to his aid and locate his father. Burewald was found dead in a ditch, apparently thrown from his horse. The horse lay nearby with a broken foreleg, also dead. He was brought home in the dark on a hurdle, and the close-knit Quaker community began its mourning. At daybreak, though, his son questioned whether the ugly wound on his head could have been caused by a fall. Doctor Söder was fetched from the nearby Swedish Moravian settlement across the river in New Jersey, and he confirmed that the shape of the depression in Burewald’s skull must have been caused by a hammer. Edward Wilson and the other elders of the Quaker community rocked from the shock of realizing they had their first murder on their hands. The truth was kept from the other residents, while James Bunce, at the instigation of his elders, inquired most closely of those who might have resented Burewald’s acquisition of land, and his prosperity.
Bunce had not even completed his inquiries before the second murder was discovered. Again, the circumstances might have suggested an accident. Silas Peters had a substantial stone house in the north of the city, which allowed him to travel daily by mule to his farmstead near Shackaminsing Creek. He was always a careless, if enthusiastic farmer, and his rural neighbour was not surprised to discover his body crushed into the good earth he had been tilling. It seemed as though he had lost control of his oxen, and the plough they had been pulling had been dragged over his prostrate figure. The body was brought to his city residence, and once again Philadelphia was in shock over another death so close on the heels of the previous one. The community again set about healing its wounds. But in the mean time, Wilson again quietly called on Doctor Söder’s services. He was rewarded with the horrifying news that Peters too had been deliberately done to death. Bunce was as puzzled as before, though he did begin to inquire into the lives the two victims had led in England before their relocation to the Middle Colonies of America. Scarcely another day had gone, though, before the fragile peace of Philadelphia was riven by a third death. And it was impossible to put this one down to mischance.
The baker, Perkin Bird, was found by his wife stuffed unceremoniously into his oven. The fire was lit, and the oven hot. Mary Bird’s early morning shrieks alerted Edward Wilson, who happened to live next door, to the likelihood of a disastrous situation. Though he rushed out into the street, he was too late to prevent his neighbours from emerging from their houses too. Several men entered the bakery, and quickly emerged pale-faced, followed by the nauseous stench of the baker’s self-immolation. One man vomited a mess of breakfast bread and ale over Wilson’s best buckle shoes. The secret was out, despite James Bunce’s best efforts, and soon everyone knew that a savage murderer was loose in Philadelphia. Someone spoke of wholesale slaughter, and a name was born.
The Philadelphia Slaughterman.
4
John Adams realized his hard-won peace was shattered, and he sat down on the porch, staring over the reeds that edged the shallow river bank. Bunce had hunkered down on the porch steps, also scanning the river as he thought. Adams looked at the back of his friend’s head, wondering if James Bunce was thinking of arresting his one-time friend. Even as he rose from his chair, he knew what he had to do. He had to find a name for the murderer that would satisfy Friends Wilson and Bunce. Preferably not his own. Hearing Adams move, Bunce rose too and turned, quick and effortless for such a tall man. Adams had the impression Bunce was afraid now to have his back to his old friend, and that made him sad. Their eyes met, and they stared at each other in something of a silent duel. It was Bunce who spoke first.
“Well, if I am to question all the men in the vicinity of the murder, I might as well begin with finding out what de Ruiter was doing when he turned his back on you this morning.”
The morning of Rokesby’s death, thought Adams.
“And I will come too. I can help.”
Despite Bunce’s protestations, Adams would not back down, and both men resolved to get on with their task immediately. The afternoon stretched before them, and Adams’s duties at Bowater’s warehouse could wait. Besides, he wanted to know what was afoot, and reckoned he knew where de Ruiter was.
“We should try down by the river.”
Bunce grunted, and crammed his hat on his head. Adams stopped only to carve off a hunk of bread, and fill a flask of water, thrusting both into a small gunny-sack. Though he hoped de Ruiter would still be in Southwark, if he wasn’t, the Dutchman’s house was some way upriver at Pegg’s Run. So Adams was uncertain how long their search for him would take. As Bunce stepped through the shack door, Adams turned back quickly, and picked up the knife he had used to cut the bread. A little self-consciously, he jammed it in the belt round his waist, slung the sack over his shoulder, and followed Bunce into the grey river mist.
Mindful of his experience of the Great Fire of London, William Penn had laid out Philadelphia on a grid pattern with grand avenues and public parks. But even the noblest of intentions had to give way somewhere to the practicalities of nature. Pennsylvania relied on trade with the Old Country, and trade required ships. Ships meant boat-builders, and sailors, so just like London and Bristol before it, Philadelphia had spawned an undesirable underside along the shoreline. This denizen of boat-builders, mast-makers, and sailors waiting for a berth and fair weather, lay to the east of the neat and regular city. It clung to the sinuous curves of the Delaware River, whose creeks in places cut into the straight lines of Philadelphia’s streets like vicious scars on an otherwise perfect skin. Dock Creek was one of those scars, housing a stinking brewery and the Blue Anchor tavern. Honest citizens were rarely seen in its vicinity. It was there that John Adams expected to find Jan de Ruiter.
As the men skirted past the noise and bustle of the shipwrights’ yards, Adams kept his head down, and his wide-brimmed hat firmly pulled low. The less he was seen the better, especially if the word was out that he was under a cloud of suspicion over the Slaughterman’s murders. The mingled smoke of singeing wood and bubbling tar drifted across their tracks as they hurried up the creek to the door of the tavern. Inside, the fug of old tobacco smoke hanging beneath the low beamed ceiling couldn’t hide the fact that the Blue Anchor was unusually quiet. A few sailors were slumped in one corner, but they were already dead to the world, their drinking session having culminated in stupefaction. Maybe they were celebrating their
imminent departure from this now dangerous city. But apart from them, there were few other drinkers. The Slaughterman’s deeds were obviously bad for trade. Their quarry therefore was not difficult to spot. Jan de Ruiter was sitting at the rough trestle at one end of the room, behind which stood three barrels of home-brewed ale. The short, squinty-eyed man with whom he was conversing threw a glance at Bunce as he entered with the black man close behind, and then quickly departed by way of the rear door. Adams wondered if his undeserved reputation had preceded him. De Ruiter leered at them, and waved them over.
“James Bunce. John Adams. Come here, and have a drink with me.’
By the sound of his voice, and the smell of his breath, Bunce guessed that the Dutchman had been in the Blue Anchor since Adams had seen him that morning. His eyes were clouded with drink, and Bunce hoped this would help his investigation. Maybe the Dutchman was in a state in which he might inadvertently reveal whatever he had been up to that morning. He took up de Ruiter’s offer of a tankard of ale, and when it arrived, swallowed deeply of the watery, bitter brew. Adams, who had hung back at first, suddenly leaned into the Dutchman’s face.
“You ignored me this morning, Jan de Ruiter. Are we not friends any more?”
Jan peered closely at Adams, screwing his eyes up as if trying to focus on who the man was.
“This morning? I don’t recall seeing you.”
Despite Bunce’s warning hiss, Adams wasn’t to be put off that easily. De Ruiter had definitely stopped and stared before turning away, and disappearing down towards Dock Creek and the shipyards.
“That’s strange, because I saw you.”
“Where did you think you saw me, Adams? I was not in the town. This morning I came downriver by flat barge from my house.”
Now Adams knew the man was lying. He had seen him in First Street for sure, and the Dutchman had been coming from the direction of Market Street, where Rokesby’s butchery stood. De Ruiter leaned drunkenly forwards, pushing his whiskery face into Adams’s, and grinning. He tapped the side of his bulbous nose, turning the tables on his examiner.
“Hunting for a defence, are we? A witness?” He turned to Bunce, who had stood aside, angry that his friend had spoiled his planned interrogation. “I hear a little rumour that James Bunce, here, has already looked no further than Hendricksen’s shack for Rokesby’s murderer.”
A cold shiver ran down Adams’s back. Was the rumour already spreading so fast, that de Ruiter had heard even without leaving the tavern? The Dutchman must have sensed Adams’s fear, and he drove his advantage home. He squeezed Adams’s arm, and whispered into his ear with a beery exhalation.
“Pity. I was betting on you being innocent.” Once again, he addressed Bunce, a sly look in his eyes. “Myself, I would have gambled on it being some damned Papist. Isn’t it barely ten years since their plotting with your very own monarch was revealed?”
Bunce knew to what the Dutchman was referring, even though he had been no more than a child himself at the time. But then, everyone had heard the rumours from the highest to the lowest in the land. The wild claims from Titus Oates of Papist conspiracies at the heart of power had struck a chord in England. And, despite few facts supporting Oates coming to light, many Catholics had lost their lives in the panic that ensued. Many others had fled the country. Bunce felt sick at the thought of Popish conspiracies in the colonies, and pulled the Dutchman’s hand off his arm. Had the taint of the Old World crossed the ocean already, and was it staining the New? Were all the old prejudices still to be found in men’s hearts, after all? De Ruiter seemed to think so, for he yelled out his accusations so that anyone could hear.
‘It’s a Popish plot, mark my words. These murders are revenge for what happened in your country to the Catholics. Go ask that Carteret fellow.”
Adams turned away in disgust from the drunken de Ruiter, striding out of the tavern. As he passed them, he saw that the sailors had been roused from their stupor, and were examining him with suspicious, if bleary, eyes. He wondered if everyone would look at him in the same way now. Bunce hurried after him with the Dutchman’s final vituperations ringing in his ears.
“Yes, a Papist conspiracy. It doesn’t make sense otherwise.”
As Bunce crossed the threshold, he nearly tripped over a hunched-up figure by the door. The man, wrapped in a deer skin, seemed oblivious to Bunce’s foot crashing into his backside, only mumbling some incomprehensible words. Bunce realized it was the Delaware redskin called Teinane, who drifted round the periphery of Philadelphia like a lost soul. Most of his tribe had retreated further off into the wilderness, but Teinane seemed incapable of leaving, incapable of seeing the unreasonableness of his behaviour. Young Oliver Bowater, before his disappearance, had apparently tried to reason with Teinane. But it had only resulted in a scuffle that Bunce had been forced to break up. But mostly, the Quaker community tolerated him. Bunce now did the same, stepping over his prostrate form, and striding down the darkening lane towards the river and John Adams. He could barely contain his anger, as he grabbed Adams’s arm, and swung him round to face him.
“Don’t do that again. You must leave the interrogations to me. Now de Ruiter is informed of my suspicions, and will be on his guard when I speak to him next.”
The import of his last words was unspoken, but clear to Adams. Next time de Ruiter was questioned, Bunce would be on his own. Crestfallen, he nodded his head, not wishing to be further barred from the investigation. He had good reason to be more than eager to get to the truth. Once before, in England, he had been convicted of a crime he had not committed. The same was not going to happen to him in the New World. Adams guessed that this man Carteret might be their next port of call. As Bunce had called him Sir Thomas, and sounded almost deferential, Adams most definitely wanted to be present when they tested out this paragon of virtue.
5
The sun began to set as the two men hurried down the Old York Road, the main thoroughfare running north across the province. Adams soon dropped behind James Bunce, failing to match the tall man’s long, loping stride. When Bunce turned off the dirt road though, and plunged into the woods, Adams hurried to close up with his companion. Some of the Quakers may have imagined a black man would be at home in the wild, but John Adams was a denizen of the city – a Londoner born and bred. And it was at times like this that he missed the dirty, stinking streets of his childhood, the closeness of overhanging tenements, and the proximity of fellow humans. Ironically, he would not have lost his way in the mazy alleys and courtyards of that greatest of cities on Earth. But now, after nearly an hour amongst the trees of the wilderness north of town, he was thrashing his way blindly through prickly undergrowth that grabbed at his shirt, and dragged at his stockings. He would have been lost without Bunce, and thought them both completely alone. Until he saw a shadow in the trees some twenty yards away that moved, and resolved into a human shape.
His hand went to the knife at his belt, for he got the impression the figure was stark naked. Was it one of the few Delaware native savages who roamed the wilderness still? Thoughts of the savage Teinane, and four dead settlers flashed through his mind. He called out to Bunce, but even as the tall man stopped to look over his shoulder, the shadow dissolved into nothing.
“What is it, John?”
“I thought I saw . . . It’s nothing. Nothing at all. Just my imagination.”
Yet even as he spoke, Adams felt a cold shiver run up his back. He was not normally afraid without a reason, but the fleeting presence seemed an omen of doom. He hurried over to Bunce, and for a few minutes more, the two men walked closer together. Then Bunce stopped, and sniffed the air.
“We are nearly there. You can smell the odour of the tan yards at Pegg’s Run. It is not much further to Cohocksink Creek, where Carteret’s house stands.”
Adams smelled the air. It was true – the rancid stench of the tannery was getting overpowering the closer they got. And as they passed the yard, an evil-looking miasma rose from the tanning pit
s. Each oblong opening resembled nothing less than a yawning grave. Adams’s fevered imagination conjured up the body of Peter Rokesby, his torso virtually sundered, rising from one of them. Followed by a battered Joshua Burewald and Silas Peters, their brains dripping out of their skulls, and finally a lobsterish, half-cooked Perkin Bird. But as he wiped his face, he saw it was just vapours and steam that drifted over him. The sharp, acrid odour of the fluids ate at the back of Adams’s throat, and before he could stop himself he hacked, and spat on the ground. He shouldered his gunny sack of provisions, and hurried on to catch up to Bunce. After another quarter hour of walking, they saw the yellow glow of a light in the window of a house.
The lamplight looked inviting, but as they approached, a gust of harsh laughter from inside told them instinctively to keep to the shadows. They skirted round the cleared perimeter of the imposing stone building, and moved ever closer to the riverbank, where Adams could see a flat barge moored. In the dark, he missed his footing and slid partway down the muddy bank. Involuntarily, he cried out, just as Bunce grabbed at his arm. Moments later, the door of Carteret’s house was flung open, and the slim Englishman stepped on to the porch, holding up a lantern to the darkness. Bunce could see the yellowish glow reflected in Carteret’s staring eyes, and thought it gave him the look of the Devil Himself. He ducked his head, and slid down the bank of the river to join Adams in hiding. Both men crouched ankle-deep in soft cloying mud. The look in the nobleman’s eyes had the stare of someone fearful of discovery. It convinced Bunce that Carteret was up to no good. Moreover, he had co-conspirators in the house, who even now called out to him in faltering English.
“It’s ghosts. Them redskin savages do say as how they live in the upper air for years before they settle in heaven.”
The Mammoth Book of Jacobean Whodunnits Page 51