The Price of Murder Read online

  It was Elizabeth Hooker’s harebrained notion that they might cut across Covent Garden and save a good deal of time, even though it be dark. And so, over Kathleen’s objections, they left Drury Lane and came down Long Acre. Then, with the Theatre Royal in sight, they made their way toward it along Phoenix Alley. They were not long on this leg of the journey before they were made aware that much went on in this alley that neither would have guessed at. First of all, what had been thought to be deserted was actually peopled by a considerable number of prostitutes. They hissed at the pair from every dark corner along the way. Elizabeth and Kathleen fair flew down the alley, driven by cries of “Git out!” “This is our spot!” “You’ve no right to be here!” And so on. They had no wish to stay and make the acquaintance of any of these dark ghostly figures.

  When they reached the arcade wherein the theater was located, they were out of breath and frighted, and only too happy to see a couple of nice-looking young fellows who came out into the light, looking concerned and asking how they might aid the two girls. They explained that they had become bored with that evening’s presentation at the Covent Garden and had left early. And now they had been standing about wondering how they might fill the rest of the evening.

  “And what better way than to aid two young ladies of obvious good character,” said one.

  “How may we help you?” said the other. “You look as if you could use a pair of protectors. Will we do? I’ve a stout stick, as you can see. And Robert has with him a pistol. Have you not, Bobby?”

  Though they were properly dressed, these two did not quite seem to be proper gentlemen—not to Kathleen Quigley, at least.

  For her part, Elizabeth Hooker seemed convinced of the good intentions of the two young men and immediately revealed to them her plan to cut across Covent Garden. They agreed with her that much time would thus be saved.

  Kathleen pulled her friend aside and argued against accepting their protection. “We don’t know them. They could be the greatest villains in London, and we would be none the wiser. Come with me. Bow Street Court is just round the corner here. A constable will see us home.”

  Elizabeth laughed at her friend and declared she would go with these two fellows, no matter what Kathleen chose to do. “The fact is,” said she, “I fancy one of them, the one named Robert.”

  And so it was that Kathleen then left Elizabeth and headed for Bow Street. She looked back but once and saw that her friend and coworker had disappeared into the darkness.

  That, Kathleen told me, was why she had held back her story; she felt she had betrayed her friend in allowing her to go off by herself in the company of the two young men.

  Sir John cleared his throat, turned to me, and asked if I had further questions for her.

  “Only if she went through with her plan to go to Bow Street to find a constable to accompany her here.” I looked to her then. “Did you?” I asked.

  “I did,” said she, “and indeed one of the constables did take me here. He was a strange sort of man, he was. He spoke bare a word to me on our walk.”

  “Sounds like Mr. Brede,” said I to Sir John.

  “It does. We shall check with him, of course.”

  The three of us argued our positions all the way to Bow Street. Clarissa’s was, simply put, that the girl described by Kathleen and the cook simply could not be the one she had spent two or three hours with the other day. Sir John believed that we must accept Kathleen’s testimony only with considerable amount of salt, which is to say, each part of it must be tested. And my own position? I put my faith in Kathleen Quigley. If she said that it was Elizabeth’s nature that led her to go off with her two “protectors,” then that more or less settled it, insofar as I was concerned.

  Thus we argued in the hackney coach until we arrived at Number 4 Bow Street. It was still light enough that Clarissa might hurry upstairs and begin preparations for dinner. Sir John could go to his chambers and wait for Constable Brede to make his appearance. And I could follow him there and provide a surfeit of details from Mr. Chesley’s testimony. It seemed a shame, and altogether wrong that a day so rich in revelations should end in such a way. Yet, it turned out, there was still a single surprise left for me. Mr. Fuller called me back as I followed Sir John.

  “What then, Constable Fuller?”

  “A fellow came by and left something for you, a box it was.”

  I took it from him and saw immediately what it was. The size and shape of it gave it away. I opened the box and saw that it was the dueling pistol, which Mr. Deuteronomy had taken with him. I had its mate in my pocket. There was a note inside, addressed to me. I fumbled it open. Mr. Fuller, ever curious, watched me with interest. I read:

  Mr. Proctor:

  I am returning this early, for I have no further use for it. I’m fair sure that my sister will be at Newmarket, therefore I am booking you a room there at the Good Queen Bess on Commerce Street. See you at the races.

  —Deuteronomy Plummer

  “The fella who brought it was that one who’s uncommon short, just the size of a child is all,” said Mr. Fuller.

  “It’s all right,” said I. “I know who he was.”

  SIX

  In which I am sent to the Newmarket meet by Sir John

  We did not get round to discussing Mr. Deuteronomy Plummer and Newmarket until that evening after dinner. Mr. Brede came by and confirmed that indeed he had accompanied a young lady from Bow Street to some house or other in Chandos Street. He hadn’t thought it of sufficient importance to include in his report, he said, but he remembered her well. Irish, wasn’t she?

  Then did Mr. Bailey come in and bring with him a whole calendarful of problems having to do with scheduling.

  Then—oh well, one thing after another until it was time to eat dinner upstairs. Clarissa’s dinner wasn’t quite up to what she had offered us earlier in Molly’s absence, so that I, for one, was secretly glad that our regular cook was returning. Stew it was again—and she had done it better two nights before. Talk flew round the table. Most of it had to do with the “girls” at the Magdalene Home for Penitent Prostitutes and how well they had taken to Molly’s cooking course.

  “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 would 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 i
s 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.