The Price of Murder Page 25

  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 till 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?”

  “Yes,” said I, “and I can honestly say that I detested him right from the start.”

  “All England will detest him when he is brought to trial. He will be hated as none other before him, I should hope.” The thought of it seemed to give him pleasure. “But tell me again,” said he, “why was it he declined to return with you here to Bow Street? I did not at first understand.”

  “’Twas because he feared that he shared some part of the blame and would surely be sentenced to a term in Newgate.”

  “Considering that he had disposed of the little girl’s body, he was right in that.”

  “I tried to persuade him, but it was useless. He said that if he were to go to prison, he would need all the money he had to bribe the guards.”


  “Pathetic, is it not, that a man must prepare for a term in prison by gathering together all the ready cash he has that he may make his situation tolerable?”

  “Indeed so,” said I. “’Tis said that they have prices set for all ‘courtesies.’ For instance, removing manacles and chains, a single shilling, et cetera.”

  “Disgraceful,” said he. “I fear that one day there will be a great retribution to be paid. When did this fellow Bennett say that he was coming by?”

  “He didn’t say, actually. Though I encouraged him to name a time, he would not. I asked him to come in the morning, yet he would not even allow himself to be committed to that. I believe he feels that he must sneak away, and Lord Lamford keeps him rather tightly under his thumb.”

  “Then I shall keep you close here at Bow Street through the day. Bring him to me soon as ever he appears.”

  He was as good as his word. During that morning and most of the afternoon, we two kept busy answering letters and filing reports. It is the sort of work that collects, piles up, and ultimately may bury us completely if we do not, from time to time, dedicate a single day to disposing of it. This was that day.

  Mr. Marsden was present on that day, no better but no worse than he had been on most other days that month. And so, in addition to dictating, Sir John conducted his usual court session at noon. Because there were no serious cases to be tried (that is to say, none to pass on to the Felony Court at Old Bailey), it was a fairly short session. And afterward, Sir John and I attacked what remained to be done to that now-dwindling pile of letters.

  Then, at some point—let us say, when there were but two or three letters more to be answered—Sir John heaved a great sigh and asked how many more there were till we were done.

  “Not many,” said I, “a few, no more.”

  “Well, let us answer them, and then I would have you visit that fellow with the biblical name—what is it?”

  “Deuteronomy,” I suggested.

  “Yes, of course, Mr. Deuteronomy Plummer. I suggest you visit him and ask if anything has gone amiss with your friend Mr. Bennett. I must admit that I have a rather bad feeling about him.”

  “Something tangible?”

  “No, I wish it were, but it’s simply an uneasiness I have.”

  And that was the way we managed it. Having done all that could be done that day, I parted from him, promising to return for dinner by seven o’clock at the very latest.

  “No matter what, I want you back by then. Is that understood?” And that is all he would say about it.

  What, I wondered, could be so terribly important that I should be told so sternly to be back at seven for dinner? Were we to have some special guest? Was something secret planned? Such questions as these troubled me all the way to Haymarket—and would today, as well, if I were to find myself in a similar situation, for I am one of those who dislikes surprises. Perhaps this is because I, more than most, had suffered at life’s vagaries. At bottom, I suppose, I was even then a rather settled sort.

  Having arrived in Haymarket, I went direct to the coffee house and jog-trotted up the stairs to the upper floor. I banged mightily upon the door and waited. There was no response. Twice more I repeated this, with the same result. I put my ear to the door but heard nothing. Well, there was still much time before it would be seven, and so I took myself down the stairs to the coffee house, and there did I spend the better part of an hour, reading and sipping that most hearty of blends. It did move me to further action and sent me up to the top of the stairs once again to knock upon the door. Yet again and again did I knock, to no avail. But then a sudden thought came to me. I had in my pocket a pad of paper, which I had lately taken to carrying about, as well as a pencil. Putting the two to use, I wrote out a note to Mr. Deuteronomy. In it, I said that we had waited for Mr. Bennett at Bow Street, and then I had come to Haymarket in search of Mr. Deuteronomy. Though I had waited, I had missed him, too. “I shall come early tomorrow to discover what has happened,” I wrote. “Sir John is worried, and I, as well.”

  Having written that, I felt that I had done all I could under these awkward circumstances. It was now certainly time to return to Bow Street. I folded the note and slipped it under the door so that it was just visible from the outside. I saw that the street lamps were now lit, and only a bit of light could be seen in the west. It was now well past six and time to hurry home.

  Coming in as I did, I spied Mr. Donnelly—doctor, surgeon, medical examiner for Westminster, and friend to us all. He was just entering Sir John’s chambers at the end of the hall, and that (I told myself) must mean that there is to be some special guest of honor. He was always present at such occasions, lending his own wit and good humor to the dinner conversation. Upon entering the kitchen, I saw that Clarissa, rather than Molly, was serving as cook this evening. That gave me a bit of a surprise, for though she had often cooked dinner before, and had proven her worth again and again, she had never done so for one of Sir John’s guest-of-honor affairs. I wondered where Molly was and what she was about. Clarissa looked up at me and smiled.

  “Ah, it’s you, Jeremy. Quickly with you now, get upstairs and change into your best. This is a grand occasion.”

  “But what—What is the occasion?”

  “Oh, I’m sure you can guess. Go, go, go! Out of the kitchen, if you please.”

  Thus was I driven out and up the stairs where I did hastily change into my better suit of clothes (I had but two)—really quite ordinary-looking; yet the shirt, recently washed and crisply clean, seemed to work a sort of magic upon the attendant parts. I was indeed ready to present myself to whoever was to be the guest of honor.

  When I descended into the kitchen, I did so with as much grace and dignity as I could muster. Therefore, I was somewhat taken aback when, no sooner had I made my appearance than I was given a great platter containing ribs of beef by Clarissa and told to bring them to the dining-room table.

  “You must carve them, as well,” she did call after me.

  Was this why I had dressed myself so handsomely? Was I to be a mere server? Yet Clarissa, who was herself excellently decked out in her finest, and prettier than I had ever before seen her, followed me closely with the Yorkshire pudding. The sauce, as she pointed out, was already on the table.

  But where was the guest of honor? As I carved the lovely beef, I kept throwing anxious glances at the door, wondering what personage might come through it and excite us one and all. Then, however, did I note that there were but six places set at the table. Where would he sit?

  Finally, as I sat down beside Clarissa, it came to me at last that there would be no others at the table, and that the guests of honor were already with us, sitting across from us, touching fingers upon the table, beaming smiles, each at the other. Mr. Gabriel Donnelly and the widow Molly Sarton were about to announce their engagement. Yet, it seemed, they would have to wait a bit.

  Sir John called down to his lady: “Kate, my dear, what is proper form here? Do we toast them before or after we eat? I know how it’s usually done, but are there special rules for this special occasion?”

  “None that I know of, Jack. Do it as you like.”

  “Well then, I always think that toasts are best drunk on a full belly, and so I say to you all, fill your bellies!”

  There was laughter round the table at that as we fell to the dinner—and what a dinner it was! Could this truly have been cooked by Clarissa? Though of course it could, for had I not always said that she had only to put that considerable mind of hers to cooking and she would soon be the best cook in all of England? Perhaps she was not yet quite so good as all that. Nevertheless, as we cut into our meat, and the juice ran forth, we must each have had the thought that we had never eaten better before. Thus the table fell silent as all continued to eat, and, of all compliments paid to a cook, that sort of silence is the most profound.

  There were seconds asked for and quickly consumed. Clarissa’s Yorkshire pudding was near as much in demand as the roast of bee
f. Many is the trip I made round the table with bottles of claret in hand. It was quite the finest and most festive meal we had ever eaten. Our bellies were full. It was now time for toasts to be offered. I made sure that all glasses were filled. Sir John rose and raised his glass.

  “I shall not make this a long oration, though the Good Lord knows that I could. There is so much to tell of Gabriel Donnelly that I’m quite sure that I could fill the rest of the evening with it. It was in 1768 that we met, and immediately we did, we found a basis for friendship, and it was as a friend that I rejoiced when, but a year ago, he came to me and declared his interest in Molly Sarton, who had come to us from her home in Deal where she had been recently widowed. She agreed to fill in for us as cook for a time—we never thought for a moment that we could hold on long to one as talented and experienced as she. In any case, her time with us has not been wasted, for here in Bow Street she met Mr. Donnelly, and that has led to a most favorable situation for both. They are here to announce their engagement, and we are here to celebrate it.”

  Then did we raise our glasses and, standing, drink a toast to the two of them. As we resumed our seats, Mr. Donnelly remained upon his feet and, looking slowly round the table at each of us, he smiled and began his own brief oration.

  “I bless the day that I met Sir John Fielding, and I have any number of good reasons for doing so. First of all, I met in him one of the brightest and deepest minds in London. And through him I met the second-brightest and second-deepest mind in London—” He paused, and then, with a grand gesture—“Clarissa Roundtree!”

  The entire table exploded in laughter at that—and I louder and longer than all the rest. I had, just prior, fixed a rather complacent look upon my face, one I thought suitable for accepting a grand compliment. It must indeed have been comical to see my face drop so quickly.