The Best Crime Stories Ever Told (45 page)

This old gentleman in the powdered white wig, that rested on his stooped shoulders, must have had something to say that interested the Judge very much; for he would not have parted on easy terms with the ten minutes and upwards which that conference filched from the sort of revelry in which he most delighted, and in which he was the roaring king, and in some sort the tyrant also, of his company.

The footman who showed the aged man out observed that the Judge’s mulberry-coloured face, pimples and all, were bleached to a dingy yellow, and there was the abstraction of agitated thought in his manner, as he bid the stranger good-night. The servant saw that the conversation had been of serious import, and that the Judge was frightened.

Instead of stumping upstairs forthwith to his scandalous hilarities, his profane company, and his great china bowl of punch—the identical bowl from which a bygone Bishop of London, good easy man, had baptised this Judge’s grandfather, now clinking round the rim with silver ladles, and hung with scrolls of lemon-peel—instead, I say, of stumping and clambering up the great staircase to the cavern of his Circean enchantment, he stood with his big nose flattened against the window-pane, watching the progress of the feeble old man, who clung stiffly to the iron rail as he got down, step by step, to the pavement.

The hall-door had hardly closed, when the old Judge was in the hall bawling hasty orders, with such stimulating expletives as old colonels under excitement sometimes indulge in now-a-days, with a stamp or two of his big foot, and a waving of his clenched fist in the air. He commanded the footman to overtake the old gentleman in the white wig, to offer him his protection on his way home, and in no case to show his face again without having ascertained where he lodged, and who he was, and all about him.

“By ——, sirrah! if you fail me in this, you doff my livery tonight!”

Forth bounced the stalwart footman, with his heavy cane under his arm, and skipped down the steps, and looked up and down the street after the singular figure, so easy to recognize.

What were his adventures I shall not tell you just now.

The old man, in the conference to which he had been admitted in that stately panelled room, had just told the Judge a very strange story. He might be himself a conspirator; he might possibly be crazed; or possibly his whole story was straight and true.

The aged gentleman in the bottle-green coat, on finding himself alone with Mr. Justice Harbottle, had become agitated. He said:

“There is, perhaps you are not aware, my lord, a prisoner in Shrewsbury jail, charged with having forged a bill of exchange for a hundred and twenty pounds, and his name is Lewis Pyneweck, a grocer of that town.”

“Is there?” says the Judge, who knew well that there was.

“Yes, my lord,” says the old man.

“Then you had better say nothing to affect this case. If you do, by —— I’ll commit you! for I’m to try it,” says the Judge, with his terrible look and tone.

“I am not going to do anything of the kind, my lord; of him or his case I know nothing, and care nothing. But a fact has come to my knowledge which it behoves you to well consider.”

“And what may that fact be?” inquired the Judge; “I’m in haste, sir, and beg you will use dispatch.”

“It has come to my knowledge, my lord, that a secret tribunal is in process of formation, the object of which is to take cognizance of the conduct of the judges; and first, of
your
conduct, my lord: it is a wicked conspiracy.”

“Who are of it?” demands the Judge.

“I know not a single name as yet. I know but the fact, my lord; it is most certainly true.”

“I’ll have you before the Privy Council, sir,” says the Judge.

“That is what I most desire; but not for a day or two, my lord.”

“And why so?”

“I have not as yet a single name, as I told your lordship; but I expect to have a list of the most forward men in it, and some other papers connected with the plot, in two or three days.”

“You said one or two just now.”

“About that time, my lord.”

“Is this a Jacobite plot?”

“In the main I think it is, my lord.”

“Why, then, it is political. I have tried no State prisoners, nor am like to try any such. How, then, doth it concern me?”

“From what I can gather, my lord, there are those in it who desire private revenges upon certain judges.”

“What do they call their cabal?”

“The High Court of Appeal, my lord.”

“Who are you, sir? What is your name?”

“Hugh Peters, my lord.”

“That should be a Whig name?”

“It is, my lord.”

“Where do you lodge, Mr. Peters?”

“In Thames Street, my lord, over against the sign of the ‘Three Kings.’”

“‘Three Kings?’ Take care one be not too many for you, Mr. Peters! How come you, an honest Whig, as you say, to be privy to a Jacobite plot? Answer me that.”

“My lord, a person in whom I take an interest has been seduced to take a part in it; and being frightened at the unexpected wickedness of their plans, he is resolved to become an informer for the Crown.”

“He resolves like a wise man, sir. What does he say of the persons? Who are in the plot? Doth he know them?”

“Only two, my lord; but he will be introduced to the club in a few days, and he will then have a list, and more exact information of their plans, and above all of their oaths, and their hours and places of meeting, with which he wishes to be acquainted before they can have any suspicions of his intentions. And being so informed, to whom, think you, my lord, had he best go then?”

“To the king’s attorney-general straight. But you say this concerns me, sir, in particular? How about this prisoner, Lewis Pyneweck? Is he one of them?”

“I can’t tell, my lord; but for some reason, it is thought your lordship will be well advised if you try him not. For if you do, it is feared ‘twill shorten your days.”

“So far as I can learn, Mr. Peters, this business smells pretty strong of blood and treason. The king’s attorney-general will know how to deal with it. When shall I see you again, sir?”

“If you give me leave, my lord, either before your lordship’s court sits, or after it rises, to-morrow. I should like to come and tell your lordship what has passed.”

“Do so, Mr. Peters, at nine o’clock to-morrow morning. And see you play me no trick, sir, in this matter; if you do, by —— sir, I’ll lay you by the heels!”

“You need fear no trick from me, my lord; had I not wished to serve you, and acquit my own conscience, I never would have come all this way to talk with your lordship.”

“I’m willing to believe you, Mr. Peters; I’m willing to believe you, sir.”

And upon this they parted.

“He has either painted his face, or he is consumedly sick,” thought the old Judge.

The light had shone more effectually upon his features as he turned to leave the room with a low bow, and they looked, he fancied, unnaturally chalky.

“D—— him!” said the Judge ungraciously, as he began to scale the stairs: “he has half-spoiled my supper.”

But if he had, no one but the Judge himself perceived it, and the evidence was all, as anyone might perceive, the other way.

Lewis Pyneweck

In the meantime the footman dispatched in pursuit of Mr. Peters speedily overtook that feeble gentleman. The old man stopped when he heard the sound of pursuing steps, but any alarms that may have crossed his mind seemed to disappear on his recognizing the livery. He very gratefully accepted the proffered assistance, and placed his tremulous arm within the servant’s for support. They had not gone far, however, when the old man stopped suddenly, saying:

“Dear me! as I live, I have dropped it. You heard it fall. My eyes, I fear, won’t serve me, and I’m unable to stoop low enough; but if
you
will look, you shall have half the find. It is a guinea; I carried it in my glove.”

The street was silent and deserted. The footman had hardly descended to what he termed his “hunkers,” and begun to search the pavement about the spot which the old man indicated, when Mr. Peters, who seemed very much exhausted, and breathed with difficulty, struck him a violent blow, from above, over the back of the head with a heavy instrument, and then another; and leaving him bleeding and senseless in the gutter, ran like a lamp-lighter down a lane to the right, and was gone.

When, an hour later, the watchman brought the man in livery home, still stupid and covered with blood, Judge Harbottle cursed his servant roundly, swore he was drunk, threatened him with an indictment for taking bribes to betray his master, and cheered him with a perspective of the broad street leading from the Old Bailey to Tyburn, the cart’s tail, and the hangman’s lash.

Notwithstanding this demonstration, the Judge was pleased. It was a disguised “affidavit man,” or footpad, no doubt, who had been employed to frighten him. The trick had fallen through.

A “court of appeal,” such as the false Hugh Peters had indicated, with assassination for its sanction, would be an uncomfortable institution for a “hanging judge” like the Honourable Justice Harbottle. That sarcastic and ferocious administrator of the criminal code of England, at that time a rather pharisaical, bloody and heinous system of justice, had reasons of his own for choosing to try that very Lewis Pyneweck, on whose behalf this audacious trick was devised. Try him he would. No man living should take that morsel out of his mouth.

Of Lewis Pyneweck, of course, so far as the outer world could see, he knew nothing. He would try him after his fashion, without fear, favour, or affection.

But did he not remember a certain thin man, dressed in mourning, in whose house, in Shrewsbury, the Judge’s lodgings used to be, until a scandal of his ill-treating his wife came suddenly to light? A grocer with a demure look, a soft step, and a lean face as dark as mahogany, with a nose sharp and long, standing ever so little awry, and a pair of dark steady brown eyes under thinly-traced black brows—a man whose thin lips wore always a faint unpleasant smile.

Had not that scoundrel an account to settle with the Judge? had he not been troublesome lately? and was not his name Lewis Pyneweck, some time grocer in Shrewsbury, and now prisoner in the jail of that town?

The reader may take it, if he pleases, as a sign that Judge Harbottle was a good Christian, that he suffered nothing ever from remorse. That was undoubtedly true. He had, nevertheless, done this grocer, forger, what you will, some five or six years before, a grievous wrong; but it was not that, but a possible scandal, and possible complications, that troubled the learned Judge now.

Did he not, as a lawyer, know, that to bring a man from his shop to the dock, the chances must be at least ninety-nine out of a hundred that he is guilty?

A weak man like his learned brother Withershins was not a judge to keep the high-roads safe, and make crime tremble. Old Judge Harbottle was the man to make the evil-disposed quiver, and to refresh the world with showers of wicked blood, and thus save the innocent, to the refrain of the ancient saw he loved to quote:

Foolish pity

Ruins a city.

In hanging that fellow he could not be wrong. The eye of a man accustomed to look upon the dock could not fail to read “villain” written sharp and clear in his plotting face. Of course he would try him, and no one else should.

A saucy-looking woman, still handsome, in a mob-cap gay with blue ribbons, in a saque of flowered silk, with lace and rings on, much too fine for the Judge’s housekeeper, which nevertheless she was, peeped into his study next morning, and, seeing the Judge alone, stepped in.

“Here’s another letter from him, come by the post this morning. Can’t you do nothing for him?” she said wheedlingly, with her arm over his neck, and her delicate finger and thumb fiddling with the lobe of his purple ear.

“I’ll try,” said Judge Harbottle, not raising his eyes from the paper he was reading.

“I knew you’d do what I asked you,” she said.

The Judge clapt his gouty claw over his heart, and made her an ironical bow.

“What,” she asked, “will you do?”

“Hang him,” said the Judge with a chuckle.

“You don’t mean to; no, you don’t, my little man,” said she, surveying herself in a mirror on the wall.

“I’m d——d but I think you’re falling in love with your husband at last!” said Judge Harbottle.

“I’m blest but I think you’re growing jealous of him,” replied the lady with a laugh. “But no; he was always a bad one to me; I’ve done with him long ago.”

“And he with you, by George! When he took your fortune, and your spoons, and your ear-rings, he had all he wanted of you. He drove you from his house; and when he discovered you had made yourself comfortable, and found a good situation, he’d have taken your guineas, and your silver, and your ear-rings over again, and then allowed you half-a-dozen years more to make a new harvest for his mill. You don’t wish him good; if you say you do, you lie.”

She laughed a wicked, saucy laugh, and gave the terrible Rhadamanthus a playful tap on the chops.

“He wants me to send him money to fee a counsellor,” she said, while her eyes wandered over the pictures on the wall, and back again to the looking-glass; and certainly she did not look as if his jeopardy troubled her very much.

“Confound his impudence, the
scoundrel
!” thundered the old Judge, throwing himself back in his chair, as he used to do
in furore
on the bench, and the lines of his mouth looked brutal, and his eyes ready to leap from his sockets. “If you answer his letter from my house to please yourself, you’ll write your next from somebody else’s to please me. You understand, my pretty witch, I’ll not be pestered. Come, no pouting; whimpering won’t do. You don’t care a brass farthing for the villain, body or soul. You came here but to make a row. You are one of Mother Carey’s chickens; and where you come, the storm is up. Get you
gone
, baggage! get you gone!” he repeated, with a stamp; for a knock at the hall door made her instantaneous disappearance indispensable.

I need hardly say that the venerable Hugh Peters did not appear again. The Judge never mentioned him. But oddly enough, considering how he laughed to scorn the weak invention which he had blown into dust at the very first puff, his white-wigged visitor and the conference in the dark front parlour was often in his memory.