The Price of Murder (2 page)

“Do you know her?” I asked. “She seems to know you.”

Indeed she did. As Clarissa looked up, the girl saw her better, and, having her doubts thus removed, she fair flew at us, arms open wide.

“Elizabeth Hooker!” cried Clarissa. “Is it you, truly?”

“Clarissa!”

Then, arms wrapped so close round each other that they seemed as a single being, they danced before Mrs. Malter’s stall, each talking at the other, neither able to hear for the noise she made.

It was quite unlike Clarissa to make such a spectacle of herself in a place so public. I knew not whether to attempt to pull them apart or to allow them simply to exhaust themselves then and there. At last, having run out of energy, they stopped, stared each at the other, and fell to laughing quite uproariously. The next few minutes were spent asking and answering questions. Both were from Lichfield. Each had come to London within months of the other (Elizabeth, I believe, had come later than Clarissa). Their fathers had died, and both girls had gone into service—Elizabeth as a kitchen slavey in the residence of Richard Turbott, silversmith, of Chandos Street; and Clarissa as a secretary and personal assistant (and, sometimes, maid and cook, as well) for Lady Fielding. The two made plans to visit the next day, since Miss Hooker had been given free the entire time from Friday to Monday, as the Turbotts would be out of town for Easter.

I listened as they reminisced, and I was interested enough in their two stories that I thought it merely amusing to note that in the excitement of their chance meeting they had quite forgotten me. Yet I was not to be long excluded from Clarissa’s thoughts. Just as the two were about to part, she threw up her hands in dismay.

“Oh dear God,” said she, “what could I have been thinking of? Elizabeth, you have not met Jeremy!”

“Jeremy?” Her friend turned to me with an amused smile upon her face. She saw the humor of it.

Clarissa, on the other hand, did not. “This is he,” said she, grasping my arm and pulling me forward. “Jeremy Proctor, allow me to present you to my oldest and dearest friend, Elizabeth Hooker.” This was accomplished with a great sense of dignity and brought to a conclusion with a most graceful gesture of the hand. Ah, well done, Clarissa!

So well done, in truth, that I thought to return her gallantry with a bit of my own. I bowed quite the grandest bow I have ever done. And Elizabeth, for her part, floated down into a curtsy that would have done honor to a duke. Then, of a sudden, applause burst forth on every side of us. We three looked round and saw we had attracted a crowd of onlookers—an audience, no less—and they showed their appreciation in the old-fashioned way. And why should they not? We had put on a bit of a show for them, had we not? We three had played at being gentle folk, as if upon the stage, and had had our efforts applauded. What fun! We felt so jolly that we did laugh as we bowed and curtsied our thanks to them (though not in a manner so grand as before). But already our audience had begun to drift away.

Clarissa and Elizabeth then said their goodbyes, and Clarissa promised faithfully to visit upon the afternoon of the next day. Yet then, as they parted, still waving as they backed away, Clarissa called after her friend, ran to her, and whispered in her ear. At that, Elizabeth’s eyes widened; she looked at me and, giggling, ran off through the crowd.

“What was that all about?” I asked of Clarissa.

“What was what all about?”

“That last. What did you whisper to her?”

“Oh,
that
? Nothing much to it, really. I simply told her that we two are betrothed.”

“That was a bit hasty, was it not?” said I. “It’s
supposed
to be a secret.”

“Well, it won’t be after we have posted the banns.”

You see, reader, what I had to contend with.

Having spent some time in Covent Garden, we had collected two or three bags full of fruits and vegetables. Still, we had yet another stop to make, and probably the most important of all. Mr. Tolliver, our butcher and indeed the only one there in the Garden, was but two stalls down from Mrs. Malter’s. He was busy that day, as he usually was, and, while waiting in line, I had the opportunity to enlighten and instruct Clarissa in his ways. He took care of each customer according to her needs (all were women), and so there was more than ample time to whisper to her of Mr. Tolliver’s involvement with Lady Fielding before Sir John appeared and quite dazzled her with his knighthood. Since then, of course, things had gone well for the butcher. He had married, and married well—a widowed dressmaker from his home in Bristol, who earned money enough in her shop so that they might move from the two rooms in which they had begun their married life. They now lived in a modest house in the lower, respectable part of St. Martin’s Lane.

“His only complaint today,” I concluded, “is that his diligent and resourceful wife is apparently a bit too old to bear children. But then, if she were not, she would have the very devil of a time running her shop and cutting her copies of the latest in French fashions, with children all round.”

I had spoken in such a quiet tone that I was reasonably certain that Mr. Tolliver had heard nothing. Indeed, I was certain of it when we stepped up before him.

He greeted me with a great smile and a wink. “Well, Jeremy,” said he to me, “what shall I do for you today?” And then, before I could respond, he quietened me with this: “And who, pray tell, is that fine-looking young lady seekin’ to hide herself behind you?”

With that, I introduced Clarissa to him, and told him that she would be coming round from time to time, doing the buying, when Molly or I were otherwise employed.

“And do you cook?” said he to her.

“I’m learning,” said she.

“Well, that bein’ the case, you’ll wish to start with something simple. What about a nice stew—beef or mutton, either one.”

“I’ve done both on a number of occasions, and it turned out well enough. So I thought, perhaps something a bit more demanding . . .”

“Something like a pot roast, you mean?”

“Something like that, yes. Have you the right meat for pot roast?”

“I do indeed,” said he. “Here, let me show you.”

And show her he did, hacking off a long corner of red from the side of beef that hung behind him. He then brought it over to show us.

“Now, what you want to do,” he said, “is take this long piece here, roll it round and tie it so. Give it the better part of the afternoon in the oven with potatoes and carrots, and you’ll have a fine pot roast for dinner.”

“How will I tell when it’s done?”

“I take it you’ll be cooking this all by yourself? Molly won’t be round to tell you how?”

She shook her head in the negative. “No,” said she, “I’ll be on my own this whole week or longer.”

“Ah well, there’s no problem that I can see. Just keep the heat up in the oven and sink a fork into it from time to time. When it goes in easy and comes up clean, you’ll know it’s right.” Then he looked at her right sharp. “Now, what about tomorrow?” he asked.

“That’s a question I can’t now answer. I’ll be back tomorrow, after I’ve given the matter some consideration.”

“Fair enough,” said he, “but just remember, the day after is a holiday, and you’ll need to get here early—earlier than this.”

She nodded solemnly and accepted the package he had wrapped for her.

To me, he said, “Shall I add it to your bill, or . . .”

“Put it on the bill,” said I. Then did I take her arm and lead her away.

“Can we trust him?” Clarissa whispered to me. “I’ve heard tales of butchers adding half to a bill just for spite.”

“You’ve naught to worry with Mr. Tolliver.”

“Truly? He gave us no figure, after all. He could as well say that he sold us a pound’s worth as a penny’s.”

“There’s not a more honest man in Westminster.”

 
Thus it was that we returned to Number 4 Bow Street. Entering by the door that led to that part behind Sir John’s magistrate’s court, we made our way to the stairs and were about to mount them when I heard Mr. Marsden’s hoarse voice call my name. I urged Clarissa up the stairs and went to hear what he had to tell me. It was simply, as I supposed, that Sir John wished me to see him when I returned. Probably a letter to be taken in dictation, I told myself, or another to be picked up at the Post Coach House.

“Did he seem specially eager to see me? Worried? Angry? It’s a question of whether I bring the groceries up before or after I report in to him.”

“Well,” said he, with a bit of a wheeze, “he didn’t seem worried, exactly, but—” He coughed, then: “Not worried, exactly, but angry, I s’pose.”

I sighed. “I’ll go see him now.”

Putting down the two bags of groceries, which I had hauled back from Covent Garden, I trudged down the long hall to the magistrate’s chambers. There I found him head bowed, pacing the floor before his desk. There was a space of no more than eight feet square, which he crossed and re-crossed. He knew full well that if he were to venture farther in any direction, he would come crashing into a row of chairs. Though blind, he had memorized the room exactly. I held at the door, unwilling to interrupt his thoughts. I stood thus, waiting, for less than a minute. He stopped, turned, and faced the door.

“Well, what are you waiting for, Jeremy?” he demanded. “Come in, will you?”

I did as he bade and took a place upon one of the rear chairs, expecting him to retire to his desk. He did nothing of the kind but continued his pacing, saying nothing for some time. Then at last he did stop and turn in my direction.

“First of all, where were you? It’s been near an hour since I put out the call for you.”

“In Covent Garden, sir, showing Clarissa about and introducing her to one and another. She chose the makings of tonight’s dinner.”

“Oh . . . well, that’s needful and necessary, I suppose, but dammit, lad, could you not have cut it short—or at least hurried things along just a bit?”

“Well, I—”

“Oh, never mind—but listen, ’twas near an hour ago that a little street urchin came running in, demanding to be heard. He’d been sent by a waterman at Billingsgate Stairs to report that he had pulled from the river the body of a child. A girl it was, of no more than six or seven years of age. I think it may be that one reported stolen by her mother a month ago. You recall, do you?”

“Oh, I recall,” said I. “You pointed out to me that it was the second such disappearance that month. You said you suspected that they were being sold.”

“Yes, but to what purpose? The earlier abduction was of a boy of about the same age. When kids are napped from the rich, they are held for a price. There was no demand for money in either case, nor would the parents be the sort you might hope to extort money from.”

“Too poor?”

“By half.” He sighed. “I recall my brother Henry talking of a series of kidnappings of adolescent children, yet they were shipped off to Jamaica and sold into slavery. But this was years ago, mind you, back in Jonathan Wild’s time.”

“The thief-taker general,” said I.

“So he proclaimed himself.”

“What will you have me do, Sir John?”

“I want you to collect the girl’s corpus and bring it to Mr. Donnelly. You had better notify him before you go all the way to Billingsgate that we’ll require his services as medical examiner this morning. If she died a violent death, I want to know about it—and quickly. Get on it, if you will, Jeremy.”

“I will, sir.” I rose from the chair that I had taken and started for the door.

“Oh, and Jeremy, do forgive my unhappy outburst when you did enter. I’d been awaiting you for a bit and had naught to listen to but Mr. Marsden’s snuffling and coughing, and the woesome cries of drunks arrested the night before. In short, lad, I was impatient for your return. I could not, for the life of me, remember where you had gotten off to.”

“Think nothing of it, sir,” said I. “There can be no more said.”

“Go then,” said he. “Give me a report as soon as ever you can.”

As I left him and started back down the long hall, it occurred to me for the first time ever that perhaps Sir John was, in some sense, growing old.

 
The Billingsgate Fish Market smelled, if it were possible, even worse than did the Smithfield Market. The offal of hoofed beasts gave off a thick and heavy smell, it’s true. Nevertheless, the innards of sea creatures, most specially fish, stunk far worse. They were insidiously foul in a manner that can only be imagined as one might suppose hell might smell, and in the heat of the summertime could not even be imagined in such an approximation as that.

Billingsgate stands just off lower Thames Street, not far from London Bridge. ’Twas even before I reached the bridge that I smelled what lay ahead. Turning in at Billingsgate Dock, however, I found to my surprise that the deeper I penetrated the effluvium, the less I minded the odor. This may have been an actual, observable phenomenon, or it may have been because my attention was fully devoted to the closer handling required by the horses. (Yes, reader, I had, at last, learned from Mr. Patley, formerly of the King’s Carabineers, the tricks of handling a wagon and team through the streets of London.) I had hardly got the two old nags turned round and properly placed when they began to balk and carry on. I could think of naught but the foul smell of death that would make them carry on so. At last I got them under control and safely hitched.

I made quickly for the stairs down to the river and descended to near water level. There were men grouped upon the platform, talking in low tones, discussing the bundle that lay at their feet. Undoubtedly, the child was wrapped within the blanket. I shouldered my way through them, begging their pardon as I went, until I came to the focus of their attention—a blanket-wrapped parcel of no particular shape and not much more than three feet in length.

“Is this the child found in the river?” I asked, looking round me at the glowering faces of the watermen.