Bruce Alexander - Death of a Colonial

The next I knew, I found myself dragged across the wagonbed, then hefted up and thrown over a shoulder with an ease which I found quite intimidating. I had not been tossed about so since I was a young child. Of course, I could see nothing still, for the horse blanket was yet firmly in place, covering me from waist to head. Yet bounced about as I was, I could tell when I was brought through a door and into a house, then immediately below — down a narrow stairway to a dank, cold cellar. There I was dumped rudely upon the floor, against a sweating wall. All this time, not a word was spoken. I wondered at that, as well one might. Yet I had long before dismissed the possibility that my abductor could have been that puff-pigeon who had threatened me for failing to move away from his desired place at the bar; he might throw a blanket over me and beat me about the head, but he would not cart me off to some distant location for whatever dark purpose. Was I frightened? Oddly, I was not — at least not to a measure proper to my awkward position. I was certain that my captor was Eli Bolt — and perhaps the claimant, as well. They had been so careful to avoid my look that they had left me more or less blinded by the blanket over my head. They had even kept silent during the trip from town. Surely this meant that they intended eventually to release me.

Right above me I heard a door slam; no doubt it was the same one through which I had been carried only minutes before. Then did I hear the loud voice of Eli Bolt as he descended the stairs. I knew then that my theoretical safety was merely. . theoretical. What I failed to understand was why I had been taken away. Eli Bolt might, in his anger at the crowd of undergraduates at Mother Radford’s, be moved to hit out at one of the crowd — at me in particular, perhaps, because my unpropitious jeer had wounded him deepest.

“Where is that little whoreson?” It was Bolt, growling in anger, chewing his words, obviously drunk. He had come to the bottom of the stairs and was quite nearby. “No, I just wants to see him, maybe have a little talk, is all.” There was a pause, and then the sounds of a scuffle, a few words grunted, pushing, shoving back and forth.

It could only be the claimant who blocked the way. He was as big as Bolt — and evidently as strong — and he was not drunk. A confused sound escaped from the older man, a kind of wail of dismay, followed an instant later by the sound of collapse as Bolt hit the floor of the cellar. The claimant had put him down.

All this, reader, I had heard — yet I had seen nothing, for the blanket covered my head still. Experiencing all this as I did, without benefit of sight, made me mindful of Sir John, for it was thus that he experienced all things and all events. What was it he had said so often? That when deprived of one sense, you must strengthen the rest. And only the night before he had told me that it was also just as important to heed the urgings of reason whilst reaching conclusions from information provided by the senses. I had been perhaps a bit indifferent when the lesson was offered; at this moment, however, I sought eagerly to apply it to my present predicament.

What was it my senses told me? Touch aided me little — except to assure me that I was so firmly tied that it was unlikely that I should alone be able to loosen the bonds that bound me. Anything else? Yes, for as I ran my fingers over them, I found they were of the sort described to me by Captain Harrison — ropes of braided leather — the sort with which Eli Bolt had played his tricks on the deck of the Ocean Rover.

Taste told me naught but that I was frightfully hungry: My churning stomach was sending up sour messages that it badly needed filling; my tongue seemed to have thickened, as well.

Smell? All that I could smell was horse sweat. The odor was both overwhelming and quite objectionable.

It was essentially, however, upon my sense of hearing that I depended. I have described the entry of Bolt into the cellar and the battle of push and shove which he lost — presumably (that is, according to the dictates of reason) to the claimant. Yet even as, in this manner, my mind raced, my ears provided me with further information: I heard a cork stopper removed from a bottle. And then there was something more — the gurgling sound of liquid being drained from that selfsame bottle. Bolt, it seemed, was drunk and bent upon getting drunker. Such sounds indicated that he sat upon the floor across from me, no more than ten feet away. As for the claimant, who had yet to speak a word, he stood nearly between us but to one side — or so my ears told me.

Then did I hear a distant door slam — upstairs in the house — and immediately afterward the sound of footsteps striding confidently across the floor above. It could be none but the one Sir John had designated the third party in the conspiracy. Or so my reason told me.

With some consternation, I heard the claimant leave; he hastened up the stairs to meet the third party. I felt unprotected, alone. There was little to deter Bolt should he wish to inflict bodily harm. Yet for the moment, he seemed far more interested in his bottle. Again, there was that gurgling sound. The bottle was upended, and, remarkable as it seemed, through the horse blanket which covered my head I caught a whiff of what it was that he drank — gin, pure gin. He emitted a sigh of deep satisfaction, then took another swig. From another place in the house, rooms away, came the sound of voices — one of them no doubt that of the claimant, and the other belonging, surely, to him who had just entered. I strained to hear them better, yet try as I might, I could make out neither the words spoken nor the true tone of the voices. All seemed no more than an indistinct hum.

“Where’d you get it?” No hum that, but a rough bark from just ten feet away. Bolt had addressed me at last.

For a moment, I considered feigning unconsciousness. Yet only a minute before, I had been twisting about attempting to find some position in which I might better listen to the conversation on the ground floor. I would not deceive Bolt, and I might very likely anger him.

“What is it you mean?” said I to him. “What am I supposed to have?”

With that there was some shuffling and a grunt or two — and Eli Bolt was up on his feet. In three lumbering steps, he covered the space between us. Then, with a sigh, he squatted down before me. I sensed his face only inches from my own. If I had before just managed to catch the strong scent of gin, it near overwhelmed me now.

“You know damn well what I mean,” said Bolt. “Its that book he writ in and drew all them pitchers. You got it. I want it, and I want it now.”

“Well, the truth is, sir, I don’t have it with me — not here in Oxford, in any case.”

He laughed out loud. “Listen to ye! If you ain’t the little gentleman! “ Then did he mock me: “ ‘The truth is, sir! ‘Not here in Oxford, in any case .’ If you ain’t somethin’ to hear. What say we start all over again? First thing I asked was, where’d you get it? Now you answer me that one, and I’ll not beat you ‘bout the head.”

This threat was followed by the sounds of gurgling and gulping as he took another swallow of gin. Drunk as he was, he was quite capable of delivering such physical abuse. I had no intention of testing his intentions in this matter. Why should he not know? It would in no wise compromise Sir Johns investigation if I were to tell him.

Bolt banged his bottle on the floor. (I wondered, would he break it — yet he did not.) “ Answer! ”

“Very well,” said I. “You refer to Lawrence Paltrow’s ‘ Journal of Exploration and Discovery ’ no doubt. That I found in the rooms of Margaret Paltrow in Kingsmead Square in the town of Bath. I searched her quarters at the direction of Sir John Fielding, following her death.”