Bruce Alexander - Death of a Colonial

I pondered upon that, thinking also of Lawrence Paltrow and the eagerness for more that he expressed to his mother in one of his letters: “We deserve better,” said he to her.

“This may also have been the case with Lawrence Paltrow.”

“Certainly it was.”

“What do you suppose happened to him?’’ I wondered it aloud.

“I should think you would have guessed,” said Sir John.

“Well, I don’t think he drowned in a river crossing as Mr. Mobley was told. I believe it likely that he died somewhere out in the wilderness and probably at the hand of Eli Bolt.”

“You have it partly right, in any case.’’ He paused a moment to think how best he might present this. “Do you recall our discussion concerning aliases? I said that more often than not they are created from the name given at birth. Eli Bolt became Elijah Bolton, and, earlier, Elijah Elison. Well, there are some who do it differently. They dig back in their family history, not necessarily very far, to choose a name. Tell me, Jeremy, does the name Mudge mean anything to you?”

“Well, I recall from the ‘Unresolved’ file that it was the name of the man hanged in his room in the Globe and Anchor, almost certainly murdered by Bolt. Do you mean that he…?”

“Mudge was also the family name of his mother. That information was on her death certificate from Bath and was given us by Lord Mansfield.”

“I’m afraid I didn’t notice.”

“You must listen more carefully. Let nothing be lost on you.”

“But why was Lawrence Paltrow murdered? Was it to keep secret the location of the site where gold might be dug?”

“No, as I have worked it out, young Mr. Paltrow hoped by deception to claim the gold for himself. This speculation of mine is based on information I acquired in Oxford when you were not present. But as I see it, he kept a written record of the journey in his Journal — a written record, by the bye, because Bolt was almost certainly illiterate but as a man of the frontier could read drawn maps with the best of them. That Journal he left with his mother.

“There was, and no doubt still is, gold to be mined at that site he described in his Journal. He was sent over to confirm this, gather samples, give an estimate of the yield, and so on — the sort of thing that one with a background in natural science such as he had could do very well. He had, as a matter of fact, been recommended for this work to Sir Patrick Spenser by Professor Fowler of Merton College, Oxford, Sir Patrick financed Paltrow’s trip to America, as well as the expedition to the site discovered by Bolt the year previous. Paltrow was offered no partnership in the enterprise, I’ll wager — simply hired to do the task. He began very early to devise a plan whereby he might eventually come away with all that Sir Patrick sought. In pursuit of this, he acquired samples of iron pyrites, popularly known as fools gold. These he substituted for the gold ore samples they had mined in — where was it? — the colony of Georgia. With Sir Patrick he took them to Professor Fowler for confirmation of the discovery. Professor Fowler saw that what Paltrow offered him was nothing more or less than iron pyrites, of no value whatever, and he was quick to tell them so. Paltrow did not mind being disgraced in the eyes of his teacher if he might in some way gain control of this great prize.

“Sir Patrick must indeed have been furious, yet there was little he could do. It was simple ignorance that had led him to this end. Yet he must have become suspicious — perhaps when he heard from Bolt some word of the Journal. Perhaps he demanded to see it, and Paltrow could not produce it, for he had by that time deposited the Journal with his mother and told her something of his plan. Or perhaps Bolt had searched Paltrow’s room at the Globe and Anchor and found the samples of true gold brought back from America.

Whatever the circumstances leading up to it, Sir Patrick’s suspicion was sufficient for him to order the murder of young Paltrow by Eli Bolt. I, knowing none of this, was called in to investigate the supposed suicide of Herbert Mudge. Where he found the name Herbert, I’ve no idea. Perhaps it was his maternal grandfather’s name. In any case, I could prove nothing other than suicide. And because he had been traveling under an alias — part of the secrecy Sir Patrick demanded, no doubt — the Widow Paltrow never knew that her son was dead. That was why she proved such an easy prey to the claimant and asked him — her last words to him — where the gold was.”

“And that,” said I, “is what happened to Lawrence Paltrow.”

“That is what I think happened to him — mere speculation which cannot be proven.”

“A case could not be made against Sir Patrick Spenser?”

“Certainly not. He is the only survivor.” A smile crept across Sir John’s face. “But a man as greedy and unprincipled as he is sure to try another scheme soon. We shall keep an eye on him. In the meantime, I’d like you, Jeremy, to write an addendum to that case of Herbert Mudge’s ‘suicide,’ setting things right and tying it to Bolt. Leave out my speculations. We will have enough then, that we may take it from the ‘Unresolved’ file and put it where it properly belongs.”