Bruce Alexander - The Color of Death

Yet before I could begin, he questioned me closely on the matter of food.

“Did they give you any idea how long it would be? I’m altogether famished, you know.”

“No sir, they did not,” said I. “But all three were working at it. You should not have long to wait.”

“There was none of this nonsense about clear broth, was there?”

“I did not discuss it with them, sir, but I know it as fact that Annie went especially to Mr. Tolliver’s in Covent Garden for a beef chop. I happened to glimpse it sir, and it’s monstrous large.”

He smacked his lips as a child might. ” ‘Monstrous large,’ you say? Couldn’t suit me better. But quickly, if you can, dear boy, tell me if you’ve made progress in the Lilley matter. Give me your report.”

Quickly was indeed how I told it. Because I knew I had much to tell, I had organized it well during the time that he slept. First I told of finding Mr. Collier at the Zondervan residence through Annie’s help and of the interrogation that followed. I made no effort to repeat question and answer through the entire session, but rather offered what I thought to be the most important items to emerge from my discussion with the butler.

For instance, this: “Mr. Collier estimated the worth of all things stolen at up to twenty thousand pounds.”

“So much?” Sir John groaned. “Oh, dear God! What more?”

“Well, there was this, sir: According to Mr. Collier’s recollection of the time he spent in the kitchen with the rest, awaiting the robbers’ departure, the lady’s maid, Mistress Pinkham, did not join her fellow servants until the house had been sacked. Not until they left was she put with the others in the kitchen.”

“Hmmm,” said he, “that was not the impression she created when she talked to us, was it?”

“No sir, it was not. There may be cause for suspicion.”

“There may be. Continue to look for her. We must talk with her again. What else did you turn up?”

“Not much worth mentioning from Mr. Collier. However, I interviewed Constable Patley as he was coming on duty this evening.”

“And what did you discover?”

“I discovered that the supposed servant from the Lilley residence who notified Constable Patley of the grand robbery was more or less fictitious.”

” ‘More or less’? What does that mean?”

“It means, sir, that while we must credit it that Mr. Patley was approached by someone and told of the robbery, we do not know the identity of that someone. The name given by the constable in the rather crude document which pretends to be his written report of the crime corresponds to that of no one on the household staff of the Lilley residence. Nor does Mr. Collier recall sending anyone forth to report the crimes of theft and murder; he said that he was too busy tallying up the cash value of the objects stolen to remember to do what needed to be done.”

“And so,” said Sir John, “where does that leave us?”

“In a rather awkward place,” said I.

“And what place is that, Jeremy?”

“Sir, I explained all this to Constable Patley — well, you might say that I confronted him with it.”

“With what result?”

“He admitted that he had made up the name.”

Sir John popped up in his bed to something near a seated position. For a moment he was speechless — but only for a moment, for he bellowed loud and deep, “He what?”

“That’s right, sir. He was, in the end, quite apologetic, but at first he insisted that it could make no difference anyway, since the information given was quite accurate. After all, there had been a robbery at the Lilley residence, hadn’t there? That sort of thing. He couldn’t, for the life of him, understand why you had to have the name of him who had brought the report. But since you had to have a name, he supposed that William Waters would do as well as any. The truth was, he admitted at last, that he had not asked the messenger his name, but simply given him directions to Bow Street.”

“Shall we discharge the fellow now, do you think, or wait until he does serious harm to person or property? “

“I think it best to wait, Sir John, as you will, too, once you have overcome your anger. Yet I have still more to tell.”

He sighed. “Go ahead then. I would have it all.”

“Well and good/’ said I. “The mysterious messenger went on, as we know, and arrived here at Bow Street. He knocked upon the door, and Mr. Baker came to answer it. The fellow, whoever he was, gave him the particulars in a great rush and said that he must get back to the Lilley residence, for he would be needed there. Mr. Baker asked only that his informant wait while he might fetch paper and pencil and jot down the important details. Yet the man refused to remain and ran off, shouting the number of the Lilley house in St. James Street. Constable Bailey happened to be bringing in a prisoner, and so he went off to St. James and collected Mr. Brede along the way. And, as you know, Mr. Baker — ”

“Came upstairs and informed me of what had happened,” said Sir John, completing the sentence. He thought a moment upon it, then said, “And so I doubt Mr. Baker managed to get his name, either. Was there any sort of description of the fellow?”

“About all they could agree upon was that the man was uncommonly tall. But Sir John, I do not believe that it would have mattered had either Mr. Patley or Mr. Baker managed to get his name, for it would probably have been a false name, in any case.”

Suddenly alert to possibilities, Sir John mused aloud: “I believe I follow your train of thought. It had occurred to me, after all, that if no one from the Lilley residence went out for help, only those who had caused the trouble — which is to say, the robbers themselves — could have delivered the news. The point is, why should they have wished to do so? Were they so proud of their work that they wanted to invite the constables and the magistrate to come and admire it? I think not, Jeremy.”

“I have an idea, sir,” said I. “By turning in a report on so great a crime as this — robbery on such a grand scale and murder, too — they could indeed be certain that you would be summoned. In fact, they went to some pains to be sure you were.” At that moment I paused for effect, took a deep breath, and continued: “Could it be, Sir John, that all that happened at the Lilley s was an elaborate trap which, baited, was set to bring you — specifically you — out where you would present an easy target?”

“A conspiracy? “

“Something of the sort, yes.”

It was then that Lady Katherine entered, bearing his dinner upon a tray. It was more than a mere dinner — a sumptuous feast, rather.

“There now, Jeremy,” said she, “you’ve had him long enough. I’ve brought him something should take his mind from those dreary court matters.”

He whispered to me: “We shall speak of this later — tomorrow perhaps. But go now, lad. You’ve done a good day’s work.”

Next morning early I set off for Covent Garden. The greengrocers were freshening their stock to make it look like it had come in new from the market gardens. A few drunken blades staggered out of Carpenter’s coffee house, ending their night of revels in sullen silence; I passed them warily on my diagonal route across the piazza. My goal was prominent from almost any point in the Garden — not for its size nor garish decoration (it was neither large nor colorfully painted), but simply because it was the only one of its kind this side of Smithfield Market.

Mr. Tolliver was a butcher, one who had violated tradition and perhaps broken a long-forgotten rule or two by opening his stall in one corner of London’s grandest vegetable market. There he had prospered. And if not always so popular with his neighboring stall-keepers, who envied him his customers, he was nevertheless well-liked as a man and well-respected for the quality of his meat by those who bought from him. And not least in that matter of liking and respecting him were we who lived at Number 4 Bow Street.