Bruce Alexander - The Color of Death

Having heard this much, I asked the question which I was sure Sir John would have asked in my place. To wit: “Has the doctor been sent for?”

“He has, yes,” said Mr. Patley. “Soon as Bailey and me arrived, he took a look at the body where it was lying and sent the stable boy off on a horse to fetch the doctor.”

“Gabriel Donnelly in Drury Lane?”

“I b’lieve that was the same as before.” He was silent for a moment. “Yes, that was it.” He had grown a bit sullen.

“And you went to Bow Street to fetch …”

“Well, not exactly you — not you alone, anyways. I thought — and maybe Mr. Bailey thought, too — that the magistrate would be well enough to come.”

“But he’s not,” said I with great certainty. “He has sent me in his stead.”

“You know how to do all that asking questions and all?” He seemed rather dubious.

“Yes.” That seemed sufficient. I could see no need to convince him of my qualifications.

He was silent for a good long space of time. We must have crossed a number of streets before he spoke up again. Then, of a sudden, he burst out with something quite unexpected; it was as if he had thought long upon it yet held it back.

“I want to ask you something,” said he.

“Ask me anything you like.”

“How old are you, anyways?”

“How old am I? Why should that matter?”

“You said I could ask you anything.”

“But I didn’t say I’d answer.” I hesitated but a moment and thought better of what I had said. “Oh, all right,” said I. “I am seventeen years of age.”

“Well, let me tell you something, mister damn-near-a-magistrate, seventeen is how old I was when I took the King’s shilling. And I then had as fine an opinion of myself as you seem to have of your own self.”

Having heard that, I was about to interrupt with a counterattack before he had even properly begun. However, curiosity persuaded me to hold my tongue.

“Yet we differed in one partic’lar,” he continued. “And that was in respect of our elders. I soon found out that if I cared to live out the length of my enlistment, it was important for me to pay attention to what those who’d been in the regiment a while might have to say, and not go trying to tell them how I thought they ought to do things. I had much to be grateful for to them.

“Now, I know you had a bad opinion of that report I wrote out on that first big robbery in St. James Street. That much I heard from that man Marsden, the magistrate’s clerk.”

Finally, reader, I could hold my tongue no longer. “Mr. Marsden had a bad opinion of it, too,” said I, “and so would Sir John have had if he had sufficient sight to read it. Well, he couldn’t have read it — none could — not the way the words were spelled. You authored something unique! It seemed another language entirely. Not to mention the near total absence of facts and details.”

“Well,” said he, “I’m working on those reports — with Mr. Bailey. He’s showing me how to write them the way Sir John wants.”

“Can he teach you how to spell correctly?” It was, I blush to say, a question intended less to elicit a reasonable response than to antagonize. And antagonize it did.

“You ain’t going to leave me alone on that, are you? You would scorn me as a man for no more than some words ain’t spelled to your liking. Well, all right, young sir, you may discover there’s more to judge a man by than that. I’m not saying I’ll be the one to teach you, but I can damn near guaranty you’ll find out from somebody sometime, and it’ll probably be sooner ‘stead of later.”

I had offended him, which was bad enough, though to make things worse, I had offended him by intention. Of a sudden I saw this, which is to say, I had a clear picture of myself as an arrogant young puppy. The picture appalled me, and I might well have set about to make amends (which would have been proper) had he not grabbed my arm and jerked me to a halt. Instinctively my arms came up, and my hands formed into fists. If it came to it, I was ready to defend myself.

But no. Mr. Patley pointed somewhat behind me and to my right. “We’re here,” said he. “This is the house.”

I turned and looked at it, frowning. Why, I knew the place, and I knew it well. I had delivered many a letter there, and even been inside a number of times. “This is the Trezavant house, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” he said, “that’s the name.” It occurred to me that it might indeed have been better if Sir John had come, for Mr. Trezavant was the coroner for the city of Westminster. There were political considerations, matters of precedence, which I hardly felt competent to deal with. Nevertheless, I would deal with them as best I could.

“Come along then, Mr. Patley. Let us do what must be done.”

The door was opened to us by a big man in his shirtsleeves — a porter, no doubt, or perhaps a footman (I’ve no skill in telling them apart). In any case, we were warned by him to step carefully as we made our way inside. Immediately the door shut behind us and I saw the cause for caution.

The body of him described by Mr. Patley as having died from apoplexy or a stoppage of the heart lay on the floor of the hall just beyond the door. I was somewhat taken aback by the sight.

“The master told us not to move him until the doctor had a look at him,” said the big fellow.

“Quite,” said I. “So I take it the doctor has not yet arrived?”

“No, young sir, he ain’t.”

I knelt beside the black-clothed body and called for light. Given a single candle in a holder, I examined the face of the dead man and found that he was, as I had feared, the Trezavant butler, a sweet-natured old man who had shown me only kindness on my frequent visits to the house.

“The butler,” said I, rather superfluously.

“So it is, and a good man he was, too,” said he who had opened the door. “His heart had been giving him trouble the last year or two. I wager that’s what done him in.”

If so, a stoppage of the heart must have been more painful than ever I had supposed, for the features of his face, frozen by death, bore an expression of great pain. His had not been a peaceful passage.

I rose and handed back the candle. I inquired as to the whereabouts of Mr. Trezavant. (I was sufficiently aware of the rules of etiquette governing the situation to know that it was the master of the house to whom I must speak first.) And I was directed to his study, where I had always found him in the past. I made ready to go there, but first I addressed Mr. Patley in what I hoped would seem the proper note of polite authority: “Constable, perhaps you will find Mr. Bailey now. Tell him I am here and ready to talk with any whom he deems worth questioning.”

“Certainly,” said he — a proper response.

Assuring the porter (or again, perhaps he was a footman) that I knew the way, I set off down the hall for the study. When I arrived, I paused a moment before the door, taking time to organize my thoughts and prepare myself for what lay ahead.

I was quite unprepared for what I found beyond the door. I knocked upon it and was invited to enter. Was there something strange about the voice? The manner of speech? Perhaps, but I threw open the door and marched inside, eager to find out what I could which might aid materially in the capture of this crew of ruthless robbers.

Mr. Trezavant was at his desk, as he always seemed to be, his great weight and huge girth quite obscuring the chair upon which he sat. His head hung low, and as I came close I saw that his jaw had gone slack; his mouth hung open.

He was drunk. I had seen drunken men — and women — in sufficient numbers on the streets of London to know the look well. When he raised his eyes and regarded me, they carried a familiar dazed expression. And then the proof: Nearly, though not quite, hidden behind a considerable pile of ledgers on his desk, I spied the brandy bottle from which he had imbibed.