Bruce Alexander - The Color of Death

Reader, she gave me the queerest look ever had been sent my way, as if she thought me just escaped from Bedlam. Then, surprisingly, she started to laugh. “Now I know what you mean,” said she, once she had calmed down a bit. “It’s that silly dark paint he wore that you’re talkin’ about, now ain’t it?”

“Yes, I suppose it is.”

“Well, that didn’t fool me, not one bit. Once you know someone well as I knew my Johnny, then a bit of paint ain’t going to fool you. No, he was white, all right — white as you or me. Mossman, the porter, he said that all of that crew — least all he’d seen — were got up in that same way and may not have been real black men at all. But Crocker, she thinks the one cut her nose was a true African.”

So it seemed that the household staff had discussed the matter in detail amongst themselves. That, I feared, could be dangerous to Maude Bleeker, and perhaps to Crocker as well.

“You were standing quite close to him, I take it.”

“Close enough to reco’nize him. Near as close as I am to you right now.”

“Do you suppose you were close enough that he might have recognized you?”

She took that under consideration. I could do naught but wait. At last she did shake her head indicating the negative. “No,” said she, “there was no sign of reco’nition from him. I doubt he even saw me, though I was right in front of him. Even if he had …” She lowered her gaze. “I’m much stouter than I was twelve years ago. Two or three stone can make a great difference in a person’s appearance.”

“Even so,” said I, “it would be wrong to bandy his name about.

Indeed, I would not discuss it further with members of the staff. The robbers have murdered once, you know.”

That ended my interrogation, such as it was. I told her that I, or perhaps Sir John, might return to ask more questions of her. Or, on the other hand, she might be invited to Bow Street.

Yet there was something more. I spoke up just as she was leaving, and she turned back to me in the doorway to the pantry.

“May I ask one last question?”

“Ask it,” said she.

“You may have helped us considerably in the investigation with what you’ve told me,” said I. “Why did you do it?”

“I ain’t thought about that too much,” said she. “But it seemed like the only thing to do. When I heard what Johnny had done — all the stealing, and now the killing — well, I didn’t see how I could hold nothing back.”

“Thank you,” said I, “but do be careful.”

I was let out the back door, five steps up from the kitchen to the garden. To me it was apparent that Maude’s friends wished to keep Mr. Collier ignorant of my comings and goings. They were suspicious of him. Perhaps I should have been, too, but that afternoon I had spent in his company was sufficient to convince me that he was no real danger to me or to any of the staff. He seemed at worst simply a nosey old fellow of forty: envious, fearful, ineffectual. Wrong he may have been to make such unseemly haste in applying for Arthur s position, but I knew him to be desperate, despite the bold words he had spoken when last we had met. He knew no other way of earning his bread except butlering, and so when the opportunity came, he grabbed for it, not giving damn-all for Arthur, nor for anyone else. I supposed that I could not greatly blame him for it.

Marching on to Mr. Bilbo’s residence in St. James Street, I reviewed my purpose in going there. Deep down, I felt I had been sent by Sir John on a fool’s errand. If Bunkins and the coachmen were certain to lie to me, what then was the purpose of asking them at all about Mr. Burnham’s activities the night before? According to Sir John, by closely examining their lies we might reach the truth. That seemed a dubious premise to me.

I allowed myself these rebellious thoughts, for I felt that my questioning of Maude Bleeker had yielded the most important facts yet uncovered in the investigation. I was quite filled with my own success as an interrogator, never considering that I hardly had any right to claim it. After all, I had been sent by the porter to hear what she had to say, had I not? It had been her wish to tell me what she had experienced, and what she had seen, was it not? And why had I been summoned, why had I been told so much? I had sense enough not to believe the reason she had given. It was far less likely that she should have been prompted by that great list of crimes of which he had presumably been guilty, than that she was inspired by a desire for revenge against her betrayer. Yet, whatever her motive, she had made us a great gift. That was the truth of it; nevertheless, I had convinced myself that I had drawn the information from her most cleverly, that I had managed somehow to trick it out of her.

And so did I come to that house in St. James Street, which I had known by an odd set of circumstances* since my first days in London. I hopped up the three steps to the oaken door, as beautifully paneled as any in St. James, grasped the heavy knocker, and rapped four times. Waiting, I heard steps beyond the door; then they ceased, but contrary to my expectations, the door did not swing open. Still I waited. I rapped again and again, and again heard the shuffle of feet on the other side.

*These circumstances are described in the first of my memoirs of the investigations of Sir John Fielding, which was titled Blind Justice.

Then came a cry of annoyance: “Awright, awright, give me but a moment, and I’ll have the door open. I’m puttin’ on m’hat.” The voice was female, and again there was something about it which suggested I should know its owner. No, it was not Nancy Plummer, nor did I believe it was Mr. Bilbo’s cook. Had he taken a new paramour?

At last the heavy door moved, ever so slowly at first, then more swiftly until a young lady of about twenty was revealed; she was dressed for the street.

“Who are you, and who do you wish to see?” She blurted it forth breathlessly and quite indifferently. Yet she took note of me of a sudden, as I did of her. She stared, and I stared back.

“I knows you,” said she, frowning. “You’re … you’re …”

“And you,” said I, “you’re — now I have it. You’re Mistress Pinkham.”

“So I am. And you’re the lad was with the Blind Beak when he asked me all those questions, ain’t you?”

“Why, indeed I am. Jeremy Proctor is my name. Sir John and I were both most indignant when we heard that Lord Lilley had discharged you, along with the butler. Sir John particularly requested that no action against you be taken until he had the opportunity to talk with you again.”

“Lot of good that did.”

“Where have you been? I searched St. James up and down looking for you and Mr. Collier that we might have our talk.”

“Well, I been right here. Nancy Plummer and me been friends for years, we have.”

“Has Mr. Bilbo taken you on here?”

“Onto his household staff, you mean? Oh no, he has so few, and I’m more of a lady’s maid, anyways. I just been stayin’ here in one of the spare beds.”

“I never thought of asking after you here,” I admitted. “I come here so often I was sure I would have heard it from Mr. Burnham or Jimmie Bunkins or from Mr. Bilbo himself.”

“Well, this is where I been. But it ain’t where I’ll be much longer.”

“Oh? How is that?”

“I been looking for employment, and it seems like I found something at last.”

“Excellent, Mistress Pinkham. Would that be in London, or …”

“Cert’ny in London. I couldn’t live long nowhere else,” said she with great certainty. “Might be some stayin’ in a great house in the country, though. Can’t say as I’d mind that.”

“Oh, indeed not!” said I, presenting her with a cheerful smile.