Bruce Alexander - The Color of Death

I could hold back no longer: “Sir, I believe I know where he is.”

All four faces turned toward me. Patley grasped me by the arm.

“Where? Tell me where.”

“Just about to the ship by now,” said I. “If you — ”

Patley released me suddenly with such force that he near threw me down. Then did he leap beyond the lieutenant and grab away the carabin from one of the troopers, who was too surprised to respond.

He shouted at me: “Come along! Show me!”

Having made the sighting and announced it, I felt I could do naught but show him what I had seen. We ran out to the end of the wharf together, with the lieutenant, the trooper, and Mr. Bailey calling after us.

“There,” said I, pointing out across the water at the Dingendam. “You see? They’ve already thrown the ladder down.”

And it was indeed true: A rope ladder dangled over the side of the ship. It appeared to me that one of the waterman’s passengers had already climbed aboard, since only one remained in the boat, and he now prepared to ascend the ladder.

I attempted to call this to the attention of Constable Patley, but he paid no attention whatsoever to me. He was setting up to take his shot, dropping down into a kneeling posture, resting an elbow upon his knee that his hand might support and steady the barrel. He seemed so completely prepared to shoot that I was quite taken by surprise when he bellowed forth a warning: “Stop or I shall shoot!”

Indeed the man on the ladder did not stop. He began, rather, to scramble up the ladder so recklessly that it began swinging wildly back and forth against the hull of the ship, making it an apparently impossible shot.

Or so I thought. Mr. Patley thumbed back the hammer on the cara-bin, took the slack from the trigger, and then squeezed. The man upon the ladder halted, simultaneous with the shot. For a long moment he simply hung onto the wooden rung above him. Then his grip relaxed, and he fell back into the river. He made no motion to attempt to swim, nor to float. He simply sank.

Mr. Patley rose and turned, just as a crowd of troopers, constables, and the principals of the earlier drama gathered round him. He handed the carabin to its owner, thanking him somewhat ironically for the use of it. And to the lieutenant he said: “Maybe I were not much at soldiering but I could always shoot.”

There was no reply.

Sir John, there with the rest, declared that he could hear the sound of the capstan turning. “The anchor is aweigh. They will be off and down the river before you know it, Lieutenant Tabor. I advise you and your men to mount up and be off. You’ve a long ride ahead of you.”

“Yes sir, I agree,” said the lieutenant, and with a shouted order, he sent the troopers back to their horses. Then, about to depart, he offered his hand to Constable Patley. “Good shooting, Corporal. I was always certain of your skill.”

Then, at another command, the squad mounted in unison, and Tabor led them away in a brisk canter.

“Where are they off to?” asked Mr. Bailey.

“To the Gravesend Customs Station,” said Sir John. “I put them on notice that a Dutch ship full of contraband goods might be coming their way tonight. The lieutenant and his men are riding on ahead to inform customs that they might send a Coast Guard vessel to blockade their way at the mouth of the Thames.”

“You’ve thought of everything, haven’t you, sir?”

“I’ve tried,” said Sir John. “Indeed I have tried. But Mr. Patley, I do wish you had exercised a bit of restraint.”

“Oh? How was that, sir? I shouted a warning.”

“I heard you, and that was as it should have been, but it would have been so much easier to sort all this out if I had Mr. Zondervan to question.”

“Oh, you may have him yet, sir. That weren’t Zondervan I shot out there.”

“It wasn’t?”

“Ah, no sir. It was John Abernathy.”

“You’re sure of that, Mr. Patley?” I’m sure.

“Didn’t you realize the nature of the situation, Jeremy? I thought that you did. Mr. Patley was my spy. Indeed, yes, right there in that den of thieves.”

“Why, then I was of no use to you at all, was I? That is to say, all that running round St. James Street, questioning witnesses at Trezavant’s, I might just as well have gone out instead and picked daisies in the park.”

“Oh, by no means,” said Sir John to me. “You brought me an abundance of good information from your investigations.”

It was one day past that great evening on which so many prisoners were taken and so much evidence gathered. Mr. Zondervan and Captain Van Cleef had been brought back from Gravesend by Lieutenant Tabor and his men. The Dingendam was in quarantine and its crew held in detention. Sir John had emptied the strongroom at his court session and sent Mr. Collier and the captain to the Fleet Prison, and the rest off to Newgate. (“Good enough for them,” he declared.) Trials at Old Bailey would take place as soon as dates could be set.

As for myself, I rejoiced less about this outcome than I should have. I sulked and skulked around Number 4 Bow Street through the day, thinking that all had been accomplished without my help. Late that afternoon, Sir John, as he did so often, correctly perceived my state of mind, called me into his chambers, and went directly to the point.

Yet I had still to be convinced. “Could you be more specific?” I asked him. “If there was such an abundance of good information, it should be easy to supply an example or two.” (Perhaps since Sir John forgave me these occasional bouts of priggish self-conceit, you, reader, can also find it in your heart to do so.)

“I can do that easily,” said he. “Let us take as an instance the trap we were able to lay for the robbers at Lord Mansfield’s residence. That was done largely through information you provided.”

“Oh? How … how was that, sir?”

“You will recall that when you went off to Mr. Bilbo’s to check Mr. Burnham’s story with residents of the house, you were discouraged because you felt it was quite inevitable that they would lie to protect him. Do you remember what I told you then?”

“Well … yes. I believe you advised me to pay strict attention to them, because it is often only through the lies that we can get to the truth — or words to that effect.”

“Very good,” said he. “I’d no idea you listened to me so closely. Now think, Jeremy, who did you run into there, evidently quite unexpectedly?”

“Why, it was Mary Pinkham,” said I, surprised at the memory.

“Indeed, and what did she tell you?”

“That she was going to seek employment.”

“Where?”

“Why, of course! How could it have slipped my mind? At Lord Mansfield’s in Bloomsbury Square.”

“And next time you saw her, that’s where she was.”

“Acting as one of the robber band.”

“Right you are! But you checked her story later, and found she was not employed there and had not even applied. I foresaw that and reasoned that since she was under suspicion as the distressed female who persuaded the butler to open Trezavant’s door, she had likely heard Lord Mansfield’s residence in Bloomsbury Square mentioned as the next place to be robbed. That was enough for me to seek Lord Mansfield’s permission to place two men in his house to guard it.”

“Constables Perkins and Brede.”

“Exactly! You took the letter to Lord Mansfield yourself. I couldn’t allow the Lord Chief Justice himself to be robbed so rudely. If I had done, it would have been an insult to the entire legal system. So I posted Perkins and Brede there, even though I had no proper idea of when the attack might come. Yet you helped supply information there, too.