Bruce Alexander - Person or Persons Unknown

We three remained silent until we were past the cottage and had crossed the field. When Mr. Cowley reined in at the gate, I jumped down and bounded over to open it. And then — why particularly then I cannot say — Mr. Donnelly suddenly exploded forth with a torrent of verbal abuse directed at none other than the Raker. By the time I climbed back into the wagon and took my place next Teresa O’Reilly, the good doctor was fairly shouting his complaints out to the darkness.

“By Jesus and by all the saints, I do believe that man is mad! He presides there in that barn as if he thought he were king and it were his kingdom. Calls them ‘his people,’ he does, as if those poor forgotten cadavers were his subjects. And that charnel house of a barn! The next great plague of London will start there. Mark my words! Such filth, the place alive with all manner of vermin, the floor littered with horse shite and who knows what else! Never in Dublin, no place in Europe, have I seen such… such…”

And so he continued for minutes more.

It was evident that Sir John’s letter for Captain Conger had been received. I cannot attest that the corporal of the guard was as good as his word and put it direct in the captain’s hands; it may have passed through others. Yet there could be no doubt it had reached him to whom it was addressed, for he was there at the gate to meet our little party.

Captain Conger was a man of some six feet in height, long-faced, sharp-featured, and unsmiling; he looked to be one who seldom smiled. Or so he seemed to me as we made our crossing of the moat on the narrow bridge near the Thames shore. He was easily recognized from the excess of braid upon his coat and the epaulettes upon his shoulders. We had been passed without question at the outer gate. He now waited at the By ward Tower Gate just beyond the moat bridge. Only as we approached near did he bestir himself and come forward a few steps. I touched Sir John’s arm at the elbow that he might stop and receive the captain’s greeting.

“Sir John, may I present myself? I am Captain George Conger, acting colonel of our regiment in the absence of Sir Cecil Dalenoy.”

“Who is doubtless off in some woody comer of the realm depleting the game population.” Sir John extended his hand, and the captain took it in a warm clasp. “Very pleased to meet you, Captain, though I think it regretful that it should be under these sad circumstances.”

“No more than I.” He then looked beyond the magistrate at me and at the third member of our group. “If you will be so good as to follow me, I have done as you requested and formed a parade of those of the regiment who were granted leave the day past.”

To me the captain gave a sharp nod, turned round, and set off at a good pace. We two had no difficulty keeping up, yet Mistress Maggie Pratt, small and short-legged, was somewhat pressed to hold tempo.

Captain Conger had looked at her a bit askance, as if dubious of her qualifications as witness. She had described herself to Sir John as an “unemployed seamstress.” Yet I suspected, as I was sure he did, that her acquaintance with the victim, Teresa O’Reilly, a confirmed woman of the streets, was of a professional nature.

It had been arranged that she would wait for us that morning at the point where Drury Lane meets Angel Court. But when our hackney arrived at the meeting place, she was nowhere to be seen. And so Sir John, cautioning me to be careful, sent me into Angel Court to seek her out. Angel Court was, and to some extent still is, a most disreputable little street. (“Street” is, in truth, too grand a name for it, even “lane” was more than it deserved, for while it led in, it did not lead out.) It was what was called at that time a “rookery,” a dark, narrow passage in which low lodging houses, some no more than common dormitories, were crammed together with no space between. There was no telling how many lived there — or perhaps better put, slept there of a given night. How was I to find Maggie Pratt? How was I to find anyone in such a place? I determined that the best way was to go through it calling her name. As I walked into Angel Court, squinting into the dim light of the early cloud-cast morning, I heard a door slam nearby, a flurry of footsteps, and a young man appeared before me and hurried past. There was something most familiar about him. Then that same door slammed again, and I heard a most horrendous stream of invective, well-laced with obscenity and profanity, hurled out into the air — presumably in pursuit of the young man who had just hurried by me. The voice was feminine, though the language certainly was not. It came, as I heard, from a porch just above. There Maggie Pratt leaned out, perhaps hoping to catch sight of him who had just departed. When she had exhausted herself, I called up to her that Sir John awaited her in a hackney coach and would she please hurry. That she did, for she could not have taken more than a minute to find her coat and lock her door. She ran down the stairs then, bladdering her apologies but offering not a word to account for the scene I had just witnessed. It was not until we were all three settled in the coach and well on our way to the Tower that it occurred to me that the familiar-looking young man who had bustled by me so quickly in Angel Court was the same who had blocked my way when I went up Drury Lane in pursuit of Mariah.

“Captain Conger,” I called boldly ahead, “our witness is having a bit of trouble keeping to the pace you’ve set.”

“And alas, I, too,” lied Sir John in a gallant manner. (I knew it as fact that he could make me hop to keep up when he’d a need to hurry.)

“Forgive me,” said the captain, stopping, waiting, looking left and right in an effort to disguise his impatience. “An old campaigner such as myself finds it difficult to adjust.”

Once we had caught him up, he proceeded in company with us at a near-funereal gait, though silently, looking sternly ahead.

We walked along with the moat to our right and the Thames just visible over the wall. Then, moving along a passage to our left, we emerged into a great open space, in the middle of which stood the grand White Tower, the castle which all these fortifications did protect. I had never seen it so close, though I had often glimpsed it from a distance when on bright days it seemed to glitter in the sunlight; this murky morning, however, it appeared more gray than white, yet most impressive in its size and shape. Our destination was beyond the castle to a narrow field whereon soldiers did drill. And even beyond them, where a lesser group of soldiers were lined in two ranks in one comer of the field.

I chanced a look at Maggie Pratt. While before she smiled, cheered by this adventurous outing after her encounter with the bully-boy in Angel Court, she was now solemn-faced and uncertain. It appeared that the grave purpose of our visit had at last begun to weigh upon her.

Upon our approach the sergeant in command called the two ranks to attention. Captain Conger stepped forward and had a few words with the sergeant. He returned to us and spoke direct to Sir John.

“You may have your witness pass through the ranks and examine the faces of these men one by one,” said he. “All who were on leave are present here. She may take as long as she likes, of course. It would not do to be hasty on such a matter as this.”

“I quite agree. Captain.” Then did Sir John turn in the direction of the witness. “Mistress Pratt? You heard the captain?”

“Yes, sir, I did.”

“Then proceed as he described.”

“Yes, sir.”

These last several words, the first she had uttered since we had departed the hackney, were spoken in a tone so low they were little more than whispered. She walked purposefully to the first rank where the sergeant awaited her. A small woman at best, perhaps a girl not yet full grown, she seemed to shrink further in size as she took her place among the Grenadier Guards. The shortest of them was my size — and I was then exactly as I am now, a man of medium height; they ranged up from there, and one or two seemed taller than the captain. Yet she moved along from one to the next quite slowly, looking each full in the face.