Bruce Alexander - Person or Persons Unknown

Then said Sir John, “There is but one of you three who were found inside with Tribble whom we have not heard from, and that is Thomas Cobum. So let me direct this question to you, Mr. Cobum. Did you see evidence that Tribble had sold any of the organs before you entered the room?”

Thomas Cobum spoke low and rather reluctantly — or so it seemed to me. He began once, and then again when Sir John ordered him to speak louder. “Sir,” said he, “I am very ashamed to be here, and even more ashamed to have gone into that place of horror. I wish I had not, sir. But I will do me best to answer your question.” He came then to a complete halt, took a deep breath, then continued: “Us three stood in line, held back by the landlord till others cleared out of the room. Two came out. One of them, sir, was a great large fellow, near as wide as he was tall, with a patch over one eye. He held up for all to see a bloody gobbet of something, then made as if to eat it, making a great joke of it, he was. Some laughed, and some did not. Having seen that, I should not have gone inside, and I would not if I had not paid my shilling.”

Sir John nodded, satisfied. “AH three of you have been quite forthcoming as witnesses. I note this and am grateful, but just to calm my nagging doubts about you, will Sat-terthwait, Cobum, and Tinker raise your hands, palms out? Now, Mr. Fuller, will you inspect those hands and tell me if you see any traces of dried blood on them?”

The constable did as his chief directed and took the task most seriously. He went to each one and looked closely at each hand, front and back. Then, having concluded, he made a sharp tum and went front and center before the bench.

“Make your report, Mr. Fuller.”

“Well, sir, ain’t one of them got what I’d call clean hands, but I don’t see no blood on any of them.”

“Very well. Now satisfy me further and inspect Mr. Tribble’s hands, if you will.”

That was done as well, though the constable was forced to handle him rather rough to get a proper look.

“Quite soiled with crimson they are, sir — both hands. Even got it caked under his fingernails, he has.”

“Thank you, Mr. Fuller,” said Sir John. “Now, as to you three — Satterthwait, Cobum, and Tinker — I accept that your actions within that room were just as you presented them. You were there to gape and gawk, chiefly. Mr. Tinker was tempted to buy one of the unholy relics offered to him for sale by Tribble. Lucky for him he did not. His punishment would have been greater had he done so. And yes, there will be punishment, for if Mr. Palgrave offered a lewd and obscene show for personal gain, you three paid your money and attended that show. And for your attendance at it, I sentence you to thirty days each in the Fleet Prison. It is also true that by your very presence in that room you impeded the inquiry into the death of the victim of that ghastly murder. And so I thus charge you further and find you three guilty. That sentence, too, like the first, is thirty days in the Fleet Prison, but it shall run concurrently with the first. In other words, at the same time. One of you has already expressed sorrow and shame at his actions. I would advise the other two to use the month ahead to meditate upon the moral wrong you have done.”

With that. Sir John slammed down his gavel, indicating that matter was concluded.

“Now to you, Mr. Edward Tribble,” said the magistrate. “Yours is by far the gravest offense, as I’m sure all those in this room would agree. When I first was told what you had done, my wits balked at what my ears heard. I thought surely I had misunderstood. Thus does the mind boggle at the nature of your crime. When you come before the judge, I advise you to use as your defense that bit of humbug you tried upon these three misguided men. Tell him that you were selling her parts that you might give the rest of her a decent Christian burial. Who knows? He may accept that. The jury may believe you. I, for one, do not. That, however, matters little, for in this instance, my only duty is to charge you and bind you over for trial.”

“Wot?” screeched the prisoner. “You mean I ain’t goin’ to the Fleet with the rest?”

“No, you are not. You are to be sent to Newgate where you will await trial at the Old Bailey.”

“On what charge?”

“Disturbing the dead.”

There was an immediate hush in the courtroom.

“But…” Tribble sought words, unable for a moment to find them. “But that’s like grave-robbing, ain’t it? I never done that. She weren’t in the ground.”

“No,” said Sir John, “you did not even wait until she was beneath the ground until you insulted her corpus. To my mind, what you did was at least as bad and probably worse.”

“Disturbing the dead — that’s a hanging offense!”

“It is, but I offer you this hope. If you cooperate with my constables in the recovery of the organs you sold — and I believe you know the buyers — then I shall recommend transportation. Judges at the Old Bailey accept my recommendations in sentencing — nearly always.”

Edward Tribble looked about him wildly, yet uttered not a word.

“Mr. Fuller,” said Sir John, “take these five to the strong room and bring forth him who is inside. While that is attended to, I declare this court in recess and give permission to talk and walk about. And I summon to the bench Mr. Oliver Goldsmith and Master Jeremy Proctor.”

This was a right rare occurrence. I had never before been called before him in court except at our first meeting when I, a boy of thirteen, had been falsely accused of theft. And now, to be summoned in the company of one so well known as Oliver Goldsmith was a sign of how my estate had risen in the past two years. Nevertheless, I had no notion of what we two might have in common.

When, however, I reached Sir John, delayed somewhat by the milling crowd, I recognized the man who was leaning over in deep conversation with the magistrate. Was this then Oliver Goldsmith? It was the same man who had spoken out in defense of Ormond Neville when Constable Perkins had arrested that poet cum journalist at the Goose and Gander. If this indeed be Goldsmith, he was about my same size, near bald on his head (which he made no effort to disguise with a wig), and most Irish in appearance.

The man in question glimpsed my arrival and said to Sir John, “Would this be the lad, sir?”

“Jeremy, is that you?”

“Indeed it is. Sir John.”

“Ah, well and good. I knew not for certain that you were in the courtroom when I called you forth. Mr. Goldsmith and I have need of that scurrilous broadsheet authored by that fellow, Neville — you remember him, of course.”

Before I could say yea or nay, Mr. Goldsmith nodded at me sharply.

“I’m sure he must remember him,” said he. “He was with the constable when Neville was taken in.”

“Ah, so he was!” Sir John agreed. “But, Jeremy, would you now go and fetch my copy of that broadsheet? It is in the drawer of the desk in my chamber. You should have no difficulty finding it.”

“Certainly. I’ll be back in a trice,” said I.

Leaving them without another word, I made swiftly for the side door of the courtroom, through which Mr. Fuller had just tugged his five charges. That door, of course, led to that part of the ground floor given over to the backstage business of the court — the strong room, the constabulary armory, Mr. Marsden’s alcove and record bins, and Sir John’s sanctum. I knew it, by then, as well as any part of Number 4 Bow Street.

There was Mr. Fuller, herding his prisoners into the strong room, once more the court jailer. Yet when called upon, he proved himself a proper Beak Runner. None could have improved his morning’s performance. When would I be called upon, as he was, to prove myself? Oh, if the need arose, I might be assigned to guard a door, or to accompany one like the rabbi home through streets that might be dangerous in the potential. Nevertheless, I had not truly been put to the test. What was I but Sir John’s errand boy, sent to fetch this or that, dehver a letter, or summon a witness?