Bruce Alexander - Person or Persons Unknown

I knocked upon the open door to the little room.

“Who is there?”

“It is 1, Jeremy.”

“Come in, lad, sit down.”

Entering, I took my place in one of the two chairs opposite him.

“I do not mean to shut myself away so,” said he. “It is only that lately, my thoughts have been so taken up with these fearful murders that I find myself unfit for ordinary human intercourse. Perhaps you can rouse me as you have so often in the past. In any case, let us talk.”

I hesitated. “Perhaps what I have to say will be unwelcome, for it concerns Mr. Tolliver. From Mr. Donnelly I heard that you hold him suspect in those murders.”

“He ought not discuss with you or any other what I have said about them. But — come, so long as what you have to say of him is material to the matter and not another endorsement of his sterling character, which I have had aplenty from Kate, I should be glad to hear what you have to say of him.”

And so I did then tell him of the door to the coal hole which Bunkins had shown to me in that passage wherein Mr. Tolliver had discovered the body of Nell Darby; that there was a way through it to a hall and a door to Henrietta Street that was kept bolted from the inside.

“You are suggesting,” said Sir John, “that the murderer could have made his escape in such a way?”

“Yes, sir,” said I. “And such an escape would account for the footsteps in the direction of Covent Garden that he heard just before discovering the body.”

The magistrate retreated into silence. There was little I could do but respect it, for I was sure he was weighing what I had told him against his suspicions of Mr. Tolliver. At last came the objections that I had foreseen.

“How then,” said he, “do you account for what your man then did say of those footsteps? That he had turned about and looked and saw no one there. And what of the mysterious wagon that was suddenly there when it had not been there before — or perhaps it was, for he could not be sure.”

“Bunkins told me there were places to hide there on Henrietta Street, and I confirmed it — two large beams to the house which would conceal a man; they are spaced along the way. As for the wagon, I cannot account for it any better than Mr. Tolliver did. But I have heard you say. Sir John, that there is always reason to distrust a story that is completely without inconsistencies.”

“So you are suggesting that if his story can be defended in part, then it should be accepted in whole. Surely you can see the fallacy in that. But what about that disgusting homicide in King Street? Admittedly, there is nothing to place him there, but his sudden departure, you must admit, counts greatly against him.”

“You did not specifically instruct him.”

“Do not remind me of what I did or did not say. I am well aware of that.”

He spoke to me as sharply as ever he had. I made ready with an apology before taking my leave. Yet he would hold me.

“I’m aware it was my oversight not to order him specifically to remain. I did tell him there would be an inquest. I did not tell him when it would be.” He paused. Then: “If your Mr. Tolliver is held by me as suspect, it is by default, as it were — his failure to appear. If and when he does appear and can account for his absence, he will no longer be suspect. Then I shall have none.

“I had thought from something said by that silly fellow Ormond Neville that there might be further reason to suspect Thaddeus Millhouse. Do you recall? He said he had brought Mr. Millhouse a clean shirt for his appearance in court. Since I had been assured there were no stains on his shirt when he appeared before me, I thought perhaps there had been something incriminating on that dirty shirt. That did not prove to be so. I was told by Mr. Fuller that the dirty shirt was simply dirty. Nevertheless, I had him in for further questioning, for you and I both thought he was hiding something. There is something quite shifty about the man. You, I believe, were off on an errand, which was just as well. The secret he was hiding, which was easy to guess, was that he had indeed had sexual congress with Polly Tar-kin. He felt greatly shamed by that, as well he should have, and that was the source of his guilt. He knew it was wrong; he knew what she was; yet that, perversely, was what drew him to her. He wept copious tears and wailed his sorrow to me, yet he also convinced me that so weak a man could never have committed these horrible crimes, particularly the last. In any case, he assured me that he has spent every night, but the one on which he was arrested, with his wife, to which I’m sure she would testify.

“In short, I am left without suspects, except for Mr. Tolliver, and wanting others, I must hold fast to him. Yet I am not so convinced of his guilt in this that I have not alerted the Runners to be cautious and watchful to an extraordinary degree. They are, and they shall continue to be. But in following this course I am guarding, merely, against his next attack — whoever he be. I prefer to make a plan whereby we may anticipate his next attack and catch him in the act. I noted that the last two murders occurred on the same night, and that was the night of the full moon — or so Mr. Donnelly has assured me. The full moon seems to affect the demented in perverse ways. I cannot say why this be so, but it is. We have not seen the murderer, whoever he be, strike since then. I suspect he will strike again at the next full moon, which comes again next week on All Hallows Eve. It is an occasion that may have a certain grim appeal to one such as him. It will take planning of details and much preparation, but with the Almighty’s help, it could work.”

He spoke not so much with certitude as with great hope. I waited to hear what more he would say, yet he said nothing. Finally, unable to contain myself, I asked, “What is the plan. Sir John?”

“You’ll know soon enough, Jeremy. I’ll tell you when it’s time.”

A reward had been posted for the capture and conviction of the Covent Garden Killer, as he had been dubbed. This had a salutary effect upon Sir John Fielding’s Bow Street constables who went about their searches into the dark comers of the district with renewed vigor. There were no more complaints of carrying cutlasses which rattled about in their scabbards, nor did the burden of lanterns seem to trouble them quite so much as before. Yet the twenty guineas promised by Parliament to him who brought the murderer to justice achieved also a negative result: It brought to Covent Garden a company of independent thief-takers, those rather rough individuals who sometimes operated within the law and more often without to accomplish their ends. I myself had been victim of one when first I came to London, and had little use for them; Sir John had even less; and the Bow Street Runners regarded them, in this instance, as poachers upon their territory. Yet they came and proceeded to thrash through the stews and dives, offering to split the reward with him or her who provided information of the sort that might lead to capture and conviction. The Runners had already sought out every reliable snitch in the district; they knew that whoever the murderer might be, he went about his dark deeds alone, nor did he afterwards boast of them or confide what he had done. What the outsiders lacked was organization and the intimate knowledge of Covent Garden which the Runners possessed. In the event, what they lacked most profoundly was Sir John’s plan.

As the days passed and All Hallows Eve drew near, it became evident that Sir John had been correct in his prognostication that there would be no further attacks until that sinister night when it was believed until only a while ago that witches flew about on their way to meet with the Devil in their frightful Sabbath celebrations. If All Hallows Eve passed without incident, then Sir John would have been proven wrong; the constables would be back to their watchful patrols, and Mr. Tolliver’s absence would weigh even more heavily against him. It was this latter contingency which no doubt stirred me to pray for the success of the plan and eventually to volunteer most insistently to be part of it.