Bruce Alexander - Person or Persons Unknown

“And what? Tell me what you were about to say, Mr. Tolliver, please.”

“It was what I just came from, finding that girl dead in the passage, that decided me to leave immediate. As I believe I said at the time, Td seen the girl about — she’d bought from me on an occasion or two — and to see her so, a mere child she was, all crumpled up and murdered, people pawing over her to find her wound — well, it just made me heartsick. This is such a hard city, Jeremy, so little in it of hope and decency, especially for those of her kind. Well, I just wanted to get away from here as quick as ever I could. P’rhaps I should have given thought to Sir John’s request that I be here for the inquest, but I’d told all I knew two times over. I just wanted to get away.”

He had grown tense in the telling. His hands, both of them, were rolled into big fists; his head was bowed. I remembered his objections when Mr. Bailey had sought the death wound the Raker had inflicted just below her sternum. Indeed Lady Fielding was no bad judge of character, nor was I: Mr. Tolliver could not have murdered Libby Tribble and Poll Tarkin.

“You told Sir John none of this, I suppose?”

“No — just a bit about Maude, that I was eager to meet her.”

“When he questions you again, as no doubt he will, you must tell him all of this exactly as you’ve told me.” I saw resistance written in his face, and so I repeated: “Exactly so. But now, please continue. You packed your portmanteau in a great hurry and made ready to leave. Do you know the time you left your rooms to catch the night coach?”

“Well, as near as I can remember, I had a little less than an hour to get there. I’ve a clock I wind daily, so I can be right certain about that.”

Something here was wrong. “But if you had near an hour to get to the coach house,” I said, “why were you in such a great hurry? You could walk it easily in a quarter of an hour.”

“But I had to get back to my stall here in the Garden. I’d meat inside, and it was all locked up. With no idea when I’d return, I knew the meat would rot. Couldn’t have that.”

“How did you dispose of it?”

“Why, I just hung it up on the hooks in front. I knew it would be gone by morning. A good two guineas’ worth it was, over the counter. That’s how eager I was to be away from London. Oh but, Jeremy, you must know that a butcher would never let his meat rot in the stall. God, the stink of it! I’d never be able to sell a piece of meat here in Covent Garden again. But with coming back here, hanging out what was left and all, it was getting on towards ten, though I didn’t know the time exact, for I have no pocket timepiece. So I crossed the Garden, which is a risky thing to do at night, and caught a hackney at the Theatre Royal.”

“Again,” said I, “did you tell Sir John of this? All the details you’ve given me?”

“I may have told him I caught a hackney. But so far as the rest of it, no. We were mostly arguing about my responsibility to be at the inquest and so on. He rubbed me the wrong way, he did.”

“That’s as may be,” I said, “but when next he interrogates you, you must tell him about your trip back here and how you hung out the meat. Those are very important details.”

“They are?” He seemed doubtful.

“Yes, they are.”

I said it with all the severity and authority a fifteen-year-old might muster, yet I wondered if I had convinced him. A man who is by nature not very observant, as Mr. Tolliver was not, had little respect even for the details he did remember. And so, continuing, I made every effort to maintain that same attitude of near-hostile severity.

“And so,” said I, “you reached the coach house with little time to spare.”

“So little,” said he, “that I scarce had time to pay my fare and hop aboard.”

“I’ve never ridden any but a hackney coach,” said I. “Is a ticket sold to you? Something that might say ‘Night Coach to Bristol,’ or some such?”

“No, nothing of that kind. You pay your money; they give you a stub with a mark upon it; and you surrender it to the coachman — or as it happened to be, in this case, the driver.”

I sensed something here, and so I moved in swiftly upon it: “Why did the driver take your stub, rather than the coachman?”

“The coachman had gone ill, and the driver said he must make the trip alone. I asked him would he like some company up there on the box, and he said indeed he would, a big fellow like me. He asked could I handle a fowling piece, should we run into any trouble on the road. And I said to him I had better in my portmanteau, and I produced my brace of pistols. I had them from the French War, used them, too, though I was a Sergeant Provisioner. We all fought when we were needed, Indians and the like. That’s where I learned butchering — in the Army — slaughtering, butchering, I did — ”

Again I interrupted: “Stay, stay. Am I to understand that you rode all the way to Bristol next the driver?”

“Indeed I did, and a good enough fellow he was — Ben something. Ben Calverton was his name. We had some talks during the stretches when he walked the horses.”

I could scarce believe our good luck. “Why then, he will probably remember you.”

“Oh, he’ll remember me, right enough.”

“Why? Did you meet highwaymen on the way?”

“No, and glad I am for it.”

“Why then are you so sure?”

“Because I was unwise enough to tell him my Christian name.”

“I don’t believe I’ve ever heard it,” said I.

“It’s Oliver,” said he. “The driver thought it a great joke.”

“Oliver… Tolliver?” And at that, in spite of my intention to keep a solenm mien, I burst out laughing.

Leaving Mr. Tolliver for the coach house, I guiltily cautioned him to say nothing of our talk to Sir John, yet at the same time charged him to tell his story to the magistrate again exactly as he had told it to me. If my laughter had piqued him, as it seemed to have done, I was indeed sorry, and he had my apology for it. He told me that all seemed to react as I had; that the driver had gone so far as to make up a verse in jest upon his rhyming name — and that, of course, had pleased Oliver Tolliver not at all. “Nevertheless,” said he, “he seemed a good sort, and no doubt they can tell you at the coach house when next you might find him about. He drives only at night, to and from Bristol.”

And so I walked swiftly through streets now at flood tide with rushing waves of humanity. All that Mr. Tolliver said ill of London was true, of course, but to walk among the common people at such an hour did much to redeem my faith in the great city. It was and is still a place as no other. In fact, it was two cities: a London by day of honest clerks and toilers engaged in all manner of work; and another city at night, peopled by drunkards, thieves, whores, and pimps. Here and now in that sunny morning hour, I saw no sign of that dark London. I could but revel in my naive way that most of the faces I saw in the crowd seemed happy and guileless, and the rest at least resigned and docile.

So was it at the coach house when I went to him who sold the stubs and inquired after Ben Calverton. The fellow at the window did wear a smile and hummed a tune as I approached him.

“Ben Calverton?” said he in response to my query. “Ah yes indeed, young man, he is one of our best, he is — a hero of the road. He makes that long drive to Bristol every other night but one, man must have a backside of iron! None knows the road and its dangers as he does — thrice did highwaymen attempt to stop him, and he drove right through them, twice was gunfire exchanged. Ah yes, young sir, he is one of our best.”

“When might he next be available to talk?” I asked. “It is a court matter. I am come from Bow Street.”