Bruce Alexander - Murder in Grub Street

“No, sir, I don’t know him,” Mr. Bailey was saying. “I don’t know any of them, except for their black clothes.”

I stepped up beside Mr. Bailey and gazed up at the corpse. The face was hideous — quite distorted, with a darkened tongue drooping from the mouth. Yet I recognized him.

“Who is there?” demanded Sir John. “Is it you, Jeremy?”

“It is, yes,” said I. “But the hanged man, he is Isham Henry.”

“Ah, the printer. They must have hung him for a traitor — Brother Abraham thinking it easier to believe he had a Judas in his midst than that he himself might have been deceived.” Sir John turned in my direction, giving me his full attention. “Thank you, Jeremy. You were most helpful. Now leave.”

“But Sir John — “

“Leave.”

“This building — “

Before I could warn him, and before he could direct me once more out the door, another voice sounded a distance away that won our immediate attention.

“Sir John Fielding! Come forward!” It was the voice of Brother Abraham, I was sure.

Without a further word to me, Sir John began moving forward in the direction indicated by the sound of that voice. Mr. Bailey and I looked at each other — he in curiosity and I in alarm.

“What is that smell here?” I whispered.

“Lamp oil,” said Mr. Bailey. “Now go. You heard Sir John.”

Then he, like the loyal soldier he was, hied after his chief, who was just then turning left through an open door. It led, I was sure, into the hall of worship which had been converted from the large dining room of the place that previously occupied these premises.

These premises indeed! I was sure they would not last the night from the terrifying sounds I heard above me and all around me. As the wind buffeted, the house responded with groans and shrieks. Last the night? It seemed to me that the place might collapse on us at any minute. Could they not tell? Was Mr. Bailey deaf? I knew Sir John was not. Or perhaps it was that unless one had been in an earlier, like situation, then it would seem quite impossible that such a catastrophe might actually take place. How could one believe that the very roof was quite ready to cave in? Or the walls about to collapse? Ah, but that was the message I received from this poor house. I felt it incumbent upon me to transmit that message to Sir John.

He had told me that it was sometimes necessary to batter down even his defenses. I would batter them down. I went — still ever so quiet — to that door wherein Sir John and now Benjamin Bailey had disappeared. I stood quite uncertain at the entrance, flattened against the wall, wondering how I might convince the two of them to leave.

They had stopped at a point about halfway to the end of this long room. At its end, behind the pulpit, stood Brother Abraham, a burning torch in his hand.

“Come closer,” he called to them.

“No,” said Sir John, “this is quite close enough.”

“You do not trust me! A pity, yet the distrust is mutual. Tell your man to put away those pistols he has in his hands, or I shall plunge this torch down where I stand and set us all on fire. It is in my power. Revelation thirteen, thirteen: ‘And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men.’ “

At a sign from Sir John, Mr. Bailey tucked away his pistols.

“If I remember aright, the ‘he’ in that which you have just quoted is one of those great beasts which crowd the pages of that confusing book. Surely you do not cast yourself in such a role?”

“The great beasts play an important part in the prophecy. It is not a confusing book if you have the key, as I do.”

“Oh, no doubt you do. Yet I have not come to argue Scripture with you. I have come to persuade you to surrender.”

“To you? You old blind fool, the very boards on which you stand are soaked with …”

Brother Abraham’s last words were blotted by a great thumping from well above, the sound of scraping and falling. Perhaps part of the roof had given way, or perhaps a chimney had collapsed. Yet from the smell that rose all around, and from its identification by Mr. Bailey, I well knew with what the boards had been soaked.

“And where are the rest of the Brethren? They must also surrender.”

“Did you not understand? You are a dead man, as is your constable — as dead as your spy that we hanged but minutes before you arrived. He betrayed us, as the old woman also tried to do. All who oppose me will die and suffer eternal damnation. It is writ in the book so. I — and only I — have the key.”

“Neither of the two you named were my spies. You were not betrayed by Isham Henry, rather by your own self-conceit. You, sir, were the greater fool.”

“But … But think of the great havoc a conflagration will wreak on a night of great wind such as this!”

“If I am, as you say, a dead man, then there is nothing I can do to prevent it. I can but appeal to you one last time to surrender.”

“And I, one last time, reject your appeal, and I call down a curse from heaven upon you.”

“Mr. Bailey,” said Sir John in a tone of steady authority, “take out your pistol and shoot that man dead.”

Brother Abraham, who could scarce believe his ears, pitched down his torch, and a weak, steady flame began — hardly the inferno he seemed to have anticipated.

At the same time, there began a great ripping from above. I ran down the aisle to Sir John and Mr. Bailey. All manner of plaster and other debris rained down upon me. I grabbed at both of them, just as Mr. Bailey fired his pistol at Brother Abraham, who ran in panic for a door behind the pulpit to the right. The shot went awry.

“Come away, now!” I shouted. “The ceiling is collapsing!”

Brooking no argument, I took Sir John by the arm as all that was above began to fall in great chunks; the very walls trembled and then shook mightily. I dragged him bodily for the door. Mr. Bailey caught us up and grasped his other arm. Sir John’s legs pumped stoutly; he required only direction from us.

Then we were out of the big room, running past the corpse of Isham Henry, which swung wildly from its length of rope. His feet kicked at me as I passed; I pushed them away.

Thus we three emerged and ran well out into the street. Constables Kelly and Sheedy fell upon us, thumping us and pum-meling us as they shouted their congratulations upon our escape.

With a great final roar then, the walls collapsed. They fell inward for the most part, though the one nearest us, with the weight of the others upon it, seemed almost to disintegrate before our eyes, spewing wood and glass well out into the street so that we were all forced to fall back even further to the opposite curb.

Then came what seemed a silence — though it was not, for the wind still blew. Yet there was nothing of the building left to fall. It was but a great heap of wooden rubble. Then I became aware of a most peculiar sound. It was the sound of laughter. I looked to my right and found Sir John quite shaking with laughter. I feared that perhaps the poor man, overcome by the experience, had of a sudden become hysterical.

“What is it, sir?” I asked. “Are you well?”

“Oh, quite well,” said he, still chuckling most heartily. “I was thinking upon Brother Abraham.”

“He has escaped.”

“Oh, perhaps, though I doubt it. No, what struck me was that though the fellow may know his Scripture well, he is certainly no chemist. His expectations of lamp oil astound me.”

“It would not burn?”

“Oh, it would burn indeed. I take it you were there to see it light up.”

“Uh, yes, sir.”

“But it burns slow and steady. That is its advantage. It burns all night. The poor fool did not know that. He had probably never been to a city before London that had streetlamps on its every corner and along each way. He must have looked upon them with wonder and said to himself, T can make a great fire with this.’ Well, he might have done so tonight had it been given time enough to catch. Now the house has collapsed upon it and snuffed out its beginning. You see no smoke, do you?”