Bruce Alexander - The Price of Murder

And, so saying, they embraced hurriedly, and Clarissa slid by her friend and out the door. There were then further goodbyes called out, waves from both, and only then did the door close after her.

“Goodness,” said she, “I’m so glad that’s over.”

I must have looked at her oddly then, for I was quite unsure that I had heard her correctly.

“Glad, oh yes, glad, Jeremy. I have never, I think, spent a more trying pair of hours in my life-not even in the Lichfield poorhouse.”

“What passed between you two that you should be moved to such a complaint?”

“Nothing! That’s just it, you see-nothing at all. After the first twenty or thirty minutes we had naught to say, one to the other. What an inert being she has become-utterly vapid, without purpose, quite useless, a kitchen slavey she is and she will always be.”

“And yet you-”

“No, I take that back. Her great ambition, it seems, is to be a housekeeper, and she may indeed advance that far! She has not read a book in years-and seems proud of it. She. . she. .”

Whether from want of words or breath, her denunciation ceased at about this point, and Clarissa walked beside me quite panting, unable to go further.

“In short,” said I, “you were bored.”

She nodded. We went along in silence all the way up Chandos Street, at which time she resumed in a more moderate and less emotional tone.

“You’ve no idea how fortunate we are, you and I,” said she to me. “When we sit at table, matters are discussed. We’re encouraged to read books and to make plans for the future. I had never quite realized it until now.”

“Sometimes I forget that myself.”

“Just look at Annie-how she has risen-a leading actress in Mr. Garrick’s theatre. Her story must be unique.”

“Perhaps so. I see your point, in any case, and I agree.” Again, I fell silent for a spell. “Nevertheless, Sir John can at times behave in the most confounding manner. Why, I brought to him today our best witness to date in the matter of Maggie Plummer.”

“Who was that again?”

“Maggie Plummer. Oh, you remember-the dead girl who was yesterday pulled from the Thames. I told you all about her on our way over to Dawson’s Alley.”

“Oh-oh, yes.”

Whereupon I told her about it once again, adding my encounter with Deuteronomy Plummer, and telling her of my frustrating dismissal by Sir John.

“Why did you so want to stay?” she asked when I had concluded.

“Well, I. . I wished to listen in on the interrogation as, well, as part of my education in the law. And I. . I. . Hang it, Clarissa, I would know what this fellow had to say about his sister, his niece, about all of it.”

“And why do you suppose Sir John wanted you away?” I was silent for a moment, thinking through my response. I wished to be as truthful as I could be in this matter, yet at the same time I wished also to place myself in the best possible light.

“Well, he said he wanted me to fetch you and accompany you back to Bow Street.”

“And I applaud him for that,” said she. “But you seem to feel that he had another, ulterior motive in sending you away.”

“I suppose I do.”

“And that is. .?”

“To be more candid than I would wish to be, I must say that he probably supposed he could get more out of Mr. Plummer if I were not present.”

I sighed, oddly glad to have come forth with it.

“You must have thought that yourself,” said she.

“Why do you say that?” I sounded a bit tetchy, even to myself.

“You took Mr. Deuteronomy Plummer to Sir John without telling him that his sister had sold her daughter, did you not? And neglecting also to mention to him that his niece was dead? And the only questions you put to him then were of a general nature, isn’t that also correct?”

Again I sighed. “All true,” said I. “You have made your point. Let us end the discussion right here and now.”

And that we did, for, after all, we were quite near Number 4 Bow Street, were we not? And whatever had been discussed between us would now be set aside as we adopted our domestic personae.

As we entered into the “backstage” area of the Bow Street Court, and were just then about to mount the stairs, the footsteps we had heard loud in our ears brought to us Mr. Deuteronomy Plummer. They, the footsteps, were unsteady. He walked as a drunken man, unable to keep a steady forward rhythm-though I was certain that he was sober. He seemed to push past without seeing us; and, indeed, his sight may have been impaired by the tears in his eyes. He spoke not a word as he went out the door to Bow Street.

I did not discover the substance of Sir John’s meeting with Mr. Plummer until after dinner that evening. He had invited me to come up and see him when I had finished the washing up. It took me a bit longer than I might have expected, for, as I washed pots, pans, and dishes, Clarissa took all the bits and pieces I had gathered from Katy Tiddle’s room and spread them out upon the kitchen table. As I had, she went first to the labels and similar oddments of paper. She picked up each one and studied it, then placed it back upon the table. Eventually, there were two separate piles of these bits of paper-labels and all others.

“Jeremy,” said she to me, “when you found all these, were they together, or in two separate groups, as I have them here?”

“Oh no, no, neither one,” said I, wringing out the cloth I had used on the dishes. “They were scattered all over her room. Some were on the floor. Three or four I found in the folds of the blankets on her bed, and a few were under the bed.”

“I see. Well, I fear I can’t make any immediate sense of this bunch, no matter how I divide them up.” She shrugged quite eloquently. “Sorry.”

“I hadn’t expected much from them. But what about those others?”

“What others?”

“Those with the numbers scrawled upon them. They were all together in a pile in the table next her bed.”

“You know what those are, don’t you? I certainly do.”

“Not really, no.”

“As near as I can tell,” said Clarissa, “these stubs, tickets, et cetera, are all from various pawn shops. Some of them are marked in just such a way on the back. Come here and I’ll show you, shall I?”

“No, Sir John has asked for me. Perhaps later.”

With that, I left her and jog-trotted up the stairs and down the hall to the little room he called his study. It was there that he went to consider and suppose. Dark and light were one to him, and so he sat most often in the dark as he thought. That, in any case, is how I found him on the evening in question.

“Is that you, Jeremy? Come, sit down. Light a candle, if you like.”

“No, I’ve no need,” said I, as I took a chair across the desk from him.

“I wanted to explain my dismissal of you earlier today.”

“I understood it, Sir John.”

“I hope you did. It was naught but my wish to get our friend Deuteronomy alone and get him talking that moved me to send you so roughly on your way.”

“Well,” said I, “you got him alone right enough. Did you get him talking?”

“Yes, and I did not like the sound of all I heard from him. I truly believe he would murder his sister if he were to come across her in his present state. I gave him a stern warning, yet, in truth, I’m not even sure he heard me, so overwhelmed was he by the news I had given him. He was certainly attached to that niece of his, wasn’t he?”

“He was indeed.”

“He’s claimed her body for burial at St. Paul’s, Covent Garden. I’d like you to attend the funeral service in case anything should turn up there. Find out when it will be held from those at the church, will you? Probably not until the day after tomorrow-tomorrow being Easter.”