Bruce Alexander - The Price of Murder

“Well, the paper it’s on, for one thing. When we was passing it back and forth a day past, I happened to give it a careful look, and I noticed that it was printed upon substantial stuff and not the flimsy sort of the rest. Another thing-the numbers are just jotted down in pen and ink on the pawn tickets.”

“Whereas on this one here. .” I held up the small rectangle of stiff paper.

“The number-what is it? twenty-nine? — is printed, well, stamped upon it, really. Now, it would take a very fancy shop to use such a device as one to make a stamp with different numbers, now wouldn’t it?”

“I suppose it would, but how do you know that it’s a gunsmith’s shop?”

“I don’t-not truly. ’Tis just a maggot that’s fixed itself within my head, but there’s good reason to think it, ain’t there? You said a while back that you took it away from that Tiddle woman. And just look at it. How would the likes of her come by such? That we don’t know, but we do know that she had naught in her possession of greater value, nothing that even came close. Why, if you added up the true value of all the items we looked at yesterday-I mean the things she pawned with no intention of redeeming-we’d probably find that all together they weren’t equal in worth to this pistol. So. .”

“So? What are you suggesting?”

“That we try our luck at some of the gunsmith shops nearby. I know of a few. You probably do, too.”

Since I could think of nothing better to suggest, I agreed to follow his suggestion, though not without some misgivings. What about Sir John’s warning against allowing Mr. Deuteronomy to take the investigation out of my hands? Why had I not planned for the next step in this peculiar search? It seemed that I could do little more than ride the coattails of him I had earlier permitted merely to help.

I found Deuteronomy Plummer surprisingly knowledgeable in all matters pertaining to firearms, spouting information wherever we did go. The thought came to me, as we set off on what seemed to me a bootless effort, that my companion may simply have planned it all this way that he might escape the burden of what may have been for him simply another boring day.

We thought it best to proceed on the same general principle as we had established the day before: that Katy Tiddle was too lazy and too besotted with booze to wander far from Seven Dials. So we would try those gunsmiths who were nearest first. I admit that I found the bits of gun lore I learned along the way quite anything but boring. I recall that in the first shop we visited-Wogdon’s, I believe, right there in the Haymarket-the clerk admired the pistol we showed him but said they had nothing like it in the shop. The clerk also said that the ticket we showed him was not one of theirs. But then, just as we were leaving, he asked if we might not like to see something “a little special.” Before I could decline, Mr. Deuteronomy had accepted the invitation and had us looking over an early-sixteenth-century hand cannon. When I said quite innocently that I’d no idea there were firearms quite so early, I was set a-right by both men who, together, lectured me at great length on the history of firearms in Europe. At the next, which was Nock’s, I received the word on firing devices-matchlocks, wheel locks, and flintlocks, and had to listen as Nock’s clerk puffed Henry Nock’s contribution to the history of firearms (his patented lock), which he called a “great step forward.” It slips my mind just now what it was I learned at Manton’s, but at the shop of Joseph Griffin in Bond Street I learned nothing at all.

That was because when the clerk emerged from the rear of the shop, presenting himself all spruce and dapper, he took up the ticket I had placed upon the counter and smiled in recognition.

“Ah,” said he, “I’d been wondering when someone might drop by for this. A pistol, isn’t it?”

“No doubt it is, sir. It should be a mate for this.”

And so saying, I hauled out the pistol that I had taken from Katy Tiddle and placed it on the counter.

“Ah yes, of course. I shall be but a moment.” He then did turn and disappear behind the curtain into the rear of the shop.

Saying nothing, yet wearing an I-told-you-so expression, Mr. Deuteronomy offered me a wink. We had not long to wait, for quick as Bob’s your uncle, the fellow was back, carrying a box about a foot square and half-a-foot deep.

“Here we are,” said he, “a bent hammer, or so it says on the repair slip. I’ll not ask how it came to need fixing,” said he, chuckling as if he had made a great joke. “Perhaps you would like to check it over.” And having said that, he laid down the box before us and opened it. The thing did fairly gleam at us from its bed of plush. “If you like, I shall polish up the one you brought in whilst you inspect this one.”

As I smiled and handed over the pistol I had pulled from my pocket, I happened to glance at my companion and, expecting him to be smiling in triumph, found him looking troubled instead. No, more than merely “troubled,” Mr. Deuteronomy seemed absolutely thunderstruck. He was reading the repair bill, and I wanted to ask him just what it was had so taken him aback, yet I thought it unwise to do so within the hearing of the clerk.

When the latter returned from the buffer, the pistol in his hand seemed to sparkle and gleam like the one from the case that now rested in the right hand of Mr. Deuteronomy. Snap-snap-snap, it went-just as it should.

“You see?” said the clerk. “It now works as well as its mate. Not much of a job, really.”

“Well yes, I understand,” said I, “but how much will that be? You see, this is evidence-important evidence-in an important investigation conducted by the magistrate of the Bow Street Court.”

An uneasy look appeared upon the face of the clerk. Clearly he did fear that I would simply claim the pistol, the case, and all, in the name of Sir John Fielding.

“Never mind that, lad,” said Mr. Deuteronomy. “Let’s hear the cost of it, shall we?”

“Just half a pound,” said the clerk. “Ten shillings.”

“I’ve not got much with me,” I muttered sotto voce to Mr. Deuteronomy.

“I have,” said he, wherewith he dug from his pocket and counted out the amount demanded by the clerk. “And well worth what you ask, I’m sure.”

“We guarantee all our work,” said the other fellow smugly.

As Mr. Deuteronomy began packing up the gun case, I realized that we were leaving a bit too quickly. I had a number of questions that should be answered. I informed the clerk of that and noted gratefully that he seemed eager to cooperate, if only to be rid of us the more quickly.

“Not quite so fast, if you please. There are some things I wish you to tell me. First of all, a remark you made when we came in did imply that the pistol has been here in the shop for quite some time. How long has it been here?”

“Well, that’s easily answered,” said he, picking up the repair bill. “Right after the first of the year it was-January sixth. So we’ve had it here about four months.”

“All right, fair enough. Who brought it in?”

Again he looked at the repair bill. “A Mr. Bennett-or so it says here.”

“Not good enough,” said I. “You must have some memory of the fellow. Or was it a fellow? Could it have been a woman brought it in?”

“Not likely.”

“Oh? And why not?”

“Well, because ninety-nine out of a hundred who come in here are men.”

“Then you have no memory of the fellow at all?”

“None. . Well, give me a moment. Let me think about that.”

He did just that, covering his eyes, concentrating. “It seems to me,” said he, “that the man who brought it in was not the owner of the pistol-but a servant-something of that sort.”