Bruce Alexander - The Price of Murder

“What was he physically? Fat? thin? tall? short?”

Again, hand over eyes, he went into a brief trance from which he emerged to say: “Of medium height, robust though not fat. I recall nothing of his face at all.”

“Nothing of his nose? his eyes?”

“No, nothing.”

“But there-you see? You’ve remembered more than you thought you did.”

He smiled at that as if surprised at himself. “So I have,” said he.

“About the pistol itself,” said I, “is it of Joseph Griffin’s manufacture?”

“Oh no, certainly not. This, as is its mate, is of French making.”

“How can you tell?”

“Well, first of all, look into the barrel-not when it is loaded, certainly-and you will see that it is rifled. It’s not done with English pistols-very rarely, in any case. And the bore is a good deal larger than what might be found in an English dueling pistol. From the look of them, I’d suspect that LePage was the maker, though for the life of me I can’t suppose why his name is not engraved upon the pistols or at least stamped someplace upon the case.”

“These are specifically intended for dueling, then?”

“Oh yes.”

“One last question. Why were the pistols separated? That is, why did I carry one of them into your shop looking for its mate?”

“That is our policy here at Griffin. We do not take into our charge any pistol or rifle on which we are not doing repair work of some sort. And we do not sell consignment. In that way our liability is lessened greatly.”

“Thank you then, Mr. . Mr. . ”

“Blythe.”

Having all that from him, I turned to find that Mr. Deuteronomy had packed up the pistols in the case and was waiting with it for me by the door. We left the shop together, and I cheered considerably when he did turn to me and declare:

“I must say, young sir, that you got more from that fellow Blythe than I would have thought possible. How you will fit it all together, however, I’ve no idea.”

“Nor have I!” said I, laughing. “I simply do as Sir John does: I ask questions until a pattern begins to emerge.”

He joined his laughter with mine (which I thought a bit excessive) and kept it up a bit longer than necessary. Then did I notice that he seemed to be drawing away from me. Slightly alarmed at this, I put the matter to him quite directly:

“Where are you going, sir,” said I to him, “with those dueling pistols?”

“Why, I. . I thought to show them round a bit that we might find us out who these belong to, really . To do this right I’ll need to borrow the pistols for a day or two.” He hesitated, and then he added more aggressively: “Besides, ’twas me put up the money so as we could get them out of the shop, was it not? I ought to be able to take them anyplace that I want.”

“Your logic is faulty,” said I.

“My. . what?”

“It’s true that you put up the money to claim the repaired pistol, but you took both of them. If, by keeping it overnight, you honestly believe that you can find your way to this Bennett, or to whomever it was sent him there to Griffin’s to get that pistol repaired, then I’ll let you try. But I’ll thank you to give back to me the one I brought to the gunsmith. Do you accept those terms, for otherwise I’ll claim them for the Bow Street Court in the name of Sir John Fielding-and you’ll either give them up, or face a charge of impeding an investigation and have a year for yourself in Newgate.”

I said it all as coldly as ever I could. Mr. Deuteronomy had better believe me, for I believed myself. And indeed I could tell that I had made quite an impression upon him, for he had said naught during my speech, neither did he attempt to respond immediately. He simply stared at me, shocked and dumbfounded.

“You’d do that to me, would you?” said he at last.

“Without another thought,” said I. “Do you accept my terms?”

Saying nothing, he went down on his hands and knees right there in Bond Street at the doorstep of the shop of Joseph Griffin, gunsmith; and there, as a crowd gathered, he opened the case, took from it one of the pistols, and handed it up to me. I pocketed it. The crowd, behaving as crowds will, laughed at what they had seen. Muttering and buzzing about it, they began to drift away. I offered Mr. Deuteronomy a hand up. He was slow to accept it.

“ ’ Twas not my intention to shame you,” said I. “Simply to show you that I was serious in the matter.” Yet that, too, was said in a tone of seriousness that may have sounded cold to any listener.

Nevertheless, he took my hand, and I helped him to his feet.

“You made your point,” he replied.

“I’ve a question for you. Since I’m trusting you with court materials, I must know where you live.”

“In the Haymarket,” said he, “just above the coffee house.”

No wonder he had arrived there so quickly!

“And another,” said I. “What are your plans regarding the Newmarket race next Sunday?”

“Ah, you heard about that, did you? Well, I’ll be there to ride Pegasus, and we’ll win-damn me if we don’t!” He hesitated, then blurted out. “And you can tell your Sir John another thing. Tell him that I expect to find my sister there.”

That did little more than confuse me. How would he find her so far away? And why should he find her in Newmarket, of all places?

“Explain that, if you please,” said I.

“And if I don’t?”

“Do it anyway.”

He came close and lowered his voice. “Once, whilst in her cups, she told me that she had met Maggie’s father in Newmarket at the races. Maybe she thinks she’ll find him there again. Maybe she already has.”

With that, he wheeled about and bolted off in the direction of the Haymarket. In a sense, he seemed to be daring me to catch him if I could. I did not accept his challenge, but turned and started back to Bow Street. I had much to tell Sir John, as I well knew. I was certain, too, that he would be most interested in that last bit of intelligence that Mr. Plummer had given us.

So much had happened through the morning that I thought the day near done by the time I reached Bow Street. There was no telling from the gray sky above just what time it might be; I had not seen the sun the whole day through. Yet as I approached Number 4, I heard a commingling of sounds that told me that it was not near so late in the afternoon as I had supposed. There was, first of all, the rumble of many voices together, and then a beating of wood upon wood and one loud, low voice (unmistakably that of Sir John) that stilled the rest. It could not be much after one o’clock. Then came the sound of another voice-high, sharp, and hectoring in tone. Good God! It was Clarissa! What had been threatened once or twice had come to pass. When I was unavailable to take the place of Mr. Marsden, Sir John found that Clarissa had not as yet left for the Magdalene Home, and so did draft her for duty as his clerk. She, of course, would have been delighted. I wondered how she had done-and managed to wonder it without feeling that sense of anxiety that heretofore had always come in those situations in which I imagined us in competition, each with the other. I no longer supposed that, though just what our true relationship might be, I would have been at a loss to say. Engaged to be engaged? What, in all truth, could that mean?

I slipped into the last row of the courtroom, attracting no notice at all. If I were recognized, it would only have been by those whores and layabouts who saw me doing the day’s buying in Covent Garden. I had become as one easily passed over by then, unnoticed in the background. That pleased me somehow, though I should be at a loss to explain why it did.

The case before Sir John was one of those disputes between merchants in Covent Garden that he was known to settle so evenhandedly. The disputants were a man and a woman, as more often than not was the way of it. The man had a choice plot just at the entrance to the Garden through Russell Street, and he meant to hold on to it-in spite of the challenge put to him by the woman. (A Mrs. Penney, as I recall.) It seems that she approached the vendor (whose name I cannot now for the life of me remember), and offered to buy the space from him. Her offer of cash suited him, and he gave his consent orally. She presented him with a bill of sale that her solicitor had drawn up and asked him to sign. Reading the document carefully, he saw that there was no provision for him to have a space from which to sell his fruits; he had assumed they would trade spaces, and he, having the more desirable one, would get the cash amount in addition. By no means, said she. A place for him to sell his goods had not been under discussion. What he did after selling his place to her was up to him, but he had agreed to sell, she said, and now he must do that. He refused, and hence the two disputants wound up in magistrate’s court before Sir John Fielding.