Bruce Alexander - The Price of Murder

Sir John had counseled me to seek from them any hints that their niece might have had some sort of escape planned for her late departure. Precious little was said by Jenny Hooker about certain aspects of Elizabeth’s visit. Sir John wished me to find all I could from the two of them. Thus it was that as I tramped along the Thames, I planned, insofar as I was able, just what I should ask and of whom I should ask it.

Yet when I knocked upon the door of the little cottage in Green Dragon Alley, I found, unexpectedly, that both were out-or so I was to hear. First did I knock, then did I beat upon the door. Then, at last, did I attempt to rouse those within the little house by shouting. It brought no response from inside, but a neighbor opened her window, stuck out her head, and inquired just what my business with them next door might be. I told her direct as I could, adding that I was Sir John Fielding’s assistant. That usually brought me an extra dash of respect, but from this gray-haired old harridan at the window it brought me naught but a sneer of derision.

“What sort of help might you be able to give at your age?”

I went over to her. “Why, I ask questions-and I usually get answers.”

“Do you now? What’s your secret?”

“I have a wonderful smile.”

“Have you? Well, let’s see it, shall we?”

She leaned far out the window and waited. At last, I understood: She was flirting.

“Oh no,” said I. “That’s not how it’s done, not at all.”

“How then?”

“First I ask a question, and then you answer it. If I like your answer, then you receive a smile.”

“Oh, it’s that way, is it? All right, let’s get on with it.”

“Where are your neighbors, the Chesleys?”

“Well, the mister is where he always is during the day-and that’s at the brewery across the way. He works there, you see. And the missus, I trust, is doing the buying for dinner about now. Could be she’s buying a few of them spring potatoes she might’ve forgot first time she was out. Oh, she’s always gadding about, that one.”

At that, I gave her a smile.

“Is that the best you can do?” she demanded, showing me a bit of a pout.

“Oh no,” said I. “I can do much better. I should have mentioned, I suppose, that the more important the question and the better the answer, the bigger the smile. Ready for another?”

She seemed a little less eager to play than before. Nevertheless, she nodded, and I began to frame the next question.

“If I may take you back to Easter Sunday,” said I after a moment’s delay, “what do you remember of the visit of the Chesleys’ niece, Elizabeth Hooker? You know who she is, I’m sure?”

“Cert’ny I do. What do I remember? Well, I remember that her and her friend come to the house next door early in the afternoon. I would say it was about-”

Only then did I realize what had just been said. I interrupted her forthwith: “Stop where you are there. You said her and her friend ?”

“Didn’t I? ’Course I did. Didn’t I see the two of them coming up Green Dragon Alley whilst I was coming in from the outhouse? Course I did. What’s a poor widow to do ’cept spy on her neighbors?”

“So you saw Elizabeth with someone else, did you?”

“Didn’t I just say so?”

“Well, was that someone else male or female?”

“Oh, female-meaning girl, I suppose-one just like her, anyways. I swear, they looked enough alike to be sisters-or cousins, at least. They come prancing up the alley, giggling and carrying on like they were having the time of their young lives.”

“This other girl, the one with Elizabeth, she couldn’t have been a daughter of the Chesleys’, could she?”

She dismissed the notion out of hand. “Oh no,” said she. “They ain’t got but two children, both of them grown-up men. Live up around Lichfield, somewheres like that.”

“Just one more question,” said I, quite excited to have learned what I had. “Their departure-the two girls-when was it?”

She shrugged. “I ain’t got a proper clock here, but I would say that it was gettin’ on toward dark. Not dark yet, understand, but it would have been in another hour.”

“And the two girls left together?”

“Indeed they did, for I had this very window open, and I watched it all, right from where I’m standin’ now.”

I was by that time quite eager to get back to Bow Street and tell Sir John what I had learned, yet I knew that since I had been sent to Wapping to interview the uncle and aunt, I had better make a greater effort to do so than I had thus far done. Thus, I made ready to depart from my informant.

“Could you tell me your name, madam?”

“Hetty Duncan,” said she. “But I must say I’m proper let down by that smile of yours. Not much to it, if you ask me. As you said yourself, you could do better. And you seemed properly carried away by what I told you about Elizabeth’s little friend.”

“Not another word,” said I, and, so saying, I grasped her grizzled head and planted a buss square upon her lips.

She giggled at that, and I grinned the widest grin ever. “There it is,” said she. “That’s the smile I was hoping to win from you.”

I waved and ran for the brewery. I knocked loud upon the door, as was necessary, for there was a great deal of competing noise from beyond it. ’Twas not long before I heard the lock turn and the door swung open; a man, sweating and disheveled, stood and asked my business.

“I wish to speak to Mr. George Chesley,” said I.

“Better be important. He’s the brewmaster here.”

“Tell him then ’tis to do with his niece, and I am come from the Bow Street Court to ask him a few questions.”

“I’ll tell him that,” said he and slammed the door and turned the lock.

I waited a proper length of time-and then some. At last, I heard heavy footsteps on the other side-again the lock-and the door came open. The man revealed seemed quite as wide as he was tall, though not as fat as that might suggest. He was well into his sixth decade, and what I saw of the hair beneath his hat told me that there was near as much gray as dark in it. His face was lined, yet in such a way that said he wore a smile a fair part of the day.

“You the lad from the Bow Street Court?” he asked.

I acknowledged that this was so.

“I’ve no doubt this is about the disappearance of our niece,” said he, closing the door behind him. “What have you to ask?”

I then put to him a series of routine questions that had to do with time of arrival and departure, and that sort of thing. They were intended to put him at his ease. He answered them readily enough but hesitated a bit when I put to him the question which I had been leading up to.

“Mr. Chesley,” said I, “having spoken with your neighbor Hetty Duncan, I learned that there were two guests at your home, yet as it was reported to us by Elizabeth’s mother, Jenny Hooker, her daughter was alone in her visit to you. Now, which am I to believe? Your neighbor, or Mrs. Hooker?”

“Well,” said he-and there he stopped for a considerable time, less than a minute, no doubt, but such an interruption can seem considerable whilst one is waiting for an answer.

“Well,” he repeated. “It’s Hetty has it right,” said he at last. “It was my wife was the cause of it all. You see, Jenny’s her sister, though you’d never know it to look at them. For one thing, Mary, my wife, was the oldest in the family and Jenny the youngest. There was three brothers came betwixt oldest and youngest. Even so, the two of them were pretty close. And when Mary and me got married, there wasn’t anything going to stand in Jenny’s way on her way to the altar. She wasn’t but sixteen or so, and Mary was near ten years older, but once Jenny got asked that was it-all she needed. She was just at that age, you know. The babies just kept comin’. Jenny had three sons-but only two of them lived. Then, when she had Elizabeth, her husband got the idea of going up to London. We’d been here a good five years or more by then. People in London liked the taste of that bitter ale we had up in Lichfield, so they just up and hired me and brought me down to London. My two boys stayed up in Lichfield, though.