Bruce Alexander - The Price of Murder

“Yes sir, how may I serve you, sir?”

He who had spoken those words to me I took to be no older than myself-indeed, he proved to be somewhat younger. Quite rightly I supposed him to be an apprentice; he was one of three in the shop.

“If I am correct,” said I to him, “Sir John Fielding, magistrate of the Bow Street Court, is here in an investigation into the disappearance of one Elizabeth Hooker, an employee of Mr. Turbott.”

“Oh, right you are,” said he, “and with a rather nice-looking young lady, is he not?”

“Well. . yes. . I expect he would be.”

I may have grumbled a bit at that. Though I thought it instructive to learn how the rest of the world viewed her, I didn’t like it in the least to hear her described in such a manner.

“You’d like to see him then, of course.”

“I would, yes.”

“Just a moment then, till I get someone to take over the shop. I believe I know just where he is.”

He went to a corner, away from the showcase, and tugged upon a line, and far back in the shop I heard a bell jingle. It was not long till, through the curtained doorway, another lad emerged of about the same age and general description.

“Harry,” said my young fellow. “Will you keep an eye on things in front whilst I show this gentleman to Sir John? I take it that he’s still downstairs?”

“Last time I looked,” said Harry.

The first fellow then said to me: “Right this way, if you’ll just follow me.”

The moment I stepped behind the curtain I found myself in quite another world. It was the one in which the pretty little items in the window were manufactured. It was a large area, of about the size and shape of the rear of one of the booksellers and publishers’ shops-though not near so crowded with bits and pieces of the process. Against the walls on either side were candelabra and bowls and such. In the far rear, there was a kind of miniature blacksmith’s forge, round which three men had gathered and at which they concentrated with remarkable intensity. My first impulse was to rush forward to discover the object of their concentration, yet my guide through Vulcan’s domain held me back with a discreet pressure upon my arm. We stood and waited. It was not long till, at a signal from one of the three, another picked up a long-handled ladle, and a third positioned himself behind him, checking the bolts on a mold. What followed was like steps in an intricately conceived ballet. At a second signal, the movement began: the man with the ladle backed away from the forge and, holding tight to the long handle, he turned round and poured the ladle’s hot metal into the mold; the other two fell back as the ladle was replaced, and then came forward to inspect the mold. I had, without quite willing it so, been holding my breath for I know not how long. It was only then, when the action had ceased, that I resumed.

“That was silver they were pouring, was it not?” I asked my guide.

“It was,” said he, “and it’s a specially difficult metal to work with, for it must be poured steady and even, not too fast and not too slow.”

“The fellow who did the pouring-he’s not an apprentice, surely.” He seemed older and more experienced.

“Oh no, that’s Mr. Tarkington. He’s a journeyman. But Joe, who handled the mold, he’s an apprentice in his last year.”

“I see,” said I, “and the third man is Mr. Turbott?”

“Just so,” said he, “and his part is as important as any, for it is he who must decide just when the silver is ready to be poured.”

“This, then, is all there is to it?”

“Oh no. It’s just the first step in the process. Those things you see in the wall shelves are, most of them, waiting to be taken through the next steps. But-”

“Yes?”

“Sir John awaits. Down these stairs, if you please, to our kitchen.”

There, where I was left by my guide, did I find Sir John and Clarissa engaged in an interrogation of an older woman, obviously the cook. He asked the questions, and Clarissa watched her answers (a bit obtrusively, it seemed to me) for evidence of prevarication and subterfuge. She gave a curt nod to me; Sir John gave no sign of recognition, yet I was sure he was aware of my arrival.

“And you say that the last you saw of her was Easter Sunday?” Sir John was saying.

“That was the last of it,” said she. “Easter morning it was. And Lizzie was all dressed up for church, or Easter dinner, or whatever it was. I don’t know which for I did not ask her.”

“And she was not expected back until. .”

“Well, maybe that night or next morning. Monday noon at the latest.”

“And that was because. .”

“That was because the master and the mistress would be back by one, and they said to me they didn’t care how we came and went just so there was someone in the house at all times and when they got back the place was clean.”

“Those sound like reasonable requirements,” said Sir John. “But tell me, you have rather a small household staff here, do you not?”

“Just kitchen help-me and the two girls. Now just one.”

“How does that work-I mean normally. For instance, who does the cleaning?”

“The ’prentices.”

“And makes the beds and so on?”

“The two girls.”

“And you all eat down here?”

“Well no, not quite,” said she. “The master and mistress take their meals on the first floor. The girls serve them there.”

“And the apprentices?”

“They eat with us down here.”

“And they sleep. . where?”

“Up on the top floor.”

“Including the journeyman?”

“No, he lives off somewhere. You’ll have to ask him where.”

“With so many doing extra work, it makes things busier for the staff, doesn’t it? Is this a happy staff?”

“Well,” said she, “Mr. Turbott, he sets a good table, and he treats everyone pretty well, so I’d say yes, on the whole, and on the average, day in and day out, it’s a happy staff.”

“What about Elizabeth Hooker?”

“What about her?”

“Was she happy?”

She hesitated at that, leaning back, stroking her jowls as she considered the matter.

“Well now, that’s pretty hard to say, ain’t it?” said she. If you mean really happy it’s hard, anyways-not like Kathleen over there. She just whistles her way through the day here in the kitchen. Ain’t that so, Kathleen?”

The girl, not much older than sixteen, smiled shyly and nodded in response.

“But Lizzie-that’s as we called her-she was something different. Half the time she had her mind somewhere else, so that more often than not you had to tell her things two or three times before they’d get done. Not lazy, you understand, just sort of dreamy. But she’s a great favorite with the Turbotts-specially the master. He’s forever teasing her and carrying on.”

That was where the cook (whose name I later learned was Aggie Liston) ended her description of Elizabeth Hooker. What surprised me was that Sir John allowed her to end it there. In truth, she had said very little. I was sure that he could have gotten more out of her. “I should like to have a moment to talk with my young assistant, Jeremy Proctor, who has just arrived. Then perhaps you might take me to where Miss Hooker sleeps. Has she a room of her own?”

“No, no she ain’t. She shares one with Kathleen.”

“I thought so. Well, perhaps you might take Clarissa and show her the room-that is, if Kathleen has no objection.”

“No, I’ve none,” said the girl.

“Good,” said Sir John. “Now, if there is somewhere he and I might talk with some degree of privacy?”

“What about the pantry?” said Aggie.

“Sounds ideal. If you would not mind waiting, Kathleen?”