Bruce Alexander - The Price of Murder

When they reached the arcade wherein the theater was located, they were out of breath and frighted, and only too happy to see a couple of nice-looking young fellows who came out into the light, looking concerned and asking how they might aid the two girls. They explained that they had become bored with that evening’s presentation at the Covent Garden and had left early. And now they had been standing about wondering how they might fill the rest of the evening.

“And what better way than to aid two young ladies of obvious good character,” said one.

“How may we help you?” said the other. “You look as if you could use a pair of protectors. Will we do? I’ve a stout stick, as you can see. And Robert has with him a pistol. Have you not, Bobby?”

Though they were properly dressed, these two did not quite seem to be proper gentlemen-not to Kathleen Quigley, at least.

For her part, Elizabeth Hooker seemed convinced of the good intentions of the two young men and immediately revealed to them her plan to cut across Covent Garden. They agreed with her that much time would thus be saved.

Kathleen pulled her friend aside and argued against accepting their protection. “We don’t know them. They could be the greatest villains in London, and we would be none the wiser. Come with me. Bow Street Court is just round the corner here. A constable will see us home.”

Elizabeth laughed at her friend and declared she would go with these two fellows, no matter what Kathleen chose to do. “The fact is,” said she, “I fancy one of them, the one named Robert.”

And so it was that Kathleen then left Elizabeth and headed for Bow Street. She looked back but once and saw that her friend and coworker had disappeared into the darkness.

That, Kathleen told me, was why she had held back her story; she felt she had betrayed her friend in allowing her to go off by herself in the company of the two young men.

Sir John cleared his throat, turned to me, and asked if I had further questions for her.

“Only if she went through with her plan to go to Bow Street to find a constable to accompany her here.” I looked to her then. “Did you?” I asked.

“I did,” said she, “and indeed one of the constables did take me here. He was a strange sort of man, he was. He spoke bare a word to me on our walk.”

“Sounds like Mr. Brede,” said I to Sir John.

“It does. We shall check with him, of course.”

The three of us argued our positions all the way to Bow Street. Clarissa’s was, simply put, that the girl described by Kathleen and the cook simply could not be the one she had spent two or three hours with the other day. Sir John believed that we must accept Kathleen’s testimony only with considerable amount of salt, which is to say, each part of it must be tested. And my own position? I put my faith in Kathleen Quigley. If she said that it was Elizabeth’s nature that led her to go off with her two “protectors,” then that more or less settled it, insofar as I was concerned.

Thus we argued in the hackney coach until we arrived at Number 4 Bow Street. It was still light enough that Clarissa might hurry upstairs and begin preparations for dinner. Sir John could go to his chambers and wait for Constable Brede to make his appearance. And I could follow him there and provide a surfeit of details from Mr. Chesley’s testimony. It seemed a shame, and altogether wrong that a day so rich in revelations should end in such a way. Yet, it turned out, there was still a single surprise left for me. Mr. Fuller called me back as I followed Sir John.

“What then, Constable Fuller?”

“A fellow came by and left something for you, a box it was.”

I took it from him and saw immediately what it was. The size and shape of it gave it away. I opened the box and saw that it was the dueling pistol, which Mr. Deuteronomy had taken with him. I had its mate in my pocket. There was a note inside, addressed to me. I fumbled it open. Mr. Fuller, ever curious, watched me with interest. I read:

Mr. Proctor:

I am returning this early, for I have no further use for it. I’m fair sure that my sister will be at Newmarket, therefore I am booking you a room there at the Good Queen Bess on Commerce Street. See you at the races.

— Deuteronomy Plummer

“The fella who brought it was that one who’s uncommon short, just the size of a child is all,” said Mr. Fuller.

“It’s all right,” said I. “I know who he was.”

We did not get round to discussing Mr. Deuteronomy Plummer and Newmarket until that evening after dinner. Mr. Brede came by and confirmed that indeed he had accompanied a young lady from Bow Street to some house or other in Chandos Street. He hadn’t thought it of sufficient importance to include in his report, he said, but he remembered her well. Irish, wasn’t she?

Then did Mr. Bailey come in and bring with him a whole calendarful of problems having to do with scheduling.

Then-oh well, one thing after another until it was time to eat dinner upstairs. Clarissa’s dinner wasn’t quite up to what she had offered us earlier in Molly’s absence, so that I, for one, was secretly glad that our regular cook was returning. Stew it was again-and she had done it better two nights before. Talk flew round the table. Most of it had to do with the “girls” at the Magdalene Home for Penitent Prostitutes and how well they had taken to Molly’s cooking course.

“There are two or three who could take Molly’s place,” said Lady Fielding, “if it ever came to that.”

“Thank God it has not,” said Sir John. Then, lest that be taken amiss by Clarissa he complimented her on the stew, and of course all the table joined in, praising the meal as though it were some culinary masterpiece. Clarissa smiled graciously and acknowledged our thanks with a nod. However, once the meal was done, and we had the kitchen to ourselves, she did not hesitate to say what she truly believed. I recall that she had been sitting quietly at the table whilst I rubbed and scrubbed at the pot in which she had cooked our stew. All of a sudden she did speak. It was more than a remark; it was, rather, a pronouncement, a declaration.

“False praise is worse than no praise at all,” said she.

“What do you mean by that?” I asked her.

“Just what I say! I was quite disappointed in you, Jeremy-the way you added your voice to the rest, lauding that mediocre meal when you knew as well as I just how good it was not .” She had me there, all right.

“Well,” I replied, “I would admit that it was not up to your very best, but after all, Clarissa-”

With a wave of her hand she silenced me. “Oh, never mind,” said she. “This has not been a good day for me, but you’re certainly not the cause of it.”

“Then. . who is?”

“ I am, of course. I’ve no one to blame but myself. How could I have spoken up to Sir John and challenged him in his very own courtroom? What right had I? What sort of clerk was I to do such a thing?”

“Oh, you mean that matter to do with the woman who’s buying up all of Covent Garden.”

“But of course I didn’t know that, did I? Yet even so, I should not have spoken out as I did. Why must I always. . always. . be me?”

My heart went out to her. Sitting there at the kitchen table she had wound herself round her chair in such a way that she seemed smaller than she truly was. She hung her head, avoiding my gaze. Still, I suspected that there were tears in her eyes once more. Women are such emotional creatures, are they not?

I was about to say something to her-something of a comforting nature, I suppose, though I cannot now imagine what it might have been. That was when Sir John’s voice rang out from the floor above, summoning me to him.