Bruce Alexander - The Price of Murder

“Oh? How so?”

“The religion matter, of course. They must be married by a Roman Catholic priest-but of course officially there are none here in England. So they must either marry in secret or go off to Ireland to have it done. They favor having it done in Dublin, so that his family may meet her and all. But to me, marrying in a secret ceremony seems so much better-more romantic, literary, poetical.”

“Oh,” said I, “you would view it so, I’m sure, but just imagine all of the complications, having to prove time after time that you are truly married.”

Clarissa’s mouth flew open, as if she were about to argue the point with me. But then her expression softened, and she smiled a little smile.

“Oh, Jeremy,” said she, “must you always be so practical?” Then did she sigh. “You’re right, of course.”

“How did Lady Fielding take all this?”

She lowered her voice to a whisper: “Not so well at first. She seemed to feel that Molly is somehow beneath him. She talked around all this just yesterday whilst we were at the Magdalene Home. Oh, but what does it matter? Mr. Goldsmith thinks it to be a fine idea. So does Benjamin Bailey. There seems to be some family relation there that I don’t quite understand. .”

“Oh well, no matter,” said I.

There discussion ended rather abruptly. Yet, the frown upon her face told me that there was a good deal more that she wished to say. It seemed to me that she was merely trying to decide if now were the right time for it to be said. Still, when had she ever shown herself to be faint of heart?

“You realize, don’t you, Jeremy, what this means?”

“It means a good many things, doesn’t it? We shall be getting a new cook, I suppose, and-”

“Oh, Jeremy, you’re often just impossible! Do you not realize that an obstacle to our own wedding plans has just been removed?”

I was teasing her, of course. “ An obstacle,” said I, “but there are others.”

I rose from my chair, hauled up my bag, and placed it upon the table.

“Better move that inkpot,” said I to her as I unbuckled the straps to the portmanteau. Then, holding it together, I added, “As I recall, you were so deeply concerned about our financial situation that you entrusted your own paltry savings to me and urged me to bet them where the odds were most favorable. Isn’t that correct?”

“Oh yes- that .” She seemed embarrassed that I had remembered. “Not one of my more reasonable ideas, I fear. I sometimes have these harebrained notions that Divine Intervention will rescue us. I hope that you did not put your money with mine, as I asked you to do.”

“Truth to tell, I did,” said I. “And this, dear Clarissa, was the result.”

I then threw open the portmanteau and revealed to her a profusion of banknotes, as impressive an array as I myself had ever seen. “Would you not say that Divine Intervention has struck?”

She was open-mouthed with awe, speechless, breathless. At last, she did manage to say, “Dear God, Jeremy, is all of this ours?”

“Unfortunately, no,” said I, “but one hundred fifty-one pounds and thirteen shillings of it is, which is more than you or I ever expected. I thought I would give you a glimpse of the full swack just to dazzle you proper before Mr. Deuteronomy takes his larger share.”

“How much larger?” she asked in a small voice. “How much is here exactly?”

“Well, there’s our hundred fifty-one pounds and Deuteronomy’s three thousand.”

“Three thousand ? But that’s a fortune!”

“That’s right. He won on Pegasus, the horse he rode Easter at Shepherd’s Bush. He asked me to place a hundred-pound bet on Pegasus.”

“And what were the odds?”

“Thirty to one.”

“I’ve never heard of such odds.”

“Well, that’s what they were, and that’s what they paid.”

I then asked a question that had been at the back of my mind ever since she first gave voice to her plan for making us rich.

“Clarissa,” said I, “how did you learn about racing, and odds, and betting, all of that?”

“I learned about it from my father, of course. How else might I have done?”

Her reprobate father, the cause of so much misery for her, had, in this way, compensated in part for his mischief.

“He was a confirmed bettor,” said she. “He kept promising to take me to all the race meets round London when first I arrived here. Yet in the end he never did.”

I slapped the portmanteau together and buckled it up tight. “I doubt that I shall bet again,” said I, “unless I am well advised by Mr. Deuteronomy himself.”

’Twas not long afterward that Molly came down, rubbing her eyes and yawning. I made my excuses and, wishing to put off my report to Sir John as long as I might, I declared that I would sleep until summoned.

The summons came from Sir John and was brought to me by Clarissa, who was most agitated by the message she carried.

“Jeremy, come at once, oh do!”

I’d heard her footsteps upon the stairs and was sitting up in bed when she came a-rushing into my garret room.

“What? What is it?”

“Elizabeth is returned!”

“Who? Elizabeth? Who is-oh yes, Elizabeth Hooker.”

“Sir John wants us both with him. She’s evidently much the worse for her ordeal.”

“What ordeal? Tell me.”

“No, get dressed. You’ll hear about it on the way.”

I did as I was told. I could not have slept long-an hour or two perhaps-for my mind was foggy and my tongue was thick. There was little for me to say in such a state, and so I did the wise thing and simply listened as we sped across town to Number 5 Dawson’s Alley, where her mother kept a lodging house. She had sent a neighbor boy with the news of her daughter’s return. Sir John had got little from him, but that little he repeated to Clarissa and me as we rocked along over the cobblestones in our hackney coach.

“From what I gather,” said he, “she was in a rather bad state when she appeared at her mother’s door. She was not fully dressed, though in no wise naked-in her shift, as I gather. She was altogether gaunt-lost weight noticeably in less than a week-again, according to the boy. The mother is understandably upset but seems to know little more than we do. If we can just keep the girl away from others, and more or less a ‘clean’ witness, then we may learn a good deal from her.”

Clearly, this was his hope. He had often stressed to me the importance of seeing witnesses as quickly as possible and getting their story fresh from their lips. When many have talked to a witness before the investigator has his chance, then the story may have been edited in any number of ways to flatter the witness or to please the investigator. Or, worse still, the unauthorized questioner may suggest many things to the witness, which she, in turn, passes on to the investigator as having truly been seen or heard by her. Thus Sir John did continue to search for such a “clean” witness, though rarely did he find one.

Though I had not asked the time of anyone, from the position of the sun in the sky I judged it to be not much after eight in the morning when we arrived at Number 5 Dawson’s Alley. The streets were crowded with pedestrians, as I had observed through the hackney window: the residents of London were hurrying off to their day’s employment. My two companions went to the door as I settled with the driver of the coach and then hurried after them. Just as I reached the step, the door to the lodging house swung open and a man of large proportions presented himself.

“You must be Sir John of Bow Street,” he blurted out, “the Blind Beak, as they say.”

“Why? Is there but one blind man in all of London?” Sir John asked belligerently. He was not at all fond of the epithet.