Bruce Alexander - Smuggler's Moon

Outside, I saw that there was light in the east and realized I had labored in a good cause the whole night through.

I wondered at the sense of exhilaration which I felt. Whence came it? It had been near twenty-four hours since last I slept-or perhaps even longer. Why was I not tired, exhausted by all I had seen and done? How long could I thus continue as fresh as I might feel had I just rolled out of bed? Though day was breaking, there was yet no one to be seen upon the street. So, since there was neither man nor woman to be seen upon High Street, I gave full rein to these exuberant feelings and began running down the street, my footsteps clattering down upon the cobblestones, my reflection appearing and disappearing in the windows of the finest shops in Deal. Then did I turn down King and up Middle Street. And of a sudden came the feeling that something was terribly wrong. Nay, it was more than a feeling, but rather an awful, frightening certitude. I slowed to a fast walk that I might hear better. And what was there to hear? Naught in that first hour of daylight but a woman’s voice, moaning and softly wailing. I went directly to Number 18, for there was not the slightest doubt but that these sad sounds did come from there. What I saw would be enough to rend any stout heart in two.

The door to the house was wide open, yet the space was filled by the body of Albert Sarton-plainly he was dead. Kneeling above and hugging his inert form to her as best she could was Molly Sarton; she sighed and sobbed in a manner so resigned that it seemed she might never stop. Sir John bent over her, his hands upon her shoulders. Supporting her? Certainly. Attempting to draw her away? Perhaps. I approached them slowly and uncertainly, oddly unwilling to let them know of my presence. It came to me then that, quite unexpectedly, I felt quite tired-truly exhausted.

For the most part, during the years I had known him, Sir John Fielding had been a man of placid disposition. Oh, he had bad days, of course, as any man will. He could grow cross or tetchy, or occasionally take offense when none was intended. Nevertheless, I insist that for a man of his position and time he was remarkably even-tempered.

The only true exception I must make to this is that period in Deal, of which I now shall write. From the time of Mr. Sarton’s murder until our departure from the town, Sir John seemed to be in a state of extreme anger. Even in his relations with Molly Sarton, the widow, which were of the most kind and cordial nature, there seemed some part of him beneath the surface which seethed with rage. It was as if he had on his mind one matter and one alone. He would break long silences with remarks such as this: ”An attack upon an officer of the court, even one so lowly as an ordinary magistrate, is an attack upon the law itself, which is the very structure which supports our society.” (I recall that being said in the course of the long coach ride from Gravesend, of which you will hear anon.) And he spent more than one sleepless night ruminating at length and aloud upon the perfidy of the ordinary people of Deal, that they would happily tolerate the smuggling trade and its attendant crimes so long as they shared materially in its benefits. Or, another favorite topic during these nocturnal rants: the evil of our immoral age, in which human life was given so little respect and taken with so little regard. ”Was it always so?” he would say. Then would he answer, ”Yes, alas, it was always so.”

He would boil over. He would fulminate. And in between such eruptions and explosions, he brooded furiously. His only remedy was work. It was by doing what had to be done-and more-that he managed to maintain some degree of equanimity. And only when, through cunning and clever planning, his work succeeded did he become, in some sense, his old self.

Putting aside the matter of comforting the widow, who was so utterly distraught that I thought for a moment she might never regain her composure, there was much of a practical nature which should be attended to by me. Sir John managed to persuade her to come away from the corpus so that I might move it and close the door.

“Go to the kitchen,” said he to her. ”I’ll join you there as soon as I am able. Please, Mrs. Sarton, it is the only way under the circumstances. You must see that, do you not?”

Reluctantly she rose and-in a voice husky with tears- managed an affirmative reply of some sort. Then, even more reluctantly, she started down the long hall. Unable to turn her back upon the dead body of her husband, she kept turning round as she went, as if to convince herself that what she had seen were really so-and yet hoping it were not.

Soon she was out of earshot. Sir John turned to me then, his face contorted by extreme emotion. Feeling for my hand, he found it, and squeezed it with such strength I near cried out in surprise.

“Now, Jeremy, you must describe to me the condition of the body whilst still it lies as it fell.”

That I did, beginning with its position, which was much further out upon the doorstep than I would have expected, face down, bent at the knees, with arms outstretched. Had he meant to attack his killer?

“His hands are empty?” asked Sir John. ”He has no weapon?”

“No,” said I, ”no weapon of any sort.”

“Look about the body to be sure.”

I did as he told me. ”No, nothing.”

“How is he dressed? For bed?”

“Oh, no, he’s dressed as he was when last I saw him- when we brought by our prisoners and informed him of the success of our operation.” Only then did I remember what I had come to tell. ”But Sir John, I came to inform you of the terrible-”

“Later ,” he snapped. ”I must concentrate upon this poor fellow now. What would you say? Is he dressed for the street?”

Somewhat chastened by his reproving tone, I lowered my voice. ”No, sir. He is in waistcoat and shirtsleeves.”

“I take it there is a candle burning in the small room to our right?”

“There is, yes.”

“You have been in that room a number of times,” said he to me. ”Tell me, is it possible to see who is at the door from inside it?”

“No, it would probably not be possible-from the window behind the desk-unless the visitor wished to be seen.”

“Ha!” He let forth a single ironic cackle. ”In this case, Jeremy, we may rest assured that his visitor wished it so.”

That confused me a bit. ”But why should he wish to be seen?”

“Never mind that. Look now at his wound. Turn him over, if need be.”

The exit wound was so large that one might claim, without too much exaggeration, that Mr. Sarton had had the back of his head blown off. What more could the entry wound tell us? Nevertheless, I turned the body over-and got quite a surprise. I must have exclaimed involuntarily at what I had seen.

“What is it?” demanded Sir John.

“Well,” said I, ”the ball entered approximately where one would expect, right between, and just above, the eyes. But…”

“Yes? Go on.”

“I’ve never seen a wound so sooted with gunpowder. His whole face has been blackened.”

“There! You see?”

“No, quite frankly, sir, I don’t.”

“Well, it should be evident. I can give you the last minute or so of Albert Sarton’s life from what you’ve told me. He was sitting at the desk in the room, working by candlelight. I daresay that if you were to look at the desk you would find a book open, or some sentence left unfinished, to prove that he had been interrupted. What then? He hears a tapping upon the window behind him. Would he then have opened the drapes to see who it was at the window? Not likely, from what we have earlier seen of him and his elaborate identification of all callers who come to the door. No, something was said by his visitor through the window glass-something that gave him reassurance that it would be all right to open the drapes. When he did, he was reassured further by the sight of his visitor that it would be safe to open his door to him, which was evidently what had been requested. He then went to the door and opened it without the usual request for identification. There was no need of it. After all, he knew who was out there, didn’t he? As soon as the door came open, the pistol was put close to his head, the trigger was pulled, and along with the ball which passed through his brain, an inordinate amount of black powder was discharged upon his face. Thus is it proven that Mr. Sarton not only knew his visitor, he also trusted him sufficiently to throw his door open to him without further ado. And this restricts the number of possible suspects considerably.”