Bruce Alexander - Blind Justice

And so saying, Mr. Redding seated himself and looked most hopefully at Sir John.

“Very well summarized,” said the magistrate. “I shall not at this point do much in the way of speculating. The details will out in time. However, Mr. Redding most helpfully emphasized the chief consideration, and that is that according to the papers of organization, both partners had to agree on matters of acquisitions and sales. While profits continued, they became latterly for Lord Good-hope but drops of water to a man who needed gallons to slake his thirst. If he had amassed a considerable debt to Mr. Bilbo over a period of years, I doubt not that he owed money to other, lesser gaming houses in this city. An inquiry I made to the proprietors at Bath yielded the information that a single visit made there of a week at the end of the season in the company of Lucy Kilbourne put him in debt to the gaming establishment there for no less than ten thousand pounds. Eventually we will know the extent of his debt. It is sure to be an astonishment. With all this, he must have asked, then demanded, that Charles Clairmont sell off properties. Mr. Clair-mont must have continually refused. The result you saw before you tonight.”

Sir John then slapped the surface of the desk where he sat and rose to his full height, which seemed to me a little greater than when he took his seat at nine o’clock.

“This meeting is concluded,” said he. “Though it has come to the hoped-for conclusion, I regret the pain it has caused Lady Good-hope. I offer to you, my lady, all help I can give within the bounds of my official office.”

He felt for his stick, found it, then took his hat and planted it upon his head. “Jeremy,” he said quietly, “take me out of here.”

Yet that was not so swiftly accomplished. Messrs. Bilbo, Humber, and Redding gathered round him, detaining us, showering congratulations upon Sir John, praising his acuity and boldness. I looked for Meg, but she was nowhere to be seen, having disappeared to her place below the stairs. I longed to discuss these events with her, even as they were now being discussed by those surrounding me. I might never have that opportunity. Indeed I might never see her again.

Lady Goodhope was not immediately in my view. I caught sight of her, however, slipping out the library door in the company of Mr. Donnelly. It was certainly the last I would ever see of her.

At last Sir John begged away from the group, complaining of exhaustion. We left the three, who were still conversing amongst themselves. We were down the long hall and nearly to the door when a timorous female voice was raised, and Mrs. Mary Deemey stepped out of the shadows.

“Sir John, I take it you’ll not be needing me tonight?”

“Who is that? Oh, but my God, it’s Mrs. Deemey, is it not?”

“It is. I was not called.”

“My regrets. Mistress Kilbourne was so incriminated by testimony that we had no need to call you. Nor will you be needed tomorrow when she will be bound over for trial. There will come a time soon, however, when what you told me will be of the utmost importance.”

“I see,” said she. “Well, I said I would help in any way I could.” “So you have, and so you will. I shall ask Constable Cowley to see you home. You are no doubt as eager to be to your home as I am to mine at this moment.”

Mary Deemey saved Lucy Kilbourne’s life. She was called to testify in the latter’s trial, which was held at Old Bailey before no less than William Murray, Earl of Mansfield, Lord Chief Justice of the King’s Bench. Such was the grave urgency associated with this case, the most infamous of its era.

In her testimony, Mrs. Deemey made clear that, as Sir John had suspected, Mistress Kilbourne had ordered up her widow’s weeds a bare two weeks before the arrival of Mr. Clairmont in London and the execution of the murder plan. And she went on to say that Mistress Kilbourne had ordered up a goodly number of new gowns to be delivered before her departure “to a place that had no proper dressmakers.” Among these, said Mrs. Deemey, were “two right fine ones for her confinement.” It was thus out, and to make it all the more clear, she added: “Mistress Kilbourne is with child, m’lord.”

Of course the sworn statement taken from the late Dick Dillon, read in open court, was so damning that there was no verdict that could be returned but guilty, but the jury recommended leniency in sentencing, “taking in consideration her condition.” Indeed, the Lord Chief Justice himself was bound by custom, and in lieu of condemning her to hang, as he made clear he would have preferred to do, he sentenced her to transportation and a life of hard labor.

Though there was a bit of back and forth with the Maritime Court, Captain Cawdor was tried in the King’s Court in the same proceedings as Lucy Kilbourne. The jury believed his earnest protestations that, while he had cooperated in the plan on the promise of a continued share in The Island Company’s profits-he had it in a letter from Lord Goodhope-he had never suspected that the end of the plan was murder. Yet he had cooperated, and the end of the plan proved to be murder, and so he was sentenced to transportation and ten years’ hard labor.

Their fates were sealed by their separate destinations. Lucy Kil-bourne was sent off to the colony of Georgia and sold into servitude at a very high price to a bachelor master. He made her his pet and eventually, when trouble came between King George and the North American colonies, he made her his wife. She became a very firebrand for separation, a local heroine in the struggle. And for all I know, she lives there still in her declining years, her past behind her, an eminent dame by their standards. I am assured, by the by, that although her husband is deceased, he lived a long life and died of natural causes.

Captain Josiah Cawdor was not so lucky. Although his sentence was lighter, he was sent to serve it back to Jamaica. There he was purchased by one to whom he had once given offense and sent out to work in the fields with the black slaves. Among them, as it happened, were some who had made passage with him on the Island Princess. He did not last but a month in their company, as I understand.

As for Potter, he disappeared the night of the revelations and was not heard from again. It came to be known that he was indeed privy to the plan-and its end-and so he must have felt it incumbent upon him to leave England. Perhaps he, too, made for the colonies.

A strange sort of trial it was in which the principal plotter and chief defendant was absent from the court. The Lord Chief Justice remarked upon this a number of times in the course of the case before him. Yet while his companions in mischief stood before the bar of justice, Lord Goodhope waited in Newgate in accommodations far more luxurious than I could ever have imagined were available there. He waited, and he waited, for Lord Goodhope had requested a trial by his peers-nothing, more or less, than the law allowed. Yet in his case, of course, that meant a trial before the House of Lords. That august body of nobles was, understandably, quite reluctant to try one of their own. And so they delayed, and Lord Goodhope waited.

But I anticipate somewhat. Let me, rather, describe a conversation with Sir John some nights after that night of revelations in the Goodhope library. There were many questions I wished to ask, of course, but there were events of a pressing nature which occupied Sir John, and so I bided my time. There were, first of all, the legal proceedings involving the three defendants which occupied most of a day. With them locked away-Lord Goodhope in Newgate, and his partners in crime installed in the Fleet Prison-he seemed to withdraw a bit, performing his duties in a routine manner, giving his attention to Lady Fielding as she required it, and resting himself as best he could. The last days had taken a great toll upon him.