Bruce Alexander - An Experiment in Treason

“Do you suppose that Isaac Kidd is alive or dead, sir?” I asked.

“Oh, dead — unquestionably so.”

“Where do you think the body has been hidden?”

“Too bad it is winter. If ‘twere summer we should begin smelling him in a day or two. They’re harder to hide in the summer.”

Sir John sent me off to the Globe and Anchor to invite Mr. Burkett to visit us and tell us how he is faring in the task given him by Lord Hillsborough. I was to ask him if he had information to share. In general, he wished me to entice Burkett to visit. “It might then be possible to interrogate him properly,” said Sir John.

And so did I dutifully tramp off to the Globe and Anchor, where I was told by the major-domo behind the desk that Mr. George Burkett was no longer a guest at the hostelry.

“He woj here, was he not?” I asked.

“Oh, indeed he was, yet he left us quite suddenly yesterday morning.”

“Did he say where he was going?”

“Not a word of it.”

Then did I return to Number 4 Bow Street and report this to Sir John. He seemed not in the least surprised.

“No, on the contrary,” said he, “I should have been surprised if he had been there.”

“If that is so, sir, then why did you send me?”

“Because, Jeremy, it was a necessary step — a precaution.”

“I see what you mean, sir. I suppose it was.”

“You might tell Mr. Perkins, when he comes in, of these developments. And perhaps on his travels tonight, he could stop off at that place, the King’s … what is it?”

“Pleasure, sir.”

“That’s it. Perhaps he could stop there and question the innkeeper and anyone else who might know something about Isaac Kidd’s disappearance — and so on — that sort of thing. That is probably all that can be done for now.”

“Would you consider informing the Lord Chief Justice, perhaps by letter, of what Burkett has been up to?”

“No, nothing can yet be proven.”

Early on the second day following the disappearance of Isaac Kidd, his body was found by a waterman; it was submerged but trapped upon a stanchion supporting the Manchester Stairs. The waterman, a young fellow from Kent (by the sound of his words), had delivered the corpus in a wagon and asked if we wanted it. I had come out to Bow Street at his invitation and saw that the open wagon had a canvas thrown over what was doubtless a dead body.

“We’ll take him only if he died violently.”

“Oh, he did that,” said the waterman with an emphatic nod. He seemed awfully sure of it.

“I think it best for you to take it direct to Gabriel Donnelly. He’s the medical examiner for Westminster. He’s right over in Drury Lane — Number 12.”

“Well, don’t I get a reward or something?”

“Not that I’ve heard of. I think this is the first time anybody ever delivered a body to our door.”

“Well, what about the wagon? Can’t you at least pay me what it cost to rent the wagon?”

It seemed a reasonable request. “How much was it?”

“A shilling for the morning.”

I paid him the shilling, and gave him thruppence for his trouble.

But before he left for Mr. Donnelly’s, I asked to see the face of the corpus. He threw back the canvas about a foot to show me.

“The face is in pretty fair shape,” said he. “I doubt he’s been in the water a terribly long time. Queer thing is, he was wrapped like this when I found him.”

Indeed, the face was recognizable. I saw that it was Isaac Kidd. His eyes were closed, his mouth open, yet somehow the expression upon his features conveyed a sense of shock and horror.

“He don’t look like he died happy, does he?”

“No, truly he does not.”

With that, we parted. He climbed up on the wagon box and urged the team into motion. I called after him, repeating Mr. Donnelly’s address. He waved his understanding and continued on his way.

I ran back to Sir John’s chambers and informed him of what had just happened. He was most amused, laughing long and hard as one might if tickled by a feather.

“He just pulled up in front of our door, did he?” Sir John asked, once he had regained control.

“Oh, indeed sir, he did.”

“I’ll wager the passersby stared queerly when you took a look at his face, did they not?”

“Oh, yes sir,” said I. “But Sir John?”

“Yes, Jeremy?”

“It was truly Isaac Kidd there in the wagon. I did see his face. Would you mind, sir, if I went to Mr. Donnelly’s surgery to find out just how Kidd died? I promise to be back in plenty of time to attend to my duties as clerk of the magistrate’s court.”

“Oh, go if you must, but I’ll expect you back an hour before court time.”

With that, I left him, and running once again, I burst through the door and out into Bow Street. I did not stop running, in fact, until I spied the wagon with its grisly cargo pulled up just at Number 12 Drury Lane.

Mr. Donnelly and the waterman were wresting the body from the back of the wagon. The surgeon was tugging away at the canvas-wrapped feet, and already the legs had cleared the tailgate. Would the young fellow be able to jump down in time from the wagon to save the body from tumbling to the cobblestones? I sped cross Drury Lane to help and arrived just in time to grasp Isaac Kidd at the shoulders at just the right moment.

“Sailed!” shouted Mr. Donnelly; and then, to my surprise, I heard a round of applause and a cheer or two.

Looking round me, I saw that a small crowd had gathered beyond the wagon and the team of horses, which had obscured them at first from my vision.

“Well done, Jeremy!”

“He hooked on this nail, he did,” said the waterman. “Then when we got him loose …”

“As long as we’ve got him, let’s take him on up to my surgery, shall we?”

Calling a good-bye to the young fellow, and to those of the crowd still hanging about, we struggled inside with the corpus. I kicked the street door shut behind me, and then we took on the challenge of the stairway to the first floor. In the end we met that challenge, though not without a good deal of effort and the usual cautionary cries as we worked our way through tight corners. As we passed through waiting room, I was gratified to see that it was empty; except in extreme emergencies, Mr. Donnelly did not usually take patients before ten. His examination room came next, and that — thank God — was the end of our journey. We threw our burden up upon the table and took a moment to catch our breath.

“Where was this one? ” asked Mr. Donnelly whilst panting.

“In the river,” said I.

“Waterlogged, watersoaked, et cetera. I suppose Sir John wants a complete report in ten minutes?”

“Nothing so demanding,” said I. “We know a good deal about him already. If you can just tell us how long he’s been dead, and the probable cause of death, that should suffice.”

“Well,” said the medico, “let’s get this package unwrapped, shall we?”

In truth, it was necessary to unwrap the body in much the same way (as I later discovered) that a baby is separated from its bunting. Near as I could tell, the canvas had been wound round the corpus two and a half, or perhaps three times. Then it was strapped with rope, top and bottom, perhaps three times. It took a bit of trouble and the right sort of concentration, so that when Isaac Kidd was at last free of his shroud we did not at that moment notice the horror that was revealed.

Twas Mr. Donnelly spied it first. “Good God,” said he, “just look at that, won’t you?”

“At what? ‘ said I, for I did not, even then, quite understand the reason for his alarm.

“At this,” said he, grabbing Kidd’s arm near the shoulder and bringing it up for me to see. “Now look at the one on your side.”