“How is that?” he asked. “Something better than my usual scrawl?”
“If scrawl it be, then it is a most impressive scrawl.”
“Well and good. Signatures are not meant to be read, but rather to be respected.”
Then did I fold the letter, seal it with wax, and stamp it with his seal of office.
“You will deliver that, of course,” said he, “and ask for a written reply. Since this will be your first visit to the residence of Mr. Trezavant you must get address and directions from Mr. Marsden. He has a record of all such details. I know not what we should do without him.”
I hesitated at the door, remembering a matter of some importance. “Sir John,” said I, “forgive me. I was so taken up with my own matters that I failed to ask about the search for Jonah Slade. Did it succeed? Has he been caught?”
“Alas, no, but we shall continue to look. We cannot allow an attack upon a constable to go unpunished.”
“And Mr. Cowley?”
“He does well.” Then did I turn to go, only to be hailed back by Sir John. “Jeremy,” said he, “if on your return you pass near St. James Street, you might stop at the home of Mr. Bilbo and inquire of that matter with his Mr. Burnham and our Annie.”
“I shall, Sir John.”
“Though it be only proper to inquire first of Mr. Bilbo, since he is the master of the house. Remember that, please.”
Mr. Trezavant’s butler greeted me respectfully at the door, made no objection to my attire (I had, of course, left the brace of pistols at Bow Street), and when told I bore a letter to his master from Sir John Fielding, bade me enter. He left me in the vestibule at the door to announce my coming to Mr. Trezavant. I could not but remark the difference in the reception I was given here when compared to that which I had received earlier in Bloomsbury Square. It was a large house, larger than any I had been in, save that of the Lord Chief Justice. From where I stood, the vestibule opened into a large reception area, one side of which was taken up by a staircase which wound to the two levels above; the other led into a long, dark hall down which the butler had disappeared. Two doors opened right and left from the reception area, and upon its walls pictures were hung. The absence of family portraits suggested to me that Mr. Trezavant was in trade. The fact that such pictures as there were presented harbor scenes and seascapes with distant sails a-billowing made it seem likely that he was in the shipping trade.
It was a very quiet house. For minutes the only sounds I heard within entered through the door from the street. Then at last came the steady, unhurried tread of the butler as he made his way back to me up the long hall. I heard him some time before I saw him. He took a stance in the center of the reception area.
“Mr. Trezavant will see you now, young man,” said he. “If you will but follow me?”
I did so, seeking to match him stride for stride. Our footsteps chimed together on the slick, waxed floor. He stopped at the last door on the left and rapped soundly upon it. A call to enter came from inside. The butler opened the door and announced me simply as “a young man from the Bow Street Court.” Then he did leave us, closing the door behind him. They certainly observed formalities in this house.
I understood why that should be as I took the opportunity to observe Mr. Thomas Trezavant for the first time. He was not so much a man given to formalities as he was a huge bundle of formalities given the shape of a man. “Huge” in the sense that he himself was hugely fat, overflowing the chair in which he nested in every direction, so that he gave the illusion of being invisibly suspended behind his considerable desk, rather than simply seated.
Yet then he revealed the chair by struggling out of it. He reached toward me across the desk —surely not to shake the hand of one so young whose name had not been given him; that would be exceeding the mark! —to facilitate an exchange.
“I believe,” said he, “that you have a letter for me.”
“I do, sir,” said I, producing it from my pocket, “from Sir John Fielding, Magistrate of the Bow Street Court. He has asked for a reply in writing, if it please you.” I handed it over to him.
“Do sit down,” said he, gesturing to a chair. “Would you care for some refreshment—coffee, perhaps?”
I had already noted the silver coffee service on a table nearby. “Why, yes sir, I believe I would.”
He called in the butler and pointed to the coffee. “Please serve our guest, Arthur.”
Nor even then did he seat himself, nor cast his eyes down at the letter. He waited patiently whilst Arthur poured and served the coffee. Only when cup and saucer were in my hands did Mr. Trezavant return his considerable weight to the chair, thus making it invisible once again. He made space for the letter upon his desk, which was piled high with ledgers and account books. Then, after adjusting his spectacles, he gave the letter his full attention.
By the time he had done with it, he wore a frown. Yet as he removed his spectacles, he forced a smile.
“I have had the pleasure of meeting Sir John but once,” said he to me, “yet I recollect that he is blind.”
“That is true, sir.”
Then did he say something most peculiar: “Do tell him for me that he writes a very good hand for one so afflicted.”
I happened just then to be sipping the lukewarm coffee I had been served. And upon hearing what he said, I came very near to spewing the contents of my mouth across the room. Luckily, I managed merely to deposit the coffee back into the cup.
“Are you all right?” He seemed genuinely concerned.
“Yes,” I said, croaking a bit, clearing my throat, “yes, do pardon me, sir.”
“Certainly.”
“But I should tell you that it was I who took the letter in dictation from Sir John. The hand is mind. The signature, however, is his own.”
“Ah, yes, the signature-—very strong. Do pass that on from me, will you?” He smiled again, this time somewhat more tentatively. “But since you took the letter in dictation, you know its contents, of course.”
“Of course, sir.”
“Then allow me to discuss its contents, well, as one might in conversation, and you may pass on to Sir John my thoughts on the matter at hand.”
Should I remind him that Sir John was especially desirous of a written reply? This did not seem quite the moment. He seemed so eager simply to talk about it. “Well,” said I, reluctantly, “all right.”
He leaned toward me and again smiled quite ingratiatingly. “Really,” he said, “this will never do.”
“Sir?” I fear that the surprise I felt was all too apparent in my response.
“Indeed, no,” said he quite firmly. “I see no need for an inquest. I concede that Sir John raises some interesting questions. I concede also that I was not present at the event in question. Nevertheless I see no point in it unless an autopsy be performed, and an autopsy would certainly be out of the question.”
“But why?”
“Well, if I understand these matters aright, an autopsy consists of cutting open the body and examining the organs, that sort of thing, am I right?”
“Yes sir. Mr. Donnelly is quite expert at such procedures.”
“But they are so messy, so urueemly. Such exercises may prove useful upon the ordinary victims of crime, but upon members of the nobility they do not seem suitable —no, not at all. Why, if there were an autopsy, much more an inquest, people would think that there was something questionable about his death. We cannot have that, now can we? Think of the effect it would have upon his poor widow! No, with all due respect to Sir John and his doubts, I see no point to it. After all, Lord Laningham was near fourscore years. High time he died, if you ask me!”
Thomas Trezavant, the recently appointed coroner of the City of Westminster, had indeed spoken; it seemed to me that he had been excessively emphatic regarding the choice he had made, which was, after all, to do nothing. No doubt he was less sure of himself than he wished to appear —or so I see it today, as I write this nearly thirty
years after the event. Perhaps he was trying to convince himself.
“Now,” he resumed, “any lad who writes as good and clear a hand as you have written here must be very bright, certainly bright enough to convey my arguments against to Sir John. I shall trust you to do so.” This was said with the most dazzling of winning smiles.
I was flattered, though not deterred. “But sir,” said I, “Sir John did specifically direct me to request from you a written reply.”
His smile faded. It was clear that he would rather not.
“Really,” I added, “it is just a formality. And it would be a great help to me in doing justice to what you have said if you were to put down a few words that I might take as notes from which to make plain your position. You might jot them down at the bottom of the letter. The Lord Chief Justice frequently does that.”
‘Oh?” He considered my suggestion. “Lord Chief Justice, you say?”
‘Indeed, sir.”
‘Just a few T words?”
‘Just a few.”
‘Well, I suppose I might do that.”
And so saying, he picked up the quill pen with which he had been working, dipped it, and very quickly jotted a few words beneath Sir John’s florid signature. A very few. Then did he fold the letter, not bothering to seal it, and called out for the butler. With the same great effort as before, he pushed himself up from the chair. And as I gulped down the remainder of the coffee in my cup and put it aside, I, too, stood and made ready to accept the letter— though not first, it seemed, without a final bit of ceremony.
“May I ask your name, young man?”
“It is Jeremy Proctor, sir.”
“Let me assure you, young ^Mr. Proctor, that I judge my time with you well spent. I look forward to other meetings and to a long and happy relationship with Sir John Fielding. Convey that to him, please do.”
V ith that, he offered his right hand; I shook it and took the letter from his left.
“Thank you, sir. It has been a pleasure.”
“Arthur, show Jeremy Proctor to the door and send him on his wary with our good wishes.
Arthur bowed his acceptance of the task. I bowed my goodbye to Mr. Trezavant. And Mr. Trezavant bowed his dismissal to me. Such an abundance of bowing!
I returned down the long, dark hall, following the butler as before, and noted that as he opened the door to allow me into the street, he followed his charge exactly.
“Good wishes to you. young sir.” said he.
“And to you also.” said I, with a wave.
I heard the door close after me and walked on to the next street. And as I walked, I reflected that in an odd way it had indeed been a pleasure. What Mr. Trezavant seemed to lack in plain sense, he made up tor in politesse. He was of a type I knew nothing about at that time in my life and do now know only a little better: a born courtier; the sort who. with good manners alone. hopes to overcome all resistance, who with smiles and compliments and a sure sense of where power might lie in any given situation would find his way to the side of power while giving no offense to the rest. The man was no fool. That much was evident. Only great success as a merchant could have provided him with such a grand house. Yet his intelligence was or the sort most comfortable with numbers, debits and credits. For the rest, he stood firmly upon ceremony.
I would not pretend, reader, that all oi this had occurred to me during my walk to the corner. It is equally the product oi later experiences and observations Mr.—later to become Sir —Thomas Trezavant. who eventually died as Lord Barnwell, Earl or. Calder. All I can honestly say is that when I had gone that distance from his house. I thought it safe to open the letter and see what he had written upon it. I give it to you now in all its cryptic brevity:
“See no need. Unseemly. No point. —T.
All that I truly thought then and there was that the man was a perfect ass.
The house I had visited was in Little Jermyn Street. I had reached it walking down Piccadilly. To my surprise, I found that the corner at which I had chosen to read the message appended upon Sir John’s letter put me on St. James Street. I knew I was close to the Bilbo residence, yet Id no idea I was quite so close, for in the past I had always approached it down Pall Mall, paying little attention to what lay in the surroundings. So then did I turn on St. James and make my way to that house which I knew so well.
Jack Bilbo was proprietor or London’s largest gaming establishment. He was a man with a past. There were dark rumors or how he had come by the fortune he had spent in outfitting and opening his now thriving enterprise. Some said he’d got his money smuggling during the French War; others that he’d captained a privateer in the Caribbean and preyed upon all shipping that passed his way but for British; most, however, dismissed such accounts as mere milksoppery and declared with great certainty (though always behind his back) that Black Jack Bilbo had been nothing more or less than a pirate.
He looked the part. Bald but for a few stray hairs, he refused to wear a wig and wore a great bush of a black beard which covered the lower part of his face completely. Though not of great stature, he carried a substantial weight of muscle and sinew on his powerful body. He would often go through the streets of London, on foot and unarmed, carrying considerable sums of money; never was it known, however, that he was accosted by robbers: his fierce appearance and even more fearsome reputation protected him against all.
Nevertheless, Sir John called him friend. Jack Bilbo had been guest in our home on more than one occasion. He was forthright and honest, and he was generous enough to have taken my friend Jimmie Bunkins off the street and made him his ward. He took him from his life of thievery and taught him honesty, loyalty, and obedience. In only one particular had Bunkins failed to learn, and that was in the matter of letters — failed, that is, until Mr. Robert Burnham came as tutor a few months before the time of which I write. Young Mr. Burnham, with his kind and persuasive manner, his experience in teaching, and his simple and direct method, had achieved immediate results. As I had told Sir John, Bunkins already read from the newspaper and was now taking on more challenging matter—books. It was to Mr. Burnham’s tuition that I hoped to entrust our Annie.
So came I to the house in St. James Street which had once belonged to the unfortunate Lord Goodhope. How it came into the hands of Black Jack Bilbo is a tale already told; I shall not further impede this narrative by repeating it. Suffice it to say that under Mr. Bilbo’s rule the household was run in a manner more democratic than before. He kept no large house staff of retainers — footmen, maids, servers, and the like — only a cook and a kitchen slavey or two, and a couple of what he termed “house cleaners.” Those who lived in the house, most of them on the staff of his gaming establishment, were given the responsibility of maintaining the house and serving themselves insofar as they were able. Since there was no butler, all inside lived by Mr. Bilbo’s injunction that he who heard a knock upon the door must needs answer it. For the most part this system, if it be called such, worked well enough. There were often, however, long waits upon the doorstep as one waited to catch the ear of one of the residents. Nor was there any certainty just who might at last appear at the door.
On this occasion I was pleased to find an old acquaintance there to greet me. It was the familiar face of Nancy Plummer that I found a-smiling out at me. Her I had first met near three years before on the occasion of my first (and near only) visit to Black Jack Bilbo’s gaming establishment. She worked there as a greeter and hostess. Yet she lived under her master’s protection in this house that had once been the dwelling of an earl, and here I had seen her often.
“Jeremy,” said she, throwing open the door, “come in, though I must tell you that Jimmie B. is at his morning lessons.”
“Well and good,” said I, entering, “for I must first talk with the cove of the ken.”
“Oh, he’s about, ain’ he?” Shutting the door. “Though I’ll not take you where he is. I would not dare to go for a handful of neds.” She said it with a pro
per shiver of horror.
What was this mystery? I was about to ask when she told all:
“Mr. Bilbo’s down belowstairs. The house is bein’ ratted. The men is all down there, looking on, hooting and yelling and cheering the ratcatcher on. Cook and I and the other ladies of the house took shelter above just to be away from them terrible creatures. I come down for a deck of cards, else I would not have heard your knock.” She held the deck up to me as if to prove her claim.
“Then go, Nancy/’ said I. “I’ll find my way to him.”
“That’s a good lad,” she said. “Just down the hall — “
“To the last door on the right and down the stairs,” I said.
“You know the way for fMr. I’ll leave it to you, then.” She pranced away toward the staircase. “Oh, sweet Jesus, I do hate them things,” she wailed as she took to the stairs.
Indeed I did know the way. I had learned it during my early visits to this house when it was still the Goodhope residence. It seemed to me that it was a very long time ago, though I knew it was not. So much had happened since then, however, that my life seemed utterly changed. I hardly knew that boy who had made his way, alone, to London.
Before I had reached the end of the hall, I heard the rowdy sounds from below. As I threw open the door, there came laughter, shouts and yells, and more laughter, all the deep sounds of male hilarity. I was careful to close the door after myself, for it would not do to allow one of those despised little beasts an exit into the main floors of the house. I followed the stairs as they wound down and round and came out a few steps above the kitchen. A large, though ordinarily fairly dark room, it was as well lit as could be, with candelabra, single candles, even an oil lamp, placed on even’ flat space of more than a few square inches in size. Still, there were a few dark corners around the place, and it was in those, evidently, that the rats had their holes. A few score lay dead or ding upon the floor, but a good many teemed and squirmed within a good-sized cage over which the ratcatcher himself presided. His terriers jumped about him, eager with excitement.
I was so fascinated by my first glimpse of the scene that I very nearly fell over a large figure seated upon one of the lower stairs. It was Mr. Bilbo himself. He turned, recognized me, and slapped the empty space beside him on the stair.
Jack, Knave and Fool Page 7
