Jack, Knave and Fool

by Alexander, Bruce

  “You truly have no idea in what evil he was involved, do you?”

  “Evil? Why, naught but drunkenness and flight. You pursued me, and I — to my everlasting shame —led you to him.”

  “Nothing of the kind. I knew you two would meet to leave together for the colonies.”

  “How did you know? Did he tell you that?”

  “No, he merely confirmed what I had guessed.”

  She was silent for a moment, her wide eyes shifting this way and that. Then did she say: “Murder —he was witness to murder. That horrible fellow who slew him said as much, did he not?”

  “He did, yes, but Clarissa, you would not want now to hear the full story, nor should you hear it from me. Yet there will come a time when you will want to know. Then you must go to Sir John and ask him. He is the one to tell you — not me.”

  I did then turn from her and leave her where she stood. Through the door I walked and down the stairs, having no particular destination, wishing only to be away from this troublesome girl.

  Near a week went by. It passed between Clarissa and me as a state of armed truce. Whereas previously she had snubbed me, we now snubbed one another, yet we were now more careful not to let our feelings show. At table with the rest, we feigned friendliness, presented false smiles, and occasionally offered innocuous comments and remarks to disguise what I perceived to be mutual hostility. It could not go on forever so, but until she was sent out in service it seemed a satisfactory modiu vivendi

  As for matters of greater import, all went well. The very evening of his interview with William Murray, the Lord Chief Justice, Sir John went to see Mr. Cowley. He made the visit in the company of Constable Bailey, and so I know not precisely what was said, but the purpose of the call was to inlorm Mr. Cowley of the pension he would receive. The young constable (or perhaps better put, former constable) was most gratified. Mr. Donnelly, with years of experience behind him in the Royal Navy, was quite surprised to hear of such generosity, as he stood by his patient’s bedside. He later told me that whenever he had been forced to amputate a leg in the past, it had seemed to him that rather than saving a life, he was simply condemning the victim to a slower death by starvation. The news of the pension so cheered Mr. Cowley that it hastened his recovery. A -week after his surgery, he went home with a crutch made for him by Mr. Brede, who had a talent for making things of wood, and stern instructions from Mr. Donnelly on the care of his stump.

  Sir John and I worked closely together on the preparation of the memorandum for the Lord Chief Justice regarding the case against Mrs. Bradbury. A good deal of it he left up to me, since I was better acquainted with such matters as Bunkins’s identification of the head of George Bradbury, the purchase of the white horse, and Thomas Roundtree’s confession. I wrote drafts of these parts for his approval. It was for me a most instructive exercise. Though I enjoyed the work and took it most seriously, I certainly saw the inadequacies in the case which Sir John had argued. I was also a bit disappointed when, while I was thus engaged, he made a visit to the Laningham residence to interview some of the staff—particularly so in that he had invited Clarissa to accompany him in order to acquaint her with the life belowstairs in the great houses. I saw the sense of that, of course, yet I could not but feel that my position had somehow been usurped by her.

  Taking my drafts, adding to them where necessary, he composed a lengthy but nevertheless precise and cogent document which I took in dictation. This, signed by him, I delivered to the Lord Chief Justice. Next day a letter was delivered to Sir John instructing him to bind Mary Brighton Bradbury for trial on a charge of homicide; she would be tried as soon as a place came open on the high court docket. That was done swiftly, to the astonishment of Mrs. Bradbury, and she was sent off to Newgate, -where all prisoners awaiting trial on capital crimes must needs go.

  As for Arthur Paltrow, Lord Laningham, his recovery continued. A few days after our visit to him, Mr. Donnelly pronounced him fit to be up and about, though he was to continue upon the mild diet he had prescribed. When Sir John returned from his visit to the Laningham residence in the company of Clarissa, I asked him if he had turned up anything of interest. “One or two things perhaps,” said he —and no more, nor could I pursue the question further, for he changed the subject swiftly to the memorandum, and that, of course, concerned me more directly. He did later indicate, however, that he would be returning to St. James Square, perhaps sometime next week, and that I might go along with him then.

  In sum, he seemed not to be moving along with much speed on the matter, yet he seemed curiously untroubled by this. It was as if he were waiting for some new development or some essential bit of information, confident that it would come.

  Therefore we were all surprised — Sir John perhaps most of all —when Mr. Perkins interrupted our evening meal toward the end of the week to inform us that a footman had arrived from the Laningham residence bringing news that someone had been shot.

  “Jeremy,” said Sir John, rising from the table, “getyour coat and bring my cape, if you will. I must go down and talk to the fellow.” Then to Mr. Perkins: “Is Mr. Bailey about?”

  “He just left the downstairs, sir. He can’t be far. I’ll fetch him.”

  “Do that and bring a coach around. I want you both with me —armed with pistols.”

  When next I saw Sir John, he was downstairs attempting to extract from the footman the most basic sort of information—without much success.

  “… understand all that, my good fellow,” said he. “There was a great struggle for a pistol and someone was shot. But I put it to you again: Who wad dhot?”

  The footman’s face was flushed, whether from the ride in the chill evening or from plain embarrassment, I could not say. “Well, sir,” he attempted to explain, “that I can’t rightly say. When Mr. Poole sent me off to you, the ladies was all crowding round the door and making such a racket so I could not get a proper look inside.”

  “All right, then, well and good. Ride back and tell them I’m on my way. Jeremy?”

  He spoke my name with the assurance I was nearby. In answer, as the footman hurried for the door to Bow Street, I threw the cape round Sir John’s shoulders and secured it with a knot in front.

  “There you are, good lad. I want you to run for Mr. Donnelly. Find him, if he be not at some grand dinner party, and bring him — by hackney, mind —to Laningham’s. Do you have sufficient in coin to pay the fare?”

  “I’m sure I do, Sir John.”

  “Good, he’s become rather pinchpenny of late. On your way then.”

  So it was that we two, Mr. Donnelly and I, again arrived at the Laningham residence after the rest. Yet on this occasion, due to their difficulty in finding a coach free for hire, we arrived directly after they had. In fact did I see their hackney pull away as we dismounted ours. Nevertheless, Sir John and Constable Bailey were already inside the house. Constable Perkins had been posted as a guard at the door.

  “I can’t tell what’s going on inside,” said he to us, “just a lot of shouting and screaming. Don’t bother to knock. Nobody d hear if you did.”

  We burst in upon the Paltrow women —Felicity and Charity and Lady Laningham. It was they who supplied the screams. The shouts were Sir John’s.

  “Get these women out of here, my lord, I beg you!”

  In truth, what seemed to have possessed the three was a fit of tearful wailing. Who had been shot, indeed? They seemed, in their hysteria, to be keening for the victim, who was clearly not Lord Laningham.

  He was now herding them away toward the great winding staircase, addressing them in soothing tones, urging them to get a hold on themselves and wait for him above. The shooting must have taken place in the room just to the left of the vestibule, for there the door stood open. Sir John and Constable Bailey stood half in, half out of it, blocking the interior from my sight. This, I recall, was the study, so called, the room in which Lord Laningham had been when, as he had told it, the shot came from the street, n
arrowly missing him whilst he sat at his desk. Sir John turned toward us.

  “I heard the door open and shut when those women were caterwauling their worst. Was that you, Mr. Donnelly? Jeremy?”

  “It was,” said Mr. Donnelly. “We seem ever to meet disaster in this house, Sir John.”

  “We do indeed. Come through here and take a look at this poor fellow. Mr. Bailey assures me he is dead, but you may be able to supply a few interesting details. That is, I hope you can.”

  Sir John and the constable stepped aside, making a path for Mr. Donnelly and giving me a glimpse of the victim. He lay face up on the carpet and bore the vacant, expressionless look carried by most dead men. Though he was burly of bulk, there was naught of the laborer about him. He was well dressed in a warm cape, beneath which he wore a coat of bottle green quite like my own; and beneath that a waistcoat of a lighter green which bore a stain of crimson in the area of the heart. That was all that I saw, for once Mr. Donnelly had been admitted into the room, Sir John and Mr. Bailey closed up the gap and blocked my view. Yet I heard all.

  “Describe the victim to me, if you will, Mr. Donnelly,” said Sir John.

  “He is a man of about forty, perhaps a year or two less, well dressed, still wearing a cape, his hat fallen aside on the floor.”

  “He is dressed for the street, then.”

  “Yes sir, quite evidently,” said the medico, and then continued: “He is a good-sized man about two inches less than six feet and thirteen or fourteen stone in weight. He looks to have been fit, but … here, let me see —-” There was a pause of short duration. “His hands bear no signs of calluses or roughening, but the fingers are slightly stained with yellow and red. Hmmm — Oh, and by his right hand lies a pistol of no great caliber. The barrel of it points toward his hand. And one other detail: He wears a wedding ring on his left hand.”

  “The pistol,” said Sir John, “is indeed an important detail, sir. I’m glad you did not omit it altogether.”

  “I nearly did, didn’t I?” said Mr. Donnelly with a chuckle. “I was so taken with the stains on the fingers. I wonder what they are. It seems to me I have seen them before and that I should be familiar with them.”

  By this time Lord Laningham stood behind Sir John, waiting with obvious impatience to speak.

  “And the wound?” prompted the magistrate.

  “Ah yes, the wound. It is in the region of the heart. The bloodstain about it is relatively large, indicating that death was not quite instantaneous —though it must have come soon enough placed thus.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Donnelly. You may leave, if you like. I hope my summons did not ruin your plans for the evening.”

  “Nothing of the kind, Sir John. I do have plans, but this lamentable occasion has brought me quite near my evening’s destination. I shall walk the distance from here.” All this was said as he passed between Sir John and Mr. Bailey and made his way to the door. There did the surgeon pronounce his goodbye to each of us, myself included, and then did he depart.

  As the door banged shut, Sir John turned to Lord Laningham and addressed him direct. “My lord,” said he, “I have sensed your eagerness to talk. You may do so now, but I must ask you to restrain yourself to replies to my questions. Is that agreeable to you?”

  “I suppose so, yes —if I must.”

  “Then let us proceed. Who is this man who lies on the floor?”

  “I know not his name. Indeed I searched his pockets, yet found nothing to provide that information.”

  “Did you ask him? Mr. Donnelly said that he did not die immediately.”

  “He lived perhaps a pair of minutes at most and died with a curse for me upon his lips.”

  “Becauseyou had shot him, I suppose?”

  “Why, it was not near so simple as that. We struggled for the weapon. I suppose I had managed to gain control of the weapon, but — “

  “That is to say, butt and trigger were in your hand?”

  “I suppose so, yes, but he jerked the weapon in such a way as to wrench it from me, yet in doing so, he caused it to discharge direct into his heart.”

  “Whose weapon was it? Yours? His?”

  “His! His! Good God, Sir John, this is not working well at all. He cursed me in his dying breath, because this is the man I told you about, he who swore vengeance upon the Laningham line, he who poisoned my uncle and aunt, and attempted to poison me, he who shot at me through the window in this very room, no doubt with this very pistol!”

  “And how do you know this?” (This, as all Sir John’s questions, was put to Lord Laningham in a cool and disengaged manner, thus inspiring Lord Laningham to greater excitement.)

  “I know it because he told me. Please allow me to present this to you as it happened without interrupting me at every sentence with a question.”

  “Do it so, if you insist, though I cannot promise you that you will have no questions put to you in the course of your narrative.”

  “I suppose I must accept that.” He paused to organize himself. “Well,” he began his tale, “I was sitting at that desk, going over the household accounts—when of a sudden I heard a knock upon the door.” His left hand shot up and cupped his ear in the universal gesture of listening. Then did he continue: “I heard Poole answer the door, and — “

  “Oh, by the bye,” interrupted Sir John, ‘where id the butler? I should like to talk with him once I have concluded with you.”

  “I really have no idea, sir, somewhere about. Servants are notoriously absent when you want them, and underfoot when you don’t.”

  “So they say—but by all means proceed, and do forgive my intrusion.”

  “Yes, well, Poole answered the door, as I said, and I heard a positive row ensue — one can hear all from this room here. ‘I would see Lord Laningham’—this in a deep, gruff voice, the voice of a villain — ‘nor will I be turned away!’ Poor Poole tried to reason with him, get him to state his business and so on, yet it was all to naught. Then I fear I acted foolishly, for I went to the door, opened it, and — “

  At this Sir John raised his hand and halted him. “You say you acted foolishly, and I agree. What could have prompted you to act as you did?”

  “I have given thought to that, Sir John,” said he, raising a hand to his brow, “and I believe my excuse lies in the fact that I was only moments before involved in the household accounts.”

  “I beg pardon, my lord?” Sir John did seem truly puzzled by the response.

  “It was just so, sir, that I had noted that my uncle had been quite dilatory in paying a number of accounts—tradesmen and suppliers of one kind or another. Now that I think back, it seems to me that having just noted this, I somehow assumed that it was one of these come to demand payment. Yes, having given the matter some consideration, I believe that is why I opened the door and invited him into my study.”

  “Oh, invited him in, did you?”

  “Oh yes, and dismissed Poole, as well.”

  “That was also foolish of you, wasn’t it? But do continue.”

  “He entered, and I shut the door, inviting him to sit down. Yet he refused and said that he would not be staying long. I thought it odd of him not to remove his cape, and quite rude to keep his hat atop his head. But then he got to the point, launching into a venomous attack upon the Laninghams, giving instance after instance in which my family had cheated and plundered his family through generations.”

  “But did he never name his family?”

  “No, no, he never did. He would simply say that his grandfather had this tract of land seized, his uncle had lost his farm, his father had lost all his holdings, et cetera—all to my family. Most of these supposed wrongs had been done his forebears in the territory surrounding Laningham. I, who had resumed my place at the desk, rose then from my chair and declared that though I sympathized deeply with him for the wrongs done his family, I knew nothing of them and could hardly be held accountable. By this time, of course, I knew who he was and what his probable purpose was,
as well.”

  “And you did nothing to dissuade him?”

  “How could I? I saw him a man obsessed. I made placating gestures, and yes, I did attempt to dissuade him, for I suggested that I might look into these matters when I went to Laningham Manor, as I planned to do quite soon. All this, however, was mere subterfuge, for my true purpose was to free myself from the hindrance of the desk that I might position myself for a bold attack upon him. He soon made it plain that this was my only recourse.” Then, once again adopting the gruff villain’s voice: “‘Lord Laningham,’ said he to me, your family has tormented mine for over a century. Now I have taken my revenge upon them. Your uncle I poisoned, and his widow, as well. You survived my attacks by pistol and poison, but my lord, you shall in no wise escape me now.’”

  “He confessed all this to you?”

  “He did, yes, he did,” declared Lord Laningham. “And then having said it, he drew a pistol from beneath his coat, and I knew that the time for action had come. I leapt at him, threw myself across the room with all my strength, and toppled him down. We struggled for possession of the pistol in the manner I have described to you, and he was shot, mortally wounded. I should point out to you, sir, that it was not my intention to shoot him. It was his action, and not my own, which caused the trigger to be pulled. I wished only to save myself. If I had had any intention beyond that, it would have been to hold him prisoner with his own pistol and send for you.”

  “Well, I came in any case,” said Sir John dryly. “What you are saying, then, is that you did not purposely kill the man on the floor.”

  “Oh, certainly not!”

  “Nevertheless, he is just as dead as he would have been if you had planned and executed the whole affair quite by design. In other words, my lord, since your finger was on the trigger, there should be — at least by custom —an inquest by the coroner into this matter. I daresay you have nothing to fear from Mr. Trezavant if you tell the story as you told it me now.”

  “Well, of course I shall, for it is the truth.”

  “No doubt, no doubt, yet I fear this means that you will have me underfoot tomorrow, and I must interview any and all who were witness to this unfortunate event —that is, to what preceded and followed it. This would include your daughters and Lady Laningham. They are obviously in no condition now to answer my questions.” I fear not.