The Color of Death

by Alexander, Bruce

  What had been the library in Lord Goodhope’s day was now Black Jack Bilbo’s study. Because he had been a seafaring man, the place was handsomely decorated with seascapes, paintings of ships in harbor, and pictures of exotic locations. In one corner was a maritime compass, and standing beneath the room’s high windows stood a ship’s helm. There were maps on the walls, and all manner of keepsakes — pistols, shells, arrowheads — scattered on shelves that had previously contained Lord Goodhope’s books. If Sir John’s retreat between the bedrooms was a bit small to be called a study, then Mr. Bilbo’s was a bit too large. Yet that fitted the man well. He was in every way a large figure — in every way, that is, except measureable height. Though not a tall man, he was deep-chested and great-bellied; each of his thighs would have matched the size of an ordinary man’s waist; his beard was big and black; and his heart was as large as that of any man in London.

  I had but to knock upon the door frame and stick my head within to be waved forward.

  “Jeremy, me boy, come in, won’t you?”

  I came inside and took the chair opposite his desk, which he pointed to rather grandly (he was also fond of large gestures).

  “Always happy to see you,” said he to me, “though I can’t say that this visit is entirely unexpected.”

  “Mr. Burnham told you what came to pass during his interview with Sir John.”

  “He did. He told me all about it — or as nearly all as he knew.”

  “How that huge fellow marched right in and pointed him out as the leader of the band of robbers?”

  “Trezavant is his name, I understand.”

  “The coroner of Westminster.”

  “Ah!” said Mr. Bilbo, rolling his eyes at the information I had given. “That j why Sir John dared not send him packing.”

  “Yes, oh yes,” said I. “Mr. Trezavant is a friend of the Prime Minister’s and was appointed to his position by the Lord Chief Justice.”

  “Ah, politics.” He shook his head in dismay. “I understand he’s a near neighbor of ours.”

  “That’s right — on Little Jermyn Street.”

  “Mr. Burnham suspects you of taking him down that particular street so that fellow Trezavant might get a good look at him and make certain identification.”

  I jumped indignantly to my feet. “Why, that’s not true!” My voice was loud, certainly, but under control. “That was pure happenstance. I would never do such a thing, nor would Sir John ever ask me to.”

  “That’s what I told him. Sit down, Jeremy. I have a point to make.”

  I did as he said. He waited to speak until I was once more situated across the desk from him. He then did lean across it, his big hands clasped before him, his dark eyes staring into mine.

  “I told Mr. Burnham that I had known the both of you, Sir John and you, Jeremy, long and well enough to be certain that you would not play such low tricks as he describes. And I tell you now, lad, that I’ve known Mr. Burnham long and well enough to be sure that he would not commit theft and murder, as this man Trezavant says he has. When you do truly know a man, in the way I’ve known him and you and Sir John, then you know what they’re capable of and what they’re not. Black man or white man, I’d take his word for it. But of course if it’s Mr. Burnham’s word against the coroner of Westminster, then that complicates things considerably.”

  “There is another complication, Mr. Bilbo.”

  “And what is that, lad?”

  “Neither Sir John nor I believe that Mr. Burnham is guilty, as Mr. Trezavant charges. Yet, Sir John — and I too, I must confess — does not believe that he spent his time quietly at home last evening, as he says he did. That is why Sir John sent me here to attempt to confirm his story from the comments and testimony of those who were here at the time.”

  “To confirm it or put the lie to it?”

  “However it turns out, I suppose.” I hesitated at that point, but then decided to be altogether frank with Mr. Bilbo. “Sir John expects that I shall be lied to, but he says that even the lies may be of some value, for they may lead us to the truth. I have yet to divine how this may be so.”

  “He’s a clever one, ain’t he? Only he could devise a way how lies would lead to the truth.” He laughed at that, clapped his hands, and laughed some more. Then the laughter suddenly stopped. “But let me tell you, Jeremy,” said he, “Sir John was dead right about one thing, and that’s that you’ll be lied to. In fact, I’ll tell you now that I stayed less than an hour at my gaming club, and all the time I was here — that is, up to about 10:30 — Mr. Burnham was also here, and I’m absolutely sure of it.”

  “Is that the truth, Mr. Bilbo?”

  “I’m willing to swear to it, Jeremy.”

  And that was not at all, in this instance, the same as telling the truth.

  “It would be my word against Mr. Trezavant’s, and though I’m a gambler, there’s many a duke and earl willing to swear that I run the finest and most honest gaming club in all London. They wouldn’t keep coming to me if it were not so.”

  With a nod of his head, he indicated that there was nothing more to say.

  I rose from my chair. “Then I have your permission to talk to all who were about your residence last night?”

  “Of course,” said he. “You never need my permission to come into this house and talk with anyone.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said I.

  Then did I turn and walk the length of the study. Only at the door did I pause and turn back to Mr. Bilbo.

  “Sir,” said I, “on the way in I happened to meet a Mistress Pinkham whom I had earlier met at Lord Lilley’s. Do you know much about her?”

  He sighed. “No, I don’t. She’s an old chum of Nancy Plummer’s, she is. We sometimes take in orphans who got no place else to go — not just anyone off the street, you understand. They got to be vouched for, and Nancy vouched for her. Beyond that, you’d have to ask Plummer.”

  “All right then, I’ll begin with Bunkins, if they’re through with class for the day.”

  And that I did. I shall not linger over my interview with Jimmie Bun-kins — our acute embarrassment, his inability to provide details — nor shall I detain you long, reader, by reporting directly on what was said between me and the coach driver and the footman. It was all a great waste of their time and mine — or so it seemed to me. And of course it earned me their resentment, and perhaps also Mr. Burnham’s enmity.

  They all told exactly the same story with exactly the same details. According to each and all, Mr. Burnham had retired to the drawing room to read. What was he reading? A book. What was the title of the book? The vicar of someplace or other. Who wrote the book? No idea. Then how could you be sure that this was the particular book he was reading? Because he kept running out to read aloud parts of it he specially enjoyed. (There was some intentional irony in Mr. Burnham’s choice of the book he purported to be reading that night, for it was my copy of The Vicar of Wakefield, by Oliver Goldsmith, which I had lent him.) According to them, Mr. Burnham would make regular rounds from the drawing room to the kitchen below, where the coachmen sat at the table, then up to Bunkins s room, every quarter hour or less; that was how they were all so sure he had been present through the entire evening and had not slipped out, robbed a house around the corner with his crew of black villains, and then slipped back in so that no one had noticed.

  All of that struck me as a bit ludicrous, I fear.

  As it happened, I talked to the coachmen in the stable behind the house. In all truth, they paid me little heed as I questioned them, for they were occupied in hitching up the team and otherwise readying the coach for a trip up the river to Richmond, where Mr. Bilbo had an appointment with the duke, no less. Indeed they left me behind, though not alone, for as I stood in the great, wide door, watching them go, I was joined there by the stable boy, a young country fellow of about fourteen who had not worked there long; whilst the coachmen had hitched the horses, he had labored at cleaning out the stalls. He smelled ra
ther strongly at that moment, yet I stayed close, for just as I was about to leave he started talking. I was keenly interested in what he had to say.

  “Can’t figure why Mr. Bilbo don’t take that trip on his saddle horse. That gray mare is just the prettiest and the best I ever did see. It’s a shame the master don’t ride her.”

  I attempted to explain to him that seamen like Mr. Bilbo are often poor horsemen and shy about exhibiting their lack of skill. The boy, however, seemed not to listen to what I had said. He continued in the manner in which he had begun.

  “If it wasn’t for Mr. Burnham, that mare wouldn’t get no riding at all,” said he. “He sits well in the saddle, I’d say. Wonder where he learned.”

  “Does he take the horse out often?” I asked.

  “Oh, not often, I wouldn’t say — two or three times a week, four at the most. Always on Sunday.”

  “Did he have her out last evening?”

  “Oh, didn’t he, though! He didn’t get in till near half after eleven and kept me up till near midnight, rubbin’ her down, coolin’ her off. Must’ve taken her on a pretty long ride.” The boy paused, reflecting upon that. “Well, if he didn’t, nobody would.”

  I thanked him and, with a wave, walked slowly away. What I might have done instead was grab the young fellow and kiss him on both cheeks in the French style, then turn a couple of cartwheels, for he had turned my fool’s errand into a rewarding investigation. I could hardly contain myself as I returned to the house.

  Yet I was not so excited by what had transpired that I failed to notice a familiar figure descending the stairs. It was none but Nancy Plummer, of whom I had recently seen a great deal. I hastened to overtake her, ere she disappeared. I hailed her by name. She turned and frowned when she recognized me.

  “I’ve a few questions regarding Mary Pinkham,” said I.

  “Well, I’ve a few questions for you regardin’ what you said to her.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that soon as ever you talked to her, she come back to me, askin’ about you. And that she did whilst she was throwin’ everything she owned into her portmanteau. She left,” Nancy declared. “She left just like that, cursin’ your name, she was.”

  SIX

  In Which Frank

  Barber Makes a

  Surprise Appearance

  It often seemed that Sir John Fielding responded rather poorly to news of the sort that a lad of seventeen would deem of the utmost importance. One such instance occurred upon my return to Number 4 Bow Street. I burst into the kitchen, thinking to travel through it up to his bedroom. But I found upon my entry that he was seated at the table, half-clothed, as Mr. Donnelly dressed his wound. As chance would have it, I had not been present previously during such an exercise. This was my first glimpse beneath the bandages since they had first been applied. To me the wound appeared rather ugly — red and puckered and scabbed over — but the surgeon seemed well-pleased with its condition.

  Having first made certain that Annie was not within earshot, I blurted out the story of my visit to Mr. Bilbo’s residence: I told of the strange and quite unacceptably complex manner that had been devised to convince us that Mr. Burnham had been present in the house all through the evening; of the stable boy who, without malice and unintentionally, revealed that Mr. Burnham had been gone all through the early part of the night; and finally did I tell of my odd encounter with Mistress Pinkham and her hasty departure thereafter.

  Sir John listened closely, as only Sir John could, squeezing his lower lip gently, stroking his chin. Nevertheless, when I had concluded that part of my report, his only comment came as something of a disappointment.

  “Hmmm, yes, well, that is most interesting, isn’t it?”

  Yet I was too excited and eager to impart what more I had to tell to be greatly discouraged. So I then launched into the remainder of my tale. I began by telling of my chance meeting with Mossman, the porter, and how he had informed me that Mr. Trezavant had departed to bring back his wife from the family manse in Sussex.

  This information seemed to stir Sir John rather more than anything I had brought back from Mr. Bilbo’s residence. He was moved to comment, “Ah, yes, that gives us a day or two in any case.”

  And I was moved to wonder, a day or two for what? Yet I said nothing and continued directly to the news of Mr. Collier’s sudden appearance as butler in the Trezavant house, and the tale told me by Maude Bleeker. I recall that I told the latter in great detail, though not, I’m happy to say, in such great detail as Maude Bleeker had given it to me. Attempting to inject a bit of drama into it, I concluded, “And she discovered that the man’s true name was John Abernathy when he appeared before you in the Bow Street Court below.”

  “And he was the man she recognized among the robbers?”

  “He was the man she had known as Johnny Skylark, yes sir.”

  “She’s sure of that, is she? After all, the fellow she spied for a minute, or perhaps a little more, in the kitchen, had a black skin and not white.”

  “True, but — ”

  “And it does seem to me, Jeremy, that even given the possibility that he wore blackface as a disguise, his face might well have changed greatly under that dark paint in twelve years’ time.”

  “All I can say, sir, is that she seemed quite sure.”

  “Yes, well … perhaps.” He lapsed into silence, but I said nothing, for it seemed quite certain that he would have more to add. “The fact is,” he resumed (confirming my supposition), “I do remember this fellow John Abernathy. I remember his voice as he called curses upon me. He was angry at me because of the case I had assembled against him. I had a number of his robbery victims from years past right there in magistrate’s court. One after the next, they identified him as the thief who had robbed them at sword-point, at pistol-point, whatever. The case against him was as sure as any that ever I sent on to Old Bailey. I’ve no idea what happened to him there, however. I was on to other things. He could have been sentenced to transportation, rather than the rope, I suppose.” He tested that in his mind for a moment. Then did he add: “Not really very likely, though.”

  “Perhaps I might invite Maude Bleeker here, sir,” I suggested, “and you might hear her story for yourself.”

  “No! no! no!” He flapped his hand irritably. “It would do no good, or very little, unless we knew what had become of Mr. Abernathy — how he had been sentenced, et cetera. And Jeremy, I fear I must ask you to find that information for me. It will be in the file. If the cook is correct, and all this happened twelve years past, then you shall have to look for it in the cellar.”

  My heart sank. I greatly disliked digging through the files in the best of circumstances. But what to me was quite the worst was searching through those dusty files in the cellar; I had no idea how I might go about it, now that Clarissa had rearranged them.

  As if reading my mind, Sir John remarked, “It will give you an opportunity to learn the new filing system. I’ll urge Clarissa to help.”

  Through it all, Mr. Donnelly had stood and listened, apparently quite fascinated, to my report to Sir John and the discussion that followed. Sir John had stated his intention to sit up and have dinner with “the family.” The surgeon had consented, and in celebration Annie had made a special trip to Covent Garden that she might get from our butcher, Mr. Tolliver, a piece of meat worthy of the occasion. And so, I buttoned Sir John’s shirt and helped him gingerly into his coat.

  Mr. Donnelly asked the magistrate s permission to take me downstairs with him. “I have,” he said, “a few things to discuss with Jeremy.”

  Sir John, assuming those few things would have to do with his treatment, granted permission indifferently, though he warned the surgeon he would not likely take any of the cures that were prescribed. “Food and drink are all I shall allow inside me,” said he. “I saw what the learned doctors did to my poor Kitty.”

  (He referred, reader, to his dear first wife, who had died of a tumor four years
before; she was grossly mistreated by a series of doctors with potions and medicaments until Mr. Donnelly came along and properly diagnosed her malady, yet was too late to do more than ease her passing.)

  “I shall keep that in mind, Sir John,” said the surgeon. “In the meantime, do you wish to be assisted up to your bed for a rest before dinner?”

  “No, I shall take my rest here at the table. Annie should be along soon to keep me company.”

  And thus did I accompany Mr. Donnelly down the stairs and to the door to Bow Street. It was there at the door, in the dim light provided by the small window above the lintel, that we had our discussion.

  “I called you down,” said he, “because I have two matters that I wished to talk to you about.”

  “By all means, let us talk, sir.”

  “The first matter has to do with Mr. Robb.”

  “Robb?” Oddly, the name meant little to me, spoken thus by him. Yet it took but a moment to puzzle my way to the proper answer. “Ah,” said I, ” you mean the butler at the Trezavant residence. I knew him as Arthur.”

  “Yes, he is the one. I saw him earlier today at St. Bart’s, and I must say I was not pleased by his condition. He speaks and is occasionally conscious, though perhaps not fully. I’m told by the caretakers at the hospital that these periods, short at best, are becoming rarer and, well, shorter. I believe that he is slipping into a coma state — a deep sleep from which he will never waken. Death will soon follow.”

  “There is nothing that can be done to save him?”

  “I know not what it would be. He is old — I have no idea how old. His brain has had a great shock. He has only taken a bit of water since his arrival in St. Bart’s, and if he goes into a coma, he will not be able even to take that. Without water, without nourishment, he will surely die of thirst or hunger.”

  “How terrible,” said I.

  “Yes, it is, but I do not tell you simply to draw sympathy from you. I know that you have questions for him. My advice to you is to go to him at the hospital and put them to him during one of his intervals of consciousness — that is, if you can catch him during one of these.”