The Price of Murder

by Bruce Alexander

  “What sort of trouble?” he repeated in a tone of quiet urgency.

  I decided then and there that it would be best if he discussed that with Sir John. “I tell you what,” said I, “it would be best, I’m sure, if you were to ask that of the magistrate himself. He will tell you all that need be known and no doubt he’ll have some questions for you, as well. You see, it’s all a bit too complicated for me, I fear.”

  He seemed to accept that: “Well, all right. Ain’t that Sir John Fielding the one they call the Blind Beak?”

  “Yes,” said I, “that is how they call him—though not to his face.”

  “Oh, right you are. I’ll not make that mistake. Just give me a little time to straighten up here. I’m afraid my temper got the best of me, and I threw things round a bit.”

  “Right,” said I, “and I’ll lock up next door.”

  I learned a bit more about him as we walked back to Bow Street. Indeed, I learned a great deal, for small though he be, Deuteronomy Plummer was a great talker.

  “Now,” said he to me as we trudged together along Cucumber Alley, “you might wonder how a fella such as I makes his money.”

  “Oh, well, I . . .”

  “Let me tell you about it.”

  That he proceeded to do, telling from the beginning and at great length how he had come to London from some town in the north in pursuit of his sister. He found her in Seven Dials, pregnant and whoring and unwilling to return home with him. In the course of his searches for Alice Plummer, he had strayed as far as Shepherd’s Bush. It being a Sunday, he happened to visit upon the day of the horse races at Shepherd’s Bush Common. Now, Deuteronomy Plummer was no stranger to racing of that sort—the hell-for-leather, rough-and-tumble, dirty-tricks kind of racing.

  “I growed up on it,” he boasted. “From the time I was just a babe, I had me a way with horses, and when I started race-ridin’, I found I was just small enough to duck most of the nastiness they’d put my way, and just smart enough to come up with nastiness all my own.”

  That Sunday in Shepherd’s Bush he made a spot of cash, using his horse sense, and betting on sure winners. More important, he got acquainted with owners and saw that there were few riders in his class. And he proved it to the satisfaction of all when, just at the start of the last race of the day, a horse threw its rider, and, knowing full well it was allowed, he jumped into the saddle, gave his heels to the horse, and won the heat and the race. He won the heart of the crowd because of his daring and his diminutive size. And the fact that he had bet heavily on that same horse made him doubly a winner. Ever after, he rode for the owners at Shepherd’s Bush, Blackheath, and all the rest of the major race meets round London. Betting on himself, and only on himself, he had made himself a small fortune.

  “Racing, lad,” said he to me, “ ’tis the only way a fellow small as me has the advantage.”

  I recall that we two were walking cross Covent Garden when he did speak these words, and it was there in the Garden, as well, that I took proper note of the reaction of the crowd to him. Early on, out in the street, I had seen the young, the ignorant, and the rude point at him and giggle at his size. He gave them no heed whatever, so well accustomed was he to such treatment by such ne’er-do-wells. Nevertheless, it was in Long Acre, or perhaps James Street, that I first noticed a different sort of reaction to my companion—and always from men. They noticed him most respectfully. A few did pass us with a smile and a nod; another, just at Mr. Tolliver’s meat stall in the Garden, stepped aside and removed his hat; and indeed, he all but bowed to Deuteronomy Plummer. Previous to this fellow, little attention had been paid to them all by Mr. Plummer. We were not yet past him when the man beside me offered a dignified smile and touched his own hat in response. Then did he wink at me.

  “Who are these people?” I asked. “They seem to know you.”

  “In a way, I suppose they do. That last fellow, the one who took his hat off to me, I see him at every race meet I run. He seems to follow me round, he does. Probably made a good deal of cash just betting on me.”

  “Then you’re a sort of hero, a champion to him,” I suggested.

  “Something like that,” said he pridefully yet modestly.

  “Hmmm,” said I, considering what he had just said. It was an odd idea to me, this notion of fame. In a sense, Sir John had fame, yet his face was so familiar here in Covent Garden that his appearance hereabouts was unlikely to cause the sort of notice that Deuteronomy had caused already. Deuteronomy? Indeed, I must ask him about that.

  “Sir, may I put to you a question that may cause you some embarrassment?”

  “Certainly you may. Though if I find it too embarrassing, I might not answer.”

  “Your name is a rather singular one. How did you come by it?”

  “Plummer?” He seemed to be toying with me.

  “No, Deuteronomy.”

  He laughed at that. “Sooner or later they all get round to my name. I give you credit, lad. You held out longer than most,” said he. “But, well, it’s simple enough, you see. My father was, in his own way, a very pious man, a great reader of the Bible, in particular the Hebrew portion. He had five sons, of which I am the fifth. My brothers’ names are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. You see? It makes perfect sense.”

  “All except Alice.”

  “Ah yes, our sister, our only sister.”

  “What of her? I should think a name such as Esther or Ruth would have been more consonant with your father’s past practice.”

  “Perhaps, but it was never discussed within my hearing, nor was I bold enough to ask either of them about it. What I have ever assumed, though, is that my mother, who was also a strong-willed person, said that my father had had the pleasure of naming boys, for he was the father of them all. Yet, she said that since it was that the baby just born was a girl and she the mother, ’twas only proper she should do the naming of her.”

  “And the name she chose was Alice?”

  “Just so.”

  “Why that name? Why Alice?”

  “Oh, probably because it was her mother’s name.”

  “Only that?” He had disappointed me. I felt almost cheated.

  That was quite enough for Deuteronomy Plummer. He halted there, in the middle of the Garden, and where he halted, he fair exploded, stamping one foot and then the other as he shouted out his anger. All of those round us turned to look and wonder.

  “How should I know how that silly cow of a sister got her name?” he cried. “What should I care?” Then, having seen the audience he had created for himself, he lowered his voice to little more than a whisper: “The only thing good Alice ever done was to have that daughter of hers. Have you seen her? Have you seen Maggie?”

  “I have, yes.” I could say neither more nor less than that.

  “Well, then you know.”

  I feared he would begin to question me with regard to my “meeting,” as it were, with Maggie. And so I urged him onward to Bow Street and Sir John. I was not the one to inform him of the death of his favorite niece. I knew not how much of the story Sir John would tell him, yet ’twas best for him to do the telling. In any case, I got him moving again. And while he would not say a word more about his sister, he spent the whole distance to the magistrate’s court rhapsodizing about Maggie, praising her beauty, her sweetness, her every accomplishment.

  Thus it was that we arrived. I showed him the way in and called out a greeting to Mr. Fuller, the day jailer, just to make sure that he was about. He answered in kind and stuck his head out to see what I might require, but then, when he caught sight of him who was beside me, his mouth twisted into a smirk, and his cheeks puffed in his effort to hold back laughter. (What a churl he was!)

  “Is Sir John in his chambers?” I asked him.

  He gave a hasty nod and retreated deep into his domain. Not a word was said in response—naught but an odd sound that may have been muffled sniggers.

  “Down at the end of the hall,” said I to my c
ompanion.

  I did a fast pace down the hall, intending to distance us from Mr. Fuller as quickly as might be possible.

  I paused at the door, allowing Deuteronomy Plummer to catch up, then introduced the two men without much ado. Sir John came forward, his hand outstretched in welcome.

  “Deuteronomy Plummer?” he repeated. “Do I not know that name from the world of racing?”

  Obviously flattered, Mr. Plummer hemmed and hawed a bit, unable to find words of sufficient graciousness, and, at last, mumbled that he rode “a little.”

  “Ah well, a good deal more than ‘a little,’ or so I’ve heard. What a pleasure to meet you.”

  “An honor to meet you, sir.”

  “Am I to assume from the coincidence of the two surnames that you are related by blood to the Alice Plummer whom we seek?” asked Sir John.

  “I’m her brother, sir, and I seek her, too, as you might say. That’s how me and the young man here met. I was searchin’ her place in Seven Dials, just lookin’ for some hint where she went to and along he comes.”

  “Young man?” Sir John repeated the phrase as if he could not suppose who might be meant. “Ah, you mean Jeremy, of course.” Then, turning more or less in my direction, he said, “Jeremy, are you still here? Have you not other duties to occupy yourself?”

  “None that I can think of, sir,” said I.

  “Come now. Are you forgetting Clarissa? She may need your protection. You cannot simply maroon her where you left her, now can you?”

  “I suppose not,” said I.

  “Then on your way, lad.”

  On your way, said he. On my way, indeed! I was quite beside myself with indignation at Sir John’s treatment of me, in particular before a witness I had brought to him. How could he have behaved in such a way toward me? Was having Clarissa home to cook his dinner so important to him?

  I stormed down Chandos Street in the general direction of Dawson’s Alley and the imposing building where I had left Clarissa some time before. She was with her friend, was she not? She would probably welcome an extra hour with her. But no, Sir John had instructed me to bring her back, and that is what I would do, no matter what her wishes in the matter. Thus was I prepared—oh, more than prepared—to grasp her by the wrist and pull her bodily from the house. I should then run with her at full speed for Bow Street that I might return in time to hear at least a bit of Sir John’s interrogation of Mr. Plummer.

  I came quickly to Number 5 Dawson’s Alley and pounded upon the door with my fist. None could complain that I knocked too weakly to be heard, as Sir John sometimes had done. Even if Clarissa Roundtree and Elizabeth Hooker were chattering up on the third floor, they would certainly hear my knock as a summons, a demand for attention.

  As it happened, however, they were not on the third floor, but just round the corner in a little sitting room near the door. And so it was that Elizabeth came to the door quite immediately. She curtsied grandly, more or less duplicating that curtsy that she had offered me to the delight of the crowd at Covent Garden. Ordinarily, I would have greeted her similarly with a bow; but, wrapped up in my own concerns, I offered nothing of the kind in return. As she started to greet me, I spoke over her rather rudely.

  “I’ve come for Clarissa,” said I roughly, as if giving an order.

  “I supposed you had.”

  Her face quite crumpled in response to my boorish manner. I feared for a moment she might burst into tears, such a delicate child was she. Immediately was I overcome by a sense of guilt.

  “You must forgive me,” said I to her. “What I said was in no wise ill-intentioned. I am simply in a great hurry, and I—”

  “Oh, Jeremy, you’re always in a hurry.” It was Clarissa’s voice rising above my own. Only then did she appear. “Indeed you are late,” said she, “though not so late as I expected. Nevertheless, as you see, I am ready.”

  And true enough, she was. Wrapped in her cloak, she bussed Elizabeth upon the cheek and announced that she had had quite a wonderful time and that soon she would return that they might gab once again.

  “I loved your story about the vicar,” said she. “Caught out again, was he? That, I hope, has taught him a lesson.”

  And, so saying, they embraced hurriedly, and Clarissa slid by her friend and out the door. There were then further goodbyes called out, waves from both, and only then did the door close after her.

  “Goodness,” said she, “I’m so glad that’s over.”

  I must have looked at her oddly then, for I was quite unsure that I had heard her correctly.

  “Glad, oh yes, glad, Jeremy. I have never, I think, spent a more trying pair of hours in my life—not even in the Lichfield poorhouse.”

  “What passed between you two that you should be moved to such a complaint?”

  “Nothing! That’s just it, you see—nothing at all. After the first twenty or thirty minutes we had naught to say, one to the other. What an inert being she has become—utterly vapid, without purpose, quite useless, a kitchen slavey she is and she will always be.”

  “And yet you—”

  “No, I take that back. Her great ambition, it seems, is to be a housekeeper, and she may indeed advance that far! She has not read a book in years—and seems proud of it. She . . . she . . .”

  Whether from want of words or breath, her denunciation ceased at about this point, and Clarissa walked beside me quite panting, unable to go further.

  “In short,” said I, “you were bored.”

  She nodded. We went along in silence all the way up Chandos Street, at which time she resumed in a more moderate and less emotional tone.

  “You’ve no idea how fortunate we are, you and I,” said she to me. “When we sit at table, matters are discussed. We’re encouraged to read books and to make plans for the future. I had never quite realized it until now.”

  “Sometimes I forget that myself.”

  “Just look at Annie—how she has risen—a leading actress in Mr. Garrick’s theatre. Her story must be unique.”

  “Perhaps so. I see your point, in any case, and I agree.” Again, I fell silent for a spell. “Nevertheless, Sir John can at times behave in the most confounding manner. Why, I brought to him today our best witness to date in the matter of Maggie Plummer.”

  “Who was that again?”

  “Maggie Plummer. Oh, you remember—the dead girl who was yesterday pulled from the Thames. I told you all about her on our way over to Dawson’s Alley.”

  “Oh—oh, yes.”

  Whereupon I told her about it once again, adding my encounter with Deuteronomy Plummer, and telling her of my frustrating dismissal by Sir John.

  “Why did you so want to stay?” she asked when I had concluded.

  “Well, I . . . I wished to listen in on the interrogation as, well, as part of my education in the law. And I . . . I . . . Hang it, Clarissa, I would know what this fellow had to say about his sister, his niece, about all of it.”

  “And why do you suppose Sir John wanted you away?” I was silent for a moment, thinking through my response. I wished to be as truthful as I could be in this matter, yet at the same time I wished also to place myself in the best possible light.

  “Well, he said he wanted me to fetch you and accompany you back to Bow Street.”

  “And I applaud him for that,” said she. “But you seem to feel that he had another, ulterior motive in sending you away.”

  “I suppose I do.”

  “And that is . . . ?”

  “To be more candid than I would wish to be, I must say that he probably supposed he could get more out of Mr. Plummer if I were not present.”

  I sighed, oddly glad to have come forth with it.

  “You must have thought that yourself,” said she.

  “Why do you say that?” I sounded a bit tetchy, even to myself.

  “You took Mr. Deuteronomy Plummer to Sir John without telling him that his sister had sold her daughter, did you not? And neglecting also to mention to him th
at his niece was dead? And the only questions you put to him then were of a general nature, isn’t that also correct?”

  Again I sighed. “All true,” said I. “You have made your point. Let us end the discussion right here and now.”

  And that we did, for, after all, we were quite near Number 4 Bow Street, were we not? And whatever had been discussed between us would now be set aside as we adopted our domestic personae.

  As we entered into the “backstage” area of the Bow Street Court, and were just then about to mount the stairs, the footsteps we had heard loud in our ears brought to us Mr. Deuteronomy Plummer. They, the footsteps, were unsteady. He walked as a drunken man, unable to keep a steady forward rhythm—though I was certain that he was sober. He seemed to push past without seeing us; and, indeed, his sight may have been impaired by the tears in his eyes. He spoke not a word as he went out the door to Bow Street.

  I did not discover the substance of Sir John’s meeting with Mr. Plummer until after dinner that evening. He had invited me to come up and see him when I had finished the washing up. It took me a bit longer than I might have expected, for, as I washed pots, pans, and dishes, Clarissa took all the bits and pieces I had gathered from Katy Tiddle’s room and spread them out upon the kitchen table. As I had, she went first to the labels and similar oddments of paper. She picked up each one and studied it, then placed it back upon the table. Eventually, there were two separate piles of these bits of paper—labels and all others.

  “Jeremy,” said she to me, “when you found all these, were they together, or in two separate groups, as I have them here?”

  “Oh no, no, neither one,” said I, wringing out the cloth I had used on the dishes. “They were scattered all over her room. Some were on the floor. Three or four I found in the folds of the blankets on her bed, and a few were under the bed.”

  “I see. Well, I fear I can’t make any immediate sense of this bunch, no matter how I divide them up.” She shrugged quite eloquently. “Sorry.”

  “I hadn’t expected much from them. But what about those others?”