The Price of Murder sjf-10

by Bruce Alexander

“Do you now? What’s your secret?”

  “I have a wonderful smile.”

  “Have you? Well, let’s see it, shall we?”

  She leaned far out the window and waited. At last, I understood: She was flirting.

  “Oh no,” said I. “That’s not how it’s done, not at all.”

  “How then?”

  “First I ask a question, and then you answer it. If I like your answer, then you receive a smile.”

  “Oh, it’s that way, is it? All right, let’s get on with it.”

  “Where are your neighbors, the Chesleys?”

  “Well, the mister is where he always is during the day-and that’s at the brewery across the way. He works there, you see. And the missus, I trust, is doing the buying for dinner about now. Could be she’s buying a few of them spring potatoes she might’ve forgot first time she was out. Oh, she’s always gadding about, that one.”

  At that, I gave her a smile.

  “Is that the best you can do?” she demanded, showing me a bit of a pout.

  “Oh no,” said I. “I can do much better. I should have mentioned, I suppose, that the more important the question and the better the answer, the bigger the smile. Ready for another?”

  She seemed a little less eager to play than before. Nevertheless, she nodded, and I began to frame the next question.

  “If I may take you back to Easter Sunday,” said I after a moment’s delay, “what do you remember of the visit of the Chesleys’ niece, Elizabeth Hooker? You know who she is, I’m sure?”

  “Cert’ny I do. What do I remember? Well, I remember that her and her friend come to the house next door early in the afternoon. I would say it was about-”

  Only then did I realize what had just been said. I interrupted her forthwith: “Stop where you are there. You said her and her friend?”

  “Didn’t I? ’Course I did. Didn’t I see the two of them coming up Green Dragon Alley whilst I was coming in from the outhouse? Course I did. What’s a poor widow to do ’cept spy on her neighbors?”

  “So you saw Elizabeth with someone else, did you?”

  “Didn’t I just say so?”

  “Well, was that someone else male or female?”

  “Oh, female-meaning girl, I suppose-one just like her, anyways. I swear, they looked enough alike to be sisters-or cousins, at least. They come prancing up the alley, giggling and carrying on like they were having the time of their young lives.”

  “This other girl, the one with Elizabeth, she couldn’t have been a daughter of the Chesleys’, could she?”

  She dismissed the notion out of hand. “Oh no,” said she. “They ain’t got but two children, both of them grown-up men. Live up around Lichfield, somewheres like that.”

  “Just one more question,” said I, quite excited to have learned what I had. “Their departure-the two girls-when was it?”

  She shrugged. “I ain’t got a proper clock here, but I would say that it was gettin’ on toward dark. Not dark yet, understand, but it would have been in another hour.”

  “And the two girls left together?”

  “Indeed they did, for I had this very window open, and I watched it all, right from where I’m standin’ now.”

  I was by that time quite eager to get back to Bow Street and tell Sir John what I had learned, yet I knew that since I had been sent to Wapping to interview the uncle and aunt, I had better make a greater effort to do so than I had thus far done. Thus, I made ready to depart from my informant.

  “Could you tell me your name, madam?”

  “Hetty Duncan,” said she. “But I must say I’m proper let down by that smile of yours. Not much to it, if you ask me. As you said yourself, you could do better. And you seemed properly carried away by what I told you about Elizabeth’s little friend.”

  “Not another word,” said I, and, so saying, I grasped her grizzled head and planted a buss square upon her lips.

  She giggled at that, and I grinned the widest grin ever. “There it is,” said she. “That’s the smile I was hoping to win from you.”

  I waved and ran for the brewery. I knocked loud upon the door, as was necessary, for there was a great deal of competing noise from beyond it. ’Twas not long before I heard the lock turn and the door swung open; a man, sweating and disheveled, stood and asked my business.

  “I wish to speak to Mr. George Chesley,” said I.

  “Better be important. He’s the brewmaster here.”

  “Tell him then ’tis to do with his niece, and I am come from the Bow Street Court to ask him a few questions.”

  “I’ll tell him that,” said he and slammed the door and turned the lock.

  I waited a proper length of time-and then some. At last, I heard heavy footsteps on the other side-again the lock-and the door came open. The man revealed seemed quite as wide as he was tall, though not as fat as that might suggest. He was well into his sixth decade, and what I saw of the hair beneath his hat told me that there was near as much gray as dark in it. His face was lined, yet in such a way that said he wore a smile a fair part of the day.

  “You the lad from the Bow Street Court?” he asked.

  I acknowledged that this was so.

  “I’ve no doubt this is about the disappearance of our niece,” said he, closing the door behind him. “What have you to ask?”

  I then put to him a series of routine questions that had to do with time of arrival and departure, and that sort of thing. They were intended to put him at his ease. He answered them readily enough but hesitated a bit when I put to him the question which I had been leading up to.

  “Mr. Chesley,” said I, “having spoken with your neighbor Hetty Duncan, I learned that there were two guests at your home, yet as it was reported to us by Elizabeth’s mother, Jenny Hooker, her daughter was alone in her visit to you. Now, which am I to believe? Your neighbor, or Mrs. Hooker?”

  “Well,” said he-and there he stopped for a considerable time, less than a minute, no doubt, but such an interruption can seem considerable whilst one is waiting for an answer.

  “Well,” he repeated. “It’s Hetty has it right,” said he at last. “It was my wife was the cause of it all. You see, Jenny’s her sister, though you’d never know it to look at them. For one thing, Mary, my wife, was the oldest in the family and Jenny the youngest. There was three brothers came betwixt oldest and youngest. Even so, the two of them were pretty close. And when Mary and me got married, there wasn’t anything going to stand in Jenny’s way on her way to the altar. She wasn’t but sixteen or so, and Mary was near ten years older, but once Jenny got asked that was it-all she needed. She was just at that age, you know. The babies just kept comin’. Jenny had three sons-but only two of them lived. Then, when she had Elizabeth, her husband got the idea of going up to London. We’d been here a good five years or more by then. People in London liked the taste of that bitter ale we had up in Lichfield, so they just up and hired me and brought me down to London. My two boys stayed up in Lichfield, though.

  “Now, this fellow Jenny married-Thomas Hooker was his name-he was a strange sort. Back in Lichfield he ran a stable for a man who owned two of them. But Tom was one of the pious sort, who thought he was better than everybody else just because he prayed harder than they did. He was sure he was better than me because I was involved in the making of ‘the devil’s own concoction’-which of course was ale-according to him. To tell the truth, I’ve no way of proving this, but still I’ve always suspected that he got it in his head to come to London just because I come down here-wanted to prove that because he was one of the Lord’s own he could make a greater success than an old sinner like me. So he just up and moved the whole family down here without having even the prospect of a job-said he put his trust in the Lord. Well, the Lord kind of let him down, because after he found out there weren’t any jobs in the line he had worked all his life. So what did he do? He came to me and asked for work. And what did I do? I hired him. My wife wouldn’t have it any other way.”

&
nbsp; There he paused, and I, who had waited for just such an opening, intruded myself into the small space he had given me.

  “But Mr. Chesley, please,” said I, “you were going to tell me about that other girl, the one who came with Elizabeth Hooker.”

  “Oh, I’m comin’ to that, but I just wanted you to know how all this fits together.”

  “Well. . go on.”

  “I’ll make it quick, so I will.” He took a deep breath and then continued: “He died right here, he did, he did. He was always taking chances here in the brewery-though I warned him oft to be more careful-he said he was safe in the Lord. But whilst the Lord was looking the other way, Tom Hooker drowned in a vat of ale.”

  “And now to the girl Elizabeth brought along to dinner.”

  “What? Oh. . oh yes.” He resumed: “Well, you can imagine what sort of girl Elizabeth was with parents like these-because Jenny was just like Tom in the way she handled her daughter. One of Elizabeth’s brothers had run away, and they lost touch. Anyway, my Mary kept contact with Jenny, even helped get her the job she’s got. But Jenny keeps such a tight hand on Elizabeth, it’s a wonder she lets her out of her sight long enough to do her work at the silversmith’s. She lives quite close to him, you know.”

  “No, I didn’t know,” said I. “But I’d like to hear something about that girl who came with her.”

  “Oh yes, that. Well, as you may have heard we invited both Jenny and Elizabeth. Jenny decided she had too much cooking to do, but since it was family and Easter, it would be all right if Elizabeth came alone in her stead. Well, Elizabeth figured that if her mother wasn’t coming, there’d be plenty to eat and room for one more at the table. She was certainly right about that.”

  “But who was the girl she brought with her?” I asked.

  “Oh, let’s see, it was Katherine, or Kathy, or some such name. I can’t quite recall exact, but it’s the girl she works with at the silversmith’s. A nice youngster she is. You’d like her, I’m sure. Anybody would.”

  “But why did your wife not tell her sister that Katherine, or whatever her name, came here in her stead?”

  “Well, I should think that would be obvious.”

  “Not to me.”

  “Well, because if she had done, then it would be none but Elizabeth would take the blame for it. Indeed, Elizabeth made my Mary promise she would not tell. She meant that, of course, specially to her mother, so Mary was just keeping her word, was all.”

  “She shouldn’t have,” I declared, all sure and certain.

  “That, indeed, is what I told her. But you will now set things straight, will you not?”

  “Certainly! But I have one last question. Did the two girls leave together?”

  “Did I not say so?” said he, a bit indignant.

  “No, earlier you said that Elizabeth had left in good time to make it back before dark.”

  “Did I? Well, Kathleen-that was her name-she left with her, just like she came.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said I to him. “That is all I needed to know.” With that, I tipped my hat and set off at a run for Bow Street.

  Not that I ran all the way. Nevertheless, so elated was I to have discovered a new witness, one who could potentially tell us much more about Elizabeth Hooker’s disappearance, that I must have run near a mile before slowing to a walk. I am of an age and profession today when such youthful exhibitions of energy would be considered undignified. Yet how I do miss the feeling of the cobblestones beneath my quick feet. Perhaps what I miss most of all is youth itself. I look back on those days with Sir John and Lady Fielding, and all the Bow Street Runners, as the happiest in my life. Having often discussed this with Clarissa in the preparation of these books, I know that she feels as I do in this.

  ’Twixt running, jog-trotting, and fast walking, I must have made it back to Bow Street in half the time it had taken me to travel on to Green Dragon Alley. Even so, when I went to tell Sir John of my discovery, I found that he had left with Clarissa for the residence of Richard Turbott, the silversmith. My informant, Mr. Fuller, said that both had been gone for over an hour.

  “Did they leave an address?” I asked him. “I’ve no idea where to go.”

  “Oh, now, just wait,” said he. “That girl of yours did pass something on to me for you. Now, what did I do with it?”

  He began patting his pockets, searching through his clothes. He emptied one pocket, examined its contents, and then dug into another. He found nothing.

  “Perhaps you laid it down somewhere? Where were you when they left?” said I, trying to be helpful.

  “Well, I don’t see how that could. .” He wandered over to Mr. Marsden’s area behind the strongroom. The files were there, as well as the paperwork in which the clerk had been engaged when the coughing fit came upon him. “Well, what do you know? Here it is.” Mr. Fuller reached out and plucked a much-folded note from the top of the clerk’s writing table. “Here’s your billy-doo, Master Proctor.”

  (That last bit he delivered in a fluting falsetto. He was ever making sport of my relations with Clarissa-in fact, long before there were truly any relations to be made sport of.)

  On it was written an address in Chandos Street-that and nothing more. She well knew that it was likely that I should wish to follow them to the silversmith’s-and follow them I would. Was I not told that Kathleen was “the girl she works with at the silversmith’s”? Indeed I was. She would have something to tell-if Sir John had not got it all out of her by now.

  “Well, I thank you, Mr. Fuller. This was indeed what I had hoped for from her.”

  “Lots of exes and hearts, I’ll bet.”

  “It would be dishonorable for me to tell.” And, at that, he laughed a dirty laugh indeed.

  The sound of it followed me all the way to the street.

  Though I was tempted, it would not do for me to have run the short distance to Chandos Street, for I knew I must keep an eye upon the far side of the street for Sir John and Clarissa.

  The street was crowded, for Chandos is at the very heart of London. Its shops and stores-dressmakers, drapers, et cetera-are among the finest in the city. And all are just a single street distant from the clamor and indecency of Bedford Street. Whilst on my way, I stole a glance at the note in my hand left by Clarissa, just to make certain that the address matched the one in my head. It did. Simple enough, yet it made me marvel somewhat: I must have passed the silversmith’s shop a hundred times-no, more, far more than that-and yet I had never noticed that there was such an establishment in Chandos Street. Which proved, I suppose, that I had little interest in silver and those things made from it. Sir John was right: I must improve my powers of observation. He “sees” more with his blind eyes when he enters a room, I told myself, than I or any ordinary man could ever do. As I entered the shop, I took a quick look in the window and reassured myself that it did, at least, look familiar. I took some comfort in that.

  “Yes sir, how may I serve you, sir?”

  He who had spoken those words to me I took to be no older than myself-indeed, he proved to be somewhat younger. Quite rightly I supposed him to be an apprentice; he was one of three in the shop.

  “If I am correct,” said I to him, “Sir John Fielding, magistrate of the Bow Street Court, is here in an investigation into the disappearance of one Elizabeth Hooker, an employee of Mr. Turbott.”

  “Oh, right you are,” said he, “and with a rather nice-looking young lady, is he not?”

  “Well. . yes. . I expect he would be.”

  I may have grumbled a bit at that. Though I thought it instructive to learn how the rest of the world viewed her, I didn’t like it in the least to hear her described in such a manner.

  “You’d like to see him then, of course.”

  “I would, yes.”

  “Just a moment then, till I get someone to take over the shop. I believe I know just where he is.”

  He went to a corner, away from the showcase, and tugged upon a line, and far back in the
shop I heard a bell jingle. It was not long till, through the curtained doorway, another lad emerged of about the same age and general description.

  “Harry,” said my young fellow. “Will you keep an eye on things in front whilst I show this gentleman to Sir John? I take it that he’s still downstairs?”

  “Last time I looked,” said Harry.

  The first fellow then said to me: “Right this way, if you’ll just follow me.”

  The moment I stepped behind the curtain I found myself in quite another world. It was the one in which the pretty little items in the window were manufactured. It was a large area, of about the size and shape of the rear of one of the booksellers and publishers’ shops-though not near so crowded with bits and pieces of the process. Against the walls on either side were candelabra and bowls and such. In the far rear, there was a kind of miniature blacksmith’s forge, round which three men had gathered and at which they concentrated with remarkable intensity. My first impulse was to rush forward to discover the object of their concentration, yet my guide through Vulcan’s domain held me back with a discreet pressure upon my arm. We stood and waited. It was not long till, at a signal from one of the three, another picked up a long-handled ladle, and a third positioned himself behind him, checking the bolts on a mold. What followed was like steps in an intricately conceived ballet. At a second signal, the movement began: the man with the ladle backed away from the forge and, holding tight to the long handle, he turned round and poured the ladle’s hot metal into the mold; the other two fell back as the ladle was replaced, and then came forward to inspect the mold. I had, without quite willing it so, been holding my breath for I know not how long. It was only then, when the action had ceased, that I resumed.

  “That was silver they were pouring, was it not?” I asked my guide.

  “It was,” said he, “and it’s a specially difficult metal to work with, for it must be poured steady and even, not too fast and not too slow.”

  “The fellow who did the pouring-he’s not an apprentice, surely.” He seemed older and more experienced.

  “Oh no, that’s Mr. Tarkington. He’s a journeyman. But Joe, who handled the mold, he’s an apprentice in his last year.”