The Price of Murder sjf-10

by Bruce Alexander

  “Well,” said I, recalling Clarissa’s instructions, “those are certainly favorable odds.”

  “They are indeed.”

  By the time we found our way to the tap-room, we could only hope that Mr. Deuteronomy would still be present, for we two together had caught bettor’s fever. Mr. Patley spun great fantasies of just what he might do if he were to put all his money on Pegasus or perhaps kept a modest hedge bet or two upon the favorites, Charade and Red Devil. In any case, any bet at 33 to 1 would bring him wealth he had never hoped for in a lump sun. The difficulty was, said he, that deep down, he was a practical man, and even to dream of such wealth made him a bit uneasy. Still, said he, what might he do with a large sum? buy land? build a house? perhaps get married? It was all too much for a man of modest ambitions such as himself even to consider. (All of which was nonsense, of course. He was a betting man and a dreamer.)

  All this went on as I washed myself, brushed the dust from my clothes, and generally prepared myself for dinner below. For myself, my case of bettor’s fever, though not so virulent as Patley’s, came upon me quietly and in the form of a question: To talk of hedging bets was one thing, but to do that was to bet against Mr. Deuteronomy, and, knowing him as well as I did, how could I then do such a thing? When I was a mere boy in the service of Sir John, I used to be certain that, as I grew a bit older, matters would become more certain and less complicated. Yet I have found that the truth of it is just the opposite.

  In any case, as I have said, what with Mr. Patley’s fantasies of great wealth and the problems it would bring, and my own moral difficulties considering friendship along with the thrill of wagering all or none, we two were late enough that I feared we might have missed Deuteronomy altogether. But no, he was there at a table within sight of the door, waving us over, bidding us to our places.

  “We’re late,” said I as I sat down.

  “Think nothin’ of it,” said he. “Until a short time past there was a great long line awaiting tables. I’ve sat just long enough for a glass of wine.”

  “We was stunned to see the odds posted on Pegasus,” said Mr. Patley.

  “What does that mean-thirty-three to one?” I asked.

  “What that means,” said Mr. Deuteronomy, “is that the gamblers don’t think we got a chance in hell to win. And that suits me just fine.”

  “But aren’t you insulted?”

  “Not a bit. How could they think anything else? Pegasus has got no racing history, and I’ve taken care to exercise him too early or too late for them to get much of a look at him. I’m still confident.”

  “You are. . truly?” I asked in a manner most naive.

  “Oh yes. I spend a good part of the day at the rail looking over the rest of the field. I ain’t impressed. But I’ll tell you how confident I am,” said he, lowering his voice. “I’ve got a hundred pounds with me that I intend to bet on Pegasus on race day if I can just drive the odds up a little higher.”

  “Maybe the Duke of Queensberry will have something to say about that,” said Mr. Patley. “He knows his horses-or so they say. He might risk a few thousand on Pegasus. God knows he could afford it.”

  “He owns Charade. He wouldn’t bet against his own. But enough of this, eh? I, for one, am quite starvin’. The beef here is good, and the mutton ain’t bad, neither.”

  We ordered, we ate, we drank, and, at last, I did remember why it was we had gathered at Mr. Deuteronomy’s invitation. The tap-room had by then emptied out considerably. There were but three or four other tables at which diners and drinkers sat, though the bar was yet well-filled and noisy. But as our purpose there came to me, I thought it important enough to interrupt the discussion of horses and horse-racing between the jockey and the constable, which never seemed to end, and to ask of him a question.

  “Mr. Deuteronomy, sir, you said that you had something to tell. What might that be?”

  “Ah yes, so I did,” said he. “It may not be specially significant, but I hear tell that it’s the details that people sometimes pass over that turn out to be most important.”

  “That’s the way it is more often than not,” said Constable Patley, pretending to have an authority he did not really possess.

  “Just as I thought. Well, it was today it came to me whilst Bennett and me were visiting Pegasus in the stable. My sister told me something-actually two things that I thought might help you find him-and through him, her. She gave a name to Maggie’s father, and I believe it was Stephen. Now, as I said, she described him as tall and fair. I b’lieve she said, he had straw-colored hair. Did I tell you that?”

  “I’m not sure,” said I, quite honestly.

  “Well, that’s a description of a sort, ain’t it? And there’s this, too. She made some remark about waking up beside him with hay in her hair. Now that, to me, says that she was sleeping in a hayloft. Where do they have haylofts?”

  “Well, all over-in farms for one.”

  “Where else?”

  “In stables,” said I, “right here in town. So if we find a young fellow, tall and fair, named Stephen, working in a stable here, then we’re also likely to find her?”

  “That’s as I see it,” said Mr. Deuteronomy.

  “Well, I be damned,” said Constable Patley.

  When we ended, we two thanked Mr. Deuteronomy most effusively and respectfully as our host settled the bill with the serving woman. We began drifting away. But our host summoned me back by name. Mr. Patley, eager to get himself to the jakes, hurried on.

  “What will you, sir?” said I, returning.

  “A couple of matters,” said he, “that I’d like to discuss with you. The first is none of my affair. I’m simply Lord Lamford’s errand boy in this. Last thing he said to me was he didn’t want me talking to you anymore. You can see by the way we spent the last hour or so, just how much I respect that.”

  “But why?” said I. “Why should he object to me?”

  “I be damned if I know-except somehow or other he’s gotten wind that you work for the Blind Beak. He said something about you having no right to nose about where you’re not wanted for Sir John. So I was going to ask you not to come to Pegasus’s evening workout. You’re welcome to come to the one in the morning. He never gets up till noon, anyways. If his lordship ain’t around, we can talk. Suit you?”

  I sighed. “Suits me well enough.”

  “Well and good. Now, the second matter is from me and me alone, and it concerns me and me alone, and I’d like it to be confidential between us two. Agreed?”

  “Agreed.”

  “I’d like you to place that hundred-pound bet for me, the one I mentioned I was going to put down on Pegasus, put it in your name and not mine.”

  “Would I be doing anything illegal if I did?”

  “No, I would never ask you to do anything like that. They get nervous when they see a jockey wearing racing colors placing a bet on any horse.”

  “I can understand that.”

  “And I want you to wait until just before the race, because there’s just a chance that the odds may be even more favorable then. We’ll see. I’ll get the money to you on race day. But that’s the day after tomorrow, ain’t it?”

  Then did we part with a clap and shake of the hands.

  EIGHT

  In which we capture our quarry and the race is run

  Next morning, Mr. Patley and I were up and out very early. In point of fact, we arrived only minutes after Deuteronomy, Bennett, and Pegasus. There was but a suggestion of gray dawn in the east as we took our places at the rail end. Yet it grew lighter and lighter most swiftly, and by the time Pegasus was saddled and the jockey was atop the horse, it was not long till sunrise. All this was done in near-complete silence. There seems to be something in the early morning air that enforces quiet. Mr. Deuteronomy made no effort whatever to attempt to communicate with me.

  He took two laps at a trot, then a canter, and back to a trot, then, for the first time that morning, at a full gallop, and only the
n was Pegasus allowed a walk. The important thing, as Mr. Patley explained it, was to keep the horse moving. Yet there was never any sign from Pegasus that he wished to rest. He seemed always to be ready to go round again at full gallop-and not only to be ready, but eager to do so.

  Mr. Patley shook his head and whispered to me, “I never saw a horse so willing.”

  At the first sign of another horse and rider, Deuteronomy pulled him in and ended Pegasus’s sport. No more gallops, though he might be permitted to prance a bit.

  “What say you to a bit of breakfast?” asked Mr. Patley. “My turn to buy.”

  “Well,” said I, “that suits me well, but let’s return by way of the market.”

  “Why? You so hungry that you can’t wait?”

  “No, it’s just that I was figuring that if we’re hungry, then Stephen and Alice must be, too. I think it’s a good time of the day to look for her there.”

  “How is it you always got an answer for me that makes good sense?”

  “I guess I’m just a sensible young fellow,” said I.

  “There you go,” said Patley. “You did it again.”

  The market area was even larger than I had at first realized. There was a whole street of fruit and vegetables that led off from the market square, which I had not noticed previously. The sun was well up now, and the crowd from the hill poured down from above. I dawdled my way through the market that the constable might have a chance to peer into the face of each and every woman we passed, whether she be dressed in a teal-blue or a plum-colored frock, or whatever. Alas, he looked in vain, for she was nowhere to be seen. I rewarded him for his effort with an apple-from the barrel, of course, but unbruised and unspotted. It cost me a pretty penny.

  Up at the inn, eating a breakfast of johnny-cakes and coffee, we discussed how we might go about seeking Alice Plummer, and what we might do with her if and when she be captured.

  “’Twould be an awful pity to leave Newmarket before the race is run,” said he to me.

  “Well,” said I, “that’s true enough. I’ve even agreed to do a favor for someone. I’d have to back out of my promise if we headed right back to London.”

  Mr. Patley put on a gloomy face and let go a great sigh. “It ain’t good to back out of a promise. That someone you’re doing the favor for wouldn’t happen to be Mr. Deuteronomy, would it?”

  “It might be just anyone, but I’m not free to say who it is.”

  “I’ll take that to mean that I’m right.”

  “Just as you choose,” said I with a smile.

  And why the smile? Not merely to bedevil Mr. Patley, for there were simpler ways of doing that. I’d had an idea, one that would make it unnecessary to tie our prisoner to the bed in our room at the Good Queen Bess; to bind and gag her; or to do anything that might ultimately prove embarrassing to us and reflect badly upon Sir John; one, in short, that would work to the satisfaction of all except Alice Plummer.

  Though I now had an idea of just where Alice might be, and Mr. Deuteronomy had told us enough about Stephen so that we might recognize him in a small crowd, it was still no easy matter to find them. We must have visited near a dozen stables, asking for Stephen, telling our lies and half-truths about our need to find him, lies that sounded merely specious even to me. Then, let us say, at the thirteenth stable (it may have been at a greater or lesser number, but that is what we shall call it), we found our Stephen.

  Mr. Deuteronomy’s description had done him fair justice: he was tall (about six feet) and certainly fair (his hair was so blond that it appeared at first look to be white), and he could not deny his name was Stephen, for he answered to it when Mr. Patley bellowed out the name. He came from the rear of the stable, a pail of water in his hand. I allowed Mr. Patley to take the lead at this place, as he had at each one thus far.

  “Your name is Stephen, then?” Mr. Patley asked.

  “Supposing it is,” he said, “what was it you wanted?”

  “We’re looking for a woman named Alice-Alice Plummer. Do you know her?”

  He gave it some thought, then pouched his lower lip and shook his head in a firm denial. “No, I can’t say I do.” Then he surprised us by adding, “But I used to know a woman by that same name, I think it was. What was the last name again?”

  “Plummer.”

  “Yes, I knew an Alice Plummer, all right, but that was seven or so years ago.”

  “Oh, well, have you seen her about in the last few days?”

  “Why no. Is she here?”

  “She’s been seen. If you happen to run into her, or if she comes by for a visit, ask her to get in touch with us, will you? That’s Mr. Proctor and Mr. Patley at the Good Queen Bess. We’re up here from London, and we’ve a message for her about her daughter.”

  “Well, what is the message? I’ll pass it on to her if I see her.”

  For some reason, Mr. Patley looked at me in an inquiring manner, as if wondering what now he might say and asking me for a suggestion. I was ready for him.

  “We’ve been told to give the message to none but her,” said I. “Sorry.”

  He hesitated, and then, certain there was no other way out, he promised to pass the message on to Alice, should he happen to run into her. We left him, staring after us and looking a bit confused.

  We were no more than a few steps away and just out of earshot when, in quiet tones, I called the constable’s attention to a wall just round the corner where we might wait for Alice.

  “I give her five minutes at the most,” said I.

  “Closer to two, I vow.”

  If we’d had a wager riding on it, Mr. Patley would have won. There was no mistaking her voice: first, a mildly acrimonious overture as she and Stephen wrangled over whether or not she should go to the inn and discover the nature of the message about Maggie.

  “Alice, dear Alice, don’t you understand? ’Tis only a device to force you out, to get you to show yourself.”

  “And don’t you understand?” came the muffled reply (for they were still inside the stable). I’ve little choice-none at all! If Maggie needs me, then I must go to her.”

  Then did they quite explode into view-she running out the door of the stable, and he pursuing her, catching her up, grasping her arm to pull her back. The two nearly collided with another couple, older and ill-tempered, who abused them with harsh words and curses. Then, as Alice struggled to free herself from Stephen’s grip, they gathered a crowd round them, which was not at all to our liking. Yet those in the crowd were mostly women, and they set up a great din in her favor; whores and pickpockets were they by the look of them; they were her jury, and they found in her favor.

  “Leave her be!”

  “Unhand her, you bully!”

  “She did naught to deserve such treatment, I wager.”

  Her friend Stephen found it impossible to withstand such force. In spite of myself, I pitied him, though had he prevailed, our immediate problem might have been greatly complicated. Yet his last words could have been, and should have been, much gentler.

  As he released her, he snarled, “Awright then, you drunken cow, you’re goin’ into a trap. I’ll do what I can for you, but I’ll have to wait till my relief comes on.” He turned away and headed back to the stable.

  Alice, now free to go, stumbled about for a moment, looking round her wildly. Then, without a word to her rescuers, she set off down the hill at an awkward run.

  I had then to restrain Constable Patley. He was all for catching her up and detaining her soon as ever we could-chasing her down, if need be.

  “No,” said I, “all we need do is keep her within sight. And even if we should lose her, there is little doubt that she will be there awaiting us.”

  We trampled along a good many yards behind her. No longer attempting to run, she now walked, staggering a bit, balancing with some effort. Years of gin-drinking had plainly taken a toll upon her.

  In spite of all, I felt troubled-though I could not at first fathom the reason. It cam
e to me then that I felt guilty. In spite of the fact that we had found Alice Plummer and would soon have her safely in custody, the means we had used to do this preyed upon my conscience somewhat. Had we not used Alice’s own maternal feelings against her? Indeed we had. But had she not also acted against these same feelings when she sent her daughter off to be the paramour of one whose notions of carnal love were utterly perverted? Yet had she known that of him? What Katy Tiddle had said suggested she had not. But reporting Maggie as a stolen child to Mr. Patley indicated that she suspicioned that something was not right about the unnamed recipient of her child. And why, if she truly believed she were bettering Maggie’s life, had she accepted money for her child?

  Such questions always seemed to be clouded over with moral considerations of this sort, so why, indeed, should I feel guilty? And why, for a final why, must all be so damnably complicated?

  In point of fact, we did lose her just as she came to the Good Queen Bess, yet that was because she had circled round it that she might enter respectably by the front door of the place.

  She was leaning forward over the desk, speaking in a rather distraught manner to him in charge. Indeed, she was repeating our names over and over again. Then did he glimpse us with obvious relief as we entered.

  “Ah, but here they are now. What a happy coincidence!”

  She whirled round and, seeing us, ran to us.

  “I heard you had a message from my daughter,” said she, wheezing slightly from her trip downhill.

  “No,” said I, “that’s not quite right.”

  She turned from me in disappointment and looked hopefully at Constable Patley. “It was you who said it, wasn’t it? But-but I know you from before, don’t I?”

  “That’s right, Alice. You and me talked together.”

  “About Maggie, wasn’t it?”

  “Maybe we could step inside the tap-room. We could sit in there and talk,” I suggested.

  She frowned at me in a somewhat befuddled way.

  “Would you like something to drink?”