Smuggler's Moon sjf-8

by Bruce Alexander

  Sir John sighed. ”Indeed, sir, you’re right.” He hesitated but a moment, then turned to me. ”Jeremy, will you take Clarissa upstairs to her room?”

  “Certainly I will, Sir John.”

  “Can you find her room? As I recall, it is directly across from ours.”

  I assured him I had the location of both firmly in mind and would bring her safely to her own.

  “I could wake one of the staff,” Sir Simon offered. (One by one they had disappeared.)

  “No, Jeremy is quite capable.”

  By the time the discussion of my ability to deal with the situation had gone thus far, I had already persuaded Clarissa out of her chair, taken her firmly by the arm, and was marching her out of the grand dining room.

  “I’ll be back shortly,” I called out quietly to them.

  Yet I must have called loudly enough to bring her further awake, for she pulled herself up a bit and began to walk a bit more firmly.

  “Where are we going?” she asked.

  “Why, upstairs to your room, to put you to bed.”

  “Mmmm. That should be interesting.” She had been making far too many such remarks of late to suit me-not quite lewd but of a sort which might be understood in a number of different ways. It had been so with her ever since that evening when we two had been trapped briefly in the darkened cellar of Number 4 Bow Street. I made no response to her sally but started her up the great stairway.

  “Did I disgrace myself?”

  “No,” said I, ”nothing of the kind.”

  “That’s gratifying.”

  We continued to climb the stairs until, quite near the top, she spoke up again.

  “What if the ghost should suddenly appear at my door?”

  “Ghost indeed,” said I with a sniff. ”If he should be so unwise as to hang about your door, I should simply tell him to be gone. I should say to him, ‘Here you, get back to your grave, if you know what’s good for you. And none of your smelly farts.’”

  At that she giggled, and she continued giggling all the way to her room. I opened the door and glanced inside: a candle was burning on the bedside table, and her bed had been turned back.

  “Would you truly address the ghost so rudely?”

  “I would! You must be firm with his kind.”

  “Then you are my hero and my champion, and I shall reward you by permitting you to kiss me good night.”

  “Ah well,” said I, not wishing to kiss her but also not wishing to offend her, ”perhaps another time.”

  “No,” said she insistently, ”now. I’m prepared to wait right here until you do-all night, if need be.”

  Well, why not? It would be the quickest way to be gone, would it not? I leaned toward her and chose a spot high on her left cheek just below her eye.

  She stiffened and shrank back a few inches. ”On the lips,” said she in a manner which made it clear that she would brook no argument.

  Steeling myself for a proper meeting of the mouths, I saw no way now to withdraw. Well then, thought I, in for a penny, in for a pound. I would do it all quickly and be gone.

  But she would have none of that. Our lips had barely grazed when I felt her arms encircle me. Her lips pressed against mine. Her arms near squeezed the life from me. I felt utterly trapped. Yet it was for but a moment-for it was but the duration of a moment that she held me so. She stepped back, and I saw her cheeks redden with embarrassment: her boldness had exceeded even her own expectations, perhaps her own intentions, as well.

  She leapt over the threshold and into her room. As she shut the door behind her, I heard her call a good night to me.

  Well, thought I, hurrying away, the girl is obviously quite mad. Or perhaps it was the wine that she drank which has made her behave in this unaccountably wanton manner. She was truly making it difficult. Perhaps if I were to talk to her, reason with her, I might make her understand just how terribly awkward this will be for both of us.

  I started down the stairs at a jog trot, but then did my pace slow somewhat, for as I descended, I heard a voice from the dining room-it was none other than Sir John’s. Quite unmistakable, for when he spoke in argument, his voice fair thundered.

  “Again, if you will forgive me, Sir Simon, what I cannot, for the life of me, comprehend is how you could so swiftly and so completely alter your opinion of Albert Sarton in so short a time. You supported him. Without you, he would not have had a chance of becoming magistrate of Deal.”

  I sighed, admitting to myself how weary I was. I had eaten too much. I had drunk far too much. I wanted nothing better than to go to my own bed. Yet that, I feared, would be sometime in the future. It appeared that we were in for a long night of it.

  THREE

  In which Sir John meets Albert Sarton, Magistrate of Deal

  We were late leaving for town the next morning. By the time Sir John was up and had breakfasted, Sir Simon Grenville was long gone on his daily round of inspection. His vast holdings, which numbered near a thousand acres of rich Kent farmlands, had just been planted and so required his close attention-or so he told me that I might explain his absence to Sir John. Before leaving, he appointed Will Fowler, who had given us the speech of welcome at our arrival, to be our guide round the manor house. He took Clarissa on a proper tour of the place. I asked only that I be shown the library that I might choose a book to read whilst I waited for Sir John to rouse.

  And so there I was, sitting outside the door to our room, reading A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy, by the Reverend Mr. Sterne, listening for the familiar sounds of snuffling and coughing which prefaced his rising. I liked the book not so well as Tristram Shandy, yet liked it well enough to wish to read it through. Therefore I was, I confess, a bit disappointed when at last the morning overture did begin. Yet dutifully, I set the book aside and entered the room.

  “Jeremy? Is it you?”

  “It is, Sir John.”

  “Is it late?”

  “It’s getting on.”

  In answer to that, he simply grunted, made use of the chamber pot which I fetched to him, and expressed his desire to be shaved. It took a few minutes for me to make preparations, during which he began a recapitulation of his discussion the night before of Mr. Albert Sarton’s record as magistrate. Though it angered him to do so, he dwelt upon the details of the baronet’s argument-or rather, the lack of them.

  “I asked him to be specific,” said Sir John, ”and he could not be. Oh … well, he kept referring back to one case-only one, mind you-wherein Sir Simon had attempted to tip him on one gang of smugglers, yet he felt the magistrate had, ever afterward, turned a deaf ear to him and his tips. I must say, there seemed to be a good deal of personal pique involved in that. I should like to hear what Mr. Sarton has to say about it.”

  Sir John continued to grumble even as I proceeded to shave him.

  “You heard him, Jeremy. Did I miss some several proofs of his? I ask you, was he specific?”

  “No sir, he was not.”

  It is a risky matter to shave one who insists upon talking on, even as the sharp blade of the razor plays about his bobbing Adam’s apple. I warned him twice against it.

  “He did mention that Eccles fellow often, though, did he not?”

  “Yes sir, he did.”

  ”His contention seemed to be that if Eccles was against Mr. Sarton, then that was all the proof that was needed. He and Eccles may have formed a sort of alliance. I wonder who turned who against Sarton.”

  “Sir?”

  “I mean to say, was it Sir Simon or Eccles who first became prejudiced against the magistrate? And who then won the other over?”

  He went silent as he considered the questions he had raised. Carefully, watchfully, I resumed shaving him.

  “And why sh-ow!”

  I had cut him-or perhaps more accurately put, he had cut himself upon my innocent blade. Not, thank God, upon or near his throat. No, it was the tip of his chin that bled. Yet I was prepared. I reached into the kit and pull
ed forth the plaster preparation given me by our medico, Mr. Gabriel Donnelly. I dolloped a wad upon the cut and saw the bleeding stop.

  “How is it?” he asked.

  “All right now.”

  “Stopped bleeding, has it?”

  “It has, yes.”

  “You should be more careful.”

  “I should be more careful? Why, I told you twice you were taking a chance continuing to talk whilst I was shaving you.”

  He said nothing for a long moment. ”So you did,” said he at last. ”So you did.”

  When we two were deposited at Number 18 Middle Street, and I waved goodbye to Lord Mansfield’s driver and coachman, I felt an odd, sinking feeling. It was as if Sir John and I had been cast away upon an isle from which there might be no return. They would go back with the coach to London. How much, of a sudden, did I envy them!

  Yet why? Why this sense of desertion when, coming to Deal, I had been buoyed by a grand sense of adventure?

  In any case, they were gone, and there would be no calling them back; even less was there a chance of stealing away with them. Ah well, with Sir John about to inspirit me, I had not yet failed to rise to the occasion, nor did I intend to ever in the future.

  “Well, we are here, are we not?” said he. ”Shall we go meet the magistrate?” He placed his hand upon my forearm, and thus together we made direct for Number 18.

  Middle Street lay just above Beach Street, which fronted upon the sea, and just below High Street, where I was to meet Mr. Perkins in an hour’s time. The better part of Deal was scattered along these three streets. Will Fowler had told us that at its farther end, near Alfred Square, Middle Street was not near respectable and downright dangerous. ”You’d ought not venture there at night,” said he. Yet Number 18 was, in his view, well within the safe zone, day or night. Middle Street was as tight and narrow as any of those in London. The houses which lined it on either side-all of them brick or stone, so far as I could tell-were crammed together, wall to wall, street after street. Number 18, in which Mr. Albert Sarton resided and presided over his magistrate’s court, was a little larger (though not much) than the houses on either side of it. It was by no means imposing.

  I grasped the hand-shaped brass knocker firmly and slammed it thrice against the plate. We waited. I could hear the voices of a man and a woman from some distant part of the house, though it was quite impossible to tell what was said between them. Just as I grabbed at the knocker again and made ready to try my luck a second time, I heard footsteps beyond the door; they seemed to be moving at a steady clip down a long hall.

  And then a voice: ”Coming! Coming! Who is it at the door?”

  ”It is Sir John Fielding, come from London,” I cried loudly that I might be heard through the door.

  A bolt was thrown, a lock turned, and the door at last came open. There stood a woman of about thirty years. She was pretty enough, but panted with exertion and perspired freely from her red hair to the nape of her freckled neck (and no doubt beyond). Clearly, she had been hard at work. Was she the maid? I thought not, but in London the lady of the house would never present herself in such a state of dishevelment.

  “Good gracious, it’s him, an’t it?”

  Since she was not looking in my direction but beyond, I could only assume that she spoke not of me but of Sir John.

  “If it is me you speak of, young lady, then allow me to present myself a bit more formally. I am Sir John Fielding, magistrate of the Bow Street Court in London, and this is my young assistant, Jeremy Proctor. We are come to call upon Mr. Albert Sarton, magistrate of Deal. Is he in?”

  “Oh, he’s in, right enough, and he’s expecting you … tomorrow.”

  “Well then,” said Sir John, ”perhaps we should leave and return on the day we are expected.”

  “Oh no, I’ll not hear of it. Come in! Oh, do come in, please. We were just tidyin’ up the place in expectation of your visit.”

  There was something quite disarming about the way she sought to make us welcome. She beckoned us inside, urging us through the door, grasping him by the arm in a way he usually fought against. She told him to mind the bump there at the threshold. Heading us forward, she left us in a small room to the left of the door with a promise to tell ”Berty” of our arrival.

  “He’ll be with you before you know it.”

  I guided Sir John to a chair, which he eased into rather carefully. Very likely he was still fighting the effects of last night’s wine and brandy.

  We seemed to have been left in an office of some sort. The room was certainly no larger than the modest little chamber in our living quarters which Sir John called his ”study.” And it probably served Albert Sarton in the same way-providing him with a place to be alone and to think.

  “Is she Irish?” Sir John asked. ”She seems Irish.”

  “Well, she has red hair.”

  “That’s a start.”

  He was silent for a bit. ”Is she his wife?” he asked. ”What do you think?”

  “I believe so,” said I, after giving the matter due consideration. ”After all, she called him ‘Berry.’ If she were a housemaid, or any sort of servant, she would not have done that.”

  “True, yes, well, nobody told me that he was married.”

  I wondered how that might change things, yet I did not raise the question. Instead, I looked about me and studied the objects in the room and thus attempted to draw some picture of the man we had come to see. He was plainly a man of scholarly bent. A pile of books and papers upon the desk suggested to me that he was engaged in the writing of some weighty work-on the philosophy of jurisprudence, no doubt. I half-rose and strained to see the nature of the one book which lay open upon his desk: it was a Latin dictionary. Inwardly, I shuddered, for I had a great fear that my weakness in Latin might ultimately bar my entry into the legal profession. I brooded upon this, wondering where and how I might find a tutor in Latin and why, if I put my mind to it, I could not teach myself Latin-at least well enough to pass an examination of some sort.

  So completely was I taken up with my own matters that I failed to hear the footsteps down the long hall until they were nearly upon us. In fact, it was not until Sir John rose from his chair to meet the magistrate that I became aware that the latter was anywhere nearby. I jumped to my feet and made ready to be presented to him.

  Albert Sarton was short of stature and short of sight. I, who am even now no more than an ordinary average in height, was then near half a head taller than Mr. Sarton. As I ducked my head sharply in a quick little bow, I found myself face to face with him; he peered at me through spectacles near a quarter inch in thickness, smiled at me in friendly fashion, and shook the hand I offered him. Indeed I liked him quite well. But once the formalities had been observed, he turned his attention to Sir John.

  “Please believe me, sir,” said he to him, ”when I say that I feel quite honored to meet you. You are known far and wide.”

  “Ah yes, the Blind Beak of Bow Street,” said Sir John a bit dismissively, ”-the penny papers and such.”

  “By no means! Why, I recall hearing you quoted favorably at Oxford. It had to do with the problem of making the law fit the crime-something about …” He hesitated as his memory worked upon it. ”… about a villain who sold body parts taken from a murder victim …”

  “Ah yes,” said Sir John, ”he was indicted on a charge of disturbing the dead.”

  “Grave robbing, in effect, before the grave was dug.”

  “Something like that,” said Sir John modestly.

  “Oh, but please sit down, both of you.”

  We resumed our places, and Mr. Sarton squeezed round us to situate himself behind the desk.

  “Forgive me,” he said, ”for the mistake on the date of your arrival. I’d got a letter from the Lord Chief Justice telling me that you were on your way and that I was to cooperate with you in any and all ways which you might require. He did not name a date or a day, but said, rather, ‘in two days’ time.’
You arrived only a day later.”

  “Ah well,” said Sir John, ”Lord Mansfield gave me the loan of his coach-and-four to make the trip down here. And his driver seems to go everywhere at full gallop.”

  ”That then was no doubt the root of the misunderstanding.

  “No doubt, but dear God, Mr. Sarton, did he truly say that you were to cooperate in any and all ways which I might require?”

  “Those may not have been his exact words, but they are as I remember them.”

  “Then he has made it sound appallingly like a court-martial.”

  Mr. Sarton stared at him for a moment, saying nothing. Then: ”Is that not the nature of your inquiry?”

  Thus it came Sir John’s turn to maintain a solemn quiet. ”No sir,” said he after near a minute of cold silence, ”it is not. I have not the authority to act as a one-man tribunal in judgment upon you. I would not want such authority. I am here in answer to a complaint regarding the manner in which you have discharged your duties. I am here, to put it another way, to inquire into your methods and their effectiveness.”

  “Who made this complaint? Or have I not the right to know?”

  “If you expect me to reject your question as impertinent, I must disappoint you. The identity of the accuser is indeed pertinent. A man has the right to face him who sullies his name, else we are all to be in mortal dread of every manner of rumor, false witness, and he which is told of us. And so you may know that the complaint against you was made by George Eccles, Chief Customs Officer for east Kent.”

  “Eccles, is it! Indeed, I should have known. He has been against me from near the start. With what, specifically, has he charged me?”

  “He has said that you are either corrupt in the discharge of your office, or the most incompetent ever in the history of the magistracy.”

  “But … the specifics, the incidents?”

  “He gave none.” Sir John paused. ”Let me assure you,

  Mr. Sarton, that Lord Mansfield, to whom the complaint was made, would not have taken Eccles’s complaint seriously but for his position; nor would he have sent me down to look into these matters had he himself not taken a personal interest in you here in Deal.”