The Demoniacs

by John Dickson Carr

  In the doorway stood Sir Mortimer Ralston, huge and swaying, a man clearly in illness near to collapse.

  He had raised one hand as though for an appeal His mouth was open, jowls sagging; he seemed trying hard to speak. And yet, either from illness or from the violence of his own emotion, he could force out no words. He stood holding to the door-jamb, in a flowered chamber-robe and with the usual blue-and-red dressing-cap pulled down over the ears on his wigless head.

  Jeffrey, as much appalled as seeing a possible way out for Peg, halted and went towards him. But Sir Mortimer did not speak. Evidently he heard, as Jeffrey heard, the stealthy movement from the foyer below. He lurched back into the room, gasping; the door closed, and there was a metallic click as he bolted it in the visitor’s face.

  Then Jeffrey ran.

  He ran as lightly as he could down a polished black-and-white stairs of such solid wood that it might have been marble. A grandfather clock on the landing showed the time as three minutes past nine. Though the foyer remained nearly dark with curtains still drawn and no candle lighted in its carved and gilded chandelier, a little glow shone through the balustrades above. Jeffrey reached the foot of the stairs, and someone touched his elbow from behind.

  “Sir, I can help,” whispered an all but inaudible voice. “Miss Peg, Sir, I can help.”

  The tall and dark-haired lady’s maid Kitty slipped round in front of him. Against the right-hand wall near the foot of the stairs was a high, solid cabinet built in the gilded ridges of a pagoda, with a grotesque little bell at each corner of the top.

  Kitty, wringing her hands in a gesture reminiscent of Peg, stood facing him with her back to the cabinet.

  “Mrs. Salmon’s Waxwork,” she whispered. “Mrs. Salmon’s Waxwork. Fleet Street Four o’clock. Sir—”

  Whereupon so communicable is panic, she whispered some blurted words which he could not hear and which nobody could have heard.

  “Yes?” Jeffrey whispered back. “What is it?”

  “Sir—”

  “What is it Kitty? What are you saying?”

  “Yes, girl?” struck in another voice. “What are you saying?”

  Kitty jumped and shrank away with the effect of disappearing. Just in her place, as noiselessly as ever, loomed up the major-domo with the supercilious eye and the iron-shod staff.

  “It’s you, cully,” he said with pleasure. “Madam rang. I know what to do. Now, cully—” He lifted the staff to bring it down on the floor and summon help.

  It did not touch the floor. Jeffrey’s left hand snatched it away; his right hand, closing hard round the man’s throat, jerked the major-domo high on his heels as though lifted in a noose. The back of the man’s head struck with a crack against the edge of the pagoda-ridge that was just above. You could see the white eyeballs roll up and glisten against light higher up. Grotesquely, too, there was still a faint clashing from toylike bells as the man’s body slid down.

  Panic caught Jeffrey too; he had not meant to strike so hard. And it was all for nothing. Kitty had gone; he could not see her anywhere. He did see the two footmen, who must have been close behind the major-domo in any case, emerge from the back of the foyer.

  He ran for the street-door, got it open, and avoided slamming it or bolting down the steps into the square. There was no hue-and-cry as he walked casually, looking back over his shoulder; he had not expected one.

  But never had fool’s errand been so botched.

  Even if he escaped a charge of assault or worse, even if he believed he had learned some truths about an enigmatic pair of rogues, there was nothing here to assist Peg. Only Justice Fielding could help him now.

  VII

  —And Justice Fielding in the Parlour

  “NO,” SAID MR. JOHN Fielding. “Regrettable as it may seem, I think I can’t interfere in this.”

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  “My reasons, though I don’t choose to disclose them, are just and compelling. They are in your interest as well as hers. The girl must go to prison.”

  “Sir, this is a lady of quality.”

  “I am not unaware of it.”

  “Nor will you be committing anyone for trial,” said Jeffrey. “You sit in judgment on a light offence; yours is the sole decision, even when you sit with one or two brother justices. You can let her go if you will.”

  “I am not,” Justice Fielding remarked dryly, “unaware of that tidier.”

  Jeffrey, turning away, put his forehead against the window-pane and looked out into the street.

  Justice Fielding sat in rather complacent fashion before the fire-place of his front parlour. There was no fire in the grate; the September sun had turned warm. He sat as he usually did when at home: under the row of blue-china plates along the chimney-piece, his sightless eyes turned towards the speaker, a table at his right elbow and a switch in his hand. He would carry that switch on the bench, waving it gently in front of him to clear his way when he descended.

  It was a strong, calm face, if a trifle pompous. The sightless eyes, lids nearly shut, were without patch or bandage. They said of him that he could recognize two thousand lawbreakers from the sound of their voices alone.

  “Jeffrey!”

  “Justice Fielding?”

  “I desire my people to be runners, yet not to use their legs on every occasion. You need not have run from St. James’s Square.”

  “I ceased to run ten minutes ago.”

  “I am not unaware of it. But it is still discernible in your breathing. You should have taken a sedan-chair.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Ah?” said the justice, catching even the inflection in a voice. “You have been thriftless again? After I gave you special leave of absence for your profit? This won’t do. You might belong to the lower orders, for all I can teach you providence. It won’t do. We can’t have it. Here.”

  Diving with his hand into a capacious side pocket, he let a handful of coins roll out on the table.

  “Sir—”

  “Take it,” the magistrate said gruffly. “This is no charity, understand. It shall be earned. You have been too long away, and I have need of your wits. There is work today, in particular at Ranelagh.”

  “Under favour, my only work now concerns Miss Ralston. When they carry her from round-house to court …”

  “She is here already. By my particular order she was fetched two hours ago.”

  The images in Jeffrey’s mind had been growing progressively worse.

  “Here? In that foul place behind the court? Amid a parcel of prigs and mill-kens and bridle-culls?* Not to mention the whores?”

  “Patience. She is above-stairs here in my own quarters. Under guard, but apart from the rest. I have questioned her closely with regard to last night.”

  In this wainscotted parlour, with the blue-china plates above the mantelpiece and the Dutch clock on the wall, there were two doors. One door led to passage and staircase; the other led to more living-quarters at the rear. The Dutch clock, ticking busily, pointed at half-past nine.

  Jeffrey took a step forward.

  “May I see her?”

  “No, I fear not. Patience, I say. Before I am resolved on my decision concerning this girl, there are questions for you to answer on other matters. Can you put your mind to this?”

  “Why, if you are not yet quite resolved,” Jeffrey told him with a violent uneasy surge of hope, “I can put my mind to it fast enough.”

  “Very well.”

  Taking up the switch, which he had set aside when he shook out coins, Mr. Fielding moved it absently in the air as he gathered up his thoughts.

  “The woman Cresswell and the man Tawnish.” He spoke abruptly. “How is it that these two, of questionable antecedents and still more questionable behaviour, seem to move as they choose in good society?”

  “I can’t tell. None can tell. My late father, quoting my grandfather, used to say …”

  “Your grandfather was called Mad Tom Wynne? And your father, r
egretfully, sometimes of judgment just as loose?”

  “That is unimportant. Such people as Mrs. Cresswell and Mr. Tawnish are forever found in the great world. They are there; they seem always to have been there; nobody knows why.”

  “Imprimis, then, I think we may forget this adventure in St. James’s Square. Your account gave facts, not conclusions. But we can’t touch the woman yet. You agree?”

  “I fear so. It was botched.”

  “It was. You should have got authority for going there; a word would have sufficed; still, I doubt there’ll be a charge against you. And this major-domo fellow belongs to the lower orders, who must be held in strictest suspicion lest they turn to bad ways and find a good gallows awaiting them.”

  Again Justice Fielding meditated.

  “As for the swordplay last night, which your young lady seems so much to admire in her telling of it: duelling is abhorrent. But you were provoked to it, and you rendered great service. We know the man Tawnish for a common cheat, enjoying every means” from packed cards to the rigger’s device of trumps in the sleeve-cuff. Thus far he has been safe from the law. Now, thanks to what you did, we’ll lay him by the heels in a short time.”

  “Thanks to what I did? How?”

  The blind eyes were turned full on Jeffrey.

  “Come, use your wits. He has not been safe because of his dexterousness. He has been safe because of his repute as a swordsman. The victims he plucked were too much in fear of him to protest or lodge complaint with the law. Since that bubble has been burst—and such tales are heard very quickly —they’ll run to lodge complaint with me and state their evidence. Then we have him, and so has Newgate or Tyburn.”

  “True.” Jeffrey looked out the window. “It had not occurred to me.”

  “It should have. You have some few things still to learn. Now, then, with regard to last night’s events in general; with regard to the girl Peg Ralston, and the woman who called herself Grace Delight.”

  “Sir, how much do you know about what occurred last night?”

  “All the girl herself knows. More, I fancy, than she desired to tell me.”

  Jeffrey stared down at the raucous throng in Bow Street, bracing himself. Though the eyes might not see him or read his face, he felt John Fielding’s mind plucking at his mind to draw out secrets. At least, he reflected, Peg had not seen that portrait in the upper room above the Magic Pen. And also …

  “Yes?” he said.

  “Turn your head,” Justice Fielding said sharply. “You are speaking away from me.”

  “So I am. Do you desire to hear of the events leading up to Peg’s arrest?”

  “No. She has already told me those. I desire to hear what occurred afterwards.”

  “Well, she was taken in charge by the watch, two of them, backed by an over-zealous friend of mine named Captain Beresford.”

  “This is also known to me. Did the watch question her? Did Captain Beresford question her?”

  “They attempted to do so. I had told Tubby of an old woman dead of fright, but denied Peg’s presence. They now seemed seized with the notion Peg must be responsible for the death, though this bore no relation to the charge against her. I prevented questioning, but Peg was in very ill condition. Sir, how is she now?”

  “Not well. To continue: did they go above-stairs? Or make a search of the premises? Or see the dead woman’s body?”

  “No. They accepted Dr. Abel’s account of the woman’s death, which was a true one. Peg was already below in the passage. And they were not at all easy or happy on those premises; they left in all haste, except …”

  “Except what? You have a thoughtful sound.”

  “Tubby Beresford swore the place must be locked up. I said there was no key, and believed so; but Tubby found an old key hanging on a nail beside the stairs. The street-door was locked; Tubby kept the key, and set stricter guard on the bridge. He is as scrupulous as you.”

  “And then? Continue.”

  “There is little more to tell. Dr. Abel went to his home; he will make report to coroner and parish clerk this morning. And I, as perhaps you know, presently went banging at your door and Sir Mortimer Ralston’s to enlist aid on Peg’s behalf. Nobody so much as looked out a window, let alone opening to me.”

  “It was in the small hours of the morning, I think. What else could you expect at such an hour? Even so, why were you so long about it? Was there nothing else?” “Nothing else?” “Nothing, for instance, that took place between the time of the arrest and the time you went hammering at doors to no purpose?”

  “Yes,” answered Jeffrey, bracing himself again. “Yes, there was.”

  “You followed the two watchmen when they carried this girl to the round-house in Great Eastcheap? And you offered them a bribe to release her. Is this true?”

  “Yes.”

  “Since the girl wore handsome clothes and was of evident position in the world, these hearties named a high price. When you agreed, they doubled it. You agree again. But they knew you for one of my secret officers and feared you would betray them. Whereat, having taken your money and got the girl behind bars, they would not release her. In such fashion you spent the last of what you had received from Sir Mortimer Ralston. Is this also true?”

  “It is.”

  Justice Fielding’s voice grew more harsh.

  “Do you think it unknown to me,” he asked, “that all the watchmen, and nearly all my secret officers, are as open to bribes as any menial of the late Sir Robert Walpole? If they thought they could escape detection they would arrest an innocent person for a crown-piece or release a guilty one for half as much. But I had expected better of you.”

  “Then you were mistaken.”

  Even forgetting in his rage that he could not be seen, Jeffrey walked up to the magistrate and gestured at the coins on the table.

  “There’s your own money. If you are finished playing at cat-and-mouse, let me bid your tactics to the devil and you too. Dismiss me from your service and have done with it. Or, if there is a charge to be preferred—”

  “Now, who spoke of dismissal? Am I so well provided with good officers that I can afford to lose my only honest one?”

  “Honest?” Jeffrey repeated, and eyed the Dutch clock. “That is what I begin to wonder.”

  “I don’t wonder, when you are open with me. The bribery I overlook. You are fond of this girl; you would not take a bribe, though you don’t hesitate to give one. And what sort of example does this set? Good God, what’s to be done by a magistrate-in-chief who would stamp out all wrongdoing—ay, and will contrive it too—if he have no help from those about him? In any event, what could you have hoped to gain by it? The girl would only have been taken in custody again.”

  “Guilty or not? That is one of the things I desire to mention. May I speak frankly?”

  “By all means, if you speak civilly.”

  In desperation Jeffrey stalked towards the window, and turned back again.

  “If I have offended you, sir, I make apology. But not one question you ask, or one matter with which you seem concerned, relates to the only offence charged against Peg. It is not said, I think, she was guilty of any wrong-doing on London Bridge last night? Or might be implicated in a murder?”

  “A murder? What murder? The old woman affrighted herself to death, or was affrighted by shadows. Though there is a mystery here,” Justice Fielding’s thoughts seemed to turn inwards, “and this may be useful. Why do you suggest murder?”

  “I don’t suggest it!—not in sober earnest.”

  “Well, then?”

  “The charge against Peg is of common harlotry. And that is a lie. She is innocent.”

  “Under the law, Jeffrey, she is whatever her uncle and guardian declares her to be.”

  “Under favour, sir: not altogether. In addition to the information laid by her uncle, some person must appear in court and give evidence of harlotry. The witness may be challenged and cross-questioned to sound the truth of the business.
This is so, surely?”

  “It is so,” Mr. Fielding assented.

  “Well, whoever shall appear against her, I propose to challenge the witness. And, if you lend but half a sympathetic ear for honesty’s sake, I am sure I can convince you the charge is false.”

  “The evidence before me,” Justice Fielding said slowly, “may be given by written statement.”

  “But such testimony may also be challenged in the same way?”

  “Oh, it must be still more closely scrutinized.”

  “Then for the life of me I can’t fathom why you should be so dubious, or regard Peg’s jailing as an all but foregone conclusion. Since she is innocent, and you will scrutinize all evidence, whose testimony then can convict her?”

  “Yours,” replied Justice Fielding.

  During a long silence, while the Dutch clock ticked remorselessly, he put down the switch. Touching sure fingertips across the coins on the table, he took up a small handbell and made it clatter.

  “You would have this,” he said. “I tried to spare you, but you would have it. Now you needs must have it whether you like it or no.”

  The door to the passage opened. Joshua Brogden, his ancient clerk, entered with spectacles on nose and sheaf of papers in hand. Justice Fielding sat back in stately fashion, fingertips together.

  “Brogden!”

  “Your Worship?”

  “You are acquainted with Mr. Wynne. Pray read the letter you have by you.”

  “Yes, Your Worship. It is dated,” continued Brogden, turning over papers without looking at Jeffrey, “it is dated at Paris, as of some days ago, and addressed to Sir Mortimer Ralston in care of Hookson’s, the goldsmiths, of Leadenhall Street. It reads—”

  “No, stop. We need not distress a man unnecessarily. Give us the matter and substance of the letter.”

  “It states that Sir Mortimer’s niece has been recovered from a house at Versailles used as a school for young women in—in some place with a foreign name—”