“Thank you. How is Sir Mortimer?”
“He is in much the same condition. Perhaps a little better, Dr. Hunter thinks, though still insensible.”
“Where is Mrs. Cresswell?”
“She is gone.”
“Gone?”
“Tut! The lady is not gone for good, though I wish I could say that too. She is gone abroad for the evening, or so I apprehend; no more.— Mr. Wynne, where are you going?”
Now, why had everyone here become so uneasy? Was it the presence of death, or near-death? Hughes closed the door with a soft and echoing slam. Each tick of the grandfather clock on the landing tapped its beat against a hollow of silence. Jeffrey, hurrying towards the stairs, glanced back over his shoulder.
“There is a matter which must be investigated in Mrs. Cress-well’s dressing-room. Peg, will you be good enough to remain with Mr. Brogden?”
“The young lady will remain,” Brogden answered. “You have nothing else to tell me, I daresay? Concerning Major Skelly for instance?”
“Yes. He is dead. I shot him.”
Brogden’s hand quivered at the side of his spectacles. Without looking back again, Jeffrey took the stairs three treads at a time.
In the upstairs corridor, with its marble floor and its arched roof where gods and goddesses were painted on plaster, wax-lights again burned in wall-sconces. He glanced at the closed door of Sir Mortimer’s room; to his imagination, at least, even the doorway breathed of drugs and death. He hurried on to Lavinia Cresswell’s room at the front overlooking the square.
It was empty. The yellow-brocade curtains on the two windows facing forward, like the yellow-brocade curtains of the immense bed in the alcove at the left, were tightly drawn over closed shutters. But good illumination came from five tapers burning in a candelabrum on the dressing-table against the wall to the right.
The place remained as stuffy as it had been that morning, underlain by a scent of rice-powder. Outwardly Lavinia Cresswell’s room seemed as neat as Lavinia Cresswell’s person; her image seemed to walk there.
Jeffrey stood just inside the door, staring across at the dressing-table, with its mirror hooded in pale-blue silk and more of the same material draping it in folds to the floor. Now that he had made such haste to get here, he half-dreaded testing what he hoped was true.
Every piece of furniture, made by Mr. Chippendale, stood out in polished wood against white walls or a Savonnerie carpet. Jeffrey went across to the dressing-table and opened the silk-masked drawer below the ledge. The drawer, which should have contained two documents written on parchment, was empty.
“This does not matter!” He realized he was speaking aloud. “There will be a record at Doctors’ Commons. This does not matter!”
But he yanked the drawer almost completely out to make sure he had overlooked nothing. It remained empty.
A ripple went up across the candle-flames. Outside, from far across the square, a stentorian voice seemed to be speaking between pauses and shuffling movements. It was only a footman calling coaches on the steps outside Mr. Pitt’s. But it was so thin and distant, with no words distinguishable, that it might have been summoning the dead from their narrow houses at past midnight.
The private coaches, called chariots, commenced to gather and rumble away. Jeffrey looked back from the windows, and down again at the dressing-table.
The yellow-cushioned dressing-stool, its surface heavily pressed down, had been pushed round at right angles to the table. Across the surface of the table, itself a dusting of rice-powder had drifted or had been spilled.
And Jeffrey, attention arrested, bent to study it.
Boxes and jars of unguents had been pushed back against the mirror, together with a hare’s foot for applying powder. Against this spilled powder there was a mark as though some rectangular object, such as a large and heavy jewel-box, had rested there before it was picked up. There were several smaller marks, blurred, which seemed to indicate someone might have brushed the surface with the underside of a closed hand.
“And the blurred mark on the edge of the table: was it a broom leaning there? Or, instead …”
He was speaking aloud again. Though not conscious of this, he had the unmistakable eerie sensation of eyes fixed upon him. He straightened up, looking round past the candelabrum. It was only Peg, who had slipped in unnoticed, but she wore such a look that fear struck him again.
“Peg, what is it? What’s amiss?”
“Your face!”
“My what?”
“The right side of your face! I had not seen it in a good light.”
Fear collapsed in exasperation at the trivial. Jeffrey caught sight of his own image in the dressing-table mirror.
“My beauty, madam, is neither remarkable nor indeed observable. It may not be improved by a speckling of burnt powder-grains driven into the skin when a firelock is discharged too close, and it hurts like the devil. So much is true, but …”
“Oh, I am so sorry!”
“Why? The powder-grains may work themselves out as the grime will wash off. If not, there is no harm done. It would be idle to complain of disfigurement when initials are carved in a mud fence.”
“I’ll not have you say that. I’ll not!”
“Curse it, madam, must there be a quarrel even concerning my phiz?”
“You are an ill-mannered villain; you will accept no sympathy. And the true reason you curse me is that you had thought to find evidence against That Woman, and you have not, and you are furious, and now I must be catched back to Newgate? Is it not so?”
“If you are reading my thoughts again …”
“Is it not so?”
“No. Or, at the worst, only temporarily so. There is evidence; it exists.”
“Jeffrey, what were you seeking?”
“Marriage-lines. I told you at the King of Prussia that she and her ‘brother’ have been dwelling here since you fled to France. I told you they are not brother and sister, but husband and wife.”
“Well, and what of that? You also said it would be no weapon against her in the law.”
“You misunderstand, Peg. I referred to a second set of marriage-lines. If already she possessed a husband when she blushed as the bride of Hamnet Tawnish—and not necessarily a defunct or non-existent Mr. Cresswell—it would explain much in the fury of her conduct. She could be transported overseas for bigamy. She would look lightly on the death of anyone she believed could prove the truth.”
“That woman?” breathed Peg, lifting her hands from inside the cloak and pressing them against her cheeks. “That Woman? Oh, I would dance for joy to see all her pretences struck through! But I don’t believe it She is too filthily prudent.”
“Are you sure?”
“I—I am not sure of anything!”
“The good Lavinia can be astonishingly imprudent at times, as I discovered from an episode in this room that need not be described. She is a mingling of caution and rashness, of craft and stupidity, of prodigality and avarice; she has shown it in her other acts. There is more than one indication of another husband, and more than one indication of a different kind of guilt too.”
Jeffrey broke off.
“I had almost forgotten,” he added abruptly. “Other evidence, to be sure. Courage, Peg! If Justice Fielding does not prevent me again, we may have you clear of this business tonight and not tomorrow. Where is Brogden?”
“He was below-stairs when I left him.”
But Brogden was rather closer than this, as Jeffrey discovered on throwing open the door to the upstairs corridor. Brogden stood at the head of the big staircase, to be seen in right profile as though on his way down rather than on his way up.
Jeffrey shouted his name and ran towards him. Brogden stopped; the spectacles swung round.
“Deering!” Jeffrey called.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Deering! One of the two constables I borrowed this morning for special errands. The other was Lampkin, and failed me when h
e took Major Skelly’s bribe.”
“I am aware,” Brogden said a little testily, “who Deering is. What do you wish of him?”
“Has he returned to Bow Street? Has he enquired for me since I saw you last at the Hummums?”
Jeffrey, reaching Brogden, just refrained from seizing him by the coat. The little clerk looked up.
“Yes, Deering returned to Bow Street But he is not now on the roster to serve at night.”
“He will do so. This one I paid well to serve me, and hope I made no mistake. If our cursed magistrate-in-chief does not prevent me again, Deering may account for much.”
“Stay a moment, Mr. Wynne,” struck in a cold, harsh, poised voice from beyond Jeffrey’s shoulder. “You go over-fast, as usual. Let us put first things first It is you, I think, who should account for much.”
The door to Sir Mortimer Ralston’s room now stood wide open. From the head of the stairs Jeffrey could look diagonally into it.
Two tall folding screens, one of stamped Spanish leather and the other of French tapestry-work, had been set in such fashion as almost to enclose from sight the foot of the alcove with its bed. Near these screens, in a chair facing the doorway—chin raised, stately of presence—sat Justice Fielding himself.
XIV
A Challenge from Bow Street
CLEARLY MR. FIELDING HAD been here for some time. Clearly he minded the sick-room smell and atmosphere as little as he minded other unpleasant aspects of his duty. Clearly he was prepared to wait for as long a time as might be needed.
The folding screens enclosing the foot of the bed in the alcove might have been rich with colour under a good light. Now they were as sombre as the magistrate-in-chief’s clothes. A single candle burned on a chest-o’-drawers against the left-hand wall, silhouetting him rather than illuminating him. And so John Fielding sat in an elbow-chair, gently waving the switch in front of him. Under a hat pulled down on his own hair rather than a wig, the blind face was terrifying from its very placidity.
Brogden, transformed back from a human being into the magistrate’s faithful Dog Towser, hastened across to stand beside him. Jeffrey followed slowly across the Aubusson carpet. If Brogden expected storm-signals, he got them from both the other two.
“Good evening, Jeffrey,” said the magistrate.
“Good evening, sir.”
“You don’t sound surprised to find me here.”
“No, sir; I am enlightened. You are the bogle-man. You have brought the disquiet to this house.”
“Then let us hope,” and Justice Fielding spoke not without complacence, “that my presence will ever strike fear to evildoers. Or are you minded to disagree?”
“The principle is well enough, sir, when they are in fact evil-doers and not people who have tried to serve you with small assistance on your part.”
“Indeed!” said Justice Fielding, and cut at the air with his switch.
Light footsteps ran along the corridor outside. Justice Fielding cocked his head. The footsteps stopped, and Peg entered.
Inside the folding screens there was a sharp sound as someone struck flint and steel. The gleam of a second candle sprang up. Through the narrow opening between the screens Jeffrey could see only closed bed-curtains at the foot. He could not tell who might be beyond those screens except, presumably, Sir Mortimer Ralston in the bed itself. But he heard someone move round into the alcove between bed and wall, and a sound as of a candle-holder put down on a table.
Peg looked in that direction too. She had thrown off her cloak, which was hung across her arm. The bare shoulders rose from a gown of white and flame and blue more clearly soiled and tattered, with pearls missing from the edges of the sacque. Fear breathed from her; when Justice Fielding turned his face, she shied back as though the eyes watched her face.
“Is he there?” she asked, extending an arm towards the alcove. “Is my uncle there? May I have leave to see him?”
“He is there. But none may speak with him until I do, and even that may not be possible.”
“I—I meant no harm.”
There was a brief hesitation before the magistrate answered.
“Nor did any of us,” he said harshly. His thoughts seemed to turn inwards. “This is no excuse.”
“For whom?” said Jeffrey.
“Least of all for you. Yet I will not judge too soon, lest again I judge too hastily.”
“You say ‘again,’ sir?”
“I do. What is this tale Brogden tells me, having got it from the young lady here? That you met Major Skelly with pistols on the bridge above the canal at Ranelagh, and shot him there? Can you demonstrate it was not deliberate murder?”
“Yes,” said Jeffrey, controlling himself. “Peg, speak out and bear witness. Did I try to murder him?”
“Why, ’twas t’other way of it!” Peg cried at Justice Fielding. “Jeffrey was challenged and threatened and then tricked by Major Skelly, who said he had no other pistol save the one he threw away.”
She poured out the story. At times it was a little incoherent, but it was accurate enough. Several times Brogden almost intervened, but each time he hesitated.
“This seems straightforward,” snapped Justice Fielding, “and wears the semblance of truth. Notwithstanding, this young lady can scarcely be called an unprejudiced witness. It would be better if there were another.”
“There is another,” said Jeffrey.
“Yourself?”
“No. Former Sergeant-Major Charles Pilbeam, Royal Northumberland Fusiliers. You are acquainted with the name, sir; you sent me to his house this morning. He is of excellent repute. Should you care to take his deposition, he can swear to all that passed.”
“Then we are on ground somewhat safer.” Justice Fielding drew in a deep breath; the switch moved more slowly as he waved it “Did you go to Ranelagh with the intent to kill this man?”
“No; how could I have done that? But I feared he might be there; and, if he were there, that I might be obliged to meet him on his own terms.”
“By which you would say, in plain words, Major Skelly’s death might become necessary?”
“In effect, yes.”
“Why should it have been necessary?”
“Because you wished him laid by the heels, as a condition of keeping Peg from Newgate. Is that true, sir?”
“It is.”
“Yet you were not prepared to accept the clearest evidence of his guilt in a felony. This afternoon, at Mrs. Salmon’s, Major Skelly made his first determined attempt to kill me by any means which came to hand. According to Brogden here, presumably speaking on your behalf, it was not enough evidence if Major Skelly should stab me in the back with no witness except myself. Sir, how much evidence must you have? How many witnesses do you want? How far must you cog the dice against your own servants? Finally, good Magistrate, in what remote era were you yourself ever accustomed to use plain words?”
“Pray believe me,” said Justice Fielding, rising slowly to his feet, “that I will use plain words now.”
“And so,” interrupted another voice, “and so, with your permission, will I.”
The folding screens which closed off the alcove were pushed a little way apart. In the aperture, one hand on each screen, stood a slender man so poised of manner and elegant of dress that you might have guessed his profession to be any except what it was.
This newcomer’s age might have been just on forty. His wrist-ruffles had been tucked up into the sleeves of a black-satin coat elaborate with silver lacework against a black-and-white waistcoat. The cleanliness of his hands seemed almost shining as he held the screens apart. His voice, beautifully modulated, carried authority too.
“Justice Fielding,” he said.
“Dr. Hunter?”
“The crisis is past, or so we believe,” said Dr. William Hunter, nodding behind him. “Sir Mortimer should recover.”
He pushed the screens wider apart. It was still not possible to see past the closely drawn patterned-damask curtai
ns at the foot of the bed. But Jeffrey could now look into the alcove. Dr. George Abel, as slovenly as the other physician was fastidious, stood at the head of the bed beside a candle burning on a table there. He stood motionless, chin in fist, looking down at a patient who moved and moaned in the bed.
Peg let out a little cry. Dr. Hunter motioned her back and again addressed Justice Fielding.
“It was most urgent, you said, that you should obtain some statement or deposition from this patient?”
“It was and is,” the magistrate answered grimly. His shuttered face turned towards Jeffrey.
“Well! If Dr. Abel and I continue to watch through the night, that may be possible. But I must beg you, with all good will, not to use a sick-room as a court-room too. Whatever thunderbolts you may have to launch at that young man there, let them be launched elsewhere.”
“It shall be done. However, Doctor, you warrant this gentleman will make recovery? You give guarantee of it?”
“Good sir, I am not God Almighty. But I think he will recover. And therefore …”
Dr. Hunter paused.
Through the open doorway, calling John Fielding’s name, hurried none other than Hughes, the major-domo with the iron-shod staff. It was as plain that he had been listening outside as that he had been caught into what Hughes might have called a fit of conscience.
His obsequiousness made him writhe, and the queue of his wig flew out behind. He hurried head down, as though he would run straight into the blind magistrate. Brogden, scandalized, stepped in front of Hughes and held out a hand.
“What’s this?” said Brogden, with a very passable imitation of Justice Fielding’s own manner. “What’s this, sirrah, that you intrude here?”
“Pray, sir,” and Hughes made an imploring gesture with the staff, “you must not impede me. You shall not impede me! I have matters of great moment to impart to this gentleman. For justice’s sake, for honesty’s sake—!”
Still little Brogden fended him off.
“Your Worship,” he said, “I am loath to have you disturbed. Yet I would wish you could set eyes on this fellow here.”
“His identity is not unknown to me,” said John Fielding, who resented any allusion to blindness. “Well, let the fellow speak. I am accessible to all men, else I am nothing.” Rather grandly he drew himself up; you would have sworn he looked straight into Hughes’s eyes. “What is it, fellow?”
The Demoniacs Page 18
