The Detections of Dr. Sam Johnson

by Lillian de la Torre

“Then he has made his way to the house, under the bank,” replied my friend. “Come, Bozzy, this is a thing susceptible of demonstration.”

  He rose, and boldly sweeping aside the skins, he entered the hermitage. The hermit was from home.

  The hermitage, however, was not untenanted. Established on the pallet, as if she had been there a long time, sat Kitty Clive. At our entrance she surged to her feet.

  “Back!” she cried. “Back, on your life! There is death in this place! Yonder poor man hath been carried to his village sick to death of the small pox. Pray, pray, shun the infection!”

  I drew back in alarm, but Dr. Johnson entered unmoved.

  “Prettily played, ma’am,” says he. “Drury Lane never saw better. I beg, however, you’ll hold your peace. I am resolved to have a word with this pox’d hermit.”

  “’Tis but a quiz,” says the Clive, “there’s no harm in it.”

  “Then, ma’am,” says Dr. Johnson, “we’ll quiz the quizzer; so pray, ma’am, hold your tongue.”

  Kitty was perforce silent, and again we took up a vigil. The moon silently shone in at the opening. By its light I studied the appointments of the hermitage, the one low door, the walls hung with skins, a carved wood Virgin in her niche. The Clive stared before her, and bit her finger ends. Dr. Johnson sat by her side in meditation.

  Soon, however, a step was heard. In another moment, the skins on the backward wall parted, and the hermit stepped through the opening. In one hand he held a wax taper; in the other, the Black Stone in its case.

  When he saw us, he took one backward step before Dr. Johnson seized his wrist in a grip of iron.

  “I yield at discretion,” said the hermit with a shrug, and set down his candle.

  Surely I had heard that voice?

  Dr. Johnson stopped not to parley. With a sudden mighty tug he tore away the long white beard and exposed the face beneath.

  Lord Frederick Cammill!

  Dr. Johnson took the case from his hand and extracted the polished black speculum.

  “Pray, Lord Frederick,” he enquired, “what is the secret of this stone, that you give it away without a thought, and within a season, like the base Indian, you must have it back?”

  “Nay, Dr. Johnson,” replied the hermit, “Kitty will bear me out, ’tis but a frolick.”

  Never have I seen a countenance so little frolicsome.

  “Ay,” put in the Clive, “a quiz upon Orford. He opened it to me last night in our homeward stroll.”

  “Ay, so?” replied my learned friend. “Nevertheless, Lord Frederick, there is more to this gazing-glass than meets the eye. Let us try to discover its secret.”

  My learned friend turned the gleaming thing in the moonlight.

  “The secret lies not within,” he mused, “for ’tis most certain, the thing is solid.”

  “How know you that?” I enquired.

  “Nay, Bozzy,” replied my learned friend, “to what end were my experimentations of the morning? Have you never heard the tale of Archimedes and Hiero, tyrant of Syracuse?”

  “No, sir,” replied I, ready to be enlightened.

  “Sir, ’tis of a goldsmith, who had of the tyrant a certain weight of gold of which to fashion a crown. Now Hiero suspected the man for a cheat. Accordingly when the crown came home, he asked Archimedes, whether it were all gold, or dilute with base metal? Archimedes made shift to measure its gross content of metal, by immersing it in water and measuring the overflow. In the same manner he measured out an equal content of pure gold; which weighing against the crown, the crown was demonstrated to weigh less. Now as every substance has its weight, and gold the heaviest, the cheat was discovered. The Black Stone, on the contrary, balancing an equal volume of coal, was proved to be solid.”

  “Well, sir,” said I, “perhaps you are to gaze upon it, as did Dr. Dee, and the spirits will come to it.”

  I scarce expected my learned friend would imitate the astrologer; but solemnly he gazed upon the stone, turning and tilting the shining surface in the eerie moonlight. Turn it as he would, the surface gleamed blank; no message appeared, no picture rose to view. The long silence grew oppressive.

  “Well, sir,” said the false hermit at last, “do the spirits speak to you?”

  “Ay, sir.”

  “And what do they say?” enquired Lord Frederick with a well-bred sneer.

  “They say, sir,” replied my friend, “None so blind as those that will not see. Pray, Bozzy, hand me yonder leathern case.” He took it in his long fingers, reversed it, and shook it. “There’s nothing within it, that’s plain to a demonstration. But there is something without.”

  “Ay, sir, this will be the auctioneer’s lotted paper.”

  The slip of paper was as large as the leathern case, lightly but firmly affixed to it by glue along the edges. In the center was scrawled: “No. 8.”

  “Does not this seem a large expanse of paper,” enquired my friend thoughtfully, “for so brief a message? But perhaps there is a longer message on the other side? Pray, Mistress Clive, lend me a pin.”

  Staring, the actress pulled a long pin from her bodice. Delicately Dr. Johnson detached the heavy paper by the edges, and reversed it. A breath came from Lord Frederick. I advanced the taper.

  “Why, ’tis a letter!” I exclaimed. “Yet how comes it to shew no signs of transmission, as folding or superscription?”

  “D’ye think it came by the post?” demanded Lord Frederick contemptuously. “’Twas fetched from over the water, most carefully concealed, by being sewed in the crown of a hat. Look at the signature.”

  I read it off: “Charles Edward Stuart—the Young Pretender! And writ to—the Duke of Argive!”

  “So,” said Dr. Johnson, “this is the secret of the speculum—treason in high places.”

  “I cannot deny it,” said Lord Frederick with gloomy resignation.

  I read off the fulsome phrases: “… your influence in our behalf … reward your friendship upon our accession to the throne …”

  “Nay, Frederick,” said Kitty Clive stoutly, “pluck up heart, man, this letter is nothing. The ’45 is long gone.”

  “Alack, Kitty,” said Lord Frederick, “’tis no matter of the ’45. ’Tis all too new.”

  “Pho, a forgery,” said Kitty scornfully.

  “’Tis the Pretender’s own hand.”

  “Then,” said the Clive, “we must—”

  She broke off with a scream. Never have I seen such a look of horror on a human countenance. Her eyes seemed to start from her head, her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth, as she pointed a trembling finger toward the opening of the secret passage, and strove to speak a warning. I turned my head with a thrill of awful foreboding.

  “We must burn it,” said the actress calmly; and as I perceived that the gloom was but empty, I felt her twitch the paper from my hand.

  My chagrin at being thus tricked before my venerable friend was doubled as I heard him speak.

  “Ay, let us burn it,” said he calmly. “Pray, Bozzy, the candle.”

  Dubiously I yielded it. Dr. Johnson advanced it towards the letter; but before paper and flame met, Lord Frederick intervened a hasty hand.

  “Nay, Kitty, bid me take it to my brother, for I have sworn to lay it in his hand; and the house of Argive will reward you well.”

  The Clive reached him the paper, but Dr. Johnson came between.

  “Pray, Kitty,” he cried sternly, “do you hold this letter safe for the nonce, while we scrutinize this fellow’s proceedings. What do you say to a thief who parades about in masquerade, and leaves his booty behind instead of bearing it away to a place of safety? A thief who courts attention instead of shunning it? What do you say to the strange debility of the Duke’s heir, which only assails him in London? What do you say to the proceedings of the next heir, the Duke’s brother, who so far from making the letter secure in secret, and so protecting the Duke from attainder, plays the fool with it until it comes to light, and will not suffer us to bur
n it?”

  During this recital, Lord Frederick’s frame seemed to shrink. Kitty Clive slowly rose and drew away from him. Without a word she yielded the letter up to Dr. Johnson.

  “In Arlington Street,” pursued Dr. Johnson, contempt in his eye, “the noble house-breaker lost his labour; save that by turning out the papers he made sure that the secret of the speculum remained undiscovered. In his own person he learned where it was deposited at Strawberry, and returned a-mumming by Mr. Walpole’s new-built secret passage—”

  “To think,” cried the Clive, “that ’twas I that revealed it to him, and provided gear for his masquerade, and victualled him in the hermitage, in the belief that ’twas but a bit of play-acting with a laugh to follow. I should have been better advised; for Lord Orford is notoriously mad, and who puts a quiz upon a madman?”

  “The secret passage was built with the Round Tower, and the hermitage at the same time, to mask its egress? The entrances lie behind the great portraits in the rooms of the Round Tower?”

  “That is so, but pray, how did you know?”

  “I said it in jest, the apparition was gone back into the portrait; and began to perceive how it might be true in earnest. From the portrait, then, Lord Frederick in his hermit’s gear entered the Round Tower, meaning to fetch the Stone from the Tribune hard by. Listening from the secret stair, he heard that we proposed to sequester the speculum in Mr. Boswell’s room, at the same time gaining from our talk a spectacular notion for his next appearance. From your theatre-chest you, ma’am, fitted him out to affright Mr. Boswell; on which occasion he took care, to awake Mr. Boswell, to leave his booty behind, and to depart by the door, lest he betray the secret of the passage. Pray, Lord Frederick, satisfy my curiosity: why did not you tear the paper loose then and there, and thus betray your brother at a stroke?”

  “When my brother found I had given the thing away,” muttered Lord Frederick, “you fool, cries he, a paper was hid there, could be my ruin. He told me without reserve, how he had thus saved up the paper against the Pretender’s return; but he allowed me to think it was somehow concealed within the stone, and so I could never come at it.”

  “Ho ho,” cried Dr. Johnson, “thy brother knows thee well, I perceive.”

  “I beg,” said the false hermit sullenly, “that my brother may not hear of this. ’Tis ill enough between us already.”

  “Ay, sir,” said Dr. Johnson thoughtfully, “I have seen how your lady suffers, to have another, not near so well-born, take precedence of her as Duchess of Argive. ’Tis a bird of ill omen, and so Lord Fetters found her.”

  “Pray, sir,” I struck in, scanning the thing from a lawyer’s view, “how could you hope that upon attainder of the traitor the estates could be yours, and not the King’s?”

  Lord Frederick grinned sourly.

  “’Twas worth the risk. I have friends in the right places.”

  “Well, well,” said Dr. Johnson, “a word to the wise, and I have done. These proceedings shall be our secret, as long as the Duke of Argive guards his new-found loyalty, and as long as the Duke’s son has his health in London as in Argive.”

  “Sir!” cried Lord Frederick, stung. “Do you say that Lady Mary—”

  “I say nothing, sir. The boy’s indisposition may have given hope for this contrivance; it may be part of it. I say only, if you tender your brother’s friendship, tender also his son’s life.”

  Lord Frederick’s haughty stare was a failure; his eyes fell, and he bowed his head.

  “I perceive,” said Dr. Johnson, “that we understand one another.”

  [This “Gothick Tale” arose from the real letter with which it opens, and displays the real world of Strawberry Hill. Only the Ducal neighbors are fictionized. The Black Stone is still in England, but not (as some say) at the British Museum. For help in seeking it, I must thank Dr. Lasker, Dr. A. A. Moss, and Dr. Wilmarth Sheldon Lewis.]

  THE FRANTICK REBEL

  (Chelsea, 1777)

  “What! Boswell!” cried the strapping virago to whom I had just been presented—“the friend to Liberty! Come to my arms! I must infallibly kiss thee!”

  Though I am not by custom averse from the kisses of the Fair, I own that the proffered caress daunted me. The nymph who had offered it was taller than myself, vast, and antient; she had the hawk’s profile of a red Onondaga, and a piercing, maniacal dark eye. Before I could protest, I found myself engulphed in draperies and soundly bussed on both my cheeks.

  “The friend of Liberty,” she cried, “is the friend of America, and the friend of America is the friend of Patience Wright.”

  Her voice boomed like an orator’s in the dusky halls of the Chelsea China Manufactory.

  Dr. Sam: Johnson snorted.

  “As for thee, Sam: Johnson,” cried Mistress Wright, “surly monarchist that thee is, a kiss is far from thy deserts; but I will kiss thee in token of Christian forgiveness.”

  Dr. Johnson started back in horror. The potter’s freckled boy snickered; the potter yielded to a fit of coughing. As the proffered kiss was bestowed upon the rigid philosopher, I could only stare at the extraordinary creature we had encountered. Friend to Liberty and friend to America I had always been; I glory in the appellation; but at that juncture I was not forward to publish my sentiments. ’Twas at the height of our unfortunate struggle with our fellow subjects ’tother side of the water, and I suppose in all London no other could have been found, besides this mad American, who would shout out rebellious sympathies in a voice that could be heard with ease clear to the other side of Thames.

  Dr. Johnson had come down to Chelsea, not to bandy words with a rebel, but to try out his newest clay in the potter’s kiln. Setting his little brown scratch-wig straight and working his lips in silent disapproval, he withdrew to his work-room with what dignity he could muster. Being for the nonce potter’s devil, I followed, leaving Mistress Wright engaged in kissing the potter’s boy, presumably for being in his humble way also a friend to America. I pondered much what such a flamboyant rebel might be up to in London.

  I was soon to learn, and from none other than the head of the secret service. Mr. William Eden came himself to Johnson’s Court, begging with agitation my learned friend’s assistance.

  “’Tis Patience Wright the waxworker,” he groaned. “’Tis certain she’s a spy, yet we can do nothing with her. Her wax-works are all the rage, and she is so great with her Royal Highness the Princess Amelia, and with even higher Personages, that we cannot lay a finger on her. At the Palace ’tis all ‘Patience’ and ‘George’ and ‘Charlotte’, she being a Quaker by religion and a Republican by sympathy; and I have it from the highest authority, the woman has had the impudence to rate his Sacred Majesty to his face about the American war. Upon this she was banished the Palace; but Queen Charlotte still inflexibly protects her, the while she communicates to Franklin in Paris.”

  “Foh,” said Johnson, “what does a madwoman know that could advantage our enemies?”

  “She is not so mad but there’s method in it,” said Eden, biting his lip, “and as to what she knows, she knows enough at this moment to foil all our scheams and lose us our colonies forever.”

  Johnson: “Then she must be prevented from communicating it.”

  Eden: “Yes, Sir, ’tis a matter the most serious. When you have heard all, I know you will lay aside your every occupation in order to serve your country.”

  Johnson: “Well, Sir, say on.”

  Eden: “Sir, the scheam was laid down by one whom I shall call General B—.’Tis for a military campaign of the first importance, which shall divide the rebellious colonies so that we may reduce them at our leisure. Now General B—,though a brilliant soldier, is in hours of ease a rake and a man of pleasure. No sooner, therefore, has he come to town, but he takes into keeping one Miss Fleay, late of the stage, and sets her up in a house in Chelsea, hard by the pottery. Down goes Miss Fleay to Chelsea with her cook and her odd boy and her waiting-woman—and Mistress Wright, if you please, g
oes along to teach her modelling, at which the lady has a dainty hand. Miss Fleay thought the kilns of the pottery the attraction held out by Chelsea—but now it appears as if the presence of General B—was the true loadstone.”

  Johnson: “Well, and so Chelsea was all one idyll of true love and modelling in wax.”

  Eden: “Aye, and thence comes our danger. In an ill moment, General B—communicated his scheam to his companion, whose loyalty is above doubt; only to find too late that Mistress Wright, the frantick rebel, had over-heard all.”

  Johnson: “If the secret’s out, how can I or any man mend the matter?”

  Eden: “Miss Fleay took steps at once. She attached herself so closely to Mistress Wright, that the American was totally unable to communicate with anyone; having meantime sent an urgent message to me, revealing the situation. We immediately placed the spy under the closet surveillance, and I do assure you that she has as yet neither communicated nor attempted to communicate with anyone outside the household. But this cannot last; she must send a messenger to Franklin at Paris, or go herself, within this eight days, if this intelligence is to advantage the rebels.”

  Johnson: “Sir, I am no bailiff; I cannot undertake to watch this lady. I am deep in experimentation with clays; my friend Boswell is newly come to town for a frisk; you must seek elsewhere for a watchdog.”

  Eden: “Nay, Dr. Johnson, the lady is encompassed by watchdogs. Miss Fleay has augmented her domestick staff; Mrs. Wright’s waiting-woman is one of my people, and the coachman, and the gardener’s boy.”

  Johnson: “Then what do you ask of me?”

  Eden: “Sir, in the words of the satirick Juvenal, Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? We must have someone on hand who cannot be bought. Furthermore, the lady has a wild and fertile invention, beyond the ken of any mere watch-dog. I would have you match wits with her, and intercept her communications no matter how slyly they are put forth.”

  I was eager to accept the commission: “Pray, Sir, let us do it. ’Twill be better than any frisk, and not so dull neither; and as to the clays, ’tis but a step to your kiln at the pottery.”