Smuggler's Moon

“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 pulled 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.