The Price of Murder

Clarissa, for I was all of a sudden so exhausted that I heard nothing, said nothing, and was totally unable to recall anything of the drive to Bow Street. The night I had spent, awake on the road in the post coach, had at last caught up with me.

Upon our arrival, Sir John ordered me upstairs and to my bed. ’Twas not me who carried out his orders, however. Rather ’twas Clarissa who both guiding and supporting me, got me upstairs and into my bed.

And it was she, too, who woke me, five or six hours on. I heard her footsteps on the stairs moments before she appeared, and so I was at least sitting up in bed when she appeared in the doorway.

“You’re much in demand,” said she.

Still half-asleep, I grunted a reply of some sort, then rose to my feet and staggered to the wash basin, poured a bit of water into it, and splashed water upon my face. Only then did I feel I could communicate.

“By whom am I wanted?”

“First by Mr. Patley, who must see you before he goes out this evening to make his rounds. Second, by all the rest of us who respectfully request your presence at the dinner table, and third, by Sir John who, after dinner, wishes to have your report on the trip to Newmarket.” She looked at me closely to make sure that I was fully awake and would not collapse into bed the moment she left. “There,” said she. “I can trust you to rise, can’t I?”

“You can trust me. Where’s Mr. Patley?”

“Downstairs, waiting by the door to Bow Street.”

Satisfied at last, she left as I hurriedly ran a comb through my hair and descended to meet Mr. Patley. He was there, in the dark, waiting for me just at the door.

“Ah there you are,” said he. “I’ve news for you. Bad news, I fear-but it’s important.”

“Let me hear it, by all means.”

“Well, it’s this way. As you may know, Mr. Bailey covered for me whilst we was in Newmarket. He made the circuit for me, talked to all my snitches, and so on. But he wasn’t actually on hand when it happened.”

“What happened? What have you to tell?”

“It was last night whilst we were on the road back. Who should come walking into the King’s Favorite around eleven o’clock at night but Alice Plummer. She comes up behind one of the local drinkers, Walter Hogg by name, and she says, ‘Walter, I’ve got something for you.’ Then, quick as anything, she whips out a razor and, just as quick, she cuts his throat from ear to ear. It all happened so fast that those at the table could do naught but gape. Nor could they do more when she then took that selfsame razor and cuts her own throat with it. All this in less time than it takes to tell. Mr. Bailey said that when he got there just a little time later, there were two dead and more blood on the table and floor than he would have supposed that two bodies could hold.”

There he stopped. I knew not what to say to him.

“I just thought you ought to know,” said Patley. And, having spoken his piece, he opened the door and disappeared into the night.

TEN

In which I hear a startling confession from an odd source

The news that I had heard from Mr. Patley was such that during dinner I had constantly to hold myself in check lest I take it upon myself to tell all or part of it to Sir John. We had long been in unspoken agreement not to discuss matters of the court at the table. Generally, he thought it best that Lady Fielding not hear of such matters, for she was easily distressed and would worry for his safety. I, on the other hand, had lately become more and more open with Clarissa. Still, much of that was between us two, and I trusted her not to repeat it. In any case, I held my tongue all through dinner, but soon as ever I had finished the washing up afterward, I hied myself up to see Sir John in the darkened room he called his study.

“Jeremy? Is it you?”

“Indeed it is, sir. And though it be a sorry tale, I’ve come to tell you of all that came to pass in Newmarket.”

Which I did, more or less, though I admit that I held back a bit. I said nothing of the good fortune Mr. Patley and I had had in wagering what we had on Pegasus and Mr. Deuteronomy to win. Sir John must have guessed that something was missing from the story I told, for at about the time I had done with Newmarket, he stopped me with a question or two that were directly to the point.

“What I do not quite understand,” said he, having heard me through, “is why, when Alice Plummer was in hand, you and Patley did not simply take her immediately to the nearest post coach and bring her here to London that I might question her.”

“Uh, yes, well, had we done that, Sir John, we should have missed the King’s Plate race.”

“Ah!” said he, as if he had made a considerable discovery.

“We felt the least we could do for Deuteronomy Plummer was to see how he and Pegasus fared in the big race. After all, he had given us the tip that had enabled us to find her.”

“Oh yes, of course, I recall well enough-the stable and the fellow named Stephen, all of that.”

“Yes sir.”

“But you stayed for the race, did you? Then tell me, how did it come out? That is, who won? Charade was the favorite, as I believe I heard from Mr. Baker. Was Charade the winner?”

“Uh, no sir, Pegasus was the winner.”

(I had the distinct feeling that Sir John was once again toying with me.)

“You don’t say so,” said he. “Truly? How nice for Mr. Deuteronomy, winning such an important race on a horse running his first race.”

“Second.”

“All right, second. All the same, quite an accomplishment, eh? You didn’t happen to have something wagered on Pegasus, did you?”

“Oh, a little something, a few shillings, not much more.”

“Hmm, interesting.”

And that, reader, was the extent of his comments. He left it all hanging in the air, for then I told him of what I had just learned from Mr. Patley. Sir John was most truly disturbed by the news.

“Good God,” said he, cursing in dismay, “was that Alice Plummer who was involved in that nasty attack in Bedford Street? Mr. Bailey told me about it in his report this morning, yet at the time he knew only the name of the man. Walter Hogg, wasn’t it?”

“It was, and when I heard that, I understood what earlier had eluded me. You’ll recall, sir, that when Katy Tiddle was dying she called for water so insistently that I ran out and brought some to her and, I then thought, missed her dying words. Well, ’twas not so at all. She named her murderer to me-not water; you see, but Walter.”

“And how did you come to this conclusion?”

“From what Patley and I were told by Alice Plummer. She said that she had entrusted her daughter Maggie to a man named Walter at Katy Tiddle’s urging. He had promised to find her a home with a couple who were unable to conceive.”

“But how did she learn what had become of her daughter?”

“That, I fear, she learned from me,” said I.

“Oh, Jeremy,” said he, truly mourning what he had just heard. “One of the most important rules in interrogation is never to let the one you are questioning know just how much you know. She acted on your information. You do understand, don’t you?”

At that I sighed. “Yes sir, I do understand.”

“Now if this fellow Walter Hogg was acting as an agent for another, as we both suspect, then we have lost our chance to get the name of that other. Truly, you should have brought her straight to me whilst she was in your hands.”