Blind Justice (28 page)

“I have a letter for Sir Percival Peeper.”

“Give it me. I shall deliver it.”

“I cannot. It is from Sir John Fielding, magistrate of the Bow Street Court. He instructed me to put it direct into his hands.”

“Sir John Fielding, you say?”

“That is correct, sir.”

“Wait here.”

He shut the door in my face. I waited there in the corridor for a good space of time, growing increasingly annoyed that my long search for the proper door should end with me held outside it. Yet I was determined to carry out Sir John’s instructions to the letter. I would wait here all day, if need be, rather than deliver the missive into the hands of that fellow. I ws assuring myself I would welcome the opportunity to tell him that when suddenly the door opened, and he stood before me once more.

“This way,” said he.

I stepped inside a room all dark wood and leather. The deep colors, the lack of daylight gave a sense of oppressiveness to the anteroom which seemed to fit my guide’s demeanor. He led me through it and down a short, narrow corridor to another door. He rapped lightly upon it and, at a word from inside, threw it open and admitted me. A small, wizened man not much larger than a child sat there behind a large desk, frowning out at me. I was aware that the usher stood waiting as I marched up the carpet to the desk. Here, at least, the curtains had been parted and there was light enough to see.

I was quite certain he was the man I had come to see, of course, yet I chose to ask in a manner most bold: “Are you Sir Percival Peeper?”

“Of course I am.”

“Then this is for you, sir.”

I placed the letter on his desk. He looked at it and touched it impatiently with his fingers, waiting for me to turn and go.

“I believe an answer of some sort is desired,” said I.

“Oh … all right.”

With that, he tore it open roughly and read swiftly through its contents.

“Will there be an answer, sir?”

“Yes, yes, of course there will, but it will not be immediate. What Sir John asks for must be searched out from our files. Go, boy, and tell him that.”

Although it might seem an impertinence, I felt that something should be said. “I believe an answer is needed by nine for a meeting at the Goodhope residence.”

“So it says here. He will have it by then. If need be, I’ll have it brought to him there. You may tell him that, too.” He fluttered his hand at me, making it clear he wished me to leave. As I started to turn to go, he called after me. “But hold, boy, who are you to tell me what is and is not needed and by when?”

My face burned in embarrassment. Perhaps I had been a bit too brazen. “I beg your pardon, sir,” said I. “I meant no harm.”

“Do you think perhaps that you yourself are the law?”

“No, sir, but I am the law’s messenger.”

He laughed a dry little laugh and beckoned me forward to him. “A good answer,” said he, as he went fishing into his pocket. He pulled out a shilling and offered it to me. “Such an answer deserves a shilling.”

I hesitated to take it, thinking Sir John might not approve. But then, fearing even more that Sir Percival Peeper might be affronted by my refusal, I ducked my head in the semblance of a bow and took the shilling.

“Thank you, sir,” said I.

“You may go,” said he.

I was moved out swiftly by the man in livery and left in the hall without a word. Finding my way out offered no difficulty. And once on the street I felt most peculiarly elated. Perhaps it was the matter of the shilling—not the coin itself, but the reward. I felt as if I had passed a test of some sort, that I had acquitted myself well before a man of importance.

Or perhaps it was merely the coffee I had drunk by the generosity of Mr. Humber. He had promised me it would give strength I knew not I possessed, and that might also mean the strength to give good answers.

In any case, full of coffee, full of hope, I set off on a run through the dusk to Bow Street, thinking I could hardly wait for that nine o’clock hour to come.

The chairs were set out in a crescent-moon arrangement in the Goodhope library—twenty of them in two rows often. There would never be so many there, I told myself, remembering Sir John’s request to be passed on to Lady Goodhope by Mr. Donnelly. Yet by the end of the evening many had been occupied, if only temporarily. To put it plain, there was to be a good deal of coming and going.

The chairs, then empty, faced and half-circled the desk at which a corpus had sat but a few nights past. I wondered at the necessity which dictated that this singular meeting be held in this particular room. When Sir John and I had made our entrance to the house a few minutes before, Lady Goodhope had met us at the door and protested loudly, and in unladylike fashion, against the meeting, against its location, and against her attendance at it, which Sir John required. He, urging her into the sitting room in which they had previously conversed on a number of occasions, sought to allay her fears. But entering, he called me to him and ordered me down the hall to the library to make certain the room had been prepared according to his wishes.

Except for the superabundance of chairs, all seemed to be in order. A fire blazed in the fireplace, making the room almost uncomfortably warm. All around the room, candles were lit. Two standing candelabra had been brought in from some other place to supplement the rest. The effect was to bring the library to a condition quite like that in which I had seen it previously in daylight. The burning candles seemed also to add to the warmth of the room.

I was standing at the desk, taking what I thought to be a last look about, when I was hailed from behind by name. Turning, I saw Mr. Donnelly advancing toward me from the door. He seemed not quite jolly, but in high spirits due to the occasion. His face was flushed. He moved with his familiar quick step.

“Well,” said he, “what think you of this important evening?”

“I know not what to think,” said I in all truth.

“Then … Sir John has given you no hint of what’s to come?”

“None, sir. He asked only that I make sure the room was in order.”

He looked about him. “It seems to be, does it not?”

“Only but there are a few too many chairs.”

“He could not object to that, surely. It would seem the servants emptied the dining room.”

I thought for something to say. I was quite bursting to tell someone of the letters I had delivered—of my first taste of coffee and the shilling I had earned with a sober answer—yet I feared that such would seem to Mr. Donnelly mere boyish prattle. And so I offered merely what came to mind: “Sir John is in the sitting room off the front hall with Lady Goodhope.”

“Ah, yes,” said he. “I perceived as much. I heard their voices, quite contentious, the moment I was admitted. I thought to wander about a bit until the two had settled their differences. Was that cowardly of me?”

Again, I wondered at the question and decided Mr. Donnelly had simply given voice to his private thoughts. But I was quick to answer: “Oh no, sir. The matter is, after all, between the two of them.”

“Indeed! Precisely what I told myself. But perhaps I had best go and see have they made some progress in their negotiations.” He turned with a sigh and took a step or two toward the door. Then: “Ah, Jeremy, but one question: I was surprised to be let in by Benjamin Bailey, my dear cousin’s friend and boarder.”

“He came with us here.”

“All decked out he was with cutlass and pistols. Has that spying butler been sent on his way?”

“Not to my knowledge, sir.”

“Well,” said Mr. Donnelly, giving a shake of his head, “an armed constable at the door. That portends a most interesting evening, does it not?” Then, with a wave of his hand he was gone from the room.

For the first time since my entry into the room that evening, I ventured behind the desk and found it most uncomfortably warm there from the blaze. The fireplace itself, but three paces back, offered a surprise. There was a kettle on the crane I had not at first noticed. Turned back from the fire though it was, it still gave off a wisp of steam. I went to it, bent down, and gave it a heft. I found it well filled with water.

Then, hearing a sudden, startled “Oh!” behind me, I jumped up, kettle in hand, and found a serving girl bearing a tea service on a tray. She was smallish, fitted in black, with good color in her cheeks. It took me a moment to realize that this was none other than the kitchen girl Meg.

“Begging your pardon,” said she. “I had not realized anybody was here.”

She spoke!

Quickly she went to the cabinets at one side of the desk and placed her burden down atop one of them. With a swift little curtsy, she began to back away.

I watched her dumbly, still holding to the kettle. Yet before she turned and disappeared completely, I managed at last to say, “Don’t go.”

She stood then, eyes downcast, a tense little smile upon her pretty face.

“Sir John said you were to take part tonight. Is that as you wish?”

“Oh, yes,” said she. “I’m to serve tea merely.”

“Tea? Oh,” said I, raising the kettle foolishly, “tea, of course.”

We both laughed at that, no doubt longer than the situation warranted. I replaced the kettle on the crane, then I turned back to her.

“He seems a good man, your Sir John,” said Mistress Meg. “Have you known him long?”

“Not long, no. But I feel that in a way I know him well.” Perhaps more should be said. I decided to tell her what I would not have told others: “I came before him in his court, falsely accused of theft. But he saw through the perjury of my accusers and sent them aw ay with a warning.”

“Then he is a good man.”

“Wise and fair.”

“Do you live now in his household?”

“Yes,” said I, then added regretfully, “though perhaps not for long. I have a trade. He is attempting to place me in it.”

“And what is your trade?” she asked brightly.

“Printing. I learned it from my father.”

“Oh? And where is he?”

“No longer alive,” said I, leaving it at that, offering no details. She was silent for a moment. Then, with a grave nod, she said: “Nor is my mother. My father I never knew.” “Orphans,” said I. “Indeed,” said she. “Well …” And again she began to back away.

“Until later, Mistress Meg,” said I, in the manner of a goodbye. “Until later. Master Jeremy.”

It was but minutes after the hour of nine when an assembly composed of a number of those to whom Sir John had earlier spoken was brought together in the library. They were, you may be assured, a rather uncomfortable group. At one end of the crescent sat Charles Clairmont and Lucy Kilbourne, and at the other Lady Goodhope and Mr. Donnelly. Lady Goodhope threw daggers and dirks from her eyes at the couple at the other side of the room. Between them Mr. Black Jack Bilbo had situated himself. In the second row of chairs, to my surprise, sat Mr. Alfred Humber and a man whom I had never before seen.

All this I had surveyed upon our entrance. Sir John allowed me, on this occasion, to take him by the elbow and guide him around the two rows to the desk. There he took his place in the fatal chair. Once he had settled, I retired to a point some paces away and to his right. Mistress Meg stood nearby, and we exchanged covert glances. We were both too near the blazing fire for comfort. But if Sir John could stand such warmth at his back, I knew that I could do so, too.

Mr. Bailey had left his post at the street door, relieved there by Constable Cowley, and come into the library just behind us. He remained some distance to the rear of the chairs, about halfway to the door to the hall, which he had closed behind him. There were others still arriving as we three had made our march down the hall; they, however, would not be granted immediate admittance to the library; each, in his turn, would make his entrance. Sir John had decreed it so.

He cleared his throat and thrust his head forward in such a way that he seemed to be peering out at those before him. It was as if he, regarding them thus, were the schoolmaster; and they, whether petulant or patient, bored or expectant, were his pupils.

“1 have called you all here,” said Sir John, “that we might discuss in some detail the violent death which took place here some nights ago. Most of you here by now hold some connection to it. It is my duty this evening to sort out those connections and to make some final sense of what at first appeared to be a senseless act.

“Suicide was what it first appeared to be.”

At this point. Sir John signaled to Benjamin Bailey, a mere snap of his fingers, and Mr. Bailey turned about and proceeded on the tips of his toes to the door to the hall.

As meanwhile, Sir John continued his discourse: “Lady Good-hope argued vehemently against this conclusion from her knowledge of her husband and his character. Other factors may also have played a part in her certainty.”

It was just then that Mr. Bailey threw open the door in one swift motion. From my vantage I saw the butler, Potter, immediately revealed. He was caught in a bending posture, listening at the keyhole. He straightened to his full height, which was considerably less than Mr. Bailey’s, and attempted to make the best of a bad situation.

“I … I was wondering …” said he, flustered, “if there were something I might…”

“Ah, Potter,” said Sir John, “come in, come in. You are just in good time. Yes, indeed there is something you might do for us. Come in and tell us—briefly, please—of your entry into the library and the condition of the body that you found in this chair I now occupy. Come ahead, man. Don’t be shy. Address this little group.”

As the butler moved forward so that those staring at him might not have to turn to see, Sir John added, by way of introduction: “For those of you who do not know him, and were not this evening admitted by him. Potter serves as butler to this household. He heard a shot from the library. With the help of a footman, he broke through the door, which was locked from the inside, and was then the first on the scene to view the remains.”

Potter, standing to one side, did as he was bade, confirming what had been said, and in short order describing the condition of the body. He concluded by telling that he had sent the footman off to the Bow Street Court to report the lamentable occurrence.

“Exactly,” said Sir John, “and we were here within an hour of the awful event.”

“May I go now, sir?” asked Potter, still in the throes of embarrassment.

“No, you may not,” responded Sir John. “I must ask you to take a seat with the rest and listen to what transpires in these discussions. I think you will find it of interest.”

Meekly, and without further argument. Potter did as he was told to do.

“The constable who accompanied me to these premises is here with us now,” continued Sir John. “May I ask Mr. Benjamin Bailey to step forward and give a more precise description of the wound?”

That Mr. Bailey did, giving a quick, professional summary—the sort of report he was accustomed to making in court. When he had concluded. Sir John gave a nod of satisfaction, and Mr. Bailey retired to his former place.

“But in our company that night there was another—the young man who stands behind me and to my right. He noticed an important detail which he related to me. Jeremy Proctor, will you now tell it to them here?”

I was briefer than brief, telling only that I had noted the clean hands of the dead man, and making it a point to add that even at the time I told it to Sir John I had no idea of the significance of this fact.

“But,” said Sir John, “anyone who has experience with firearms knows the significance of it. Gunpowder dirties the hand of him who pulls the trigger. We looked upon the unwashed body and ascertained that Master Proctor’s impression was indeed correct: The hands were clean. A less important, though significant, detail also emerged: that Lord Goodhope was left-handed. And the wound described by Mr. Bailey was not consistent with that which might have been self-inflicted by a left-handed man. And so we had a suicide behind a locked door that was not a suicide, but a murder. But where had the murderer got to? How had he escaped?

“Nor was this the end to our puzzlement. For because of the surprise we had been given, I thought it wise that the body be given an examination by a medical doctor, and I asked Mr. Gabriel Donnelly, fully qualified as such by the University of Vienna and a former ship’s surgeon in the Royal Navy, to perform that service. Will you stand, Mr. Donnelly, and summarize your report?”

Whether from inbred Irish loquaciousness, or his desire to impress Lady Goodhope, Mr. Donnelly’s summary was anything but brief. It was also done in medical language, replete with Latin, which his audience scarce could understand. Yet the weight of it he made clear at the end: “It was certain that the victim had taken in a very severe amount of a caustic poison, something in the nature of an acid. The chemist to whom I submitted the sample from the victim’s stomach was unable to identify it because of the quantity of blood and bile mixed therein, but judging from the damage done to the internal organs, it was very powerful indeed.”

Sir John put a question to him: “Would you say, Mr. Donnelly, that the poison, as administered, was the cause of death?”

“I have altered my thinking somewhat on that account,” said he. “As I indicated in my supplementary report to you, it could certainly have been so. It would have caused a long and painful death and would, in any case, have rendered the victim helpless. It could be, however, that the ultimate, technical cause of death was the gunshot wound, though Lord Goodhope would have died nevertheless.”

“Thank you, Mr. Donnelly. The completeness and accuracy of your report is much appreciated.”

Mr. Donnelly took his seat, and Sir John returned his attention to his class of scholars. None now seemed bored nor put-upon; their attention was full on their teacher. Ah, but there was an exception right near at hand: Mr. Clairmont, who sat, hands on stick, uncomfortably warm as we all were, yet with an ironic smile fixed upon his face, his eyes traversing the room in what seemed to me a most contemptuous manner. I wondered at him.