Jack, Knave and Fool (6 page)

“But the identity of him who did the stabbing is known, I take it?”

“Yes, known to Cowley, for he had arrested him twice before on charges of drunkenness and robbery. Jonah Slade is the name of our villain. I also know him, for he came before me on both charges. He could not be bound over for robbery, for his supposed victims refused to testify against him — threatened, I should suppose. Many of the Runners know him from some encounter. Mr. Bailey is right. He should not be hard to find.”

“Could I help in the search?” I asked.

“I doubt you could do much, since you know him not by sight, nor have you snitches to whisper in your ear where he’s gone to.”

“I suppose you’re right, Sir John.”

“There is, however, one service you might perform for me — not beyond your capabilities, I’m sure. Were you yesterday in my courtroom?”

“I was, sir, yes.”

“Then you may recall a fellow named Thomas Roundtree, whom I allowed to remain in our charge a second night that he might borrow the amount ol his fine rather than pass a month in the Fleet Prison.”

“Indeed I do recall him —tall and thin, unshaven and seedy.”

“Well, there you have the advantage of me, but I’m sure you’ve described him accurately- In any case, it was my intention to ask Mr. Perkins to convey him to the residence of the Lord Chief Justice, where he is doing carpentry work. Mr. Perkins, as you well know, lives nearby. However, he’s oft on the hunt, as are all the constables save Mr. Fuller, who must tend the priaonei

“You wish me to accompany him?

“Yes, if you would not mind accepting the responsibility. You would be unofficially a constable pro tempore. We shall deck you out in a brace of pistols, though I think we may dispense with hand irons for the fellow. He seems docile enough. So, are you up to such a task?” “Indeed I am,” said I, “and proud to be asked.”

Thomas Roundtree did certainly seem to be a docile fellow once away from Number 4 Bow Street, even quite likable. No more than a few steps onto the street, and he moved me to laughter by stopping suddenly to scratch himself on every part. Morning pedestrians passed him by, giving wide space, thinking him quite daft — or worse, possessed of some awful itching ailment. Yet he cared little, pulling faces as he rubbed and scraped away beneath that plaid waistcoat he wore.

“You’ve quite a flea farm there in your strong room,” said he. “I believe I’m leaving with a hundred of your herd.” He scratched again. “Ah! Make that a hundred and one.”

I could but laugh at the fellow. He was a rustic clown. He could be one from Nick Bottom’s troupe of players.

“I’ll not be prosecuted for flea theft, nor even blamed, for as you can see, young sir, they’ve come with me quite willing.” He left off his earnest activity at last, then wiggled his narrow shoulders as if in great satisfaction. “Aahh!” said he.

Taking him by the elbow, I urged him forward. “Come along,” said I. “We must be on our way.”

“Yes, I s’pose, but caution, young sir. Get too close, and you may find them pasturing on you.”

I dropped my arm from his and found myself rubbing uneasily at my wrist as we set off together. We had gone but a few steps when he turned to me and said, “I have a question for you.”

“And what is that?”

“Where are we headed?”

“Why, to Bloomsbury Square,” said I, “and the house of the Lord Chief Justice. That is where you have your employ, is it not? Where you must borrow ten shillings from the chief carpenter?”

“True enough,” said he, “but I go there to start my day of work and not merely to borrow. And to do that, I must have my tools. You’ve yours, right enough —a club for breaking nappers, pistols to shoot me should I try to throttle you, which God’s honor I never would do. I also needs the tools of my trade — hammer, saw-, axe, awl, and such —for without them I cannot work.”

He had succeeded in halting me, which was his intention. I gave a great sigh of annoyance. “And where are these tools of yours?” I asked.

“In the room where I dorse. I would not go walking about with them, lest some scamp rob me of them, and with them take away my livelihood. Ah no, I may be new to London, but thus much I have learned of life on your streets.”

“And where is this room of yours?”

“In Half-Moon Passage — off in t’other direction.”

“All right,” said I, turning about where I stood, “let us go there quick as we can so I may be done with it. You may not credit this, but I have matters to attend to other than your own.”

We started off again toward Half-Moon Passage. In this direction there seemed a greater swarm of pedestrians moving in one direction and the other. Roundtree managed well enough, moving swiftly along on his long legs, yet I was forced to hop to keep up. I had to keep close to him, fleas be damned, else I was not his guard but rather his attendant. I thought we might manage better by cutting through Covent Garden, and so when we came to Russell Street, I gave him a proper nudge and a nod, and up we went, immediately leaving that teeming mass of men and women behind.

“Aye now, that’s far better, ain’t it?” said he. “I had to stretch my legs just to keep up with the crowd.”

“And I to run just to keep up with you.”

“Did you so? Sorry, chum, didn’t notice.”

He slowed to an amble, and it was not long till we were in Covent Garden. In another hour or two it would be packed with buyers. There were only a few about then, however, those who had come early in the expectation of finding fresh greens just in from the farms; yet what they were more likely to get was that which was left over from the day before. What was fresh was saved for the later throng. I had not lived hard by the Garden near three years without learning the ways of its sellers.

We passed close by a bake stall, one with a working baker who was just then pulling loaves and buns from the depths of the oven. The smell of the fresh-baked bread wafted to us and stopped Thomas Roundtree as sure and swift as if he’d bumped up against a wall.

“What say, young sir?” said he, clasping his hands before him in a gesture of supplication. “I’ve had naught to eat this morning. You would not send a man to work on an empty belly, would you now?”

It was just possible that indeed he had not eaten. Things had been turned topsy-turvy by the sudden search for Jonah Slade. I might be tempted to have a bun for myself if I could get one fresh from the oven. And so I haggled with the woman who hawked the goods —not on the price but on the particular buns I would buy. She would have none of that; she alone would choose what she sold.

“If that be so,” said I, “then I will have only one bun, and that for him” — pointing at Roundtree —“even though it be cold and most likely a day old. If you wish to sell two, then they must be from that batch just pulled from the oven.”

“Well, you’ll have none, you rude boy. Out of my sight with you.”

She would have continued and no doubt called down a curse upon me, but then did the baker himself shout her down: “Maggie, give him what he wishes. Can’t you see the lad is from Bow Street?”

And so we got our ha’penny buns, and she her penny, though taking it in bad temper. They were warm to the touch and steamed in the cold Mr. We retired to a place just beyond the bake stall to eat them, and it was true I never tasted better than on that morning.

“You’re a rum joe for a hornie,” said Roundtree, chewing contentedly.

I did not know quite how I might take that. True, he meant it as flattery of a proper sort and no doubt sincere, yet behind it was evident a certain dislike, perhaps even hostility toward constables — “hornies,” “Beak Runners.” Well, why not, after all? He’d been arrested but two nights before by one of them — I had no idea which —for public drunkenness. He could not but mark that a sad event.

Even so, in responding to his remark, I put all that aside and said, “For one who says he is new to London, you’ve already managed to learn a bit of flash cant.”

“It’s them I work with,” said he. “They’re a rowdy lot, and not near the sort you’d expect to find working in the home of the Lord Chief Justice. I have indeed picked up some of their talk.”

“Where are you from?” I asked.

“From Lichfield,” he said, as quick as ever you please.

“So was I once,” said I.

“God’s truth? Now, ain’t that a marvel! In what part of the town did you live?”

“I’ve no exact idea. I was too young to know my way around the place very well. I do recall, though, that there was a very large church nearby.”

“That fixes it a bit,” said he. “I think I knows what part. So you come to London then, did you?”

“No, not immediate. My mother and younger brother died there in the typhus of 1765.”

“Oh, I remembers it—terrible it was, killed many,” he interjected.

“My father and I moved to a smaller town” — I would not deign to mention the name of it —“and there he, too, died” —nor would I describe the brutal circumstances of his death —“and I was left an orphan. Only then did I come to London, alone, at the age of thirteen.”

“Why, ain’t that a sad tale! Yet you made your way in London and stayed on the right side of the law.”

“I cannot claim credit for that,” said I. “To one man alone I am beholden for my salvation. You have met him. Let me tell you what he did for me.”

Whereupon I told Roundtree the longer tale of my first day in London: of how I was gulled by an “independent thief-taker,” so called, and his confederate, and brought to the Bow Street Court falsely accused of theft; of how Sir John Fielding penetrated their deception and sent one off with a warning and the other to Newgate; and of how Sir John made me a ward of the court and finally one of his household.

By the time I had done, Roundtree’s mouth was quite open in awe. Never had I had a better listener to my story —and I had told it often —than this rough carpenter from Lichfield. He seemed quite moved by it.

“And that be the very same one made it possible for me to borrow my fine stead of going off to jail.”

“The very same one —Sir John Fielding.”

“Oh, I heard of him. He’s the one they call the Blind Beak of Bow Street, ain’t he?” He is.

“Right fair and just.”

“He is indeed.” I popped the last of my bun into my mouth; his had disappeared some time before. “But now,” I said to him, “we must be off to pick up your tools and deliver you with them to the house of the Lord Chief Justice.”

“I s’pose we must. But you tell a good story, chum. God’s truth, I could listen to you the whole day long.”

For one of fifteen years to hear that from a man twice his age was heady stuff indeed. I walked along at a steadier pace, buoyed somehow by confidence, a sudden feeling of manliness. We talked —oh, I have no true idea what it was we talked of on our way to Half-Moon Passage. I seem to recall he asked my advice on what new place he might move to, Covent Garden offering too many temptations and bad companions for a simple fellow, such as he was, fresh come from Lichfield. He asked if Southwark would do, and I told him of its bad repute —“no better than Covent Garden, and in some places worse.” I recommended Clerkenwell, “out from the city, with much new building —houses and such.” He thanked me greatly and said he would go out there for a look.

There were other matters —comments upon places and people we passed; women, especially, seemed to interest him. One exchange, however, I do recall for its later pertinence.

Quite without relevance to anything under earlier discussion, he turned to me and asked, “How comes it you don’t wear no red waistcoat like the rest of the constables?”

“That is because I am a constable” — what was Sir John’s phrase? — “pro tempore.”

“Is that like something special?”

“Noo,” said I, searching for some easy way to define my status yel Mill retain some dignity, “it puts me more in the way ol an apprentice constable.”

“Ah,” he said, “well I knows prenticeship. I was a ‘prentice carpenter for six years.”

“As long as that?”

“I had a hard master. Yours, though, ain’t near so hard, nor would he want you to be. Why, I’ll wager those barking irons you got on ain’t even loaded.”

“Oh, but they are. Mr. Baker, our armorer, says there’s nothing so foolish as carrying about an unloaded gun.”

“But you ain’t never kilt nobody, have you?”

“No, nor would I want to.” Then, after thinking about that and in the interest of truth telling, I did add: “I once shot and wounded one, however.”

“Truly so? A young fella like you?”

“Yes, truly. He died, though not of the wound.”

With that he fell silent for a long spell. Still, as we turned down Half-Moon Passage from Bedford, he roused himself and played the rustic clown once again.

“This house wherein I dwells, it was built as an inn a hundred years ago or more, perhaps a thousand from the way it’s decayed and ramshackled, like. I don’t wonder a good wind will blow it down someday soon. Well, I did not live there long till I began to notice strange comings and goings and hear shouts and ugly laughing at night when a workingman such as myself needs to get his sleep. Well, I keep my ears open and my eyes open, and I asks around a bit, and I come to find this place I’m livin’ in is known as a great house for whores. Come summer, I’d go home at night, havin’ had my bub and grub, and I’d go down the hall, and here’s my women neighbors standin’ about in their doorways in their shifts and their altogethers, some of them, bubs hangin’ out, just advertisin’ what they got to sell. Oh, I tell you it was a sight. And even now, in the winter, I catches sight of them in the hall, visitin’ back and forth just so, without a care.”

And then did he raise his arms and strut on the street in a female manner and say in mimicking falsetto: “Oh, Moll, may I wear your brown frock? My blue one got all muddy, and I ain’t had time to wash it.”

I laughed quite in spite of myself, yet hung back, embarrassed, as he attracted gawking attention from the passersby with his foolish parade. Yet he returned to walk beside me. There could be no doubt that he was my companion.

“I have seen them so, nekkid in the hall, or next thing to it. Ain’t that enough to give a man care? You can see why I must move to Southwark — or where was that other place?”