Jack, Knave and Fool (8 page)

“Now,” he resumed, “any lad who writes as good and clear a hand as you have written here must be very bright, certainly bright enough to convey my arguments against to Sir John. I shall trust you to do so.” This was said with the most dazzling of winning smiles.

I was flattered, though not deterred. “But sir,” said I, “Sir John did specifically direct me to request from you a written reply.”

His smile faded. It was clear that he would rather not.

“Really,” I added, “it is just a formality. And it would be a great help to me in doing justice to what you have said if you were to put down a few words that I might take as notes from which to make plain your position. You might jot them down at the bottom of the letter. The Lord Chief Justice frequently does that.”

‘Oh?” He considered my suggestion. “Lord Chief Justice, you say?”

‘Indeed, sir.”

‘Just a few T words?”

‘Just a few.”

‘Well, I suppose I might do that.”

And so saying, he picked up the quill pen with which he had been working, dipped it, and very quickly jotted a few words beneath Sir John’s florid signature. A very few. Then did he fold the letter, not bothering to seal it, and called out for the butler. With the same great effort as before, he pushed himself up from the chair. And as I gulped down the remainder of the coffee in my cup and put it aside, I, too, stood and made ready to accept the letter— though not first, it seemed, without a final bit of ceremony.

“May I ask your name, young man?”

“It is Jeremy Proctor, sir.”

“Let me assure you, young ^Mr. Proctor, that I judge my time with you well spent. I look forward to other meetings and to a long and happy relationship with Sir John Fielding. Convey that to him, please do.”

V\ ith that, he offered his right hand; I shook it and took the letter from his left.

“Thank you, sir. It has been a pleasure.”

“Arthur, show Jeremy Proctor to the door and send him on his wary with our good wishes.

Arthur bowed his acceptance of the task. I bowed my goodbye to Mr. Trezavant. And Mr. Trezavant bowed his dismissal to me. Such an abundance of bowing!

I returned down the long, dark hall, following the butler as before, and noted that as he opened the door to allow me into the street, he followed his charge exactly.

“Good wishes to you. young sir.” said he.

“And to you also.” said I, with a wave.

I heard the door close after me and walked on to the next street. And as I walked, I reflected that in an odd way it had indeed been a pleasure. What Mr. Trezavant seemed to lack in plain sense, he made up tor in politesse. He was of a type I knew nothing about at that time in my life and do now know only a little better: a born courtier; the sort who. with good manners alone. hopes to overcome all resistance, who with smiles and compliments and a sure sense of where power might lie in any given situation would find his way to the side of power while giving no offense to the rest. The man was no fool. That much was evident. Only great success as a merchant could have provided him with such a grand house. Yet his intelligence was or the sort most comfortable with numbers, debits and credits. For the rest, he stood firmly upon ceremony.

I would not pretend, reader, that all oi this had occurred to me during my walk to the corner. It is equally the product oi later experiences and observations Mr.—later to become Sir —Thomas Trezavant. who eventually died as Lord Barnwell, Earl or. Calder. All I can honestly say is that when I had gone that distance from his house. I thought it safe to open the letter and see what he had written upon it. I give it to you now in all its cryptic brevity:

“See no need. Unseemly. No point. —T.

All that I truly thought then and there was that the man was a perfect ass.

The house I had visited was in Little Jermyn Street. I had reached it walking down Piccadilly. To my surprise, I found that the corner at which I had chosen to read the message appended upon Sir John’s letter put me on St. James Street. I knew I was close to the Bilbo residence, yet Id no idea I was quite so close, for in the past I had always approached it down Pall Mall, paying little attention to what lay in the surroundings. So then did I turn on St. James and make my way to that house which I knew so well.

Jack Bilbo was proprietor or London’s largest gaming establishment. He was a man with a past. There were dark rumors or how he had come by the fortune he had spent in outfitting and opening his now thriving enterprise. Some said he’d got his money smuggling during the French War; others that he’d captained a privateer in the Caribbean and preyed upon all shipping that passed his way but for British; most, however, dismissed such accounts as mere milksoppery and declared with great certainty (though always behind his back) that Black Jack Bilbo had been nothing more or less than a pirate.

He looked the part. Bald but for a few stray hairs, he refused to wear a wig and wore a great bush of a black beard which covered the lower part of his face completely. Though not of great stature, he carried a substantial weight of muscle and sinew on his powerful body. He would often go through the streets of London, on foot and unarmed, carrying considerable sums of money; never was it known, however, that he was accosted by robbers: his fierce appearance and even more fearsome reputation protected him against all.

Nevertheless, Sir John called him friend. Jack Bilbo had been guest in our home on more than one occasion. He was forthright and honest, and he was generous enough to have taken my friend Jimmie Bunkins off the street and made him his ward. He took him from his life of thievery and taught him honesty, loyalty, and obedience. In only one particular had Bunkins failed to learn, and that was in the matter of letters — failed, that is, until Mr. Robert Burnham came as tutor a few months before the time of which I write. Young Mr. Burnham, with his kind and persuasive manner, his experience in teaching, and his simple and direct method, had achieved immediate results. As I had told Sir John, Bunkins already read from the newspaper and was now taking on more challenging matter—books. It was to Mr. Burnham’s tuition that I hoped to entrust our Annie.

So came I to the house in St. James Street which had once belonged to the unfortunate Lord Goodhope. How it came into the hands of Black Jack Bilbo is a tale already told; I shall not further impede this narrative by repeating it. Suffice it to say that under Mr. Bilbo’s rule the household was run in a manner more democratic than before. He kept no large house staff of retainers — footmen, maids, servers, and the like — only a cook and a kitchen slavey or two, and a couple of what he termed “house cleaners.” Those who lived in the house, most of them on the staff of his gaming establishment, were given the responsibility of maintaining the house and serving themselves insofar as they were able. Since there was no butler, all inside lived by Mr. Bilbo’s injunction that he who heard a knock upon the door must needs answer it. For the most part this system, if it be called such, worked well enough. There were often, however, long waits upon the doorstep as one waited to catch the ear of one of the residents. Nor was there any certainty just who might at last appear at the door.

On this occasion I was pleased to find an old acquaintance there to greet me. It was the familiar face of Nancy Plummer that I found a-smiling out at me. Her I had first met near three years before on the occasion of my first (and near only) visit to Black Jack Bilbo’s gaming establishment. She worked there as a greeter and hostess. Yet she lived under her master’s protection in this house that had once been the dwelling of an earl, and here I had seen her often.

“Jeremy,” said she, throwing open the door, “come in, though I must tell you that Jimmie B. is at his morning lessons.”

“Well and good,” said I, entering, “for I must first talk with the cove of the ken.”

“Oh, he’s about, ain’ he?” Shutting the door. “Though I’ll not take you where he is. I would not dare to go for a handful of neds.” She said it with a proper shiver of horror.

What was this mystery? I was about to ask when she told all:

“Mr. Bilbo’s down belowstairs. The house is bein’ ratted. The men is all down there, looking on, hooting and yelling and cheering the ratcatcher on. Cook and I and the other ladies of the house took shelter above just to be away from them terrible creatures. I come down for a deck of cards, else I would not have heard your knock.” She held the deck up to me as if to prove her claim.

“Then go, Nancy/’ said I. “I’ll find my way to him.”

“That’s a good lad,” she said. “Just down the hall — “

“To the last door on the right and down the stairs,” I said.

“You know the way for fMr. I’ll leave it to you, then.” She pranced away toward the staircase. “Oh, sweet Jesus, I do hate them things,” she wailed as she took to the stairs.

Indeed I did know the way. I had learned it during my early visits to this house when it was still the Goodhope residence. It seemed to me that it was a very long time ago, though I knew it was not. So much had happened since then, however, that my life seemed utterly changed. I hardly knew that boy who had made his way, alone, to London.

Before I had reached the end of the hall, I heard the rowdy sounds from below. As I threw open the door, there came laughter, shouts and yells, and more laughter, all the deep sounds of male hilarity. I was careful to close the door after myself, for it would not do to allow one of those despised little beasts an exit into the main floors of the house. I followed the stairs as they wound down and round and came out a few steps above the kitchen. A large, though ordinarily fairly dark room, it was as well lit as could be, with candelabra, single candles, even an oil lamp, placed on even’ flat space of more than a few square inches in size. Still, there were a few dark corners around the place, and it was in those, evidently, that the rats had their holes. A few score lay dead or d\ing upon the floor, but a good many teemed and squirmed within a good-sized cage over which the ratcatcher himself presided. His terriers jumped about him, eager with excitement.

I was so fascinated by my first glimpse of the scene that I very nearly fell over a large figure seated upon one of the lower stairs. It was Mr. Bilbo himself. He turned, recognized me, and slapped the empty space beside him on the stair.

“Sit down, lad. Have a look at this,” said he to me. “There’s a science to it, and a bit of art, as well.”

I accepted his invitation and dropped down next to him. From where I now sat a gang of residents and house staff, all male, ranged against the far wall. It was their loud voices I had heard but a moment before. All now had fallen silent.

“He’s cleaned out two holes already,” said Mr. Bilbo, “and he’s preparin’ now to go after that one right there.” He pointed to a spot just ahead of us, a gap between floor and wall that had been widened to a place of about three inches round, perhaps less.

It was certain that the ratcatcher enjoyed the attention of his audience. He went about his preparations like some performer at a fair, throwing little glances and smiles at the fellows off to the left and dropping a bow now and then to Mr. Bilbo, as master of the house. He delved deep into the pocket of his coat, and from it pulled a small furry animal which I at first took to be a rat. But no, its coat was a lighter, shinier brown, and its fur covered the length of its shorter tail. He held it out, cupped in his two hands, for all to see.

“What is that?” I asked Mr. Bilbo.

“A ferret,” said he. “This is where the science does pertain, for the ferret is enemy by nature to the rat. He may be small, but he is vicious, and the rats do fear him, for he kills them well —but not this one.”

“Oh? Why not?”

“Look sharp, Jeremy, and you will see his jaws is tied tight together with a bit of strong string. Though he be hungry, he cannot kill, and he cannot eat. Now, just see what he does with this little fellow.”

I leaned forward to watch. An expectant hush now —not even a whisper. The only sound came from the dogs, three of them, whining in agitation, rocking back and forth, dancing hind legs to front. Their master knelt down and released the ferret into the rathole. The animal squeezed through the small opening with no difficulty and quite disappeared.

“But,” said I to Mr. Bilbo, “if the ferret cannot kill the rats, why put him down the rathole?”

“To bolt them — but a moment, and you’ll see.”

It was but a moment, nor more than two or three, until I saw the result: the rats came pouring out —I would not have supposed there could have been so many down that little hole. As soon as one had squirmed through, another was out behind him. Once in the open, they did scatter, rushing off in every direction. Yet there was no hope of escaping the terriers, who -went wild as they leapt upon them, one after the other —a paw on his head, a paw on his tail, then the sharp, swift bite to break the back of the little beast, or a brisk shake of the head to break his neck —then on to the next and the next.

Again the kitchen was alive with shouts and roaring laughter. The men who watched the slaughter seemed near as excited by it as the dogs that did the killing. And I admit, reader, that I, too, was stirred by this display of brute nature at work. What a sight it was!

Mr. Bilbo leaned close and said loud so that he might be heard over the noise in the room: “Y’see, lad, the ferret goes down the hole, and he cannot bite and cannot kill. But the rats do not know this, and they fears him so that it throws them into a great panic to escape. Which they do —but only to be set upon by the terriers.”

Still they came, and still the killing continued. Then did I notice one of the dogs did not kill as the other two did. The little brown and white spotted fellow was as quick and strong as his mates. Yet once he had a rat in his jaws he held it just tight enough so that escape was impossible; he then ran with it to his master, who took the offering by the tail and dropped it in the cage with the rest. Then back he would go and pounce upon another, which again he would deliver to the ratcatcher.

I pointed at the brown and white dog, engaged as he was, and looking inquiringly at Mr. Bilbo.