The Color of Death (22 page)

“He was a dear man, old Arthur was.”

“I was with him at the time.”

“You was — er, were? Did he say anythin’ before he passed on?”

“Yes, he did,” said I. “He said your name.”

“My name?”

This time the tears did indeed fall; they simply brimmed over and coursed down her pretty cheeks in a great flood. She wiped at them but could do little to stanch their flow. Blowing her nose seemed to help. Indeed, she seemed to be gaining control of herself — that is, until I made a fundamental error.

“And when he said your name,” I added, “the pleasantest, happiest smile you could imagine appeared upon his face.”

With that, she seemed to lose control completely. She threw her head back and let out a tortured wail which seemed to ring through the room. Then more tears, more sniffling, more blowing. Those at the table nearest us looked at us rather disapprovingly. The server came and asked rather pointedly if there were anything he could do. I took that as a hint that he would be happy to see us depart. Flustered and intimidated, I told him we were just leaving and threw three shillings down upon the table, overpaying shamefully. I had Mistress Crocker up and on her feet, then out the door in a trice. Out in the Strand, she managed to calm herself quickly enough. One last great blow was followed by a few dabs at her eyes with a dry corner of the kerchief. She offered it back to me, and I urged her to keep it lest she have need again. She assured me she would not and insisted I accept it. With a shrug, I took the kerchief. Clearly, I had put aside the role of the gallant.

We walked along in silence for quite some distance. I noted those we met did now look upon us quite differently. If they noticed us at all, they seemed only to glance at us in a manner that conveyed a certain patronizing attitude, then did they look swiftly beyond us. We left Pall Mall and wandered a bit in St. James Park. To me, at least, Mistress Crocker seemed to have recovered completely from her attack of lachrymosity: She walked with a quicker step and even ventured a smile at me. I thought it possible at last to proceed.

“Mistress Crocker … Jenny, I was wondering if you could account for this.”

“How do you mean?” she asked, looking up at me quite innocently.

“How indeed. Well, I was referring to the fact that your name was his last utterance, and it was said with a smile. Why was that? Wliat was your relationship to him?”

“Oh, I had a very good relationship with good ol’ Arthur.” She said it in such a way that she implied a good deal more than she had actually said.

“Really,” said I, “can’t you be more specific?”

“Well, I suppose it’s all right to talk about it, Arthur bein’ dead and all, but I must say it u a bit embarrassin’ to me.”

I said nothing, but simply waited for her to continue, a device I had seen Sir John use countless times. Silence, he had said, can be a powerful weapon in the hands of the interrogator.

She had stopped in one of the paths which ran through the park. This one ran parallel to Pall Mall and afforded some degree of privacy in that we could see if others approached. She looked up the path and down and, satisfied that there were no listeners about, began her explanation.

“I noticed, Mr. Proctor,” said she, “that you look often at my bosom.”

I was quite taken aback. Had I stared? Had my attention been so obvious? “Why … why, no … er, well,” I stammered, “perhaps once or twice. I — ”

“Oh, think nothin’ of it,” said she, dismissing my chagrin with a wave of her hand. “It pleasures you so, and that pleasures me. It seems perfec’ly natural that it should. My point is, you see, that Arthur liked them, too. Oh, didn’t he though! Many’s the time I caught him starin’ at my bubs, and one time when I was tryin’ to get some time off so’s I might visit m’mum, I caught him glancin’ down as you was doin’, and I said to him, ‘Arthur, I see you keep lookin’ at my bubs. If you’ll give me the time off I want, I’ll give you a real good look at them.’ So he thinks that over, and he gives me a nod, and he says, ‘Done!’ And I unbuttoned and showed him right then and there.

“So it became a kind of game with us, it did,” said she, continuing. “Whenever I wanted somethin’ extra out of good ol’ Arthur, I’d let him have a look. But him being a man, it wasn’t long till he wanted to touch what he saw. Ah, but I wouldn’t allow that — not unless it was something very special I wanted, like St. Stephen’s Day off as well as Christmas. But that wasn’t often, and Arthur was always a gentleman about it.”

I was simply speechless. This was no questioner’s device to get her to tell more. On the contrary, I thought she had told me quite enough. I was amazed she had told me so much.

She looked at me, studied my face, and came to quite a reasonable conclusion: “I ain’t shocked you, have I?”

I denied it, of course. “Why, no, of course not.” Yet I’m sure I did not convince her.

Indeed not, for she went on then to justify herself: “Well, if you are, you shouldn’t be, for I’ve heard it that there’s a good many places in this world where the women don’t wear nothin’ at all up there on top. Arthur told me so himself.”

I had not only heard from her a great deal about herself, she had also told me more than I would ever have dreamed about Arthur Robb. He had never been more to me than the friendliest — certainly the gentlest — of all the butlers with whom I came in contact on my usual rounds about the city delivering letters and messages for Sir John. I thought some comment upon Arthur might be appropriate, and I believed I was sufficiently recovered from the surprise she had given me to make it.

“Uh, well, I daresay Arthur was a far livelier fellow than I had realized,” said I. “A soldier he was, and a … a — ”

“Ah, he was lively, all right,” she broke in, rescuing me. “He had a great sense of fun, he did.”

“And how did he demonstrate it?” I had not noticed that in him.

“He was a great tickler, for one thing. Oh, Gawd, the man was merciless ! All he need to do was come at me or the kitchen slaveys with his fingers out like he meant to tickle us and we would laugh and giggle and he ain’t even touched us yet. And just let the master and his missus be out the house of an evening, and he’d be sneakin’ about, tryin’ to creep up behind us to tickle us near to death. Oh, he was a fright, he was.” Fittingly, she ended her recollection with a giggle.

We began walking once more and soon found our way back to Pall Mall, and from there thence to St. James Street and Little Jermyn Street. We talked little on our way back to the Trezavant residence, for most of what might be said had been said. But not quite all.

“I understand that your master and his mistress will be returning this evening or tomorrow morning at the latest.”

“So I hear,” said Jenny Crocker. “The new butler got word today.”

“Then Mr. Trezavant must have sent it off as soon as he arrived. Does that mean he patched things up immediately? “

“Not likely,” said she. “It probably means they called a truce, and she’s coming back to count up all that the robbers took.”

I laughed at that, though I should not have. Mr. Trezavant had caused far too much mischief in the last few days to be considered in any way amusing.

“I have one last question, Mistress Crocker,” said I to her as we entered Little Jermyn Street with our destination in view.

“And what is that?”

“Where were you when that band of robbers entered by the front door?”

“I was talkin’ with Cook, which I’d been doin’ for half an hour or more. You can ask her yourself, and she’ll tell you the same.”

That satisfied me. I might indeed ask for confirmation from Mistress Bleeker, but Crocker would not lie when she could be found out so easily.

“This was all just to find out if I was the woman told poor Arthur the tale and got him to open the door, wasn’t it?” She put it to me as a sort of challenge.

“Why, no, I — ”

She interrupted me: “Because if it was, you’d no need. You could of asked me the other night, and I would of told you the same.”

“I know, but then I — ”

“But then you’d not heard old Arthur speak my name, had you?” she said, speaking over my words. She sighed. “Well, I’m grateful you told me. That I could of given that good ol’ fella such pleasure just rememberin’ me whilst he was dyin’ is something I’ll remember till my own dyin’ day.”

We had arrived at the Trezavant residence, and I was more than happy for it. I had hoped for a casual parting and was quite unprepared for this. I’d no idea what to say to her. It seemed, however, that I need say nothing, for she had not stopped talking.

“Thank you for the coffee and cakes. It was a nice place you took me, though I doubt I shall ever return there. I’m sorry if I gave you some embarrassment when we left.”

With that, she thrust her hand out at me with such speed and force that I thought at first she meant to hit me. But no, she wished me to shake it; that I did, rather limply, I fear. It was a gesture, on her part, of finality. She turned and marched up the few stairs to the door. She beat upon it with her fist, rather than use the knocker. I turned and left her there.

In my confusion I turned toward St. James Street, which took me a bit out of my way. It was not until I reached it that I turned and looked back the way I had come. I saw that she was no longer there before the door and assumed that she had been let in. Turning down St. James, I walked, head down, my thought fixed upon where and how I had done wrong. Indeed, it was certain that I had done wrong — I had no need to be told by Sir John nor any other.

So completely was my mind fixed upon what had transpired during the past hour and a half that I failed to hear the racket behind me until the crowd was quite close. When I did, I turned, looked, and saw them moving swiftly toward me. Running they were, a dozen or more men and a few women trailing well behind. All were in pursuit of one poor individual who was hard-pressed to keep ahead of them. They shouted after him, waved sticks, their fists, a horsewhip, whatever they might have handy. Why would they be after him? What could he have done?

Then, as the victim of this wild pursuit came closer, I saw he was a black man, and in another instant I recognized him. It was Frank Barber, Samuel Johnson s young fellow, whom I had met but days before. I must act, I told myself — and do what I could to help him.

“Frank,” I shouted. “Frank! Frank! Frank!”

He turned. He saw me, and in a moment more he recognized me, beckoning to him. But what could he do? If he were to slow down to discover what I could do to help, the mob would catch him up and perhaps tear him apart. And so, I decided, I would come to him. I ran out into the street to head him off; and while I failed to do that, I was able to run alongside, matching him stride for stride — in spite of the heavy weight I carried in each pocket. Only then, as I ran beside Frank, did I realize what it was I was carrying in the capacious pockets of my bottle green coat. What indeed, but the two pistols entrusted to me by Mr. Baker the evening before. I had returned too late from my night at St. Bart’s to return them to him this morning, and I had been loath to leave loaded pistols in my attic room, so I had simply shoved them in my pockets, where they now bounced dangerously. I shoved my hands down into my pockets to steady them, and as I did I took a look to the rear and noticed that our pursuers had fallen somewhat behind us — yet they came on steadily, and I was not sure that Frank would last much longer at the pace he had set for himself.

I pulled out the pistol from my right pocket and pointed the way with it to one side of the street. Perhaps Frank thought I was threatening him, for his eyes widened at the sight of the pistol. In any case, he did as I wished him to, running to one side of the street with me and taking a place on the walkway before one of the grand houses. We took our place before a sturdy, iron-barred fence. My original plan had been to seek shelter at Mr. Bilbo’s, but Frank was already past it when I joined him running from the mob; I had a sort of plan, and it would work as well here as anyplace else in St. James Street.

The leaders of the mob (if, indeed, there were any leaders) were disturbed by this development — so unexpected was it — that they slowed of a sudden and stopped. They saw the pistol in my hand and liked it not.

“Frank Barber, get behind me. Put your back to the fence, and remain there, no matter what.”

He did as I told him. His breathing was tortured. Could he speak with me?

“How long have they been chasing you?” I asked him.

“From … St. James’s Square … all the way.” His words were punctuated by panting gasps for air.

“But why? What did you do?”

“I did … nothing … nothing! … I delivered … a letter … to a … house in the … square.”

Though I was not then satisfied with Frank’s answer, I soon found that he told naught but the truth.

His pursuers moved forward stealthily as if they hoped that by gradual encroachment they might overwhelm us without our having noticed.

“That’s far enough.”

I yelled at two of them who were shuffling ahead of the rest as a kind of advance guard; they were slender, wiry chaps, not much older than I, and each carried sticks thick enough to be called clubs, which they attempted to conceal behind them. They were no more than twelve or fifteen feet away.

“I said, that’s far enough.”

And to convince them forcefully, I leveled the pistol and aimed at a point above — though not too far above — their heads. I pulled back the hammer and then the trigger and thanked God and Mr. Baker for the answering report — something between a crack and a boom.

The effect was immediate and was just as I had expected: The two scrambled back to the shelter of the mob behind them; in his haste, one fell to the cobblestones, losing his stick as he fell, but he made it back before his partner. The entire mob, men and a few women, shifted back a good five feet. Through it all there was shouting and yelling, warnings and recriminations. Yet they did not scatter as I’d hoped they might.

The two I had sent into a wild retreat turned round and began haranguing those behind them.