The Price of Murder (10 page)

I was annoyed at the lordly manner he had, of a sudden, taken on. “What does that tell you about me?” I demanded.

“It tells me you was brought up as a child of privilege, for one thing,” said he.

“If it tells you that, it tells you false, for I am an orphan and nothing more. I work as I do for Sir John to pay my keep. I am the servant, and he my master.”

That, reader, was by no means a fair summary of where I stood with regard to Sir John, nor he with me. If you have read thus far, then you know that he was to me far more in the nature of a teacher. And the things he taught did often exceed lessons in the law. It would not have been too much to claim him as my stepfather, yet I would not do so to Deuteronomy Plummer, for his remark had irritated me beyond telling. Child of privilege, indeed! I had all manner of household duties to perform. I served as Sir John’s amanuensis, writing the letters he dictated to me and often delivering them, as well. I served as the magistrate’s eyes during investigations of every sort, and, upon occasion, also as his bodyguard. And, finally, I had lately played substitute for Mr. Marsden, Sir John’s court clerk, during his recent bouts with influenza. And so on.

Yet I told Mr. Deuteronomy none of this, for he gave me little opportunity to speak out, blurting forth so swiftly that I doubt he heard my voiced reply at all.

“And what it tells me of Katy Tiddle is that she is a woman made poor by her drinking, as is my sister. I’ve met the woman upon occasion, she livin’ next door to my sister, and that is the opinion of her I have formed. Those numbered stubs and tickets—call them what you will—is from pawn shops hereabouts. It took two days time, and you still hadn’t figured out what they were, nor where they was from. Anybody don’t know what pawn tickets look like is a proper child of privilege, as far as I’m concerned. And anyways, why should we be chasing after what this woman pawned? Why ain’t we out chasing after Alice herself?”

“Just how much did Sir John tell you about Katy Tiddle and how she fits into this case?”

“Well, I . . .” He hesitated, unable for a moment to express himself. Then did he begin again: “Truth of it is, after I heard about little Maggie, how she died and all, I didn’t get much after that. I remember he said something about Tiddle, but I’m afraid I didn’t take in what it was.”

“I can understand that. But listen, we’ve good reason to think that Katy Tiddle brought the man who took Maggie away to your sister. She served as a sort of go-between. It seemed to me that he came back and killed her to keep her from naming him.”

“How do you know this?”

“From things she said when she identified the body. I thought we might go out to the pawn shops, at least a few of them, there around Seven Dials and take a look at the things she pawned to see if they give us any hints.”

“Hints of what?”

“Hints of just who this man was.”

“Well, all right,” said he. “There’s a couple of places, taverns and inns thereabouts, places Alice drank, where we can stop and ask after her. But, well, she’s been gone awhile, ain’t she?”

“She has,” said I with a sigh, “but drink up, and we’ll get started.”

Having thus compromised, we set off for Cucumber Alley. It seemed best to work out in a sort of circle from there down into the heart of Seven Dials. And so we did. In a manner of speaking, there was little difference between the territory we explored and Bedford Street, which I knew far better. Yet there was this about Seven Dials: it attracted a lower class of inebriate. After observing the puffed faces and bleary eyes of passersby and of those sitting about on doorsteps, I asked him quite direct why he had chosen such a place as this to install his sister and niece. (This was a question, reader, which had plagued me ever since I had heard he paid the rent.)

“That is a question easily answered,” said he, “for truth to tell, I did not choose it. She did. When at last I come to find her, she’d had Maggie and was sharing a room with a whore. I tempted her out of that situation, but she would not leave Seven Dials—oh no, young sir, she would
not
. So I got her into that room you saw and gave her a little each week so she wouldn’t have to whore.”

“But what about Maggie?”

“What about her?”

“Well, such circumstances could not have been good for the child.”

“No, they wasn’t, but Maggie never seemed to mind much—just so long as she had her dollies to play with. Truth to tell, Maggie wasn’t quite right in the head. I had a suspicion that Alice dropped her once or twice whilst she was carryin’ her about—but she said she never.”

Though I have since heard worse, I recall thinking at the time that in the bare facts just given me by Mr. Deuteronomy, I had the saddest, squalidest, most wretched story I had ever heard. I recalled, too, something told us by Katy Tiddle when she went unwillingly with me to Mr. Donnelly’s surgery to identify the body of Maggie Plummer.

“I am reminded,” said I to Deuteronomy, “of what was said by Katy Tiddle of the man who took your niece away.”

“Oh?” said he, now quickly on guard. “And what was that?”

“She told us that while it was true that your sister had probably taken money for little Maggie, it was also true that she was told that he would be bringing her to wealthy parents who would bring her up as one of their own. He told her Maggie would be happy with them, and Alice believed him.”

“And what did Maggie say?”

“That we were not told. But see here, Mr. Deuteronomy, why not give your errant sister the benefit of the doubt? Perhaps she was aware of her shortcomings as a mother. Perhaps she did truly believe that Maggie would be better off with others. Perhaps—”

He cut me off: “Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. Say whatever you like, but the child is still dead, ain’t she?”

“Yes, but not at her mother’s hand.”

To that he had no response.

 
There were but three pawn shops in the vicinity of Seven Dials, yet by the time we had visited all three, we had disposed of all but one of the numbered bits of paper; there must have been about thirty in all. Though, as we learned, some (a very few) of the items pawned by Katy Tiddle had been sold to buyers off the street, the greater number were still available and in the shops. By invoking the name and authority of Sir John Fielding, I forced them to bring forth the items the woman had pawned. We examined them and found them to be, with only a few exceptions, the sort of treasures that might be fetched forth from a gentleman’s pocket—watches, watch chains, kerchiefs of silk, cameos, et cetera. So, it seemed that Katy Tiddle was more skilled as a pickpocket than as a prostitute. The exceptions—items too large to be carried about in a pocket—clocks, a looking glass in a gilt picture frame, a jade chess set, et cetera, left me wondering if Tiddle were not perhaps a burglar, as well. But perhaps not, for the few clocks were quite heavy—at least a stone each. She may have bargained her quim with a proper burglar for such as that.

I learned much about the economics of the place. Seven Dials, it seemed, was supported by petty theft, for the most part. Bedford Street, by contrast, lived off grand theft, gambling, prostitution, and pimpery, and a hundred other more sophisticated and less legal enterprises; theirs was the more diverse economy.

Then, by earlier agreement, we moved on to what Mr. Deuteronomy assured me were his sister’s favorite drinking spots; each, it turned out, was more dreary than the last. When I called this to his attention, he puffed his cheeks and blew air dismissively.

“They all seem the same to me,” said he. “But then I ain’t no gin-drinker, and gin is what them in such places crave.”

And they craved little else, it seemed, for when we began our canvass of Alice’s haunts we were struck most immediate by the quiet that pervaded them. There was little talk or laughter to be heard—a few mumbles from the tables, perhaps—but nothing so demanding as a conversation. That awful silence is what I recall most vividly. And again, how different this was from those rowdy dives in Bedford Street. There one could barely hear his own voice from the roar of the crowd, day or night. A few even offered music of a sort.

Why, I recall the last such place we called at in Seven Dials—and well into the afternoon it was. The place had no name, or at least none that I can remember—and no sign or decoration of any sort; all that I can recall is the single word, GIN, painted in bold letters upon the door.

We entered, and for a moment we were blinded by what at first seemed a total absence of light within the place. Yet the absence was not complete; a few candles burned inside, and as our eyes customed to the dimness, we did at least perceive the size and shape of the world we had entered. And yes, a “world” was just what it seemed, so distant and different was it from that we had just left. There must have been twenty-five or more seated at tables and standing at the bar. A few of them looked our way, staring at two who plainly did not belong. We were intruders, no question of it. Slowly, still surveying the dark interior as best we could, we made our way to the bar. (I noted, by the bye, that none made comment upon Mr. Deuteronomy’s size at that location, nor had they in such places as we had visited earlier.)

The innkeeper climbed down from the stool upon which he was perched and came over to us.

“Which will it be?” he asked us. Then did he point to a sign up above his head. The sign did read: DRUNK FOR A PENNY/DEAD DRUNK FOR TUPPENCE.

“Neither one,” said I. “Sir John Fielding did send me here to Seven Dials to ask a few questions of you. We’re curious what’s the last time you might have seen Alice Plummer?”

“Who’s she?”

“Well, you
ought
to know her,” said Mr. Deuteronomy to the innkeeper quite sharply. “She would come round here for her first glass of the day.”

“That so? Well, we ain’t too good on names round here. You take all what’s in here now, about half of them couldn’t tell you their
own
names, much less anyone else’s. What’s she look like?”

I, who had never seen the woman for whom we searched, could only shrug and gesture toward her brother. Yet, he provided quite satisfactorily.

“She’s taller than me by near a foot,” said Deuteronomy. “She’s got kind of mousy-colored hair, blue eyes, and wears a blue cape that I gave to her.”

“That ain’t much of a description.”

“Well, it’s the best I can do.”

“What about this?” said I. “She had a daughter about seven years old—but small for her age—name of Maggie.”

“We don’t serve them that young around here,” said the innkeeper sternly. “You got to draw a line somewheres.”

“I didn’t say you did serve the little girl,” said I. “I meant only that she might have been along.”

“Oh, well, let’s see.” He concentrated visibly, a hand to his forehead, a pained look upon his face. “Wasn’t there a Beak Runner come around a couple of times, asking after her? I mean the little girl, of course. He said she’d been stole. Now I recollect her and the woman who used to bring her in.”

“That’s her, all right,” cried out Mr. Deuteronomy as loud and jubilant as if she had thus been brought back to life. “That’s the both of them!”

“Well, I’ll tell you what I told that Beak Runner. I ain’t seen either one of them for near a month.”

FOUR

 
 
 
 
Had there been mourners in attendance, the funeral of Margaret Plummer would have been grand as any. Strange it was to hear choir and organ in the nearly empty nave of St. Paul’s, Covent Garden. They thundered forth in that early morning hour, yet only Deuteronomy Plummer, Clarissa, and I were present to hear. Mr. Deuteronomy sat front and center in the first row, and we two but a few rows behind him. The vicar said a proper funeral mass, at the end of which he ascended to the pulpit and preached a brief sermon.

Sermon, did I say? It was hardly that. There was little could be said as eloquently as was stated by the mere presence of that sad, small coffin before the altar. Yet it was, I suppose, a sermon right enough, for the vicar quoted St. Matthew, chapter 18, verse 6.

“But who so shall offend one of these little ones which believe,” said he in a voice that rang forth strongly and filled the great church, “it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.”

Then, pausing but a moment to look each of us in the eye, he continued, signaling by some lightening of his tone that he no longer quoted scripture but spoke now as himself: “It should be understood that this is the most frightening passage of any in the gospels. I know of no harsher words to come from the lips of our Lord than these. Why then did he save them for those who commit crimes against children? The answer should be plain to us all. Because such as they are quite unable to defend themselves. They must depend upon the generosity of others for their defense. I am told that this child, Margaret Mary Plummer, had no chance at all—that she was sold into a life no better than a form of slavery, which quickly ended her, and . . .”

The vicar, a man of sixty or more, went on in this vein for a bit longer, but my notice was just then diverted to Mr. Deuteronomy. ’Twas Clarissa who called my attention to him. She gave me a sharp nudge with her elbow in my side. Having thus signaled, she pointed across the rows that separated us and showed me how the vicar’s words had affected our friend. His head was bowed, and the line of his shoulders was irregularly visible only just above the pew, for those little shoulders of his heaved up and down quite uncontrollably. He was weeping forlorn and bitter tears.

Even the vicar seemed to notice. He hurried his remarks through to the end and called for the pallbearers. Two men—no more—appeared from some spot secluded from our sight. Placing themselves one on each side the small coffin, they lifted it, and, to some stirring anthem sung by the choir, followed the vicar to the side door of the church, which, as I knew, led out to the churchyard. Mr. Deuteronomy fell in behind the coffin, and we behind him.