Jack, Knave and Fool (39 page)

He fair did a jig to us, so happy and proud was he.

“You refer, of course, to Lord Laningham,” said Sir John.

“I do, yes, and it was on the advice of an old professor on the medical faculty in Vienna. He wrote in answer to a letter I wrote some time back. ‘Geben Sie dem Ndchdten Milch, dovieler trinken kann.’”

“Come, come, Mr. Donnelly, you know I have no German,” said Sir John.

“Milk! Milk! No more than that. I kept pouring it down Laningham, and he has begun to rally. I believe he will pull through.”

“Then, as I told you, sir, I will be suspicious. But that is neither here nor there for the moment, for we have another patient for you.”

Mr. Donnelly looked down at Cowley, truly surprised. “What is the trouble here?”

“That knife wound opened up, sir,” said he, pointing down at the stain on his breeches.

“At this late date? Cut away his breeches. Let me look at it.”

Mr. Baker produced a knife and began ripping away at the knee of Cowley’s breeches. When it was pulled back, a dirty bandage was exposed.

A look of anger appeared upon the surgeon’s face. “Mr. Cowley,” said he, “this looks like the bandage I put upon the wound these many days past. I recognize the knot with which I tied it. Did you not change it every other day as I instructed? Did you not apply alcohol to it from the bottle I gave you?”

“Well …” said Mr. Cowley, “my wife was afeared to touch it, and I thought ‘twould heal of itself. It was not so great a wound, after all.”

“I trusted you to have the good sense to follow my instructions.” Mr. Donnelly clapped a professional hand upon his forehead. “You’ve a high fever from it. Cut away the bandage.”

Again Mr. Baker did has he was told, and then, at the surgeon’s direction, ripped off the bandage. Mr. Cowley let out a howl of pain —and I could well understand why. The wound, though not large, had festered and swollen in a nasty way. Pink pus oozed from it, encrusting an area at least three inches round it. It smelled most foully.

“Take him out to the hackney in front, and send word to his wife in the morning that he will not be coming home to her until he is well.”

“Is there a hackney in front?” I asked.

“Yes, the driver is yelling to be paid. Said he would not press his demand for fear his horse might be shot. Can you imagine such a thing?”

When at last, having eaten my dinner, I prepared myself to sleep, I was fortunate enough to be given back my own bed. When Lady Fielding heard what Clarissa had experienced in that bare, shabby room in Half-Moon Passage, she pronounced the girl no longer infectious and sufficiently well to share Annie’s bed with her. The three of us —Clarissa, Annie, and myself— had by then put our heads together and revised the circumstances of our guest’s unexplained absence. When asked again, as I was sure we would be, we would at least all tell the same story.

You may well ask, reader, why I had in the first place lied to Sir John. It was no impromptu fib: I had given consideration to it on the journey to Bow Street in the hackney coach. It seemed to me then, as it seems to me today as I write this, that had Sir John known that she had fled intending to sail with her father to the colonies (as she later admitted to me), then he would have sent her posthaste back to Lichfield and the parish poorhouse. To put it simply, I thought she deserved better than that. And so, though a liar, I felt justified in my lie, and I slept well in spite of it.

Next morning early, I was sent off on the queerest errand I had ever been sent on by the magistrate. It included a visit to the Bilbo residence to learn the exact location of the destination I sought. It continued with a visit to the worst, the smelliest, the most squalid hovel in all London, I’m sure, where I made a purchase of—well, let us say, some animals. It concluded with the delivery of said animals to Sir John in his chambers. He then bade me go to Mr. Donnelly’s surgery and invite him to come to Bow Street at his earliest convenience. Mr. Donnelly agreed, saying that Cowley had just fallen asleep after a bad night and that he, the physician, would soon be leaving for the Laningham residence and would stop off on his way.

He arrived at Bow Street only a few minutes after my return. Sir John had only just had time to outline his plan to me; I thought it bizarre in the extreme, yet sensible and -worthy. Mr. Donnelly knew nothing of it at all as he seated himself. I remained standing, for I, as I knew, was to take an active part in what Sir John was pleased to call his “experiment.”

“Now,” said the magistrate, “you have said that there is no proper test for the presence of arsenic.”

“That is what I have learned —no chemical test known, and I trust him who told me.”

“Well and good,” said Sir John. “I propose now to make an experiment which, though not a proper chemical test, should nevertheless be convincing. As you know, sir, when Lord Laningham fell stricken after drinking from a bottle of wine, I suspected and suggested to you that he might have taken an ordinary emetic to cause the vomiting and have shammed all the rest. I told you that if he recovered I would be suspicious.”

“And I told you,” put in Mr. Donnelly, “that if he recovered it would be due to my skill as a physician, for I had by then received the advice of my old professor and meant to put it to practice.”

“I quite understand. But because I had some notion of this little experiment, I asked Jeremy here to seize the bottle of claret from which Lord Laningham drank and take it here as evidence. Now, Jeremy, has the bottle been tampered with, or added to, in any way?”

“No sir,” said I, “it has been under lock and key in Mr. Marsden’s evidence box.”

“And what have you done with it to prepare for the experiment?”

“I poured a good bit of its contents into this bowl, which contains chunks of bread from our kitchen. The bread is well soaked in wine now.”

“Just one more question: Did you first shake the bottle of claret?”

“Yes sir, just as I had seen Lord Laningham do before he poured and drank his second glass.”

“There, you see, Mr. Donnelly, it’s all been prepared just so. Do you accept that?”

“Yes, certainly, of course I do.”

“Then, Jeremy, take the cover from the cage.”

I did as he directed, revealing the three good-sized rats I had purchased from the ratcatcher who had so efficiently ratted Mr. Bilbo’s kitchen. So long as they were in the dark, they had lain dormant. Now, with the light upon them, they were stirred to activity. It took but a moment until they seemed in an absolute frenzy. Mr. Donnelly, at first startled by their sudden appearance, leaned forward and studied them, quite fascinated.

“Now, Jeremy, drop the bits of bread into the cage —but I caution you, be careful. I would not have you bit by one of those filthy creatures.”

I was careful as could be. I dropped the claret-soaked bread through the top of the cage. Each morsel fell with a wet plop to the bottom, so heavy was it with wine. The liquid spread. The rats lapped at it and tore at the bread. I continued to drop food to them until the bowl was empty, then I poured the residue of the liquid into the cage, where it splattered and ran.

“They have it all now, Sir John,” said I.

“Then,” said he, leaning back in his chair, “we have naught to do but sit back and wait for the result.”

It did not take long for the ugly long-tailed, furry things to finish the bread and lick the floor of their cage dry. That I also reported.

“It should not take long,” said Sir John. “You see the sense of this, do you not, Mr. Donnelly? If the rats are made sick merely, then the bottle of claret contains an emetic. If, however, they become sick and die, arsenic being the commonest rat poison, then I shall concede that arsenic is what the bottle contains, and I shall laud your healing powers to the very heavens.”

By that time, the three creatures roamed their cage restlessly hoping in vain to find some morsel or drop that had earlier escaped their notice. Then, one after another, they began to stagger, fell down upon their bellies, and began to regurgitate the contents of their stomachs. All a purplish red it was, exactly the color of the wine and wine-soaked bread on which they had feasted only minutes before. Indeed they vomited so copiously that the bottom of the cage was soon awash in their foul puke. I informed Sir John of this development.

He nodded, a patient smile upon his face. “They should be sick for a time, in great discomfort no doubt from the emetic, but as I predicted, they will recover. “

Mr. Donnelly said nothing. He simply leaned forward and stared in fascination, waiting.

Then one of the rats, the smallest of the three, rolled over, his tiny legs in the air, went rigid, and died.

“Sir,” said I, “one of the rats has died.”

” What? Are you sure? He might revive.”

“Oh, I think not, Sir John,” said Mr. Donnelly, “for there goes another.”

It was so. And then the third. All three adopted the same unnatural posture in death —upside down and quite stiff.

“I’m afraid, sir,” said Mr. Donnelly, “thatyou must begin now to praise my skill as a physician.”

“Why, that I have always done, as you must know. But truly, sir, I am amazed, for that knave Paltrow, who has assumed the Laningham title, seemed to have arranged it all. He specified the bottle from which he drank. It was waiting for him to drink during the musical entertainment. I know this from the butler. Paltrow shook the bottle in a most suspicious way, according to Jeremy, who saw all. And God knows the fellow had motive enough for murder.”

“Well, then, perhaps the butler did it —heaped in the arsenic before serving the bottle.”

“Perhaps, yet I trust him far better than I do Paltrow.”

“Or, since the bottle was waiting to be drunk, no doubt it had been uncorked, and any one of the household staff might have had access to it.”

Sir John said nothing. He simply sat, shaking his head slowly.

“Well, if you will now excuse me,” said Mr. Donnelly, rising from his chair, “I must attend him whose life I saved last night.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” said Sir John. “Forgive me for wasting your time, sir.”

“By no means was it time wasted. I concede that the effect of arsenic could have been counterfeited with an emetic. Now we know that it was not. Goodbye then, Sir John, Jeremy.”

He picked up his bag and started for the door. Yet then did the magistrate detain him with a last query.

“Mr. Donnelly, I cannot let you leave without inquiring after Mr. Cowley’s condition.”

“Between us three,” said the physician, “it is not good. I’ve got all the pus from it I could and washed it down with alcohol. Now I have on it a poultice of fungus and leaves which I was given by an Indian medico, one of the few whom I respected.” He sighed. “The infection has entered Cowley’s body. I hope I can at least save his leg.”

“Pray God you can.”

With that, he departed, leaving us two to share a glum silence.

“Well, Jeremy,” said Sir John, “it would seem that we must now take seriously the tale we were told about him who had sworn vengeance upon the entire Laningham line.”

“Yes sir,” said I. Then, after a bit: “Shall I take the rats and perhaps bury them in the yard?”

“Not immediately. I’m hoping yet that they will revive.”

A day passed. As news came that Lord Laningham was swiftly recovering, Mr. Cowley’s condition steadily worsened. Whereas Mr. Donnelly had previously said he hoped he might save the constable’s leg, he now said he hoped merely to save his life. The leg had gone gangrenous; it would have to be amputated. Mr. Bailey and Mr. Brede, both of whom had assisted in such horrendous procedures on the battlefield, volunteered to assist the surgeon. It was to take place at night, that the constable’s screams, if and when they came, would not be heard by many. Two bottles of gin were purchased in hopes that they might not come at all. Mr. Cowley began drinking in the late afternoon. I heard later that by the time the operation was begun he was quite insensate.

And indeed I heard little more than that. When Mr. Bailey and Mr. Brede returned at about eleven, exhausted and blood-spattered, they informed Sir John that all had gone well in that there were no unexpected complications. Mr. Brede, who was by nature quite taciturn, was moved to speak in praise of Mr. Donnelly.

“He learned his craft well in the Navy, sir,” said he. “I never seen nor heard of it done better.”

“Should I ever be needful in the same way, which God forbid,” said Benjamin Bailey, “I pray God it’s Mr. Donnelly does the job.”

“Yet an ugly business at best,” said Sir John.

“Aye, sir. But he gives young Cowley a good chance for recovery.”

“Thank God for it. Go now, both of you. Your return to duty on this night will be a matter of your own choice.”

With that they took their leave of us.

“And so,” said Sir John, rising from his seat at the kitchen table where he had taken their report, “the awful thing is done.”

“Yes sir.” Then did I come forth impulsively with a thought which had greatly troubled me: “I feel somewhat at fault in this, Sir John.”

“Oh? How can that be?”

“Had I not taken Mr. Cowley with me in the search for Roundtree, his wound might not have opened. And he — “

“If it had not,” he interrupted me, “the poison from it might have taken an even firmer hold in his body and killed him outright. We heard the message passed on to us by Constable Bailey: Mr. Donnelly gives Cowley a good chance for recovery.”

“Yes, but recovery with only one leg to stand on? What can he do? What will become of him —and his young wife?”

“That, Jeremy, is a question to which I have given much thought and which I intend to address in a letter I shall dictate to you tomorrow morning early. But now, let us to our beds — for we both of us have gone short on sleep of late.”

The letter to which Sir John referred was directed in his chambers to William Murray, the Lord Chief Justice. It plead in well-reasoned terms that a pension be bestowed upon Constable Cowley of no less than three-quarters of his pay as an active member of the Bow Street Runners until such time as he could find employment or earn by his own enterprise an amount comparable to his monthly salary. He made the point that even though the amputation was necessitated some time after the wound was inflicted, it had been inflicted in the line of duty. The infection had come about, said he, from Constable Cowley’s premature return to his duties. And even on the night on which he had become incapacitated, he had performed admirably, shooting dead a villain who, seeking his escape, had put a knife to the throat of a young girl of good character.

(Glad I was to take down in dictation this description of Clarissa; I thought it boded well for her future.)

He concluded: “I shall be happy to discuss this matter at your earliest convenience, and remain your humble and obedient servant, et cetera.”

I presented it to him for his signature, which he did put where I placed the pen. Then did I fold it with my usual care, drip sealing wax upon it, and seal it with his signet.

“Take this to him to whom it is addressed,” said Sir John to me. “You needn’t, of course, wait for a reply, for the Lord Chief Justice will likely think about it for some time and summon me to argue it in person. I would, however, like you to bring with you the Chinese vase which Roundtree filched from his residence. Do not simply deliver it. Before you hand it over, insist on sure and certain identification of it as the one that had been stolen.”

So intrigued and delighted was I by this final instruction that in taking my hurried leave, I nearly bumped into Mr. Donnelly at the door. I paused but to make an urgent inquiry into Mr. Cowley’s state.

“The surgery went well,” said he. “His wife is with him now, quite overcome she is. He is comforting her. A good sign, that. I think he will pull through.”

Thanking him, I went off to find Mr. Marsden that he might hand over the vase to me. Yet I was still near enough to hear Mr. Donnelly say: “Sir John, I have received another letter from my old professor at the medical faculty, an addendum to the first, which I believe will interest you greatly.”

That, of course, interested me greatly, as well. Yet the importance of the letter I carried and the pleasure of returning the vase urged me go forth at all speed, rather than find some excuse to dawdle and thus hear what Mr. Donnelly had to report.

It was one of those days in early February which offer a hint of the coming of spring. Oh, it was still winter, and have no doubt of it. I was happy to have my muffler tucked tight about my neck. My hands were thrust deep into my pockets, one of which contained the letter and the other the small porcelain vase. Yet the sky was blue, the air was clear and dry, and the sun shone down upon us all who walked the streets. My steps were buoyed by this slight change in the weather, so that the journey to Bloomsbury Square seemed not to last near so long.

I arrived and beat confidently upon the door. The butler, with whom I had fought so many engagements in the past, was as quick to arrive as he usually was. He opened the door no more than a foot or two, and stared out at me with the same air of imperturbable sobriety that he always showed me.

“What is it you wish, lad?”

“I have a letter for the Lord Chief Justice.”

“I see that you wear your bottle-green coat,” said he. “You may wait inside for your reply, if you will.”

“There is no need for that, or so I was told by Sir John.”

“Then give it me.”

He held out his hand, and I delivered the letter into it. Yet just as he was about to shut the great door, I piped up once again.

“There is another matter.”

“Oh? And what is that?”

“I have here a Chinese vase,” said I, producing it from the other pocket. “Would this be the same one was taken from the house when the carpenters were working here?”

He looked at it, though not closely, and offered his hand again.

“I suppose it is,” said he. “I’ll take it.”

I pulled it back out of his reach.

“I’m afraid, sir, that your supposition will not do. Sir John instructed me that I was to have sure and certain identification of it before I surrendered it to you or anyone else in the house.”

“But … but,” he sputtered, “the proper place for it is in Lady Murray’s bedroom. I’ve had no cause to enter there but once or twice.”

“Perhaps, then, Lady Murray’s maid might identify it.”

He stood frowning at me a bit longer than I thought necessary. Then at last he said, “Wait here,” and shut the door upon me.

I returned the vase to my pocket and waited quite happily. I turned and surveyed the street, whistling a ballad, a tune from Annie’s inexhaustible supply. As it happened then, my back was turned when the door came open again — exactly as I’d planned it.

“Lad, here, lad, I have brought Lady Murray’s maid.”

I turned with a smile and one was returned me by the woman who crowded the doorway with the butler. Quite plump and motherly she looked, but her eyes were eager as a child’s.

“Doy truly have the vase?” she asked.

“I may,” said I, taking it from my pocket. “Would this be it?”

She took it from me carefully and examined it, turning it round to examine it this way and that.

“Oh, it is, it is! I’d know it anywheres. Wherever did you find it?”

“Sir John Fielding recovered it in the execution of his duties.”

“Well, you must thank him for all of us. M’lady will be jo pleased. Egbert,” said she to the butler, giving him a nudge with her elbow, “have you no sense of justice? Give the lad a reward.”

Yet much as I should have liked to remain to witness his discomfiture in this situation, I stepped back and bowed deep to her. “The smile on your face is reward enough,” said I to her, “for I was, after all, but the bearer. Goodbye to you, then.”

And so saying, I left them both with a wave. The sour look on the butler’s face was one which I can picture to this day. He knew he had been bested. And I, oh yes, I knew it, too. I fairly danced back to Bow Street.

Upon my arrival, I was informed by Mr. Fuller that Sir John wished to see me. I hastened off to his chambers, found the door standing open, and entered. Immediately he rose from his desk.

“Jeremy? Come along. We’re off to visit Mr. Donnelly’s patient.”

“You mean Mr. Cowley, sir?”

“Ah no, that will have to wait, I fear — though not so long, to be sure. I meant his more illustrious patient, Lord Laningham. There are a few things I wish to find out from him, and thanks to the admirable speed with which you performed the task I gave you, I have just enough time to make my inquiries before I hold my court. Perhaps it’s best if you precede me and bring a hackney to our door.”

“I shall have one waiting, Sir John.”

Perhaps I was a bit optimistic in my promise, for I found it necessary to go all the way to Russell Street before I encountered a hackney for hire; when I rode back in it, I spied Sir John before Number 4, leaning upon his stick. He had his head up high, and wore a broad smile upon his face. As I helped him up into the coach, he remarked upon the day.

“There is the breath of spring in the air,” said he. “I truly wish we might walk the way to St. James Square, yet time is against it.”

He settled back in his seat, I shut the door, and we were off. We had not gone far when I timidly approached him on a question to which I was eager to have an answer.

“Sir John?”

“Yes, Jeremy, what is it?”

“Would this visit to Lord Laningham, these few things you wish to find out—would all this have something to do with the letter from Vienna which Mr. Donnelly brought to you today?”

“Ah, you heard that, did you?”

“Only that he thought its contents would interest you.”

“And you, too, are interested, eh?”

“Oh, yes sir, very keenly interested.”

“Well, I fear I must disappoint you for now as to what was said in the letter. Perhaps it will not be long, however, until all will be revealed to you.”

With that, he fell into that deep silence so like sleep. As we bumped along over the cobblestones his head bobbed loosely, though his chin never rested full upon his chest. I knew him to be deep in thought. No doubt, I surmised, he was planning his strategy for the battle that lay ahead.

Battle? Nay when it came, I considered it more in the nature of a skirmish. In truth, I was rather disappointed at the magistrate’s gentle handling of a fellow whom he held in low regard. In spite of the outcome of the experiment with the rats (which now lay two feet beneath the weeds and furze of the yard behind Number 4 Bow Street), I felt that Sir John still held Lord Laningham suspect.

We were met at the door by Mr. Poole, the butler, who conducted us to the bedchamber of the master, a grand room by any measure. And it was one decorated in the grand manner: there were paintings and statuary, with furniture of the size and sort one might more likely expect to find in a drawing room; a fire blazed in a fireplace wide as it was tall. In the midst of all this inherited splendor, Lord Laningham sat up in as large a bed as I had ever seen. He leaned against a whole mountain of pillows and smiled wanly as Sir John was ushered in.

“Ah, Sir John,” said he, “so good of you to come. In fact, I so hoped you might that I left instructions with Poole that should you make an appearance, you were to be shown up to me without formalities or delay.”

“Mr. Donnelly cautioned me that until today you were in no condition to accept visitors,” said Sir John.

“Ah, Donnelly, I owe my life to the man! Do you know the medicine he prescribed? The elixir that brought me from death’s door?”

“Milk, as I understand.”

“Uh, yes, so it was,” said he, somewhat deflated. “It somehow acted against the poison. Ah, the miracles of modern medicine, eh?”

Though the curtains had been drawn against the blue sky and morning sun and the room was quite gloomy, I saw Lord Laningham plain by candlelight and the blaze of the fire. He looked indeed as if he had passed through a great ordeal. The dark discoloration I had earlier perceived round his eyes seemed darker still. His face seemed thinner, drawn. Nevertheless, though his voice was low and seemed somewhat strained, his words were more confident, perhaps, than ever before.

“Lord Laningham,” said Sir John, “I wonder, did you take any of the steps I urged upon you when you reported the shot fired at you through the window?”