Murder in Grub Street (22 page)

It took a moment for me to grasp the significance of that. When at last I did, my eyes widened. “You don’t mean … ?”

“There’s talk,” said he.

We had reached the wooden fence which held in the sickly horses.

“Up and over,” said Bunkins, scrambling.

“It’s Moll Caulfield inside, is it not?”

“Come along,” said he.

I climbed the fence, which was so rickety I feared it might collapse upon me. , “Mind the horse apples,” said he.

I followed, picking a careful way behind him. The stink of the place was now quite remarkable. Bunkins whipped out the kerchief he had tried to sell me and covered his nose with it. I wished for a moment I had bought it from him.

Then into the building, part barn and part charnel house. The Raker was there, pitching hay for the horses. Along the two walls were the bodies of the dead, each covered with what looked to be a piece of sailcloth. They were not a great number — a dozen on one side and half that number on the other. Bare feet protruded from the sailcloth. There were two great piles of clothing, men’s and women’s; the men’s was much the taller of the two.

The Raker planted his pitchfork, then walked heavily toward us.

“So,” said he to Jimmie Bunkins, “you’ve come back with a chum, have ye? Why not, says I, why not?”

Then he stared at me, looked me up and down, as I stood uneasily, fighting my impulse to bolt.

“I knows ye, do I not? Aye, you were at the printer’s door, keepin’ watch for the Beak. Warn’t that a haul! Six, if I recalls aright.” He stood, fists on hips, considering. “Be ye here for curiosity — there’s some comes so — or be ye here for the Beak?”

“For Sir John,” said I forthrightly.

“In that case,” said he, digging into his pc ket, “I’d best return your price of admission.” He hauled out a handful of coins and offered me a shilling.

“I paid for two.”

“Ah well, here you are.”

I took the two coins without another word.

Then to Jimmie Bunkins: “The old party you seek is just there” — pointing — “second from the end.”

He turned away, wheezing or laughing (who could tell which?), and went back to his work. Bunkins gave me a nudge.

“Come on,” said he, “you must glim her for yourself.”

He led the way to the covered lump that the Raker had designated, pulled back the top of her sailcloth shroud, and exposed the face of poor Moll Caulfield. Bare recognizable it was, all collapsed and drawn so in death. I felt tears well within me but fought them back, wishing in no wise to appear weak.

“Raker,” I called to him, “when was this woman brought in?”

Once more he planted his pitchfork and tramped over to stand beside us.

“Two nights past,” said he. “She’s due to go under tomorrow.”

“And where was she found?”

“In an alley somewheres round Covent Garden.”

“Half Moon Passage?”

“No, ‘twas nowhere near there. Most to Hart Street it was. I’ve it in me book. I keeps good records. Have to.”

“Who summoned you?”

“The keeper of a gin shop in the alley, said the presence of her corpus was bad for business, though he swore he’d given her naught to drink.”

“And what was the cause of death?”

“Who’s to say? Sickness, chill, old age. She ain’t no child.”

He bent over and pulled the covering from her complete.

“You can see,” said the Raker. “There ain’t a mark on her body. I saw no need to alert the Beak.”

In spite of myself, I stared. Hers was the first naked female form that ever I had seen. Poor Moll awoke no lust in me, nor would she in any male. I gestured for him to return it.

Then said I to him, with all the spurious authority I could muster, “She must in no wise be buried in a potter’s grave. There is money aplenty to bury her well. ‘The body will be claimed at some time tomorrow. Keep the body in the coolest place you have. Is all this understood?”

“Aye,” said the Raker. “Mind, there was no marks upon her, no wounds, so I saw no need to call the Beak-runners.”

“I understand,” said I. “Sir John will be told, just as you told me. Mr. Bunkins,” said I then, “let us return to Bow Street.”

And together we left, without a look behind us. Once over the fence, we picked up our pace yet kept a dignified step well past the house.

“Crikey,” said Jimmie Bunkins. “You are a right hard cove.”

I returned to Number 4 Bow Street bursting to tell of the discovery, yet reluctant to inform Constable Fuller. His low opinion of Jimmie Bunkins and his evident distrust of me had, I confess, turned me against him somewhat. Gladly would I have confided in Mr. Benjamin Bailey, but I knew this day, Sunday, to be his day of deserved rest. I determined to make my report to Sir John and to none other.

When I parted company with Bunkins at the door, knowing well I had dinner waiting for me above, I offered him my penultimate shilling so that he might go and eat his fill. He took it gladly and game me the wink.

“This be my reward, is it?”

“By no means,” said I. “If it were in my power to give one, I should be far more generous. It is in recompense. You must have paid taht terrible woman a shilling on your first visit, so I repay you.”

“Done right fair,” said he. “What will the Beak do now?”

“That I could not hazard.”

Will he arrest those buggers in black?”

“He will if he has proof against them.”

“Proof?” cried he. “There’s your proof back a the Raker’s. She was frighted of them out of her wits, she was.”

“Sir John will do what is right,” said I firmly.

“He better,” said Bunkins. “there’s them who liked the old blowen and would take proper revenge.

Without another word, he turned and darted from the door
leaving me to stare after him wondering what rough justice he lay in his fantasy for the Brethren of the Spirit.

Then went I inside and up the stairs to listen to Mrs. Gredge’s scolding for my tardy appearance at dinner. Yet she scolded neither so long nor so hard as she might have, for I was back not much past the appointed hour, and in truth not late at all: she was still stirring the stew that would serve as our meal, and confessed that it would be a bit before it was cooked proper. That bit was near an hour, yet following my visit to the Raker, having seen what I had seen and smelled what I had smelled, I was in no rush to eat.

Even when I sat down to table I dawdled over my food. I managed a good chunk of bread smeared with butter well enough, got down a potato or two, and a carrot. But the meat, all brown but for the fat and floating in gravy, was quite beyond my powers of consumption.

“You’re not eating,” said Mrs. Gredge in a manner most accusing.

“Not hungry,” said I.

“Well, we’ll just see about that.”

So saying, she snatched up my plate and scraped the leavings into the stewpot.

“It’s not like you at all,” said she, clapping a hand to my forehead. “You’re not ill, no fever to the touch. You must have filled yourself with sweets and such out in the Garden. What you did not eat today you can have tomorrow. Now get on with the washing up.”

I jumped to the task, eager to make amends for the perceived insult to her culinary skills. As I worked, she pouted. As she pouted, she ate, sullenly eager to prove to me that I had done a terrible injustice to the great feast she had put before me. (This, no doubt, was true.) She even returned to the pot for a modest second helping, perhaps seeking out the very pieces I had rejected. She ate her fill, and then some, and ended by belching a mighty belch just to prove a point.

“I’ve never done a better stew,” she declared.

I said nothing in reply, but seeking her permission with my glance, took her plate, knife, and fork, and washed them clean with the rest. When all was done to her satisfaction, I excused myself and went up to my garret room and fetched down the book of my choice. I returned with it to the table and began to read. Airs. Gredge cautioned me against it.

“You’ll do your eyes no good reading so half the night, as you do,” said she.

“My eyes are fine, ma’am,” said I, quite mild.

“Keep it up, you’ll be as blind as Sir John.”

“I read that someday I might have his knowledge and wisdom.”

‘Ha! Little chance of that.”

“As you say, Mrs. Gredge.”

I bent my gaze back to the page. Then, out of curiosity, I raised my eyes, ever so slight, and studied her in secret. Old she was and growing older by the day. Her own eyesight was failing. She managed the stairs with greater difficulty than when I had arrived only some weeks before. Yet she cooked well still and oversaw my labors with stern exactitude. Her attitude to me had changed. While in the beginning she met me with disapproval and showed me only grudging tolerance at best, now that I regularly did the buying for her and a hundred other odd chores as she required them, she accepted me as a household necessity; sometimes even with signs of affection. I wondered at her age but only in later years had the courage to ask it. Further, I wondered at her length of service with Sir John. That much courage I had at least.

“Pardon, ma’am,” said I to her, “but if you don’t mind my question, when did you start with Sir John?”

“I do not mind,” said she, “for it has been a happy time for me here, all in all. But the truth of it is, I cannot rightly reckon the years, for I have lost count. It was, in any case, direct after they moved here from where they was situated in the Strand. That was a time of great turmoil, when his brother made off to Portugal, where he died, and Sir John took over from him here. Mr. Saunders Welch was also a magistrate, and had grand expectations of claiming this house and court as his own. But brother Henry would have none of it. He installed Sir John and dear Kitty, God rest her soul, in these upper floors, and then sailed off to his death. Mr. Saunders Welch, you may know, went off to Long Acre and opened a magistrate’s court of his own.”

“Where he lives well on fines, and traffics with independent thief-takers,” I put in.

“That’s as they say.”

“All this happened in 1754, or that was what I heard from Mr. Bailey — just one year before my birth.”

“Was it really so long ago? It could be indeed. But those was happy days, truly they were. Sir John and Lady Kitty had not been married so long, and both wished to make the most of this new life, and so they hired me, thinking I might do as cook for their meals when they had special dinners, like. Oh, and they had them, and didn’t I cook for them then! My own youngest — he was yet a bit older than you are now — he would take off from his duties as a cabinetmaker’s apprentice, with his master’s permission, of course, and he would serve, all donned in proper dress. There was people who would come, grand people, and they would talk, and laugh, and drink, until all hours of the night.”

She stopped of a sudden with a great sigh. “But all that stopped when Lady Kitty got her wasting sickness some years back. It came upon her gradual. It wasn’t near as bad in the beginning as it was at the end—what you saw, Jeremy. That was the worst. That was the worst that could be. What was it that Irish doctor said was the cause of it?”

“A tumor,” said I.

“Ah yes, just so. He was wiser than the rest and not near as puffed up. It made me old watching her go. And Sir John — he aged ten years in two.”

She sat there a long moment, brooding upon the events she had described — and perhaps upon her own fate, too. Then she rose unsteadily to her feet, managing it only upon a second attempt.

“Though it be early, I’m up to bed,” said she. “After that grand meal on quite the best stew that ever I cooked, I feel a bit drowsy, I do. You mean to sit here and read, do you?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Well, mind what I told you and take care of your eyes — not too much reading. Bad for the eyes and wasteful of candles, as I’ve told you in the past.” A little of the old fire burned in her still.

“I’ve something to communicate to Sir John,” said I. “I had thought to wait up for him.”

“Well, you may indeed have quite a wait. I wish you a good night, Jeremy Proctor.

With that, she limped off, favoring her right leg, as she was lately wont to do, and then made her way up the stairs.

For my part, I settled in, prepared to remain at my post until Sir John arrived and I might tell him of what I had seen in the Raker’s ghastly barn. I was of two minds about this. Sir John had told me plain that I was not to wait up for him. Yet surely he would want to know of poor Moll Caulfield’s death, the when and where of it, the condition of her body, and so on. Surely he would commend me for telling him all at the earliest opportunity. At least, I hoped he would.

And so I settled down to read. In truth, I cannot remember the name of the book, for it did not interest me greatly. This one, like so many others I had read in the past months, was taken from the great stack that had been stored in the room at the top of all the rest which had become my own. It was, as Sir John had informed me, all that was left of his brother Henry’s library. The rest had been sold off to the benefit of Henry Fielding’s widow and children. These leavings contained not much to engage a boy of my age and craving for literary adventure. Still, they did me good, for reading through them diligently as I did (since they were the reading matter nearest at hand) helped instill in me the habit of study that has benefited me greatly in my career in the law. And I’m sure, too, that in the end it added greatly to my store of general knowledge, for I read through works on subjects as various as the North American colonies, the silk trade in China, and the geography of Asian Russia.

Just how completely a boy of such inexperience would have understood such matters, I can today only guess. I do know, however, that it was often necessary for me to reread whole pages and more to get the sense from them. And so, reader, you will understand if I tell you that on that particular night, in spite of my intention to stay awake reading as I waited for Sir John, my interest in the book before me flagged utterly. I found myself blinking and rubbing my eyes. Without knowing how or when it happened, I fell fast asleep right where I sat.

I know not the hour when I awoke, though it seemed to be quite late. The candle had burned down to less than a thumb’s width, and the room had fallen cold. As I look back on the events that thereafter transpired, I calculate it must have been just on midnight, or shortly past.

It could not be that Sir John had arrived and, oblivious of me, gone on to his bed. Though he may not have seen me with his blind eyes, he would have sensed my presence. The man had an almost preternatural awareness of others around him — not only their proximity, but also exact location, disposition, and general description. His was quite an amazing faculty. No, Sir John had not passed by me in the kitchen.

Although awake, I was groggy and somewhat befuddled still. What might I do? Make a pot of tea for myself and return to the book that had put me to sleep? In my condition, that seemed altogether useless. Quite likely I should only fall asleep again. And so, reluctantly, I gave up my intention to meet him at the door with news of Moll Caulfield. He would hear of it from me in the morning. I picked up the candleholder with its guttering fraction of flickering light and made my way up to my garret room.

While in the act of pulling off my clothes, I happened to glance out the window and saw a great glow in the sky. What could it be? I went closer for a better look and saw, first, that it emanated from a spot quite nearby, and second, that the glow was caused by a fire of goodly size. Flames winked up from the bottom of it. Smoke spiraled high into the night sky.

Quick as I could, I dressed myself again, grabbed my hat and coat, and ran from the room. I clattered down the stairs in a great rush, unmindful of Mrs. Gredge, who slept in the room just below mine. Through the kitchen then and down the next set of stairs, which took me to the ground floor, the area assigned to the Runners and the empty strong room. Constable Baker was there to greet me, much surprised.

“Where do you go at such an hour?”

“There is a fire!”

“Oh, indeed there is, and a big un.”

“But where?”

I danced before him, eager to be off.

“Maiden Lane,” said he. “But why must you go?”

Already I was on my way. “Sir John will be there, surely,” I called over my shoulder.

“He will, but — ”

Whatever caution or objection he had to offer was lost to me as I ran out the door to the street and slammed it behind me.

Out and away, I saw there was no need for me to have asked Mr. Baker for the whereabouts of the conflagration. There were people in Bow Street, and though not a great crowd, all were hurrying as one in the direction of Maiden Lane. I thought to distance them all, yet as I rounded the corner into Tavistock Street with Maiden Lane in sight, well lit by the fire, I saw there were more people still, pouring in from the Strand, carriages and coaches as well. Soon I found myself forced to a walk, darting when I could through breaks in this moving wall of humanity. Men, women, even children were there, all come out to gawk at the blaze, for such was deemed great entertainment in those days — as it is, alas, in these as well.

Yet by pushing and shoving when need be, making myself small and squeezing through when that was required, I pressed onward through Maiden Lane until I came to a barrier of rope that had been thrown up to hold back the throng. There I stood, resting but a moment, catching my breath, surveying the wild scene before me.

Less than ten rods from me was the burning building, a structure of wood, as about half were in this area. It was low compared to those around it — but two floors from the street with a peaked roof that raised it somewhat and may have also covered an attic. All this could be seen still, though flames danced out from the windows below and could be glimpsed through them above. The far side of the ground floor seemed to have been near consumed. Thus the fire burned from below to above. I could not tell, knowing little of such things, if this was good or bad, if it meant the structure might be saved or no. What most concerned me at that moment was where Sir John might be.

With my eyes I searched the space confronting the burning building. There was a good deal of activity there, but much of it seemed confused, so much running about by men who lacked point or purpose. Not all, however. At the far side of the house, which was where it was worst burned, three men with hooks on long poles had engaged a thick supporting timber above and had pulled it loose. With a great heave they took it down, flaming, sparking like a log from a hearth—and with it came a good-sized section of the top-floor wall. They jumped clear, then pulled the fiery mess back with their hooked poles into the street.