Murder in Grub Street (26 page)

Just when I was warming to it and imagining disasters to call down upon Dodsley’s, good old Tom Cranford appeared from the rear, wiping his hands on his apron and smiling broadly.

“Well, if it ain’t young Jeremy!” said he. “Quite the fastest boy with a type stick that e’er I seen.”

He offered his hand in manly style, and I shook it.

“How do you fare, Mr. Cranford?”

“Oh, far better than those I worked with but a short time ago. Nay, I cannot complain.”

“I was wondering if I might talk with you at some length. Here and now may not be the best place and time, however.”

“You’ve got that right, so you have. No doubt you’ll want to be talking about employment, and that’s best said confidential. Let us meet across the street at the Goose and Gander. I cannot say quite how long I shall be—yet not a great wait, I promise. Will that suit you?”

“It will. I thank you.”

“I’ll not be long, a short piece of work to finish is all.”

With that we took our leave, and I departed, most satisfied. I gave not so much as a look to Freddy and his colleague. I suppose that in my own way I snubbed them.

The Goose and Gander, now replaced by an eating place of greater pretension, was a plain, dark tavern that would have done for workers in any trade. I entered it cautiously, not knowing what I might find, for in truth I had never visited such a place before. It seemed quiet enough. There were but a few present, men who sagged against tables placed against the wall. I sought out a table away from them and sat myself down.

When the serving maid came, I asked for coffee.

“If you wants coffee,” said she, “you must go to a coffeehouse.”

“What have you then?”

“Beer, ale, and gin.”

Ale I knew not. Gin, from what I had seen in the streets, was pure poison. Beer, which Sir John sometimes drank, seemed safest. That was what I ordered; and when it was brought, that was what I tried my best to drink—yet could not. How could Sir John down such bad-tasting stuff? But the serving maid seemed not to care whether I sipped at it or left it untouched. Only one in that shadowy place paid me the least attention, and he it was who was furthest away, a slender man dressed most gaudy.

Tom Cranford, whom I awaited, was a man not much over thirty. He had lately married and his wife was with child. He struck me as a responsible sort, and I knew him to be most able in the printing trade. Yet for all this, there was something jolly about the man, quite boyish in his manner. He would sooner be laughed at than taken with great seriousness.

In fact, he had a wide smile on his face when he entered the Goose and Gander, still wearing his printer’s apron. He stopped but a moment to dally with the serving maid and give her a good thwack upon the bottom, which she accepted with a girlish giggle; then he made off with a tankard of light ale which she offered him in reward. By the time he had reached the table where I awaited him, he was roaring with laughter. He had roused the place with his high spirits. The men who had been lolling against the wall now sat upright, watching Tom with interest, exchanging looks as if his appearance were some exciting new development in a drama they witnessed.

I had gotten to my feet. He gestured me down.

“Please, sit, Jeremy boy. I’m not the sort to rise for.”

“I’m very happy to see you again, Mr. Cranford.”

“It’s Tom — Tom with me. And I’m sure you’re very happy to be able to see me again. After all, one more day, and you’d have been counted among the victims.”

“Ah, well I know that and count myself lucky.”

“But tell me, what was it you wanted to talk about? Not about employment, was it?”

“No, in truth it was not.”

“As I thought. That silly snip, Theodore, who brought me from the back shop, was all over me with questions, wanting to know the latest on the massacre, as they call it, said you had news of it. Then I recalled your apprentice papers was signed by none other than Sir John Fielding. At the time, I thought it meant no more than you was a court boy, sent to us to keep you out of mischief. But now it may be that you are a bit closer to him, eh?”

“He has taken me into his household,” said I.

“Ah, lucky you are, Jeremy. Though you are well suited for the printing trade, I must tell you it is a hard one in which to rise. But I’ve not come to burden you with my complaints. Leave it that your prospects are now much brighter.” Then, for the first time since his entrance, he grew quite serious. “Tell me then,” said Tom, “have you news of what befell my fellows that terrible night?”

“Of a sort,” said I, “but let it be between us only.”

“I can keep a confidence,” said he.

I lowered my voice to a murmur. “Well, then, it is this: Sir John now proceeds on the belief, evidence notwithstanding, that John Clayton did not himself wreak that murderous havoc.”

“I knew it!” said Tom Cranford, with a slap at the table.

I raised a finger to my lips, pleading for silence.

He continued in a whisper: “I’d come to like that fellow Clayton. Something of a bumpkin he was, and a bit loony as all poets, but at heart a gentle soul. He had no reason to kill Ezekiel Crabb, much less all the rest in his house. His hopes was riding on that second book. He’d forced Mr. Crabb to better terms on this one and might truly have made a bit on it. It made no sense that he would murder all.”

He frowned, thinking upon the matter a moment; then he added: ” ‘Twas me took him his clothes at Bow Street.”

“I did not know that.”

“Aye, and a pitiful sight he was, hair down in his eyes and in that bloody nightshirt. But he knew me. He said, ‘Tom, what have they accused me of?’ When I told him, he wept. I think he came along after the carnage and was put quite off his head by it.”

“So he himself says. But, Tom, it was not truly to give news but to receive it that I was sent out by Sir John. I’ve been asking about on Grub Street if some might have any notion why such an awful, murderous deed had been done. And knowing why, then by whom.”

He shook his head most solemnly. “I’ve no idea of it,” said he, “and believe me, boy, I’ve given much thought to it.”

“You recall, do you, that Mr. Ingold was one who was brought by Mr. Crabb to witness my skill at typesetting?”

“Oh yes — I would, Trimble, and Purvis — there was three. He wanted them to see he was getting an apprentice with a journeyman’s skills.”

“Purvis! Yes! I could not remember that name. But I went to Mr. Ingold pretending to seek employment but in truth to get him to talk about Ezekiel Crabb — to hazard and speculate on this question of why and who. He was not very forthcoming.”

“I ain’t surprised at that. Very tight-lipped he is with all.”

“He did say, though, something that surprised me. Perhaps you can explain it. He said, ‘Whatever punishment Ezekiel Crabb received you may be sure he brought upon himself.’ What could he have meant by that?”

“Well, now, Jeremy, there’s things you must understand about old Crabb, things you would have learned soon enough had you come to work as his apprentice. His nature was such that he was very argumentative and contentious. He liked nothing better than to get into a wrangle with another on some point of learning or philosophy. Now I myself, I had no trouble with him. I do not pretend to learning of any sort. He paid regular and, after my last threat to leave him, he paid well. We got along.

“Oh, but he argued and argued well, used ridicule if need be. I recall when Isham Henry — he was the other journeyman—when Henry got religion, so to speak, there were days of disputes between them. Mr. Crabb was something of a freethinker, he was, and he cut into poor Henry most merciless, he did. He would always have the upper hand in any discussion.”

“Mr. Henry was away on those days I came. He’s been proven out of town at the time of the murders.”

“Oh, he could kill no one — quite weak he was, within and without.”

“He attempted to give evidence against John Clayton. Sir John rejected it as hearsay.”

“Yes, so I heard, and he got it all from me. I told him of the great row between Crabb and Clayton on the terms of the second book. I was all for Clayton on that. He’d been properly gulled on his first book. Crabb made a small fortune on it. But Clayton brought him about. He threatened to go to Boyer for the better terms. He was not near so ignorant as some took him to be.”

“Can you think of any with whom Mr. Crabb argued violently in the recent past?” I asked, most earnest.

“I’ll give you one quite recent,” said Tom. “It was just days before the terrible night, and it was another row over religion. He had been given a book to publish by a sort of preacher on the conversion of the Jews. It had been brought in by Isham Henry, who was, I believe, one of the preacher’s flock.”

(Did not my ears prick up at that, reader!)

“The whole thing was done up in mathematics and would have been hell to set in type and read proof on. This preacher was meaning to prove that the calculations that had been done in the last century to show that this great event would happen in 1650-something — that these previous calculations was all in error. With his own calculations, this minister or preacher or whatever he was sought to demonstrate that the conversion of the Jews would be done in this century in just a few years’ time. Then after the mathematics there was all this matter from the Book of Revelation about the terrible and glorious things that would then come to pass. I know what was in the manuscript because Crabb showed it me and asked my opinion. I told him I knew naught of the content, but that, as I mentioned, setting it in type would be damned difficult. He said he was tempted to take it on, for the preacher who wrote it was willing to take on half the run, which would pay Crabb’s costs.

“Yet he must have thought more upon it, for when this preacher called at the office, they got into a terrible row. We heard it all over the shop. Old Crabb was clever at argument. He did not call to question the Scripture of it. He attacked his mathematics, said his figuring was all wrong. The preacher got into a proper fury at that, called down curses upon him, and demanded that he give back the manuscript. Crabb told him then he would not give it back. He would offer it to a right brilliant Oxford mathematician of his acquaintance, and they would prove to him that his figuring was all wrong. In fact, he did know such a man and probably planned to do just that. He would go to such lengths to win in an argument. The preacher screamed for its return. Crabb refused, then ended all discussion with an insult to the preacher’s faith — said the Jews would never be converted. They were too smart for that.”

“And he kept the manuscript?”

“Oh, he kept it, all right. It must be there in his desk right this moment.”

“Do you remember the preacher’s name?”

“Not rightly, no — only that he had but one. Brother something, he called himself.”

I leaned forward and whispered the softest I knew how, “Was it Brother Abraham?

He frowned, then smiled. “So it was,” said Tom Cranford, “so it was.”

“Tom,” said I, most serious, “I must ask something of you. I must ask that you repeat this story you have told me to Sir John Fielding.”

“You think … ?” He raised his eyebrows ever so high and left it for me to finish his sentence.

Yet I said, rather: “Let Sir John do the thinking. That is what he would say. Now when can you go to him?”

“Let it be after my day’s work. I reckon I’ve already overstayed my leave here. Tell him a bit past six.”

With that, he quaffed off the last of his ale and rose to go. I, too, rose and shook his hand. There we parted, he leaving the Goose and Gander a more sober man than he had entered.

I sank back into my chair and sat for a space of time, considering the import of what I had just heard. I thought it considerable. Surely I had handled the matter rightly. Sir John would hear Tom Cranford s story from me within an hour or less, yet I knew he would insist upon hearing it from Tom Cranford himself. So, of course, I was right to request most urgently that the journeyman go to him and tell the tale as he had told it to me.

I reached out and sipped once again at my tankard of beer. Its taste had not improved during Tom’s visit. Of a sudden then, I became aware of one looming over me. I looked up and found the gaudily dressed man who had previously taken my notice smiling down upon me in a manner most ingratiating.

“How do you do?” said he. “No, I pray, do not rise. I intrude but to satisfy my curiosity. May I sit down?”

When I did not say no, he took that as assent and chose the place quite close to me that Tom had vacated.

“May I introduce myself?” said he, offering me a very soft hand which I shook out of courtesy. “I am Ormond Neville, poet and historian of the day-to-day. And you are?”

“Jeremy Proctor.”

“Ah! A fine name, to be sure. Do you perchance recognize my own?”

“Your name? Why …” I hesitated, not wishing to offend him. What could I do but prevaricate? “Why yes,” said I. “I have heard your work discussed in Grub Street — oh, and with much interest.”

“But you’ve read none yourself? Vulcan and Veniui? Achltophel? My great tragedy, The Trojans?”

“I fear not. I am a poor lad, and the purchase of books is quite beyond me, no matter what their quality.”

“I understand, certainly. Perhaps I could lend them,” said he. “But I came not to advertise myself, rather to question you … uh, politely, of course.”

“Uh, yes, I see.” Truly, I did not. What was this fellow getting at? He had a fluttering, self-important way which put me off a bit. Still, Sir John had instructed me to keep my ears open. Perhaps Mr. Ormond Neville might have something to tell me, in spite of himself.

“It may be,” said he, “that you have read my lesser works unawares, for I do not sign them. I am, as I said, not only a poet but also a historian of the day-to-day — in short, a journalist. I am, in fact, the author of a broadsheet which received wide distribution, one entitled ‘Great Massacre in Grub Street.’ Did you by any chance read that?”

“Oh, I did,” said I, glad to be able to tell the truth at last. “I thought it a most complete report, remarkably so since it was got out so quick after the events it described.”