Murder in Grub Street (29 page)

Katherine Durham, who had come perhaps to represent Sir John at the funeral, tossed in a bit of earth and took me aside.

“Jeremy,” said she in a whisper. “You must not be shocked at what happens. It has all been arranged by Sir John.”

“But what has — “

“Soft,” said she, “and make ready to leave swiftly.”

Then she gave a nod to Benjamin Bailey, and he to Black Jack Bilbo.

Giving no other sign, these two powerful men fell upon Jimmie Bunkins.

Their intent was not to do him harm, but rather to bind him with the stout rope Mr. Bailey had pulled from the grave. How Jimmie Bunkins fought against them! He kicked with his feet and pounded with his fists — and well I remembered their stinging power from my first encounter with him! Yet he was no match for them. They wrapped him top and bottom with the rope and bound his hands, as well.

What was remarkable was that he barely uttered a sound through this brief struggle, except for grunts and gasps that he delivered with the blows and kicks he rained upon them. But now, trussed up like some wild animal, he began bellowing and screaming for help, more in frustration than in true expectation, surely. Yet Mr. Bilbo would have none of that. He pulled a silk handkerchief from his pocket and jammed it into Bunkins’s wide-open mouth.

Indeed, who would help him? The vicar, who had apparently been forewarned, clapped shut his prayer book and made swiftly for the church. Dotty and the old dames gaped in surprise, then timidly shrank back. Mr. Baker and Mr. Cowley clapped their hats upon their heads and made ready to leave. And as Mr. Bailey tossed Jimmie Bunkins over his shoulder like a sack of turnips, Mrs. Durham gave me a tug upon my sleeve.

“Come now, Jeremy, we must go.”

“No, I want to tell him that …” And then, realizing that the information I had given Sir John regarding Bunkins’s plans had put the lad in his present predicament, I saw that there was little I could tell him.

And so I did no more than nod my assent and follow Mrs. Durham along the pathway toward the church. About halfway to the door whence we had exited, I turned and looked to see what had become of Bunkins. Riding atop Mr. Bailey’s shoulder, he was about to leave the churchyard by way of the gate to the piazza. Mr. Bilbo and the two other constables trailed close behind.

“Where are they taking him?” I asked Mrs. Durham. “To Bow Street? Will they put him in the strong room?”

“No, Jeremy,” said she, “he’s done nothing yet. It’s to prevent him that they’ve taken him away. They mean only to talk sense to him.”

Sir John Fielding had called the meeting for half past six, not long before the hour that the Bow Street Runners customarily assembled to make their nightly rounds, or to organize raids upon nests of known malefactors. For although the Runners maintained a reassuring presence on the streets, they were best known then, as today, for their swift attacks and counterattacks upon the criminal element. Thus had the first Bow Street magistrate, Henry Fielding, conceived the dual mission of this band of worthies; and thus had Sir John Fielding maintained them.

While I rightly supposed that the meeting planned by Sir John might be one such council, I had no notion of the size and extent of the strategy he meant to put in operation. This would eventually go down in the annals of Bow Street as the grandest maneuver ever attempted by the Runners. Yet how was I to guess that when, while seeing the day go calmly following the burial of Moll Caulfield and the disappearance of Jimmie Bunkins, I was sent to Johnson Court with an invitation to the Great Cham that he might come by for a visit about half past six? There was so little urgency in Sir John’s manner that I thought he intended perhaps to go out and dine with Dr. Johnson. In fact, Sir John had been notably relaxed and cheerful all afternoon following his court session, humming to himself, wandering about, exchanging jibes with Mr. Marsden. I marveled at his ability to put the burden of office from him. For my part, I was still much troubled by Bunkins’s abduction and the role in it I had played. Though I knew I had done right in informing Sir John of Bunkins’s incendiary intentions, the memory I kept of him helpless in his bonds and riding on Mr. Bailey’s broad shoulder plagued me all through the day. Truth to tell, I found it a relief from those confused pangs of conscience to be sent off on the errand to the home of Dr. Samuel Johnson.

The first hint that something quite exceptional was planned came in Dr. Johnson’s response to the invitation. He had come at once to meet me and seemed in an agitated state.

“Have you a letter for me, boy?

“No letter, sir,” said I, “but an invitation. Sir John wishes you to come by to his chambers at half past six.”

“Oh, I will,” said he. “Tell him I shall be there, that I would not think of missing an opportunity to see the end of this dreadful matter.”

Though puzzled, I thanked him and turned away to go.

“Tell him also,” said Dr. Johnson, “that I had been quite prepared by Mr. Boyer and that I acted my part well during the expected visit.”

If I had been puzzled but a moment before, I was now confused and curious. How had Mr. Boyer prepared him? Who was the expected visitor?

Yet knowing my place and asking no questions, I took leave and hurried back to Bow Street, hopeful that I would receive some explanation from Sir John.

Vain hope it was. He took the news of Dr. Johnson’s acceptance of the invitation without comment, and when I added the lexicographer’s postscript, he simply nodded, smiling, and began once more to hum the ditty he had kept going through most of the afternoon. I had never known him in quite such a state.

“Have you anything to do?” he asked me then, surprising me with the generality of his question. “Any tasks for Mrs. Gredge?”

“None that I know of, sir.”

“Then I advise you to go up to your bed and have a nap,” said he. “You’ll have a late night of it tonight, and I mean for you to be alert. Should Mrs. Gredge object, tell her that you go under my command. But be sure that you, too, are here at half past six. Inform Mrs. Gredge of that. Tell her to wake you in time.” He then made a quick, dismissive motion with his hand. “Now, do as I say — go.”

I left as bidden, thinking that it had all become even more difficult to understand. Not only had I the questions that Dr. Johnson had raised to puzzle over, I must now also wonder at Sir John’s purpose in wishing me present at his meeting with the lexicographer. Was John Clayton also to be present? Was I to read his face again? Why should that be the cause of a late and strenuous night?

Thus baffled, I went to my attic room, having instructed Mrs. Gredge to wake me when the clock struck six. I looked out the

window, dubious that I should be able to sleep in the daylight hours. Yet looking, I saw that the sky was changing, darkening, as a wall of dark clouds scudded in from the east. A wind had blown up of a sudden. But I laid me down upon my bed and took up the book that had put me to sleep a couple of nights past. What could it have been? I recall that about that time in my young life I had attempted without success to read Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy, and so perhaps that was it. Yet whatever the book, it worked upon me better than a sleeping potion. After a mere couple of pages, I drowsed. My eyes drooped, and soon I slept.

There was a dream, and a great confusion of a dream it was. There was in it a whole host of men in black. There was fire and before the fire the men in black danced — not for joy, as the Jews had done, but in a wild and uncontrolled manner, as I then supposed that Red Indians danced. There was the face of one who threatened me, who threatened us all, for I was in the company of others. It was the face of Brother Abraham, and he mouthed words which seemed biblical but were all a jumble of threats and promises. Then were there great explosions in the dream, yet this seemed quite reasonable in the logic of the dream, for if there was a fire, then it would be necessary to blow up surrounding structures with gunpowder, as the captain of artillery had proposed. Yet the explosions grew louder and more frequent, and the loudest of all waked me, for it was thunder, and rain beat hard against my attic window.

I rose from my bed, listening to the storm outside, noting how the wind rattled the window; then I pulled on my shoes and coat and, remembering my hat, left the safety of my room to descend the stairs. The clock struck six as I entered the kitchen, where Mrs. Gredge bustled about the table.

“Ah, there you be,” said she. “I was just on my way to fetch you down. I’ve made you a pot of tea to wake you up proper. But a moment or two more, and it should be well steeped.”

I thanked her and took a seat. She pushed a plate at me with a great slice of bread and a chunk of cold beef upon it.

“Eat that,” said she, pouring my tea. “You’ll need it. Myself I think it not right to bring a boy out on a night such as this. But it’s plain you’ll need something inside of you.”

Even Mrs. Gredge seemed to know more about the plans for the coming night than I did. Yet I asked her no questions, but fell to the job of eating I had before me. I had not known until I began how hungry I was; nor until I drank the tea, how sorely I needed it to wake me. I ate in silence, and having finished, got up to do the little washing up there was to do.

“No,” said Mrs. Gredge, “I’ll attend to that. Get yourself down the stairs and join the crowd of them that’s there already.”

Saying a goodnight to her, I then made my way down the stairs and found most of the Runners already present, either in their rain gear, having just arrived, or pulling it off. They talked but little, but those who did so spoke in loud tones. There was indeed something in the air that night, and it was more than the rain that fell.

Seeing Mr. Baker, second in command of the Runners, standing somewhat apart from the rest, I presented myself to him and asked after Sir John.

“He’s in his chambers,” said Mr. Baker, “where us all will gather. My understanding is he wants you there right quick.”

Though not a large room, it was made smaller by the addition of a number of chairs set left to right before his desk. Behind that desk, Sir John paced in slow, deliberate steps. Yet I had not done more than enter when he stopped and turned in my direction.

“Who is there? Is it you, Jeremy?”

“It is, Sir John.”

“Ah, good. I want you to serve as my butler.”

“Sir?” I could not suppose he wanted me in livery, to puff and prance about as I had seen it done at the Goodhope residence.

“You need not worry yourself over it. Our guests will be arriving by hackney carriage and coach on such a night as this. Be at the door. Meet them as they arrive and convey them through that rowdy bunch in the hall to me here. Understood?”

“Very well, sir.”

“Well rested, are you? Had a bite to eat?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then get on with it, for they should begin arriving at any minute now.”

First to come was Dr. Samuel Johnson — or so I discovered when I leaped from the shelter of the entrance and threw open the door to his hackney. He extricated himself with some difficulty, but once on the cobblestones he moved easily enough — through the door and into the hall. He followed as I called my way through the Runners, and I deposited him at the open door to Sir John’s chambers.

Next came Mr. William Boyer, arriving this time not in a public conveyance but in a coach drawn by a team of two horses. When I moved to open the door to it, I was pushed aside by the single footman who had leaped down to the street. He had under his arm a package of no great size, wrapped in cloth. Mr. Boyer appeared quite timorous at my first sighting of him. He looked left and right and then at me.

“Are all here?” he asked of me. “Are the Runners here in force?”

“Oh, they are, sir. Right this way.”

I led him through the milling mass. There could not have been more than twenty of them there that night in the long hall, though to me they seemed a great throng. Their presence seemed to reassure Mr. Boyer, as well. A short man, not much above my own height, he seemed to take heart in the very largeness of the Runners. When at one point I turned to assure myself he followed close, I saw him staring in wonder at the top of Mr. Bailey, who stood near six and a half feet above the ground. Yet he hastened along then, and I soon deposited him at Sir John’s open door. I noted, as I did so, that two more chairs were left to be filled.

Then back to the entrance of Number 4, where I stood long and waited, half sheltered from the rain, for the next arrival. The wind was greater than the rain, however. It had me backed up against the door. When on a couple of occasions I heard hoof-beats and looked out left and right, I had to lean out against the wind, to fight it as one might struggle against a physical, carnal presence.

At last I heard a steady clop-clop-clop that made sure announcement of a vehicle approaching, a hackney from the sound of it. I waited, knowing not who might make an appearance. Yet in no wise could I have supposed who would first emerge from that carriage when I jumped to open the door.

He was a boy of about my age, well scrubbed, in clothing of good quality, who leaped nimbly to the cobblestones. It was not until he was down at my level, his face near mine, that I recognized this young and unexpected visitor for who he was — Jimmie Bunkins. He turned to me, most bold and assured, and gave me a broad wink.

Then came Black Jack Bilbo from the hackney. He tossed the driver two silver coins and dodged into the open doorway where Bunkins and I awaited him.

“Sorry to be late, young Jeremy,” said Mr. Bilbo. “There was matters at my establishment demanding my attention. Has the proceedings begun?”

“No, sir,” said I. “I believe Sir John awaited you.” Then, remembering there were two empty chairs, I added, “And your companion. This way, please.”

Mr. Bilbo’s companion seemed somewhat intimidated by the assemblage of constables. “Crikey,” said he behind me, “I never seen so many hornies of a darkey in one place in me life!”

Yet we made our way through them, the Runners taking greater notice of Mr. Bilbo and Bunkins than they had the other two I had moved through their midst. Both were known to them — though by diverse means.