Murder in Grub Street (31 page)

Bunkins hesitated, turning to Mr. Bilbo for counsel. All he received from him was an emphatic nod of the head. He rose then uncertainly, and though at first unable to find his voice, he managed after some hesitation to begin to mumble.

“Speak up, boy,” said Sir John. “They cannot hear you. I can barely hear you myself. Please begin again.”

“I said,” repeated Bunkins in a louder voice, though still uncertain, “that I knowed this old blowen — old woman — Moll a good long time, and she helped me full many time, giving me food and such. I heard she lost her lumber, like, in the big wind and had been put up by these preachers. So I was not agog when I seen her amongst them. I was, though, when she catches my eye, and passes me a letter which was meant for the Beak — uh, for Sir John. Well, I’d managed not to meet the gent, but I seen Jeremy once with him, so I come to him and told him I had a letter for his cove.”

“A point to be made, Master Bunkins,” said the magistrate, interrupting. “Moll Caulfield was seen, was she not, in passing the note to you? And you were chased?”

“Oh, right you are, guv. But I scampered swift and got away.”

“And you came to me with Jeremy and delivered the note. In it, Moll said things were not right with the Brethren of the Spirit, and she would tell me more if we removed her from their care. It seemed to me she was being held against her will. And so we went next day to collect her and were told again, by Brother Abraham, that she was in no wise kept prisoner, that she had in fact departed their midst the night before of her own volition. I could not prove otherwise, and so I sent out a message to you all to be watchful for her. Jeremy, too, went a-searching. And you, Master Bunkins, also looked, did you not?”

“Aye.”

“And you found her?”

“Aye. I found her amongst the dead at the Raker’s by the river. She was due for a place where they bury them three or four deep in the hole.”

“And do not mark the graves.”

“I fetched Jeremy and showed him she was dead, and the Raker was all afeared he’d done wrong. He told us she’d been taken up from an alley, and since there was no marks on her, and Moll was an old blowen, he figured she’d just given out. He made no call to the Beak-runners.”

“It is, I’m told, true that there were no marks upon her,” said Sir John. “She was given a superficial examination by a Mrs. Katherine Durham, who confirmed it. Yet Moll Caulfield could have been poisoned. She could have been smothered. I lay her death, in any case, upon those preachers in black. Perhaps she learned in some way of their culpability in the awful murders in the Crabb household. Perhaps they, with their suspicions and guilty consciences, thought her a spy for me. Who can say why they thought it necessary to do away with a poor old creature like Moll?

“Yet none of this can be proven. There were no witnesses, no confessions, no incriminating evidence. That can also be said of that great slaughter in Grub Street. The fact that the murder weapon, or one of them, was very likely of North American manufacture and that Mr. Bailey can recall a story from the war in which he took part of a massacre similar to the one of which we are now so well acquainted — none of this would count at all in Old Bailey. Nor would Mr. Cranford’s memory of the heated, angry disagreement between Mr. Crabb and Brother Abraham, nor would Mr. Crabb’s fears of what he might expect from said Brother following such a disagreement. None of this would count for much in a court of law. Finally, the ill done direct to the Jews. The rabbi of the congregation on Maiden Lane would not make a complaint, so I was unable to charge the Brethren with so much as disturbing the peace. As for the fire which burned down the synagogue, to say that three men in black were seen leaving the area is much like saying three men were seen leaving the area — no identification, no proof, no evidence of any sort that might be accepted in a court of law.

“This is my problem throughout,” said he. “They are a disruptive force. They are capable of murder and arson, and who knows what else? Yet none of this can be proven! What can we do? Simply sit by and wait for more murders to be committed? More arsons? And thus, being patient, simply hope that they might make a mistake?

“No, gentlemen, no. There is one thing only we can do to deal with the Brethren of the Spirit, and now we have done it. Gentlemen, we have set a trap for them.”

Hours later we sat together at a table in the Goose and Gander. There were five of us there — Mr. Boyer, Dr. Johnson, Mr. Bilbo, Sir John, and I. We had all crowded into Mr. Boyer’s coach and driven over together. I counted myself lucky to have been included in their number. I thought myself to be in quite distinguished company. With the possible exception of Mr. Bilbo, all would have been welcome at any dinner table or in any drawing room in London. Yet more, to be one of them surely meant that I should play a part in the plan when the time came, though as yet my role was not near so well defined as Jimmie Bunkins’s.

The Goose and Gander had been cleared of its clientele about an hour before. This had been done, I understood, without so much as a by-your-leave. Two constables had arrived — I knew not which — and turned the few in the place out into the storm, telling them that it would be closed until further notice. The had sent the serving maid home. The innkeeper had most indignantly demanded to know why he had been shut down, and one of the constables had said that it was by order of Sir John Fielding, Magistrate of the Bow Street Court, and that he might discuss it with him when he arrived. Discuss it he did, at great length and most contentiously, when we arrived.

“This is a matter of the law,” Sir John had told him. “We shall require the use of this place but one night only. It will serve as my command post.”

“Truly so?” asked the innkeeper, most impressed. “Then I believe it only fair that I remain to be sure no harm is done, no glasses broke, nor goods drank without my permission.”

“Oh, stay if you must,” Sir John had said. “I suppose that only fair, but keep silent and understand that you may neither complain nor take sudden leave at the sound of gunfire.”

“Gunfire?”

“That is what I said, and having heard what I said, you must certainly now remain. Make yourself scarce like a good fellow.”

That he had done by hiding behind the bar with a bottle of gin to fortify his courage, should shooting actually begin. So in addition to the five of us at the table, there was another in the Goose and Gander, one who would raise his head above the bar from time to time to ask if there was anything the gentlemen required. As it happened, Dr. Johnson drank a considerable quantity of beer during the hour we sat that night; Mr. Bilbo contented himself with a single glass of gin; the rest of us had nothing at all.

Though the rain had diminished somewhat, the wind persisted. If anything, that great blow from the east now blew greater. We sat near the door, which seemed to rattle incessantly. All the table candles had been extinguished, so as to present a darkened, and presumably deserted, interior to any passerby who might peer inside and wonder at the early closure. The only illumination within came from the oil lamp that hung above the bar, which the innkeeper said customarily burned all through the night. It cast a dim and eerie light over the place in which shadows seemed to move and what was deeper dark seemed darker still. In such surroundings, little talk passed among those at the table. We sat listening to the wind growling angrily outside the door, heard the drops of rain thrown against the windows. There would be few or none out on Grub Street this night and that suited Sir John well. He asked the time twice as we sat; at the second inquiry Mr. Bilbo pulled out his pocket watch, held it to the light, and gave the hour as five minutes to midnight.

“It should not be long now,” said Sir John.

Perhaps the reason so little was said in that last hour was that so much had been said during the hours before. The plan, as it pertained to the participation of the Bow Street Runners, had been swiftly outlined to them by Sir John in his chambers. Each knew the role he would play, and more important, each knew the schedule according to which the operation would proceed. They were gone from the room, into their rain gear, and out into the night in no time at all, or so it seemed.

But immediately they had left, Mr. Boyer and Dr. Johnson fell to argument between each other, and both with Sir John, regarding details of the plan. Surely it could proceed more swiftly! How would the Runners know where to station themselves? Could Mr. Nicholson be counted upon? Why was he not here? Et cetera.

In order to put an end to such wrangling, Sir John demanded a full report from each of the two on his separate act in the unfolding drama. It was then, listening to them with Mr. Bilbo and Jimmie Bunkins (who had also remained), I came to understand the earlier machinations of Sir John’s design. In short, I saw how the trap had been baited. This is what I learned from their reports and what I later heard from Sir John:

When the magistrate had summoned Mr. Boyer on the evening before and told him that the manuscript he had contracted to print, regarding the conversion of the Jews, had been the cause and motive in the Grub Street massacre, Mr. Boyer was quite understandably much disturbed. When Sir John suggested to him that he summon the author and tell him that having read the manuscript carefully, he now had doubts about even printing the book, Mr. Boyer was even more disturbed.

“But …” Mr. Boyer had said, “he may react just as he did when Mr. Crabb refused to publish the damned thing! He may send his men to massacre us all!”

And to that Sir John had said, “Exactly!” Then he gave to him a preliminary sketch of his plan.

The next morning it was done as Sir John had suggested, with a few refinements worked out between them and one or two improvised on the spot by Mr. Boyer. Brother Abraham was summoned. The complaint was made on the basis of theological inaccuracies, suggestions of heresy. Brother Abraham reminded Mr. Boyer that a contract had been signed. Yet Mr. Boyer said he would honor the contract — if poddibU — but he had the Church of England to fear, which was his most considerable customer. When Brother Abraham then demanded the return of the manuscript, Mr. Boyer had told him that because he truly did wish to fulfill the contract, he had sent it on to another, far wiser man than he

for an opinion in the matter. He had sent it, he told him, to Dr. Samuel Johnson.

Now, as I reflect upon it even today, reader, this was the detail that made it possible for the plan to work. Sir John had himself gone to Dr. Johnson, described the matter to him, and asked him to play a part in it. Dr. Johnson, who but the day before had heard from John Clayton of the fears expressed by Ezekiel Crabb of him who had written of the conversion of the Jews, was most willing to participate in the charade. He would meet with Brother Abraham, should the same come to his door, and he would give him an opinion of this manuscript, which he had not read and probably never would read. Still, an opinion from Dr. Johnson on any manuscript carried such weight that its author could not think it specious — could not think it part of a plot to hoodwink him, to anger him, to drive him for a second time to violent action and an attempt at retribution. Without Dr. Johnson’s cooperation, the entire maneuver — Mr. Boyer’s sudden reluctance even to print Brother Abraham’s book — might well have seemed to one as intelligent as this raw colonial genius (for in his own perverse way, he was that) a transparent repetition of the earlier circumstances — and therefore a crude attempt to bait a trap. Yet if none other than Dr. Samuel Johnson was involved, this must be an altogether authentic repetition of a nightmarish sort, of the earlier conditions. Thus framing Brother Abraham’s probable reaction, had Sir John persuaded Dr. Johnson to lend his reputation to the enterprise, giving to it a sense of the bona fide and real.

As expected, Brother Abraham had left Mr. Boyer’s on Grub Street and gone straight to Johnson Court, where he informed him that he was the author of the manuscript which Mr. Boyer had sent to him. Brother Abraham was somewhat intimidated to be in the presence of so august a literary personage. He asked him, as any neophyte scribbler might, what opinion Dr. Johnson had of the work.

“It held my interest,” admitted Dr. Johnson, in his severe mode. “Parts of it I thought to be quite well written.”

Brother Abraham, quite overjoyed to hear this, asked which parts he thought to be best written.

“Why, the parts about the Jews, of course. They are a fascinating people.

“But, Dr. Johnson,” said Brother Abraham, “they are all about the Jews.”

“Sir, of course they are. Yet I thought you did best in writing of their history. The mathematics, however, were quite beyond me.”

“But they are important,” insisted Brother Abraham.

“No doubt, no doubt,” said Dr. Johnson in a dismissive manner. “But Mr. Boyer gave me no brief to comment upon the mathematics, for which I am grateful, nor did he solicit any opinion on the literary qualities of your manuscript, though I did comment upon them favorably. He asked me, rather, to keep an eye out for heresy and what might be actionable. To be frank with you, I know little of heresy. I am a confessor and a communicant, and I leave it go at that. The theologians and the bishops argue about the greater matters. I, frankly, have little interest in them. I do, however, know something of the law, and though I am no lawyer, certain things troubled me in your manuscript.”

“What were they?”

“Why, sir, you have written things at which the Jews may take offense.”

“Let them!” cried Brother Abraham. “They murdered our Savior!”

“Strictly speaking, sir, it was the Romans did that.”

“But Pontius Pilate simply bowed to the demands of the Jews.”

“To certain specific Jews who are now many centuries dead.”

“God put a curse on the entire people for the hardness of heart shown by those specific Jews. It is in the Holy Writ, Dr. Johnson — stated by Paul, implied by our Lord.”

“While that authority is not open to disputation in the ordinary way, I admit, there are nevertheless possibilities of interpretation— as scholars and theologians have proved throughout the ages. If the possibility for theological interpretation exists, then there is also an opportunity for legal interpretation, though perhaps a narrower one, I allow.”

“It has never been done!”

“That is not to say it could never be done. In my opinion, sir, it would make a most interesting lawsuit. If found against, you would have to pay damages, of course, though to whom and how many I could not hazard. But so might Mr. Boyer, for as printer he bears some responsibility, though not so great as he might as publisher. And of course, too, the coming conversion of the Jews, which you argue for so powerfully, would be rendered thereby moot.”

Brother Abraham, exhausted and frustrated by this short debate with one of the great minds of our age, sagged visibly (according to Johnson) at this point and in a quiet voice simply asked for the return of his manuscript.

“Unfortunately, I cannot grant your request.”

“But — but — why not?” asked the preacher, now truly in confusion.

“Because, sir, only minutes before your arrival I sent my man to Mr. Boyer with said manuscript and a letter from me in which I made some of the very points I have in this discussion with you. Which, by the by, I have enjoyed immensely and found stimulating but must, unfortunately, conclude. I daresay your manuscript is in Mr. Boyer’s hands by now. I thank you again for the opportunity to meet you, sir, and now I wish you good day.”

With that, Dr. Johnson strode from the room, leaving Brother Abraham to be shown to the door by the maid.

Quite in frustration and in growing anger, the preacher then marched back to Grub Street, stormed into the office of Mr. Boyer, and without further ado, demanded the return of his manuscript.

Mr. Boyer tut-tutted, hemmed and hawed, and finally said straightaway that he preferred not to do that.

“And why is that, sir?” asked Brother Abraham, making some attempt to regain his former composure and take command of the situation.

“Because on the advice of Dr. Johnson I must show your manuscript to my solicitor. Then, since my doubts continue as to its theological soundness, I shall present it to a bishop of my acquaintance and ask his opinion of it.”

“Why do you not simply relieve yourself of that burden and hand over my work to me?” said Brother Abraham.

“You reminded me previously,” said Mr. Boyer, “that we have a contract between us. Now I remind you, as well.”

“I would willingly release you from the contract — if I may have my manuscript.

“I choose not to be released until your manuscript be examined by my solicitor and by Bishop Baxley. If at all possible, I wish to fulfill the contract and earn the money it will bring us. Yet I will not do it at the risk of lawsuit, nor of censure by the Church. Remember, Mr. Watt — which is your name, I believe — it takes the consent ot both parties to abrogate a contract if all its terms are met.”

“That is your final word then?”

“No, sir, my final word comes after I have heard from the bishop and my solicitor.”

“Then I cannot be responsible.”

“Pardon, sir?”

“Whatever woe comes upon you now, you have brought upon yourself. ‘Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.’ “

“Are you threatening me?”

Mr. Boyer told Sir John he got no answer to that, for by the time the question was fully out of his mouth, Brother Abraham had left the office and was near out the door to Grub Street.

Each of the two men, Dr. Johnson and Mr. Boyer, had told his story to Sir John with a certain zest and style. The lexicographer, an accomplished literary stylist and dinner table conversationalist, had no doubt given the better recital. Still, the dramatic flourish at the end of the publisher’s account — “Are you threatening me?” — struck a sort of chord within us, his listeners, which made it certain, without poll, that the enterprise designed by Sir John Fielding—which he had termed “a trap” — would indeed attract those rats in black, who were the objects of the hunt.

And Sir John, who would surely qualify as the Pied Piper of London Town, sat forward with a smile of anticipation fixed upon his face, tapping his fingers together as one who had naught to fear and naught to doubt.