Person or Persons Unknown (31 page)

“Does that hurt?” he asked.

“A bit,” said I.

“I’ve no doubt that it does.”

Then did he take a bottle of gin from his bag, soak a bit of cotton with it, and apply it to the cut. That produced a sharp, stinging pain. Taking another rolled bandage, he then wrapped me Mussulman-style as before.

“You’re lucky you’ve a good thick skull, Jeremy. A fracture of your head would have put you in serious danger. What about pain inside your head? I take it that must have abated, or you wouldn’t be sitting up as you are.”

“I feel it only when I turn my head sharply.”

“Well, don’t. Let me now have a look at your eyes.”

He lit the candle and, as he had the night before, he waved it back and forth before my face, asking me to follow it with my eyes. Then did he blow it out and peer into them.

“They seem right enough,” said he. “Not seeing two where one should be? Or getting a blur anywhere, are you?”

“No, sir.”

“Well and good.”

“May I read?”

“I see no reason why you should not, so long as you do not strain your eyes. Not by candlelight, I should say.”

“May I be up and about?”

“Not yet. A day or two more in bed should put you right, though.”

“What about food?” said I. “I’ve had only a bowl of broth this day.”

“You held it down? No nausea?”

“No, sir.”

“Then you may eat what the rest eat. Perhaps Annie could make up a tray for you so that you could eat here in bed. I’ll mention it to her.” Then he nodded, apparently satisfied. “You’ve come through it well, Jeremy.”

He began to pack up, rolling the soiled bandage and tucking away the gin bottle. As he did, I put a question to him.

“Mr. Donnelly,” said I, “you have good Latin, have you not?”

“I should think so,” said he. “Medical Latin, Church Latin, what have you. Why do you ask?”

“Sir John used a Latin phrase describing the capture of the Raker which quite baffled me. He said that he had been found ‘in flagrante delicto.’ What did he mean, sir?”

Mr. Donnelly, who usually seemed ready to smile or break into a laugh, looked at me quite soberly. “That would translate roughly as ‘caught in the act,’ ” he said.

“Caught in what act, sir?”

He cleared his throat. “Well, Jeremy, situated as you are here in Covent Garden, you must be aware of what is done between men and women, the commerce in prostitution and so on?”

“Oh yes, sir.”

“Then I may tell you that that creature, the Raker, was caught in the act of sexual intercourse with the corpus of a woman.”

“A dead woman? Is that possible? Can it be done?”

“It can be, and it was. Even I, who have seen a good deal more than I would wish to tell, was quite shocked by what I saw there in that barn. You see, Jeremy, the sex function is very powerful in men, a very great force indeed, and if it be thwarted, madness of a sort can result in some. In the case of the Raker, because of his gruesome reputation and the tales told of him, not to mention his hideous appearance, even the prostitutes of the street rejected him. The method he chose to satisfy his lust is not so very strange, considering his familiarity with the dead; they were his subjects; he was their master. With that little stiletto of his, he could change those who had rejected him, or might reject him, into his compliant partners. Sir John blames himself for not realizing the Raker’s guilt earlier, since he was always about. I blame myself for not understanding the significance of the peculiar, virtually bloodless nature of the wounds he inflicted. For in death, his victims seemed always quite lifelike.”

I listened most solemnly to all that Mr. Donnelly had to say. Inwardly, I was quite agog, amazed at the twisted logic he suggested. Yet my response to all this was a rather weak one.

“I had no idea.”

“Nor, for that matter, did the rest of us,” he said.

I sat there in bed, considering all this for a long space of time. Then, thinking to put my attention to practical matters, I said: “So as I understand it, he had a new victim — a new … partner?”

“That is correct.”

“Would it be helpful for me to write out a new item for the Public Advertiser to call for those who knew her to come and give her proper name? I have little to fill my time here.”

“That should not be necessary, Jeremy. The Raker himself knew her after a fashion, for she had so vociferously rejected him that he learned what he could of her and vowed that one day he would have her in his own way. She was an Italian girl known as Mariah — or Maria, more likely. No one on the street seems to know her family name.”

Stunned, as I might have been from a great blow, I leaned back on the pillow with my eyes closed, striving to hold back the tears. Yet they came.

Mr. Donnelly grasped me by the shoulder. “Jeremy,” said he, “1 had no idea — Why, you must have known her.”

Hosea Willis was brought before the Lord Chief Justice the next day at Old Bailey. The remarkable swiftness with which he went from capture to conviction came through the Earl of Mansfield’s desire to have done with the matter as quickly as possible. There was nothing could be said in his defense, and nothing was what he said. He simply plead guilty to the three homicides with which he was charged, and allowed that there had been four previous which had gone undetected. With that, the Lord Chief Justice asked him if he felt remorse. I was told that the Raker did no more than look at him blankly and rep)eat the word as a question — “Remorse?” — as if to say he had no understanding of it. Then was the sentence of death by hanging pronounced upon him and the gavel brought down, effectively ending the Raker’s life but for the formalities on Tyburn Hill.

With the Raker’s brief appearance in court and the judgment passed upon him, I became the beneficiary of ten guineas in reward for his capture. The sum was brought me by Sir John in a leather pouch quite like the one in which Poll Tarkin had kept her treasure. He offered it to me with a warm smile, saying he wished it were more.

“In truth,” said he, “I should have said twelve or thirteen guineas would have been a fairer division, but so it was decided.”

“I am most grateful, sir,” said I, weighing the bag in my hand.

“Do you wish to count them?”

“No, sir, I take the members of Parliament at their word.”

“Then perhaps I ought take it downstairs to Mr. Marsden for safekeeping in the strong box. It is not wise having a large amount lying about, as you yourself have cautioned me.”

“With your permission, I will keep it by me. I have need of it.”

“Oh? Already have it spent, do you?”

“In a manner of speaking, I do, yes, sir.”

“Hmmm.” He mused for a moment. “Nothing frivolous, I hope?”

“No, indeed not.”

“Well then, keep it, by all means.” He went to my door, then turned back to me. “May I ask on what you have set your mind? Perhaps it is something with which we should supply you. Clothes … books — whatever is in our means, we try to give.”

“I know that. Sir John, yet this is something quite apart. Trust me in this, please.”

“Of course,” said he, and with a firm nod he left me.

I sat in bed, a book and the bag of guineas before me. In fact I did open up the bag and look inside, though I did not count the coins. I closed it up and tossed it back on the bed, then did I pick up the book that lay open before me. It was a copy of Mr. Goldsmith’s gentle romance. The Vicar of Wakefield, brought me as a gift by Lady Fielding that very morning; she had suggested he might autograph it for me when next I saw him. I delved into it immediately and found myself quite captivated by Dr. Primrose and his brood. Yet now, with the reward in hand so much earlier than I had expected, I found I was unable to concentrate upon the pages of the book, so impatient was I for Mr. Donnelly’s arrival.

The day before, I had told him all of my relations with Mariah — from my first glimpse of her as an acrobat in Covent Garden to my last meeting when she laughed, seeing me in woman’s garb. I left out nothing, not even my foolish fantasies of escape to the American colonies. Mr. Donnelly did not laugh at me, neither did he sneer. He told me that, years before, when he was a lad of about my age in Dublin, he had formed just such a fascination for a girl of the streets; that he had gone so far as to steal money for her from his father’s shop in hopes of reforming her; that it had all ended badly when a shop assistant was blamed for the theft, and young Gabriel was forced to confess. His father, far from outraged, had taken him in hand and managed to convince him that the girl wanted only his money, for each time she asked for a sum, whatever the reason, it always was greater than the last.

“He was right,” Mr. Donnelly had said to me, “for when I told her I could give her no more, she refused even to speak to me.”

“I cannot say it was different with Mariah,” said I then. “But to see a life wasted, then taken even before there be hope of change — where is the justice in that?”

“Life is not just, Jeremy. It is simply a space of time that is given us. We do with it what we can.”

“Even so,” said I, “I should like to do something for her.”

That something I wished to do I left unstated, though I had formed a plan in my mind which was contingent upon the receipt of the reward I had been promised. Now that I had been given it by Sir John, I hoped that indeed it might be accomplished.

Mr. Donnelly did in fact arrive not long after Sir John’s visit. And. after a cursory examination — nothing so thorough as he had given me the day before — he pronounced me “coming along nicely.”

“May I leave my bed and walk about? I should like to dress and eat dinner with the rest.”

“That perhaps, but no more for today.”

There was silence between us. Then did I pick up the bag of guineas and give it a jingle.

“I have received my reward,” said I, “ten guineas in all.”

“Would that it had been more,” said he. “Would that there were not another murderer to be caught.”

“Mr. Donnelly, I should like you to take this money and arrange for Mariah to be buried properly.”

“Are you sure you want to do this, Jeremy?”

“I am sure. Will it be sufficient?”

“Oh yes, if — There are some difficulties.”

I had foreseen that. “She is from Italy and would be of the Roman faith?”

“Yes, there’s that, but there are priests here in Lx)ndon. They have no church and are here more or less in disguise, you might say.”

“There is no burial ground?”

“There is a field up above Clerkenwell whose purpose is kept in strict secret. There are no markers and no monuments, but it is hallowed ground.”

“What, then, are the difficulties?”

“Well, first of all, she would have to be buried at night, unseen, and without much in the way of ceremony.”

“Yes, but in a coffin and put where she would wish to be laid to rest.”

“There is, however, the priest to be persuaded. I know none of them here, yet back in Dublin I would say one would have difficulty convincing a priest that a woman of her profession should be buried alongside those who had had a fair chance of dying in a state of grace.”

All that was somewhat beyond me, yet I caught the sense of it. “Perhaps,” I said, “if you were to say that her last act was to refuse one who would have her — might that not make a difference? Perhaps show she was on her way to bettering herself?”

“Oh, it might. Jeremy, I’ll see what can be done. More than that I cannot promise.”

Thus it came about that next evening I was in the back of an open wagon riding on my way to Clerkenwell. Mr. Donnelly had taken care of everything — rented the wagon and the team from a livery stable, hired an Irish teamster, and found a priest who would officiate at the burial. He had even engaged a woman to come into his surgery and wash and dress Mariah’s body in a suitable way for interment. At my request, no rouge or paint was used upon her face. I was granted one last look before the coffin was shut. She looked quite as she had that first time I had seen her as a young acrobat in Covent Garden when she had smiled at me and kissed my shilling so prettily. So it was she would be buried. Bending down, I kissed her on the forehead, yet I had no tears as the lid was fitted over the simple oblong box and nailed down by the teamster. Then did he and Mr. Donnelly carry the coffin downstairs. It was of no great weight. The teamster claimed he could have managed it on his own.

The two of them sat upon the wagon box, and I, meaning no insult certainly, upon the coffin. I was dressed in my best and wore that bottle-green coat which she so admired. All that marred my appearance was the bandage wrapped round my head. I had thought my hat might cover it, yet it did not. I had expected questions when Mr. Donnelly called for me at nightfall, and I appeared as if dressed for a ball. But neither my appearance nor my unstated destination were remarked upon by any in the household. I strongly suspected that Mr. Donnelly had acquainted them with the purpose of our mysterious trip. In any case, all I received from Sir John and Lady Fielding, and even from Annie, were sympathetic looks and courteous wishes for a good evening. It was better so. I had no wish either to make explanations or evade them.

The teamster knew the way. He had been recommended to Mr. Donnelly by the priest as one who had made the trip many times before and could be trusted to keep the location of the cemetery secret. Through the thin evening traffic, he moved the horses swiftly at a light trot. Yet even so, we went a considerable distance. On St. John’s Street, we passed through Clerkenwell and soon found ourselves alone on IsHngton Road, passing through open fields. Here there could be highwaymen out on the scamp, looking to rob us of whatever was left in that leather bag of guineas in Mr. Donnelly’s pocket. Yet before we met any such challenge, the driver slowed the team and turned it to the left to take us down a country road like unto any one of a dozen I had seen us pass along the way by bright moonlight. How he could have told this one from the others was quite beyond me.

He had nevertheless chosen rightly. That became evident when, in the near distance, I spied the light from a lantern held still, then swung slowly in a signal of welcome. When we arrived, there was an open gate and a burly fellow in his shirtsleeves in the cool night air holding high the lantern. He, I supposed, was the gravedigger. Without a word, he went before the team of horses and led the way down a track towards another light not so very far away. When we were close, I spied the figure of a man standing by a considerable heap of dirt and an open hole.

At a gesture from the gravedigger, the driver reined in. He and Mr. Donnelly climbed down, and I hopped over the side. As the other two pulled the tailgate down and pulled out the coffin, Mr. Donnelly took me aside.

“Jeremy,” said he, “there was something I forgot to mention to you. She should be given a family name for purposes of the service. I know you said you had no idea of it, but perhaps you could think of something appropriate?”

I had thought one might be needed and was ready with it.

“Perhaps ‘Angelo’ would do,” said I. Even I knew a bit of Italian.

He smiled. “That should do very well.”

And so we set out, the four of us, for the grave which was only yards distant — Mr. Donnelly bearing the lantern and lighting the path; the teamster and the gravedigger carrying the coffin, and I, the solitary mourner, bringing up the rear.

The priest was dressed in the way that a common laborer might be. A young man, not much over thirty, he looked big and strapping as one of Sir John’s constables — yet he had the face of a scholar and wore a gentle expression. Mr. Donnelly went forward to him, and they talked in low tones. The coffin was brought to the graveside and placed on the supports above the hideous hole. I held back, not knowing what part I was to play in all this. So I remained for a minute or two until Mr. Donnelly beckoned me to him. The priest had asked to meet me.

“Father,” said Mr. Donnelly to the priest, “this is Jeremy Proctor. He is responsible for this. I’ve simply implemented his wishes.”

“Well, it’s a very decent thing you’re doing, Jeremy.” He offered me his hand, which was rough with calluses, and I took it, removing my hat with my other hand.

The priest continued: “We’ll just bury the poor girl, and let him who is without sin cast the first stone. That’s as Our Lord would have it.” He, too, was Irish by the sound of him.

Mr. Donnelly took a place close to the priest and held high the lantern. The priest opened a blackbound book, looked round him, and said in a most solemn tone, “Let us begin.” Then, did he commence to read the Latin office for the dead. His voice droned on for many minutes. It is a language that fits ill to the tongue. I comprehended a fair part, though my knowledge of it was and remains meagre. Whole sections of it he seemed to have by heart, for he would raise his eyes from time to time and chant certain passages in a gruff voice made sweet for the occasion. At me he looked when he commended to God the soul of “Maria Maddalena di Angelo,” adding a significant flourish to the name I had given her. There was business with a sort of wand which he produced and used to sprinkle the coffin with water. Then, finally, he gave a nod to the rest of us. Mr. Donnelly set aside his lantern and pointed to the straps beneath the coffin. I grasped the one nearest me, which was held the other side of the grave by the teamster. The priest himself pulled out the supports, and we began slowly lowering the coffin into the deep hole. As we did so, the priest tossed a handful of dirt upon the coffin, and intoned a few more words in Latin. It was only then, as Mariah reached her final resting place, that the tears came. I wiped at them with my coatsleeve, coughed and sniffled, and so brought them under control. The teamster and the gravedigger were winding in the straps, tugging roughly to pull them free.

The priest turned to me. “I regret, Jeremy,” said he, “that she must be laid to rest in such circumstances as these — in the darkness, in this plain field, without a Mass to see her on her way. I assure you, though, that I shall say a Mass for the repose of her soul tomorrow morning, and I shall remember her in my prayers ever after.”