The Color of Death (29 page)

“Very good of you to allow me to accompany you,” said Mr. Johnson. “I have long wondered what transpired at such nocturnal sessions as these.”

He seemed ready to go on in this vein, but there came voices behind the door raised in argument. One of them — unmistakably that of Mr. Collier, the butler — objecting sharply to … what? Then a stronger, deeper voice, also familiar: “Oh, enough of that!” Locks were thrown; bars were drawn; the door came open at last. And there stood Constable Patley, with Mr. Collier cowering behind.

“Ah, I knew it was you,” said the constable, throwing the door wide and stepping back. “This little mousie” — tapping Mr. Collier upon the shoulder — “feared it was the Africans come back, but I was ready for them if it was. He waved his club. “Come along inside. I got the two of them ready to talk to you, Sir John.”

Once inside, the door shut behind us, Sir John turned to Mr. Patley. “Two?” said he. “You say two? And who are they?”

“It’s the Mister and the Missus.”

“Ah, very well. We meet her at last, eh?”

“It’s an experience you’ll easily survive, sir. But this way, right through here.”

Our party moved swiftly down the long hall. I realized before we reached the door that the Trezavants awaited us in the room always referred to as the “library.” When at last we reached it, Sir John paused and signaled us to stand close round him.

“Now, Mr. Bailey and Mr. Patley,” said he softly, “I should like you to go below stairs and talk with all who will talk to you. Who in particular do you suggest, Jeremy? “

I took a moment to think. “I should say Maude Bleeker, the cook, and Mossman, the porter, would be best.”

“Very good. You’ve got that, have you? Find out which of the servants is missing. Search the room of that person. Meanwhile, one of you look outside the house for anything, anything at all, that may help us along.” Then did he pause for a moment, perhaps for effect, though more likely to satisfy himself that he had nothing to add to these, his instructions. “Alright then, off with you.”

The two constables started off together, ready to begin their task.

“Mr. Johnson? Shall we see what awaits us? Jeremy, give the door a knock.”

Thus bidden, I gave it a few sound thumps and immediately opened the door for Sir John and Mr. Johnson, not wishing them to be beholden to Mr. Trezavant for an invitation to enter. Once both were inside, I pulled the door shut and rushed ahead that Sir John might place his hand upon my arm and thus be led forward through unfamiliar territory.

Only then did I have a proper view of the master and mistress of the house. They were as unlike as they could be. The Mr. I have oft described as fat. Yet indeed those three letters — f, a, t — do no justice to the shape of the man; let us say, rather, elephantine or mountainous and thus begin the proper work of description. As for Mrs. Trezavant, all that I have said of him could be said of her in its antithesis. Where he was fat, she was thin (skinny even); if he was elephantine, she was serpentine; and if he appeared mountainous, then she seemed (what simile here? Perhaps, reader, if you have ever been inside a great cavern, this will do) stalagmitic.

Not that this great contrast was immediately apparent to me, for both were seated behind that grand desk which so dominated its end of the room. Oddly, both were dressed for bed, though it was not near so late in the evening as that might suggest; they wore heavy robes and proper nightcaps.

“Ah yes, Sir John,” said Mr. Trezavant, drawling in a most supercilious manner, ” you have come, have you? What a pity to have dragged you forth. We have no need in this instance of your investigative powers.”

“Oh? And why is that, sir? “

“Why, it is quite obvious who committed the theft. But ah” — he interrupted himself — -“I see that you have another with you.”

“Well, you’ve often met Jeremy, of course.”

“Of course, but …”

“May I present Mr. Samuel Johnson?”

Big as he was, Mr. Johnson could hardly be said to have hidden behind Sir John. He had nevertheless managed somehow to shrink himself in such a way that he had remained, until that moment, an anonymous presence in the room. But then, raising his face to the Trezavants, he bowed — not deep, but in a most proper manner.

“At your service, sir and madame,” said he.

The effect upon the couple was altogether remarkable. Both rose quite automatically, a courtesy neither had offered Sir John. For his part, Mr. Trezavant said nothing intelligible and merely stammered awkwardly for near a minute. His wife, however, found a voice within her slender frame (and a very deep, commanding voice it was).

“Samuel Johnson? It is you then who wrote the dictionary?”

“Alas, madame, not exactly so. I am a poor harmless drudge who has written a dictionary. Nothing more.”

That, however, was sufficient to inspire from her an entire vocabulary of cooing and twittering sounds interspersed with phrases of abject idolatry.

Did Mr. Johnson enjoy this? Was he taken in by it? There was no telling, for his face had become like a mask, one upon which a half-smile was fixed and whose opaque eyes were utterly unreadable. And so his face remained, virtually immobile, as the couple talked on and on, apologizing for their state of deshabille, praising his vast fund of knowledge, asking how he came to know so many words, et cetera. Clearly, they knew little about him — only that he still enjoyed great fame for his dictionary; that he had enjoyed awards, honors, and a pension for his work, even a sobriquet, “Dictionary” Johnson.

Although, through Sir John, I had met a few who had been touched by fame, this was my first opportunity to see the effect of celebrity upon those who lived in awe of the celebrated. Mr. Trezavant, who was said to mingle with eminent politicians, did manage to keep his wits about him. His wife, however, seemed to have gone quite mad. She would immediately improvise a dinner party in his honor — “just a few of our closest, dearest friends” — if Mr. Johnson would but give them a few minutes to dress themselves.

“I am sorry, madame, but I have just dined with Sir John — and quite well, too.”

“Oh,” said she, “what a pity. It is so seldom our home is visited by literary men. It seems a shame to waste your presence here.” Her hand shot to her mouth — a child’s guilty gesture. “Oh dear, I fear I didn’t phrase that very well, did I?”

“Think nothing of it, madame. Indeed, I’m satisfied that my presence here is not wasted. I am here as an observer.”

“An observer?” she echoed.

“Yes, I wish to observe Sir John’s methods of investigation.”

“Ah well,” said Mr. Trezavant, “as I declared earlier, there’ll be little need for an investigation.”

“Yes, you did say that, didn’t you?” said Sir John. “What precisely did you mean?”

“Why, I meant that my wife’s jewels have disappeared, and so has one of the servants. You must either find her, or find him to whom she delivered them.”

(Let me say at this point, reader, that I liked not the sound of Mr. Trezavant’s prattling; I drew inferences from it which made me uncomfortable.)

“Speak plainer, man,” said Sir John. “You’ve no need to withhold names.”

“All right then,” said Mr. Trezavant, accepting the challenge, “it is Jenny Crocker, the upstairs maid, who is missing. I suspected her the first time the jewels were gone.”

“The first time?” I yelped, unable to hold back. “That was when your wife had taken them with her to Sussex!”

He grunted a low grumble. “Well, yes, but she was always about upstairs and no doubt knew right where the jewels were hid.”

“But you had made up your mind she was the criminal before ever a crime had been committed!”

“Sir John,” said he, “I do object strongly to your lad’s tone. He seems to be accusing me of some impropriety.”

“But Mr. Trezavant,” said the magistrate, “I believe he raised a point worthy of consideration. Why were you so sure of her guilt?”

“Why? Why? Well, she seemed the criminal type. As did, let me say, that black fellow whom you dismissed so lightly this very afternoon. She may already have passed the booty on to him. I’ve no — ”

“Ah sir,” said Samuel Johnson to him, “there I believe I can put your mind to rest. Robert Burnham, to whom you refer, has been in our company all through this evening. We left him before your door not many minutes past.”

“You what! You let him get away?”

“Please, sir,” said Sir John, “I believe you are not thinking things through properly. Do not speak quite so recklessly. As Mr. Johnson has just explained, Mr. Burnham has been in our company the entire time.” He turned then to Mrs. Trezavant. “Madame, do you not have a lady’s maid?”

“Yes, yes I do.”

“Does she not know where you secrete your pieces?”

“Indeed she does.” She hesitated. “Well … it was in fact my maid who discovered the jewels were missing.”

Mr. Trezavant glared at his spouse in a manner most stern and disapproving. “You didn’t tell me that,” said he. “I thought it was you found they were gone.”

“It matters little,” said she to him, “for I trust her completely. And besides, if I had told you, you would have paid little heed to me, so certain were you that Crocker was guilty.”

“But… I … I …”

Sir John stepped in to put an end to this wrangle. “This is a point of some importance, madame,” said he. “When did she report to you that the pieces were missing?”

“Why, I’m not sure. I’d had a rather wearying day, and so I dressed early for bed. What time is it now?”

I glanced at a tall, upright clock in the corner. “Just on ten o’clock,” said I.

“About an hour has passed since then, I should say, or perhaps a little less.”

“Very well,” said Sir John. “Had she some reason for visiting the hiding place? Something that you had worn and wished returned to your collection?”

“Yes, a ring — a ruby ring with quite a large stone.”

“And where is she now, this personal maid of yours?”

“Below stairs in her room, I suppose. I sent her off to bed. She was terribly upset.”

“We must talk to her,” said Sir John firmly. “Jeremy, go below and fetch her. If she lies abed, then roust her out. If she sleeps, then wake her.”

“Is this quite necessary?” asked Mrs. Trezavant.

“Quite,” said he. “But you must tell us, what is her name?”

“Hulda. She is easily the best servant I have ever had. But she is Dutch, and her family name is quite unpronounceable.”

“Hmmm. Dutch, is it? On your way, Jeremy.”

I left forthwith. Remembering the way from my earlier visits, it took me but a moment to descend the stairs, yet that gave me time enough to reflect upon the unexpected involvement of the Dutch in this matter. What did it mean? And more important, did the fact that Crocker had apparently fled the residence mean that she had taken with her the jewels of her mistress? I hoped not, indeed I did, for I had thought better of her than that.

Entering the kitchen, I found Constable Bailey at one end of the long table, deep in conversation with Maude Bleeker, the cook. The porter hovered at some distance. Mr. Bailey looked up as I arrived and rightly perceived that I had come on an errand for Sir John. He held up his hand, thus silencing Bleeker who turned about to see the reason for the interruption.

“Yes, Jeremy, what is it?”

“I’ve been sent down to fetch Hulda,” said I to the cook. Then to Mr. Bailey: “She’s the one discovered the jewels were gone.”

“So I was just told,” said he. “Miss Maude, could you rouse her?”

“Oh, I could and I will,” said she, rising with a nod to me. “You ask me, and I’ll tell you it’s time somebody asked her some questions.”

Without being specific as to what questions might be asked of Hulda, the cook lumbered through the doorway and into the common room.

Glancing at Mossman in the far corner, I determined that he was at a sufficient distance that I might speak without being overheard. Nevertheless, I lowered my voice to little more than a whisper: “Has the questioning gone well, Mr. Bailey? “

He screwed his face into a rather pained grimace and responded in the same low tone: “So far, nobody saw anything, but they’ve got lots of ideas about who the thief might be.”

“Where’s Constable Patley?”

“Outside. He thought it best to leave the interrogation to me.”

Then, as if he had been summoned by my inquiry, Mr. Patley appeared in the open back door. He held a lighted lantern in his hand, and upon his face he wore a look of the utmost solemnity; his eyes, though cold, seemed burning with anger. I had never even imagined him in such a state. He said nothing, but took in the room with one great glance.

At last he spoke: “I’ve something to show you.”

Mr. Bailey and I exchanged puzzled looks; he rose, and both of us made for the door; so also did Mr. Mossman.

“Not you,” said Constable Patley rudely to the porter. “You stay here.”

Mossman did as he was told. We two followed Mr. Patley up the stairs and into the back garden. I had little noted it before, but the space was thickly grown with bushes and flowering plants now beginning to burst into spring blossom. He led us off the path to a corner, which, even in bright moonlight, seemed darker and less open than the rest. We pushed against the bushes. The branches snapped back and punished our thighs and ankles.

“Just a bit more,” said Mr. Patley. “Under that tree ahead.”

And so it was that at last we came upon that which we had been led out to see. Under the tree, nearly obscured by the bushes at its base, lay a human form, a woman’s body clothed in a petticoat.

Mr. Patley knelt down, pushed back the bush, and lowered his lantern so that we might look upon the face. It was Jenny Crocker’s face we saw — pale, drained of any hint of life, the color of death. Her eyes were open. She stared back at us coldly, as if accusing us of the brutal deed. Below her chin was the bloody wound that had taken her life. Her throat had been cut from ear to ear.

The discovery of Crocker’s body put the investigation into a state of absolute turmoil. Should she be moved? Mr. Patley was all for “dusting the dirt off her” and removing the remains to the kitchen. I insisted she be left where she lay, for that was as Sir John would have it. He argued that to leave her thus would be to show disrespect to the dead, and he only gave in when Mr. Bailey came to my side in the matter. The last I heard from them, Mr. Patley was swearing solemnly that he would “catch the whoreson who did this and personally send him straight to hell.” What Mr. Bailey said in response was lost to me, however, for when I came crashing down the stairs, I nearly bowled over Mr. Mossman, careened into the cook, and bumped heads with a blonde woman in robe and slippers, whom I took to be the Dutch maid, Hulda.

“All of you, back inside,” said I with all the authority that I could muster.

“What is it?” asked the cook.

“What have they found?” the porter asked quite simultaneously.

The Dutch woman said nothing, simply peered suspiciously at me.

“All your questions will be answered soon,” said I, “but I must insist that you go back into the kitchen.”

Reluctantly, they trooped back inside — except for Hulda. She looked me up and down and liked not what she saw.

“Who are you to tell us what to do?” said she. “You are but a boy.”

“That’s as may be,” said I to her, “but I speak for Sir John Fielding and at his command. If you wish to spend the night in your bed, rather than on the cold floor of the strongroom at Number 4 Bow Street so that he may question you tomorrow at his leisure, then I would advise you to do what he says — and what he would have me say speaking for him.”

She said nothing in reply but looked at me critically, then proceeded into the kitchen.

I followed her, closing the door behind us, and headed for the stairs. “Keep her here,” said I to the cook and the porter. “Sir John will be down soon.” And that was how I left them.

When I returned to the library, I found the interrogation proceeding apace. Mrs. Trezavant was enumerating, describing, and giving an evaluation to each piece of jewelry in her collection, no doubt at Sir John s request. Whether or no he had requested it, he seemed powerfully bored by her recital: He, now seated, moved his head about — right and left, up and down — in an exercise he sometimes used to keep sleep at bay; Mr. Johnson, his chin resting upon his chest, had evidently already succumbed.

I went quickly to Sir John, making no effort to tiptoe or otherwise muffle my footsteps. He turned in my direction as Mrs. Trezavant looked up in annoyance and stopped speaking.

“Yes, Jeremy, what is it?”

I bent to his ear and whispered the news, much abbreviated but accurate so far as it went. He nodded his understanding and rose. “I regret, Mr. and Mrs. Trezavant, that I must leave you and attend to matters below stairs.”

“What could you possibly learn from our servants that you cannot know from us?” she demanded.

“A great deal, I fear. You did not know, I’m sure, that a corpus lay in your back garden.”

“What’s that? What’s that? A corpus?” cried Mr. Johnson, suddenly awake and jumping to his feet with surprising agility.

“That is correct, sir,” said Sir John to his companion. “Do you wish to accompany us?”

“By all means, let us go then,” said Mr. Johnson, most eagerly.

“By all means, we, too, shall come along,” said Mr. Trezavant. “We must know who is dead.”

“Oh, I think not,” said Sir John. “That you will find out soon enough. And it has been my experience that servants are much more likely to talk freely if their masters are not present.”

“But may I remind you, sir, that they are our servants.”

“I’m aware of that, Mr. Trezavant, but if you insist upon interposing yourselves in such a manner, then you will make it necessary for me to bring them to Bow Street one by one that I may talk with them privately. It would likely prove disruptive to your household and troublesome to me.” He paused but a moment, then went on to add: “Please, sir, oblige me in this.”

A silence of greater duration ensued. Man and wife exchanged looks, then at last he responded to Sir John’s plea. “Well, you have bested me in this, sir, as you have often done before. Will you have further need of us?”

“I think not.”

“Then Mr. Trezavant and I shall retire. Goodnight to you.”

With that, we left. I led the way with Sir John at my side, his hand resting lightly upon my forearm. Samuel Johnson followed close behind; we were, I fear, not quite out of earshot when he pushed forward and said in a loud whisper, “Well done, sir, well done!”

By the time we had reached the kitchen, it had been decided that I must go and fetch Mr. Donnelly, the surgeon, and arrange for a wagon to convey Crocker’s corpus to his surgery.

“Do you not wish me to search round the body and describe its condition?”

“No,” said Sir John with a sigh, “the three of you have already trampled the area, no doubt. As for describing the body to me, perhaps I shall depend upon Mr. Johnson for that. He is said to have great powers of observation, and since he is with us, he may as well earn his keep.” Then did he call out to our guest, who trailed us on the stairway: “I trust you heard that, sir?”

“Oh, I did indeed, and I assure you I am quite ready to do whatever may be required of me.”

Having had the matter thus settled, I put Sir John in the charge of Mr. Bailey and made ready to go. As I said my goodbye, Sir John grasped my wrist and brought me closer to him.

“Jeremy,” said he, “the girl who lies dead in the garden, she is the one with whom you went out walking Sunday last — is she not?”

“She is, yes sir.”

“Well, I know not if you were attracted to her in the way that lads your age often are, but perhaps you were. If it is so, and you feel a sense ol loss, I want you to know that you have my sympathy.” “Yes sir,” said I obediently. “Thank you, sir.”

So troubled was I by his parting words that I pondered them the entire distance to Mr. Donnelly’s surgery. How did I feel about Jenny Crocker? Had I fancied her as all the lads in Covent Garden seemed to fancy Annie? Perhaps, for our conversation had touched upon intimate matters I had not discussed with any female; that, I admit, had titillated me somewhat — or perhaps more than somewhat. That she was quite fetching in a saucy and well-favored sort of way, there could be no doubt. She was likeable and responsive. Yet we had parted on bad terms — why was that? As I recalled, she had taken offense at my questions, which had to do with the robbery — quite ordinary questions, they seemed to me. Still, there was something more, was there not? She wanted something from me I was unable to provide — what it was I could not quite understand. Perhaps I was too thick-headed, or simply had not sufficient experience to read the signs.

In fact, I considered the matter even after I arrived at the surgery in Drury Lane. Mr. Donnelly, as it happened, was not present when I came banging upon his door. There was naught to do but wait for him there on his front steps and think more upon this matter of Jenny Crocker.

Had I acted callously toward her? I thought not, though perhaps she would have been of a different opinion. Was I sorry for the awful fate that had taken her? Of course I was, yet I felt sorrow in the manner that anyone might if shown the lifeless body of one who had died so young. And to have died in a manner so squalid! Why had she been murdered? What was she doing out there in her petticoat? Did I feel a sense of loss, as Sir John had suggested I might? No, merely a sense of bafflement.

As I posed such questions to myself and attempted to dig deeper that I might solve the mystery surrounding Crocker’s death, my eyes registered the curious street life before me there in Drury Lane. Though the theater (across the street and off to the right) had discharged its audience sometime before, there were many pedestrians teeming the walkways on both sides of the street. Most of them gave the impression that they were casual strollers, moving with easy indifference up and down the street. Nevertheless, I, who had by then lived years hard by Covent Garden, knew very well that though they seemed so unconcerned, they were truly a great gang of sharpers, pimps, whores, and pickpockets out on a darkey and on the lookout for flats and cods easily caught. The same faces appeared in the street from night to night; many of them, men and women, had spent nights in the strongroom at Number 4 Bow Street.

And as they sauntered and ambled, all the while the coach horses hurried along, hooves and shoes clip-clopping on the cobblestones. Hackneys and private coaches with teams of two and four pranced smartly up and down the lane. I found the scene before me somewhat hypnotic. As I waited, I continued to watch. And as I watched, my head began to nod, and my eyelids drooped. I might have fallen asleep right there on Mr. Donnelly’s doorstep (and had my pocket picked right down to the last farthing as I dozed), but I was fortunate in that Mr. Donnelly chose that moment, when I was about to topple headlong into the arms of Morpheus, to make his return.

And indeed, reader, he made it in style. He arrived in no mean hackney, but rather in a coach-and-four painted black with a great orange-colored device of some sort painted upon the door. Thus I could not be certain that Mr. Donnelly was within until the footman came round the coach and opened the door. And even then there was naught but a leg visible to the eye. Since I had never given particular attention to the shape of Mr. Donnelly’s leg, I was no better off than before. Nevertheless, the voice that came to me through the open door was recognizably his own. What the words were I could not be quite certain, yet the laugh that followed them I knew quite well. But whose was the other voice, the one that boomed forth from deep inside the coach? I had never heard a laugh to equal it in volume or grand hilarity. Such a laugh as that would bring a smile to the face of a mourner, or brighten the sour countenance of a Scottish judge.

I rose to make my presence known and advanced toward the coach that I might catch a glimpse of Mr. Donnelly’s companion. As it happened, a glimpse was all I could manage, for just as I came near enough to see within, Mr. Donnelly finished with his leave-taking and climbed down; the footman slammed shut the door behind him.

“Jeremy!” he exclaimed. “Is it you? What news do you bring? Nothing dire, I hope.”

“Ah well, a body for you to examine, I fear. We must go to the Trezavant residence in Little Jermyn Street.”

“The Trezavant residence? Is it my employer who has been killed?”

“No sir — one of the servants, rather.”

“Well, just give me a moment. I’ll go upstairs and get my bag.”

With that, he disappeared into the building. I heard him rushing up the stairs, and not much more than a minute later, I heard him rushing down again.

As I had described earlier, Drury Lane was so lively at that hour that there proved to be no difficulty whatever in finding a hackney coach available. We were thus on our way to the livery stable where I might hire a wagon and a driver, then on to Little Jermyn Street.

Once we were settled in the hackney and bouncing about, Mr. Donnelly remarked to me that it was only by good fortune that he had returned at such an early hour.

“Whose good fortune?” I asked in a bantering mode.

“Why, yours, if you were determined to wait, and mine because I was given the chance to escape from a most dreary dinner party.”

“Oh? Whose dreary dinner party was that?”

“Lord Mansfield’s.”

“Truly? I’d always felt that the Lord Chief Justice was anything but a dreary conversationalist — rude perhaps, even upon occasion dictatorial, but never dreary.”

“Oh I know,” said Mr. Donnelly, “but he had made his invitations to the party a month ago, and since then he has taken on that blasted Somerset case, which has all London talking. All London, that is, except for Lord Mansfield.”

“I don’t quite follow,” said I.

“Well, since he is the presiding judge, and since the case is still in trial, he absolutely refused to discuss it, nor would he allow it to be discussed at his table.”

“But Mr. Donnelly, that is quite customary.”

“Well, I know, but the Somerset case is all his guests wished to discuss. Couldn’t he have loosened his restrictions for just this one night?”

“I don’t think so. It wouldn’t have been proper.”

“Well, perhaps so,” said he, the exasperation he had felt lending a certain tone to his voice, “but really, there must have been twenty of us there, and you’ve no idea what pathetic attempts were made at table talk. The evening would have been a total loss had it not been for that Dutchman.”

“Dutchman?”

“Indeed,” said he, “Zondervan is his name. He began telling some of the joiliest and funniest tales that ever I have heard. We were to imagine ourselves in this place — probably of his own invention — there in the lowlands. Oh, what was the name of it? Dingendam, something like that. But he told the stories, and he acted out all the parts, even the women. Oh, he did the women very well indeed, all in falsetto. Dear God, the man was do entertaining!”