Bruce Alexander - [Sir John Fielding 01] Page 15

  I promised, we said our goodbyes, and he left. I then made direct for the back stairs and the kitchen. While I well knew my duty was to wash myself, I hoped also to find young Mistress Meg there. Perhaps, I thought, since Sir John had persuaded her to speak, she would now talk generally. I wanted no more than to acquaint myself better with her. I liked her delicate way and pitied her the mysterious ordeal she had suffered.

  But alas, when I came to the bottom of the stairs and into the kitchen, Meg was nowhere to be seen. It was empty, indeed, except for Ebenezer, who was taking his ease at the table with a cup of strong tea before him. We greeted one another politely in our two tongues, and I went straight to the sink. Filling a basin from the storage tank, I found soap, took off my coat, rolled up my sleeves, and got to work.

  As I washed, I thought. And as I thought, it seemed to me that perhaps I had gone about my search in the wrong manner. Sir John had told me to look in the library for the concealed exit. I had done his bidding, and it had not proved fruitful. Perhaps to explore from another direction might work better. I would need help for that. Would Ebenezer do? Well, thought I, perhaps, for even if I could not understand his speech, he could understand mine. Could I persuade him? But surely persuasion was not the answer. A bold and authoritative tone would suit my cause better. After all, I was the helper of Sir John Fielding, magistrate of the Bow Street Court— was I not?

  I grabbed a greasy towel and wiped myself fair to dry, face and hands. Then I turned to Ebenezer and said in my deepest voice: “I shall be needing your help just now. Find a shovel or a flat spade, and get a candle and matches, for we shall be needing them, too.” Ebenezer jumped to his feet immediately and went off in search of the necessities.

  No more than an inch of good London dirt concealed the cover to the hole. It had not been hard to find. I had marked its location well by my eye in relation to the hedge gate. Taking the flat spade in hand, I had begun banging down into the soil, moving steadily to the left some distance from the gate. Each downward blow I placed about a foot distant from the last. When, on my seventh or eighth effort, the blade hit a hard surface and the spade danced out of my hand, I recovered it, knowing I had found the spot where my feet had landed in fearful flight from the monstrous horses.

  Ebenezer, beside me, had widened his eyes in surprise at my discovery. He grabbbed the spade from my hand and began clearing away the dirt. That did not take long, for the dirt was loose, indicating to me that it had been recently shifted. Had it not been so loose, I might never have detected the place.

  What Ebenezer uncovered was a stone cover a little less than a yard square with a pull-hole in the center for lifting. He stuck three fingers of his right hand therein and gave a considerable tug. Yet he, for all his strength, could not pull it completely off. I jammed in the spade and held it, not without difficulty, as he shifted his hold and with both hands eased it back. He rested it against the hedge, a safe distance from the hole that it uncovered.

  Together we regarded it. There was a ladder in reasonable repair leading down. From his pocket, Ebenezer produced a thick candle of about eight inches. He then said something to me that I quite failed to understand. After another dip into his pocket, he produced matches and bade me light the candle. That much I understood. I lit the candle, and in a moment he had begun his descent down the ladder, candle in hand. I followed him down.

  We descended to a point about ten feet below the level of the ground. There, ducking our heads, bending nearly double, we proceeded in the direction of the house. No mephitic effluvium greeted us, so I could be sure, at least, we were not headed toward the cesspit. It seemed unlikely, too, that we had entered through the coal hole, for it was too far from the house. The passage was wide enough for a man, but it had been buttressed along the way with old timbers, which made it seem dangerous as an old mineshaft and narrowed the way at regular intervals.

  In any case, we came to the end, which terminated in another ladder like the one we had descended. Ebenezer, holding the candle, looked to me for instruction.

  “Climb to the top,” said I, “and tell me what you see.”

  He went up with a firm step to a point well above me. Ebenezer’s feet on the ladder were all I saw of him. All I could make out, peering upward, was an imposing system of gears just to Ebenezer’s left, against a wall of bricks.

  “Do you see a lever? Something to make the machine turn?”

  He moved the candle about, pushed one thing, pulled another, but all without result.

  “Nay,” said he at last. ” ‘See nought t’here.”

  “All right,” said I, “stay where you are a bit longer. Give me time to return to the library, and then begin knocking at regular intervals on the wall before you. Do you understand?”

  “Aye!”

  I then left him, returning the way we had come through the passage, now pitch dark except for the dim shaft of light which marked our entrance to the tunnel. When I arrived at that point and glimpsed the afternoon sky above, I clambered up the ladder as swift as a monkey might. In this way, I reached the level of the privet hedge in just a moment. And in but a moment more, I was through the gate, across the garden, and back into the house.

  My first glimpse of the library door gave me pause. It was closed—shut for the first time since Ebenezer and Potter had battered it down. I concluded, rightly, that the carpenters had successfully completed their work in my absence. Had the room then been locked?

  Ah, but no. The door gave at the first push of the handle. I pushed it wide and ran straight for the fireplace. Already Ebenezer’s knocks had begun. Yet to my surprise and confusion, they were not directly there at the fireplace, but rather a few feet to the left, among the books and behind the bookcase. I took a moment, and with my ear close to the shelves, ascertained their exact location.

  Thinking to return his signal, I hastily began pulling books helter-skelter from the shelves. Indeed I was not careful. Some flew left, and some flew right, and some flew open on the floor. Yet I broke none, and therefore felt I had not earned the fury which I was, in the next moment, given.

  “You wretched boy!” cried Potter. “How dare you treat the master’s books so!”

  This, spoken, was my only warning, for when I turned to explain the matter to him, I found him lunging toward me, both hands outstretched as though to throttle me. I ducked and shifted to one side, yet I could not escape one of his vengeful hands. It caught me at the shoulder and slammed me hard against the bookshelves at the spot where Ebenezer had been rapping.

  I feared I was in for a thrashing, and indeed I might have been, except as I cowered there, I was surprised by a slow, steady movement against my back. The entire shelf of books was shifting with me upon it.

  I stepped clear and sought to read Potter’s face. I saw at once surprise, dismay, and anger written in it. He said nothing, but stood quite fixed and staring as the moving bookcase revealed the smiling face of Ebenezer Tepper. In triumph, Ebenezer waved the lighted candle in his hand and let forth a great hoot.

  Chapter Seven

  In which Charles Clairmont

  presents himself to Sir John

  and we visit the theatre

  It has oft been said that it is on those occasions when we endeavor to make great haste that we are most wasteful of time. And so it was proven that afternoon when I left the Goodhope residence determined to give swift notice to Sir John of my discovery.

  Potter, having gawked only a moment in consternation, had said not a word but stormed from the librarv in a great huff. Though I was then sore tempted to follow him out and make immediate for Bow Street, I remained long enough to ascertain with Ebenezer the nature of the trigger device that set the machinery of the secret door in motion. It operated from both sides of the false wall, though it was so cleverly recessed on the outside that it had escaped Ebenezer’s notice. Then, instructing him to return through the tunnel and replace the stone cover at its entrance, I pressed the trigger and sent the bo
okcase and false wall back on their slow journev to their rightful place next to the fireplace. I replaced the books I had torn from the shelves, alas with no greater care than I had given to their removal. That done, I ran from the room, down the long hall, and out the door. Potter was nowhere to be seen.

  In truth, I was certain of the wav back from St. James Street when I made my hasty departure. Nevertheless, dodging through the crowded streets, I took a wrong turning and then another, and found myself down an alley much like that one in which I had been so perniciously gulled by Messrs. Bledsoe and Slade-Sayer. Quite at a loss, I returned to the thoroughfare and sought directions. I thought it wise to consult with a woman, believing there was less to fear from the gentler sex.

  Thus it was that I approached one of indeterminate age who

  J25 Stood leaning against a wall, smiling at all and sundry who passed her by. She seemed friendly enough.

  “With your pardon, ma’am,” said I to her, “I should Kke to ask of you the way to Bow Street.”

  The smile swiftly faded. She thrust her face close into mine and, quite overwhelming me with a cloud of gin breath, demanded to know what such intelligence as she might provide would be worth to me.

  “Why,” said I, “I should be grateful to you for it.”

  “There’s grateful and grateful,” said she. “How much will you pay, young sir?”

  I looked round me a bit in a quandary. On the one hand, it seemed right to leave her where she stood and ask the way of another. Yet my earlier experience with strangers in the city had made me fearful of contact with strangers. Fear won out. We negotiated. She asked a guinea. I laughed at that, and offered her tuppence. And so by degrees we drew closer until we agreed on a shilling. I drew from my pocket one of the four I had left and dropped it in her open palm.

  “Put another one like it there, and you can have me in the bargain,” said she. “M’crib’s just down the alley, pretty.” Her smile had returned.

  “Please,” said I, “I am in a great hurry.”

  “Oh, you young bucks is always in a rush, particular under the covers. But if that’s the way of it, then listen close, and I’ll put you on Bow Street, for I may be a whore but I ain’t no thief.”

  She was as good as her word and described a route different from the one I had begun, yet presented it in such specific detail that I had no difficulty following it to my destination. I realized she had got the better of me and felt a bumpkin for my ignorance of this vast metropolis to which I had come. I determined to apply myself to my surroundings; and indeed I did so in the months and years that followed, so that today I may boast that few natives of this place know it as well as I.

  Once I had Covent Garden in sight, I had no problem in putting my feet on Bow Street and directing them to Number 4. Yet when I entered, I realized the difficulty of my situation. For while I wished to communicate my discovery to Sir John, I could not directly do so, for there he sat at the bench, discharging his official duties. His court was in session. He would not receive it kindly if I was to attempt an interruption: that much was out of the question. And so I took a place near to the door where I might make my exit and hasten through the yard to his chambers at the earliest opportunity.

  Sir John sat through two small matters: another action on personal debt and a dispute between merchants on a question of contract. I waited impatiently through them and was gratified at last when, after a brief discussion sotto voce with Mr. Marsden, Sir John declared a brief recess. As he got up and hurried off to the rear of the room, I jumped to my feet, squeezed impolitely through the door between two drabs who had come for the show, and then made my way by circular means to the yard. I arrived just in time to glimpse Sir John entering the privy.

  I wanted his attention. Thinking no more of it than that, I went to the door of the privy and knocked quite rudely, calling his name.

  “What is it?” he called from inside. “Who is there?”

  “It is me, Jeremy Proctor.”

  “Go away, boy. I have a call of nature.”

  “But I have something important to tell.”

  “Well, tell it later. I am otherwise engaged.” He spoke quite gruff.

  At that I shrank back, of a sudden rightfully shamed at my audacity. I took a place some several paces away and stood quite meek awaiting him. At last he reappeared, buttoning his breeches.

  He must have sensed me near, for he turned in my direction and said, “Good God, boy, can a man not have a piss without interruption?”

  “I do most sincerely beg your pardon. Sir John,” said I, “but I had a matter that could not wait.”

  “Jeremy, there are very few things in this world that cannot wait, and I have just attended to one of them. Now what is this matter that you deem so urgent?”

  “I found it,” said I.

  “Found what?” said he.

  “Why, sir, the secret exit from the library. Ebenezer and I together discovered a false wall behind the bookcases.”

  “Ah, well,” said he, “good.” He did not seem mightily impressed.

  So I persisted: “It was at the end of a tunnel, and the entrance of it was that very same spot I found beyond the privet hedge. Remember, Sir John? You thought it would prove to be no more than the coal hole or—”

  “Yes, I recall.” He had started back to the building. I hopped to catch him up. “So you proved me wrong. Good boy.”

  “But,” said I, faltering, “but is this not of great importance?”

  He stopped then and, with a hand to his chin, seemed to ponder a moment before speaking. “No,” said he at last, “it is of relative importance, Jeremy. All logic dictated that such a clandestine egress be there. The deed could not have been carried through without it. Furthermore, the history of the family as Stuart Papists strongly suggested that some entry of the sort would have been provided to smuggle priests in and out of the house in the last century; that is why I kept badgering that pinchfart butler for the house plan. What is now the library may once have done for a chapel. May still do, for it has not escaped my notice that Lady Goodhope now practices that faith quite diligently, albeit in secret—beads, prayers, fasting, et cetera. My inquiries reveal that she was pulled out of a convent in Belgium by her father to make the marriage—quite against her will, though that’s neither here nor there. With all this, you see, Jeremy, the existence of the tunnel and false wall was not simply a matter for conjecture. We had become certain of it, had we not?”

  I could not but give assent. “Yes, sir,” said I.

  “Well, with such certainty, all that remained was discovery. I assigned that task to you, and you have carried it out with admirable dispatch. I congratulate you. But you do see, don’t you, that discovery, in this case, was in the nature of a confirmation and not an astonishment?”

  “As you say. Sir John.”

  “Good. Then you understand. But I have a question for you. You referred to your discovery as a secret exit. It was, I take it, also a secret entrance? That is to say, the door, or false wall, could be made to move from either side, could it not?”

  I paused only to make certain in my own mind of the recessed trigger on Ebenezer’s side, then gave powerful assurances that the machinery to move the wall could be made to operate from the tunnel or from within the library.

  “Thank you,” said he. “That may be an important point. Now, much as I welcomed your news and have enjoyed our discussion, I must now return to the bench.”

  Then he turned from me and made a straight path to the door, a way he had no doubt rehearsed many times before. Yet there he paused, turned back to me, and said: “Jeremy, you will recall that I sent word directing Charles Clairmont, that newly arrived half-brother of the late lord, to report for an interview at five in my chambers?”

  BLIXD JUSTICE

  “Indeed, Sir John, and I believe Potter carried the message to him personally.”

  “Not surprising,” said he. “Well, I should like you to be present during
that talk. Bring a broom and whatnot for cleaning the room. That should explain your presence and put him at his ease. For that matter, my chambers, such as they are, could use a good sweeping, since I will in no wise allow Mrs. Gredge inside. You’ll see to it?”

  I saw to it; though it was no easy matter coaxing a broom and a feather duster from Mrs. Gredge. She seemed deeply offended that I, not she, had been chosen to give Sir John’s private lair its first “touch” (as she called it) in “who knows how long.” I chose to sav nothing to her of his clear intent to have me there for other purposes. This was partly because I knew not what those purposes were; and partly, as well, because I believe I was just beginning to learn the uses of discretion, one of the most difficult lessons for children (and most adults) to learn.

  During the time that elapsed between my conversation with Sir John in the yard and the five o’clock meeting at which I was to be present, Lady Fielding awoke but once. Though there was no outcry beyond a call for Mrs. Gredge, I took it that the poor woman was again in pain, for upon leaving the room up the stairs, Mrs. Gredge hastened to prepare another dose of the potion that Mr. Donnelly had prescribed. She was in the midst of heating the poppy seeds down into a pulp when I noted the time and, thinking it proper, asked her permission to leave.

  “If you must,” said Mrs. Gredge. “I’ve my hands full here, as you can see.”

  “Sir John did want me there a bit before five,” said I. “He was most particular.”

  “He has his ways,” said she, “though I vow I often do not understand them. Go then, and see you make a good job of it!”

  I promised and descended the stairs, broom and duster in hand. As it proved, I preceded Charles Clairmont by only a minute or two. Sir John had barely the opportunity to tell me just what it was he wished me to notice with regard to the visitor before he was upon us.

  There were three sharp knocks on the door. Sir John called out an invitation to enter and into the room sidled a slightly misshapen man of indeterminate age. Was he humpbacked, or merely stooped? I could not rightly tell. I thought it best not to study him direct but kept to the broom work I had begun with that knock upon the door.