An Experiment in Treason (26 page)

“Ah then, I fear I ain’t got a chance, for though I can shoot with the best of them — and there’s many a dead man will swear to that — I tell time by the sun, I can’t read, and all the writin’ I know is the ‘X’ it takes to write my name. No, Mr. Bow Street Runner, I fear I ain’t got what it might take to be one of you all.”

All this was said in a joking, teasing manner, as if to say that this was their loss and not his own.

And it prompted this response from Mr. Perkins: “That doesn’t seem to bother you none …”

“No, it don’t,” said Mr. Burkett, “for in my part of the world, I am known far and wide as the best at my trade.”

“And what is your trade? We been wondering about that. Sort of a thief-taker, are you? “

“In a way, I s’pose I am. I am what they call a slave-chaser. I reckon you know that in Georgia we got slavery. It’s why the province is so rich. Well, any time you got slaves, you got runaways, and I’m the fella brings the runaways back. Y’see, it ain’t so easy findin’ them in a place like Georgia, ‘cause we got swamp and mountains and Cherokees.”

“Beg pardon. Mr. Burkett, ” said I, piping up from the rear, “but what’s a Cherokee?”

“‘Tis a brand of red nigger, lad,” said he, tolerating the interruption. “But as I was sayin’, it ain’t easy findin’ them and gettin’ them back in that part of the country — too many places to hide, and too many Cherokees a-waitin’ up in the mountains to make the runaways slaves of their own. But I’m a good tracker, even in swamp country, and I ain’t afraid of riddin’ the province of a few Cherokees to get my blacks back. Each one I bring I get paid — and get paid right handsome. So that’s my trade. Mr. Bow Street Runner. What do you think of that? “

“What I think of that, ” said Constable Perkins, “is that you’ll find it ever so much different chasing thieves in London than it was chasing blacks in Georgia. But that is just my personal opinion. You’ll have to find out for yourself — and this is where you start.”

“This Bedford Street?”

“It is,” said Mr. Perkins. “I understand you’re interested in visiting the King’s Pleasure.”

“If that’s the place the lad here said the plot was hatched to rob Lord Hillsborough.”

We had stopped. He looked to me for confirmation of this.

“That is the place, ” said I.

“Well and good. Now, tell me what put you in mind to say that.”

And as briefly as possible, I did just that. Yet it was not told so briefly that I omitted a single name: Tommy Skinner and Ned Ferguson, the burglars; Isaac Kidd, “the Duke,” who arranged it all; Arthur Lee, who purchased the fruits of their thievery, and presented them to Benjamin Franklin.

Having had it laid out before him, George Burkett was surprisingly slow to give response. He stood in silence for what seemed a great long while — so long indeed that Mr. Perkins glanced uneasily in my direction. Passersby directed uneasy looks at the large, ill-dressed fellow who stood at the corner, indifferently blocking their way; they walked round him. At last he did speak.

“You say this one they call the Duke runs a card game in the cellar of one of these places in Bedford Street. Which one?”

“It’s not known for certain,” said I, “but it seems likely that it is the King’s Pleasure.”

“Yes, it do, don’t it?” He rubbed his chin and said, “I wish there was some way I could pick out this fella Kidd without you two bringin’ me in and pointin’ him out. They know you for what you are, Mr. Bow Street Runner, and they might know you, lad.”

I thought back to my meeting with Isaac Kidd and William Slade in the house which had, until that day, belonged to Black Jack Bilbo. Yes, the Duke would know me for a certainty.

“Yes, he would recognize me.”

“Don’t you worry about that,” said Mr. Perkins. “I believe I may be able to arrange something.”

On the strength of this, Burkett nodded his assent, and we started off to the King’s Pleasure, which lay in the middle of the long block. I was in no wise surprised when the constable led us beyond the door. A moment later an answering whistle came, and then a few steps were heard, and Bess appeared. She smiled at Mr. Perkins, nodded at me, and looked inquiringly at George Burkett (she did not appear to like what she saw).

The constable introduced her simply as “Bess” and explained that she kept an eye on things around Bedford Street for him.

“Did you make your rounds yet?” he asked her.

“I did early on,” said she.

“Was the Duke about?”

She nodded. Her eyes kept returning to Burkett. It was evident he made her uneasy.

“Where was he sitting?”

“Where he usually does — in the back table under the window, best-dressed man in the place. Easy to pick out.”

“That ain’t good enough.” It was Burkett, stepping closer to Bess looking down upon her in a manner which seemed frankly threatening.

“What do you mean?” She started upon him, refusing to be intimidated.

“I mean what I say. It ain’t good enough. You’re a whore, ain’t you? You take me in there and introduce me, and you tell this man Kidd, who you call the Duke, that I’m your customer, and that I’m looking for some action in a game of chance. Then you stay around for as long as I want you to, just to make sure that everything’s going right. ” He hesitated then but a moment, and he added, “Don’t worry yourself, my girl, I’ll pay you well. It’s worth a sovereign to me.”

“There’s a few things wrong with what you just said, ” she declared. “First of all, I’m not a whore, not the way you mean. Second thing is, that’s not the way it’s done. You don’t invite yourself in, you get invited. But I’ll tell you, if you go in there dressed the way you’re dressed, have a drink at the bar, and pay with that sovereign you offered me, they’ll be falling all over themselves to get the cards in your hand and the money from your pocket.”

“What’s wrong with the way I’m dressed?”

“Why, nothing at all, except you look quite like a clown from the colonies with all those bright colors and little buttons that don’t button anything.”

What then happened went so quickly that I scarcely could follow. Burkett reached round Bess, grasped her hair, and jerked her head back, at which she let out a great “OW!”

“We’ll do it my way, hear? ” he shouted simultaneously.

Yet, just as quick, Mr. Perkins pulled his club from his belt and brought it down sharply upon the big man’s forearm. Such a blow would have broken the arm of most men, and though it did not break his, it caused him to release his grip on Bess’s hair. She jumped quickly a safe distance away from him.

“We’ll leave you here,” said Constable Perkins to him. “And for your information, sir, all that Bess told you is correct, right down to the little buttons that don’t button anything.” He turned to her then. “Come along, ” said he. “We’ll see you to your door.”

George Burkett stalked off toward the entrance to the King’s Pleasure. But then, of a sudden, he halted and whirled about.

“Let me give you something to think about. Mister One-armed Constable. If anything should happen to that arm you got left, you’d be in one hell of a bad situation, wouldn’t you?”

“Is that a threat?” Mr. Perkins called back.

“Naw, it’s just something for you to think about.” And so saying, he threw open the door to the King’s Pleasure and swaggered inside.

‘Twas I who was escorted home by the other two. We had Uttle to say, except to agree that we would do naught to help Burkett further. Inwardly, I knew well that I had done far too much in offering him the names of the five who, according to my theory, had seen the letters from Lord Hillsborough’s residence into the hands of Benjamin Franklin. It was now public record what Dr. Franklin had done with them.

When the constable and Bess had seen me to the door to Number 4 Bow Street, it was not much beyond eleven on the clock, yet it was late enough, so that only Mr. Baker, of all the Runners, was present. I called a halloo to him as he stuck his head out to see who had entered. Then did I start up the stairs, thinking how good it would be to have my old bed back — tomorrow night. Tonight, it seemed, I would be back on the pallet, sleeping before the fireplace.

When I opened the door to the kitchen at the top of the stairs, I found Clarissa sitting alone at the table, a loaf of bread and a bowl of butter before her, as well as a small pot of tea.

“Ah,” said she, “it’s you. I’d been hoping you’d come along.”

“Why? So you might tell me all about your lovely afternoon in Vauxhall Gardens?” I seemed to have decided to make things difficult for her.

“Ah, so you heard about that. Would you like some tea?”

“If there’s any left. I heard something about Vauxhall, sketchy but reliable — from Mr. Donnelly.”

I took down a cup and sat down at the table near her.

“There’s plenty of tea,” she said. “I just brewed a pot. And what about some bread and butter? I had no dinner, you know. I’m quite famished.”

“I don’t mind if I do have a piece, and yes, butter would be nice. Thanks.”

And so she tended to the tea and all, and before we knew it we were having a proper little meal there in the kitchen.

“I knew you’d missed dinner,” said I, chewing lustily on my quarter-loaf. “I came in a few minutes late and sat clown at the table and no one would say anything, and then, right after dinner, they went up to Sir John’s little room …”

“The one he calls his study?”

“That’s right. But I was not invited. They seemed determined to keep all from me.”

“Oh, they would, wouldn’t they!”

“What do you mean?” I was a bit alarmed at what she had just said.

“Well, it was all about you, of course.”

Now I was more than a bit alarmed. “You miut explain yourself. And please begin by assuring me that you re not laying the blame on me for staying to listen in on Sir John’s interrogation of Benjamin Franklin.”

She sighed a deep sigh. “No, I don’t claim that. The fault — if fault there be — was mine, and perhaps a bit Molly’s as well.”

As Clarissa told it, upon Tom Durham’s arrival weeks past she had been encouraged by Molly to use him in order to make me jealous. She played at it rather halfheartedly, commenting to me upon Tom’s handsome appearance, following him about “like a lovesick puppy,” just to see what it might be like to play such a role, and to see if indeed it might have some effect upon me. Yet so far as she could tell, her ruse worked not at all. I was the same — somewhat distant, absorbed in my studies of the law and by the work done with Sir John — in short, just being myself.

But if she had only known how greatly I was affected by the game she played, she would in no wise have thought me indifferent. Just when I had at last put proper value to her and learned to treat my feelings for her in earnest, it seemed that she was to be taken from me.

“I was JO disappointed when you refused to come along to Vauxhall this afternoon,” Clarissa said to me, “that I fear that I became spiteful and foolish. I flirted quite shamelessly with Tom on the way there. And once we had had the sweet cakes and goodies that Molly had prepared, and she and Mr. Donnelly had settled down to spark, ‘twas I and not Tom, who suggested we leave them and go for a walk. Again I flirted rather dangerously, implying, I fear, that I was offering more than I wished Tom, in all truth, to take. Yet I was not so brazen that I was prepared, when we were out of sight of the others, for Tom’s impetuous response. He threw me down in a pile of fallen leaves and jumped atop me. It was all I could do to get out a couple of healthy screams. They were quite effective, though. Not only did they bring Molly and Mr. Donnelly a-running, they quite paralyzed Tom, so that, let me assure you, I am still intact.”

With that she ended her tale and looked up at me hopefully, expecting a comment, forgiveness — or something. Instead, I offered her a lawyerly sort of question.

“Do you intend to tell this in full to Sir John and Lady K?”

“Do you think me mad? No, you heard the raw and unedited version. I’ve discussed all this with Molly so that our stories would match precisely, and she told me just what I dared say, and what I did not.”

“That’s good, ” said I. “Follow her advice. Tom can take care of himself.”

“That’s just what Molly told me,” said Clarissa, subduing a smile. “But really, you know, he’s quite safe from my vengeance. I shall tell them, ‘It’s all a misunderstanding.’”

“And am I safe from your vengeance?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you must have thought me terribly unresponsive. I believe you used the word ‘distant.’”

“Yes, yes, I did.”

“Is that how I seem?”

“Most of the time — or some of the time, anyway.”

“But I am not near as unresponsive as you think, ” I declared. “Nor did Molly’s plan for you go amiss.”

“Again I must ask what you mean.”

“She encouraged you to believe that if you paid attention to Tom, I would immediately become jealous. Well, indeed I did become jealous.”

“Jeremy!”

“Yes, of course. Do you think me a blockhead? I am no crude, unfeeling fellow, no matter that I may appear so to you.”

“But no!” said she. “I would never think such of one as fine and intelligent as you. There was never any but you.”

“I feared the worst, Clarissa. It seemed likely to me that Tom would leave London engaged to you.”

As that she pulled a most fearsome face.

“Truly I did,” said I, “and I was terribly sad at the thought. Until Tom Durham came along, I supposed we might be engaged. I wanted you for my own, and I wanted you most awfully, yet …”

“Yet what? What should stop us?”

“Well, for one thing, I have no money, nor do I have prospects of earning any. And, well, there are other practical considerations.”

“Oh, I can imagine what they are easily enough, but listen, I’ll tell you a secret. You must promise not to tell anyone.”

“I promise.”

“All right, Molly and Mr. Donnelly have an understanding.”

“An understanding? Of what sort?”

“They’re not formally engaged. They’re more or less engaged to be engaged. But Molly assures me that they’ll be married before the coming year is out.”