Murder in Grub Street (5 page)

And then he read, his loud voice filling the listening room: ‘ ‘When winter heaves a sigh and makes to go / From country lands and fields all ripe with snow

He lowered the book then and looked from Sir John to me. Conversation resumed around us. “Such words as these,” said he, ” ‘fields all ripe with snow,’ may make no literal sense — snow does not grow from the earth; it is not a crop—yet they present a firm and definite picture to the mind. Clayton’s verse is full of arresting figures in this mode. He is, truly enough, a poet. Perhaps he will develop so as to give such phrases greater meaning.”

Sir John lowered his head and leaned across the table toward his partner in conversation. “My inquiries of this man,” said he, “have brought back to me the suggestion that he may also be a mad poet. Do you know anything of this?”

Dr. Johnson’s attitude changed quite abruptly. I noted him straighten and stiffen in his chair. He said nothing for a moment, and when at last he did speak, it was in a quiet, somewhat guarded manner: “Sir, why do you ask me that?”

(His sensitivity regarding this matter may be explained by rumors bruited since his death, that he was at this very time himself experiencing bouts of severe melancholia and had fears for his sanity.)

“Because,” said Sir John, “as I have said, you have special knowledge of these men and their humors. Take no offense, Dr. Johnson, but was it not Plato who said that all poets were mad and should therefore be banished?”

“He meant that, sir, in a hypothetical sense: be banished, that is, from an ideal republic. Besides, Plato was half a poet himself and guilty of vagaries of overstatement.”

“That is as it may be, but what of this man Clayton?”

Both men had of a sudden become a bit tetchy.

“Well, what of him?” demanded Dr. Johnson. “The man is a bumpkin, sir — he talks as a bumpkin, mispronouncing some words, and he moves about as one. He is shy, well-meaning, respectful, yet as tall as I and quite strong from years of labor in the field. He is, in short, a peasant, quite unexceptional in all ways but one, and that is, he is also a poet — which makes him something of a freak. It was as a freak he was presented to us by Crabb, and thus his book was sold and sold remarkablv well. I have heard that there is a second on the way. It is quite difficult to see how such a man, which is to say the man I met briefly, could be held in suspect for a crime such as has been described to me. And as for madness, I … well, indeed, I …”

At this point, Dr. Johnson’s vociferous response sputtered in anticlimax. Sir John did not prompt nor question; he simply waited until that great master of words had found the proper ones with which to continue, and eventually he did:

“Indeed, I did hear something at a dinner some months ago from a Somerset gentleman of no special consequence. Having nothing in common with the man, I made a remark on the sudden success of John Clayton and his descriptions of the beauty of his native place. The man responded in rather mean fashion, saying that as far as he knew, Clayton was not much respected there, that he had a reputation as a toper thereabouts, and other such irrelevant slander. But then, sir, he capped his recital by telling me that he had heard that a few years past, long before the ‘peasant poet’ had even begun to achieve some degree of renown, he had been confined for a period of weeks in the shire’s mad hospital. Quite frankly, I did not credit the report. I considered it false and malicious gossip, inspired by the envy of the gentry for the sudden fame of one of a much lower station. I have never repeated it until now, and I give it no more credit at this moment than I did at the time I first heard it. But since you asked, sir, I suppose I was bound to tell.”

Dr. Johnson’s stentorian voice had declined through this to a mere whisper. The honor of the man, for which he was so justly famed, shone through to me in these scruples of his as never before.

“Thank you,” said Sir John, “and be assured that I will keep your reservations as to the source of this information firmly in mind as I weigh it. I have but one question more for you, and it is this: You said that Ezekiel Crabb had made John Clayton’s reputation, if not his fortune. What did you mean by that, sir?”

“Not to speak ill of the dead, Sir John, but it is general knowledge that Ezekiel Crabb was rather parsimonious in his relations with authors, among the stingiest of all his competitors and colleagues in the book trade. He justified it to others by boasting that he published books of quality that others would not risk to issue.

By and large, this was no doubt true, but the man had a talent for commerce, rightly enough, and there were times he paid low out of habit, knowing full well he would likely make a considerable profit. John Clayton’s Countryman* Calendar presents just such an instance. I have heard it reliably reported that he purchased all rights to the book for twenty-five guineas. Crabb must have made near a hundred times that in pure profit, for the book sold in the thousands.”

“Was Clayton resentful of this?”

“Sir, to my mind he should have been, but he was not. He seemed at the time of our meeting, and later by report, to be quite humbly grateful that Crabb had put him before the public. Perhaps he had arranged a more profitable contract for his second book. Indeed, I hope he did.”

“Well, I thank you, Dr. Johnson, you have been most helpful,” said Sir John most mildly.

“Am I dismissed then, sir?” said the Great Cham, taken somewhat aback. “Where is the quid pro quo, the tit for tat? I came in answer to your summons to this lowly place in the hope — nay, the expectation — of learning more of this lamentable matter. I have given all and gotten precious little in return. I would know the circumstances of the crime, the evidence against poor Clayton. I count this unfair!”

“Well, fair or not,” answered the magistrate, “this case is before the court and cannot be discussed. You have my invitation, however, to visit us at Bow Street in three hours’ time. There and then, I believe, your questions will be answered and your curiosity satisfied.”

Rising to his feet then, he bade me show him the way out. I was up and at his elbow when Sir John stopped quite suddenly and, with a sly smile, put a request to Samuel Johnson: “I wonder, sir, if you would consent to lend me that book of Clayton’s from which you read. Its contents may be material to the case. It will be returned when these matters are disposed of, I promise.”

Dr. Johnson sputtered and fumed, yet in the end he gave it up. Ne’er was a book lent with such ill grace — or so it seemed to me.

Although Sir John Fielding conducted the proceedings of the Bow Street Court with reasonable dignity and certain respect for both the letter and spirit of the law, he was nevertheless no more nor less than a magistrate. As such, his direct power was limited to the judgment of minor offenses and settlement of modest civil suits and disputes. His greater power was indirect: On him fell the duty to weigh evidence and testimony in capital crimes (of which then there was even a greater number than today), and if sufficient and impressive, to bind the prisoner before him for trial before the King’s Bench at Old Bailey. And greatest of all, though the least commonly understood and appreciated, was his power to conduct inquiries that might lead to indictment.

The principal matter before the Bow Street Court on that day was, quite naturally, the terrible massacre in Grub Street. Even before it had been properly reported, it was the subject of much talk in the street. I well remember that on our walk from Preston’s, Sir John was detained by a few of the gentry who wished to know details of the matter. No matter how outlandish or how pertinent their questions, he forestalled discussion with a mild phrase or two. “All in due time,” he might say; or, “My court is ever open to the public,” et cetera. To those who simply yelled out to him as he passed by, “What about Grub Street?” or, “How many killed?” or some such, he gave no true answer, but simply a curt shake of his head or a disapproving wave of his hand. He was, I could see, quite troubled by those rude intrusions; such was the price he paid for the “eminence” of which he himself had boasted.

As we walked in from the street, our way took us within sight of the prisoner, John Clayton — or Petrus, as he would be called. He was attempting to dress himself in breeches and stockings, and so on (clothes more fitting for an appearance in court than a bloodstained nightshirt). Sir John seemed to have no interest. He had tried to persuade the prisoner to talk to him at least once since our return from Grub Street — all to no avail. It was evident that he felt that further efforts of this sort would be useless, at least for the present.

Once settled in his chambers, he sent me off to fetch Mr. Bailey, and I found, not to my surprise, that the prisoner had completed his dressing, and now sat sulking in worn and ill-matched garb. Sir John put me to work with the copy of The Countryman* Calendar borrowed from Samuel Johnson. His instructions I thought curious: “Search it for opinions, Jeremy — opinions of any sort. We must try to get some notion of how this fellow’s mind works in its more reasonable phases.” And so, sitting on the bench before Sir John’s door, I began rummaging through the book, looking for I knew not quite what. There was, in a sense, a superabundance of opinions — on the blue of a rare cloudless summer sky, the nesting of birds in an autumn rain, and the midnight conversations of nightingales. In short, the poems written by Clayton were much as Dr. Johnson had said: descriptive rather than philosophic, yet filled with verbal felicities of the most arresting sort. I read, rummaged, and ransacked — Mr. Marsden came and went; young Constable Cowley made an appearance—yet when Sir John called me in and asked what I had discovered, I was able to offer precious little.

“He does not seem to like doctors,” said I, “and he loathes confinement.”

“Well, in those,” said Sir John, “he is joined by the entire population. Yet I suppose it does give some slight support to the tale told Johnson by the gentleman from Somerset.” Then, pulling a face: “Bah! An altogether bad business, this. The man is incompetent.”

Such was the magistrate’s frame of mind as he made to begin that day’s proceedings. The crowd that had gathered there was quite the largest I had seen up to that time in the Bow Street Court. It was loud and a bit unruly, as interest ran high in the matter. Among the usual assemblage of layabouts and dregs from Covent Garden were others — distinguished gentlemen and their ladies; others in printing and publishing, such as Mr. Boyer and his young partner Mr. Nicholson, Mr. Davies, and Mr. Evans; and finally, front and center, Dr. Samuel Johnson.

It soon became evident that Sir John meant not to conduct this in the usual way, but rather as a further inquiry into the case, a sort of hearing in open court. The prisoner was not called forward to face his accusers but brought in unbound to sit between Mr. Bailey and Constable Cowley; Clayton behaved quite reasonably taking interest in the proceedings, and giving close attention to what was said. He appeared ready at last to respond.

Sir John first called Constable Cowley to give his account of the events of the previous night. Since by now, reader, you are familiar with them, there is no need to repeat here what he said. He did make it clear, however, that “an individual” was discovered in the attic room occupied by the two apprentices, deceased, and that “said individual held in his hand an axe which was thought to be the murder weapon.”

At this point, Sir John interjected a question: “Is this weapon now in our possession?”

“No, sir, it ain’t. Its whereabouts is unknown. Whilst I conducted the individual to Bow Street for questioning, I left orders with the group of five men who entered the premises with me to remain outside and keep it safe till my return. When I came back, all was inside except one, and he was missing.”

“As was the axe?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you know the name of the missing man?”

“No, sir, I do not.”

“One more thing,” said Sir John. “You made it clear that it was necessary to break down the door to Grub Street in order to gain entry. Was there another door to the establishment?”

“There was, sir — a rear door in the cellar.”

“Was it locked or unlocked?”

“Locked, sir, by key. There was no drawbolt on it.”

“Very good, Constable Cowley. Will you now, finally, point out the individual whom you conducted to Bow Street for examination and safekeeping?”

The young constable did as told, indicating John Clayton, alias Petrus.

“Mr. Marsden,” said the magistrate to his clerk, “will you make note of that, please?”

Then he dismissed Cowley, who returned to his place next the man he had pointed to, and called to witness one Albert Burnley, a name unknown to me. Yet when he stepped forward, I recognized him as the “Bert” who, with his companion Harry, had made such sport of me the night before.

All that Burnley could add to the tale told by the constable was something by way of a preface in which he described the screams from the Crabb house heard by him and others, and then the rush to find a constable with whom they might enter the place.

But early in his recital, at about this point, Sir John interrupted Burnley: “Would you describe the screams?”

“Describe them?” echoed the man. “They was horrible, they was — a jumble of screams from folk bein’ murdered.”

“And how long would you say they did last?”

Burnley screwed up his face for a moment in concentration. Then at last he said, “Not long.”

“Make an estimate for me,” said Sir John. “Would you say the screams continued during the time it would take a man to count slowly to a hundred? Two hundred? Three hundred?”

“I can’t be sure,” said Burnley. “I never had occasion to count so high.” The room, which had been quite silent up to that moment, exploded into sudden laughter at that. Burnley looked around, greatly annoyed at his audience. Then, once Sir John had shouted them down and beaten his gavel for silence, Burnley said with some show of dignity: “I would say, sir, that it wasn’t near so long as that — more like a count of fifty and maybe less.”