Person or Persons Unknown (23 page)

“Hmmm,” said Sir John, “most interesting. And then to women of the streets that you might learn more. It was from them that you learned of Yossel Davidovich and his altercation with the victim.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Had any of those you talked to actually witnessed the altercation? I can near answer that myself, for I think it highly unlikely, unless you talked with Sarah Linney, for she was the only witness.”

“Well, I did not take their names. There were but two.”

“D/W either of these women claim to have witnessed the altercation?”

“Not in so many words, no. but they said this Yossel fellow was seen in such a situation with the victim. They did not like him at all; one swore she’d been robbed by him, that he’d produced a knife and threatened to cut off her nose. He seemed to have been a very nasty individual.”

“Yet as concerned the quarrel between Yossel and the victim, you accepted hearsay.”

“Well, I could not search further for witnesses and such. The broadsheet had to be written that very day!”

“And due to that press of time, you were willing to accuse him of murder with no more to support the accusation than a surmise that he could have returned to that spot, taken her down the alley, and murdered her. And that surmise, further, was based on nothing more than hearsay. Mr. Neville, that will not do/’ That he said most solemnly. Yet the next moment Sir John seemed to be suppressing a smile. “You said, sir, that from what you were told, Yossel Davidovich seemed a very nasty individual. But tell me, what was your impression of him?”

“A/v impression? Why, how would I — ”

“You passed the night in his company.”

“Do you mean, sir, that that sniveling little wretch in the strong room was he? He shivered half the night in fear because ‘they’ were after him — never said who they’ were, actually. Said he’d never be able to walk the streets of London again. So that was Yossel! You don’t say so!”

“Ah, but I do, sir. And in fact, he had reason to fear, for ‘they’ were indeed after him. He and the rabbi who persuaded him to obey my summons to come in for questioning were chased and harried all the way to Bow Street by a citizenry enraged by your inflammatory broadsheet. If two of my constables had not interceded to protect them, bodily harm might have been done to both men — the one because you had erroneously defamed him and the other because he was manifestly a Jew. And so the charges against you are proven. You did interfere with and impede my inquiry into the death of Polly Tarkin by wrongly yet with great certitude identifying Yossel Davidovich as her murderer. It was established in the course of this morning’s inquest that he could not have done the deed by a witness who accounted for his time. And as for inciting to riot, that charge is also proven, as what might have been a riot was averted by a swift show of force by the Bow Street Runners. And so, Ormond Neville, you are found guilty on both charges. But to me, sir, perhaps more flagrant and damaging than the charges were the ancient calumnies against the Jews which you repeated in the broadsheet. Whatever possessed you to do so?”

“Uh … well… sir, you must understand that it takes a great many words to fill a broadsheet, and I thought to fill it out with a bit of history.”

”History, is it? And how came you by this ‘history’? Was it taught you in school? Was it read in a book?”

“No, but for a period I served as secretary to the British consul. Sir Anthony Allman, in the city of St. Petersburg in Russia. I had many conversations with Russians at that time regarding the Jews, and they seemed very certain of the facts regarding the secret practices of the Israelites. Let us say, I had the information on good authority.”

“I question that authority,” said Sir John, “just as I deny your so-called facts. Did you find these Russians to be otherwise well informed? Did they exhibit great wisdom in other matters?”

“They seemed to me very cultured,” said Neville, “for they all spoke French.”

“And is that your standard? Bah, I say, and bah again. The Russians are a benighted people who would say the world was flat if they did not own so much of it. I reject your ‘history,’ sir, and if there were a law against slandering a people, I should charge you on that count as well, for you are clearly guilty of slandering the Jews.” With that. Sir John paused, as if to catch his breath. “But there is no such law, and so we must turn now to Mr. Benjamin Nicholson. Mr. Nicholson, tell me, when Mr. Neville brought to you what he had written, did you read it through?”

“Why, yes, of course.”

“You did not also show it to Mr. William Boyer, your partner?”

“No, his interest is in books and their sale, to the exclusion of all else. I handle all production of said books, as well as the occasional broadsheets, adverts, and the like.”

“I see. And when you read it through, you found nothing objectionable in it? Nothing inflammatory?”

“Ah, well. Sir John, I am no lawyer, nor for that matter is Mr. Neville. It seemed to me that there was information in it to which the public had a right. He named a malefactor, perhaps a bit too certainly, but then the public likes certainty. It will have nothing of the law’s niceties.”

“How well I know that,” said Sir John. “But had you no misgivings about the heinous practices attributed to the Jews — the murder of Christian infants and the like?”

“On that I have no expertise whatever. Let me say I have nothing against them, except that which we are given in Holy Scripture. My personal advisor in financial matters is a Jew, and I count him a friend. However, if there is one principle to which we hold at Boyer and Nicholson, it is the author’s right to have his say. We do not dictate to the writer.”

“You mean to say he will have the right to say whatever he will, and you will simply publish it as written?”

“Well, there are limits, of course.”

“And Mr. Neville’s — what shall we call it? essay? — it did not exceed those limits?”

“No, I suppose it didn’t.”

“Indeed it did not, for you published it. And so, as a consequence, I hold you equally guilty with Ormond Neville of the charges put against him — to wit, interfering with and impeding a criminal inquiry; and inciting to riot.”

“But — ”

“There will be no ‘but’s,’ sir. He transgressed in writing what he did, and you in publishing it. But now comes the most difficult task, and that is meting out proper punishment to the two of you. By rights, you should both be made to serve a sentence in gaol — I should say a minimum of thirty days. But when I arrived here at Bow Street to preside over this day’s session, I found waiting for me a letter from Mr. William Boyer. It was, in effect, a plea for leniency for Mr. Nicholson, couched in the most practical terms. He said in it that he had grown a bit too old and was out of touch with the printing and production aspects of their enterprise. And that if Mr. Nicholson were unavailable for any extended period of time, he would have to close down all but the bookstore in front. Printers and binders would be unemployed for the length of his absence. I know Mr. Boyer. He has been of service to the court in the past, and I have no reason to doubt the truth of the situation as he describes it. Having no wish to put honest men out of work, I therefore refrain from imposing a gaol sentence upon Mr. Nicholson. Yet since I have found the two equally guilty in this matter, I cannot then impose a sentence upon Mr. Neville. Nor can I allow their wrong to go unrighted.”

Sir John paused and leaned back a moment as if in thought. He stayed thus for near a minute. And then said he, as if still giving consideration to the matter:

“I am especially desirous that no profit should be made from this criminal act in which you two collaborated. Tell me, Mr. Neville, what were you paid for writing the broadsheet?”

“Two guineas, sir.”

“That shall be your fine. And you, Mr. Nicholson, what did the firm profit from its sale across the city?”

“That’s difficult to say exact, sir, but it should come to about twenty-five guineas, give or take a bit.”

“Ah, there is a lesson for authors in that disparity, is there not? But that is neither here nor there. Twenty-five guineas shall be your fine, Mr. Nicholson.”

“But, Sir John, that is the firm’s money, and not my own.”

“You are a partner in the firm, are you not? Work it out with Mr. Boyer. Yet still the wrong has not been righted, and considering this dilemma, I was quite at a loss until Mr. Oliver Goldsmith stepped forward and made a most generous offer. Mr. Goldsmith, will you come now and repeat it?”

Come forward Oliver Goldsmith did, at the bouncing pace of one who was accustomed to moving through London by foot; the man had a leg, or rather two of them, and he used them to good advantage. He took his place next Ormond Neville.

“I understand, sir,” said Sir John to him, “that you have certain scruples that you wish first to make clear?”

“I do, sir, yes. In general, I am in agreement with the position voiced by Mr. Nicholson — that an author should be free to have his say, and that if he is in error, his errors will be corrected by others writing against him. That is the very nature of controversy, and controversy is the very heart of intelligent life. Nevertheless, when I read Mr. Neville’s broadsheet, I strongly objected to certain passages in it, in particular those which dealt in general with the Jews, their history, and criminal practices. I, like you, impugned his sources, and we had been in argument at table in the Goose and Gander before your constable arrived to take him away.”

“And what then do you suggest, Mr. Goldsmith?” asked Sir John.

“The only proper answer to such a broadsheet is another broadsheet pointing out — as you described them — Mr. Neville’s surmises, fabrications, and ancient calumnies — and correcting them. My offer is to write just such a broadsheet, that it may appear as soon as possible and do the fullest good.”

“Your generous offer is accepted, sir, and Mr. Nicholson, I assure you, will be pleased to publish it, terms to be settled between you.”

From Covent Garden I returned most dejected and worried. I had been sent there by the magistrate on that errand that I had so dreaded. The butchery of the murder in King Street had returned Sir John’s suspicions to the butcher, Mr. Tol-liver. In the end, when given the task of inviting Mr. Tol-liver to come by to talk a bit more about these matters, I did manage to blurt out a few words in his defense. He was, I told Sir John, “a fine man who would do naught to harm a soul. He — ” And then had Sir John cut me off sharply, saying, “It is not harm to souls we are concerned with here, Jeremy, but rather grievous attacks upon corporeal bodies. Go and find him; invite him to come to me; I wish to talk with him.”

(Sir John was seldom so short with me — indeed I rarely gave him cause. Yet in his defense, should he need one, it ought to be said that he had complained only moments before that he had never had a more exhausting day in court. He seemed, and even looked, much diminished by it.)

And so I had gone to Covent Garden to deliver the invitation to Mr. Tolliver, finding my way through the afternoon crowd, looking not far ahead, thinking perhaps too much of my own discomfort at having been given this task. Thus was I quite amazed when I arrived at his stall and found it closed.

I looked about me. Could I have mistaken its location? No, of course not. I had been to it too often, buying meat for the household. But here I was, where I had always gone, and there was no Mr. Tolliver, no meat hanging, waiting to be carved, nothing at all but a shuttered stall secured by a great, large padlock. Where could he have gone? No doubt he had closed up early that day. But why?

I stepped up to the greengrocer stall next his. The woman behind the table there was busying herself rearranging her stock of carrots, potatoes, and such. I stood, waiting for her attention, but it was slow in coming. At last she raised her eyes to me and grunted.

“I was wondering, ma’am,” said I, “if you could tell me where Mr. Tolliver has got to.”

“No idea.” She returned then to her work of shifting her stock about.

“Well, when did he leave?”

“He never come,” said she, without looking up.

“Did he leave no word as to where he was going, or where he was off to?”

“Not a word. Him and me, we have little to say one to t’other. Just ‘cause he’s the only butcher in the Garden, he thinks he’s right special. He don’t belong here, and he ought to know it. It’s the Garden for greens and Smithfield for meat, as all well know.” Then did she look up at me once again — nay, glared. “Now, if you ain’t goin’ to buy nothin’, I’ll thank you to move on and make room for those who will.”

Indignant but still baffled, I said no more but did as she advised. Indeed, I thought, were I Mr. Tolliver I should have little to say myself to such a rude sort of woman. I sought information from him who ran the next stall down from hers. Though farther removed from Mr. Tolliver’s end stall, he might well have been on better terms with the butcher. But while far more polite — he recognized me as an occasional buyer — he was no more helpful than the shrew in the place next his. So far as he knew, Mr. Tolliver had made no appearance that whole day; his stall had remained just as it was now — padlocked tight. And though they sometimes spoke in greeting or goodbye, there was seldom anything more between them, certainly nothing to explain why the butcher might have chosen this day to absent himself.

Deciding it would be useless to ask further, I set off across Covent Garden for Number 4 Bow Street. Had I known Mr. Tolliver’s dwelling place I would have gone there and looked for him. No doubt, I told myself, the man was ill; yet if he were so, it would be the first time in my memory — and he seemed right enough the night before.

Thus I fretted as I went, worried that his absence would weigh heavily against him in Sir John’s mind. Surely he could be found at home, or barring that, he would show himself in a day or two.

I found Sir John ensconced in his chamber, a bottle of beer on his desk which Mr. Marsden would have fetched for him from across the street. He bade me sit down and give my report, and that I did. He listened, giving little outward sign of his response. In truth, he seemed listless and a bit distracted, as if his mind were on other matters. And as it happened, that was so.