Person or Persons Unknown (24 page)

“Jeremy,” said he, “I fear I gave you a bad example today.”

I was a bit surprised to hear that. Though he had complained that his day in court had exhausted him, I had thought him most specially shrewd and ingenious on the bench.

“In what way, sir?”

“In my treatment of that young villain, Tribble.” He sighed. “First of all, I should not have thrashed him. Had Constable Fuller done that — or Mr. Bailey, or Perkins, or any of them — they would have received a stern reproof from me. But, dear God, did you hear what he said? ‘She was my wife and my whore’ — as if that gave him the right to do whatever he liked with her, alive or dead.”

“I heard that, yes, sir.”

“All the way back to Bow Street, I labored hard to think of some suitable charge for what he had done, and none came to me but the one I used against him. Yes, disturbing the dead is a hanging offense meant to discourage grave robbing — but it should not be. Murder should be, I suppose — though even in willfully causing the death of another there are more mitigating circumstances than the court generally allows. What is done to a body after death is not near so serious as killing. Perhaps in that depraved mind of his, he truly did have some vague intention of giving her a proper burial from the proceeds of his sales, a revolting idea but practical, I daresay. Who can reckon such matters?” A pause, a shrug, and then: “Well, a judge and jury must. They will be shocked, no doubt, and as horrified as I — and they may be all for hanging him. But he should not hang — not for that which he did. It would be unjust. Tomorrow morning, Jeremy, we shall compose a letter to the Lord Chief Justice, giving the facts of the case, but also giving some emphasis to his burial plan. I shall plead for leniency in sentencing, suggest transportation for a period of years. Perhaps they can work some of the nastiness out of him in the colonies.”

“You had already said you would do that if he helped recover the … missing organs.”

“Oh, he has already done so — gave two names and even an address. There was no end to his helpfulness. I’ll send two constables to bring them in tonight.”

“I could go to Mr. Tolliver’s tonight and offer your invitation. I believe Mr. Bailey has the location.”

“No, I’ll have one of the constables attend to it — and it will be, as I promised you, just an invitation to come in and talk — tomorrow sometime.”

I rose from my chair. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”

“No. Why not go on to Mr. Perkins? He tells me you’re quite an apt pupil, that you grow more dangerous by the day.”

I laughed in embarrassment. “Hardly that, sir.”

“But, Jeremy,” said he, “never be a bully.”

The mention of that word reminded me in a flash of my experience earlier that day in that very room.

“Oh, Sir John, there was a matter I thought I ought mention to you. When you sent me earlier to fetch that broadsheet from your desk drawer, I noticed that in the drawer you had left that bag of booty I brought from Polly Tarkin’s room. I thought perhaps you’d forgotten it was there. I have no idea how much is inside, but it seemed a goodly amount.”

“You’re right. I had forgotten. I’ll hand it over to Mr. Marsden for the strong box until we decide what’s to be done with it. And …”

“Yes, Sir John?”

“Thank you for reminding me.”

Mr. Tolliver had quite disappeared. Constable Lang-ford returned that night from the butcher’s place of dwelling on Long Acre with this dismaying revelation as the four of us — Sir John and Lady Fielding, Annie Oakum and I — sat at table. We had just completed our evening’s meal when his footsteps sounded on the stairs and his knock came on the door. I jumped to open it, and the red-waistcoated constable asked permission to enter. Sir John bade him come ahead, and Mr. Langford doffed his hat, stepped inside, and blurted it out. And those were his very words: “… disappeared he has, sir. There is nor hide nor hair of him to be seen.”

In my surprise, I looked at Lady Fielding. Her eyes were wide, as indeed my own must have been. Surely Mr. Tolliver could not have fled as some fugitive might. I could not, I would not believe that.

The constable continued his report: “I banged on his door right hard and failed to raise him. Now of course that meant nothing; he could’ve been out to sup or wet his whistle or both. So I started through the house to get some word of him from his neighbors, and that way I happened upon his landlord, who dwells at the same address right below this Tolliver fellow. He tells me he was out last night and as he was coming in, he run into his tenant hauling a portmanteau and in a great hurry. ‘Where are you off to?’ says he to him. That’s my own affair, ain’t it?’ says Tolliver, who, says the landlord, is often inclined to be rather short. He noticed that he turned off in the direction of Covent Garden. Now, the landlord — his name is Coker, got it all down in my book — he was right puzzled, for he says all the years this Tolliver lived there, he never knew him to go off like this on a trip, and the way that portmanteau was stuffed, he meant to stay a while.

“Well, Sir John, I asked this man Coker if he had a key to Mr. Tolliver’s place, and I convinced him this was a matter of some importance to you — ‘a court matter,’ I told him — ”

“And quite right you were to do so, Mr. Langford,” said Sir John.

“He opened the place to me,” said the constable, proceeding, “and accompanied me inside, which was quite proper, as I reckon. I was quite taken with the size of it, I was. There was two large chambers — one for sittin’ and one for sleepin’, and a smaller, separate place for cookin’. The thing that struck me, sir, was that sittin’ room and — what would you call it? — the kitchen were clean and neat as a pin. Don’t often see that when a man lives by hisself. But the bedroom, now that was a different matter. The bed was made, right enough, but there was clothes thrown atop it, all helter-skelter. I looked inside the wardrobe, and in a chest at the foot of the bed, and I saw he’d quite emptied them, he had, and just grabbed up the clothes he wished to pack and left the others lie. I says to the landlord, ‘It looks like your tenant left in a great hurry.’ And he says to me, Tt does indeed.’ “

“Did you happen to notice a packet of knives about?” asked Sir John. “They would have been wrapped in… How were they wrapped, Jeremy?”

“In soft chamois,” said I, feeling quite the traitor.

“No, sir, I never seen such, but then, I didn’t do a proper search of the place because, for one, I hadn’t been told to, and for another, I’d no idea for what to look. Anyway, that’s what happened, for I left then, and telling the landlord he might be hearing from you later on.”

“Indeed he might,” said Sir John, and except for thanking Constable Langford, praising his initiative, and bidding him a good night, that was all Sir John said. Which, to make clear the matter, might be better said, he refused to talk about it with us further.

As soon as the sound of the constable’s footsteps on the stairs had died, Lady Fielding attempted to open up the matter for discussion, beginning most sweetly, “Jack, I’m sure there is a very sound explanation for Mr. Tolliver’s sudden departure.”

But Sir John would have none of it. He, having resumed his place at the table, simply shook his head and said, “Please, Kate.”

No more was said of it that night, nor to me, for some time to come.

Next day there were letters to write, including that to the Lord Chief Justice on Edward Tribble’s behalf. More and more. Sir John depended upon me to take his dictation, thus leaving Mr. Marsden free to attend to his many other duties as court clerk. Often, when letters of no great gravity were to go out, the magistrate would simply tell me in summary what he wished them to say and would depend upon me to put them into his words. After hearing them read to him, he would then sign them. In spite of his blindness, once the quill was put in his hand and placed upon the paper, he proved quite adept with it. His may have been, as some said, a scrawl, but it was an impressive scrawl, far more legible than that of some other men who had the power of sight.

Thus it was that we two often sat opposite one another at that same large table which served him as a desk — I, scrivening away, and he, lost in cogitation. And perhaps, from time to time, he would rise and pace silently about the room, whose dimensions and plan he knew by heart.

So were we that morning when a tap came at the open door and Mr. Marsden announced Mr. Oliver Goldsmith. Sir John, caught in one of his rambles about his chambers, invited the author in and hastened to his usual place behind his desk. I, in turn, moved to one side that Mr. Goldsmith might have the place opposite the magistrate. After taking the hand offered by Sir John and giving it a manly squeeze, Mr. Goldsmith took from his coat a sheaf of papers and seated himself.

“Well, sir,” said the magistrate, “have you come to me to gather more facts about that rascal, Yossel Davidovich?”

“No, Sir John, your clerk, Mr. Marsden, was more than helpful in that regard. He gave me the gist of the inquest from his notes. I have written the broadsheet.”

“Already?” Sir John asked in some surprise.

“Indeed, sir. I am a night worker. I thought it best to get it out of the way, so to speak, that I might get on with matters that concern me more. Since you were quite insistent that my broadsheet should not only carry the news that this Yossel had been released but explain how and why this came about, I thought to read it you to make sure I had in it observed the proper formalities and legalities.”

“Why, by all means,” said Sir John, most pleased. “Proceed, proceed.”

Mr. Goldsmith produced a pair of spectacles and fitted them over his ears. As he did so, he resumed his address to Sir John: “By the bye, I was most favorably impressed by the testimony of the surgeon, Mr. Donnelly. Being myself a physician — ”

“I had only lately heard that, Mr. Goldsmith.”

“Ah yes. Trinity College, Dublin — though I have not practiced that art in London.”

“You are indeed a man of parts.”

“But as regards Mr. Donnelly. Since I assume he is Irish as I am, I should like to make his acquaintance.”

“As I am sure he would like to make yours. That can certainly be arranged. But, please, sir, proceed with the reading.”

“Ah yes.”

And so Oliver Goldsmith directed his attention to the sheaf of papers in his hand and began reading. There was a sentence in preamble in which it was announced that what followed was “both an answer and a correction to mistakes, misconceptions, and misrepresentations put forth in a broadsheet in reference to the Jews, and one in particular, which was distributed earlier in the week. As regards the particular Jew, one Josef Davidovich, commonly known as Yossel …” Then did Mr. Goldsmith present a concise and cogent account of the inquest into the death of Priscilla Tarkin of Half Moon Passage. The witnesses were named, with one exception, and their testimony was summarized in a few graceful sentences. Particular emphasis was put upon Mr. Donnelly’s fixing of the time of death “with remarkable precision.” And finally did he come to the unnamed witness. Lady Hermione Cox, whom he referred to as “a lady of considerable courage and unimpeachable word” Her testimony, wrote Mr. Goldsmith, “made it certain that Josef Davidovich was in her company during the space of time in which the murder was accomplished. And so he was rightly released, and the coroner’s jury voted a directed verdict of ‘murder by an unknown assailant.’ “

There the author stopped, laid down the sheaf of papers, of which he had only read the first, and waited.

“Excellent, excellent,” said Sir John. “I have but a single correction, and that at the very end. The phrase used, Mr. Goldsmith, is ‘willful murder by person or persons unknown.’ “

“Ah, thank you. That will give that dash of authenticity which I seek.” And he whipped out a pencil and bent to the task of correcting his text on the table top.

“But pray continue,” said the magistrate. “I should like to hear the whole of it.”

Having made the change, Mr. Goldsmith folded the papers and dropped them in his pocket. Then said he firmly, “No, Sir John.”

“No? You refuse to read the rest?”

“I regret that I must disappoint you, but on principle I must decline your request.”

“I… I do not understand. On what principle do you decline?”

“On the right of authorship. Were I to continue and read it to you entire, you might call for further changes of a more material sort. Out of respect to you, I should probably feel obliged to make them. But since Mr. Nicholson has stipulated that my name is to appear on the broadsheet as author, it is I and I alone who must stand as guarantor of its contents. It would not do to call it, ‘A Truthful Way with the Jews,’ which is the title I have chosen, by Oliver Goldsmith and Sir John Fielding — now would it?”

“But you did not hesitate to seek my advice on the portion you read.”

“There I sought only your legal opinion. I was not present at the inquest. I wanted to be sure the facts were right. I might assure you, by the bye, that I followed your recommendation and sought information from Rabbi Gershon of the synagogue on Maiden Lane, a remarkable man by my measure. He was most forthcoming and helpful, and he gave to me so much information that I might indeed have extended this from a broadsheet to a pamphlet. Yet he did not ask to read what I would write. He put his trust in me. I ask you to do the same. I came here seeking your help in a limited way. I did not come seeking your imprimatur.”

Sir John Fielding found himself for once at a loss for words. I saw him twice form answers on his lips until at last one came.

“I fear you have misconstrued my interest, Mr. Goldsmith. I had no intention of censoring what you might have written. I myself wished to hear the remainder because I was aware that it was in it your true attachment to this enterprise lay. I wanted only to hear what you had done with it.”

“That’s good to hear. Sir John, and I promise you shall have a copy of the broadsheet as soon as it be in print.” He sighed. “I confess, however, that I fear you would be altogether happier if there were no journalists about to get in the way of your inquiries.”

“It’s true, my experience of journalism has not been a happy one. But then, few of its practitioners are so careful of their facts as you have been, consulting first with Mr. Marsden and then with Rabbi Gershon. As for the ideal you stated in court — the duel of ideas and opinions leading ultimately to truth — ”

“Controversy, yes.”

“Such an ideal is possible only in an ideal society of intelligent men and not one, like our own, ruled by ignorance and riot. It is I, as magistrate, who must deal with the consequences of careless journalism.”

“Sir John,” said Oliver Goldsmith, rising from his chair, “I appreciate your position, as you seem to appreciate mine. Let us say that this is a matter upon which reasonable men may differ, and leave it at that.”

Also rising. Sir John extended his hand to his visitor. They clasped warmly.

“For the time being, we shall, but I am sure we shall speak of it again in our future discussions.”

“I look forward to them, sir. But for now, goodbye.”

So saying, Mr. Goldsmith turned and walked swiftly from the room.

Once settled again in his chair. Sir John inclined his head in my direction.

“Jeremy? You’re still here, I take it.”

“Still here, sir.”

“What thought you of that talk we had?”

“Very stimulating, sir — though I felt you certainly got the better of him.” In truth, I was not near so certain of it as I sounded.

“Perhaps. By God, these Irish can be near as contentious as the Scots. I believe I shall ask Kate to put together a dinner for Goldsmith and Mr. Donnelly — should prove an interesting evening, don’t you think?”

It should not surprise you to learn, reader, that when, later in the day, a copy of “A Truthful Way with the Jews” was delivered to Sir John from Boyer and Nicholson, Sir John Fielding was near as pleased with it as he might have been had he written it himself. Nay, more, for he did tend to be rather critical of his own efforts at composition which he gave to me in dictation; and as heartily as he did endorse the contents of Mr. Goldsmith’s brief history of the Jews, he did as much marvel at its style. “Can you imagine,” said he to me, “writing so many such surpassingly beautiful sentences all of a single night?”