Person or Persons Unknown (25 page)

Those sentences described both the history of the Jews and their practices of worship. The lie was put firmly to the horrendous tales of human sacrifice repeated by Mr. Ormond Neville. These Mr. Goldsmith dismissed as “notorious fabrications of Eastern European origin.” He concluded:

Some will tell you that the Jews have no right to be here, and that, in a strict sense is true, for Edward I expelled them in 1290, and that ancient Medieval ban has to this day never been lifted. Yet if their presence here is illegal, so also, in a similar sense, is that of the Irish Catholics who are with us in far greater number, though they may not here legally practice their religion. I put it to the English public and their representatives in Parliament that it is time that outdated primitive laws directed against whole peoples were repealed in order to conform with present reality.

“Well said,” declared Sir John as I ended my reading of the broadsheet, “very well said. It is the laws — and the draconian punishments prescribed — that are at fault and not the judges and magistrates to whom it falls to enforce them.”

And so, well satisfied, he dictated invitations next day to Mr. Goldsmith and Mr. Donnelly, to dinner one week hence. I myself delivered them.

Thus did the days pass. The month was October. It was yet near dark as I rose each morning to kindle the cooking fire in the kitchen, and daylight went so swiftly in the late afternoon that it seemed no time at all until the day was done. Yet each day was counted by Sir John Fielding both a defeat and a victory: a defeat since he was no nearer to discovering the identity of him who had murdered four women; a victory because a fifth had not joined the list of victims.

In his capacity as acting coroner. Sir John conducted inquests into the deaths of the third and fourth women to die in less than a month. Nell Darby, the young woman (hardly more than a girl) whose body Mr. Tolliver had discovered, was identified through the advert I had written; she was a runaway from service in the household of a Kentish farmer, had not been in Lx)ndon long, and as Mr. Tolliver had guessed, probably kept herself alive by prostitution. Elizabeth Tribble, commonly known as Libby, was she whose body was so horribly mutilated by the murderer. There had been two organs sold off by her husband (if that he was in truth); they were recovered, so that she was made whole, after a fashion, by Mr. Donnelly — except for her eyes, which he had assumed were burned in the fireplace. A great crowd turned out for the Tribble proceeding, most of them women of the streets who so loudly hissed Edward Tribble when he appeared to testify that Sir John was forced to eject a dozen of the loudest from the courtroom. This was our last look at Mr. Tribble, who was far more docile than earlier; next day he went in irons to a ship bound for the town of Savannah in the colony of Georgia, where he would work seven years in servitude. But neither of the two inquests turned up matters in testimony that might be of use in Sir John’s inquiries. And in both cases he was forced to direct the jury to verdicts of “willful murder by person or persons unknown.”

There was no sign of Mr. TolUver, which gave me both a feeling of chagrin and a sense of sustained relief. I was sure that there was a good explanation for his absence, and Sir John admitted he had not greatly emphasized that he remain for the inquest — who would have thought it necessary? It was clear, however, that in Sir John’s mind the butcher’s absence counted greatly against him. He gave me the task of checking Mr. Tolliver’s stall in Covent Garden from time to time. And sometime each evening Mr. Langford was detailed to stop by the apartment on Long Acre to see if there was any sign of him. Those constables who knew the butcher by sight were urged to keep a sharp eye out for him. Yet as time passed, he remained disappeared.

The four murders, particularly that of the unfortunate Libby Tribble, had a dampening effect upon the commerce in flesh in the Covent Garden area. For nights after the inquest into her death had made public the awful mutilations of her body, there were no, or perhaps few, prostitutes to be seen on the streets. They remained in the dives and dram shops, drinking away the little money they might have, skeptically assessing the men who came to them as customers, rejecting all except those who were earlier known to them.

Lady Fielding mentioned to me in passing that the number of those seeking admittance to the Magdalene Home for Penitent Prostitutes, which she oversaw, had risen so sharply that they were near full-up. “I know not,” said she to me, “if these are true penitents, or whether they merely seek temporary shelter until this terror passes. Of some I am downright suspicious.”

She named it terror, and terror it was — yet one of silent and sullen nature, perhaps closer to dread. When a night passed with no news of a murder, there was no feeling of relief among the inhabitants of Covent Garden, but rather a sense of growing fear for what the next night might bring. None doubted that the murderer was still among us; none suggested he may have hopped aboard a ship for the colonies and gone off to inflict his horrors upon the whores of Boston or Philadelphia. No, he was with us still, and it was only a matter of days until he would strike again. The Bow Street Runners were aware of this, and their chief, Sir John, most keenly of all. He had instructed them to go out each night in full gear — cutlass and pistols — and to be most specially watchful, to explore the passages and the dark courts. To aid them in their searches, each also was obliged to carry an oil lantern, which became a cause of irritation to them. Some said it reduced them to the level of the old night watchman; others said it made easy targets of them should the murderer be armed with a pistol; and all seemed to agree that with sword and pistols, it was all just too damned much to carry about. Thus with each night that passed did the constables grow more tight-hpped and snappish.

As for Sir John, he did not outwardly exhibit such signs of unease. He simply went silent for days at a time. Oh, of course he did say all that needed be said: he sat his court each day, gave those instructions to Mr. Marsden and to Mr. Bailey and the Runners which needed be given, and in short did all that needed be done. Yet those times before and after his daily court session during which he often wandered backstage, as it were, discussing all manner of doings and topics — such times he now spent in his chambers with the door shut. And at table morning and night where talk did ever flow from him so generously, we found the source now dammed, leaving us to wonder what, in that vast reservoir which he held back, might pertain to the Covent Garden murders and what, individually, to us. He had grown unusually distant, having retreated within himself. To one who knew him not so well, he may even have seemed somewhat lethargic.

I, with the rest of the household, looked forward to the dinner to which Mr. Donnelly and Mr. Goldsmith had been invited, for it was supposed by us that surely those two garrulous gentlemen would bring forth the magistrate and restore him to his old self. In the meantime, there was little for me to do to aid Sir John in his official duties. My time was open to Lady Fielding, and she did heap upon me those tasks of the domestic sort which I had come to despise as beneath me. Yet I did not complain, and to the utmost of my ability I scrubbed the floors, beat the rugs, and polished the dining table and the silver. Eventually she ran out of such duties, and I was left with time of my own to fill.

Whenever given such an opportunity, I was off to visit Constable Perkins for another in those lessons in self-defense which he taught right rigorously. He seemed quite pleased with my progress, both in the matter of my knowledge and in the way my muscles were hardening as his lessons were learned. My duration had also greatly improved. In the beginning, I could go not much more than a few minutes at a time at his big dirt-filled bag ere I was quite wasted in sweaty exhaustion. Now, after a month of instruction, I had easily trebled and perhaps quadrupled that time; nor was I afterwards near so depleted of my powers. Mr. Perkins usually ended my fantastical bouts whilst I was still ready for more.

I had told my old chum, Jimmie Bunkins, of my sessions with the constable, and he was most keen to accompany me so as to learn more of them. “I always counted on me heaters to get me out of a roue when I was on the scamp,” he said to me. “But I ain’t a kid no more, and there’s times a joe’s got to scrap it out with his daddies or take a flogging”

(Which, for those readers unfamiliar with the street language of “flash,” I may translate thusly: “I always counted upon my feet to get me out of trouble when I was engaged in thievery. But I’m no longer a child, and there are times when a fellow must fight with his fists or take a beating.”)

And so, there came a day when, having completed the tasks given me by Lady Fielding by early afternoon, and she having departed for the Magdalene Home for Penitent Prostitutes, I was left free to fill the rest of the day as I saw fit; and I did then set my heaters in the direction of St. James Street where my pal, Jimmie Bunkins, lived in relative splendor as joe to his cove. Black Jack Bilbo.

Now, let it be said in passing that Black Jack Bilbo was proprietor of what was, in those days, London’s grandest gaming house. He wore a fearsome black beard from which his nickname came, and he was credited (if that be quite the word) with a past near as dark, for it was said of him that he had made the fortune with which he began his lucrative enterprise from years as a pirate in the Caribbean and the waters off the North American colonies. Such was his reputation, yet the man himself was not near as fierce as the tale told of him might imply. Sir John Fielding counted him a friend, as did I, and to Jimmie Bunkins he was no less than savior, for he had taken him off the streets, offered him an education, and treated him, in his own rough way, as his ward.

I arrived at the grand house in St. James Street, which had previously belonged to Lord Goodhope, with much of the afternoon left before me. I knocked at the great double-door and waited, then knocked again. Who should open it but the cove of the ken himself. Black Jack kept only a small serving staff and had little use for butlers; the rule of his house was that he who heard a knock upon the door was obliged to answer it.

“Well, it’s you, Jeremy, is it? Come in, boy, come in. You know you’re always welcome in this house.”

“I thought to invite Bunkins for a ramble,” said I, “if he be willing and able.”

He let the great door slam behind me and stood scratching his bald head in perplexity.

“Now, that I cannot say. Willing he does seem always. Able is not for him to decide but rather his tutor, Mr. Bum-ham. Of a sudden he’s started doing right well in his lessons. Sums were always easy for him. Any good thief can do plus and minus. But plain reading always escaped him — until this fellow Bumham came along. He brought with him a primer, such as we all learned from, and Bunkins got the hang of it right away. The other tutors I had for him thought to teach him Latin and Greek at the same time. It was too much for the lad. Now he’s got him reading from the Public Advertiser and such like. Soon, says he, he’ll be starting Bunkins on proper books.”

“He has no need of Latin,” said I, “and Greek is a mystery to me.”

“So I told Mr. Bumham. I’m so well pleased with him that I gave him a room of his own upstairs. He dorses here, and I give him bub and grub, as well.”

Just then did the door open to that room off the front hall which I knew to be used as the schoolroom. Bunkins emerged, smiling, with him I took to be his new tutor. Mr. Bumham was a young man of about twenty years, tall and gentle of manner. He was, I noted, of mixed African and white blood, and I wondered at his history.

We were introduced by Jimmie Bunkins and shook hands. Accepting a nod from Mr, Bilbo as permission to put my request, I asked if Bunkins might be spared from his studies for the rest of the afternoon.

“That is up to young Mr. Bunkins,” said he without a moment’s hesitation, “for we have finished for the day.” Then to Mr. Bilbo: “Best to end when there is still pleasure in the lesson.”

Mr. Burnham spoke a good and proper English with a bit of a lilt such as a Welshman might give it. (Such I have come to recognize as the accent of the Caribbean islands.)

“Will that be right with you then, sir?” Bunkins asked Black Jack Bilbo.

“On your way, lad,” said he with a wink and a nod.

“I’ll just get me hat,” Bunkins called to me, already off at a run for the stairs.

“He does well under your tutelage,” said Black Jack to Mr. Burnham. “His manners have even improved. He did not earlier ‘sir’ me so regular.”

“Ah, well, I insist upon that.”

“As well you should, sir.”

Then was Bunkins back, hat in hand, far sooner than I could have expected, stopping only to give a quick bow to both men in goodbye, then grabbing me by the wrist and pulling me to the door. I had only the chance to wave before I was out in the street with Bunkins.

“He’s a rum joe, ain’ he?”

“Certainly seems to be,” said I.

We set off in the direction I had come, towards Covent Garden. All London was ours, and we’d a good hour to kill before reporting to Mr. Perkins.

“He’s from Jamaica. He showed it me on one of the cove’s maps.”

“How did he come here?”

“Oh, ain’t that a story!”

“Is it? Well, give it me then.”

And as we made our way, he told Mr. Bumham’s tale as it had been told to him.

Robert Burnham, of mixed blood, grew up on a plantation some distance outside Kingston. His father, the youngest son of a Shropshire squire, was the owner of the plantation and was then a bachelor; his mother was the plantation house cook. Though she was a slave she was held in great regard by her master; he accepted her son as his own and set about early to educate the boy, Robert, himself. He had a considerable library, though no texts in Latin or Greek, and so the boy learned only to read English and to write a good hand and as much of practical mathematics as his father could teach him. Yet what the boy learned, he learned well; he read his way through his father’s library, and his father appointed him to serve as his secretary and also to teach the younger children, black and mixed blood, how to read and write. When his father brought a widow with three young children over from England and married her, Robert taught her children, as well. Ultimately, the time came when the master had to return to England for reasons of business — family matters and others pertaining to the coffee trade — and Robert accompanied him as his secretary. It so happened that while the two were in London, Robert happened upon an advert placed by Mr. Bilbo in the Public Advertiser seeking a new tutor for Jim-mie Bunkins — the fifth in two years had just been discharged. Unknown to his master, he answered the advert, convinced Mr. Bilbo of his qualifications, and was hired. Young Robert Bumham, who knew the law well, returned to his master and claimed his freedom, for while slavery was permitted in the colonies, it had been banned in all Britain for centuries. His master was somewhat affronted, hurt to learn that Robert valued his freedom more than he did his favored life in Jamaica, yet there was little he would do to prevent him from remaining in London. Nor would he have been likely to prevent him though it be in his power to do so, for after all, master and slave were also father and son. And at their parting, it was as a father that he gave to Robert sufficient money to see him through in London for months to come; and it was as father and son that together they wept.