Person or Persons Unknown (35 page)

I. having long before promised Sir John I would attend no public hangings, was not present — nor indeed would I have wished to be. There is to my mind no amusement and little edification to be gained watching a man in the throes of strangulation at the end of a rope. However, my chum Jimmie Bunkins, who is not in the least squeamish, did attend the ceremony and brought back a report which he gave me following our instruction from Mr. Perkins, which I had that day resumed.

“Well,” said Bunkins, “I went to Tuck ‘em Fair this noonday to see the Raker get crapped, and first off there weren’t no riot.”

“I’m relieved to hear it,” said I.

“There should’ve been, ‘cause I never seen such a rum crowd with such queer intentions. They covered the whole hill, from the gallows back as far as you could see. There was some stones and shit-bits heaved at the cart, but as many hit the rum tom pat and the two others who were set to get crapped with him as hit the Raker. But each time there was a move at the cart to stop it or to pull the Raker down, those who tried would get a whack with the flat of a sabre or nudged with the point of a bayonet. So that way they brought him to the gallows. And the horse soldiers and the foot soldiers made a ring round him as they got him and the two others off the cart and marched him up the stairs.

“And when he shows, there’s a great roar that went up from the crowd. I was up front, on’y I wished I wasn’t, for first of all every drab and bawd in Covent Garden was up there with me, screamin’ the foulest curses they knew. Oh, he heard ‘em, he heard ‘em fair. And you know what he does? He puts a great big smile on his ugly mug, like he’s never had such a grand time before. He’s standin’ there, grinnin’ away like an eejit, and the crap merchant is circlin’ the noose round his head. And then he starts to do a little dance on the floor of the gallows, like he’s tellin’ them he’ll soon be doin’ a dance like that up in the air. So the rope was set, and he shouted out somethin’ none could hear for the screamin’ of the whores. Then, just before he went up, he lets fly this great gob of snotty spittle, and it hits the whore next me in the face. He got her with a rum shot, and she the loudest of all, I swear. So that was the other reason I wished I’d stood back in the crowd. I got a bit of the splatter on me coat.”

“Did he take long to die?” I asked, having oft wondered if death for Mariah had been immediate.

“Not long,” said Bunkins, as a connoisseur of such matters. “Yet he jumped around right queer on the rope. Though he was plain daft, I give him credit. He died damned hard and bold as brass.”

I confess, reader, that I had wished his dying prolonged.

“What then are you two jawin’ about?”

It was Constable Perkins spoke to us, descending the stairs from his rooms above the stable, dressed proper and wearing his red waistcoat, ready for his night’s work. We three would walk together to Bow Street.

“About the Raker,” said Bunkins. “He crapped today on Tyburn.”

“He did, did he? And good riddance.” Then, coming up to us, he fixed me with a look and asked: “You, Jeremy, how do you feel about it?”

“Good riddance,” said I.

Thus is it so that when merciful principles are challenged by bitter personal experience, our principles must sometimes give way to the desire for vengeance.

Though Mr. Gabriel Donnelly and I had talked of many things along our way to the Cheshire Cheese, and many more once we were within and at our dinner, I was quite sure we had not touched upon those matters he had said he wished to discuss. I had indeed told him the story of how I had come to drink a cup of coffee with a “flash of lightning.” And so was I able to tell him, too, how Mr. Tol-liver’s rhyming name had made him memorable to Ben Calverton and removed the cloud of suspicion that hung above the butcher’s head.

And for his part, he told me further of his experiences in medical studies at the university of Vienna; amusing stories they were, as had been those he had told at table. It occurred to me that perhaps he wished to offer me an apprenticeship to him in medicine. If he were to do that, what should I say? I had not for some time talked with Sir John about my hope to read law with him. Perhaps he had forgotten — or worse still, hoped I had. Medicine I held to be a great calling, nor could I ask for a better master than Mr. Donnelly, but nevertheless I had a great longing for the law.

At last, midway through our meal, he began rather abruptly to explain.

“No doubt you wonder, Jeremy, why it is I’ve asked you to dine and what this great matter is that I said I wished to talk about.”

“Well, yes, sir, I have.”

“It is simply this: I shall be leaving London next week for Portsmouth to apply for a berth on a Navy ship as surgeon.”

“Mr. Donnelly, you would give up your practice?”

At that, he smiled a sad smile. “What practice?” said he. “I have been here in London near three months and have had only the autopsy work that Sir John has generously given me. You have been my patient, as has Mr. Goldsmith. I regret to say, by the bye — and let it be in confidence — that he is not a well man. But that is neither here nor there. The bald truth is that I simply lack the funds to maintain a practice in this city until it becomes profitable; and indeed it may never become profitable. Perhaps there are simply too many medicos here, though indeed their quality is abominably low. Perhaps it is, as Mr. Goldsmith has suggested, that there is an inbred prejudice amongst the English against the Irish. He himself, during his years of struggle, applied for one paid position after another as surgeon or physician, and he said that all that was needful for prompt rejection was that he show them his unmistakably Irish face.”

I knew not what to say. Having grown used to his presence these months, I was now sad to think he would no longer be about. I had confidence and trust in him of a particular nature that I had not in others. He was like a much older brother to me, or an uncle. Or so it had seemed to me when he so willingly obliged my wish to have Mariah properly buried.

All I could do in these immediate circumstances was lower my eyes and say: “I shall miss you greatly, sir.” My sad tone of voice, I’m sure, conveyed far more than my inept words could do.

“Had I not gone larking off to Lancashire,” he continued, “in pursuit of that widow, things might have been different. When first I came to London two years past, I had quite a sum laid aside from my years as a Navy surgeon. I might have managed then had I stuck it out in the city. Yet off I went and spent it all a-courting. I was not so much in love with her as in love with myself and my own ambition. Ah well, let my experience be a lesson to you, Jeremy. Vanity will always exact a price.”

“But surely, sir, you’ve no reason to feel ashamed. The loss was Lady Goodhope’s and not your own.”

“Well,” said he, “let’s not dwell upon it, for my reason in taking you aside like this to tell you of my intended departure was to give you a few words of advice. Sir John already knows of my wish and approves it. We have discussed you between us.

“First of all, I took the liberty — and you may indeed feel it was a liberty on my part — of informing Sir John of how those five guineas of your reward were spent. He was quite touched by your action, as I of course also was. Yet he was concerned that you had involved yourself so deeply with a girl of the streets without telling him of it. He wanted to know if there were any possibility you had been infected with a disease of that sort, and I told him there was none, that your attachment to her had not been of that sort. He was relieved, of course, but said that all the same he wished that you had been more forthcoming. Then I made bold to tell him that I believed the difficulty in communication lay in your ambiguous state in his household. You are not a servant, but neither are you an adopted son. He told me then that he often felt towards you as a father, if indeed he knew how a father felt, that he could hardly want a better son, and that he had given serious consideration to adopting you formally. But he explained that he and Lady Fielding still hoped to have children and talk of a baronetcy for him had been floated about. That, of course, is an hereditary title, and I’m sure you can see the inherent difficulties there, Jeremy — if indeed they do have children.”

“Of course,” said I, with a serious nod.

“So my first bit of advice to you is that you consider yourself informally adopted. He would have it so, I’m sure. Talk between father and son at your age and older is never easy and, because of your situation, may no doubt be harder still.”

“He is sometimes difficult to approach,” said I, “often intimidating.”

“I’m sure that’s true, especially lately, for he has been near sick with worry over these murders in Covent Garden. But you must try to approach him on things that are important to you. When he opens a matter for discussion, if you have views or objections, then voice them — respectfully, of course. It should not always be ‘Yes, Sir John.’ “

“I have tried,” said I. “It is not always so easy to get him to listen to what I have to say.”

“Then keep trying.”

“Did …” I hesitated. “Did he say anything in your talks with him of his intention to have me read law with him? He talked of it in the beginning, yet he has said nothing about it for over a year.”

“Then you should open the matter with him. Discuss it. Ask if and when you may begin.”

That silenced me for a bit. The thought of bringing such a matter up to Sir John was downright indigestible. I chewed hard upon it, harder even and longer than I chewed upon the chop that lay on my plate.

“But now,” said Mr. Donnelly, “for my second, and I believe, last bit of advice. You’ll recall, Jeremy, that when you told me of your relations with Mariah, I countered with a story of my own in which I was duped into giving money to a girl of the streets in Dublin, money which I ultimately stole from my father’s shop to provide. It was painful for me to tell such a tale upon myself, and in blurting it out as I did, I may have left the wrong impression with you. I would not have you believe that because it was so that one time with me that it is always so with unfortunates who tell you similar sad tales. You allowed that it may have been Mariah’s intent to use you so — but we cannot be sure certain of that. And certainly in her case, it is not for us to judge.

“There is so much misery in this world, Jeremy, and so little charity, that I would not have you harden your heart to anyone. As you grow to be a man, you will hear many tales of misfortune and injustice from individuals, and some may prove to be false, told simply to gain a shilling or some favor. But the next tale you hear may be true, and the innocence you perceive in the teller may be as real as real can be. So let us help as we can and not look too deeply into motives.”

It struck me sad to think that I should be losing the companionship of this good man in a week, or perhaps even less.

When, having completed our meal, we rose to leave the Cheshire Cheese, I thought how much I liked this place and the life in this great city of London. I remembered my first meal here with Mr. Donnelly when we had been put upon by James Boswell, now the constant companion of Dr. Johnson. And I wondered when I, in my good bottle-green coat, would eat here next and in whose company. I glanced up at the ceiling timbers darkened by tobacco smoke and wood smoke, then around me at the company of men (not a woman amongst them) seated at the rough tables; and then did I look further ahead to a time when I, as a lawyer, might visit with my client to discuss the handling of some perplexing matter. I should be known here, have a favorite table, perhaps that one by the fireplace. Then would I truly take part in London life. Forgive me, reader, for deviating from the true course of my tale, but these dreams of my adolescence haunt me still and do sometimes ask expression.

As we left, Mr. Donnelly and I paused just outside the door — perhaps only to breathe deeply of the pleasant November night air. But as we stood, both of us at once became aware of a certain muffled roar which persisted and seemed to grow louder as we listened. We exchanged curious looks. What was that ominous sound?

Then did a single figure emerge from Butchers Row, moving as fast as his legs would carry him. He sped past us into Fleet Street, where two men confronted him and attempted to block his way; he lunged at them, swinging his arm in a wide arc as an object in his hand glinted; the men fell back, throwing themselves out of his way.

From Butchers Row came a great crowd of people, men and women, some just hobbling along, shouting as they went: “Stop! Stop him! Murderer! Murderer!” This, their voices commingled, was the great roar we had heard but moments before.

“The hue and cry is raised,” said I to Mr. Donnelly, my own voice raised to a shout above their many. Then, realizing that what glinted in the light from the streetlamp must have been a knife, I shouted, “It must be the Covent Garden Killer!”

I began to pull away from Mr. Donnelly. He grasped at my sleeve. Then, as the crowd passed, I spied Mr. Benjamin Bailey, first of the Bow Street Runners, quite near the lead of the pursuit. I knew I must join him.

“It is Mr. Bailey!” I shouted, as if that were to explain all, and I jerked loose of the hold on my sleeve and ran as one might to catch the very Devil himself.

I, not having been so long at the chase, gained swiftly upon those in the lead, Mr. Bailey still among them. I noted that he had taken to the walkway, and following his example, I did the same. I soon saw why. The mass of people was confronted by a coach drawn by a team of two. The horses reared, their hooves flailing the air. The coach driver fought to master them and bring them under control; the footman could do little more than hold on tight, to keep from tumbling. Those in the street scattered, their cries of “Murder!” now screams of alarum. Thus was the number, though still considerable, depleted. I raced through this great hurly-burly, safe on the walkway, with not so many now between me and Mr. Bailey. Stretching my stride, I gained upon him. Farther away, though again not so far as before, I could see the shadowy figure of him we pursued.

Now, such a crowd as this is nothing more nor less than a swift-moving mob. I had seen in the instant why the constable had put himself at the forefront of the pursuit. When they had run the fugitive down, as surely they would, Mr.