Smuggler's Moon (9 page)

Middle Street lay just above Beach Street, which fronted upon the sea, and just below High Street, where I was to meet Mr. Perkins in an hour’s time. The better part of Deal was scattered along these three streets. Will Fowler had told us that at its farther end, near Alfred Square, Middle Street was not near respectable and downright dangerous. ”You’d ought not venture there at night,” said he. Yet Number 18 was, in his view, well within the safe zone, day or night. Middle Street was as tight and narrow as any of those in London. The houses which lined it on either side—all of them brick or stone, so far as I could tell—were crammed together, wall to wall, street after street. Number 18, in which Mr. Albert Sarton resided and presided over his magistrate’s court, was a little larger (though not much) than the houses on either side of it. It was by no means imposing.

I grasped the hand-shaped brass knocker firmly and slammed it thrice against the plate. We waited. I could hear the voices of a man and a woman from some distant part of the house, though it was quite impossible to tell what was said between them. Just as I grabbed at the knocker again and made ready to try my luck a second time, I heard footsteps beyond the door; they seemed to be moving at a steady clip down a long hall.

And then a voice: ”Coming! Coming! Who is it at the door?”

”It is Sir John Fielding, come from London,” I cried loudly that I might be heard through the door.

A bolt was thrown, a lock turned, and the door at last came open. There stood a woman of about thirty years. She was pretty enough, but panted with exertion and perspired freely from her red hair to the nape of her freckled neck (and no doubt beyond). Clearly, she had been hard at work. Was she the maid? I thought not, but in London the lady of the house would never present herself in such a state of dishevelment.

“Good gracious, it’s him, an’t it?”

Since she was not looking in my direction but beyond, I could only assume that she spoke not of me but of Sir John.

“If it is me you speak of, young lady, then allow me to present myself a bit more formally. I am Sir John Fielding, magistrate of the Bow Street Court in London, and this is my young assistant, Jeremy Proctor. We are come to call upon Mr. Albert Sarton, magistrate of Deal. Is he in?”

“Oh, he’s in, right enough, and he’s expecting you … tomorrow.”

“Well then,” said Sir John, ”perhaps we should leave and return on the day we are expected.”

“Oh no, I’ll not hear of it. Come in! Oh, do come in, please. We were just tidyin’ up the place in expectation of your visit.”

There was something quite disarming about the way she sought to make us welcome. She beckoned us inside, urging us through the door, grasping him by the arm in a way he usually fought against. She told him to mind the bump there at the threshold. Heading us forward, she left us in a small room to the left of the door with a promise to tell ”Berty” of our arrival.

“He’ll be with you before you know it.”

I guided Sir John to a chair, which he eased into rather carefully. Very likely he was still fighting the effects of last night’s wine and brandy.

We seemed to have been left in an office of some sort. The room was certainly no larger than the modest little chamber in our living quarters which Sir John called his ”study.” And it probably served Albert Sarton in the same way—providing him with a place to be alone and to think.

“Is she Irish?” Sir John asked. ”She seems Irish.”

“Well, she has red hair.”

“That’s a start.”

He was silent for a bit. ”Is she his wife?” he asked. ”What do you think?”

“I believe so,” said I, after giving the matter due consideration. ”After all, she called him ‘Berry.’ If she were a housemaid, or any sort of servant, she would not have done that.”

“True, yes, well, nobody told me that he was married.”

I wondered how that might change things, yet I did not raise the question. Instead, I looked about me and studied the objects in the room and thus attempted to draw some picture of the man we had come to see. He was plainly a man of scholarly bent. A pile of books and papers upon the desk suggested to me that he was engaged in the writing of some weighty work—on the philosophy of jurisprudence, no doubt. I half-rose and strained to see the nature of the one book which lay open upon his desk: it was a Latin dictionary. Inwardly, I shuddered, for I had a great fear that my weakness in Latin might ultimately bar my entry into the legal profession. I brooded upon this, wondering where and how I might find a tutor in Latin and why, if I put my mind to it, I could not teach myself Latin—at least well enough to pass an examination of some sort.

So completely was I taken up with my own matters that I failed to hear the footsteps down the long hall until they were nearly upon us. In fact, it was not until Sir John rose from his chair to meet the magistrate that I became aware that the latter was anywhere nearby. I jumped to my feet and made ready to be presented to him.

Albert Sarton was short of stature and short of sight. I, who am even now no more than an ordinary average in height, was then near half a head taller than Mr. Sarton. As I ducked my head sharply in a quick little bow, I found myself face to face with him; he peered at me through spectacles near a quarter inch in thickness, smiled at me in friendly fashion, and shook the hand I offered him. Indeed I liked him quite well. But once the formalities had been observed, he turned his attention to Sir John.

“Please believe me, sir,” said he to him, ”when I say that I feel quite honored to meet you. You are known far and wide.”

“Ah yes, the Blind Beak of Bow Street,” said Sir John a bit dismissively, ”—the penny papers and such.”

“By no means! Why, I recall hearing you quoted favorably at Oxford. It had to do with the problem of making the law fit the crime—something about …” He hesitated as his memory worked upon it. ”… about a villain who sold body parts taken from a murder victim …”

“Ah yes,” said Sir John, ”he was indicted on a charge of disturbing the dead.”

“Grave robbing, in effect, before the grave was dug.”

“Something like that,” said Sir John modestly.

“Oh, but please sit down, both of you.”

We resumed our places, and Mr. Sarton squeezed round us to situate himself behind the desk.

“Forgive me,” he said, ”for the mistake on the date of your arrival. I’d got a letter from the Lord Chief Justice telling me that you were on your way and that I was to cooperate with you in any and all ways which you might require. He did not name a date or a day, but said, rather, ‘in two days’ time.’ You arrived only a day later.”

“Ah well,” said Sir John, ”Lord Mansfield gave me the loan of his coach-and-four to make the trip down here. And his driver seems to go everywhere at full gallop.”

”That then was no doubt the root of the misunderstanding.

“No doubt, but dear God, Mr. Sarton, did he truly say that you were to cooperate in any and all ways which I might require?”

“Those may not have been his exact words, but they are as I remember them.”

“Then he has made it sound appallingly like a court-martial.”

Mr. Sarton stared at him for a moment, saying nothing. Then: ”Is that not the nature of your inquiry?”

Thus it came Sir John’s turn to maintain a solemn quiet. ”No sir,” said he after near a minute of cold silence, ”it is not. I have not the authority to act as a one-man tribunal in judgment upon you. I would not want such authority. I am here in answer to a complaint regarding the manner in which you have discharged your duties. I am here, to put it another way, to inquire into your methods and their effectiveness.”

“Who made this complaint? Or have I not the right to know?”

“If you expect me to reject your question as impertinent, I must disappoint you. The identity of the accuser is indeed pertinent. A man has the right to face him who sullies his name, else we are all to be in mortal dread of every manner of rumor, false witness, and he which is told of us. And so you may know that the complaint against you was made by George Eccles, Chief Customs Officer for east Kent.”

“Eccles, is it! Indeed, I should have known. He has been against me from near the start. With what, specifically, has he charged me?”

“He has said that you are either corrupt in the discharge of your office, or the most incompetent ever in the history of the magistracy.”

“But … the specifics, the incidents?”

“He gave none.” Sir John paused. ”Let me assure you,

Mr. Sarton, that Lord Mansfield, to whom the complaint was made, would not have taken Eccles’s complaint seriously but for his position; nor would he have sent me down to look into these matters had he himself not taken a personal interest in you here in Deal.”

“I … I know that he was quite instrumental in getting me this post,” said he, faltering for the first time. ”And for that I am still grateful, though a little less, perhaps, today than when I received the appointment.”

“What have been your relations with this man Eccles?”

“Not good, I should say. As Chief Customs Officer for this part of Kent, he has at his disposal a considerable force of men—over sixty at Dover Castle, where he has his headquarters, and more scattered in various towns up and down the coast.”

“How many in Deal?”

“Twenty, I believe. They are quartered at Deal Castle and report to the local customs officer, a man with whom I’ve cultivated good relations. My difficulties have been with his chief.”

He hesitated, frowned, and traced a pattern upon the desktop with his finger as he sought words to continue.

“Like most country magistrates, I have but two constables at my command,” said he, resuming. ”You, I believe, have a greater force—the Bow Street Runners, they are called.”

“I have been fortunate in that regard, yes, and that is because those in the government who apportion money wish to feel themselves safe in London,” said Sir John, ”And by the bye, though my constables be greater in number, they can never be sufficient to the task. London, it seems, will never be truly safe.”

“Be that as it may, sir, would you care to hazard a guess as to how many here in my jurisdiction in Deal are involved in the smuggling trade?”

“I couldn’t possibly put a number on it.”

”No less,” said Mr. Sarton, pausing for effect, ”than two hundred.”

It took Sir John a moment to respond. ”So many? I had not thought it could be so many.”

“I trust the figure,” said the young magistrate, ”for it was given me by the local customs officer, who grew up in Deal and has helped me on numerous occasions in ways his chief, Eccles, would never do.”

“Yes, Eccles—let us get back to you and your difficulties with him.”

“Yes, of course. Because these two constables are expected to keep order in the town and enforce the laws of the realm, et cetera, they are an insufficient number, pitifully insufficient, to do much to put down the smuggling trade here in this district. I saw that immediately I came here. And so I journeyed off to Dover to ask Mr. Eccles’s aid in patrolling the beaches known to be used by the smugglers. He said no, it was out of the question, for there was work enough to be done in the Dover area. But surely, said I, he could spare us at least a part of the force of customs men quartered here in Deal. Again no, said Mr. Eccles, for they had their duties to perform and could not be spared from them. There was no arguing with the man—I tried, but to no avail. He simply would give me no help whatever. And now, I learn from you, Sir John, that he has had the cold gall to accuse me of incompetence or corruption in the discharge of my duties.”

Mr. Sarton ended somewhat breathless. He could say little more in his own defense. And to me it seemed that little more need be said. Indeed I wondered if we might not return to London this very day. But Sir John seemed to have more in mind.

“Have you had no success in combating … what is it they call it here?”

“The owling trade. Yes, I have had—just once. It came through a tip given me by Sir Simon Grenville. He had
heard through his servants at the manor house of the scheduled arrival of a shipment from France of wines and brandy on a certain night of the new moon. They made the crossing in one of those galleys which are built on the quiet right in Deal. I understand that they can make it here from Dunkirk, with twenty men rowing, in five hours’ time. They have a shallow draft and can land upon Goodwin Sands or most of the other beaches in the district. And with so many men working, they can be unloaded in no time at all. So there was no point trying to confront them on the beach. We three—my two constables and me—would have been hopelessly out-manned and out-gunned.”

He was warming to the subject, putting a good deal of drama into the telling of his tale.

“That was wise of you,” said Sir John. ”What then did you do?”

“Why, we waited till their two wagons were loaded and had started up the hill, and the galley was departed from the beach. We kept our silence and were well hidden, for we sorely needed the advantage that surprise would give us. We were but three in number, after all. We waited and waited and waited until they were just upon us.”

Reader, I had become acutely aware of the clock that hung upon the wall behind Mr. Sarton. According to it, I had barely five minutes in which to locate the Good King George in High Street, where I was to meet Mr. Perkins and hear his first report. How could I leave gracefully if Mr. Sarton insisted upon spinning out his story to absurd lengths? Would he never reach the conclusion?

But then, rather abruptly, he did end it: ”And then we jumped out at them and upon their wagons and persuaded them to stop.”

That, it seemed to me, was a weak ending to a strong story. Why had he cut it short? Then did I note the quick footsteps in the hall and saw how our host turned his attention past Sir John and me to the door that lay between us. I
turned my attention to it just in time to see the putative Mrs. Sarton appear. She carried a tray, and upon it were three cups and a steaming pot which I took to be filled with dark tea a-brewing. Best of all, I spied a plate of sweet cakes and all manner of dainties, near as tempting to the eye as they would be to the palate. Her husband rose, as did Sir John and I.