The Color of Death (11 page)

“Bedford Street,” I called up to the driver.

“That’s said to be a dangerous place.”

“After dark, perhaps, though not at this hour.”

He lapsed into silence as we began our journey. He had traveled just as quietly to Field Lane.

Our destination, of course, was the shop that had formerly belonged to George Bradbury, who served as fence to Covent Garden’s most skilled and dedicated thieves. Mr. Bradbury died for his sins, and his widow sold the pawnshop, lock and stock, when she emigrated to the North American colonies. Since then I had called there perhaps two or three times to make the sort of search I had done more often up in Field Lane. The new owner, a man by the name of Garland, was too honest or perhaps too timid to engage in the sort of backdoor enterprise in which the former owners had engaged so eagerly.

In any case, the trip did not take a great deal of time, and we were deposited right in the middle of Bedford Street, which put us directly before Mr. Garland’s shop.

“Here we are,” said I to my companion. I climbed down and paid off the driver.

“Well,” said Mr. Collier, emerging into the light and looking the street up and down, “it doesn’t look so bad.”

“It is, as I said, a street like most in London until night falls and the villains and scamps come and claim the ale houses and dives as their own.”

At just that moment, a drunken wretch came hurtling through the open door of a low place next to the pawnshop; he landed in the gutter nearby. The innkeeper leaned out the door and snarled a few curses at the poor fellow before retiring into the darkness of the gin shop.

Mr. Collier watched the offender attempt vainly to push himself up to his feet. He turned to me. “You say it’s worse than this after dark?”

“Oh, much,” said I.

Pointing to the pawnshop door, I herded him forward and inside. The proprietor of the place, Mr. Garland, was there immediately to meet us.

“We should like to take a look around,” said I. “The magistrate has sent me.”

“I know who you are. I remembers you from your last visit,” said he.

Mr. Collier had already begun his inspection, looking at clocks and vases and other bits and pieces standing about the front of the shop. It did not take long. He simply shook his head in the negative and turned toward the door, presuming that we were done.

“We shall be looking in the back room, as well,” said I to the shopkeeper.

“Well and good,” said he, striving to contain his anger, “but I told you once I do not engage in such illegal trade. Why will you not believe me?”

“In a word, Mr. Garland, because he who preceded you had a long history of it. And his widow, from whom you bought the shop, put her very heart into such dealings. Of that I can speak from some personal knowledge.”

“I’ll not ask what that knowledge is. I’ve heard enough about her — murdered her husband, she did, or so they say. Heard about it a hundred times, at least.” He shrugged and waved a hand dismissively. “All I know is she gave me a good price on the place, and the stock. And that’s all I need to know.”

As we went thus at each other, Mr. Collier slipped past us and into the rear room, which I knew from my earlier searches contained most of the ticketed items in the shop. We followed him. And I noted immediately that Mr. Garland had done a great deal of work putting to order the chaotic jumble that earlier prevailed in the large rear room. That made Mr. Collier’s work much easier. He went swiftly through the room just as he had those in Field Lane. He lingered only at the two stacks of paintings mounted in their frames piled upright against the wall. Yet he did not linger long. He was done as quickly as I might have hoped. Mr. Garland was glad to see us go and said as much.

It took little to persuade Mr. Collier to continue the rest of the way on foot. We were soon away from Bedford Street, and out on the Strand, and into the swarm of humanity. Crowded it may have been, yet it looked a bit better and smelled better than what we had left behind. I know that my companion noticed the improvement, for he commented upon it.

“Ah,” said he, “how good it is to be getting back to my part of town.”

“Your part of town, sir?”

“Why, indeed! I may be but a humble butler, but all of my employment has been in that area in which you found me — St. James Street, St. James Square, Great Jermyn Street, the best addresses in London. There are few who would differ with me on that.”

“Well, no doubt they are very good addresses, Mr. Collier, but would it be fair to say that they were your addresses? After all, sir, to take the most convenient example, Lord and Lady Lilley no doubt would contest your claim.”

“Oh, no doubt they would.”

“They would say it was their address.”

“Ah, but I lived there, too, and ran the house.”

“Does that give you the right to claim it as your own?”

He considered my question. “Not the whole house, perhaps.” Then did he puff up a bit; his chin went up, and his chest came out, attracting curious glances from the passersby. “But the address was as much mine as it was that of the duke and duchess.”

“That much I’ll grant, but — ”

“You seem an intelligent lad,” said he, interrupting. “Let me tell you that I’ve been doing some thinking since I was thrown out so coldly from that house in St. James Street. I believe I shall avail you of a bit of it.” He paused but briefly, then plunged on: “I despise myself as I was there — far too eager to please, far too fearful of giving offense. I was an arse-kisser — or to put it less vulgarly, a toady, a sycophant, a … a …”

“A lickspittle?”

“Precisely! And why did I play such a role? Why, to curry favor, to seek recognition from my employer that I might be liked, well-treated, given greater responsibility. And, let us ask, who was my employer? One who was, in every way but two, my inferior. Which is to say, first of all, that he had a title, and secondly, that he had great wealth, more than he could ever spend in his lifetime.”

“I do not understand,” said I. “Since he has a title and great wealth, how can you claim to be superior to him in every other way ? It may not be just, but that is how the world measures greatness. What other ways are there?”

“Well … well …” he sputtered, “taste for one thing. I believe I told you, young sir, that Lord Lilley valued his possessions purely according to what he had paid for them. Nor is he alone in that. There is not one duke or earl in the realm who can claim to possess even a modicum of personal taste. If it were not for Italians and Frenchmen here in London, and an occasional word from a butler” — he did then give a mischievous wink — “their houses would go unfurnished and their walls empty. They are so utterly without taste that, left on their own, they would not know what to buy.”

His long rant put me somewhat on the defensive. After all, I was well aware that our quarters at Number 4 Bow Street were rather bare of adornment. We had not a single picture on the wall, nor one piece of statuary, and the rooms were furnished with odds and ends left behind after brother Henry’s departure for Portugal (and his subsequent death). What use had a blind man for such? And Lady Fielding, for all her pretensions, was quite indifferent to the decorative or visual arts. In short, we lived well enough without taste.

“How can it be so important?” I asked in a manner which I meant to seem dismissive. (I began at this point to peer ahead, searching for a place where I might conveniently part company with this pouter-pigeon of a fellow.)

“Important? My dear boy, taste is more than important! Le bon gout e’ejt tout/” he declared, making a neat little French rhyme of it — then translating helpfully, “Good taste is all — everything!”

We had come to the end of the Strand and the beginning of Charing Cross Road, a perfectly suitable sort of place for me to send Mr. Collier on his way, a smile on my face as I delivered a firm pat to him on his back. I had more than begun the goodbye ritual, in fact had even delivered that final pat on the back, when he looked me in the eye and declared: “Young man, I am disappointed in you.”

“I’m sorry to hear that, sir.”

“No more than I am sorry to tell you. I thought, when I noted your eye roaming o’er the Vermeers and the Rubens in Mr. Zondervan’s gallery, ‘Now’, there is a lad who may not know much but who perhaps could be taught.’ But unfortunately …”

“I really must be going,” said I, “but you’ll be all right from here on.”

“Of course I will. But let us consider Mr. Zondervan. Now, the man has taste, no doubt of that — I should be the last to dispute it. Nevertheless, to keep his artistic treasures hidden away as he does and under lock and key, that truly seems most unfortunate. Who is he hiding them from?”

“Mr. Collier, I thank you for your cooperation, but now I must return to Bow Street.” I said it quite firmly. “Goodbye.”

“What? Oh, I suppose so. Yes, goodbye.”

With that, I turned round and left him where he stood, separate lines of pedestrians flowing on either side of him. Yet after a few steps I turned back for another look. I caught sight of him, moving along now, gesturing with his hands so that I was sure that he was still talking, even though I was no longer with him to listen. But then the crowd swallowed him up; he had quite disappeared.

He seemed perhaps a bit mad, pushed into that state by his rude dismissal. He had annoyed me, it was true, but far more than annoyance, I felt pity for the old man (he must have been forty or more).

I had a great desire to talk about him with someone. But with whom? It did not seem proper to discuss him with Sir John or Lady Katherine. Annie, it struck me, would have little interest in him. That left only Clarissa. Well, why not? She, at least, would see the drama in it. I wondered vaguely what she might have to say.

So you see, reader, the first day of my investigation may have gone quickly, as I said, yet it was not particularly fruitful. I vowed when I took myself up to bed that night that tomorrow I would do better.

Though I could only guess at what time of night it may have been, footsteps upon the stairs to my room brought me wide awake out of a deep sleep.

“Who is there?” I challenged the intruder.

“It is I, Jeremy.” The voice was Lady Fielding’s. She came to the open door of my room and leaned inside, no more than a light form against the darkness of the hall.

I rose up in bed to show that I was fully awake. “What is it?” I asked. “Is Sir John well?”

“Oh yes, but one of the constables has come with word of another great robbery. Jack cannot go, he simply cannot.”

“I agree.”

“I would not even wake him to tell him. I fear you will have to go and act in his stead.”

“It will take me no time at all to be ready. If anyone is waiting downstairs, you may tell him that I shall be there in minutes.”

And, indeed, I was. Fully dressed but with shoes in hand, I descended the stairs. At the bedchamber of Sir John and Lady Fielding I paused a moment to hear his steady breathing. As I did, she appeared and whispered, “Take care, Jeremy.” Then did she surprise me with a motherly kiss upon the cheek. And I continued upon my way.

Below, none other than Constable Patley awaited me. Mr. Baker, for his part, stood ready for me, holding two pistols in holsters, prepared to buckle them about my waist. As he did this, he cautioned me to hold my fire as long as possible, and aim carefully at the trunk. It sounded like good advice. I only hoped that in the event I should have the presence of mind to follow it. But, having been readied for the worst, I could now depart. After I thanked Mr. Baker, we set off into the night.

Constable Patley was my companion and my guide. As we made our way, he recounted to me all that he knew of the crime. It seemed that Mr. Bailey, the captain of the Bow Street Runners, had been his companion this night when again they were approached by someone, a servant of a house in Little Jermyn Street, that had just been sacked by a band of black men. Were there any injuries? Yes, a man lay dead, though he had not, strictly speaking, been murdered. In the course of the robbery one of the household staff had been taken by an attack of some sort — apoplexy or a sudden stoppage of the heart — and it had put him in such a state that he could not be revived.

Having heard this much, I asked the question which I was sure Sir John would have asked in my place. To wit: “Has the doctor been sent for?”

“He has, yes,” said Mr. Patley. “Soon as Bailey and me arrived, he took a look at the body where it was lying and sent the stable boy off on a horse to fetch the doctor.”

“Gabriel Donnelly in Drury Lane?”

“I b’lieve that was the same as before.” He was silent for a moment. “Yes, that was it.” He had grown a bit sullen.

“And you went to Bow Street to fetch …”

“Well, not exactly you — not you alone, anyways. I thought — and maybe Mr. Bailey thought, too — that the magistrate would be well enough to come.”

“But he’s not,” said I with great certainty. “He has sent me in his stead.”

“You know how to do all that asking questions and all?” He seemed rather dubious.

“Yes.” That seemed sufficient. I could see no need to convince him of my qualifications.

He was silent for a good long space of time. We must have crossed a number of streets before he spoke up again. Then, of a sudden, he burst out with something quite unexpected; it was as if he had thought long upon it yet held it back.

“I want to ask you something,” said he.

“Ask me anything you like.”

“How old are you, anyways?”

“How old am I? Why should that matter?”

“You said I could ask you anything.”

“But I didn’t say I’d answer.” I hesitated but a moment and thought better of what I had said. “Oh, all right,” said I. “I am seventeen years of age.”

“Well, let me tell you something, mister damn-near-a-magistrate, seventeen is how old I was when I took the King’s shilling. And I then had as fine an opinion of myself as you seem to have of your own self.”

Having heard that, I was about to interrupt with a counterattack before he had even properly begun. However, curiosity persuaded me to hold my tongue.