“It might have been the sound of the front door shutting,” suggested Sir John.
“Why, indeed, it might have been,” said she. “But why would he stay so late?”
“No doubt he was waiting for you to fall asleep.”
Once out in the street, Sir John at first showed little inclination to discuss the substance of Mrs. Eakins’s interview. He made a few remarks about the woman herself, none of them of a slighting nature, and praised her willingness to give information to a visiting magistrate. “I believe,” said he, “that she truly meant what she said in claiming the Widow Paltrow as her friend.”
“She shed a few tears whilst giving her responses,” I volunteered.
“That surprises me not at all. I detected a thickness in her voice on a number of occasions that suggested as much.”
We proceeded along Bristol Road in the direction of the Bear Tavern, saying nothing at all for what seemed a long while, Sir John seemed to be considering the information given him by Mrs. Eakins in the light of our earlier discoveries in the widow’s small apartment. It seemed to me that we had learned a great deal.
“Will you go to the Bath magistrate with what we have found out thus far?” I asked him. “All this certainly indicates murder.”
“No,” said he, “I think not. That fellow Bester and the coroner will not be convinced, for they do not wish to be. You heard what he said? ‘Murder is simply not the sort of thing that is done here in Bath’ — or words to that effect. What nonsense! Would he have us think that this is some sort of earthly paradise where such violent actions for base motives simply do not and will not take place? People are no better whilst visiting here than they are at home.”
He continued: “I shall take what we have learned here to London and present it to the Lord Chief Justice. If nothing more, this puts a much darker complexion upon this business. Before, it seemed no more than a conspiracy to gain a title and a fortune. In fact, I half hoped that the claim would be valid, so little was I in sympathy with the true purpose of this commission upon which I foolishly agreed to serve. But … no more. Now murder has been committed in furtherance of that conspiracy. Now the situation is altogether different.”
I was, of course, rather troubled by the direction these events had taken. For no matter what the evidence I had myself discovered, and in spite of the testimony given by Mrs. Eakins, I had my doubts still. For I could scarce believe that he whom Clarissa and I had encountered in Kingsmead Square would be capable of murder of any sort — much less that of an old woman whom he had called “Mother.” But then, it was also true that I could in no wise be certain that the man we had met and seen again at the theater was indeed the claimant. There was thus no point in mentioning him to Sir John.
“You may be interested to know,” said he to me, “that I have revised your conception of the crime somewhat, based upon what we learned from Mrs. Eakins.”
“In what way, sir?”
“In a manner that reveals him as the cold-blooded murderer that he certainly was. As you suggested, and Mrs. Eakins confirmed, he was admitted to the apartment. There was a struggle, in the course of which the Widow Paltrow lost her spectacles, a struggle so violent that her spectacles were broken and kicked halfway cross the room. Am I correct so far?”
“Well. .yes, sir, I suppose you are.”
“Then it is here that my conception deviates from your own. You suggested, as I recall, that she had managed to break away from her assailant, sought escape down the stairway, and unable to see well because she was without her spectacles, she lost her footing and fell the full flight, thus breaking her neck by the time she reached the bottom.” He paused but a moment. “Does that do justice to your theory of the crime?”
“Yes, Sir John, and as I recall, you were in agreement with me.”
“I was indeed. But what we heard from Mrs. Eakins makes me believe that during that struggle the Widow Paltrow’s assailant quite purposefully broke her neck — killed her by means of his superior strength. And then — what seems to me most monstrous of all — he simply sat down and waited, in fact waited for hours until he was sure that Mrs. Eakins was asleep, then carried down the corpus of her tenant and arranged it at the foot of the stairs so that it would look as if she had fallen into that position. And then he simply left. “
“Yet he forgot her spectacles,” said I.
“Indeed he did, and having forgotten them, he left an opening for us.”
I thought a moment upon the picture that Sir John had just presented. I saw the figure of a man sitting in the dark, the body of an old woman at his feet. Had he simply waited so on into the night? Sir John, I decided, was quite right. There was something monstrous about one who could share hours in a room with the corpus of one he had just murdered.
“What a strange one he must be,” said I. “The normal thing would be to flee the scene of the crime as quickly as possible. Yet he, apparently, simply sat and waited. There seems something quite inhuman about it.”
“Indeed,” said Sir John. “He seems to have murdered altogether without emotion — without anger and without fear. It is said, that is how the animals of the jungle kill.”
Our entrance into the Bear Tavern was abetted by the ever- friendly porter. Holding open the door, he spoke his greeting and called our attention to the fact that, as he put it, the ladies had preceded us by a good quarter of an hour.
Looking about, I found them in the Orangerie (so it was called), wherein meals were served at mealtimes and drinks of every sort were offered at all others. I brought Sir John round and, seated at the table, I ordered coffee for him and me. Lady Fielding told us of their morning: at length of their visit to the grand bookshop the first time with Clarissa, and then of their chance meeting with Mr. Bilbo.
“With Black Jack, you say?” exclaimed Sir John. “And what might he be doing here?”
“Well,” said she uncertainly, “he was a bit vague about that. However, he did say that he would be here the better part of a week and would expect us as his guests at dinner this very night.”
At that, Sir John pursed his lips and grunted unhappily.
“What is it, Jack? Not feeling well? Perhaps its that strong coffee.” She looked at me a bit crossly and all but shook her finger as she said: “Jeremy, you ought not order such for Sir John, nor should you drink it yourself. Tea would suit you both better.”
“No, no, Kate, nothing of the kind. The coffee suits me well enough. I was merely exclaiming in disappointment.”
“Oh?”
“Indeed. There is no one I should rather spend some hours with than Mr. Bilbo, yet I fear we should return to London — this very day, if possible.”
“But, Jack,” she wailed, “it seems we’ve only just arrived.”
“Oh, I know, I know, but in truth I’ve lost my reason for being here in Bath.”
“How do you mean? I don’t quite follow.”
“Well, you do recall, don’t you, that I had come to interview a woman, a Mrs. Paltrow?”
“Yes, of course I do.”
“Well, she is no longer with us.”
“You mean she has departed Bath?”
“For good, I fear,” said he. “She is dead.”
“Oh, Jack, what a shame! An accident of some sort? Or was she taken ill of a sudden? “
“Neither, Kate. It appears certain that she was murdered.”
Lady Fielding gave an uneasy look about the near-empty room. Apparently relieved that none had heard, she leaned forward across the table and whispered earnestly in remonstrance. “Jack, dear Jack, I do understand that crime is your occupation, so to speak, but you really ought not to be quite so loose with talk of murder. This is a very respectable hostelry. There are gentlefolk hereabouts, even nobility, who would be shocked to hear the word ‘murder’ bruited about.”
“I fear,” said he, “that it is one of the gentlefolk, or better put one who aspires to nobility, who is responsible.”