“Jack, I do wish you would stop that.”
“Stop what, my dear?”
These were the first words we had heard spoken between them since we had departed the ball.
“You know quite well what I refer to — that continual sniggering.”
“Kate, I do not snigger. I have never sniggered. I am, however, known to laugh from time to time when things strike me as funny.”
“That struck you as funny? That indecent display? That scene from the barnyard? At times your sense of humor does truly astonish me.”
“Not at all, my dear. What you saw did not amuse me. It was simply that you had seen what you did so soon after our discussion of the level of conduct of the nobility. You must admit that it is no more edifying to see Lord Limerick relieving himself against the garden wall than to see the same thing done in Bedford Street by any common drunkard.”
Lady Fielding sighed audibly and deeply. “I suppose I must,” said she. “Though I believe I would not have been quite so shocked had he not tipped his hat and wished us a good evening.”
“Do you think he may simply have thus attempted to save the situation?”
“Certainly not! I contemn him as brazen and rude! You — ” At that point she broke off and exclaimed: “Goodness, Jack, what have we done?”
“What is it, Kate?”
“Why, the children — I had forgotten about them completely!” And then to us: “Clarissa! Jeremy! Have you two been listening?”
“To what, m’lady?” asked Clarissa. “We have been discussing literary questions.”
That might have satisfied her, but then Clarissa began giggling and quite ruined matters for us.
FIVE
Though Lady Fielding’s dismaying experience in the garden may have brought us back earlier than intended to the Bear Tavern, it nevertheless returned us at a favorable hour for a proper nights sleep prior to our trip to London. And a good thing that was, too, for after we had been on the road in the post coach but a few hours, each one of us would have gladly admitted the superiority of Lord Mansfield’s slightly gentler coach and four in which we had journeyed to Bath. Though we had thought the latter impossibly brutal to our backsides, we found the former far worse. The only relief we experienced from the constant jostling and bumping about were stops at inns along the way, that we might answer the call of nature, or, contrariwise, have a sip or a snack. When at last it came time to dine and rest for the night, none but Sir John was able to sleep, save for a few hours before dawn; the elderly couple with whom we shared the coach swore they had literally passed the entire night without once drifting off. By the time we arrived in London, a full thirty-eight hours had passed since our departure from Bath. This, I was told, was about the average length of time for the journey.
We arrived at the onset of evening and made direct for Number 4 Bow Street. Annie Oakum, our blessed cook, had somehow foreseen our arrival and prepared a glorious meal of roast mutton, with which she greeted us as we climbed the stairs and entered the kitchen. It was a grand welcome — and that Lady Fielding told her over and over again. For her part, Annie, quite overcome, declared quite tearfully that she had missed us, each and every one, more than she could ever tell. Then, without so much as unpacking, we did sit down and eat the feast that Annie put before us; and to my mind, it was better by far than any dinner eaten in Bath. When we had done, we sat silent at table, and warmed by the meal, we reflected upon how thankful we were to be home, and how long it would be before we would wish to journey forth again.
“Bath was lovely,” said Clarissa in response to Annie’s predictable question, “all that my mother said it would be, and all that I hoped.”
“Oh, indeed,” agreed Lady Fielding. “I believe that taking the waters did me a world of good, and I met so many charming people.”
“Such a beautiful place,” said Clarissa.
“Yes, isn’t it?” Then did Lady Fielding go silent for the moment as her eyes took on a somewhat abstracted appearance; it was as if she were reconsidering the entire experience. “But, you know,” she added as if in summary, “I would not have stayed a day longer in Bath. I believe we got from it all we possibly could have gotten.”
“Well said, Kate,” declared Sir John. “It is quite beyond me that those who live lives of leisure are pleased to spend whole summers there.”
“Some choose to live there the year round.”
“Or perhaps better put, choose to die there.”
To that there was naught to say. I, at least, could think of no response. I could but wonder why Sir John had said what he had and what he meant by it. Surely not that the Widow Paltrow was responsible for her own death.
Eager though I may have been to give close examination to those items which I had removed from the modest quarters in Kingsmead Square, I found that once I was in my little room atop all the rest, I simply lacked the will to give them more than a cursory perusal. Even though the so-called “Journal of Exploration and Discovery” did greatly interest me, so exhausted was I from our journey that I fell asleep with the candle burning at my bedside and the book upon my chest.
Next day, of course, I found myself thrust back into the routine I knew so well. I was up at six, or shortly thereafter, to build a fire for Annie. Once past breakfast, I shaved Sir John, that he might meet the new week smooth-cheeked and handsome. Before leaving for the Magdalene Home with Clarissa in tow, Lady Fielding urged me to scrub the kitchen floor, “ere potatoes grow in the cracks between the boards.” Annie, before leaving for her morning reading classes with Mr. Burnham, left with me a list of victuals of every sort to be bought in Covent Garden for the week ahead.
Thus it was not until the middle of the morning that I was able to present myself to Sir John and ask how I might be of service to him. I was informed that there were letters to be written and a thing or two for discussion. That left me wondering, as I prepared to take his dictation, just what those matters might be.
Among the four or five letters written that morning were two which were pertinent to this narrative. The first was a report to the Lord Chief Justice describing what had transpired during our trip to Bath. Though of necessity long and rather detailed, it was, in a way, more interesting in what it left out than in what it included, Sir John made it clear that the claimant was in Bath, but mentioned only in passing that he was usually in the company of one who was said to be a native, or at least a resident, of the American colony of Virginia. He said nothing of Eli Bolt, made no mention of his evil reputation. This had the effect of focusing blame upon the putative Lawrence Paltrow when the death of Mrs. Paltrow was described, Sir John made it clear that he suspicioned homicide, and he pointed out, as well, that the claimant may have had a good deal to gain by it, since her support for him had seemed to be weakening. Clearly, in spite of what he had heard from Mr. Bilbo regarding Eli Bolt, he held the claimant suspect.
Having had time to think upon it, Clarissa had decided as we talked at one of the rest stops on the journey to London that perhaps we ought to say something of our glimpses of the claimant at the theater on the evening of the murder. “That would surely have made it impossible for him to commit so ghastly a crime as matricide,’’ Clarissa had said, “for he was some distance away at the time.”
“Difficult,” I had then said, “but not impossible,” which I was certain would have been Sir John’s judgment in the matter. Having once thought so, I had no reason at this later moment to alter my opinion. We may not have felt that the claimant was capable of such a coldblooded murder, but feelings mattered little to Sir John; he would have facts and unimpeachable testimony.