I halted where I was and turned about. “Yes, sir,” said I somewhat guiltily. “I thought to let you sleep a bit longer.”
“Longer? Was I asleep?”
“Yes, Sir John.”
“Hmmm, strange,” he reflected. “I’d no idea of it.”
He swung his feet down from his desk, beckoned me to him, and asked if all had gone well. I told him that it had, assuring myself that there was no need to go unbidden into my meeting with Captain Harrison.
Satisfied, he nodded and said, “I have a task for you, one that may keep us both busy until dinnertime.”
“And what is that, sir?”
“I believe you left that file regarding. . what name did he use those several years ago? Elijah Elison, I believe it was.”
“Yes, that was it.”
“You left it here with me. Is this it. . here?” Moving his hand over the desk, he allowed it to come to rest upon the file which was positioned at the corner nearest me. I was able to read, upside down, the letters which spelled out its title, “Unresolved.”
“It is, sir.”
“Then I should like you, Jeremy, to read to me the entire file pertaining to that fellow Elison. It may tell us a thing or two about the death of the Widow Paltrow, perhaps even give some indication why he has turned up in the company of the claimant. For my part, Im puzzled by the connection of the two deaths — or, let us call them two homicides — at a space of many years.”
That was indeed troubling. Had I not further taxed my tired body on that long walk about London, I should have welcomed the opportunity to read through it all with Sir John. As it was, I fear I showed little enthusiasm as I proceeded to separate those pages pertaining to Elison from the rest, take a place opposite the magistrate, and prepare to read to him.
Sir John seemed to sense my reluctance. “Is there something wrong, Jeremy?”
“No, sir,” said I. “Just a bit tired.”
“Well, perhaps well not be about it all the rest of the afternoon if we but put our minds as to the content of these notes. Now,” said he, “you may proceed. “
And so I did. The sheets in my hand may have been dusty, but Mr. Marsden had put them in good order. He had even contributed a short memorandum of his own devising which summarized the contents of the folder. I read that out first.
“The following,” I began, “is a collection of notes taken in the course of the inquiry into the death of Mr. Herbert Mudge, gentleman, of Roanoke in His Majesty’s North American colony of Virginia on September 3,1763. Mr. Mudge was found dead of strangulation, his head in a noose at the end of a leather rope, by employees of the Globe and Anchor, a hostelry in the Strand. The Bow Street Court was notified, and Constable Edward Ballentine answered the call in the company of Mr. John Fielding, Magistrate of the Bow Street Court. Those questioned at the hostelry were Andrew Dubber, night porter; Nicholas Teller, manager, and Mr. Elijah Elison, trader, also of the colony of Virginia. As the inquiry continued during the next three days, Mr. Fielding also interrogated Uriah Harrison, captain of the trading ship Ocean Rover, and William Patton, server in the Globe and Anchor. In addition, he reexamined Mr. Dubber and Mr. Elison twice and thrice respectively. Notes from all of these interviews, dictated by Mr. Fielding, follow, as do an account of the finding by the coroner’s jury in the inquest conducted by the coroner of the City of Westminster, Mr. Thomas Cox.”
Then, with a nod from Sir John, I laid aside Mr. Marsden’s summary and, beginning with the first interrogation of Andrew Dubber, the night porter who had discovered the body, began reading aloud through Sir John’s summary of each of the interviews. The account of the case he had improvised on the day he sent me in search of the “Unresolved” file proved to be quite accurate. It was only in the details that there was some conflict in that version with what I had before me now. It was not, for instance, the maid who discovered the body of Herbert Mudge, but, rather, the night porter. She had complained to him that a lock had been thrown from the inside, and she had not the key to unlock it; then she had gone on to another room. The night porter had such a key and did not hesitate to use it. Having seen what was inside, he closed the door and went straight to report the matter to Mr. Teller, the manager.
And so on. Most, if not all, such discrepancies were of that niggling sort: mere details. But Sir John made it clear again and again that it was in such details that he was most interested. Once I had hurried through the coroner’s report, he challenged me to go back with him, page by page, and see how many pertinent details, no matter how small, we might find to question — or at least discuss.
“There is one on the first page — that is, in Mr. Marsden’s memorandum — which I think worthy of discussion.”
“And what is that?”
“Why, the date of Mr. Mudge’s death — or the discovery of his body. I had little time to examine Lawrence Paltrow’s journal before sleep overcame me — yet time enough to note that the last entry was dated sometime in May of that same year, 1763. That would easily have given time, with favorable winds, to reach London by early September or late August. In other words, I believe Eli Bolt’s journey was connected in some way to the death of Lawrence Paltrow. After all, I found the Paltrow journal in his mother’s bookcase, did I not?”
“Indeed you did,” said Sir John. “And I accept your theory as a distinct possibility. I never truly took in his own account — that he had come to London to interest makers of clothing in the beaver pelts he took in trade from the North American Indians. There is no such interest, and I am told that there is never likely to be.”
He paused, then plunged ahead: “Something occurred to me during your reading of my comments upon the night porter’s interviews. I did not believe him when he said that he had remained awake through the night and would have seen anyone who entered, or attempted to enter, Mr. Mudge’s room from midnight to eight in the morning. In fact, I believed him so little that I had him brought back the next day that I might question him again over the same matter. But listening to you read my words back to me, Jeremy, it came to me that he might indeed have been telling the truth. For the intruder — let us say Eli Bolt — may have been in place before the night porter came on duty and the vicious deed committed. Then the murderer, mindful of the night porter’s presence, may have simply remained the night and arranged all to look like suicide and hidden himself as the night porter discovered the body. He walked off when the porter ran to give the word to the manager.”
“I believe I see what you are getting at,” said I.
“Exactly. We have recently seen just such callousness, have we not? Long hours spent beside a recently dead body.”
‘’You mean a recently murdered body.”
“Indeed. Not many are brave enough — if ‘brave’ is quite the word — to do that.”
‘’Mrs. Paltrow’s murderer, of course.”
‘’Of course.”
Thus did we go through all the pages assembled by Mr. Marsden and saved by Sir John as one of his ‘failures.’ We found further discrepancies and similarities — and all simply by looking at this matter closely and studying the details. When we had, I supposed, concluded our review, I felt oddly troubled. I could not have said what it was that troubled me, for my difficulty was unfocused, and I felt something was amiss, rather than thought it. Perhaps it was only that I wished for sleep. Or perhaps it was my need for rest that prevented me from concentrating upon the difficulty at hand and seeing it plain, rather than as some shapeless, threatening, dark cloud brooding over me, Sir John seemed to sense my difficulty.
“What have you, lad?” he asked. “Toward the end of our exercise you seemed to grow dull.”
“That, I fear, is how I feel, sir.”
“Nothing more?”
‘’Well, that could be. I sense that there is something amiss, something overlooked by me in all this, but I cannot, for the life of me, think what it might be.”
“Perhaps if you were to read through it again?”
Unconsciously and certainly unwillingly, I must have let out a groan at that, yet Sir Johns response was not quite what I would have expected.
“Oh, I did not mean that you need read through it aloud,” said he. “We have accomplished a good deal this afternoon. There is no need for us to repeat the entire exercise again. You might take it back upstairs with you and look at it again after you have had a bit of rest. How far did you go today? You were gone quite some time.”
“All the way across the river to Bermondsey.” And before I quite knew what I was about, I had launched into the tale of my visit to the Ocean Rover and my interview with Captain Harrison. Yet I omitted details and told not quite all of it, for I omitted its abrupt and somewhat acrimonious ending.
“Why,” said Sir John, “what an extraordinary coincidence! Why did you not tell me of it sooner? “
Then, trapped, I was forced to do just that. I quoted to him what I had said to the captain and his angry response to it. Again Sir John surprised me, for he simply laughed at what I told him.
“Ah, it was that way, was it? The captain took offense, did he? Well, he had no right to. You were correct in ending discussion when you did. You might, however, have framed your refusal differently — something like this: ‘Much as I should like to answer that, Sir John never allows me to discuss such matters! Put the blame on me.”
At that, I started to rise, thinking to take my leave — then, of a sudden, I dropped back in my chair, for what had been vague was now clear, what had been amorphous had assumed a proper shape: I realized that I now had firmly in mind that which had eluded me until that very moment.
“Sir John,” said I, “you recall that in Mr. Marsden’s memorandum he mentioned that Mr. Mudge was found with his neck in a noose at the end of a leather rope?”
“Yes, of course I do. I remember that length of rope very well. It was put in my hand so that I might examine it. Leather, it was for certain but no mere great long thong. It was of two strands, thick and tightly woven. I recall the feel of it very well.”
I took a moment to confirm what I suspicioned by looking at Sir John’s account of his interview with the captain. Reassured, I spoke up with some measure of confidence.
“Sir, I know to whom that leather rope belonged, and I am quite amazed that nothing of it appears in your summary of your interview with Captain Harrison.”
“You do not mean to say it was the captain’s!”
“No, sir, nothing of the kind. But the captain, in recalling his two passengers, Mudge and Elison, went on at great length about Elison’s rope of woven leather and his skill with it.”
“Skill? What sort of skill?”
“He could use it as if it were almost an extension of his hand, according to Captain Harrison — by looping it over objects and giving them a good strong pull. Why, he could pick pockets, pull belaying pins from their places. He did tricks with it there on deck. But he told you nothing of all this when you interrogated him?”
“Nothing at all,” said Sir John, and then sat musing for near a minute without a word spoken. Then this: “In spite of the captain’s professed admiration of me, I recall him as a rather reluctant witness. He was within a day or two of setting sail for America and was no doubt busy with details of departure, but he gave me very little of his time. He addressed my main concern, which was whether Bolt — or Elison, or whatever his name — had known Mr. Mudge before the voyage. He had claimed they had met only on shipboard. He could not give me a definitive answer, though he said the two were constantly together on deck. I tried to open the inquiry a bit and have his impressions of them, but he would have none of it. He all but pushed me down the gangway to be rid of me. I confess I was not near as forceful in those days as I have since become.”
“That is strange, sir, for he gave to me the impression that he had discussed the matter at length with you, perhaps more than once. He said that you were certain of Elison’s guilt, but because you lacked evidence to support your conviction, you allowed Mr. Mudge’s death to stand as a suicide. He said he admired you for that.”
“Well, what he said was correct, as far as it goes. Nevertheless, I cannot suppose how he could have gotten such — “ He stopped then and nodded wisely. “Or perhaps I do know. As you found out, Alfred Humber has been Harrisons insurer for years. It could well be that at some later date the captain discussed the case with my friend, Mr. Humber, who imparted to him my beliefs and feelings in the matter.”
“But why would he have done such a thing?”
“Why indeed? All I can suppose is that because less than a year later I was knighted, he may have wished to seem on intimate terms with me and made Mr. Humbers conversation with me his own. I cannot account for it, but some are powerfully impressed by such honors.”
“But to tell it so to me, knowing that I might repeat his words to you. Surely — ”
“Perhaps,” Sir John interrupted, “Captain Harrison has told it this way often enough that he himself believes it. It happened years ago, after all.”
“Can one truly delude oneself in such a way?”
“Oh, indeed, Jeremy. A few do it in large matters and do so right often — many such are in Bedlam. All the rest of us are guilty of it from time to time in small ways. And that, my lad, is why a good witness is so hard to come by.”