“Ah, yes, it was. I had met the fellow there not long ago and knew that the claimant had not visited him when he went through the university. He seemed singularly well equipped to put questions to him in areas about which I knew nothing.”
“And so he proved to be! Why, he quite destroyed the fellow!” Sir Patrick seemed most enthusiastic. “In fact, I am come this way — should you wonder — that I might offer him my felicitations for his superb interrogation. I failed to do so, of course, because of my early departure.”
“I’m sure he would be proud to receive them,” said Sir John.
“I understand he is lodging at the Globe and Anchor.”
“He is indeed.”
Then, with a shaking of hands, a nodding of heads, smiles, and polite laughter, the two men parted company. We continued on our way up the Strand, Sir John and I, though we did not speak for some little while.
Frankly, I was trying to make sense of what I had heard. I have reported the conversation as I remembered it, thinking it rude to interpolate my feelings, as Sir John failed to say things which I would normally have expected him to tell the Solicitor-General.
First and most important, you must have thought it strange, as I did, reader, that when asked what it was brought us to that place where Sir Patrick encountered us, Sir John said only that it was his “usual round of business.” Surely, he should have been more specific than that. What would not the Solicitor-General have given to know that the claimant had quite evidently committed homicide? (Whether it be murder or manslaughter could not then easily be said.) This indeed put a different complexion upon the entire affair, did it not?
Of lesser moment, though equally puzzling, was the question of why Sir John had allowed Sir Patrick to proceed to the Globe and Anchor with the expectation of seeing Richard Inskip, when he knew very well that Mr. Inskip had gone to the Drury Lane Theatre to see Mr. Garrick’s revival of The Recruiting Officer. Of course, Sir Patrick could always leave a note for the tutor, yet that was not the point. The point, to my mind, was that Sir John sometimes acted in a secretive or indifferent manner toward others. I confess that what then came to mind was the comment made by Judge Benjamin Talley to his nephew Archibald to explain why Sir John was no more than a magistrate: “He has offended too many of the rich and powerful.” Would not Sir Patrick Spenser be offended at Sir John’s failure to communicate? I felt sure he would.
As I harbored such disloyal and critical thoughts, we walked on through the fog. It rose from the river and swirled on down the Strand in a way that it totally enveloped men, coaches, and horses in such an eerie manner that they seemed to be rendered altogether invisible. Full-sized hackney coaches would pass us by — that is, we heard them pass — yet they would remain quite invisible to me; at most I would see the indistinct glow of their top running light. The oil-burning street lamps, which normally lit the Strand so very well, were so muffled in fog that midway between them it seemed to darken so completely that we might well have been walking underwater.
Every now and again, the figure of a man would loom up suddenly before us. And often he would shy away, as fearful of us as I of him. But each time a figure appeared in that frightening way, my hand tightened about the butt of the pistol put into my pocket by Mr. Baker, our armorer and night gaoler. (“It will be foggy later tonight,” he had said as he presented me with it. “Every footpad and villain in London will be out to try his luck.”) And yet, miraculously perhaps, our walk back to Number 4 Bow Street was safe and without incident. Perhaps Sir Johns presence, which intimidated many, frightened away all who might have detained us with criminal intent, Sir John himself was certain it was his reputation that kept us safe in dark and dangerous places. It may have been so, yet this firm belief of his did not prevent Mr. Baker from frequently offering me a pistol when he judged that the situation or the destination demanded it; nor did it prevent me from accepting it.
It was, as I suggested, a relatively silent journey. We were halfway to Bow Street, or so it seemed to me, before Sir John was inspired to comment. And when at last he did, it seemed to me merely mundane.
“Mmm,” said he, “fog.”
“Yes, sir, “ said I, “it is quite foggy. I can barely see my hand before me.
“Then are you reduced to my state, or close to it.”
“What senses reveal the fog to you? “ I was suddenly curious.
“Well, let me see. I can feel it upon my face as a slight dampness. And you might not credit this, nevertheless, its true: Fog does have a smell.”
“Oh, truly? What sort of smell, sir?”
“Not a very lovely one, I fear. I should say that the fog — the London fog, that is — smells of the Thames, for that is where it comes from for the most part, is it not? And we both know that the smell of the river is not an altogether pleasant one. Yet I can hear the fog, too, Jeremy.”
“Surely not, sir.”
“Yes, oh, yes, though not as a noise in itself, but rather as a condition which affects all other noise. It tends to dampen — or perhaps better put, to muffle all other sounds. And finally, my extra sense tells me something, too.”
“Do you mean your common sense? “
“No, something a bit different. It’s this way, Jeremy. Each time I hear muffled footsteps approaching through the fog, I sense you tensing with apprehension, and I perceive a small motion with your right hand to the pocket of your coat. You’ve a pistol in that pocket, haven’t you?”
“Uh, well, yes, sir. I fear you’ve caught me again.”
“You and Mr. Baker.” He sighed. “Well, perhaps on a night such as this, it is not entirely unnecessary to carry along a pistol. Besides, you’re older and wiser now than you were the first time I caught you out. How old were you then?”
“Thirteen, I believe.”
“Good God! Well, you seemed older. And how old are you now?”
“Sixteen, sir.”
“You still seem older — in most ways, though in some ways not.” I refrained from asking him to enumerate them, and he supplied no further information, so there the matter stood between us, and we lapsed into silence once more.
After a time, and a considerable time it was, he inclined his head toward me and, lowering his voice as if conversing in secret, he asked, “Have you made any progress toward placing that voice you heard in Oxfordshire?”
“What voice was that, sir? “
“Why, the voice of your captor, the voice of the puppet master, the voice of him standing behind the claimant,” said Sir John with some slight annoyance evident in the tone of his voice.
“He spoke but a few words within my hearing. “
“Then I take it your response would be in the negative?”
I attempted to address the matter, realizing instantly that it could not be done so casually. “I suppose, sir, that it must be in the negative,” said I quite regretfully. Yet what was it? Something there was, certainly, tugging at the back of my mind. “Let me give it some thought,” I said at last.
“Could it, for instance, be one whose voice you have heard since our return from Oxford?”
I concentrated for a moment, seeking somehow to re-create the sound of the voice by repeating in my mind what had been said: “That will be quite enough, Mr. Bolt” and “Come up here — now.” Little enough to go on. Still, it seemed that I had heard something like it not long before. I waited, but nothing seemed to come. Yet, finally, the only reply I could give him was “Perhaps.”
Then did we pass another space of time in silence. I concentrated on the problem he had given me. And he? His thoughts were then a mystery to me — and, as I think back, they are still. Nevertheless, I should have taken some hint from his next remark, though it came some minutes later. We were, as I recall, just turning from Russell Street onto Bow Street, having nearly reached our destination.