“Not much was needed, in all truth. The poor woman was nearly blind. She could not properly see me.”
“True enough, I concede. Yet when we visited her, she seemed healthy enough. She was greatly disturbed, however, that her son had left her so long without a letter, without a word. I fear I contributed to those fears.”
“She said as much and threatened to withdraw her recognition and tear up the affidavit she had signed because of ‘my’ neglect during all those years. Bolt and I had visited her together the evening after you saw her, Sir John. You simply awakened the doubts she had managed till then to keep still. You asked her the same questions she had been asking herself for years. Yet as we left, she asked me a question, one that quite baffled me. Bolt and I had started down the stairs, and she called me back. I returned to her while he waited at the foot of the stairs. She whispered to me, ‘Where is it? Where is the gold?’”
“And what do you suppose she meant by that?”
“I’ve no idea, sir. It was something between her and her son, I thought, but on the other hand, it made so little sense that I thought perhaps she was going mad. Other things she had said showed her grip on reality was not terribly firm.”
“What did you reply to her?”
“I’m not sure, really. I mumbled something to her about waiting. I believe it was ‘Well speak of that later’ or something of the sort. In response, she gave me a rather fierce look and shut the door in my face. Bolt then wanted to know what she had said. I told him she had merely repeated her threat to withdraw recognition. ‘We cannot trust her,’ said he. I made no argument then. I wish that I had. Then did Bolt surprise me by parting company with me. He had said he would accompany me to the theater there in Bath — Hamlet was the play. But now he said he had no wish to go. He would return to the Bear Tavern, eat and drink, and leave me to my evening’s entertainment. I was too happy to be rid of him to look deeply into this, and so I left him. I did not return to the hostelry until near midnight. By then Margaret Paltrow was dead at Bolt’s hand.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“As sure as I could be without having witnessed the deed or having heard him confess. Yes, I am certain of it in my own mind.”
“So am I,” said Sir John.
Though I knew this to be so, reader, I was nevertheless somewhat surprised to hear Sir John reveal it to Mr. Mobley. He had allowed himself to be more openly sympathetic to the man. It was, for him, a very good sign.
“You must continue,” said he. “Was it then that you returned to Oxford?”
“Soon — but not immediately. First it fell to me next day to deal with the death of my supposed mother. I will say that the tears I shed for the poor woman were real enough. I arranged for her burial, promising I would return, which I never did. Bolt kept out of sight during all this. It was only for dinner that night that we came together again. That was when he spied you and another man he knew who was sitting at your table. He declared that it was time to leave Bath, and we rode out of the town about an hour later. He did not in the least like being recognized. After Bath, things went from bad to still worse. You know of my calamitous interview with the two professors, Fowler and Newcroft. I was in no wise capable of deceiving them as to the extent of my knowledge of natural science and natural history. Had I had a year to prepare for them, I might have done better-though I doubt it. After what had happened in Bath to Mrs. Paltrow — after her murder, to call it by its proper name — I had no wish to continue with this masquerade.”
“Did you voice this to Sir Patrick?”
He sighed. “I did once, but only in part. I told him that I believed that Eli Bolt had killed Mrs. Paltrow. He simply dismissed my suspicions, saying something like, ‘Oh, I think not. But still, with what you yourself told me about her sudden wavering, her threat to withdraw her recognition, and so on, she died at a most opportune moment, didn’t she? There is but one way to be certain about whether Bolt killed her, and that would be to ask him yourself.’ I had no intention of doing that.”
“Quite understandable,” said Sir John. “Since you were nearly a prisoner, it would not have done to anger your guard.”
“In fact, I was planning my escape. That was the point at which I had arrived, when Bolt took it upon himself to knock your young assistant here over the head and haul him back to Sir Patrick’s. He had been angered by our treatment by the young scholars at a — ” Sir John raised a hand to silence Mr. Mobley. “I fear I know the circumstances all too well. Jeremy gave me a full report on his abduction. He went as far as to credit you with his rescue. For that I am greatly beholden to you. Nevertheless, the fact remains that you are here making a statement regarding a homicide. Let us get on to that, if you please.”
“But, sir,” said Mr. Mobley, “while you may know that it was I who set the lad free, you do not know what moved me to do it, Sir Patrick had sent the drunken Bolt to bed in disgrace, but then he had discussed with me just what was to be done with the lad. He gave it as his opinion that it might be necessary to ‘remove’ him. I pointed out that he was Sir John Fielding’s boy. ‘Yes,’ said he, ‘that makes it all the more necessary and all the more unfortunate.’”
Sir John turned in my direction. “Do you hear that, Jeremy? Your demise was at least considered ‘unfortunate.’”
“Yet nevertheless ‘necessary,’” said I.
“As you will. But now, Mr. Mobley, you must bring us to date.”
“My appearance before the commission was, as all the rest of it, a scheme of Sir Patrick’s devising. I had not even known that such a body existed; I learned from Sir Patrick that he had organized it himself purportedly in the Kings service, hoping to use it so as to have a listening post in the enemy’s camp. By the time I was instructed by him to write that letter, I believe he was quite despairing of the success of our entire enterprise. Bolt had become unreliable, and he must have perceived quite rightly that I was looking for an opportunity to get back to the colonies. For myself, an appearance before the commission would take me to London, where escape would be easier to accomplish.
“Well,” he continued, “in the event, I believe I did well enough in the first part of the interrogation — ”
“Oh, you did very well indeed, ‘’ Sir John interrupted. “In fact, the commission was quite ready to disband when you left the room. The last thing they would have wished was to contest the claim in court so that you might have the opportunity to appear before a jury.”
“But then was the second part,’’ said Mr. Mobley, “and that fiend of an old fellow. What was his name? Ah, yes, Inskip. I remembered at last that I had been advised to avoid him at Oxford because of his merciless manner. He was evidently notorious about the university for just the sort of bullying he gave me. I was so destroyed by him that I wanted nothing more than to get away, so I made my little speech and left.”
“Rather hurriedly,” said Sir John.
“Yes, I wanted to leave my dreams of vainglory behind with Sir Patrick. I saw it as my chance to escape.”
“Yet Sir Patrick went running after you, did he not?”
“He did, and he lectured me and threatened me. In reply, I did little more than repeat what I had said within, though with a few more colorful turns of phrase. I told him also that if he tried to stop me, I would tell all and name him as leader of our conspiracy. It seemed to me as I left him standing and looking after me in Bloomsbury Square that there was little he could do, yet I underestimated him.”
“Get on with it,” Sir John urged. “Get to Eli Bolt.”
“Yes, indeed I shall, “ said the other. Yet he sighed deeply, unwilling to be pushed, before he resumed: “I walked about, attempting to organize myself, and decided that I must return to the Globe and Anchor, for there were certain personal items I did not wish to part with. And why should I leave London with no more than the clothes on my back? And so I returned to the hostelry.”