“Did you expect trouble?”
“I was prepared for it. As I was about to enter the room, I had a sudden vision of Bolt on shipboard, tossing that loop of rope again and again with great accuracy. And that, sir, was what saved me. The room was by then quite dark, near dark as pitch, when I kicked the door shut behind me. But as I did so, I put my right hand up before my face, and only an instant later I felt something light brush my ear and touch my cheek. My hand shot up and brushed that something away. Thus was I saved from strangulation. The noose was well tossed, but I managed to throw the rope off before Bolt could pull it tight. Yet I followed it back, pulled him to me — and we fought. Dear God, how we fought! With our fists, with our feet — we kicked and wrestled and scratched and rolled about on the floor and crashed against the walls. I could not have bested Bolt in his prime, but he was long past that. Drink and riotous living had weakened him. He lacked both strength and endurance. I was the younger, and I knew that I was fighting for my very life.
“The noose was still in my hand, or to tell it true, it was looped about my wrist. I had knocked Bolt to his knees and threw the noose round his neck. I warned him that if he offered further resistance, I would pull it tight. Yet Bolt attempted to throw me off his back, to turn and wrestle me down, and so I gave a good, sharp tug on that leather rope, but then I relaxed it when a horrible noise came from him down on the floor. He struggled to breathe, but finally lost the battle. I loosed the noose — but too late. I had cut his windpipe. The man was dead. “
Percival Mobley had, in the telling, become so exercised in an emotional manner that with those last few solemn words, he collapsed beneath the great burden he bore and began to weep.
“So,” he said to Sir John when he was able, “it was not my intention to kill him. I wished only to force him to quit trying to kill me”
“Then you would deny the charge of murder but are prepared to plead guilty to manslaughter?”
“If I must, I suppose I do.”
TWELVE
It took nearly a day but by the end of it, word had circulated through London that a dead man, horribly beaten and strangled, had been discovered in a room in the Globe and Anchor hostelry, and that said room had been engaged by one Lawrence Paltrow. The dead man in the room was not Mr. Paltrow.
The city quite hummed with the news, for it was known to a few that this same Lawrence Paltrow was engaged in a claim upon the Laningham title and its great wealth. The few that knew this told only their most intimate friends, and soon thousands were informed.
What surprise when the drabs, layabouts, and such who were the regular attendants of Sir John Fielding’s court at Number 4 Bow Street heard this same Mr. Paltrow summoned before the magistrate by the court clerk! The individual who came limping up in response was all bruises and plasters, one whose right eye was swollen shut, yet one still capable of speech, as he proved in a most interesting exchange with the magistrate. As the story was told, it went something like this:
“This is a case of homicide, sir, and a very serious matter,” said Sir John. “How do you plead, Mr. Paltrow?”
“Why, how I plead is my own matter, sir, until you address me by my proper name.”
“What’s that you say? Are you being impertinent, sir?”
“That is not my intention. Nevertheless, Lawrence Paltrow is not my proper name.”
“And what is it, then?”
“Percival Mobley.”
At that, a great hubbub erupted in the courtroom. Though none there were acquainted with that name, nearly all knew the name Paltrow. It was that of the Laninghams, a family that had already provided the public with one murderer and two or three street ballads celebrating his deeds and death. Homicide seemed to run in the blood of the Paltrow clan. They had hoped to have their expectations satisfied by some dark revelation of a distant ancestor’s pact with the Devil which exacted homicides from each successive generation. A rumor to that effect had raced through the city as soon as it became known that the dead man had been found in a room let to one bearing that surname. And so there was a definite air of disappointment to the comment of the crowd there in the courtroom, a sort of chorus of grumbling. It was easily silenced by Sir John; it took only three good whacks of his gavel to restore order.
“Mobley, is it?” said the magistrate. “Mr. Marsden, do you have record of any Percival Mobley?”
The court clerk made a great show of searching through the papers on the table before him. At last, prefacing his response with a sigh, he said, “No, sir, I daresay I do not.”
“Why, there must be something.” Then, addressing the man before him: “You made a confession last night, did you not?”
“No, sir, I made a statement.”
“A nice distinction, yet hardly worthy of recognition. Did you make it as Lawrence Paltrow, or as — what was the name?”
“Percival Mobley — and, yes, that was, of course, the name under which I made my statement, for that is my rightful name.”
“Mr. Marsden, you say there is nothing there before you under that name?”
“Mobley? No, as I said, nothing under that name, Sir John.”
“Nor Paltrow?”
“Nothing here, neither.”
“Well, then, sir,” said the magistrate to Mr. Mobley, “how do you account for that?”
“I know not. I have made my statement, and that is that.”
“Not quite so quick. Were you or were you not marked down in the register of the Globe and Anchor as Lawrence Paltrow? “
“I have said as much.”
“But…”
Round and round they went. It was all nonsense, of course. I had listened as they planned it all together the night before. Mr. Donnelly, doctor and surgeon and medical examiner for the Westminster coroner, bandaged and plastered Mr. Mobley and brought him to some semblance of good repair. By the time he had completed his ministrations, he, too, had joined in with a few suggestions of his own.
“What you must do,” he urged, “is to mention the statement as often as possible, so that one cannot come away from the court ignorant of its existence, nor without wondering what riches it might contain.”
“Just so,” said Mr. Mobley.
“I shall acquaint Mr. Marsden with our little show,” said Sir John, “and he will be eager to play a part. He dearly loves such mummery.”
Pleased as they were with the planning, they were not thus occupied for their own entertainment. For as had been intended, I went out next morning to Fleet Street and Grub Street to offer Sir John’s invitation to the editors of a number of newspapers, which promised intriguing revelations of interest to their readers if they were to send a representative to the Bow Street Court for that day’s session. Since Sir John was not known to be one who puffed the sessions of his court, as indeed certain magistrates were known to do, three editors — those of The Public Advertiser, The Morning Chronicle, and The Times — sent representatives to the proceedings. I sat as close to them as possible (for, as journalists do, they huddled together) and was afterward pleased to tell Sir John that the response of the gentlemen of the press was exactly as hoped: At first confused, they became greatly interested when the existence of Mr. Mobley’s statement became known. Why had he signed into the hostelry as Lawrence Paltrow? Was it true, as had been rumored, that the brother of Arthur Paltrow had been preparing a claim upon the Laningham title and fortune? In insisting that he be addressed as Percival Mobley, was he now admitting that he had been preparing a false claim? These and a number of other such questions were exchanged by them at the end of the little comedy played out between Sir John and Mr. Mobley. (Sir John ruled at last that the gentleman with two names might be charged under both of them.) The journalists were still talking heatedly among themselves as the courtroom emptied.