Another sigh. “Yes, Sir John.”
“Now tell me, either one of you, whose idea was it to create this” — Sir John hesitated — “this tissue of hasty conclusions and outright calumny?”
The two men then spoke in chorus: “It was his.” And so saying, each pointed at the other.
“Well,” said the magistrate, “I see that there is some difference of opinion here. Let me ask the questions and weigh your responses. Mr. Neville, how is it you say Mr. Nicholson initiated the enterprise?”
“Why, sir, because he called me to his office and suggested I make a journalistic inquiry into the murder of Polly Tarkin, which I had then not even heard about. He believed there to be material for a broadsheet in it.”
“Very well,” said Sir John, “and how was it you came to hear of the murder, Mr. Nicholson?”
“From Giles Ponder, vicar of St. Paul’s Covent Garden, who has a book in preparation with us. He said that he was wakened by a commotion — voices, lanterns, and such — at the back gate of the churchyard. He went down to investigate and heard from a constable that a woman had been found murdered just there. The constable and a lad were just then in the act of moving her body.”
I was that lad, of course. And I recalled a visit from a half-dressed churchman, his nightshirt hanging down over his pantaloons, who demanded to know what we were about. (Sir John was off at that moment talking with Mistress Linney and her colleagues.) Constable Brede, tight-lipped as ever, had told him simply that — a woman had been murdered — and wished him a good night. Or a good morning, for by then dawn was breaking.
“And on that information you summoned Mr. Neville, did you?”
“I did, yes, sir.”
“And you, Mr. Neville, set out to discover what you could about this grisly affair?”
“Yes, sir,” said Ormond Neville.
“And how came you by the information you wrote?”
“Well, I found to my surprise and good luck that one of my circle of acquaintance was a neighbor of the victim, that he lived literally next door to her. He gave me her name, informed me of her occupation and where I might look for those among her scarlet sisters who could tell me more. I went to Bedford Street, bought a few glasses of gin for them, and soon had much of what was needed.”
“Let me detain you, sir,” said Sir John. “That member of your circle must have been Mr. Thaddeus Millhouse, a poet by his own description. He was that morning in the strong room here at the Bow Street Court awaiting his time in court for refusing to obey my order to clear the alley where the murder had taken place. Did you talk to him there?”
My attention had been drawn immediately to Thaddeus Millhouse at the mention by Ormond Neville of “one of my circle of acquaintances.” I fear I stared. Whether out of shame or guilt, he shrank down in his place next to Mr. Goldsmith, and when his name was mentioned, he actually sought to hide his face. And to what purpose? Only five or six in the courtroom would have recognized him and one of them was blind. But of course no man would wish to hear his name in open court in such circumstances. Still, it did seem strange.
Mr. Neville surprised me with his response to Sir John’s question.
“Yes, I did. Mr. Millhouse’s wife had heard of his misfortune and asked me to bring him a clean shirt that he might look more presentable for his appearance in court. That I did, and your jailer allowed me in for that purpose. I had a brief conversation with Mr. Millhouse at that time, in which I mentioned the matter of my investigation for the purpose of the broadsheet.”
“Hmmm,” said Sir John, “most interesting. And then to women of the streets that you might learn more. It was from them that you learned of Yossel Davidovich and his altercation with the victim.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Had any of those you talked to actually witnessed the altercation? I can near answer that myself, for I think it highly unlikely, unless you talked with Sarah Linney, for she was the only witness.”
“Well, I did not take their names. There were but two.”
“D/W either of these women claim to have witnessed the altercation?”
“Not in so many words, no. but they said this Yossel fellow was seen in such a situation with the victim. They did not like him at all; one swore she’d been robbed by him, that he’d produced a knife and threatened to cut off her nose. He seemed to have been a very nasty individual.”
“Yet as concerned the quarrel between Yossel and the victim, you accepted hearsay.”
“Well, I could not search further for witnesses and such. The broadsheet had to be written that very day!”
“And due to that press of time, you were willing to accuse him of murder with no more to support the accusation than a surmise that he could have returned to that spot, taken her down the alley, and murdered her. And that surmise, further, was based on nothing more than hearsay. Mr. Neville, that will not do/’ That he said most solemnly. Yet the next moment Sir John seemed to be suppressing a smile. “You said, sir, that from what you were told, Yossel Davidovich seemed a very nasty individual. But tell me, what was your impression of him?”
“A/v impression? Why, how would I — ”
“You passed the night in his company.”
“Do you mean, sir, that that sniveling little wretch in the strong room was he? He shivered half the night in fear because ‘they’ were after him — never said who they’ were, actually. Said he’d never be able to walk the streets of London again. So that was Yossel! You don’t say so!”
“Ah, but I do, sir. And in fact, he had reason to fear, for ‘they’ were indeed after him. He and the rabbi who persuaded him to obey my summons to come in for questioning were chased and harried all the way to Bow Street by a citizenry enraged by your inflammatory broadsheet. If two of my constables had not interceded to protect them, bodily harm might have been done to both men — the one because you had erroneously defamed him and the other because he was manifestly a Jew. And so the charges against you are proven. You did interfere with and impede my inquiry into the death of Polly Tarkin by wrongly yet with great certitude identifying Yossel Davidovich as her murderer. It was established in the course of this morning’s inquest that he could not have done the deed by a witness who accounted for his time. And as for inciting to riot, that charge is also proven, as what might have been a riot was averted by a swift show of force by the Bow Street Runners. And so, Ormond Neville, you are found guilty on both charges. But to me, sir, perhaps more flagrant and damaging than the charges were the ancient calumnies against the Jews which you repeated in the broadsheet. Whatever possessed you to do so?”
“Uh … well… sir, you must understand that it takes a great many words to fill a broadsheet, and I thought to fill it out with a bit of history.”
”History, is it? And how came you by this ‘history’? Was it taught you in school? Was it read in a book?”
“No, but for a period I served as secretary to the British consul. Sir Anthony Allman, in the city of St. Petersburg in Russia. I had many conversations with Russians at that time regarding the Jews, and they seemed very certain of the facts regarding the secret practices of the Israelites. Let us say, I had the information on good authority.”
“I question that authority,” said Sir John, “just as I deny your so-called facts. Did you find these Russians to be otherwise well informed? Did they exhibit great wisdom in other matters?”
“They seemed to me very cultured,” said Neville, “for they all spoke French.”
“And is that your standard? Bah, I say, and bah again. The Russians are a benighted people who would say the world was flat if they did not own so much of it. I reject your ‘history,’ sir, and if there were a law against slandering a people, I should charge you on that count as well, for you are clearly guilty of slandering the Jews.” With that. Sir John paused, as if to catch his breath. “But there is no such law, and so we must turn now to Mr. Benjamin Nicholson. Mr. Nicholson, tell me, when Mr. Neville brought to you what he had written, did you read it through?”