As he chewed on a morsel of meat from Annie’s well-spiced stew, he said without preamble: “Mr. Tollivercame in again today to be questioned.”
Lady Fielding and I were suddenly frozen, spoons halted in midpassage to our mouths.
“He was more forthcoming this time and not near so disputatious. In short, he was more cooperative.”
We two looked one at the other.
Sir John continued chewing until, satisfied, he swallowed. “He is no longer suspect,” said he, then dipped his spoon again.
As the days went by, tension mounted once again. The capture and swift trial of the Raker had provided a temporary release. Yet word got out on the streets that there were two homicides, and them the bloodiest, to which he had refused to admit. One by one, the whores took the shelter of the gin mills and dives and began again to be more careful about those whom they accepted as customers. Lady Fielding reported that even after a spate of defections, the Magdalene Home for Penitent Prostitutes was once more filled to its capacity.
The Bow Street Runners, too, had returned to the routine required earlier by Sir John. They carried lanterns about with which they were to look in all the dark corners. In addition to his club, each carried a brace of pistols. Only one accommodation was made: Mr. Bailey, speaking for the men, had registered a complaint to the magistrate that wearing a cutlass in its heavy scabbard impeded them so that they would be unable to run should they be forced to give chase; Sir John, giving due weight to the argument, allowed that the wearing of a cutlass might be considered optional. To a man they opted to turn them in to Mr. Baker.
Towards the end of the week, I was visited by Mr. Donnelly. I had glimpsed him below on his way to sec Sir John sometime earlier, and so I knew that the two had had quite a lengthy conversation. With me. he had no need to spend so much time. He found me polishing silver with Annie — or. more accurately, polishing silver under her direction; indeed she could be as exacting as her mistress in matters pertaining to her kitchen. She greeted him right pertly with a curtsey and a smile. I. who was better acquainted with him. was a little less effusive in my greeting and certainly less flirtatious.
‘“I thought. Jeremy.” said he. “that I might take another look at that cut at the back of your head. Perhaps we can make it the last.”
“It would please me greatly to be rid of this great bandage.” said I. “Should we go to my bedroom?”
“No. here in the kitchen should do well — that is. if you’ve no objection. Mistress Annie?”
Unused to being deferred to. she could only mumble something in the negative. She stepped back, blushing.
Carefully he unwound the great turban I had worn on my head for the last several days. Then just as carefully he examined the cut.
“Does it cause you pain. Jeremy?”
“Oh no, nothing at all.”
“And what about the effects of the concussion? Any giddiness?”
“No. none. Well … there was gin poured into my coffee unbeknownst to me. That left me giddy for a bit.”
“At your age? I daresay it would. You may tell me that story on some other occasion.” Then did he add. “Soon.”
Mr. Donnelly questioned me on all the other possible ill-effects I might feel following a concussion. And I truthfully answered in the negative to each one. Then, after washing the cut with gin. he asked for scissors, cut off a bit of my hair, and made a plaster which he applied to the cut. Through it all. Annie had watched, quite fascinated.
“There.” said he, “that should do you. In no time at all, the plaster can be removed.”
Packing up his bag. he frowned as if a moment in thought.
“Jeremy,” said he, “I wonder if you might be my guest at dinner evening after next — I thought perhaps at the Cheshire Cheese where once we dined before. I’ve asked Sir John, and he has no objections. There are some things I’d like to discuss with you.”
“With me? Why, yes, certainly, Mr. Donnelly.”
“Good. I shall be by for you at about seven.”
With that and no more he bade us both goodbye in taking his leave.
“Well,” said Annie, quite consumed with envy, “dinner with the doctor. Ain’t that a grand thing?”
“Yes, quite an astonishment,” said I.
“What might he have to discuss with you?”
‘I’ve no idea, none at all.”
Although, because of the sordid nature of the Raker’s crimes, every effort had been made by Sir John and the Lord Chief Justice to shield him from the public eye. the law called for his execution by hanging, and custom demanded that it be done publicly at Tyburn. They feared riot. He was. at least in legend, so well known and was so loathed by the populace, that when hanging day came (which followed the next after Mr. Donnelly’s visit) all precautions were taken that he be given safe passage from Newgate to the triangular gallows. If the crowd were large and unmanageable, he could be pulled down from the can and trampled to death or his body torn asunder. Therefore, in addition to the usual ca\airy escort, who made their way with sabres drawn, there was a squad of foot immediately surrounding the cart, and they marched with muskets at port arms and bayonets fixed.
I. having long before promised Sir John I would attend no public hangings, was not present — nor indeed would I have wished to be. There is to my mind no amusement and little edification to be gained watching a man in the throes of strangulation at the end of a rope. However, my chum Jimmie Bunkins, who is not in the least squeamish, did attend the ceremony and brought back a report which he gave me following our instruction from Mr. Perkins, which I had that day resumed.
“Well,” said Bunkins, “I went to Tuck ‘em Fair this noonday to see the Raker get crapped, and first off there weren’t no riot.”
“I’m relieved to hear it,” said I.
“There should’ve been, ‘cause I never seen such a rum crowd with such queer intentions. They covered the whole hill, from the gallows back as far as you could see. There was some stones and shit-bits heaved at the cart, but as many hit the rum tom pat and the two others who were set to get crapped with him as hit the Raker. But each time there was a move at the cart to stop it or to pull the Raker down, those who tried would get a whack with the flat of a sabre or nudged with the point of a bayonet. So that way they brought him to the gallows. And the horse soldiers and the foot soldiers made a ring round him as they got him and the two others off the cart and marched him up the stairs.
“And when he shows, there’s a great roar that went up from the crowd. I was up front, on’y I wished I wasn’t, for first of all every drab and bawd in Covent Garden was up there with me, screamin’ the foulest curses they knew. Oh, he heard ‘em, he heard ‘em fair. And you know what he does? He puts a great big smile on his ugly mug, like he’s never had such a grand time before. He’s standin’ there, grinnin’ away like an eejit, and the crap merchant is circlin’ the noose round his head. And then he starts to do a little dance on the floor of the gallows, like he’s tellin’ them he’ll soon be doin’ a dance like that up in the air. So the rope was set, and he shouted out somethin’ none could hear for the screamin’ of the whores. Then, just before he went up, he lets fly this great gob of snotty spittle, and it hits the whore next me in the face. He got her with a rum shot, and she the loudest of all, I swear. So that was the other reason I wished I’d stood back in the crowd. I got a bit of the splatter on me coat.”
“Did he take long to die?” I asked, having oft wondered if death for Mariah had been immediate.
“Not long,” said Bunkins, as a connoisseur of such matters. “Yet he jumped around right queer on the rope. Though he was plain daft, I give him credit. He died damned hard and bold as brass.”
I confess, reader, that I had wished his dying prolonged.