“And among the robbers you recognized the man you knew as Johnny Skylark?” I interrupted, thinking to urge her forward.
But she was not to be hurried. She took a deep breath and continued her story, telling how upon that night she had, of a sudden, heard a great thunder of footsteps on the ground floor above and could not suppose what was happening above stairs. Then, starting up the steps to find out what she could, she was nearly knocked over by a half-dozen of the staff chased by two black men who prodded them down at cutlass-point. Her two kitchen slaveys were routed out of bed to join the rest. Then came another of the robbers from up above and delivered a little speech to all those who had been packed into the little kitchen, assuring them that all would be safe if they kept quiet and be patient “whilst me and my fellows go about our business.” If, on the other hand, any on the household staff attempted to resist or escape, they would surely be murdered on the spot.
“Wad that himl” I demanded — indeed, I fairly shouted.
“Who?”
“Why, Johnny Skylark — John Abernathy, whatever you wish to call him,” said I. “Its of him you’ve been talking the last quarter hour, is it not?”
“Course it is,” said she, “and course it was him. I just wanted you to know how I came to reco’nize him after all those years.”
“How many years was it?”
“Over ten. Was it so long?” She reflected, looking back upon her life, searching for milestones. “No, longer — it was close on twelve years past.”
“How did you recognize him? What was it convinced you?”
“Well, I b’lieve it was his voice,” said she. “I’ve a good memory for them, and when he first started speakin’, I was lookin’ off in some other direction, and when I heard the first word or two, I said to myself, ‘Here now, I know that voice.’ And just as anyone might, I turned to it to see who it belonged to. It took me a moment because of the way he had changed, but I’m sure it was him, for you see, I came to know him well.”
“The way he had changed?” I repeated. “In which way had he changed?”
“Well, course he was older, and that may account for all else. But he looked cold to me, cruel — and that was never him before. He was a warm person, a lovely, funny sort of man.”
“I see.” There was something specific I wished to hear from her, yet I knew not how to get it, short of putting words in her mouth. And I knew, having heard Sir John interrogate so many, that such would never do. As she had told her story, a number of approaches had occurred to me — but I had rejected all. At last, I decided to put it to her in the plainest manner possible: “Mistress Bleeker, would you tell me please if John Abernathy, who was known to you as Johnny Skylark, was a white man or a black man?”
Reader, she gave me the queerest look ever had been sent my way, as if she thought me just escaped from Bedlam. Then, surprisingly, she started to laugh. “Now I know what you mean,” said she, once she had calmed down a bit. “It’s that silly dark paint he wore that you’re talkin’ about, now ain’t it?”
“Yes, I suppose it is.”
“Well, that didn’t fool me, not one bit. Once you know someone well as I knew my Johnny, then a bit of paint ain’t going to fool you. No, he was white, all right — white as you or me. Mossman, the porter, he said that all of that crew — least all he’d seen — were got up in that same way and may not have been real black men at all. But Crocker, she thinks the one cut her nose was a true African.”
So it seemed that the household staff had discussed the matter in detail amongst themselves. That, I feared, could be dangerous to Maude Bleeker, and perhaps to Crocker as well.
“You were standing quite close to him, I take it.”
“Close enough to reco’nize him. Near as close as I am to you right now.”
“Do you suppose you were close enough that he might have recognized you?”
She took that under consideration. I could do naught but wait. At last she did shake her head indicating the negative. “No,” said she, “there was no sign of reco’nition from him. I doubt he even saw me, though I was right in front of him. Even if he had …” She lowered her gaze. “I’m much stouter than I was twelve years ago. Two or three stone can make a great difference in a person’s appearance.”
“Even so,” said I, “it would be wrong to bandy his name about.
Indeed, I would not discuss it further with members of the staff. The robbers have murdered once, you know.”
That ended my interrogation, such as it was. I told her that I, or perhaps Sir John, might return to ask more questions of her. Or, on the other hand, she might be invited to Bow Street.
Yet there was something more. I spoke up just as she was leaving, and she turned back to me in the doorway to the pantry.
“May I ask one last question?”
“Ask it,” said she.
“You may have helped us considerably in the investigation with what you’ve told me,” said I. “Why did you do it?”
“I ain’t thought about that too much,” said she. “But it seemed like the only thing to do. When I heard what Johnny had done — all the stealing, and now the killing — well, I didn’t see how I could hold nothing back.”
“Thank you,” said I, “but do be careful.”
I was let out the back door, five steps up from the kitchen to the garden. To me it was apparent that Maude’s friends wished to keep Mr. Collier ignorant of my comings and goings. They were suspicious of him. Perhaps I should have been, too, but that afternoon I had spent in his company was sufficient to convince me that he was no real danger to me or to any of the staff. He seemed at worst simply a nosey old fellow of forty: envious, fearful, ineffectual. Wrong he may have been to make such unseemly haste in applying for Arthur s position, but I knew him to be desperate, despite the bold words he had spoken when last we had met. He knew no other way of earning his bread except butlering, and so when the opportunity came, he grabbed for it, not giving damn-all for Arthur, nor for anyone else. I supposed that I could not greatly blame him for it.
Marching on to Mr. Bilbo’s residence in St. James Street, I reviewed my purpose in going there. Deep down, I felt I had been sent by Sir John on a fool’s errand. If Bunkins and the coachmen were certain to lie to me, what then was the purpose of asking them at all about Mr. Burnham’s activities the night before? According to Sir John, by closely examining their lies we might reach the truth. That seemed a dubious premise to me.
I allowed myself these rebellious thoughts, for I felt that my questioning of Maude Bleeker had yielded the most important facts yet uncovered in the investigation. I was quite filled with my own success as an interrogator, never considering that I hardly had any right to claim it. After all, I had been sent by the porter to hear what she had to say, had I not? It had been her wish to tell me what she had experienced, and what she had seen, was it not? And why had I been summoned, why had I been told so much? I had sense enough not to believe the reason she had given. It was far less likely that she should have been prompted by that great list of crimes of which he had presumably been guilty, than that she was inspired by a desire for revenge against her betrayer. Yet, whatever her motive, she had made us a great gift. That was the truth of it; nevertheless, I had convinced myself that I had drawn the information from her most cleverly, that I had managed somehow to trick it out of her.
And so did I come to that house in St. James Street, which I had known by an odd set of circumstances* since my first days in London. I hopped up the three steps to the oaken door, as beautifully paneled as any in St. James, grasped the heavy knocker, and rapped four times. Waiting, I heard steps beyond the door; then they ceased, but contrary to my expectations, the door did not swing open. Still I waited. I rapped again and again, and again heard the shuffle of feet on the other side.