“What have they found?” the porter asked quite simultaneously.
The Dutch woman said nothing, simply peered suspiciously at me.
“All your questions will be answered soon,” said I, “but I must insist that you go back into the kitchen.”
Reluctantly, they trooped back inside — except for Hulda. She looked me up and down and liked not what she saw.
“Who are you to tell us what to do?” said she. “You are but a boy.”
“That’s as may be,” said I to her, “but I speak for Sir John Fielding and at his command. If you wish to spend the night in your bed, rather than on the cold floor of the strongroom at Number 4 Bow Street so that he may question you tomorrow at his leisure, then I would advise you to do what he says — and what he would have me say speaking for him.”
She said nothing in reply but looked at me critically, then proceeded into the kitchen.
I followed her, closing the door behind us, and headed for the stairs. “Keep her here,” said I to the cook and the porter. “Sir John will be down soon.” And that was how I left them.
When I returned to the library, I found the interrogation proceeding apace. Mrs. Trezavant was enumerating, describing, and giving an evaluation to each piece of jewelry in her collection, no doubt at Sir John s request. Whether or no he had requested it, he seemed powerfully bored by her recitaclass="underline" He, now seated, moved his head about — right and left, up and down — in an exercise he sometimes used to keep sleep at bay; Mr. Johnson, his chin resting upon his chest, had evidently already succumbed.
I went quickly to Sir John, making no effort to tiptoe or otherwise muffle my footsteps. He turned in my direction as Mrs. Trezavant looked up in annoyance and stopped speaking.
“Yes, Jeremy, what is it?”
I bent to his ear and whispered the news, much abbreviated but accurate so far as it went. He nodded his understanding and rose. “I regret, Mr. and Mrs. Trezavant, that I must leave you and attend to matters below stairs.”
“What could you possibly learn from our servants that you cannot know from us?” she demanded.
“A great deal, I fear. You did not know, I’m sure, that a corpus lay in your back garden.”
“What’s that? What’s that? A corpus?” cried Mr. Johnson, suddenly awake and jumping to his feet with surprising agility.
“That is correct, sir,” said Sir John to his companion. “Do you wish to accompany us?”
“By all means, let us go then,” said Mr. Johnson, most eagerly.
“By all means, we, too, shall come along,” said Mr. Trezavant. “We must know who is dead.”
“Oh, I think not,” said Sir John. “That you will find out soon enough. And it has been my experience that servants are much more likely to talk freely if their masters are not present.”
“But may I remind you, sir, that they are our servants.”
“I’m aware of that, Mr. Trezavant, but if you insist upon interposing yourselves in such a manner, then you will make it necessary for me to bring them to Bow Street one by one that I may talk with them privately. It would likely prove disruptive to your household and troublesome to me.” He paused but a moment, then went on to add: “Please, sir, oblige me in this.”
A silence of greater duration ensued. Man and wife exchanged looks, then at last he responded to Sir John’s plea. “Well, you have bested me in this, sir, as you have often done before. Will you have further need of us?”
“I think not.”
“Then Mr. Trezavant and I shall retire. Goodnight to you.”
With that, we left. I led the way with Sir John at my side, his hand resting lightly upon my forearm. Samuel Johnson followed close behind; we were, I fear, not quite out of earshot when he pushed forward and said in a loud whisper, “Well done, sir, well done!”
By the time we had reached the kitchen, it had been decided that I must go and fetch Mr. Donnelly, the surgeon, and arrange for a wagon to convey Crocker’s corpus to his surgery.
“Do you not wish me to search round the body and describe its condition?”
“No,” said Sir John with a sigh, “the three of you have already trampled the area, no doubt. As for describing the body to me, perhaps I shall depend upon Mr. Johnson for that. He is said to have great powers of observation, and since he is with us, he may as well earn his keep.” Then did he call out to our guest, who trailed us on the stairway: “I trust you heard that, sir?”
“Oh, I did indeed, and I assure you I am quite ready to do whatever may be required of me.”
Having had the matter thus settled, I put Sir John in the charge of Mr. Bailey and made ready to go. As I said my goodbye, Sir John grasped my wrist and brought me closer to him.
“Jeremy,” said he, “the girl who lies dead in the garden, she is the one with whom you went out walking Sunday last — is she not?”
“She is, yes sir.”
“Well, I know not if you were attracted to her in the way that lads your age often are, but perhaps you were. If it is so, and you feel a sense ol loss, I want you to know that you have my sympathy.” “Yes sir,” said I obediently. “Thank you, sir.”
So troubled was I by his parting words that I pondered them the entire distance to Mr. Donnelly’s surgery. How did I feel about Jenny Crocker? Had I fancied her as all the lads in Covent Garden seemed to fancy Annie? Perhaps, for our conversation had touched upon intimate matters I had not discussed with any female; that, I admit, had titillated me somewhat — or perhaps more than somewhat. That she was quite fetching in a saucy and well-favored sort of way, there could be no doubt. She was likeable and responsive. Yet we had parted on bad terms — why was that? As I recalled, she had taken offense at my questions, which had to do with the robbery — quite ordinary questions, they seemed to me. Still, there was something more, was there not? She wanted something from me I was unable to provide — what it was I could not quite understand. Perhaps I was too thick-headed, or simply had not sufficient experience to read the signs.
In fact, I considered the matter even after I arrived at the surgery in Drury Lane. Mr. Donnelly, as it happened, was not present when I came banging upon his door. There was naught to do but wait for him there on his front steps and think more upon this matter of Jenny Crocker.
Had I acted callously toward her? I thought not, though perhaps she would have been of a different opinion. Was I sorry for the awful fate that had taken her? Of course I was, yet I felt sorrow in the manner that anyone might if shown the lifeless body of one who had died so young. And to have died in a manner so squalid! Why had she been murdered? What was she doing out there in her petticoat? Did I feel a sense of loss, as Sir John had suggested I might? No, merely a sense of bafflement.
As I posed such questions to myself and attempted to dig deeper that I might solve the mystery surrounding Crocker’s death, my eyes registered the curious street life before me there in Drury Lane. Though the theater (across the street and off to the right) had discharged its audience sometime before, there were many pedestrians teeming the walkways on both sides of the street. Most of them gave the impression that they were casual strollers, moving with easy indifference up and down the street. Nevertheless, I, who had by then lived years hard by Covent Garden, knew very well that though they seemed so unconcerned, they were truly a great gang of sharpers, pimps, whores, and pickpockets out on a darkey and on the lookout for flats and cods easily caught. The same faces appeared in the street from night to night; many of them, men and women, had spent nights in the strongroom at Number 4 Bow Street.
And as they sauntered and ambled, all the while the coach horses hurried along, hooves and shoes clip-clopping on the cobblestones. Hackneys and private coaches with teams of two and four pranced smartly up and down the lane. I found the scene before me somewhat hypnotic. As I waited, I continued to watch. And as I watched, my head began to nod, and my eyelids drooped. I might have fallen asleep right there on Mr. Donnelly’s doorstep (and had my pocket picked right down to the last farthing as I dozed), but I was fortunate in that Mr. Donnelly chose that moment, when I was about to topple headlong into the arms of Morpheus, to make his return.