“Yes, well, Jeremy, these lords and ladies, they get pretty tetchy when you approach them just as you might anyone,” said Mr. Baker.
“Oh, I know that, and I was polite as could be. It’s just. . Oh, let’s end it right there, shall we?”
“Perhaps we’d best,” said Patley. “We got to collect our winnings before the oddsman does a scarper on us. We’ll meet you right here, and we’ll all ride back to town together. Suit you, Jeremy?” Then, as an afterthought: “Deuteronomy, by the bye, rides mostly for Lamford.”
With that, they left me where I stood, and I moved a few steps closer to Lord Lamford-close enough, in any case, that I might hear him boast to his fellows in his self-assured drawl of how he had won the race:“. . told my man to hold him back till the last heat, and then-then did you see him go?” And did they not all crowd round him to listen to his braggadocio! One would think that Deuteronomy Plummer had just sat astride Pegasus all afternoon because the rules required it: all two-year-olds must be accompanied by an adult-something of that sort.
As my mind went to Deuteronomy, so also did my eyes. He stood, saying naught, holding loosely onto the reins of the horse. I studied him at a distance of forty or fifty feet. He talked to no one and looked neither right nor left until; all of a sudden, he turned in my direction and looked straight at me. It was as though he had known all along that I was there. Then, staring at me in the expressionless manner he had looked at us when we applauded him, he handed the reins to a nearby groom and came straight over to me. When he arrived, he looked me up and down and said naught for a good long bit. When at last he did speak, he expressed doubt.
“Are you really the Beak’s assistant?”
“Yes,” said I, “yes I am. If you want to hear that confirmed, you can wait for those two men I was with to come back. They’re both constables at the Bow Street Court.”
“No, if you say so, then I’ll believe you. Just keep that in mind, though, ’cause if you lie to me, I’ll find out, and then I’ll never believe you again. Even if you told me today was Easter Sunday, I’d say it wasn’t.”
“All right, what do you want to know?”
“I want to know if he’s going to do something about all this that has to do with Alice and-you know-my niece. Is he going to do something, or just shake his head and go on to the next thing?”
“That’s not his way. If you’d seen him when I brought him word, then you’d know that.”
“Did he shed a tear? I wept for that child all night long.”
“No, that’s not his way, either. He can’t cry. It’s to do with his blindness.”
“All right, put it like this: Has he got anybody working on it?”
I hesitated but a moment. “I’m working on it right now.”
He sniggered in spite of himself. “You? What’re you doing here? Investigating the horses?”
“No, Sir John sent me here because he believed you were capable of killing your sister when you left him yester evening. He thought it would be good if I showed up here, so you’d see me and know that we were keeping an eye on you.”
“I b’lieve I could have done her in if I’d come across her then.”
“But not now?”
“No, not now. Whilst I was busy shedding tears, I did some thinking. And it seemed to me that he-and prob’ly you, too-are better at investigating than I’ll ever be. So the best thing would be if we was to investigate together. You help me, and I’ll help you.”
“After all,” said I, “whatever you think of your sister, it wasn’t she who killed her daughter. We’ll need her to find the one who did.”
“That’s where I come in,” said he. “I’ve got some ideas where she might be. And I thought we might go together, that is, if you. .”
“I’ll need all the help you can give me, Mr. Deuteronomy.”
“All right then, what say we get us together and meet at the coffee house that faces onto Haymarket Square-say about eleven o’clock.”
“I know the place. I’ll be there at eleven.”
With that, he nodded, turned, and walked away. Well, I thought, there’ll be a lot to talk about with Sir John when I get back to Bow Street.
On the contrary, my report to Sir John was given to him quickly in his study. He listened carefully to all that I had to say, nodding thoughtfully but making no comment. Even when I came at last to the offer made by Deuteronomy Plummer to join in the search for his sister, Sir John’s immediate response was simply a grunt. ’Twas only as I completed my recital and rose to return to the kitchen that the magistrate commented upon the information I had given him.
“I take it you accepted Deuteronomy’s offer of help?”
“Why, yes I did,” said I. “Is that not as you would have it?”
“Oh yes, certainly it is. But let me give you a bit of advice.”
“Please, sir.”
“Simply put, it is this: Though he may have said that you know more than he about how to conduct an investigation, he will nevertheless try to wrest control of the investigation from you. Don’t allow him to do that. Remember that you have something specific that you had intended to attend to. One way or another, with him or without him, you must attend to it. You will, won’t you?”
“I will, sir,” said I, yet still I hung on, unwilling to leave.
“You may go, Jeremy. Your dinner may be cold, yet I think you will deem it one of the best you’ve eaten.”
“I’m indeed looking forward to it, sir, but. . well, may I ask, is there perhaps something wrong?”
“Wrong? How do you mean that, Jeremy?”
“You seemed so silent, so removed.”
“Oh, I heard you well enough, but my mind was, I admit, upon other matters. It being Easter, I found myself thinking upon this Plummer case-the little girl pulled dead from the Thames, perhaps sold by her mother to a fate so hideous it cannot, should not, even be mentioned. I wondered what, if anything, God thinks of all this-if He may wonder from time to time if it was all worth the trouble.” He sighed a deep-oh, a profound sigh. And only then did he add, “I received Mr. Donnelly’s final autopsy report today. Mr. Marsden read it to me. It seems then that in spite of all that was done to her, Margaret Plummer died of asphyxiation. She was smothered.”
With that, I bade him goodnight and went down to claim my dinner. A considerable slice of that glorious ham, of which Clarissa was so proud, had been warmed for me upon the fire in a pan. The potatoes and carrots, more difficult to warm, were served to me cold by her.
Ah, but Clarissa was afterward anything but cold. We did hug and kiss, squeeze and fondle, for now that we were engaged to be engaged, she allowed me liberties (indeed, took a few herself) which were never before offered, nor even requested. Such was our situation: we carried on a courtship under the very noses of Sir John and Lady Fielding, altogether certain that they guessed naught of the change in our relations. But perhaps they knew more, and knew it earlier, than we had supposed.
Next day, when I met with Deuteronomy Plummer at the Haymarket Coffee House, I spread out before him on the table all the numbered stubs and tickets that I had found in Katy Tiddle’s room.
He glanced at them indifferently, shrugged, and said, “What about them?”
“Well, what are they? I’ve studied them, and all I can tell you is that the numbers were written by diverse hands, and that, no matter how they are arranged and rearranged, they make no sense. That is to say, there was no code discernible. But how could there be, with so many numbers in so many different hands? After all-?”
“Leave off, leave off,” said Mr. Deuteronomy in a way somewhat gruff. “You mean to tell me that you’ve no proper notion of what these here bits of paper might be?”
“None at all.” I hesitated. “It’s been suggested to me that these may be pawn tickets, though somehow I doubt it.”
“Well, that tells me more about you than it does about this Katy Tiddle woman. Of course they’re pawn tickets. Did you never pawn?”