“I doubt it,” said I. “First of all, Newmarket is quite some distance north-near Cambridge it is. And then, too, Deuteronomy has been so cooperative the last day or two that I, personally, think there’s no need to keep a close watch on the fellow.”
“But say you were to go up there,” said she. “Since this is an all-England event, might it not be that there would be an even greater number of bettors, and consequently greater sums wagered?”
What was she getting at, I wondered. “That would be a probable result,” said I.
“Well then, Newmarket offers a great opportunity.”
“An opportunity of what sort?”
“Just think of it. If we were to combine your money with mine-we each have a little, after all-the combined amount would be, well, no longer just a little, but more than that.”
“Yet still not a lot!”
“Nevertheless,” she declared, “it could be enough to win us our fortune, given favorable odds.”
“Favorable odds? Dear God, Clarissa, are you seriously proposing that we gamble away the little money we have in pursuit of making a fortune for ourselves? Why, that’s. . that’s laughable.”
“Not with favorable odds and the right attitude.”
Though what she said was silly, somehow she did not appear silly saying it. No, the expression she wore on her face was one of quiet conviction. She believed profoundly in what she said.
“And what, pray tell, is the right attitude?”
“Prayerful and submissive.”
At that I threw up my hands in dismay. “Oh, Clarissa, be serious, won’t you?”
“I am being serious-and never more so. This is our future we’re discussing, is it not? Don’t you see? We could be married!”
Arriving as I did in the Haymarket Coffee House only minutes after my departure from Number 4 Bow Street, I expected to pass a quarter of an hour or more sipping my favorite Jamaica brew before the arrival of Mr. Deuteronomy. Had I not hurried the distance that I might enjoy myself thus? Some men can spend a day drinking their good English bitter, others will consume gin or rum as long as they are upright. Yet my passion had been and always would be to drink coffee. It is in every way superior to those alcoholic beverages, for while they stupefy him who partakes of them, coffee quickens and sharpens the senses and improves the function of the brain. Let all who doubt me note that coffee is the favored refreshment in all such places as Lloyd’s and the Old Bailey, in which the leaders of commerce, business, and the law do gather. Now, the Haymarket’s patrons, while in no wise leaders in such fields, were in no wise in the same class as the louts, criminals, and drunkards, who frequented the dives and grog shops in Bedford Street and Seven Dials. It was, however, as one might suppose, just the sort of place that might be frequented by one such as Deuteronomy Plummer.
And he was here already, having preceded me by half-a-mug of Jamaica brew. He was all for leaving at the moment of my arrival that we might continue our search for his sister. But pleading an early rising time and the need to discuss his new notion regarding the pistol taken from Katy Tiddle, I managed to convince him that it would be best to discuss the next step to be taken before taking it. I ordered a coffee for myself.
“Did you bring that pistol along?” he demanded. “The one I asked you to?”
“Certainly I did,” said I, and, having said that, lifted it carefully out of my pocket and placed it on the table between us. The server came just then with my mug of coffee, and his eyes widened as he beheld the thing on the table-yet he said not a word. Indeed, it was a rather lethal-looking piece, was it not? Yet, it had a certain beauty to it, too-the engraving upon the hammer, the butt, even the barrel; and, of course, the evident signs of skill and craftsmanship that were to be seen in every detail of its construction.
“And what about the pawn ticket? Have you brought that, too?” he asked in a manner most insistent.
“Yes, of course.”
I produced it and laid it down beside the pistol.
“Good, that’s very good indeed. See here,” said he, looking about the coffee house and lowering his voice, “what I got in mind is this: The pawn ticket here ain’t no real pawn ticket at all.”
“Then what is it?”
“Why, it’s the sort of ticket you’re given in any sort of shop that serves the gentry when you bring in something that needs repair-to a tailor, a dressmaker-or to a gunsmith.”
“I don’t understand,” said I. “What is it put you in mind of this?”
“Well, the paper it’s on, for one thing. When we was passing it back and forth a day past, I happened to give it a careful look, and I noticed that it was printed upon substantial stuff and not the flimsy sort of the rest. Another thing-the numbers are just jotted down in pen and ink on the pawn tickets.”
“Whereas on this one here. .” I held up the small rectangle of stiff paper.
“The number-what is it? twenty-nine? — is printed, well, stamped upon it, really. Now, it would take a very fancy shop to use such a device as one to make a stamp with different numbers, now wouldn’t it?”
“I suppose it would, but how do you know that it’s a gunsmith’s shop?”
“I don’t-not truly. ’Tis just a maggot that’s fixed itself within my head, but there’s good reason to think it, ain’t there? You said a while back that you took it away from that Tiddle woman. And just look at it. How would the likes of her come by such? That we don’t know, but we do know that she had naught in her possession of greater value, nothing that even came close. Why, if you added up the true value of all the items we looked at yesterday-I mean the things she pawned with no intention of redeeming-we’d probably find that all together they weren’t equal in worth to this pistol. So. .”
“So? What are you suggesting?”
“That we try our luck at some of the gunsmith shops nearby. I know of a few. You probably do, too.”
Since I could think of nothing better to suggest, I agreed to follow his suggestion, though not without some misgivings. What about Sir John’s warning against allowing Mr. Deuteronomy to take the investigation out of my hands? Why had I not planned for the next step in this peculiar search? It seemed that I could do little more than ride the coattails of him I had earlier permitted merely to help.
I found Deuteronomy Plummer surprisingly knowledgeable in all matters pertaining to firearms, spouting information wherever we did go. The thought came to me, as we set off on what seemed to me a bootless effort, that my companion may simply have planned it all this way that he might escape the burden of what may have been for him simply another boring day.
We thought it best to proceed on the same general principle as we had established the day before: that Katy Tiddle was too lazy and too besotted with booze to wander far from Seven Dials. So we would try those gunsmiths who were nearest first. I admit that I found the bits of gun lore I learned along the way quite anything but boring. I recall that in the first shop we visited-Wogdon’s, I believe, right there in the Haymarket-the clerk admired the pistol we showed him but said they had nothing like it in the shop. The clerk also said that the ticket we showed him was not one of theirs. But then, just as we were leaving, he asked if we might not like to see something “a little special.” Before I could decline, Mr. Deuteronomy had accepted the invitation and had us looking over an early-sixteenth-century hand cannon. When I said quite innocently that I’d no idea there were firearms quite so early, I was set a-right by both men who, together, lectured me at great length on the history of firearms in Europe. At the next, which was Nock’s, I received the word on firing devices-matchlocks, wheel locks, and flintlocks, and had to listen as Nock’s clerk puffed Henry Nock’s contribution to the history of firearms (his patented lock), which he called a “great step forward.” It slips my mind just now what it was I learned at Manton’s, but at the shop of Joseph Griffin in Bond Street I learned nothing at all.