An Experiment in Treason (27 page)

“Well, I’m pleased to hear it,” said I, “though not truly surprised.”

“But don’t you see? We could get married, too, perhaps have a double wedding.”

“I’m afraid not. They’re Catholic and we … we’re not.”

“Oh, what does that matter? I’ll be seventeen, and you’ll be nineteen, and that’s old enough to be married any way we wish, isn’t it?”

“No, it’s not,” said I quite emphatically, “and let me give you some good reasons why it is not. First of all, if we were to marry next year, I could not support you, for I would have no profession, no job, nothing.”

“Well, I could work, too. I could take over from Molly, for she has promised to teach me to cook.”

“And when you become pregnant?”

“Well … I’ll … I’ll …”

“No, we must wait till I have reached my majority and may pass the bar.”

“But that seems so far in the future.” She hesitated but a moment, then did she blurt forth: “You said we would simply wait till then, did you not?”

“I did.”

“Then we have an understanding! But Jeremy, this is wonderful! We’re engaged to be engaged.”

She jumped to her feet and flew round the table. I had barely time to stand upon my own two feet before she had her arms about me, quite covering my face with kisses. She squeezed me and I, having the hang of it, kissed her back.

To say that we enjoyed ourselves does little to describe our feelings at that moment. Clarissa’s bosom heaved with excitement, as all the while we kissed and fondled. I held her so tight I wondered that I might hurt her. And indeed I thought I might have done, when of a sudden, she threw back her head in what I took to be a swoon.

“Clarissa,” I whispered in fright, “are you all right?”

“Oh, Jeremy,” said she, “I’m so happy.”

Tom Durham left more or less in disgrace, accompanied to the Post Coach House only by his mother. He had engaged a barrow man to haul his sea chest to the coach house. Twas only by chance that I saw them leave, and it happened so because at the hour of their early departure I was just setting off upon my first errand of the day. The barrow man was just loading the sea chest. He was a bigger, and I may say, stronger man than I, and he had difficulty with it; I wondered who would have supposed that I could simply throw it up on my shoulder and trudge off to the coach house. Tom would have been better able than I.

I considered the situation, as mother and son gave their attention to the travail of the barro-w man, and I decided that I must offer some sort of good-bye. And so I stepped over to Tom, touched him lightly upon the arm, and offered my hand.

“Tom,” said I, “I wish you all the best in the pursuit of your career.”

He looked down at my outstretched hand so long that I thought he would refuse it — yet he did not. Reluctantly, he took it with his own and gave it an indifferent shake.

“Thank-you,” said he, and that was indeed all he said to me.

Lady Fielding smiled a bit too brightly. “Remember, Tom?” said she, chiming in, “Sir John had given Jeremy an important task and therefore he could not accompany us.”

“Yes, Mother, I remember.” And then, to the barrow man: “Ready? Then let us be off.”

He, without a look back, and she, giving me an uncharacteristically timid wave of the fingers, did set off in the proper direction, with the wheelbarrow following behind.

True enough. Sir John had given me an early task to perform. He had .urged me to bring in Arthur Lee if ever I wished to have him interrogated. “You do wish that, don’t you?” he had said to me. “I can recall when there was naught you wanted more. Or are you no longer so certain that it was Lee gave Franklin those pestiferous letters?”

I assured him that I was just as certain as I had ever been.

“Well, you had better go out and get him. And do it now, else I be called a liar by my wife. I’ve already made your excuses to her. I told her you would be unavailable to serve as Tom’s porter.”

And so I had left, and just outside the door to Number 4, I encountered the two, mother and son. There followed the brief scene that I have just described. I’ve no idea why Tom acted so boorishly toward me. Perhaps he now thought of me as no more than a deckhand.

I remember well that all the way to Tavistock Street I fretted over a problem that was truly none of my own. I was worrying over whether or not to reveal to Sir John what sort this fellow Burkett ‘was truly. He seemed to me to be naught but a villain, for he had treated Bess cruelly and made a fearful threat to Mr. Perkins. Yet in the end, of course, I came to the only possible decision: If anyone were to report this to Sir John, it would have to be Constable Oliver Perkins himself.

Mr. Donnelly was certainly correct in supposing that I would know the building in which Mr. Lee dwelled. I had a fair picture of it in my mind when it was first mentioned — two stories above the ground, red brick with a flat roof — and I spied it easily from a goodly distance away.

It was early, just past seven, and still dark but for the gray half-light of dawn. Still, candles burned in a window or two or three; the residents seemed now to be rising to meet the day.

I went up the two steps, tried the door, and found it locked, as I expected. Then did I begin beating upon it with such energy that I expected to rouse all in the building. Yet only one came, and he a man of sixty years or more. He had rheumy eyes and a bad case of the sniffles.

“What will you, you young wild man?”

“Naught but a bit of help from you,” said I to him. “I am come from the Bow Street Court at the direction of Sir John Fielding to talk with one of those who lives here in this building.”

“What is his name?”

“Arthur Lee, and he lives upon the floor above.”

“Ah, Mr. Lee, is it? He was one of our best tenants.”

“‘Was,‘you say? Where is he gone?”

“Back to America, as I understands it. I don’t know to what part, for I ain’t well-acquaint with that side of the world.”

“When was this?” I asked. “Surely not so long ago.”

“Oh no, not long ago at all. Just last Thursday, it was — day before yesterday.”

That, I mused, would make it the day before Dr. Franklin’s public notice in the Chronicle: He had but a day to get out of London.

“He was in a great hurry, he was. He said he had a ship to catch. There was much he left behind, so it took a lot of cleaning up after him, but I can’t complain.”

“Why not?”

“Always paid on time and in full, and because of the way he left it, he gave a bit extra to me to get the place clean. I ain’t no fool. I cleaned the place up, and kep’ it for myself. You can look at it if you want to but like I told the other fella, there’s nothing up there now, so it don’t — “

“Wait,” said L “What did you say about another fella?”

“Oh, didn’t I tell you about him? No, I guess I didn’t. Believe it or not, just as you choose, but you’re the second come by this morning asking after Mr. Lee. And it’s pretty early in the day yet. I wonder how many will come looking for him before the day is through.”

“When was this?” I asked, becoming more excited by the moment.

“Very early indeed. I was still asleep. It must’ve been half-past five, or anyways earlier than six, but he woke me with all his banging and hollering. ‘Course he would.”

“And what do you mean by that?”

“Well, he was so big, and not just tall, either. He had legs like tree stumps, fists as big as your head.”

Only one man in London would answer such a description.

“Did he ask to see the rooms?”

“No, when he heard I’d cleaned it up, he wasn’t interested. He just asked more of the same kind of questions you did — when did he go? Where was he headed?”

“And then?”

“Nothing at all. He just left is all, and I went back to bed.”

“Could I see the rooms?”

At that, he took a step back and squinted as he looked me up and down. “Hmmm,” said he. “You sure you’re here from the Bow Street Court? What kind of work you do there? You look too young to be a Runner.”

“I’m Sir John’s clerk.” Which was true enough, if only temporarily.

“Well, you look like you could handle that.”

He threw wide the door and stepped aside, inviting me in.

“If you’ll just wait, I’ll get the keys,” said he. He stepped out of sight for a moment and returned with a ring of big brass keys, each one near the size of a carrot. He led me up the stairs to the apartment just above his own. There he inserted one of the keys, which looked like all the rest, turned it in the keyhole, and swung open the door. He nodded me into the room. It was fairly large, but there was sufficient furniture inside to give it a somewhat cluttered appearance: there was a sofa with a long table before it, padded chairs, and so on. Actually, it looked to be quite a comfortable room, and I surprised myself by picturing Clarissa and me taking our ease there. This and the smaller bedroom would seem to be just the right size for us two.

My eyes fell upon a small writing desk which folded compactly into a single unit. It was, indeed, folded up at that moment. I walked to it and swung back the lid, which extended the writing space of the desk by a good foot or more.

“You interested in buying any of these pieces?” the householder asked. “They’re all for sale, except that little desk you’re lookin’ at. Mr. Lee, he made me promise to ship that to him within the week.”

“To what address?” I asked.

“Someplace in Boston. I’ve got it writ down in my place.”

“Then it must be there that he’s headed.”

“Hmmm. Must be. But he did say something about Virginia. Is that near Boston?”

“No.”

“Can’t help you then.”

The writing desk had a fair number of little drawers and compartments secluded in and around the writing space. I began systematically to open them and search through them, finding oddments of paper in some, and in others nothing at all.

“Say,” said the householder, “I don’t know as I ought to let you do that. I’m sending that on to Mr. Lee. Some of those bits of paper might be important to him.”

“If they were, he wouldn’t have left them.”

“Well,” said he, rubbing the stubble on one cheek, “I s’pose not.”

“I’ll just go through them, and see if there’s anything of importance. Then you can have them all.”

“Is Mr. Lee in some kind of trouble?”

“He may be.”

“Is that truly so? Why, I’m surprised to hear it — always paid right on time, he did — except once when he’d been out of town, and he …” As the householder rambled on, beginning an anecdote which proved what a fine fellow Arthur Lee was, I shuffled through the bits of paper in my hand until I came upon one which interested me — the only one, as I recall. It bore the name of a ship — “the
New Covenant
— Wharf 17, Wapping,” and then the date and time of departure. It was last Thursday, the day before Benjamin Franklin’s announcement. I palmed it and handed over the rest.

Thus I made another trip to Wapping and sought out my acquaintance Ebenezer Tarkenton, wharfmaster, who confirmed what was written upon the slip of paper. I asked him if he had in his office the passenger list for the
New Covenant
, and so he took me there and sought it out.

“Who you looking for, lad?”

“Does the name Arthur Lee appear on the list?”

“Oh, it does indeed — right at the bottom, last passenger aboard. I remember him well.”

“Oh? How is that, sir?”

“He was so eager to get aboard, he tried to bribe me to get a cabin. I told him there was plenty of cabins, for the very good reason that people don’t like to travel across the ocean in the winter season. I wished him well and added his name to the list.”

“And the ship sailed on time?”

“Just as you have it there.”

I hastened then to return to Bow Street. Too much of the day had been taken up by Mr. Arthur Lee. That he had escaped was perhaps no great matter, though Sir John might well have wrung a confession from him. Of far greater interest, and ultimately of greater importance was the fact that George Burkett had preceded me in inquiring after him. How had he learned so much in so short a time? What more could he tell us? Pondering such questions, I returned, just in time to perform my duties as Mr. Marsden’s substitute.

Two days passed. On the first of them we were paid a visit by Mr. William Slade, the new proprietor of Black Jack Bilbo’s gaming club. As it happened, he came by in the afternoon not long after Sir John had held the day’s court session. Nevertheless, Mr. Fuller, the jailer, was away, conveying two prisoners to the Fleet Gaol. Thus I was alone, at Mr. Marsden’s desk, completing the last bit of paper-work on the day’s cases for our files, when a knock came upon the door. Thinking it best, I fetched the cosh out of the desk drawer and tucked it into my pocket. There ‘was no telling who might seek admission from the street here in Covent Garden. We had had experiences in the past, which I need not relate here, that would caution any gatekeeper to beware.

I walked to the door, and as I did, the knock sounded a second time. It was neither measured nor hurried, but rather commanding and direct. The man who knocked in just such a way was used to being admitted at once. Few doors were closed to him. “Who is there?” I asked.

“William Slade,” came the answer. I knew the name. That was good enough for me.

I threw open the door and recognized the man before me most immediately. He, too, seemed to recognize me.

“We have met before, have we not?”

“So we have,” said I, “on two occasions.”

“Ah yes, and the last was upon the day when I took possession of my new house.” He paused, hesitating there at the door, as if coming to a decision. Then did he continue: “I should like to call upon Sir John Fielding — that is, if he be available.”

I invited him inside and asked him to wait whilst I announced him to Sir John. Walking briskly, I traveled down the long hall to Sir John’s chambers and informed him of William Slade’s request for an interview.

“The fellow who bought Black Jack’s gaming club? He’s here now? Well, bring him to me by all means.”

Returning to the hall, I waved Mr. Slade forward, then went to meet him. Except for his clothing, which was beautifully tailored and richly decorated, he was in no wise an impressive figure. He was short and squat in shape, and the appearance of his face was marred by the wealth of pockmarks upon his cheeks. He would not, in any case, win favorable attention from any, were it not for his possessions and obvious wealth; even his somewhat sardonic manner could be counted against him.

“Everything then is in order?” he asked as we marched forward together.

“Of course,” said I. “Why should it not be so?”

“No reason.”

I sped ahead the last few steps and announced him at the door. Sir John was standing, his hand outstretched in a welcoming gesture. Mr. Slade came forward quickly and grasped his hand warmly, pumping it for all he was worth.