Murder in Grub Street (30 page)

At the door to his chambers, Sir John interrupted his conversation with Dr. Johnson and Mr. Boyer, aware of our presence.

“Mr. Bilbo, is it you?”

“It is, Sir John, and I come offering regrets for my tardiness.”

“That’s of no matter. We shall have a bit of a wait ahead of us in any case. You have the young man with you, as well?”

“He is here.”

“Then sit you down, both of you, in the two remaining chairs. And Jeremy?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Go now and tell Mr. Bailey to bring the Runners in. ‘Twill be a bit crowded, but they must all be present to hear.”

Crowded it was. Once the constables had trooped in, they seemed to take up every bit of space in that room of modest size. They were lined up against three walls and in each corner. Room was given to Sir John to move about, though he chose not to. He sat down in his chair and tucked himself under his desk. From my place in the corner beside Mr. Bailey, I saw him only from the side. Yet when he spoke to the silent, waiting room, his voice quite filled it.

“Mr. Boyer,” said he, “will you stand and exhibit the contents of that package you brought with you tonight?”

He did as Sir John asked, holding up before him a great sheaf of papers, near two inches thick, which were held together, horizontal and vertical, by lengths of stout twine.

“And what is that, Mr. Boyer?”

“It is a manuscript,” said he. “I am a publisher, and many such come into my possession.”

“How came this one in your possession?” asked Sir John.

“It was brought to me by one Isham Henry, a journeyman printer whom I had just hired. There was some question if I might publish it. In the end I declined to do so: I did not wish to put it out under my imprint. But it was agreed, through Mr. Henry, that we would take it on as a job of printing and binding. I would not put my name upon it, but for a price — and a good one—we would deliver five hundred books, printed and bound, and moreover, we would store the plates for two years, should it be necessary to print more copies.”

“I take it,” said Sir John, “that this sort of arrangement is common in your trade.”

“It is common, yes, though we have not engaged in the practice much lately. Still, as I said, the agreed-upon price was a good one.”

“I have some questions for you, sir. First, why did you decline to publish the book under the name of your firm?”

“Well, it was not badly written, though it relied much on mathematics and calculations to make its point.”

“Were the mathematics accurate?”

“I have no way of knowing. I am, God knows, no hand in such matters. Had I taken it on to publish, I should have shown it to one competent.”

“And what was the point of the book? What was its content?”

“That, for me, was the greatest problem,” said Mr. Boyer. “Its subject was not one to appeal to many readers. It was on the supposed coming of the conversion of the Jews. In my opinion, a run of five hundred copies greatly overestimated its appeal. This was a topic much discussed by theologians many years ago as a precondition of the second coming — it’s all in the Bible — but even then it was of interest only to theologians. The predicted time came and passed in the last century. The author’s intent was to prove that earlier calculations were wrong, that it would all come to pass in this century.”

“And who was the author?”

“Though the book was to be set forth anonymously, he was in fact a man named Abraham Watt, the leader of a sect which calls itself the Brethren of the Spirit.”

“And finally, this man Isham Henry, who brought the manuscript to you, how came he to be hired by you?”

“He was formerly in the employ of Ezekiel Crabb, who along with his family and apprentices was murdered in what is commonly called the Grub Street massacre. Because Mr. Henry is a journeyman, he lived away from the premises and escaped their fate.”

“Did you know him to be a member of that sect?”

“I did not, though I strongly suspect it now.”

“That will be all, Mr. Boyer. But before you sit down, hold the manuscript up once again.”

He did so, raising it high above his head and turning in a wide circle that everyone in the room might see. Then he took his seat.

“There,” said Sir John, “you have the cause and purpose of the six murders on Grub Street. That same manuscript was to be published by Ezekiel Crabb, until— But two witnesses have given testimony as to what happened then. Perhaps they should be here to tell you what they heard, but that would have been difficult for one witness and impossible for the other. However, their examiners are here, and they are known by person or reputation to most of you. Jeremy Proctor, will you tell us what you heard from Tom Cranford, a second journeyman in the employ of Mr. Crabb?”

I stepped forward, and in fewer words than Mr. Boyer had used, repeated what I had been told by Tom Cranford of the quarrel that had erupted between Ezekiel Crabb and Brother Abraham when Crabb had had the temerity to challenge his calculations and retain the manuscript. Mr. Crabb became insulting and ridiculed Brother Abraham to the point that the latter called down curses upon him. And I added, finally, that Mr. Crabb had told him that the Jews would never be converted, for they were too smart for that. At the end, when I quoted Mr. Crabb on the Jews, a ripple of embarrassed laughter passed around the room.

“Thank you, Jeremy,” said Sir John. “That was well delivered. And I can vouch for its authenticity, for Mr. Cranford told me of hearing the same conversation between his former employer and Brother Abraham. Mr. Cranford unfortunately could not be with us tonight, since his present employer insisted that he perform added labors, that he might be compensated for the time spent in telling the tale to Jeremy. In effect, it would seem, he has been kept after school.”

“Yet, having heard it myself, I was more than interested when Dr. Samuel Johnson came to me with a story from a separate source this morning which matched it right well. Since John Clayton was moved from the Hospital of St. Mary of Bethlehem to the Fleet Prison, Dr. Johnson has visited him every day, encouraging him to remember more details of that dreadful night. What I heard from him this morning seems quite significant in the light of what Tom Cranford had to tell us. Dr. Johnson, will you repeat it?”

The great bear of a man rose firmly to his feet and spoke as follows: “I will and I shall, Sir John. As you say, I have visited Mr. Clayton often, for I am convinced of his innocence in this matter. And while we two went through his memories of that night repeatedly, because of his … condition at the time, there was little more to be learned from him than Sir John had heard in his interrogation in these chambers, at which I was present.

“Yesterday afternoon, however, or perhaps better said, early in the evening, he told me something that I considered of potential importance. It was not a memory of the night in question, but of the day previous to it. While conferring with Mr. Crabb on the production of Mr. Clayton’s second book of poems, Mr. Clayton was told by his publisher that he had had a nasty encounter a day or two before with an author when he, Crabb, had called to question the content and conclusions of the book in question. The author had been so vexed that he called down heaven’s judgment upon Crabb. ‘He consigned me quite to hell,’ said Crabb to Clayton. When Clayton asked Crabb if he regretted what he had said, the latter said that he did, though not because he thought himself in the wrong, but rather because of the unpredictable nature of the author. ‘There is no telling what such a fellow would do,’ said Mr. Crabb. ‘He is a raw preacher and such are not always restrained by ordinary laws of human conduct.’ When Mr. Clayton asked the subject of the book, he was told that it was the conversion of the Jews, and that same was also the title.”

With that, Dr. Johnson gave a great, certain nod of his large head. “That, sir,” said he to the magistrate, “is as accurate a summary of what I heard as I am capable of giving.”

“Then I thank you, sir, and please sit down.” And to the room at large said he: “Now, you may not give great weight to what Mr. Clayton had to say, for he, of course, was discovered on that night whereof we speak with an axe in his hand, the weapon by which at least one of the victims had been dispatched. But a moment on that. What do we know of that axe, Mr. Bailey? You borrowed it that you might study it and remember better something of its origin. What have you to say of it, sir?”

“Not so much as I would like, Sir John,” said Benjamin Bailey, stepping forward from his place beside me. “Yet I can say with fair certainty that it is of colonial manufacture. I saw such often during the late war with the French.”

He suddenly produced it. And though he did not surprise me or the Runners, for we knew he carried it with him that night, he gave Dr. Johnson a start, who sat nearest him. Its handle was perhaps a bit shorter than one might see on an axe of regular manufacture, and it was also bent to suggest that it had been cut direct from a tree branch. Yet it was not the handle to which he wished to call our attention.

“This particular head is of a sort they favor in such parts as Pennsylvania and New York. You see here on this side it’s a proper axe blade, but on the back it’s sharp and pointed, as an awl is — axe in front, awl behind. I’m told by Constable Cowley that some of the wounds, particular to the heads, must have been delivered with awl end out — deep gouges, they was.”

“Is this true, Constable Cowley?”

“True, Sir John,” said the young constable.

“Well, you should have written it in your report — or told me of it, at least.”

“My error, sir.”

“Go on, Mr. Bailey. You have something to add, I believe.”

“Right, Sir John. In western Pennsylvania — but off in a corner, it was, quite removed from the fighting around Fort Pitt, there was an odd sort of bunch of settlers had a community — all religious, they was said to be. They say — I was not witness to it, I heard this only — but they say that at the fall of Fort Pitt and the massacre that followed, these so-called religious folks thought to teach the Indians a lesson, and so they went out to the village that was nearest at hand one night, and they murdered them all — to the last man, woman, and child. Only these Indians was friendly, more or less, neutral was more like it. Anyway, it was done as a warning, you might say, to all the rest. And so far as that went, it worked. They was left alone.”

“And who were the people that did this deed?”

“All I remember, sir, is they called themselves the Brethren.”

“And so, if indeed this group, who admit that they came here from that part of the colony, may have committed this act in Grub Street, in revenge, at what they thought to be an insult to their leader, or for whatever strange motive, then it would not have been the first time?”

“Not to my way of thinking, sir. I believe it’s the same bunch.”

“Thank you, Mr. Bailey.”

The captain of the constables nodded smartly and retired a step or two to his place beside me.

“Do not think,” said Sir John, “that these men who called themselves the Brethren, or perhaps as they would have it, the Brethren of the Spirit — do not think that they were content to make theories upon converting the Jews. Mr. Bilbo, will you tell us your experience with two of their number when you happened to attract their attention?”

“I will, Sir John,” said Black Jack Bilbo, rising from his chair, wherewith he told the tale he had told in court — of how he had been accosted, taken for a Jew because of his beard, preached to, and finally had his beard pulled by one of them. He told it with less restraint than he had earlier, however, and even dropped a curse word in now and again for purposes of emphasis, so that by the time he had done, the room was filled with laughter. Black Jack told a good story, after all, and he delivered this one with a rolling of the eyes, a wild pitch of his head, and so on, so that his audience was quite won over to his performance. There was laughter. There were cheers. There was applause.

It seemed a less solemn occasion of a sudden, and Sir John hammered loud on his desk with the palm of his hand, calling the Bow Street Runners to order, as he might have done with some unruly court crowd.

“Stop, gentlemen — let us have order, please! I will not have this inquest turned into an occasion for laughter. Mr. Bilbo, sit down.”

“Sorry, Sir John,” said he, most meekly, and sank back to his chair.

“No, this is no matter for laughter,” insisted the magistrate, as the room quietened down, “for these black-clad, hymn-singing colonials, at the very least, seemed bent upon disturbing the fragile peace we maintain here. Directly after the insult upon Mr. Bilbo, for which they paid dearly, as you heard, members of the Brethren of the Spirit held prisoner the congregation of Jews during their Sabbath services, forcing them to listen as this Brother Abraham preached conversion to them — this same Brother Abraham who authored the manuscript that Mr. Boyer described to you and displayed.

“When the preaching failed to have the desired effect, the church of the Jews — their synagogue, as it were — in Maiden Lane was burned. You all know of the fire. It was only because there was no wind on that night that we escaped the horror of a general conflagration. Constable Cowley, you discovered two witnesses. What did they tell you?”

Constable Cowley stepped forward smartly.

“They told me, sir, that they seen three men leaving those parts just before the fire flared. The three men was in a great hurry, so they said.”

“And did not one of the witnesses say they were dressed as the men who preached in Covent Garden?”

“Yes, sir, she did.”

“Yet could not identify them?”

“No, sir, they was seen only from the back.”

“When we presented this to Brother Abraham, he saw it for the flimsy and useless testimony that it was and sent us on our way. That will be all, Constable Cowley.

“Now, there remains one more crime which I attribute to these Brethren, so-called,” continued Sir John, “and that is the death of Moll Caulfield, pushcart woman of Covent Garden, known to nearly all here. She was given to the care of the Brethren when we knew naught of their villainy, only that they housed and fed a number of the destitute. She had been rendered homeless and with no means of support in the collapse of the building wherein she made her domicile in St. Martin’s Lane. A few days later, she made an attempt to communicate with us. Master Jimmie Bunkins, will you stand and tell us of that?”