Mr. Bailey brought to me a John Mossman who, as it turned out, was the selfsame fellow who had admitted Mr. Patley and me to the Trezavant residence. He said that he and the butler, whose name was Arthur Robb, had been discussing in the hall what they might do with the master. There I halted him and asked what was meant by that. Why, after all, need anything be “done” with Mr. Trezavant?
“Well, the way of it was this, young sir,” said the porter. “The mas-ter’d been drinking through a good bit of the day, and quite steady after dinner. He had collapsed at his desk — quite unconscious he was. So Arthur and me, we was discussing just how we might get him up to his bed on the floor above, the master bein’ so big and all.”
He went on to explain that he was the only porter on the household staff and that those who might have helped — the footmen, the coach driver — had taken Mrs. Trezavant off to the country home in Sussex and would not return until the morrow. Arthur, he was just too old and frail to be of much use carrying a big load like that. All of which was quite interesting, and perhaps later would prove relevant, but I urged Mr. Mossman to get on with his story that I might learn how the robbers had gained entry.
“We was some distance back in the hall,” said he, “but we both heard the knockin’ on the door real plain. It was loud and you might say right frantic. So we hastened to the door, and Arthur calls out his ‘Who is there?’ — for it was well past the hour when you might open the door to anybody who knocks upon it. Then in response we heard this terrible wail, a cry for help it was, and the voice that did the crying was a woman’s voice.”
“A woman’s voice?” I exclaimed. “You’re sure of that?” “As sure as I’m here before you now. She said she’d been attacked in St. James Street, which is only a little ways over, and that she was bein’ chased. Oh, she sounded terrible frightened. Well, Arthur and me, we looked one at the other. All I could do was shrug, saying it was up to him, like. But Arthur, he didn’t give it but a moment’s thought. He was damned if he’d have some poor soul raped on our doorstep, so he starts pulling the bolts. And once that was done, he moved the door back — he couldn’t have had it open much more than an inch when it came open just like it’d been flung. It hit Arthur hard in the head, but I was behind him and managed to jump back out of the way. Then all of a sudden, there was four black men swarming through the open door with pistols and knives in their hands, and poor Arthur was reelin’ about holding his head where the door hit him. Before you knew it, he was clutchin’ at his heart and not his head, and, well, he just collapsed there by the door where you saw him. I couldn’t even ease his way down because by that time one of the blackies had a pistol stickin’ in my face.”
“Did you get a look at the woman who knocked upon the door?” He thought about that a moment, as if for the first time. “No, I can’t say I did. They hustled me downstairs to the kitchen far too quick.” “Could the woman’s voice you heard have been mimicked by a man?” “You mean makin’ his voice sound like a woman’s? No, I don’t think so. I don’t see how it could’ve been a man.”
Except for fixing the time of the assault (“Not long after ten,” said he, “but not yet half past the hour”), the porter and I had finished our business. Mr. Bailey brought into the room (barely a corner cupboard, really, beneath the stairs, and just off the kitchen) one of the maids, a sort of assistant to Mrs. Trezavant’s personal maid. She had more or less come forward as a volunteer, according to Mr. Bailey, for she wished to make a few things clear — or so she said.
“What is it you wish to make clear?” I thought it likely she sought to be interviewed purely for the attention that it would bring her. Therefore I had determined to spend as little time with her as possible.
“I wish to make clear it wasn’t me responsible for telling the robbers what happened to the lady’s jewels,” said she. A bold girl, not much more than my own age, she was attractive in a saucy way.
“If it wasn’t you,” said I, hoping to move her along, “then who was it? They’re gone, I take it.”
“It wasn’t nobody,” said she with firm conviction. “They’re gone, but wasn’t ever stolen.”
“Then who has them?”
“Mrs. Trezavant has them. I saw her take them along when she left for the country. Her maid packed the dresses and frocks, but she took the jewel case along in her own hand. I saw her take it my own self.”
This was more interesting than I had at first realized. I wondered where, with a few more questions, it might lead.
“Didn’t Mr. Trezavant see the jewel case in her hand when he bade her goodbye?”
“He never said goodbye. He just stayed where he was and sulked. See, they had a terrible row in the morning, and she was gone not much after.”
“What was the row about?”
“About money — what it always is with them. I prob’ly shouldn’t say so, but you’d hear it from one of the other servants, I’m sure.”
“Did she object that Mr. Trezavant did not give her sufficient money to run the house?”
(I was out of my element completely here, reader. I had merely heard that this was often so in marriages.)
“Oh no,” said she, plainly amused at my error. “She’s richer than he is — or her family is. She’s got money — rents and such — he can’t touch, and that drives him quite mad, it does. He wants her father to trust him with a big loan, but she won’t beg for it as he wants her to do.”
“So she took the jewels with her,” I ruminated aloud. “Now, why did she do that?”
“Prob’ly she was afraid he’d sell them, or pawn them. She doesn’t trust him, and I can’t say as I blame her.”
“You don’t seem to like him much,” said I.
“Who would after he put the robbers on me?”
“And what do you mean by that?”
“I mean when they went in to force him to tell where the jewels was, he told them he didn’t know, but I would.”
“That was not very gallant of him, was it?”
“I daresay.”
“How did you manage to convince them that the jewels were gone from the house?”
“It wasn’t easy,” said she. “First thing they did, they put a stiletto up my nose and threatened to slit it.” I remembered the same threat had been made to Mistress Pinkham at the Lilley house. “See? Right here you can see where they cut a little.” She tilted her head back and pointed to a bloody scab that had formed at the tip of one nostril. It was not large; nevertheless, it was impressive. “How did I convince them? She echoed my question. “I told him the truth. I showed them where the missus had them hid and swore I saw her take the jewel box ‘way with her so as to keep what was inside from her husband.”
“And they accepted what you said?”
“They had to. It was the truth.” Then did she reconsider. “Well, it wasn’t simple as all that. One of them was all for cutting my nose off right then and there. But the other one, he said, ‘No, I b’lieve her.’ He said it just like that, and then he gives me a wink.” She grinned. “Proper Southwark fella. I could tell from the way he talked. That’s where I’m from myself.”
“You could tell he was from Southwark?”
“Di’nt I just say so?”
“Not an African then?”
“Well, he was sort of an African, I s’pose.”
“What do you mean by that? “
“I mean that if he wants to go round with his face painted black so he looks like an African, then that makes him jort of an African, doesn’t it?” It was evident that she strongly suspected that one of the robbers, at least, was no true African, but an imposter.
She added: “The other one — the cruel one — he was a bit more genuine.”
I took a moment to consider that, and then put to her another question: “Were there but two? Mr. Mossman said that four had come through the door.”