“Dictionary Johnson,” said I, as we turned back on to Fleet Street and there joined the tide of humanity on the move toward Temple Bar.
“Yes, so they call him. Just imagine what it would be to be the author of a dictionary of the English language!”
“Well, he had assistants — six, I believe.”
“But Samuel Johnson id generally recognized as its author.”
“Insofar as a dictionary can be said to have an author — yes, I suppose so.”
“But of course! Every book has an author. And poor Mr. Johnson ruined his sight in the great effort to produce his dictionary. Why, he is near as blind as Sir John.”
“Perhaps, but I’ve heard it said he had an infection of the eyes when he was a child, as a mere babe. That may be why he must read with his nose in the pages.”
“Whatever the reason, my heart goes out to the man.” Clarissa walked along in silence for a bit. I waited, sensing that she had left something unsaid. Then at last she spoke: “Jeremy, the next time it becomes obvious to you that I should hold my tongue, I would like you to let me know. Give me a pinch or squeeze my hand, or … do something, anyway, to pass a signal to me that I must stop.”
“You say the next time? What about the time after that?”
“Then, too — and the time after that, and so on, until I’ve mastered my tongue.”
“That may take quite some time,” said I, merely meaning to tease. “Your arm may be blue from all the pinching.”
“So be it,” said she. And, having taken what between us amounted to an oath, she set her face in such a way that she seemed much older than her years, and marched resolutely forward.
Clarissa kept up the pace for quite some time, but eventually she slowed somewhat. Yet still, she said nothing. She seemed to be giving thought to a particularly troubling matter.
After we had walked thus for a good, long way, she turned to me and sought my opinion. “Do you suppose,” said she, “that the study of Latin would truly improve my writing style?”
Late that evening — after Clarissa had exhausted me through the day with her questions and comments, and following Lady Fielding’s tardy return from her board meeting, slightly tipsy from the duchess’s wine served at the luncheon — late that evening (to repeat) I was summoned down from my eyrie to the kitchen where Sir John awaited.
“We must be gone, Jeremy,” said he. “Robbery and murder have been perpetrated in St. James Street. Mr. Baker brought the news only moments past.” In fact, just then I could hear his footsteps descending the stairs.
“St. James Street!” It came from me as an exclamation. “Surely not Mr. Bilbo’s residence?”
“No — but close by. Pull on your coat and grab your hat. We are to meet Mr. Bailey there. The new constable, Will Patley, was first on the scene, and I fear that he may forget all that he was taught about protecting the premises against intruders, the curious, even against the victims of the robbery themselves.”
“There are some who never seem to learn those lessons,” said I.
“All too true, I fear.”
We went down the stairs together, he with his hand upon my shoulder, the two of us in close step. (He had recently taken a tumble and had become quite distrustful of even the most familiar stairway.) Mr. Baker waited near the door, in his hands a brace of pistols, holstered and mounted on a belt. I took them from him and buckled them on under my coat. Mr. Baker claimed it was foolish to go out in the streets unarmed at any time near midnight or after; and I, as Sir John’s companion on these late-night rambles, had the responsibility of defending him, so I wore the pistols. For his part, Sir John disapproved on principle of all but his constables bearing firearms, so he said nothing. (It was a blind man’s way of looking in the other direction.) As a result of all this, not a word passed among the three of us until I was satisfactorily armed.
Only then did Mr. Baker speak up: “There’s a hackney at the door. I whistled him down from the corner and told him to wait on pain of death.”
“On pain of death, Mr. Baker?”
“Well, Sir John, sometimes I exaggerate a little just to keep their attention.”
“And your threats work well enough?”
“I ain’t had to kill any yet.”
“And thank God for it,” said Sir John with a chuckle. “It would indeed be a black mark against the Magistrate’s Court.”
With that, we departed Number 4 Bow Street and climbed into the waiting coach. I had so often walked to the Bilbo residence in St. James Street and knew the way so well, that I thought of it as only a short distance away. In reality it was not, but the time it took to get to St. James was barely sufficient for Sir John to tell what he knew of the robbery. He knew little of the murder; we would learn more of that upon our arrival.
To summarize: At about ten in the evening, a gang of well-armed men tricked their way into the home of Lord Lilley of Perth. As it happened, Lord and Lady Lilley were absent that evening, attending a dinner at the residence of the Dutch ambassador. The robbers herded the entire household staff into the kitchen below the stairs, put a guard upon them, and then proceeded to strip the place of everything of value — Lady Lilley’s jewels, paintings, statuary, silver plates, the odd piece of furniture, et cetera. So much was taken that it must have been necessary to cart it away in a wagon; evidently one was waiting at the rear of the mansion. It took less than an hour to empty the house of its treasures. The homicide was most peculiar: One of the staff, a footman, was taken from the company in the kitchen and summarily shot. Even more peculiar was the fact that the raiding party was made up entirely of black men.
When the hackney driver pulled up at the number on St. James Street which he had been given, I spied Constable Brede standing guard at the door. I passed word of this on to Sir John. He seemed quite pleased to hear it.
“That means,” said he, “that Constable Bailey is inside. He will have heard something from every witness in the house and will be able to inform us just who of them is worth talking to and which may be passed over. This need not take as long as I feared. I, for one, Jeremy, was quite ready to retire when word came of this outrage.”
“But you’ve always said, sir, that the most important work in any investigation is done at the first visit to the scene of the crime and that there was no point in rushing through it.”
“Have I always said that?” He sighed. “Probably I have. How unkind of you to remind me.”
Mr. Brede passed us through, saying little, as was his way. And once inside we soon discovered that Mr. Bailey had arranged things as Sir John predicted. The magistrate’s chief constable may not have been greatly talented as an interrogator, but long experience had taught him the sort of thing Sir John would be interested in; it had also taught him how to recognize one who was withholding information, equivocating, or just plain lying.
According to Benjamin Bailey, though he had not quite finished talking to all the potential witnesses, it seemed to him that only a few would be worth the magistrate’s attention.
“I thought you might want to talk to the butler first,” said he to Sir John.
“Always a good place to start.”
“He it was who opened the door to that murderous crew.”
“Ah yes, but the mention of the murder reminds me, Constable Bailey, has Mr. Donnelly been sent for?”
“Yes sir, indeed he has. I sent Will Patley for him soon as I arrived. Just like you told us, sir, if there’s a killing or even a wounding, we send for the medical examiner — right away — ain’t that right?”
“Quite right. But now, if you will just put me with the butler …”
“Certainly, sir — right over here.”
The butler, a Mr. Collier, was a slight man of not much more than forty years with a bloodied bump on his forehead. He stood in a corner of the great entry hall, somewhat apart from the rest of the servants gathered there. His small hands were clasped before him in such a way that if his eyes had been shut or his lips moving, I should have sworn that he was praying. Indeed he looked like a man in need of prayer. Never, I think, have I seen a man appear so obviously overcome by worry. Sir John did not add to his burden. He questioned him as gently as I had ever known him to question any witness.