But to me it seemed that there were more urgent matters to discuss: “Tell me, though, sir, what did you think of those you questioned?”
“In truth,” said he, “I did not think much of them. The butler seemed interested only in defending himself. The maid — well, she did well enough, I suppose, and I certainly would not have had her get her nose slit to protect those jewels, but … Oh well, they offered something — the porter was actually quite shrewd and helpful, but … but… oh, damnation! It just never ends! Too many robberies! Too many killings!”
I had not meant to cause him such annoyance. It was just that I had not realized the depth of his frustration. These ironical jokes of his, which now seemed to come with greater frequency, were his way of dealing with his discouragement. That very morning he had bared his true feelings when he had said that he wished the streets were safer. Why had I not then taken him more in earnest?
All this might have been said to him, but none of it was. I simply grasped at the most convenient response. (Nor, as you shall see, would it have mattered much what I attempted to say at that particular moment.) What I managed was no more than this: “Well, perhaps tomorrow’s visit will prove more fruitful.”
“I suppose it may,” said he. “After all, we — ”
He had my attention as he spoke, and so it was that by the light of the streetlamp, I caught a flash of strong movement from the corner of my eye. I turned, looked, and saw that little more than twelve feet away a man stood before us, his feet planted firmly, his arm straightened, and in his hand, a pistol.
At once I pushed Sir John to the pavement and struggled to throw back my coat that I might draw forth one of my pistols from its holster. As it came free, the man before me fired. I raised the pistol, cocking it, and fired back at him. Had I but taken a moment more I would have hit my target at such a short distance, but my shot went wide. I pulled the left-side pistol from its place and raised it for another try. But by this time our assailant had taken to his heels, fast disappearing down a walkway which ran along the side of one of St. James Street’s grand houses. I went after him, hoping for a better shot. And then, of a sudden, I stopped.
Good God, Sir John! I could not go chasing assassins, thus leaving him alone. Nor could I discharge the pistol, for there might be others of the gang about.
I ran back to Sir John, expecting to find him up and about, ready to pursue his attacker on his own, calling down heaven’s wrath upon the villain. But no, he lay crumpled where I had pushed him, apparently unable to pull himself to his feet. Was he hit? Was he dead? I had not even considered such a possibility.
Kneeling down beside him, I saw that he was breathing — shallowly, yet breathing nevertheless.
“Sir John,” I whispered urgently, ” you are wounded. Can you tell me where you were hit?”
“Shoulder,” said he, panting, “in the shoulder.”
Gingerly, I pulled back his coat and saw the blood spread upon his white linen shirt. “I must get you to Mr. Donnelly.”
“To Mr. Bilbo. Take me there.” He seemed now to be gathering strength. “Jeremy,” said Sir John, “what did the fellow look like?”
“I … I’m not sure, sir.” And indeed I wasn’t, for all had happened so very quickly. But I concentrated upon the picture I held in my mind. And then I had something — to me, a quite unexpected something — that I might report.
“Sir, I believe he was a black man.”
TWO
Of all that happened following this astonishing and frightening event, I shall speak only briefly and in summary.
After having made my declaration to Sir John, I heard running footsteps from the direction whence we had come. I cocked the loaded pistol and made ready to shoot, should it be another assassin come to finish the work of the first. But no, it was Mr. Brede, who, having heard shots fired, had come in all haste. Together, we carried him to Mr. Bilbo’s house, which was not so far away. Mr. Burnham came in answer to Mr. Brede s urgent thumping upon the door. I responded to the challenge issued from inside and told what had happened. The door swung open, revealing Mr. Burnham, pistol in hand, looking, somehow as if he had just come in. I noted the constable’s surprise at the tutor’s dark face. As soon as we had Sir John lying comfortably upon a sofa, Mr. Brede ran off to fetch Gabriel Donnelly, the medical examiner for Westminster who was, luckily, still nearby at Lord Lilley’s performing his official duties.
Through it all, Sir John had remained conscious. In fact, by the time we laid him down upon the sofa, he was more responsive, more talkative, than when we had picked him up from the pavement of St. James Street. He had kept up a steady stream of cautions and warnings. In spite of his wound — and as yet we knew not whether or not it be serious — he was truly still in command.
Mr. Donnelly, who had only a few years past been a ship’s surgeon in the Royal Navy, had in his day treated many (did he say hundreds?) of such gunshot wounds. After boiling his instruments — Jimmie Bunkins wakened the cook, who saw to this — he removed the bullet and bound the wound. By this time Sir John was dutifully drunk from Mr. Bilbo’s best brandy. When the surgeon had done, he pronounced the wound “serious enough, though by no means mortal.” He did caution, however, that the wound must be kept clean and the dressing changed once a day. (Hardly necessary in my case, for I had seen in Mr. Cowley an example of what might happen when one was irresponsible in caring for a wound; a gangrenous state, which led to the amputation of his left leg.)
“And where will you be?” he asked the magistrate.
“Where will I be? What a question!” Sir John, still drunk, slurred these words considerably so that they were barely comprehensible, even to me. “I’ll be at Number 4 Bow Street, where I belong.”
“No he won’t. He’ll be right here.” It was Mr. Bilbo, thumping into the room, loud as he liked, as befit the proper master of the house. Bunkins had gone off to the gaming establishment to fetch his master that he might know of his friend’s misfortune.
“I’ll go home if I wish … wish to.” Indeed, it was barely possible to understand him.
“You will not. You’re too drunk to go home.” Indeed Mr. Bilbo had made a good point. Even if Sir John had not been shot and lost a considerable amount of blood, I doubted that his legs would carry him to the coach, be it a hackney or Mr. Bilbo’s own.
Black Jack Bilbo they called him, partly in respect of the dark beard he wore, though perhaps also for the dark moods which came upon him all of a sudden. Now, with his thick legs planted wide and his fists upon his hips, he appeared as a bull might, fuming and snorting, and about to charge. Just to see him in that threatening posture would have frightened most men.
Even had he been able to see him so, Sir John, of course, would have remained unmoved; his friend did not frighten him, nor could he. Nevertheless, as a magistrate and as a man, he was ever one to admit the truth when he heard it, and after a moment’s consideration of the matter, he said in a manner of surprise, “Am I drunk? Jeremy, are you here? Would you say that I am drunk?”
“I fear so,” said I.
“You,” said Mr. Bilbo, “are disgustingly drunk. Would you wish to go home in such a state?”
He thought upon that for a good long while. For a moment, I thought he might have drifted off to sleep. But no. “P’raps not. S’pose I’ll stay. But you Jeremy, you go home and tell Kate where I be when she wakes. S’clear?”
“Most clear, Sir John.”
“S’good. Now I think I’ll sleep.” Which he did — off in an instant.