“Find who?” said I, though I’m certain, looking back, that I must have known just who he meant.
“Deuteronomy, of course. When you’re not with me, you’re with him.” (This was said without malice.)
“Well, yes I did see him. I felt that he should have a chance to see his sister. I told him where she was.”
“Did he go to see her?”
“I doubt it. He said he would not. He got sick enough before a race as it was without adding more to it-that’s what he said, anyway.”
We had eaten well. Each of us had had another ale to top off what we had already had. The place had become more crowded, and consequently noisier. There was no reason to stay. We settled up with the barmaid and made our way through the crowd to the outside.
“Well,” said Mr. Patley, “we might as well walk up the hill to the Good Queen Bess.”
“Might just as well.”
We hiked the distance to the inn in silence. As for myself, each step I took told me that I should make an early night of it. But, after all, why not? I knew I must rouse early to collect Alice Plummer from the magistrate’s court. Early to bed and early to rise, et cetera.
Patley, on the other hand, seemed to take on new vitality with each step. I quite marveled at the fellow. Had he not eaten the same heavy meal that I had? Had he not drunk four ales to my two? Or was it five to my two?
And so, of course, I was not surprised when, as we entered the inn, he proposed that we go into the tap-room “for a little something to make us sleepy.” He took it in good stead when I told him that I needed nothing to make me sleepy, for I was quite tired already. I would go up to our room, I told him, and read myself to sleep. It shouldn’t take very long.
I shall get through the second episode at the magistrate’s court as quickly as possible. It was a bitter disappointment, and every barrister will tell you that there is no sense in dwelling upon disappointments.
I banged upon the door of the magistrate’s court a bit before seven in the morning. It was answered by another, just as large and just as ugly as he who had answered the door the afternoon before. He looked at me sourly and asked my business. When I told him that I had come to collect Alice Plummer, he said that I’d come too late, that her fine had been paid and that she had been taken forth by a townsman-all this on the day before. Was he sure of this? Certainly he was, he assured me, for he was the constable delegated by the magistrate to fetch her out of her cell.
I insisted on hearing this from Malachi Simmons himself, and the constable shrugged. It was a matter of indifference to him. He said that the magistrate would be down soon, and he pointed to a bench next to the door and said I might sit there, if I chose.
Only minutes later I heard footsteps upon stairs somewhere deep in the house, and a few minutes after that the constable came and told me that the magistrate would see me. Then: down the two long halls once again and into the chambers of Malachi Simmons. This time, of course, I was much disturbed and not in the least given to accommodating his feelings. In short, I fear I was rather rude.
What I heard from the magistrate was this: About an hour after Mr. Patley and I left him, he was visited by one Stephen Applegate, who described himself as “a friend of Alice Plummer.” He wished to know if she were being held here. The magistrate acknowledged this and acquainted the young man with the charges that awaited her in London. These Stephen brushed aside as lies and half-truths. He dealt, for example, with the matter of child-selling by telling him (as he had no doubt been told by her) that in truth she had believed that she had been giving the child out for adoption. She had not solicited any amount of money in payment for her daughter but had been given it as a reward.
“And I have heard, young man,” said the magistrate, “that your methods of questioning her were highly suspect.” I demanded to know what was wrong with our questioning of Alice Plummer, and he explained what I myself should have realized: One does not fill a witness with gin whilst interrogating him or her. At best, you would be drawing from her unconsidered responses, and, at worst, she would tend to agree with all that was said to her.
Where could he have heard that? Why, of course! Stephen would have remembered that Mr. Patley and I had announced ourselves as guests at the Good Queen Bess. He must have headed there as soon as he was free to leave the stable-and then into the tap-room, where he would have heard the serving woman on the matter of the two glasses of gin, and the innkeeper, of course, must have tipped young Applegate on just where he might find his Alice.
I attempted to defend my methods, telling the magistrate that she was drunk before ever we asked a question of her.
“And so you attempted to make her drunker, did you? No, young sir, I fear that won’t do at all. Not only did Stephen Applegate present a good case against you and your methods, he is also from a very old family here in Newmarket. They’ve owned and run that stable for as long as anyone can remember. Of course I would take his word over yours. He paid her fine, and he took her out of here. That was about an hour or two after you left last evening.”
“But-”
“No buts! Out of here now, or I’ll throw you into the same cell she had.”
I had no choice but to leave. But, I believe, I ran all the way up to the Good Queen Bess without stopping. Indeed, I’m sure I did, for I remember that when I attempted to explain the situation to Mr. Patley in our room, I was so out of breath that I could do naught but begin again after I had properly caught my breath. I ended with a shout: “We must find her again!”
“Well, the first place to look,” said the ever-practical Mr. Patley, “would be where we found her in the first place.”
And so, as soon as Patley had dressed and made himself otherwise presentable, we started up the hill to Applegate’s stable. Stephen seemed to be waiting for us, so sure that we would be coming round to see him that he had not even sought the darkness at the rear of the place. He was leaning upon the door as we approached, his pitchfork within easy reach (just the thing for driving away the unwanted). He had a proper smirk upon his face.
“Good morning to you,” said he. “I’m sure I know who you’re looking for and why you’re here.”
“Well,” said I, “where is she?”
“She ought to be in London by now.”
“You sure about that?”
“Just about as sure as I can be at this distance.”
“You have any objection to us taking a look around?”
“No, go ahead, but you’d do better to check the list of passengers on the post coach that left last evening around nine. But go ahead, suit yourself. I’ll wait right here.”
We looked, of course. If we had not, we would not have seemed to be searching seriously for her. We even climbed the ladder in the rear and tramped through the hay in the loft-without success, of course. Nor was I surprised at that, for Stephen’s indifference was not feigned. It was plain that he was confident we would find no trace of her. Mr. Patley was of the same mind.
“It don’t look like she’s here, does it?” said he.
I shook my head. “No, it doesn’t. We should go and check the passenger list as he dared us to do, but I’m sure she’ll be on it.”
We climbed down from the loft and headed out of the place.
Stephen silently watched us go. But then, thinking better of it, he called after us as we started down the hill.
“I tried to get her to stay. Told her I could hide her so you’d never find her. But she said no. There was something she had to do in London.”
I turned and nodded, yet I certainly would not thank him.
“No reason not to go to the big race now,” said Mr. Patley. “Come to think of it, I’d better go and place my bet whilst I still can.”
I didn’t ask him how much he was betting, nor on which horse, yet I was greatly curious about one thing: “Mr. Patley, are you hedging your bet?”