Just then we did hear something that must have disturbed Turbott and Elizabeth. From the kitchen came the sound of laughter-Sir John’s booming baritone and, mingled with it, a light soprano; the latter was surely that of Mother Jeffers. Yet, if we heard them, they also heard us, and the laughter halted soon as ever it had begun.
Ugly though she may have been, Mother Jeffers proved an adequate hostess. She had only to nod at the pot of tea and the cups surrounding it, and the girl who had opened the door to us set about serving up the promised tea. In another minute or two, there was tea and buttered bread before us all.
“Now,” said Sir John, “we meet here that accuser and accused might have the opportunity to confront each other direct, to defend themselves, if need be, to make the other prove her innocence.”
He stopped at that point to clear his throat. It was in the nature of punctuation. He wanted it made clear that, beyond this point, he was speaking ex officio. He began:
“Elizabeth Hooker, here on my left, has given it to me that on the evening of Easter Sunday, two young men, promising to see her home, set off instead for this place, where they might show her to you, Mrs. Jeffers, and get for their trouble some amount of money from you.”
“What were their names?” asked Mother Jeffers.
“Dick and Bobby,” said Elizabeth.
“I must think upon that,” said the old woman, “but just now I can think of nine or more I know by those names. You have only the first names?”
“I am near certain that is the case,” said Sir John, “but let us move on, shall we? You were, as she has given it, sitting in this very kitchen when the two brought her to you.” Then did Sir John turn to Elizabeth and ask her most direct, “Is this the woman who spoke to you and asked if you were willing to join her company?”
“Is this the woman? Yes, indeed it is. This is the one who asked me, would I join them.”
“Are you sure?”
“How could I forget a face such as hers?”
“If you will pardon me,” said Sir John, “it seems to me that what you just said was unnecessarily rude.”
“So be it,” said Elizabeth.
“And you, Mrs. Jeffers, what defense have you against this accusation?”
“I have none,” said she almost proudly.
“None?”
“I have never seen this girl before in my life,” said she.
There matters seemed to hang. It was not so much the denial as the manner in which it was given that put things at a halt. It was so coldly complete that I, for one, felt that there was nothing more to say. Yet impeded though he was, Sir John pressed on.
“May I, then,” said he, “take Mistress Hooker through your house and visit such of it as she remembers? Note that I ask your permission in this, for you would be within your rights to demand that you see a search warrant before allowing us the run of your house.”
“I understand,” said she. “But yes, you have my permission to go anywhere within this house.” And then, emphasizing each word, she said: “I have nothing to hide.”
“Thank you.”
“My daughter will show you round.”
And with that, the girl who had spied us from the floor above showed us the way, and we followed her on a room-by-room tour of the entire house. That she was the daughter of Mother Jeffers surprised me-and I’m sure others, as well-but that was not the only surprise that awaited us.
We had visited every room but one and routed two women out of their beds. Elizabeth would search all for her stolen frock; we then started up the narrow stairway to the garret room. There it was that Elizabeth had spent all the time of her imprisonment. She had described it well enough so that I had a fair idea of its look. Once inside, however, we found this garret room was altogether different from the one she had described. Where she had told of sleeping on a pile of straw with naught but a thin blanket to keep her warm, what we saw was a comfortable-looking bed with a comforter that would, it seemed, have kept anyone warm. There was a chair and a table, curtained windows that were held by latches alone. And, in one corner, a wardrobe.
“They’ve changed it all,” said Elizabeth. “They’ve changed it completely!”
“Nothing has been altered,” said Mrs. Jeffers’s daughter. “And I should know, for this is my room here.”
Elizabeth gave her a killing look, then hastened to the wardrobe.
“This proves she lies, and I alone tell the truth,” said she, “for here-look! This is mine! This is the frock taken from me when I arrived at this place.”
She held it up proudly, but it was obvious to me, as it was also to Clarissa, that the frock had been made for one much more corpulent than Elizabeth-indeed, it had been made for Jeffers’s daughter.
“I shall not fight you for it,” said she, “for my mother would not have that. But it should be plain to all who see you with it now that it was not made for you.”
The matter of the dress, as well as much else, was held in abeyance-undecided till we reached Bow Street. Sir John took with us Mother Jeffers and gave Elizabeth in exchange. (“Well rid of her!” said Clarissa, who had soured completely on her old friend.) I confess, reader, that I slept through our entire return journey, rocking back and forth, bouncing up and down, just as Elizabeth had done on the voyage out. According to Clarissa, Jeffers was quite entertaining, though she declared it pained her to leave her daughter in the house. Sir John did not say that he was officially detaining her; he said simply that he had further questions for her to answer in his office in Bow Street. He wished to ask them after he had held his court session. Again, all this was reported to me later by Clarissa, for I was all of a sudden so exhausted that I heard nothing, said nothing, and was totally unable to recall anything of the drive to Bow Street. The night I had spent, awake on the road in the post coach, had at last caught up with me.
Upon our arrival, Sir John ordered me upstairs and to my bed. ’Twas not me who carried out his orders, however. Rather ’twas Clarissa who both guiding and supporting me, got me upstairs and into my bed.
And it was she, too, who woke me, five or six hours on. I heard her footsteps on the stairs moments before she appeared, and so I was at least sitting up in bed when she appeared in the doorway.
“You’re much in demand,” said she.
Still half-asleep, I grunted a reply of some sort, then rose to my feet and staggered to the wash basin, poured a bit of water into it, and splashed water upon my face. Only then did I feel I could communicate.
“By whom am I wanted?”
“First by Mr. Patley, who must see you before he goes out this evening to make his rounds. Second, by all the rest of us who respectfully request your presence at the dinner table, and third, by Sir John who, after dinner, wishes to have your report on the trip to Newmarket.” She looked at me closely to make sure that I was fully awake and would not collapse into bed the moment she left. “There,” said she. “I can trust you to rise, can’t I?”
“You can trust me. Where’s Mr. Patley?”
“Downstairs, waiting by the door to Bow Street.”
Satisfied at last, she left as I hurriedly ran a comb through my hair and descended to meet Mr. Patley. He was there, in the dark, waiting for me just at the door.
“Ah there you are,” said he. “I’ve news for you. Bad news, I fear-but it’s important.”
“Let me hear it, by all means.”
“Well, it’s this way. As you may know, Mr. Bailey covered for me whilst we was in Newmarket. He made the circuit for me, talked to all my snitches, and so on. But he wasn’t actually on hand when it happened.”
“What happened? What have you to tell?”
“It was last night whilst we were on the road back. Who should come walking into the King’s Favorite around eleven o’clock at night but Alice Plummer. She comes up behind one of the local drinkers, Walter Hogg by name, and she says, ‘Walter, I’ve got something for you.’ Then, quick as anything, she whips out a razor and, just as quick, she cuts his throat from ear to ear. It all happened so fast that those at the table could do naught but gape. Nor could they do more when she then took that selfsame razor and cuts her own throat with it. All this in less time than it takes to tell. Mr. Bailey said that when he got there just a little time later, there were two dead and more blood on the table and floor than he would have supposed that two bodies could hold.”