Person or Persons Unknown (Sir John Fielding), page 29
part #4 of Sir John Fielding Series
“And she a widow. Don’t mistake, Jeremy. I’d as soon he cleared himself of any doubts Sir John might have. Many’s the time I’ve bought meat from him, and he seems right enough. But you must admit his sudden departure was right queer. And when Sir John says he wishes to detain a fellow for a bit of a talk, by God, I’ll detain him!”
“I take it that is Mr. Tolliver in there with him now,” said I.
“Oh, you may be sure of it. They been growlin’ at each other right strong. The butcher won’t back down. Says it was his right to go off when and where he liked — had no need to ask permission.”
“They been at it half an hour at least,” said Constable Baker.
“Is his wife in there with him?” I should not have wanted her to hear details of the murder of Elizabeth Tribble and of the brutality that had been inflicted upon her dead body. To hear the man she had just married was suspect in such a crime would surely be more than she could bear.
“No,” said Constable Langford, “and ain’t that strange? When I went upstairs to tell Sir John I’d detained his man for him to question, Lady Fielding come down with him and invited Mrs. Tolliver up for a cup of tea — all friendly like, she was. ‘Call me Kate,’ she says. I tell you, the butcher looked at her right grateful. The two women are up there in the kitchen right now, I reckon.”
“It would probably be best then if I stay here,” I ventured.
“Prob’ly would,” Mr. Baker agreed.
I had not long to wait. As I listened to Mr. Langford’s proud report, the voices from the rear had quietened considerably. While they could still be heard, they seemed no longer to be raised in strife. That I felt to be encouraging.
Eventually the two appeared. Neither spoke to the other as they approached us, and yet they gave the impression that all had been said. There was evidently naught of anger between them, nor for that matter did either of them smile.
“Constable Langford,” said Sir John, “I have just had a frank exchange of views with Mr. Tolliver. I hold him at fault for failing to be available for further questioning and to testify at the inquest into the death of Nell Darby. He holds me at fault for failing to be specific in this and failing to emphasize the importance of this duty I placed upon him. In any case, he produced the letter that brought him to Bristol and read it to me. He has returned a married man, truly, so there can be no doubt of the nature and success of his mission. He has left the letter with me for further study. And so there is no need to detain him further. Therefore I ask you to accompany him and his good wife to their residence in Long Acre. And you might this time give him a hand with his baggage.” Then, turning to Mr. Tolliver: “There. That should satisfy you.”
“It does, completely. You are a gentleman, sir.”
“Of course I am,” said Sir John, a bit snappish. “That is what the ‘Sir’ before my name is meant to denote. Now, who will go up and fetch Mrs. Tolliver?”
“I will. Sir John,” said L
“Oh? Jeremy? You’re back? Good. You should no doubt find her tete-a-tete with Lady Fielding in the kitchen.”
With that, I marched up the stairs, reflecting that all I had got from Mr. Tolliver was a sullen nod of recognition. Surely he could have done better. Pausing at the door, I decided to knock out of respect to Lady Fielding’s guest. I received from the other side the door a cheery invitation to enter.
After my introduction to Mrs. Tolliver, which I acknowledged with a polite bow, I announced that Sir John and Mr. Tolliver had concluded their conversation.
“You see?” said Lady Fielding to her as she rose. “It lasted no time at all. Jack simply wanted to talk to him. I do hope you can come sometime and visit the Magdalene Home soon. We’re so proud of our work there.”
Mrs. Tolliver, who in Constable Langford’s just estimation was pleasant-looking, rather than pretty, smiled gratefully. “Perhaps a Sunday. I’ve said I would help in the stall during the week, at least for a little while.”
“Perhaps a Sunday then.”
There were further urgings and thanks until at last she made for the door. I volunteered to show her down, for the stairs were dark and steep.
She left on her husband’s arm, twittering happily at Lady Fielding’s kindness to her. Constable Langford followed, struggling under the weight of the larger of the two portmanteaus.
When he heard the door slam after them. Sir John turned to Constable Baker and me and said with obvious annoyance: “He is the most disputatious fellow ever I met. Should have been a lawyer, I daresay. Still, I could not lock him up in the strong room simply because of that, now, could I?”
Next day it was made plain that despite the fact that Sir John had sent Mr. Tolliver on his way, he had not completely surrendered his suspicions. In the morning, he invited me down to his chambers and asked me to reread to him the letter which had brought Mr. Tolliver to Bristol. It was a rather prim response to his advert (“object: marriage”) which he had placed in the Bristol Shipping News, precisely the sort one might expect from a respectable widow in slightly straitened circumstances. She was frank to say she had not much to offer as a fortune but she did have something. Since the death of her husband, a shipping clerk, two years past, she had managed to support herself as dressmaker to some of the fashionable ladies of the town. She had no children, as both of hers had died in the smallpox which took her husband. She was not young but neither was she old and had no reason to believe she was barren. Although she, too, was interested in marrying again, she would not consider it without some period of acquaintance. If Mr. Tolliver were willing to come and stay a decent length of time, he might come ahead and present himself. There were many inns and lodging houses in the town of Bristol, it being a great seaport. She signed the letter, “Respectfully yours,” rather than in some more ornate or personal manner.
“I see nothing wrong in this. Sir John.”
“No, but just see when the letter is dated — a full ten days before the Tribble murder — no, eleven. It does not take so long for a letter to reach London — two days, three at the most. His explanation for this discrepancy is that his bride carried the letter about near a week before posting it, so unsure was she that she wished to engage in this venture. He claims to have found it under his door when he reached his dwelling after my interview with him at the scene of the Darby homicide. He said he was so eager to get on to Bristol that he gave no thought to his responsibilities to me but packed his portmanteau in a great hurry and caught the night coach to Bristol at ten.”
“But I fail to see — ”
“Don’t you? If he had indeed caught the night coach, that would have put him on the road at the time of the Tribble murder. Note that his landlord said he left in the direction of Covent Garden. The coach house lies in the opposite direction — but King Street is on the way to Covent Garden, and King Street is where the Tribble woman was murdered and so horribly butchered. Now do you see?”
“Well, yes, but did Mr. Donnelly not put the time of her death hours later than ten o’clock?”
“Exactly! He must have left for Bristol next day in the morning.”
I sighed. It seemed unusual for Sir John to build so ingenious a construction of supposition and contingency. Yet was his ingenuity perhaps bom of desperation? I knew him to be in profound anxiety that the second murderer be apprehended before he could kill again.
“And so, sir, by your way of thinking, Mr. Tolliver’s guilt or innocence hinges upon whether or not he took the night coach to Bristol or traveled next day.”
“That may be putting it a bit strong, but if he did not take the night coach, as he says, then I would have good reason to suspect him instead of reaching as I am now. If I catch him in a lie, I will have the truth out of him.”
“How do you propose to do that. Sir John?”
“I have thought of another likely flaw in his story. Tell me, have you been by his stall since his disappearance?”
“Yes sir, as you directed — though, I confess, not lately.”
“But you market nearby at the other stalls for vegetables?”
“No, I buy generally from those closer by.”
“Well, I wish you to go there to his stall and give it a good sniff. If he left in a great hurry, as he says, there would have been meat left inside, all locked up, and it would rot and raise a great stink. There would be complaints. If there is no bad odor, then I have found another discrepancy. I will have Mr. Fuller take him round to the coach house, and let Mr. Tolliver prove that he rode that night coach.”
“But — ”
“No, Jeremy, do as I say. I know your liking for the fellow, but it is just on seven. He is not likely to be about. He will be lolling in bed with his new wife. All you need do is go to his stall and take a good sniff.”
I was off then to perform another task which I found disagreeable. It had been given me, and I would perform it, though not without misgivings. I hurried across Covent Garden, there being little in the way of a crowd to impede my way. The stalls and carts from which the fruits and vegetables would be sold that day were being prepared and arranged for the flood of buyers who would soon fill the immense empty space. There was a good deal of loud talk between competitors, most of it of the bantering sort. The street merchants filled their pushcarts and barrows and argued with their suppliers. Thus did the Garden come alive in hoots and shouts.
Mr. Tolliver’s stall was at the far end near Henrietta Street, where it was that he had hailed Mr. Bailey and me and informed us of the body he had found in the passage. I had visited it few times since his departure for Bristol and first on an errand I had also found disagreeable. It was as I had seen it then, shut tight and padlocked. I went round it carefully, using my nose freely, sniffing about like some hunting dog on a trail. And indeed I felt rather foolish doing so, particularly as I noticed I had caught the eye of the unpleasant woman who sold vegetables from the stall next his.
“Here, you,” yelled she most rudely, “what’re you about? If you’re thinkin’ of grabbin’ that stall for your own, it ain’t available. Him what rents it has gone off, but he’ll be back. You can be sure.”
Clearly, she had no memory of me from our earlier conversation. Just as clearly she took me for a possible competitor and wished to keep me away.
“You misunderstand,” said I. “I come from the Beak on Bow Street. Have there been any unpleasant smells issuing from this stall?”
‘^Smells?” said she suspiciously. ”What kind?”
Having cited the magistrate as my authority, I made to use it: “Just answer the question, madam.”
“No smells,” said she. “He’s a butcher, he is, though why he ain’t in Smithfield with the rest of them I don’t know. The truth is, it smells better with him gone than it did when he was here.”
That, of course, according to Sir John’s reasoning, was disappointing news for me. I thanked her and turned away. Yet as I did, whom should I spy but Mr. Tolliver himself coming my way. He had also seen me; in fact, he gave a careless wave. There was no pretending I had not seen him. I went forward with a greeting, not knowing what else I might do — or more I could say.
“Lookin’ for me, were you?” said he. “I s’pose His Majesty has summoned me for another talk. He said he’d not done with me.”
“I thought you might be open for customers,” said I, avoiding a more serious lie.
“Not today, but tomorrow. I shall have a job of washing up to do. Then I must buy my meat and fix delivery. It takes a day to start up again. But in truth, Jeremy, I’m glad I ran into you.”
“Oh? Why is that?”
“I’m afraid I was a bit short with you last night. Short? I gave you no greeting at all! I was put out of sorts by the magistrate. Put plain, he seems not to believe me. Why, I don’t know — unless it be something personal.”
“Oh, I think not,” said I. “It is just that having captured one killer, he came to discover there was another.”
“He told me of that, said you were quite the hero in the matter — given a reward and all.”
“Half a reward, for there is still one to be caught, and Sir John feels great urgency that he be apprehended before he kill again.”
“Well, you can tell him for me that, beggin’ his pardon, but I ain’t his man.”
He growled that out so loudly in his deep voice that the rude woman in the next stall turned to look.
“I believe you, Mr. Tolliver,” said I stoutly. “I would not, could not, think ill of you. Nor could Lady Fielding. We have both spoken oft in your behalf.”
He grunted a rumbling bass grunt. “I must say she treated my wife well. You may tell Kate for me that I’ll not forget that, nor will Maude.”
“Maude?” I asked a bit dully. My mind, reader, was at that moment on a much weightier matter. I was laboring to make a decision.
“My wife,” said he, explaining the obvious. “Maude Whetsel she was, and Maude Tolliver she is now. I tell you, Jeremy, it’s a sad thing to bring a woman you’ve just married back to a terrible muddle like this.”
Then did he shake his great head as one would in a state of awful perplexity. What was to be done? What could be done? In that moment I felt that only I could help him.
“Mr. Tolliver,” I burst out, at last giving in to the impulse with which I had been grappling these last moments, “is there any way that you can prove that you were on that night coach to Bristol? That you did not wait till the morrow to travel there?”
He looked at me queerly, as if a veil had been lifted from his eyes and he saw now clearly what he had before only dimly perceived.
“So,” said he, “it all comes down to that, does it?”
“Tell me what you told Sir John, if you would, please. What did you do after you left us there on Henrietta Street?”
“Why, I went home.”
“Back to your rooms in Long Acre. Continue — all the details, please.”
“Well, coming in to my place, I found a lettered been slipped under my door. It was from — ”
“Stay a moment,” said I, interrupting. “Do you know how the letter came to be there?”
“Not for certain, no, but Fve an idea. Fve a neighbor, Mr. Salter, who manages the backstage at the Theatre Royal. A man in a position like that, he gets a fair share of post from all over, so he stops by the letter office two or three times a week to pick up his packet. It’s known that I live at the same address, and so the odd letter comes now and then for me they give to him for to pass on. He tucks them under my door.”
“Good,” said I. “Will you find out from Mr. Salter that he did in fact deliver that letter from Bristol so?”
“I can do that, yes, if he remembers. It was more than a month ago.”
“Well and good, you found the letter, you opened and read it. Why did you decide so immediate to go off to Bristol to meet the woman who was to become your wife?”
“Sir John asked me that, too, and I told him polite that it was a personal matter, and Fd keep my own counsel on that. And we argued a bit, but since it’s you askin’, Fll tell you. Fve had terrible luck tryin’ to marry again. I came close once” — he gave me a look I would term significant — “yet that went for naught. Mostly it is that women who are respectable want nothing to do with a butcher. I don’t know why, for they’ll eat a good cut of meat ready enough. Yet I courted a few, and it all come down to that — bein’ a butcher was somehow disgusting to them. So Fd put this advert in the Shipping News in Bristol where it was I grew up, and I made it plain in it butchering was my trade, and I swear to you, Jeremy, hers was the only letter I got back. And it was a grand letter, so it was. I saw her as an intelligent woman who’d had terrible misfortune visited upon her, lost her husband and two children, yet managed to support herself and keep her self-respect. And so she is and so she has — she’s a grand woman is my Maude. And… well. . ” He came to a full stop and looked away.
“And what? Tell me what you were about to say, Mr. Tolliver, please.”
“It was what I just came from, finding that girl dead in the passage, that decided me to leave immediate. As I believe I said at the time, Td seen the girl about — she’d bought from me on an occasion or two — and to see her so, a mere child she was, all crumpled up and murdered, people pawing over her to find her wound — well, it just made me heartsick. This is such a hard city, Jeremy, so little in it of hope and decency, especially for those of her kind. Well, I just wanted to get away from here as quick as ever I could. P’rhaps I should have given thought to Sir John’s request that I be here for the inquest, but I’d told all I knew two times over. I just wanted to get away.”
He had grown tense in the telling. His hands, both of them, were rolled into big fists; his head was bowed. I remembered his objections when Mr. Bailey had sought the death wound the Raker had inflicted just below her sternum. Indeed Lady Fielding was no bad judge of character, nor was I: Mr. Tolliver could not have murdered Libby Tribble and Poll Tarkin.
“You told Sir John none of this, I suppose?”
“No — just a bit about Maude, that I was eager to meet her.”
“When he questions you again, as no doubt he will, you must tell him all of this exactly as you’ve told me.” I saw resistance written in his face, and so I repeated: “Exactly so. But now, please continue. You packed your portmanteau in a great hurry and made ready to leave. Do you know the time you left your rooms to catch the night coach?”
“Well, as near as I can remember, I had a little less than an hour to get there. I’ve a clock I wind daily, so I can be right certain about that.”
Something here was wrong. “But if you had near an hour to get to the coach house,” I said, “why were you in such a great hurry? You could walk it easily in a quarter of an hour.”
“But I had to get back to my stall here in the Garden. I’d meat inside, and it was all locked up. With no idea when I’d return, I knew the meat would rot. Couldn’t have that.”
“How did you dispose of it?”
