The Price of Murder Read Free Page A

.”
    “Put it on the bill,” said I. Then did I take her arm and lead her away.
    “Can we trust him?” Clarissa whispered to me. “I’ve heard tales of butchers adding half to a bill just for spite.”
    “You’ve naught to worry with Mr. Tolliver.”
    “Truly? He gave us no figure, after all. He could as well say that he sold us a pound’s worth as a penny’s.”
    “There’s not a more honest man in Westminster.”
     
Thus it was that we returned to Number 4 Bow Street. Entering by the door that led to that part behind Sir John’s magistrate’s court, we made our way to the stairs and were about to mount them when I heard Mr. Marsden’s hoarse voice call my name. I urged Clarissa up the stairs and went to hear what he had to tell me. It was simply, as I supposed, that Sir John wished me to see him when I returned. Probably a letter to be taken in dictation, I told myself, or another to be picked up at the Post Coach House.
    “Did he seem specially eager to see me? Worried? Angry? It’s a question of whether I bring the groceries up before or after I report in to him.”
    “Well,” said he, with a bit of a wheeze, “he didn’t seem worried, exactly, but—” He coughed, then: “Not worried, exactly, but angry, I s’pose.”
    I sighed. “I’ll go see him now.”
    Putting down the two bags of groceries, which I had hauled back from Covent Garden, I trudged down the long hall to the magistrate’s chambers. There I found him head bowed, pacing the floor before his desk. There was a space of no more than eight feet square, which he crossed and re-crossed. He knew full well that if he were to venture farther in any direction, he would come crashing into a row of chairs. Though blind, he had memorized the room exactly. I held at the door, unwilling to interrupt his thoughts. I stood thus, waiting, for less than a minute. He stopped, turned, and faced the door.
    “Well, what are you waiting for, Jeremy?” he demanded. “Come in, will you?”
    I did as he bade and took a place upon one of the rear chairs, expecting him to retire to his desk. He did nothing of the kind but continued his pacing, saying nothing for some time. Then at last he did stop and turn in my direction.
    “First of all, where were you? It’s been near an hour since I put out the call for you.”
    “In Covent Garden, sir, showing Clarissa about and introducing her to one and another. She chose the makings of tonight’s dinner.”
    “Oh . . . well, that’s needful and necessary, I suppose, but dammit, lad, could you not have cut it short—or at least hurried things along just a bit?”
    “Well, I—”
    “Oh, never mind—but listen, ’twas near an hour ago that a little street urchin came running in, demanding to be heard. He’d been sent by a waterman at Billingsgate Stairs to report that he had pulled from the river the body of a child. A girl it was, of no more than six or seven years of age. I think it may be that one reported stolen by her mother a month ago. You recall, do you?”
    “Oh, I recall,” said I. “You pointed out to me that it was the second such disappearance that month. You said you suspected that they were being sold.”
    “Yes, but to what purpose? The earlier abduction was of a boy of about the same age. When kids are napped from the rich, they are held for a price. There was no demand for money in either case, nor would the parents be the sort you might hope to extort money from.”
    “Too poor?”
    “By half.” He sighed. “I recall my brother Henry talking of a series of kidnappings of adolescent children, yet they were shipped off to Jamaica and sold into slavery. But this was years ago, mind you, back in Jonathan Wild’s time.”
    “The thief-taker general,” said I.
    “So he proclaimed himself.”
    “What will you have me do, Sir John?”
    “I want you to collect the girl’s corpus and bring it to Mr. Donnelly. You had better notify him before you go all the way to Billingsgate