Watery Grave by Bruce Alexander Read Free Book Online

“and not just that you’d grown a few inches. You’ve a proper suit of clothes on you, and I see your face clear and unsmudged for the first time in memo It’s a new Jimmie Bunkins I see before me.”
    “Chum, you don’t know the half. Mr. Bilbo’s got me learnin’ to read and to do sums!” He looked craftily about.” How would you like to meet him, Tom Durham? Walk right up and give his daddle a wiggle? He’s a good sort, ain’t he, Jeremy?”
    “Oh, he is indeed,” said I.” A friend to Sir John —though it’s true they have their differences.”
    “Well, then, come along—you, too, Jeremy. He speaks good olyou, always askin’ after Sir John and yourself.”
    Shaking my head with a show of regret, I held up the bag of vegetables I had bought at the stalls. “If we are to eat tonight,” said I, “then I must return with these. Go, Tom, and on the way tell Bunkins the tale of the grabs.”
    They said their goodbyes and waved. As they started off together.
    I heard Jimmie Bunkins ask, “What, for Gawd’s own sake, might a ‘grab’ be?”
    Walking on by myself across Covent Garden in the direction of Bow Street, I reflected that Tom Durham and his Jimmie B. seemed an odd pair —but then, so must Bunkins and I appear equally ill matched.
    I had not realized Tom had quite such a history in petty crime. The two were reformed villains and each had done his separate form of penance. It would be best, I decided, not to tell Lady Fielding where her son had gone and with whom. She might indeed draw the wrong conclusions.
    Upon my return, I visited Mrs. Gredge, and then I was free to seek out Sir John. He had asked me to be ready as soon as he concluded his court session, and we would travel to the Navy Board office for the meeting with Vice-Admiral Sir Robert Redmond. Only minutes before, I had tested the door to the courtroom and found him engaged in the examination of a witness. It seemed likely then that this would continue for quite some while, yet when I left Mrs. Gredge and returned to the courtroom, I found it empty.
    Quite in a panic, for I did not wish Sir John to make such a long trip alone, nor did I wish to lose the chance to meet an admiral, I went searching and found him directly in the little alcove that served Mr. Marsden, the court clerk, for an office.
    Yet before I spoke, he had turned his head in my direction.” Jeremy,” said he, “is that you?”
    “It is, sir.”
    “Good, then let us be off. I believe our business is complete, Mr. Marsden?”
    “Yes, I shall have the letters on your desk for your signature before I leave tonight.”
    “Shall we go then, Jeremy?”
    Mr. Marsden or Mr. Fuller, or one of the other daytime gentlemen, had seen to the matter of the hackney carriage. One stood waiting on the street just outside the door.
    As we ascended into the carriage cabin, Sir John called out our destination to the driver.” Tower Hill,” said he.” The office of the Navy Board.”
    I brought the carriage door shut behind me and turned to Sir John with a question:
    “Sir, when I came up to you just now at Mr. Marsden’s desk, you knew quite immediate it was me. I had not even spoken, yet you knew. It has happened just so more times than I can remember. IF I may ask, Sir John, how are you able to tell?”
    He smiled.” Oh, it was partly a matter of anticipation,” said he.” I was expecting you, after all, for we had agreed to go off together to Tower Hill. But then, too, I may have noted your step. It is a bit quicker and lighter than most heard in Bow Street.”
    Then he hesitated but a moment, frowning, as if weighing the wisdom of proceeding. Yet eventually he did:
    “There is another matter to be taken into consideration, as well.”
    “And what is that. Sir John?”
    “You have a smell.”
    “I … I stink?” Surely I washed clean enough to rid myself of those noxious odors of the body which so many disguise with perfume.
    “No, no, do not take offense, Jeremy.