Murder in Grub Street Read Online Free PDF

We’ll not be long.”
    And thus they left me there in the dark, for Mr. Bailey had taken with them the candle that had lit the room. Yet not completely in the dark, for there were candles lit on the floor above which showed some light down where I stood; and through the shop window that looked out upon the street there came a glow from the lamp and perhaps a hint of the dawn that was to come.
    As I stood waiting, two more bodies were ushered to the wagon and deposited there. With a full load, the Raker busied himself rearranging it for the journey he would make; he hauled the dead about, tossing them this way and that like so many sacks of grain, no longer mindful to keep them covered. Once he had suited himself as to their disposition, he threw a tarpaulin over them all and secured it at the four corners of the wagon. He seemed to sing some ditty or ballad to himself as he went about it. I could not catch the words to it, but they seemed to amuse him.
    Sir John then returned with Mr. Bailey and, calling out, summoned Constable Cowley to him. Them he instructed to secure the building as best they could. He proposed that rope might do to tie the door. “Also,” said he, “you must post a sign, warning all away on pain of fine and imprisonment. Sign my name to it, though in no wise try to copy my signature.
    “As you will, sir.”
    “As I will? Yes, Mr. Bailey, I can only wish that all things were as I willed them, or as I willed them not to be. Well, no matter. Jeremy? Are you prepared to see us back the way we came?”
    “I am, Sir John.”
    “Would you not prefer to wait, Sir John?” asked Mr. Bailey. “The two of us constables could accompany you back to Bow Street.”
    “No,” said he, most emphatically. “I must get this boy back to his bed, if indeed he can sleep after the horrors he has witnessed this night.” He cocked his head more or less in my direction. “Jeremy?”
    “Yes, Sir John.”
    “Let us be on our way.”
    I then touched him at the elbow and guided him forth from this place in which the infamous “massacre in Grub Street” had taken place. We stepped together into the street. There I saw the Raker, who had mounted the driver’s seat and was now ready to depart.
    “Quite a harvest, Sir John,” he called out. “I’ve not had such a haul for months or more, perhaps a year.”
    “You will be paid for it, of course,” said Sir John.
    “Ah yes,” said he, “all part of the job. Would you and the lad care to accompany me? I’m going your way.”
    “No, I think we’ll walk, thank you.”
    And at that he laughed most heartily. “Few wish to do so,” said the Raker. “Indeed, few do.”
    And then with a whip he stirred his dead horses back to life and they started on their way. I watched them go. Sir John set off at a good pace, and I hopped along to keep up with him.
    “Who is that man?” I asked. “What does he mean calling himself ‘the Raker’?”
    “I know not truly who he is,” said Sir John. “He calls himself only that — the Raker. It is a title passed down from the last century, during the plague years, when some ancestor of his went through London town collecting the plague dead. It was dangerous work, leaving all who pursued it open to infection. Somehow, his line survived, and so the ugly business passed down to him. He is employed by the city of London to collect bodies and hold them until they be claimed. If they are not, he sees to their burial in potter’s graves.”
    “All seem to fear him a little,” I ventured.
    Sir John sighed. “He enjoys his work too much. There is something unholy about the man. There are rumors about him we need not discuss.”
    “I understand, sir.” Though in truth, I did not.
    We walked along in silence until we came to the crossing where we had earlier turned up Grub Street. I guided Sir John at the corner with no more than a touch at the elbow. And thus in an easterly direction we went, picking up the pace once