The Color of Death Read Online Free PDF Page A

for when she comes back, laying out her nightgown and all.”
    “I see,” said the magistrate, “and when were you aware that something was amiss downstairs?”
    “Oh, I could tell. There was of a sudden a terrible lot of shouting and noise, and I could tell there was something wrong. I didn’t want no part of it.”
    “And how did you react?”
    She looked at him blankly. Clearly, the word was not in her vocabulary. ” ‘React,’ sir?”
    “What did you do then?”
    “I hid myself in Lady Lilley’s closet, the one with all her frocks and all in it. She has so many clothes, sir. Really, you’ve no idea.”
    “I’m sure she has,” said Sir John, somewhat annoyed at her, “but let us stick to the matter at hand. Now, as you were hidden away in the closet amongst all those frocks, were you able to hear the robbers as they went from room to room?”
    “Oh, yes sir, I surely was, sir. They was yellin’ and shoutin’ about, goin’ all around the house. Why, they scared me half to death, they did.”
    “Now, Mistress Pinkham, I ask you to give some thought to this next question.” He paused to give weight to what followed: “Would you say that these men who came to rob the house knew their way around it? Would you think it likely that they had a map of the interior to show them where things were located?”
    She did give the matter some thought, but her answer, when it came, may have disappointed Sir John. “No sir,” said she, “I don’t think they was ever in the house before, and I don’t think they had a map. The reason is, when they come upstairs, I could hear them very plain, and they were saying, ‘Where is it?’ and, ‘Which is the room where the duchess sleeps?’ They were searchin’ through the whole upstairs for the room where I was hidin’.”
    “And eventually they found it,” he put in.
    “They did, sir, but it took them a while, and if they’d had a map of the house, or as you say, known their way around, then they coulda gone right to it.”
    Sir John sighed. “I see your point, and I must admit it has a certain validity.”
    “Sir?”
    “Oh, never mind. Of course all this searching about was not done in an effort to find you.”
    “No, sir. They just opened the closet door, and there I was.”
    “They were after something quite different.”
    “They was, sir, and it was m’lady’s jewels.”
    “And they found them.”
    “Yes sir, I told the robbers where they was hid.” Neither in her face nor in her voice was there any hint of shame or embarrassment as she made her confession. She even wore a slight smile as one might while engaged in any sort of polite conversation.
    “Told them, did you?” He seemed more amused than shocked at her audacious revelation.
    “I did, sir, and you would, too, if you’d had a knife stickin’ up your nose. They offered to slit it proper if I didn’t tell.” She shrugged, as if the choice she’d made had been the only reasonable one. “And so I told them.”
    Sir John laughed out loud at that. “Your logic,” he said, “is altogether unassailable. I mean to say, you may be certain that you did the right thing. However,” — and here he lowered his voice — “I would not tell it to your Lord or Lady Lilley as you told it to me. Tell them that you fought and screamed and so on, and that one of the robbers happened upon the jewels just as they were about to begin torturing you in earnest. Now, doesn’t that sound better?”
    “Oh, much, sir, I’ll practice it, I will.”
    “You do that, Mistress Pinkham.” And having said that, he dismissed her. But then did a second thought persuade him to call her back again. “I have but one more matter to mention to you, and that has to do with the manner of speech used by the robbers.”
    “Sir?”
    “The way they talked. I have been told that all were black men — Africans. Is that correct?”
    “All I seen were.”
    “And did they talk as black men would talk? “
    “That I