第31章 A MODEL FOR MR HOGARTH(4)

Sarah then confessed that she had pawned the missing waistcoats for two guineas, and begged him not to be angry.Kerrel asked her why she had not asked him for money.He could readily forgive her for pawning the waistcoats, but, having heard her talk of Mrs Lydia Duncomb, he was afraid she was concerned with the murder.A pair of earrings were found in the drawers, and these Sarah claimed, putting them in her corsage.An odd-looking bundle in the closet then attracted Kerrel's attention, and he kicked it, and asked Sarah what it was.She said it was merely dirty linen wrapped up in an old gown.She did not wish it exposed.Kerrel made further search, and found that other things were missing.He told the watch to take the woman and hold her strictly.

Sarah was led away.Kerrel, now thoroughly roused, continued his search, and he found underneath his bed another bundle.He also came upon some bloodstained linen in another place, and in a close-stool a silver tankard, upon the handle of which was a lot of dried blood.

Kerrel's excitement passed to Gehagan, and the two of them went at speed downstairs yelling for the watch.After a little the two watchmen reappeared, but without Sarah.They had let her go, they said, because they had found nothing on her, and, besides, she had not been charged before a constable.

One here comes upon a recital by the watchmen which reveals the extraordinary slackness in dealing with suspect persons that characterized the guardians of the peace in London in those times.They had let thewoman go, but she had come back.Her home was in Shoreditch, she said, and rather than walk all that way on a cold and boisterous night she had wanted to sit up in the watch-house.The watchmen refused to let her do this, but ordered her to go about her business,'' advising her sternly at the same time to turn up again by ten o'clock in the morning.Sarah had given her word, and had gone away.

On hearing this story Kerrel became very angry, threatening the two watchmen, Hughes and Mastreter, with Newgate if they did not pick her up again immediately.Upon this the watchmen scurried off as quickly as their age and the cumbrous nature of their clothing would let them.They found Sarah in the company of two other watchmen at the gate of the Temple.Hughes, as a means of persuading her to go with them more easily, told her that Kerrel wanted to speak with her, and that he was not angry any longer.Presently, in Tanfield Court, they came on the two young men carrying the tankard and the bloodied linen.This time it was Gehagan who did the talking.He accused Sarah furiously, showing her the tankard.Sarah attempted to wipe the blood off the tankard handle with her apron.Gehagan stopped her.

Sarah said the tankard was her own.Her mother had given it her, and she had had it for five years.It was to get the tankard out of pawn that she had taken Kerrel's waistcoats, needing thirty shillings.The blood on the handle was due to her having pricked a finger.

With this began the series of lies Sarah Malcolm put up in her defence.She was hauled into the watchman's box and more thoroughly searched.A green silk purse containing twenty-one guineas was found in the bosom of her dress.This purse Sarah declared she had found in the street, and as an excuse for its cleanliness, unlikely with the streets as foul as they were at that age and time of year, said she had washed it.Both bundles of linen were bloodstained.There was some doubt as to the identity of the green purse.Mrs Rhymer, who, as we have seen, was likelier than anyone to recognize it, would not swear it was the green purse that had been in Mrs Duncomb's black box.There was, however, no doubt at all about the tankard.It had the initials C.D.'' engraved upon it, and was at once identified as Mrs Duncomb's.The linen which Sarah had beenhandling in Mr Kerrel's drawer was said to be darned in a way recognizable as Mrs Duncomb's.It had lain beside the tankard and the money in the black box.

There was, it will be seen, but very little doubt of Sarah Malcolm's guilt.According to the reports of her trial, however, she fought fiercely for her life, questioning the witnesses closely.Some of them, such as could remember small points against her, but who failed in recollection of the colour of her dress or of the exact number of the coins said to be lost, she vehemently denounced.

One of the Newgate turnkeys told how some of the missing money was discovered.Being brought from the Compter to Newgate, Sarah happened to see a room in which debtors were confined.She asked the turnkey, Roger Johnson, if she could be kept there.Johnson replied that it would cost her a guinea, but that from her appearance it did not look to him as if she could afford so much.Sarah seems to have bragged then, saying that if the charge was twice or thrice as much she could send for a friend who would pay it.Her attitude probably made the turnkey suspicious.At any rate, after Sarah had mixed for some time with the felons in the prison taproom, Johnson called her out and, lighting the way by use of a link, led her to an empty room.

Child,'' he said, there is reason to suspect that you are guilty of this murder, and therefore I have orders to search you.'' He had, he admitted, no such orders.He felt under her arms; whereupon she started and threw back her head.Johnson clapped his hand on her head and felt something hard.He pulled off her cap, and found a bag of money in her hair.

I asked her,'' Johnson said in the witness-box, how she came by it, and she said it was some of Mrs Duncomb's money.`But, Mr Johnson,' says she, `I'll make you a present of it if you will keep it to yourself, and let nobody know anything of the matter.The other things against me are nothing but circumstances, and I shall come well enough off.And therefore I only desire you to let me have threepence or sixpence a day till the sessions be over; then I shall be at liberty to shift for myself.' ''