“While we await the Bow Street inquiries, let’s keep focused on trial preparation. Was our application for the Order of Compulsion approved?”
“Yes,” Obadiah answered. “For the eight witnesses. All the subpoenas have been served. I have the list right here.”
William looked it over, muttering, “Without the first mate, this adds up to a wagonload of hearsay.”
“Should we seek an order compelling Solicitor Bristol to testify?”
“He’d resist it and merely lie if he was put on the stand. No, to stand a chance of success piercing this fog, it’s obvious we still need McPherson or First Mate Ivars—or we must locate the forgers responsible for Captain Tuttle’s letter.”
There was a knock at the door. Obadiah’s wife opened it cautiously to peek through.
“Suzie?” Obadiah called. “Why are you here?”
Suzanne brushed fresh snow from her coat. “I’m sorry. I know you’re readying for trial, but I needed to tell you that Madeleine has left.”
“Left?” William erupted. “Why? To where?”
“She wouldn’t say. Didn’t even tell Davidson. But she was out the door soon after you, Obadiah. Said it had to do with the case and she hopes to be back the day after tomorrow or the next.”
“That’s two to three days into trial,” William said, irritated that Madeleine would add still more chaos to the case.
“No mention where she’s gone?”
“None.”
“We’re unlikely to need her testimony for the first day or two anyway,” Obadiah said.
He was right. And the truth was that her testimony was a sideshow anyway. If he was honest with himself, his true worry lay in her state of mind since the ball—and a powerful tug of concern that she’d left once again, traveling alone.
“Leave me now, Obadiah,” William ordered, hoping the strength of his sentiment wouldn’t show through. “I’ll let you know if I hear from the Bow Street Runners. In the meantime, we still have much work to be prepared for trial in the morning.”
CHEMIST’S SHOP
STAUNTON
ESSEX COUNTY
Roisin shook her head. Her white fist was wrapped around a pestle she was working so hard in the mortar that Madeleine thought she’d break it.
“No, Madeleine,” the woman insisted. “I tell you again, I won’t do it.”
Madeleine’s own face and hands were pale with chill, her riding dress muddy from the hard ride from London on treacherous, snow-sloshed roads.
“You have to, Roisin,” she answered as firmly. “I spent the afternoon at the docks trying to find out who might know how to reach local smugglers and learned nothing. This is my only hope.”
“It was foolish to go to the docks alone anyway, girl. Even in daylight. Boneheaded and foolish.”
A shudder ran through Madeleine as she recalled the stares of some she’d spoken with on the quay. “I had to try. Now I need to meet with the American. Please.”
“Madeleine, darlin’, listen—even though it’s not in your nature. That man will have his pound of flesh if you go askin’ more favors of him. You don’t want to meet him again until you’ve got the money to repay him.”
“Which won’t happen unless we can find Harold’s first mate,” Madeleine answered. “Do you think he’d know if this Quint signed on with a smuggler’s ship in these waters? It would’ve been only in the past week or a little more.”
“Maybe. I don’t know. The American seems to know everything about his business, and the sea is his business. But you say the trial starts tomorrow? We could never find this sailor you’re searchin’ for in a single day.”
“We don’t need him for the first day. I think we have two, perhaps three days to bring him to court. But we’re going to lose the trial without him, and oh, Roisin, that means Harold could die on the gallows. No one wants to say it aloud, but it’s true. Do you know where the American is or don’t you?”
Roisin squinted her eyes in a look of agony. “Ah, girl, I never could resist you. Yes, yes, I know exactly where he is, or at least where he’ll be. He’s comin’ with a delivery a’ sugar tonight. Out by Kilton’s farm. Midnight or thereabouts.”
Madeleine’s heart rushed at the first stroke of luck in memory. “Thank you, Roisin. I’ll go with you to meet with him.”
“Like I or anyone else could stop you. We’ll leave from here, at eleven. That’s three hours. Now you get on home and rest. But know that if you’re not back here by eleven, I’ll gladly go without you.”
35
ST. JAMES’S PARK
LONDON
“Darlin’,” Lonny said, “you know we take care of our own, don’t you?”
Standing near a thicket of trees in the heart of the park, young Isabella wrapped her arms around her coat. The snow reflected blue from the spruce, the slice of moon overhead, and the bitter cold of the early morning hour.
“What’s all this about, Lonny?” she asked, teeth chattering. “You keep saying things I don’t understand. Why have you dragged me out in the middle of the night?”
Lonny reached with outstretched fingers as he stepped closer. “You know that I’m right, don’t you, darlin’? About caring for our own?”
The girl shook her head, her eyes narrowing. “Yes. Whatever you say. Now tell me, what’s this about?”
“Only this, darlin’. I mean to be compensating you for the good work you’ve done.” He took another step closer as he pulled a bulky sack from beneath his coat that clinked with coins. “I’ve got two hundred pounds in here with your name on it, Isabella. Relocatin’ money, you see.”
“Relocating? What’s that?”
“Movin’ you to a better place. Setting you up for a better life.”
She took a step backward, alarm in her eyes. “Moving me? Moving me where?”
“To York, darlin’. I’ve made arrangements.”
She fell into stunned silence. “You’ll give me two hundred pounds if I move to York?”
“Aye. The same for young Tad, who should’ve been here by now.”
She scuffed her foot on the frost-hardened ground. “Are you saying I’m done here at Carlton House?”
“Aye, darlin’. That’s all over.”
Her eyes flashed recognition. “That’s what you said happened to Simon, isn’t it? You told me he finished his work and you moved him.”
“Aye. He moved on. For his own protection. Just as we’re doing for you, darlin’.”
He drew closer.
“Lonny, wait. I . . . I’ve got to think about this. I need some time.” Her voice grew raspy with cold and fear. “Now I’ve got to get back to the house before someone knows I’m gone.”
“Only a bit longer,” Lonny urged. “The lad should be here any moment.”
“You’ve never parted with two pounds at any time in your life,” Isabella said angrily. “Now you’ll give me two hundred?”
He shook the sack in his hand. “Aye. The folks we’ve done a service for, you see, they’ve asked that you and Tad leave London for a while. And darlin’, I’ll be square with you. If you need more, there’ll be more. I’m sure of it.”
Isabella shook her head. “York?”
“Are you deaf? Yes. York. Just for a while. Where’s that Tad?”
“Everyone I know is here in London.”
“We’re your family, darlin’,” Lonny said, reaching out to take her arm. “We’ll stay in close touch, and we’ll bring you back when it’s safe.” He looked around. “Where . . . is . . . that . . . boy?”
“I’m going to be missed at the house. I have to get back.” She shook off his hand and stepped away.
Lonny cocked his head toward the woods behind her.
A thick bear of a man emerged from the shadows. In two long strides, he threw his arms about Isabella, a bulky hand covering her mouth and nose.
She wrestled wildly, squealing a muffled but terrible scream.
Lonny looked away, humming to himself. O
nly when the girl’s struggles ceased did he look back again.
This pained him—really it did. But it was that solicitor’s fault. How did Bristol expect him to be passing on four hundred pounds, a sum bigger than any they’d offered him for any single job before? Did they think he was a banker, willing to let that kind of coin just slip through his hands? Especially when the job could be done so much cheaper? Offering up that kind of money, Bristol and his bosses might as well have done the killing themselves.
The big man lay Isabella’s still body onto the frozen ground.
“Get the bags, George,” Lonny ordered, sliding Mandy Bristol’s coins back into his jacket. “We’ll have to look for the boy and drop her in the Thames along the way. Garn, it’s cold. Let’s hope the river’s not frozen this night or you’ll be chipping a hole for an hour to dispose of ’em.”
Tad squirmed in his own skin knowing how late he’d be, hurrying through empty, frost-covered streets.
It wasn’t his fault. Lonny’s message reached him long past when he could’ve made it on time. The lad tasked to deliver it was the foul-up. He never should’ve gotten pinched near the station by trying to pick a gentleman on the way, then only finding Tad after he’d wriggled out of a constable’s arms.
It didn’t matter that the other boy was at fault, though. He’d take a beating for it. The message said the meet-up was of “topmost importance,” which meant an extra hard one for his being late. Maybe Lonny had more papers to deliver—though Tad had never been sent this far to collect them before. Or maybe he’d tell Tad what happened to Simon, like Tad had been pestering Lonny about for over a year, and especially since he’d overheard about Simon being dead—it couldn’t be true—in old man Bristol’s office.
Whatever the reason for meeting, Tad wanted to run away and hide until Lonny cooled about his being late.
Except running always made things worse.
He rounded a corner and hurried across the road to St. James’s Park. The park grounds shifted to blue and gray under the faint moonlight from the green and black of the streets. He trotted down some steps and over frosty ground on ancient shoes barely covering his frigid feet. Rounded a thicket of trees.
There, Tad stiffened and stopped.
Just ahead, Isabella lay on the ground. Her head was turned at an odd angle. Her eyes were open wide and still.
Lonny stood beside her, a long cloth bag in his hands. Lonny’s muscle, Big George, lifted the girl’s feet in the air, readying to put her in the bag.
A strangled yelp came out of Tad before he could stop it.
Lonny looked up. His droopy eye caught him.
“Get him,” Lonny muttered to George.
George dropped the girl and took a big step toward him. Tad lit out the other way through the park as though demons were on his heels.
Because, it being George and Lonny, they were.
Running as fast as he could manage through the slippery streets, Tad could hear them shouting back and forth. This was bad. He could usually lose the big ones through small holes in broken fences, steep hills and mounds, or bunches of trees if he could find them—hedges best of all.
Except Big George was a canny one. He’d grown up on the streets like Tad. His tree-trunk legs drove faster than was natural for a man his size and never seemed to tire.
Lonny? He just never gave up.
Isabella was dead. Gasp. Fat Bristol saying Simon was dead. Gasp. Why was everyone dying?
The park far behind now, Tad wasn’t seeing any help on the streets. No walls or culverts or skinny gaps that might fit him in this district. Nothing to cut them off from him. And his legs were getting wobbly, not having had a bite to eat all day.
Lonny would catch him in the end unless he found a place to hide.
He ran and ran until his lungs burned hot and his legs were stumbling under him. He could still hear them behind, fallen back a bit but now matching his weak pace. They’d surely see him tiring.
He lurched onto the river walk. Over the wall, just yards below, was the dark flow of the Thames.
“Come on . . . boy.” He heard the approach of Lonny’s voice over hard breaths. “Come on. It’s not . . . what you think. Isabella took a fall, son, that’s all. A fall on the ice. We were supposed to meet, the three of us . . . so I could reward you and Isabella. That fancy Lord Brummell and the fancy princess . . . they wanted you sent off. I told ’em no unless you were well taken care of. Then, it’s so tragic, Isabella slipped and fell. But you can have her share now. You deserve it, son. She’d want that. Just . . . come along now. No more running.”
Tad looked back over his shoulder at Lonny, just twenty yards away. “If that’s all it is,” he gasped back, “why’ve you got George with you?”
Lonny didn’t answer but kept coming at him.
Tad could see George off to the left, cutting him off from running back into the heart of the city. Both George and Lonny continued moving toward him like they were cornering a rat. Lonny’s smile under his drooping eye had the glassy look of a cat Tad had once seen, crushed in the street after being run over by a wagon.
Soulless.
“Sweet Mother Mary,” he whispered. Then he turned and jumped the wall toward the icy black waters of the river below.
36
THE OLD BAILEY
Fully robed, leaning into a biting wind, William marched up Bailey Street, his briefcase containing his wig and papers clutched in his left hand.
A large crowd lapped about the entryway to the stone face of The Old Bailey. William had expected them. The press had trumpeted the case for days, every article damning Captain Tuttle and his defense team and Lady Jameson’s family as charlatans and thieves. It was a terrible crime that a man like the captain was sold as entertainment at six pence a paper. William’s anger helped him shoulder through the crowd to reach the constable barring entry to any more spectators.
“I’m counsel for the defense,” William said, knowing that he needn’t specify the case.
The constable let him through with a disapproving gaze.
On the first day of most trials, William rode a flurry of nerves and anticipation. “Demons taunting failure; angels promising success,” he’d described it to Edmund. It was extraordinary. The first time he experienced it, he’d known this would be his profession for life.
Yet this morning the sensation was absent. Instead, all that filled him was a cold fear that a man’s life was at stake and he had no great hope of saving it.
The towering courtroom chamber was roiling with the buzz of the crowded upper and lower galleries. The box reserved for waiting defendants was empty, as there would be no other matters heard during the three-day trial scheduled. Neither the judge nor Sir Barnabas had yet made their entrances, though juniors and court clerks were arranging exhibits and papers at counsels’ tables.
William located Obadiah in the lower-level gallery and gave him a nod, which Obadiah returned. Then he walked to the space at counsel table reserved for himself and Edmund to prepare.
Only moments passed before Edmund took the seat beside him, dropping a copy of the Gazette on counsel table. “Trial starting and it’s the first day we’re not the top article in the rags.”
“Oh?” William said as he arranged his papers, cross-examination on top. “What catastrophe has shouldered us from the lead?”
“A murder in St. James’s Park. Someone who worked in Carlton House.”
“Murder on the king’s doorstep? It’s little wonder it got the headline. Leave it. I’ll read it later.”
“Have you decided who they’ll put up first?” Edmund asked.
“My opinion hasn’t changed. Crew members from the Padget. Then, if they’ve managed to arrange it, perhaps a member of the French ship’s crew. They have to establish the taking of the French ship first thing.”
“Then the arresting constable?”
“Perhaps. Which is when we’ll learn if good Judge Raleigh will allow in evidence of the shoo
ting.”
“Um-hmm. Do you think we’ll have any surprises?”
“If I could predict them, they wouldn’t be surprises,” William said. “Now leave me a minute more to prepare.”
He must sound like it, but he wasn’t really annoyed at his junior. Edmund was only talking from nerves. William glanced about the spectators in the gallery, confirming what he’d already known: Madeleine was not in attendance. Renewed worry rose in his stomach.
“Mr. Snopes!”
Recognizing the voice, William looked in that direction slowly.
Sir Barnabas had arrived. It looked like half the London bar was along to attend him. William nodded at the KC, unsmiling, before looking back to his papers.
“All rise before the Honorable Judge Cecil S. Raleigh!” the bailiff called.
Bewigged, stern-faced Justice Raleigh entered the courtroom at a brisk step and marched to his bench seat on the dais. “Sit down, sit down,” he called out. “This will be an unusually long trial, so unless counsel have any matters for the court’s attention, I wish to get right to it. The jury has been screened to eliminate any with knowledge of that regrettable penny dreadful. Are there any objections to bringing them in now?”
“I have one matter for my lord’s consideration,” Sir Barnabas said, rising. “I wonder if we might discuss it in your lordship’s chambers?”
Judge Raleigh nodded, annoyed. “We won’t be making a habit of this, will we, Sir Barnabas?”
“Of course not, my lord.”
The chamber just beyond the courtroom was emptied of all clerks and other personnel. Judge Raleigh made a point of not sitting. “What is it?” he asked impatiently as the door closed behind William.
“My lord,” Sir Barnabas began, “there is the matter of the injured boy.”
“Murdered boy,” William corrected.
“I’ve already ruled that that matter won’t be tried today,” the judge said emphatically.
“Yes, my lord. But we anticipate that Mr. Snopes will nevertheless inquire about the event in order to sway the jury. It will divert this case into irrelevant and highly prejudicial grounds.”
The Barrister and the Letter of Marque Page 24
