Gallows Thief

by Bernard Cornwell

  ‘Captain Sandman was finished with us,’ Skavadale said firmly.

  ‘I came to ask about the Countess of Avebury,’ Sandman said.

  ‘In her grave, culley, in her grave,’ Holloway said. A second man appeared behind him, also holding a foil, though Sandman suspected from the man’s plain shirt and trousers that he was a club servant, perhaps their master-at-arms. The room beyond the false door was a fencing room for it had racks of foils and sabres and a plain hardwood floor. ‘What did you say your name was?’ Holloway demanded of Sandman.

  ‘I didn’t,’ Sandman said, ‘but my name is Sandman, Rider Sandman.’

  ‘Ludovic Sandman’s son?’

  Sandman inclined his head. ‘I am.’

  ‘Bloody man cheated me,’ Lord Robin Holloway said. His eyes, slightly protuberant, challenged Sandman. ‘Owes me money!’

  ‘A matter for your lawyers, Robin,’ Lord Skavadale was emollient.

  ‘Six thousand bloody guineas,’ Lord Robin Holloway said, ‘and because your bloody father put a bullet between his eyes, we don’t get payment! So what are you going to do about that, culley?’

  ‘Captain Sandman is leaving,’ Lord Skavadale said firmly, and took Sandman’s elbow.

  Sandman shook him off. ‘I’ve undertaken to pay some of my father’s debts,’ he told Lord Robin. Sandman’s temper was brewing, but it did not show on his face and his voice was still respectful. ‘I am paying the debts to the tradesmen who were left embarrassed by my father’s suicide. As to your debt?’ He paused. ‘I plan to do nothing whatsoever about it.’

  ‘Damn you, culley,’ Lord Robin said, and he drew back the foil as if to slash it across Sandman’s cheek.

  Lord Skavadale stepped between them. ‘Enough! The Captain is going.’

  ‘You should never have let him in,’ Lord Robin said, ‘he’s nothing but a slimy little spy for bloody Sidmouth! Next time, Sandman, use the tradesman’s entrance at the back. The front door is for gentlemen.’ Sandman had been controlling his temper and was moving towards the front hall, but now, very suddenly, he turned and walked back past both Skavadale and Holloway. ‘Where the devil are you going?’ Holloway demanded.

  ‘The back door, of course,’ Sandman said, and then stopped by the master-at-arms and held out his hand. The man hesitated, glanced at Skavadale, then frowned as Sandman just snatched the foil from him. Sandman turned to Holloway again. ‘I’ve changed my mind,’ he said, ‘I think I’ll use the front door after all. I feel like a gentleman today. Or does your lordship have a mind to stop me?’

  ‘Robin,’ Lord Skavadale cautioned his friend.

  ‘Damn you,’ Holloway said, and he twitched up the foil, swatted Sandman’s blade aside and lunged.

  Sandman parried to drive Holloway’s blade high and wide, then slashed his foil across his lordship’s face. The blade’s tip was buttoned so it could not pierce or slash, but it still left a red welt on Holloway’s right cheek. Sandman’s blade came back fast to mark the left cheek, then he stepped three paces back and lowered the sword. ‘So what am I?’ he asked. ‘Tradesman or gentleman?’

  ‘To hell with you!’ Holloway was in a fury now and did not recognise that his opponent had also lost his temper, but Sandman’s temper was cold and cruel while Holloway’s was all heat and foolishness. Holloway slashed the foil like a sabre, hoping to open Sandman’s face with the sheer force of the steel’s whiplike strike, but Sandman swayed back, let the blade pass an inch from his nose and then stepped forward and lunged his weapon into Holloway’s belly. The button stopped the blade from piercing cloth or skin, and the weapon bent like a bow and Sandman used the spring of the blade to throw himself backwards as Lord Robin Holloway slashed again. Sandman stepped another pace back, Holloway mistook the move for nervousness and lunged his blade at Sandman’s neck.

  ‘Puppy,’ Sandman said, and there was an utter disdain in his voice. ‘You feeble little puppy,’ he said, and began to fight, only now his rage was released – an incandescent and killing rage, an anger that he fought against, that he hated, that he prayed would leave him – and he was no longer fencing, but trying to kill. He stamped forward, his blade a hissing terror, and the button raked Lord Holloway’s face, almost taking an eye, then the blade slashed across Lord Holloway’s nose, opening it so that blood ran and the steel whipped back, fast as a snake’s strike, and Lord Holloway cringed away from the pain and then, suddenly, a pair of very strong arms was wrapped about Sandman’s chest. Sergeant Berrigan was holding him and the master-at-arms was standing in front of Lord Robin Holloway while Lord Skavadale wrenched the foil from his friend’s hand.

  ‘Enough!’ Skavadale said. ‘Enough!’ He threw Holloway’s foil to the far end of the room, then took Sandman’s blade and tossed it after the first. ‘You will leave, Captain,’ he insisted, ‘you will leave now!’

  Sandman shook Berrigan’s arms away. He could see the fear in Lord Robin’s eyes. ‘I was fighting real men,’ he told Lord Robin, ‘when you were pissing your childhood breeches.’

  ‘Go!’ Skavadale snapped.

  ‘Sir?’ Berrigan, as tall as Sandman, jerked his head towards the front hall. ‘I think it’s best if you go, Captain.’

  ‘If you discover the person who commissioned the portrait,’ Sandman spoke to Skavadale, ‘then I would be grateful if you would inform me.’ He had no realistic hope that Lord Skavadale would do any such thing, but asking the question allowed him to leave with a measure of dignity. ‘A message can be left for me at the Wheatsheaf in Drury Lane.’

  ‘Good day, Captain,’ Skavadale said coldly. Lord Robin glared at Sandman, but said nothing. He had been whipped and he knew it. The master-at-arms looked respectful, but he understood swordsmanship.

  Sandman’s hat and greatcoat, both of them half dried and wholly brushed clean, were brought to him in the hallway where Sergeant Berrigan opened the front door. The Sergeant nodded bleakly at Sandman, who stepped past him onto the front step. ‘Best not to come back, sir,’ Berrigan said quietly, then slammed the door.

  It started to rain again.

  Sandman walked slowly northwards.

  He was truly nervous now, so nervous that he wondered whether he had gone to the Seraphim Club merely to delay this next duty.

  Was it a duty? He told himself it was, though he suspected it was an indulgence and was certain it was foolishness. Yet Sally had been right. Find the girl Meg, find her and so discover the truth, and the best way of finding a servant was to ask other servants which was why he was walking to Davies Street, a place he had assiduously avoided for the last six months.

  Yet when he knocked on the door it all seemed so familiar and Hammond, the butler, did not even blink an eyelid. ‘Captain Rider,’ he said, ‘what a pleasure, sir, may I take your coat? You should carry an umbrella, sir.’

  ‘You know the Duke never approved of umbrellas, Hammond.’

  ‘The Duke of Wellington might order the fashion of soldiers, sir, but his Grace has no authority over London pedestrians. Might I enquire how your mother is, sir?’

  ‘She doesn’t change, Hammond. The world suits her ill.’

  ‘I am sorry to hear it, sir.’ Hammond hung Sandman’s coat and hat on a rack that was already heavy with other garments. ‘Have you an invitation card?’ He asked.

  ‘Lady Forrest is giving a musical entertainment? I’m afraid I wasn’t invited. I was hoping Sir Henry was at home, but if not I can leave a note.’

  ‘He is home, sir, and I am sure he will want to receive you. Why don’t you wait in the small parlour?’

  The small parlour was the twice the size of the drawing room in the house Sandman rented for his mother and sister in Winchester, a fact his mother mentioned frequently but which did not bear thinking of now, and so he gazed at a painting of sheep in a meadow and listened to a tenor singing a flamboyant piece beyond the double doors that led to the larger rooms at the back of the house. The man finished with a flourish, there was a patter of applause and then the
door from the hall opened and Sir Henry Forrest came in. ‘My dear Rider!’

  ‘Sir Henry.’

  ‘A new French tenor,’ Sir Henry said dolefully, ‘who should have been stopped at Dover.’ Sir Henry had never much appreciated his wife’s musical entertainments and usually took good care to avoid them. ‘I forgot there was an entertainment this afternoon,’ he explained, ‘otherwise I might have stayed at the bank.’ He gave Sandman a sly smile. ‘How are you, Rider?’

  ‘I’m well, thank you. And you, sir?’

  ‘Keeping busy, Rider, keeping busy. The Court of Aldermen demands time and Europe needs money and we supply it, or at least we scrape up the business that Rothschild and Baring don’t want. Have you seen the price of corn? Sixty-three shillings a quarter in Norwich last week. Can you credit it?’ Sir Henry had given Sandman’s clothes a swift inspection to determine if his fortunes had improved and decided they had not. ‘How is your mother?’

  ‘Querulous,’ Sandman said.

  Sir Henry grimaced. ‘Querulous, yes. Poor woman.’ He shuddered. ‘Still has the dogs, does she?’

  ‘I fear so, sir.’ Sandman’s mother lavished affection on two lap dogs; noisy, ill-mannered and smelly.

  Sir Henry opened the drawer of a sideboard and took out two cigars. ‘Can’t smoke in the conservatory today,’ he said, ‘so we might as well be hanged for fumigating the parlour, eh?’ He paused to light a tinder box, then the cigar. His height, slight stoop, silver hair and doleful face had always reminded Sandman of Don Quixote, yet the resemblance was misleading as dozens of business rivals had discovered too late. Sir Henry, son of an apothecary, had an instinctive understanding of money; how to make it, how to use it and how to multiply it. Those skills had helped build the ships and feed the armies and cast the guns that had defeated Napoleon and they had brought Henry Forrest his knighthood, for which his wife was more than grateful. He was, in brief, a man of talent, though hesitant in dealing with people. ‘It’s good to see you, Rider,’ he said now and he meant it, for Sandman was one of the few people Sir Henry felt comfortable with. ‘It’s been too long.’

  ‘It has, Sir Henry.’

  ‘So what are you doing these days?’

  ‘A rather unusual job, sir, which has persuaded me to seek a favour from you.’

  ‘A favour, eh?’ Sir Henry still sounded friendly, but there was caution in his eyes.

  ‘I really need to ask it of Hammond, sir.’

  ‘Of Hammond, eh?’ Sir Henry peered at Sandman as if he was unsure whether he had heard correctly. ‘My butler?’

  ‘I should explain,’ Sandman said.

  ‘I imagine you should,’ Sir Henry said and then, still frowning in perplexity, went back to the sideboard where he poured two brandies. ‘You will have a glass with me, won’t you? It still seems odd to see you out of uniform. So what is it you want of Hammond?’

  But before Sandman could explain, the double doors to the drawing room opened and Eleanor was standing there and the light from the large drawing room was behind her so that it seemed as if her hair was a red halo about her face. She looked at Sandman, then took a very long breath before smiling at her father. ‘Mother was concerned that you would miss the duet, Papa.’

  ‘The duet, eh?’

  ‘The Pearman sisters, Papa, have been practising for weeks,’ Eleanor explained, then looked back again to Sandman. ‘Rider,’ she said softly.

  ‘Miss Eleanor,’ he said very formally, then bowed.

  She gazed at him. Behind her, in the drawing room, a score of guests were perched on gilt chairs that faced the open doors of the conservatory where two young women were seating themselves on the piano bench. Eleanor glanced at them, then firmly closed the doors. ‘I think the Pearman sisters can manage without me. How are you, Rider?’

  ‘I am well, thank you, well.’ He had thought for a second that he would not be able to speak for the breath had caught in his throat and he could feel tears in his eyes. Eleanor was wearing a dress of pale-green silk with yellow lace at the breast and cuffs. She had a necklace of gold and amber that Sandman had not seen before, and he felt a strange jealousy of the life she had led in the last six months. She was, he remembered, engaged to be married and that cut deep, though he took care to betray nothing. ‘I am well,’ he said again, ‘and you?’

  ‘I am distraught that you are well,’ Eleanor said with mock severity. ‘To think you can be well without me? This is misery, Rider.’

  ‘Eleanor,’ her father chided her.

  ‘I tease, Papa, it is permitted, and so few things are.’ She turned on Sandman. ‘Have you just come to town for the day?’

  ‘I live here,’ Sandman said.

  ‘I didn’t know.’ Her grey eyes seemed huge. What had Sir George Phillips said of her? That her nose was too long, her chin too sharp, her eyes too far apart, her hair too red and her mouth too lavish, and it was all true, yet just by looking at her Sandman felt almost light-headed, as though he had drunk a whole bottle of brandy and not just two sips. He stared at her and she stared back and neither spoke.

  ‘Here in London?’ Sir Henry broke the silence.

  ‘Sir?’ Sandman forced himself to look at Sir Henry.

  ‘You live here, Rider? In London?’

  ‘In Drury Lane, sir.’

  Sir Henry frowned. ‘That’s a trifle—’ he paused, ‘dangerous?’

  ‘It’s a tavern,’ Sandman explained, ‘that was recommended to me by a Rifle officer in Winchester and I was settled in before I discovered it was, perhaps, a less than desirable address. But it suits me.’

  ‘Have you been here long?’ Eleanor asked.

  ‘Three weeks,’ he admitted, ‘a little over.’

  She looked, Sandman thought, as though he had struck her in the face. ‘And you didn’t call?’ she protested.

  Sandman felt himself reddening. ‘I was not sure,’ he said, ‘to what end I should call. I thought you would appreciate it if I did not.’

  ‘If you thought at all,’ Eleanor said tartly. Her eyes were grey, almost smoky, with flecks of green in them.

  Sir Henry gestured feebly towards the doors. ‘You’re missing the duet, my dear,’ he said, ‘and Rider came here to see Hammond, of all people. Isn’t that right, Rider? It’s not really a social call at all.’

  ‘Hammond, yes,’ Sandman confirmed.

  ‘What on earth do you want with Hammond?’ Eleanor asked, her eyes suddenly bright with inquisitiveness.

  ‘I’m sure that’s for the two of them to discuss,’ Sir Henry said stiffly, ‘and me, of course,’ he added hastily.

  Eleanor ignored her father. ‘What?’ she demanded of Sandman.

  ‘Rather a long story, I fear,’ Sandman said apologetically.

  ‘Better that than listening to the Pearman sisters murder their music teacher’s setting of Mozart,’ Eleanor said, then took a chair and put on an expectant face.

  ‘My dear,’ her father began, and was immediately interrupted.

  ‘Papa,’ Eleanor said sternly, ‘I am sure that nothing Rider wants with Hammond is unsuitable for a young woman’s ears, and that is more than I can say for the effusions of the Pearman girls. Rider?’

  Sandman suppressed a smile and told his tale, and that gave rise to astonishment for neither Eleanor nor her father had connected Charles Corday with Sir George Phillips. It was bad enough that the Countess of Avebury had been murdered in the next street, now it seemed that the convicted murderer had spent time in Eleanor’s company. ‘I’m sure it’s the same young man,’ Eleanor said, ‘though I only ever heard him referred to as Charlie. But he seemed to do a great deal of the work.’

  ‘That probably was him,’ Sandman said.

  ‘Best not to tell your mother,’ Sir Henry observed gently.

  ‘She’ll think I came within an inch of being murdered,’ Eleanor said.

  ‘I doubt he is a murderer,’ Sandman put in.

  ‘And besides, you were chaperoned, surely?’ her father enquired of E
leanor.

  ‘Of course I was chaperoned, Papa. This is,’ she looked at Sandman and raised an eyebrow, ‘a respectable family.’

  ‘The Countess was also chaperoned,’ Sandman said, and he explained about the missing girl, Meg, and how he needed servants to retail the local gossip about the fate of the staff from Avebury’s house. He apologised profusely for even thinking of involving Hammond. ‘Servants’ tittle-tattle isn’t something I’d encourage, sir,’ he said, and was interrupted by Eleanor.

  ‘Don’t be so stuffy, Rider,’ she said, ‘it doesn’t require encouraging or discouraging, it just happens.’

  ‘But the truth is,’ Sandman went on, ‘that the servants all talk to each other and if Hammond can ask the maids what they’ve heard …’

  ‘Then you’ll learn nothing,’ Eleanor interrupted again.

  ‘My dear,’ her father protested.

  ‘Nothing!’ Eleanor reiterated firmly. ‘Hammond is a very good butler and an admirable Christian, indeed I’ve often thought he would make a quite outstanding bishop, but the maidservants are all quite terrified of him. No, the person to ask is my maid Lizzie.’

  ‘You can’t involve Lizzie!’ Sir Henry objected.

  ‘Why ever not?’

  ‘Because you can’t,’ her father said, unable to find a cogent reason. ‘It simply isn’t right.’

  ‘It isn’t right that Corday should hang! Not if he’s innocent. And you, Papa, should know that! I’ve never seen you so shocked!’

  Sandman looked enquiringly at Sir Henry, who shrugged. ‘Duty took me to Newgate,’ he admitted. ‘We City aldermen, I discovered, are the legal employers of the hangman and the wretch has petitioned us for an assistant. One never likes to disburse funds unnecessarily, so two of us undertook to discover the demands of his work.’

  ‘And have you made a decision yet?’ Eleanor asked.

  ‘We’re taking the Sheriff’s advice,’ Sir Henry said. ‘My own inclination was to refuse the request, but I confess that might have been mere prejudice against the hangman. He struck me as a vile wretch, vile!’