It did not take long for Morton to find a letter, featuring the keyword smuggling, signed by Jonas Blackwood. It was short and incorrectly dated. ‘Memorandum from J. Blackwood, Principal Officer. Aldington, Kent. 18th November 1821. Please pass word to Mr Proctor that I will see him to-morrow—smuggling case here terminated by client. I shall return to Bow Street to-morrow morning by chaise. Your obedient servant, J. Blackwood.’
Morton photographed the letter, closely scrutinising the date. It clearly said 1821, but surely that was an error in place of 1826. But then, November was surely wrong, also; the men having been rounded up and arrested in October.
Since the box was haphazardly arranged, Morton placed the letter to one side and continued searching the remaining quarter of correspondence in the box.
Typically, the letter for which he searched was close to the bottom of the pile. He read it once, quickly, then again, taking his time to make sure that he had understood it correctly.
Yes, the letter from Jonas Blackwood, dated 7th August 1826, gave the name of the man he believed to have murdered Richard Morgan.
Chapter Thirty-One
16th October 1826, Aldington, Kent
The barren trees under which they marched were touched with a milky blue light from the full moon, and the path through the woods clearly illuminated, despite its being almost three o’clock in the morning. The brightness unnerved the three men leading the expedition. More than eighty armed uniformed seamen were trooping behind them for anyone who happened to be awake to witness and to raise the alarm. Paradoxically, however, it was the very presence of the full moon which guaranteed that the members of the gang, whom they had come to arrest, would be tucked up in their beds and not several miles away on the coast, embarking on another smuggling run.
Jonas, heading the marching men, slowed his pace slightly. Somewhere around here was the invisible boundary line of the village. By the time they would leave the woods on the other side—neatly avoiding passing too close to the Walnut Tree Inn—they would be in the centre of Aldington.
A pleasant autumnal smell wafted up from the decaying leaves, which were being kicked up by the marching troops, and Jonas found himself feeling oddly relaxed. He was certain that, if they could take Ransley alive, and possibly some of the other key gang members, the group would quickly crumble. But he was not expecting the gang to capitulate quietly. During the course of his investigation, Jonas had heard that Ransley had boasted on several occasions that he would never be taken alive.
His mind was drifting over his association with the Aldington Gang, sensing a dichotomy of feeling between bringing the criminals to face justice and his personal experience of the men—working labourers, struggling with basic subsistence—when Hellard brought the troops to a standstill.
‘We’re almost at the road. Denard’s place is just over there,’ Hellard said quietly, pointing at the dark horizon.
The plan of the night had been created some days ago and had been rehearsed many times over. As such, one of the senior officers stepped forward without discussion and led twenty men off, a portion of whom would surround Thomas Denard’s house, maintaining guard, whilst the others would continue on to surround the home of the Wire brothers, Richard and William.
Another officer spoke quickly to Hellard, then led another large group of seamen off to the houses of Samuel and Robert Bailey and Charles Giles. A further group were led by another officer to the houses of Thomas Gillham, James Hogben and Richard Higgins.
The potential conflict in hierarchy between Jonas and Hellard had been tactfully avoided: Jonas had left all organisation, mustering and preparing of the seamen to Hellard, whilst Hellard had left the investigation and the strategy for the arrests to Jonas; the end goal being identical for both officers. By the end of the night, all being well, the work of the two Principal Officers would be over.
‘Ready?’ Jonas said with his mouth upturned nervously.
‘Very,’ Hellard confirmed, passing instruction back that it was time to move towards the main prize.
The men understood the need for discretion. Jonas, up front beside Hellard, could not hear the footfall of a single one of the men behind them, as they continued on to Aldington Frith.
As they neared the top of the hill, Hellard brought them all to a standstill. Unseen, just over the brow, was the Bourne Tap. As they had planned, Hellard and Jonas tucked themselves close to the hedgerow and edged forward until the house came into view. Both men raised their telescopes and spent time carefully searching the property. Fortune was on their side. Not only was there nobody in sight but also the wind was blowing towards them head-on, giving them more time to deal with one remaining problem.
‘Dogs,’ Hellard whispered, evidently seeing them at the same time as Jonas.
Four mongrels, curled up beside each other, close to the street door of the house, needing dealing with as quickly and quietly as possible.
‘I’ll do it,’ Jonas said. ‘You ready the men.’
Hellard slid past Jonas and, moments later, he heard the faint clicking of multiple pistols being loaded.
Jonas stowed his telescope, drew his cutlass, then, stepping just proud of the hedgerow, padded lightly down towards the Bourne Tap, checking the ground before him as he approached.
He was just a handful of yards from the house and the dogs had not stirred. He paused, his heart racing and his breathing quickening. Behind him, Hellard was slowly inching the troops forwards and Jonas could feel the weight of their eyes upon him and the action which he was about to commit, knowing that, if he failed, chaos would break out and Ransley could very easily escape.
Jonas felt a light quiver in his hand, as he took small careful steps towards the sleeping dogs.
He froze as a crunching sound—like a dead branch being stepped upon—pierced into the air behind him, stirring the dog closest to the street door. It lifted its head in the direction of the sound, then sank back into sleep, oblivious to Jonas’s standing just five yards away.
Jonas found that he was holding his breath and slowly released it.
He took a final check around him, then looked at the dogs, reckoning that, as it had just stirred, he would take out the one closest to the door first.
It was time.
Positioning his cutlass in both hands, he moved forwards, deftly bringing the blade down on the back of the dog’s neck, a spray of blood and brief crack of bone confirming that the deed was done. Without hesitation, he repeated the action on the second and third dog without them even stirring. The fourth raised its head, emitting a low growl before Jonas cut across its throat.
His heart was thudding loudly in his ears as Jonas stepped back to survey the scene. The dogs were dead and the troops were now silently manoeuvring themselves around the property. Jonas caught the moonlit glint of several poised pistols as the men surrounded the house.
Hellard joined Jonas outside the street door, as if they were awaiting an invitation to go inside. Jonas nodded to Hellard, who in turn gave a silent signal to two seamen, chosen for their brawn. The two stood back, lined themselves up, then ran full pelt at the door, their shoulders effortlessly smashing it to the floor inside.
Hellard ran in first, with Jonas on his heels. Inside, the house was pitch-black. They jumped over the two men who had just busted down the door, one of whom was writhing in agony and clutching his arm. Behind Jonas ran a stream of a dozen men—especially selected by Hellard for this task. The men darted in and out of the rooms downstairs, checking for people and shouting that the rooms were empty, before continuing to the next.
A loud female scream came from somewhere upstairs.
‘His wife!’ Hellard shouted, making for the stairs.
Jonas followed closely behind, leaping up the stairs and, upon reaching the landing, turned towards a room which overlooked the street.
‘In here!’ Hellard yelled, and there was suddenly the sound of multiple boots on the wooden stair treads.
A s
oft pool of moonlight streamed in through the window, catching Ransley standing beside his bed in a white ankle-length nightgown. Beside him stood his wife, her arms crossed protectively across her nightdress, as she looked at her husband. His drained facial expression told Jonas that he admitted defeat, that he was not about to resist or plead ignorance. He knew that his time was up and there was little point in protesting.
‘George Ransley,’ Jonas said, as Hellard handcuffed him to another brute of a man under his command, ‘I am a Bow Street Officer and I am arresting you. You must come with us.’
Ransley nodded his head and Jonas felt in that moment, as he stared at his forlorn features, that something much greater than the arrest of one man had occurred this night; something prodigious had irrevocably changed.
Under Hellard and Jonas’s supervision, Ransley had been able to dress and say goodbye to his wife. At the street door, he spotted the bodies of his four mongrels and he attempted to stop. The guards to which he had been handcuffed continued, tugging him sharply back to their sides. Ransley shouted, ‘Tarnal pigs! Do that really be right?’
‘Silence!’ Hellard ordered. ‘Unless you want gagging?’
‘Bastards…’ he muttered.
From the Bourne Tap, the body of men marched around the village to where the sentinels were keeping guard, quietly arresting the other nine men. None put up the fight which Jonas had been expecting.
Once the last had been taken captive, Hellard shook Jonas’s hand and led the party back to Fort Moncrief.
Jonas had one last visit to make.
Now that he was alone and out of the imposing presence of naval officers, Jonas walked with a much slower pace and a less military-like gait. His heart was beginning to return to its normal rhythm but with that slackening of his pulse came an acute tiredness in his legs and he could not imagine facing the nine-mile return journey tonight. Perhaps he could take a room at the Walnut Tree Inn, then get a post-chaise back to Dover in the morning. But then he remembered what he was about to do: the outcome of this and this alone would dictate the time of his return.
When he arrived, the cottage was unsurprisingly dark. He paused a moment, staring at the pale moonlight on the window panes, as he pushed away the evening’s events and focused his thoughts. He took out his pistol and loaded it with shot.
Jonas walked up the path and hammered his fist on the street door. The authority of his role returned, as he pulled in a long breath and puffed out his chest. He rapped again, impatiently.
The door was opened by Samuel, his face embodying the expected mixture of anger, curiosity and sleepiness.
Jonas pointed the pistol at him, stony-faced, realising that Samuel did not recognise him. ‘Samuel Banister, I am a Principal Officer from Bow Street Magistrate’s Court and I am here to arrest you.’
‘What?’
Jonas stepped into the house, pushing past Samuel. He sat beside the dying fire, holding in his euphoria at finally having some rest, watching whilst Samuel shut the door.
‘What on…!’ It was Hester, appearing with a tallow candle. She saw Jonas, saw the gun and gasped. ‘Oh!’
‘He be coming here to arrest me,’ Samuel said quietly.
‘Oh, merciful Lord! What do you be arresting him for?’ Hester cried.
‘The murder of Quartermaster Richard Morgan on the 30th July this year,’ Jonas said.
‘They be a-hanging him!’ Hester wailed, ‘It be just the same as my two dear brothers… What did I be a-telling you, Sam? You be a-heading for the gallows! Oh, merciful Lord…’
Samuel ignored his wife’s delirium and, as he sat at the only other chair in the room, Jonas noticed the same sense of resignation to his demeanour as he had just witnessed in George Ransley. All the bravado, all the bluster, gone.
‘What be happening now?’ Samuel asked. ‘Why don’t you be carting me off? What do you be waiting for?’
‘That all depends,’ Jonas said, deliberately cryptic. He placed one leg over the other, set his pistol down beside him and knitted his fingers together, as though himself unsure of what might happen next.
‘’Pends on what?’ Sam asked.
‘It rather depends upon what decision you make next,’ Jonas said.
Samuel snorted, casting a brief eye towards his wife. ‘What choice do I got?’
‘You can choose to die,’ Jonas said. ‘I’ve got sufficient evidence to see you swinging from the gallows at Newgate… That is one choice.’
Another snort from Samuel and a shaky drawing of breath from Hester.
‘Or,’ Jonas continued, ‘you can live and take a share in the five-hundred-pound reward.’
Samuel closed his eyes, as the realisation of what was being asked of him took hold. ‘You be wanting me to turn King’s evidence…’
‘Correct. I want to bring down the entire Aldington Gang—clean this ugly stain from the coast.’
‘Oh, Sam! There bain’t no choice here. You got to be a-doing it.’
‘And what?’ Sam begged, glowering at Jonas. ‘You be expecting those men—men what kill anything what stands in his way—to be letting that happen? Sir, you be presenting me with no choice, but whether I be leaving this earth whip-sticks at the gallows or longly and excruciatingly, beaten to the last breath in a month-or-so’s time. Bain’t no actual choice.’
Jonas offered a cold sneer. ‘At Bow Street, we help those who help us. If you would volunteer the necessary information we seek, you would be given a new name and identity far from this damnable place.’
Samuel looked at Hester, but his eyes quickly darted away in thought.
‘In short, Samuel Banister,’ Jonas clarified, ‘you leave here with me a handcuffed prisoner or you leave here with me as a free witness.’
He looked again at Hester, this time for reassurance. She nodded and Samuel stood. ‘Let me be dressing right, then I be coming.’
Ann heard the street door close from her tentative position on the stairs—not up where they thought her to be and not down—privy to the conversation which she had just heard. Her tongue rested on her lip and she debated what to do. She had come here to warn Sam, to tell him of her shocking discovery, that Jonas Blackwood was an officer from Bow Street and not any one of the various characters who he had purported to have been. Ann felt cheated, violated, even. The complexity and detail of his explanations to her that day in the Packet Boat Inn were astonishing, even to a person such as she, who was so used to warping and colouring the truth; he was exceptional at his job, that much was apparent to her. It had taken weeks of slow enquiries to trace the elusive man back to the offices of Bow Street.
Ann hesitated as to which way she should go but, on hearing a sniffle from downstairs, descended to the parlour, where Hester was trying to regain her composure. The grotesque fury in her eyes was accentuated by shadows cast on her face, drawn and twisted by the candle in her trembling hand.
‘You be too late,’ Hester seethed, angry spittle fleeing the corners of her mouth.
‘I heard everything… He’s been given a reprieve—a new life for you all.’
‘What you blethering about, girl of Satan? I don’t be a-going nowhere. I be having nothing more to do with that man... I be a-hearing the whispers, about what he been a-doing.’ The look, so bilious and cutting, told Ann everything.
‘You’re not so innocent yourself, though, are you, Mistress?’ Ann replied coolly, withdrawing a leather purse from around her neck and pulling out a guinea coin, tossing it across to Hester, as she headed to the stairs. ‘It might not be too late,’ she muttered.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Morton read the letter for a third time. ‘Report from J. Blackwood, Principal Officer, Bow Street. The Packet Boat Inn, Dover. 7th August 1826. My investigations on the south coast are continuing with promise. There is absolutely no doubt that the smuggling audacities occasioned over several years in these parts can be attributed to a gang operating from the village of Aldington—some eighteen miles inland fr
om here. Whilst many witnesses will speak freely of this fact, few will identify the individuals concerned. I have secured a key witness from this notorious smuggling fraternity, Edward Horne. I am convinced by this man’s account that he was present at the time of Morgan’s shooting. He attributes the killing to the gang’s second-in-command, Samuel Banister of the beforementioned village. My inquiries into this aspect, as well as the wider surveys into these barbaric criminals continues. Your obedient servant, J. Blackwood.’
The trial documents now started to make sense to Morton. Samuel Banister, in turning King’s evidence against his fellow smugglers, had gained immunity from his own crimes. He had likely received a substantial share of the reward, which he had taken off to some place unknown, leaving his wife and children behind.
In many respects, this document finalised the case for Morton. He had an abundance of information on what Ann Fothergill had got up to in the 1820s, but at some point, prior to taking ownership of the Bell Inn, she and the Aldington Gang had gone their separate ways. Now that Morton was here, however, he felt that he might as well finish going through the documents which he had pre-ordered, despite believing that there would be no reference to Ann. Once he had received Arthur’s DNA results through, the case would be closed satisfactorily.
Morton set the document to one side, then began to wade through the final letters in the box. He quickly came upon another, written by Jonas Blackwood, adding a fitting postscript to how Morton was feeling about the Fothergill Case’s having reached its conclusion: ‘Report from J. Blackwood, Principal Officer, Bow Street. The Packet Boat Inn, Dover. 17th October 1826. Please find attached my final report into the successful arrest of the leading figures in the Aldington smuggling gang, which were occasioned last night by myself, Thomas Nightingale and Lieutenant Hellard from the Blockade Service. The prisoners will be taken today to Deptford, where they will receive individual interrogation whilst awaiting trial. In exchange for his testimony, the main witness has requested to be assisted in his passage to Chicago, Illinois. The successful outcome of this case means that I shall be returning to Bow Street to-morrow. Your obedient servant, J. Blackwood.’
The Wicked Trade (The Forensic Genealogist Book 7) Page 31
