The Revenge of Captain Paine
( Pyke mystery - 2 )
Andrew Pepper
Andrew Pepper
The Revenge of Captain Paine
PART I
The Ship of Fools
AUTUMN 1835
ONE
The brickbat whistled through the air as Pyke slammed it down on to the wooden stall, snapping the stall in half and sending its contents tumbling on to the cobblestones. Another lunge with the same weapon shattered a barrel filled with pickled cucumbers and herrings, the sour liquid spraying all those standing within a ten-yard radius. Drawing his sleeve across his mouth, Pyke stared into the hooded eyes of the man standing in front of him, ignoring the sea of sullen faces gathered in the walled pen at one end of Petticoat Lane.
His name was Gold.
Ever since Pyke’s bank had started to court the burgeoning slop trade, Pyke had been at loggerheads with Petticoat Lane usurers like Gold: usurers who regarded the business of lending money to small businessmen — who, in turn, paid slave wages to growing numbers of workers in order to produce an ever-proliferating supply of underpriced goods — as their natural domain.
In his position as the bank’s senior partner, Pyke had employed two former Bow Street Runners to collect debts in the vicinity of Spitalfields, and one of them, Bethell, had been attacked a few days earlier and been beaten with brickbats and pickaxe handles. In the subsequent melee, Bethell had lost an eye and a tooth. Investigating the matter himself, Pyke had discovered that the assailants were, or appeared to be, Jewish, and he knew that nothing happened in and around Petticoat Lane without Gold’s approval.
Pyke’s associate, Jem Nash, wielded a blunderbuss to keep the crowd from trying to help the unfortunate man at the end of Pyke’s brickbat.
‘If you ever harm one of my men again, or attempt to damage one of my places of business, I’ll hunt you down and kill you. Is that understood?’
As he spoke, Pyke almost didn’t see the figure moving out of the shadows and it wasn’t until the man had slipped the wire around Jem Nash’s neck that Pyke responded. In the blink of an eye, he had retrieved his knife and, in the same movement, thrust it against Gold’s throat. It wasn’t a manoeuvre he had had much use for in recent years but he had spent the best part of a decade as a Bow Street Runner and could still remember how to draw a pistol or turn a knife on an opponent.
For a moment, no one knew what to do. Nash’s assailant swapped a panicky look with Gold.
‘Let him go,’ Pyke barked.
Gold’s eyes darted between Nash and his assailant.
‘ Let him go.’
After what seemed like an eternity, Gold nodded his assent.
The man dropped the garrotte and Nash swung the blunderbuss around and fired, the ball-shot tearing his assailant in half and splattering the people gathered in the pen with blood, intestines and bone. The wounded man collapsed into a puddle of his blood, quivered and then died.
There was one shot left in the blunderbuss and thirty men unable to take their eyes off their slain friend.
‘That just wouldn’t have happened if your boy hadn’t tried to choke my associate.’ Pyke clenched his jaw and cursed Nash’s rashness under his breath. He had brought the younger man because he’d needed someone who could keep the mob from retaliating but he hadn’t, for a moment, imagined that Nash would be capable of turning the blunderbuss on someone and firing it in anger.
Gold stared at him, hollow eyed. ‘You gemmen come down here like a couple of freebooters, pop the cull and expect to walk away?’ There was a note of incredulity in his voice.
‘You dealt the cards, you’ve got to play the hand.’
Gold nodded but didn’t speak for a moment. ‘Ever heard the phrase an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth?’
Pyke could feel the anger in the faces of those gathered around them. He glanced over at Nash, whose armpits were damp with sweat.
‘Is it money you want?’
‘I know this cully. I know his family. Who’s going to put bread on their table now?’
Pyke let out a sigh. Gold was willing to negotiate. It meant they might escape with their lives. ‘My man lost an eye, your man’s dead. What do you think you’re owed?’
Gold sneered. ‘You think a few pieces of silver can buy a fellow’s life?’
‘What if the money folded?’ Pyke asked.
Gold seemed to consider this for a short while and licked his lips. ‘I give the word, there are thirty men here all wanting to pink you with two inches of cold iron.’
Pyke let Gold see the pistol in his belt and motioned at the blunderbuss Nash was aiming at the chests of the men surrounding them. ‘Don’t you reckon enough blood has been spilled already?’
Silence hung between them. In the distance, he heard a dog barking and someone laugh. More bodies appeared in the walled pen, eager to see what was happening. ‘What kind of arrangement were you thinking of?’
Pyke took out his purse and tossed it on to the ground. ‘There are thirty sovereigns in there,’ he said, pausing. ‘I’ll pay you another fifty on top of that.’
‘Thirty megs, eh?’ Gold scratched his stubble and rubbed his eyes. ‘And fifty more to come.’
There had to be forty men in the pen now and one word from Gold would see both of them engulfed by a wave of bodies and fists.
‘Well?’
‘It seems a little short to me. Man can hardly wet his beak with that.’
‘A hundred. That’s my final offer.’
‘ Your final offer? Are you the cock of the walk now?’ Around Gold, a few of the gathered figures took a step forward as if to signal their intent.
‘I’ll send a man down with the rest of the money this afternoon.’
The blood was vivid in Gold’s sunken cheeks. ‘You need to put some reins on your colt. An unlicked cub goes out on the pad, he’s axing to be hurt.’
Pyke nodded. It was a fair point. ‘So do we have a deal?’
‘I reckon I should put it to his family. Don’t want ’em thinking they were gulled.’
‘We’re leaving now. I wouldn’t want one of your men to do anything rash.’ Pyke nodded at Nash and they shuffled in unison towards the pen’s only door. Nash’s weapon was still trained on the mob.
‘Maybe the matter’s settled.’ Gold smiled, half closing his eyes. ‘But then again, maybe it ain’t.’
Pyke kicked open the door and allowed Nash to hurry past him. ‘Is that a threat?’
‘Call it what you like, Pyke.’
The crowd of onlookers had cleared a narrow path for them but their glares hadn’t softened.
‘You’ll have the rest of the money by nightfall.’
Gold looked down at his slain friend and muttered, ‘I wouldn’t like to be the cully who has to bring it.’
‘In that case I’ll do it.’
‘You’re braver than you look,’ Gold said. ‘Or more stupid.’
In the taproom of the Barley Mow on Upper Thames Street, Nash drank gin from the bottle, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down in his throat until he had to pause for breath. ‘I killed a man,’ he muttered, visibly trying to work out whether he abhorred the notion or felt some kind of pride at his actions.
With his dark blue swallow-tailed coat, checked trousers, crimped shirt, top hat and leather gloves, Jem Nash looked more like a dandy than the banking clerk — and more recently minor partner — that he was. Notwithstanding the fripperies of his outfit, people often commented that Nash and Pyke might have been brothers. Though Nash was a few inches shorter than Pyke and without his broad shoulders, they both had the same coarse black hair with trimmed mutton-chop sideburns and si
milar dark, olive-coloured skin. Pyke’s waist had spread a little in recent years and the privileges of wealth had softened him to a degree, but he could still take the younger man in a fight, and when they stood next to each other in a public place, it was Pyke who turned the heads of the female passers-by. But Nash was not without his own attributes. In the short space of time he had worked at the bank, he had proven himself as one of the most ruthless operators Pyke had ever seen. Nash could foreclose on another man’s livelihood without a thimbleful of sentimentality.
‘What you did was stupid and, even worse, it was bad for business.’ Pyke drank from his pot and wiped foam from his mouth with his sleeve. ‘We might have avoided an all-out war but a man like Gold won’t forget what you did.’
‘I killed him, didn’t I?’ The shock had subsided, but Nash’s hands trembled as he picked up the gin bottle.
Pyke closed his eyes and tried to summon a memory that wouldn’t quite come to him. ‘The first time I killed a man it kept me awake for a week.’
That drew an astonished look. ‘You’ve killed a man, too?’
‘In spite of what you might think, I wasn’t always a banker.’ Pyke went to retrieve his greatcoat from the back of his chair. The morning had already taken its toll on him. In his former profession as a Bow Street Runner, he’d been kicked, punched, garrotted and attacked with a machete, and although he’d brought these survival instincts with him into his new career, it had been a while since he had fired a pistol or faced an imminent threat to his life. ‘You owe me a hundred pounds: either you can pay me from your own account or I’ll deduct it from your drawings.’
‘What did you used to do?’ Nash’s eyes bulged with a boyish excitement.
Pyke tossed a few coins on to the table. ‘That’s for the gin. Drink it and you might actually sleep tonight.’
Outside, the wind had picked up and storm clouds were gathering on the horizon. Farther along the street, Pyke hailed a hackney coachman and climbed into the cab just before it started to rain.
TWO
‘I regard the railways as central to the future well-being of our economy and our nation. Notwithstanding the competitive advantage the railways will afford our industries — I mean, just imagine being able to transport coal from the Tyne to London in less than a day — I think their impact will be far greater than anyone can presently imagine. You see, gentlemen, I was fortunate enough to be introduced to train travel earlier than most and I can say that once you’ve experienced the thrill of racing through the countryside at thirty miles an hour, sparks flying, smoke billowing from the engine, England’s green and pleasant fields no more than a passing blur, once you’ve felt that intoxicating mixture of speed and freedom coursing through your blood, you can lay your hand on your heart and say, without a shadow of a doubt, the future has arrived.’
Sir Robert Peel sat down behind his desk, looking mightily pleased with himself. He had aged well in the intervening years since Pyke had last seen him. His reddish hair had retained much of its thickness and his robust figure and ruddy complexion suggested good health.
He carried himself with the air of someone who expected great things to happen to him. And, Pyke mused, ever since he had seized control of his party from the Tory Ultras and formed a credible opposition to Lord Melbourne’s Liberals, this didn’t seem like such an outlandish idea.
‘That was a quite a speech, Sir Robert. Perhaps you should take a bow and allow us to applaud now?’
Peel shot him a sardonic look. ‘If I hadn’t already made your acquaintance, Pyke, I’d be rather offended by that remark.’
Pyke smiled easily. ‘If you’re offended then I accept the compliment.’
Peel chose to ignore him. ‘I say this as preamble, to give you some context for our meeting.’
Pyke let out a brief yawn.
‘I’m sorry. Am I boring you?’
Edward James Morris, who was sitting next to him in Peel’s disappointingly bare office, chuckled more from embarrassment than humour.
Morris was a new customer to the bank and, though Pyke didn’t know him well, he had already warmed to the older man. As a general rule, Pyke didn’t like members of the landed gentry. It wasn’t just a matter of their physical appearance — though it was true their general unattractiveness was almost guaranteed by their insistence on breeding with their own. Rather, Pyke didn’t like their effete manners and private codes of behaviour, or the way they conveyed their privilege with a look or a sneer, as though it were a stick with which to beat others. Morris was not a good-looking man, with his big-boned face and pinkish, jowly cheeks, but he was sincere and well meaning and, though he was the firstborn son of a landed aristocrat, he had given up his claims on the family pile to pursue a career in business.
His demeanour and enthusiastic persona made him seem younger than he was, but his real age could be deduced from his choice of clothes. Preferring garish colours to the more sober hues that had come to dominate in recent years, he looked like a man better suited to Regency excess than the austere world of commerce he actually inhabited. His dark green coat and purple waistcoat were set against a pair of tan breeches and a bamboo cane.
Pyke listened while Morris and Peel talked enthusiastically about the prospects for the mammoth venture Morris had been charged with overseeing: building a 186-mile railway line that linked the capital and York via the cathedral cities of Cambridge, Ely and Lincoln. But he was a little perplexed by their behaviour and didn’t fully understand the need exhibited by the great and the good to talk only in oblique terms about difficulties they faced. In the world of the tavern, if someone had a problem, they told you what it was and if you were the cause of it you could expect them to come at you with a knife or a pistol. Here Pyke could tell only from Morris’s slightly awkward manner that something was amiss. If someone had been eavesdropping on their conversation, they might have been forgiven for thinking that the railway’s progress so far had been wholly positive.
In fact, the railway’s problems had been well documented from the start. Disputes with landowners and an acrimonious fight for parliamentary approval had set the project back before a yard of track had been laid. More recently, progress had been hampered by various disagreements between subcontractors and suppliers, rows involving engineers and surveyors and disturbances involving crews of navvies. And rumours had now started to spread that the project’s costs had spiralled out of control and that the company would soon need to go back to Parliament and investors to plead for additional money.
Nonetheless, it was only when Pyke interrupted and asked them directly about the problems facing the railway that the mood in the room changed.
Morris shot him a sheepish look. ‘I knew that building a railway from London to York would be an arduous task but I thought everyone would pull together for the greater good. I didn’t think I’d have to fight tooth and claw every step of the way.’ He seemed relieved that he no longer had to pretend everything was fine.
‘But at present, am I right in assuming that your task has been made a great deal more difficult by the presence of radicals stirring up trouble among your workers?’ Peel asked him.
Morris nodded vehemently and Pyke thought, with sudden alarm, that it was as if they were putting on a performance for him.
‘Perhaps you’ve heard about the activities of this rogue everyone’s calling Captain Paine?’ This time Peel was addressing Pyke. ‘There are slogans bearing his name daubed across walls and gable-ends throughout the city.’
Pyke nodded but didn’t say anything. Four years earlier, agricultural riots had broken out across much of southern England, apparently led by a mysterious figure known as Captain Swing. They had been easily crushed but Captain Swing had never been arrested, leading many to conclude that he did not actually exist and had been created by radicals in order to give a focus to their struggles. So when Pyke had first read newspaper reports about this new figure — he presumed he was named after the revolutionary writer
and pamphleteer — apparently now agitating among the urban poor, he had assumed it was simply the same trick. He hadn’t for a moment considered that Captain Paine might be a real figure or that someone of Peel’s stature and astuteness might be sufficiently worried about him to call a meeting.
‘Last year the coal-whippers went on strike demanding higher wages and a reduced working day. This month the tailors are going to strike. Next it’ll be the bakers, the shoemakers, the carpenters, the bricklayers, the brass-founders, the cabinet-makers. I’ve been led to believe this Captain Paine has been instrumental in promoting all of these causes and that he’s offering to support the strikers financially while they take their action. I’ve also been informed he’s taken an interest in the navvies and that he’s currently stirring up trouble among the men gathering in Huntingdon to begin work on the next section of the Grand Northern.’ Peel glanced over at Morris for support.
‘You believe he actually exists, then?’ Pyke regarded him sceptically.
‘Whether he exists or not, or whether he’s the same figure who led the agricultural riots a few years ago, isn’t the point. First, a workhouse in Bethnal Green was burnt to the ground. That was six months ago. Then a garment factory in Aldgate was broken into and ransacked. Finally last month — and this might concern you — a bank in Stepney that had lent some money to the so-called middlemen or sweaters working in the manufacturing of clothes and shoes was set alight with rags soaked with oil.’ Peel studied Pyke’s reaction carefully. ‘But in answer to your question, yes, I do believe there is a particular individual posing as Captain Paine. I think he’s personally wealthy or has a wealthy backer and that he’s willing to use this wealth to support all manner of subversion.’
‘Like encouraging people to join a union?’ Pyke asked, trying to remember whether he’d heard anything about the bank in Stepney.
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