by Roy Lewis
‘Was it Goodman who sent you?’ There was a sudden hint of nervousness in McGuire’s voice.
Gully shook his head. ‘No, I gather Goody Levy’s still hunting around. Thinks you’ve nipped across to France, maybe. But me, I know you’re heading for Ireland and your own folk, soon as the coast is clear.’
‘If you’re not working for Goodman … what d’ye want with me?’
‘Information.’
There was a long silence. The oil lamp sputtered, casting dancing shadows across our faces. McGuire shook his head. ‘I got no information for the likes of you.’
‘But what about my little persuader here?’ Gully asked pleasantly, stroking the pistol muzzle gently against the man’s throat. ‘Or maybe you’d prefer we took you along to Goodman, and let him ask you a few questions….’
Sam McGuire sat stiffly, thinking hard. He cast a quick glance at me, standing silently in the doorway, and then abruptly, he asked, ‘So what the hell is it you want to know? What’s this all about?’
‘Running Rein.’
McGuire let out an obscene expletive. ‘I don’t know nothin’ about that business.’
Gully shook his head mournfully in mock sympathy. ‘Now, that’s not so. You’re one of the people who knows all about that business. But I’ll make it easy for you. I’ll tell you the way it was. You trained the ringer in Ireland. You brought him over here for Goodman. You helped gull the corn merchant into buying the horse, describing it as a two year old. And then you helped train him up at Malton, until he was entered for the Derby, taken down to Epsom and left under the eye of Joe Bartle.’
McGuire made no reply, but he stared fixedly at Gully with subdued fury in his eyes.
‘Now we know most of what happened after that,’ Gully went on, ‘but we don’t know why. After the nag won the Derby, Bentinck and Peel turned nasty and the matter ended up in court. When the case turned badly against Mr Wood, and the judge ordered production of the horse all hell broke loose. Goodman knew he was in trouble, and maybe Bentinck wasn’t too happy either. So when Baron Alderson demanded the horse be brought to court someone sent you down to Epsom to take the horse away from Smith—’
‘That’s a damned lie!’
‘Not the way Smith tells it,’ Gully replied sweetly. ‘He says you arranged for the horse coopers and Porky Clark to come down for the horse, and he got paid by you to keep quiet.’
‘Then he should have kept his mouth shut.’
‘Thing is, who paid you to do the job? Since you had Porky in tow, I suppose it could have been Goodman. But Porky was always slow, easily led … and why would Goodman be looking for you now? And you lying low?’
I had my own theory. I spoke for the first time. ‘It was Lord George Bentinck, wasn’t it? He provided the cash, you did the deed.’
Gully glared at me, little pleased by my intervention, but after a moment he allowed himself to go along with my suggestion. ‘And you took poor simple Porky along with you, for muscle. Which will be how Goodman learned it was you. Porky couldn’t have kept his mouth shut, not with Goody Levy breathing on him. Ah, but things changed, didn’t they, Sam? It wasn’t just taking Bentinck’s money, grabbing the horse and putting it down, burying him in quicklime at Barling’s Meadow—’
McGuire raised his head angrily, about to say something, but curbed his tongue.
‘You got nothing to say?’ Gully went on. ‘All right. As I was saying, it wasn’t just putting down Running Rein – it was the matter of Joe Bartle, wasn’t it? It spooked friend Cornelius Smith, and that’s why he talked to me. And maybe it spooked you too, and made you cut and run.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ McGuire growled sullenly.
Gully shook his head. ‘I think you do. What was it? Why did the stableman have to die? Did Bartle get religion? Did he want to be released from his part in the fraud? Why was he unwilling to go to court? Or maybe, was he going to blow the whistle for other reasons?’
‘I got nothing to tell you,’ McGuire snarled defiantly.
Ben stroked the muzzle of the horse pistol against McGuire’s throat. ‘But I think you are going to tell me. Because if you don’t one of two things is going to happen. Either I turn you over to Goodman – and you won’t enjoy that – or I haul you down to the police office, and sing a little song. It goes like this. Joe Bartle had a quarrel with Sam McGuire. Joe Bartle went missing. Joe Bartle turned up with his head bashed in, down a sewer. And Sam McGuire goes into hiding in the docks.’
‘I never laid a hand on Bartle. You’re bluffing me – you’re talking nonsense.’
‘The facts are there, Sam, all there. I think there’s enough even to get you dancing in the air at Newgate. The police don’t take kindly to truculent individuals like you. You want to rot there in Newgate, Sam, until they decide to hang you?’
‘I didn’t do nothing!’
‘Persuade me.’ Gully leaned forward confidentially. ‘Tell me what the quarrel was all about – between you and Joe Bartle.’
McGuire grunted and shook his heavy head. ‘There wasn’t a real quarrel. His work was falling away. He … he had things on his mind, like. And he said he was leaving the stable.’
‘Because he didn’t want to give evidence at the trial?’ I demanded.
McGuire’s eyes flickered in my direction. ‘I don’t know about that.’
‘You’ve got to know about it, Sam,’ Gully insisted coldly. ‘Because we have a theory, my friend over there and me. We think maybe you had a quarrel because he didn’t want to turn up at the trial, and under Goodman’s orders you beat him to death—’
‘I never!’
‘—or,’ Gully warned, shoving the pistol muzzle more firmly against McGuire’s chin, ‘or it was Goodman who put Porky Clark to the business, when he heard from you that Bartle was refusing to give evidence. Maybe Porky was just supposed to persuade Bartle, but knowing the way his slow mind works, things got out of hand, it was almost accidental, like—’
McGuire growled deep in his chest. ‘Last time I saw Bartle he was all right. He was at the prize fight on Sunday, at Hampstead Heath, but I didn’t speak to him. I don’t know what happened to him after that.’
‘I think you do, McGuire. You know Goodman arranged it … because of Bartle’s back-tracking—’
‘I didn’t even know Bartle was dead till now!’ McGuire flared.
‘You’re lying!’
‘No.’ A sudden paroxysm of fear and fury seized Sam McGuire, sufficient to disregard the weapon in Ben Gully’s hand. With a violent heave he threw himself away from Gully, brushing aside the horse pistol. Involuntarily, Gully pulled the trigger and there was a flash and a roar. Next moment Gully was crashing backwards to the floorboards and I found himself thrust violently aside as Sam McGuire dashed from the room.
‘Gully, you all right?’
Cursing violently, Ben Gully struggled to his feet, pushed me aside and thrust the horse pistol back into the pocket of his coat. ‘Get after him, dammit. We can’t lose him now!’
A costermonger was trundling his empty cart into the yard to join the others when we burst out in pursuit of McGuire. The Irish labourers were no longer lolling against the wall, and one of them seemed inclined to step in Gully’s way until he saw the expression on his face. I was hard put to it to keep up with Gully as he plunged into the streets, twisting away between sailors in canvas trousers, women in tawdry shawls, and big-whiskered dock labourers. I caught the occasional glimpse of McGuire rushing ahead of us, spilling casks and drawing curses as he plunged headlong through the crowded narrow streets, and Gully clearly kept him in sight, cursing violently as he ran. But after a while it was only the signs of disturbance that I saw ahead of us, the parting of the crowds, men standing in public house doorways, laughing drunkenly and pointing the way. As I told you, I was never built for running.
At last I emerged from the rabbit warren of dark, ill-lit streets, panting hard, some distance behind Gully. I saw
him stopped on the dockside itself.
Ben Gully was standing, chest heaving, some twenty yards away, staring along the quay with its jumble of rope and casks and hawsers and casual wanderers. The coal backers and the dock labourers would have been paid off at four in the afternoon and were now busy in the taverns drinking their way to temporary oblivion before they started another hard day. There were several colliers tied up at the quay, some with their decks riding high now their cargoes had been discharged, but there was considerable movement about the hold of one of them as a crew of ballast heavers climbed aboard from one of the Trinity lighters that had shipped ballast alongside from the dredging engines in the Pool.
I walked forward, breathing hard, to stand beside Gully. ‘Have we lost him?’
Gully shook his head and sniffed the air like a questing dog. ‘No. He’s here on the quay. I saw him slip across….’ He moved quietly towards the edge of the dock, peering down at the ladders that led to the decks of the colliers below, and then slowly he began to pace along the rough stone of the quayside, manoeuvring between casks and drums, stepping over coils of rope, pushing aside half-drunken lumpers smelling of the timber they had handled. I followed him, watching, looking about, but there was no sign of the fugitive. I was beginning to regret my decision to accompany Gully: I was never much a man of action, my figure was against it, and nights at the gambling tables did little for my physical stamina.
The fog was thicker now, lying heavy on the river so it was no longer possible to see the small tenders tied alongside the colliers. The ballast heavers had started work with pieces of old sail tied around and halfway up their legs as protection against the gravel, and we became aware of the rhythmic, crashing sound of the gravel being thrown up onto the board stage on the partition beams of the lighter, from which it was transferred by two shovellers into the porthole at the side of the collier. Gully moved on quietly, stepping like a cat, surprisingly light on his feet for such a heavy man, and his head was held low as though pointing for his prey. Stray lights from taverns in the side streets illuminated his progress fitfully, but the curling fog obliterated most of the scene while the tall masts of the ships moored to our left faded and vanished creakingly into the thick, smoky air.
‘Gully, do you think there’s any point—’
Even as I spoke there was a sudden clattering and Gully leapt forward. An empty wine cask came rolling at his legs; he hurdled it and then was in close pursuit of McGuire, materializing from behind a stack of drums and casks. I struggled hard to keep up, following them, and I saw Gully reach out, grabbing McGuire’s shoulder, causing them both to fall, crashing down heavily and rolling on the damp stone of the quay, fetching up hard against the wall at the end of the quay. There was a brief struggle on the ground before McGuire staggered to his feet, aimed a kick at Gully’s head, which was deflected by an arm, and then he was off again, but staggering now, winded and breathing harshly, heading back towards me. Gully lurched to his feet and set off once more in pursuit, as McGuire staggered along the quayside, cannoning into me, thrusting me aside as I vainly tried to grab him, hold him until Gully could arrive. I was no match for a desperate villain: a powerful, flailing blow to my chest sent me to my knees. Gully shouted hoarsely as McGuire ran away from us down the quayside, seeking the safety of the enveloping fog.
Then out of the mist came a group of coal-heavers. They had been paid off, they were half drunk, and they had linked arms in a roistering group. Gully cried out in desperation, ‘A guinea if you stop that man!’
It was doubtful if they heard him; it was doubtful if they would have tried to prevent McGuire escaping for they would have sympathy for a running man. But the shout startled McGuire; he swerved, hesitated, glanced around him for an escape route and saw the lighter tied up beside the empty collier. He ran back towards the ballast heavers.
The deck of the collier was riding high beside the lighter, and McGuire ran for it desperately. He jumped down to the lighter deck and then leapt up onto the staging from which the two ballast heavers were working. One of them stopped, startled, swearing in surprise. Almost instinctively he raised the blade of his shovel, swinging it; the flat of the blade caught McGuire on the upper arm. The fugitive cried out in pain but Gully was launching himself down on the deck of the lighter, grabbing at him. McGuire ran along the staging board and leapt for the gunwales of the collier above his head. His fingers took firm purchase; he was a strong man and he dragged himself slowly upwards. Gully cursed behind him, and reached for his legs, trying to pull him back down towards the staging of the tender. There was a long moment when McGuire hung there, kicking violently, before Gully was forced to release him.
The ballast heavers were shouting angrily as McGuire tried to haul himself onto the deck above them but he was weakening, his strength failing him after the struggle with Gully and his flight through the streets. He hung there for several seconds, dangling helplessly, out of Gully’s reach but unable to summon up enough strength to drag himself onto the deck of the collier.
I heard Gully yelling a curse. McGuire was going nowhere: there was no escape route for him on the collier. Then slowly a surge in the black water pushed the tide of the river and it swung the lighter gently out of position. A sudden gap yawned up between the collier and the ballast heavers. They stopped work, waiting until the port hole was accessible again, staring and shouting, swearing at the man dangling six feet above their heads. Gully saw the danger. ‘Swing back to the lighter, man – you’re not going to make it!’
McGuire laughed almost hysterically, and swore, but his muscles were straining and the gunwales were slippery. His fingers were losing purchase, and he was unable to support the weight of his body, dangling with feet desperately seeking support from the dark, coal-streaked sides of the collier. He glanced downwards, his muscles cracking with the strain, and a grimace of despair twisted his features as he realized Gully was right: he swung his legs to the left and as his hands finally slipped from their grasp on the gunwales, he tried to launch himself sideways, to regain the stage of the lighter. But the river swell had widened the gap, and it was a gap he could not bridge. As his hands slipped he fell, down between the great wall of the collier’s hull and the side of the moored lighter.
I heard the violent splash and the cry and, standing helplessly beside Gully, I peered over the edge of the quay, down to the dark water swirling between the two vessels. McGuire was somewhere down there, flailing in the dark water. Then I realized in horror that the tide was swinging the collier again, slowly, in a long crushing movement against the lighter. We heard the grinding of the hulls, became aware of a sharp scream cut off in the foggy murk, and then the ballast heavers were shocked from their blaspheming into silence.
We all stood there for a little while, as the noise and bustle of the docks swirled around us and a small crowd of curious, chattering half-drunken labourers and sailors gathered about us, but from the dark waters below there was only the occasional gurgle, and slapping sounds as the river lapped against the hulls of collier and lighter.
For a moment I had a vision of another time, of poor Harriet, dragged up from the mud of the river. I wondered where the body of Sam McGuire would finally emerge. I turned, looked at Gully. His features were dark, set grimly. After a few moments his wandering eye swung to mine. His voice had a croaking, depressed tone, as he put into words what I was already thinking.
‘That’s it, Mr James,’ he said. ‘The game’s over.’
3
The long, hot summer was over. We had experienced late storms when the skies had turned black and gusts of rain had sheeted down the streets, thunderous, lightning-laden clouds, and startling rainbows appearing over the rooftops. A black man was admitted as a member of the Middle Temple, and barristers began writing openly for the newspapers. The new county courts were now doing much business and my colleagues complained that there were fewer briefs coming their way. And when the coat of the Solicitor General was stolen from the robin
g room at Lincoln’s Inn it was stated bitterly that there was no longer any respect for the old traditions.
But some things continued in the old ways. The open garden area of Leicester Square was still a repository for dead cats, dogs, and dustbins. Drinking houses near the White House restaurant were still the favoured locations of the scum of Europe: Parisian plotters, Italian bomb-makers, forgers, forgers, coiners and the army of French, Belgian and German whores. You could still obtain a chop and kidney supper for 1s 4d, and a pint of claret for 1s 6d. And the Law Times inveighed against the highly indecorous practice of one member of the Bar who had demonstrated a lack of taste in sitting down in a public house with a policeman and a witness.
And London could still put on a spectacle for the masses.
I always enjoyed pomp and circumstance.
That autumn the procession to open the New Royal Exchange left Buckingham Palace at eleven in the morning to drive along Pall Mall, the Strand, Fleet Street and Cheapside. It was due to reach the Exchange at midday. The streets had been gaily decorated and the sun shone brightly. There were seven state carriages clattering along with the Queen’s carriage drawn by the famous eight cream-coloured horses. The Queen wore a diamond tiara and a white ermine mantle and acknowledged the enthusiastic cheers of the crowd with grace and charm, while that pompous uniformed ass Prince Albert sat stiffly at her side, pretending to be a soldier.
The City authorities joined the procession at Temple Bar where the usual ceremony was gone through with the presenting of the keys. My father, as a newly appointed Secondary of the City, took his place in the procession with the other officials. He was clearly proud of his regalia of high buckled shoes, knee breeches and scarlet and gold coat and tricorne hat. He had to march like that to the Exchange. He enjoyed the experience.
The royal party, preceded by the Lord Mayor with his sword of state, then crossed the quadrangle to the ambulatory and went on to Lloyds’ Merchants’ Room, through the Underwriters’ Room to the throne which had been placed in the Reading Room. That’s where we all assembled for the Queen to receive the address prepared for the occasion.
