The Darkest Walk of Crime

by Malcolm Archibald

  “Oh, my God!”

  Mendick swore with the sudden shock of collision, automatically putting out his hands. He felt the rounded warmth of a woman’s body and started as her alarmed howl echoed around the house.

  “Who’s that? Mary, are you all right?” A man’s voice sounded from further down the corridor, and Mendick turned and ran.

  “You! Stop!”

  The accent was rough, a servant rather than a master. Mendick cursed that he had not bluffed it out, but it was too late now. He must have disturbed some clandestine romantic liaison and it was just bad luck they were in the corridor at the same time as him.

  “Stop! Thief!”

  Mendick swore again, for those words would rouse the house. He heard confused calls, the sound of opening doors and saw the glimmer of a candle while dogs barked and the unknown woman still screamed in alarm.

  “Why is there all this shouting?” There was authority in the voice, even through the blurring of sleep.

  “I thought I heard a noise, Mr Sims, and I came to investigate. There’s a strange man in the house.”

  “Some blasted thief no doubt! Bring lights and we’ll soon have him by the heels!” Mendick thought the voice belonged to the butler.

  “You! Make sure nobody enters the Master’s rooms! Oh God, why did this have to happen tonight when the Master has company? Move quickly now!”

  Mendick could see more candles and hear the baying from what sounded like a mastiff.

  “Keep that damned dog quiet or Sir Robert will have our hides!”

  Mendick dashed into a side corridor feeling more like a hunted thief than a Scotland Yard officer. If he were caught, he could hardly explain his presence by saying he was stealing food for the neighbouring Chartists. He cursed and felt for the key. Trafford was sure to miss it and would know that his secret was discovered; no casual sneak thief would break into his library only to steal a key.

  He would have to return to the library.

  “For the love of God, don’t disturb the Master.”

  Mendick heard the phrase repeated as candles flickered along the corridors and soft-footed servants peeped nervously into darkened rooms. Silently blessing his good fortune that he had chosen a night when Trafford was busy with a woman, Mendick edged cautiously forward, dodging into door recesses when servants came close, padding along the echoing corridor whenever it seemed safe.

  He heard voices as he approached the library and saw a stout man standing outside holding a lantern in a shaking hand. Mendick watched for a second, saw the man test the door handle nervously before sighing audibly and walking away with the lantern casting erratic shadows all around.

  Easing forward, he slipped his stiletto behind the lock and slid into the library, sliding shut the catch behind him. Replacing the cellar key exactly where he had found it, he stepped toward the door.

  “What’s all the blasted commotion in this house?”

  Mendick recognised the rich tones of Trafford and froze as a strong hand rattled the door handle.

  “Sims! Have you checked in here?”

  “The door’s locked, Sir Robert.”

  “I know it’s locked, Sims! Have you checked inside?”

  “No, sir.” The voice ended in a yelp of pain.

  Mendick ran quickly to the window, but a brief glance revealed a group of servants standing immediately outside. He would have to sit tight and hope that nobody came in.

  “Damn you, Sims, can you not perform the simplest of tasks? Find the key and check the damned room!”

  Mendick heard scurrying feet and then the strange, indrawn laugh of Rachel Scott.

  “My, Robert, you are masterful when you are angry, but should you not dress yourself?” There was the sound of a soft slap. “You might shock the servants.”

  “I’ll dress any way I like in my own house, Rachel - if the servants don’t like it, they can damned well leave.”

  Rachel laughed again. Very slowly, Mendick unlocked the door and peered out, to see Trafford, stark naked, grasping a riding whip and facing away from him with Scott at his side. She wore what appeared to be a white sheet inadequately draped over her body, so her right leg and left shoulder were left shockingly bare.

  “Light every damned candle in the house and search every room!” Trafford flicked the whip through the air as he took charge, his rich voice penetrating into every recess as he organised the hunt.

  “Rouse everybody out of their beds, even the blasted tweenies; I want the house turned upside down, dammit! I want this blasted thief found and I want to see him swinging at the gallows!”

  Mendick pressed hard into the darkest shadows on the wall as a host of servants appeared; he was quite aware that Trafford had the power to carry out his threat. Although burglary may not be a capital crime, a major landowner like Sir Robert could say anything he liked in court. He could claim the burglar had threatened violence, which could be enough to have him sentenced to death, and suddenly Mendick remembered Mr Smith’s words: “If you are discovered . . . we may not even be able to admit you are one of ours.”

  The prospect was alarming. Previously, when he had faced danger, he had had the security of a uniform and an official position. The regiment would support him, the police force had been there to back him up, but now he was truly alone, trapped in an English country house with a vengeful proprietor after his blood and scores of staff only too eager to help.

  But what exactly had he learned? Mendick thought of the muskets in the cellar and the legal document in the desk. The law did not forbid anybody owning muskets and many landowners were in financial difficulties, but taken together with his knowledge that Sir Robert was befriending the Chartists these isolated facts could be significant. The quantity of muskets was particularly worrying. Mendick was not sure exactly what his intelligence meant, but he knew that he must escape and inform Mr Smith of all that he had discovered.

  Candles were being lit all over the house as servants ran this way and that, dressed in their night clothes and shouting contradictory orders as they got in each other’s way. For a second Mendick contemplated waylaying a footman and swapping clothes, but he discarded the idea at once; there was bound to be noise, and where could he put his victim? His only sensible option was to find somewhere to hide until the initial panic had subsided.

  He waited until the corridor was clear before he slipped away, but then shadowy figures ahead and the glow of a candle made ducking through the nearest door prudent.

  He was in the withdrawing room, with a huge piano against one wall and a selection of chairs and small tables crouching on an Axminster carpet. As voices sounded outside he ducked behind one of the largest chairs. He was suddenly aware of the hammer of his heart and the dryness of his mouth.

  “Check in here!”

  There was the butler’s authoritarian voice, and a young man then entered the room. He was ludicrously dressed with his trousers pulled over a baggy nightshirt and a nightcap on his head, but there was nothing amusing about the stout stick in his hand. When he held up a candle in a brass holder, shadows jumped around the room.

  “Hello?” The man did not penetrate far, peering nervously into the room. “Is there anybody here?”

  Mendick kept still. He knew that it was almost impossible to distinguish shapes in a half-lit room, but any movement would mean instant discovery.

  The servant brandished his stick. “I can see you,” he said and moved cautiously across the carpet to the mantelpiece with the candle guttering in his hand and his nervous breathing audible in the otherwise silent room. Without lingering he lit one of the candles on the mantelpiece and withdrew quickly, obviously relieved that the room appeared empty.

  “There’s nobody in here, Mr Sims.”

  Mendick sat tight, listening to the scurry of passing feet, the querulous voices of servants and the banging of doors, until the sounds faded into the distance and he emerged from behind the chair. Now he had to escape from an alerted building and sen
d his message to London.

  He was fortunate that the withdrawing room had large windows which opened directly to the terrace; it was simple to slip the catch and roll to the ground outside. Although the terrace was empty, there were men in the policies with their lanterns high and their voices raised to give each other courage. Mendick tried to gauge their numbers and swore softly as he saw the whitely naked form of Trafford leading a small patrol of the outdoor staff.

  “I want this thief caught, and I want him hanged!”

  Standing in the shadow of the wall, Mendick knew that he would be reasonably secure once he reached the woodland. The danger was in crossing the immaculate sweep of the lawn. With half the lights in the house blazing, the immediate surroundings were as illuminated as one of those new-fangled Christmas trees that Prince Albert was blamed for bringing over from Germany. For a moment he was back before the walls of Amoy, with the lights flaring and the Chinese Army waiting for the assault, but he shook away the memories.

  The sounds died down as the servants moved to a different section of the house. Mendick counted to ten, took a deep breath and ran across the short grass, not bothering to dodge as he relied on speed to carry him to safety.

  “There he is!”

  It was almost inevitable that somebody should see him but rather than hesitate, Mendick ducked his head and ran all the faster. He heard the sharp crack of a firearm but the shot was so poor that he did not even hear the wind of its passage. Somebody was running behind him, other people were shouting uselessly, that damned dog continued to bay and then he was amongst the trees with darkness a cloak and the servants crashing behind him clumsily, beating the bushes with their sticks.

  “Come out, you bastard!”

  “I saw him; he went that way”

  “Should we be doing this? Would it not be better to just let him go?”

  After dodging Tartars and Mongolians during the Opium War, Mendick was not concerned about a score of British house servants although he was slightly wary of the gamekeepers. He was also nervous that he might trip one of the man traps, so he moved slowly through the trees until he found the boundary wall. The final barrier, but Mendick was in no mood to be delayed and scrambled up the bole of the nearest tree, gathered his courage and leapt into the darkness.

  He felt the sharp pain of a twisted ankle, but the relief of leaving the policies of Trafford Hall was more than adequate compensation, and he limped back to his remaining pigeon. It seemed pleased to see him as he fed it a handful of seed from the jar beneath the basket. He composed a short note: Trafford friendly with Chartists. Has large quantity of arms. He pondered for a while, wondering if he should mention the lawyer’s letter and the white horse but decided that they were not so important. Instead he added, Will remain in position. He tied the message to the pigeon’s leg and launched the bird into the air.

  “That’s all I can do for now,” he told himself, but the image of those muskets remained with him together with the memory of Trafford and Rachel Scott. It was not until he returned to his cottage and the anxious face of Peter that he realised he may have been wrong. Perhaps Trafford was not friendly with the Chartists? Perhaps Rachel Scott was a Chartist plant in Trafford’s house and he had just sent misinformation to Mr Smith?

  This possibility left him very troubled. He also began to wonder why Scotland Yard had not sent back any of his pigeons.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Chartertown: December 1847

  Mendick permitted himself some slight satisfaction as he walked around Chartertown. With the meal and delicacies the volunteers had liberated from Trafford Hall, the people of Chartertown enjoyed their first decent Christmas in years. He started as Preston’s wife smiled to him. Normally she greeted him with a suspicious glower, as if he was personally responsible for leading her man into danger.

  “You’ll be coming to our Christmas, then?” Mrs Preston asked, her thin face taut but with new warmth in her eyes.

  “I would dearly love to come, Mrs Preston, if I am not inconveniencing you.”

  “You made it possible,” Mrs Preston told him. “It’s the first time in their lives my children have had full bellies.” She turned quickly to rebuke her son. “John Frost! Stop pulling at your sister’s hair!” Her slap lacked any force. “We’ve called all our children after the great Chartist leaders,” she explained. “They’re all we have, really.”

  Mendick smiled and nodded. John Frost had led the Chartists to disaster at Newport in 1839. He was hardly the most auspicious of heroes.

  With so many working class people gathered together, Mendick was surprised that most of the celebrations involved little of the heavy drinking he had come to associate with an English Christmas. The absence of alcohol did not seem to spoil the general feeling of goodwill, however, and he was even more pleased that Armstrong had called Peter away on some private mission.

  Following a series of muted protests from the wives, he had cancelled his programmed Christmas Day training, and everybody gathered at the simple church where a Chartist pastor delivered a traditional Christmas message of peace and goodwill.

  “We are gathered in hope for a better future.” Dressed in respectable clothes but with no pretence of formality, the pastor addressed his congregation as if they were friends, rather than speaking down to them in the clergy’s usual patriarchal manner. “And although we prepare for the violence of war, let us all pray for a peaceful resolution to our difficulties, an extension of the franchise and a better life for everybody, with co-existence rather than conflict.”

  Following the sermon, there were carols with a Chartist message, and a communal meal to which everybody had contributed. The pastor raised his hand in blessing.

  “May God grant peace to everybody here and to everybody in this country. Let us pray that the government can find it in their hearts to accept the Charter and bring a more equable society to us all.”

  The messages of peace heartened the congregation as they filed outside to enjoy the warmth of the bright fire outside the church wall. Mendick was struck once again by the philosophy that these Chartists embraced. Used to seeing his volunteers as prototype soldiers, when he saw them mingling with their families he realised they were husbands and fathers first, and for a moment he saw them, however distantly, as the inheritors of exactly the utopian community that they desired. He saw them working their few acres as independent yeomen, much as their ancestors had done before industrialisation; he saw them with a say in this country that had cheated them of so much, and he wondered if he had the right to destroy their dream.

  At that moment it would have been easier to join them, to throw in his lot wholeheartedly with these hard-used, stubborn, undernourished people and fight against the inequalities of the established system.

  Until he remembered the stacked boxes of Brown Bess muskets, and the prospect of the horrors that Civil War would create. There was no utopia in war, only blood and agony, broken minds and mutilated bodies. Looking around the gathered families, he shook his head; if these people were not volunteers for a glorious, just cause, neither were they raging revolutionaries. They were all victims of two contrasting ideologies, one of selfish privilege and the other of bitter resentment.

  In the eyes of the chief protagonists these people, these intense, suspicious, impetuous, emotional people, counted less than an indrawn breath. Did it matter if it was Monaghan or Earl Russell, Josiah Armstrong or the Duke of Wellington who consigned them to the muzzle of a musket? Either way they were doomed to be blown this way or that, dependent on the whims of their political masters, and that was the real tragedy of their lives.

  Whatever they did, and however well they did it, did not matter. They would leave no mark on the world, they could only live their brief lives and disappear, unknown, unrewarded and unrecognised by anybody in any way.

  “God save you all,” he whispered, “for I am an agent of your destruction.”

  He saw Mrs Preston lifting young John Frost Prest
on in the air, laughing at the simple pleasure of having a full belly. He saw Eccles’s sardonic face split into a huge grin as a young woman slipped her arm into his and presented her lips for a kiss. He saw Duffy pull a bottle from inside his jacket, take a sly sip and hand it over to the eager hands of a friend.

  These were not bad people, so why in God’s name did they have to live in such misery?

  The church bells rang joyously, celebrating the anniversary of the birth of Christ as the Chartist families exchanged greetings and good wishes. Mendick smiled as for one brief day they embraced something of the utopia for which they hoped. He could almost sense the peace that descended on them as he looked around the scattered community.

  Here was the church, a symbol of hope in a land of oppression, and the Christmas tree, green amid the stark branches of winter. Here were the people, dressed in their threadbare best, and all around were good wishes and a tangible feeling of friendship. Some families were already disappearing into their homes, keeping the doors open to allow their neighbours free access, and the sound of carols sweetened the air.

  “Merry Christmas, Chartists,” Mendick said quietly, “and please God you are all here to see the next.”

  “Here comes Josiah!” Eccles pointed a slender hand to the track which led from Chartertown to the uncertainties of the outside world. “And he’s coming in style.”

  “Oh, no,” Mrs Preston said quietly. She pushed her son, noisily munching an apple, into her house. “Stay indoors, John Frost, and keep your sister with you.”

  Armstrong’s coach swayed alarmingly as it creaked along the rutted track. Peter was driving, his forehead furrowed in concentration, and he halted the horse with an expression of utter relief. Mud from the wheels spattered onto the ground and the horse stood, head bowed in the traces, with froth along its flanks and its breath clouding around its head.

  “Here we are, Mr Armstrong.” Peter's voice matched the relief on his face.