The Darkest Walk of Crime

by Malcolm Archibald

  “You did a good job,” Jennifer said solemnly. “They were as good as real soldiers.”

  The words sobered him enough to contemplate the Chartist actions with a more professional eye.

  “They were keen enough,” he said. “I did not see any drunkenness or any squabbling amongst them. Indeed, they seem to be better disciplined than many regular regiments, and I cannot fault their courage, but I doubt they’d stand against the Army.”

  “Why not?” Jennifer had been watching the array of torches, and she indicated the impressively silent swarm that spread over the moorland, becoming ever more visible as the dawn light strengthened. “There are plenty of them.”

  “Yes, but they’ve only got infantry,” Mendick said. “The cannon would pound them from a distance, and then the cavalry would come in from the flanks and finish them off. They don’t have any artillery, and there’s not a single horseman amongst them.”

  “Yes, there is,” Jennifer contradicted. “I saw two, one on a grey and the other on a great white stallion.”

  “A white horse?” Mendick looked at her, momentarily ignoring the road ahead. “Are you sure?”

  “I know what a white horse looks like! The rider was leading a whole host of men.”

  Mendick swore as the coach rumbled on to the banking beside the road. He laid the whip across the rump of the horse so it straightened up and increased its speed. Holding the reins tight, he guided them around a deep hole, with Jennifer grabbing hold of her hat and ducking as a low branch flicked at them.

  “What are you doing? You’ll have us over next!”

  “The white horse! Rachel Scott and Trafford were always talking about a white horse; that must be the leader! They said they’d kill somebody called Drina, and then there was something about a white horse getting into its own stable.”

  Jennifer shrieked softly when Mendick misjudged the next corner and the carriage veered alarmingly to one side. For a moment he thought they would overturn, but the brougham righted itself, and they pulled on, with Jennifer staring at him.

  “Slow down, James! And tell me that again! They said what? They’d kill Drina?”

  “Something like that,” he agreed.

  Jennifer shook her head. “They can’t do that! You can’t let them do that!” She grabbed hold of his arm, shaking it until he looked at her. “You must stop them, James!”

  “I’ll try,” he said, “but who’s Drina? I don’t know who Drina is!”

  “What?” Jennifer looked at him. “Drina is the Queen’s pet name! Queen Victoria! They’re going to murder the Queen!”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  London: April 1848

  The sun finally broke through a misty horizon as Mendick stared at Jennifer, his mouth open while the full impact of her words sunk in.

  “Are you sure? How can Drina be the Queen?”

  Jennifer tutted, shaking her head.

  “It’s a short version of her name, James. Her full name is Alexandrina Victoria, and her family always called her Drina.”

  “Drina.”

  Mendick looked over the enclosed fields of the Midlands, the tall chimneys of a distant factory smearing foul smoke across the sky and a shepherd wearing a smock staring at them as he guided his sheep into their spring pasture. The mix of ancient pastoral England and modern industrialisation was a reminder of the oxymoronic nature of the times in which they lived. Only the monarchy had seemed a fixed star in an ever-altering firmament, but now even that was under threat.

  “God in heaven! They’re going to murder the Queen.”

  Planning to murder the Queen seemed more shocking than the Chartists’ plan to wage rebellion on the country, perhaps because it was such a personal thing. It was also foolish. Queen Victoria was not responsible for the condition of the people in Manchester or for the excesses of the industrial age even though her lifestyle did provide an example of the stark contrast between the privileged and the poor. Mendick shook his head.

  “Why would anybody want to murder the Queen?” Perhaps because he had lived all his adult life in a disciplined and loyal service, Mendick could not comprehend such an idea.

  “Listen.” Jennifer calmed herself with a deep breath. “Maybe that’s the other part of the Chartist plan; kill the Queen and form a Chartist republic? We can’t let that happen, James.”

  “It wasn’t the Chartists who said that,” Mendick explained. “It was Sir Robert Trafford and Rachel Scott. They were planning to use the Chartists as cover for the murder.”

  As the coach careened over the appalling road, he told her everything he had heard. Jennifer listened, her eyes nervous and her hands twisting together.

  “The Queen and Germans and a white horse?” She shook her head. “What can that mean, James?”

  “I wish I knew,” Mendick said, “but whatever it is, Sir Robert Trafford is in it up to his neck. He and somebody called Ernie, or Uncle Ernest.”

  Jennifer started back in her seat and stared at him. “Ernie? Are you sure it was Ernie and a white horse?”

  “Yes! Maybe the man you saw back there!” Mendick jerked his thumb behind him. “Maybe this Ernest fellow plans to take over when the Chartists have toppled the government.”

  “I’ll wager that he does, although he won’t be riding any white horse at the head of a Chartist rising, that’s for certain.” Jennifer was suddenly very calm.

  Mendick frowned. “Do you know who he is?”

  “Oh yes.” Jennifer was quiet again. “I know who Ernie is and where the white horse comes into it, and so do you, if you would only think about it for a moment and forget about the Chartists.”

  “I don’t know any Ernie,” Mendick said.

  “You do. Ernest Augustus, the Duke of Cumberland?” Jennifer’s voice rose in exasperation as it became obvious that Mendick did not recognise the name. “You must know him; he’s the Queen’s cousin, and he became the King of Hanover a few years ago? The white horse is their royal symbol, and he was nearly our king!”

  At last Mendick understood. “Oh, him . . .”

  “Exactly,” Jennifer said meaningfully. “Him.”

  “But I don’t see what he’s got to do with the Chartists.” Mendick stared at her as he finally grasped the terrible possibility. “Sweet God. Do you think that the King of Hanover is planning to murder the Queen?”

  There was a few moments silence before Jennifer replied.

  “It sounds like it; he wanted the throne before Victoria was crowned, and he’s a queer chum, a bad man; remember the death of his servant Joseph Sellis? They tried to say it was suicide, but everybody knows that Ernest murdered him. Now he’s King of Hanover, but Great Britain is far bigger, and far wealthier.”

  Mendick whistled. As a police officer in London he was used to dealing with all the darker walks of crime. He had seen house-breakers and pickpockets, confidence tricksters and drunkards, prostitutes, pimps and blaggards, and the overwhelming majority had come from the lowest possible level of society. Like everybody else, he knew that the upper classes had their own strange lives, but they were so separate from him he had never taken any interest. Now he had to consider the possibility that one of the highest in the land, a man of royal blood, a king in his own right and a cousin of the Queen, might be planning regicide. The thought was frightening for a newly created detective constable, but the few facts that he knew all seemed to point to the same conclusion.

  Ernest Augustus, the Duke of Cumberland, was known to be an unpleasant man. At one time only his cousin Victoria stood between him and the British crown, and it was no secret that he hoped for power. It was also no secret that scandal clung to Ernest like a second shadow, with sadism haunting his army career, rumours of incest tainting his personal life and accusations that he murdered his valet, Joseph Sellis. If he had already committed one murder, another, and one that would bring him great advantage, was certainly not impossible.

  The coincidence of the name, Ernest, and the repeated mention of th
e white horse, the symbol of Hanover, was too marked to ignore. Mendick ducked as a low branch nearly swept him from his perch.

  “So where does Sir Robert fit in? Why should he help a German king murder the Queen?”

  Jennifer sighed. “Don’t you know anything about the people that rule us? Don’t you take any interest in the nobility and how they operate?”

  “None at all,” Mendick admitted frankly.

  “Well, Sir Robert is mucked; he’s a gambling man and has been cleaned out; the bailiff’s men are hammering at his noble door. That’s no secret.”

  “God yes! I’ve seen the papers! A London firm called Dobson and Bryce is acting for his creditors . . .”

  “Well, there you go then,” Jennifer said. “Everybody knew he was short of readies when he discarded half his staff. He even let me go.” She glanced at him. “I worked in the kitchen there once.” She shrugged. “But that was in a different life.”

  “Even so, what has Trafford’s financial position got to do with Hanover?” Mendick tried to recall everything he had heard in Trafford Hall. “When I first overheard Rachel Scott and Trafford, she was speaking in some foreign language, and then she mentioned something about the Germans pulling him out of a hole. She said that if he did what Uncle Ernie wanted, everything would be fine. All he had to do was focus on the money.”

  Jennifer nodded. “That’s clear enough, then. Sir Robert needs the blunt to pay off his creditors, Ernest has money but wants the British crown, so they’ve done a deal of some sort.’ She ducked as another low branch brushed the roof of the coach. ‘I would say there is no doubt Sir Robert is helping Ernest to murder the Queen.”

  “Sweet Lord,” Mendick said.

  Having seen the deprivation in the industrial north, and having met men of the calibre of Armstrong and Monaghan, he could understand the demands of the Chartists. They had reasons and some validation for their actions, but there was no justification for a gentleman to ally himself with a foreign monarch to assassinate the Queen. Such an action was treason – purely selfish and diabolical.

  Only a few moments ago he had assumed that the darker walks of crime encompassed thieving, murder and prostitution, but Sir Robert Trafford’s regicidal intentions eclipsed the worst of them. Sir Robert was following the darkest walk of all.

  “I thought that Armstrong was an evil man,” Mendick said slowly, “but his actions are small beer compared to this titled gentleman. Trafford and Ernest are pretending to befriend the Chartists while they use them to create trouble and unsettle the nation. They are using the Chartists to create a diversion, and when the army and the Chartists are battling it out on the streets of London, they will send somebody to Buckingham Palace to kill the Queen.” He was astonished at the enormity of Trafford’s corruption.

  “He is creating the possibility of civil war, thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of deaths and enormous suffering, so he can pay his gambling debts.”

  “He is a perfect and inveterate scoundrel,” Jennifer agreed. “And whatever happens, the Chartists still lose,” she sighed. “After all their efforts, after all these years, the common people are still unheeded, only pawns in the hands of the rulers.” She looked up. “It would be sad, if we did not know how unpleasant the Chartists can be.”

  Remembering the sensation of acceptance in the back room of the Beehive and again at the Christmas festivities in Chartertown, Mendick looked away.

  “Only some of the leaders are unpleasant,” he said quietly. “I believe the majority are hard-working, respectable people desperate to create a better world for their families. I think they are far better people than Sir Robert or Ernest, King of Hanover will ever be.”

  “Perhaps that is the reason why they will always be exploited.” Jennifer was equally quiet. “Perhaps the meek inherit the earth, but first they must suffer.” She sighed. “Your decent people will suffer most, James, if this civil war occurs.”

  He nodded. “That’s for certain. And if we have a murderer as king then God help the Chartists. He was a martinet when he commanded the 15th Hussars, flogging and picketing without mercy. God only knows what he would do to perceived rebels; he would destroy them, root and branch, once they have done their work.”

  “He would devastate the industrial areas of Britain,” Jennifer agreed. “Like William the Conqueror did to the north or Ernest’s own namesake, the Duke of Cumberland, did to the Scottish Highlands.”

  They were quiet for a minute, picturing the English Midlands and North under the brutal regime of a Hanoverian tyrant, with military law imposed, Chartists hanging in their own doorways and dragoons swinging their sabres against unarmed Radicals.

  “We cannot allow that to happen,” Mendick said.

  “Whip up, James, and let’s get moving.” Jennifer sat forward on the seat. “We have to get to London.”

  The roads became busier the further south they travelled, slowing the brougham to a crawl. Shaking his whip at the cart in front, Mendick demanded passage, but the men who sat amidst its heaped up straw only smiled slowly and waved to him.

  “We’re going to London,” they shouted, “to get the vote!”

  “What?”

  “We’re going to get the vote,” the man repeated. “Mr O’Connor said so.”

  It seemed like half of Britain was travelling south. They were blocking the highways, tramping the roads and even crossing the neatly enclosed fields in their desperation to join O’Connor’s rally at Kennington Common.

  Mendick recognised some of the banners, the hopeful beehives on the calico Chartist flags. He saw an embroidered harp, gold on green, in recognition of the Irish connection, while other banners carried brave, defiant words. He saw a disciplined group of men with the distinctive broad shoulders and small stature of miners marching southward to London to demand democracy from a reluctant government.

  “How many people are involved in this movement?” He jerked his chin to indicate the long column of vehicles inching southward, the determined men marching, the drays and carts and carriages that jolted onwards with their mixed cargo of Chartists and dreams. “Maybe even Ernest has underestimated the dragon he has unleashed.”

  “A dragon of expectation.” Jennifer sounded sober. “The people of the nation are trying to speak in the only way they know how. God, don’t they understand that they don’t matter a damn? Nobody cares for their hopes and aspirations! They are here to pay their taxes and work for their rulers. That’s their only function in life.”

  “Perhaps they do realise,” Mendick said, “and that’s why they are uniting in such anger. They are beginning to demand more.”

  “Well,” Jennifer was frowning, “they’ve chosen a fine time to do it. Tell them we must get past or they’ll probably all be killed.”

  “I doubt they’d listen to me,” Mendick said, “but we’ll have to get in front of them somehow.”

  “Let me try.” Jennifer faced him, suddenly smiling. “I’m going to use your idea. What was the name of that woman again? Scott?”

  “Rachel Scott,” Mendick told her. “But why?”

  There was a sudden flash of spirit in Jennifer’s eyes. “You’ll see, but I’ll have to get back inside the carriage first.” She hesitated for a second. “Do you trust me?”

  “Of course,” he said, “but . . .”

  “But trust me then, and pull over for a moment.” Her grin was pure mischief. “And this time, all you have to do is follow my lead!”

  “As you wish.”

  He waited as Jennifer leaped from the seat and ducked back inside the coach. He regretted the time they would lose but knew that the horse would welcome the rest, for it was visibly flagging. She returned within five minutes and without as much as a by-your-leave folded a shaped piece of red material on his head.

  “I wear a scarlet flannel petticoat,” she confided. “It’s a bit rough and ready, but it’ll do from a distance.”

  “I don’t understand,” Mendick said, and Jennifer smil
ed.

  “You said you would trust me.’

  “I do,” he began, “but . . .”

  “Then but me no buts,” Jennifer told him. ‘Drive on slowly.”

  Very aware that half of Jennifer’s petticoat decorated his head, Mendick flicked the reins, and the coach lumbered forward again. Beside him, Jennifer rose to her feet, with one hand holding onto the top of the coach for balance and the other instinctively clutching her bonnet. She raised her voice above the rumble of wheels and the slow padding of hooves.

  “Can you hear me? Fellow Chartists! Can you hear me?”

  One or two faces turned in her direction, and one man nodded.

  “You may have heard of me; I am Rachel Scott, and this is Josiah Armstrong. You’ll know him from the scarlet cap of liberty; everybody has heard of Josiah Armstrong!”

  There was a small cheer, and one of the men waved.

  “They’re not sure, so tell them to sing.”

  Mendick pulled the makeshift cap further down to disguise his features. Armstrong was a much slighter man than he was, and the disfiguring scar across his mouth must be familiar to Chartists right across the country. “Tell them to sing my song.”

  He began Armstrong’s favourite song, roaring so loudly that it hurt his throat:

  “Spread, spread the Charter

  Spread the Charter through the land

  Let Britons bold and brave join heart and hand.”

  “Come on boys!” Jennifer waved her arms in the air, trying to attract as much attention as she could without overbalancing on the rocking coach. “Sing along and make way for us! We must reach London soon; we have a nation to save!”

  More of the crowd began to turn, with one or two singing, and one tall man pointed his blackthorn staff. “That’s Josiah Armstrong’s carriage; that’s the red-capped revolutionary, the Demonian come back to save us!”

  The initial cheering spread, men raising fists or banners, but Jennifer shook her head and, cupping her hands to her mouth, shouted again: “Please let us through! We need to get through!”