The Meaning of Night

by Michael Cox

  Then Pettingale’s story turned to the subject in which I was most interested. After making a little money from the original fraud, Phoebus Daunt developed a taste for criminality, and began to look upon himself as quite a captain of the swell mob. Having no clear idea of what he would do in the world when he had taken his degree, though he might babble to Lord Tansor about the prospect of a Fellowship, and feeling that a man of his genius needed a certain minimum amount of capital with which to establish a position in society, which he could not at that moment lay his hands on, he conceived the practical, though by no means original, notion of taking what he needed from other people. To assist him in the enterprise, he enlisted his friend and fellow fraudster Pettingale, for his legal brain, and their erstwhile companion-in-arms Josiah Pluckrose, alias Verdant, for his brawn, as well as his demonstrable skills with the jemmy and the other tools of the ken-cracker’s art.*

  I own that I could not have been more astonished if Pettingale had told me that Phoebus Daunt was none other than Spring-Heeled Jack himself.† But he had even more to tell.

  The extraordinary head for business, which Lord Tansor believed that he had discovered in his favourite, was in reality nothing else but a low talent for devising schemes to relieve the gullible of their money. I might have regarded this as harmless enough, for a man must live, and there are a million deserving fools in the world ready and willing to be fleeced; but when he practised his deceits on my father, who was not in the least gullible, only properly trusting of someone to whom he had shown an uncommon degree of preference, and from whom he had a right to expect loyalty and deference – then the case was very much altered. And it was all to ingratiate himself still further with his Lordship, with the object – duly attained – of insinuating himself ever more closely into the latter’s affairs.

  The ‘speculations’, to which he had freely confessed to Lord Tansor, were nothing but gimcrackery; the ‘profits’ that he returned to his protector were only the proceeds of various swindles and chicaneries. Some were epic in conception: imaginary gold-mines in Peru; a projected tunnel under the Swiss Alps; proposed railway lines that were never built. Others were more modest, or were merely confidence tricks performed on the unwary.

  False documents of all kinds, concocted with superlative skill and aplomb by Daunt, were their principal weapons: inventively convincing references and recommendations ascribed to men of known character and reputation; fictitious statements of assets from distinguished banking-houses and accomptants; counterfeit certificates of ownership; dexterously produced maps of non-existent tracts of land; grandiose plans for buildings that would never be built. Daunt, with help from the young lawyer Pettingale, began to attain a certain mastery of the spurious, whilst Pluckrose was retained to encourage the faint-hearted amongst those they preyed upon, and to discourage those inclined to squeal about their losses to the authorities. They chose their victims with infinite care, adopted clever disguises and aliases, hired premises, employed dupes like the unfortunate Hensby, and conducted themselves always with gravity and sobriety; and then, when all was done, they evaporated into thin air, leaving not a wrack behind.

  Now I had the measure of Phoebus Rainsford Daunt indeed, and what a joy it was to have the truth revealed at last! The insolent and preening scribbler was also a deep-dyed sharp: a practised chizzler, no better than the macers on the Highway.* Mr Pettingale continued to sing out nicely. His colour had returned to its customary pastiness, and perspiration no longer stood out on his forehead. Indeed, he seemed, to my eye, to be warming to his task, and I began to sense that all was not as it once had been between the lawyer and his literary friend.

  ‘We don’t see each other as much as we did,’ he said at last, looking meditatively into the fire. ‘All very well, you know, when we were younger. Difficult to explain – excites the mind greatly, this sort of work. And brings home the bacon. But it started to go against the grain a bit – some of the chaps we took were quite decent sorts of fellows, wives and families, etcetera, and we left them with nothing. Anyway, I told Daunt we couldn’t go on for ever. Sooner or later we’d slip up. Didn’t fancy following Hensby on the boat* – or worse. Came to a head when that unutterable blackguard Pluckrose did for his wife. Never understood why Daunt brought him in – and told him so. Capable of anything, Pluckrose. We knew that, of course. Bit of a flare-up, I’m afraid. Words said, and all that. Gulling a flat† one thing. Topping your wife quite another. Very bad business. Worst of it was that Pluckrose got off by some piece of trickery and some other cove paid his account in full and swung for what he’d done. Clever work, that, never seen better. Sir Ephraim Gadd, briefed by Tredgolds. Anyway, truth is, I thought it was time we threw over Pluckrose once and for all and went steady. Thought Daunt would agree – in the public eye, toast of the literary world, and all that. He said I might do as I pleased, but he had only just got started, and that a new tack he was on would set him up for life.’

  ‘New tack?’

  ‘Apropos his uncle, as he called him. Lord Tansor. Powerful gent. Know the name, do you? Lost his own son, I believe, and thought he’d have Daunt instead. Very rum, but there it is. Old boy bit of a tartar, but rich as Croesus, and Daunt was comfortably situated, for he stood in a fair way to step into the old man’s shoes in the course of time. But he couldn’t wait. Thought he’d take a little bit here and there in advance. Ready cash first, slyly done, for he had Uncle Tansor’s trust, you see. Then a little judicious forging of the old boy’s signature – second nature to Daunt. Rather a genius in that way. Amazing to observe. Give him a minute and he’d produce you the signature of the Queen herself, and good enough to fool the Prince-Consort. Old boy as sharp as they come, but Daunt knew how to play him. Reeled him in nice as you like. Didn’t suspect a thing. A dangerous game though – I told him so, but nothing would move him. Old boy’s secretary got on the scent, keen old cove called Carteret. When Mr Secretary became suspicious of him, Daunt started on his new tack. We’d been working a sweet little turn, our first for some months, but Daunt went cold on it. Everything put in jeopardy. More words, I fear. Much said in anger. Not pleasant. He said he had something better.’

  ‘And what was it?’

  ‘Only this: the old boy has a very grand house in the country – been there myself. Said house in the country packed to the rafters with portable booty.’

  ‘Booty?’

  ‘Prints, porcelain, glassware, books – Daunt knew a bit about books. All cleverly and quietly done, of course, and everything now laid up safely in a repository – in case the old boy didn’t come across, he said, or against some unseen occurrence. Worth a king’s ransom.’

  ‘And where is this repository?’

  ‘Ah, if only I could tell you. He cut me out. Dissolved the partnership. Haven’t seen him these twelve months.’

  I had him now, had him tight in the palm of my hand! After all these years, I had been given the means to bring him down. His box at the Opera, his house in Mecklenburgh-square, his horses, and his dinners – all paid for by the proceeds of crime! I was almost delirious with joy at the prospect of my triumph. Why, I could now destroy him at a moment’s notice; and, in the ensuing scandal, would Lord Tansor rush to his heir’s defence? I think not.

  ‘You’d speak out against him, of course,’ I said to Pettingale.

  ‘Speak out? What do you mean?’

  ‘Publicly declare what you have just told me.’

  ‘Now hang on a moment.’ Pettingale made to get up out of his chair, but I pushed him back.

  ‘Something wrong, Mr Pettingale?’

  ‘Look here,’ he said, ‘I can’t, you know. Implicate myself, and all that. And my life wouldn’t be worth a sniff.’

  ‘Don’t take on so,’ I said soothingly. ‘I might only need you to testify privately to Lord Tansor. No repercussions. Just a quiet conversation with his Lordship. You could do that all right, couldn’t you?’

  He thought for a moment. To aid reflection, I
picked up my pistol from the table.

  At length, looking whiter and pastier than ever, he said that he supposed he could, if matters were so arranged that his identity was concealed from Lord Tansor.

  ‘We’ll need some evidence,’ I said. ‘Something unequivocal, in writing. Could you lay your hands on such a thing?’

  He nodded, and bowed his head.

  ‘Bravo, Pettingale,’ I said with a smile, patting him on the shoulders. ‘But remember this: if you tell your former associates of our conversation, or if you subsequently take it into your head to be unco-operative, you may be assured of paying a very high price. I hope we understand each other?’

  He did not reply, so I repeated my question. He looked up at me, with such a weary and resigned look.

  ‘Yes, Mr Grafton,’ he said, closing his eyes and giving a great sigh. ‘I understand you perfectly.’

  *[‘He is known by his companions’. Ed.]

  †[A free-standing, raised fire-basket of wrought iron, usually on ornamental legs and having a decorated back-plate. Ed.]

  *[From Mozart’s Don Giovanni, sung by Don Ottavio, Donna Anna’s fiancé. Convinced that Don Giovanni has killed Anna’s father, Don Ottavio swears to avenge her and to return ‘as the messenger of punishment and death’. Ed.]

  *[i.e. Tasmania. Ed.]

  *[i.e. a member of King’s College. Ed.]

  *[A slang term for the criminal classes. Ed.]

  †[Heavily greased side-whiskers, which swept back to, or over, the ears. Ed.]

  *[A common method of rigging races, along with pulling favourites and doping. As Baron Alderson noted in his summing up of a case brought before the Court of Exchequer after the 1844 Derby, ‘if gentlemen will condescend to race with blackguards they must expect to be cheated’. Ed.]

  †[At 153 Aldersgate Street. Ed.]

  *[Ken-cracker: slang term for house-breaker. Ed.]

  †[A terrifying cloaked figure that began to terrorize London in 1837. His usual modus operandi was to pounce on unsuspecting passers-by, often women, and rip at their clothes with claw-like hands. He was sometimes said to breathe fire, had eyes that burned like hot coals, and was capable of leaping great heights over walls and fences. Whether Jack was real or imagined is still debated, though the attacks were widely reported in the press. Ed.]

  * [Sharp: someone constantly ready to deceive you; chizzler: slang term from chizzle, to cheat; macers: thieves or sharps (‘Flash Dictionary’, in Sinks of London Laid Open, 1848). By ‘the Highway’ the author means the Ratcliffe Highway, which ran from East Smithfield to Shadwell High Street. It was described by Watts Phillips in The Wild Tribes of London (1855) as ‘the head-quarters of unbridled vice and drunken violence – of all that is dirty, disorderly, and debased’. Ed.]

  *[i.e. transportation. Ed.]

  †[Slang term for a gullible victim. Ed.]

  31

  Flamma fumo est proxima*

  I left Field-court in the highest of spirits. At last I had the means to destroy Daunt’s reputation, as he had once destroyed mine. It was exhilarating to feel my power over my enemy, and to know that he was even now going about his business in ignorance of the Damoclean sword hanging over him. But still there was the question of when to draw on Pettingale’s testimony, and on the evidence that he claimed he could provide concerning Daunt’s criminal activities. To do so before I could prove to Lord Tansor that I was his son would be an incomplete revenge. How infinitely more tormenting it would be for Daunt if, at the very moment of his destruction, I could stand revealed as the true heir!

  My thoughts now returned to Mr Carteret’s murder, and to the question of his ‘discovery’. He had said to me, during our meeting in Stamford, that the matter that he had wished to lay before Mr Tredgold had a critical bearing on Daunt’s prospects. I was now absolutely certain that Mr Carteret had been in possession of information relating to the Tansor succession that would have helped me establish my identity; it might even have provided the unassailable proof that I had been seeking. It therefore followed that what was of the utmost value to me had also been of value to someone else.

  Suspicions and hypotheses filled my head, but I could come to no clear conclusion. Back in my rooms, I wrote a long memorandum to Mr Tredgold in which I attempted to marshal under various heads all the various matters relating to recent events. Then I walked briskly to Paternoster-row, and knocked on the Senior Partner’s door.

  There was no reply. I knocked again. Then Rebecca appeared, coming down the internal stairs that led to Mr Tredgold’s private apartments.

  ‘’E’s not there,’ she said. ‘’E left for Canterbury yesterday, to see ’is brother.’

  ‘When will he be back?’ I asked.

  ‘Thursday,’ she said.

  Three days. I simply could not wait.

  When I sat down at my desk I found an envelope containing a black-edged card, with the following communication printed in black-letter type:

  I duly sat down to write a formal note of acceptance to Mr Gutteridge, and a personal note to Miss Carteret, which I called for one of the clerks to take to the Post-office.

  This business done, I determined at once to go down to Canterbury, to see my employer. I therefore instantly dashed off a note to Bella, whom I had been engaged to meet that evening, and consulted my Bradshaw.

  I arrived in Canterbury at last to find myself standing before a tall, rather forbidding three-storey residence close by the Westgate. Marden House stood a little back from the road, separated from it by a narrow paved area and a low brick wall topped with railings.

  I was admitted, and then shown into a downstairs room. A few moments later, Dr Jonathan Tredgold entered.

  He was shorter and a little heavier than his brother, with the same feathery hair, though darker and in somewhat shorter supply. He held my card in his hand.

  ‘Mr Edward Glapthorn, I believe?’

  I gave a slight bow.

  ‘I beg you to excuse this intrusion, Dr Tredgold,’ I began, ‘but I hoped it might be possible to speak with your brother.’

  He pulled his shoulders back, and looked at me as if I had said something insulting.

  ‘My brother has been taken ill,’ he said. ‘Seriously ill.’

  He saw the shock that his words had produced, and gestured to me to sit down.

  ‘This is sad news, Dr Tredgold,’ I began. ‘Very sad. Is he—’

  ‘A paralytic seizure, I am afraid. Completely unexpected.’

  Dr Tredgold could not give me a categorical assurance, as things then stood, that his brother’s paralysis would pass quickly, or that, even if it did abate, there would not be severe and permanent debilitation of his powers.

  ‘I believe that my brother has spoken of you,’ he said after a short space of silence. Then he suddenly slapped his knee and cried, ‘I have it! You were amanuensis, secretary, or what not, to the son of the authoress.’

  I struggled to conceal the effect of this wholly unexpected and astonishing reference to my foster-mother, but evidently without success.

  ‘You are surprised at my powers of recall, no doubt. But I only have to be told something once, you see, and it can be brought to mind in perpetuity. My dear brother calls it a phenomenon. It was a matter of much amusement between us – a little game we would play whenever he came here. Christopher would always try to catch me out, but he never would, you know. He mentioned to me, some years ago now, I believe, that you had such a connexion with Mrs Glyver, who I believe was a client of the firm’s and whose works of fiction he and I – and our sister – used greatly to admire; and of course I have never forgotten it. It is a gift I have; and, in addition to the harmless amusement that it affords my brother and me whenever we meet, it has had some practical use in my medical career.’

  His words were delivered with a succession of deep sighs. It was apparent that a close bond united the two brothers, and I divined also that the doctor’s expert knowledge made him less sanguine, with regard to
the Senior Partner’s prognosis, than he might have been without it.

  ‘Dr Tredgold,’ I ventured, ‘I have come to regard your brother as more than an employer. Since I first came into his service, he has become, I might almost say, a kind of father to me; and his generosity towards me has been out of all proportion to my deserts. We have also shared many interests – of a specialist character. In short, he is a person I esteem highly, and it pains me greatly to hear this terrible news. I wonder, would it be at all presumptuous if—’

  ‘You would like to see him?’ Dr Tredgold broke in, anticipating my request. ‘And then, perhaps, we might take a little supper together.’

  I accompanied Dr Tredgold upstairs, to a bedchamber at the rear of the house. A nurse was sitting by the bed, whilst in a chair by the window sat a lady in black, reading. She looked up as we entered.

  ‘Mr Edward Glapthorn, may I present my sister, Miss Rowena Tredgold. Mr Glapthorn is come from the office, my dear, on his own account, to ask after Christopher.’

  I judged her to be some fifty years of age, and, with her prematurely silvered hair and blue eyes, she bore a most remarkable resemblance to her afflicted brother, who lay on the bed, deathly still, eyes closed, his mouth drawn down unnaturally to one side.

  The introductions over, she returned to her book, though out of the tail of my eye I caught her looking at me intently as I stood, with Dr Tredgold, by the bedside.

  The sight of my employer in such distress of body and mind was most painful to me. Dr Tredgold whispered that the paralysis had affected his brother’s left side, that his vision was seriously impaired, and that it was presently almost impossible for him to speak. I asked him again whether there was a chance of recuperation.

  ‘He may recover. I have known it before. The swelling in the brain is still in the acute phase. We must watch him closely for any deterioration. If he begins to wake soon, then we may hope that, in time, he may regain motivity, and perhaps also some operative residue of his communicative faculties.’