Steps to the Gallows

by Edward Marston

  ‘That’s his reputation,’ said Ackford. ‘He’s a great sponger. But there’s something you should know before you charge off.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Last night, there was another attack on the print shop.’

  Paul was horrified to hear that someone had tried to burn the place down. He was highly sympathetic. The news about Yeomans’ earlier part in saving the house came close to making him froth at the mouth.

  ‘It’s our responsibility to look after Mrs Mandrake. We can’t have a Runner showing us up like that.’

  ‘Peter vowed that it wouldn’t happen again.’

  ‘He’s right, Gully. We mustn’t give Yeomans a chance to crow over us.’

  ‘Then we have to catch the killer before he does,’ said the other. ‘You get off to Southwark. Leo’s brother wouldn’t send for you unless it was urgent.’

  ‘Why didn’t he come himself?’

  ‘I can’t tell you that.’

  ‘He has licence to leave the prison.’

  ‘I know. I met him at the funeral.’

  ‘Why did Snapper bring the message and not Mr Paige?’

  ‘You’ll soon find out.’

  Micah Yeomans enjoyed a celebratory drink at the Peacock. During the night, a fire had been put out, lives had been saved and he had won deserved thanks from the woman he coveted. As he explained to Alfred Hale, there’d been additional gains. The first was his warm reception by the chief magistrate.

  ‘Mr Kirkwood praised me to the skies,’ said Yeomans, complacently.

  ‘And so he should. You guessed that the print shop would be in danger.’

  ‘It was no guess, Alfred. It was pure instinct.’

  ‘Chevy Ruddock deserves a kind word as well.’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course.’

  ‘Did you mention his name to Mr Kirkwood?’

  ‘I did so a number of times,’ lied Yeomans.

  ‘Good – we have to encourage the lad.’

  ‘He acted well in a crisis.’

  ‘That’s what we’ve taught him to do, Micah.’

  ‘He’s modelled himself on us.’

  ‘There’s no better training for him,’ said Hale. ‘What happens tonight?’

  ‘We’ll go back on patrol again.’

  ‘Does Mrs Mandrake know we’ll be there?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘What did she say when you told her?’

  ‘Well, she wasn’t as grateful as I expected,’ admitted Yeomans. ‘I offered to take her to a place of safety but she refused to come. Diane – Mrs Mandrake, that is – is resolved to stay at the shop. If she did leave, she claimed, she’d go to friends.’

  ‘And we know who they’d be – the Skillen brothers.’

  ‘Where were they last night when they were needed?’

  ‘Snoring in their beds, most like.’

  ‘While I protected her.’

  ‘Strictly speaking,’ said Hale, ‘it was Ruddock who did that. He was outside the shop when he realised it was on fire. He told me so himself.’

  ‘Don’t believe everything Ruddock says. I was first into the property.’

  ‘And you battled with the fire for a long time. It’s left its mark on you, Micah. Half of your eyebrows have disappeared. It makes you look years younger.’

  ‘Does it?’ said the other, brightening at the thought that he might now be more appealing to his beloved. ‘Perhaps I should keep them trimmed.’

  ‘What does your wife say about them?’

  Yeomans was bitter. ‘She didn’t recognise me at first.’

  ‘I’ll wager that Mrs Mandrake did.’

  ‘Yes, Alfred, she did.’ A fond smile touched his lips. ‘Rescuing her and the house were the major triumphs last night but there’s another one to add.’

  ‘I know – the brothers were shown up for the fools they are.’

  ‘Peter and Paul Skillen have no place in law enforcement. When we’ve caught whoever was behind the murder and the fire,’ said Yeomans, lifting the remains of his eyebrows to maximum altitude, ‘we can enjoy the pleasure of a visit to the shooting gallery to trumpet our victory.’

  Raising his tankard, he swallowed the last of his ale with a thunderous gulp.

  As soon as he reached the King’s Bench Prison, Paul realised that something serious had happened. Snapper was waiting for him at the main gate. Instead of wanting to ride Paul’s horse, the boy tethered it and led the visitor to the room occupied by Virgil Paige. The door was firmly shut. Snapper knocked four times, waited, then knocked again another three times.

  ‘Thass wor ’e told me to do, sir,’ he explained.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘No strangers muss ger in there.’

  The chair wedged up against the door was moved so that it could be eased far enough ajar for Paige to look out. Opening the door wide, he ushered Paul inside, thanked Snapper, sent him on his way then closed the door again before putting the chair back in place.

  ‘What’s going on?’ asked Paul.

  ‘I wish I knew, Mr Skillen.’

  ‘Why couldn’t you come to the gallery?’

  ‘I was stopped at the gate.’

  ‘I thought you had special privileges.’

  ‘They’ve been withdrawn,’ said Paige, sourly, ‘but that’s not the worst of it.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I’ve been here long enough to earn respect. Nobody bothers me and nobody would dare to come in here while I’m out taking exercise. Earlier today, that all changed. When I tried to venture out of the prison, the gatekeeper refused to let me go. He said that he’d had orders from the marshal himself. So I came back here and was shocked to find that it had all gone.’

  ‘What had?’

  ‘Everything I used to produce my caricatures, Mr Skillen. While I was away, they were kept in a locked cupboard. Someone broke into it.’

  ‘Can’t you complain?’

  Paige gave a hollow laugh. ‘To whom, I ask? As well as debtors and those in here for defamation, we have our share of thieves and footpads. Look through that window and you’ll see dozens of possible suspects.’

  ‘I thought you said that you were respected in here.’

  ‘I was. Everyone left me alone and kept away from my room. It was a sort of unwritten law. Somebody broke it.’

  Paul was worried. ‘Last time I came here, you talked about having peace of mind,’ he said. ‘That seems to have gone altogether now.’

  ‘It has, Mr Skillen, and it was my own fault.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘I went to my brother’s funeral.’

  ‘You were fully entitled to do that, Mr Paige.’

  ‘I think I was followed,’ said the other. ‘I fancy that somebody asked why I had the urge to attend that particular funeral when there was hardly anyone else there. I met your own brother, by the way, and a Mr Ackford. It was kind of them to come.’

  ‘Had I not been busy elsewhere, I’d have attended myself.’

  ‘Grief bestows its own blindness. Like Leo, I usually know if someone is stalking me but I was too caught up in my bereavement. All I wanted to do was to get back here to be alone with my thoughts.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Someone knows,’ said Paige, solemnly. ‘Someone knows that I’m Virgo.’

  ‘That’s very disturbing.’

  ‘It’s somebody with influence, that’s clear.’

  ‘The likelihood is that it’s the person we seek,’ said Paul. ‘He has the power to control access in and out of prison. The men who killed your brother were released from Newgate and you were stopped from leaving here even though you had a legitimate right to do so. Did you question the marshal?’

  ‘I tried to do so, Mr Skillen.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘He refused to see me.’

  ‘You deserved an explanation.’

  ‘I got that when I returned here and found that my things had been stolen. That’s why I have
to exercise great care. Snapper is the only person who knows how to make me open that door. That lad has been a godsend to me.’

  ‘I’ll remember to slip him a coin or two when I leave.’

  ‘He saw something that may be significant.’

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘This may be fanciful supposition on my part,’ said Paige, ‘but I’m reduced to the position of grasping at straws.’

  ‘What did the lad see?’

  ‘Well, we live in mean accommodation here, as you can see, but the marshal does not. He has splendid apartments outside the prison. Snapper was playing with friends at the gate when he saw a fine coach roll up. When it stopped at the marshal’s lodging, he came out in person to welcome his guest. He’d only do that for someone of real importance.’ Paige bit his lip. ‘An hour later, I was stopped from leaving the prison. Is that what the visitor came to demand?’

  Julian Harvester took the bottle from him and held it up to the light to examine the liquid inside. After putting the bottle on the table, he looked at his visitor.

  ‘Are you sure that this will solve the problem?’

  ‘It will ease the discomfort,’ replied Penhallurick. ‘That’s all I can claim.’

  ‘I want a cure, Guy, and not simply a way of subduing the pain.’

  ‘The cure lies in your own hands, Julian. You must look to your diet. If you eat less and cut down on your consumption of wine and brandy, your abdominal woes will eventually disappear. There is, of course, another way we can proceed.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Let me open you up and I may be able to cut out the problem altogether.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ protested Harvester, a hand on his stomach. ‘That’s out of the question. I’d sooner suffer than commit myself to your scalpel.’

  ‘So be it.’

  Guy Penhallurick was a tall, solid, good-looking man in his early fifties with a patrician air. His voice had the distinctive burr of the West Country. As well as being a friend of Harvester, he was his physician.

  ‘I’m surprised to find you here this afternoon,’ he said. ‘I thought that you’d be at the cricket match for the second day.’

  ‘I had pressing business to attend to,’ explained Harvester.

  ‘Nothing comes before cricket. That’s what you told me.’

  ‘Ordinarily, that’s the case. I can see that you weren’t tempted to return to St John’s Wood again.’

  Penhallurick gave a mock yawn. ‘It was an essay in sustained boredom.’

  ‘How can you say that of some sublime batting?’

  ‘It failed to excite me, Julian. While I’m grateful that you took me there, it’s a game that will never be dear to my heart. But then, unlike you, I’ve never been a natural sportsman.’

  ‘You actually went to sleep. That’s sacrilege.’

  ‘I apologise. The truth is that I’d been up most of the night.’

  ‘Were you called out by a patient?’

  Penhallurick smiled. ‘You could put it like that.’

  He tried once again to persuade his friend to moderate his intake of rich food and strong drink. The advice was studiously ignored. Harvester was not a man to change the habits of a lifetime. They were in the library of his London home. Bookshelves covered most of the wall space but a large painting of a cricket match hung above the marble fireplace. Harvester strolled across to it.

  ‘This match was held at Thomas Lord’s present ground when it was first opened. I was there at the time,’ he went on, pointing to the myriad spectators. ‘Somewhere among those delighted onlookers are me and my friends. Nobody in the whole ground, I can assure you, committed the sin of falling asleep.’

  ‘You’ll never let me forget that, will you?’

  ‘Sir Humphrey thought it was an appalling thing to do.’

  ‘I know. I had to tender my apologies when I saw him this morning.’ He tapped the bottle of medicine. ‘Take a spoonful of this every day and it should do the trick.’

  ‘What if it doesn’t?’

  ‘I’ll keep my knife well sharpened,’ said the other, jokingly.

  ‘Your surgical operations have not always been a success,’ observed Harvester with implied criticism.

  Penhallurick was caught on the raw. ‘There are unforeseen hazards sometimes.’

  ‘David Bellmain never recovered from your ministrations.’

  ‘He was the exception to the rule, Julian,’ said the other, unhappy at being reminded of a failed operation. ‘He came to me too late. Nobody could have saved him. All that I could do was to prolong his life by a few weeks.’

  ‘Is that what your medicine will do for me – keep me alive for another few weeks?’

  ‘Oh, I think you’ll last a bit longer than that. My medical opinion is that you’ll have several years left to watch cricket matches and exert your firm but invisible pressure on the government of the day.’ He saw the clock on the mantelpiece. ‘I must away, Julian. I have another patient waiting.’

  ‘I’ll see you out.’

  As they went into the hall, the butler was standing by to open the front door. Harvester was surprised to see a coach standing outside on the drive.

  ‘Isn’t that Sir Humphrey’s coach?’

  ‘I borrowed it for the day.’

  ‘Why did you do that?’

  ‘I needed to create an impression on someone, Julian.’

  ‘Why didn’t you borrow my coach?’ asked the other. ‘It’s even bigger and better than this one. You’d have cut a dash in that.’

  ‘I’m sure that I would have, but your coach has one defect.’

  ‘That’s nonsense!’

  ‘It has your coat-of-arms emblazoned on the doors,’ said Penhallurick, putting his hat on. ‘If I travel in this coach, I can look as if I own it. Anybody seeing me in your vehicle would assume that I was Julian Harvester, one of the wealthiest men in the realm. That would not be sensible.’

  Back at the print shop, Peter Skillen had managed to convince Tite and the servants that they were not actually on the verge of being killed. With the confidence he’d instilled in them, they went into the garden to clear up the debris. With Diane Mandrake at his side, Peter looked through the window at them.

  ‘I think they’ll stay the night now,’ he said. ‘I doubt if they’ll sleep, mark you, but they’ll be on the premises.’

  ‘How did they start the fire?’ asked Diane. ‘That’s what puzzles me. How did they get into my garden?’

  ‘They must have climbed over the fence.’

  ‘But how did they get into the garden at the rear of mine, Peter?’

  ‘If they were agile – and if there were, indeed, two of them – then hopping over a six-foot fence would have been quite easy. It was also their escape route. Once the fire was well established, they’d have fled, convinced that they’d done exactly what they’d been told to do. They probably don’t realise that the blaze was actually put out. It will come as a rude shock to them.’

  ‘Nowhere near as rude as the shock that I got last night when I heard someone bellowing outside in the street,’ she said. ‘It made me leap out of bed as if the fire was directly beneath me.’

  ‘Was it Yeomans who actually called out to you?’

  ‘No, it was a member of the foot patrol. His name was Ruddock, as I recall.’

  ‘Chevy Ruddock,’ he told her. ‘We’ve had dealings with him before.’

  ‘He was fearless in the face of that blaze.’

  ‘What about Yeomans?’

  ‘He was a Trojan as well, Peter. I have to give him credit for that. The fire burnt off part of his eyebrows. That must have been painful.’

  ‘His pride will have been badly wounded by that. He’s cultivated those eyebrows for years.’

  ‘Let’s put him aside,’ she said, turning to look at him. ‘I’ve something very important to ask you.’

  ‘Go on,’ he invited.

  ‘Do you think that Virgo is aware of what’s going on?’


  ‘He must be. Since he kept in touch with Mr Paige all the time, he’ll certainly know that his partner was murdered.’

  ‘Then why hasn’t he been in touch with me?’

  ‘He must have his reasons,’ said Peter, guardedly.

  She put her face close. ‘I think you might know what those reasons are.’

  ‘Why do you say that, Mrs Mandrake?’

  ‘I’ve been checking up on you and your brother, Peter. Together with Gully Ackford, you have an astonishing record of success. If anyone in London could track down Virgo, it’s you or Paul. Am I right?’

  It was a moment that Peter had known would come sooner or later. She was a woman of great intuition. Preoccupied with events at the shop, she hadn’t been able to ask him about the search for the cartoonist. But she hadn’t forgotten it and she wanted an answer. They had deliberately held back the information before but Peter could not lie to her now. Since she’d sold Virgo’s prints for so long, she deserved to know who he actually was.

  ‘Yes,’ confessed Peter, ‘you are right. We did run him to ground.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘You had enough on your plate as it was, Mrs Mandrake.’

  ‘I don’t accept that.’

  ‘Then I apologise. It was Paul who first met him.’

  ‘And what’s his real name?’ she demanded.

  ‘It’s Virgil Paige.’

  ‘Paige? Then he’s—’

  ‘He was Mr Paige’s brother.’

  ‘I didn’t even know that Leo had a brother,’ she said, peevishly. ‘He lodged with me all that time yet he never once talked about his family.’

  ‘Well, he did have one sibling and they produced the Parliament of Foibles between them.’

  ‘That’s very enterprising. I just wonder why I wasn’t let in on the secret much earlier. Why has this brother been hiding his light under a bushel? In the wake of the murder, I expected him to come forward.’

  ‘That’s rather difficult, I fear.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He’s in prison.’

  Virgil Paige walked up and down the room to relieve his anxiety, occasionally going to the window to look out. Though his army service had given him the ability to defend himself, he couldn’t do that if he was up against unfair odds. His enemy knew who he was and where he lived. There was no escape. Someone was keeping him there for a purpose. It was only a matter of time before they struck.