Avon Street

by Paul Emanuelli

  ‘I’d love to go back, but what’s amiss? Why must I go to Master Richard’s house?’ she asked.

  ‘For once you must obey me in this. Now do as I say and before you pack, please send John Doyle in to see me.’ He knew his tone was brusque and saw the hurt and confusion in her face.

  ‘Very well, but I’m not happy with this and I might as well tell you,’ she said.

  No sooner had Mrs Hawker gone than John Doyle appeared at the door. ‘Did you want me?’

  ‘I wanted to thank you and to give you this,’ James said, passing John the handful of coins that he had gathered together from around the house.

  ‘Is this my first wages?’

  ‘No, I regret that after all I will not be able to offer you a job. In fact it would be better if you were to set off immediately for Bristol and the ship you were seeking. The money is to thank you. I only wish I could have given you more, but I hope it will help you on your way.’

  ‘Is this on account of what happened the other night?’

  ‘The man died,’ James snapped back. ‘They will be after us, and they know who I am.’ He scribbled a note on one of his calling cards and handed it to him. ‘I realise that I have little right to do so, but I have two favours to ask of you before you go.’

  ‘Ask them,’ John said.

  ‘Take this card to Dr Richard Wetherby at number ten, down the street and bring him back here. Then when I tell you, escort him and Mrs Hawker and Horatio back to his home. After that you are free to do as you please, but get away from here as quickly as you can.’ James looked at John. There was no trace of fear in John’s eyes and he wondered if the man was capable of that emotion. ‘It’s best you leave here. I am certain that they do not know who you are, or what you look like. It was dark and your cap was pulled across your face. Go now while you can.’

  ‘What about you?’

  ‘I have been advised to go to my brother in Ireland, but have decided against it. I will not run. If they want revenge then I must take my punishment, but no one else must suffer for what I have done. It’s better to take a beating and let the thing be over.’

  ‘Are you sure a beating will satisfy them?’ John asked.

  ‘No, I wish I was. But you must go now,’ James replied.

  When John had gone, James went in search of Mrs Hawker, who as he suspected was busy cleaning the kitchen before departing. Against her wishes he made her leave the room as it was and sent her again to pack her bag. She picked up the footman’s uniform that lay over the back of a kitchen chair and left, muttering under her breath.

  ❖ ❖ ❖

  John brought Richard to the study. James tried to keep his anxiety from his face. He smiled and then turned to John. ‘Make ready to leave as quickly as you can.’

  ‘I’ve packed already though Mrs Hawker was trying to stuff more into my bag when I last saw it,’ John replied. ‘I’ll go and keep her busy until we’re ready to go.’

  James waited until John had closed the door behind him and then turned to Richard. ‘I must ask for your understanding and patience,’ he said. ‘I have no time for explanations now, but I beg that you accommodate Mrs Hawker and Horatio this evening and make arrangements for her to travel to Ireland as soon as possible.’

  ‘I will do as you ask,’ Richard said, ‘but some explanation, please?’

  ‘Very well, I stabbed a man two days ago,’ James said, ‘and he has died of his wounds.’

  ‘My God!’ Richard exclaimed. ‘How did it happen?’

  ‘A gang set on me somewhere in Avon Street. I do not know where exactly. I managed to get away but I stabbed one of them in my escape.’

  ‘He was one of Nat Caine’s men, was he not?’

  The question took James by surprise. ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Everyone in Avon Street knows Caine’s name. I work sometimes with a doctor down there. Well, he calls himself a doctor, but I doubt he holds any medical qualification. He calls on me to patch up his mistakes. I saw him yesterday. He told me he had been called to one of Caine’s men, but the man had died.’

  ‘Do you think he has told the police?’

  ‘I very much doubt it. He was in fear for his own life for failing to save the man. He told me he was leaving Bath and asked if I would call on one or two of those he was treating.’ Richard rubbed his forehead, still lined with concern and disbelief. ‘I never thought for a moment the man was killed by anyone outside Avon Street, let alone by you, James. What were you doing there?’

  ‘Enough! Please no more questions,’ James replied. ‘Please take care of Mrs Hawker. I will call on you again when there is more time and I will answer all your questions.’

  ‘One last question and then I will go and do as you ask,’ Richard said. ‘Who is that man you sent to fetch me?’

  ‘An American by the name of John Doyle, he is the one who saved me. I had intended taking him on as a manservant, though now I have asked him to leave.’

  ‘How did you know he was not involved in the attack himself?’ Richard asked.

  James ignored the question. ‘He will carry Mrs Hawker’s luggage to your house and then he will be gone. Thank you for your help, but the sooner everyone has left, the better I will feel.’

  James called to John and Mrs Hawker as he looked out from the study window. There were one or two passers-by, but no one lingered and no one seemed to be paying the house undue attention. James led Richard out of the study and opened the front door and bid them goodbye as they made their way down South Parade towards Richard’s house.

  As he closed the front door he felt the trembling in his legs again and grabbed for the edge of the hall table to steady himself. He willed himself to look at his reflection in the mirror above the table, but his eyes remained fixed on the floor below. Then slowly he straightened, letting go of the table, and stared at his reflection. His face was red and sweating, but gradually the trembling dissipated and he felt his mind stilling. He was ready now, he told himself.

  ❖ ❖ ❖

  It was almost an hour after Mrs Hawker and John Doyle had left that James heard the loud knocking at the front door. He had by then shaved and changed, and was wearing his overcoat, ready to depart. He noticed that John Doyle had not returned for his bag and he thought at first that it might be him, but it was Frank Harcourt, punctual as always. James held the door firmly at an angle and pushed the bag with his foot, out of Frank’s field of vision.

  ‘What, no servant to answer the door?’ Frank asked, smiling, attempting to peer over James’ shoulder to the empty hallway beyond. ‘Times must be hard when a man has to answer his own front door.’ James held the door more firmly, barring entry. The deep, sonorous ticking of the long-case clock seemed to fill the space behind him as though its sound, echoing through the hall and stairwell, was betraying the emptiness of the house.

  ‘What became of you the other night?’ Frank asked. ‘I turned around and you were gone. I searched everywhere for you.’

  ‘I was set upon by a gang of footpads.’ Part of him wanted to say more, to tell him all that had happened, to ask for his help, or at least for his advice. Yet something held him back. Let time tell, he thought.

  ‘My God! You were not harmed were you?’ Frank said.

  ‘No, I escaped, with the help of a friend.’

  ‘Who was he, this friend?’

  ‘I do not know his name, but he went on his way straight afterwards, with a suitable reward in his pocket.’ The unease was still there, deep within him. He did not know why the lie came so effortlessly to his lips, almost without thinking. But the lie remained and when he looked at Frank he wondered if he knew.

  ‘But I thought you had lost everything at cards?’ Frank said.

  ‘You underestimate my resourcefulness. Let’s be on our way. Where are we to eat?’

  ‘I have booked a table at the Bath and County Club, but first I have to meet someone for a few minutes at a house in Queen Square.’

  ‘I really
do not understand why you have come all this way to collect me when you live practically on the doorstep of the County Club,’ James retorted. ‘Why did you not simply send a message for me to meet you there?’

  ‘Because I enjoy your company, James. There is no call for us to hurry and my meeting will need but a few minutes at most. You shall wait for me outside the doors of the club, and we shall enter together.’

  As they emerged from the doorway James noticed a man leaning against the railings on the other side of the street, looking towards the house. The man looked in their direction before setting off ahead of them. James watched him as he hurried away and wondered if it was in his imagination that he seemed to keep looking back towards them. He pointed him out to Frank, but he dismissed his concerns, and the man had soon disappeared from view.

  Despite Frank’s assertion that he enjoyed his company he spoke very little, yet James was glad not to be alone. If there was to be an attack, Frank had always proved resourceful as an ally. As they reached the corner of Queen Square, Frank stopped to blow his nose. ‘You cut across to the gardens now, James,’ he said. ‘The house I am visiting is a little further along the road. I will see you in front of the County Club, wait for me there.’

  James crossed the road over to the gardens which lay at the heart of the square. As he closed the ornate, black, iron gate behind him, he looked up to see which house Frank was visiting, but he was nowhere to be seen. The County Club was on the opposite side of the square, a matter of two minutes walk, but James held back. He walked only as far as the obelisk at the centre of the gardens and stopped, still curious to see which house Frank would emerge from. For a moment he thought he had caught a glimpse of John Doyle on the opposite corner, then he decided that his imagination was playing tricks again.

  James had been standing by the stone monument for almost five minutes, scanning the row of houses facing him, when he heard the voice some distance behind him, calling his name. As he turned, he was aware only of the sudden wave of intense pain which engulfed his body. He could not differentiate the sound of the shot from the shockwaves in his brain, and by the time that his body hit the ground, he could no longer hear, or see, or feel anything.

  Chapter 16

  As John returned from escorting Mrs Hawker to the doctor’s house, he had seen James walking down the street with the tall stranger, the one who had been with him that night at the card game. His instincts had taken over and he followed them all the way to Queen Square. It was instinct too that had driven him to conceal himself in a doorway in Wood Street, just off the square. Then, as he watched, James and his companion parted company.

  James had walked on. It seemed unlikely that he had seen his companion hurriedly retracing his steps away from the square, yet he seemed to be waiting for someone. When John looked out again from his hiding place, James was staring in his direction so he pulled back into the doorway.

  The sound of the shot had followed soon after and put all else from his mind as its thunder echoed around the buildings of Queen Square. When he emerged from his hiding place John could see James’ body lying inert in the centre of the gardens. He sprinted across the road and towards the obelisk, vaulting the railings.

  By the time he reached the centre of the gardens, a young woman was already kneeling, holding James’ head in her lap, pressing the hem of her skirt against the growing circle of blood soaking through the shoulder of his coat.

  ‘Is he dead?’ John shouted.

  The woman looked up, her auburn hair falling across her face. ‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘I don’t think he’s breathing, and his face is cold.’

  ‘I’ll get a cab and take him home,’ John said. ‘Stay with him.’ By now a crowd was building and he knew they had to be quickly away from there.

  ‘I don’t intend to leave him until I know how he is,’ she said.

  John ran to the road and quickly secured a closed four-seat brougham cab and told the driver to bring it to the gate at the bottom end of the park. Running back, he struggled to pick James up and raise his body over his shoulder. Once done, he was relatively easy to carry the short distance to the cab.

  ‘I want to come with you. I need to know how he is,’ the woman said, following John.

  John turned, ‘I don’t know you. For all I know it was you who shot him.’

  The woman pushed past him. ‘We can argue here, while a larger crowd gathers, and we wait for the peelers to arrive, or we can get away now. I did not shoot him, and I’m sure if I were to show any violence to him in the future, you would be more than capable of subduing me.’

  She mounted the carriage and held out her arms to help convey James’ body to the seat, resting his head again in her lap. She took off her scarf and held it underneath his coat against the wound in his shoulder.

  ‘What’s wrong with him?’ the cab driver called.

  ‘Nothing,’ John replied. ‘Take us to South Parade.’

  ‘There seemed to be a lot of interest in your friend, for nothing,’ the cab driver called.

  ‘He was drunk if you must know,’ John shouted. ‘He shot at a pigeon and then fell over and banged his head on the ground.’

  ‘They’re a bloody nuisance.’ the cabman said, ‘I don’t know as why folk feed they vermin. I don’t blame him, but I expects you want to be away from here. I dare say there’ll be a little extra in it for me if we get away fast?’

  ‘Go now. You’ll be paid well,’ John said.

  The cabby whipped up the horse in reply and the cab sped through the city. As they passed the Institute Building, John called out, ‘Take us into South Parade, then take the first turning and stop around the corner.’ The cabbie did as he was told. As soon as they stopped, John leapt down and paid him with a generous amount in excess of the fare, aware for a moment that he had used most of the money James had given him that morning. ‘Wait here,’ John said, before running around the corner and up to the door of Dr Richard Wetherby’s house and surgery. The maid answered the door. ‘Is your master in?’

  ‘He is,’ she replied. ‘But he doesn’t see anyone without an appointment.’ He could read the disapproval in her face as she looked him up and down.

  ‘Fetch him now and then be about your business,’ he said. As he had hoped, his expression and tone were enough to send the maid scuttling off up the stairs. She returned in a matter of moments with Richard Wetherby. He greeted John, but John said nothing, staring at the maid hovering in the background.

  ‘That will be all thank you, Dorothy,’ Richard said, smiling at the young girl.

  She curtseyed and went down the stairs towards the kitchen. ‘It would be best if we were unwatched,’ John whispered. ‘James is badly injured.’

  Richard called downstairs to the maid. ‘You may take the afternoon off, Dorothy, and cook also, but don’t come upstairs again. Don’t worry about tea, we will fend for ourselves, but either go out, or remain downstairs until this evening. We are not to be disturbed.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ she called back. ‘I’m sure cook will enjoy a trip to the shops, or a walk, sir.’

  Richard closed the door to the lower staircase and turned to John. ‘How bad is he?’

  ‘I think he’s still breathing, but he’s in a bad way.’

  ‘Do you need help to carry him round?’

  ‘No, we must attract as little attention as possible. Prepare what you need to treat a gun shot injury and make sure the curtains are closed.’

  John went outside and checked the road again. The pavement outside James’ house was deserted and the house as far as he could tell was unwatched. He walked slowly to the corner of the street, looking behind him with every couple of paces. It was all taking too long, minutes that he knew James could not afford, but it had to be done properly, there were lives at stake and not only James’ life. He waited just long enough at the corner to see the maid and cook emerge from the basement stairwell of the doctor’s house and then he ran to the cab.

  Ja
mes was muttering incoherently. When John tried to take hold of him he lashed out with his fists for a moment before passing out. John battled to pull him over his shoulder, with the woman’s help. As he struggled back to the doctor’s house under the weight of James’ now lifeless body, he heard the woman behind him, calling to the driver, ‘Drive on now. Forget you have seen us.’

  John carried James into the house and moments later heard the woman slam the door behind them.

  ❖ ❖ ❖

  ‘Put him on the table,’ Richard said, as he opened the surgery door, ‘and help me to get his coat and jacket off.’ The two of them wrestled with James’ clothes as he began again to thrash out with arms and legs. John noticed that Richard’s clean white apron was already bloodied.

  ‘You should not be here,’ Richard said, glancing at the woman as he cut away James’ shirt. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘My name is Belle Bennett and I am acquainted with this gentleman. I would like to help and I have no intention of leaving until I know how he is.’

  ‘His pulse is racing, yet his breathing is very shallow. He has lost a great deal of blood from the look of your dress and scarf,’ Richard said.

  John looked up and noticed for the first time that the front of Belle’s dress was covered with blood. She seemed to pay it little attention, but instead busied herself collecting up the bloodied tatters of James’ shirt. She put them in a bucket under the table, along with her scarf. ‘Will he live?’ she asked. She looked, John thought, as though her distress was genuine.