by John Creasey
To him there were now two Newgates: this bright and airy part, where so many well-to-do lived and idled their hours away, and the nightmare beastliness of the stinkhole, where, he knew, he might have been killed by the more brutal inmates or from which he could have been raised into the death cart to be jogged and shaken on the way to Tyburn.
He could ‘see’ Frederick Jackson’s legs; and how soon they had gone still in death.
To James Marshall, moreover, there were two kinds of men: those whom he knew from Bow Street, with John Furnival leading them like a knight in shining armour, and men like the thief-takers and the head jailer. It seemed to him that all of life as well as all humankind must be divided in this way, and that bitter conflict was waged increasingly between the good and the bad.
He had been in the Press Yard for less than an hour when John Furnival came to fetch him. Before he left he went hesitatingly to the group of women who had succoured him, but when he reached them, all sitting cross-legged in a half circle and listening to the oldest of them, he could not find words; whenever he tried, his lips quivered but the words would not come. The oldest woman rose to her feet with ease and approached him, holding out her hands for him to grasp. He could see the deep lines etched at the corners of her eyes and mouth.
‘Go with God, James,’ she said gently. ‘And remember, we shall always thank God that we were able to help you. If you wish to thank us—’ She paused long enough for him to nod vigorously and to cry out ‘Oh, I do!’ Then she went on in the same gentle but authoritative voice. ‘Then thank us by remembering that the greatest heights to which a man or a woman can rise are the heights of serving others.’ She paused again and, as he nodded, mute, went on: ‘Simply remember that, James, and pray for us.’
She did not draw him to her.
He was aware only of her, although all were watching.
He did not know that a strange and rare silence had fallen upon the whole Press Yard. Every man and the few women present had stopped talking, stopped doing whatever they were at, and watched. Even Sir Roger Pilaff sat silent, cards fanned out in his hand.
Completely oblivious, James slowly went down on one knee and pressed the woman’s fingers to his lips, held them tightly, then sprang up and ran towards the door leading to the main passage and to the lodge, with John Furnival striding after him.
It was a long time before movement in the Press Yard began afresh and low-pitched voices broke the silence; but even as the talking grew louder and behaviour returned to normal, many a curious glance was cast towards the dark-clad women, whether they knelt in silent prayer or listened to their leader or walked in twos about the yard quietly rejoicing in their comparative freedom.
7: THE DARING AND THE DANGER
John Furnival returned to Bow Street straight from Newgate to find three accused footpads waiting for a hearing, and two debtors, one an elegantly dressed man attended by a servant and by a lawyer. None of the accused realised how reluctant he was to send anyone to Newgate or to the Fleet, which was at least as bad as the larger prison. Yet the evidence against the footpads was so great that he had no choice but to commit them for trial at the Sessions which would be held in Bailey Street in ten days’ time.
The lawyer for the accused debtor said, ‘If it please you, your worship, I wish to enter a plea for a denial of the debt claimed. My distinguished client—’
‘Why doesn’t he plead for himself?’ demanded Furnival.
‘Indeed he will, sir, on your insistence, but if I may prevail upon you to hear me. . .’
He claimed that his client was being sued for debts he had not incurred; for clothes which a tailor had not delivered, for perukes which a wigmaker had made ill-fitting and of poor quality, for a horse, saddle and equipage which had been unsatisfactory. On any other day Furnival might have questioned him closely, but he was in no mood to listen to the lies or half-truths of a fop.
‘I shall commit the accused to Newgate but suspend the committal,’ he declared. ‘He may remain at liberty until called upon by a court official if he deposits one hundred pounds as security. See the court usher.’
He nodded and banged his gavel. The lawyer, obviously shrewder than he appeared, quickly ushered his client away from the bench. There were no other cases, and Furnival went out by the side door and into his offices and then into his ground-floor apartment. A fire was burning brightly enough to show that fresh coals had been placed on it not long before. Slippers were by the side of his huge armchair and two churchwarden pipes lay by a jar of sweet-scented tobacco. Resting against the jar was a folded paper, which he took up and opened. He read:
May God thank you, sir. I shall never have the grace to give thanks enough.
Ruth Marshall
The writing was clear and bold, and not a word was wasted although the note said so much. Furnival sat down and read it again and then folded it and tucked it into his fob pocket. He leaned back and closed his eyes and must have dozed, for he became aware of sound and a presence. He opened his eyes to see Silas Moffat backing towards the door.
‘What is it? What is it?’ Furnival demanded.
‘It is not important, sir—’
‘It’s important enough for you to creep in and find out whether I was asleep,’ growled Furnival. ‘What is it?’
‘Tom Harris was here, sir. He has gone off to see into a robbery at the home of Sir Roger Cass; some French and Dutch paintings of consequence are said to have been stolen. Before he left, sir, he told me there is no doubt that the case against James Marshall was instigated by Peter Nicholson, but that he would not be likely to think of and carry that through without someone else’s instigation, sir.’
‘Eve Milharvey,’ said Furnival flatly.
‘There is a rumour about her,’ declared Moffat.
‘Are you going to pass it on or must I go and find it for myself?’
‘The rumour is that she is with child,’ Moffat told him expressionlessly. ‘She frequently visited Fred Jackson in the Master Felons’ Side at Newgate.’
Furnival sat absolutely still, looking at the beautiful complexion of his old servant, with the silvery hair like a frame on three sides, the high ruffles and cravat of pale blue making the bottom of the frame. Furnival was still for so long that the stirring of the coals in the fireplace was plainly audible. Slowly he gripped the arms of his chair, as if he were going to get up. But before moving he said bluntly, ‘Have not other rumours told us that Eve Milharvey was faithful to Jackson?’
‘Any man known to touch her would have been castrated,’ Moffat replied simply. ‘She was absolutely faithful.’
‘Do you know what I’ve made you?’ demanded Furnival, his grip on the arms of the chair tightening. ‘A cynic, Silas Moffat. D’you mean that love alone would not have kept her faithful?’ He gave a bellow of laughter and sprang to his feet.
On that instant, he caught his breath. He would have fallen back had he not gripped the side of the chair for support. The colour drained from his face and he took in a dozen shallow breaths, until slowly the colour returned and, obviously, the pain receded.
‘Sir,’ Moffat began, ‘I beg you to see Doctor Anson. He—’
‘Tell Godden I want my horse,’ Furnival growled.
Silas Moffat did not move, but stood in front of him, hands held out in a kind of supplication and with deep pleading in his eyes.
Neither man spoke for some time, and then it was Furnival, who said roughly, ‘Oh, please yourself, please yourself. A carriage or a chair or a horse, I don’t care which.’
‘I will arrange for your carriage,’ Moffat promised, and withdrew.
Furnival lowered himself back into the chair slowly. He no longer felt pain but was absurdly breathless, as if he had run a long way. He heard whispering outside and imagined that one voice was a woman’s. If Ruth came fussing over him he would send her packing; he had no desire to be fussed over, wanted no surgeons bleeding him; they had some practices little advanced from barbarism a
nd quacks. He waited for the door to open but it remained closed until Moffat came back, and by then he was feeling much more himself. He rose to his feet slowly, half fearful of what would follow, but the pain did not return and by the time he reached Bow Street he was taking his usual long strides. Godden was at the seat of an open carriage; a constable sprang to the door and opened it. He was Fairweather, a bronzed man with close-curled white hair; something of his country upbringing remained in his appearance, something of the Lincolnshire vowels lingered in his voice.
‘Is there anything you want?’ asked Furnival, climbing into the carriage. He pulled himself up by the top of the metal-banded wheel, which was cold on his palm, and sat down with slow deliberation.
‘Nothing of urgency,’ Fairweather replied. ‘What is it, man?’
‘I’ve a message from the Reverend Sebastian Smith,’ Fairweather replied. ‘He would regard it as an honour if he could wait on you this evening.’
‘Do you know what he wants?’
‘He did not confide in me, sir.’
‘If it’s money he’s after I may find a little. If he wants to save my soul tell him it’s a waste of time. If it doesn’t interrupt his prayers, eight o’clock tonight.’
‘I am sure he will be here, sir,’ Fairweather answered. ‘He was most anxious.’
Furnival nodded, and Godden, taking his cue, made the reins ripple along the horse’s back, so that it started off gently. As they approached a street which led down to the Strand, Godden spoke without turning his head.
‘Have you decided where to go, sir?’
‘Does Eve Milharvey still live in Jackson’s place?’
‘Yes, sir. In Loxley Yard, close by Gray’s Inn.’
‘Then that’s where we’ll go, by the Strand and Fleet Street to make sure we are not followed.’
Godden started to speak but checked himself and turned left at a narrow lane and left again before he responded, and then he seemed to be reluctant, perhaps even fearful. The clatter of a wagon full of sheeps’ hides drowned his words, the long, low-slung cart drawn by six horses and going too fast for safety. Behind it, perhaps explaining the driver’s impatience, was a herd of cows, holding up all traffic despite the desperate efforts of a drover and a boy.
‘What do you want to say?’ demanded Furnival. ‘Speak up, man!’
Now, two open carriages and a coach rumbled and clattered by, two sedan chairs passed, the iron tips on the boots of their liveried carriers making sharp sounds on the cobbles. Ahead of them lay St. Paul’s. The great dome was like a monstrous canopy. Godden turned left before reaching the cathedral. No one had followed.
‘All is not as it was at the house in Loxley Yard,’ Godden reported.
‘How has it changed in a few days?’
‘There are always men loitering - they say they are protecting the woman.’
‘And who threatens Eve?’ demanded Furnival.
‘Fact I can’t give you, sir. Rumour I can.’
‘I’ll not pass judgment on your accuracy, man!’
‘It is said that Peter Nicholson wishes to marry her and she is reluctant. Since the boy James’s kidnapping, Nicholson has been much bolder. He surrounds the place with men he says are enemies of Fred Jackson who want only to avenge themselves on her.’
After a few moments, Furnival asked, ‘Is this Peter Nicholson as evil as he sounds?’
‘Worse, sir. Before, the evil was overshadowed by Jackson, who dominated the man.’
‘And now that Jarkson is dead he has become his tyrannical self,’ Furnival mused.
‘Do you still wish to go there alone, sir?’
‘No. I desire you with me.’
Godden’s massive shoulders shook as if in silent laughter. He turned the carriage along several narrow lanes and across a cesspit so rank that one could imagine the noxious gases that rose from it were visible to the eye. Close by were dead dogs and cats and rats, skeleton thin, but just beyond was a break in the houses which showed a square, almost as magnificent as the Covent Garden piazza at its best, where children played and lovers and old people walked. At another pit, fed by the foul sewers which led towards the Fleet River, a pale-faced, gaunt-looking woman stood with a child clutched in her arms. The child did not move and the woman stared yet seemed to be aware of nothing.
Two more turns and the carriage was in Loxley Yard, and at Jackson’s house.
Five or six men, with perhaps more lurking, watched from corners and open doorways. Most of the brickwork was concealed by wooden huts or lean-tos, offering plenty of scope for hiding.
Furnival ignored them as Godden helped him down from the carriage but said in a clear, carrying voice, ‘You left word where we were coming, didn’t you?’
‘Everyone at Bow Street knows, sir,’ Godden answered, as clearly.
‘Good.’ Furnival turned and strode into the doorway leading to Jackson’s old apartment. Two men were at the foot of the staircase, each as villainous-looking as Bolson, the head jailer; the reek of one man’s foul breath was like the stench from a drain. But as he went up the stairs Furnival became aware of cleanliness and fresh air and the odour of wood polish as well as of a log fire.
A girl in her middle teens appeared and asked clearly, but with obvious nervousness, ‘Is there something you require, sir?’
‘Yes. To see your mistress,’ Furnival said.
‘She is resting, sir.’
‘Tell her that if she doesn’t make herself at home to John Furnival she may find herself resting in the women’s side at Newgate.’
‘John Furnival!’ The girl gasped and backed away as if she had seen an apparition; then turned and fled into the room from which the wood smoke was coming. A door slammed but Furnival could hear the excited voice although not that of Jackson’s mistress. He looked down the stairs and saw only one of the men there. Traffic noises filtered in but as if from a long way off. Then the door creaked open and the girl reappeared.
‘Will you - will you please come this way, your honour?’
He was taken into a large room where a fire burned and a spit with a leg of lamb turned, the fat dripping into a pewter pan beneath it. At one side, the flames reflecting on her bony face and scraggy arms, on her old dress and her sparse grey hair, sat an old crone. She did not look up and gave no sign that she knew he had come into the room. From a door set in the other side of the fireplace wall came Eve Milharvey, her dark hair freshly brushed, cheeks pinched to give them colour, lips pale as his. She gave a mock curtsy and motioned to a chair.
‘Will you be seated, your honour?’ And when he sat down in a chair that he guessed had been built for Jackson by the finest carpenter and upholsterer, she went on in the same tone of mocking: ‘And to what do I owe the honour of this visit?’
Furnival stared at her for so long that her smile became set, but she did not look away. Suddenly he spoke with an emphasis the greater because his voice was quiet.
‘I don’t want to have to send you to Newgate or to Tyburn. But if I have to I will.’
‘A very gallant gentleman,’ she sneered.
‘A very softhearted woman who would rob another of her son and have the harmless boy flung into jail and hanged. Let’s not play with words, Eve Milharvey. Don’t attempt to harm that boy again. Don’t attempt to harm his mother or her other children. If you do either, I shall provide sufficient evidence to condemn you.’ He gave her time to retort, but she did not; in fact for the first time since he had arrived she seemed truly frightened. ‘And even though you’re carrying Jackson’s child, it won’t keep you out of Newgate and will only postpone the hanging.’
She drew in a sharp breath, as if suddenly hurt.
‘You know that.’
‘I know that,’ confirmed Furnival. ‘And I understand that Nicholson has been showing his claws since the devil’s work with Marshall, and you don’t know how to fend him off. Is this true?’
He looked at her as he had once looked at Ruth, as he often eyed cri
minals in the dock.
More sensitive because of her child, perhaps, or else because Nicholson had truly frightened her, she answered, ‘Yes, it’s true enough. He thinks he can blackmail me into taking him to my bed.’
‘And you don’t want him?’
‘I would as soon have a pig!’
‘Then I will tell you a way to deal with him,’ Furnival promised.
She had leaned back in her chair, shoulders touching the high back, and the firelight shone on her hair and her eyes, putting lights in them; there was fear in her and in that moment, perhaps, hope had been born.
‘What possible way is there?’ she demanded.
‘Threaten Nicholson that you will tell me of his past crimes if he doesn’t leave you alone,’ Furnival said. ‘Tell him you’ve lodged a list of these crimes at a bank, to be opened at your death. I could have taken him now, but if I judge the man aright, he has many criminal friends and will lead me to them if he’s watched. If what I advise fails, I’ll have him charged. I’ve evidence enough. But you will be in no danger from me if you attempt no harm to the Marshall family.’
Eve looked at him as if she could not really believe what he was saying, and in an unsteady voice she asked, ‘What if he endeavours to harm them?’
‘Why should he, except to win you?’ demanded Furnival.
She did not answer.
He stood up slowly, using the arm of the chair as support, then bowed and moved to the door. He could not be absolutely sure that no man stood outside in the passage in menace, for there might be another way in, but he was certain that Godden would have found a way to warn him if more had come into the yard and were ganging up with the others to attack him.
Still inside the room he turned and went on: ‘You can tell Nicholson you gave me the sealed letter and I am to place it in a bank - not necessarily my own family’s.’
She did not answer.
The old crone stared into the glowing fire.
Fat splashed and the leg of lamb gave off a sudden spitting and hissing.
