by John Creasey
Richard had never seen this actual document before but his grandfather had told him of it, had talked of Jackson and his mistress and of the fact that his own father - Richard’s greatgrandfather - had been murdered by the man pictured here. Where had he seen that face before? Richard turned to his pack, unstrapped it, and took out some copies of The Daily Clarion which he wanted to read at leisure. On the same page as that giving the story of Timothy’s murder was a picture of a man very like the picture of Frederick Jackson, and beneath The Daily Clarion’s picture was the caption:
Frederick Jackson, Bow Street Runner, who apprehended Thomas Garson. Garson is believed to be the man who struck the fatal blow which killed Timothy McCampbell-Furnival.
The same cast of face and the same name. This could hardly be coincidence. That first Jackson had been hanged for murder; and now his grandson - or more likely his greatgrandson - had apprehended a murderer and was actually a member of the Bow Street force, created out of the one that, so long ago, had hunted down his own forebear.
Aloud, Richard said, ‘But this was nearly seventy years ago! Nearly seventy years, and they are still fighting for a police force!’ That was the moment when he knew that he would have to stand for Minshall when the by-election came.
When he returned to ‘Mr. Londoner’ that night, he found a stranger walking up and down outside the shop. Youthful-looking and cleanly if poorly dressed, he touched his forehead as he approached Richard.
‘It is Mr. Richard Marshall, sir, begging your pardon?’
‘Yes,’ said Richard. ‘How can I help you?’
‘Well, sir, my father said if I ever wanted help from an honest man I could rely on Mr. James Marshall, and you being his son’ - Richard did not trouble to correct this - ‘I thought the same would be true of you, sir. My father is a brother of Mr. Daniel Ross, who used to have a coffee house in Wapping, and I am named Daniel after my uncle. My father keeps a public house near the docks at Wapping, sir - and they won’t renew his licence unless he pays them five hundred pounds.’
‘Who won’t?’
‘Well, sir, it’s complicated, because the magistrate takes the word of the constables and the police court men as to whether a licence is worthy. And what with the revenue men wanting a share, and the river police - they’re always fighting each other, sir, unless they can squeeze some poor innocent person dry - and the Court Runner wanting their share, the magistrate will be advised not to renew, sir. And’ - the young man gulped - ‘there is another prepared to pay a thousand pounds, sir, and you can be sure he’ll use the place for giving cover to thieves and hiding what they steal.’
‘When is the application to be heard?’ asked Richard.
‘Tomorrow morning, sir.’
‘That doesn’t leave much time,’ Richard said, frowning. ‘Do you know the men who want to share this blackmail profit?’
‘Oh, yes, sir. They’ll all be at the house tonight, pressing hard on my father.’
‘Tell me the name of the house and how to get there and I’ll be at the house by eleven o’clock,’ Richard promised.
‘Do you really think you can help, sir?’
‘I can try,’ Richard said.
When the lad had gone Richard went first to sup, then fetched a horse from stables behind the Strand and rode through the City and the East End. The public house, or inn, was on a corner and oil flares showed the name - the Ball and Chain. It was one of the very old oak-roofed and -beamed buildings. He tied his horse to a post and found inside that the place had the brightness and snugness of a well-kept hostelry. Beyond the bar three men were drinking ale in one corner and were talking to a middle-aged man behind the bar.
The youth passed Richard and said out of the corner of his mouth, ‘There they are, talking to my father.’
Richard crossed to the corner, ordered a tankard of ale, raised it and said, ‘Your health gentlemen. And to you landlord, another good year of trade.’ He drank deeply. ‘I have come to find out if you are being pressed to pay money for the recommendation of the constable to the magistrate tomorrow.’
The landlord gasped. ‘Pressed? Pressed, sir? Why, no—’ His words faded into nothing.
‘Good,’ approved Richard. ‘That saves me a lot of trouble. There is much blackmail for these licensed houses, and we are determined to stamp it out. Anyone caught demanding money will not only be instantly dismissed but will be arraigned on charges which I won’t mention here.’
‘And - and who may you be, sir?’
‘Oh, I am one of the lawyers who began the inquiries. I shall be in court tomorrow morning.’
‘But they might have attacked you, might have killed you, sir!’ said the youth the next day. ‘It was wonderful, but powerful risky, Mr. Marshall.’
‘You tell me a way of dealing with such people without risk,’ Richard said dryly.
He was driving back to the Strand when, near the church of St. Mary-le-Strand, he heard a great commotion, the clatter of rattles, masses of people running, and what he had first thought were coaches swinging around a corner towards Bow Street - three horse-drawn fire engines in a row. It was more than he could do to stay away from the crowd, and he turned his horse. A gentle wind brought the smell of fire and smoke and soon he could see flames stretching high into the sky. A silhouette against the red glow was from the mass of old, decaying buildings close to the theatre, but the fire had also reached the facade of the Royal Opera House itself. Firemen and police were pumping water and controlling the crowd; women were screaming. A great roar followed part of the roof’s falling in. It was fiercely hot now, and he was doing more harm than good by staying here. As he turned, a middle-aged woman peered up at him.
‘Do you know if Handel’s organ is safe? Oh, please God, it must be, it must be!’
‘All I know,’ said a man close by, ‘is that three firemen are dead of suffocation.’
‘I know it started after Mrs. Siddons left,’ a young man volunteered. ‘But the organ!’ the woman gasped.
The first edition of The Daily Clarion which Richard saw next day carried a headline and some facts.
HAVOC CAUSED BY FIRE AT ROYAL OPERA HOUSE,
COVENT GARDEN.
TWENTY-THREE FIREMEN PERISHED.
The famed Handel organ was reduced to nothing. Stage scenery, Mrs. Siddons’ wardrobe and all such were destroyed.
It is estimated that a large number of people have been rendered homeless although the exact number is not yet known.
It was hours before Richard fell asleep that night, and in the morning even word that Ross had been granted his licence did not cheer him. If he were in the House of Commons, he wondered, could he do anything to reduce the crime, the blackmail, the conditions which led to fires which destroyed great landmarks and killed brave men?
‘But I have no intention of retiring,’ declared the Member for Minshall a few days later. ‘I do not know what put such an idea into your head.’
‘It was put there by the offer of ten thousand pounds,’ replied a man who served Simon Rattray-Furnival. ‘Ten thousand pounds, of which five will be given to you the moment you have resigned your seat because of bad health, and another five when you land in Lisbon, Portugal, for a rest cure in the warm sunshine you can be sure of finding there.’
The Member for Minshall pursed his lips, raised his eyebrows, and then said in a wondering voice, ‘I could not understand why I had been feeling so short of breath. I am a sick man. There is nothing for it but a long rest in a warm climate.’
‘Pay him his money and get him out of the country,’ Simon ordered. ‘I have a candidate who will most certainly be the next Member for Minshall, and I cannot get him into the House of Commons quickly enough. Is there any news from Godley?’
‘No, sir,’ his secretary told him.
Godley of the Bow Street Runners still had not found the proof he needed to charge Mason, who, he said, was behind so much of London’s crime. Simon was not positive whether such a man existed o
r whether continual procrastination was Godley’s way of putting up the price for the investigation. Of one thing Simon was sure: he must bide his time, must not rely only on Godley for information. Frederick Jackson, the man who had actually cracked the gang which had murdered Timothy, might do better.
Simon set himself to find out whether Jackson might prove a more valuable contact than Godley, and more reliable.
Almost at once, however, he was forced to consider other pressing matters. The war with France took a turn for the worse and British ships were again in danger on the high seas. In London, trade was slowing down, and Simon found the problems of supplies and shipping all-demanding. The government, with an eccentric, if not mad, King on the throne, was uncertain except in one thing: to continue the war against France.
The seat for Minshall was left vacant for more than a year, and when eventually Richard was elected there was an utter lack of interest in the police among the people as well as among politicians. The nation was fighting for its colonies, its wealth, its survival.
Richard found himself not only blocked wherever he turned but frustrated because there seemed nothing useful he could do. The war dragged on. Months passed. Then, in 1811, when he had already been in the House for nearly four years, two brutal outrages that left six people murdered set London by the ears.
‘Oysters,’ Mr. Marr said, ‘that’s what I’d like for my supper.’ He finished stacking the bales of linen on the shelves of his shop while his assistant stifled a yawn. It was nearly midnight and he must be back by seven o’clock the next morning to open the shop. ‘You go and get two dozen best oysters, girl,’ Marr said to a maid, and she slipped out to another shop not far along Ratcliffe Street.
She left the door ajar.
None of those in the house or shop heard anyone enter, but suddenly a tornado of violence swept in; a man slashed with chisel and maul, smashing the skulls of the two men, battering Mrs. Marr to death, killing her child in its cradle. When the maid summoned a watchman because the door was locked on her, she stood confronted by the hideous scene.
But the murderer was not found.
A few days later, on December 19, terror struck at The King’s Arms, in Gravel Lane, not far from the linen shop. The proprietor, an old man, was found savagely murdered, his throat cut, and a maidservant was killed in the same way.
Panic began in Wapping and quickly spread. Bow Street men and Runners from the Shadwell office searched all haunts of known men of violence, foreigners were blamed, and when proved innocent, there was always the Irish. Then out of the blue the police found a clue which led them to a Dane named Peterson who led to another man named Williams. Committed to Coldbath Prison to await trial, Williams hanged himself.
So great was the panic caused by these murders that the government was inundated with demands for a force to prevent such things happening again. But still it did nothing.
A few months later a sudden wave of rioting and violence began to run through the country, organised by a group of Luddites. Founded among the hosiers of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, Luddites were little known until they spread to the woollen cloth and cotton works in Lancashire and Yorkshire. Hand workers in all these industries, fearing for their livelihood if machines replaced men, smashed and burned the machines. Savage punishment was meted out and troops and yeomanry quelled the riots, but as soon as they were smothered in one place they broke out in another.
In some ways, the next few years were to prove one of the blackest periods in London’s history. Slums grew filthier and nothing was done to prevent the spread of disease. When, in 1815, a new Corn Bill was introduced to prohibit the free import of corn into England unless home-produced wheat reached a guaranteed price, Parliament was besieged by rioters demanding the defeat of the bill in a way that brought back memories of the Gordon Riots.
On the eighteenth of June, after months of preparation, Richard was to present a bill for a minor reform of Bow Street, adding to the wages paid to officers and the numbers employed. It was a strange day, although he did not realise it. A Member sitting next to him, known as ‘Old Puff and Blow’ because of his constant wheezing and sneezing, was agog with the news.
Napoleon, his army once again almost as powerful as rumour claimed, had met Wellington’s forces at Waterloo, after Blucher’s Prussians had been defeated. That much was certain. None but those closest to the Cabinet had any idea what was going on; few knew of the tense hours before the victory, the period when Wellington stood alone, his army battered. Few in England learned until weeks afterward how Blucher appeared at the last moment with his ranks reformed, and how what had promised to be a French triumph was turned to bitter defeat.
On that day in June carrier pigeons brought the first tidings to Westminster as Richard James Marshall sat in the House of Commons, heavyhearted not only because his bill was bound to be postponed but because he was sure that after the sweet glory of victory would come the bitterness of disillusion. Tens of thousands of soldiers would soon be home, vast numbers would not be able to find work and there would be yet another wave of crime, with the hapless homecomers pressed into service by the criminal leaders. And London was no better able to cope than ever.
In the following year, Richard’s worst fears were confirmed. Riots were breaking out all over the country. News came from Suffolk and Cornwall and Devon, from Norfolk and Essex, from northern counties, of the burning of houses and destruction. ‘Bread or blood!’ screamed the mob and when the yeomanry were turned on them they threw or catapulted huge stones, used fireballs, raided churchyards and took cover behind tombstones, hurling huge pieces of brick and stone at their attackers.
‘But why?’ Richard begged young Daniel Ross to tell him.
‘Hunger, sir - pure and simple hunger. Can’t you do anything?’ Ross pleaded.
It was almost useless to try. Richard made representations but the Ministers dismissed the riots as trivial and local, and declared through the Prince Regent, ‘The manufacturers, commerce and revenue of the United Kingdom are in a flourishing condition.’
Meanwhile, the people begged or fought for food, and were slaughtered, transported or sent to jail for crimes committed out of their hunger. Here and there an employer would follow the example set by Robert Owen, who tried to make his mills clean and well run, would not employ child labour, even paid wages when there was no work to be done.
‘Why?’ he was asked in turn by a parliamentary committee on which Richard sat.
‘To prevent crime and its misery,’ Owen replied. ‘If the poor cannot procure employment they must either commit crimes or starve.’
‘Yes, Owen is a good man,’ Daniel Ross admitted freely to Richard. ‘With a hundred such there might be hope. With one or two there will be constant conflict. You know yourself, sir, that London has more thieves, more prostitutes, more brothels of both sexes—’
‘Both sexes!’ exclaimed Richard.
‘Many men prefer young boys to girls, sir. Don’t you shut your eyes to facts, no matter how ugly.’
‘I won’t close them once they are open,’ Richard promised. He could understand the helplessness, the hopelessness of young men like Daniel Ross.
Yet now and again a flash of good came, and in that same year of 1816 prison took the place of the pillories.
‘But it should have happened two hundred years ago,’ protested Daniel. ‘Mr. Marshall, I always appear to be complaining to you and I wish it were not so - I know you exert yourself to improve conditions - but my friends are impatient and I am afraid of what may happen. We had a meeting last evening at which one of us complained with great bitterness that the rich can buy justice, can buy the Bow Street Runners, but these are not at the service of the poor because the cost is too high.’
‘There is a committee sitting on the subject of the Runners and police work, Daniel,’ Richard told him. ‘I will raise this matter.’
He sat in the crowded committee room the next day, eyes sore from tobacco smoke, Old
Puff and Blow wheezing next to him, listening to the chief magistrate at Bow Street, Sir Nathaniel Conant, giving evidence, his voice rather too loud, as if he not only resented being there but resented the questions asked.
Five times Richard raised his hand to be called; five times he was ignored. On his sixth attempt the chairman of the committee, an elderly Member, said in a croaky voice, ‘Your question, Mr. Marshall. Your question.’
‘If a poor man is robbed of a few shillings, which might well mean more to him than hundreds of pounds to a rich one, will the Bow Street men help him?’
‘Help him?’ echoed Conant. ‘The men will help anyone, and no charge is made for an investigation into a murder or other atrocious event. But the officers have to live. They have to receive payment for services, for they would starve on their official pay. But the charge is small - one guinea a day plus fourteen shillings for living expenses.’ He glared at Richard before going on. ‘But if a bank or wealthy merchant is robbed I will send six or even eight Runners out and charge a one-hundred-pound fee for every thousand stolen. We are not a charity, sir.’
‘So those who are rich can get justice and those who are poor can get none,’ Richard said tartly.
‘Give me a hundred more officers and all will get what help they need,’ rasped Conant.
‘I question that,’ Richard said. ‘Is it not more likely that the rich would be even better served whilst the poor would still be rejected?’
The witness clenched his hand. ‘Not a question, not a question,’ the chairman croaked.
‘Then I will ask another,’ Richard persisted. ‘Is it true that officers will act as or appoint go-betweens to arrange terms for the recovery of stolen goods?’
‘And why not, sir? Would you rather that valuable gold or silver plate was melted down than a fair price arranged for its return intact?’
‘One final question,’ Richard found himself asking. ‘Are you and are your men on the side of the people and justice or on the side of the thieves?’
