The Traitors' Gate

by Avi

  “There is someone I need to find,” I called.

  She halted. “Who’s that?”

  “Mr. Farquatt.”

  “Farquit? Who’s’e?”

  “A family acquaintance.”

  “What do you wants to know about ’im?”

  “I need to speak to the man. I’d go to his place of employment if I knew where it was.”

  “It got a name?”

  “Credit Bordeaux.”

  “Cred Board-o. ’E a Frenchy?”

  “I think.”

  “Farquit. Cred Board-o. Right. I don’t forget nothin’. I’ll see what I can find,” she said, backing away. When she reached a safe distance—that is, beyond my reach—she grinned and suddenly cried out: “That O’Doul! Don’t be so sure ’e’s a man!” With that, Sary the Sneak raced away.

  CHAPTER 25

  I Hear Father Proclaim His Fate

  I took one step after Sary, prepared to fight, but she ran off, laughing loudly. Gone though she was, I had little doubt she would circle back around and start sneaking after me again. All I could do was shrug. Besides, if she managed to find Mr. Farquatt, she might be worth something to me.

  Annoying as Sary was, she’d helped solve a few of the mysteries that troubled me. To begin, I had no doubt that it was Mr. O’Doul—hiding behind a beard—who was calling himself “Inspector Copperfield.” With that understanding, his “warning” to me was easily explained: He wanted my father to pay his debt, and if Father did not, he was reminding me of the prison consequence.

  It further followed that it was Mr. O’Doul who was paying Sary to follow me. As to why, I imagined he had somehow learned about me—perhaps by way of Sergeant Muldspoon, since they seemed to be associated—and wished to see if I was engaged in finding the money he was owed.

  As for Inspector Ratchet referring to him—in the person of Inspector Copperfield—as a spy, that, I will admit, I did not understand.

  Regarding Sary’s last words—Don’t be so sure ’e’s a man!—I easily dismissed the notion as the girl’s makeshift attempt to confuse me, revenge for my surprising her. But I was not so dim-witted as to be taken in.

  More importantly, while there were some rough stitches holding this garment of speculation together, the explanations satisfied me. All in all, then, I had to consider it a productive morning.

  The mood at the Halfmoon Inn, however, was not nearly so positive. When I returned, I found Father, hands in pockets, pacing restlessly about the main room. Mother sat in a corner, looking angry. Not far from her Clarissa huddled, forlorn and weepy. Brigit, who was flitting among them, trying to soothe each in turn, appeared equally tense. As for Mr. Tuckum, he was seated next to the fire, absorbed—or so it appeared—in his reading of David Copperfield.

  When I entered, all turned to look at me.

  “Well?” cried Mother with her customary impatience. “What did Great-Aunt Euphemia say?”

  “As for the loan …,” I began, crossing the room to stand by the fire.

  “For goodness’ sake, John!” cried my father in a rare display of emotion. “Will she give us the money or not?”

  “She said … no,” I replied.

  “Lord have mercy on us!” shrieked Mother. “What a despicable relation! How cruel that woman is. To abandon one’s own nephew! Mr. Huffam, we are ruined. Utterly ruined!”

  “I shall never, ever marry,” sobbed my sister, pressing a hand to her forehead in the most dramatic of poses, as if she had made a study of Father’s theatrical skills. “Oh, dear Mr. Farquatt,” she cried, “where are you?”

  Brigit stared at me for a moment in silence before turning to comfort my sister.

  For his part, Mr. Tuckum shook his head, which, with his Piccadilly weepers, appeared like nothing so much as a dust mop.

  I glanced sidelong at Father, for, after all, it was he who was the one most directly concerned. He contemplated me, turned ruddy in the face, and then hurriedly examined his hands. Discovering them to be as empty as his prospects, he leaned on the mantel and simply stared into the fire. Did I hear him whistle—very softly—that dismaying “Money Is Your Friend”?

  “But there was something else,” I said into the ensuing silence.

  They all turned back to me.

  “Aunt Euphemia offered to find me a position.”

  I hardly thought the news would bring cheers, but in fact it was greeted by an even deeper silence.

  “What … kind of position, John?” Father asked at last.

  “I … I don’t really know,” I admitted. “She said I should come to her house the day after tomorrow at seven thirty in the morning and meet with Mr. Nottingham.”

  “Nottingham!” my father exclaimed. “That detestable man! What does he have to do with it?”

  “She’s asking him to find me a place. Something elevating.”

  “It was,” said my mother, “Mr. Nottingham who turned Great-Aunt Euphemia against your father. Who made sure your father received nothing of his rightful inheritance.”

  “Anyway,” said my sister, “your having a position is of no use to me.”

  “Now, now,” put in Mr. Tuckum delicately. “Perhaps something good shall come of this. Decent employment might be quite remunerative. It could perhaps make your stay in prison, Mr. Huffam … hmm … tolerable. You will recall that you will need to pay for your comforts. Master John, might this position be in some … City establishment? A trade apprenticeship, perhaps?”

  “No son of mine shall go into trade,” announced Mother.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” I told Mr. Tuckum. “I know only as much as I’ve said.”

  Silence and gloom filled the room as thick as any London particular.

  “Well,” said Father at length, gently rubbing his hands together, “at the moment, then, there is nothing to look forward to beyond the court.”

  Mr. Tuckum cleared his throat. “Yes. Tomorrow morning. At ten o’clock.”

  “Then,” said my father, “there it is,” to no general purpose that I could see. “There—it—is!” That said, he pursed his lips and—this time I had no doubt—did whistle his annoying tune.

  CHAPTER 26

  I Attend the Queen’s Bench Court

  Next morning we went to Parliament Street, Palace Yard, where the Insolvent Debtors’ Court functioned as part of the Queen’s Bench Court. It was called Queen’s Bench, explained Mr. Tuckum, because it was as if the Queen herself “in full majesty sat in judgment there, by way of her law. Of course, if we had a king,” he confided, as if it might be a state secret, “it would be the King’s Bench.”

  Mother, too distressed to witness the fearful proceedings, had remained abed at the Halfmoon Inn, a shawl over her eyes. My sister stayed with her. While Clarissa insisted it was only to look after our mother, she actually stayed—or so Brigit confided into my ear—in hopes that Mr. Farquatt might appear in the guise of a miraculous angel of mercy.

  When Brigit offered to look after me at court when Father would be led away by Mr. Tuckum, Mother was quite relieved to pass off the responsibility.

  As we approached the court building, Father grew uncommonly nervous, giving me the impression that he was fearful of being observed at such a place. In fact, the courtyard was crowded with—as Mr. Tuckum cataloged them for us—lawyers, process servers, ushers, judges, constables, witnesses, defendants, solicitors, law clerks, plaintiffs, tipstaffs, sheriffs, barristers, beadles, prisoners, counselors, and bailiffs—though how he knew one from the other, much less their duties, was a marvel to me. All were men. Some were garbed in sumptuous robes and wore wigs—some powdered, some not. Others were without wigs or bore them in bags or boxes. Some were dressed in silk, or wool, or corduroy. All carried papers, parchments, portfolios, volumes, briefs, screeds, and evidence.

  “It’s England’s old-fashioned way,” Mr. Tuckum said, “to explain, bend, enhance, befuddle, defame, unravel, knot, or otherwise use the law for the benefit of freeborn citizens. Depending upo
n whose hand grasps that law, it’s our mightiest tool, whether to build, bless, or bury.”

  It was all one long list to me.

  Mr. Tuckum guided us through the legal mob, with many a “I beg your pardon … Excuse me, please … If you would be so good … Defendant in hand, my lord, prisoner in tow … Be so kind,” and so forth. He seemed to be on familiar terms with many of these people.

  We entered at the back of a large room with seats for spectators, of which there were many. Then Mr. Tuckum took Father off, calling back to us, “We shall meet on the street after the proceedings.”

  Brigit and I squeezed onto one of the benches at the rear of the room, a room well illuminated by gaslight. It was a motley, noisy assemblage, some people in finery, most rather tawdry, and a few in rags. If it were only men who made up the legal population, the spectators consisted in the main of women, children, and old people in numbers sufficient enough to set the balance right. But it was among these onlookers—four rows below us—that I spied Sergeant Muldspoon.

  Though his back was toward me, I could have no doubt as to who it was. His stiff, military bearing set him quite apart from all the others. I hardly knew which I felt more—shock or shame—at seeing him, having little doubt he was there to lord it over my father. Or me. Why else would he absent himself from his school—an unheard-of dereliction of duty?

  Feeling overwrought, I hastily faced the front of the room. There, beneath an ornate canopy, was an elaborate bas-relief of the great seal of the United Kingdom replete with lion and unicorn rampant on rear legs, like trick dogs at a circus. Before that was a row of four desks, at one of which sat a lord justice. He was a shriveled, wrinkled, pointy-nosed little rodent of a man garbed in a smooth silk robe and snow-white powdered wig with tail. His little hands were clasped before him, and I was quite certain he was twiddling his thumbs at a fairly steady rate.

  One level below him was a long desk at which sat the court’s scribes, not nearly so sumptuously robed, all writing, reading, or—in one case—cleaning an ear.

  On the far right side of the room was a jury box in which waited the twelve true men who made up the jury. Some looked alert, some fidgeted, at least two appeared asleep: All were well dressed.

  To the left were the unhappy defendants in their box, beadles close at hand. These defendants, of both sexes, were on the whole a sordid, glum-faced lot, slumped like wilted weeds. What shocked me most was not that my father be among them, but that he appeared as derelict as most others. Only one or two were gentlemen, and they sat as straight and bright as new tulips.

  There was a high-railed box for the plaintiff. There was another for witnesses.

  In the center of the room were three concentric rows of long, curved, and polished desks, at which sat the legal officers, lawyers and solicitors of the court, attorneys all, papers piled, legal volumes and law ledgers at hand, pens in fingers or behind ears. They were talking, sitting, standing, turning, walking—so that in their robes and wigs they looked very like an agitated flock of white-tufted crows confined to a cage. To my eyes, there was very little to see of the solemn majesty of the law so often touted by Mr. Tuckum. Solemnity was reserved for the prisoners.

  Indeed, the room was full of chatter—lawyers to solicitors, scribes to lawyers, anyone to anyone. I saw as much snuff exchanged as sheaves of paper. Occasionally, someone laughed. Or sneezed. Or asserted. Now and again the lord justice looked up and asked a question of someone about something regarding some other thing. Answers came, but from whom or to what purposes, I was never sure. Throughout, the judge steadily twiddled his thumbs.

  Soon after we arrived, a man—a beadle, I believe—cried out, “Charlie Throcket!” Before I could tell just where he had come from, a boy was standing in the defendant’s deck. He was at least as ragged as Sary the Sneak, though perhaps twice as dirty and barely tall enough to look over the railings to which he clung with both hands, as one might cling to the rails of a sinking ship.

  With the constant hubbub and moving about by so many, I could not tell exactly what was happening, save that the boy—aged seven, the court was duly informed—was pronounced a “sneaksman,” or pickpocket, by learned counsel representing Her August Majesty. The boy’s numerous crimes were listed, which included being without home, parents, or Christian morals. Most recently, he had been arrested for stealing a coat. His excuse, or so the court was advised, was that he had been “a colt,” which provoked much merriment.

  With many a “whereas,” the boy was portrayed—in lurid detail—as a singular menace to society, to the nation, and to the general advance of civilization. No one spoke for him. No one asked him anything. I rather thought I alone even looked at him. In perhaps seven minutes—one for each year of his life—the boy was found to be very guilty, sentenced to six months in Tothill Fields Prison, and whisked off, like so much chaff swept away by a huge broom.

  Barely a moment later a court officer announced, “Writ of debt brought by Mr. Finnegan O’Doul against Wesley John Louis Huffam, Esquire.”

  I searched the court for Mr. O’Doul and discovered him in a far corner, leaning against a wall, eyes fixed on Father. I tried to imagine him in the guise of Inspector Copperfield. I rather thought he could be him, but I had to admit I wanted that to be the case, since it simplified matters. As for Sary’s suggestion that O’Doul might be a woman, the evidence of my eyes made the notion a laughable fiction.

  I turned back again to Old Moldy. Rigid as ever, he had not moved and therefore, presumably, had not seen me.

  But then I watched—holding my breath—as Father, guided by Mr. Tuckum, climbed the few steps into the defendant’s dock. I reached out and—I confess it—held on to Brigit’s hand.

  Father appeared anxious, leaning as he did on the rail before him. Next moment he seemed to recall himself and let go of the rail, as if to demonstrate that he needed no support but could stand on his own legs. He stood taller, straighter, chin up. It was his actor’s stance, his gentleman’s look. I could have sworn that—for a very small moment—he even puckered his lips as if to whistle his song. He’s acting a part, I thought to myself, but I hardly knew whether to show pride or despair.

  As for the lord justice, he had not moved, not a smidgen, save perhaps a flicker of an eye—and the unceasing revolve of his thumbs.

  My father’s case began with words bandied back and forth so quickly and with so many legal terms—English and Latin interspersed—that I hardly knew who spoke for or against him. He never asked anything, nor was he asked to speak.

  Then, before I realized what was happening, the lord justice looked up, momentarily stilled his thumbs, and said, “Remanded to Whitecross Street Prison until a just settlement of this debt shall occur.”

  The trial—if trial it was—had ended, and the thumbs resumed their steady spin, the very engine of justice.

  Father was helped down by Mr. Tuckum, then handed over to a beadle who led him away.

  The next moment another beadle popped up before the court and cried out: “Lilly Scruchy!” With much difficulty, an old dame mounted the defendant’s dock and stood there like a Judy puppet, but without a hand within to prop her up.

  “We’re done,” said Brigit, and stood. With shaky legs and heavy heart, I, too, rose. Shame to say, what I wanted most to do was get away from Old Moldy before he saw me … or the tears on my cheeks.

  Brigit cut our way through the milling crowd until we reached the courtyard and then the crowded street. Miserable, I hardly paid it any mind. Still, at one point I thought I saw—through my tears—the man in Lady Euphemia’s hallway, the one I thought was the lawyer, Mr. Nottingham. He was gone before I could make certain. At that moment I truly didn’t care.

  Instead, I turned to Brigit, swallowed, and said, “What do we do now?”

  “We’d best wait for Mr. Tuckum,” she replied.

  I stared down at the ground. “No,” I said. “I mean, what should we do now that Father is in jail?”

 
“Master John, the bailiff will inform us.”

  “Brigit, there is no way he can raise that money. No matter what my employment might be. Besides, all our goods will no doubt be sold now.”

  At that moment my book, The Tales of the Genii, seemed the heaviest loss. Perhaps because it was my most precious possession.

  “It’s your father, not you, who must find some way,” Brigit said—quite sternly, I thought.

  I lifted my eyes and gazed up at her. Only then did I realize she was not looking at me, but turning this way and that in search of someone. Suddenly, she stopped—as if she had found whom she was looking for. I followed her gaze. At the edge of the crowd stood Mr. O’Doul. Brigit was staring right at him. He was returning her stare.

  “Brigit!” I whispered. “That’s Mr. O’Doul!”

  “Who? What?” she said, jerking around. “I was looking at a fine lady.”

  I gazed up at her, quite certain that now she was not speaking the truth.

  CHAPTER 27

  I Learn News of Mr. Farquatt

  While I had expected to see Mr. O’Doul at court, I hardly thought a glance of recognition might pass between the man and Brigit. I was quite willing—wanting—to dismiss the exchange as fanciful on my part, still another coincidence. Next moment I chided myself for thinking of so many odd events as “accidents.” Rather, I told myself I must discover their connections if I was to unravel the mystery that surrounded my father.

  Disturbed by Brigit’s conduct, I was glad to leave her and search for Mr. Tuckum. When I at last found him, he was in close conversation with another man. Much taller than the bailiff, this man was heavyset and broad-chested, with a florid, if smooth-shaven face. I had the distinct impression I had seen him before. Exactly when, I could not recall.