Lempriere's Dictionary (99 page)

‘Don’t like the looks of this much.’ Eben nodded.

‘We’ll parley with them,’ he said.

The four men trooped dutifully down the gangplank to meet the approaching pair, who turned to one another and whispered as they drew close.

‘Evening!’ Eben greeted them.

They whispered again, then one extended his hand. ‘Welcome to you all,’ said the shorter of the two. ‘Monsieur Jaques is still aboard?’

‘Jaques? Don’t think I know any Jaques. We’re here for young Lemprière,’ Captain Guardian affirmed stoutly. More whispering followed this statement. The jetty was filled with men who stood behind their two commanders as they conferred between themselves. At length, Duluc turned from his companion to address the crowd behind. He spoke in stirring tones with much pointing to the four of them but all in
French, so that only Peter Rathkael-Herbert had the roughest notion of his message.

‘They’re congratulating us,’ he relayed. ‘Without our sacrifice, all would have been lost. Something else…. We are the unsung heroes of, of the Revolution.’

‘Very nice,’ said Eben.

‘Now he’s saying something about the carts. I think they want to unload the ship. Yes, that’s it. The cargo….’

Almost before he could finish speaking, the first of the men had moved forward, up the gangplank and down the hatch to the hold.

‘What is the cargo?’ asked Wilberforce.

‘Statues,’ said Eben.

Neagle and his crew had disappeared belowdecks. The four of them looked on as the first of the crates was manhandled up from the hold, lowered over the side and carried up the jetty towards the carts lined up along the shore. Here the men set to work with their bars and hammers, and soon the area was littered with splintered wood. The statues were lifted from the wreckage of their containers and stood upright along the shore. The stevedores worked without pause and soon a host of figures were clustered about the carts: Minerva, Juno, Venus, Diana surrounded by her nymphs, Hercules strangling the vipers, Jove with his thunderbolt, Neptune with an Urn, satyrs, dryads and hamadryads, all looking blindly to one another as other gods, goddesses and heroes emerged from the broached crates to join their ranks.

‘Why don’t they load them?’ asked Peter Rathkael-Herbert. Wilberforce shrugged in ignorance, but as he did so this small mystery began to be resolved.

Those men carrying hammers gathered around the still figures and at a signal from the man who had earlier addressed them advanced on the huddled statues. They swung the hammers like axes. Limbs and heads were broken off. Torsos which fell to the ground were cracked open and soon a cloud of off-white dust hung over the carnage. At one point, a pitcher of water was passed around. Each man took a draught and then the work went on. Faces and fingers splintered under the hammer-blows until every figure lay smashed. The dust began to settle. Eben saw the first man bend and lift something heavy from the rubble. Another joined him and helped lift the object onto the nearest cart. Presently the whole workforce was picking similarly through the demolished statues. The carts were loaded in sequence and driven off up the low hill behind.

‘Gold,’ said Captain Roy. One man had emptied the pitcher over the irregular lode before him and as the dust was washed off a familiar glint could be seen in the moonlight. The last of the carts was clearing the brow
of the hill. The men sat about the smashed evidence of their labours, catching their breaths. The two men approached once again, the first of the pair addressing Eben as before.

‘Our arrangements are complete now. Send Lemprière, Jaques and the others our thanks and greetings. We expect them at their pleasure a year from now.’ Both men raised an arm in salute. ‘The fourteenth!’

‘The fourteenth!’ the four of them answered, saluting likewise. They turned and found Neagle standing in silence behind them.

‘What now?’ asked Wilberforce.

Inland, the landmass stretched away into darkness. The green light was extinguished. The
Vendragon
sat high in the water, knocking lightly against the jetty as she was rocked in the swell. The eastern sky was growing light, dawn only an hour away now. Captain Guardian looked out over the starboard rail to where Rochelle stood like a silent sentinel marking the boundary between land and water. Peter Rathkael-Herbert thought of dawn in Constantinople, of the day’s first sunlight glinting off gilded domes high above the city. Wilberforce and Roy shivered beside him. A thin, chill wind was getting up from the north.

‘South,’ said Eben, and the others nodded agreement. South.

A bright sun rose over London on the morning of the fourteenth of July. High winds blew from the north-west and descended upon the city in cold gusts. In Leadenhall Street, the engineers were already at work with their barrows and shovels, filling and cementing the crack which split the road. Odd wisps of smoke curled up from the smouldering debris in Haymarket. At the Examiner’s Office in Bow Street, Sir John Fielding berated his beadles and listened to the reports as they came in from around the city. The Militia had been chased from the Opera House through Saint James Park to the river and there thrown in. Unsympathetic wherrymen had charged half a guinea a head for their rescue. There had been looting and there had been arrests, but the mob had become dispirited, divided, leaderless at the last. It had dispersed sometime before dawn and the streets had grown quiet. The city was the same city as the night before.

As he walked from Bow Street through Covent Garden market to the Tilt Yard, Sir John listened to the noise and chatter of the fish-wives and haggling traders. Gyp’s whetstone was a low whirr in the east corner as he passed. A woman was selling turbot from a basket. He smelt fish, vegetables, the unwashed bodies of men and women. Nothing had
changed. Now, in the cold light of morning, his fears seemed extravagant, almost fanciful. What could he have been thinking?

At the gate to the gaol he was met by the turnkey and escorted through the yard to the cells below. He heard keys jangle, doors being locked and unlocked. Gates clanged shut behind him.

‘Mixed bag, Sir John,’ offered the turnkey as they came to the first of the cells where Stoltz and his men sat in sullen silence. ‘Found ‘em on Butler’s Wharf.’

‘Very good. And in what practice were they engaged when come upon?’ queried the magistrate.

‘Sir John?’

‘What were they
doing?
’

‘Oh, I see sir. Well, they was sleeping Sir John. Couldn’t wake ‘em neither. Had to load ‘em in the wagon like coal-sacks.’

Sir John nodded sagely. ‘Carry on,’ he said.

The second cell was as crowded as the first.

‘This lot was with Stoltz, and them,’ announced the turnkey. ‘Claim to be pirates, sir.’

‘Pirates? There are no pirates in London….’

‘There’s us sir,’ came a voice from within the cell.

‘And who might you be?’ questioned Sir John.

‘Hörst Craevisch,’ replied the voice, ‘and the crew of the
Heart of Light
, known onetime as
Alecto
….’
Alecto
. Pirates…. No, it was impossible. Thirty years if it was a day.

‘Tell me, Mister Craevisch, how did you come to be a pirate?’

‘Ah now, sir. Now that is a story worth the telling. You may recall the Great Comb Protest of’52. Well, there was a magistrate around then….’

‘Thank you, Mister Craevisch,’ Sir John interrupted the recitation. ‘I have heard enough. Turnkey, release these men.’

‘Sir John? Piracy. I mean, ‘tis a serious charge….’ But Sir John was not listening. Here at last was a conundrum not of his making. Pirates indeed. Here at least the blame was not rightly his. He thought of his half-brother and his clever solutions. He turned his blind eyes to the cell as the pirates began to gather their belongings. No, this was not his fault at all. This was something Henry had done.

Sir John waited as the pirates filed past then followed the turnkey to the last of the cells.

‘Bit of an odd one this,’ the man announced.

‘Is there a charge?’

‘Affray, arson and murder, Sir John. He’s already confessed. Matter of fact, he asked specially to see you.’

‘And the basis of these charges?’

‘Well sir, he’s punched a number of your constables who was restraining him at the time of his arrest, claims he burned down the Opera House in Haymarket and says he killed these women, kept on and on he did. Horrible it was, Sir John. Filling ‘em up with metal and wrapping them in dead animals….’ Sir John sighed inwardly.

‘Does he wear spectacles?’

‘Why yes.’

‘And a pink coat?’

‘Yes, Sir John he does. Very nasty it is….’

‘And what exactly was he doing when arrested?’

‘Well, trying to walk into the Opera House, Sir John. It was blazing away and the lads thought they’d best pull him out before….’

‘Mister Lemprière!’

Sir John addressed the cell’s occupant. There was a pause, then a voice he recognised addressed him in desolate tones from the corner.

‘I killed them, Sir John. It’s all in the book, dates, methods, all signed up. I’ll tell you how too….’ Sir John heard him leaf through some pages.

As he drew breath to begin reading, Sir John raised his hand for silence.

‘Mister Lemprière, I have spoken with your companion on both those nights. By his account, you were already several miles from the De Veres’ when the murder took place. As for the Manufactory, you were seen and remembered from the tavern at King’s Arms Stairs by your friend and up to a dozen watermen. He came to warn me of your obsession not two nights ago. Now, I know….’

The young man erupted suddenly.

‘You blind fool! Why should I confess it if it were not true? I killed them. Me. I did it. Don’t you understand?’

‘Mister Lemprière, to the best of my knowledge you came to this city to settle a will and stayed to write a dictionary. You have killed no-one, and whether or not I suspected you in the past does not alter the fact. Your friend Mister Praeceps did you a great service when he came to me. Now, take your dictionary Mister Lemprière, and go home.’ And with that, Sir John motioned for the turnkey to release his prisoner.

The young man sat on the jetty with his travelling chest and a book held open in front of him. He had been there since mid-morning. Every so often
he would look up as though expecting someone, then, finding the waterfront deserted, would go on with his reading.

Captain Radley of the pacquet
Vineeta
watched from the stern as the young man removed his spectacles and wiped them for the umpteenth time. His appearance was extraordinary: hair uncombed, face streaked with soot, a coat which might once have been pink all stained and torn. As he watched, the young man wrapped it more tightly about him. The wind was cold as it blew across the open water. A nor’westerly, odd for July. The sun shone down onto the boat. Stacked beside him in their crates, chickens fought noisy, private battles.

‘Watch out there!’ he called to the woman tottering down the gangplank. She stepped gingerly onto the deck and Captain Radley looked back to the young man. He had dropped his book, which now lay abandoned between his feet. His spectacles hung idly from one hand and his lips moved slightly as he mumbled to himself.

Upstream from the pacquet, the
Nottingham
hove into view. The huge Indiaman dwarfed every other craft on the river and the wherries paddled furiously to clear her path. Captain Radley turned back and watched his crewman stack the last of the crates towards the stern. He heard the water begin to rush against the sides of the boat. The tide had turned already. The
Nottingham
crept past with her pilot and began to round the bend. The far bank shimmered. The woman was settling herself behind the wheel-house.

‘Is he taking the passage?’ he asked his passenger, pointing to the figure who sat alone on the jetty. The woman shrugged in ignorance.

‘All aboard!’ he called up. But the young man made no sign that he had heard. He called again and the figure moved as if startled. Captain Radley watched as he heaved the chest up shoulder-high and carried it along the jetty to the gang-plank.