The Circle of Sappho (23 page)

At this news Bridges' grinned. He downed the contents of his glass and hugged Swann.

Twenty minutes later, after Swann had deliberately taken a long and convoluted route through the city's streets, he found himself at the old medieval East Gate. He was cautious, glancing around to observe who was in the vicinity, before settling back behind a large pile of rubbish in a dark alleyway. From here he could observe the transaction between Moorhouse and the blackmailer, but not be observed himself. The site chosen for the exchange was a suitably isolated one – even though it was right in the middle of the city centre – and at the same time strategically well-situated, as it had several means of escape heading off in many directions.

Swann felt secure knowing the two thief-takers would be nearby in the event of trouble. With blackmail, as any crime, the potential for violence was always present.

No one had passed his viewpoint for about ten minutes prior to the moment Swann spotted, out the corner of his eye, movement to his right. As the figure approached, he recognised it as Moorhouse. As he walked past the spot where Swann was hidden, another figure emerged from the shadows ahead, near to the East Gate. It was a woman. Swann had not expected that.

‘Fancy a good time my love?' the woman asked Moorhouse.

Swann realised the danger; she was a prostitute, not a blackmailer, but could easily damage the whole rendezvous.

‘No, thank you,' replied an anxious Moorhouse.

‘I know how to please a man,' she cooed, unwilling to take no for an answer.

‘Please go away. I am meeting someone here; they may see you.'

Angry at this rebuttal the woman strode off, muttering obscenities as she went. A few moments later another woman appeared, but she too was swiftly sent on her way.

‘Who were those women?' a voice from the shadows demanded.

‘Prostitutes, whores,' replied Moorhouse.

A bearded man stepped forward, emerging from the direction of the river. Swann realised the man had been waiting in the alley.

‘Do you have the payment?'

The man spoke with an Irish accent that sounded vaguely familiar to Swann. Moorhouse held aloft the bag in which the money was contained. The blackmailer gestured for it to be handed over, which it was. The exchange was brief and Moorhouse momentarily looked around, perhaps expecting something to happen, before turning and leaving. The bearded man himself then turned back towards the river and disappeared from view. Swann waited a few seconds then stood up. Damn! Swann suddenly realised if the blackmailer was heading to the river, he might have a boat to take him across to the other side. If this was the case, Swann would lose him. He had to act fast. He started to move from his spot but immediately squatted down once more as the blackmailer re-emerged from the alleyway. The river had been a ruse. The bearded man passed within a few feet of Swann, but remained ignorant of his presence. As soon as he thought it was safe to do so, Swann left his hiding place and began to follow. He could not see them, but he knew George and Bridges would be in attendance.

The blackmailer reached the outskirts of the Avon Street district. Swann was not surprised. He had wondered if Wicks was behind the blackmailing and this was his territory. He assumed the bearded man was one of Wicks' henchmen and was taking the moneybag straight to his boss. Suddenly three men emerged from a side alley and instantly set about the bearded man.

‘Get 'im,' cried one of the robbers, as another struck the bearded man in the face which felled him to the ground.

This was surely not part of any plan, Swann thought as he ran forward, his right arm in the air. He dived into the trio of robbers, who were unaware of his presence until that moment, knocking two of them to the floor. Swann picked up the other man and punched him in the face, sending him sprawling against the wall, his head cracking as it collided with the stone.

As Swann turned his attention back to the other two robbers, he saw one with a pistol aimed at him. Before he could fire, however, he was knocked out by the foot-long iron bar Bridges always carried about his person.

The bearded man lay on the ground, groaning. What should Swann do? He could not leave the man here, but at the same time did not want to reveal that he had been following him. Swann thought about this dilemma for a short while and then gestured for George and Bridges to help the man up. They moved along the passageway, underneath the light from a nearby gas lamp. It could now be seen that the man had been wearing a false beard, which was hanging at an angle off his face. As the light caught the man's bloodied features, Swann gasped.

‘Lockhart!' he said.

‘Swann?'

‘Where are you taking the blackmail money?' Swann growled. ‘Wicks?'

‘I do not know what you are talking about,' replied Lockhart, feeling his body where he had received several punches and as many kicks. ‘I was just passing this way when I was attacked by those men.'

‘Do not play me as a fool, Lockhart. I followed you here from the East Gate, where you collected money from Mr Moorhouse. I know you are involved in blackmail, but not who organised it.'

George tugged at Swann's shoulder. He whispered in his ear.

‘Yes, George, I believe this is also the person you followed to Bristol. Is that not correct, Mr Mottram? I think that was the name you used while in that particular city. What is Mary is going to make of all this?'

‘No, Swann, please do not tell her. She would disown me. Ask anything of me.'

‘You admit then that you are part of this blackmail scheme.'

‘Yes.'

‘Who is behind it?'

‘As you suspected, it is Wicks. I was on my way to him with the money.'

‘So what do you suggest I should do?'

‘Let me go, as if nothing happened.'

Swann laughed. ‘Why would I do that?'

‘If Wicks does not receive the money, I will be killed.'

‘And why would I wish to prevent that?'

‘Swann, there are things that you do not know.'

Swann smiled. ‘That phrase is becoming rather familiar of late.'

‘You have to let me go,' said Lockhart. ‘I cannot say why, but you must if you have any thought for King and Country and if not for them, then for your sister.'

‘How is Mary involved in these matters?'

‘You would not want to deprive her of her bridegroom, would you?'

Swann did not respond, as Bridges was now signing that one of the robbers was beginning to gain consciousness. The small group moved out of the passageway and around the corner.

‘I will let you go on one condition,' said Swann.

‘What is it?'

‘I want you to retrieve the letters that are being held over Mr Moorhouse's head.'

‘But Kirby has them, if he ever found out …'

‘So Kirby is involved as well. I cannot say it surprises me. You will have to make certain he does not discover who took them. It is your choice, Lockhart. I could rouse Fitzpatrick right now to arrest you and there would be nothing at all that Kirby could do about it. That would, of course, also end any wedding plans.'

Lockhart realised he had no real choice.

‘Give me until Saturday. I have to be at Kirby's office in the afternoon and by then I will have figured out a way to obtain the letters.'

‘You have until Saturday evening at this very time, eight-thirty. If you double-cross me you will live to regret it. In the meantime, I will take this as evidence.'

Swann picked up the moneybag.

‘I need that,' protested Lockhart. ‘I have to make sure Wicks receives it.'

Swann thought for a moment. If he was lying then Swann would have an irrefutable way to break off the attachment with Mary; she would certainly not want to be associated with a known member of a blackmail gang. If he was telling the truth, Swann realised Lockhart was probably the best chance he had of bringing this case to a satisfying resolution. He handed the moneybag back to Lockhart.

‘We will escort you to where you have to go, to make sure you do not run into any more trouble.'

As good as his word, Swann and the thief-takers followed Lockhart to a nearby brothel, which was owned by Wicks and frequently visited by Kirby. As Lockhart stopped by the building, he looked either way and then entered.

Swann turned to his two erstwhile companions.

‘A most satisfactory outcome to the evening, gentlemen,' said Swann. ‘Now, let us repair to the Fountain for some well-deserved drinks.'

George and Bridges grinned.

Leaving George and Bridges at the Fountain Inn, Swann returned to his Gay Street office. He decided to go straight to his rooms rather than return to the warehouse to remove his disguise as he did not wish to receive unwanted attention which walking back through the Avon Street district at that time of night in gentleman's clothing would undoubtedly bring. He was not so foolhardy.

The developments of the evening had been dramatic; not only had Lockhart's involvement in the blackmail scheme been uncovered, but a thought had occurred to him in regard to the coded entries in the diary which had prevented him from reading any further that afternoon.

On reaching his office he sat down, opened the diary and immediately began to copy the page out on to a piece of paper. Grace had used what Swann knew as a mono-alphabetic substitution cipher, which, despite its highly convoluted-sounding title was, in fact, one of the more basic codes. The cipher simply required each letter in the alphabet to be replaced by another; these replacements had to remain consistent throughout all the text. Therefore ‘N' might be replaced by ‘X', ‘A' by ‘D' and so on. The objective for Swann was to find which letters appeared most frequently. This would allow him to ‘break' the code and read the remaining diary entries. He began with the top five letters, in order of their most frequently occurring, which in the English alphabet were ‘E', ‘T', ‘A', ‘O' and ‘I'. These letters would then become known as the ‘first', ‘second', ‘third', ‘fourth' and ‘fifth'. After the equivalent letters, in terms of most frequency, had been found within the coded text, they could be substituted back – for example if ‘D' had been substituted for ‘A', then ‘D' would have appeared as the third most frequently appearing letter in the coded text, therefore proving itself to be equivalent to ‘A', the ‘third' most frequently occurring letter in the English alphabet. A table containing all the equivalent letters and their respective counterparts could then begin to be assembled. Once this table was completed, the previously unreadable entries could then easily be reverted back to English.

It took Swann several diary pages and as many hours to complete this table of ‘equivalents', but once finished, the entries became legible again. During the process he poured himself several glasses of red wine, all of Portuguese origin. He would have preferred to have finished the '98 Lafite he had opened the previous night, and of which half a bottle remained, but he would have to be content with what he had, as the Lafite was at the house in Great Pulteney Street and he did not want to return there in disguise. With the war still raging and the French ban on wine, the bottles from that country he did possess were kept in the wine cellar at the house. The Portuguese wine was kept at his office for any clients who required fortification or situations such as this one.

He decided he would read the diary entries at the office and then, at first light, return to the warehouse to remove his disguise. He had sent a message to Mary to say he would not be home that night, but would return the following morning in time to accompany her on the walk to Swainswick, to visit Mrs Gardiner's grave.

He lit another candle, poured another glass and brought his chair nearer to the table upon which the diary lay open, ready to divulge its secrets. The first entry described the evening after Grace's first ceremony, where she had been invited to Miss Leigh's room.

The room was cold. There was a single candle, which Miss Leigh had lit and put on a small table. It gave out light but no warmth, at least not where I was sitting on the edge of the bed. Miss Leigh saw I was shivering a little – this was partly from being cold but also from being alone in the room with her – and brought a bottle down from a shelf. She poured some of its contents into a glass and handed it to me.

‘This will warm you,' she said.

I hesitated, but she gave me a reassuring smile. I drank it and it indeed warmed me.

Miss Leigh then talked about Sappho and her love for the girls at her school and how she prepared them for their future lives; not only through her teaching in the classroom but in the bedroom. I felt a little embarrassed at first, at such talk, but Miss Leigh poured another glass for me and I found myself listening intently to what she was saying. After I finished this second drink, Miss Leigh came over and sat on the bed next to me. She gently stroked my arms and, after a few moments, as if half-playing, pulled me in close and kissed my forehead. She told me what a wonderfully delicate forehead I had and then kissed it again. My head became hot from the sensation. She held me for a while, as she stroked my arms, and then slowly laid me back onto the bed. I gave no resistance.

I no longer felt cold. As I lay on the bed, Miss Leigh continued to rub me, but now other parts of my body as well: my shoulders, putting her fingers underneath the straps of my cotton nightdress; my knees, at the spot the material of the garment ended; my ankles, where her thumbs massaged the hard part of the bone; and my feet, which she took great care over, gently squeezing each toe individually between her forefinger and thumb. As she did all this, I felt as if a thousand candles had been lit within me.

Her hands ran down the length of my legs and then back up again several times. On one occasion, however, as her hands travelled upwards they carried on, stopping at my chest. As Miss Leigh cupped her hands, I felt my cheeks start to burn but instinctively, involuntarily, those parts of my body under which her hands now rested, rose to meet them. After a while of this caressing, her focus moved back downwards and I admit I did cry out a little as she touched me more intimately. The next moment, my nightdress started to be slowly rolled up – I did nothing to stop it – with each roll exposing more of my body, until it was turned up all the way to my neck, becoming like a cotton necklace, as the rest of my body below lay exposed. As if wishing to preserve my modesty, Miss Leigh blew out the candle.