The Masters of Bow Street (67 page)

When she brought the tea and sat opposite him with a cup for herself, he sipped it thankfully, finding the warmth and fragrance welcome and his companion restful after the fury of Herrrina’s hysteria. She was regarding him with a quizzical expression, as if amused.

‘Have you served Hermina long?’ he asked.

‘I have known her most of her life,’ the other replied.

Known? Not served? His puzzlement must have shown in his face for she went on, her eyes smiling at him in a most refreshing way:

‘I am Susan, the widow of Gabriel Morgan, who was Hermina’s cousin.’

‘Gabriel!’
he exclaimed.

‘Son of Gabriel the First, who was the son of Ebenezer the First for whom your grandfather once worked, Mr. Richard. If you wonder how I came by that information, remind yourself that Mr. Simon collects information as a magpie collects trinkets. There was never a man so interested in family trees! My husband’s father, the first Gabriel, was transported to America but was allowed a free life there - bought by old Ebenezer. When his son was born the boy was sent to England and was brought up by his grandfather. Our marriage was brief, for shortly afterward he died of the pox. If I talk too freely it is because I presume on my erstwhile position.’

‘You need to
work
,’ Richard exclaimed.

‘Did you not know that Gabriel the Second took his inheritance and squandered it at the gambling tables? Then you cannot frequent such hallowed places as Brook’s and White’s,’ she teased.

Richard shook his head in mock horror, then got to his feet. The tea and Susan’s company had done him good, but now he must go home. Yet, if he did, what would he find - Simon alone or Simon still with Lucy? It would be better for him to ride to Chelsea, where a room was always kept ready for him.

‘Will Hermina recollect all that took place?’ he asked.

‘Vividly,’ answered Susan. ‘And she will be free of remorse but not without fear.’

‘Of Simon?’

‘Yes. If you should inform him—’

‘It would not occur to me to inform him,’ Richard interrupted.

‘May I so reassure her?’ Susan asked him in a very quiet voice. ‘You have my word.’

‘You are very gracious,’ Susan said. ‘She will be greatly relieved.’ She studied him closely over the rim of her cup as she went on: ‘It will be advisable if you and I are able to tell Simon exactly the same things, Richard. Will it suffice to say that she was greatly distressed and that I gave her laudanum to help quiet her?’

‘Is that what you gave her?’

Susan nodded.

‘Then that is what I shall tell Simon,’ Richard promised, ‘and what you should say to him if he comes here before I see him. I am going to Chelsea,’ he added.

And if she wondered why, she did not ask.

In his early thirties, Frederick Jackson was one of the Bow Street foot patrol which usually operated near Piccadilly but which had been pressed into service for the search for Timothy McCampbell-Furnival’s murderers. It was the greatest man hunt ever known, he was told by the Runner who had briefed him and a dozen others outside the court.

The instructions were simple: search everyone and everywhere if the slightest suspicion attached, from boats and ships to shops and private houses - everywhere. The Bow Street men and those from the various magistrates’ offices took constables and volunteers with them so as to go in pairs for their own safety.

Frederick Jackson was alone. He did not greatly mind this for he often worked so, sometimes as a spy sitting among thieves. It was he who some years before had informed Simon Rattray-Furnival of the plan to raid Great Furnival Square and he had been well rewarded, a substantial addition to his meagre sixteen shillings a week. He would get a bigger reward if he made a capture on this occasion; bigger still if he made it singlehanded.

The constable who had been with him had stubbed a foot on the sprawling body of a drunken man and had pitched onto his face, injuring his nose so badly that it was thought to be broken. He had recovered well enough to return alone to Bow Street and report the casualty, so Jackson was likely to have a new companion shortly.

Jackson was a tall, very lean young man with a reputation at Bow Street as a pugilist, better with the use of his fists than with any weapons, although he carried a staff and had a pistol, loaded, stuck into his waistband, as well as a wooden rattle. He was now in Westminster, close to one of the places where the sewers debouched into the Thames, and the stink grew worse as he neared the spot. Few people were about, and this made him suspicious of a group of men gathered around two small boats which were drawn up on the sludge at the riverbank. They appeared to be digging.

He saw one of the boats pushed farther into the water and a man vault into it and begin to pole towards midstream. The men still on the mudbank, four or five - Jackson could not be sure because of the shadows - kept on the move. Then another small boat which must have been just inside the sewer’s mouth appeared; once again a man leaped into it.

Now Jackson realised what was going on; there were several boats in that hiding place and one by one each was being taken across the river. Suddenly he sensed that he might be close to a big reward.

He could do nothing by himself, but the quicker he sent word to Bow Street, the better. Swinging around, he almost banged into a man creeping up behind him, a huge fellow with arm upraised. One second later and his cudgel would have come crashing down onto Jackson’s head.

Swift almost as light, Jackson leaped forward, smashing two blows against his assailant’s jaw. Then, as the man fell to the ground, he turned and ran towards the end of Westminster Bridge, not too fast for he did not know how far he would have to run, but with long, easy strides. He did not once look back. When he reached the bridge he saw a party of Bow Street men placing a barricade halfway across and he whirled his rattle until two came hurrying towards him.

Soon they were all gathered about Jackson’s unconscious assailant, and while messengers were sent over the bridges, men of the river police went across in skiffs, so that the whole of that section of the river was cordoned off. A Redbreast, as Bow Street officers were popularly known, set off on horseback to inform Simon Rattray-Furnival and small boats closed in on the sewer while others waited farther afield.

The man whom Frederick Jackson had knocked down began to moan, but apart from the two men now standing over him, the others paid him scant attention. One of the constables had retrieved the cudgel from the gravel flat where it had fallen and was examining it in the light of a lantern when one of Simon’s officials arrived.

‘Have you got them? Are they the men?’ he demanded.

‘I think this cudgel was used earlier tonight,’ the constable holding the weapon declared. ‘It has dried blood on it, but not hard dried, and some grey hairs which may be Mr. McCampbell-Furnival’s. By good chance it fell on dry land.’

The man on the ground moaned more loudly.

Simon’s official glared down at him but did not move until, like all of them, he started at a loud cry from the sewer. Another detachment of Bow Street men had sprung from boats which had crept along the bank and were attacking those who were left inside.

In all they found two laden boats and four empty dinghies and three-quarters of the treasure stolen from Furnival Tower House.

Within the hour, nine men were brought before a Bow Street magistrate and each was committed to Newgate to await trial for complicity in the murder and robbery. Before the last of the newspapers had been printed the news reached Fleet Street; presses were stopped and the names of the accused and a list of the goods recovered were put beneath the story of Timothy McCampbell-Furnival’s death.

Late on the following day, with much misgiving, Richard went to call on Simon at his house in Great Furnival Square. Outside, flags were at half-mast; inside, blinds were drawn at every window. There was an atmosphere of gloom all over the square, black crepe on carriages at the kerbs, and a lowering sky added to the mood. A footman opened the door and stood aside, almost bumping into a smaller man who carried a pile of letters, no doubt all of condolence. Richard was taken straight up to an anteroom on the second floor, outside which at least a dozen men stood or sat in silence. Almost at once the door opened and Hermina appeared.

She was dressed in black, in a dress high at the neck and with long sleeves. She had put on neither powder nor carmine, and the only colour in her face was in her startlingly bright eyes. She came straight towards him, both hands outstretched, white beneath the ruffles of the cuffs.

‘Richard, I am so very glad to see you. Simon will be too.’

Without embarrassment she put her face up to be kissed and he touched her cheek with his lips, feeling none of the fire she had once stirred in him. She drew him into the room and closed the door. The murmur of voices came from an adjoining room.

‘Simon is with a lawyer and I have not told him that you are here,’ she said quietly. ‘I will leave the moment I hear the lawyer go.’ Her eyes seemed to search his face. ‘Richard, I can never tell you how deeply sorry I am about your - your last visit. I am—’

‘Enough,’ he interrupted. ‘I shall tell Simon you were sorely distressed, and that is just as I remember you. I hope - Hermina, I hope nothing that you think you remember will ever prevent us from being close friends.’

‘Friends,’ she said slowly. ‘Friends. Nothing can prevent it if we are really still friends, and you do not hate me.’

The words he wanted to express were hard to find. How could he tell her that his feelings towards her had changed so utterly? That he would forever carry a picture of her beauty yet never again be filled with desire? And would this even be true? Though now unmoved by her nearness, how could he be sure that his old feeling for her would not return.

‘I could no more hate you than I could hate Simon,’ he said slowly.

Either the words or the way he expressed them or the look on his face satisfied her, for her anxiety faded and she smiled.

‘At times I love Simon to absolute distraction and at times I hate him. I really do!’

She gave a subdued but hard laugh, and there was a false brightness in her eyes which stirred Richard to disquiet. In the moment of silence which followed, the voices sounded louder than before, then footsteps. She turned quickly towards the door which led into the adjoining room and stood for a moment in the doorway.

‘Simon, Richard is here.’

The last time they had seen each other, Simon had been in Richard’s apartment; when Richard had returned in the middle of the following day, Simon had gone. Now the fact which struck Richard was that his friend looked older; if he had ever been in any doubt as to the depth of Simon’s love for Timothy it was gone. Simon came towards him, arms outstretched, and it was good to see the pleasure on his face.

‘You are the one man in the world I would not willingly keep waiting,’ he said. ‘How are you?’

‘Rested.’

‘And the one man in the world who knows exactly what to say to me. Richard, I want you to perform a service.’

‘You have but to name it.’

‘You do not know me as well as you think, does he, Hermina?’ Simon put an arm about Hermina’s waist and drew her to him; it would be impossible to imagine a more handsome couple. ‘I may ask the impossible of you.’

‘I do not believe you would expect me to compromise with my conscience.’

‘You see!’ Simon said, smiling at Hermina. ‘He is never without the perfect answer.’

But the next instant his smile faded, and turning on his heel he led Richard into the adjoining room, pointed to a high-backed chair in front of a magnificently carved desk, and moved to a massive chair behind it. He appeared to have completely forgotten Hermina, and her words echoed unbidden in Richard’s mind: ‘At times I love Simon to absolute distraction and at times I hate him.’ Was this a moment when he could inspire hatred - his sudden apparent unawareness of her existence?

Simon, this older, grim-faced Simon, was appraising him as if trying to read his thoughts. His features did not relax and his lips only just parted as he said, ‘You know the murderers were caught and are waiting trial. They will be hanged. Had I caught the man who struck the blow myself I would have beaten the life out of him. However, one must control primeval instincts in this civilised age. The gang was caught at such speed only because Godley was in charge and the Bow Street Runners organised the search. It was a masterpiece of organisation and Godley and the man Jackson, who actually found the hiding place, will be suitably rewarded. That is not what I wanted to tell you, however. The main point is that Godley created for one single night a cohesive police force in the streets of London. The river force, already primed, cooperated with speed and efficiency. I have no longer the slightest doubt: you are not, and your grandfather was not, a starry-eyed visionary. London needs an organised police force so that any gang contemplating such an outrage will know in advance what odds are against it. From this moment on I pledge you my full support and cooperation.’

As soon as the burden of what Simon had to say became apparent, excitement began to burn in Richard, and when at last the other paused, it was raging within him. But this was not a moment to speak, only to feel. He raised his hands in acknowledgment, making it obvious that he was at a loss for words.

‘The means of bringing this preform about has preoccupied me greatly,’ Simon continued. ‘Will you hear what I have to propose and - no matter what it is - consider it in all its aspects before giving an answer? Consider for a week, say - by which time many of the problems created by Timothy’s death will have been resolved.’

‘I will consider any proposals,’ Richard promised. He had no inkling of what these might be, but it seemed that Simon suspected that his first reaction might be unfavourable.

‘Splendid!’ Simon smiled briefly in satisfaction. ‘First, I am convinced that the City will not support any measure which does not give it control over a police force within its boundaries. So, I shall work, using the greater influence that I now have, for unity among private forces there, and for all constables and peace officers, no matter what title they may give themselves, to be put under one control. Each company, each parish, each authority, should contribute the sum it now spends on keeping the peace but the force itself will be responsible to a central body led, as in the case of the river police, by a single commander, whatever his title. This will take time but I am sure it can be done.’