The Masters of Bow Street Read online

  In these open thoroughfares on this beautiful autumn morning, the London of crime and treachery, of brothels and ginshops, of stinking sewers and rotting animal corpses, was easily forgotten. One could breathe clean air, could see contentment on many faces, could enjoy the sight of the couples arm in arm, some shepherding three or four children, the colourful fruit barrows, the cries of the street callers no longer strident. At the Abbey, where more throngs were leaving, the coachman turned his pair. They repassed St. Martin’s and Furnival wondered why Smith had not arranged a meeting for Wesley in the surrounding fields. Soon they were moving at a good clip across fields where sheep grazed and a few cattle roamed and dogs barked. The sun became almost too warm, but the hood of the coach would go no farther back and there was a light breeze.

  The coachman, whom Furnival did not know well but who was a protege of Sam Fairweather’s, recently released from the Navy, touched the flanks of the horses so that they quickened their pace along Piccadilly, and Furnival looked across the open fields towards Buckingham House which, some said, was soon to be pulled down. Traffic was very thick as they approached the turnpike at Hyde Park, and suddenly Furnival was aware of a hand waving and someone trying discreetly to attract attention. It was Lisa Braidley, magnificently arrayed, by her side the young Duke of Gilhampton. Furnival touched his forehead to her and smiled.

  Beyond the turnpike was Tyburn Lane, with its farms and inns and tall haystacks, and people were streaming along, mostly dark-clad; he could hardly have imagined a more different sight from a hanging day. Furnival heard one pretty girl call: ‘Sheets of John Wesley’s hymns, one penny!’

  Groups were gathered in small circles, singing the hymns. Furnival recognised one of the women whom he had seen at Newgate, though she did not notice him. She had been out of prison for more than a week, for Harris and Noble had found the two provincials, porters, who had encouraged the women to take the goods so that they themselves could steal more and blame the women. Furnival had spent ten minutes with a tight-lipped merchant who seemed to have had no ulterior motive in charging the women but simply believed the porter’s story, and also that anyone who stole should at least be transported for life.

  The widening fields revealed several thousands of men and women; and in their midst others were hammering as if preparing a scaffold, but they were in fact making a rostrum strong enough to bear Wesley, and barriers to keep back the press of the crowd.

  Sebastian Smith was amongst them, leading a group in singing, while the hymn sheets were being offered by eager-faced young people in vivid contrast to the harridans who had sold copies of Jonathan Wild’s and Frederick Jackson’s fabled last speeches from the gallows.

  Thinner crowds were coming from the countryside and from the village of St. Marylebone, even some from Cavendish Square, as the coachman turned his pair along narrow, rutted side streets, with children playing in the open sewers.

  Only five minutes away was Great Furnival Square, as remote from squalor as any place could be; called by many the most clean-smelling group of buildings in London, with a sewer system which carried wastes to distant fields, even with the newfangled water closets at ground floor and second floor level. Furnival thought of this as his coach drew up outside Number 17, Cleo’s home. Before long he was going to be told that his family were in advance of any other in creating good, healthy living conditions for their workers, in taking care of them in times of adversity. He was going to be told that the patriarchal system developed by the Furnivals and many others served not only London but England best, for it kept all Englishmen free.

  With short, dark, aquiline-featured Cleo on one side, in a gown of rich green, and tall, fair Sarah on the other, regal in a gown of ice- blue, which was drawn off her beautiful shoulders, John Furnival reached the head of the grand staircase and, arms linked, all three looked down on a scene almost as glittering as a ball by night. Outside, the day was full of sunlight, but there were no windows in this great circular hall, only doors leading to elegant rooms. All of these held tall windows but each door was now closed.

  The huge glass chandeliers were glittering; the thousand candles, despite their flickering, gave a soft light which flattered both men and women, young and old. Although there must have been at least fifty people on the marble floor, with its signs of the zodiac inlaid with semiprecious stones, the hall seemed sparsely filled. Liveried servants stood at damask-covered tables with French wines, port and Spanish sherry, and even coffee and tea for those who preferred them. There were sweetmeats on one table, savouries on another, specialities like Cornish pasties, and pate de foie gras, tiny sausages, ham rolled about asparagus tips; and game and hog pies for those who felt they needed heavier fare before dinner, which would be served by four o’clock in the main dining room behind the staircase.

  Descending slowly, John Furnival picked out many of his relatives and family associates, some of whom he had not seen for years. It was strange, perhaps, that Francis, so exquisite of face and misshapen of figure, should be the most outstanding. Deborah, his wife, was with him, a thick-set mannish-looking woman. With them was Robert Yeoman, recently re-elected Member of Parliament for one of the seats of the City of London. An erect, hook-nosed man who could be taken in passing for the Duke of Gilhampton and was vain enough to want to be, he was a shrewd and calculating politician, Tory or Whig when it best suited him, who did not hesitate to speak up and vote against a government measure if it appeared to be against the Furnival interest. Cleo, his wife, took little outward interest in politics but carried out her social duties with ease.

  With Yeoman was Martin Montmorency, one of the Members for the City of Westminster, and his elegant, laughing, beautiful French wife, in rich blue; when he had married her, Montmorency had taken one of the few risks in his career: of losing favour because he was married to a woman from a country for which few Englishmen had much respect.

  There also was portly Jeremy Siddle, Member for St. Albans and a Furnival spokesman in the House, who was so red in the face he looked likely to collapse with apoplexy any moment. His wife was an Englishwoman of elegance but little other distinction. William Furnival, more elegant in pale green and a longer peruke than most, was talking earnestly with a group .of men, all distant relatives by blood or by marriage and all with a share and an activity in the Furnival enterprise. Aldermen of the City of London and bankers, including a director of the Bank of England, great merchants, ship-owners, men from Lloyd’s and other insurance houses, all were present with their ladies. Furnival realised at the first sweeping glance that his brothers had kept their promise in spirit as well as letter; here were the senior members of the family, with hardly a youth or a girl among them. He was to be taken seriously, and this was a measure of how much they wanted him back among them.

  It was ten years since he had left all the boards, retaining only a few shares, for his own wealth had seemed fully sufficient for his need. Most years he visited here for Christmas, but seldom more often.

  Cleo looked up at him as they neared the foot of the stairs and said, ‘You appear to be very stern, John. Do you know that even those who pretend to be indifferent are looking at you?’

  ‘At you and Sarah, my dear,’ Furnival riposted. ‘The men in envy and half the women in malice, I’ll be bound.’

  ‘How terrible it must be to be so often right.’ Sarah sighed and squeezed his arm. ‘John—’

  ‘John—’ began Cleo.

  ‘What advice are my sisters going to give me?’ asked Furnival.

  ‘John,’ repeated Cleo, ‘you will speak with reason, won’t you? You won’t damn them all without giving them a hearing?’

  ‘I shall speak with reason,’ Furnival assured her. ‘Who knows, I may wish to come back into the fold so much that I will even plead with them!’

  He was aware of both women staring at him as if hoping that he meant what he said, then of William and Francis and their wives gathered near the foot of the stairs to welcome him, and his s
ister Anne, alone, telling him that Jason Gilroy was on one of his interminable journeys overseas. On that instant he was gripped by hand and arm and shoulder, his cheeks were brushed with warm, soft lips, and he was drawn to a dozen ample bosoms and as many that looked deprived despite their dressmakers. He was assailed by delicate perfumes and powders, the powerful odour of snuff freshly taken, of cigar smoke heavy on the breath of many men and of rum and port on the breath of others. He felt as he had never expected to feel here: like a prodigal son returning. Mellowed, he was told this piece of news and that piece of gossip and yet another of scandal. He was showered with invitations to dine, to attend home soirees and recitals. Even Handel, still in London and about to give a series of concerts, was offered as bait. The wives of the Members of Parliament, peers and men from the City of London were, according to their nature, insistent or effusive. No man during the first half hour spoke more than a courteous sentence or two. John Furnival went to the buffet with Francis’ wife, Deborah, and with Anne, a delicate-looking woman with fine blue eyes in a heart-shaped face.

  ‘Don’t eat too much before you talk,’ advised Deborah, ‘or you will hiccup and that will spoil the effect of what you are to say.’

  ‘So I am to lecture, not simply talk to you, one by one?’

  ‘John,’ Anne said, ‘they all want you back. They still miss you, and every man concerned with Furnival’s knows that you are the natural leader. Your presence will give the name even greater stature and—’

  ‘They want me off the bench at Bow Street, where the stature of the name shrinks!’

  ‘Fie, cynic!’ scoffed Deborah.

  ‘They would do a great many things to get you away from Bow Street,’ Anne agreed soberly. ‘But they know that they must listen to what you have to say and create the best circumstances for you to say it. Everyone present is a shareholder in one Furnival company or another, or in a company closely allied to us, and everyone will—’

  ‘One or two of the women may decide it is not for them to listen or discuss, but to follow their husbands blindly,’ Deborah interrupted.

  ‘True indeed,’ said Anne. Furnival was acutely aware of her fine eyes as she went on, and in his mind she rose greatly in stature while Deborah seemed to fade. ‘But most will come if only out of curiosity, some even’ - her eyes glinted - ‘just to look on Handsome John! They will be with you in the library,’ she went on. ‘Enough chairs and couches have been placed there.’

  ‘My request could not have been taken more seriously,’ Furnival agreed.

  ‘I tell you, John, there is not one among us who does not want you back,’ declared Anne. She took his hands and spoke as earnestly as anyone could. ‘Please, please come.’ She rose on her toes and kissed his cheek, then rested her fingers on the back of his hand.

  ‘Francis is coming for you,’ she said. ‘John, what is it you want? If they can possibly give it to you, they will.’

  John Furnival looked down on her and smiled, gravely but with unmistakable affection. He was aware of Francis, approaching slowly, and knew that he had only a moment left. His smile broadened and he made a rare gesture, bending down and brushing her forehead with his lips.

  ‘What I want is a change of heart,’ he said. ‘If they can give me that the rest will follow.’

  She gripped his hands so tightly that her rings hurt his fingers and he judged from her expression that she did not believe that he would be able to get that change of heart. Next moment Francis was by their side; a waiter came up and was waved away.

  Anne and Deborah turned to mix with the others, and Francis said, ‘You and I will go into the library by the secondary door, John. If you wish you can wash in the closet before you go in.’

  John Furnival had first entered the library about thirty years ago by this same door when his grandfather, the first John Furnival, had sat at the huge carved oak desk, soon after the house had been formally opened and the families in Great Furnival Square had taken up residence. He, the young John, had been fascinated by the masses of books which rose from floor to ceiling and by the beautifully carved twisting oaken staircase to the gallery, from which one reached one section of the shelves. There had been few changes. Two walls were solid with leather-bound books and there were more on either side of the great fireplace.

  Those who entered the library by the secondary door found themselves on a platform raised some eighteen inches above the wooden-block floor, from which one could see and be seen while speaking.

  John Furnival stood on this platform now.

  Every chair, every stool, every couch, was occupied; the fifty or so people who had seemed so sparse in the hall now crammed the room so that there could hardly be space for another half dozen. Husbands and wives sat apart, men on one side, women on the other, and the Members of Parliament and the men from the City of London were grouped together as if they felt they would be in need of protection.

  A babble of talk had stopped as Francis entered and held the door open for his brother. They made a strange contrast, one so frail, the other so massive, but the disparity faded as Francis smiled and raised his hands as a priest might in a blessing.

  ‘I don’t really know whether we’re going to hear a sermon or a political speech,’ he began, and was forced to stop as laughter, starting slowly, drowned his words. He allowed it to die away naturally, then looked around and up at his brother and added: ‘Or a boxing match.’

  Once again came a roar of laughter, and John Furnival found it easy to join in, glad that Francis was relaxed and amusing; this was the best side of his brother.

  The others soon settled and Francis went on, still in a light tone but with obvious seriousness.

  ‘No one could be more pleased to see him here than I—’

  There was a chorus of agreement but John Furnival noticed little came from the solid phalanx of politicians and financiers and merchants. Could they have come to oppose for the sake of opposing?

  ‘And I’m very glad that I am the host and he is not—’

  A woman cried, ‘He means he’s glad we’re not at Bow Street!’

  The phalanx of men relaxed into smiles this time, and John looked appreciatively at his brother, who was creating the most receptive atmosphere possible. Francis smiled back at him.

  ‘I have no idea what he has to talk about; I only know that there has at last been a crack in that granite-hard mind of his, and he thinks there is a way by which he could rejoin us in our multifarious activities. I cannot imagine any prospect more to be desired.’

  Francis sat down on a monk’s stool obviously placed in position for him, and John Furnival moved to the centre of the platform. He knew exactly what he wanted to say and was adept in varying the way he spoke to fit the mood of a meeting. There was some applause, mostly from the women, as he looked about him.

  ‘Why on earth you should want me when you have Francis—’ he began, and immediately was drowned by a burst of applause. In a way this was a political meeting, and feelings were aroused much more than he would have thought possible. But the City group, though smiling, was still wary; and it was they, with his brothers and their sons, who would make the decisions. As the noise died down he went on more gravely. ‘I doubt that many of you present really understand why I left the - ah - bosom of my family and went to Bow Street, although the reason was simple and may be clearly apparent. I believe in the law, not a law merely for those who can afford it, not a law which a man can break with impunity if he has enough money to buy his freedom from prison or the hangman’s rope, but a law free from corruption and indeed incorruptible, as rigid for the rich as for the poor, a protection for the poor who cannot buy protection for themselves. I went to Bow Street as chief magistrate and later became a justice of the peace for Westminster and the County of Middlesex in the faith that I could create - or at the very least help to create - such a law not only in London but throughout the land. I could do what few others could: pay for reliable men to serve Bow Street and the law. I
could and did afford to pay each man enough money so that he did not need, for his stomach’s sake, to accept bribes or depend on a share of the blood money. So they were able to be thief-takers, not thief-makers.’

  For the first time, he paused. There was not a sound in the room and not an eye was turned away from him; it was as if all those present had stopped breathing. He looked from one side to the other without focusing his gaze on anyone before going on.

  ‘I was able, also, to pay constables in some parishes, or those hired by constables to do their work, money enough to keep them - or most of them - from temptation.’

  ‘There is no such thing as an incorruptible man,’ a member of the City group rasped. ‘Men are wholly trustworthy only when they are watched.’ The speaker, a lantern-jawed man with a heavy moustache and mutton-chop whiskers, was Cornelius Hooper, the husband of a sister of Sarah’s husband and one of the wealthiest merchants in the City, with shares in most great banks and companies. Wherever the Furnivals married, they made sure of strengthening their position and gaining support for their policies.

  Furnival heard him out and for the first time felt a stirring of anger, but he suppressed it and actually smiled as he said acidly, ‘I have at least twenty retainers whom I would trust with my life and my possessions, Mr. Hopper. I am sorry that your philosophy has made you less fortunate. Now if I may proceed?’ No one interrupted and he went on: ‘Thank you. Taking as a guide a count, over six months at all the magistrates’ courts in the two cities and the counties, however, for every reliable constable employed by the parishes there are at least fifty men who call themselves thief-takers. These men will falsify evidence, perhaps themselves accept bribes, falsely accuse the innocent, all for the sake of their share of the government reward paid to every thief-taker for a conviction. If this were not bad enough, for every magistrate with a court and court officials, such as at Bow Street, there are twenty trading justices. These hold court in taverns and alehouses, yes, and even in brothels, and commit men to Newgate and other abominable jails on evidence they know to be false simply for their share of the reward.’ He paused as several of the women drew in their breath, and then went on with great deliberation. ‘It is not justice, it is a prostitution of justice. When you see a Hogarth picture of the people of London you see many as they really are, not—’