The Masters of Bow Street Read online

  At last the carriage turned into Long Acre, where now buildings were making inroads into the fields. Mostly these big barnlike sheds housed wheelwrights and carriage makers of all kinds, but there were long stretches of small houses, near-hovels, some open land, a cemetery in front of the Church of St. Anselm, and many small shops. At the far end this wide thoroughfare narrowed and the carriage crossed Bow Yard into Bow Street. The horses began to slow down from habit. For here was Furnival’s new home, above the offices adjacent to the building which he used as a courtroom, temporary prison, and sleeping quarters for his staff. As the carriage stopped, the footman leapt lightly down onto the raised pavement outside the buildings and opened the door wide. With slow deliberation, Furnival climbed out, so big a man that it was a marvel how he had squeezed himself into the carriage, a greater marvel that he should not get stuck in the door.

  Bow Street itself was wide and a number of substantial houses stood back from either side of the road. Almost directly opposite Number Three, which Furnival now leased, was an inn. The government leased the house adjoining Furnival’s, where the official quarters stood. This was considered the centre of London’s criminal courts, and suspects were brought here from as far as Hounslow Heath and Hammersmith as well as many villages in between.

  Near these two houses was a row of shops as well as an alehouse, the Bunch of Grapes, frequented by many villainous-looking porters from Covent Garden Market as well as by Furnival’s men. Farther along the street on the same side as Furnival’s house was another, bigger carriage, with gilt borders and a coat of arms on the door panels. Furnival gave it only one glance, then spoke to an elderly man who came out of the offices, down the stone steps and past the stout oaken doors and polished brass torch holders.

  ‘How long has my brother been here, Moffat?’ Furnival demanded.

  ‘Not ten minutes since,’ the man answered. ‘I came to give you an advance intimation, sir.’

  ‘Is he in a bad humour?’

  ‘I think perhaps he has come to remonstrate with you, Mr. John.

  ‘As you would like to,’ Furnival said dryly, and the older man did not trouble to deny the charge. ‘Will he burst if I keep him waiting for ten minutes d’you think?’

  ‘I believe he would be most put out, sir.’

  ‘And so do I,’ said John Furnival. ‘And so do I. He may be so put out that he will leave me in peace. Take him word that I shall be with him as soon as I can,’ he added, and strode into the offices, with Moffat following, anxious and troubled. His skin had the look of delicate porcelain: a porcelain saint.

  ‘Mr. John—’

  ‘He won’t bite you, man!’

  ‘Mr. John, he knows you have another guest.’

  ‘Damme, he does. And who is the guest, pray?’

  They were in the panelled hall of the old building now, where a log fire burned high in a deep fireplace, its cheerful flames reflected on pewter and silver, on glass and on books behind the glass. The ceiling was beamed and so low that the top of John Furnival’s head missed the lowest part of the middle beam by a bare inch, perhaps less, and sometimes it actually brushed his silky hair. A broad staircase of dark oak, with a banister on one side and panels on the other, led straight from the front door. A passage ran alongside the stairs on one side; beyond this was the court and behind it the cells; one room to the right of the stairs at the back was his own private ‘resting room’. This room could be most easily approached from Bell Lane, a narrow street behind Bow Street. And there his personal guests always waited for him.

  ‘Mrs. Braidley is here, sir.’

  ‘To be sure, Mrs. Braidley. I’d forgotten her! But don’t inform her of that, Silas. Tell her - damme, I’ll tell her rnyself!’ Furnival strode along the passage.

  ‘Sir,’ Moffat pleaded, ‘remember your brother is waiting.’

  At first Furnival went straight on and his hand was on the resting-room door when suddenly he turned and looked back at Moffat, who seemed to shrink. For a few moments there was utter silence, and then Furnival threw back his head and roared with laughter.

  ‘Does my brother think I could be in and out in ten minutes? No time for dalliance, no time for—’ He almost choked with another gust of laughter and then managed to say, ‘Tell him to hold his patience for ten minutes and I’ll be with him.’ Then he thrust open the door and entered the room to see a smiling Mrs. Braidley.

  She was perhaps forty, so ten years and more younger than Furnival, and she was very handsome, with fine brown eyes and full lips, as ready to kiss as to smile. She had laid her colourful hat on a chair and her low-cut dress more than hinted at the milky-coloured fullness of her bosom. She had dark hair, slightly streaked with grey, and was dressed in the fashion of the Court; few women had a better dressmaker than Hewson’s in the Strand, although his prices were reasonable since he did not have to pay the high rents of the west side of the city. One of the best-known women in London, she had given to the word ‘whore’ a quality of refinement, and in truth she was a courtesan who possessed unusual qualities of character and intellect. Everyone who was anybody knew the truth about Mrs. Braidley; knew that although men fought for her favours as if she were a virgin, yet they invited her to the theatre and to concerts, to the salons and often to social gatherings at their homes, but she seldom left her own house in Arlington Street to receive her patrons; John Furnival was one of the few for whom she made an exception.

  ‘Why, Lisa,’ he said, going forward and taking her hands and drawing her close. ‘What a restful sight you are, to be sure.’

  ‘Do you think your brother William would agree?’

  ‘He’d agree although he might not say so,’ declared Furnival. ‘What a house this is for secrets! You know he’s here, he knows you’re here, Moffat knows you are both here and is frightened in case I dally with you before seeing William! Lisa, favour and spoil me. Pour me a glass of brandy and whatever you would like for yourself, and then help me get these damned boots off. I swear the gravel at Tyburn is the stoniest anywhere in London!’ He dropped into a huge armchair which faced a fire that glowed but gave out little heat, for he liked his rooms cool. Stretching out his long legs, he watched Lisa’s graceful movements, then closed his eyes. He heard the glass being placed on a table by his side, heard her breathing and the rustle of her dress. Next, he felt the boot on his left leg being pulled, and he braced himself as she tugged until it came free. Then she pulled off the other boot and placed both, together, at the side of the fireplace.

  ‘Bless you, my dear,’ he said. ‘Bless your good heart.’

  She did not ask ‘Are you tired, John?’ She stood with a glass of dry sack in her hand as he picked up his; she sipped, he, drank deeply, legs still stretched out, body limp in the great armchair, shadows beneath his eyes.

  ‘Must you see William?’ she inquired.

  ‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘Much though I’d rather stay with you.’

  ‘I wonder which of us would exhaust you more,’ she remarked, and her eyes danced.

  ‘The most exhausting thing in the world is boredom, madam, and I shall never be bored with you.’ Her eyes kindled now and she sipped again. ‘Can you come back?’

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘’Tis a heavy loss, Lisa.’

  ‘It’s no loss at all,’ she declared. ‘I cannot go and come back but I can rest until you are back from the bosom of your family.’

  He stared at her for what seemed a long time. Then he tossed down what was left of his brandy and sprang up, so swiftly and suddenly that he startled her. Before she could move away he put his arms around her and kissed her, holding the kiss until her breasts began to heave. At last he let her go.

  ‘He may be in one of his stubborn moods and stay a long time,’ he warned her.

  ‘I’ll outstay him, never fear.’

  ‘There is no man or woman in London I would worry about less,’ his voice boomed. He kissed her again but this time lightly and went to a cupboard, op
ened it and hooked slippers out with his toes. ‘I can manage,’ he said as she came to help, and he used his forefinger as a shoehorn; but he was breathing heavily as he straightened up. She looked concerned, but she did not question him, however, as he nodded and walked to wards the door, then she heard him walking up the stairs slowly and, for him, heavily.

  She waited until she heard a door close, heard voices, the closing of another door, followed by silence above. Then she pulled at a bell cord which hung by the fireplace, and soon Silas Moffat came in, a small man compared with his master, and fragile.

  ‘I’ll be here for a while,’ she said. ‘I shall dine with Mr. John.’

  ‘I’m very glad to hear that, ma’am.’

  ‘I wonder,’ she said, but did not push the doubt although she looked at the man’s face with great intensity. Moffat was neither embarrassed nor perturbed; nor, it was obvious, was he at all surprised by the question she then asked.

  ‘How often is he short of breath, Moffat?’

  Moffat said quietly, ‘Too often, ma’am.’

  ‘Don’t prevaricate, man. How often?’

  ‘It is a long time since I first noticed it. Once a week at least,’ reported Moffat, ‘and sometimes two or three times a day.’

  ‘Do you know what causes this shortness of breath?’

  ‘That I do not.’

  ‘No man in the world resents an interfering woman more than your master,’ stated Lisa Braidley, ‘and no man could be worse served than by a servant who allows him to ignore the state of his health. Find out the cause, Silas. If needs be, make him see a doctor. Bring one here on some pretext. Do you understand me?’

  Silas Moffat looked at her, his lips curving gently in a smile, but anxiety in his eyes, as he rejoined, ‘No man in London scents a pretext more quickly than he, ma’am. But I will find a way.’

  She touched his hand, nodded, and turned from him. He left the room and walked to the foot of the stairs. In the courtroom a man was shouting; outside, a carriage was approaching at a furious pace, and Moffat paused, head held high in expectation lest it should stop. But it passed, and with obvious relief he went up the stairs. From the landing he could hear the high-pitched voice of William Furnival, but he did not hover by the door to find out what one of his master’s younger brothers had to say.

  William Furnival was not much shorter than John, but a lean man who had the hard, weather-beaten appearance of one who spent much of his time out of doors, in energetic pursuits. Whereas his brother looked less than his fifty-three years, he looked more than his thirty-nine. He was dressed in the height of fashion, with a wide-skirted coat of wine red and dark-green trousers caught by garters of rich gold; the tops of his shoes were of pale-brown leather and his shirt frills at neck and sleeves gave him the look of a dandy. His three-cornered hat of green velvet was on a chair. He wore no wig and no make-up and was as immaculate and authoritative as a man could be who had driven across London’s dusty streets. When John entered he was by the window looking out on the vegetable market of Covent Garden, where a few stall holders lingered although customers were few, for the freshest fruit and vegetables were always gone in the early morning. A group of men were gathered, some standing, some kneeling on the cobbles, praying. Two drunkards sat outside the alehouse, one man’s breeches unfastened.

  The room in which William waited was above the hallway and much the same size, with a fire glowing, comfortable chairs set about the brick fireplace, two walls lined from floor to ceiling with books which had a well-read look; most were lawbooks. The broad, uneven floor boards were strewn with Indian and Persian rugs of rich colours. Set in one corner was a huge couch which seemed to have been squeezed under the plaster ceiling and now helped to support it.

  William Furnival turned slowly and deliberately as his brother entered and closed the door. John’s breathing was normal now, and he was smiling very differently from the way he had smiled at Mrs. Braidley.

  ‘Good afternoon, Will,’ he said.

  ‘John,’ said William without preamble, ‘you must stop this lunacy. You’ve seen Jackson hanged as you always said you would. Now you must stop it.’

  ‘So I must,’ John said, his lips arching. ‘And is this just your opinion, brother, or that of all my brothers and cousins combined?’

  ‘I speak for all,’ William declared.

  ‘Then you speak for a host,’ replied John dryly. They eyed each other, men so different that it would be easy to believe they came from different parents, William sharp featured and dark and with a slight cast in one eye. ‘Sit down, Will.’

  ‘There is no alternative but for you to give up this dangerous work,’ William insisted. ‘No alternative at all.’ He moved nearer the fireplace but did not sit down although John raised the skirt of his coat and lowered himself into the chair farthest from the fire. ‘We are all of the same mind. At Tyburn today I have it on the most reliable information that you were within an ace of being killed.’

  ‘You should change your informers or go to watch events for yourself.’

  ‘Go and see that - that rabble? That mob of thieves and cut-throats who make sport out of seeing men swinging? Faugh! The very thought makes me want to vomit!’

  ‘Nevertheless, you should go, some time,’ declared John. ‘Among the rabble you may see grief and sadness and good men striving. You might also find a little humility—’

  ‘I’ll never go to Tyburn to see a hanging and you know it,’ interrupted William. ‘John, I tell you the time has come to resign your appointments, except any you hold directly under the King, and come back to the House.’

  ‘Ah, the House of Furnival,’ echoed John. ‘The precious guild, the beloved bank, the venturesome ship-owners, the goldsmiths and the silversmiths. The makers of fortunes.’ He placed his big hands on the arms of his chair and looked up at his brother. ‘I do not believe it is the life for me, Will. I prefer to be the Chief Magistrate of Westminster.’

  ‘You even lie to yourself,’ William rasped. ‘There is no Chief Magistrate of Westminster.’

  ‘You are not quite right. Chief Magistrate may be a courtesy title but surely well earned. After all, I am a justice of the peace for the City of Westminster, the counties of Essex, Surrey and Hertfordshire, and by your leave I have been even’ - his voice was laughing but his eyes were serious - ‘the justice of the peace for the Commission of the Tower of London. And as there are other justices at some of these places—’

  ‘Justices? Profligates and thieves, the scum of the earth who will condemn an innocent man to death for their share of the State’s forty-pound reward. Do you know what they call the man who preceded you here? Do you—’

  ‘Permit me a word, William,’ interrupted John Furnival. ‘If his desires had been more temperate - if he had not needed so much money to live on, that is - he would probably have lacked sufficient motives to carry through the—’ Furnival paused and looked at the ceiling before adding abruptly, ‘Ah, I remember! Through a multiplicity of business so important to society.’ He paused again and then asked, ‘Have I recalled the phraseology, William?’

  ‘Have you remembered that his business was condemning men to death or transportation to the Americas for life?’

  ‘Bad men, William. Wicked men. In one of his petitions to the government he boasted of having sentenced to death or transportation nearly two thousand men, and asked for some financial reward.’

  ‘Thought of him makes me sick.’

  ‘It should not. He was a clever and courageous man and he fought crime as best he could. So do I. So shall I. I tell you the future you offer with commerce and banking is not the life for me.’

  ‘You speak as if it were offensive to you.’

  ‘No, Will.’

  ‘The very expression in your eyes and the tone of your voice are derogatory and disparaging.’

  ‘Whereas your tone and expression about my chosen occupation are full of reverence and praise,’ John retorted. ‘Will, you and the fami
ly do well enough, far-better than most. What did I read in the The Daily Courant only yesterday? That Furnival and Sons is now the third most powerful private banking house in London, second only to the Mattazinis and the Gallos. And one day last week the Goldsmiths’ Guild gave high praise, the Lord Mayor said you are the richest and most powerful, while of all the magnificent imports brought from the Orient more than one-tenth is carried in Furnival ships and stored in Furnival warehouses. The spices and the unguents, the silks and the carpets and the jewels. And you have a finger in most large building firms. Why, before the century is halfway through you will own every other fine square in London! You don’t need me.’

  ‘You’ve no right to sneer,’ William objected.

  ‘I don’t sneer, Will. I marvel and respect. But I don’t envy you.’

  ‘It is not fitting that a member of our family should spend his life dealing with thieves and thief-takers, with people who stink of corruption. The stench of every other magistrate is on you. You must see what discredit this brings upon us.’ When his brother made no immediate answer, William Furnival took a step nearer, held out a hand as if in supplication and actually bent one knee. ‘John, give all this up. Corruption will only corrupt you. You have lost two wives of broken hearts already, good women who could not live to share your folly. Come and rejoin the family circle, marry a woman who can give you the sons the family needs. There are not enough males of the younger generation with us. Must I remind you that you are past fifty, John? Fifty, and with no issue.’

  He broke off.

  He saw the expression in John’s tawny eyes and on the face that could be so mild. He saw the thin line of lips which could be so well shaped and full of laughter. He stopped, straightened up and drew back. A log, part glowing red and part white ash, fell heavily in the iron dogs of the fire. He remembered such an expression only once before when he and other men of the family had said many of the same things and so set off the most explosive quarrel ever known among them.

  Slowly, very slowly, John Furnival’s tension relaxed and he even began to smile again.