The Masters of Bow Street Read online

  ‘Eve,’ Peter Nicholson said, ‘you are magnificent!’

  ‘I trust you will be competent,’ Eve said coldly.

  ‘I know the very shopkeeper to do just what he is told,’ Nicholson assured her. ‘A silversmith off Fleet Street close by the Cheshire Cheese, and there is a magistrate close by. I will pay five pounds each to two thief-takers who will whip the boy off to Newgate before Furnival or anyone else knows what has happened.’ He gave an excited laugh. ‘Truly, m’dear, it is worthy of the great Fred himself!’

  Early on a Friday, a few days later, James Marshall set out for Morgan’s. It was a damp morning with a hint of rain but in places a promise of sunshine. He had two hundred yards fewer to walk to work from Bell Lane, and this was his fourth morning of leaving home from the cottage behind Bow Street. He had been surprised by the news, a little dubious about going to school, but a room to himself on the second floor of the tiny terraced cottage was ample compensation, far beyond anything he had dreamed of possessing. He could shut himself away from Beth and Henrietta when the weather was bad and they could not go out and he could pore over the books of London and English history which so fascinated him, back to the days of Roman occupation and even earlier. He had an oil lamp of his own, and a desk once used by one of John Furnival’s clerks now stood beneath the window so that it caught all the daylight there was. His sisters slept in a room at the back while his mother slept downstairs in the front room. Wet or fine, she could cross Bell Lane in a few seconds to attend to her duties in the Bow Street premises.

  It was good to have her so much happier, and to be lighter hearted himself. It was good always to be warm, for there was no shortage of wood or coal and the fires were banked with slack on autumn’s cold nights. So much was good that apprehension over school was easy to forget.

  The morning grew warm, and his jacket, a little too tight, made him feel hot; the thickness of the woollen stockings inside his ankle boots made his feet itch even before he reached Morgan’s. For the first time since he had been coming here he felt a sharp distaste for it all; for Morgan’s persistence in loading him with more and more, for the gloomy interior of the shop, for the horseplay of the assistants who would stay here or run shorter errands during the day. But soon the sun brightened and as his burden began to lighten after a few deliveries, his heart lightened, too.

  His next call was at the Cheshire Cheese Inn, in a court off Fleet Street. Long before he reached it he could smell the aroma of the steak-and-kidney puddings; he had known times in a high wind when that aroma had tormented him even as far as the Royal Exchange.

  Fleet Street had other fascinations for him, for two morning newspapers were published from offices situated there: The Morning Cry which, whenever he could read it, appealed to him much more than The London Courant. Already the street was bustling with the traffic it carried from the northern and northeastern provinces, and he had to watch the swinging of his baskets, for there was little room between the thoroughfare where the fast traffic moved and the doorways of the shops. Every fifty yards or so was an alleyway which led into a courtyard like the one leading to the Cheshire Cheese. He saw the hanging sign outside this alley, with a huge yellow cheese made into the face of a grinning man; it never failed to attract him. On days when he was here later in the morning he would linger in the hope of seeing some of the celebrities who came and gathered here to drink and talk. He had seen Benjamin Franklin and Alexander Pope; as well as Henry Fielding and Dr. Johnson and many lesser figures.

  Suddenly he heard a cry: ‘Stop thief!’ from behind him, and turned his head cautiously for fear of swinging his burdens too fast. A woman brushed past him. A short fat man in dark clothes except for an apron like the one Morgan wore came rushing from a silversmith’s shop, the cry shrill on his lips: ‘Stop thief!’ As James turned, the man pointed. ‘There he is! Stop thief!’ From farther along the street a big and burly man came running, from the sidewalk on the other side came a second, adding to the din. ‘Stop thief!’ People were slowing down and the shop doorways were filling up.

  ‘That boy!’ cried the shopkeeper, flapping his apron. ‘He came and struck me across the head and emptied my money box!’

  One of the big men clapped a hand on James’s shoulder while the other lifted the yoke and turned it upside down so that the precious packages fell out, fruit and cheese, spices and butter, everything which had been so carefully packed and loaded spilled and the wrappings burst.

  ‘There’s the little varmint!’ the shopkeeper screeched. ‘He ought to be hanged outside my shop! He ought to be—’

  ‘That’s enough loose talk,’ one of the big men said, and upturned a basket. ‘I’m a thief-taker by profession, but fair’s fair—’

  Coins began to roll in all directions as the goods fell, making the self-styled thief-taker stop abruptly.

  ‘There’s your proof!’ cried the shopkeeper.

  Until that moment James had been stunned by the swift sequence of events; even when the big man had gripped his shoulder he could not believe that anyone really suspected him. When the packages showered their contents over the ground he was so shocked that for a few seconds he could not even think, only stare in horror. As the money struck the pavement and coins from a half crown to a penny and some halfpence and even farthings fell between the cobbles, a shiver ran through him.

  He looked up into the face of the man who held him and protested, ‘But I didn’t go into the shop! I didn’t take—’ He saw only cruelty and hardness in the face and eyes, enough to make him falter.

  ‘I saw him go in,’ a little old man called.

  ‘So did I,’ a woman asserted. ‘Bold as brass he did.’

  ‘But I swear—’ James began.

  The man struck him savagely across the face and sent him reeling. The other big man came up and gripped his hands, pulling them behind him. Cold iron bands clasped James’s wrists as the shopkeeper cried again, ‘He ought to be hanged outside my shop, as an example to all the young thieves who pass this way. That’s what I say!’

  ‘That’s right,’ called the woman so eager to assert that she had seen James enter the silversmith’s. ‘Let’s have a hanging. Why should Tyburn have all the fun?’

  ‘A hanging, a hanging, a hanging!’ seemed to pour from the throats of the crowd that gathered, stretching halfway across the road, forcing carriages and coaches to slow down. ‘Hang the thief!’ men cried. ‘Hang him, hang him!’

  ‘He’ll be hanged, never fear,’ said the man who had clapped the manacles onto James. ‘But only after committal and a fair trial.’ He looked at the other thief-taker and said so that only James and those near could hear, ‘Get him through the Cheshire Cheese and out the other way or they’ll stretch his neck as sure as I stand here.’

  ‘But I did not steal—’ James began.

  The man buffeted him so hard that his head rang and for seconds he seemed to have lost his senses. He felt himself pushed, then half dragged through Wine Office Court towards the Cheshire Cheese alley, past the closed doors of the inn. No one followed because other men hired by Peter Nicholson filled the entrance to the alley, and gradually the crowd thinned.

  Beyond the passages and the huddle of wooden outhouses was another lane, and James was hustled along this. At the far end a small coach was standing, and before he realised what was happening the door was opened and the man who had manacled him lifted him by the scruff of his neck and the seat of his trousers and pitched him inside, then climbed in and slammed the door. Almost before the door had closed the coach began to move.

  Struggling to a sitting position, forced to perch on the edge of his seat, James looked into the harsh face of his captor and said pleadingly, ‘I am innocent, sir, I swear to you. Some mistake was made—’

  ‘The mistake you made was robbing the shopkeeper,’ the thief-taker said roughly. ‘You take advice from me, boy. When we get to Newgate you admit you stole the money. Things might go easier with you then.’

 
‘Newgate!’ cried James in a sudden onslaught of dread. ‘You can’t take me to Newgate! I must go before a justice; I must be taken to Mr. Furn—’

  ‘You’ve been before a justice and have been committed. Don’t gab so much.’ The man leaned across and struck him in the mouth and blood began trickling down his chin. It was shock as well as pain which made James silent. Newgate, most dreaded of prisons, which had horrified his father and was a living hell, a stinking blot on the face of London. The man had no right to take him first to Newgate; only a justice could commit him there.

  The carriage stopped close to the spot where he had stood on the night of Frederick Jackson’s hanging, and a jailer came out of the gatehouse as the thief-taker pushed James out. He slipped and, unable to help himself, fell heavily. Over his body the thief-taker and the jailer spoke briefly.

  ‘Is this the young rapscallion?’

  ‘Take him and put him in the Stone Hold, ‘twill be good for his soul,’ the thief-taker said, and roared with laughter.

  The jailer bent down, yanked the boy to his feet and pushed him towards the lodge and beyond.

  In the saddle on a grey horse opposite the main gates Peter Nicholson waited until jailer and boy had disappeared and the thief-taker was back in the coach. The man winked at Nicholson through the window and Nicholson winked back, then slapped his horse and made for Eve Milharvey’s house in Loxley Yard. He tied his horse to a wooden post and went lightly up the stairs. The old creature who had served Frederick Jackson for much longer than Nicholson had known the criminal was coming out of Eve’s bedchamber. She was bent half double.

  ‘She’s still abed,’ she croaked. ‘And she won’t want any but good news this morning.’

  ‘I’ve all the good news she can ask for,’ Nicholson replied, and rapped on the door, calling out, ‘’Tis I, Peter. May I come in?’

  After a moment she called, ‘Come in and keep your voice low. My head is splitting.’

  He opened the door and saw her sitting up in bed with a tray in front of her. Her hair was well brushed and she wore a frilled jacket, high at the neck. He walked towards her, clapping his hands together yet making little noise.

  Her eyes were glistening.

  ‘So you got him, then?’

  ‘Tight as a drum!’ boasted Nicholson. ‘He’s in Newgate at this moment, and he won’t come out of there except to talk at his trial and then onto the hangman’s cart. We’ve three witnesses who saw him go into the shop and a magistrate who committed him to await trial. The trick worked perfectly. I told you before, Eve, you’re magnificent.’

  She stared at him, her eyes no longer shining.

  ‘I want to know how Furnival responds to this, and also the boy’s mother. Do you understand me?’

  ‘None better,’ he assured her.’ ‘No one will be better informed.’ He blew her a kiss and gave a little bow before going out.

  ‘Eve Milharvey,’ he whispered, ‘the day will come when you won’t talk to me as if I were a lackey. You’ll beg me for help.’

  His smile was hard and set as he went downstairs.

  Eve lay back on the pillows, not smiling, looking up at the heavy tapestry canopy over the bed and feeling the weight of the tray on her stomach. She now had no doubt that she was suffering from morning sickness, and sometimes this elated her and at others enraged.

  Did it explain, at this moment, why she felt that she hated Peter Nicholson?

  In a much larger and lovelier room, of pale blues and greens and golds, with French furniture shipped from Rouen especially for her, Lisa Braidley also lay on her pillows with a breakfast tray beside her. The bed was huge and billowy soft, and on one of the four pillows were some short, dark hairs from the man who had spent much of the night here. He, at thirty, had been full of tremendous vitality and she was tired. That was not unusual, for her lovers were seldom placid or content first to lie with her and then by her side; and there was no reason why they should, for to get into this room cost a fortune: to less than a hundred guineas she turned a cold face.

  But she was tired.

  And the young man who had been with her, Lord Fothergill, had exasperated her with his prattle and, she admitted to herself, stung her with one piece of gossip.

  ‘They do say that John Furnival has taken a new wench to his bed, and installed her as mistress of his household. ‘Tis age taking its toll, Lisa, the man wants his slippers warmed as well as his bed.’

  She remembered John’s need of comfort when she had last gone to him and wondered whether the ‘new wench’ would lead to any relationship with John. If there were a man in London she would like to marry it was John Furnival, but the very thought was folly; so was the sting of jealousy. She knew he had a hundred mistresses, would even take witnesses into that little apartment to ‘question them’ in private - oh, he was a sexual profligate, it was his sole weakness. She had never been in any doubt about that, so why should the fact that he had installed a new wench under some fancy name sting her?

  She did not know; she only knew that she was badly stung.

  In the corner of the tiny entrance to the cottage in Bell Lane was a grandfather clock that fascinated the younger children with its pictures of the moon and the sun and stars which changed each day, and with the deep-tone whirrrrr which preceded the striking of each hour as well as the boom-oom-oom of the notes themselves. It had a dark oak case already shining with years of polishing. Ruth did not at that time know its history and at first it troubled her; it was in fact the only thing about her new home which caused her any anxiety. She was afraid the whirring and the booming by night would disturb both her and the children, but the children had not appeared to be troubled even on the first night, and although she woke for a night or two to the striking of each hour, she was soon so accustomed to it that she slept right through.

  On the fifth night, Friday, she heard the whirrrrr begin and she knew that it was eleven o’clock, very late for James. Fridays were long days for him; he was often not home until half-past nine, but eleven was rare. The clock began to strike in a deep and melodious tone and she counted; conceivably she had been wrong at the last striking and it was now only ten. Her hands clenched and her whole body was tense as she counted: ‘. . . eight. . . nine. . . ten. . . eleven.’

  So it had been no error and she simply could not understand the lateness.

  Because visitors often came late at Bow Street and someone was on duty there all night, Bell Lane was much better lit than Cobbold Yard had been, with two flares on either side of the back entrance, and there were other flares placed at John Furnival’s orders because he wanted to make sure that the guard he employed to keep Bow Street and Bell Lane secure could see anyone who turned into the lane from either end. As Ruth went up the narrow stairs she saw some of this light shine through the open door of the boy’s room and spread a glow into the larger chamber where the two girls slept.

  Ruth went into this chamber. Beth, fair-haired and chubby, with curling eyelashes and already coquettish, lay on one side of a bed larger than Ruth and Richard had ever known, a bare arm bent over her head, the other snug. Ruth moved the cold arm gently and Beth opened her eyes, stared blankly, and closed them again at once. Henrietta, the younger, had jet-black hair, and only the top of this showed above the linen sheet. Ruth moved the sheet, so that the child should not breathe her own used air and crept out and down the stairs. The hall, though narrow, had a recess near the kitchen where hats and cloaks could be kept, and she took her heavy woollen cloak from the peg, pulled the hood over her head, then went into Bell Lane.

  She looked in each direction along the row of cottages but there was no sign of James.

  She moved towards Drury Lane and a guard carrying his lantern on a pole in his left hand and a cudgel in his right was quick to see her. He called in a low-pitched but carrying voice: ‘Stop there!’

  Instead, she moved slowly towards him. For all the man knew she might be a whore looking for business, or even a visitor to John Fu
rnival, although it was some time since the chief magistrate had brought a girl in off the streets; for one thing, he had become much too fastidious. But not all who worked at Bow Street were, and one or two even of Furnival’s trusted private retainers were not above a little dalliance while on duty with a witness who needed a favour or a supplicant who needed help for a husband.

  Ruth stopped in front of the man and he said in surprise, ‘Mistress Marshall, bless my soul! What are you doing out so late as this?’

  ‘I’m worried about my son James,’ she replied. ‘I hoped you or one of the other watchmen had seen him.’

  ‘Not this night,’ the guard answered. ‘But I’m to meet Joe Kidder at the front of the court building. Come with me and we’ll find out if he’s seen anyone.’

  She was glad of his company although the streets were deserted; tomorrow, Saturday, would be the night for noise and crowds and drunken brawling.

  The other watchman was shorter and stockier, reminding her of Tom Harris.

  ‘No, I’ve not set eyes on him and I know him well,’ he replied. ‘Have you inquired of the merchant where he works?’

  ‘No. I must go and ask—’ she began.

  ‘Mistress Marshall, this is no time for you to go anywhere alone,’ the first watchman interrupted. ‘Tiny, do you know if Tom Harris is still here? . . . He is? . . . Then we’ll tell him what is worrying Mistress Marshall.’ He smiled down at Ruth and informed her, ‘After every hour one of us has to make a report to the chief officer on duty, and it’s my turn. I can see Tom at the same time. Will you come in and wait?’