A Nest of Vipers (15 page)

Cato tried to think. ‘You must have the wrong end of the stick, Addy—’

‘No! I know what I seen. Now just do as I say. You ain’t seen the master when he’s angry. He may be a member of parliament but he acts like any other buck in a rage when he’s in his cups. He’s already downed a bottle of port this morning.’

The church clock rang for a quarter to eleven.

‘I must return. The cook will miss me, even if the Stapletons won’t. Go on, go! Quickly! Tell them to get over to Carfax with Bella wearing something that will make the marquess forget!’

Cato was hiding in the upstairs rooms at Carfax in his princely coat when the new marquess arrived in a flashy two-seater. Looking out through a crack in the shutters, he saw there was no footman, only a driver, and when he got down from the coach, the marquess slammed the door so hard Cato imagined it would come off.

The marquess had walked up to the front door before he remembered his wife, who was obviously not used to getting herself out of a carriage, and had waited immobile for someone to open her door. The marquess bellowed in the direction of the coach so loud the horses jumped.

‘Come on, woman!’

Cato could see that something had happened to change him. He looked totally different from the time he had seen him at the Ice Ball. He seemed to have aged at least ten years, and the dark circles under his eyes – the result of his overnight ride from the country – made him look closer to a kind of monster than a young nobleman with a beautiful wife and a house in the finest part of town.

The whole square watched as the Lady Elizabeth clambered down, almost falling over and practically in tears. Cato could read off her face that everything Addy had said was true. They had lost everything.

Cato listened as Jack was pushed aside and – supposedly being mute – could say nothing.

‘Where is she? Where is the Russian trollop who has bewitched my wife?’ The marquess bellowed louder than the boys who cried the news at Fleet Street.

Jack opened the door to the drawing room, to reveal Bella, or rather the Countess of Pskoff, and Mother Hopkins, done up as her retainer, Masha.

Cato just managed to hear the countess welcome the Stapletons in an accent familiar to lovers of caviar and wild bears, when the drawing-room door was shut. This was followed by shouting, although he could not make out any words, only that it was deep-voiced shouting.

He crept down the stairs, even though Jack tried to shoo him back up.

‘Wait until you’re sent for!’ Jack hissed.

‘I need to listen!’ Cato whispered. ‘I need to know how Bella is playing him.’

Jack stood aside. ‘Indeed, you’re right.’

Cato crept up to the drawing room and stood with his ear to the wooden door. The countess’s voice was smoother than honey and Cato marvelled at Bella’s capacity to keep a cool head and prevent her accent from slipping.

‘You are a marquess now, sir?’ she enquired.

‘For all the bloody good it’ll do me!’ He was still shouting. ‘We are ruined! Ruined by my profligate father, who preferred the cards and the horses and the lowest sort of women to any kind of prudence! And then . . . and then my . . . my
wife
’ – he spat the word out like the worst oath imaginable – ‘tells me she’s only gone and handed the best of the family jewels over to some darkie prince! As if such a thing exists.’

‘I can be assurink you, sir, the Prince of Bonny is a most honourable and trustworthy young man. I vould be trustink him vith my life.’

‘Yes, John, he is.’ Lady Elizabeth’s voice was high and tremulous.

‘And I think’ – the countess was speaking again – ‘if you can, perhaps, calm yourself – take this wodka – he may even be offerink you a way out of penury and back to the fortune which you and your lovely wife indeed deserve . . .’

As the countess spun out the scheme, she explained that the prince did not realize the true value of the cargo, and that the return of their investment would be threefold. What’s more, the investors would be left master of a sea-going ship. She had investigated the
Favourite
, the countess said, and they would be able to sell it on in London or Bristol for a few thousand. Failing that, they could lease it to merchant venturers, and make a decent income, far above and beyond the five thousand the Prince of Bonny had requested.

‘It is, like ze ship itself, a watertight investment,’ the countess said, and laughed at her own joke. ‘And there is no problem, My lord, no one forces you to make money. I can only put my hand on two thousand pounds here in London, but you may have your pretty necklace back and use it to pay off all your many creditors. I vill send my man round to fetch the prince here in person, and he can return your necklace. Even though it may take a day or two, I can find another investor to take your place – someone who has enough, how you say in English, cash . . .?’

Cato closed his eyes. Bella had gone too far. Never insult your mark. He could only hear a growling sort of noise from Stapleton and his wife’s high-pitched twittering about opportunity.

‘But the African, won’t he be expecting the ship back?’ the marquess asked.

The countess laughed her tinkly Russian laugh before she spoke. ‘And how will he get it back, hmm? Rowink some kind of raft up ze Thames? I think not. Our gain is his loss. And as I said, we are all so much more deservink . . .’

Cato knocked at Carfax a half-hour later and Jack let him in. He had a soft leather bag with the copy of the necklace Mother Hopkins had rustled up from the diamond dealer in Saffron Hill. It had cost her the last of their savings but it looked good, although he’d been warned to be careful with it because if it fell hard onto stone, the paste gems were sure to shatter.

Jack showed him in. The new Marquess of Byfield was calmer, but he still looked grim. His wife was all nerves, hands fluttering from her throat to her face, shifting in her chair so the fabric of her black mourning dress rustled.

Cato bowed. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I am Quarmy, Prince of Bonny. Countess, your man informs me there is a problem.’

‘I’d have thought he couldn’t inform a cockerel to crow seeing as how the brute cannot speak,’ the marquess said.

The countess flashed Cato a look sharper than razors, and he felt his heart speed up so fast he thought it might burst.

‘Your note, madam,’ he said at last, and flourished a piece of paper from his pocket. ‘I brought the jewels, and though it pains me to return them to their beautiful owner’ – he smiled at Lady Elizabeth – ‘I am sure they will look a thousand times better on you.’

The marquess scowled, but Cato smiled on. Bella was playing it light, as if she didn’t care, and he should follow her lead.

‘My good friends wish to withdraw from our scheme, Prince,’ said the countess.

‘I am most sorry to hear this but, as they say on the coast of Bonny’ – Cato paused here as if translating African to English – ‘
What is to is, must is
 . . .’ He nodded sagely. He knew this was not an African proverb, but one he had heard an elderly Jamaican prize fighter who frequented The Vipers use more than once. He went on, ‘I had already sent word by ship home to my father, and you were also lucky. I had found a buyer for the diamonds and was to sell them tomorrow. Ah, well. Countess, you promised me two thousand pounds – I suppose you cannot raise your stake?’

The countess shook her head. ‘Alas, no. If only I were at home, it would be done. But I am sure we can find another partner, no?’

Cato allowed himself to look a little troubled. ‘Speed, as I said before, is of the essence. I will leave the stones and get to the Royal Exchange at once. Good day!’ He left the leather pouch on the card table and bowed again.

‘If you are ever in Bonny, my lady . . .’ He kissed the countess’s hand and left.

If the plan was to work, the marquess’s greed should get the better of him. He would call the prince back and offer the entire investment before he reached the street.

Nothing happened. Jack opened the front door and Cato stepped out into the square.

His heart felt empty. They had invested so much time and money into this; they owed so many favours! Cato walked down the steps. They had the diamonds, at least. They would fund a cottage in Bath and he hoped there was call for good locksmiths in the West Country.

Cato turned the corner by the French church into Hog Lane when he heard footsteps closing behind him. He had the prince’s fine coat and hat, which would make a guinea or two. He speeded up, but couldn’t resist looking round. He relaxed when he saw it was Jack clumping down the street in his boots, red-faced.

Cato looked past him in case he was not alone. ‘Jack! Saints preserve us!’ he said. ‘I thought I was to be skinned!’

Jack came close and leaned against the church railings, doubled up. ‘I’ve been behind you from the square, only I couldn’t shout on account of being a bloody mute!’ He straightened up, a grin across his face wider than the Thames at Chelsea. ‘It’s only gone and bloody worked! It’s only worked!’ He thumped Cato hard on the back. ‘The marquess wants to rebuild his fortune. And he’s starting with a gold-plated investment in a ship that don’t even exist! Come on, I’ve been sent to bring you back.’

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTEEN

Newgate Prison, Dawn, September 1712

I DON’T KNOW
how I managed to sleep, hands and feet shackled, but I suppose one can get accustomed to anything. I had thought to stay awake, given that this was to be my last night on this earth. But I had such a good dream. Addeline with her hair wild, laughing and laughing.

Then the Ordinary kicked me in the ribs and now I was sure that I was awake and that it was morning. It wasn’t due to the light, but from the sounds of life beyond the prison walls – the handcarts and animals and horse-drawn wagons trundling along the street; not to mention a woman not too far off, inside the walls, sobbing.

I tried to sit upright. ‘I am to hang today,’ I said aloud, half hoping he would laugh and that this room, this stench, these sounds were the dream.

‘Death comes to all of us,’ the Ordinary said. ‘Please, we have little time. I would have more of your tale so it may be published and quite the talk of the town before you are cut down.’

‘Those are hardly words to inspire me, sir,’ I said.

‘It is only the truth, young man.’

Young man. I would never now be old, I thought. Not see myself with a proper beard or with a son and daughter of my own. I sighed.

‘On the subject of my crime I am sworn to silence,’ I said and he kicked me again. It was a small pleasure to have it within my power to cause this human bloodsucker some irritation.

‘The diamonds! All London is rife with rumour: where did they go? Off with the Czar of Russia’s daughter, it’s said.’

‘She was a countess, not a princess! Anyway, the truth may be less romantic. Have you never thought, perhaps, that the Stapleton diamonds were never the real thing in the first place?’

He sneered. ‘I will play no more games with you, you imp!’

‘I will tell you how I was caught, but even then I fear we won’t reach the end of my tale,’ I said, and the church clock at St Sepulchre’s chimed six. ‘The cart will come for me at ten.’

In the darkness of the condemned cell I heard the
Ordinary
sharpen his quill. I took a long breath and began. After all, I had naught else to pass the time, and my family, the friends I once had, were long gone. Living other lives in Bath.

I was already dead to them a long time ago when I was foolish enough to be caught.

So I spoke.

‘All had gone to plan – no, scratch that . . . We had, in fact, exceeded all our goals. We had enough rhino to live wherever we pleased. Bella had in mind the dresses she would have made, Jack the pair of Arabians; Sam was planning on a lighter chair design that would make his job a great deal more comfortable. Even Quarmy, our genuine African prince, was smiling occasionally. He had decided to stay in London, and Mother, heart softened by so much goree, had promised to give him a few guineas to set him up as a music master in a charity school. The idea suited him, he said, although in truth I could not see our prince inducing sulky ten-year-olds to scratch out tunes!

‘See, we had more than the full five thousand in cash, on top of the diamonds. The carter had been hired, the upstairs rooms at The Vipers cleared, and the party! That Tuesday night all London – well, all London that mattered – was there. Ivan, the cove with the dancing bear (he left the bear at home); Solly the Dutchman; even Master Tunnadine, who had been pressured not to set
foot
in the capital ever again, had made his way to The Vipers. And, yes – write this down – I witnessed Mother Hopkins shed more than a tear or two.

‘All was well and in full swing. Bella had opened the proceedings with her recital of “My Lady’s Revenge”. I had played and Quarmy was to play too – he was a better player than me – and I planned to ask Addeline to dance. Oh, we had often danced
near
to each other – many times, in fact. But this was to be different. I was going to ask her, the way Sam asked the glove-shop girl, or Jack had once asked Bella, if you get my meaning.

‘So I’ve only been going over and over it in my head all day. How I’ll ask her and how she’ll answer, and I’m hoping hard she won’t just look at me with her dark grey eyes and laugh. And I’ve been so bound up with that that I don’t notice Quarmy’s not there. I’m getting myself all twisted up just thinking about it, seeing the picture of it in my head. I had spoken to him earlier and he’d promised to play the tune Addy likes best: “The Thames Flows Sweetly”. So I’m pushing through the crowd in the bar at The Vipers, only no one’s seen him since dark. I go upstairs, thinking he’s having a weep over his lost love, but he’s not there. His fine princely coat is hung up on the back of the door but there’s no sign of Quarmy.

‘Then all sorts of things just go rushing through my head. ’Cause there was always that distance with Quarmy, looking back on it – and I’ve had more than
enough
time in here to look back on it. I can see it’s more his upbringing than anything else, but I suppose . . . I suppose I was more than a little jealous of the cove. So there’s me, reckoning on how maybe he’s scarpered with the lot – the money . . . everything – and ready to round up Jack and Sam and scour the city looking for him.