Breaths of Suspicion (2 page)

The night house owner sent an appreciative glance around the room, his dark eyes expressing satisfaction. But I was aware that those eyes could also become heavy-lidded with menace, and his handsome, smiling features could mask a deadly intent. ‘In fact,’ he murmured, ‘I have it in mind to cancel the particular bills you refer to. In exchange for a certain favour from you.’ His eyes switched to mine, holding my gaze directly. ‘The cancellation will not affect your fee-earning capacity, of course.’

I blinked. A knot of suspicion formed in my chest. ‘A favour?’

‘A certain friend of mine finds himself in a degree of difficulty. He will be appearing at the Old Bailey within the week. I’d like you to represent him.’

I frowned. ‘That’s not the way things are done, and you know it. I cannot have truck directly with the public like this: a brief must come from an attorney—’

Goodman waved my comment aside with a contemptuous and peremptory flick of the wrist. ‘Ha, don’t be concerned,
the formalities will be attended to. A certain Mr Fryer will be presenting himself at your chamber. He is a respected attorney.’

‘As your friend is not?’ I ventured. ‘Respected, I mean.’

Something glinted in Goodman’s eyes but he said nothing for a moment. Then he smiled. ‘Let me put the matter in this way. A Mr Edward Agar will be appearing in court on a charge of handling forged papers. Evidence will be presented by Inspector Redwood, an officer of whom you have already some acquaintance, I believe.’

I made no reply, but the old image flashed before my eyes again, of the drowned mistress of Lester Grenwood being dragged from the filthy water of the Thames, under the watchful eye of Inspector Redwood.

‘The charge against Mr Agar is a serious one. It will carry a heavy prison sentence, if proved. But it is not in my best interests at this time that Mr Agar should be locked up for the immediate future. It is important to me that he should escape the charge. We have … ah … certain common interests that need to be promoted.’

Nefarious, no doubt, I thought. ‘If I were to act in his defence there would be no guarantee of success,’ I warned. ‘I can only handle the evidence that is presented and—’

‘The evidence is trumped up,’ Goodman intervened. ‘Inspector Redwood has been after Mr Agar for some time. Agar would never be so foolish as to carry forged papers on his person, in the street.’

‘He was apprehended—’

‘In broad daylight, on Red Lion Street. The papers were produced from his pockets at Bow Street Police Station. They’d have been planted there.’

‘By Inspector Redwood?’ I asked in surprise.

‘By one of his minions,’ Goodman replied.

‘I can hardly believe—’

‘Believe it!’ Goodman snapped. ‘And do not affect such a surprised tone. You know as well as I that the blues are as open to corruption as those whom they seek to put away in the hulks.’

I was silent for a little while, aware of the truth of what he was saying. I knew for a fact that Goodman had access even to the Commissioner of Police, if he chose to use his influence. I wondered why he did not use that influence in this instance, but concluded that the situation might be too tricky for that, if it were to be a matter of police corruption. Slowly, I shook my head. ‘Even so, I will be able to proceed only on the basis of evidence available to the court. To suggest police corruption—’

‘Not to
suggest
it, Mr James. You will prove it.’

‘In what manner?’ I demanded.

There was an element of wolfishness in Goodman’s smile as he regarded me. ‘I will provide sufficient evidence, through the medium of the attorney Fryer. All you have to do is present it, and use it to tear the chief witness against Mr Agar to shreds.’

‘Redwood?’ I doubted.

Goodman shook his head. ‘Not Redwood. The arresting officer reporting to him. Police Constable McCarthy.’

And a few days later, when Mr Fryer came to my chambers and presented me with the brief I realized why Goodman wanted me to use the evidence provided. Any other barrister would have been reluctant to use it. It averred that Constable McCarthy was an inveterate gambler, a frequenter of whore houses where he failed to pay the relevant fees, a formerly indigent Irishman corrupted by his environment, all backed by suggestion, innuendo and some witnesses who were prepared to swear to the most unlikely events taking place in the dark streets of the metropolis.

I recall stating to the attorney Fryer in my chambers that if these witnesses were to present their evidence they themselves, by their own admissions, would be open thereafter to criminal charges, as conspirators, pimps and fraudsters. His only reply was that these individuals well understood the consequences. Which meant that Goodman had them in thrall, and they deemed it more discreet to accept such dangers than to deny Goodman the requests he
had made of them. Worse could happen to them on the streets of London.

Of course, at the time I was not aware, indeed could not possibly know just how important Edward Agar, the man in the dock, was to Lewis Goodman. I found out later, as I’ll explain to you in due course, but for the moment suffice to say that I finally agreed to take the brief, use my best forensic skills to thrash the unfortunate Constable McCarthy, and leave the witnesses, false as they were, to their own individual fates. And that was what happened. At the hearing at the Central Criminal Court I persuaded the jury that the charges against Agar had been trumped up by the unreliable and corrupt Constable McCarthy, and I received prompt payment of a generous fee by way of the attorney Fryer. And two hefty bills of exchange held by Goodman in my name were cancelled.

But I also incurred the enmity of my old acquaintance, Inspector Redwood.

However, it would be a mistake on your part to assume that I was in complete thrall to Lewis Goodman, or that my practice grew only on the backs of such unsavoury clients. Once briefed, a barrister must hold and certainly not express any personal views as to the guilt of his client. He is the mouthpiece of the man he represents, his duty is to do his best to obtain an acquittal, and take the best interests of his client to heart. Of course, I suspected that the evidence dredged up by Goodman against the policeman was of doubtful provenance, and that the witnesses against him were lying through their teeth. And the fact that the proofs given by those witnesses were self-incriminatory was none of my business.

I was performing my duty fearlessly and effectively like any upright member of the Bar.

Inspector Redwood was not of that opinion: he met me after the hearing, as I crossed the wood-blocked street outside the Old Bailey. He raised one hand to his black-varnished top hat, greeting me. His lean, saturnine features were sober, and there was a hard
look in his eyes. He fiddled with the shiny buttons on his blue frock coat as he barred my way, standing on the edge of the pavement. That was a habit of the police, you know—they always walked on the pavement edge to avoid the slops that were often thrown down upon their heads.

‘My compliments, Mr James. Edward Agar goes free.’

‘You failed to make your case.’ I made to move past him but he had the temerity to hold me by the shoulder.

‘Constable McCarthy is finished in the force now,’ he said. ‘He has a wife and two children to support—’

‘That’s not my affair.’

‘And those three witnesses you brought into court to destroy his credibility, they’ve been taken into charge. Will you be defending them, sir?’

‘I doubt it.’

Inspector Redwood was silent for a few moments, regarding me owlishly as he stroked his luxuriant sideburns. ‘You’ve been got at, haven’t you, Mr James?’

I stood my ground, and stared him out. ‘Was Edward Agar
really
carrying forged notes on his person when he was arrested on Red Lion Street?’

‘Agar is someone we’ve been interested in for a long time,’ Redwood replied, colouring slightly. ‘He’s escaped us on numerous occasions, but we’ll get him yet.’

‘On planted evidence?’

I waited, and Redwood held my glance for several seconds. Then he shook his head, with an air of sadness. ‘You’re a rising man, Mr James. You should choose your cases with care. You’d be well advised to stay away from the likes of Agar, and the men who back them.’

I was offended by his presumption in giving me advice. But he did not know that it was fully my attention to avoid such contacts. And as I’ve already intimated to you, my practice was growing not
simply on the back of members of the flash mob. I was acting for, and against members of other levels of society.

Such as Lord Huntingtower.

And that gave rise to other problems. Much as I detested Lord George Bentinck for his deviousness, chicanery and double-dealing at the Turf I had to admit he knew his horses. He kept a formidable stable even though his father disapproved: he used various aliases under which he ran his nags. And he spent, and won, immense sums on the races at York and Doncaster and Epsom.

He was what the Spanish called an
aficionado
and was an expert in horseflesh.

This was not something one could say about Lord Huntingtower. Like Lord George he frequented the Turf, spent vast amounts of money and blazoned his skills and knowledge about the courses. But unlike Lord George he did not know his
horseflesh
. He was a pompous, braying fool who understood little of breeding and bloodstock, much as he affected to be an expert. And the inevitable result of his ignorance was that he finally found it necessary to cover up his huge losses by fraud.

Which led to his court appearance, and my subjecting him to a sarcastic cross-examination.

The Times
loved it. Over the course of three days they devoted five columns to my excoriation of the witness, a butterfly
struggling
under my pin. I exposed his ignorance, his foolishness, his
braggadocio
, and his fraudulent behaviour. On the second day, Lord George himself took a seat in court, in his self-styled role as Protector of the Sport of Kings, but his brow was furrowed, his features dark as he watched Huntingtower wriggling in the witness box. I knew what he was thinking: he hated to see a member of his own class being shamed in this manner, and I suppose I took an extra pleasure in extending the agony, if only to get back at Bentinck for his own behaviour towards me. Lord Huntingtower stood there, elegantly apparelled, smoothly coiffured, disdainful
at first behind his luxuriant moustaches and self-confident in his superiority, but as I stripped away the mask, bringing out the low company he kept, the frauds he perpetrated, the sheer ignorance he displayed of the sport at which he professed to be expert, the man seemed to shrivel, hunch in distress as the laughter ran around the courtroom. Bentinck, all the while, glowered at the exhibition, furious at the manner in which I was shredding one of his own class.

But enough of Huntingtower. I mention the matter only to emphasize that my cases were not simply those low-life clients Lewis Goodman eased my way. And oddly enough, my
treatment
of Lord Huntingtower did nothing to cause the invitations from Society to dry up. I had evidence that the enmity of Lord George Bentinck had further increased towards me as a result of my treatment of Huntingtower, but I cared little for that. The coverage of the Huntingtower trial was satisfying: my name was writ large in the gossip columns; my star was beginning to shine and glitter in a manner that astonished my father.

Running Rein
had forced my name before the public; Huntingtower had confirmed my reputation. There were those, like the leader writer in
The Times
, who had already begun to sneer that I was making my reputation in cases that involved merely actresses or horses, but I could afford to ignore such slurs.

I had arrived at the first port of call: henceforth, I knew, my voyage would be even more glittering. The fruits of success were already discernible, and would soon be within my reach.

Which reminds me, I’ve digressed again, my boy; we were talking of my entry into politics, weren’t we?

Well, I first edged into that lime-lighted part of the stage as a result of election committees. And there was also a little additional push as a result of my reluctant connection with that villain, Lewis Goodman.…

E
lection committees. One of the most lucrative activities for the Bar was the inevitable bloodletting that always occurred in the aftermath of elections to the House of Commons. The losers at the hustings constantly sought to overturn the result of the ballot and their accusations of bribery and corruption were heard before election committees sitting in the House of Commons. The
elections
of 1848 were to prove no exception in that regard.

My success in the Bankruptcy Court and in the more
aggressive
area of the Old Bailey had impressed numerous attorneys but I doubt whether I would have been able to enter the remunerative field of election committee work had it not been for the
excessive
rush of petitions that emerged in that year, and the effective retirement of Alexander Cockburn from the battlegrounds of the election committee rooms. At that time Cockburn held the lead in election committee work along with Thesiger and Austin but in 1848 Cockburn had disqualified himself from the work by getting elected himself, as MP for Southampton. Thesiger also was forced to decline election briefs when he became Attorney General, and as for Austin, well, he just faded away fatly to a magistracy in the wilds of Hampshire where he made himself unpopular and incurred the enmity of the local squirearchy by refusing to taking poaching seriously.

So I suddenly found myself approached by Mr Coppock, the parliamentary agent. As you might guess, I seized the opportunity with an eager grasp.

In truth, the business suited me perfectly: all elections in those days were tarred with corruption. Local voters needed to be persuaded, and that meant
treating
: riotous nights in the ale houses, seats at boxes in London theatres, a bit of business for a shopkeeper, open house for voters at a local hostelry, the provision of available doxies and the surreptitious transfer of a few golden guineas into individual voting pockets.… So you could imagine how
enthusiastically
and colourfully I exposed these ignoble actions in the hearing of the petitions.

And I was good at it; no, I do not flatter myself when I say I was soon recognized as the best. As a matter of fact, I was presented only last week with a proof copy of Ballantine’s
Experiences
. This is what he had to say about my work on election committees: ‘Edwin James possessed all the qualities necessary for the work. He had great readiness, handled his facts amusingly but with considerable force, and was never tedious. He was an excellent
Nisi Prius
leader and although not possessed of any remarkable knowledge of the law or profound scholarship, contrived to manage Lord Campbell better than any of his rivals at the Bar.’

And that from someone with whom I had no friendly
acquaintance
: we disliked each other heartily.

So, as I say, I made a great success at the Lancaster committee hearing, and there quickly followed, as I recall, Carlisle, Bewdley, Norwich and Lincoln. The longest runner was Aylesbury and I tell you, I never worked so hard in my life, scurrying from committee room to committee room, handling as many as four petitions at a time as well as picking up further briefs at
Nisi Prius
. And a few years later, after the 1852 election I took seven petitions in March alone, five more in April and through May and June I was dashing from assize hearings to deal with petitions at Harwich, Plymouth,
Cork, Liverpool and Peterborough.
The New York Times
hit it right on the head when, some years later, it wrote, ‘No member or petitioner deemed his chances secure until Mr James had been retained.’

Glory days, my boy, and remunerative!

Yet there was another advantage: work at the election
committees
extended the range of one’s influential acquaintances: very soon I was being invited to weekends at the country house retreats of the great. The Duke of Norfolk, Sir James Duke, the Earl of Yarborough, Sir John Jervis offered me their hospitality; the
one-armed
hero of the Peninsular War, Lord Raglan, entertained me, as did Lord Combermere, whom Wellington called ‘a damned fool’ and really was one. Lord Lucan and Lord Cardigan felt the lash of my tongue in court actions but still issued invitations, and I found myself regularly seated for dinner among the leading politicians of the day, including Lord John Russell, Lord Dacre and Viscount Palmerston himself, of course.

So there I was in the late 1840s, still a junior member of the bar, but making more than five thousand a year. I was asking a hundred guineas as a brief fee, and when I attended the assizes at York or Newcastle I called for a further hundred as a retainer. My clerk, Villiers, was kept busy bringing the money in.

Trouble was, I didn’t seem to be
seeing
much of it.

The fact is, it’s a great thing to dine with high society, but it’s also an expensive business. To become a social lion is grand, but it’s also costly: clothes, carriages, the need to visit casinos, gambling clubs, demonstrate bravery in placing a bet and careless
indifference
when losing badly. But I sailed along happily on a sea of witticisms,
bon mots
, anecdotes from the courts and gay
expenditure
at the tables.

Which was where my next, unexpected stroke of luck came forth. Unfortunately, once again, from the hands of Lewis Goodman.

After the Derby fiasco I had not seen him for some time: I made
certain payments to him when my debts grew embarrassingly high but that meant no personal appearance before him. That was the way I preferred things. So when I saw Porky Clark making his way towards me across the crowded floor of the casino that particular evening, I groaned: I guessed it could mean an unpleasant
interview
. In fact, there was no sign of Goodman himself, and Porky contented himself by handing me a slip of paper.

It was a succinct note.

A shiver of anticipation ran down my back. The night house owner would not enjoy the run of luck his client was having but I knew what was really bothering Goodman: he owned a range of night houses in the West End and he could suffer badly if a scandal involving a young aristocrat emerged.

I glanced across the room. Porky Clark, standing beside me, touched my arm and gestured towards a particular table. It was surrounded by a group of men, watching the obviously
extraordinary
run of success being enjoyed by a tousle-haired young buck. He was seated at the tables now, flushed, excited, and clearly on an extended winning run. His dark, curly hair was damp, his eyes
sparkling with drink and his hands trembled with inebriated
excitement
as he gathered in his chips. It would not be easy to winch him away from the scene of his continuing success but as I moved closer towards the table I realized why Goodman was particularly concerned. It wasn’t just the money. I looked at Porky Clark, and nodded. Saving this young man from making a fool of himself had two advantages: it would cancel one of my debts to Goodman, but even more important, it would perhaps place me in the good books of his father, whom I had met only twice in the Reform Club. Nodding terms only. Perhaps that situation could improve.

For the young man playing recklessly at
rouge et noir
was the son of the Attorney General of England.

I did not know young Jervis well, though I had met him on a few occasions at Westminster Hall, and he was a member of my own Inn, the Inner Temple. Now, I walked casually across the room and edged my way into the gathering, until I stood behind the Attorney General’s son. He was playing wildly, and yet his
recklessness
was paying off and he was well ahead of the table. He was also drunk. I leaned over him and offered my advice. He turned his head and grinned at me.

‘Stop while I’m ahead?’ he laughed. ‘It’s my lucky night!’

I wasn’t quite sure that he recognized me and there was little I could do to dissuade him on his current successful play. So I stepped back and waited. He soon began to find that his luck was changing: he still won occasionally, but there were losses too. He was nevertheless well ahead up to the point that the dealer was changed. I watched the changeover: it had significance, I was certain. Goodman would have ordered the replacement: the new dealer, a lean, dark-eyed, cold-featured man with long, predatory fingers would have more control over events. There would now be discreet cheating in the wind.

‘Time to leave now,’ I whispered in Jervis’s ear. ‘I know this new man. You’ll see a change in your luck, believe me.’

The young barrister leaned back in his seat. Some of the sense behind what I was saying filtered through his drink-sodden mind. With more control than I had ever managed to achieve myself when at the tables, he contemplated the green baize before him in silence, glowered, then almost dazedly collected his chips. He rose to his feet, staggering slightly. He stared at me, and recognition now glimmered in his eyes. ‘James.…’

‘Come. I’ll give you a hand, see you to a cab,’ I offered.

I collected our capes and canes and assisted young Jervis towards the doors.

The night house owned by Goodman lay in a side lane just off the Strand. When we lurched out into the shuttered street outside all was dark except for occasional gleams of light filtering from closed casement windows in the mean houses nearby. Wisps of cold fog drifted at head height, blurring the eyes with a sharp pungency, a real London Particular if you know what I mean. At two in the morning the cold had a cutting edge to it, seeming to slice into the bones. Young Jervis was now leaning heavily on my arm as I looked around for a waiting hansom cab. He was very drunk and the cold night air seemed to have hit him almost like a blow to the skull.

The doors to the night house closed behind us with a solid thud and we found ourselves isolated in the darkened street.

Unusually, there was no cabman plying for hire to be seen on the dimly lit cobbles. But I guessed if we made our way along the greasy stones towards the main thoroughfare that dimly beckoned to us some fifty yards distant we would soon find a conveyance to take us to my chambers, or those of my companion, whom I recalled vaguely as being lodged near to the Inner Temple.

We staggered forward, Jervis’s arm firmly lodged in mine, and I cursed Lewis Goodman roundly under my breath: this was not the manner in which I was accustomed to ending my nights on the town. Additionally, this evening there was a certain complaisant
lady, neglected wife of a laudanum-addicted baronet, waiting expectantly in St John’s Wood … but she would have to wait. At least looking after Jervis would serve to cancel a pecuniary
transaction
with the night club owner.…

We were some twenty yards from the corner that debouched into the main thoroughfare of the Strand when they materialized out of the haziness of the fog. There were three of them,
broad-shouldered
, flat-capped, hulking apparitions, armed with cudgels. They emerged from a side alley and were making their way directly towards us but their approach was neither hesitant nor indeterminate: I instantly realized that we were targets. Whether they had been lying in wait for specific individuals emerging from the night house, or we simply happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time I had no opportunity to determine.

You, my boy, as a man of the sea, you will have knowledge of dockside brawls, no doubt, and your mother has often told me you do not lack bravery. But as for me, well, I have no hesitation in confirming that I had never been over-endowed with physical courage, and I must admit that my first inclination at a possible confrontation was always to turn and run, but my companion’s arm was still linked with mine and he chose this inopportune moment to gently slide towards the cobbles, sighing deeply, clearly dizzy, finally overcome by the night air, and befuddled with drink. As the thugs advanced on us I tried desperately to drag Jervis to his feet, turn with me and run back to hammer at the closed doors of the night house we had just left but he complained drunkenly and incoherently, clinging to my arm like a dead weight as the three villains grew closer. I caught a glimpse of raised cudgels and knew we were done for: the area was well known for being haunted by garrotters and I feared the worst. I struggled to release myself from young Jervis’s grip so I could take to my heels and leave him to his fate but he hung on tightly in his drunken stubbornness and his weight brought me down with him so that I myself stumbled to
my knees. In panic I raised my free arm instinctively to protect my head. There was a swishing sound, and I felt a sharp pain on my forearm, but it was a glancing blow, merely. There would be further blows, I knew, and more crushing. I was on my knees, and John Jervis was huddled against me, helplessly, grunting out the garbled words of some obscene drinking song. There was a stamping of feet, a whirling of bodies, and I heard the clashing of cudgels but amazingly I felt no more blows raining down upon me.

Scraping and stamping and shouting and swearing, heavy breathing, hobnailed boots striking sparks on the cobbled road: I felt I was in the middle of some crazed whirligig and a heavy body suddenly thudded into me, knocked me sideways and then rolled beside me on the cobbles before rising hurriedly again, scrambling back into the darkness behind him. A confused shouting still whirled around me; there was the stink of sweat in my nostrils and I lowered my protective arm, looked fearfully about me to make out bodies closely locked, struggling in some kind of stamping, macabre dance in the drifting fog. A further clashing of cudgels, and a stray heavy boot thudded into my ribs, but I got the
impression
it was a wayward blow, not even directed towards me. But it slammed the breath out of my lungs and I sank down again, winded. I still feared the worst. But there were no more blows, I heard the clattering of running feet, caught a glimpse of vague outlines fading into the wisps of fog and then a sudden silence, broken only by the harsh breathing of a single individual,
half-seen
, wide-shouldered, shaven-headed, heavy and almost ungainly, looming over me in the darkness.