Shadow of the Hangman (21 page)

‘Do be careful,’ he said with concern. ‘The kidnappers may be dangerous. Make sure that you don’t get too close to them.’

‘One of them is a woman, apparently.’

‘Women can be just as deadly with a pistol in their hands.’

Thinking of Hannah Granville, he decided that a woman could be equally deadly without a weapon. She had certainly injured him severely. Paul was tempted to talk about his private life to Charlotte again but he drew back as Jem Huckvale came into the room. There was a friendly exchange of greetings.

‘Some people never learn,’ said Huckvale. ‘I do believe that I could still beat Mr Ridley if he was the only one with a sword in his hand.’

‘I’d like a bout with you some time,’ said Paul.

‘That can be arranged. Whenever I take you on, I’m the pupil and you’re the teacher. The only swordsman better than you is Gully.’

‘One day I may even surpass him.’

‘I doubt it,’ warned Charlotte. ‘A sword is like a fifth limb to Gully.’ She studied her brother-in-law. ‘I must say that you’re looking in your prime, Paul. When he saw you yesterday, Peter said that you were far from your best.’

‘That was the result of overindulgence, I fear,’ admitted Paul. ‘I’d had a chastening experience in Jermyn Street. I feel my old self today.’

‘You ought to seek entertainment away from the card table.’

‘I’ve told myself that many times, Charlotte.’

‘There was a time when you loved the theatre.’

‘Yes,’ said Huckvale, ‘it used to be your passion.’

‘Peter and I went to see
Venice Preserv’d
yesterday,’ she said. ‘We were spellbound from start to finish. Hannah Granville is the most extraordinary actress. You really ought to see her, Paul. She’s giving a performance that left the pair of us dazzled. Peter is not as fond of the theatre as I am but Miss Granville enthralled him. You’d love her as well.’

Paul made no comment. He was doing his best to cope with the
sudden pain he felt. Without realising it, Charlotte had just opened a wound and poured in a liberal amount of salt.

After he’d collected the money from the bank, David Beyton was in a continuous panic. The purse in which he’d put the banknotes seemed to be red hot and to weigh a ton. He was terrified that someone would rob him and reproached himself for not taking Peter Skillen with him by way of protection. Having got safely back to the Home Office, he locked the purse in a drawer and applied himself to his duties. In the afternoon, he excused himself to go off to an unspecified appointment. When he held the purse once more in his hands, it seemed even heavier.

He met Peter at an inn close to Hyde Park.

‘Thank God you’ve come!’ he said.

‘I always honour a promise, Mr Beyton.’

‘I’ve been in agony. It’s a miracle that I was able to keep a straight face at the bank and at work. I’ve had a fire raging inside me since I got up.’

‘What you’re doing is a means to an end,’ Peter reminded him, ‘and none of it would have been necessary had you not put yourself – and Mrs Horner, of course – in such a vulnerable position.’

‘Don’t pour scorn on me, Mr Skillen,’ begged the other. ‘I can do that for myself. I just want to know what I must do.’

‘It’s quite simple, Mr Beyton. Follow the path designated in the ransom demand and wait until someone relieves you of the money. Your work is then done. Leave everything else to us.’

‘You’ve brought assistance?’

‘My wife and one of our servants will be hovering nearby,’ said Peter. ‘What I fail to see, my wife certainly will. You, meanwhile, can go back to the Home Office.’

‘But I want to know the consequences.’

‘You’ll have to be patient.’

‘And I
must
have the money back,’ insisted Beyton.

‘You have a disturbing habit of forgetting the plight of Mrs Horner. She is the victim here and not you. Bear that in mind as you walk through the park.’ He glanced at the man’s ashen complexion. ‘Do you need a drink to stiffen your spirit?’

‘I couldn’t hold a thing down.’

‘Then let’s go,’ said Peter, getting up. ‘You lead the way and I’ll follow on behind. Listen out for the clock chiming the hour. That’s your cue. If you’re not there at the exact time they stipulated, they’ll walk away and implement their threat.’

Donal Kearney knew that he’d come. Dermot Fallon was not a man given to acts of mercy. Once he’d identified an enemy, he’d take action against him. Kearney was the latest victim. His attempt to talk his way out of his dilemma had not only failed, it had gained him a terrible beating. He could barely see through one eye and the whole of his body was throbbing with pain. Kearney spent all the time at the window, staring down at the court below and fearing the return of Fallon. To his alarm, the man finally appeared with his dog, striding into the court with a sense of purpose before stopping to talk to one of his neighbours. Kearney couldn’t hear what was being said but he quailed when Fallon pointed up to the window out of which he was looking. Pulling away, the chimney sweep rounded on his wife.

‘Take the children into the other room,’ he snapped.

‘Why? What’s happened, Donal?’

He raised a hand. ‘I won’t tell you twice.’

‘We’re going,’ she said, ushering the three small children out of the room. ‘But I’d still like to know why.’

Kearney slammed the door shut behind them then returned to the window. Fallon was still talking animatedly to the neighbour. Kearney opened the window and leant out defiantly.

‘You’ll never get me, Fallon!’ he roared.

‘Come down here, you rat!’ demanded the other, ‘or I’ll come up there and fetch you. This tenement has been infected by you for too long.’

Fallon was about to head for the door when he heard a maniacal laugh from above. Looking up, he saw that Kearney was clambering out of the window. The chimney sweep had decided that the one way to escape death at Fallon’s hands was to kill himself. With a cry of triumph, he flung himself into the air and hurtled down from the top floor of the tenement, hitting the paved surface of the court with a bone-crunching thud that brought an instant crowd. Within seconds, the broken body was an island in a sea of blood.

Cheated out of his revenge, Fallon went over and spat on the corpse.

Peter Skillen stayed well behind him. As he entered Hyde Park, David Beyton followed the prescribed route at the gentle pace Peter had recommended. The clerk was soon walking past the scores of other people enjoying a stroll in the afternoon sun. There were some trees ahead and – having reconnoitred the park earlier – Peter had told his wife to loiter there. Accompanied by their servant, Charlotte would be largely concealed from view yet would be able to see clearly the path that the clerk was taking. Once he was mingling with the crowd, Peter was able to lengthen his stride so that he could get closer to Beyton.

He was no more than thirty yards away when the exchange took place. It happened so quickly that it would have been easy to miss
the incident altogether. A young woman seemed to bump into Beyton. After she’d said something to him, she walked swiftly away. Peter knew at once that she’d taken the ransom money. The woman cut across the grass and went past a knot of people. When she came out the other side, Peter was waiting to intercept her.

‘Excuse me,’ he said, blocking her path. ‘I’d like a word.’

‘What do you want of me?’ she asked in surprise.

‘The first thing you can do is to return the money you just took from Mr Beyton. After that, you can tell me your name and that of your accomplice.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, sir. I have no accomplice.’

‘Do you deny that you took charge of a purse?’

‘No, I don’t.’

He extended a palm. ‘Then hand it over.’

‘I don’t have it any more, sir.’

‘Where is it?’

‘I gave it to the lady who asked me to take it from her brother,’ explained the woman. ‘That’s all I did. I have no idea what was in the purse. I simply passed it on to the lady as she requested.’

‘Which lady?’

‘She didn’t tell me her name.’

Peter was livid. He’d been duped. Patently, the woman in front of him was not one of the kidnappers. She’d been told a plausible tale and had agreed to take a purse from a man who was walking towards her. Unseen by Peter, she’d slipped it to one of the people he was really after. Though she’d taken part unwittingly in a criminal act, he could not blame her. After apologising, he sent her on her way.

David Beyton came panting up to him in despair.

‘Why did you let her go?’

‘She was not the woman we’re after, Mr Beyton.’

‘But she took the money from me.’

‘That’s all she was paid to do. She was an intermediary who passed on the purse to the woman who actually hired her.’

‘So where is the money now?’ wailed the other.

Peter shrugged an apology. ‘I don’t know.’

‘I thought that you were going to arrest someone.’

‘So did I.’

‘Instead of that, I’ve lost all that money and have no guarantee that they’ll stick to their side of the bargain. What’s going to happen now?’

‘In my opinion,’ said Peter, ‘there may be grave repercussions.’

When they got back to the house, they counted out the money and found that it was the correct amount but that didn’t soften Diamond’s annoyance.

‘He disobeyed his orders.’

‘I had a feeling that he might do so,’ said Jane Holdstock. ‘I hoped that we’d frightened him enough but I was mistaken. What exactly happened?’

‘As soon as that woman had given you the purse, a man came out of the crowd and accosted her. He was clearly there in support of Beyton. Had you taken the purse on your own, you’d have been arrested.’

‘It’s just as well that you were there.’

‘I saw everything from my hiding place among the trees.’

‘Mr Beyton is very foolish.’

‘Agreed,’ he said, ‘but he’s a clever fool. If we hadn’t been careful, one of us could now be cooling our heels behind bars. He hired someone to follow him and you almost got caught.’

‘What would you have done in that instance?’

He drew a pistol from his belt. ‘I’d have used this.’

‘Be careful, Vincent.’

‘I’ll kill anyone who gets in our way,’ he asserted. ‘That includes Beyton or anyone else he’s stupid enough to bring along. We’ve come too far to worry about the occasional death.’

‘What do you think we should do?’

‘We should make Beyton
suffer
for trying to trick us. I’d really like to send his wife an account of how he and Mrs Horner spent their time together but that can wait. Now that we’ve had one ransom from him, we should ask for another and bleed him dry. It’s the least that he deserves.’

‘How long are we going to keep her locked up?’

‘She’s not going anywhere until we’re ready, Jane.’

‘I’m beginning to feel sorry for her,’ she confessed.

‘Then you ought to remember the way she pushed you aside and locked you in the cellar. If I hadn’t heard the noise of the door slamming, she might have got away completely. Think what would have happened then.’

‘All our plans would have been in shreds.’

‘Mrs Horner stays where she is.’

‘What about her meals?’

‘Reduce the portions even more,’ he decreed. ‘If she complains, tell her that it’s all Beyton’s fault. That will give her something to think about.’

Tom O’Gara and Moses Dagg were enjoying a meal on the ship. Since he was due to fight that evening, Dagg took care to eat sparingly. He knew that he had both the skill and the punch to defeat his opponent but he also realised that it would have to be
early on in the bout. Even on their brief acquaintance, he’d seen that Donkey Johnson was a powerful man. If the fight dragged on, it would become a test of endurance and Johnson might wear him down. Dagg resolved that he wouldn’t let that happen. It would lose Dermot Fallon a lot of money and leave Dagg himself in a battered condition. Remaining at liberty depended on his being able to move quickly and defend himself against arrest.

They were in the captain’s cabin when a stone hit the window and caused it to crack even more. It was the signal that Dermot Fallon had returned. They went up on deck and lowered the gangplank to let him and his dog aboard then drew it up again.

‘What happened?’ asked O’Gara. ‘Did you see Kearney?’

‘Were you able to strangle the rogue?’ added Dagg.

‘No,’ said Fallon, sulkily.

‘Don’t tell me that he escaped.’

‘There was no chance of that, Moses. It would be easier to escape from Dartmoor than from the tenement.
Everybody
was on guard.’

‘So why didn’t you kill him?’

‘I was too late. Kearney jumped out of his window and landed dead at my feet. He made a terrible mess on the paving.’

‘I don’t like the sound of that,’ said O’Gara.

‘Some of the blood went over me,’ complained Fallon, showing the specks on his sleeve and trousers. ‘I wanted to make him die slowly. He chose a quicker way.’

‘I’m worried, Dermot. A suicide will be investigated. That might bring the Runners back to the tenement. Someone may say something out of turn.’

‘They won’t do that, Tom. Besides, what can they say? Nobody knows that we’re here, not even Mary. It’s only a question of time before it’s safe for me to move back in with my family.’

‘I’ve got a family back in New York,’ said Dagg, nostalgically. ‘Tom has got a child or two along the east coast. He believes in spreading his love about.’

O’Gara grinned. ‘I can’t help it if women like me.’

‘If their husbands ever catch up with you, expect a lot of trouble.’

‘That’s the beauty of being in the navy, Moses. You can take your pleasure where you find it then sail away before their husbands catch up with you.’ He glanced at his cousin. ‘Is everything ready for tonight?’

‘Yes,’ said Fallon, ‘the place will be packed.’

‘There you are, Moses. You’ve achieved fame as the Black Assassin.’

‘I don’t want to be remembered as the man who beat Donkey Johnson,’ said Dagg, bitterly. ‘If our demands are not met by the Home Office, I want to be known as the black assassin of Viscount Sidmouth.’