The Revenge of Captain Paine (7 page)

Pyke closed his eyes and tried to clear his mind, but an image of Cobb’s hunched figure and pleading face remained with him for the rest of the day.

 
There were many different ways to steal from people and many layers to the city’s burgeoning criminal fraternity. At the bottom of the pile were the ferret-eyed pickpockets who trawled the markets, fairs, public houses and crowded pavements for easy marks, and the rampsmen who assaulted people at random with brickbats and cudgels and would kill or maim their victims without any compunction. Then came the mudlarks who scavenged the Thames near the wharves and docks in the East End for items deliberately discarded by their associates who loaded and unloaded the ships. Next were the rushers, who showed up en masse at someone’s front door and forced their way into the home, taking whatever they could and disappearing before the police could be alerted. A little higher up the chain were the receivers and trainers who oversaw gangs of pickpockets from their flash houses and brothels, and the skilled housebreakers who broke into the upper floors of respectable homes and stole cash and jewellery. Near the top of the pile were the so-called cracksmen whose guile and equipment enabled them to break into apparently impregnable safes and strongboxes, and the flash Toms who ran brothels with iron fists and took a cut of all the illegal enterprises on their turf. But right at the top were a handful of figures who presided over a complex network of illicit buyers and sellers and who offered a service that no one else could provide: a way of transforming the proceeds of theft into untraceable notes and coins.

Ned Villums was such a figure, and every Monday afternoon without fail he was ushered up to Pyke’s office, where he would deposit two sacks filled with stolen coins and notes. After they’d talked, Pyke would go downstairs to the vault, withdraw an equivalent sum of money, minus his commission, and return it to Villums.

Pyke had known Villums for a number of years and trusted the man unequivocally. It helped, too, that they both knew what the other was capable of and went out of their way to be fair minded. Pyke had once seen Villums feed a man he’d caught stealing from him to a bear tied up outside his tavern and used for sport.

‘Does anyone else apart from you know about our arrangement?’ Pyke asked him, as he prepared to leave.

That drew a sharp frown. ‘I know the rules as well as you do, Pyke.’ He shook his head, as though irritated he’d been asked the question. ‘Has someone been blabbering?’

‘Not that I know of.’

‘But you suspect someone?’

Pyke shook his head. ‘Not at this end.’

‘But you suspect that someone knows? And you’re fishing to see if one of my lads might have talked?’

Pyke shrugged. ‘Is that a possibility?’

‘No.’>

They exchanged a cold stare. ‘Then there’s nothing to worry about.’

‘Good.’ Villums stood up and pulled his short, double-breasted jacket down over his belly. ‘I’ll show myself out.’

‘Ned?’

Villums turned around at the door. ‘Yeah?’

‘Let’s both try and be even more careful in the future.’

Villums left without saying a word. Pyke wondered whether he had unnecessarily antagonised a man with a history of and propensity for violence.

FIVE

The magistrates’ court at Bow Street was located at the front of a tall, narrow, box-shaped building on the west side of the street, and by the time Pyke had pushed his way through the throng of law clerks, Bow Street Runners and lawyers assembled either on the steps at the front of the building or in the entrance hall and corridors, the hearing was about to start. Formerly the parlour in a private house, the room had long since abandoned any claims to respectability, and now the general air of dreariness, fostered by many years of neglect, had become institutionalised. Pyke knew it well, of course. As a Bow Street Runner, he had proffered testimony on many occasions from the witness stand, and it was the smell of the room, a musty odour of mildew, unwashed clothes, dried sweat and cheap tobacco, which carried him back to an earlier moment in his life. There were still one or two people he recognised from the old days but they either ignored him or refused to meet his stare: back then his reputation meant that few people had been willing to cross him and even fewer had sought him out as a friend or confidant.

Pyke’s uncle, Godfrey, stood alone in the dock, an elevated platform in front of a large mirror with a wooden rail running around it, while the chief magistrate, Sir Henry Bellows, conferred with the man who would be presenting the evidence against Godfrey. The point of the hearing was to determine whether the charges against the accused - in this case, criminal libel and possibly also sedition - merited a trial in a higher court. Once the evidence had been presented by the Crown’s barrister, Godfrey would be allowed to ask questions both about the evidence and the witness statements made against him in the hope of exposing contradictions and lies in the Crown’s case. On the Crown’s part, it was hoped that Godfrey’s testimony might be used against him if the case came to trial.

Wearing a blue, double-breasted Spencer coat with polished brass buttons over a cream embroidered waistcoat and frilly white shirt, his uncle did not look like a common criminal. He greeted Pyke with a hug and took a swig of gin from his flask before casting an eye across the crowded room. ‘A sniff of scandal and the jackals come running. They could have charged on the door and still packed the room three times over.’ He was a tall, broad-shouldered man approaching seventy years old, overweight, with a face as red as a beetroot and a shock of bone-white hair.

Pyke looked at the row of well-fed, smartly attired men sitting alongside Bellows on the bench. ‘Which one is Conroy?’

‘The silver fox with the coiled moustache. The bulldog next to him is his lawyer, Charles Frederick Williams, a King’s bencher no less.’ Godfrey took another swig from his flask and belched. ‘I know this poison will kill me in the end but who would want to live in an age of moral propriety?’ He shook his head with disgust. ‘That’s what I heard someone call it the other day.’

As a much younger man Godfrey had published provocative essays by the likes of Paine and Spence, risking imprisonment to do so, but his political idealism had waned in his middle years and he had found that salacious tales of criminal wrongdoing, sold to the working poor for a penny, were more lucrative than tiresome political pieties. Now in his old age, and with nothing left to lose, Godfrey had again become a thorn in the side of the authorities. A weekly scandal sheet, printed on cheap paper and sold for a penny, exposed the illicit sexual liaisons and misdemeanours of the cream of society, and an unstamped newspaper called the
Scourge
spread a hotchpotch of radical sentiment, though in Pyke’s view it was often difficult to tell the two publications apart. It was also hard to determine which one enraged the authorities more.

One piece in particular had resulted in the charges being brought against Godfrey. Floridly entitled ‘The Lady and the Scamp’, the article had alleged that Sir John Conroy, comptroller of the Duchess of Kent’s household, had been fucking the widowed duchess for some years. It also accused Conroy of procuring large sums of money from the public to line his own pocket and mismanaging the duchess’s affairs to such an extent she would soon have to be declared bankrupt. The piece had caused quite a stir, both because Conroy enjoyed some important political connections and because the allegations necessarily implicated Princess Victoria, the duchess’s sixteen-year-old daughter and heir to the British throne.

It was highly unusual for the evidence at a hearing for a libel case to be presented by a barrister acting for the Crown but, in the light of Conroy’s elevated social status and fears that the claims might damage the young princess, palms had doubtless been greased and an exception had been made. Pyke suspected that the actual reason related not to the piece Godfrey had published about Conroy but rather to the fact that the authorities wanted to close down his publications once and for all.

Libel didn’t carry a custodial sentence but if the damages awarded to Conroy were significant Godfrey could be bankrupted and sent to prison until he found sufficient funds to pay the debt.

‘Once the Crown’s barrister has presented the evidence against you, you’ll have a chance to ask some questions,’ Pyke whispered, across the rail. ‘Call on me and ask what I’ve unearthed about Conroy’s activities.’

‘Good God, my boy, what have you found?’ He grabbed Pyke’s sleeve and looked pleadingly into his face.

‘Just call me and follow my lead.’

But there wasn’t time to explain. From the bench Bellows called the room to order and Pyke stepped back into the crowd.

The chief magistrate was a peculiar-looking man, with a V-shaped streak of ink-black hair that extended almost as far down his forehead as his eyebrows, a pointed, beak-like nose, sunken hooded eyes and teeth that looked as if they’d been sharpened on a knife grinder’s stone. He sat back on the bench, rearranged his grey wig and glanced around the courtroom, not seeing Pyke in the faces amassed before him. This was a good thing as the surprise, when it came, would be far greater. Sir Henry Bellows had always disliked Pyke with a vehemence bordering on mania because he blamed him, rightly or wrongly, for the deaths of his two predecessors, Sir Richard Fox and Brownlow Vines.

To the palpable disappointment of those packed into the courtroom expecting the exchanges to be laced with salacious details, the hearing lasted no more than five minutes. The Crown’s barrister, William Beresford, dismissed the article Godfrey had published as ‘total fabrication’ and called upon Godfrey to produce any evidence that could support his claims. Godfrey asserted that he
did
have a corroborating witness but that he had not been able to contact her for the hearing. This was lampooned by Beresford as another lie and in his summary Bellows ordered that Godfrey return to the courtroom in two weeks to stand trial for libel.

‘If, by that time, you cannot produce this witness, it seems likely you will be found guilty and face the most serious reparations that can be levied against you under the terms of the law.’ Bellows paused for breath. ‘In my opinion, you are a loathsome creature who publishes wilful lies about eminent members of society with the sole intention of causing them shame and embarrassment. The sooner you are locked up, the better it will be for all of us.’ Pushing his spectacles up his nose, he looked at Godfrey and added, ‘Do you have anything else to add?’

‘There was another matter I wished to draw the court’s attention to, Your Honour.’ Imploringly Godfrey looked around the room for Pyke.

‘Yes?’ Bellows said, both curious and irritated.

‘It relates to the activities of the plaintiff, your honour.’

That drew a stern frown. ‘I will not permit you to use this court to further slander an innocent man, sir. Now if there’s no ...’

‘Actually, Your Honour, I’ve employed an investigator to look into the plaintiff’s affairs,’ Godfrey said, thinking on his feet, ‘and his discoveries are, indeed, pertinent to this case.’

‘I’ve already ruled in this matter . . .’

‘But since these discoveries refer to your good self, Sir Henry, I think you should bear them in mind before reaching a decision,’ Pyke called out from the floor.

Everyone turned to face him and an excited ripple of chatter spread throughout the room.

‘Who has the gross impertinence to speak to me from the floor? C’mon. Identify yourself.’ Bellows leaned forward on the bench and surveyed their faces.

Pyke raised his hand and waited for a space to be cleared around him. ‘Last week I followed Sir John Conroy to the Travellers’ Club on Pall Mall where, I believe, he dined as
your
guest, Sir Henry.’

The colour soared in Bellows’s neck as he struggled to contain his embarrassment. The chief magistrate had clearly recognised Pyke, but was too affected by the accusation to formulate a coherent response.

‘Since this lunch with the plaintiff, so close to the date of the hearing, effectively exposes your neutrality as a sham, it would be fair to reach the conclusion that your office has no jurisdiction in this matter.’ Pyke turned to his uncle. ‘Come on, Uncle. Let me take you for a drink.’ Holding out his hand, he helped his visibly shaken uncle down from the dock and whispered, ‘Just put your arm through mine, walk and don’t turn around.’

‘This is absolutely outrageous,’ Bellows yelled from the bench, finding his voice. ‘I will not be addressed in such an unpardonable manner by a guttersnipe.’ He was standing up, his arms gesticulating like those of a police constable trying to control an unruly mob. ‘You are both in contempt of this court and I order your immediate arrest. Officers, take them to the cells and let ’em think about their actions.’

‘Just keep walking,’ Pyke whispered to his uncle, as he strode confidently through the parting crowd.

‘I said, Officers, arrest those men and throw ’em in the cells,’ Bellows shouted, his face scarlet with rage.

As they approached the door, a man called Pierce, a Bow Street Runner from the old days, blocked their path. Perhaps he hadn’t seen who it was and was just acting upon Bellows’s command, but the moment their stares met, Pyke saw the uncertainty creep into the other man’s eyes.

‘Stop that bloody man,’ Bellows spat from the bench, his neck swelling with rage.

Pyke stepped towards Pierce and whispered, ‘We’re leaving now and I don’t want to cause a scene. I’ve nothing against you, Pierce, but if you try to prevent us from leaving this room, we’ll have a problem.’

At first Pyke didn’t think he’d move out of the way but at the last moment Pierce’s resolve crumbled and seconds later they were gulping the air on the pavement outside the building, Bellows’s threats still ringing in their ears.

As they wandered down Bow Street, Pyke could hear his heart hammering against his ribcage and realised his hands were trembling a little. It had been a long time since he had risked official sanction in this manner.