Avery & Blake 02 - The Infidel Stain (28 page)

Lady Agnes passed her notebook from hand to hand. ‘Captain Avery, let me ask you this. Have you thus far made any headway in the cases?’

‘We are unpicking many threads. Following them through takes time.’

‘I must tell you that if it were up to me I would withdraw my support from this inquiry altogether, and I intend to tell my brother this. And not merely because of Sir Richard’s request. My brother should be bringing the gospel to the poor and needy, not associating himself with undeserving rogues and sinners.’

‘This you have already made plain. But it is not up to you, madam,’ I said, bringing myself under control. ‘And I humbly beg, may I please have just a few minutes with Lord Allington on a completely different matter?’

‘You may not. And may I point out, Mr Blake’s absence hardly speaks well of him. Nor is your vagueness as to his whereabouts a recommendation.’

‘I presume you to be a just woman, Lady Agnes. Would you judge and condemn a man in his absence?’

She pursed her lips and beat her notebook against the palm of her hand.

‘He is sick, madam,’ I said. ‘A fever from the old days in India. It comes upon him; it cannot be predicted.’

‘I see. If he is ill it is not unreasonable that you should both pause in your efforts until His Lordship is able to give this matter his full attention. In the meantime, Mr Threlfall will calculate what we owe you for your labours.’

‘But, Lady Agnes—’

She had turned on her heel and was out of the room. Threlfall followed, daring me to try again.

Glumly, I pulled on my gloves and prepared myself for the street. Out in the grey hallway, however, Lady Agnes was mounting the staircase at speed, and from the upper reaches of the house there issued a series of desperate cries. Without a thought and before Threlfall had understood what I was at, I was already at the top of the first flight.

A footman and a maid were peering anxiously around a doorway. As Lady Agnes arrived, they parted for her.

‘Frederick! If you please!’ she said, her voice anxious. A footman followed her into the room. Through the doorway I saw Lord Allington. He was sitting on a dining-chair wearing only a long white nightshirt, his eyes shut, his face pulled into a grimace of dreadful distress.

‘He said that he could not bear having the door closed upon him, ma’am,’ the maid said fearfully. ‘He asked that it be left open. It did not seem so large a thing. But Frederick said—’

‘When he has one of these days, the door is locked. It is for his own well-being,’ said Lady Agnes.

Lord Allington sagged in his chair. He opened his blue eyes, yet he seemed oblivious to the scene around him. He was a picture of inner pain and wretchedness. Lady Agnes stretched out her arms to embrace her brother, but he leant away from her, and at this her face fell.

I walked through the door towards Lord Allington, past the maid and footman, ignoring Lady Agnes’s sharp angry breath. I knelt by him.

‘Captain Avery,’ he said. He spoke slowly, in a dull monotone. He looked me in the eye but he hardly seemed to see me. ‘Do you have more terrible things to tell me? I promise you, they cannot be worse than the abyss of darkness of my own imaginings.’

‘No, Your Lordship, I will not burden you. Will you tell me what ails you?’

A long silence.

‘Captain Avery, I must ask you to leave,’ Lady Agnes said firmly. ‘It was your presence – you and Mr Blake – which cast him down last time.’

His Lordship roused himself. ‘He recedes from me and I am left in the dark. A small, small place, and the door is locked. I cry out but he will not come and let me out. I am so filled with fear I cannot move.’

‘There now, my dear, he is not here,’ said his sister. ‘He will never frighten us again. He cannot. We are safe now, you and I. You will never be alone now, I will always be with you. Captain Avery, please leave.’

I cannot tell why, but I knew with absolute certainty that he spoke of his father. I understood those fears.

‘Your Lordship, look about you. The light comes in through the window. There are no dark corners here. The day is young. You need not despair. You do so much good, in yourself and by example.’

Allington shook his head and gazed sadly into the distance. ‘I can see nothing to steer by. It all disintegrates. I see the world fall apart. I am found wanting and I fail. I despair. And despair is a mortal sin.’

‘
Captain Avery
,’ said Lady Agnes. She took hold of my shoulder. As politely as I could, which I admit was not very, I shrugged her off.

‘Your Lordship, we do the most good with many small acts, not single grand gestures. You told me that. I come to ask your help with a small thing. Two children in desperate need, whose fate you can change. It is such a small thing for you, but for them there is no one else.’

He took a long time to answer. Then he said, ‘I am used up, Captain Avery, I have not the strength nor the resolution to help anyone. Not even myself.’

‘Let me tell you of them,’ I said. I began to describe Matty as persuasively as I could – leaving out the matter of the thirty silver half-crowns – and then Pen’s situation and the sentence of transportation, observing that even were the boy guilty, the threatened punishment seemed to far outweigh the seriousness of the crime. I said that they needed a champion.

As I spoke, I fancied the dullness in his eyes cleared, just a little.

‘They need you, Lord Allington,’ I said again. ‘There is no one else who can rival your knowledge and experience of these matters. You can bring attention to this injustice. I shall be at Coldbath Fields tomorrow at two. I would take it as a great honour if you would meet me there.’

I was eventually bundled out of the house by Threlfall, two footmen and Lady Agnes, who charged me to swear on my life that I would mention nothing of what I had seen. I gave my oath freely, in my head exempting Blake from my assurances.

I returned to the Oriental, but realized I was in no mood to converse lightly on the races, court gossip and claret. So I excused myself from the dinner to which I had been invited by a wealthy former Company civilian, and – cold and damp, cursing the filthy London streets and wishing once again for my gaiters – returned to Blake’s lodgings, the gorgon landlady complaining bitterly as she let me in and I mounted the stairs.

I knocked gently on Blake’s door and when there was no answer tried the handle, which opened at once.

Blake lay prone on the settle, pale, eyes shut, and for a terrible moment I thought he was dead. I shook him and one swollen eye slowly opened. He pulled himself up, yawning and wincing, until he was almost upright.

‘You didn’t tell Allington?’ he croaked.

‘I could not had I even wanted to. You should not have left the door unlocked,’ I scolded. ‘I could have been anyone.’

‘Don’t be such an old woman.’

I locked the door. ‘How long have you slept?’

The other eye opened. His brow resembled a piece of needlework. He rubbed his ear. ‘What do you mean, you could not have told Allington?’

I described my visit.

‘It seems the world is working very hard to get us off this case.’

‘I do not believe Lady Agnes would dare to dismiss us without consulting His Lordship. And he may yet come to Coldbath Fields
tomorrow.’ But I did not sound confident, even to my own ears. ‘Do you think perhaps he is mad?’

He shrugged. ‘More likely melancholic. It seems these days are not unfamiliar to the household.’

‘He was in torment. I felt deeply sorry for him. And for all her haughtiness, she was no less anguished for him.’

I made a cup of Blake’s fever infusion on his clever little heated trivet, then warmed the last of the broth and fed it to him, as he protested. With considerable difficulty we got him into his bed, and he was unconscious within minutes. I dined off cheese and withered apples, not entirely able to put from my mind the dinner I would have had with my rich civilian. Then I lay down on Blake’s settle.

It was dark and the fire had burnt down when I was roused. It took me a moment to realize that someone was knocking quietly but insistently on the door. A voice called impatiently, ‘Mr Blake! Mr Blake! Open the door! Mr Blake!’

I must have been half-asleep, but old habits are hard lost and I staggered up at once and went to the door, noticing my neck ached from the hard edge of the settle. Another sign of my creeping softness.

‘Who is it?’ I hissed.

‘Where’s Mr Blake? I want Mr Blake!’ The voice was both pleading and importunate. I unlocked the door. A small huddling creature in a shapeless coat, swaddled in a large scarf, stood at the top of the stairs. It appeared to be carrying a cane. It pulled the scarf from its head and began to speak quickly.

‘I must speak with Mr Blake. I require sanctuary and he owes me. I told him I would need him, and now I do! You must let me in!’ And he tried to push past me.

‘Mr O’Toole?’ I said, confused. I stood back to admit him and he almost fell in through the door. ‘What time is it? How did you get in?’

‘How the devil should I know?’ he said. ‘Around one o’clock, I suppose. The old woman at the bottom did not bother to lock the door, I just came in. There is a very large bruiser of a man down in the street. Is he usually there?’

Renton O’Toole sidled over to the window and peeked out. There were few gaslights on the street, so little was to be seen. ‘I am being followed, I am sure of it. They are pursuing me,’ he said, and he threw off his shawl somewhat melodramatically. ‘I must take precautions.’

‘What’s going on?’ Blake shouted. I found him clutching his side, unable to manoeuvre himself up from his low bed. I set about getting him to his feet.

‘Good God, man!’ said O’Toole, who had sauntered in. ‘So they have got to you too!’

‘They?’ Blake shook off his befuddlement, edged himself awkwardly into his banyan and shuffled into the living room. His face, it had to be said, looked fairly bad.

‘Why, the Chartists, of course!’

‘The Chartists?’ I said.

‘I do not need an echo, Captain Avery, I require sanctuary,’ O’Toole snapped.

‘In answer to your question, Mr O’Toole,’ said Blake, ‘no, it was not the Chartists who got to me, but I should like to know why you think they might.’

O’Toole looked at if he had been caught out. He covered his confusion by making a great dumbshow of struggling out of his large coat, sinking down on one of the hard chairs by the window, drumming his cane against the side of the table and pointedly looking out on to the street.

‘’Tis nothing. I exaggerate.’

‘We were told you had gone into hiding after Eldred Woundy’s death. Feared for your life even,’ said Blake. He sat gingerly down on the settle, holding his side.

‘Well, in a way,’ said O’Toole, looking over at the window. ‘’Tis some particularly determined pursuers, angry I exposed their vices. A group of gentlemen with an unholy appetite for strapping guardsmen. You can imagine the sort of thing. They plan to do me an injury. The usual, in others words. Just a little more insistent.’ He winked.

Blake rubbed the top of his ear sceptically.

‘If I could just remain here for a few hours,’ O’Toole said, ‘perhaps you might then spirit me out of the city as quickly and quietly as possible.’

‘As you see, Mr Blake is not well,’ I said testily. ‘He cannot “spirit you out of the city” just now.’

Blake said, ‘So you want to leave London on the quiet?’

O’Toole nodded.

‘I don’t have any truck with blackmailers. You will have to make your own way.’

‘Mr Blake!’ O’Toole said fretfully, but at the same time scarcely able to take his eyes from the window. ‘We made an arrangement!’

Blake shrugged.

O’Toole stood up, looked between Blake and me, took a great gulp of air, and said, ‘Well, indeed, the matter is not blackmail exactly.’

‘Perhaps you want spiriting out because you murdered Woundy. Odd that you spent an evening blackening his name, he was found dead the next morning, and then you made such a thing of disappearing.’

‘Really, Mr Blake, I’d never do something so stupidly obvious. In any case, I am entirely against physical violence and I enjoy very good relations with the new police.’

‘Let them protect you then.’

‘Mr Blake!’ wailed O’Toole. ‘I find myself in a quandary, that is to say, I am in an awkward position—’

‘Get to the point, O’Toole. As Captain Avery says, I am not well and my patience is wearing very thin.’

‘Yes,’ said O’Toole and he slumped miserably in his chair.

‘Chartists,’ Blake prompted. O’Toole looked genuinely anguished. ‘Damned if you do, O’Toole, damned if you don’t.’

‘If I say what I know I could end up dead, Mr Blake,’ said O’Toole. ‘I beg you, do not press me.’

‘I cannot help unless you tell me. And I am discreet. That is why you’re here.’

O’Toole scratched his chin with his cane. ‘The London Chartists,’ he began, ‘that is to say, a small group of Chartists … I have reason
to believe that they are planning … that is to say, that something is being planned.’

‘Something?’

‘There’s a conspiracy, a plan, for a rising in London. Or rather a plan for a national rising, in which London rises first and stirs the rest of the country to arms.’

‘And how is it that you come to know this, Mr O’Toole?’

‘Oh, you know, Mr Blake, I hear a lot of things,’ O’Toole said hurriedly, ‘keep my nose to the wind.’

‘Not good enough, O’Toole, I’ve no patience tonight,’ said Blake, and he stood up slowly and presented his back to the man. ‘Put him out, William.’

‘No, no, Mr Blake! Look, I have always been a friend to the radicals – it is all there in my papers. I have done them good turns, sent a bit of useful intelligence their way, humiliated the powerful and privileged. And of course, there’s the fact that many of us share the same homeland …’ At my puzzled expression he added, with a hint of irritation, ‘Being Irish.’

Blake did not turn round. O’Toole squeaked and ran after him.

‘Wait, Mr Blake! The truth is I have come to know some prominent Chartists. You could say I am not so much a court jester as a “people’s” jester.’ He laughed briefly but stopped when we failed to join in.