Hugh Kenrick (41 page)
Authors: Edward Cline
“I wish to speak with Baron Hugh Kenrick,” commanded the Marquis.
“Who is calling?” asked the servant.
“A friend.” Brice Blissom paused, then added, “The Marquis of Bilbury. He is expecting me. See to it.”
“Oh.” The servant looked apologetic, and bowed once. “Excuse me, milord, but I regret to inform you that milord Danvers is not at home.”
“Where is he?” asked Brice Blissom, struggling to keep the anger and impatience out of his words.
“He has gone home, milord, to Danvers, of course. He left several days ago, and will not return until late next month.”
“Damn you, you cretin! Why didn’t you tell me that in the beginning!” The young marquis raised a gloved hand and slapped the servant hard across the face. “I ought to have you flogged for your impertinence!”
The servant’s eyes narrowed. “My lord Kenrick is not at home, milord, and good night to you.” He closed the door and turned the latch.
“You’ll be taught manners by me, you ape!” Brice Blissom struck the door with a fist once, then kicked it once. With a last pounding on the door, he turned and went back down the steps, his mind a furiously boiling cauldron of malice for anything that stood in his way. It was intolerable! After
all his planning, all the money spent! His thoughts flailed about for a solution. Would the prisoners give their names to the Secretary? Could they name Hugh Kenrick? No, they would not. Could not, if that foolish hack Horlick was right about the stupid rules of the club. He said that none of them knew the others’ names.
Well, he could fix that! He would go to his cousin and name Hugh Kenrick! But would Kenrick deny membership in the Society? Yes, he could, thought Brice Blissom, but he could be identified by the prisoners, and so much for that lie! But—would he lie? No, thought the Marquis, he would not! His fool sense of honor would drive him to protect his friends! Yes! That was the solution! Name Hugh Kenrick to the Crown, and watch him squirm!
“You will bend, Hugh Kenrick!” shouted the Marquis to the empty sky and the walls of the courtyard. “Your own honor will break your neck, and I’ll be there to watch you grovel and swing from a rope!”
Halfway across the courtyard, he stopped. A man stood in his path, his silhouette blocking out the lantern lights of the phaeton beyond the gates. Before he could say anything, the man struck a match and held it up. “Who are you?” asked the stranger. “Oh, it is you again!”
Brice Blissom squinted in the flaring matchlight. He recognized the Negro called Muir. “You!” he growled.
“What do you want with my friend, Hugh Kenrick?” asked Glorious Swain.
“I am the Marquis of Bilbury,” spat Brice Blissom, “and your friend will hang with the rest of his friends for treason! As will you!”
“He will not hang, neither will the others, nor will I,” said Swain calmly. “Are you responsible for their arrests?”
“I am,” proclaimed the young marquis. He reached into his coat and drew out his pistol. He twisted the barrel and pointed it at Swain’s chest. “I came here to make a citizen’s arrest! You are arrested!”
Swain’s match died and he dropped it. “Is this a new form of ambushing men in dark alleys, sir? The dark alleys of law? Of hanging them by their heels?”
“Yes!” laughed the Marquis, “and the law permits it! I will kill you now, and claim that you resisted! I will be exonerated!” Then he sniffed. “Unfortunately, it will be called manslaughter, for you are not a man, blackamoor!”
Glorious Swain did not reply. In an instant he knocked the pistol aside
and punched the Marquis in the face. Brice Blissom fell backward, lost his balance, and crashed to the flagstones. The pistol flew from his hand as he tried to break his fall.
Swain jumped to pick up the pistol. He cocked it and waited for the Marquis to make the next move, holding the weapon level before him.
The Marquis thrust his hand out in the dark for the pistol, and not finding it, jumped to his feet and drew his sword. With an animal yell of rage, he raised the blade to strike.
Glorious Swain pressed the trigger. The pistol flashed, bucking in his hand, and the young marquis gasped, his other gloved hand jerking up to cover his heart. With another horrible gasp for air, followed by a guttural, unintelligible curse, Brice Blissom lunged at Swain, his sword arm sweeping down at Swain’s head. Swain stepped aside, and the young marquis collapsed on the flagstones. The silver buckles on his shoes scraped the stone briefly in what Swain knew was his death throes.
A dog barked from somewhere. Swain saw the coachman alight from his perch and cautiously peer into the courtyard. Swain glanced at the dark, still figure at his feet, thinking fast. He dropped the pistol, stooped over the body, and turned it over on its back, then unbuckled the sword belt. The front door of the Earl’s house opened, and a servant with a lantern appeared. “What’s going on out there?” A lantern light flicked on in the adjacent stable and began to move in Swain’s direction.
Swain jerked the sword from the Marquis’ hand and sheathed it in its scabbard. It would look like a mere robbery. He quickly searched the dead man’s body and found a purse. It was heavy with crowns and guineas. Swain allowed himself a smile; the money could be used to meet his friends’ legal expenses. That would be justice! he thought. He rose and ran past the approaching coachman, out the gate, and around the corner in the direction of Charing Cross.
The London Evening Auditor
, and other newspapers, the next day reported the murder of Brice Blissom, son of Guthlac Blissom, Marquis of Bilbury, in the courtyard of the residence of the Earl of Danvers. “A sword and possibly a purse of coin were taken in the robbery,” said the
Auditor,
“and, as with so many other victims of crime in the metropolis, the young marquis erred by resisting his assailant. His presence at Windridge Court remains inexplicable, as he had never called there before, and was not known to be a companion of the young Baron of Danvers, after whom he had enquired. Mr. Horace Dolman, the Earl’s steward, advanced the
opinion that the young marquis was in an agitated state, and had been rude to him. Mr. John Tucker, the late marquis’ coachman, was unable to offer an explanation for his employer’s presence or behavior, except to say the Lord Blissom had wished to go for a drive in the evening for air. The assailant passed Mr. Tucker in the courtyard, but darkness prevented him from seeing much of the culprit.”
The
Auditor
and other papers also reported the arrest of five men, on the same evening, “members of a club known as the Society of the Pippin, in connection with the recent appearance in public places of abusive and contumelious posters that proclaimed atheism and impugned the character of His Majesty and his grandson, the Prince of Wales. Their names were not given.”
William Horlick, when he read in the papers of both his patron’s murder and the arrest of his former colleagues, that very evening got roaring drunk, beat up his nagging wife, and went on a tour of taverns in his neighborhood. The next morning, when he was sober, he beat his wife again, and left his garret to call on the home of the Marquis of Bilbury. When he was admitted past the black crepe-bedecked door, he waited in an antechamber with other callers, in order to offer his condolences and suggest that he compose a eulogy for the Marquis’ late son, to be published in some newspaper. The elder Marquis, touched by the offer, agreed to the idea, provided he could edit it. William Horlick smiled and conceded the privilege.
Glorious Swain made discreet enquiries about the fate of the Society of the Pippin. He learned only that Hugh Kenrick’s name had not been mentioned in the general warrants, and that his friends had not been granted bail or the comfort of visitors. He remained ignorant of the posters—except for their mention in the newspapers—ignorant of the charges, ignorant of William Horlick’s betrayal. In fact, he was ignorant of William Horlick. Mathius, he supposed, also just missed being arrested with the others, and had fled. He did not see him being led out of the Fruit Wench with the others.
Swain toyed with the idea of writing Hugh in Danvers and apprising him of the events, but stayed his hand. He suspected what Hugh’s response would be, and he saw no reason why his friend should share the others’ fate. He felt no more remorse over having killed Brice Blissom. That man had somehow learned of Hugh’s connection with the Society, and that knowledge had died with the malefactor. He had watched Windridge Court
for signs of official visits, but saw none. He picked up several pounds of contraband tea, and called on both Windridge Court and the Pumphrett residence next door on the pretext of selling some to the servants, but the staffs had nothing out of the ordinary to gossip about but the young marquis’ murder.
Glorious Swain felt torn between wanting to help his friends, and hoping that whatever happened to them now, would happen before Hugh returned from Danvers. Trying to help his friends, he realized, would be suicide. And, he hoped that whatever happened to his Pippin friends would be beyond Hugh Kenrick’s capacity to correct.
* * *
The Kenrick household received news of the young marquis’ murder in their courtyard long before subscribed London newspapers reached Danvers. Friends, relatives, and even peers of the Earl’s acquaintance all wrote the Kenricks about the incident. Benjamin Worley wrote the Baron about it, and sent with his letter several clippings from the
London Gazette
and the
Whitehall Evening Post
of items related to the murder, including one of an advertisement placed in many papers by the grieving Marquis of Bilbury offering a reward of five hundred marks for the person, public or private, who apprehended his son’s murderer, or gave information that led to his apprehension. Horace Dolman, the steward, also wrote to the Kenricks, giving his first-hand account of the Marquis’ visit, and crediting himself with having chased off the murderer before he could relieve his victim of his shoes, hat, and peruke.
The Kenrick family that month was too happy and busy to read newspapers, though Garnet Kenrick did show Hugh the clippings sent by Worley and others. Hugh had little to say on the matter, except to wonder why the late Mohock had been on the family grounds. His father said, “Your uncle is writing a letter of condolence to Bilbury, and would like us all to sign it, even Alice.” He paused. “Will you oblige him?”
Hugh had shrugged. “Yes. It will cost me nothing.”
Garnet Kenrick breathed a sigh of relief, and turned back to the matter of planning an excursion that Hugh wished to take with Roger Tallmadge along the Dorset coast the next week.
Basil Kenrick read the newspapers. Although he was faintly amused by the death of the young marquis, he had nothing to say on the subject.
T
HE MACHINERY OF JUSTICE, ONCE SET IN MOTION, MOVED WITHOUT THE
man who had pushed it. It made no difference whether Brice Blissom was alive to see it function, or dead. Other than a tantalizing allusion to the complicity of the nephew of a peer, the late Marquis had not confided in his distant cousin and his colleague his true motive for bringing suit against the “Pippins,” as officers, jurists, and legal functionaries began to refer to the imprisoned members. The informations had been filed, the suit begun, the warrant executed, and the suspects detained. The process advanced inexorably to a conclusion, just as the spark from the flint of Glorious Swain’s pistol had ignited the powder in the pan to create an explosion that propelled a lead ball through the Marquis’ heart.
Glorious Swain, a man of intellect moved by some Quaker principles of pacifism, did not have murder on his mind when he stepped into the Marquis’ path in the dark courtyard. His purpose was to learn, and to stop a man from harming a valued friend, he knew not how. This man had tried to kill him, and he killed the man instead.
The laws of England of the period and the machinery for enforcing them were not so skewed that he, a commoner and a black man of dubious liberty, would have had no chance of acquittal on a finding of self-defence. What would have certainly condemned him was the reason he had had to defend himself; this was, in essence, his opposition to the prosecution of a law enforced by the same legal code and the same machinery, which punished those who voiced an idea that seemed to jeopardize a smugly corrupt political establishment. A distinction existed between English jurisprudence and English politics, and also a schism. English jurisprudence triumphed in the next century, reforming politics, endorsing free trade, and abolishing slavery. As for the latter evil, already many Englishmen had set their sights on its eradication. The schism and the victory would make England great, and virtually unrecognizable to even the most radical of the eighteenth century’s freethinkers.
The Marquis of Bilbury did not think that his son’s murder was in any way connected with the suit his son had only a few days before filed against some stray political club. The idea did not occur to him at all. Nor did the suspicion occur to either the junior attorney-general or the junior solicitor-general;
nor to anyone else in the legal machinery. Political assassination was then an unimaginable phenomenon, even to an inmate of Bedlam Hospital and the most alienated manqué. It would not manifest itself until later in the century.
The junior attorney-general and the junior solicitor-general proceeded with the late Marquis’ case on the assumption that the son had been acting on behalf of the father. They did not bother to query the grieving father on this point; that would have seemed churlish, or trite. Thus, action seemed imperative, and caused them to discover just how swiftly and efficiently the machinery could work. They had begun an action, and were legally bound to complete it, but that was another matter.
Near the King’s Bench and Inns of Court, the Strand changed to Fleet Street. Elspeth ran his bookshop at this point, and lived with his wife and children in rooms above it. The under-sheriff was merciful, and, upon Elspeth’s request, stopped the procession long enough to allow him to enter the shop with a constable and inform his speechless wife of his predicament.
The wife, the next day, called on a solicitor of her husband’s acquaintance, a man for whom Elspeth had found some rare books on Salic law, and engaged his services in her husband’s and his friends’ names. The solicitor, however, could not act until he was permitted to see his clients, and this was not possible until they had been interviewed by the Secretary of State or his proxies; he could not act, in any event, until he learned the nature of the charges levied against his clients, and this was not yet determined.
The five men spent a miserable two nights and a day in the Fleet Prison, immersed in a world of murderers, extortionists, pickpockets, petty thieves, prostitutes, and other raw recidivists. They were kept in a cell apart from the other prisoners, many of whom had the freedom of the place. Tobius, once he had seen the inedible slop served to prisoners, pawned his gold watch to the jailer for food and ale for himself and his colleagues. They fell asleep on mats of straw in the dank, noisy, vermin-infested place, and awoke to find most of the money in their pockets gone, together with their pipe cases and tobacco pouches. They did not wonder how this could have happened to men segregated in a locked cell; the jailers and many of the criminals set the terms of incarceration and ran the place as a personal enterprise.
It was a filthy, sallow-faced group of men who were finally taken to the
King’s Bench Office and led by a bailiff and his deputies into the junior attorney-general’s sanctum. They stood before a desk in the cramped room, their handcuffs linked together by a chain, and were questioned by Sir Miles Goostrey, the under-secretary of state. The junior attorney-general and junior solicitor-general sat in chairs at the sides of the desk.
Goostrey asked, “What are your names, please?”
“With what are we being charged?” countered Tobius.
Goostrey glanced at his colleagues, then said, “Libel, blasphemy, and possibly…treason.”
“On what evidence?”
Goostrey held up a poster for the prisoners to see. “Do you recognize this?”
The chained men shook their heads.
“Do you recognize the work of the printer?” asked the under-secretary.
Again the men shook their heads. Elspeth asked, “No, sir, we do not. And there is no printer’s name at the bottom. That’s a violation of regulation.”
“Agreed,” said Goostrey with a smile. “And, this?” He produced the ledger of meeting minutes and held it up.
The prisoners gasped as one. “Why, those are our minutes!” exclaimed Steven.
“How did you come by them?” demanded Claude.
“They must have been stolen from Mathius!” said Abraham.
And then it dawned on the five men the possibility that they had been betrayed.
“This constitutes an invasion of privacy and the liberty of association!” said Elspeth.
“Those points can be argued later,” replied Goostrey with a sigh. “Will you now surrender your names, together with your club names?”
A single thought occurred to all five men: If they continued to refuse to give their names, their refusal would lend credence to the charges, especially to the one of conspiring to commit treason. They looked at one another and knew what the other was thinking. Tobius nodded. A clerk was called in to take down the information. Each man gave his name, club name, place of birth, parish of residence, profession, and address.
When they were finished, the officials witnessed a strange thing. The prisoners greeted each other and shook hands as if they were meeting each other for the first time.
“Well, sir! It’s a pleasure to meet you at last!”
“You were born in St. Giles? What a coincidence! So was I!”
“you’re a Jew?”
“Yes. What of it?”
“I merely wanted to say that you must have read the Talmud, it accounts for the rigorous precision of your mind.”
“I hated reading Talmud, and have done my earnest best to forget it.”
“I say, Brompton, my son would like to learn the violin. Could you give him lessons?”
“Of course. But, has he an ear?”
“How are things in the Old Sod, sir?”
“I wouldn’t know, sir. Dull as deuces, as usual, I should say.”
“Gentlemen!” barked Goostrey.
The prisoners broke off their greetings and turned with surprise to face the under-secretary of state. “Now, who are Mathius, Muir, and Miltiades, if you please?”
Sweeney shook his head. “You misconstrue our Society, sir.” He chuckled. “Until now, we did not know each other.”
“And so we do not know who owns those names,” added Mendoza.
“Well, then…what are the descriptions of these persons?”
The prisoners consulted each other in silence. They were tempted to give a description of Mathius, but they had no proof that he had actually betrayed them. Meservy drew himself up and said, “We will not give those to you, sir.”
The junior attorney-general, like his colleagues, was baffled by the rules of the Society. “Is this true?” he asked, “that, until now, you did not know each other’s names, or anything else about each other?”
“That is true, sir,” said Brompton.
“We must know who is attached to those other silly names,” said the junior solicitor-general.
Sweeney snorted at the man’s contempt. “We, too, are curious to know, sir, but will give you no information about their owners. Silly man!”
“We will not endanger their liberty,” added Mendoza.
Goostrey grimaced. He studied the prisoners for a moment, then shook his head. “It is not one of you—that is obvious—but our information is that one of your absent colleagues, attached to one of these aliases, is a member of the nobility. Were you aware of that?”
Each of the prisoners knew who that must be. Each knew that the
newest member of the Society was a scion of aristocracy. Who he was, they did not know. But it had always been quite obvious to them, too.
“We have never entertained his identity,” said Brashears.
“It was the pedigree of his mind that dazzled us,” said Meservy, “not his title or origins.”
“He will be of more danger to you,” warned Sweeney, “when he learns of our present circumstance, than you could ever imagine us to be.”
“Hmmm…” Goostrey gestured once with his hands, and glanced at his colleagues. “Very well, sirs. Here it is, then. This”—he picked up the poster again—“was composed directly from this”—he slapped a hand on the cover of the ledger—“and a careful review of these documents has led us to conclude that the statements in them resemble nothing heretofore produced in all the licentious literature this country permits to be published. The statements in either document are unique and selcouth. You have admitted the collective authorship of the minutes. Therefore, you may be charged with libel and blasphemy, or some form or degree of those crimes, and possibly with conspiracy to commit treason. Seditious libel may also be construed by a court.” The under-secretary paused. “A barrister must be selected for your defense. That is all. Bailiff, kindly remove the prisoners to King’s Bench Prison to await arraignment.”
“You cannot arraign a man without an indictment, sir,” said Brashears.
“Do not tell me my business, sir,” replied Goostrey.
“I will, sir, if you don’t know it!”
“Your examination is completed,” said the junior attorney-general abruptly. The prisoners were marched out of the office.
There was no peer, nor even the nephew of one, among the five prisoners, concluded the three officials. They reasoned that if there was one, he would have made himself heard by now; or perhaps he had decided to disassociate himself from the prisoners. Further, none of the prisoners was a member of Parliament, and so there would be no complications of privilege that could bog down the proceedings. They decided not to search too hard for the identities of the persons attached to the three remaining club names. The Crown side of the matter, it was seen, was shaping up very well. The junior solicitor-general scoffed, “How could that fellow doubt the likelihood of an arraignment? Why, a jury of weavers could not help but find for libel, unassisted by the prosecution.”
Brashears’ solicitor was waiting for the prisoners when they emerged from the King’s Bench Office to board another dray. The bookseller had
only enough time, before he was lifted bodily onto the wagon by two bailiffs, to tell the man what were the charges and the names of the lawyers to see. As the dray jerked forward, Brashears yelled back, “And be sure to learn the name of the party who gave the evidence!”
The solicitor stood for a moment, thinking. He strode inside the building, and, hours later, his purse lighter from fees and bribes, walked out with a copy of the general warrants, a copy of the order remanding the prisoners to the custody of the Secretary of State, a copy of the order sending the prisoners to the King’s Bench Prison in Southwark—and with the knowledge of who had given the evidence to the Crown. He saw the sworn declaration, witnessed by the junior attorney-general. But he was not able to secure a copy of it.
It was late in the afternoon. He rushed to the nearby office of a barrister acquaintance who was a serjeant-at-law at the Court of Common Pleas. He explained the matter to him, and asked him to accompany him to that court to obtain a writ of habeas corpus, which would force the Crown to specify its charges and allow some bail to be set, and perhaps even to surrender the case to that court. This the barrister agreed to do, for costs and a gratuity. They rode a hackney together to Westminster Hall.
After making inquiries in the bustling hall, and paying the usher, the clerks, and the recorders, the serjeant-at-law was able to persuade a magistrate fresh from dinner at the Purgatory Inn nearby—both verbally and for the cost of his meal—to listen to his arguments and review the solicitor’s documents.
The magistrate, Sir Oswald Huggens, listened keenly and read the documents carefully, alternating between using a fan to cool his face and flicking a horsetail swatter at a bothersome fly. He did not seem to hear the noises of the tradesmen’s counters on either side of partitioned venue, nor the racket of workmen refurbishing the dilapidated accommodations of the Court of the King’s Bench at the far end of the Hall.
At last, he looked dolefully down at the serjeant-at-law and his client. “This is an unfortunate turn of events for your client, my brother Simon. The evidence in possession of the Crown seems quite damning, though that needn’t be so disheartening. However, the name you give of the party who filed the suit—taken on oath—together with his evidence, leads me to believe that the Crown is intent on proving a most evil deed or what it regards as such. The Crown seems to have attended to every detail.” He paused to study the up-turned frowns below. “I am not saying I lack sympathy
for your client’s cause, brother Simon, but even were I willing to rule that a jury be called here to indict or no, the King’s Bench, because of its apparent special interest in the matter, would likely invalidate my writ. Or, barring that, issue a writ of mandamus, directing this court to surrender your client to the King’s Bench. Or, that venue might even issue a writ of certiorari, which, as you know, would allow the King’s Bench, in this instance, to absorb this court. And I am reluctant to see my court so compromised and prostituted. I am very sorry, but I must deny your application for a writ of habeas corpus.”
