The Darkest Walk of Crime

© Malcolm Archibald
2011

The author asserts
the moral right to be identified

as the author of the
work in accordance with the

Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act, 1988.

All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording
or otherwise, without the prior permission of Fledgling Press Ltd,

7 Lennox St., Edinburgh,
EH4 1QB

Published by
Fledgling Press 2011

www.fledglingpress.co.uk

ISBN: 9781905916313

Lancashire, England:
August 1847

Sir Robert Trafford pulled at
his cheroot and allowed the tip to glow bright red before slowly exhaling blue
smoke above the heads of his companions. They watched him carefully, their
expressionless faces hiding the rapacity of hunting hounds. Eventually one
spoke.

“Are you going to play?”

“I will play when I am ready.”
Sir Robert eyed the pile of money and promissory notes occupying the centre of
the table. He smiled, lifted the glass of brandy that stood at his elbow and
drained it in a single swallow.

Standing at his shoulder, a
slender woman pressed against him as she glanced at his cards. When he ignored
her, she pouted and walked to the fireplace, emphasising the swing of her hips
so the rustle of her dress competed with the low crackle of the fire in an
otherwise hushed room. 

“Play then, damn you!” The
speaker leaned across the table, his face florid with tension and drink.

“As you wish.” Sir Robert
flicked the ash from his cheroot into the fireplace, then placed his cards on
the table, one at a time. Every man in the room counted the numbers. Only the
woman appeared unconcerned. He held the last card for an agonising moment
before displaying it with a sneer.

The woman smiled as the florid
man threw down his hand. The cards splayed across the smooth green baize.

“Damn you! Damn you Trafford!
You’ve ruined me!”

The woman’s laugh mocked him. “You
ruin yourselves, I think, chancing all your possessions on the turn of a card.”
She brushed past each of the four players in turn, stopping opposite Sir
Robert.

He looked up, smoothing a hand
over his unfashionably long hair.

“What is life without adventure?
The fun of the game is being prepared to risk everything, or gain nothing.”
Scooping up the pile of money and documents from the centre of the table, he
lifted his eyebrows. “These are all mine, I believe?” He rose from his seat and
paced the length of the room, stopping only to pour himself another glass of
brandy from the crystal decanter on the sideboard.

“Without adventure, Sir Robert,
there is no life.” The woman did not conceal her interest as she allowed her
hand to momentarily rest on his arm while her eyes roamed slowly from his face
to his feet. 

“Will you at least give us the
chance to win something back?” the florid man asked. He followed Sir Robert to
the sideboard, sloshing brandy into an empty glass.

“No.” He was dismissed with a
shrug. “What can you possibly have that I should want? I already own everything
you ever had.”

The third man looked up and
spoke slowly, “I believe you may be mistaken, Sir Robert. I have something you
desire.”

Sir Robert halted under the
great chandelier so the light played on the glossy mane of his hair. “And what
might that be, Sir Henry?”

“He has me,” the woman said
simply.

“I can have any number of
women,” Sir Robert told her.

“You can have any number of
bobtails, bunters and hell-cats,” the woman corrected his statement, “but not a
high flier like me.”

Sir Henry laughed then, the sound
harsh in the warm room, until Sir Robert fixed him with a venomous stare.

“She has you there, Sir Robert,”
the florid man said. “You’re a ladies’ man of note, but your reputation
precedes you. No lady of
quality
would touch you, by God!”

“Oh, I would do more than touch
him,” the woman said, “but only if he proves himself worthy.”

She stroked his arm with a
gloved hand. Sir Henry smiled while the fourth man, tall, whiskered, and erect
as a guardsman, merely looked bored.

 “Sir Robert has already won
this evening,” he said. “There is no need for him to gamble further.” He looked
over to the woman and smiled coldly. “Besides which, perhaps he is not quite as
willing to risk all as he says he is.”

Sir Robert might have ignored
the challenge, had the florid man not laughed. The sound was short and ugly.

“Not willing?” Sir Robert banged
the decanter down on the polished walnut, his voice a whisper. “By God, I’m
always willing. Make your wager, Sir Henry. What must I chance to gain your
daughter?”

Sir Henry looked at the woman
and smiled. “What should we say, my dear? What are you worth?”

“The question is not what I am
worth, Father, but rather what value does Sir Robert put on his word?” She
swayed over to Sir Robert and leaned against him. “Would you risk everything,
as you said?”

The atmosphere in the room
changed as everybody looked at Sir Robert. While the florid man was openly
triumphant, Sir Henry appeared merely curious, and the whiskered man swirled
brandy around his glass.

“Well, Sir Robert?” The woman
stepped back, smiling. “
I’m
sure that you are man enough to keep your
word,” she hesitated coyly, “but some of these gentlemen are less certain.”

“Damn it!” Sir Robert’s laugh
was explosive. “Shall we have another hand, gentlemen?”

“Let’s make it simpler,” Sir
Henry suggested. “Let us have a straight cut of the cards; if you win, my
daughter is yours. If you lose, I have all your winnings and the value of your
property in hard currency.”

“You drive a hard bargain, Sir
Henry,” Sir Robert said.

“Am I not worth it?” Widening
her eyes, the woman allowed her hand to drift across Sir Robert’s shoulder.

Sir Robert drained and refilled
his glass. “I will have to find out,” he said, handing the cards over to the
tall, whiskered figure of the Duke of Maldon. “The game’s the thing . . .” “The
game’s the thing. Shuffle the cards, Your Grace, and let fate decide.”

They sat around the table, with
the chandelier casting wavering shadows and the woman watching over her
father’s shoulder. The Duke shuffled slowly, building up the tension before he
handed the pack over to Sir Henry.

“I would be obliged, sir, if you
would care to cut first?”

There was a second’s pause as
Sir Henry accepted the cards. “My dear, your future is in my hands.” He winked
at his daughter and cut quickly, placing the top card face down in front of him
before sliding the pack over to Sir Robert.

”And it soon will be in mine.”
Sir Robert divided the cards and selected one.

“Turn over your cards on the
count of three, gentlemen,” His Grace said, and slowly counted. “One  . . .
two  . . .  three.”

The hiss of a piece of coal
shifting in the fireplace was the only sound until Sir Robert flicked over his
card. The hooded eyes of a king stared sightlessly upward as he breathed out
slowly and looked up in triumph.

“King of spades, by God,” he
gloated and extended a hand to the woman. “Come here, my dear. I believe you
are now my property.”

“Not so fast with my daughter,
sir.” Sir Henry paused, still holding his card. He turned it slowly, grunted,
and looked to His Grace. “Well now, there’s a pickle. What the devil do we do
now?”

The card was the king of hearts;
there was no winner.

The Duke decided for them: “You
have both won, so the solution is obvious. Sir Henry gains the value of
Trafford’s property and his previous winnings, and Sir Robert gets Sir Henry’s
daughter.”

“You’ll give me time to raise
the readies, of course?” Sir Robert accepted the decision with equanimity.

“You may have three months,” Sir
Henry told him, rising from the table. “I leave you with my daughter, sir. Good
day to you.” He left the room without a backward glance, followed by the florid
man.

Sir Robert was quiet for a long
moment, and then he looked up at the woman.

“Winning you has impoverished
me,” he said quietly and poured out more brandy. He emptied the glass in a
single swallow and refilled it quickly before making an ironic salute to the
closed door. “I hope you are worth the price, my dear.”

“You’ll find that I am worth
every penny,” she told him evenly. “I have a rich uncle, you see, and he would
hate to see his niece live in penury.”

“Indeed?” Sir Robert passed a
glass toward her as the Duke silently watched.

“Of course, he will require a
favour in return.” The woman took his arm, smiling. “I fear that we must walk a
darker path for a while, Sir Robert.”

London: November 1847

“Ready?” Sergeant Restiaux
blinked the drizzle from his eyes and looked upwards to where drab dawn cracked
open the terrible dark of a London night. ‘Pray to God that we don’t get lost
today, lads.’

“I thought you knew this place
like the back of your hand?” Constable Mendick nodded towards the ugly morass
of the Holy Land, whose foul stenches only enhanced the feral reputation of the
inhabitants.

“As well as any man on this side
of the law,” Restiaux agreed and quickly qualified his statement, “Well enough
to have no desire to linger.” He lifted a black-gloved hand. “Listen.”

Mendick heard the chimes of St
Giles, an oxymoron of hope beside the seething slum that crowded its walls.
Unconsciously, he counted out loud, feeling the familiar hollowness in his
stomach, “Four, five . . .”

Restiaux nodded and slowly
intoned the old words, “Lord, I shall be very busy this day; I may forget thee,
but do not forget me.” He exaggerated his wink. “These are good words to
remember at times like these.” He turned to the silent man who stood at the
back. “What do you think, Foster?”

Foster nodded. “Anything that
helps is worthwhile.”

The only man among them who did
not wear the blue uniform of the police; he straightened his arm and brandished
the blackjack he carried in lieu of a truncheon. The foot-long sausage of
reinforced linen was weighted with sand and tipped with solid lead.

“Now, I’ve chased this man to Manchester
and back, so let’s make sure that he doesn’t escape this time.”

“We’ll do our best.” Restiaux
lifted his head as St Giles clattered its final message. “Seven o’clock. And in we go!”

Raising his voice to a yell, he
rose from the shelter of the scarred brick wall. For a second he was
silhouetted against a candlelit window, his prominent nose verifying the French
ancestry his name suggested, and then he was moving forward, head up, booted
feet splashing through the unthinkable filth on the ground.

The two constables followed,
checking that their long staffs were secure in their pockets and directing the
beam of their bull’s-eye lanterns to illuminate Restiaux’s path. The lights
jinked over walls weeping tears of dirt, passed windows blank with despair and
settled on a repellent door.

“God
knows what depravity
is hiding behind that,” Restiaux muttered. Mendick sighed. Was this what his
life was reduced to? Crawling about in the dark chasing insignificant criminals
through the back slums? Surely all those hours poring over books as he
painfully learned to read and write must have had more purpose.

“Keep the light steady there!”
Constable Williamson slammed himself against the wall beside the door, waiting
for Restiaux to take the lead and Foster, the Scotland Yard detective, to
follow.

Restiaux lifted his foot. “No
point in knocking politely,” he explained, “not in the Holy Land.” He smashed
his massive boot against the bottom panel, which shook but held so he kicked
again, putting his entire weight behind the blow. Candles began to flicker in
the adjoining windows.

“The Holy Land is awakening,”
Mendick warned.

Dogs began to bark, their racket
echoing in the crooked street.

“For Christ’s sake, boot that
bloody door in!” Foster looked around in some apprehension; nobody wanted to
linger in the Holy Ground.