The Devil's Acre (12 page)

‘So, Mr Lowry,’ said Richards, chuckling at the smart cessation of the sermon, ‘I understand that you were present when this little visit was conceived.’

‘I was, Mr Richards.’

The press agent grunted cynically. ‘He does very well indeed, this Mr Kossuth, for such a wretched failure. Forced to abdicate, driven into penniless exile, sent trailing around the globe like a bloody mendicant – yet still hailed as a living saint by the plebeian million wherever he damn well pokes his head up.’ He crossed his arms, leaning back against the sliding door. ‘Really rather depressing, is it not?’

Edward was attempting to refute this assessment when he was interrupted by a loud clatter of hooves over on Ponsonby Street, and the sudden flash of yellow panelling. The Colt barouche, sent to collect Kossuth from his Clerkenwell boarding house some hours earlier, cut swiftly past Lady Wardell’s party and drove across to the bandstand to hearty cheers; on cue, the musicians struck up a brisk version of ‘Hail Columbia’. Colonel Colt strode over to take his place before his men. He turned to Edward and muttered that Mr Kossuth was to be presented with a pair of their finest Hartford Navys if he took to the stand and addressed the factory.

‘If he don’t,’ he added, ‘then to hell with him.’

The secretary nodded, thinking momentarily of his own revolver. Still a little intoxicated by his success in the shooting gallery, he’d carried it home that night feeling more alert and intrepid than he ever had in his life. The usual rowdy crowds occupied the pavements of Long Acre, lounging outside taverns, and spilled from the cheaper theatres on Drury Lane. He did not cross the road to avoid them as he normally would have done but walked straight through the centre of their songs and arguments, almost willing one of the drunken roughs to shove him, to challenge him, so that he could produce the Navy from under his coat and face the scoundrel down. It wasn’t loaded, of course, but how was anyone to know that?

Edward’s very confidence seemed to act as a deterrent, however, and he got back to Holborn without incident. Up in his modest bachelor’s rooms in Red Lion Square, he fell to studying the pistol for the larger part of an hour. He cocked and fired mechanically, like a man winding a clock,
watching the tiny ships engraved on the cylinder jerk around on their endless voyage; experimented with carrying it hidden in various places about his person; took aim at doorknobs, at the oil lamp on his small table, at the black tugboat in the cheap etching of Turner’s
Temeraire
that hung above his fireplace, imagining them being smashed or struck out of shape by his bullets. It was well past two o’clock before he came to his senses, put the gun away in a bureau drawer and fell into his bed.

Lajos Kossuth had an unexpectedly lawyerly look to him, more like a slightly eccentric barrister from Temple Bar than the visionary leader of millions. The years of poverty and exile were starting to show; there were lines upon his broad forehead, streaks of grey in his full, preciously trimmed beard, and his smart, dark clothes, cut in styles over half a decade old, were beginning to fade. He was plainly exhausted, trying to rub some life into his sunken eyes as he opened the carriage door. It had been reported in the press that he’d addressed an enormous meeting of Trades Unions in the East End two days previously, spoken marvellously for well over an hour and received a rapturous response. Privately, Colonel Colt had been supremely unimpressed by this news, being no admirer of workers’ organisations of any kind; but as it had only increased the Hungarian’s fame, and accordingly the attention paid to his visit to the Colt factory, he’d managed to keep his feelings hidden.

American and Briton alike supplied an enthusiastic ovation as the revolutionary climbed down from the barouche. Someone pushed their way to Edward’s side, trying to get a little nearer; he looked around to see Mr Quill the engineer, his arm in a sling, clearly not yet recovered from his beating. Martin Rea, Miss Knox’s brother-in-law, stood close behind him, and gave Edward an almost imperceptible nod of acknowledgement. The bandages were gone, revealing a tough face, fashioned by hardship, squinting out from under a grey canvas cap. His age was difficult to estimate – it could have been anything between twenty and forty. Something about him suggested uncommon intelligence, but it was yoked to an aching weariness. Like the engineer,
his complexion was still blotted with fading bruises, and there was a sickle-shaped scab across his heavy jaw. Of the two, though, Rea was in considerably better condition; Edward noticed that he was watching out for Quill with careful solicitude, making sure that his injured master did not get into any difficulty.

Kossuth had brought a small party of shabby, intellectual types with him to the factory. Edward detected a certain haste about them, as if they were eager to get the tour over and done with. The Colonel crossed the yard, giving Kossuth’s hand a brusque shake, saying a few words and then gesturing towards the bandstand.

His guest shook his head, politely but firmly; he would not speak. ‘You are the people, however,’ he pronounced in a thick Eastern accent, waving vaguely at the crowd of workers. ‘You Americans are the ones – the very ones for making improvements.’

And that was it. They were to hear nothing of the man’s famous, Shakespearean eloquence, or his grand oratorical ability. It wasn’t enough – especially for a largely English gathering that had just been mistakenly praised for its progressive American character. Colonel Colt turned towards them, directing a bristling, goggle-eyed glare at Richards. His meaning was plain. The press agent pulled himself up to his full height, straightened his ageing frock-coat and adjusted his necktie. Then, with an air of absolute self-assurance, he sauntered over to the platform, tipping his top hat to Kossuth as he passed.

The impromptu speech that followed entirely contradicted the snobbish, dismissive attitude Richards had taken just before their revolutionary visitor’s arrival. It was a colourful, sentimental account of Kossuth’s struggles, and a truly consummate piece of rabble-rousing. Delivered with a full range of animated gesticulations, it reduced the efforts of the protesters at the gate – who were now singing another hymn – to mere background bleating. The Americans around Edward were soon sniggering into their sleeves at Richards’s flourishes, but he held the attention of the London operatives completely, eliciting enthusiastic hurrahs for the brave
people of Hungary and fierce boos for their Austrian oppressors. Then he moved on to Imperial Russia, Austria’s wicked accomplice, reminding his audience that the Tsar was massing his forces once more, at that very moment, in certain preparation for a strike against poor, defenceless Turkey. The hoots of denunciation grew almost deafening.

Edward shook his head, amazed by Richards’s naked fraudulence but unable to remove the grin from his face. Looking around the yard, wondering if he could chance a cigar, he noticed something strange. Martin Rea had left Mr Quill and was standing alone at the furthermost corner of the warehouse, as if waiting for someone at an appointed place. A few seconds later he was joined by the same Irish gang who’d carried him away from Tachbrook Street that night. This little group had a look of tense purpose about it. The men all had a leanness that seemed to border on malnourishment, yet there was not a hint of frailty in any of them; they were like so many gnarled branches, as bleached and weather-beaten as pieces of driftwood. An especially tortured specimen seemed to be in charge, his mouth shaped by constant frowning, his eyes hidden almost entirely beneath a jutting brow. He walked up close to Rea, prodding him in the chest in a none-too-friendly manner. A couple of words were exchanged, the leader casting a furtive glance back at the crowd. Edward turned away sharply; and when he looked back, the men were gone.

‘Mister Lowry!’

The shout was close to his ear, making him start. Miss Knox was beaming, pleased to have caught him by surprise. The sight of her out there in the spring sunshine, her cheeks flushed, smiling with such bright exhilaration, shortened Edward’s breath. He noticed that her eyes were the most unusual shade of blue, as dark and pure as deep water. Since his dinner with Saul Graff, he’d decided that he would have no more to do with her – that he would act like a practical, professional gentleman and maintain the proper distance between them. Now, though, as she stood before him, this resolution evaporated instantly.

‘Why, Miss Knox,’ he replied, touching the brim of his
hat, trying to make himself heard over a fresh crescendo of cheering. ‘I just saw your brother-in-law. I must say that he is making a truly remarkable recovery.’

She set about retying the bow beneath her plain straw bonnet, her smile growing delightfully evil. ‘Mart is just well used to being beaten, sir, is all,’ she explained. ‘He’s had a fair bit of practice at it.’

‘Some of the Americans are saying that the attackers were from the Adams pistol works.’

Her amusement faded; she’d heard this rumour as well. ‘Same as did those lads last night, I suppose.’

The people around them quietened down; Richards had resumed speaking. They both looked over at him. Pointing skywards, he was holding forth about the transformative spirit that was sweeping through the civilised nations of the world, unseating old corruptions and installing a truly popular democracy in their place – a spirit embodied by guest and host alike at the Colt factory that day.

This turned out to be the press agent’s closing note. There was an explosion of applause and he dropped from view, his task complete, stepping down from the bandstand. Gage Stickney shouted out that all Colt machine workers were free to take their dinner, and the band struck up once again, lurching their way into a medley of popular tavern ballads. The crowd broke apart, a good portion of it drifting towards the food sellers arrayed outside the gates, who were present in greater numbers that day, attracted by the noise and the spectacle. Lady Wardell and her supporters soon found themselves quite swamped, swallowed up in a jostling, hostile tide; this, at last, obliged them to abandon their protest and take flight.

Edward saw the Colonel leading Kossuth – who had been made visibly uncomfortable by Richards’s parade of fanciful encomiums – towards the factory door, the American staff parting before them. ‘I must leave you, miss, I’m afraid,’ he said apologetically. ‘I must join the tour.’

Miss Knox moved a little closer, her lip curving with gentle reproach. ‘I ain’t seen you around the works.’

‘We are really quite busy at the moment.’ This sounded
weak indeed. Edward cleared his throat. ‘I simply haven’t been here.’

‘Don’t you wish to talk with me again, Mr Lowry?’

‘Of course, Miss Knox – of course I do. But the Colonel is a most demanding master. He has me attending on him day and night.’

The light smile that met this was one of ridicule, and almost unbearably pretty. ‘Heavens,’ she murmured, ‘I never suspected that the role of secretary was such an important one. Does he really need you every single night?’

‘No,’ Edward admitted, ‘not every night, it’s true. I am usually free by ten o’clock, at any rate.’

‘Well, sir, I’m to be found in the Spread Eagle most evenings at present. D’you know it?’

The secretary nodded, now starting to smile himself. ‘The masons’ tavern on Pulford Street. By the river.’

She inclined her head in a graceful farewell, strikingly incongruous there in the factory yard – a remnant of her servant’s training, he realised, wheeled out to rib him a little further – and dropped a curtsey. ‘I shall hope to see you there.’

Edward watched her return to some friends from the machine floor, who’d been following their exchange as best they could, hiding giggles behind their hands. A wide grin had stamped itself across his face. Trembling slightly, he was gripped by a sudden, euphoric urge to sprint around the yard; to run up to Richards, clap him on the back and congratulate him on a magnificent speech; to hurry after the Colonel and their celebrated guest and ensure that the tour was a resounding success.

He would go to this tavern. He looked down at the cobbles, putting his hands in his pockets. Yes, damn it all, he
would.

‘Did you see that?’ Slattery demanded as the Mollys walked down the side of the warehouse. ‘Did you? Your sister-in-law, whoring herself to Colt’s secretary?’

Martin nodded; he’d seen it, the pair of them simpering away at each other, the nature of their conversation plain even at thirty yards’ distance. He had to admire Caroline’s nerve, setting her cap at such a smart young gent. Serving in that big house had clearly given her some grand ideas. The secretary he could remember dimly from the Yankee lodging house. Much was being said about this person by the Americans, and none of it pleasant – not by Mr Quill, of course, who never had a bad word for anybody, but by Mr Stickney and numerous others. He was an impostor, they were claiming, a confidence man out to fleece the Colonel for whatever he could get; or a spy planted by one of Colt’s English rivals. For his part, Martin could find no sign of such cunning fraudulence. Not that this meant it wasn’t there, of course; but to him the secretary seemed to be just another London office type, one of an identical army thousands strong.

‘I don’t like it,’ Slattery stated. ‘D’ye hear me, Martin? I don’t like it
at all.
Having that bleedin’ girl here ain’t no good for Molly’s ends.’

‘She’ll be seen to.’

‘You’ve talked with that Saxon wife o’ yours, have you?’

Martin ignored the derision in his voice. ‘We’ve had words.’

This was true enough, but rather than firmly telling Amy what was what, as he was now implying, Martin had in fact found himself being asked a series of angry questions, mostly concerning Pat Slattery’s presence at the Colt works and what this might mean. He’d managed to throw her off, just about, but Amy was a blasted sharp girl; she knew something was up and would not let it be for long. Caroline was involved somehow, he could tell. The sisters had plainly been nattering. He’d have to think of something to do for them both.

They reached the warehouse’s side door. A hot pain tightened along Martin’s right forearm as he pushed it open. The tendons in the wrist had been bruised during his beating; more than a week later he still couldn’t clench his fist properly. He stood aside, rubbing his palm with his left thumb. Half a dozen of his brothers, Molly Maguire’s loyal lads, filed in past him. Lajos Kossuth might have the Colt works distracted, but all of them understood that they had to be quick.

The door led into a large rectangular room. The ceiling was high; although of similar dimensions to the factory block, the warehouse had only two floors instead of three. A row of newly built annealing ovens stood along one wall. Each one had a wide brick working surface stretching from its mouth, into which had been cut a system of pits and channels. Specialist tools, pans, tongs and brushes, were set out across these surfaces, awaiting Kossuth’s inspection. On the floor beside each was a bucket of jet-black fish oil, which gave off a pungent, salty odour; this was the stuff, Martin had learned, that gave Colt pistols their distinctive sheen.

‘What’s this?’ asked Slattery tersely, nodding at the ovens. ‘Bleedin’ bakery or sump’n?’

Martin shook his head. ‘This here’s the blueing room. They heat the metal and polish it with that oil there – put on the blue, the Yankees call it. Toughens the gun, Pat, so’s it don’t break or warp or nothin’ when it’s firing off its bullets.’

Slattery wasn’t interested. He strode past the ovens and
off through a door on the room’s far side. Martin exchanged a look with Jack Coffee. The three of them, Martin, Jack and Pat, had known each other since before the Hunger. They’d seen Pat in this mood many times before. He was about Molly’s business – nothing else concerned him.

Despite this dedication, however, he didn’t have the first idea where he was going. Martin alone knew his way around the warehouse; he’d been in there with Mr Quill, who’d been called in several times to advise on engineering matters. He followed Slattery through into an open workshop area. This was Colonel Colt’s proving room, where the testing of the freshly manufactured London revolvers would be carried out. A series of long tables was covered with intricate measuring instruments, arranged in order of size. Ammunition was there also, and in great quantities: neat cartons of pre-made pistol cartridges, flasks of powder, boxes of conical bullets and percussion caps in their thousands, heaped in circular tins like so many tiny copper coins. On one side of the room were a pair of heavy steel tubes, about three feet across and mounted at chest height. It was within these tubes that each new pistol would receive its first firing, offering protection for those nearby should one of them burst – ‘but that, Mart,’ Mr Quill had said during one of their inspections, ‘is next to a goddamn
impossibility.’
Past these, along the far end of the room, was a simple firing range, a twelve-yard stretch with a thick piece of hardboard at its end.

There was no trace of the revolvers themselves, though. As in the blueing room, the overall impression was of an exhibition of modern Yankee gun-making, rather than an establishment where it actually took place.

Slattery turned towards him. ‘So, Martin,’ he said, ‘where are the bleedin’ parts?’

Martin pointed over at a rusted spiral staircase in the proving room’s far corner. ‘Upstairs. In the polishing shop.’

As they reached it, however, footfalls clanged upon the steps above, slow and regular, descending to meet them. First they saw a pair of shining boots; then a pair of infantryman’s trousers, blue with black piping on the side of each leg; then
a short military shell-jacket, left open to show the revolver tucked within.

Mr Noone stopped about halfway down, leaning against the rail, showing no surprise at finding them in there. ‘The finishing department is out of bounds for all you Londoners,’ he said.

The Mollys lowered their heads, shifting apprehensively, not knowing how much Noone had overheard or guessed for himself. Martin came forward, delivering the tale he’d prepared for just such an emergency. Mr Quill had suddenly realised that one of the firing tubes was loose, he said, and had asked him to gather some men from the forge and see to it before the Kossuth tour reached the proving room. The engineer had taken several hard blows to the skull during their beating, and was still having trouble ordering his thoughts. They’d talked about this particular matter after their latest check, and Quill probably wouldn’t be able to recall if he’d issued such an instruction or not. Should he be confronted by Noone, Martin’s bet was that the engineer would cover for his assistant rather than feed him to the watchman.

It was difficult to tell what Noone made of this story. He continued to study them closely, barely moving, his hand close to the stock of his gun. He said nothing.

‘We’ve dealt wi’ it now, though,’ Martin concluded. ‘Tube’s bolted in tight as a drum.’ He glanced over at the factory, visible through the warehouse’s tall windows. ‘The Colonel and his guest’ll be over here soon, will they not?’

Noone made a disgruntled noise, relaxing very slightly and walking down another couple of steps. ‘The goddamn tube could be the wrong way around,’ he growled, ‘and that dumb Hungarian bastard would be none the wiser.’

Seeing that they were in the clear, the Mollys let out a conspiratorial chuckle.

‘The son of a bitch calls himself a freedom fighter, a
revolutionary,’
Noone continued scornfully, ‘yet he crawls to these Bulls like a dog on its belly – these Bulls who keep up the biggest, bloodiest empire in the whole goddamn world.’

Martin saw that anger had been building in the watchman
all morning, throughout the preparations for the visit and the fanfare that had greeted Kossuth’s arrival. ‘We’re all Irish here, Mr Noone,’ he muttered. ‘You don’t need to remind us of the sins of the British. Every man you see before you has lost kin to their misrule.’

Noone stared at him for a moment, looking at the pattern of damage across his face. ‘The Colonel has his reasons for asking this Hungarian to visit us,’ he said, ‘and I’ll not question his planning. But by God, it sticks in my craw. You hear the speech? That John Bull cocksucker could talk a cat off a fish-cart, and every last word of it was as phoney as can be.’

The Irishmen grumbled in agreement. Thady Rourke, one of the Mollys Slattery had recruited since their arrival in London, asked the watchman what exactly had happened over on Lupus Street the previous night.

Noone’s wrath grew yet further. ‘They got three Bulls from the machine floor,’ he answered. ‘Easy enough to replace, but the message it sends is plain. There’s someone out there who thinks they can come at us, at the Colt Company, and suffer no consequences at all.’

There was applause out in the yard; the factory door was sliding back to release Colt, Kossuth and their entourage. Seeing that time was short, the watchman stepped down to the floor of the proving room and addressed the Irishmen in a forceful, confidential tone.

‘Now listen good,’ he said, his small, yellowed eyes sparking beneath the brim of his cap. ‘One of you Irish has been worked over already. Any of the rest of you could be next. We ain’t going to stand by and let this go on. I can’t allow it. The Colonel don’t want to know, but that don’t mean that nothing can get done.’ He straightened his shell-jacket and began to fasten the brass buttons on its front. ‘So I’m calling you micks up for some extra labour. You’ll be well suited to it, I believe. Meet me and my boys tonight at eleven o’clock, just along from the lodging house on Tachbrook Street. We’ll see if we can’t set this nonsense straight.’

The cellar was dark; all Martin could see of Jack was the red eye of his pipe bowl, bobbing and winking over on the other side of the room. It was still open to the elements, rain blowing in through a yawning hole in its front, the night sky beyond only a touch lighter than the black walls that enclosed them. Martin was sitting on a stack of floor tiles, twisting his right hand around with his left, cursing softly whenever he reached a point where the pain made him stop.

There was a coarse, rustling sound: Jack scratching at that carroty beard of his. ‘You hang back, Mart,’ he whispered in the gloom, ‘when it gets started, like. You ain’t right yet. No sense risking any further mischief.’

Such solicitude was typical of Jack. That night, Martin found it irritating; he wanted no allowances made for him.

‘Don’t you be a-worrying,’ he said. ‘I can carry meself, remember?’

A boot scraped against some brickwork, and a shape moved across the rectangle of sky above them; and Pat Slattery dropped in, bringing with him the smell of cheap sailor’s rum. Settling between Jack and Martin, he struck a match to light his pipe, throwing a split-second’s illumination over the small cellar and its occupants. Hunched down in their hiding place, neckerchiefs ready to be pulled over their mouths, they looked like nothing more than a gang of footpads. Slattery even had a club laid across his lap.

‘Jesus,’ murmured Martin, shaking his head, ‘how in God’s name can we be doing this?’

‘Ah, what are you on about, ye bugger?’ said Pat. ‘This’ll be good for us. Making pals with the Yankees – weren’t that once your own favoured course o’ action? Surely you can see that if we get the favour of the watchman, everything could be a whole lot easier later on.’

‘Aye,’ replied Martin doubtfully. Molly was quiet in him that night. He didn’t like to think about what this might mean. ‘I suppose so.’

Slattery drew on his pipe. ‘We’ll get there, brothers,’ he declared; Martin could sense him grinning in the darkness.
‘The Gael will get his righteous vengeance upon the Saxon fiend. The Harp and Shamrock will trample down the Lion and the bleedin’ Unicorn. Us country boyos will do a truly great thing in the name of our Molly Maguire. They’ll be singin’ songs about us afore the year’s end.’

A shrill whistle sounded somewhere outside – the signal that they were needed. Slattery and Jack knocked out their pipes and the three of them clambered up the slope that led to the street, pulling on their masks. Not a lot could be seen in Cubitt’s Pimlico that night, the heavy clouds overhead reducing everything to a few dark shades of grey. They crossed a muddy pathway, entering the beginnings of a smart city square. The other Mollys and a couple of Colt watchmen were making straight for its centre, rushing over the cobblestones and disappearing beneath a stand of newly planted trees. As Martin drew nearer he heard the sounds of a savage, unrestrained fight. A boot squelched in loose earth, and then a body charged into him from the shadows, slamming against his flank. It was a skinny, foul-smelling boy in the garb of a working man – not one of theirs. Martin grabbed hold as best he could but the boy squirmed like an eel, flailing his bony arms around in panic. The scab on Martin’s jaw was torn off, and he felt hot blood lick the underside of his chin. Then the injured wrist flared up, catching fire, paralysing his hand completely. He swore; the boy sprang from his failing grasp, darting away into Pimlico, yapping out a cockney oath as he went.

Up ahead, the shutter was slid back on a bull’s-eye lantern, projecting a narrow beam of light onto the battle. Four workmen had been caught, jumped on as they moved in to attack two of Noone’s people, who’d been wandering the area for the past hour talking loudly in their Yankee accents, serving as bait. The captives were putting on a decent enough show – as Martin watched, one drove a fist into Slattery’s stomach – but they were both surrounded and outnumbered. Their cause was a hopeless one.

Noone strode into the light, taking off his military cap and passing it to one of his men. Something flashed in his hand; he’d drawn his revolver and was spinning it around in his palm, expertly reversing it so that the stock was foremost.
He moved on the largest and fiercest of the four cornered workmen, who was swinging a wooden club about while damning them all to hell. Sidestepping a swipe from the club, Noone hit the fellow squarely across the forehead with his pistol, dropping him at once. The watchman planted a foot on either side of his opponent, bringing down the revolver again with precise, brutal speed. Around them, the other brawls had halted; all eyes were on Noone. He struck the unfortunate workman at his feet five more times, with ever greater force, sending a crazy shadow leaping across the tree-trunks behind him. At the penultimate blow, the thud of the stock’s impact became a wet crunch, and the fallen man’s protests – disbelieving, gasping screams at how much harm was being done to him – abruptly ceased. Noone stopped, examining his handiwork for a moment with a professional air before wiping his gun clean on his victim’s shirt. He then turned to the remaining workmen, who were now being held firmly in place by those they had been fighting off a minute earlier.