The Masters of Bow Street (15 page)

‘Tom’s inside, sir,’ he said, ‘with the two thief-takers and Lionel Martin.’

‘Good,’ Furnival grunted. ‘How would you describe them, Sam?’

Lines leapt into the corners of Fairweather’s face as he screwed up his eyes with merriment. ‘Apprehensive, sir,’ he answered. ‘It has not been my pleasure to see more apprehensive gents for a long time.’

‘Better still,’ said Furnival. ‘Has Silas Moffat been here?’

‘And gone, sir. The Keeper is expecting you.’

Furnival nodded and turned towards the archway, and immediately a small inoffensive-looking man came from the gatehouse lodge, bringing through the open door a whiff of prison stench. He touched his cap and said, ‘If you will please follow me, sir,’ and led the way to the chamber where all who were committed to Newgate were taken. About the walls were iron rings for restraining violent prisoners; and there were heavy leg irons, balls and chains, as well as manacles.

No more than a dozen men and women were sitting on the stone floor and there was sign of James Marshall.

The man led the way to another door which was opened at once and more potent stench wafted through; everywhere was the pervasive Newgate stink which nothing could really overcome, try though one might with scents and flowers or the Frenchies’ garlic. In a front room with Tom Harris, all standing, were the three who had been instrumental in manufacturing the charge against James Marshall. The magistrate, a ship’s chandler who was a well-known spare-time justice, was short and plump and flaccid-faced. He doffed his three-cornered hat as he said, ‘My pleasure, Mr. Furnival, truly my pleasure.’

‘I hope it will remain that way,’ replied Furnival grimly. ‘You can take your choice, all three of you. Retract the evidence and the committal, in which case I’ll say no more about it, or be charged with conspiracy to defraud and to bearing false witness and accepting payment in consideration thereof. Which is it to be?’

The magistrate gulped. ‘But there were independent witnesses to the theft!’

‘You can take your choice but not your time,’ retorted Furnival. ‘It won’t take long to find plenty of witnesses to say there were two boys, and the wrong one was caught.’

This was the only explanation he could envisage, and the reaction on the faces of the men convinced him he was right. Their hypocrisy was nauseating enough to turn Furnival’s stomach but this was no time to say what he thought of them. He had one purpose: to find and release James Marshall even if it were only release on bail. But if these two thief-takers retracted, the boy would have complete freedom.

‘It could be a case of mistaken identity,’ muttered the magistrate.

‘D’you swear to that?’ Furnival demanded. ‘In front of these witnesses?’

‘Readily,’ the first thief-taker declared. ‘No one would want to see an innocent lad convicted of theft. Why, he could be hanged for it!’

‘One day you’ll make a mistake too many and you’ll be hanged,’ Furnival said coldly. He looked demandingly at the other thief-taker. ‘Do you swear to a mistaken identity, Godden?’

‘Why, surely, sir, I do!’

‘If you ever cross my path again and I find you’ve given false evidence, I’ll see you hanged, the pair of you. Now get out.’ He frowned as they scurried away, then turned to Martin. ‘It will take too long to withdraw the charge at the lodge and half the jailers are probably in the plot, anyhow. We’ll see the Keeper and you’ll tell him the two men who arrested James Marshall have retracted and you have cancelled your notice of committal. Just that and no more. D’you understand?’

The man who dealt in justice for profit looked at him with unexpected defiance and replied, ‘Yes. But one day, John Furnival, you’ll go too far. If the hangman doesn’t get you, the thief-takers will.’

‘I can remember Frederick Jackson saying that very same thing,’ Furnival replied derisively. He turned to the inoffensive little man with thin features. ‘Have you orders to take us to the Keeper?’

‘Yes, Mr. Furnival, sir, I am one of his turnkeys. I have already sent for the boy to be found and brought to the Keeper’s office. What a terrible miscarriage of justice nearly took place, sir.’ He took two strides for every one of Furnival’s, and the ships’ chandler’s length of stride came somewhere in between. ‘But the Keeper himself is in the country, sir, and his assistant will be seeing you, a Mr. Heywood.’

He talked on ceaselessly as he led them through the dark, forbidding corridors of grey stone, the walls high on either side, every window, large or small, barred to make escape impossible. Yet without the bars and the darkened windows, the building could have been a palace rather than a prison, so nobly was it proportioned and so fine was the decorative work on the ceilings.

The Keeper, Furnival felt sure, was somewhere in the living quarters of the prison, anxious not to meet him face to face, so that he could deny any part in or knowledge of what had happened. His assistant, a one-eyed man, was fulsome in his greeting, offered wine, assured them there would be no difficulty, heard the ships’ chandler’s cancellation and the state-merits of retracted evidence, jumped when a tap came on the door, sharp and clear, and called ‘Come in.’ At once a huge man entered, keys clanking from the thick leather belt at his waist. He was handsome in a bold and rugged fashion, with glossy black hair, cleanshaven at the lips and chin but heavily hirsute on the cheeks. There was an air of the brigand about him, a swagger emphasised by the belted jacket and full-cut breeches and leather boots, and gaiters. Everything about him was the more impressive because of his size.

Furnival had expected to see James Marshall with him but the jailer was alone.

‘Well, Bolson, where is he? Where is the boy?’ demanded the Keeper’s assistant.

‘He can’t be found, sir, nowhere,’ declared the huge man. He looked not at the Keeper’s assistant but at Furnival; it was difficult to judge whether there was more defiance than triumph in his eyes. Very deliberately he went on: ‘You know what can happen if the prisoners take a fancy to a boy.’

Furnival stood absolutely still when Bolson declared that the boy could not be found.

Tom Harris exclaimed: ‘In God’s name, no?

Heywood put a hand to his one eye as if to hide from the expression in Furnival’s and said stridently, ‘It could not have happened!’

‘I’ve known them dead before the men have half finished with them,’ the head jailer said. ‘I’ve known them live, too.’ He touched his forehead with a meaningful gesture. ‘They ain’t never been the same, though.’

‘Mr. Heywood,’ said Furnival in a cold voice, ‘I desire to make a thorough search of every ward in the prison, male and female, debtors’ and felons’, until the boy is found. Tom,’ he barked at Harris, ‘go you to Tilt Yard at once, riding any horse if you have none of your own here, and tell the colonel in charge, be it Colonel Treese or Colonel Hammond, that a company of dragoons must be available to quiet an expected riot in Newgate Prison. Go then to Bow Street and send every available man to act as messengers. Is that clearly understood?’

‘Perfect, sir, perfect!’ Tom turned to go.

‘Mr. Heywood,’ went on Furnival in the same cold voice, ‘if anything happens to or delays Constable Harris on this errand, I shall hold you personally responsible and charge you with conspiring to cause a miscarriage of justice.’ He turned his head slightly. ‘Head jailer—’

‘You’re wasting your time. I’ve already searched, I tell you.’ Bolson was aggressively sure of himself.

‘You are in charge of the inmates of this noisome place and if any harm has befallen the boy Marshall you also will be charged with conspiracy, and you had best pray that he is not dead or grievously hurt. Mr. Heywood, will you escort me in person, if you please?’

‘I - I—’ began Heywood, and he looked as if he would burst into tears. ‘If the Keeper were here—’

‘Either come with me or send for the Keeper, wherever he is hiding.’ Again Furnival turned to the head jailer, who still smiled faintly, as if he were enjoying this fuss and feared no harm. ‘Your name is Bolson, I understand.’

‘Yes, sir. Jake Bolson.’

‘We will go to the Stone Hold first.’

Bolson looked astounded, but much of his expression seemed put on.

‘The Stone Hold, sir? Why it wouldn’t be safe for a gentleman like you.’

‘We shall find out if it is safe for a scoundrel like you. Lead the way - at once.’

Bolson hesitated, looked at Heywood, and obviously realised that there was no help coming from him. He shrugged and turned to the door. Over his shoulder he slung a single sentence. ‘No blame to me if they cut your throat.’ He turned into a stone-flagged passage and then down a narrow stone staircase; the stench which rose was enough to make Furnival choke. Jailers were at iron gates leading to other wards, or holds, astounded at the sight of Furnival.

Bolson and Furnival were halfway down the second flight of steps, lit only by rush flares in iron wall brackets, when the Keeper’s assistant called, ‘I am coming, wait for me. I am coming!’

Bolson growled, ‘More fool you, you—’

Furnival stretched out a hand and held him loosely about the throat. The hard voice was cut off. Bolson looked over his shoulder as if for the first time he knew a moment of fear.

‘Head jailer,’ Furnival said, ‘if we have to fight, I shall kill you, and if I have to kill you, it will be a happy day for thousands of poor wretches fated to come here. Lead the way.’ He released the man, who turned and moved on, saying no word; cowed.

The stench was now so thick and nauseating that Heywood began to cough and Furnival had to fight to prevent himself from being sick. They came upon a sight so awful that Furnival, who had heard of this place and who had been to other parts of the prison he had thought so bad that nothing could be worse, was appalled. Inside one huge stone-floored dungeon, with only dim light from a barred window built high in the wall and two casements, there must have been three hundred people. A dozen, mostly men, were banging on the gate and rattling it so noisily that it seemed it must break; others were quick to join them. The stench of human body odours, excreta and gin came in a revolting wave. At one side, clearly visible, a man and a woman were copulating. Lying on their backs or on their stomachs or bent double as if in pain were men and women with gin flagons by their sides, so that apart from the rattling and the shouted threats there was snoring from dozens of throats. Against one wall another couple sat; within hand’s reach of them was a girl with an infant at her full, milky-white breast. She looked dazed and oblivious of her surroundings as she suckled the child. In one corner, sitting in a circle, were six - or was it eight? - women all dressed in dark clothes which spread beneath them, all with their heads bowed as if in prayer. Each wore a white collar and had white cuffs. An old man was leaning against one wall, vomiting. Three children, two boys and a girl, were racing about the room, threading their way among the occupants, squealing with delight. A middle-aged woman stood in the midst of a small group, reciting the Ten Commandments in a high-pitched voice. Sitting or squatting, many men and women were in attitudes of dejection and despair.

The men by the gate stopped rattling it for at least ten seconds and then one of them screeched, ‘It’s the bastard Furnivall’

‘The hanging justice!’

‘Let me get at him!’

‘Send him in here, Bolly boy. We’ll tear him to pieces!’ screamed a man who was much the same build as Tom Harris.

Bolson drew back, a huge key in his hand attached to a bunch secured at his waist; and in the poor light his sneer showed and it sounded clearly in his voice.

‘Now do you want to go in?’

‘Open the door at once,’ ordered Furnival.

‘No, sir, I beg you—’ Heywood began.

‘I myself wouldn’t go inside that hellhole with them in that condition,’ Bolson declared.

‘I can well believe you,’ said Furnival icily. ‘Are you going to open the door or must I open it for you?’

He moved forward as if to pull the key from the other’s hand and Bolson screeched, ‘They’ll kill you!’

‘Every man in this hellhole knows that if I were to be murdered here he would be hanged next hanging day,’ said Furnival in a clear, carrying voice. ‘And you among them, for putting them up to this idiot behaviour.’

‘I - I - That’s a lie,’ gasped Bolson. ‘I never did!’

Furnival wrenched the key from the man’s grasp, thrusting him close to the bars so that he, Furnival, had room to instert and turn the key. He needed both hands and on the instant that he took one hand from the small of Bolson’s back he was at the man’s mercy. He felt Bolson thrust weight backward, then heard Heywood cry: ‘Enough!’ Out of the corner of his eye he saw the Keeper’s assistant’s pistol thrust against the jailer’s neck, and for the first time since he had sent Tom Harris off he felt that he was not alone. The key groaned in the lock as it turned. There remained the risk that one of the prisoners would attack him; and if one started, the others might follow.

‘Kill the devil!’ one man rasped.

‘Choke him to death!’

‘One more threat and one single act of violence and you will all be placed under sentence of death for attacking a magistrate,’ Furnival said in that clear, carrying voice. ‘Who among you wishes to be hanged so that Bolson can line his pockets?’ He paused long enough for the significance of his words to sink in, then added, ‘Let me pass.’

There was still a chance that some of the men would rush at him, but instead they drew back, as if the cold gaze from his eyes and the thin line of his lips intimidated them. He trod on slime; the floor was running with a filthy ooze. He looked at every man and woman and especially at every child, but he did not see James Marshall.

As he neared the middle of the hold, he heard singing.

At first it was so soft it seemed far away, but it was the voices of women raised in harmony, and he looked towards the group of dark-clad women in the corner, who seemed as out of place here as a virgin in a brothel. He went slowly towards them, noticing that those of the prisoners who were sober looked at them and listened, while even some who had been in the depths of misery glanced up, as if for a moment the awfulness of their plight was eased.