The Meaning of Night Part 25

'Here it is, Mr Pettingale,' I say. 'I put a case to you. Some years ago, two rascals masquerading as gentlemen swindle a distinguished firm of solicitors out of a considerable amount of money let us say, for the sake of argument, fifteen hundred pounds. The thing is done cleverly one almost admires the cleverness and the two scallywags come out the other end without a stain on their characters, but considerably richer than when they started. There is a third rascal, but we shall come to him in a moment. More than this, they so contrive matters that, when all is done, an innocent man is sent to the other side of the world, to toil his life out, on their behalf, in the wilderness of Van Dieman's Land.3 Now, the question I wish to seek your professional opinion on is this: knowing, as I believe I do, the ident.i.ty of two of the three persons I have described, how may I best lay a charge against them, so that they can be brought at last to justice?'

The effect of my speech is most gratifying. His mouth falls open; he reddens even more, and begins to sweat.

'You say nothing, Mr Pettingale? A lawyer with nothing to say. A most uncommon sight. But by your uncomfortable demeanour, I see you have perceived that I have been playing a little game with you. Well then: let us be more direct, shall we? What is done, is done. Your secret is safe with me for the time being, at least. I have no argument with you, Mr Pettingale. My real interest lies in your friend, the distinguished author. You know to whom I allude?'

He nods dumbly.

'I wish to know a little more about your a.s.sociation with this gentleman. I will not trouble you with my reasons.'

'Blackmail, I suppose,' says Pettingale mournfully, taking off his cap and using it to wipe his perspiring brow. 'Though how you come to know all about it beats me.'

'Blackmail? Why yes, you have it, Mr Pettingale. A palpable hit! You are a sharp one, I see. So: the floor is yours. Be quick, be bold, hold nothing back. I would particularly wish that you do not hold anything back. Let us be completely frank with one another. And, for good measure, you may throw in a few words concerning the third rascal. Again, I'm sure you know to whom I am referring?'

Once more he nods, but does not speak. I wait; but still he says nothing. He bites his lip, and his knuckles turn white with gripping the arms of the chair so hard. I begin to get a little impatient, and tell him so.

'I cannot,' he says at last, with a kind of faltering moan. 'They they will '

As he is speaking, I see him give a sudden darting glance towards the door, and in a flash he is on his feet. But I am ready for him. I throw him back into his chair and stand over him. I ask again for him to begin his recitation, but still he will not sing. For the third and last time, I say to him, taking out one of my pocket-pistols and laying it on the table. He blanches, but shakes his head. I try another tack, and voila!

The prospect of having your fingers broken one by one appears to be a mighty incentive to do as you are told; and in no time at all he capitulates. Here, then, though a little more persuading was required as we went along, is what Mr Lewis Pettingale, of Gray's-Inn, told me on that fine September afternoon.

He had been introduced to Phoebus Daunt at the Varsity by a mutual friend, a Kingsman4 by the name of Bennett. They hit it off straight away, and quickly cemented their friends.h.i.+p by discovering a shared, though largely untested, enthusiasm for the turf. Off they would go to Newmarket, whenever occasion offered, where they got in with a rather dangerous set of men up from London. These flash coves knew what they were about, and welcomed Daunt and Pettingale with open arms. Bets were placed by the pair and, in short order, money was lost. No matter: their new friends were more than willing to advance them a little credit; and then a little more. At last, with the touching optimism of youth, our heroes determined on a rather risky course: they would hazard all they had or, rather, all they had been advanced on a single race. If their choice came in, all would be well.

But it did not come in, and all was not well. However, their benefactors took a statesmanlike view of the situation. If the gents would co-operate in a scheme this company of obliging family men5 had in view, then they would be pleased to consider the debt paid. There might even be a little something in it for them. If not . . . The offer was quickly taken up, and one of the gang, an impressive party with a prominent set of Newgate knockers,6 was deputed to a.s.sist the noviciates in the prosecution of a little well-planned fraud.

The two young scholars took to the business briskly, and with a certain apt.i.tude for what was required, particularly on the part of the Rector's son. I need not repeat what was told to me by Dr Maunder, about how the fraud was accomplished; I will only say that Pettingale revealed that the shadowy person who had employed the dupe, Hensby, had been Daunt, and that it was Daunt also who, after demonstrating to the gang a remarkable facility to replicate signatures, had actually carried out the forgeries.

'And what was the name of the firm?' I'd asked.

'Tredgold, Tredgold and Orr,' came the reply. 'Of Paternoster-row.'

The information astounded me, and I turned away momentarily as I collected my thoughts. Then I asked him how the fraudsters had obtained the necessary blank cheques.

'Burglary,' said Pettingale. 'Simple enough.'

I immediately objected that my informant had stated, quite categorically, that no cheques had been found to be missing.

'Ah,' Pettingale came back, 'that's where they were clever, you see. They had a paid man in the firm who was beyond suspicion. The person who verified that no cheques had been taken was one of theirs!' And the name of this person? He could not recall he a.s.sured me, on pain of a little finger-cracking, that he would tell me if he could, but he could not. He did, however, disclose that the break-in had been carried out by the accomplice appointed by the gang: a certain Josiah Leonard Pluckrose, alias Mr Verdant.

I said nothing on hearing Pluckrose's name, but inwardly exulted that the suspicions I had been harbouring as to the ident.i.ty of Mr Verdant had been proved correct. The origin of his pseudonym was nothing more than this. At Doncaster, in the year '38, he had put twenty stolen guineas on a rank outsider called Princess Verdant, who rewarded his faith in her by coming in at extremely favourable odds, though her victory may have been a.s.sisted by the fact barely worth mentioning that she was a four-year-old entered in a race for three-year-olds.7 No matter. Thereafter, he was known as 'Mr Verdant' to his friends and a.s.sociates amongst the capital's criminal fraternities.

After the dodge on Tredgolds had been successfully brought off, Pluckrose fell out with his former colleagues over the division of the spoils; he quit the gang in high dudgeon, vowing to be revenged on them all. And revenged he was. Not one of his confederates five in number lived to see the year out: one was found in the river at Wapping with his throat cut; another was bludgeoned to death as he left the Albion Tavern one evening;8 the three that remained simply disappeared from the face of the earth and were never seen again. Pettingale could not conclusively say that Pluckrose had done for them all himself; but that he had signed their death warrants, as it were, seemed certain. 'The last to go was Isaac Gabb, the youngest member of the gang elder brother kept the public-house down in Rotherhithe where the gang first met up. Rather a decent fellow, young Gabb, despite his roguery. The brother took it hard, and takes it hard still, as I hear; but no one could pin anything on Pluckrose.'

Then Pettingale's story turned to the subject in which I was most interested. After making a little money from the Tredgold fraud, Phoebus Daunt developed a taste for criminality, and began to look upon himself as quite a captain of the swell mob. Having no clear idea of what he would do in the world when he had taken his degree, though he might babble to Lord Tansor about the prospect of a Fellows.h.i.+p, and feeling that a man of his genius needed a certain minimum amount of capital with which to establish a position in society, which he could not at that moment lay claim to possessing, he conceived the practical, though by no means original, notion of taking what he needed from other people. And to a.s.sist him in the enterprise he enlisted his friend and fellow fraudster Pettingale, for his legal brain, and their erstwhile companion-in-arms Josiah Pluckrose, alias Verdant, for his brawn and his demonstrable skills with the jemmy and the other tools of the ken-cracker's art.9 I own that I could not have been more astonished if Pettingale had told me that Phoebus Daunt was none other than Spring-Heeled Jack himself.10 But he had even more to tell.

The extraordinary head for business, which Lord Tansor believed he had discovered in his favourite, was in reality nothing else but a low talent for devising schemes to relieve the gullible of their money. I might have regarded this as harmless enough, for a man must live, and there are a million deserving fools in the world ready and willing to be fleeced; but when he practised his deceits on my father, who was not in the least gullible, only properly trusting of someone to whom he had shown an uncommon degree of preference, and from whom he had a right to expect loyalty and deference then the case was very much altered. And all to ingratiate himself still further with his Lords.h.i.+p, with the object duly attained of insinuating himself closely into the latter's affairs.

The 'speculations', to which he had freely confessed to Lord Tansor, were nothing but gimcrackery; the 'profits' he returned to his protector were only the proceeds of various swindles and chicaneries. Some were epic in conception: imaginary gold-mines in Peru, a projected tunnel under the Swiss Alps, proposed railway lines that were never built. Others were more modest, or were merely confidence tricks performed on the unwary.

False doc.u.ments of all kinds, concocted with superlative skill and aplomb by Daunt, were their princ.i.p.al weapons inventively convincing references and recommendations ascribed to men of known character and reputation, fict.i.tious statements of a.s.sets from distinguished banking-houses and accomptants, counterfeit certificates of owners.h.i.+p, dexterously produced maps of non-existent tracts of land, grandiose plans for buildings that would never be built: Daunt, with help from the young lawyer Pettingale, began to attain a certain mastery of the spurious, whilst Pluckrose was retained to encourage the faint-hearted amongst those they preyed upon, and to discourage those inclined to squeal about their losses to the authorities. They chose their victims with infinite care, adopted clever disguises and aliases, hired premises, employed dupes like the unfortunate Hensby, and conducted themselves always with gravity and sobriety; and then, when all was done, they evaporated into thin air, leaving not a wrack behind.

Now I had the measure of Phoebus Rainsford Daunt indeed, and what a joy it was to have the truth revealed at last. The insolent and preening scribbler was also a deep-dyed rogue: a practised chiseller, a speeler, no better than the buzzers and macers on the Highway.11 Mr Pettingale continued to sing out nicely. His colour had returned to its customary pastiness, and perspiration no longer stood out on his forehead. Indeed he seemed, to my eye, to be warming to his task, and I began to sense that all was not as it once had been between the lawyer and his literary friend.

'We don't see each other as much as we did,' he said at last, looking meditatively into the fire. 'All very well, you know, when we were younger. Difficult to explain excites the mind greatly, this sort of work. And brings home the bacon. But it started to go against the grain a bit some of the chaps we took were quite decent sorts of fellows, wives and families etcetera, and we left them with nothing. Anyway, told Daunt we couldn't go on forever. Sooner or later we'd slip up. Didn't fancy following Hensby on the boat12 or worse. Came to a head when that unutterable blackguard Pluckrose did for his wife. Never understood why Daunt brought him in and told him so. Capable of anything, Pluckrose. We knew that, of course. Bit of a flare-up, I'm afraid. Words said, and all that. Gulling a flat13 one thing. Topping your wife quite another. Very bad business. Worst of it was that Pluckrose got off by some piece of trickery. Had the gall to retain the very firm of solicitors he'd helped defraud. But they got him off. Clever work, that. Never seen better. Anyway, truth is, I thought it was time we ditched Pluckrose once and for all and went steady. Thought Daunt would agree in the public eye, toast of the literary world, and all that. He said I might do as I pleased, but he had only just got started, and that a new tack he was on would set him up for life.'

'New tack?'

'Apropos his uncle, as he called him. Lord Tansor. Powerful gent. Know the name, do you? Lost his own son, I believe, and thought he'd have Daunt instead. Very rum, but there it is. Old boy bit of a tartar, but rich as Croesus, and Daunt was sitting pretty, for he stood in a fair way to step into the old man's shoes in the course of time. But he couldn't wait. Thought he'd take a little bit here and there in advance. Ready cash first, slyly done, for he had Uncle Tansor's trust, you see? Then a little judicious forging of the old boy's signature second nature to Daunt. Rather a genius in that way. Amazing to observe. Give him a minute and he'd produce you the signature of the Queen herself, and good enough to fool the Prince-Consort. Old boy as sharp as they come, but Daunt knew how to play him. Reeled him in nice as you like. Didn't suspect a thing. But a dangerous game I told him so, but nothing would move him. Old boy's secretary got on the scent, keen old cove called Carteret daughter with great staring eyes. When Miss C's father started to become suspicious of Daunt snooping round, he started on his new tack. We'd been working a sweet little turn, our first for some months, but Daunt turned his back on it. Everything put in jeopardy. More words, I fear. Much said in anger. Not pleasant. He said he had something better.'

'And what was it?'

'Only this: the old boy has a very grand house in the country been there myself . Said house in the country packed to the rafters with portable booty.'

'Booty?'

'Prints, porcelain, gla.s.sware, books Daunt knew a bit about books. All cleverly and quietly done, of course, and everything now laid up safely in a repository in case the old boy didn't come across, he said, or against some unseen occurrence. Worth a king's ransom.'

'And where is this repository?'

'Ah, if only I could tell you. He cut me out. Dissolved the partners.h.i.+p. Haven't seen him these twelve months.'

I had him now, had him tight in the palm of my hand. His box at the opera, his house in Mecklenburgh-square, his horses and his dinners all paid for by the proceeds of crime. I could bring him down at a moment's notice; and in the ensuing scandal, would Lord Tansor rush to his heir's defence? I think not.

'You'd speak out against him, of course,' I said to Pettingale.

'Speak out? What do you mean?'

'Publicly declare what you have just told me.'

'Now hang on a moment.' Pettingale made to get up out of his chair, but I pushed him back.

'Something wrong Mr Pettingale?'

'Look here,' he said, 'I can't, you know. Implicated myself, and all that. And my life wouldn't be worth a sniff.'

'Don't take on so,' I said soothingly. 'I might only need you to testify privately to Lord Tansor. No repercussions. Just a quiet conversation with his Lords.h.i.+p. You could do that all right, couldn't you?'

He thought for a moment. To aid reflection, I picked up my pistol from the table.

At length, looking whiter and pastier than ever, he said he supposed he could, if matters were so arranged that his ident.i.ty was concealed from Lord Tansor.

'We'll need some evidence,' I said. 'Something unequivocal, in writing. Could you lay your hands on such a thing?'

He nodded, and placed his head in his hands.

'Bravo, Pettingale,' I said with a smile, patting him on the shoulders. 'But remember this: if you tell your former a.s.sociates of our conversation, or if you subsequently take it into your head to be unco-operative, you may be a.s.sured of paying a very high price. I hope we understand each other?'

I was now leaning over him, the barrel of my pistol pressed against his temple.

He did not reply, so I repeated my question. He looked up at me, with such a weary and resigned look.

'Yes, Mr Glapthorn,' he said, closing his eyes and giving a great sigh. 'I understand you perfectly.'

31:.

Flamma fumo est proxima 1 ______________*

I left Field Court in the highest of spirits. At last I had the means to destroy Daunt's reputation, as he had once destroyed mine; and in doing so, I could also fatally undermine Lord Tansor's faith in his nominated heir! It was exhilarating to feel my power over my enemy, and to know that he was even now going about his business in ignorance of the Damoclean sword hanging over him. But still there was the question of when to draw on Pettingale's testimony, and on the evidence he claimed he could provide concerning Daunt's criminous activities. To do so before I could prove to Lord Tansor that I was his son would be an incomplete revenge. How infinitely more tormenting it would be for Daunt if, at the very moment of his destruction, I could stand revealed as the true heir!

My thoughts now returned to Mr Carteret's murder, and to the question of his 'discovery'. He had said to me, during our meeting in Stamford, that the matter he had wished to lay before Mr Tredgold had a critical bearing on Daunt's prospects. I was now convinced that Mr Carteret had been in possession of information relating to the Tansor succession that would have helped me establish my ident.i.ty it might even have provided the una.s.sailable proof I had been seeking. It therefore followed, if my a.s.sumption was correct that Mr Carteret had been attacked in order to obtain the doc.u.ments he had been carrying in his bag, that what was of the utmost value to me had also been of value to someone else.

Suspicions and hypotheses filled my head, but I could come to no clear conclusion. The truth was, I needed an ally; a subtle, informed mind; an a.s.sociate whose knowledge and experience complemented and extended my own to help throw a light into the dark places through which I was wandering.

No sooner had I acknowledged the need to confide in someone than I thought of Mr Tredgold. He had shown me such warm consideration, along with ample demonstrations of his regard, and I had not the least doubt that I could trust his discretion absolutely. Surely I could find no one better to offer counsel and guidance, and help me find a way through the labyrinth of supposition and speculation? And so I resolved then and there that I would confess everything to my employer and ask for his a.s.sistance in my quest to prove my ident.i.ty. Fired by this decision, I walked briskly to Paternoster-row and knocked on the Senior Partner's door.

There was no reply. I knocked again. Then Rebecca appeared, coming down the internal stairs that led up to Mr Tredgold's private apartment.

''E's not there,' she said. ''E left for Canterbury yesterday, to see his brother.'

'When will he be back?' I asked.

'Monday,' she said.

Three days. I simply could not wait.

I walked along to my office. On my desk was an envelope containing a black-edged card, with the following communication printed in black-letter type: The family and friends of the late Mr Paul Carteret, M.A., F.R.S.A., request the favour of Mr Edward Glapthorn's company on Friday next, the 4th of November, 1854, to unite with them in paying the last tribute of respect to the deceased. Mourners are asked to a.s.semble at 11 o'clock, at the Dower House, Evenwood, Northamptons.h.i.+re, and then to proceed in the coaches provided to the Church of St Michael and All Angels, Evenwood. An early reply to the undertaker, Mr P. Gutteridge, Baxter's Yard, Easton, Northamptons.h.i.+re, will oblige.

I duly sat down to write a formal note of acceptance to Mr Gutteridge, and a personal note to Miss Carteret, which I called for one of the clerks to take to the Post-office.

This business done, I determined at once to go down to Canterbury, to see my employer. I dashed off a note to Bella, whom I had been engaged to meet that evening, and then consulted my Bradshaw.

I arrived in Canterbury at last to find myself standing before a tall, rather forbidding three-storey residence close by the Westgate. Marden House stood a little back from the road, separated from it by a narrow paved area and a low brick wall topped with railings.

I was admitted, and then shown into a downstairs room. A few moments later, Dr Jonathan Tredgold entered.

He was shorter and a little heavier than his brother, with the same feathery hair, though darker and in somewhat shorter supply. He held my card in his hand.

'Mr Edward Glapthorn, I believe?'

I gave a slight bow and begged to be forgiven for intruding on him at such a time. 'I beg you to excuse this intrusion, Dr Tredgold,' I began, 'but I was hoping it might be possible to speak with your brother.'

He pulled his shoulders back and looked at me as if I had said something insulting.

'My brother has been taken ill,' he said. 'Seriously ill.'

He saw the shock his words had produced and gestured to me to sit down.

'This is sad news, Dr Tredgold,' I began. 'Very sad. Is he -'

'A paralytic seizure, I am afraid. Completely unexpected.'

Dr Tredgold could not give me a categorical a.s.surance, as things then stood, that his brother's paralysis would pa.s.s quickly, or that, even if it did abate, there would not be severe and permanent debilitation of his powers.

'I believe my brother has spoken of you,' he said after a short s.p.a.ce of silence. Then he suddenly slapped his knee and cried, 'I have it! You were amanuensis, secretary, or what not, to the son of the auth.o.r.ess.'

I struggled to conceal the effect of this wholly unexpected and astonis.h.i.+ng reference to my foster-mother, but evidently without success.

'You are surprised at my powers of recall, no doubt. But I only have to be told something once, you see, and it can be brought to mind in perpetuity. My dear brother calls it a phenomenon. It was a matter of much amus.e.m.e.nt between us a little game we would play whenever he came here. Christopher would always try to catch me out, but he never would, you know. He mentioned to me, some years ago now, I believe, that you had such a connection with Mrs Glyver, whose works of fiction he and I and our sister used greatly to admire; and of course I have never forgotten it. It is a gift I have; and, in addition to the harmless amus.e.m.e.nt it affords my brother and me whenever we meet, it has had some practical use in my medical career.'

His words were delivered with a succession of deep sighs. It was apparent that a close bond united the two brothers, and I divined also that the doctor's expert knowledge made him less sanguine, with regard to the Senior Partner's prognosis, than he might otherwise have been without it.

'Dr Tredgold,' I ventured, 'I have come to regard your brother as more than an employer. Since I first came into his service he has become, I might almost say, a kind of father to me; and his generosity towards me has been out of all proportion to my deserts. We have also shared many interests of a specialist character. In short, he is a person I esteem highly, and it pains me greatly to hear this terrible news. I wonder, would it be at all presumptuous if -'

'You would like to see him?' Dr Tredgold broke in, antic.i.p.ating my request. 'And then, perhaps, we might take a little supper together.'

I accompanied Dr Tredgold upstairs, to a bedchamber at the rear of the house. A nurse was sitting by the bed, whilst in a chair by the window sat a lady in black, reading. She looked up as we entered.

'Mr Edward Glapthorn, may I present my sister, Miss Rowena Tredgold. Mr Glapthorn is come from the office, my dear, on his own account, to ask after Christopher.'

I judged her to be some fifty years of age, and, with her prematurely silvered hair and blue eyes, she bore a most remarkable resemblance to her afflicted brother, who lay on the bed, deathly still, eyes closed, his mouth drawn down unnaturally to one side.

The introductions over, she returned to her book, though out of the tail of my eye I caught her looking at me intently as I stood, with Dr Tredgold, by the bedside.

The sight of my employer in such distress of body and mind was most painful to me. Dr Tredgold whispered that the paralysis had affected his left side, that his vision was seriously impaired, and that it was presently almost impossible for him to speak. I asked him again if there was a chance of recuperation.

'He may recover. I have known it before. The swelling in the brain is still in the acute phase. We must watch him closely for any deterioration. If he begins to wake soon, then we may hope that, in time, he may regain motivity, and perhaps also some operative residue of his communicative faculties.'

'Was there any immediate cause?' I enquired. 'Some extreme excitation of feeling, or other catastrophe, that might have precipitated the attack?'

'Nothing discernible,' he replied. 'He arrived here last night in the best of spirits. When he did not come down at his usual hour this morning, my sister said I should go up to see if all was well. He was in the grip of the seizure when I found him.'

I took supper with Dr Tredgold and his sister in a cold high-ceilinged room, spa.r.s.ely furnished except for a monstrous faux-Elizabethan buffet that took up nearly a whole wall. Miss Tredgold said little during the meal, which was as spa.r.s.e as the furniture; but I felt her eye upon me more than once. Her look was one of strained concentration, as though she was attempting, unsuccessfully, to recall something from the depths of memory.

Suddenly there was a loud knocking at the front-door, and a moment or two later a servant came in to announce that Dr Tredgold was wanted urgently at the house of a neighbour who had been taken ill. I used the opportunity to take my leave of the doctor and his sister. They pressed me to stay the night, but I preferred instead to take a room at the Royal Fountain Hotel.

I secured my accommodation with little trouble. Having a headache, I took a few drops of laudanum2 and closed my eyes. But my sleep was troubled by a strange recurrent dream, in which I appeared to be standing in a darkened place of great size. At first I am alone, but then, as if a light is slowly being let in from some unseen source, I discern the figure of Mr Tredgold. He is sitting in a chair with a book in his hands, slowly turning over the pages, and lingering every now and again on some point of interest. He looks up and sees me. His mouth is drawn down to one side and he appears to be mouthing words and sentences, but no sound comes out. He beckons me over and points to the book. I look down to see what he wishes to show me. It is a portrait of a lady in black. I look closer. It is the portrait of Laura, Lady Tansor, which I had seen hanging in Mr Carteret's work-room at Evenwood. Then more light floods in, and behind Mr Carteret I make out a figure on a black-draped dais, sitting behind a tall desk and writing in a great ledger. This person, too, is dressed in black, and seems to be wearing a grey full-bottomed wig, like a judge; but then I see that it is in fact Miss Rowena Tredgold, with her hair let loose around her shoulders. She stops writing and addresses me.

'Prisoner at the bar. You will give the court your name.'

I open my mouth to speak, but cannot. I am as dumb as Mr Tredgold. She asks me for my name again, but still I am unable to speak. Somewhere a bell tolls.

'Very well,' she says, 'since you will not tell the court who you are, the verdict of the court is that you shall be taken hence to a place of execution, there to be hung by the neck until you are dead. Do you have anything to say?'

I fill my lungs with air and try to scream out a protest at the top of my voice. But there is only silence.

Back in Temple-street the following day, I remained indoors, beset by a vacillating and porous state of mind in which nothing could be fixed or retained; and so, with the afternoon drawing to a close, I thought I would go down to the Temple Steps and take my skiff out on the river for half an hour.

Later that evening, Bella received me at Blithe Lodge with her customary warmth, and with many demonstrations of amity.