Avery & Blake 02 - The Infidel Stain (42 page)

We walked on towards Spitalfields. Blake began to hold his side.

‘Why did you not bring up O’Toole’s ambush with Neesom? We must get rid of him, by the way, move him somewhere,’ I said.

‘No. We must keep him close.’

I felt the cogs of my mind move painfully slowly. ‘Keep him close?’

‘I could not let him get away. He needed to be convinced to stay.’

I felt my palms tingle and the rage begin to rise. ‘You knowingly left him with Miss Jenkins. And the ambush, it was you! Ah, Jeremiah! If you were in better health I should …’ I set off at a run, for if I had stayed near him I should have punched him.

‘I do not suspect him,’ Blake said raggedly, when he finally caught me up. ‘But I thought he might know more than he said. Even if I did suspect him, we know his preferred victims are not single ladies of a certain age. I’m sure Miss Jenkins is safe. Unless he has talked her to death.’

‘Not amusing,’ I said.

There were still a few people on Dean Street when we returned. At least two might plausibly have been watching us. Blake insisted we enter through the backyard, so we doubled back and went round by the ostler’s yard. In his rooms a fire was dying in the grate. O’Toole snored on the settle, still in his dress. Miss Jenkins slumbered on the elderly armchair. The table between them was covered in empty, crumb-covered plates and half-filled tea cups of fine porcelain. Miss Jenkins jerked her head up and opened her eyes, confused by the sight of us. I was gusty with relief.

She sat up and went pink, protesting that she would not have had us find her thus for anything, and apologizing for dropping off.

‘Mr O’Toole is a most animated talker. Really, I heard things I thought I never should—’

‘Half of them untrue, I’m sure, Miss Jenkins,’ I said.

‘Most probably,’ she admitted, ‘but he does not stop, charming as he is. I gave him some port. I must admit I was quite glad when he fell asleep at last.’

‘I assume he has eaten all your supplies,’ said Blake. ‘I shall make that good for you.’

She protested that if she could be of assistance she was happy, and blushed again.

Someone began to rap on the door.

‘Mr Blake!’ came a voice from the other side. ‘I know you are there. You would do well to let us in!’

O’Toole sprang from sleep, looking blearily but anxiously about.

‘Mr Blake is not here,’ I called out. ‘Who is it?’

‘Is that Captain Avery? You’d better open the door. This is Sergeant Loin of the Metropolitan Police.’

‘You must hide me,’ O’Toole squealed.

‘Be a man, O’Toole,’ I hissed back.

‘I’ll write you something to give Loin, then I shall take Mr O’Toole next door,’ Blake said quietly. ‘Perhaps he can climb out of the window. There is a ledge he could balance upon.’

O’Toole’s face was such a picture I almost laughed.

The door received two hard blows that caused it to shake on its hinges.

‘Sergeant Loin, I told you, Mr Blake is not here, but there is a lady present. I will not open the door if you persist in your violent manner.’

The blows ceased.

‘I must compose myself,’ Miss Jenkins called out, smoothing down her dress, while Blake scribbled on a scrap of paper.

‘Sergeant Loin! Give the lady a moment, she is most upset.’

When we unlocked the door it was to discover Loin framed by two uniformed constables. Miss Jenkins managed to look dreadfully pained and anxious.

‘I am sorry to have alarmed you, madam,’ Loin said awkwardly and made a small bow.

‘You startled us dreadfully,’ I said. ‘What could possibly bring you here, Sergeant Loin? As I said, Mr Blake is not here. Miss Jenkins is
his neighbour and is most concerned for him. Neither of us have any idea where he is.’

‘You know why I am here. He is wanted for questioning with regard to the murder of Eldred Woundy.’

‘I can vouch for the fact that Mr Blake is no longer working on that case. Lord Allington has discontinued the investigation.’

‘That’s as may be. It did not stop him making his visit to the Bow Street deadhouse – a foolish move. We will have to search for him.’

‘You cannot simply walk in here,’ I cried as Loin pushed past me into Blake’s bedchamber. As he did so, there came a shout.

‘Hi! There!’ O’Toole was pointing out of the open window.

‘O’Toole?’ said Loin, incredulously.

‘The very same. Sergeant Loin,’ he said, turning and making an extravagant bow.

‘What are you doing here? And why are you wearing a dress?’

‘Well, Captain Avery was kind enough to allow me forty winks. As you may have heard, I am somewhat unpopular in certain circles. I was woken by your voices. As for my costume, well, that can wait for another occasion. I could not help hearing that you were looking for Mr Blake. I just saw the very man about to climb in through the backyard. Something made him reconsider his plan, for he suddenly withdrew and rushed down the lane in the direction of Oxford Street. That was when I shouted. He should not be hard to find: long grey coat, much patched; old grey moleskin cap, black gloves, slight limp.’

‘Mr O’Toole!’ I said.

Loin looked between us, unable to decide whether he was being gulled or losing crucial moments of pursuit.

‘And do you mean to take me in too?’ I said recklessly. ‘After all, we both found Woundy’s body and it was I who engaged Woundy’s bruisers in fisticuffs.’

‘My orders do not include you,’ said Loin.

‘This is absurd!’ I said.

‘It is in truth very simple, Captain Avery,’ said O’Toole. ‘You are a gentleman and a war hero. And Mr Blake is not.’

‘We shall return soon enough if we do not find him. I shall leave a constable here.’

‘Not upon the premises, Sergeant Loin,’ said O’Toole, silkily. ‘That of course is not permitted.’

‘He will wait outside,’ said Loin ill-temperedly, preparing to run down the stairs.

‘Sergeant Loin, Mr Blake asked me to give you this.’ I drew out Blake’s note and thrust it into his hands. ‘And could you not take Mr O’Toole with you?’

Loin put it into his pocket, ignoring my words, and pulled the door shut after him.

‘Where is he?’ I rasped as loud as I dared.

‘Clinging on to the wall outside like a veritable human spider,’ said O’Toole, ‘an indomitable snail, a resolute vine! Never in all my born days have I seen the like!’

The rest of O’Toole’s peroration was lost to me as I was already leaning out of the window. In the moonlight Blake looked exceedingly strange, ghostly white and adhering to the wall though there seemed nothing for him to hold on to. I put out my hands to him and had O’Toole hold my middle to ballast me, and thus we pulled him in. He lay on the floor, holding his ribs, his eyes closed in pain and exhaustion. Miss Jenkins called gently from the parlour, offering smelling salts, and I blessed her once again.

‘So,’ O’Toole said when Blake was somewhat recovered. ‘The new police search for you and I ask myself why.’

‘The Chartists search for you and I know why,’ Blake gasped irritably. ‘And it would be very easy to let them know where you are.’

‘I understand,’ said O’Toole, far too genially for my liking.

Miss Jenkins returned to her rooms, bidding a loud goodnight to the constable outside. We put Blake to bed on his charpoy. O’Toole lay on the settle, his snores breaking through the night’s quiet almost as soon as he lay down, while I stretched out upon the carpet, tossing and turning. Eventually sleep ambushed me.

The Orange Tree tavern near Holborn had a large hall in which about 300 persons were gathered. The chill of the day was mitigated by the crush of bodies, and the effect, though thankfully warmer, was not altogether pleasant. I had expected a roomful of ragged-trousered revolutionaries. Many of them, however, were respectable-looking men in their Sunday clothes; others looked to be honest working men in corduroys and moleskin.

On a platform at the front of the hall, Neesom smiled benevolently and Dr McDouall wore his forbidding face. Another man from the previous meeting, Harney, sat next to them. And Watkins, who had led the previous meeting, stood, smiling beatifically and raising his hands for quiet. Over their heads was a banner embroidered with the words ‘Metropolitan Charter Association’. Gradually the buzz ebbed and stilled until there was near silence. I had looked over the crowd repeatedly, but could not see Daniel Wedderburn anywhere.

‘Welcome, friends, brothers and guests!’ Watkins shouted, and called the meeting to order, offering himself as chairman.

Someone shouted out, ‘Seconded!’ There was a deal of surprisingly orderly voting and ‘aye’-ing, then Neesom stood up. He introduced two pale, haunted-looking men, a cabinetmaker and a silk weaver, who he said would speak eloquently of the suffering of their communities. He told the audience that two years before the Chartists had tried to bring their situation to the attention of Parliament but had failed. Now they were more numerous and organized than ever before, especially in London.

‘Join us, and London will not lag behind this time! Parliament will be at last rescued from its own corruption! The terrible need of the country will not be denied, nor the rights of the needy!’

There were noisy cheers.

The cabinetmaker began to speak. His tale was a terrible one of desperation and loss, of prosperity giving way to distress and hunger, of children starving, of mothers dying. He spoke simply, without rhetorical skill, but I had never heard want described so painfully, so immediately. On it went, the terrible, unignorable litany of pain and deprivation. When he finished, the weaver spoke of the calamities visited upon his fellow silk workers in Spitalfields, who he said had formerly been ‘the aristocracy of labour’, but were now, in the face of the mechanical looms from the North, starved of work and reduced to burning for fuel the very looms on which they had plied their trade.

I did not trust what I had seen of Neesom. I was more than wary of the Chartists. I had seen famine and want in India. I had read of the complaints of the northern operatives, and in
The Times
read stories of poverty in London. But I had never heard it given tongue like this. My heart was wrung. I could not deny these people had cause to complain. About me, the faces of the audience were sombre, there were murmurs of agreement and sympathy, and when the two men sat down it was to sustained, respectful applause.

Neesom stood and spoke of how in London something different was happening than in the North: apprenticeships had been broken and skilled men who had once worked for themselves were driven to seek employment in larger factories owned by a few masters who paid a lower wage, while women and children were sweated in slop shops, and fine old skilled trades died out.

‘We make more,’ he said, ‘yet wages decrease.’

Now Harney leapt up, waving to the assembly with his red cap, and calling excitedly upon his ‘brothers’ to sign up to the Charter.

‘We shall gather in such numbers that we shall force Parliament to understand that we will not go away, we will not cease from the struggle until every honest working man in the country has a vote, until life improves for the toilers.’

He announced there would be a new petition and they would gather millions upon millions of signatures demanding the vote, and present it to Parliament.

‘We shall collect so many names that one hundred men will be
needed to carry the petition into the Houses of Parliament. The procession will stretch all through London. People will come out to greet us. It will be more splendid and more representative than anything yet seen. A great celebration, and when Parliament sees how we represent the people, they will have to listen to our demands. They will not be able to dismiss us.’

I found Harney’s brittle rhetoric less to my taste, but my mind was still overthrown by the descriptions I had heard.

Neesom asked the assembly to join the movement while a young man recited a dirge-like poem about ‘the heroes of Newport’.

The assembly formed itself into a slow column and approached the platform, where each signed a paper and brought out a few coins. The young man continued with more poems in a similar vein, all of which had a great many verses.

Not far from me was a man, a Northerner, who had muttered to himself throughout the speeches, despite drawing angry glances from his peers. He had a rough beard and a coarse, swarthy look. As the last poem ended and the column of signatories abated, he began to shout in earnest.

‘Our families starve and you tell us to sign a paper?’

Those about him endeavoured to shush him, but he ignored them.

‘Who am I to speak? I’ll tell you. I am every man and woman who starves on a flagstone floor when the work is gone and there’s no kindling for a fire. I am every man that walks the streets with bairns keening at home for food. And you say to me, “Wait”? “Sign a paper”?’

The assembly stirred uneasily. Those about him told him to hold his tongue. But others called out, ‘Aye!’ And one shouted, ‘We signed before and we got nothing!’ Another said, ‘Why should we listen to you?’

‘I’ve heard Mr Harney speak for force,’ said the Northerner. ‘Why does Mr Harney not speak for force now?’ Harney looked highly discomfited but said nothing.

Watkins the cleric held up his hands again for order.

The swarthy Northerner shouted out, ‘This is a fool’s paradise!
Nothing can bring us what we deserve save cold iron and force of numbers. Why do you not tell them that? You are just O’Connor’s mouthpiece, the blarney merchant. He made his peace with the government. He’s in its hands now, while we are crushed and oppressed.’

Suddenly Daniel Wedderburn stepped on to the platform. Despite his size he looked very young. A few in the crowd called out, encouraging him to speak. He drew a deep breath.

‘I, too, have come to believe that acts of oppression must be met with resistance. In ’39 we did not support our brothers in the North. Are we once again to have the rest of the country cry “Shame!” on the men of the capital? I say no. I say, in London we will plant the tree of Liberty and if necessary bleed the veins of government to succour it.’