Avery & Blake 02 - The Infidel Stain (43 page)

At this there were furious shouts from some in the audience and cheers from others. I tried to push my way to the front, but fighting had broken out in one part of the crowd. Watkins again waved his arms and called for quiet. It seemed chaos was about to descend.

Then there was a piercing whistle and a loud crack on the doors. ‘Police!’ came the cry from outside.

‘We are raided!’ someone shouted, and as one the crowd began to shout and struggle, all looking for some means of escape. Watkins and Neesom called for quiet, but the crowd did not heed them. Wedderburn stepped off the stage into the melee and I lost sight of him. I pushed towards a wall to avoid the surge and press about me. The police began to force doors. Neesom, McDouall and Harney disappeared from the stage; Watkins remained, still calling for calm. A group of men on the left side of the hall charged a small side door and eventually broke it and began to rush out. In the middle of the room people began to scream and push each other. The police were now in. One fellow climbed upon his friend’s shoulders, took off his shoe, broke a high window and climbed out through it, mindless of the shards of glass. I followed a small group who made their way towards the back of the platform, the way the speakers had gone. There was a door and then a honeycomb of small rooms, one of which had a low window through which people were climbing out.
I ran past this, through two doors to my right into a room with a desk on which there was a large black ledger. I took it into my arms.

Blake’s sour-faced landlady opened the door to me.

‘There’s a regular crowd up there,’ she muttered crossly. ‘Too much noise.’ I caught a gust of the drains and another of her sour breath as she coughed in my face. The constable from the night before had at last taken himself off, and in Blake’s rooms O’Toole was tucking into bread and butter and a crusted pie of considerable girth, while Miss Jenkins poured him a cup of tea. O’Toole was speaking between mouthfuls.

‘… and, Miss Jenkins, you would not believe what a certain duke paid me to keep quiet about his string of mistresses all kept at great expense in one street in St John’s Wood, and his lady wife at the county seat all the while.’

‘I think you might have described this one to me before,’ Miss Jenkins said faintly.

‘I’d not say no to something a little stronger, madam. You know I have some talent as an actor. If we have time later, I might, if you are very good, give you my Lear … Ah, Captain Avery, what have you there?’

I ignored him.

‘Mr Blake is here,’ he continued regardless. ‘He arrived in a remarkable manner. Covered in grime he was. Bearded, like some railway navvy. Strutting and fretting his hour, I should think. That is
Hamlet
, by the way, Miss Jenkins.’

Blake appeared in the doorway of his bedchamber, wiping off the face of the angry Northerner from the meeting.

‘Miss Jenkins is leaving,’ said he.

‘Oh no, Mr Blake, I truly do not mind,’ she said.

‘Any more of O’Toole’s gabble will mash your brains, Miss Jenkins. I insist. Anyway, O’Toole, there is really nothing to keep you here any longer.’

Blake beckoned me into his room and closed the door, leaving
O’Toole gazing beadily after us. ‘If I must spend another hour in that man’s company I think I will be driven to murder myself.’ He spied the ledger. ‘Is that it?’

‘It was all as Neesom described to you, and was in the room you directed me to.’

He took it from me and began to leaf through the pages.

‘Will it do?’

‘Admirably. I must make use of what time I have.’ He pulled on something like a seaman’s jacket and a comforter, grasping the ledger to himself. ‘We must visit Heffernan.’

‘Is that wise?’

‘It must be risked. And this’ – he pointed at the book – ‘is our lever. Now I must tell you about Matty.’ He swung open the door. O’Toole, clearly eavesdropping, was backing away, nursing a cup of hot rum and water in his hands.

‘Anything that might interest yours truly?’ he said brightly.

‘I’m sure it would,’ said Blake. ‘We’re going out. The ostler’s boy will watch you. I know where everything belongs.’ He loured threateningly at the little man for a moment, and I truly thought he might do him harm. O’Toole sat down and buried his snout in his cup.

The maid at number 23 Cheyne Walk was even more reluctant to let us in than she had been on the earlier occasion.

‘Master’s not here,’ she said loudly, attempting to shut the door in our faces.

‘We will wait then,’ said Blake, slipping his foot between door and frame. He tipped his elbow to me and I set off for the back of the house.

‘This is not lawful,’ I could hear her crying as she tried to push him out. ‘I’ll call the peelers!’

‘You do that,’ he said.

I was outside the garden door when Heffernan emerged wearing a perfectly pressed coat with an elaborate fur collar and clutching his hat and cane, his face a picture of furtive anxiety. I realized then why he had seemed familiar to me. Seeing me, he began to stutter.
I took his arm, and he struggled lamely and protested in confused half-sentences.

‘We mean you no harm, Mr Heffernan, but there are things to be said,’ I said firmly. ‘We will return inside, I think.’

He slumped against my shoulder and nodded forlornly.

When the maid saw me with her master, she shrieked.

‘Calm yourself, Martha,’ said Heffernan, attempting to reassume some dignity. ‘We shall go to the green study. Bear with me, gentlemen.’ With exaggerated care he removed his expensive coat and handed her his cane and hat. ‘Some tea, Martha, and a glass of brandy. I shall need it.’

Blake sat himself down on one of Heffernan’s perfect walnut chairs. He carried the black ledger in his arms. Heffernan fell into another. I remained standing by the door.

‘You will not remove your coat, Mr, er, Blake?’

‘No.’

‘Will you have some tea?’

‘No.’

Blake gave Heffernan the look that few were able to endure for long without feeling obliged to speak.

‘Tea, Captain Avery?’

‘Kind of you, but no thank you, sir.’

The silent scrutiny continued. Heffernan tried to sit still but he could not. He rubbed his hands back and forth over his knees. He sat back and tapped his fingers upon his thighs. He chewed his lip. His eyes darted about anxiously. Blake moved not a whit. At last, when even I felt that the silence had gone on long enough, Heffernan jumped up from his chair, pressed his fist against his mouth and blurted out, ‘I am sorry I wrote to Lord Allington. I had my reasons. What do you want of me?’

‘You knew all of them, Blundell, Wedderburn and Woundy, twenty years ago at Spa Fields.’

Heffernan shook his head vigorously.

‘I had it from Richard Carlile himself, and in the end from Connie too,’ said Blake, stretching the truth just a little.

‘No. No!’

I said, ‘Daniel Wedderburn is the picture of you.’

The words seemed to startle him. He looked at us both, his eyes brimming with tears, and turned away.

‘I was young,’ he said in a low voice. ‘Carried away by the wish to do good.’

‘Why do you go to such lengths to deny it?’

‘Why man, I was arrested for selling seditious literature! Only my father’s connections got me released. Do you think I would be where I am now if this were widely known? Now the Chartists are so feared, a past dalliance with political radicalism is regarded as more dangerous for one’s reputation than one with a notorious courtesan!’

‘Mr Disraeli is happy to talk to the Chartists, even to defend them in Parliament. He spoke for the Chartist petition in 1839.’

‘The Tories’ relations with the Chartists are quite different. Mr Disraeli is a young man with no history.’

‘Explain it to me.’ Blake’s voice was curious, gentle even.

Heffernan leant towards him as if Blake’s words were a lifeline.

‘It was a youthful indiscretion,’ he said pleadingly. ‘We were distributing Thomas Paine’s writings when they were banned. We were nearly transported. My intentions were of the very best. I wished only to give the poor the voice they deserved. But it went too far. Plenty of men in public life have committed far worse derelictions. Why, Melbourne and Palmerston had strings of mistresses.’

‘And Connie Wedderburn was yours.’

‘Do not speak of her so!’ Heffernan cried. ‘Have you come merely to rub my face in my own shortcomings or do you have something of substance to say?’

‘These three men you knew have been murdered. Do you not have anything to say about it?’

‘It was years ago! I was a different man! What would you have me say? It pains me. I am sorry. I had nothing to do with it.’

‘Does it not make you even a little concerned for your own safety?’

‘Should I fear for my own safety, Mr Blake?’ His voice caught and he fiddled with his necktie as if to loosen it.

‘Some might speculate that it would suit you well if they disappeared. I am told you are a coming man among the liberals.’

Agitation was supplanted by horror.

‘I could not do such a thing! I would not know how! I swear to you. What kind of man do you think I am?’

Blake did not answer. ‘So you no longer have any association with political radicalism?’

Heffernan looked startled. ‘No!’

Blake nodded. He opened the black ledger and studied it. Heffernan chewed upon his lip. ‘Mr Heffernan, when we visited you last time, you quoted a poem, do you recall it?

‘Who fought for freedom more than life?

Who gave up all, to die in strife?

The young, the brave, no more a slave,

Immortal Shell! That died so well,

He fell, and sleeps in honour’s grave.’

‘I cannot say I do.’

‘Do you recall Mr Heffernan quoting those lines, Captain Avery?’

‘I do.’

‘Well, it is a well-enough-known poem,’ Heffernan said. ‘Must be twenty years old. It is about Shelley. As I say, it dates from a time when I was a firebrand.’

‘It does not. It was written just two years ago by a young Chartist poet, after the siege of Newport.’

‘What can I say? I have always had a quick memory. Things I have heard only once I can recall.’

‘And yet you did not recall saying the lines. Where do you think you would have come upon such a poem?’

‘I do not know. In one of the radical papers, perhaps. I see them from time to time. One needs to know what these people are thinking.’

‘It has never been printed in any newspaper, Mr Heffernan. It has been recited at a couple of Chartist meetings and there are copies of it in Charles Neesom’s bookshop. I think you thought to twit us.’

‘No, I swear—’

‘Mr Heffernan, we know you kept up your association with Wedderburn and the others. That is partly no doubt because of Daniel, but also because you are still engaged in radical politics. Do you recognize this ledger?’

‘I do not.’

‘You should. It belongs to Charlie Neesom’s Chartist group. It has in it, set down, the money you and Woundy have given to his physical-force Chartists. Not a very sensible thing to do, it must be said, but it’s all written down here. Captain Avery took it from the offices of the Orange Tree tavern in Holborn not three hours since. Your name is here. In pen and ink.’

Heffernan ran his hands through his handsomely coiffed hair. ‘I did not kill them, Mr Blake. I did not. I would not know how.’ He fell back into his chair and put his hands over his face. There was a small whimper.

‘Come now, Mr Heffernan,’ I said as warmly as I could, drawing close to him. ‘Would it not be a relief now to speak of it?’

Heffernan did not move.

‘Eldred, Nat and Matthew are all dead,’ said Blake, ‘and two more now, a teacher and a guard. You must be starting to fear for your own safety.’

Silence.

‘Mr Heffernan,’ I said, ‘our task is to find out who killed your friends and to prevent more deaths. Perhaps to save your own life. We wish to help you, but we cannot if you do not tell us what you know.’

Heffernan lifted his hands from his face. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at himself. ‘You do not understand,’ he said. ‘It is all falling about me. Everything.’

‘What happened after Daniel was born?’ said Blake.

Heffernan wrapped his arms about himself. He did not look at either of us. ‘I did not see Connie and Nat for some years. She did not wish to see me, and would not say for certain that the child was mine, though I was sure he was. I wanted to set her up, but she would not come away with me, you see. She knew I could not
marry her, and she would not be a kept woman. Perhaps she loved Nat more than me. I was angry. I returned to Ireland, took my law exams, placated my father. But I did not forget them. I sent money to Spa Fields for the child. I believe it helped them through some difficult times. Nat was in gaol on several occasions, as was she. But eventually they left Spa Fields and I lost all knowledge of them.