The Masters of Bow Street (40 page)

‘Never more so. When I have your word on secrecy I will tell you the whole story.’

Three-quarters of an hour later Benedict said earnestly, ‘I am your man. And I can help in a way the court cannot. The Daily Clarion holds a record of incidents in the whole of the Covent Garden area, where we sell many of our newspapers, but many are told to me and my partners, for payment if used. I’ll warrant there was no mention of the New Mohocks in the secret record.’

Startled, James said, ‘There was one - they left a girl all but dead in an alley. Even then it was said only that they were suspected.’

‘We have a list of most of their little escapades as well as hundreds of others not attributable to them.’

‘I am very glad, but why should you keep such a list?’

‘Jamey, everything is grist to the mill of a newspaper,’ explained Benedict. ‘One can never be sure when a piece of gossip or a trifle of information may not lead to a story of great public interest. If you will finish eating that treacle pudding I will take you to the office and get the diary.’

The office and printing house were only fifty yards away, and the steady beat of a machine sounded clearly as they crossed the cobbled yard. The print shop itself was heavy with the odour of printing ink and hazy with smoke from pipes and oil lamps as the men stood at the machines and the boys rushed about with loads of newsprint. The office, in one corner, was little better, and James could only just make out, through the haze, two men sitting at a long desk.

There was good-humoured banter between Benedict and the two men before the diary was taken down from a shelf. James was astonished by the detail, the minutiae of information about that quarter of London which contained both Bow Street and Covent Garden. It was kept on a day-to-day basis, most entries being set in the hours between sunset and midnight.

As James turned its pages, one entry kept occurring: a single line reading ‘New Mohocks’. Occasionally there was the name of a victim of their outrages or an address of a house where they had created a disturbance, but for the most part there was just ‘New Mohocks’ - identifiable because of their method of attack on women, which had sometimes developed into rape by four or five men in succession.

‘Bring that back intact or “Mr. Londoner” will cease to exist!’ one of Benedict’s partners threatened.

‘I’ll bring it back, purified!’ James laughed.

By the time he reached his rooms it was already nine o’clock but he studied the entries for another two hours, by which time the candle was burning low and his eyes were so heavy that he found it hard to keep them open. The following day, when not at court or attending to callers, he studied both the Bow Street report on the Twelves and the diary, and read and pondered late into the night. Up at six the next morning, he breakfasted on cold beef and pancakes with heavy black treacle, and had barely finished his ale when a thought stabbed into his head. Pushing back his chair, he sprang to the table where the diary lay. He began to look through it furiously, placing in the diary a tiny dot on those days when the Twelves had been active anywhere in London.

On no single night of the Twelves’ depredations had the New Mohocks been active. Not one single night.

‘You think they might be the Twelves one night and the New Mohocks another?’ Benedict sounded incredulous and David Winfrith showed a kind of resignation.

They were in James’s bedroom, large enough to be a living room also, and at night an office. On one side of the hearth were bookshelves holding mostly law and English and European history.

‘I think it probable,’ James replied. ‘Even five years ago the New Mohocks were old for such youthful gangs and today some of them must be in the middle twenties and none younger than twenty-one or two. Would raping women and arousing the fear of neighbours satisfy young men of that age? Could the attacks on women not be a cover for more serious activities?’

‘I like your reasoning,’ Benedict replied.

‘And I,’ agreed Winfrith.

‘There is an easy way to find out,’ declared James. ‘Have each of the New Mohocks watched and followed to their homes after their next attack and then at dusk each night for a week, say, have them watched and followed wherever they go.’

‘Practicable but I doubt easy,’ said Winfrith. ‘The watchers would be denying themselves any of the customary rewards of thief-taking and protecting private houses. They would need some retainer, a shilling a night at least.’

‘I will pay whatever is needed,’ offered James.

‘I will pay half,’ Benedict added. ‘Get skilful men, David, accustomed to following suspects without being seen.’

Winfrith replied, ‘I am quite sure that Mr. Fielding will agree to this and will be grateful for your generous offer.’

The surveillance began that night with constables from adjoining parishes taking positions of vantage, sometimes in doorways, sometimes in rooms of houses owned by friends, in the alehouses and near the brothels. For two nights there was nothing to report, but on the third, several men suspected of being New Mohocks left their homes and forgathered at the Angel Inn, near a corner of Covent Garden piazza. An hour later they left the Angel and split into two groups, one concentrating near a big house in Leicester Square, the other in Long Acre. Each group was watched and followed secretly.

The first group ran amok through the great square, terrifying people in the houses and in the streets, cutting horses loose, kicking down protective fences about the flower beds and dis appearing after ten minutes of bedlam.

Disappearing, that is, as far as they knew. In fact they were followed, one by one, to a big warehouse belonging to Ebenezer Morgan & Sons.

The second group lay in wait for a girl and set upon her, but before they could harm her, two riders thundered by, Bow Street men, who gave the girl a chance to escape but did not reveal their identity.

The next night nothing happened.

On the fifth night of the vigil the New Mohocks met again at the Angel Inn but this time they did not stay so long. In twos and threes they left in the direction of Hyde Park Turnpike and went on to the Pack Inn, a mile beyond the turnpike. Within a quarter of an hour they left by the ill-lit back door, took horses from the stables, and approached the highway; each one was masked. Since they were mounted and Fielding’s men were on foot, no chase was possible, but the Bow Street men were near enough to identify the riders as they held up two carriages and one coach. Frightened men and women were made to dismount and were robbed of all their valuables, and two young women were so roughly handled that there seemed some danger of rape, but a small company of dragoons, dispatched at Fielding’s request, came at a gallop before great harm could be done and the highwaymen scattered.

Each one returned to the Morgan warehouse through the archway in Long Acre.

By the time James and Benedict were summoned and reached the spot, all Fielding’s men were at the approaches to the warehouse. John Charleston, one of the oldest and most reputable of the men from Bow Street, advanced into the middle of the yard in front of the warehouse, while others crept to the doorways, where a pale light glimmered through the cracks.

Suddenly there was a cry from the roof.

‘On guard there. On guard!’

On that instant the doors were thrust open and the men who had been followed rushed out, knives and pistols in their hands.

Charleston, face to face with a man who raised a pistol, called out clearly, ‘Drop your weapons! We are officers of the law. You are under arrest.’

The man in front of him fired on that instant, and a bullet caught Charleston between the eyes; several more shots sounded as, heedless of danger, more Bow Street men rushed forward. Benedict saw one of the highwaymen creeping close to the wall and leaped at him, while James, no more than three yards behind but hidden by shadows, watched the man who had shot and surely killed Charleston slipping along the arch way towards Long Acre.

If James called for help, the others would hear and shoot him in his tracks.

If he followed the man alone, he would be in nearly as much danger.

No lights were on except the one at the archway and every step made it more difficult to make out the other’s shape; all at once he turned into an alley, and James stopped moving. Nearby was a doorway which would give him shelter. The noise of the battle continued; there was no more shooting but much bellowing and scuffling.

Soon he heard the chinking of bridle and stirrups: Charleston’s killer was mounting a horse. James crept into the empty street. Sharp and clear, the horses’ shod feet sounded on the cobbles, and as James drew nearer still, the murderer nosed his mount into Long Acre. James’s one hope of stopping him was to let him pass and then spring at him.

The masked rider peered in each direction but did not see James. Slowly he inched his mount forward, giving James time to draw level with the horse’s hindquarters. He keyed himself to leap, confident that once he could grip the rider’s arm he could throw him with one twist of the wrist, bringing him off the horse, but just as he was on the point of jumping he caught his foot on some piece of metal in the road and it clanged with an alarming noise.

The man turned swift as sound in his saddle.

There was just enough light from the flickering flares to show the pistol thrust forward. James flung himself to one side as a shot roared and flashed. He felt a thud in his left shoulder and crashed onto the cobbles so heavily that consciousness died.

The highwayman put his horse to the gallop as men began to stream out of Morgan’s archway in time to find James with his badly injured shoulder but too late to catch the man who had killed John Charleston.

All the other members of the Twelves were captured; all were taken to a special session at Bow Street, where John Fielding committed them to Newgate to await trial. One of them was Gabriel, son of Ebenezer Morgan.

James was aware of pain in his shoulder and a throbbing ache in his head. He could smell something sharp and astringent which reminded him of a hospital. Light came into the small room from a window placed high in a wall. All was quiet. Very gradually he recalled what had happened and suddenly he realised the simple, overwhelmingly significant truth: he was alive! Cautiously, fearful of making the ache worse, he turned his head and saw that the ceiling sloped down to a door in a corner opposite the fireplace. He did not understand where he was, but at least he was alive.

Had the others caught the highwayman?

Was Charleston dead?

These thoughts drifted slowly through his mind, while his head seemed to become heavy even on the pillow and his eyes closed. He did not know how long he alternately slept and dozed but the next time he woke he felt an alertness of mind which told him that all drowsing was done.

He tried to sit up but the effort brought such blinding pain to both shoulder and head that he desisted, lowering himself gently back on the pillow. Hardly had the pain eased than he heard footsteps on stairs which creaked loudly, followed by more footsteps groaning on the boards of a passage. A few moments later the groaning stopped, the latch lifted quietly and the door opened.

Mary Smith came into the room.

In that first moment it was like a dream; she could not be real, must be a figment of his imagination! But as she crossed towards him and, seeing his eyes open, smiled with pleasure, he had no doubt that she was there in the flesh. He raised his right hand to her and she took it between hers, pressed gently, then drew back and sat on a slung chair. What light there was shone on her face, and he had a swift thought that in the little bonnet and dark dress with white ruffs at neck and wrists she was very like his mother. She had the same colouring, the same shaped eyes and forehead.

‘How long have I been here?’ he asked in a voice husky through lack of use.

‘Since last night,’ she answered, leaning forward and taking a small mug of water from a table at the side of the bed, putting her other hand at his head and raising it a few inches. He moistened his lips and then drank a little, surprised at the great effort this cost him. She lowered his head onto the pillows again. ‘You had a bad fall, and we were anxious for a while, but the doctor took the bullet out of your shoulder and assures us that although you may have cracked your skull it is not broken. You are to rest and sleep as much as you can, eat a little food and drink some soup. If you are obedient to your nurse he expects you to be as good as new before long.’ Her eyes smiled as she went on: ‘And you are not to be worried or anxious, and I am to answer all your questions as far as I can.’

James looked at her searchingly and asked slowly, ‘Where am I and how is it you are here?’

‘You are in an old cottage attached to Mr. Weygalls’ house, and he commands me to give your needs my prime attention.’

‘But his family—’

‘Jamey,’ she interrupted, ‘last night a miracle happened in this part of London. The New Mohocks were broken up and are never likely to re-form. Mr. Sly made it clear that you were largely responsible, and except possibly for Ebenezer Morgan, who dares say no word since one of his sons was involved and one of his warehouses was used to store stolen goods, every person in the neighbourhood knows how great a debt they owe to you.’

‘Nonsense! The Fieldings—’

‘To the Fieldings, too, but they are remote from us. Jamey, I think you have talked enough. I will come whenever you call for me, and you have only to pull this rope behind your bed.’

She drew the end of a rope forward so that he could reach it without strain, but before she could move away he rested a hand on hers.

‘Mary, why is this room like a hospital?’

‘You had best not allow Mr. Weygalls to hear you say that. He considers hospitals to be stinking places, where patients die even more quickly than they would outside, but with perhaps a little more comfort. This is a sickroom for his family. You were within a stone’s throw of this place, and Benedict Sly brought you here. Now you must rest.’