Gallows Thief

by Bernard Cornwell

  ‘I’ll wait with you,’ Lord Christopher said, and was rewarded by a flicker of annoyance on Lord Alexander’s face. Sandman, who saw the same flicker, knew that Lord Alexander did not want a rival for Sally’s attention, but Lord Christopher must have taken it as an insult for his face fell.

  Lord Alexander gazed at the three groundsmen, who were still leaning on their scythes and discussing Sandman’s ball that had blasted through them like a roundshot. ‘I have always thought,’ Lord Alexander said, ‘that there is a fortune to be made by a man who can invent a device for the cutting of grass.’

  ‘It’s called a sheep,’ Sandman said, ‘vulgarly known as a woolly bird.’

  ‘A device that does not leave dung,’ Lord Alexander said acidly, then smiled at Lord Christopher Carne. ‘Of course you must spend the evening with me, my dear fellow. Perhaps you can explain this man Kant to me? Someone sent me his last book, have you seen it? I thought you would have. He seems very sound, but he was a Prussian, wasn’t he? I suppose that wasn’t his fault. Come and have some tea first. Rider? You’ll have some tea? Of course you will. And I want you to meet Lord Frederick. You know he’s our club secretary now? You really should join us. And you wanted some linseed oil for the bat? They do a very acceptable tea here.’

  So Sandman went for a lordly tea.

  It was a cloudy evening and the sky over London was made even darker because there was no wind and the coal smoke hung thick and still above the roofs and spires. The streets near St James’s Square were quiet, for there were no businesses in these quiet houses and many of their owners were in the country. Sandman saw a watchman noting him and so he crossed to the man and said good evening and asked what regiment he had served in and the two passed the time exchanging memories of Salamanca, which Sandman thought was perhaps the most beautiful town he had ever seen. A lamplighter came round with his ladder and the new gas lights popped on one after the other, burning blue for a time and then turning whiter. ‘Some of the houses here are getting gas,’ the watchman said, ‘indoors.’

  ‘Indoors?’

  ‘No good’ll come of it, sir. It ain’t natural, is it?’ The watchman looked up at the nearest hissing lamp. ‘There’ll be fire and pillars of smoke, sir, like it says in the good book sir, fire and pillars of smoke. Burning like a fiery furnace, sir.’

  Sandman was saved more apocalyptic prophecies when a hackney turned into the street, the sound of its horse’s hooves echoing sharply from the shadowed white house fronts. It stopped close to Sandman, the door opened and Sergeant Berrigan stepped down. He tossed a coin up to the driver, then held the door open for Sally.

  ‘You can’t …’ Sandman began.

  ‘I told you he’d say that,’ Berrigan boasted to Sally, ‘didn’t I tell you he’d say you shouldn’t come?’

  ‘Sergeant!’ Sandman insisted. ‘We cannot …’

  ‘You’re going for Meg, right?’ Sally intervened. ‘And she ain’t going to take kindly to two old swoddies doing her up, is she? She needs a woman’s touch.’

  ‘I’m sure two old soldiers can gain her confidence,’ Sandman said.

  ‘Sal won’t take no for an answer,’ the Sergeant warned him.

  ‘Besides,’ Sandman continued, ‘Meg isn’t in the Seraphim Club. We’re only going there to find the coachman so he can tell us where he took her.’

  ‘Maybe he’ll tell me what he won’t tell you,’ Sally said to Sandman with a dazzling smile, then she turned on the watchman. ‘You got nothing better to do than listen to other folks chatting?’

  The man looked startled, but followed the lamplighter down the street while Sergeant Berrigan fished in his coat pocket to bring out a key which he showed to Sandman. ‘Back way in, Captain,’ he said, then looked at Sally. ‘Listen, my love, I know …’

  ‘Stow it, Sam! I’m coming with you!’

  Berrigan led the way, shaking his head. ‘I don’t know what it is,’ he grumbled, ‘the ladies tell you that life ain’t fair because men get all the privileges, but the mollishers don’t half get their own way. You notice that, Captain? It’s bitch about this and bitch about that, but who gets to wear the silk, gold and pearls, eh?’

  ‘You talking about me, Sam Berrigan?’ Sally asked.

  ‘True love,’ Sandman murmured, then Berrigan put a finger to his lips as they approached a wide carriage gate set in a white wall at the end of a short street.

  ‘What it is,’ Berrigan said softly, ‘is that it’s a quiet time of day in the club. We should be able to sneak in.’ He approached a small door set to one side of the gates, tried it, found it locked and so used his key. He pushed the door open, looked into the yard and evidently saw nothing to alarm him, for he stepped over the threshold and beckoned Sandman and Sally to follow.

  The yard was empty except for a coach, its blue paint trimmed with gold, that had evidently just been washed for it stood gleaming in the dusk with water dripping from its flanks and buckets standing by the wheels. The badge of the golden angel was painted on the door. ‘Over here, quick,’ Berrigan said, and Sandman and Sally followed the Sergeant to the shadow of the stables. ‘One of the lads will be washing it,’ Berrigan said, ‘but the coachmen will be in the back kitchen there.’ He nodded to a lit window in the carriage house, then turned in alarm as a door in the main house was thrown open. ‘In here!’ Berrigan hissed, and the three of them filed into an alley that led beside the stables. Footsteps sounded in the yard.

  ‘Here?’ a voice asked. Sandman did not recognise it.

  ‘A hole twelve feet deep,’ another voice answered, ‘stone-lined and with a masonry dome over the top.’

  ‘Not much damn room. How wide’s the hole?’

  ‘Ten feet?’

  ‘Christ, man, it’s where we turn the carriages!’

  ‘Do it in the street.’

  Berrigan swayed close to Sandman. ‘They’re talking about building an ice house,’ he breathed in Sandman’s ear, ‘been discussing it for a year now.’

  ‘What about behind the stables?’ the first man asked.

  ‘No room,’ the other man answered.

  ‘I mean between the stables and the back wall,’ the first man said, and Sandman heard his footsteps getting closer and knew it was only a matter of seconds before they were discovered. But then Berrigan peered out of the alley’s far end, saw no one and dashed across a smaller yard to a door that opened into the rear of the house. ‘This way!’ he hissed.

  Sandman and Sally ran after him and found themselves on a servant’s stairway that evidently ran from the kitchens in the basement to the upper floors. ‘We’ll hide upstairs,’ Berrigan whispered, ‘till the coast’s clear.’

  ‘Why not hide here?’ Sandman asked.

  ‘’Cos the bastards could come back in through this bleeding door,’ Berrigan said, then led them up the unlit stairway. Halfway up he edged open a door that led into a corridor that was deeply carpeted and had walls covered in a deep scarlet paper, though it was too dark to see the pattern of the paper or the details of the pictures that hung between the polished doors. Berrigan chose a door at random, opened it and found an empty room. ‘We’ll be all right in here,’ he said.

  It was a bedroom; large, lavish and comfortable. The bed itself was high and huge, plump-mattressed and covered with a thick scarlet covering on which the Seraphim’s naked angel took flight. A fireplace was there to warm the room in winter. Berrigan crossed to the window and pulled back the curtain so he could gaze down into the yard. Sandman’s eyes slowly adjusted to the dim light, then he heard Sally laugh and he turned to see her gazing at a picture above the bedhead. ‘Good God,’ Sandman said.

  ‘There’s a lot of those,’ Berrigan commented drily.

  The picture showed a happy group of men and women in a circular arcade of white marble pillars. In the foreground a child played a flute and another plucked a harp, both ignoring their naked elders who coupled under the moon that lit the pillared arcade with an unearthly glow. ‘Bloody hell,�
�� Sally said respectfully, ‘you wouldn’t think a girl could do that with her legs.’

  Sandman decided no answer was necessary. He moved to the window and stared down, but the yard seemed empty again. ‘I think they’ve gone back inside,’ Berrigan said.

  ‘Another one,’ Sally said, standing on tiptoe to examine the painting above the empty fireplace.

  ‘D’you think they’ll come in here?’ Sandman asked.

  Berrigan shook his head. ‘They only use these back slums in the winter.’

  Sally giggled at the picture, then turned on Berrigan. ‘You worked in an academy, Sam Berrigan.’

  ‘It’s a club!’

  ‘Bleeding academy is what it is,’ Sally said scornfully.

  ‘I left it, didn’t I?’ Berrigan protested. ‘Besides, it weren’t an academy for us servants. Only for the members.’

  ‘What members?’ Sally asked, and laughed at her own jest.

  Berrigan hushed her, not because she was being coarse, but because there were footsteps in the corridor outside. They came close to the door, passed on, faded.

  ‘It doesn’t really help us being up here,’ Sandman said.

  ‘We’ll wait for things to quiet down,’ Berrigan said, ‘and then we’ll slip back down to the yard.’

  The door handle rattled. Berrigan quickly stepped behind a folding screen that hid a chamberpot and Sandman froze. The footsteps had seemed to pass on down the passage, but the person now trying the handle must have heard the voices and crept back, and suddenly the door was pushed open and a girl walked in. She was tall, slender and her black hair was prettily piled on her head and held in place with long pins with mother-of-pearl heads. Her shoes had mother-of-pearl heels, she sported pearl earrings and had a string of pearls strung twice about her elegant, swan-like neck, but otherwise she was quite naked. She took no notice of Sandman, who had half drawn his pistol, but smiled at Sally. ‘I didn’t know you worked here, Sal!’

  ‘I’m not really working, Flossie,’ Sally said.

  Sandman recognised the girl then. It was the opera dancer who had called herself Sacharissa Lasorda and who now turned and stared at Sandman and somehow, though she was stark naked and he was fully dressed, she made him feel out of place. She looked him up and down, then smiled at Sally. ‘You got the good-looking one, didn’t you? But he’s taking his time, ain’t he?’ Then her eyes widened as Berrigan stepped from behind the screen. ‘You having a threesome?’ she asked, then recognised the sergeant.

  ‘I ain’t here, Flossie,’ Berrigan growled, ‘so close the door when you leave and you ain’t seen me. I thought you’d left for higher things?’

  ‘Didn’t work out, Sam,’ she said, closing the door but staying inside the room.

  ‘What happened to Spofforth?’ Sally asked.

  ‘Faked off this morning, didn’t he?’ She sniffed. ‘The bastard! And I need the bleeding rhino, don’t I? And this place is always worth a few quid.’ She sat on the bed. ‘So what the hell are you doing here?’ she asked Berrigan.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ he demanded in return.

  ‘We sneak in here for a rest,’ Flossie said, ‘on account that no one looks in here in summer.’

  ‘Well just you remember that we ain’t here,’ Berrigan said fiercely. ‘We ain’t here, you ain’t seen us and don’t ask us no questions.’

  ‘Bloody hell!’ Flossie gave Berrigan a very level look. ‘Pardon me for bloody breathing.’

  ‘And who are you supposed to be with?’ Berrigan asked.

  ‘Tollemere. Only he’s drunk and snoring.’ She sniffed again and looked at Sally. ‘You working here?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Rhino’s good,’ Flossie said. She eased off a shoe and massaged her foot. ‘So what happens if I go downstairs and tell them you’re here?’ she asked Berrigan.

  ‘Next time I see you,’ Berrigan said, ‘you get a thorough bloody kicking.’

  ‘Sergeant!’ Sandman remonstrated, though he noticed that Flossie seemed remarkably unmoved by the threat.

  ‘She bloody well will get a kicking!’ Berrigan said.

  ‘It’s all bulge and no bang with you, Sam,’ Flossie said, grinning.

  ‘We ain’t going to hurt no one,’ Sally said earnestly, ‘and we’re only trying to help someone.

  ‘I won’t tell anyone you’re here,’ Flossie promised. ‘Why should I?’

  ‘So who’s here tonight?’ Berrigan asked.

  She rattled off a list of names, none of which was of interest to Sandman, for neither the Marquess of Skavadale nor Lord Robin Holloway were included. Flossie was certain neither man was in the club. ‘I don’t mind the Marquess,’ she said, ‘’cos he’s a proper gentlemen, but Lord bleeding Robin, he’s a bastard.’ She pulled her shoe back on, yawned and stood up. ‘I’d better go and make sure his lordship ain’t missing me. He’ll want his supper soon.’ She frowned. ‘I don’t mind working here,’ she went on, ‘the rhino’s good, it’s comfortable, but I bloody hate sitting down to supper naked. Makes you feel queer, it does, all the men dressed bang up and us skinned to nothing.’ She opened the door and shook her head. ‘And I always spill the bloody soup.’

  ‘You will keep mum, Flossie?’ Berrigan asked anxiously.

  She blew him a kiss. ‘For you, Sam, anything,’ she said, and was gone.

  ‘For you, Sam, anything?’ Sally asked.

  ‘She don’t mean nothing,’ Berrigan said hastily.

  ‘Mister Spofforth was right,’ Sandman interrupted them.

  ‘Right about what?’ Sally wanted to know.

  ‘She does have good legs.’

  ‘Captain!’ Sally was shocked.

  ‘I’ve seen better,’ Sergeant Berrigan said gallantly, and Sandman was pleased to see Sally blush.

  ‘Out of interest,’ Sandman asked as he went to the door, ‘what does it cost to be a member here?’ He opened the door a crack and peered out, but the corridor was empty.

  ‘Two thousand to join, that’s if you’re invited, and a hundred a year,’ Berrigan said.

  The privileges of wealth, Sandman thought, and if the Countess of Avebury had been blackmailing one of the members, or even two or three of the members, then would they not kill her to preserve their place in this hedonistic mansion? He glanced back at the window. It was dark outside now, but it was the luminous dark of a summer night in a gas-lit town. ‘Shall we find our coachman?’ he asked Berrigan.

  They went back down the servants’ stairs and crossed the yard. The coach still glistened wetly on the cobbles, though the buckets were gone. Horses stamped in the stables as Berrigan went to the side door of the carriage house. He listened there for a few seconds, then raised two fingers to indicate that he thought there were two men on the door’s far side. Sandman pulled the pistol from his coat pocket. He decided not to cock it for he did not want the gun to fire accidentally, but he checked it was primed then he edged Berrigan aside, opened the door and walked inside.

  The room was a kitchen, tack room and store. A pot of water bubbled over a fire and a pair of candles burnt on the mantel and more stood on the table where two men, one young and one middle-aged, sat with tankards of ale and plates of bread, cheese and cold beef. They turned and stared when Sandman came in, and the older man, opening his mouth in astonishment, let his clay pipe drop so that its stem broke on the table’s edge. Sally followed Sandman into the room, then Berrigan came in and closed the door.

  ‘Introduce me,’ Sandman said. He was not pointing the pistol at either man, but it was very obvious and the two could not take their eyes from it.

  ‘The youngster’s a stable hand,’ Berrigan said, ‘and he’s called Billy, while the one with the jaw in his lap is Mister Michael Mackeson. He’s one of the club’s two coachmen. Where’s Percy, Mack?’

  ‘Sam?’ Mackeson said faintly. He was a burly man, red-faced, with a fine waxed moustache and a shock of black hair that was turning grey at the temples. He was dressed well and could doubtless
afford to be, for good drivers were paid extravagantly. Sandman had heard of a driver earning over two hundred pounds a year, and all of them were considered the possessors of an enviable skill, so enviable that every young gentleman wanted to be like them. Lordlings wore the same caped coats as the professionals and learnt to carry the whip in one hand and the bunched reins in the other, and there were so many aristocrats aspiring to be coachmen that no one could be sure whether any particular carriage was driven by a duke or a paid driver. Now, despite his elevated status, Mackeson just gaped at Berrigan who, like Sandman, had a pistol.

  ‘Where’s Percy?’ Berrigan asked again.

  ‘He’s taken Lord Lucy to Weybridge,’ Mackeson said.

  ‘Let’s hope you’re the one we want,’ Berrigan said. ‘And you’re not going anywhere, Billy,’ he snapped at the stable hand, who was dressed in a shabby set of the Seraphim Club’s yellow and black livery, ‘not unless you want a broken skull.’ The stable hand, who had been rising from the bench, subsided again.

  Sandman was not aware of it, but he was angry suddenly. It was possible that the moustached coachman might have the answer Sandman had been searching for, and the notion that he might get this close and still not discover the truth had sparked his rage. It was a controlled rage, but it was in his voice, harsh and clipped, and Mackeson jumped with alarm when Sandman spoke. ‘Some weeks ago,’ Sandman said, ‘a coachman from this club collected a maid from the Countess of Avebury’s house in Mount Street. Was that you?’

  Mackeson swallowed, but seemed unable to speak.

  ‘Was that you?’ Sandman asked again, louder.

  Mackeson nodded very slowly, then glanced at Berrigan as if he did not believe what was happening to him.

  ‘Where did you take her?’ Sandman asked. Mackeson swallowed again, then jumped as Sandman rapped the pistol on the table. ‘Where did you take her?’ Sandman demanded again.

  Mackeson turned from Sandman and frowned at Berrigan. ‘They’ll kill you, Sam Berrigan,’ he said, ‘kill you stone dead if they find you here.’