The Raven's Seal

by Andrei Baltakmens

  In this order Thaddeus Grainger found them, when he tipped his coin into Mrs. Swinge’s palm and went up to the Straight Room. The chambers was noisy, crowded, bleared with smoke, but as Grainger entered, Tallow knew him first.

  “Mr. Grainger—Silver Buttons, to speak familiar—have you come to mark your triumph or see how a man of character faces perdition?”

  “I thought,” said Grainger, “that it would be unmannerly to forgo the last occasion when I might share a cup with the famed and lamented Dirk Tallow.”

  “Ha! You always had pretty manners. This gent,” said Tallow, by way of introduction to the girl he was balancing on his knee, “is an old hand, with the nicest way of speaking yet in the Bells. We have had some japes together, Mr. Grainger and me.”

  “Indeed,” affirmed Grainger, approaching, “I have often felt the sting of your wit.”

  “Then drink to it!” exclaimed Tallow. He struggled to rise, throwing off the lolling girl, who stumbled and was deftly caught by Grainger before striking the ground.

  Tallow, adorned with the six-pound manacles and secured to the walls by staples and chain, drew himself up before the heavily grated window, all dark outside. “A strong pose for the broadsheets, don’t you think?” said Tallow. “They shall make an etching. A distinguished plate. A fine title underneath: ‘The notorious Dirk Tallow contemplates his lost liberty.’”

  “A striking illustration,” allowed Grainger.

  “Speak your part,” growled the highwayman. “We are not friends, nor ever like to be.”

  “True,” said Grainger, “I have no reason to regret your passing, for you and your ruffian crew have made it a particular pleasure to torment me at every turn—though I have often wondered at the notice you were so good as to bestow on me—but I have heard that men in their final hours have curious fancies: to make amends or to confess; and therefore I place myself at your service.”

  Clumsily, for his hands were weighted with chains, Dirk Tallow drew his lank hair back from his broad forehead. His face was flushed from drink, and his coarsely handsome features had lost their distinction to fat and dissipation. He sniffed. “You have come to watch my passing and gloat over your superiority. But I tell you that Dirk Tallow has known his freedom to the full, aye, and played it to the hilt! I go to the gallows soon, but they have known me and feared me. I will give them answer for my bold deeds, more than you, sir, who will stretch out your days in the Bells at the pleasure of the magistrates on Battens Hill.”

  “I assure you,” said Grainger softly, “I have no intention of gloating over your position. I mean only to make myself useful.”

  “But you are a learned man!” exclaimed Tallow. “A taker of remembrances. You will mark down my will and testimony. You will make a memorial of it.”

  Thus, the highwayman in his last hours: still bullying, still taunting, still vain, and yet pitifully anxious to be reconciled to every man’s good opinion.

  “Assuredly,” said Grainger, calmly watching the effect of his words, “there must be other deeds, high exploits, perhaps crimes as well, that lie heavy upon your recollection.”

  A compound expression, guarded yet gloating, shifted across the condemned man’s face. “Aye, I have done many things asides the few exploits I’m charged with. Dirk Tallow casts a long shadow and has done a bit of business, and they but know the part of it that took him.”

  “Like the Wodenshill job,” said Grainger. “Daring as that was, I’m sure you were the master of it.”

  “Why,” said Dirk Tallow, raising one cuffed hand to wag a finger before Grainger, “what little bird sang that in your ear?”

  Now, thought Grainger, I must be steady and strike the blow. “You and I have always been at odds, but we are not wholly unalike. We have both taken instruction from the same quarter.” And here he extended his arm, turned up the palm, opened the fingers and revealed, for a moment, the waxen seal concealed there: the impress of the Black Claw he had captured long ago and never before dared to show.

  Dirk Tallow glared and paled. Greasy sweat stood out on his forehead. He looked aside, and Grainger closed his fist. The roar and confusion of the Straight Room redoubled. A string was plucked, a candle knocked over, and the shadows shifted and danced.

  “You came by that by some devilish trickery,” croaked Dirk Tallow.

  Strike hard and set the blade! thought Grainger. “You preening, vile, vulgar oaf,” he snarled. “You lend yourself airs and hold yourself a gentleman of the road, but you would be a common cutthroat yet, without the wit to raise yourself, if those we both know did not guide you step by step to the successes you had.”

  With a roar of baffled fury, the highwayman launched himself at Grainger. But his fetters and drunkenness hampered him, and he fell short as Grainger stepped nimbly aside. A woman shrieked. One or two of the company roused themselves from their cups. But Grainger was quicker, and already crouched by Tallow as he struggled to rise.

  “And I know also how you were impeached, and taken up, and set to dance a reel on the gallows, by the same men.”

  Dirk Tallow spat in the straw, hauled himself upright, staggered, and waved off those who came tardily to his aid. “Get off! It’s no matter. A point of contention between gentlemen ain’t your concern.”

  He seated himself and stared red-eyed at Grainger. “I fancy you and I was brought here by the same dance-master.”

  A cool, bleak smile touched Grainger’s lips. “You took a turn there. It was you that set Toby Redruth to spy on me. But to whom did you turn his reports?”

  This charge seemed to please Tallow, who nodded slowly. “Aye, I set a watch on you, and on that Massingham besides. And what a fine pair of birds you noblemen were, playing at rakes in common alehouses, and quarrelling over a retchy wench. You was blind and you was deaf, and you didn’t see a bit of the way laid out before you. You as near made a murderer of yourself as we pushed you into it.”

  “Was it Mr. Brock that set you on?” pressed Grainger.

  “Now, if you are bounden to the Black Claw, you know the answer to that as well as I do,” replied Tallow, with the infinite slyness of the drunk.

  “Quite so,” allowed Grainger. He reached for a cup and sniffed at the rank liquor. “But what’s the point in keeping confidences now?”

  “Oh, you’re a cool one,” said Tallow. “A perfect prison cheat, sharp as can be. But there’s a thing or two you don’t know. Dirk Tallow has the upper hand!”

  “Forgive me,” said Grainger, “but your ascendancy is not much in evidence.”

  “Insolence!” roared Tallow. “You think you can lord it over me?” He slapped his chest. “I was the one that struck the blow you were tried for! I put the steel to the man that bloodied you!”

  “Do you say you killed Piers Massingham?” hissed Grainger.

  Tallow preened, smoothing his shirt. “I waited for him at the appointed place. He came meek to the slaughter. He turned his back to me, and I did him a cutthroat’s honour.” The highwayman grinned and made a vicious motion with his right hand.

  Grainger covered his eyes with one hand, for even this smoky, fetid cell dazzled him, and the roar of so many other voices overwhelmed his senses. His thoughts, already racing, were entirely confounded, tangled, spinning.

  “What do you make of that, Silver Buttons?” roared Dirk Tallow, clapping him on the shoulder before taking a long gulp of wine.

  Grainger brought his hand down and willed it into stillness. “You make a great boast, Master Tallow—but where is the proof?”

  “Why,” said Tallow, leering, “what would you give for it?”

  “What would I give?” said Grainger, drawing closer, “You are a remarkable fool: a very pattern! How do you think you were taken up? You had outworn your usefulness, and like old goods you were set out at a discount, and still you think to serve your masters by mutely taking their secrets down to your grave. There is dedication! Let Mr. Brock drink to your memory! He does handsomely by you, f
rom here to the gallows, and will no doubt profit from your coat and boots, and bargain for your corpse with the anatomists.”

  These words cooled Tallow’s triumph, for he wavered and bit his lips, and shook his head like a weary dog.

  “A perfect fool for the gallows,” concluded Grainger. “Dangling to quit their crimes as well as his own.”

  “Enough.” Dirk Tallow brought his head up with a start. “I have no certain proofs. Let my word stand as proof enough. But I can show thee how the deed was done.”

  “By all means bring it forth!” exclaimed Grainger.

  “When the fellow was dead, I went through his pockets,” resumed Tallow. “He had many rings, a watch, pounds, shillings and pence upon him, but I touched none of that. They said it should in nowise resemble a robbery, for that could confuse the matter.”

  “And you still have their instructions?” Grainger interrupted.

  “Not I! The note and the Black Claw were in Brock’s hands. He read them to me and burned the letter directly.”

  “Then what?”

  “Why,” said Tallow, his head drooping and speaking so low that Grainger could but faintly make him out, “he had a letter with him, a letter setting out the day and time and place of his appointment, saying who he should come with, and with what purpose. A letter closed up by the same Black Claw.”

  “The damned letter,” marveled Grainger, under his breath. “It was spoken of at the trial. He was reading and rereading a letter before he went out. So Kempe said, to flavour his lie with a pinch of truth. But it was not among his effects, afterwards.”

  “I took it,” said Dirk Tallow. “I thought it might be of worth.”

  “You have it still?”

  “I have it about me always. Very nicely phrased it is. Very flattering, most obsequious.”

  “May I see it?”

  “Now then,” said Tallow, sly again, and sensing his power, “how would it serve me, in that case?”

  “Be sensible, man,” warned Grainger. “You will be dead tomorrow and forgotten the day after that, but this letter would surely discomfort those who misused you. You and I have common cause in that.”

  “Aye. I am a scoundrel, and my word does not pass for much. But dying confessions are inviolate.”

  “So they are.”

  “You are a gentleman, Mr. Grainger. Too mannered for my taste, but a gentleman. Give me your word and your hand. Say that you will look to my interests in this matter, after I am gone, and it will be yours.”

  The highwayman held out his hand, sweating, stained by grease and wine, a murderous hand, negligent in the deed and the confession. Momentarily, Grainger was repulsed. The man deserved his death, and Dirk Tallow would surely improve the prospect of the world for his going out of it. He did not entertain the sentiment that the unadorned spark of life itself is so precious, not among the blaze of so many living things. Self-interest moved him; but self-interest was not enough. Rather, he acted out of pity, and stronger and surer than pity, compassion, that defies the gallows dark and the narrow self.

  He took the highwayman’s hand. “I will make a truthful account of your part in this, and hold those responsible to justice.”

  “Well spoken!” cried Dirk Tallow. “Tell them that Dirk Tallow was not afraid of any man and followed his own will.” He drank deep, called for more liquor, and rummaged in the capacious sleeve of his coat. The cup was filled. He brought out a stained piece of folded paper, with the remnants of the black wax seal still clinging to the edge.

  “By itself, it don’t mean much,” said Tallow. “Your cheat would make a trifle of it. But find its fellow. Find the hand that appointed this meeting, and you will have your freedom.” He looked around his tattered court: whores and scoundrels, drooping as the night grew weary. “Rouse yourselves,” he bellowed. “Be merry tonight and weep tomorrow! And bring pen and ink!” He nodded to Grainger, and the paper on the table. “Write here briefly how and when I got it, and I will sign it before I am too drunk.”

  The instruments were fetched. Grainger wrote two or three hasty lines, and the condemned man set his mark to it. The cell was growing darker. The gaoler nodded in the corner. Grainger slipped the letter into his own coat, and took his leave. The highwayman spilled his cup, put his arm around a girl’s waist, and cried for more wine.

  AT THE SAME HOUR as Grainger climbed up to the Straight Room, and as the highwayman conducted his gloomy revels, Mrs. Wenrender retired from her company. She had been pettish and distracted all night, and neither all the wits with their brittle stances and gallant talk nor all the charming, simpering girls could put her out of her sour mood.

  “Cassie,” said she, sailing out, “I want you by me.”

  Mrs. Wenrender retreated to the sitting-room, where she often spent the mornings. Candles were fetched, the fire started, but the room looked dull and wan by the candlelight, and Mrs. Wenrender herself, reclining in her splendour of lace and jewels, was no more lustrous, but become worn and insubstantial.

  “Cassie, my dear,” said Mrs. Wenrender, beckoning her nearer, “I am very fond of you.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “You are a sensible girl and worth more to me than all those chattering hens.”

  Not knowing how to answer this, Cassie curtsied and murmured, “Thank you,” again.

  Mrs. Wenrender sighed, leaned back in her chair, and stretched her arm along the back. “You are an obedient girl, I hope.”

  “I believe I am, ma’am.”

  “Yes, well may you believe,” said Mrs. Wenrender idly. “And yet, once or twice of late, I can recall wanting you—at odd hours, I admit—and finding that you were not here.”

  “It is my brother, if you please,” said Cassie, in a low, guarded voice. “He has been in trouble, and a lady in your position, well, for the honour of the house you would not want to be concerned in something so low.”

  “Family difficulty, quite, very discreet, very respectful,” murmured Mrs. Wenrender, declining further into her perfect languor.

  “I went out only when you were asleep or in your chambers,” said Cassie.

  Mrs. Wenrender yawned. “Quite right, my dear—and yet, I think you often go out to visit with some dreadful prisoner.”

  “That is so. He was very kind to my brother. He looks forward to my visits, poor man, and I think it a decent, charitable thing.”

  “Do you dissemble with me, Cassie, my dear?”

  “How so?”

  “Why, perhaps you think it policy to ally yourself with a felon who is also a man of good birth. Perhaps you think to rise above your class thereby. But I do not approve of that connection.”

  Cassie flushed deeply, but did not yield by a step or a look. “I think to be of service to a man who has been wronged.”

  “What a coquette you are,” marveled Mrs. Wenrender, glancing at the door. “I wish all my protégés were as deep strategists as you.”

  “Begging your pardon, ma’am; it is nothing calculated.”

  “Then you are honest and obedient, my dear?” said Mrs. Wenrender, raising her shoulders a little.

  Before Cassie could answer, there was a knock at the door. Mrs. Wenrender answered mildly, but when the footman looked in, he said merely that the gentlemen were here. The door closed.

  “Do you know, Cassie, that some time ago I had some very trifling misgivings regarding you?”

  “I cannot see how.”

  “But you are friendly with my dear sister, Mrs. Scourish, are you not? And even though you are attached to me, you have maintained that connection. Then imagine my thoughts when it came to be that papers, private papers related to the affairs of two elderly men of business, were removed from their house, the thieves having gained access by means of a key that, besides the old gentlemen, only Mrs. Scourish had in her possession.”

  “I am sure,” said Cassie carefully, “that clever thieves have no need of keys. And besides, with respect to the old gentlemen, I know their hab
its, and they could have lost any papers by any means. Mrs. Scourish never gave any keys into my keeping. She is strict and scrupulous, and blameless, in any case.”

  “Quite right, my dear,” said Mrs. Wenrender, upright and animated now. “But then, you are acquainted with a great many clever thieves, I am sure, for you frequent the gaol where your lover is a prisoner and your brother a branded thief.”

  “Perhaps I should leave,” said Cassie, “if you want to make a quarrel with me.”

  But the door was opening, and behind the footmen came the Withnail brothers, brushed and neat in their coats and mercantile lace, bowing smartly to Mrs. Wenrender.

  “Gentlemen,” said that lady, “you are most timely. I am a little fatigued, you see, but very pleased to receive you. ­No, Cassie, you must stay a little longer, for these gentlemen and I have some particular concerns regarding you.”

  By an effort, Cassie composed herself, for to show the least calculation or consciousness of guilt before an intriguer as practiced and subtle as Mrs. Wenrender would be fatal. She was still, but in her mind saw all her untruths and contrivances, all the stratagems and spying collapsing and unravelling, and she felt the sting of desperation and terror.

  “Perhaps you should say what your thoughts are,” said Cassie. “For I am sure I have done nothing willingly to displease you.”

  The Withnails were seated side by side on two neat chairs, and Mrs. Wenrender nodded genteelly in their direction. “Mr. Grainger’s friends, I have no doubt, particularly the scurrilous fellow who writes for the Register, would do anything in their power to bring about his release, including breeding rumours about the dealings of two respectable businessmen with the deceased, calculated to blot and darken their reputation and muddy the case.”