by Peter Sirr
James remembered the boy and the woman from the Felons’ Room in Newgate. All four of them looked wretched and bore the signs of their time in prison. The woman smiled weakly at the public gallery, where there were some who knew her. The men and the boy stared out from the dock at the empty bench where the judge would sit, as if already anticipating the judgement that would be passed on them, and avoided the eyes of the witnesses gathered in the witness box, where James sat, and the jury on its bench.
James knew enough of Chief Justice Norwood’s reputation to know that the gloomy aspect of the prisoners was probably very well justified. He wondered what was going through Darcy’s mind as he stood with the other prisoners.
As the time drew near for the start of the session, James could feel the tension sweeping across the room. All eyes were fixed on the clerk, who now called out, ‘All rise!’
A great shifting and shuffling filled the room, accompanied by the sound of a door opening and closing, as the solemn figure of Lord Norwood approached the bench preceded by his tipstaff. There was a collective intake of breath at his approach, as if just the sight of him was powerful enough to fill the room with apprehension. He was a large and powerful man, swathed in red and with a full, luxurious wig. His face was broad and, strangely enough, not unkind. There was nothing evil or twisted about the features, nothing demonic. It looked like the face of a kindly uncle, full of humour and fun.
Is this really him? James wondered. Maybe people were mistaken about him.
His thoughts were interrupted by the clerk reading out the first charge against one of the men, who answered ‘Not guilty’. His prosecutor was a tavern-keeper, and he told the court how two gentleman had come to his house for a glass of claret and thrown down their coats on a table by the window. Later that night, as the tavern-keeper was filling their glasses, he saw the coats suddenly moving out through the curtained window. He ran outside, where he saw the accused run up the alley bearing the coats. He cried ‘Stop thief!’ and the man was apprehended by a neighbour, who happened to be passing.
The judge asked the neighbour to verify the story, which he did.
The accused denied all knowledge of the events, and swore that he had never been in Swan Alley in his life.
The judge asked the jury for their verdict.
They huddled together for no more than a minute before their foreman turned to the judge. ‘Guilty, my lord,’ he announced.
The gentlemen whose coats had been stolen clapped enthusiastically until the judge silenced them.
The second case was disposed of equally swiftly. This time it was a burglary, and the man had been caught red-handed with a sack full of goods. James began to tremble as he watched him, remembering his own near-capture. The jury found him guilty.
Then it was the boy’s turn. Stealing a gold watch, which he then pawned. Verified by Mr Smith the pawnbroker. Guilty.
The girl was accused of stealing a crêpe hatband, value of sixpence, the goods of Thomas Clarke, here present. Thomas Clarke was not very convincing. There seemed to be some personal animus motivating his charge. He fumed and spluttered and introduced further charges, which the judge impatiently ruled out of order.
‘If you waste my time any further I’ll have you clapped in irons in the Black Dog,’ he barked.
The jury hardly needed to huddle before finding her not guilty.
At last, it was Darcy’s turn, but the judge was showing signs of impatience. ‘Is this likely to take long?’ he asked the clerk.
‘I believe there are a number of witnesses who contest the prosecutor’s case, my lord.’
‘No, that won’t do,’ Norwood said emphatically. ‘There are three guilty men here who want sentencing. I’ll sentence them now.’
James wasn’t sure whether his haste came from compassion or some darker motive, but he could feel a sudden stiffening in the room as the judge placed a small black cap on his head and turned to the first of the defendants.
‘Joseph Tomelty, you have been found guilty in the matter of grand larceny, and I mean to show you that you trifle with the property of others at your peril. Are we to fear for our very clothes now? May we not take refuge in an inn or a coffee house without fear of attack? The sentence of this court is that you be returned to the prison whence you came and from there be taken to a place of execution and hanged by the neck until you are dead.’
The crowd gasped. They had not expected Joseph Tomelty would have to pay the full price for the failed theft of two coats. The men whose coats were at issue didn’t clap or cheer this time.
Joseph lurched forward and leant on the rail of the dock. He looked as if he might collapse. ‘Please, my lord,’ he began, his voice barely above a whisper. ‘Have mercy on a poor man.’
‘Take him down,’ Norwood commanded, and the gaolers came at once to remove him.
The burglar was the next to receive the full glare of the judge’s attention. James found himself transfixed by the piercing blue eyes that bored into the man. It was more than a look; those eyes were like knives reaching in to the bone, and anyone who suffered them could be in little doubt about his fate.
If the judge had been angry at the theft of the coats, the full vent of his fury was reserved for the crime of entering a property with intent to plunder it.
‘What does it mean, to break a window or force a door and slip into a house to remove a few pieces of silver or gold? Is it so very important? Is it any worse than grabbing a coat or a hatband or a watch or a bundle of linen?’
He said this in a way that the tension in the room softened, and something like relief swept through it, as if maybe the deed wasn’t so bad after all. The judge waited for the tension to reach its lowest point before resuming.
‘I’ll tell you what it means,’ he began. ‘It is nothing less than an attack of the very basest kind on the entire fabric of our city. It is not just a crime against the owner or the keeper of the house, though it is most certainly that, and a grave injury to that party. But have we set out the streets of this city and laboured to build its houses so that vermin …’ Here he raised his hand and pointed at the prisoner with such contempt it seemed his hand could hardly bear to perform the action. ‘So that vermin like this can scuttle in and commit their filth there, and shit over everything we have built, everything we stand for?’
The tension was now stretched so taut again it seemed something would rupture, or that the prisoner would simply evaporate under the hot fury of the judge.
‘Hanging is too good for you,’ he continued. ‘Though it is all the law prescribes. But your miserable body will be anatomised by the city’s surgeons after your death, and thus you may return some benefit to the place you desecrated.’
The burglar remained impassive, and did not plea for mercy. His fate must have been clear to him the moment he was caught, for no burglar had ever been spared.
When it came to the boy, the judge had regained his composure. He treated him with indifference, and then, almost as an afterthought, sentenced him to hang. When all three had been taken down, he removed the black cap, but set it down in front of him on the desk, in the knowledge that he would soon need it again, an action not lost on his audience. James felt his stomach tighten with fear as he thought about the part he had to play.
The clerk read out the charge against Darcy and asked him how he pleaded.
‘Not guilty,’ Darcy replied. His voice was clear and strong.
Lord Norwood snorted. ‘Where is the prosecutor?’ he demanded.
The prosecutor made himself known.
James flinched when he saw the man. His face was deeply scarred where Kitty’s blade had scored him.
‘Do you see the man who did that to your face?’ the judge asked him.
‘I do not,’ he said, ‘but this man was with him.’ He indicated Jack.
‘Somebody is lying,’ the judge said. ‘And my money is on you, Darcy.’
‘My lord, I do not pretend to be a good man, and God k
nows I have made many mistakes in my life, but I like to think that if I am indicted for a crime I have committed, I will not be loathe to confess it. I like to think that I am a man of honour, my lord.’
His declaration seemed only to have the effect of irritating the judge.
‘I’m not very interested in your honour. The truth is what interests me, and nothing else.’
‘But that’s just it,’ Darcy continued in the same reasonable tone. ‘The truth of it is that on the night in question I could not have assaulted anyone, even if I were so inclined, because I was gravely ill all of that night and the next day. I had the gripe, my lord. I’m a martyr to it, if the truth be known …’
‘Maybe a warmer employment is what you need. I’ve heard the gripe is very common among footpads and highwaymen.’
The judge was beginning to enjoy himself. James didn’t like the sound of it. He was like a cat playing with a mouse, which he would, when he tired of the game, casually destroy.
Darcy persisted in his mild and reasonable manner, until Norwood leant forward. ‘Is there anyone in this room who can verify this nonsense?’
There was a shuffling in the witness stand and eventually a hand was raised. Now it was time for Doctor Bob to do his part. He was a regular at Red Molly’s, and was even, it was said, a real doctor. But he had somehow disgraced himself in London and found his way to the second city, where he had set up a practice in the Liberties in which medicine played only a small part.
Molly had told James all of this with a grin. ‘And he owes me money,’ she added, ‘which makes him all the more reliable a witness.’
James hadn’t argued. Money accounted for everything, it seemed; there was nothing in the city that could be accomplished without it, and nothing that couldn’t be suffered for the want of it.
Now, in the courtroom, Doctor Bob came forward in a new coat and well-shined shoes, and the clerk swore him in. He testified in his cultivated English voice that on the night the prosecutor was attacked by villains near Kilmainham his patient had been confined to bed in his lodgings in Thomas Court with a bad fever caused by the gripe. He had sent to the apothecary down the street for fennel seeds and figs, and the apothecary had despatched his boy to the house with the remedy. Both were here present today and could testify to that effect.
‘You are English?’ There was interest in the judge’s voice.
‘Yes, my lord,’ Doctor Bob said. His voice grew oilier with every sentence, it seemed to James, but if its intent was to soften the judge, it seemed to be working. ‘London. Oxford. If you please, my lord.’
‘What I don’t understand,’ said Lord Norwood softly, after this polite exchange, ‘is why someone as cultivated as yourself is defending scum like this. What have you done, I wonder, that men like this are your clients?’
Again the listeners had been lulled into a sense of security by seeming politeness, and again the shaft had been loosened suddenly and caught the whole room by surprise. James could see that Doctor Bob was rattled, though he kept his composure. Beads of perspiration had begun to appear on his forehead.
The eagle-eyed Norwood spied it. ‘I’m sorry, is our room too warm for you, doctor? Should I summon your apothecary?’
‘No, my lord, it’s quite alright, I–’
‘I think I will summon him, though not on your account. Where is he?’
Now it was the apothecary’s turn to raise his hand weakly. He was beckoned forward and sworn in.
‘This man says he sent to you for a cure for his patient. What was the remedy you sent?’
‘If it please my lord, I sent my boy with tar water.’
‘Tar water? What on earth is tar water?’
‘You mix it with water, your honour, work it with a flat stick, let it stand then pour off the water. A pint every hour for fever, but it should cure just about every disease, smallpox, scurvy, ulcers …’
Lord Norwood looked as if he could bear no further information. ‘Who brought this concoction to the prisoner?’
‘My apprentice, sir.’
‘And is he here?’
This was it. James could feel the back of his neck prickling. He put his hand up.
Norwood looked at him long and hard, and waited for the clerk to swear him in. ‘So you’re an apothecary’s apprentice, are you?’
‘Yes, my lord.’
The judge looked at him as if he thought this was extremely unlikely. ‘I’m troubled by a cold. What would you prescribe?’
James had spent an evening in the apothecary’s shop trying to learn the essentials of that trade. He pictured the shelves in the shop. ‘A little ground ivy tea, my lord, sweetened with syrup of horehound before retiring at night.’
Then he abandoned the shop and was back in Wexford with his mother’s hand on his forehead. ‘Or you could make a hole through a lemon and fill it with honey, then roast it and catch the juice. Take a teaspoonful of this frequently.’
‘Oh yes?’ Norwood said blandly. ‘And what herbs do you recommend for consumption?’
Again, James tried to picture the shelves and the labelled drawers of herbs. But which were for consumption?
‘Mugwort, nettles, foxglove, spearmint … a little cinnamon.’
The judge took no notice of what he said, but continued to stare at James, as if the very force of his gaze could compel the truth from him.
‘Falling sickness?’
James closed his eyes and pictured the shelves again. He knew that the real enemy was silence. He remembered how quickly the apothecary talked, how a great part of medicine seemed to lie in speed of reply, matching the ingredients until a clear and indisputable remedy appeared.
‘Valerian, peony, mugwort again, thorn-apple, common henbane, mistletoe, belladonna, foxglove, bitter orange and Peruvian bark.’
As he opened his eyes, he could see the torn and angry face of the prosecutor. Norwood looked at James with a flicker of interest, as if he might pursue him to the end of his knowledge, but it was getting late. It was past lunchtime already and justice cannot be dispensed on an empty stomach.
‘You are either an excellent apprentice or an excellent liar,’ he said. ‘We’ll find out soon enough.’
He waved his hand in a gesture of dismissal and James returned to the witness box. At last, he could breathe. He saw Kelly at the back of the public gallery. What was he doing here? Was he not afraid he might be recognised?
Suddenly, the blood drained from James’s face. There was a man sitting beside Kelly, tall, bulky, dark-eyed, and staring straight at James. He turned and whispered something to Kelly and Kelly nodded. It was Dunmain’s man, the one who had chased him into the coopers’ yard. What was he doing here? He gave no indication that he had recognised James, but the force of his stare was not kindly, and James felt sure that they were discussing him.
The judge ordered the jury to deliver their verdict on Darcy. They huddled a little longer this time. James could see the strain on Darcy’s face; maybe he wasn’t as brave or as sure as he seemed. If they found him guilty, he would be sentenced to death, like his father before him. And his witnesses might find themselves arrested for perjury.
The crowd in the public gallery grew restive. As the jury huddled, a scattering of talk broke out. Some began to move towards the door at the back of the gallery. Kelly and his companion were no longer there. Maybe Kelly feared what might happen to him if Darcy was found guilty and someone should recognise him as one of Darcy’s men.
The foreman stood and delivered the verdict. Not guilty. There was some clapping and cheering.
The prosecutor pointed to his face and shouted, ‘This is what they did!’
The judge shouted for order and the room was silenced. His face was dark with displeasure. He looked down at his black cap as if he itched to put it on. He seized it with his hand and rolled it up in a tight ball as he addressed Darcy. ‘You were born to hang, and you will hang. You may have cheated the rope today, but you’ll be back in this room be
fore long.’ He unrolled the black cap. ‘And this will be waiting for you; the tree in Stephen’s Green has your name on it. And your companions will perish with you.’ His eyes swept past the doctor and the apothecary, coming to rest again on James. And then he billowed out of the room behind his tipstaff.
Nineteen
A Meeting
Red Molly’s was packed. There wasn’t an inch of the place free from the press of human flesh caught up in an endless round of eating and drinking. The tables were awash with beer and gin and claret, and weighed down with sides of beef and pork, plates of rabbit and codfish, and just about any other food you could think of.
Doctor Bob clapped James on the back so hard he nearly fell forward into his food. ‘God but I wouldn’t mind having you as my own apprentice. You sounded like you knew the remedy for every ailment under the sun.’
‘A trick of memory,’ James replied, resisting the man’s praise. ‘Nothing more than that.’
‘You’re too modest, boy,’ Darcy called out to him.
Even though Darcy was just across the table, the din was so loud it was hard to hear him. Darcy raised his tankard in a toast to James, and the doctor loudly followed.
Kelly and Hare were slumped against a wall in a corner of the room. Hare looked stupefied with drink, but Kelly’s eyes were sharp and calculating. James had not forgotten his courtroom companion. He’d also noticed that Kelly seemed less joyous than everyone else at Darcy’s restoration, even though he’d played a large part in it. But it meant he was no longer leader of the gang, and Kelly was the kind of man who, when he got a taste of power, found it very hard to let it go again.
Kitty, meanwhile, was standing on a table, dancing madly and swinging his hanger above his head until Molly appeared and ordered him down if he didn’t want to feel the back of her hand. Someone asked for a song from the dead man. ‘Come on, Lazarus, give us a tune!’ and the cry was taken up by the whole company.
Darcy bowed in acknowledgement, then stood on his chair and demanded silence. ‘A song,’ he said, ‘for the lady of the house’.