‘You have in mind for me,’ Nick grated of a sudden, ‘I should turn my coat, become your private spy?’
‘My train of thought has not altogether eluded your grasp,’ the other complimented him. ‘That is my offer to you,’ he nodded. ‘In exchange for freedom, my complete trust and confidence in your ability to serve me to the utmost, and, naturally, not ungenerous payment.’
‘It would be dirty money.’
Nick watched Mr. Fielding cross to the table and put down his glass, noting with what assurance the bulky figure moved, and remain impassive for several moments without answering. Then: ‘What do you suppose is my interest in living almost every hour of the twenty-four in the most foully nauseous air and unwholesome atmosphere of all London? If the payment I receive were ten times the sum it would still be the dirtiest money in the world. My interest, nay, my deepest obsession, is,’ the words forcing themselves through his teeth, ‘the annihilation of the underworld. Of all who come to my mind who can help me in this purpose you are he.’ Nick suddenly saw a vision of Chagrin, her face bent on him in pride, and his pulses stirred, his blood began to race. ‘You choose to dub the employment with harsh names,’ the Blind Beak continued. ‘Police spy. Dirty money. Very well, but what debt of gratitude owe you your erstwhile wretched acquaintances in sordid shame? Can I not strike a spark of obligation in you towards me when I urge you to follow a path which can lead you upwards from the depths?’
Nick stood up, his hands clenched and dark eyes aglint beneath their straight, black-jutting brows, a hope and a dream, whose bones and fibre had nigh disintegrated into skeleton-dust, uplifting him. ‘I exhort you, who scrupled little when on the side of evil, to change your allegiance, and own as few scruples on the side of good. It is I, or them. Mine could be the voice of Destiny, speaking to you, offering you a fateful choice. It is for you, Nick Rathburn,’ and a deep fervour he had never before known shook Nick from head to toe as the soft, dominant voice drummed a summons in his ear to which he could give but one response, ‘it is for you to choose.’
1777 — AGED TWENTY-NINE
The Spy
10.
The tall lean man in the black velvet suit and riding-boots, of elegant cut and most highly polished, pushed back his gilt chair from the faro-table and stood up, giving his place to another punter eager to bet on the cards. With a nonchalantly graceful air, his spurs chinking, he sauntered away from the corner of the gaming room and, as the click of chips on the table and the silky shuffle of cards receded, sang softly to himself:
‘’Twas midnight in the faro-bank, Faces pale and eyes aglow, A score of beaux were gathered there Watching Fortune’s ebb and flow.’
He took a pinch of snuff from a gold and diamond snuff-box then fastidiously touched his aquiline nose with a snowy handkerchief. Pausing at a tall window, opened so the cool air of the late autumn night of 1777 might freshen the atmosphere heavy with varied perfumes, pomades and tobacco-smoke, he looked on to St. James’s Square. A hackney clattered past and a link-boy held his torch aloft for a passenger alighting outside the house from a sedan-chair. The sky was starless and appressive-looking and he caught the growl of thunder in the distance.
‘Good God,’ a somewhat tipsy voice in his ear brought him round slowly to meet the swivel-eye of a fop, the enamel on his face cracked by his vapid grin, ‘but you are dressed, Mr. Rathburn, as though about to hold up a coach on some lonely heath.’
Nick Rathburn raised a sardonic eyebrow. ‘You flatter me since I am, in fact, on my way to the masquerade at the Pantheon as none other than the notorious Captain Lash.’
The beau eyed him owlishly, his fuddled wits seeking to weigh whether or no he was being mocked. Talk that ran round the gambling-hells and the bordellos, coffee-houses and green rooms of Covent Garden and Drury Lane invariably dropped to an undertone when it concerned itself, as often it did, with the raffishly mysterious Nick Rathburn. Deciding, for he also recollected Nick Rathburn’s reputation with the sword or pistol, the other refrained from commenting, as was on the tip of his tongue to suggest, that the attire was not inappropriate for one of his notoriety. Instead, giggling tipsily, he continued unsteadily on his way to the faro-table.
A footman appeared in the doorway, whereupon Nick casually sauntered over. The man uttered behind his hand: ‘He has just left the tavern, and headed for Blackheath.’ Out in the hall the footman helped Nick on with his riding-cloak, handed him his riding-whip, giving a sidelong glance at the two pistols which Nick transferred to his coat pocket.
‘I also have a black mask,’ he vouchsafed, catching the other’s look, ‘to complete my guise.’
The man’s hollow laugh mingled disbelief with understanding that the remark was intended for the benefit of any eavesdropping informer who might be listening on the stairs or behind a door. ‘A masquerade at the Pantheon, Mr. Rathburn?’
‘A masquerade,’ and, pulling his cocked hat over his eyes, slapping his whip against his boot, Nick swaggered out. Presently riding at a steady pace, he had left Westminster Bridge behind and was making his way through the labyrinth of lanes and alleys of East London. Gaining the Elephant and Castle, the coaches, wagons and shadowy figures of people on the streets began to give way to open fields and stretches of commonland. Behind him receded the striking of a church clock, the cries of the mob milling outside a noisy tavern and a twisting row of wretched hovels, while the familiar stench which hung perpetually over London grew less oppressive as the road opened out beneath his horse’s thudding hooves, and trees and hedgerows flew past him on either side.
For the past five years Nick Rathburn, serving the Blind Beak as undercover agent in London’s underworld, had diligently fostered the dark suspicion he was a rake-hell ne’er-do-well, shady gambler and sharper favoured by incredible good fortune which saved his neck, as yet, from the hempen collar. His lean, angular figure, inevitably attired in black velvet relieved by the snow-white cravat and lace at his wrists, was to be seen at every disreputable tavern round about Covent Garden, Moll King’s Coffee House, the White Lion in Drury Lane, the Rose in Russell Court; never a bagnio from Curzon Street to Pall Mall but did not know his custom. Vauxhall and Ranelagh and the Pantheon in Oxford Street, the gaming-houses of Jermyn Street, Cleveland Row, King’s Street and St. James’s — at all these Nick Rathburn was certain to put in his appearance at some time or another.
He had developed his technique to a high degree, relying not only on the chance word of a habitue in this brothel and confirmed by a whisper let fall in that gaming-hell, but using employees of the various establishments who were only too ready to keep their own ears and eyes open on his behalf, for the appropriate fee. Such a source of information, for instance, was the ostler from the Rose Tavern. He had brought him news he had been awaiting that evening concerning Captain Lash, to the effect that the notorious hightobyman had just set off to hold up the Dover to London coach, the Flying Hope. The desperate Captain was one of the few remaining highwaymen John Fielding’s Bow Street Runners had so far not succeeded in clearing off the roads about London.
Earlier that week Nick had received an impression from Captain Lash’s latest light o’ love which suggested he had in mind a daring enterprise in the near future. Then yesterday one of the desperado’s drinking companions had in a drunken moment confirmed the hint with news the coup was for the very next night. This time, however, the spot on Blackheath, deserted and unfrequented, selected by the Captain on previous successful occasions, although apparently still as desolate as ever, would in fact be somewhat less lonely.
Ordinarily Nick, having passed on to Bow Street the intelligence he had acquired, would have taken little further interest in what subsequently transpired. He had, however, come by an extra item of information that the passengers in the Flying Hope would include a certain Paris jeweller, called Boehemer. At the name, when Nick mentioned it to him, the Blind Beak evinced intense interest. He informed Nick he had grounds for believi
ng Boehemer was travelling to London upon business of a nature different from that he purported would engage his interest.
‘Secret business,’ Mr. Fielding, his soft, pudgy fingers thoughtfully twisting his badge of office hung by a ribbon around his neck, murmured. ‘In fact the business of spy, no less, for Madame Du Barry herself.’
The first shots fired that April in the American War of Independence had been hailed as a signal by the war party in Paris political circles for increasing their pressure upon Louis XVI to reopen hostilities with the hated enemy across the Channel and avenge France’s humiliating defeat at the hands of the British twelve years before. Foremost among those urging war with England, now being harassed on the other side of the Atlantic, was the notorious Madame Du Barry. As Nick was aware, the Blind Beak had for the past several weeks been in receipt of reports from English secret agents in Paris. Mr. Fielding imparted to Nick that he had knowledge Boehemer would carry evidence of the sinister object of his visit in the form of a document introducing him to one Morande, French so-called journalist, who, giving writings against various notabilities there, had arrived in London several months since. In fact, a dossier, part of whose contents Nick had supplied, at Bow Street revealed Morande as using his emigre scribbler pose to mask his real purpose for being in London; he had been entrusted by the Du Barry to set up there her espionage organization.
It being essential to his ultimate aim that Morande in London and his fair employer in Paris should continue, until such time as he chose forcibly to unmask them, to remain unaware their evil designs were known to him, Mr. Fielding’s concern was how to obtain proof of the ulterior motive behind Boehemer’s journey without arousing any suspicion. Nick, reporting Captain Lash’s nefarious Blackheath project, came up with a stratagem which would fulfil these respective requirements. An appreciative smile darted across the Blind Beak’s rotund features as he listened to the plan outlined. ‘An excellent device,’ he had declared with enthusiasm, ‘by which we should kill two birds with one stone.’
Behind Nick, the dim glow of London’s street-lamps, the lights from houses, taverns and shops reflected against the lowering sky receded as his horse’s hooves beat out their steady tattoo along the Dover Road. A squall whipping across from Deptford on his left brought a salt hint of ships nosing their way up the River Thames from the sea. The night was still starless, though somewhere behind the swollen clouds the moon hid and Nick had all he could do to discern the pale road ahead, crumbled by parched summer and worn by rainstorms of winter, and to avoid the deep puddles of mire and the wheel-ruts churned up by coaches and wagons. He handled his mount superbly: his service for Bow Street calling for him not only to improve his dash and skill with the sword, attain singular proficiency with the pistol, but to excel in horsemanship. The strange double life he led had, while keying him up to never-failing watchfulness, case-hardened vigour and sense of power, achieved for him something he had never before experienced: a purpose in existence. And all the time Nick held in his heart the burning belief that one day his Destiny would lead him back to the one being whose exquisite loveliness and fascinating charm of voice would never be effaced from his dreams. And when he found her again he would have wiped out the past, proved himself worthy so that he might somehow persuade her to stay with him evermore.
Presently Nick was making out a scattered glimmer of lights lying to his left to be Greenwich and discerned the dark shape of Greenwich Hospital low against the skyline. For a few moments the moon showed itself in a rift in the storm-clouds and by its pale light he saw the gibbet at the side of the road. A carrion bird suddenly screeched off the figure hanging upon it. Riding on, he was now some quarter of the distance across Blackheath, opening out before him on either side, desolate and deserted, with here and there a tree — dark skeletons against the black sky. Ahead of him the road began to incline for the next half-mile and he approached a small copse extending some thirty yards back from the road. Slowing his pace, he turned aside, cantering over the heath, his horse’s hooves noiseless on the rough grass. He gained the edge of the copse which lay between him and the road, halted, listening for a few moments, the wind soughing in the branches above, then gave a low whistle. An answering whistle came at once from within the darkness of the trees and Nick identified the burly figure who quickly rode out on the big bay as Langrid, in charge of the horse-patrol of whom half a dozen more remained hidden in the copse. ‘He passed some quarter of an hour ago,’ Langrid muttered, ‘to the exact minute we expected him.’
‘So soon as we hear the Flying Hope, gain we the top of the hill in readiness to pounce.’
Langrid turned back into the copse with a low-voiced order. Led by Nick, he and six horsemen, their mounts’ harness muffled against any jingling, approached the hill’s brow. Not a hundred yards away Captain Lash would be astride his horse in the shadow of a clump of trees beside the road he had for the past several years made his hunting-ground, ears cocked for the first sound of the coach.
Picturing the notorious highwayman, who all unsuspecting waited not far distant, in his mind, Nick waited, tensed as were his companions. The faint crack of harness-leather and muffled pawing of a hoof, then a night-bird crying, to be answered by its mate some way off, and silence heavy and sinister over all. Nick was about to loosen his cravat against his throat, taut with suspense, when Langrid suddenly grunted and Nick’s head jerked up. Faintly came the echo of the distant clop-clop of horses’ hooves approaching.
‘Do we move?’ Langrid muttered hoarsely.
‘Give him a moment,’ Nick whispered, ‘and we will nab him with his pistols cocked.’ The crack of the coachman’s whip rang out from the oncoming Flying Hope and Nick touched his horse’s flanks: ‘Now,’ and the others raced him over the top of the hill. They descended upon Captain Lash even as Nick had hoped, masked and with pistols cocked. So quiet and sudden was their approach he had barely time to wheel his animal round to meet them with a string of curses before they closed in, forcing him from his saddle, to drag him back into the trees, there to be swiftly handcuffed, bound and led secure Londonwards.
Nick Rathburn himself had taken no part in the arrest, but set his horse in the clump of trees where lately Captain Lash had waited. The patrol with their prisoner kept to the heath until they disappeared over the brow of the hill as Nick adjusted the mask which he had previously slipped over his face, and himself cocking a pistol in either hand, gave his horse a touch of spur. The coach was but a few yards off as he barred its way. ‘Stand and deliver,’ he roared, his eyes glittering behind his mask, his voice brutally harsh. ‘It is Captain Lash, so will you fork over quietly enough. Your money or your life.’
As Nick brandished his pistols there came nearer now a long roll of thunder; the coachman dragged at the ribbons of his four-in-hand, slowing the Flying Hope to a stop. A man’s head pushed through the coach window to inquire what was amiss, saw Nick’s masked and threatening figure, gulped: ‘Highwayman — it is a highwayman,’ and ducked back inside again.
‘Small haul you will make this night, I tell you,’ the coachman said in surly tones, quietening his horses. ‘Be only six passengers inside. So wild the weather not a soul would ride on top.’
‘Quality, not quantity, is always Captain Lash’s maxim. Keep your place and your nags quiet.’ So saying, he urged his horse alongside and, pushing his pistol through the window, commanded fiercely: ‘Outside every one and quickly.’ There was a girlish gasp of fright, muttering voices, then first alighted a middle-aged woman, large and indignant, closely followed by a young girl clutching tightly at the other’s hand. Next into the circle of light cast by the flickering coach-lamps a round-shouldered individual wearing clerical attire who was running his tongue over his lips in evident terror. Then a tall man of about sixty, elegantly behatted and wearing a high-collared coat of rich dark cloth, who snapped: ‘You shall choke at Tyburn for this and I will be there to see you.’
‘You have too much reg
ard for my welfare,’ Nick retorted. The choleric old dandy was none other than Lord Tregarth, a most talked-of sportsman of the town who raced his own thoroughbreds and plunged heavily on the prize-ring. Nick was not surprised to see stepping out of the coach after him a heavy-shouldered fellow of battered features and sporting a cauliflower ear; Jem Morgan, middle-weight champion of England. No doubt they had returned from France, where the pugilist had been engaged in a prize-fight.
‘And he had not his pistols,’ Morgan growled, ‘I would soon settle one in his guts.’
‘Best not incense him,’ the man dressed as a clergyman quavered, clasping his hands together in a prayerful attitude.
‘And the sixth passenger?’ Nick wanted to know. There appeared to be no one among these before him who could be Monsieur Boehemer, and he anticipated the appearance of the last remaining passenger upon whom he intended concentrating his attention with interest. Obviously the jeweller would carry proof of the ulterior motive for his journey not in his baggage, fearing it might be lost or stolen, as all too frequently happened, but in a valise or package he would never relinquish out of his sight, perhaps secreted somewhere about his person.
Nick’s procedure would be to grab the valise or package to which the man clung, informing him bluntly he was also known to have jewels hidden in his clothing, then hustle him into the trees. There he would strip him of all he stood up in: coat, breeches, waistcoat, hat and even shoes, leaving him to reclothe himself as best he might from apparel in his baggage or by borrowing from his companions. ‘He will suspect no more than that he has an unlucky mischance,’ Mr. Fielding had opined. ‘As for any valuables of his you may procure, they will be confiscated and,’ with a droll smile, ‘the proceeds devoted to my charity for poor, deserted children. Thus, out of evil a trifling good may spring.’ Leaning forward in his saddle, Nick thrust a pistol menacingly inside the coach. ‘Have I to blast you to perdition?’
The Blind Beak Page 8