The Blind Beak

by Ernest Dudley

  ‘I do not deny it,’ was the impassive response.

  Advancing upon him as if he would strike him to the ground, Nick had grated: ‘Were you not the blinded old mass of fat you are I would beat you to pulp with my bare fists.’

  ‘I should have imagined,’ the other remonstrated mildly, ‘your revenge was already gorged by the violence you have perpetrated upon my possessions.’

  ‘Nothing can ever absolve you from the foul deception you practised on me. I had rather a thousand times you stabbed me in the back to the death than I should have been tricked into betraying her.’

  ‘As to that, you were my agent,’ the Blind Beak answered him levelly, ‘in which secret employment there was no place for emotions of the heart, or tender dalliance with a creature activated by dark designs against England — ’

  ‘I could have saved her from causing a jot of harm.’

  ‘Knowing you were enamoured of her, could I have trusted you not to be turned by this Frenchwoman’s wiles from your rightful course? It is a ruthless business I am engaged in. My one obsession is service to my king to the best of my ability, and to that end, none — man, woman or child — shall bar my way.’ His voice became remorseless in its tone. ‘You were infatuated with this damned Du Barry’s spy. My purpose could not be more manifest, which was to take advantage of your situation to encompass her destruction.’

  ‘That you have destroyed me in the process,’ Nick snarled, ‘is of little consequence.’

  ‘It is you who are destroying yourself. I am here now to beg you to draw back from the abyss.’ His voice had assumed a gentler tone, his expression a less grim aspect.

  ‘Save your pleadings with which to dupe some other spy,’ Nick had sneered, turning his back on him. For several long, silent moments the Blind Beak remained, his sombre features bent in the direction of that rangy, implacably rigid figure vibrant with vengeful hatred towards him. Then with a heavy shrug and a drawn-out hissing sigh he had lumbered out of the house.

  Her accusing ghost dogging him day and night, Nick had felt impelled to make an effort to reach Paris, boldly to attempt Chagrin’s rescue, even at the cost of his own life. He was held back upon calmer reflection by the fear Lady Somersham’s warning had stirred in him that such a venture on his part was not only foredoomed to failure, but must of a certainty heighten the danger in which Chagrin was already placed as the grim result of his treachery. Tortured by visions of the suffering she was enduring, hag-ridden by nightmares in which she denounced him for his fiendish betrayal of her trust, he flung himself into a round of dissipation in a desperate hope of ridding her from his heart and mind.

  Against the background of alarms and shocks of the continuing war with America and France, who had at last come out into open alliance with the former in the spring two years before, and with Spain and the Dutch marauding the seas so that Britannia’s trident was almost wrested from her grasp, Nick Rathburn plunged down the path of debauchery and excesses. While that renegade Scotsman, Captain Paul Jones, ravaged the Irish and North Sea under the new flag of America, Nick’s old haunts continued to know him.

  The coffee-houses and taverns hummed with reports of how Charleston lay at the mercy of British arms, Virgima swarmed with invincible English cavalry: London’s salons and clubs buzzed with the news of how General Cornwallis and his redcoats were surging victoriously through Georgia, and French naval attacks against the British at Newport and Savannah; while argument everywhere rose and discussion grew more heated at the prolongation of a war which was to have been brought to a brilliantly swift conclusion. And Nick frequented the brothels and gaming-hells, truculently savage when the luck ran against him and aggressively drunk when he celebrated good fortune, his hand ever ready at the sword-hilt, tongue sharp to challenge anyone critical of his conduct to back their words by their pistols.

  Weariness with war increased; the argument extended Britain might be better employed battling with her problems at home, where unemployment, the starved and homeless, and disease and misery among the poor were rampant, instead of combating the new notions of liberty and equality which inspired the young nation across the Atlantic, or attempting to shut out similar ideas stirring France’s more liberal thinkers and philosophers. And Nick Rathburn pursued his hell-bent way. Paradoxically, side by side with the emergence among more enlightened Englishmen of new understandings for the need of tolerance towards the struggling, blood in the streets of Glasgow and Edinburgh and the menacing tide of religious intolerance began sweeping in the direction of London. And Nick Rathburn encountered the increasing suspicion that, when his luck at the table ran out, he was not above swinging it in his favour with the manipulation of a card or spin of a dice.

  One by one the doors of the gaminghouses closed against him. Thus debarred from obtaining the means by which he could continue his brawling, swaggering career, he perforce sought to turn his hand to the profession in which he had first become adept as a child of the Rookeries. Now the intelligence his underworld acquaintances such as Ted Shadow were able to furnish him he utilized to his own advantage.

  Already he had suffered several narrow squeaks, already he had owed his escape from disaster to the lucky star under which, he convinced himself with characteristically sardonic fatalism, he had been born, and his mode of living, having sapped his alertness and blunted the quickness of his eye, so his operation of a coup had lost its boldness of execution, and in order to lessen the risks of discovery and capture, he engaged his attention more and more upon easier cribs to crack.

  Tonight, for instance, he was awaiting the hour when he should take his leave of this den of thieves and third-rate scoundrels in the heart of the maze of narrow streets, twisted alleys and wretched ruins of St. Giles’s, to keep a rendezvous with a certain Dr. Kelly. He went out into the street just as the chimes of St. Paul’s were reverberating on the air, and, headed in the direction of St. Marylebone’s Church, gliding like some solitary phantom through the dark, evil-smelling alleys and courts, padding along gloomy passages and down uninviting byways, where here and there sprawled a beggar in his rotting rags, a homeless waif huddled in hungry exhaustion, or lurked murderous thieves and footpads alert for the unwary.

  Presently he was approaching the gates of the churchyard of St. Marylebone. Out of the darkness a voice greeted him in an undertone. ‘Rathburn?’ And to his muttered assent: ‘All is quiet.’ The cloaked figure with a slouch-hat pulled over his eyes looming up at him was Dr. Kelly, whom Nick had met by chance one afternoon offWardour Street, the doctor bumping into him while escaping from a gang of bullies hard upon his heels. Dr. Kelly, a snub-nosed young man, had been visiting a poor, sick woman in the vicinity. Her drunken husband had accused him of trying to murder her, then, enlisting the aid of several cronies, set upon him. Nick had guided the dishevelled and breathless fellow expertly through nearby courts and alleys until the threatening shouts of the frustrated pursuers died away. Later, over a glass of wine, the doctor, observing him to be of a desperate character, withal possessed of undoubted resourcefulness, had made a proposition to Nick by which he might earn himself an odd guinea. Hence this meeting under the cover of night at St. Marylebone’s Church.

  ‘I have the carriage standing by in readiness,’ Dr. Kelly was whispering to him. ‘The coachman is discreet enough.’ Pushing one of the two spades he was carrying into Nick’s grasp, they set off, the former leading the way. Now they were inside the churchyard. The doctor, having produced a darkened lantern whose cautious light showed them the path, they stopped beside the grave, the earth of which was but freshly turned. The air about them was dank and struck chill to their bones so that they both dragged their cloaks more closely to them. ‘This is it,’ Dr. Kelly muttered, and set down the lantern. They stood for a few moments, tensed, listening carefully. Only the eerie hoot of an owl within the church tower, no other sound to be heard, and each began digging. It was as they were unwrapping the shrouded shape their efforts had disi
nterred that they heard the voice of a nightwatchman.

  ‘Who is it, there in the churchyard?’ Dr. Kelly cursed under his breath and quickly extinguished the pale beam from the lantern. They stood like two statues, attempting to subdue their heavy breathing. ‘Someone there, so there is.’ The watchman’s Irish brogue reached them again and now they could see him advancing, his lantern casting shadows jigging along the path between the gravestones.

  ‘We had better run for it,’ the doctor whispered.

  Nick dissuaded him with a hand on his arm. ‘He will only raise a shout,’ he muttered through his teeth, ‘and I am in no mind for being chased by the mob. Besides, it means our night’s work for nothing.’

  ‘I also do loathe the thought of leaving the corpse behind,’ Dr. Kelly agreed.

  ‘Do you leave this to me.’ Nick was unarmed, having had in mind the nature of his work that night, apart from the spade he held, and he did not relish the prospect of having no other means of protection with which to fight a way through the angrily demonstrative inhabitants in the vicinity, brought from their beds eager to wreak their fury upon the pair of them. The watchman was now but a few yards away. Nick could observe his eyes bulging suspiciously and his mouth open ready to shout the alarm. Then he whispered to him hoarsely: ‘Is it you, Paddy, from Dublin itself?’ And giving the doctor a sharp nudge in his ribs that brought forth a gasp: ‘Speak to him in the blarney,’ he urged in low tones, ‘tell him it is Dr. Kelly you are, from Dublin.’

  The watchman’s expression as he reached them grew less suspicious. ‘My name is not Paddy, so it is, though to be true I come from Dublin,’ his Irish accent becoming even more pronounced. ‘But who is that do you say now?’

  ‘Dr. Kelly’ — the doctor, quickly following Nick’s advice, his accent suddenly thick enough to be cut with a scalpel — ‘and I am thinking you are my old friend, Paddy Moran, no less, who I cured of the fever last summer.’

  ‘Indeed I was with the fever in the summer, though I do mind no doctor easing it,’ emitting an impressively hacking cough in support of his claim.

  ‘It is a rough chest you have there. Next time I am this way I bring you a potion to soothe it. Meanwhile, buy yourself a warming glass of liquor.’ There was a clinking of coins changing hands.

  ‘It is grateful to you I am, Doctor. Would there be after anything I can do to help you this minute, now?’

  ‘And you do look the other way for a few minutes. A poor soul, a patient of mine she was, buried this afternoon and her mother never seeing her to say good-bye, I have vowed to take her back.’ The other gave a grunt of approval, then, with a solemn warning to them to exercise the greatest care not to be seen, continued on his way through the churchyard, leaving Nick and Dr. Kelly to proceed with their task. After much nervous fuming and sweating on the latter’s part they managed to convey their burden into the waiting hackney, and they set off, the third macabre passenger sat between them upon the carriage-floor. ‘A gentlewoman in distressed circumstances,’ Dr. Kelly explained to Nick, mopping his face with a handkerchief. ‘Died of puerperal fever yesterday. But I fancied she was noteworthy for a lateral curvature of the spine and bowing of the great long bones. Just the type of malformation that will interest John Hunter, of whom, doubtless, you will have heard.’

  A little later found them at Mr. Hunter’s house in Golden Square. The famous surgeon was in his dissecting theatre, a red-haired, rugged-face man who greeted them in a strong Scottish accent. ‘This is the woman I mentioned to you, Mr. Hunter.’ Dr. Kelly indicated the cadaver which lay incongruously on the floor. Nick was glancing round with idle curiosity at the array of glass jars containing grisly specimens and portions of human anatomy, and a huge skeleton hanging from one wall.

  Mr. Hunter knocked aside one of the numerous open volumes strewn on his desk and scattered about the floor, and, assisted by Dr. Kelly, began to unwrap the shroud. ‘Are you certain she is dead?’ he queried, and at the other’s assurance, glanced up at Nick with a wink. ‘An impudent resurrection-man the other night sold me his brother as a subject for dissection. One of my pupils happened to receive him, stripped the fellow and laid him on my table ready for me. When I arrived I discovered he was not dead, but dead drunk. I quickly restored him to consciousness, but on regaining his wits, the rascal took such fright at his surroundings he ran out minus hat, coat and shoes.’ He indicated the heap of clothing in the corner of the room. ‘Nor has he returned for them.’

  He turned to Dr. Kelly, who had launched into a flow of technicalities concerning the woman’s peculiarities, interposing a grunt of satisfaction as he listened. As the other concluded, Mr. Hunter observed: ‘The poor woman will serve excellently for the purpose of my studies.’ He flung the shroud over the corpse again. The door opened and the manservant appeared, staggering under the weight of a huge supper-tray crowded with a repast of roast duck and chicken, a large meat pie, some brawn, together with a pudding, jellies and tarts, which he set down amongst the books, surgical instruments and specimen-jars, going out again, quickly to return with bottles of Madeira and glasses. Nick partook only of a glass of wine, pocketed his fee and, while Dr. Kelly and the surgeon busied themselves over the supper-tray, the latter waving his fork at the corpse, declaring he must get to work on it at once, he took his departure.

  Through stinking, ill-lit alleys and dark sinister courts, presently he paused at the door of a house half in ruins, within which he found several young women seated round a table in the light of a single, flickering tallow-candle flame. Some were playing cards desultorily with narrow-eyed men, sharpers, thieves or the girls’ bullies, while a coarse-featured hag, a glass of liquor at her elbow, lolled before the smoking grate. A rope was slung over the fireplace from which hung stockings and petticoats; nails in the walls held a good assortment of bonnets, befeathered hats, cloaks and tawdry gowns.

  As he leaned against the doorway he attracted no more attention than quick, shifty glances. Only a young woman, in a green jacket and striped petticoat with a crinoline, her hair netted and ornamented, turned to smile at him, pouting as Nick’s gaze passed to a dark-haired girl near the fire with her skirts and petticoats drawn over her firm, rounded thighs, busily engaged paring her finger-nails with a penknife. He crossed to her and with a sudden movement caught her roughly by the chin and pulled her face up to him. Her gypsy, slanting eyes met his with an insolent stare, and without a word exchanged between them, she led the way out of the room and up the rickety stairs, a rat squeaking from under their feet.

  23.

  The clanging of a bell and a stentorian voice brought him out of his sleep with such a dread-filled violence he was soaked in a cold sweat. In the dim light that found its way through the ragged curtains and filth-encrusted windows, he perceived the gypsy-eyed girl stood over him. He clasped his hands about his ears to keep out the clanging bell and raucous chant. ‘It is the bellman of St. Sepulchre’s,’ she said. ‘There are some condemned to be taken from Newgate presently.’

  Something in her attitude caused him of a sudden to reach into the pocket of his threadbare, black breeches and, hearing no answering clink of coins, he grasped the doxy’s wrist. Exerting a vice-like pressure, he forced her to release the money she had attempted to filch from him. He pushed his way roughly through the press of wretches gathered in the doorway and stumbled into the street.

  The air all about him was filled with the clangour of the bell accompanying the solemn exhortations. ‘All good people pray heartily to God for these poor sinners now going to their death.’ Already the streets leading to the Stone Jug were aswarm with people, meat-pie vendors, the drinking-booths, street-pedlars and broadsheet-sellers doing a roaring trade. Caught in the chattering, yelling stream, swollen by those drunkenly singing and blaspheming who, like himself, had emerged from dens and cellars along the way, on whose doors was chalked the familiar sign: ‘Drunk for a penny, dead drunk for twopence, clean straw each morning,’ he was borne towards
the prison.

  As he reached Newgate the booming of churches all around struck the hour of eight o’clock, and a deafening roar from the crowd heralded the arrival of the hangman’s cart rumbling over the cobbles, to draw up outside Execution Gate. All about him the mob was yelling, joking and laughing as they waited for the condemned felons’ appearance. ‘One of them is a ’prentice who robbed his master of threepence,’ someone cried in his ear, while another spectator volunteered the information there were four felons altogether for whom the Tyburn Tree was waiting. The boy, a bargeman taken in smuggling, a lunatic, caught trying to burn down the home of a Catholic in Hoxton, and a burglar. The voice of Nick’s informant was drowned in another shout as the doomed quarter suddenly appeared; the poor bedraggled waif, the burglar, whom Nick knew well by sight and reputation, the bargeman, a hulking, sullen-looking fellow, and the incendiary, a poor Tom o’ Bedlam dancing as well as he could in his chains and laughing with pleasure at the reception accorded him by the densely packed cheering throng.

  Nick watched them hustled into the cart and driven upon their last journey. The three of them, enveloped in fear, oblivious of their lunatic companion still dancing up and down, waving his arms and chuckling. Nick presently found himself able to extricate himself from the thinning stream of humanity and made his way to the nearest grog-shop, where he sought to drown the black premonition overwhelming him.

  It was about this time that Mr. Bond was knocking on Sir John Fielding’s sitting room door to announce the visitor who was expected. The clerk eyed the latter over his spectacles, closed the door upon the Blind Beak and descended the stairs thoughtfully. Mr. Bond was still unable to comprehend Sir John’s vindictiveness towards Nick Rathburn, becoming month by month more venomous. Since his former secret agent had returned to the dark way he had once known, Sir John seemed implacably determined to encompass Nick Rathburn’s destruction.