The Blind Beak

by Ernest Dudley

  ‘The night-watch being advised of what had happened,’ Townsend was saying, ‘who, in turn, communicated the news to a Bow Street Runner, I made my way to Marylebone Fields and received a description from the victim of the crime herself, which agreed in every particular with the prisoner known as Nick Rath-burn, a person of notorious reputation — ’

  ‘Notorious?’ Nick interrupted him with a snarl. ‘As what? A common housebreaker? Or for being a spy once in Bow Street’s pay, until sickened with his employment?’ His words produced a stir of excited interest in the court, the journalists’ heads came up with a jerk and then their pencils moved the swifter over their writing-paper. Mr. Bond stood up.

  ‘You will hold your tongue’ — shaking his head reprovingly at Nick as if to say he should know better than to behave in so unseemly a manner. Then he turned with a cough. ‘He says, Sir John, he was employed by the Bow Street Runners as an informer.’

  ‘Indeed? Are we to understand he expects anyone in their right senses to believe I descend to such practices?’

  ‘He has twice before been brought before you’ — the clerk seemed to be explaining how such a scandalous accusation could come to be voiced — ‘and doubtless would brazen his way out of this present charge.’

  ‘You have no need to tell him,’ Nick jeered. ‘His hearing is unaffected. He knows my voice well enough.’

  It occurred to him the Blind Beak, despite his ample appearance, seemed to have sagged physically and, though the powerful force of his personality still dominated the proceedings as of old, yet it taxed even his mighty resources; the grey skin glistened unhealthily in the flickering light. For a fleeting moment a spasm of pity moved in the depths of Nick’s heart, to be crushed with a bitterly muttered imprecation as Mr. Bond turned on him warningly. ‘If the prisoner does not show his respect for the court, he will straightway be sent to Newgate.’

  ‘I will be sent there anyway,’ Nick retorted, which caused the other, just about to sit down again, to dash his quill on his document-littered table with violent exasperation and bob up again crying for order.

  Nick allowed his attention to wander as Mr. Townsend continued giving his evidence. That flash of intuition he had experienced as he was bidding Mrs. Devenish adieu at her villa had been amply justified. She had either been a party to the plot from the beginning or had realized the nature of the trap prepared for him, and that he was wary of it. In order to keep in favour with her protector she had cunningly slipped the brooch into Nick’s pocket on the way to her carriage, then had advised the police officers on the scene she had been robbed. He realized there could be only one outcome, unless he was extremely fortunate, resulting from tonight’s proceedings. He yielded to no sense of despair, only a kind of stoic lethargy, the conviction the game had gone on long enough, that it was time for him to throw in his hand.

  ‘How does the prisoner answer to the charge?’ The voice of the Blind Beak brought him back to his present surroundings.

  Nick eyed him for several moments with an air of casual indifference. ‘And it would have the slightest effect,’ he drawled, ‘I would speak my mind and tell you what you already know: that the charge is one trumped up at your own instigation.’ Another ripple of murmurings and whisperings, nudges and grimaces, the journalists’ pens moving agitatedly again. ‘Revengeful devil that you are,’ Nick added, ‘and may your fat carcass rot in hell.’

  Yet again Mr. Bond made to jump to his feet, but those suave, sibilant tones restrained him. ‘The prisoner is remanded,’ Sir John said, his demeanour unmoved, ‘and will be taken to Newgate to await his trial.’ That bleak smile flitted once more across Nick’s saturnine features as he recalled the time long ago when he had last heard the other direct he should be conveyed to the Stone Jug. He had fought back then, stridently cursed the blind figure who had pronounced those doom-laden words upon him. This time he merely shrugged with a studied air of insolent nonchalance.

  Presently the coach bearing him and two police officers drew up outside the prison entrance to Newgate Street. Nick passed into that foul, fetid air, laden with disease, and so poisonous, only recently the judge, in the Old Bailey adjoining, together with sixty persons — witnesses, court attendants, and jurymen — had died of typhus. Even the accused had been carried off with the fever ere the hempen collar claimed him. As he passed through the iron-studded gates, turnkeys and jailers hung about him like so many carrion-crows at a gibbet-corpse, their rapacious claws ready for bribes.

  ‘Two shillings and sixpence,’ a burly individual, reeking of gin, demanded, ‘and you do not wish to repose in there straightway.’ He jerked a grimy thumb at the Condemned Hold on the other side of the entrance-lodge, from which sounded raucous shouts and drunken quarrelling.

  Nick produced from his pocket the requisite fee which would save him temporarily from the grimmest lodging in the prison.

  ‘You will find yourself there soon enough,’ observed one of the officers who had escorted him from Bow Street.

  Nick shrugged. ‘And the Blind Beak, pox on him, has his way, you may well be right.’

  ‘Do you confess,’ was the reply, ‘you asked for the worst side of his tongue. It serves his reputation little good, a rogue such as you boasting you were once a police-spy.’

  ‘As if you do not know he is out to send me to Tyburn no matter what I do or do not say.’ Then the turnkey was conducting him through another door. He was anxious to conserve the few guineas he still possessed concealed upon him against the time when he might need them more desperately than even his present grievous situation required. And so he was led down slippery steps to a dark and dismal dungeon where no light penetrated, whose very stones and mortar were encrusted with filth, and which was crowded with miserable wretches, cursing and yelling obscenities as the door opened quickly and then clanged shut, and, trampling on the lice under his feet so that they crackled like sea-shells strewn upon a garden-path, he slumped down, his back against the slimy wall, and rested himself as best as his fetters would allow him while the echoes of his jailer’s footsteps outside died away.

  26.

  His trial at the Old Bailey drew the gaping sightseers to the court. Despite the abominably stinking atmosphere, damp streaming down the walls and the fetid air hazing the windows, the gallery was crammed with members of the beau monde, the fops snapping their snuffboxes, the feminine fluttering fans, pointing fingers, giggling and whispering, chattering like starlings in the roof, and, gathered outside the Old Bailey, a vast multitude vainly sought to gain admittance into court.

  As the facts of the case against him — supported by his past record of conviction, imprisonment in Newgate, escape, his being charged again in Casanova’s company, much being made of Sir John Fielding’s clemency on this occasion — were set out, Nick realized the proceedings were merely perfunctory. The dull, pious old judge, the bunch of herbs before him with the object of warding off gaol-fever, was all impatience for the black cap to be placed on his wig. He held no hope the verdict would be anything else but guilty; and after it was presently pronounced and he, yawning ostentatiously during the long mumbling and discursive harangue which followed, Nick heard himself finally sentenced to be hanged by the neck at Tyburn upon Wednesday, June the 7th, in two weeks’ time.

  In the Condemned Hold, elaborate precautions were taken to prevent a repetition of his former escape. He was handcuffed, doubly manacled about both legs, chained to the stone floor and a good watch kept on him. Those felons sentenced to death before his trial having already taken their departure upon their last journey, he found on his arrival he was the cell’s solitary tenant, for which circumstance he was duly grateful — the air would be that much freer to breathe. Visitors began flocking to Newgate, pinching their noses against the vile stench of foul human beings, to obtain a view of that notorious criminal, Nick Rathburn, and the keepers were busily reaping a rich harvest of admission fees. Among his visitors was Dr. Kelly, and Nick good-humouredly
asked him had he come to register a claim on his corpse.

  ‘I had thought,’ was the reply, made in all seriousness, ‘to have a hearse waiting near the Tyburn Tree in which to carry you off to Surgeons’ Hall. They are much in need of cadavers for their dissecting-tables.’ He frowned reflectively and added: ‘I should have to watch out, for the mob if they knew my intent would tear me apart to prevent my plan.’

  ‘Since I am most likely to have little interest in what transpires,’ Nick replied, ‘you can hardly expect me to share your concern with your problem.’

  An unexpected visitor was none other than Jem Morgan, who brought some bottles of wine, announcing he had recently become mine host of the Nag’s Head Tavern in Oxford Street, where he planned to preside between his prize-ring engagements. He had remembered Nick from the Blackheath encounter. ‘You were bold enough then,’ he said, ‘but now you look to have suffered a knock-out blow. Jem Morgan was never a man to strike another when he be down, so I thought to cheer your sorrow a trifle.’ And he sat listening engrossed as he persuaded Nick to recount how he had contrived to effect his sensational escape from Newgate years before. ‘To think so much could be done by the aid of an old nail,’ he marvelled, eyeing the gyves around Nick’s wrists and shaking his cropped head. As he took his leave he was declaring he would have such a tale with which to entertain the frequenters of his hostelry they would stop to listen for hours. Then one day who should stump in most sorrowfully but Ted Shadow.

  ‘Had I but guessed, Mr. Rathburn,’ he snivelled, ‘my thoughtless act would bring you to this.’

  Followed a rigmarole of explanation, how he had been misinformed and misled by the Blind Beak, who had cunningly bamboozled him into believing he was serving a just cause in denouncing his erstwhile employer, and further protestations of his grief. Nick heard him with a sardonically raised eyebrow, then Shadow lowered his voice and, casting glances round in his characteristic manner to reassure himself he was not being overheard: ‘I know some friends who have cut a body down from the gallows before now and restored it to life. Why should you not be served likewise? A carriage waiting at the Tree and, soon as we can, we will get hold on you and off to a surgeon.’

  ‘I am aware,’ Nick smiled bleakly, ‘a highwayman or two in the past have been resuscitated, but it is said for the rest of their careers they suffered an intolerable crick in the neck. Think not I am ungrateful to you, but I do doubt but my neck would for ever after be too crooked for my cravat to be worn a la mode.’ He gave a touch to the fine snowy whiteness at his throat which he still contrived to keep neat and clean. Presently the other departed, promising to return as often as he might and do all he could to make amends for the hurtful wrong he had committed.

  To the prison chaplain and other reverend gentlemen who would frequently call to see him Nick remained on banteringly good terms. ‘You are all of you gingerbread fellows,’ he mocked the chaplain once, ‘who visit me more out of curiosity than charity and to form broadsheets and ballads on my demeanour.’

  One religious man of somewhat decrepit appearance, who intoned prayers continuously until the cell reverberated with his mournful chant, intrigued Nick a trifle on account of the fact that he invariably arrived unaccompanied, though the turnkeys who conducted him to the cell accorded him the greatest reverence and respect. There was about him an air of purposefulness, a sudden penetration in his glance, Nick fancied, a curious watchfulness somehow inconsistent with his sanctimonious aspect.

  ‘I fondly believe,’ he told his visitor one afternoon, ‘you are some spy, sent to ferret out if I have a file or saw secreted upon me with which I might effect my escape. This do I take most to heart, for, you must know, to me one file is worth all the Bibles in Christendom.’ To his barely concealed amusement, the response to his thrust was a fish-like sagging of the jaw. The other seemed about to say something, thought better of it and shuffled away. He continued to call, however, and his prayers rang out with undiminished fervour, though Nick decided his gaze, when now he caught it resting upon him, was even sharper than before.

  On the last May morning of the year, and so far as he could foresee the last he would ever know, Nick was surprised by the arrival of Sir Joshua Reynolds, who introduced himself as inspired with the idea of adding to his long list of portraits of celebrities and distinguished personages the most-talked-of rake-hell of the hour. ‘And when you have transposed my likeness to your canvas,’ Nick advised him sardonically, ‘I know who you will find as a purchaser for it. Sir John Fielding — he has space on his sitting room wall.’

  ‘And my work is good enough,’ Sir Joshua observed as he set-to with his paints and brushes, ‘it will of a certainty claim its place in the Royal Academy.’

  ‘You would have me hang twice,’ Nick answered, ‘once at Tyburn and again at Burlington House,’ to be informed his portrait would become familiar to a wider public than that of art-lovers alone, since Sir Joshua intended to see to it mezzotints of his painting would be engraved for circulation to all the popular print-shops. All that day, by the light of sputtering candles, Sir Joshua painted. Nick sat beneath a barred window, his black suit carefully brushed as usual, the cravat fastidiously tied about his throat, only the handcuffs about his wrists, which his lace ruffles could not altogether hide, marring his raffish elegance.

  Further evidence of the spread of his renown appeared next day when Shadow hurried in waving a newspaper at him wherein he read:

  ‘Rathburn is now secured at last:

  Reynolds has fixed the felon fast.

  Oft though he loosed himself before,

  The slippery rogue escapes no more.

  Reynolds,’tis time to gild with fame

  Th’ obscure, and raise the humble name; To make the form elude the grave,

  Tho’ Life in vain the rogue implores

  An exile on the farthest shores.

  Thy paint-brush brings a kind reprieve

  And bids the dying robber live.’

  By now the Condemned Hold had filled with more visitors: journalists seeking tid-bits of gossip for their newspapers and Grub Stret hacks intent upon securing material with which to write up Nick’s life. To them he gave full play to his mordant sense of humour, concocting for their benefit variously embroidered version of escapades and scandalous exploits in which he was reputed to have participated. Then the blades of the town would arrive, some who sought his company on their way to the houses of high society, there to dine on stories of their meeting with Newgate’s most notorious scallawag, or to boast next morning round the coffeehouses and taverns of having shaken hands with none other than that rakehell, Nick Rathburn.

  Among those frequenting his cell were gamesters and sharpers, habitués of thieves’ kitchens and night-cellars and other members of London’s criminal fraternity, who brought with them their condolences, impossible schemes for effecting his escape, together with bottles of wine or sustaining liquors, rich food-stuffs and an occasional gift of money, with which to pay the doxies of the town who brought him freshly laundered shirts for his person and sheets for his bed.

  So the time passed; rarely would he be dragged up like a hooked pike, out of the black terror of a dream and in a cold lather of sweat, to choke and claw at the rope that had been tightened round his neck, to sleep again, at last lulled by his doxy’s kisses. Only fleetingly did he allow his thoughts to drift into reveries of his early days in the Rookeries; of Doll Tawdry; sudden pictures recaptured on his mind of that triumphant escape from the Stone Jug; recollections of his life with Dr. Zodiac and Queen Mab; Casanova and at the house in Spring Gardens, remembrances of the fashionable salons, Vauxhall, Drury Lane and London’s gay assemblies.

  Inevitably he would recall his first meeting with Chagrin and he would have to fight off the memory of her with fierce desperation. And then would rise unbidden to the surface of his eddying thoughts the brooding figure of the Blind Beak. Gritting his teeth, Nick would shake off the grip of m
emories, fasten his attention on to the bawdy anecdote with which a wench would be regaling him over a glass of wine, or some item of intelligence Ted Shadow, for ever commiserating with him on his situation and swearing his steadfast devotion, brought him.

  As well as his news and other gossip, most of which revolved round the clash of armies in America and accounts of French naval attacks on British forces along the American coast and in the West Indies, reports were reaching Newgate of the anti-Catholic riots spreading London-wards from the North where raged a ferment of religious intolerance. Persecution, with blatant attacks against the houses and shops, churches and chapels and upon their persons, of those of Catholic religion, grew daily more rife round about the Metropolis itself. Protestant organizations and clubs were being formed, their avowed intention to root out Papism from the land, striking terror into the hearts of harmless men and women whose only crime was that they professed the Catholic faith.

  A member of the House of Commons, one fiery-tempered reckless-natured young Scotsman, Lord George Gordon, whose anti-Popery speeches were as incoherent as they were ridiculous, had been adopted as leader of their cause by the Protestant agitators and, for an emblem of their bloodthirsty ambitions, a blue cockade, with, as a battle-cry: ‘No Popery.’

  On the night of June 2nd, the Stone Jug hummed with the news that a crowd sixty-thousand strong had followed Lord George Gordon to the House of Commons, where Parliament was in session, he to demand in their name the law against the Catholics be reverted to its original repressive and prejudicial measures. The Government refusing to take precipitate action, which decision so aroused the ever-growing multitude’s wrath, they attempted to storm the doors and the military were sent for. By the time troops had arrived, however, the crowds, tired out with the day’s excitement, had begun to disperse — not all to return peacefully to their homes, large numbers forming themselves into separate mobs intent upon deeds of violence.