The Devil in the Marshalsea

by Antonia Hodgson

‘Perhaps . . . But then why not give his name?’ I shook my head. ‘But it was more than that. I have a feeling . . .’ I paused, hardly able to believe it. ‘I think Woodburn saw something that night. I think he might . . . He had the look of a guilty man, Fleet. I cannot fathom it, but there it is.’

  Fleet settled back and gazed up at the ceiling, deep in thought. ‘I think Woodburn knew his attacker.’ He placed his hand on his left shoulder, tapped his finger where the wound lay. ‘There is no conceivable way he could have been stabbed from behind with a wound of that kind.’ He took his pipe and mimed the blade’s thrust. ‘They must have been standing face to face. Woodburn would have looked straight into his eyes as the blade fell.’

  A cold, thin feeling slid down my spine. ‘Who was it, Fleet?’

  He shook his head. ‘Not you. Not me. Not Jakes,’ he said, counting us off on his fingers. ‘We were all returning from Snows Fields at the time.’

  ‘And not Gilbourne,’ I said miserably. ‘He arrived when we did. Acton, then . . . ? Damn it. We’re going about in circles!’

  ‘Whoever it was, we shall not puzzle it out tonight,’ Fleet reasoned. ‘Gilbourne has fled, Acton’s busy mopping up after the riot and if I know Simon Siddall he’ll have given Woodburn a sleeping draught and charged him a guinea for it.’

  ‘Well then, there is only one choice left to us, Mr Fleet.’

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘Punch?’ he asked, hopefully.

  I grinned. ‘Punch.’

  The Tap Room was closed, smashed and battered by the riot, but nothing stopped the flow of drink in the Marshalsea. There was too much profit in it, and anyway – who wanted to stay sober in here? Mrs Bradshaw and Mary Acton had joined forces and set up a makeshift bar in the long, low retiring room in the Palace Court. I had no desire to return to the place where I had been beaten and humiliated only the night before, so I ventured out into the yard to find a porter who would take my order and bring it over to Belle Isle.

  The Park had settled back into an uneasy peace after that short, bright flare of violence. A few of the men – prisoners and trusties alike – were nursing cuts and bruises, but no one seemed to have been seriously injured, at least on this side of the wall. Mack had set up a game of Hazard under the Court porch, though it was growing dark now and there was a chill in the air. I smiled and nodded politely, but did not head over to greet him. I had grown less fond of Mack the more I knew him; he was Acton’s man, when it came to it, and unlike Trim he had not lifted a finger to help me when I was dragged over to the Common Side.

  Jenings was lighting the lantern in the middle of the Park; a fiddlesome task given its height. I strolled over to thank him for calling out a blessing when I was chained to the wall of the Strong Room. His words had been the one bright moment of comfort during that long and terrible night, and I had not forgotten it.

  ‘I wish I might have done more, sir,’ he said, glancing about him to be sure we were not overheard. ‘If I were a different man I’d stand up against the lot of them.’ He clenched his jaw. ‘They are not Christianlike, Mr Hawkins. And now poor Mr Woodburn has been attacked in God’s chapel. And on a Sunday!’

  We both shook our heads at this. I feared that I myself was not as ‘Christianlike’ as Jenings wished to believe, but I agreed with him that the manner of Woodburn’s attack was shocking. Stabbing a clergyman when he was at prayer in his own chapel – what kind of a man would dare commit such a sacrilegious act? But then, if a man were prepared to commit cold-blooded murder, what would he not do? I must speak with Woodburn again, as soon as he was recovered. It was his duty to confess the truth of it; something I would put to him as soon as he was strong enough to hear it. Tomorrow – it would have to be, the moment he was awake. There was no time to waste. I did not intend to be thrown back in the Strong Room.

  I hailed a porter and ordered a four-shilling bowl of punch and some food. We had missed dinner, save for the bread and fruit we’d eaten out in Snows Fields, so I chose several dishes to share with Fleet and paid the man an extra penny to hurry it along. It was all Fleet’s money, of course, but I didn’t think he would mind. He had enough of it.

  I was returning to Belle Isle when I felt a soft touch upon my shoulder. I spun round to discover Catherine gazing up at me, grey eyes bright with worry. She was wearing a charcoal-coloured riding cloak with the hood up, framing her face.

  ‘Mrs Roberts.’ I gave her a short bow.

  She inclined her head, but her eyes darted up to the windows as if she feared we were being watched. ‘I was troubled to hear of your ordeal last night.’ She placed a gloved hand upon my arm. ‘You are recovered, I trust?’

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ I replied, sparing her the truth. My fresh injuries – added to the beating I’d received in St Giles – would take many days to heal. And there was something more, beneath the physical hurt. I had no time to acknowledge it now, but I knew it was waiting for me, like a bailiff at the door. ‘Were you caught in the riot?’

  ‘I kept to my room,’ she said, then lapsed into silence.

  I waited, conscious of the wall that was growing up between us. I’d thought – for a little while – that she might have some affection for me. I had wanted to prove to her that I was more than what she saw, better than her husband. I might have changed my ways for her. Perhaps. Perhaps. In any case, she was not quite what she appeared. In truth, I did not really know Catherine Roberts at all. She had good reasons for everything she had done. And I felt sympathy for her troubles – even more so now I knew how close her husband had come to betraying her in the worst possible fashion. But I wasn’t sure I could trust her.

  By chance we had stopped right next to the trap door of the store cellar. There had been no more ghostly sightings since I’d grabbed a hold of the rather fleshy Mr Simmons two nights before, but I was sure Catherine was at work on a fresh plan to clear her husband’s name. This much, at least, I believed – that she wished to remove the stain of suicide from Roberts’ death and reclaim her son.

  She took a deep breath and continued. ‘Is it true you have been instructed to find my husband’s killer?’

  ‘Yes. By Sir Philip himself. And Mr Acton.’

  A tiny smile of triumph. ‘And do you . . . have you any suspicions?’

  ‘None that I may speak of at present.’

  She looked up, sharply. ‘Even to his widow?’

  I said nothing.

  She hesitated, glancing over her shoulder before reaching a hand into her cloak. To my astonishment she pulled out the dagger I had seen not half an hour before in Trim’s room. It had been cleaned more thoroughly since then but there was no question this was the blade used to stab Woodburn.

  ‘Jakes passed it to me,’ she said. ‘He recognised it at once. It belonged to my husband.’

  ‘Put it away, for God’s sake,’ I hissed, pushing her hands beneath the folds of her cloak. She had her back to the yard, but anyone looking out of the window would have seen her holding it.

  ‘I keep it hidden in my room,’ she said, tucking it back into her skirts. ‘John always kept a blade under his pillow, so I thought I should do the same. It’s one of the few things I have to remember him by. They played cards for his belongings, did you know that? That’s why that . . . devil could dress you up in his clothes.’ She gave a shudder of revulsion.

  I did not have the spirit or the inclination to defend Fleet’s actions two nights before. Though it struck me that if it hadn’t been for that devil’s counsel, her beloved husband John might well have sold her to Gilbourne for ten guineas. ‘Who could have taken it?’

  She shook her head helplessly. ‘You know how it is, Mr Hawkins. Servants and visitors coming in and out all day. It frightens me to think how easy it would be to kill someone in here – and never be discovered.’

  ‘There are a hundred ways to die in here,’ I said, surprised that this thought had never struck her before. ‘Death slips in and out of this place whenever it pleases. With no need for a key.�
� I tapped my toe against the trap door. ‘D’you know three more died just last night, as well as Mr Mitchell?’

  She gasped in shock. ‘Last night? How?’

  ‘Starved to death, I suppose. Or gaol fever. Gilbert Hand says it’s worse in the height of summer—’

  ‘Oh, from the Common Side,’ she said, waving her hand dismissively.

  As if it were a far-distant land, and not fifty paces from where we stood. I took her hand and bowed, formally. It was a dismissal, and I saw from her expression that she felt it. Her lips parted in surprise, then drew into a hard, thin line. And then she turned and stalked away towards her room, grey cloak merging into the early-evening shadows.

  I heard a low chuckle from the room above.

  ‘It’s bad form to listen to private conversations.’

  Fleet leaned his arms on the window frame. ‘No such thing as privacy in a prison. Mr Trim can hear you snoring from the next floor up. Isn’t that right, sir?’

  Trim poked his head out of the window and nodded vigorously. And then both men looked past my shoulder and grinned.

  ‘Dinner!’

  ‘Supper!’

  A trio of porters strode by, one carrying a large bowl of punch, the others shouldering a tempting variety of dishes on large wooden trays. I checked Fleet’s watch. A half past seven. Too late for dinner and a little too early for supper.

  ‘Hurry up, Tom,’ Fleet urged. ‘Get those fine calves of yours up here at once.’

  By the time I reached Belle Isle the porters had already set the dishes down upon the table, which Fleet and Trim had carried to the middle of the room. I had been hungry when I ordered, and was paying with another man’s coin, which is to say I had perhaps gone a little overboard, but Fleet didn’t seem to mind, in fact he was dancing about the table with anticipation, shooing the porters out of the way so that he could begin. It was a feast – as much as could be had in the Marshalsea: spit-turned shoulder of lamb with greens; beef broth; bologna sausage with thick slabs of bread and butter; stuffed veal fillet with salad and cucumbers; dressed salmon and a fine apple pudding.

  Fleet ladled himself a glass of punch and set it next to a half-drunk glass of claret at his side. He considered them both tenderly for a moment, then tapped the punch bowl. ‘You’re sure this is a four-shilling bowl, Tom?’

  I nodded happily. The fourth shilling paid for an extra half pint of raspberry brandy tipped into the mix. Trim took a sip and pulled a face. ‘Not enough sugar,’ he declared. ‘I’ll fetch some from my room.’

  ‘How’s Mr Woodburn?’ I asked as he scurried to the door.

  ‘Resting.’ He pointed up at the ceiling, a flicker of concern crossing his face. ‘We must be careful not to wake him.’

  Fleet snorted. ‘He’s been dosed with Siddall’s best sleeping draught. We could dance upon his bed and he wouldn’t wake tonight. We must try that later, eh?’ He tipped back his chair and watched Trim run up the stairs, then fixed me with a dark, warning look. ‘Watch what you say in front of our good neighbour, Tom. And pile your plate while you have the chance,’ he added, loading his own with enough food for three men. ‘Trim eats like a hog. I have it on good authority his tailor has let out his waistcoat three times this year.’

  ‘You don’t trust Trim?’ I asked, then answered my own question. ‘You don’t trust anyone.’

  ‘I trust you,’ Fleet said, shovelling food into his mouth, which was practically kissing his plate. ‘But don’t take that as a compliment.’

  ‘I won’t,’ I said, then paused. ‘Why not?’

  ‘I trust you because beneath that thin, rakish veneer . . .’ he waved his fork at my clothes ‘. . . you are a man of honour. Don’t look so worried, I won’t tell a soul,’ he grinned, spiking himself a piece of veal. ‘It’s your parents’ fault, of course. They must have poisoned you with talk of charity and honesty when you were a child. And see where it’s brought you! You are not fit for public office of the lowest kind. The Edward Gilbournes of this world flourish and profit handsomely and always will. But men such as you . . . I’ll bet you don’t even cheat at cards, Tom. It’s a wonder you’ve survived this long.’

  I held up my hands in protest. ‘I don’t need to cheat at cards!’

  ‘And is that the reason you don’t?’ he shot back.

  I slumped against my chair and said nothing. It was true, I didn’t like to cheat – in the main. Fleet had uncovered a truth I had kept hidden even from myself – a truth that lay at the very core of my being, hard and unpalatable as a peach stone. Honour. ‘Perhaps I should have been a cleric after all,’ I grumbled, pushing my food about my plate.

  ‘Nonsense,’ Fleet cried, holding his hands up as if to ward off something deadly. ‘All those scheming, duplicitous bishops and archdeacons? They’d eat you for breakfast. No, no – you must not take your . . . condition so hard. We just need to find you an honest occupation, where a man’s word counts for something.’ He tilted his head. ‘Do you ride well? You would make an excellent highwayman.’

  Trim arrived with a pestle and mortar filled with ground sugar and some sweet-smelling herbs. ‘My own recipe,’ he smiled, tipping the contents into the punch bowl and swirling them into the brandy.

  Fleet poured a fresh ladleful of Trim’s new, improved blend. Then he handed it to me. ‘Try this for me. I don’t trust men bearing herbs.’

  ‘Try it for yourself,’ I cried, indignant. ‘I’m not your taster.’

  ‘What on earth are you talking about?’ Trim asked, bewildered. ‘You do not think I’ve poisoned it, surely?’

  I was about to explain that Fleet had been drugged the night of Roberts’ murder. Then Fleet looked at me. If looks were daggers, I would have been skewered to the far wall. ‘Very well,’ I muttered, taking a long gulp. And then another.

  ‘Well, his wits seem fine to me,’ Trim said, after a while.

  Fleet looked dubious.

  We ate and drank in contented silence for a time, though I found I could not eat much, despite my rumbling stomach. The bruises on my throat, hidden beneath my cravat, made it hard to swallow, though I did manage to finish two bowls of the broth. Trim, as Fleet had promised, did indeed have an extraordinary appetite but I did not begrudge him for it; he had shown me many kindnesses since my arrival at the Marshalsea, not least tending to my injuries that morning. If food was the fuel that made the stove of his heart burn brighter, so be it. And as I said: I was not paying for it.

  I had settled the silver watch upon the table and remember it was showing a quarter past nine when we heard two pairs of footsteps upon the stairs. Cross entered first, cantankerous as ever and without knocking, kicking the half-closed door open with his heavy boot. ‘Visitor,’ he grunted, helping himself to a generous serving of punch while Fleet looked on, scandalised. A moment later Charles stepped into the room, smiling when he saw me at the table. I stood up and we embraced each other warmly.

  ‘You look much better,’ he said, holding me at arm’s length. ‘I was worried, this morning. Exceedingly worried.’

  I smiled and did not correct him. And in truth I was better, except that my mind kept travelling back to the night before, and my head still ached where the iron cap had ground into my skull. Here among friends, the horror of the night seemed far away. But I was afraid what I would see when I blew out the candle and closed my eyes.

  Seeing the punch was almost gone, Charles sent Cross for a fresh bowl; a gesture that transformed Fleet’s opinion of my childhood friend in a flash.

  ‘Most gentlemanlike of you, sir,’ he beamed. ‘You are welcome to take anything from the floor by way of thanks.’

  Charles blinked at the mounds of rumpled clothes, the litter of obscene pamphlets, the ivory tusk, then picked his way over to a seat by the fire, empty-handed. I followed him there and we smoked a pipe together while Trim and Fleet scavenged their way through the last of the dishes.

  Charles glanced over at Fleet, then leaned in close, lowering his voice. ‘I’m s
urprised to see you have forgiven him, Tom. It’s a miracle you survived the night. When I first came into the Strong Room this morning and saw you fixed to the wall . . . You were so pale. I thought . . .’ He winced and shook his head.

  I told Charles about Woodburn’s rambling confession – of what, I wasn’t sure. I also told him what I had learned about Gilbourne and the offer he had made to Captain Roberts: ten guineas for the use of his wife. Charles look sickened, wringing his hands and staring away into the fire. ‘We must get you out of this damned place.’

  ‘We’ll interrogate Woodburn tomorrow morning,’ I said, sounding more reasonable than I felt. ‘If anyone can wheedle the truth out of a man it’s Samuel Fleet. It’s in his interest to help me now.’

  Charles barely heard me. He was still staring into the fire. ‘I wish I could do more to help you.’

  ‘You have done far more than I deserve,’ I said, feeling the truth of it for the first time. ‘It’s my own fault I’ve ended up in here, Charles. I must find my own way out.’

  Cross arrived with the fresh bowl, slamming it down on the table. ‘They’re locking the front gate,’ he said to Charles. ‘You’d better come with me. Or would you like to spend the night here, sir?’

  Charles picked up his hat and bid the room a good evening. I walked down to the yard with him, grabbing the last chance to step outside before they locked up the wards for the night. Charles touched my arm and smiled, but he looked worried. ‘For God’s sake, be careful, Tom. You know now how dangerous it is in here. I can’t promise to arrive in time to save you on the next occasion. And keep an eye on Fleet – he’s not—’

  ‘Thank you, Charles,’ I interrupted, clasping his hands. I couldn’t face another lecture on the duplicity of Samuel Fleet, true as it may be.

  Charles smiled, but he did not look happy. ‘I’ll pray for you.’

  Cross, who had been leaning against the wall, gave a low chuckle as he stepped out of the shadows. ‘Prayers won’t do you any good, Mr Buckley,’ he said, glancing up at the dim light glowing from Belle Isle’s window. ‘It’s the devil runs things in here . . .’