by Erica Brown
Hoofbeats sounded just minutes later. Horatia turned her head and, despite what she’d done, her spirits soared. Nelson was returning with Tom. Then her heart seemed to rise to her throat. How could she possibly face him?
Hands tightly gripping the wooden balustrade, she was still there when Nelson ran in, swiftly followed by Rupert. His face was graver than she could ever remember.
‘Where is he?’ she asked, calmly having prepared her apology and fully expecting him to appear behind her brothers.
‘I’ve not told Father yet,’ Nelson began in a trembling voice. ‘I thought I’d better tell you first.’
‘What is it?’ said Horatia, flattening her skirt at either side so she could ably descend the narrow steps, fear already making her neck and shoulders ache with tension.
Nelson said nothing until they were face to face.
‘Tom’s been arrested,’ he said quietly.
Horatia remembered the days when Tom had drunk at dockside taverns and fought for prize money. ‘For fighting?’ she asked, thinking a fine would no doubt get him released.
Nelson shook his head. ‘For murder.’
* * *
The gaoler doffed his cap and brushed a few scraps of pie crust from his exuberant moustache.
‘Sorry, sir,’ he said, his keys clanging against the iron lock. ‘But it’s people in and people out all day, lock this door, unlock that door, fill in this form and fill in that, so I grabbed a bite while it was quiet.’
Rupert wrinkled his nose. Bristol Gaol smelled of old food and unwashed chamber pots.
Nelson squinted as his pupils adjusted to their gloomy surroundings. The walls were brown and the floor was of grey flagstones.
Rupert swung his walking stick over his shoulder in a flamboyant manner he’d adopted of late. ‘Now we are here and your hunger is satisfied, perhaps we can see the prisoner?’
The gaoler doffed his hat again. ‘This way, sir.’
They followed him down a set of steps leading to a heavy wooden door set in a solid stone arch. The door was obviously made of oak, dried and cured over the centuries to a silvery hardness and studded with nails the size of mushrooms.
Two more doors followed. Flagstones rang with their footsteps, and echoed off the dark walls and barrel-vaulted ceiling. Both men shivered within their well-cut trousers and warm woollen coats.
‘He’s in there, sir,’ said the gaoler, indicating a row of rusting bars set into the crumbling wall.
Nelson frowned. ‘I see no door. How can I possibly talk to Captain Strong without seeing him face to face?’
The gaoler looked embarrassed, shuffling from one foot to the other. ‘You’re to speak to him through the bars, sir. That’s the rules. You stand up there.’
He indicated two stone steps immediately below the barred opening. On the other side, something moved.
‘Nelson? Is that you I can hear?’
Rupert got to the bars before his half-brother. ‘Captain Tom! It’s Rupert. Nelson’s here with me.’ His voice shook with emotion.
Tom smiled through the bars, forcing himself to look confident and sound as though his present circumstances were just a silly mistake. Being positive, he reasoned, would keep his head clear, and he needed to think clearly if he was to get out of this.
‘How did the launch go? Is the new Miriam Strong as inspiring as her predecessor?’
Rupert had explained to Nelson what Horatia had done. And the two brothers exchanged swift glances. There was a time and a place for everything and this wasn’t it. Besides, they both felt it was Horatia who should do the telling.
‘It was a splendid day for the Strong Shipping Line. Everything went according to plan,’ Rupert lied.
‘Tom!’ Nelson nudged Rupert slightly aside, his gloved hands gripping the rusting bars. ‘I can’t believe this is happening. Why is it that the man was killed by unknown assailants one minute and by you the next?’
Tom forced a chuckle. ‘Because a witness came forward.’
The brothers fell to silence.
At last Nelson said, ‘I swear if I had known, I would never have asked you to come back.’
Rupert polished the silver handle of his walking stick, too nervous to keep still. ‘I don’t like riddles, old chap.’
‘And this is indeed a riddle,’ said Nelson.
Tom laughed. The sound bounced coldly off the bare walls, its warmth swallowed up in the gloom. ‘You always preferred poetry if I remember rightly.’
Nelson snorted. ‘The man must be a liar. Do you know who he is?’
‘Yes. A man named Silas Osborne.’
‘Do you know him?’
Tom had already racked his brain. ‘Ten years ago I knew some of the most unsavoury characters in Bristol, but not this one.’
Rupert looked worried suddenly. ‘You didn’t really kill Trout, did you, Tom?’
‘No! I’m as flawed as anyone, Rupert, and God knows I’ve trod many places where angels fear to tread, seen many dark deeds and done some things that I’m not at all proud of. But not this. Much as I would have liked to, someone got there before me.’
Rupert looked contrite, though not entirely convinced.
It was left to Nelson to reassure him. ‘Tom’s no saint, Rupert, but he’s no demon either. He’s been totally honest, and I for one, believe him.’
Tom added, ‘Reuben Trout himself was a murderer.’
‘Good that he’s dead then,’ exclaimed Rupert. ‘Saves the city the expense of a rope!’
Tom’s smile turned grim. ‘The city may well use it on me instead.’
Rupert’s face fell.
‘Who did he kill?’ asked Nelson.
Tom paused before answering. ‘Two people I cared for. One of them, Jimmy Palmer, died in the fire on the Miriam Strong, which Reuben Trout had begun. He also slit the throat of a woman, the mother of one of the boys apprenticed on the ship.’
Nelson puffed out his cheeks. ‘I’d feel like killing if someone murdered a friend of mine.’
‘I can understand it too,’ said Tom in a sombre voice.
Rust flaked from the bars beneath his tense grip. More rust fluttered down as he leaned his head on the grating, his arms braced against the thick walls as if in an effort to prevent them closing in on him.
‘Clarence Ward was eleven years old when Trout killed his mother. Yes, I did go looking for Trout myself after finding out that he’d killed Sally and set the Miriam Strong ablaze, murdering Jimmy Palmer. Luckily the boys training on the ship all got out – no thanks to Reuben Trout. Only one boy was missing. That was Clarence. I later found him standing over Trout’s body in the stables next to the Fourteen Stars inn clutching a bloodstained hammer. Mindful of the boy’s background, and in the hope of giving him the same chance at life that your Uncle Jeb gave me, I told the boy to run, though I knew that without any other suspect, suspicion might fall on me. The whole waterfront knew I’d been looking for him. But nothing could have been proved – not without a witness. And there hadn’t been one, I thought. And even if there had been, he would have seen Clarence kill his mother’s murderer. Therefore Silas Osborne has to be a liar.’
Rupert frowned. ‘But why would he lie? What is there to gain by doing so?’
‘It’s obvious. Money!’ said Nelson. ‘He’s been paid to lie.’
‘By whom,’ said Tom. ‘And why?’
‘And how do we find out?’ said Rupert.
Tom frowned. Ten years had passed since Reuben Trout died. A lot of people who had known him might also have passed on. ‘I think you’d better leave that side of the matter to me. The most beneficial thing you can do at present is to use your influence to get me out of here.’
‘We’ll do our damnedest, but it won’t be easy,’ said Nelson.
‘I know you will.’
Tom thanked whomever it was in heaven that had sent the Reverend Jeb Strong out on that cold night many years ago when all he’d had to eat were the sugar-covered splinters of a sug
ar barrel. The Strongs were the only family he’d ever known and they were powerful.
‘I’ve put your Red Indian into the orangery, by the way,’ Rupert piped up suddenly. ‘I was going to have her stored in the stables, but it didn’t seem right.’
‘Or warm enough,’ Tom added with a laugh, ‘bearing in mind her state of undress.’
Rupert made the first move to leave. ‘I think we should go, Tom. We have to set about getting you out of here. Horatia is waiting outside, impatient to know how you are. She’s terribly worried and wanted to see you, but they only let wives in. She tried telling them she was your sweetheart, but they didn’t care.’
‘Sweetheart!’ Tom exclaimed. He laughed as if surprised, but the sound was hollow, because that, he realized, was exactly how Horatia saw herself.
After they’d gone, Tom stretched out on the meagre comfort of the iron-framed bed and straw-filled palliasse. His muscles ached as a result of inactivity and the damp that seeped through from the River Frome, which gurgled like laughter on the other side of the wall. It would cripple him before very long, he thought wryly – if the hangman didn’t get him first.
He laughed at the absurd irony of it all. It had happened ten years ago. Even if he found Clarence, was he likely to confess and take his place on the gallows? Not very likely, thought Tom, and resigned himself to the fact that the power of the Strong family might at least save him from the noose. Even banishment to Australia was preferable to that. For now it was all he could hope for.
* * *
Outside, in the shadow of the high walls of the prison, Horatia paced up and down at the side of the carriage. On seeing her brothers emerge from a small door set into the massive main gate, she stopped abruptly and asked for their news. Her tone alone was sharp enough to cut steel.
‘Patience,’ said Nelson as he helped Horatia up into the carriage. Once inside, away from prying eyes and ears, he repeated everything that Tom had said. ‘I thought I might hire a man to make enquiries in the right places.’
Rupert added, ‘In the meantime I’m going to make enquiries of some of the judges that are well disposed towards our family. Tom insists – and I think he could have a point – that he is the best person to make enquiries in “the right places” as Nelson puts it. For that he needs his freedom, so we need to hire the best lawyer in the city to argue his case. I thought Father’s old friend, Justice Augustus Todd-Winter would be just the ticket.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ said Horatia, taking a cigarillo from a silver case and snapping it shut.
The brothers were taken aback. Although they were used to their sister pulling them up short and turning their noses in the right direction when they strayed, her sharpness still made them shrivel from the head down.
Nelson recovered first. ‘Now look here, Horatia—’
Horatia’s frosty gaze froze him to silence. ‘You will do none of these things. Yes, we do need a lawyer and an investigator, but we do not need one of the doddery old judges or lawyers of father’s acquaintance. We need a lawyer who knows how to obtain information and no questions asked. Until this so-called witness is dealt with, Tom is in danger of getting his neck stretched. Money needs to grease the right palms and threats made to those who profess to uphold the law. They all have secrets their mothers and wives would not wish to know about. There are narks and grasses and spies and sleuths all over this city, and I know a man who knows them.’
‘Good Lord! Where did you learn all those words?’ Rupert exclaimed, blinking with surprise and the smoke from the cigarillo.
Nelson slumped back in his seat. ‘Not from the sort of man I’d want to meet I’m sure.’ A sudden terrifying thought took hold of him. ‘He’s not a lover of yours, is he?’
Smoke curled up in front of Horatia’s open mouth as she burst into laughter. ‘I think he’d be more likely to love you, my dear brother, than me.’
Nelson looked at his sister as though she were the ultimate cuckoo in the nest, a very different breed from himself. ‘Genteel young ladies should know nothing of men like that,’ he exclaimed.
The look in her eyes said it all. Horatia was not a genteel and thoroughly nice young lady. She made it her business to know what was going on in the world.
Rupert grimaced and shifted uncomfortably, sliding along the shiny leather upholstery each time the carriage turned a corner or hit a rut. Things were not working out the way he’d thought they would.
The two brothers had come out from the prison feeling honoured that Tom had asked them to help him. In one fell swoop Horatia had made them look fools.
‘I’ll spend any amount of money, I’ll turn over every stone in this accursed city to get at the truth, and woe betide anyone who gets in my way,’ she said. ‘So if you feel afraid of allying yourself with the likes of a woman whose connections are not entirely nine tenths of the law, say so now.’
Nelson laid his head back against the leather upholstery, closed his eyes and shook his head. ‘I’ll leave it in your hands, dear sister.’
Horatia allowed herself a triumphant smile, even though the man she loved most in her life was in danger of hanging. Nelson would do whatever she said.
Now for Rupert.
‘Well?’ She fully expected him to agree, though perhaps more reluctantly than Nelson.
He smiled and his eyes sparkled mischievously, just like when he was a boy. Horatia knew he was going to say something that she wouldn’t like.
‘By the way,’ said Rupert – and there was no doubting the cocky look in his eyes – ‘Tom asked how the launch went. I said I would leave it to you to tell him all about it.’
* * *
She punished them with total silence all the way to the offices of Septimus Monk. On arrival they attempted to alight from the carriage.
‘Stay there,’ she snapped, and they did so.
‘Good grief,’ said Nelson, as she disappeared into the portico, ‘I thought she was going to bite my head off.’
‘She did,’ grumbled Rupert. ‘I feel distinctly chewed.’
Monk’s assistant made a futile attempt to stop her entering the inner office. ‘You do not have an appointment, madam,’ said the dark-eyed youth who looked as though he might be Spanish.
‘I don’t need one,’ she proclaimed and swept him aside.
‘But he’s already—’
She pushed the door to Monk’s office open so hard that it banged against the wall leaving a crack in the plaster.
Septimus was sitting on a sofa without his jacket on. A plump-faced young man sat next to him. His face turned bright red and he leapt to his feet on her entering.
Septimus slowly buttoned his trousers.
Ignoring them, Horatia began pacing the room, her hands tightly clasped in front of her and a look of the most intense concentration on her face. ‘This is a matter of the utmost urgency. I need to speak to you now, so get rid of your toy, if you please.’
The two men exchanged looks. They were a little slow in responding.
Horatia was in no mood to be kept waiting. She rounded on him, her fists on her hips and the glow of battle in her eyes. ‘Mr Monk, I am not in the least shocked at what you do or who you do it with. I pay you to deal with my affairs, and so far have found you very fit to do so. Your personal life may disgust me, but your professional capabilities leave me very satisfied indeed. Now! Can we get down to business?’
Monk looked bemused. He turned to the boy. ‘I’ll see you again, darling.’
The young man’s eyes flickered with embarrassment at the endearment, but he recovered on seeing that Horatia was not in the least bit interested.
‘Goodbye, Septimus.’
‘Goodbye, my dear.’
The young man nodded at her. She managed a smile.
Septimus Monk cleared his throat, pulled up a chair for her use and sat himself in the one behind his desk. ‘I trust the emergency is worth the intrusion.’
‘As much money as the task is worth.’
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Monk raised his eyebrows and clasped his hands across his waistcoat, which gaped slightly. ‘This sounds a very serious proposition indeed.’
‘It is. I need you to be your most cunning, your most elever and your most ruthless.’
‘Oh,’ he said, his face bright with interest. ‘My three favourite attributes. You are already forgiven.’
Chapter Nineteen
It was Edith who informed Blanche that Tom had been arrested. ‘Jim Storm Cloud told me,’ she said. ‘I was walking along the quay and he stopped me. He looks very worried.’
Shaking her head in disbelief, Blanche sank into a chair by the window. ‘Tom wouldn’t murder anyone. I know he wouldn’t.’ Her voice was barely above a whisper.
‘That’s what I thought,’ said Edith as she cleared away the tea things.
Blanche shivered in a sudden draught. She looked to see if the drawing-room windows had blown open without her noticing. They had not.
‘Are you all right?’ Edith asked.
‘It’s this corset,’ lied Blanche, her hand resting on her ribs. ‘It’s much too tight.’
Her face burned. Edith looked at her knowingly. Judging it was time to change the subject, Blanche reached for her needlework basket.
Peering and picking at the multi-hued threads, she said, ‘Are you certain this Jim Storm Cloud had his facts right? Are you sure he’s not trying to frighten you and have you fall into his arms? I can see you quite like the man.’
It sounded trite to say such a thing, as if Tom being arrested was of no real importance to her when the opposite was true. But she had to play down her true feelings, even from Edith.
Simpering at the implication of her being sweet on Jim, Edith was adamant about the details. ‘But I can’t believe that Captain Tom would do such a thing, and neither does Jim Storm Cloud and he’s been friends with the captain for a long time,’ said Edith, opening the door, the tray of crockery balanced on her arm.
Blanche swept a hand out in front of her as if dismissing the problem. ‘Tom’s not a murderer. I won’t believe it.’