Robert's was little better.
"His mind is much exercised by the question of tin."
"Tin?"
"The metal, my lord. In short supply, it would seem. He has managed to obtain some amount of scrap metal, of bronze and gun-metal, to melt down, but wishes to obtain much more of the true metal itself. I believe he has made some contact with merchants trading to the new countries of South America where supplies are obtainable. There was some thought of venturing there himself, I believe. One understands that an engineer by the name of Trevithick spent some years there."
"He will not if I can prevent it, Mr Michael. He has far better things to do with the next two years. And I do not wish to see him out of the scope of your discreet surveillance, sir. What of this scrap metal? Cannons, I presume, being made of gun-metal?"
"Mostly, my lord, though he has made contact with a supplier in the Italian states who has been able to lay his hands upon old pieces of bronze statuary - often vulgarly unclothed in what appears to be 'Classical Taste'. They have gone to the foundries, much to the gain of decency, I am assured."
Robert was not particularly disturbed by questions of decency, though he was in favour of indecency in its proper place. He murmured his support for Mr Michael - if he thought it important then he would not cavil.
"Ah... I do not suppose you have any knowledge of his, shall we say, private life?"
This was the question Michael had been dreading.
"Yes, my lord, I am afraid I have. Mr Joseph met, somehow, I am not entirely sure of the detail, a young lady of respectable parentage. Quite ineligible, that is clear - her father is a lay-preacher of some obscure sect of Ranters, her mother is daughter to a small shopkeeper - but of the lower part of the middle order of folk. I believe the female to have received some slight education, sufficient perhaps to remind him of his lost lady; they discussed steam initially, it would seem, but evidently progressed to other activities. She has taken up residence in his house, is generally believed to be his mistress - which would be a matter of little concern was it not that she is not yet one-and-twenty and her Papa is threatening to go to law on the claim of enticement."
A young woman was in law the property of her parents until she attained her majority; traditionally they had a financial interest in her marriage. Behaviour that made her unmarriageable thus could be argued to cause them loss, which they could claim in open court.
"I don't mind a couple of thousand, Mr Michael, but I do not want the vultures of the newssheets sniffing about our heels!"
All evidence given in court was privileged, could be published in full with no recourse against the newssheet. All of the press sought to discover and print the most salacious details possible of divorce, breach of promise or enticements - their readers loved them.
"What does Mr Joseph intend to do?"
"He met the father - in the main street of St Helens, unfortunately - and told him to go to Law or to Hell, whichever he chooses, it being all one to him. He will not be marrying the girl, he said, but he will take full care of any bastards she may produce - and if he does not like her becoming his whore, then he should have brought her up better."
Robert had to approve the sentiment, but he would have preferred it not to have been expressed quite so publicly.
"What of the girl herself?"
"One understands her to believe herself to be a 'blue-stocking', an educated and liberated young female person."
"Oh dear."
"I have a local attorney who is watching the case for me, my lord. And the matter of Sir Matthew."
"What matter of Sir Matthew?"
Michael produced a pair of folders, set them out on his desk.
"A complicated business, my lord, but relating to the activities and identity of the gentleman who first came to our attention for selling opium to Mr Joseph."
"Mr Starling, I believed him to be called."
"So did I, my lord, but I now know him to be Mr Star, Mr John Star!"
"The missing brother? The slave trader? The dead pirate?"
"Yes, my lord, all of those things. Not, however, as dead as he might have been, and as one could have wished."
"Can that be remedied?"
"It can, my lord... but I doubt the immediate wisdom of that course. I believe there are affidavits - indeed, I have seen purported copies of some, though not the originals. Interesting works, my lord, owing more to Grub Street than to reality, and eventually possible of detailed disproof. But, was the gentleman to die in, shall we say, nefarious circumstances, then that would be taken to demonstrate the truth of all he claimed."
"What has he actually done, and said?"
"He has met up with the heir to young Mr Trenton, once the owner of the sheepwalks that became Sir Matthew's estate. Mr Trenton himself has come upon hard times and has been declared legally incapable - he is, it seems, though the family are keeping all quiet, wholly demented and is locked away in an attic with a pair of male attendants to watch over him. According to a manservant he is 'mad as a March hare'; he gave me some very surprising details of the poor man's behaviour - few of which should be mentioned in public."
Robert was instantly fascinated, wanted to know all - just what had the loony been up to? He thought it better not to ask, however, for Michael was obviously taken by distaste.
"I presume, Mr Michael, that in law the man has to be regarded as sane and competent until that time at which an order was made against him?"
"Essentially, my lord, yes. But a judge might well determine that he was unduly open to improper influence, that he might easily have been led into actions that were not entirely in his best interest."
"Such as selling land at a quarter of its proper price."
"Possibly, my lord. The case is more likely to be that he was inveigled into playing games of chance with sharps, that all unawares he was cheated and fleeced of his money."
"Was he?"
"Probably, my lord. It seems that Mr Farlow, of Clapperley and Pitt, the, ah, provincial lawyers, came upon the scene after a set of people known to him, but not acting with his prior informed consent, had fastened their hooks into Mr Trenton. Farlow knew that Trenton was the possessor of unentailed land - he had been looking for acres for Sir Matthew to purchase and so was aware of the identity of all of the large holders in the vicinity - and took the opportunity to squeeze him."
"Thus he lost his lands through the machinations of two, separate individuals, acting adventitiously, with no conspiracy between them."
"Just so, my lord. If the case comes to Chancery, as is not impossible, then I am reasonably sure of a favourable result - but taking at least five years to resolve, and with undesirable elements of public knowledge."
"Our defence then is that Sir Matthew came late on the scene and acted in innocent good faith. Mr Farlow may be seen to have been unaware of any initial crime, but to have driven a very hard bargain with a man facing debtor's prison; unpopular, but not unlawful."
"Exactly, my lord."
"And Mr John Star has muddied the waters by producing false evidence of collusion between the gaming house, Mr Farlow and Sir Matthew."
"One is given to understand a degree of personal animus exists, sir, though Sir Matthew would not have been aware of it."
"Why would that be, Mr Michael... No, wait, I remember now. It is not talked about, but Sir Matthew was the captain who sank Rajah Star's pirate ship and destroyed his fleet, and was, in process, thought to have killed him. I can see, thinking on the matter, that John Star might well be more than a little upset with his brother."
"Quite, my lord. Bring proof of Mr John Star's identity before the court and his evidence, and all that he has procured, is instantly discredited, and he may well be taken up on charges of piracy. He would hang at Execution Dock, if I remember correctly - not so far from Wapping Stairs. The first for many years, it would bring out the crowds for sure."
Executions were public property. Pamphlets containing details - no
rmally invented - of the felon's crimes and final confessions would sell in every town in the country, together with names and line drawings and the identity of interesting connections.
"He must not hang, Mr Michael."
"No doubt that is his calculation too, my lord."
"So... we should not quietly kill him, and we must not publicly hang him. What are we to do with the bloody man?"
John Starling hoped that they would soon come to an answer to that question, for he was rapidly finding his existence in England to be untenable. Time and again he chided himself for thinking that the Indians - no more than brown men and not to be expected to know the time of day - could be cheated safely. His Indian servant, and, he was sure, the agent of the consortium in Bombay, was increasingly urgent in his demands that he supply the imports they demanded.
The white slave traffic was progressing in the most satisfactory fashion, though his theatrical agents were having to recruit singers and dancers outside of London now; the trade in good brandy and Irish whiskey was in hand and profitable.
The problem lay in the supply of cannon - they simply were not available any longer. Immediately after the wars there had been hundreds of barrels in the scrap heaps, but they were all gone now. The government had increased the size of the navy again, and had started to rebuild the army, and great guns in working condition were no longer being sold off. New purchase by a civilian was not impossible, but the gun-founders in Wellingborough and Kettering were very chary and would not sell without the good word from the Ordnance Board, while the more recent suppliers in the North Country all had political connections. He was trying to talk to the Scottish firms, the Carron Works and a pair of smaller places, but they were very difficult to contact, had been warned off perhaps. It seemed that there were emissaries in Britain from a number of insurgent groups from across Southern Europe, and government did not wish to offend Austria or Russia just at the moment when it was very busily upsetting the Ottomans.
He had to find cannon, quickly, or lay hands on money, very rapidly, and run. He could not sell up, would be forced to abandon his profitable apothecary's business and his freehold warehouse in Liverpool, and his own house, for that matter. He could not be sure that he could run far enough or fast enough to avoid the assassins on his tail. It was very unfair!
He had nosed around in Lancashire and discovered the provenance of his brother's great estate - poor land but a lot of it - and had made contact with the aggrieved original heir. Mr Trenton had paid over a good few hundred for the evidence he had fabricated, but it was not sufficient to meet his desires, and must have had the effect of bringing his own name to prominence. His brothers must now be certain of his existence, and would very soon identify him as Starling - it was not, perhaps, as clever an alias as he had first thought.
Thomas was now Lord Star, and was as uncompromisingly honest as ever their father had been. Lord Andrews was dead and John had always been just a little afraid of Robert, the new lord. There was an air of danger about Robert - he had seen his like in the nastier corners of the world, men who might consider a pistol a solution to every problem.
He could not run; he could not stay - he must have time.
John cudgelled his brains for hours, was finally overcome by a simple revelation - the immediate threat to his life was his servant, so-called, the Indian assassin. Removal of that one man would instantly give relief, lasting at least a year while the news travelled to India and a replacement returned.
He occasionally patronised a respectable brothel in the neighbourhood of the office - a safe distance from the house he had bought, he did not wish to be known in automatic caution. He dropped in that evening, greeted the heavy at the door familiarly.
"Good evening, Smiler! All well?"
"Very well, thank you, sir."
Smiler had been bottled at some stage in his career, the broken glass leaving a scar that stretched across both sides of his mouth.
"I wonder, Smiler, whether you might be able to assist me, to point me towards a man or two in your trade who might wish to earn a little extra cash."
A refusal and he would say no more, seek his hard men elsewhere.
"Times is 'ard, sir, terrible 'ard for the ordinary chap."
"And we could all do with a few sovereigns more - or quite a lot of them, in fact."
"So us could, sir."
"Do me a favour and drop into my office sometime soon, would you, Smiler?"
John completed the business of the evening, made his way out of the door a few hours later, bidding a polite farewell to Smiler.
"Tomorrow, sir?"
"If you would be so good, Smiler."
"The Indian man who let you in, Smiler."
"I saw 'im, sir. Got 'is phizog in me memory."
"Threatening me, Smiler."
"Blackmail, sir? Very nasty!"
"Twenty sovs to end the problem for me?"
"Me and two of me mates, sir. Easier to make sure 'e sinks good and deep that way, sir."
It was, too - from personal experience John knew that killing could become messy when there was only one man to do the job.
"How much?"
"Fifty all told, sir, them to get fifteen apiece, and a promise of a tidy and quiet performance in return, sir. Tomorrow evening, sir? Where does 'e live?"
"He has a room downstairs."
"Unlock the back door, sir, and then leave by the front. Locks up after you, does 'e?"
"Yes, always - bolt and chain."
"Whiles 'e's rattling that we can come in the back, sir. Cash up front, sir, 'alf, shall we say?"
John shook his head, opened the locked drawer to his desk, pulled out a chamois leather bag, tipped its contents onto the desk top, counted out fifty and shovelled at least as much again away.
"There may be other jobs sometimes, Smiler. You know now that I've got money and that I will pay you, all right and tight."
"Right you are, Mr Starling, sir."
Smiler thought he talked big, but that was only another fifty or so in the bag - not really a great deal.
There was not a mark or a bloodstain to be seen in the morning, and the door was opened for him by Smiler.
"Bloke I knows, sir, good sort of chap, so 'e is, been working as a footman lately and needs a place due to his old master taking dead. You needs a man now, sir."
"Send him along, Smiler. Does he carry anything in his pocket?"
"Always, sir."
The problem remaining now was to lay his hands on a thousand or two, preferably quickly, so as to leave a cold trail - and that was taken out of his hands.
"I beg your pardon, Mr Starling, but a pair of gentlemen have called and beg to see you. I have a card, sir."
The new man was determined to be genteel, as a footman should be.
"Thank you, Sebastian."
Where had he got that name from? Unlikely to be from his parents.
He glanced at the card, froze as he saw the name of Viscount St Helens.
The window was too far above the ground - he could not jump and was unable to climb down with his weakened shoulder.
No way out.
"Invite the gentlemen to come upstairs, Sebastian."
He stood waiting.
Robert came into the office, another man at his shoulder, military by the look of him, but he might be a Runner.
"Good morning, Mr Star. My associate is Mr Murphy, who provides protection from theft at Mostyns Bank and other institutions."
Murphy was wearing a frock coat, with a pair of bulges at the waist and heavy seeming pockets. Four barrels, at least.
"Please to sit down, my lord, Mr Murphy."
Murphy preferred to stand, took up a position where he could watch door and desk both.
"You are a nuisance, Mr Star! What shall we do with you?"
He was being treated as if he were a naughty little boy - insufferable! Did they not know he had been one of the most feared pirates in the East?
'Had b
een'.
He bowed his head, accepting that he was no more.
"I am wounded, my lord, and no longer the man I was. My business here is at the mercy of a consortium of Indian businessmen. I have little money of my own."
Robert had not expected quite so abject a surrender; nor had Murphy, distrusting every word of it.
"I am minded, Mr Star, to give your name and direction to Mr Quarrington, a close friend and relative of the family."
"A trial could be a public embarrassment, my lord. I know that Mr Quarrington was the owner of a number of slavers."
"So do I. I have no doubt that he would consider that point."
"My barrister would make much of such a disgraceful revelation, my lord."
Murphy laughed, shook his head.
"Leave the poor man his illusions, Mr Murphy. They are all he has left."
"Sure and I shall, my lord. Though I might say that in my experience slave traders have a tendency to be violent, unlawful sorts of folk."
That was John Star's experience too. He began to doubt that a trial was on either man's mind.
"Have you an alternative course, my lord?"
"Several. The first, and most tempting, is to dump your body in the river. I knew you as a boy, however, and my father would have been most unwilling to see one of his great friend Lord Star's sons go that way. As a last resort I might have you taken up for murder - a gentleman by the name of Smiler will offer evidence, I believe. That might be better than asking your brother Matthew to finish the job he started - pirates may be killed out of hand, you know."
He did not respond to the provocation, dared not - he had seen Murphy's hand creeping into his pocket.
"If your death is not seen as a solution then I have another, Mr Star."
Robert stayed silent until he was forced to ask what it was, made to beg.
"You must go overseas. A choice of the Cape or of Botany Bay. Far distant, and a pledge never to return. You will take some cash with you - enough to purchase a house and a little land - and there will be a monthly order to a local bank in a not ungenerous sum. Sufficient to raise a family, if that should be your wish. Failing that, quite enough to drink yourself to death in style. Will you accept that offer? It is the only one I shall make."
A Parade Of Virtue (A Poor Man At The Gate Series Book 9) Page 2