“Of course.”
“I was poking my nose into the areas of finance – the Americans were considering an invasion of Canada, yet again. It comes up every five years on average, you know. This time the proposal was for a rising of disaffected French Canadians to coincide and provide an excuse. The Americans keep a payroll in Quebec, for the purpose of maintaining French dissent, just to be irritating, most of the time. Harmless, because we penetrated their service soon after it was formed so we know all of the names on their lists. In this instance there were large sums of money available – American government funds put into the hands of a Canadian banker and disseminated through his branches. To cut a long story short, I was able to provide him with a dozen names of organisers in various different towns and to persuade him to channel a good few thousands to each.”
Robert listened, thought, and then cautiously enquired whether these ‘organisers’ had any actual existence.
“None at all, my lord! I placed the monies into an account in another name in New York, and then arranged for it all to be transferred to a third party in London, for future use in the department. Soon after that, and before I had completed the tidying-up processes, I was dismissed for being too efficient and discovering the names of high-placed traitors – as you know, my lord.”
“And the funds never quite reached the hands of the department?”
“There is much to be said for a pension, my lord.”
“I wholly agree, sir. Do bear in mind, by the way, Captain Hood, that you are a member of the Family. A father considering an application for his daughter’s hand might well look kindly on a cousin of the Andrews clan!”
“Should the occasion arise, my lord, I would consider myself honoured.”
Robert was very pleased to have finally tamed Captain Hood. Intelligent, able and ruthless and yet in his own way, and according to his own, quirky code, a wholly chivalrous man. Every Family needed the loyalty of his sort. Mr Murphy was soon to wed, it seemed – there was another gentleman who had already served the Family well and should be encouraged to continue to do so. He must discover just what was needed there.
“Can one not circumvent the bog, Mr Stephenson?”
Stephenson growled something incomprehensible to his son.
“Not without coming close to bankruptcy, Mr Andrews. The neighbouring landowners are well aware of the nature of Chat Moss and fully expect us to have to change our route and buy rights-of-way from them, at huge price! On top of that, any diversion is the better part of eight miles across, and that would add to the length of the line and to the need to survey again and change the Act of Parliament.”
All was explained.
“Many of the landowners hereabouts are original shareholders in the canal, as well, sir.”
“So… what is to be done?”
Stephenson laughed, made another deep Northumbrian comment.
“Go across, of course, Mr Andrews.”
Joseph surveyed the bog – an expanse of flat, green, grassland, little different in appearance to any other stretch of meadows, more attractive-seeming than the moorland hills.
“It is not quicksand, sir, none of this nonsense of men being sucked under, screaming for aid which none can give! But look.”
Robert Stephenson picked up a heavy stone, walked forward a few paces and threw it in front of him. The rock landed with a dull thump, did not bounce at all and over a few minutes slowly settled down and disappeared, out of sight.
“I tried an experiment, Mr Andrews. I marked a spot and placed a stone on it, then another where it had been, and another… I stopped after ten had gone, the last as quickly as the first. How deep it is, I do not know, but there is a good mile to cross at its narrowest point, and there the peat seems to be deepest. They call it the Blackpool Hole.”
“Then what is to be done? A bridge would require piers, and they could be one hundred paces deep, or more for all we know.”
“I do not know. My father will have an answer, of that I am certain.”
The reply was made calmly – a simple statement of fact.
They retired to the site office and the plan of the railway line, the elder Stephenson deigning to explain when out of the hearing of the general ruck.
“For the bulk of the crossing it will simply be a matter of infilling, the peat is probably nowhere more than thirty feet in depth. Load after load of spoil from the cuttings, thousands of tons, but no more than a simple haulage job. The Blackpool Hole is different, because there seems to be an underground river there, a deep, fast current; there are stories of men drowning there and their bodies found miles away a few hours later. Most of the tales are just that – no names, no dates, no truth! But there is a basis of reality, my father suspects. So there he will use Blind Jack of Knaresborough’s trick.”
Joseph looked blank – he was vaguely familiar with the name – a road builder, one of the early turnpike men, busiest in the North Country, he thought.
“He crossed more than one peat bog, Mr Andrews, and simply floated his road across them. Fascines, bundles of brushwood and heather, dropped along the route, thousands of them. They sink so far and then fill up with peat themselves and stabilise at a particular depth, eventually making a firm base to build on. Over time they may sink a little more, and then the roadbed must be built up again – easily done.”
“Then it is a matter of laying hands upon ten thousand bundles of brushwood, I presume.”
“More like to be one hundred thousand than ten, sir! The buying has already started, the Pennines and the Welsh mountains alike are being scoured even now and any number of surprised small farmers are holding out their hands for the silver half-crowns that are paying for the gorse and heather they have always struggled to clear. Sheep farmers across the whole of the uplands are saying their thank yous to Chat Moss!”
“You seem to be keeping this a secret, Mr Stephenson.”
“Silver half-crowns will become gold half-guineas if the word gets out. The railway is believed to be a source of inexhaustible wealth, Mr Andrews, and every greedy object demands a share of it!”
“Two years to go, before completion?”
“Thirty months at most, sir. We shall call for designs for steam locomotive engines next year. Will you compete?”
“No. I think I might be able to match your father, but am sure I could not better him. Contracting for me, Mr Stephenson. Bearings, wagons, cranes, the rails themselves – but not locomotive engines. Should your competitors come to me then I will sell them wheels, if they so desire. I do not see that I reasonably could not.”
“The competition must be fair – we shall not seek to limit it in any way, and we shall hold no grudges against any contractor, Mr Andrews.”
“I am glad to hear that, sir. I have very little doubt that the future lies in your father’s very capable hands, but I am unwilling to appear to be in conspiracy with him to drive out potential competitors. The problem is that I have brothers – the one an up-and-coming Public Man, the other a peer of no little prominence. Was I to cast a cloud over my own reputation then it would result in a shade on theirs.”
“There are advantages to being of no family at all, it would seem.”
“We are but one generation from that state, Mr Stephenson. My father, the late first lord, was born the son of a fisherman and may well have been a pirate in his youth; he was certainly a very, astute shall we say, businessman in later life!”
“Yet he became a peer of the realm, Mr Andrews.”
“He married into the Landed Interest. Put money into the hands of the Nobs and it is amazing just how quickly one’s own blood becomes blue!”
“My father is too proud of what he is to consider that course, sir. And I do not care, I find.”
“I grew up into the Land, Mr Stephenson. I expect to marry again within a year or two, and shall choose a bride from that background. There are advantages, as well as the quite obvious drawbacks.”
“Nothing come
s for free, after all, Mr Andrews. I shall be too busy in the locomotive works, I suspect, to take a genteel lady to my bosom.”
“You are to build a works, sir?”
“That is my plan, and my father will, eventually, I think fall in with it. I believe there will be a need for hundreds, possibly a thousand or more of locomotives, and that will demand a large and organised manufactury, not a backstreet workshop.”
“So it will…”
“Mr Fraser!”
“Mr Joseph, I recognise that tone of voice, sir… What are we to do now?”
“We must consider questions of the actual size of Roberts I believe. I was yesterday in conversation with Mr Stephenson – the younger, that is. He is talking of thousands of locomotive steam engines, which means tens of thousands of carriages and trucks for goods. One hundred thousand of wheels, of various dimensions! Every one of those wheels will require bearings, of course. Besides that, just consider the mileage of rails and all of the other, ancillary items. The Works as present constituted are too small for such a burden, would you not agree?”
“They are indeed, Mr Joseph.”
“We will require land, within yards of the new railway line, many acres of it and cheap and with access to coal and to iron.”
Fraser shook his head.
“There is no colliery directly on the new line, sir. I am unaware of any iron either.”
“I agree. Which do we need closest to hand?”
It was an interesting question, and one that took days of discussion to resolve. Should they locate on the site of an iron mine or a coal pit, or next to the new railway?
“So good of you to attend me so promptly, Mr Murphy. Thank you! How is trade in the banking world? Still a goodly supply of villains, one trusts!”
Murphy laughed, said that there was an unending line of enthusiasts who managed to convince themselves that banks and their money were easily to be separated.
“And shockingly unoriginal they are, my lord! At least once a month some hopeful little fellow comes strutting in through a front door to put a pistol to the head of a cashier and blows his brains out if he is not instantly made rich. Not one of them seems to work things out past that first step, my lord! Sooner or later they have to get away, which means taking their pistol away from the poor little counter clerk’s earhole. At that point they can expect a hidden guard to shoot them or jump out behind them with a great big billy-club. Sometimes it is a gang, and then it is merely a matter of paying for information. Steal money and sooner or later one tends to spend it – and if every whore and bar-tender knows that my people will put twenty golden sovereigns in their hand and no questions asked, well then, the word comes very quickly to me.”
“So, you would say that bank robbers are rarely successful, Mr Murphy.”
“Never, my lord. Sure, they may get away two or three times, particularly if they go to different towns, but the word comes to us quite rapidly and we can pick them up just as soon as we have a name for them.”
“What of this new Police Force that Mr Peel is determined to establish?”
“Won’t work, my lord, not for the big criminals. The streets will become safer and lesser thugs will be kept down, and the nasty sods, the rapists and such, will be less able to have their way with ordinary folk. But, as far as the big men are concerned, the new police will have rules to follow while the professional criminals will not. Show my lads a man with a pistol in his hand and they will put a bullet through him, no argument, no time wasted. A policeman will have to shout a warning and try to make his arrest – or so it is in Ireland where they have a police force already. Too big an advantage to the bad man, my lord!”
Robert thought the matter through, decided that Murphy could well be right – the nature of crime would be changed, he suspected, and the new Constabulary would do a lot of good, but the determined criminal might well find life easier.
“And your little business, Mr Murphy? Will you still continue as the official thief-catcher to the banks?”
“I have no wish to tread on the toes of the new police, my lord. I am giving some thought to moving myself across to the States, or maybe even to the Cape, to take to the agricultural life. I have a little of cash saved, and the intention of taking a wife, as you may have heard, my lord. To my surprise, and joy, a daughter to Mr Norton, who is an attorney and a neighbour of mine, living close to the house that Mr Michael so kindly found for me, happened to meet me once or twice whilst taking tea with local acquaintances – for I thought it wise to do the civil in what was to be my home area. One thing led to another and I soon found myself on good terms with her family, evidently to the young lady’s pleasure, and very much to mine!”
Robert gravely congratulated Murphy, thinking that perhaps the young lady should be admired for a successful campaign.
“Captain Hood is to concentrate on the shipping side of our businesses, Mr Murphy, leaving us without an eye to be cast over our bookkeepers and buyers. If you are to move away from the affairs of the banks, then there is an opening for your skills immediately to hand.”
“A department to be created, no doubt, my lord, for there will be work for more than one man with the new railways coming. There will be land and rights of way to be bought, and where there is real estate there is, always, bribery and corruption and all sorts of mischief to be got up to! An excellent suggestion, my lord!”
Word of the difficulties to be encountered at Chat Moss soon spread in the Manchester area, much to the concern of a number of the go-ahead businessmen who had formed the consortium that had financed the railway.
The newssheets picked up the rumour and gleefully prophesied disaster.
Joseph was in the company of Sir Matthew Star when he saw one of the stories, dismissed it impatiently.
“It is false, you know, Joseph?”
“Only in its most important part, Matthew. The Blackpool Hole is to be crossed and it does harbour an underground river, a swift and treacherously powerful stream – an apparently insuperable obstacle. Mr Stephenson, however, is to tackle the task!”
“Successfully?”
“He has a method, a tried and tested means of carrying a turnpike across a peat hag. Lesser in scale, perhaps, but repeatedly effective. He will not fail, and will be very little delayed as well.”
“Hmm… certainly, Joseph?”
“I harbour no doubts, Matthew!”
“Excellent! I have information that a number of gentleman who have invested in the railway want out – they fear that the enterprise will fail, or will be only partly successful. There is talk of bringing the railway to meet the canal at half way, before the railway must cross Chat Moss. The value of the holdings has, of course, fallen greatly, and they have no doubt will drop even more.”
Joseph was not especially astute in the world of finance, but he could see exactly where Matthew was leading.
“Poor chaps! Was we to publicly state our faith in Mr Stephenson’s genius, then no doubt some of them might approach us – so much better than our raising the matter with them. There can be not the slightest intimation of sharp practice if they come to us!”
“I fully agree, Joseph! I think I should pay the editor of our local newssheet a visit and beg him to announce our faith in the new project.”
The editor was only too pleased to give Sir Matthew his front page, for the newssheet could not lose. If the railway succeeded, then they had always supported it; if it failed then the editor could blame the prominent local shipyard owners who had misled the proprietors.
Two Manchester businessmen appeared at the shipyard just three days later, interested, they said, to examine a steam boat in the building in order to consider the possibilities for their own concerns. Matthew was aware that neither was located on the coast or was occupied as a merchant, both being well into cotton spinning.
They inspected the yard and were very pleased to sit down over refreshments in Sir Matthew’s office.
“I see that you ar
e a great supporter of the new railway, Sir Matthew.”
“I am, sir. I know nothing of this Chat Moss place, but I know those who have met Mr Stephenson and they have the utmost faith in him.”
Much heartened by this evident naiveté, the two mentioned that they both had invested in the scheme and now had some doubts. Over half an hour they permitted Sir Matthew to tell them just how much he regretted not having had finance to hand at the time when the railway enterprise was forming.
“I was committed to the purchase of my estate just then, gentlemen. Now, it is a different matter, but then I could not have easily laid my hands on ten thousands.”
Another hour and they had agreed to transfer their investments to Sir Matthew at a discount of some thirty per centum on the original commitment. They walked away with his note of hand for five thousand pounds and his promise that his banker would be in a position to redeem it in the morning when they arrived with their bonds to hand over.
Over the month he was contacted by another three nervous gentleman, ready to lose their thirty per cent immediately rather than risk one hundred per cent in a few months. With Joseph’s assistance another twenty thousands was paid over.
“Three years, Matthew, at most and that twenty-five will have become forty – at least!”
There was much to be said for inside information – as long as it was accurate.
Henry Star became aware of their dealings, was very much in favour.
“I have it in mind to initiate a project in New York State, gentlemen. First to be a railway from the waterfront in New York to the canal head at Albany, following the line of the River pretty well. Fast transit for passengers and for perishable foodstuffs would certainly be profitable, provided only that the service was reliable. It occurs to me that, was I to offer, say, a stake of ten per centum in the railway, then in exchange you could provide me with drawings and specifications for lines and locomotive engines, thus saving greatly on the initial cost of the enterprise.”
A Parade Of Virtue (A Poor Man At The Gate Series Book 9) Page 16