Hanging Matter

by David Donachie

  He heard it shatter as he threw the second. It missed its mark and broke on the frame, but most of the contents went through, spreading a fine quick blaze. It looked as though the second was going to be more impressive than the first. His yell to Pender came just too late, for men were beginning to pour out of the Hope and Anchor, to run full tilt into a swinging blow. The vicious metal hook, surmounted by an equally dangerous spike, cut towards their heads, catching their leader across the face. Pender jabbed at the others, forcing them back through the door.

  The crowd behind was yelling its lungs out, encouraging one cock to go for a clean kill. But the flames had attracted the attention of those closest to them and some of the crowd had turned towards the tavern. Harry grabbed at Pender’s arm to haul him away. More and more of the crowd were turning to face them. Harry took out both his pistols and pointed them. The mere sight of these did wonders to kill curiosity and they ran for safety, heading for the beach and darkness.

  Behind them the yells of panic grew as the blazing turpentine started to work on the paint, and those who might have chased them were taken with containing the fire. They disappeared easily, running through alleys and doubling back on themselves to fool any pursuit. They got back to the beach and hauled out their greatcoats. With those, and their hats crammed on their heads, their appearance was entirely altered. Pender stuffed the club inside his coat and they returned to the tavern to see the results of their efforts.

  Mr Magistrate Temple had got a water engine on to the scene in double-quick time, though a line of water buckets had done most of the work. He stood in his heavy black coat directing a stream of water on to the smouldering wood around the window. The actions of the pump were clearly excessive since any fire inside had already been contained. Harry, edging close, saw that the magistrate had an air about him, as though he was using a toy that saw too little daylight. He was encouraging the two men on the pump to push harder, while others had an endless stream of instructions to clear the heavy canvas hoses to avoid kinking. One of the men pumping, no doubt suffering from a degree of exhaustion, must have said something about the excessive nature of their efforts. Mr Magistrate Temple, his eyes ablaze, turned on the poor fellow, his temper more heated than the dying fire.

  “Pump harder, man. Let the people of the parish see that their rates are not wasted.”

  “Belay that pump!” shouted a voice from the tavern door. “You’re flooding the fucking cellars.”

  “I will not risk the town for the sake of your stock, sir,” shouted the magistrate.

  “If you keep that a-pumpin’ you’ll flood the blasted town!”

  “Go on,” came a voice from the crowd, “let him have his fun. Cost a fortune an’ it’s sat in his backyard since he bought it.”

  The magistrate spun round, if anything even angrier. “Fun! What fool termed this fun? You’ll call it fun all right when there’s a real blaze and I decline to use my waterpump. We’ll see how much fun it is when the whole of the Middle Street is ablaze from end to end!”

  A female voice called out next. “I like a man who pumps long and hard.”

  Another female, probably one of the whores who wandered along from Portobello Court to watch the event, joined in the ribaldry. “Especially if it’s long and thick.”

  “Here, try this for size.”

  The two women whooped as a man at the front of the crowd, definitely drunk, spun round. Ripping open his breeches, he exposed himself to the whores and those around them. The whole crowd now seemed to cry out at once, with one droll remark drowned by the next, all overborne by the cries of the more staid women. Temple, his square face bright red with anger, yelled in vain, trying to persuade his fellow citizens that they were witnessing the triumph of his municipal foresight. His men seemed to sense that the whole thing was over, for they stopped pumping without orders. Eventually their leader noticed this and with a nod gave them the command to rehouse the hoses.

  “Secure the engine and take it back to my stable,” he said. Harry and Pender were close enough to see that he was dejected. As he walked off, heading back to his house, Harry nudged his servant and set off in pursuit.

  Mr Magistrate Temple, who’d opened his front door before he realised he was not alone, looked hard at the front of Harry’s greatcoat, which was liberally spotted with dark blood-stains, then at the swollen nose, both illuminated by the light from the hallway. His words were as unwelcoming as his look.

  “If you wish to see me, sir, then I suggest you return in the morning. I am just about to retire.”

  No one had laid a hand on Temple for years. His eyes nearly popped out of his head when Harry grabbed his stock and pushed him unceremoniously backwards, Pender following him in, shutting the door quickly. Harry forced him back into his drawing-room, pushing him towards the blazing fire.

  “You will see me now, Mr Temple, or you’ll find yourself retiring to Maidstone gaol.”

  There was surprisingly little strength in his small, stocky frame, but the voice didn’t lack power. “Unhand me, sir!”

  But Harry wasn’t finished with his threats. He tugged hard at the linen bunched in his hand. “Or it might even be the end of a rope, for being a party to murder, robbery, and smuggling.”

  Temple opened his mouth to speak, to protest further, but Harry held up the intricately carved club he’d taken from Quested, and he stood, mouth open, as he tried to make sense of this object being carried in another’s hand.

  “This club is familiar, is it not?” said Harry. “It belongs to the man you rely on to keep order in the town, the man who works for your half-brother, the self-styled ‘King of the Smugglers.’”

  Temple’s mouth was opening and shutting as he sought to speak, but Harry, in his anger, had taken such a tight hold that speech was difficult. The man’s face was now very red.

  “You’d do well to remain silent, Mr Temple, while I explain to you just how much deep water you are in.”

  “I think you’re choking him, your honour,” said Pender calmly.

  If anything Harry tightened his grip, which produced a gratifying reaction in the protruding eyes. “It’s no more than he deserves, Pender.”

  “I would not make so bold as to doubt it, Captain. But I would observe that with the magistrate dead we’ll be no further forward.”

  Harry relented just a little, enough to allow the man some breath. Temple looked set to protest again, but Harry held up a stern finger to stop him. “Say nothing, sir, and listen. I know of your arrangements, how you set about keeping the peace. I know what your brother does and where he stores his contraband. I dare say that you both have tidy fortunes. If you wish those maintained, intact, you will do exactly as I say. Otherwise I will beggar you, and drown your peace in such a degree of trouble that the foundations of the town will tremble. Your brother tried to murder me last night, and it was only the hand of Providence that caused him to fail. If you wish to protect him from my revenge, then you will summon him here forthwith. You will pen the note as soon as I release you, and say nothing till he arrives.” He tightened his grip again and shook hard while waving Quested’s club, with its snakes and dragons, before his terrified eyes. “Otherwise you won’t live to see the sun rise. Your brother is to come here, and alone.”

  Whatever regard existed between the two Temples did not extend to self-sacrifice. The look in Harry Ludlow’s eyes, coupled with the behaviour he’d already shown, could only leave one impression: that he intended to kill. Yet the man before him sat down and penned his note with such haste that Harry could only surmise one thing: if a Temple was to die, the magistrate was intent on ensuring that it would not be him. As soon as he was finished Harry took the note, read it quickly, then handed it back to Temple to be sealed. Then he gave it to Pender.

  “Find someone to deliver this.”

  “I can do it myself, your honour.”

  “No,” said Harry. “I want you here.”

  Pender went out. The pause, while Harry�
��s attention was elsewhere, seemed to have restored some of his composure.

  “I remember you, sir, from the other day. How dare you come into my house and manhandle me? You won’t get away with this, Ludlow!”

  Harry had been inspecting a small door, one of two situated on either side of the fireplace. “Is that a cupboard for dressing wigs?”

  “Yes,” said Temple.

  “Then I suggest you wait in there till your brother arrives.” Harry opened the door and beckoned for him to get to his feet and go in. Temple waved his hand, as though the dust from the wig cupboard was already in his nostrils. Then he pointed to the door on the other side of the grate. “I would prefer that one.”

  Harry shook his head and passed him a candle. “Powder your wigs while you’re there.”

  Temple gave him a sour look, but a twitch of the club made him scurry to comply. A chair under the handle of the door secured it. Pender returned after a few minutes to find his master seated comfortably in a wing chair at the other side of the fire, the carved club by his side and the pair of loaded pistols on his lap. He handed one to his servant.

  “What now, Captain?”

  “We wait, Pender.”

  His servant nodded, took a high-backed chair, and sat down behind the open door.

  “They’re taking their time,” said Pender.

  “You don’t reckon he will come alone then?” asked Harry, smiling.

  “Would you?”

  He just shook his head and held up his pistol. “I must talk to him, Pender. Even if he arrives with an army at his back.”

  They heard a creak as the front door opened, felt the draught around their feet as the blast of cold air entered the building. The footsteps were slow and measured as they crossed the bare oak boards of the hallway.

  A man, tall and stocky, dressed from head to foot in black, stood in the doorway. Harry couldn’t really see the face, for he had a wig on under a broad-brimmed hat. But the height and girth made him curse, for the last thing he needed now was someone calling on the magistrate to enlist his services. Whoever he was, he must have sensed Pender’s presence, for he used his cane to push the door open till it knocked against the servant’s chair.

  “My brother?”

  “Your brother,” said Harry, lamely.

  The man reached into his pocket for a piece of paper, looking at it before he turned his eyes back on Harry. “Are you the one who sent this?”

  “Temple?” asked Harry, his voice betraying his uncertainty.

  He didn’t even nod, as though to answer in the affirmative was superfluous. Harry, still confused, threw the carved club at the man’s feet. The stranger stared at it for a while, then raised his head to look at him. “There’s been a spot of mayhem in the town tonight. I dare say you’re the fellow who smashed my window and chucked in a couple of bottles of turps.”

  “I was tempted to use grenadoes. Nothing would give me more comfort than to blow the place apart and line the Hope and Anchor’s walls with blood.”

  The mention of blood made him recall his first question. “My brother?”

  “Are there three Temple brothers, sir?”

  He looked at the paper in his hand again. “An odd question.”

  “I met a Temple last night, sir, at your tavern. He was not remotely like you.”

  The voice had been even and cold, but now it took on a different, dangerous quality. Harry was left in no doubt he was dealing with a man who had natural authority in abundance.

  “I require news of the magistrate.”

  “He is safe,” said Harry. “Unlike some people I know, I find the murder of a defenceless man difficult to contemplate.”

  The man frowned at this, as though Harry was levelling some false accusation at him. The magistrate must have heard the voice, for he started knocking on the wig-cupboard door, calling to be set free.

  “Am I to be allowed to see him?”

  Harry nodded to Pender, who made his way across the room to remove the chair and open the door. The squat figure emerged dustily from his temporary cell, brushing furiously at his clothes. The man in the doorway didn’t move, but his head jerked towards the magistrate, as if to reassure him.

  “You have yet to answer my question,” said Harry.

  “Which is?”

  “Who you are, for you are not the man I met last night. He claimed to be the magistrate’s brother. Another member of the family perhaps?”

  “The only two members of my family are in this room, sir.”

  “Then who was it sitting in King’s chair in the Hope and Anchor last night?”

  “I have no idea, sir. I was not even in Kent last night, let alone Deal. I returned from Sussex this afternoon, after an absence of two weeks.”

  “But your name is Temple?” asked Harry, still uncertain.

  The man waved the note. “If it was not, why would I be here? Now you will be so good as to oblige me with some explanation. For instance, you could begin with your name.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  “HARRY LUDLOW.” He looked for a reaction. There was none. “And you, are you indeed the Temple who terms himself the ‘King of the Smugglers’?”

  “Only a fool would answer the second part of that question.”

  “You are the magistrate’s brother?”

  The man waved the note again. “I am Jahleel Temple, and this was addressed to me at the Hope and Anchor.”

  “I would like you to come in and sit down,” said Harry. He did his best to disguise the confusion that the reply had engendered. The man glanced at the edge of the doorway, as if to indicate that the present position afforded some protection. Then he shook his head and waved to his brother to move away from Pender and his pistol.

  “I think not.”

  Harry smiled as he glanced behind him, for Pender didn’t have to move his gun far to ensure that the magistrate stayed rooted to the spot. Then he turned his attention back to the brother.

  “How many men did you fetch along?”

  Temple didn’t blink. “Enough.”

  “Enough for what, sir? Your safety or my disappearance?”

  “I find myself at a stand, sir. For I have no idea what you’re talking about. The nature of this note, asking me to meet my brother alone, made me curious. It also made me cautious. But I will not move one more foot till I have some notion of why I’m here.”

  Harry, when he finished explaining what had happened in the cellar, as well as the Hope and Anchor, was convinced that the real Temple knew the man he described, and despite his efforts to avoid showing anything, the impersonation had annoyed him. But he would not name him, despite a request to do so. The whole tale of this incident had clearly affected him deeply: his body became tenser as Harry related his tale. He did acknowledge Cephas Quested, who was, according to his employer, still out cold in an upstairs room at the tavern. As to the identity of the other smuggler, the cause of all this mayhem, getting that name was simplicity itself. But Temple observed that it was important to this man with the gun, and used the information to trade. He gestured to Harry, then to Pender, still threatening his brother.

  “I cannot consent to continue with these pistols at our heads.”

  Harry lowered his own weapon and indicated that Pender should do the same. The magistrate collapsed on to a chair in a sweating heap. His brother walked over to him, interposing himself between Pender and his prisoner, to reassure himself that he had suffered no harm.

  “He’s suffering from fright,” said Harry, impatient for the name.

  “Trench,” said Temple at last, turning. For the first time, free from the shadow of the doorway, Harry had a good look at him. The face was pale skinned, with high cheekbones and a slightly hooked nose. The lips were thin and unsmiling above a square jaw and the blue eyes held Harry’s in a steady gaze. “The man’s name is Obidiah Trench.”

  “He is a smuggler?” asked Harry.

  “I thought you knew that?”

 
“I wanted it confirmed.”

  Temple raised his voice, as though talking to someone other than Harry Ludlow. “At least my brother is safe now.”

  The slight draught on the back of Harry’s neck alerted him first, Pender’s sudden attempt to threaten both the Temples second. But the older Temple swung the head of his metal-topped cane, catching Pender on the wrist. The pistol, now pointed at the floor, discharged itself with a loud crash. Pender didn’t drop it, but it was clear, as he spun away clutching his wrist, that his hand was temporarily useless. Harry’s raised pistol brought the first smile he’d seen to the other man’s face. Given that it had a gloating quality, it did nothing to reassure the recipient. The words were even more chilling.

  “There is a pistol about three feet away from the back of your head, Mr Ludlow.”

  “And mine is pointed right at your chest,” replied Harry.

  “Ten feet to three,” said Temple. “I would say the odds are in my favour.”

  Harry now smiled, partly to bluff his opponent, but more at his own failure, for he had been given an earlier clue. Now he knew why the magistrate had wanted to be placed in the opposite cupboard. There was a secret passage, no doubt connected to the underground tunnel system. One of the smuggler’s men had used that to get behind him, waiting till his employer had got close to Pender before opening the door. His near shout had been the signal.

  “Well, Mr Ludlow?”

  Pender was looking over Harry’s shoulder. He nodded to his captain to confirm the danger he was in.

  “You are relying on two erroneous suppositions, Temple.”

  The thin lips actually parted as the smile deepened. “Am I, indeed?”

  “The first is that I am an indifferent shot, and the second is that I will submit to the possibility of another attempt to bury me alive.”

  The smile disappeared. “I have no intention of trying to bury you alive, sir.”

  “You will forgive me,” Harry snapped. “On such a short acquaintance, I do not feel able to rely on your word.”