by John Creasey
‘Wickedness,’ Mary put in very quietly. It was the first word she had uttered, but both tone and expression reflected her anger. ‘Wickedness, mixed with folly and ignorance. And largely born out of the hatred Westminster has for the City.’
‘You could not be more right!’ Benedict spoke warmly, paused as he looked at her, and for the first time since he had arrived his expression softened. ‘Mary, how clearly you get to the heart of the matter! I am not sure we should not turn you loose on Mr. Pitt and his colleagues! How can a man of such wisdom in some affairs be so blind in others?’
‘Because he does not give such matters as this sufficient thought,’ James answered, and he too was calmer although still deeply troubled. ‘How did you find these things out, Ben?’
‘I have seen a copy of the bill,’ Benedict replied. ‘It is still a matter for shame how many Members of Parliament, indeed, Ministers of the Crown, will betray their oaths of secrecy for a sum of money. James, I wonder if you see the dangers which go even beyond what we have discussed.’
‘I think I do,’ replied James. ‘Once this bill is published the City will blame me for the hostile provisions in it. I shall have few friends in either camp.’ He gave a half laugh. ‘One thing is now clear. I must see Timothy and tell him of this before he hears it from some other source. And I shall tell the Prime Minister that I now feel released from my oath of silence - if oath it was. Ben’ - James held both hands towards his friend - ‘I cannot tell you how grateful I am. Had my first intimation been at the reading of the bill in the House of Commons I could never have repaired the damage.’ He gripped Benedict’s hands tightly.
And Mary said quietly, ‘God bless you, Ben.’
‘Enough sentiment!’ Benedict tried to sound gruff but could not prevent his voice from cracking. ‘Are you coming to the City with me, Jamey?’
‘Without losing a moment,’ James said.
Since William’s death, Timothy McCampbell had taken his place as chairman of the companies of the House of Furnival, a slender, youthful-looking man for one who was now in his late fifties. His hair, although greying, had much of its original fair colour and his complexion was fresh and pleasing.
Known now as Timothy McCampbell-Furnival, he advanced across the landing to welcome James, ushered the other into his office, motioned to a chair, and, as he himself sat down, remarked soberly, ‘I can see you come on heavy business, Jamey.’
‘Business I wish were nonexistent,’ James replied, ‘and business which is for the moment highly confidential. I came because I do not want you to believe that I have taken leave of my senses or have developed some bitter animosity towards the City.’
‘I am vastly intrigued,’ Timothy said. ‘Can you give me a hint of what the business is?’
‘I shall give you much more than a hint. Timothy, has rumour reached you of the preparation at Westminster of a bill which, if passed, will establish a police force for the whole metropolis of London, including the City?’
‘Rumour, yes - with your name attached.’
‘As I feared.’ James sighed. ‘That is what I am most anxious to make you understand. I am doubtless responsible - or partly responsible - for the principle of the forthcoming bill and that will hardly surprise you. Until today, however, I had no intimation of its provisions.’
Timothy raised both hands in obvious amazement. ‘You mean that Pitt and his Minister did not consult you in the drafting of the bill?’ he asked, leaning forward and thumping his desk, his voice rising. ‘It is a monstrous insult, Jamey. I did not expect to lose my respect for Pitt but such an act as this could only be done by a poltroon! What on earth could have possessed him?’
Heartened by Timothy’s anger, James began to tell his story. The effect on Timothy was much the same as that of Benedict’s recital on James only two hours earlier, although Timothy continually interrupted with exclamations of disgust and indignation. Yet when the whole story was told he was bereft of words. After a while he rose from his chair and strode to a window, threw it open, and stared out over the panorama of the City. James, understanding what was in his mind, left him there for a minute or two and then joined him.
Timothy’s whole body tensed and his voice was unsteady when he said, ‘You know I will have to fight this with all my power, don’t you, James?’
‘Yes.’
‘And the other bankers, merchants, aldermen, everyone who lives in the City, will fight it, if necessary with their lives.’
‘I don’t think it need come to warfare,’ James said, and to his surprise and relief he actually laughed.
‘It is not a laughing matter,’ Timothy rebuked. ‘This is why all my family and friends have opposed the very thought of such a force, why it is anathema to us. Not only would the politicians ride roughshod over the City’s ancient rights and privileges, but they would weaken us so that we would never again be able to stand against them. You do not realise how much you owe to the City, James. You—’
‘I know the City could not possibly permit this,’ James interrupted. ‘And if the bill were to be presented to the House in its present form I should have to vote against it.’ With a twisted smile which did not conceal the hurt he felt, he went on: ‘So I wish you good fortune in making sure that the bill is not debated!’
‘I shall make the task my first, and that in spite of the fact that I scarce know which way to turn for work. You would be surprised how often I wish you had decided to come into Furnival’s! We need men of stature on whom we can rely. It had never occurred to me that being in command of such an organisation would carry with it such responsibility.’
When he left, James was calmer in his mind and much more reflective than he might have expected. Timothy’s last cry had unquestionably risen from the heart.
For three weeks the bill came under remorseless pressure from the City, from the Middlesex and Surrey justices, and from every newspaper of substance in London. It was damned on all sides until finally Pitt, admitting a technical error in the originating and presentation of the bill, withdrew it before the House had opportunity to debate it.
‘I don’t know how deep the hurt will go,’ Benedict Sly said to Mary on the day the bill was withdrawn. ‘James knows, and many others must know, that had he been allowed to draw up the bill based on the detailed proposals of the Fieldings it might have had some success, certainly a debate strong enough to register deeply on the public mind. But this wipes out the very thought for a generation, perhaps for generations, to come.’
‘The hurt will go so deep that he will grow busier than ever to heal the wound quickly,’ Mary replied. ‘Ben, I can understand the folly, I can understand the long-standing jealousy between the City and Westminster, but I cannot understand men like Sir Douglas Rackham. Why should such men fight a measure which their intelligence and experience must tell them will be of great value?’
‘It will be of much less value to them,’ James said, coming in quietly. ‘The most difficult task will be to overcome the few who profit out of things as they are. Wherever there are rich and powerful criminals, there will be those corrupt enough to be bought by them.’
There was another man in London who had been savagely opposed to the bill, one Todhunter Mason, a young man who had become the leader of a powerful gang of thieves and cut-throats at least as deadly and dangerous as the Twelves of earlier years, and in some ways much more menacing to society. For whereas the earlier gang leaders arid the most notorious thief-takers had been commonly known, many boasting of their achievements in the manner of Jonathan Wild, and had satisfied themselves with a small band of ruthless followers, Mason kept his own part secret, using members of his gang to organise thieves, receivers of stolen goods, coiners, prostitutes, everyone who was on the wrong side of the law. He saw the possibility of controlling most of the criminals of London by offering them help, hiding places when on the run, a ready market for whatever they stole, and organised attacks on the Bow Street Foot Patrols to make sure there was
little danger for robbers when they broke into houses or held up carriages.
The son of a now prominent member of the City who did not know he existed and of a Lincolnshire girl long since dead, he had clung to life through the horrors of an orphan childhood, living by his wits, often within an ace of the gallows but never caught. He knew the conditions of London as few knew them. Although only twenty, he was familiar with all the thieves and their doxies, and he had a good, clear mind which was never bothered - and why should it be? - by a twinge of conscience. He did not know how he had come by the name Todhunter but his other name, Mason, had been given because for several years he had lived in a rat-infested shack in a stonemason’s yard near the river.
He could not know that he and Sir Douglas Rackham made an identical resolve after the defeat of the police bill: to make sure that no others would be presented.
‘There is one aspect of the bill I would like to think more upon,’ James told Benedict a few months later, when they were together in the Rialto Coffee House on the Adelphi terrace, overlooking the river on a blustery day when wind whipped the surface to anger. ‘And that is the provision which would separate the justices from the police. When I first heard of it I was appalled, but the more I consider it the greater its attraction.’
‘There isn’t a justice in England who would agree with you,’ Benedict reminded him.
‘I think the ferocity of their opposition gave me most cause to think,’ said James. ‘What have they to lose, Ben? Simply money? As justices administering the law they would get salaries and some allowances, as they do now, and in the course of time, no doubt more. They would lose some of the more arduous tasks and more irksome responsibilities, yes, but would such losses in themselves create such a furor?’
After a pause, Benedict picked up his mug, drank deeply, and said in a musing voice, ‘Could you imply that they might also lose their power?’
‘What else but power, or authority? They should have sufficient with administering the law, but as things are they are responsible for the police, the constables, the keeping of law and order, the keeping of the King’s peace. Should that really be under the control of those whose task it is chiefly to say whether the law has been broken, and if it has, what punishment shall be meted out?’
‘I confess this aspect has never occurred to me,’ said Benedict.
‘Nor to me until now. But - Well, I will consider the issue very deeply,’ James declared. ‘Because inherent in this may be the root cause of opposition to a police force. It may be that the truly honest opponents do not want to feel that the justices should be given power over a wide area. The success of Bow Street has always seemed to me proof of the value of such a force, but if it means accepting more widespread authority for certain justices, then can one be so surprised at the adamancy of the City? I tell you, I have come to believe that before a police force is established in London the cause of the opposition from the City must be found and removed. Timothy McCampbell-Furnival made it crystal clear that the City would actually mobilise its guards and constables if its self-government were threatened.’
‘I once quoted a City alderman as saying that “no greater alarm would have been caused if a torch had been set to the Royal Exchange and the Mansion House,”’ Benedict said slowly.
‘So the rich reject a police force to maintain the law, whilst condemning charity to the poor and thus making crime inevitable,’ said James. ‘Ben, I recall wondering how we could win and I came to the conclusion that we must find a way of introducing the police so that the leaders of the City will not object. The rest of the opposition will probably melt away if once they agree.’
‘What you are really saying is that you desire to create a police force the City would support - or even, if it had the wit, wish to create.’ Benedict laughed. ‘To James Marshall all things are possible! Meanwhile, I came agog with other news before you took my breath away with this. The Dublin Parliament is said to be considering Pitt’s bill for itself. Now there is irony, Jamey - more law and order in Ireland than in old England.’ When they had finished laughing at such improbability, Benedict went on: ‘James, there is to be a special banquet for newspapermen on the ninth of July.’
‘On the ninth of July, this year and every year, I am irrevocably engaged,’ replied James. ‘It is Mary’s birthday, and we celebrate the day as if it were the birthday of everyone in the family. And the next is one of unusual importance because all the grandchildren are coming. Grandchildren, Benedict! Where have the years gone to? How quickly they have passed. But they’ve been happy years, and I have been truly blessed in having Mary for a wife. If I could only bring Pitt and his Ministers to their senses, I should be well satisfied.’
When he reached The House by the River that night, about his usual time, he saw a lathered horse outside and sensed the urgency of the messenger who, judging from the warmth of the horse’s neck, had come within the hour. He did not recognise the young man who came from the house, but from Mary’s expression, just behind the man, he could tell the news was bad.
‘I deeply regret it, sir,’ the young man said. ‘I am assistant to Doctor Leonardi at Saint Giles, and I come with grievous tidings.’
Before the man uttered the next words, James felt sure that his mother was dead.
Ruth had seemed well and happy when he had last seen her, and the news struck James deeply.
One of the infants brought to St. Giles for succour had been suffering from smallpox. Ruth Marshall Furnival, who had first handled the child, insisted that only she could nurse it through the illness; and she herself had suffered the fever in its most virulent form. The messenger, away at the time of the tragedy, had been told at a distance what had happened and where to come with his tidings.
The infant was recovering, he reported. No one else had been infected, and both Henrietta and her husband, Dr. Leonardi, were distressed but well.
No one must visit the house for at least two weeks, and long before that time Ruth Furnival would have been devoured in flames kindled in a pit dug into the hillside beyond St. Giles.
Slowly the gap left by his mother’s death began to lessen, partly due to Benedict Sly, who would hustle James out to see a cricket match at the new ground opened by a Yorkshireman named Lord or would send him two tickets for the Drury Lane Opera House or to Covent Garden Theatre with a note saying: ‘Edmund Kean is magnificent in this’ or ‘You will never forget Sarah Siddons’ performance, I promise you’. So James would take Mary to the theatre and afterward to supper. She sat enthralled at the performances; he really believed she enjoyed playgoing more than any other outing.
Occasionally, too, she relished a day at the races, for the sake of the picnic and the great crowds and the side shows which never ceased to make the children ecstatic. James viewed the colourful scene more realistically.
‘One hundred thieves were there to every constable, watchman or peace officer,’ he remarked in disgust when they left a racecourse in July. ‘If the King had been here the story would have been very different.’
Almost three months to a day after making this remark he was walking along Whitehall towards Parliament when he heard the trotting of horses and some sporadic outbursts of cheering, which told him the State Coach was approaching with the King inside. Then suddenly a roar came from thousands of throats as a group of men burst out of side streets and doorways, throwing bricks and trying to rock the coach and push it over.
‘The guards managed to keep the crowd at bay; they say the King was purple in the face when he reached safety, offered a thousand pounds for the arrest of those involved, and harangued the magistrates to keep better control of riots,’ Benedict reported.
Would no one ever understand that a strong force of peacekeepers, of policemen trained to deal with crowds, was the only sure way to control such outbursts and the drunkenness? thought James bitterly.
Half the fires - perhaps more - were caused by drunken men knocking over lamps or striking flints car
elessly.
‘Let me show you why,’ said Benedict Sly one day, when James was taking him on a quick tour of the City and nearby. Here and there was a good brick building, but for the main part they were wooden buildings, dry as tinder. And in some streets every other house was licensed to sell alcohol.
‘You know,’ James remarked as they turned a corner in High Street, Shadwell, ‘they are dreadful places. And yet, compared with the days when you and I were young, much has improved. There are fewer slums, less utter destitution—’
‘Stop talking like a Tory,’ growled Benedict as the carriage pulled up and two boys rushed to take the horse, one of them filthy and in, rags, one almost clean.
‘Good morning, Mr. Marshall.’
‘Good morning, sir!’
James touched the dirty head as well as the clean one.
Inside the coffee house they entered were the usual advertising posters, more crude than those in the City and West End, but tables, chairs and floor were scrubbed and the newspapers were clean. A little pot-bellied man came forward, smiling a welcome.
‘Good morning, Mr. Marshall. What is your pleasure?’
‘Coffee, Dan, just coffee - eh, Ben?’
‘I wouldn’t object to a steak pie,’ Benedict said.
‘And coffee and a steak pie for Mr. Sly.’
The pot-bellied man went off and James turned back to Benedict.
‘You have just seen Daniel Ross, one of the few trading justices in London who won’t accept a share of reward or blood money, and I would as soon see him at one of the police offices as any magistrate I know.’
Ross had obviously heard the remark as he passed on the order to a young waitress, and he came to the table and drew up a chair.
‘Wouldn’t have one of those jobs for a fortune,’ he declared. ‘Not for a fortune. Do you know what those magistrates have to do, gentlemen? Judge and jury in a hundred cases a week - it’s only the serious ones like murder and high treason and fraud they send on to the Sessions. Why, they have to decide if a man’s guilty and pack him off to jail - summary jurisdiction, they call it, don’t they?’