by Mike Ashley
She smiled grimly.
“You saw them?”
“I saw two young men fencing on the lawn. I did not know them by sight.”
“My grandson was the smaller of the two.” She grimaced with distaste. “The other is his friend, Mr d’Urfey. A led captain, I believe.1 Wroth is very proud of his skill with the members. They delight in creating difficulties for themselves. I have seen them fight in all kinds of fantasticals: masks, sacks, with their arms manacled, their hands tied behind their backs, suits of armour . . . blindfold, even. This female rig-out is a favourite device.”
“They are both exceptional duellists,” I said with genuine admiration.
She looked away, uncomfortably flushed.
I asked delicately: “Why do you think these receipts will blackguard you, Lady Wroth?”
Her hands fretted away at the fan. Her voice, when it came, was a mere croak.
“Because it has happened before, Sir!”
She took a deep breath before she continued.
“Six months ago I paid off a low trollop called Dewfly.”
She paused.
“Why, Ma’am?”
“She said she could incriminate my grandson in . . . in some unsavouriness,” she finished lamely.
“And was this true, do you think?”
“It could have been. My grandson is rogue-wild.” A look of almost superstitious dread came into her eyes. “Young people of quality are so very vicious in these times.”
“So you paid this woman off.”
“Yes.”
“And what exactly do you want of me, Lady Wroth?”
“I want you to rid me of this new menace.”
“How?”
“In any way you can . . . legally, of course.”
“I see . . .” I said. But, to be honest, I didn’t.
“Do you think you can?” she asked anxiously.
“Without buying these receipts for any price, do you mean?”
“I would prefer not to . . . but if I must! . . . There must be no scandal, you see. I have hopes of my grandson making a brilliant match. A girl of good family with £20,000 a year. Nothing must interfere with my plans.”
“Then don’t you think it would be wiser to settle this man’s debt?”
She stood up, shivering with anger. The patina of the great lady cracked slightly, and she swore juicily – an oath from her playhouse days.
“I will not be rooked, Sir! I paid this Dewfly creature because once paid she had no further claim on me. But with a rogue of this sort – ” she tapped the papers violently – “there will be no end to it! He’d suck me dry!”
She moved to a porcelain desk and opened a drawer. Taking a money bag from the drawer, she turned to me again.
“What are your charges, Captain Nash?”
I quoted a figure which she promptly reduced by a sixth.
I repeated my figure and for a few moments we argued busily. But eventually she agreed on my price and seemed the better pleased that I had stuck to my word.
She counted out a number of coins and put them in my hand.
“I’ll leave the matter entirely to you. Find out what you can about this Asclepius. When you have some ammunition I can use against this – this Paphlagonian, come to me and I shall settle with you completely.”
I bowed my acceptance. She rang a handbell and almost immediately the door opened and the old manservant looked into the room.
“Captain Nash is ready to leave now, Chives,” she said. She inclined her head towards me graciously and bid me good-day. I bowed to her and the interview was over. We left the room.
Chives, it seemed, now had my social measure. Instead of conducting me back through the great hall to the front door, he turned down a mean looking stairway and led me along a grimy passage, past several pantries and a buttery.
We came into the stable yard. My roan waited patiently by the mounting-block. The forelock-touching groom was nowhere to be seen. He too, it seemed, had quickly learned of the “gentleman’s” true status.
I unhitched the reins from the post and prepared to mount.
A lordly voice hailed me from the stables.
III
The voice was crisp and arrogant. It matched the man’s profile perfectly. A haughty nose, sculptured cheeks, and a strong, pugnacious chin, which suggested stubbornness rather than strength of character. The eyes, when he turned them upon me, were of a curious fawn colour.
It was the indolent young observer of the fencing match. There was nothing indolent about him now. He marched purposefully towards my horse and took a firm hold of the bridle.
“I want to speak to you,” he said curtly.
“I am at your service, Sir,” I replied civilly.
The young man bowed in a stiff, unamiable way.
“My name is Wroth, Sir,” he said. “Oliver Wroth. I am his lordship’s cousin.”
“My name is Nash,” I began.
“Yes! Yes!” Wroth said abruptly. I know who you are. Moreover, I know what you are. You are a Bow Street Man, though you describe yourself in some new-fangled way.”
“I work privately, Mr Wroth,” I said. “I am a private gentleman.” I stressed the last word slightly. Young Wroth’s eyebrows rose superciliously.
“You are a Bow Street Man,” he said stubbornly. “Or else you are one of Flowery’s men.1 If you are one of Flowery’s rogues, you have no place here.”
“I am a private individual,” I explained patiently. “It is true that I am licensed as an auxiliary to the Bow Street Police, but I am responsible only to the Mansion House. My occupation is somewhat in the nature of an experiment, Mr Wroth. I am hoping to prove to the authorities that there is scope for a detective force in England. My cousin Scrope Bentham is the Principal Secretary to the Commissioners’ Office.”
My explanation, and the mention of my well-placed relation, did nothing to mollify young Wroth. If anything, he grew sharper. Plainly, he regarded me as a meddling eccentric. The structure of society was very clearly defined in his mind. Judges, he knew, were gentlemen; lawyers less so. The Bar was a road to wealth and nobility, but any man lower than an attorney was beneath contempt, a battener on the misfortunes of others. That a man who called himself a gentleman should occupy himself with crime was clearly unthinkable to Lord Wroth’s cousin.
These thoughts showed plainly enough on his face, but behind this outright hostility, I felt the suggestion of a separate unease.
I soon learned of it. Wroth seemed a man incapable of masking his thoughts.
“What did my grandmother want with you?” he asked bluntly.
“That, Sir, is your grandmother’s business,” I replied as bluntly.
“On the contrary, I think it is very much my business,” he exploded, adding bitterly: “She is my cousin, the damned whore, and we will not have her back.”
I said nothing. His light-coloured eyes searched my face for a sign of confirmation. I stared back at him noncommittally.
His face worked furiously.
“Lady Wroth wants you to find and bring her back?” he asked. “Is that it?”
“I can’t discuss her ladyship’s business with any man, Sir,” I said.
“I’ve just told you, fellow, that it is my business,” Wroth cried.
I spoke very courteously.
“No, Mr Wroth, you’re quite wrong on that point. Her ladyship told me nothing of your cousin. Or of yourself even.”
Wroth’s brows drew together in a bitter black line.
“Then what?”
I swung myself up into the saddle.
“Is it my cousin Lord Wroth?”
Without answering, I took a firm hold of the reins.
“Is he in trouble again?”
I settled my feet into the stirrups.
“Is my cousin in disgrace?”
“I have told you, Mr Wroth, that I cannot betray her ladyship’s confidence.” I tipped my hat, clamped it upon my head, and bade him goo
d-day.
I trotted out of the stable yard. I could feel that bright gaze following me until I turned the corner by the coachyard gate.
Once beyond the porter’s lodge and out onto the open road, I spurred my horse into a gallop.
Wishing to travel at all speed back to London, I kept to the main road. But straight lines were not a prominent feature of the Wroth landscape; the main road was little more than a bridle path winding through the rich cornfields and meadows, and today was market day. Sheep and cattle, geese and turkeys, were all being driven to town, as they went, and I was reduced to moving at a snail’s pace, fuming and cursing.
I was practically at a standstill, trying to extricate from a seethe of greasy sheep, when I heard the brisk tattoo of hooves coming up fast behind me. The furious pace never faltered for an instant, livestock notwithstanding. Blood-curdling shouts rent the air. I turned to see who could be so careless of the beasts. Two whooping riders charged through scattering all before them.
The sheep parted miraculously, like the waves of a fleecy sea, and the young Lord Wroth rode heavily to my side, his horse steaming. A moment later he was joined by d’Urfey.
His lordship spat out a particularly nasty oath and grabbed hold of my reins to halt my horse – an unnecessary move, as it happened, for we were once more trapped by a flowing tide of sheep.
I sat quietly, looking into his lordship’s blazing grey eyes. The pale, delicate face was suffused with rage, the head thrown back, his dishevelled hair streaming out behind him. He sat astride his big bay stallion with the sinister grace of an Arabian tribesman.
“My cousin tells me you’re here to spy on me,” he cried, his voice cutting through the demented bleating of the sheep.
“Then your cousin tells you wrong, my lord,” I said evenly, trying to retrieve possession of my reins.
Wroth refused to surrender them and slapped at my hands with the stock of his whip.
“He tells me that you’re some sort of Runner. A constable, or an informer. Well, I’m here to tell you, Sir, that I won’t tolerate your kind on my land. We are quite feudal here. We have our own methods of dealing with trespassers.”
After a short struggle I managed to recapture the reins from him.
“It seems that you have been misinformed on all counts, my lord,” I said. “I’m neither an informer nor a trespasser. I came here at your grandmother’s invitation, and she has entrusted me with certain business.”
He looked at me for a moment with uncertainty, and exchanged a brief, puzzled, questioning glance with d’Urfey. That handsome youth observed me moodily, a restless hand gripping the hilt of his sheathed sword.
“What business?” Wroth asked at last.
“That is your grandmother’s affair, Sir,” I replied.
Wroth flushed and jerked his head back. His smooth, pretty face turned amazingly ugly of a second.
“Wroth family business is my business, Sir. I am the head of my family, by God!”
The hand resting lightly on his sword tightened. The knuckles showed whitely. D’Urfey’s hand also gripped his sword more purposefully.
The swarming sheep had thinned out slightly. With a gentle pressure of my knees, I urged my roan forward. A gaggle of geese waddled around Wroth’s horse, causing it to rear a little, its ears flattening. His master was forced to fall back a yard or so and I took advantage of the incident to move off.
“Is it concerning me that she called you in?” Wroth shouted after me.
I rode on in silence, but I eased my sword out of its scabbard. I thought it very possible that I might have to defend myself, his lordship looked mad enough for any mischief. In his mind there was rather more sail than ballast!
With a rush, he came up behind me, forcing my roan into the hedgerow and cutting off the road before me.
“I asked you – is it me?” he hissed.
“And I have told you, my lord, that I am not at liberty to say.”
For a moment we stared each other out. Then Wroth’s eyes tilted crazily. D’Urfey had silently manoeuvred himself into position behind my roan. They were about to do me some injury. A furtive signal passed between them, which I rightly interpreted before they could move against me.
With a stabbing flash, I had my sword in my hand, at the ready. It described an undeviating arc in the air and hovered – the point vibrating – a half an inch from his lordship’s throat.
Wroth stared at it, bemused.
D’Urfey had drawn his own sword. Now he looked at it foolishly.
“If you will tell your friend to return his sword to its scabbard, my lord,” I said easily, “I shall continue on my way.”
Wroth frowned, but did as he was asked.
“And now, if you will fall back, Sir, I shall be free to go,” I said, my sword held steadily before me.
Wroth paused.
“One moment,” he said.
I waited. The young lord regarded me coldly. He sat astride his horse, as rigid as death.
“I think I know why you visited my grandmother,” he said huskily, his voice scarcely more than a thread in the clear air. “If you’re so inclined, you can do her a great service.”
He smiled. A rather crooked, nasty smile. I waited in silence.
“Tell her not to interfere,” he said, with sudden passion. “Advise her to pay the man without delay. Otherwise . . .”
He paused. For so fragile a youth, he possessed an amazing quality of menace.
“Otherwise it will be the worse for . . . us.”
IV
I lay upon the splendiferously unplatonic breasts of my mistress, who was known to her world as Clarety-faced Jane. This lady, a trollop by nature, was perhaps my greatest asset in my new-found trade, for Clarety is impeccably informed about London life at all levels. It is understandable enough, perhaps. When a woman spends most of her working life with both feet planted firmly in the air, it is easy enough to keep an ear to the ground. Clarety is adept at her work. She is a complete treasury of secrets, though it is not impossible to unlock her breast if one knows the trick of it.
“Tell me about Asclepius,” I asked her, as we rested between the pleasing motion.
“Who, sweet?” she murmured drowsily.
“Doctor Asclepius.”
“Oh, him.”
I stroked her soft round belly with a hard round coin. She palmed it from me in a nonchalant manner and it disappeared beneath her pillow.
“Cunning Murrell, you mean,” she said, with some distaste. “That elevated rogue.”
“Cunning Murrell?” I asked. “Why do you call that?”
“Because that’s his name. He’s just a common or garden ‘cunning’ man,” she said contemptuously. “He travelled the road for years in Wessex. He was famous there as a wise man.”
“A wise man?”
“It’s not difficult to gain a reputation for wisdom in Wessex,” she said scornfully. “Anyway, he prospered there, and grew ambitious seemingly. He moved to town.”
“And has he prospered here?”
She laughed shortly.
“The rich and fashionable often find it dull to listen to doctor’s advice,” she said. “And deadly, indeed, to act upon it. Particularly when they’re advised to fast or give up their pleasures. They prefer to go to a man like Murrell with his pills and his potions. But he began in a very low fashion, entertaining the mob with his magic tools.”
“Oh? What tools?”
“Well, he has a magic glass that he claims can see through a brick wall!”
“Amazing!”
“Oh, truly!” she scoffed. “A truly amazing instrument. It gained the rogue much fame among the simple country folk.”
“But it hasn’t impressed the sophisticated London folk?”
She laughed.
“Oh, he don’t use tricks like that here,” she said. “A man I know got to look at this wonder. He soon robbed it of its mystery.”
“What was it?”
“Not
hing but a simple arrangement of mirrors in a wooden case. He said a schoolboy could have made it with a little patience and the ruins of a straining-glass. But he does have another instrument, which is far more strange.”
“And what’s that?”
“It’s nothing more than a piece of round dull copper. But he says that by its aid he can tell a true man from a liar. For the liar might stare at it till his eyes are sore, yet he’ll never see anything in it but his own self. But if you’re a virtuous man, an honest man, then you can see something in it. Something of which Murrell has the secret, something which you must declare to him as proof and test of his truth. But of what that something is, nobody can tell a word, for it seems that nobody has ever seen it!” She laughed uproariously. “But belief in it is as wide as Wessex, and it’s served its turn well for him, for it laid the ground-work for his fortune.”
She laughed again, causing her breasts to bobble against my arm.
“It’s a great time for quackery,” she said. “But he has the vantage on most Empirics for sheer effrontery.”
She dismissed Murrell and his nonsense by adopting a most indecent posture, and for fully twenty minutes no more was said of a sensible nature.
Despite her opprobrious nickname, my mistress is a greatly desirable woman, tall and graceful in her person, more of a fine woman than a pretty one, but with good teeth, soft lips, sweet breath and an expressive eye. She has a bosom, full, firm and white, a good understanding without being a wit, but cheerful and lively. She is humane and tender, and feels delight where she most wishes to give it. I am a well and strong-backed man, and the time passed agreeably.
After an hour or so of playful toying, cajolery and bribery, I had learned rather more about the former wise man of Wessex.
Asclepius was, indeed, the reincarnation of that Paphlagonian impostor, Alexander, of the Second Century A.D.. Like that ancient charlatan, he had adopted the name of the Greek God of Health, and also many of his practices. By means of the most childish tricks, he had managed to convince an incredible number of credulous people that the God had been reborn in the form of a serpent, with the name of Glycon. Rumour had it that he carried out his treatments whilst draped with this large, tame serpent, which wore a human head. He had a number of other strange practices and, apparently, an answer to all life’s ills. His establishment was equipped with almost everything that is necessary for life. If a man had pains in his head, colic in his bowels, or spots on his clothes, the Doctor had the proper cure or remedy. If he wanted anything for his body or his mind, the Doctor’s house was the place to look for it. The Doctor could recover a strayed wife, a stolen horse, or a lost memory. He had cured the consumption, the dropsy, gout, scurvy, the King’s Evil, and hypochondriac winds. All was done, it seems, by the use of one miraculous cure – no bleeding, no physic. He had, he said, been taught his trade by an Eastern Magus.