by Roy Lewis
I realized this was my big chance.
You see, at that time Marylebone was perhaps the most important constituency in England. It was also the most expensive—but I was well known in London, echoes of the Bernard case still resounded in the streets and I had the experience gained at Horsham and Boston behind me. So, encouraged by the Government, I launched myself vigorously into the campaign.
The first thing I did was to get the licensed victuallers on my side by promising to hold my election meetings on their premises. I got the whole of St Pancras up in arms when the Vestry refused me the use of Vestry Hall: I denounced this as an aristocratic plot to keep me—a man of the people—out of Parliament and then I launched into tirades of complaint about political jerrymandering. My opponent was the well-connected Colonel Romilly, who suggested that a straightforward soldier was preferable to a tricky lawyer but that line cut no ice with the electors and I fanned the flames of prejudice and resentment, just as I had in the defence of Simon Bernard. I spoke of secret arrangements in Eaton Square drawing rooms, of aristocrats who wanted to treat Marylebone like a pocket borough, of betrayal of the principles of the Reform Act of 1832. In short, I buried the political promises of Colonel Romilly under a welter of noble aims and principles on my part, I inflamed the minds of my audiences, I persuaded them they were taking part in an event of historic importance.
But I not only brought the electors to a pitch of indignant excitement, I involved them, encouraged them, drew them close with my sense of humour. I reminded them that unlike my opponent I actually lived in the borough—albeit as a bachelor. This brought forth ribald comments that on the contrary, I was well known for having at least three ‘wives’ in Westminster. Of course, this was not far from the truth so I encouraged the laughter, made jokes, brought the wave of feeling to my side.
And at the hustings, on the show of hands I was declared the choice of the voters on the day. A poll was, of course, demanded by Romilly, but as I waited for the result I felt confident: the electoral bruising I had suffered at Horsham, Boston, Hull, Southampton and Reigate could be forgotten.
I had tasted the aperitifs of professional success; now, I knew in my bones that I was about to enjoy the caviar of power.
And so it came about: the most important constituency in England had made up its mind and I was given the majority of the three thousand votes cast.
I remember The Times sighing with relief on my behalf. I kept the cutting. Here it is.
‘MR EDWIN JAMES QC has been elected for Marylebone by an enormous majority. He has worked long and been rejected often; but his perseverance has received a rich reward at last.’
Rich reward indeed: I saw it as my first step towards a long-anticipated progress to Solicitor General, Attorney General and, eventually, a judge’s wig, or the Woolsack itself as Lord Chancellor. Rich reward … but I have to admit it cost me a great deal to achieve.
How much? Well.…
Marylebone was known to be the most expensive borough in England. It was known that the seat had cost Lord Dudley Stuart £7,000 in 1847 while Lord Ebrington had expended £5,000 and Jacob Bell £3,000. The Times reckoned it must have cost me at least £5,000. That was, in fact, a considerable underestimate. When all the bills had come in I had to find in excess of £8,000.
How could I afford the enormous expense? I’ve already intimated, my boy, that I was now among the highest paid advocates of the day. My yearly income was in excess of £7,000 per annum!
You grimace. Well, yes, I agree my earnings, large though they were, could not justify or support such an election expenditure. Also, I was very unlucky. I took my seat in Parliament but only five weeks later, on All Fools Day, a political crisis was reached. Lord Derby, in his minority government, had brought in a Reform Bill. I voted with the majority but in a welter of confusion where no one seemed to know what the result of the vote was, the Bill was regarded as rejected.
Lord Derby immediately resigned. A General Election was called.
So I had to face the electors of Marylebone all over again. And that meant yet another crippling bout of expenditure.
I had good, supportive friends: Sir James Duke, Colonel Dickson, Sir John Shelley, Baron Watson and the other candidate for one of the two seats at Marylebone, Sir Benjamin Hall. They all gathered around to back me but the fight had to begin again. Things were made more difficult by a Tory barrister called Haig who nominated Lord Stanley for the seat, even though it transpired that that gentleman intended standing at King’s Lynn. It was nothing more than a scandalous attempt to embarrass the Liberals financially and The Times rightly denounced Haig by stating that he was merely out to put the two real candidates—Ben Hall and me—to further expense of canvassing, eating, drinking, agency, carrying and polling.
I was furious, but could do nothing about it—and the expenses mounted again and we dug deeper into our pockets, Ben Hall and I.
I was not really worried about the result. The spectral contender, Lord Stanley, he obtained only 1,083 votes. Sir Benjamin Hall obtained 4,698. As for me, I garnered 5,199 and stood at the head of the poll. I would be a member of the House once more—this time with the possibility of a rather longer tenure.
I was buttonholed later that evening by John Delane, editor of The Times, who offered me his hand in congratulation. But looking me in the eye, he remarked, ‘You know, James, generally speaking, a man must be either very near a peerage or very near the judicial bench, or very near the Queen’s Bench, if he thinks Marylebone a prize worth going for.’
I made no response beyond a knowing smile, but I saw the gleam in his eye and I knew that he was aware soundings had already been made to me by the main men who would take their places in the new government.
‘Prince Albert won’t like it,’ Delane informed me. ‘He don’t like your style, James.’
Like or not, he wouldn’t have been able to stop me, if things had worked out as they were intended to. In the new Government the Lord Chancellor was old; Bethell was Attorney General and Sir Henry Keating was, by all accounts, an incompetent nonentity as Solicitor General. I was assured by those in the know that it would be a matter of months only before I obtained preferment—and the consequent knighthood.
You are still grimacing, young man. You pull a face. Unconvinced, hey? Ah, I understand. It’s about the expense.…
Yes, I had laid out a great deal of money, but I had earned much. I agree, I agree, it could not be enough to bear such expenses, the necessary outgoings for two elections in the space of a few months. And you’re aware I was always somewhat embarrassed financially during the course of my legal career. So you wonder how did I raise the money?
I’m not certain how far I can travel this road, to explain to you. It’s a matter of some delicacy and … well, although it’s all a long time ago now, twenty years and more, and although men have passed on … I still feel a little uncertain whether I should tell the story to you.
Ha! I see that now your appetite is really whetted. I’m trapped by my own words. Very well, I suppose after this lapse of time, and in my present circumstances in this near-hovel I inhabit now, it will do no harm to tell you.
It harks back, in a sense, to that meeting in the Abbey Hotel, near Nottingham, on the day my enemy, Lord George Bentinck, died. You will recall that I mentioned to you that among the group called to meet by that rogue, Lewis Goodman, there had been a wealthy banker, a sitting Member of Parliament. His name was John Sadleir. I had not made his acquaintance before that day, but later I came across him from time to time in the Reform Club, for he sat on the Government benches under Lord Aberdeen—Prime Ministers came and went with regularity in those turbulent years. Aberdeen appointed him as a Junior Lord of the Treasury, just a short step from high office.
I knew of him, of course, and of his wealthy reputation: he was said to be fond of drink and ballads, a man occasionally disabled by melancholy like many Irishmen, a one-time notorious faction fighter at the fairs in Kerry and Cork
and a sportsman who fancied himself at the sports of football and hurling. But even at the club I met him rarely, and certainly he was not an intimate of mine, so I was surprised when one evening he sent me a note, asked me if I would dine with him. He had hired a private room and the wines served were of excellent quality: as the most successful banker of his day, he was reckoned to be one of the richest, and most personable businessmen in London.
It was only after we had talked politics, eaten a good dinner and were enjoying a brandy and cigar each that I said to him, ‘I have the feeling that you have some specific reason for inviting me to dine this evening.’
He smiled. I can see him still, in my mind’s eye, a confident, burly, broad-shouldered Irishman, the smoke from his cigar curling softly about his greying, bushy hair, his eyes narrowing slightly as he watched me and I noted the hint of cynicism in his smile.
‘I’ve followed your career with interest, Mr James.’
‘Indeed?’
He nodded. ‘And I have come to the conclusion that you are an able, courageous man in the courtroom.’
I inclined my head in modest acknowledgment.
‘I’ve also concluded you’re a man of few scruples,’ he added coolly.
I glared at him, feeling anger rising in my chest at the studied insult. But before I could rise, speak in protest, he leaned forward, holding my glance under a fierce knitting of his brows.
‘And you are the man I know I can turn to.’
‘Turn to? You are in legal difficulties?’ My hackles were up in indignation. ‘If you have a legal problem you should talk to your attorneys, discuss it with them, suggest they send instructions to my clerk—’
‘No, no!’ He waved aside my protest with a dismissive hand. ‘This is not something to be discussed with attorneys, or your clerk. It is a private matter. A matter requiring the utmost discretion.’
I waited, not understanding, but vaguely disturbed and, I must admit, strangely on edge.
‘So what is it you require of me?’ I asked warily.
‘In short, James, a certain personal service,’ Sadleir said, pausing, and taking a short, suddenly nervous pull at his cigar, ‘I want you to assist …’
The end of his cigar glowed red.
‘… I want you to assist me in the matter of my death.’
PART FIVE
1
Chance plays such an important part in men’s lives.
Take Carlo Rudio, for instance. You might recall he was one of the bomb-throwers in Paris, the third one to launch his grenade at the Emperor’s coach. A great survivor. I first met him, you might be interested to know, in Italy when he was a follower of Garibaldi. And then again, years later in New York when we were together involved in the hunt for President Lincoln’s assassin. But I’ll tell you about that some other time. Rudio was a remarkable man, a great escapologist. He avoided the death sentence in Paris by blabbing the assassination plot—which resulted in the capture of Orsini and Gomez. He was consequently sent not to the guillotine but to Devil’s Island: he was one of the very few who contrived to escape from that hell and he came to live in East London for a while before he emigrated to America. In New York he enlisted in the regular Army, under the name Charles de Rudio and fought in the Civil War. Later, he served as a lieutenant in the Indian wars, with the famous 7th Cavalry under General Custer—and escaped again. He was present at the Little Big Horn, in Benteen’s command, and was one of the few to survive the massacre.
Then there’s your father. Chance meant that while I knew him in England Rudio knew him in New York, where they were both servicing whores and drilling volunteers in the Civil War. You know, I saw him recently, your father, that is. It was on the Strand. You don’t know a great deal about him, do you? I suppose it’s understandable because he was always a committed travelling man—he went to India when he was just nineteen, where he married his first wife, Jane. She’s a famous artist now, in Australia, and so is her son, your half-brother. You didn’t know that? Jane Stocqueler left your father because she saw little of him after he impregnated her. In the first two years of their marriage he was off for fifteen months travelling in Afghanistan, and she scarcely saw him after that. So she took her son off to Australia. Your own mother, my wife Eliza, she married Stocqueler when she was eighteen—he was forty-seven at the time. He was always partial to young women … unlike me, for I’ve always preferred older, more mature ladies: less inane chatter, an understanding of the mechanics of sex and a greater likelihood of gratitude. In fact, I hear your father’s just got married again, at the age of sixty-seven. His new wife is thirty, I hear.…
But chance meant that your mother Eliza and I would meet; our paths first crossed when she and your father were operating a diorama about the Crimean War in London. A chance meeting … and then when Eliza and I met again, in New York, chance dictated that she and I were in similar straits: she divorced from your father, who was running around with various ladies and a troop of volunteer horse alongside Rudio; me in the wreckage of my marriage to Marianne Hilliard.
No, no, I’m not prevaricating, don’t take me to task with that long face! I’m not really wandering from the point. I said I’d tell you about Sadleir, it’s just that I’m emphasizing the part chance plays in all our lives.
You see, if Sadleir hadn’t glimpsed me at that meeting at the Abbey Inn on the day Lord Bentinck died he wouldn’t have formed the swift impression of my character that influenced his decision later. Yes, he might have seen me as a fellow scoundrel from later events but, well, first impressions are important, aren’t they?
If only I had ignored Lewis Goodman’s summons that day, how different things might have been! It could have been.…
What? All right, all right, I’ll press on.
That evening in the Reform Club after I’d got over the shock of Sadleir’s statement about his desire to die he leaned back comfortably in his chair, watching me with an amused glint in his eyes, and asked, ‘What do you know about me, James?’
I took a deep breath, still recovering from the astounding nature of his seemingly casually stated request. ‘You’re known to be fabulously wealthy.’
He grimaced. ‘Go on.’
‘You’re from Dublin, where you practised as a solicitor—’
‘I started in Tipperary, actually, where my father owned a small bank. Moved to Dublin later, before I came to London in 1847. Got elected as member for an Irish seat. What else?’
Carefully, I said, ‘You’re popular, said to be witty; you’re known as a ladies’ man and a good dancer.’
‘Better than any man of my acquaintance!’ he boasted with a laugh. ‘Go on! I’m enjoying this!’
‘The rest is in the public domain: you’re MP for Sligo, Chairman and Director of the London and County Bank—’
‘Among others,’ he interrupted.
‘—and you were a Junior Lord of the Treasury under Lord Aberdeen.’ I shrugged. ‘You’re still an MP. That’s about it.’
Sadleir was silent for a little while, contemplating the glowing end of his cigar. At last he looked up at me. ‘Since that first brief meeting that time near Welbeck I’ve watched your career with interest, James. You and I have much in common. You have a similar reputation to mine: you’re seen as a witty, popular, successful man. We both enjoy the trappings of success—you live in Berkeley Square now, I believe, while I reside in a mansion in Gloucester Square. We’re the darlings of society—we are the recipients of more country house invitations than we can acknowledge. And we have a hunger to rise in life—your father was a humble solicitor, as was mine, but we both are driven by ambition. And there is one other thing we have in common.’
I waited. After a little while, as Sadleir seemed lost in thought, I asked, ‘And what other thing do you suggest we have in common?’
He bared his teeth in a mirthless smile. His hand was shaking slightly, and ash fell from the end of his cigar onto the damask cloth on the table. He did not respond to
my question immediately. ‘We are both ruthless in the pursuit of our ambitions.’
I made no demur: it was for him to say what he knew.
‘Let me tell you my story,’ he said. He stubbed out the cigar and finished the brandy in his glass.
‘People are stupid,’ he announced. ‘They see what they want to see. You know that. I’ve seen that recognition in your own career. And you’ve relied upon it—the stupidity of juries, in particular, but also, I hear, of gullible, wealthy ladies and infatuated young men—relied upon it to advance your career. In my case, when I came to London I was armed with the agency of two small banks and was seen at first merely as an Irish adventurer, but as a Member of Parliament—for Carlow in the first instance—I was quickly able to make use of the political and social connections I made and within twelve months, my charm, wit and reputation as a financier gave me entry to a society that included Gladstone, Disraeli, Aberdeen and Sir Robert Peel.’ He smiled. ‘You knew his brother, I believe.’
I grimaced. ‘Colonel Peel? Yes, the Running Rein case. People never seem to forget that debacle.’
‘The famous Derby fraud. In which our mutual acquaintance, Lewis Goodman, was deeply involved.’
A slow stain of suspicion was beginning to grow in my mind. A suspicion that made me believe that there was indeed much in common between John Sadleir and myself.
He poured himself another brandy, offered me the decanter, which I accepted.
‘As a Parliamentary agent for the Irish banks I made a great deal of tin in those early years,’ he explained. ‘It enabled me to indulge in speculation, particularly during the railway boom. And believe me, there was a great deal of competition for business in the early days of joint stock banking—all the banks wanted the patronage of the State and there I was, ideally placed, a banker and seated on the Government benches. The financiers, greedy to the very last one of them, sought me out, called for my patronage, and offered me money, money, money.…’