by Roy Lewis
Carefully, I murmured, ‘You’ve also built up a reputation as a man of a philanthropic nature.’
‘And a good employer. You know, I paid my secretary two thousand a year—mind you, the rogue trebled his income by charging a hundred guineas for each introduction to his master. You can’t trust anyone, can you?’ He gave a short, barking laugh and sipped at his brandy. ‘Yes, I supported many charities, was known to be open-handed for good causes, for was I not reputed to be one of the richest men in London?’
‘Rich enough, I heard, to buy thousands of acres in Ireland,’ I ventured.
‘Indeed.’ There was an odd, cynical gleam in his eyes. ‘And as a result the Irish farming fraternity clamoured to deposit their money in the Tipperary Bank, once I announced my objective was to buy back large estates for the numerous small tenants. They rushed to invest! Philanthropy, you see! Irresistible! Then there was the publicity, the jostling of journalists seeking an interview: they loved me. As did other writers. Dickens and Thackeray visited the Reform Club once, you know, just to get a glimpse of me, and they sat there smoking and discussing my fabulous wealth. A number of novels—especially Disraeli’s—contained thinly veiled portraits of the Honourable Member for Sligo!’
‘I’ve heard you talked about in the Reform Club,’ I said quietly slightly irritated by his boasting.
‘As I have you. But it’s all smoke and mirrors, ain’t it, my learned friend?’
There was a short silence between us as each weighed up the other. At last, in a tight voice, rather strangled voice, I demanded, ‘Just what do you mean by that remark?’
He smiled, waved his brandy glass in my general direction.
‘Oh, relax, James! You and I both know that wordsmiths like you and me, we can charm birds from trees, money from infatuated women and support from politicians who believe we are men of principle. They don’t see what we are in reality. No, before you protest, let me tell you what happened to me. I made use of the contacts I forged in the House and in social circles, everyone believed what they wanted to believe and so much money was pressed upon me that I was able to embark, first of all, on a series of unwise speculations and then, later, a whole range of financial swindles. To the world I was a financial genius; it was thought I was so rich my resources would never be exhausted. But the reality? I never once had the luxury of being really solvent. When I needed money I simply drew it from the Tipperary Bank. From the deposits made by small farmers. Not to invest; just to spend, to maintain the image. And no questions were asked! So by the time I took up the position of Junior Lord of the Treasury I was already deeply in debt. I had issued bogus railway stock; I had mortgaged the Irish landholdings; I had forged land certificates to secure many of my loans, but I was gambling, gambling that as a Minister of the Crown I would obtain privileged information that would enable me to recoup my losses by successful Stock Exchange speculation.’
He paused, heaved a theatrical sigh. ‘Unfortunately, there were men in the Treasury who were not blinded by my aura of financial invincibility: they began private inquiries and made a report to Lord Aberdeen. He called me in a little while ago. Told me if I did not resign the Treasury, he would publicly remove me.’
This confession had gone far enough to make me nervous. I held up a hand. ‘Sadleir, I don’t know why you are telling me all this. You must be mad! I could report you to—’
‘Not at all, my learned friend. I speak freely because this conversation is subject to legal privilege. You cannot disclose it without my permission.’
‘That’s nonsense! You’re not my client! There’s no legal privilege involved!’
Sadleir had the impudence to grin at me. ‘Who would believe that, if I claimed that the information I have given you was on a client–legal adviser basis? My dear James, from what I hear you’re in enough trouble with the Benchers of the Inner Temple as it is! A dispute about whether you’re my counsel or not? I’m sure your enemies would be delighted to have another stick to beat you with.’
I stood up, pushing back my chair. ‘That’s enough! I’ll listen to no more of this. I give you my assurance that I won’t repeat the conversation but—’
‘Please sit down, my friend. Hear me out.’ There was a sudden, steely edge to his voice.
‘To what purpose?’ I spat at him. ‘This conversation is dangerous—it’s already gone further than it should.’
‘To what purpose, you ask?’ He took out another cigar, lit it, puffed contentedly and sent out a spiral of smoke into the air. ‘Purpose? Why, the furtherance of your ambition.’
I stood rooted to the spot, staring down at him. He leaned forward, refilled my glass from the decanter and gestured towards the seat I had just vacated. ‘Sit down, James. Be sensible. Accept that I’ve recognized in you some of the desires that have burned in me.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. You’ve admitted to me you’re a fraud and a thief! To compare us—’
‘Sit down,’ he insisted coldly. ‘Don’t ride the high horse so indignantly! It doesn’t become you. My life has been one of pursuit of money, women—and high office. How are you so different? I know you, James. While I once hoped to become Chancellor of the Exchequer—imagine what that would have meant for me—I’ve no doubt you look forward and dream of the day you’ll become Lord Chancellor. For me, the Exchequer is lost. For you … all is still possible. Except—and it’s a big exception—you can’t afford to pay the price.’ His glowing eyes were fixed on mine. ‘But perhaps we can do something about that.’
My heart was thudding in my chest. I knew it was foolish of me to remain there, but in spite of logic, I resumed my seat, reached for the brandy glass, downed the burning liquid, searing the back of my throat.
‘To reach the heights of your ambition, my learned friend, you need to obtain a seat in Parliament. You have friends and supporters, and the Liberal Party to back you but … you lack the cash that would put you in the House. Don’t talk to me of your earnings! I know of the liabilities under which you labour! I know of your indebtedness to Lewis Goodman and the way in which your paper floats about among half the moneylenders in London! I know of your extravagance, your social climbing. I tell you, man, I know you, I recognize you, and I appreciate your problems! Because we are brothers under the skin!’ He paused, almost glaring at me. ‘But even though my own cause is lost, I can help you make the final push. I can finance you. I can help you attain your greatest ambitions!’
Contemptuously, and yet a little breathlessly, I snarled, ‘Money? Help me? You’ve already confessed to me that you’re insolvent.’
‘That doesn’t mean I can’t lay my hand on a considerable amount of money.’
I was breathing hard. The devil of temptation burned in my chest. I could hardly believe what I was hearing, that the confessions of this financial giant were so heinous, that his attitude was so nonchalant but I was hooked by the bait he seemed to be dangling. In the silence that followed, John Sadleir watched me with care as the blue cigar smoke curled about his head.
‘In just one week’s time,’ he murmured at last, ‘the Tipperary Bank will fail. That failure will be rapidly followed by the collapse of a small bank at Newcastle-on-Tyne, and then, most likely, the banking giant London and Capital will go to the wall. There will be much wailing in the City. Collapse of large companies. And no doubt a number of suicides.’
‘How can you be certain?’ I demanded.
‘I have drawn a cheque on the last named bank. This morning they have refused to pay: they will soon announce the reason: in the City everyone will then be made aware of the fact that there are no funds available in my account. The news will spread. There will be a rush upon the banks. It will be disclosed that my debts amount to almost three hundred thousand pounds. I will be ruined; thousands of shareholders in the banks will be ruined.’ He paused, watching me with a cynical gleam in his eyes. ‘On the other hand you, of course, you may well profit.’
‘What do you m
ean?’
‘Think of the deluge of cases that will be brought in the courts! There’s enough work there to last for a decade at least. And aren’t you one of the leading members of the Bar as far as bankruptcy cases are concerned?’
He was right, of course.
‘Not that the vast income you’ll receive from such briefs will help you much in your ambitions. The money will come in slowly. What you need is an immediate injection of cash. Money that can be used to buy yourself a seat in Parliament.’
I could not resist the obvious question. ‘So what do you—facing ruin—intend to do?’
He was silent. His face had paled somewhat but his voice was strong and controlled. ‘Intend to do? I’ve already told you. I need to die, after writing the appropriate letter, of course. Die, by my own hand. I have it all planned. Or most of it. The means, the location …. There is just one more piece to put in place.’
‘Me?’ I guessed. ‘But how can I … assist in your death?’
‘I need you to identify the corpse that will be found on Hampstead Heath next Saturday morning.’
My hand was shaking when I reached again for the brandy decanter. We had dined well, the wines had been of good vintage and I had now taken several measures of brandy but I did not feel inebriated. My mind was whirling, questions turned and clashed in my mind and I still could not quite understand what Sadleir expected of me. But the glimmerings were there, the chinks of light in the darkness.
‘Today,’ he said quietly, ‘I drew £14,000 from my account in the Tipperary Bank. If you agree to identify my corpse next Saturday, I will pay you £8,000. Cash. Immediately. I know I can trust your word as a gentleman to keep to your side of the bargain if I pay you the money in advance.’
I was aware of the irony in his words. But suspicion was hardening in my chest. ‘The corpse I identify—’
‘Will not be mine, naturally.’
The silence grew around us, extended. Faintly I heard the chimes of a distant clock on the night air. I shivered. ‘But how can you possibly arrange that?’ I protested weakly.
‘There is a surgeon at Guy’s Hospital who will be … accommodating. We have an understanding. Of a financial nature, of course. He has already identified a likely candidate who resembles me in height, weight. These things are easily arranged, you may be surprised to hear. Or perhaps not. Surgeons have long dealt in a morbid traffic in the dead, haven’t they, ever since the days of Burke and Hare?’
I took a deep breath. ‘Why do you wish to involve me?’
‘Respectability.’ He almost sneered the word. ‘A fellow lawyer. A fellow Liberal. A fellow member of the Reform Club. Your word, as a popular Queen’s Counsel, a man of note, will be accepted. Of course, you will not be alone. I have already arranged for another person of reputation to stand beside you in the identification.’
‘But won’t there be an attempt to call members of your family to make an identification?’ I argued feebly.
‘My brother has gone to Ireland. There are no other relatives. No, I have arranged that the authorities will seek no persons to view the corpse, other than two respectable members of the Reform Club. That will suffice.’
I sat for several minutes in silence. Sadleir made no further attempt to persuade me. He merely waited. And it is true: he did know me. He knew of my financial state; he knew of my desires; and perhaps he was right in his estimation of my character, my burning ambitions, my lack of scruples.
My mouth was dry. ‘When did you first decide to contact me for this … purpose?’
He shrugged. ‘I told you. The first time we met at the Abbey Inn that day, it laid a foundation. You were involved with Goodman: he thought you might be interested in his proposition that day. The simple fact that he thought you might join in with the proposal he was about to make gave me a perspective regarding your character. I duly noted that fact—even if the proposition he made that day did not come to fruition. Now, some years later, and having followed your career, realized the extent of your ambition, I knew that you’d be the right man to approach.’
And he was right. In a flare of decision I sat up, held his glance firmly. I took a deep breath. ‘To do what you ask … I’d want the whole fourteen thousand.’
He shook his head. ‘Impossible. I will shortly be on a boat bound for Valparaiso and I need something to pay for my immediate passage. The most I can offer is ten thousand.’
We finally settled on an immediate payment of £12,000.
2
I was in a highly nervous state as I waited in the Reform Club the following Sunday morning. It was a bitterly cold day. The Serpentine had frozen over again—it had already happened the previous November—and there were more than two inches of ice on the Long Waters at Kensington Gardens. I heard someone say in the club that there were upwards of three hundred skaters on the Lower Pond that morning. And other stories had already begun to circulate: there was a rumour that the body of a gentleman had been discovered by a passing labourer, near Jack Straw’s Tavern on Hampstead Heath. The body had been convulsed, the face contorted into a mask of pain. Nearby lay a discarded silver mug, probably flung away in death agonies. In the pocket of the corpse had been found an empty bottle that had contained prussic acid. There was also a letter. The whispers were circulating that the corpse was that of a man of public reputation, and the lifeless body was being held by the police in the dead house, for positive identification before further information was released.
The police constable arrived at the Reform Club late that morning.
I was alone in the library, an unread newspaper in my shaking hand when he was shown in by the porter; he entered, varnished hat in hand, respectful in demeanour. ‘Mr James? There has been a discovery of a body on Hampstead Heath. Identification is required. The Commissioner has requested that I ask for your assistance in the matter. Would you be able to accompany me to the dead house, sir?’
A surgeon at Guy’s Hospital, I thought, now the Commissioner himself. I wondered at what level their remuneration had been settled. Sadleir had certainly prepared the ground well. But just how well was yet to be revealed to me: when I arrived at the dead house—there was only one mortuary in London at that time—I was shown to a small waiting room in the dreary low-roofed building next to the hospital. There was another person already seated there. He did not rise, or attempt to speak to me, though when he glanced up, coughing into a kerchief, he favoured me with a brief nod.
With a feeling of shock, I recognized him at once. The eminent Dr Thomas Wakley.
Wakley had been known as a bare-fist fighter in his youth and throughout his career had been noted for his aggressive, bustling personality, but he was now a pale shadow of the man he had been. He was famous, of course, for being the surgeon who had founded the medical journal The Lancet, he had served as a Radical MP for a period and had conducted some notable campaigns on medical and political matters over the years. He had long argued for the establishment of a system of coroners and when that battle had been won he himself had been the first to be appointed coroner, at Finsbury. But when I stared at him that morning I saw an elderly, lank-haired, grey-bearded individual racked with consumption, crouched over his sputum-stained handkerchief, his skin pale, almost transparent and his eyes milky with pain.
But his name—in view of his reputation—would be of significant importance when added to mine as an identifier of the corpse of John Sadleir, the banker MP.
Someone else entered the room behind me. I turned, and to my surprise recognized the police inspector well acquainted with me and my history: Inspector Redwood had seemed to dog my footsteps over the years. Now, he seemed as surprised as I to meet. He glanced past me towards Wakley, frowned, then after a moment’s hesitation he handed me a piece of paper. I recall the manner in which he studied me with some curiosity as I read the handwritten suicide note.
‘I cannot live. I have ruined too many. I could not live and see their agony. I have committed diabolical crime
s unknown to any human being. They will now appear, bringing my family and others to distress, causing to all shame and grief that they should never have known. I blame no one but attribute all to my own infamous villainy.…’
I did not need to read more: after all, I had helped Sadleir compose the missive which was to be found on the corpse on Hampstead Heath. I looked up: Redwood was still staring at me, a strange, uncertain light in his eyes.
The police constable who had summoned me from the Reform Club spoke to Wakley in a subdued tone. The frail old man nodded, rose to his feet and then shuffled away with the officer into the adjoining room in the dead house. I waited, holding Redwood’s glance with all the coolness I could summon in spite of the thudding of my heart.
‘Mr James,’ Redwood murmured at last, almost to himself. ‘Death seems to ride upon your shoulder.’
I frowned. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
His features were impassive. ‘As I recall, we first met when that unfortunate girl was pulled from the Thames some years ago. The suicide, we assumed. A girl known to you. Then it was you who later reported the discovery of that body in the sewers—the body the Commissioner ordered us to make no further inquiries about. And then, well, I’m still wondering about the events surrounding the death of Lord George Bentinck, and whatever part you might have played in it—’
‘He died of natural causes,’ I snapped angrily, ‘and it was nothing to do with me!’
‘So you’ve said before now. And here you are today, turning up to identify the body of a dead man, a suicide on Hampstead Heath.’
I still held his glance firmly. I handed the suicide letter back to him. ‘This communication seems to explain everything. Clearly felo de se. I am merely here, summoned to help identify the corpse for formal purposes.’
The door to the other room opened and Wakley and the police constable returned. The constable glanced apologetically at Inspector Redwood and then looked at me. ‘Mr James?’