by AJ MacKenzie
Now, here is the interesting thing. On the same date that the bills arriving from Vandamme were redeemed, moneys were also paid into an account at Staphorst itself; and no small sums either, but the equivalent of thousands of pounds. When queried, Staphorst produced letters from an agent in the city, a man of affairs who insisted he was acting on the direct instructions of his own client. It remains to be added that there have also been some very large withdrawals from this account over the same period.
My cousin then asked Staphorst who held this account. The name meant nothing to him, of course, but it shocked me, as I am certain it will shock you. The client for whom this man of affairs was acting, and the account holder – who has written several times to authorise withdrawals from the account by her agents – is one and the same: Mrs Martha Redcliffe.
I enclose copies of four of these withdrawals. I believe if you check the amounts, you will find they correspond to the sums we think were embezzled from each of the last four gold shipments.
Please let me know if I may assist you any further,
Yr very obedient servant
DAVID RICARDO
‘It was the priest, Abbé de Bernay, who first put the idea into my head,’ he said to Mrs Chaytor in her drawing room a little later. ‘He said, are you certain it is a man? I rejected the idea right away, but later found I could not stop thinking about it. I remembered then what Mrs Redcliffe said when I first interviewed her: Faversham knew nothing about smuggling, she said, but he could be taken advantage of by ruthless people who did.’
‘On that point, at least, she was telling the truth.’ Mrs Chaytor shivered. ‘How cold-blooded she is! She has gone out of her way to befriend Cecilia Munro and visits her often; yet she killed that poor girl’s husband. And she sat there yesterday, cool and calm, knowing that her men were on their way to Ashford to murder Batist.’
Hardcastle frowned. The visits to Cecilia worried him suddenly, but he did not know why. ‘She is nerveless,’ he agreed. ‘I wonder if that is the result of the opium.’
Mrs Chaytor turned and took up a letter of her own from the side table. ‘Speaking of opium,’ she said, ‘you may find this instructive.’
WOTTON HOUSE, WOTTON UNDERWOOD, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE
26th of September, 1797
My dearest Amelia,
It was very good to receive your letter, as it always is. I hope you will accept my apologies for not replying to you at once. As you can probably imagine, these last few weeks have been very fraught indeed. Our hopes for peace, a project for which we had laboured for so long, are now entirely shattered, and conflict with our enemies is joined once more. I am, I must tell you, in a state of despair. How long we can continue to hold out against such a powerful combination of enemies, French and Spanish and Dutch, is not at all certain.
But I must not infect you with my glooms. Opium! There really is no end to your interests. And how on earth did you come to discover the smuggling? I have only recently learned of it myself! Never mind; I shall contain my curiosity for the moment, and endeavour to tell you what you desire to know.
The Levant Company is the primary trader in opium between this country and Turkey, although it forms only a very small part of the company’s overall commerce. We import around two thousand pounds (in weight) of opium each year through the port of London. Our rivals in the trade bring in perhaps another thousand. We sell to the opium brokers in Mincing Lane, who in turn sell on to wholesalers, to manufacturers of opiate drugs such as laudanum, or sometimes directly to apothecaries. The total value of the trade amounts to not more than £6,000.
The market is not large; indeed, when one compares it to the millions of gallons of untaxed gin that flood into this country every year, it is positively tiny. Initially I found it hard to understand why anyone would take the trouble to smuggle opium.
Nonetheless, it has become clear in recent weeks that someone is bringing illicit opium into the country, and in very large quantities. Brokers outside the usual system are auctioning cheap opium in London almost every day, and there is talk of sales being held in Bristol and Birmingham as well. Last month alone, these brokers sold well over a ton of opium; more than we normally import in a year.
Our price is being undercut by as much as nine or ten shillings a pound, which can only mean that the opium is coming in through the free traders. My assumption is that they are bringing it from Amsterdam, which is one of the leading centres of the opium trade on the Continent.
The rector looked up. ‘Amsterdam,’ he said.
‘I told you. Women’s intuition.’
If things carry on in this way, there is a real danger that we and the other legal opium traders will be driven out of the market. Indeed, upon consideration, my view is that this is exactly what the smugglers intend: to flood the market with cheap opium and take the trade away from us. Should this happen, and should opium become as cheap and widely available as gin, then the effects upon the populace could be quite unwholesome and unpleasant.
So, your suspicion that there is an ulterior motive at work may well have foundation. When – or indeed, if – the present crisis abates I will look into this matter further. In the meantime, I hope I have satisfied your curiosity; and, should you learn anything further at your end, I would be grateful if you would inform me.
Anne sends her love,
I remain yours fondly,
WILLIE
‘Martha Redcliffe has been embezzling from the bank and using the money to buy opium, which she smuggles into this country,’ said the rector.
‘That is her project,’ said Mrs Chaytor. Her blue eyes were very bright. ‘That is the legacy she will leave to her heirs. A commercial empire, built on the trade in opium. She will sell the drug to anyone who wants it – the curious, the ill, the despairing, the foolhardy – and they will become habituated and die, so that she and those who come after her may profit. And to achieve her end, she has ruined a bank and killed three men.’
‘Yes. And she will kill again, unless we stop her.’
‘What will you do?’
‘I have Lord Clavertye’s authority. Now I shall use it.’
*
Under no illusions about the difficulty of arresting Martha Redcliffe and bringing her to justice, Hardcastle gathered his forces. Letters went out from the rectory, to Cole of the Customs and to Mr Juddery of the Excise, asking for assistance. To the colonel of the East Kent Volunteers he wrote again, asking for haste; men were needed at once. Further letters went to the other magistrates of the Marsh and upcountry, warning them and asking them to be watchful. A final letter went to Lord Clavertye, informing him of the situation and naming Martha Redcliffe as his chief suspect.
Sunday, the first day of October, dawned cool and blustery. The wind was from the north, driving breakers inshore to pound against the Dymchurch Wall with a noise like muted thunder. The grasses and reeds of the Marsh bent before the blast. After church, he stopped to talk to Miss Godfrey and Miss Roper.
‘You are our saviour,’ said Miss Godfrey.
‘I am no such thing,’ said the rector, smiling and taking her hand. ‘I merely did what a friend would do. You must get home now, and stay in out of the wind. I don’t suppose you might have a cup of tea to offer an old clergyman? Perhaps on Friday?’
That same Sunday morning, Amelia Chaytor sat and listened to the church bells tolling, their notes distorted by the wind that whipped through the garden. Someone knocked at the front door, and Lucy came into the room, smiling. ‘Miss Luckhurst wishes to see you, ma’am.’
‘Send her in.’ Bessie Luckhurst came into the room a moment later, neat and bright. Mrs Chaytor knew the young woman well and was fond of her. ‘What can I do for you, my dear?’
‘There’s someone wants to meet you, ma’am.’
‘Oh? Who?’
‘I can’t say. I’ve been told particularly not to say.’
Mrs Chaytor tilted her head to one side and studied Bessie. She knew what the
girl’s own father did not know, that Bessie was in the employ of the Twelve Apostles as their watcher in St Mary. ‘Is this to do with Peter?’ she asked.
‘Oh, no, ma’am, not at all.’
‘Bessie, you are being very mysterious.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ said Bessie, her eyes shining with excitement. She lowered her voice a little. ‘I was told to say this is about Mr Munro and the other gentlemen that were killed.’
‘What?’
‘And I’m to ask you, ma’am, to come to Blackmanstone tonight, after dark. I’m sorry, ma’am, but that’s all I am allowed to say.’
‘You are asking me to go alone at night to a ruined church in the middle of the Marsh? Bessie, have you been reading Mrs Vane’s novels?’
‘Oh, not alone, ma’am. I’ll come with you.’ The excitement deepened. Behind the gentle face of the landlord’s daughter there lurked a soul avid for adventure. This one will fly the nest before long, Mrs Chaytor thought. St Mary in the Marsh is too small for her. She recognised, all too well, the look in Bessie’s eyes. Once upon a time, in another age when life was young and sweet, it had shone in her own.
And because of that, she nodded. ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘I will come. Meet me here at seven; it will be fully dark by then.’
She passed the rest of the day in a fret of impatience, willing the hours to pass, and not even music could soothe her. Darkness drew down across the Marsh, the wind still whistling around the eaves of the house, singing an eerie song of violence and cold. ‘This is ridiculously dramatic,’ she grumbled to herself, but by a quarter to seven she was waiting in the hall, gloved and booted and cloaked, with her pistol in an inside pocket loaded and primed. More drama, to be sure, she thought; but three people had died.
She heard the crunch of wheels on gravel as the gig was brought round, and a moment later there came a soft knock at the door. She opened it to find Bessie, cloaked like herself. ‘What do we say if anyone sees us and asks why two women are driving across the Marsh after dark?’ Mrs Chaytor demanded.
‘Mrs Jury at Green Farm is unwell, and we’re taking her some ointment and hot soup,’ came the response.
‘Did you make that up just now?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Well, we’ll have to hope that no one asks to taste the soup. Come along.’ The groom passed up a lantern which Mrs Chaytor hung beside her on the gig, and then they were off, riding smoothly up the street past the rectory and the church and out into the country beyond. The blanket of cloud was thin and the radiance of the moon, nearly full, shone through it to bathe the Marsh in a thin, uneven white light. The wind whipped at them, biting their faces with cold. The horse, Asia, did not like the wind either, and twice she shied at shadows and Mrs Chaytor had to shake the reins hard to keep her moving.
They turned onto the Newchurch road. Blackmanstone was yet another of the Marsh’s abandoned churches, standing ruined in a field next to the road. Mrs Chaytor drew the gig to a halt and tethered the unhappy horse, then lifted the lantern from its hook and held it up, touching the pistol in her pocket with her free hand. ‘Lead on, my dear,’ she said to Bessie.
Silent amid the wind, the two women approached the church. All four walls of the nave still stood, though the roof had long since fallen in. A bat flew out of a crevice in the walls and whirled away, squeaking with annoyance. They walked through what had been the west door, and Mrs Chaytor held up the lantern to reveal an interior choked with grasses and weeds that rustled and whispered in the wind.
A young man stood a few yards away among the weeds, one hand on his hip, a cloak drawn back a little to reveal the pistol in his sash. He wore breeches and a coat and high boots, and a broad-brimmed hat shaded his face. ‘Good evening, Mrs Chaytor,’ he said, his voice light and pleasant.
‘You have the advantage of me, sir,’ she said. ‘May I know your name?’
‘On the Marsh I am known as the Rider,’ came the response. ‘A good name, don’t you think? Suitably mysterious, for a smuggler.’
‘Very well. Now that we have established how clever you are, why did you drag me out here? Why did you want to see me, in particular?’
‘Because I know I can trust you,’ came the response. ‘You were good to me once, when I did not deserve it.’
‘I was . . . We have met?’
In response, the other reached up and swept off the broad-brimmed hat, and then stood still, smiling. Mrs Chaytor froze.
She saw before her a face from the past. She remembered the mop of curly hair that glittered golden in the flickering light of the lantern; she knew that broad mouth, the snub nose, the laughing brown eyes. She remembered that same face from a June day last year; a woman’s face, swollen and bruised from a lover’s beating. The hair was shorter now, the face harder, but there was no doubting it was the same person.
‘Eliza Fanscombe,’ said Mrs Chaytor softly.
‘In the flesh,’ said the young woman.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Where else would I be? The Marsh is my home,’ said Eliza.
‘When did you return?’
‘Oh, quite some time ago. After my father was arrested last summer, and my stepmother and I crawled out of St Mary with our tails between our legs, we fetched up in Surrey. Eugénie found work as a governess. I stuck it for about fifteen minutes, then came back to the Marsh. I realised this time that it wouldn’t do to be going around as a girl, so I started dressing as a man. I quite like it. You should try it yourself. You’d make a good smuggler, Mrs Chaytor.’
‘For heaven’s sake, be serious,’ said Mrs Chaytor crossly. ‘What is this about? Why are you here, and more importantly, why am I here?’
The lantern flickered, making the shadows around them jump. ‘Oh, this is serious. Deadly serious. For the past eight months I have been in the employ of Martha Redcliffe. She uses me to carry orders to the smuggling gangs, to oversee their work and to hold them to account. I am one of her most trusted lieutenants. And I have come here tonight,’ said Eliza Fanscombe, ‘to betray her.’
*
The story was swiftly told. After returning to the Marsh, disguised as a boy, Eliza had joined a smuggling gang in Hythe. Her former habit of going out to watch the gangs on their runs had made her well known around St Mary and New Romney, but in Hythe she was a stranger and no one questioned her new identity or saw through her disguise; no one, that is, until she met Martha Redcliffe. The older woman had been amused by the deception.
‘She took a shine to me,’ said Eliza. ‘She said I reminded her of herself, adventurous and fearless. She took me into her household and made me one of her confidantes. I was the one she entrusted to see that important things were done properly. I know her secrets, or some of them. How much does the rector know about what she’s up to?’
‘We know about the gold, and the fraud,’ said Mrs Chaytor, ‘and also the opium and the Dutch connection. And we are certain she ordered the killing of Munro, Cotton and Batist.’
‘Oh, she did. Noakes was the man who executed them, or that is how she put it. She found out from Batist that Munro was planning to cross over to France. Batist brought Munro out to the Hoorn in a rowing boat.’
So Batist had lied about his involvement in the murder; like he had lied about everything else. ‘You saw it happen?’
‘Yes,’ said the young woman. ‘They came alongside and Batist climbed aboard the Hoorn. Munro began to follow, but Noakes drew a pistol and asked what Munro was doing there. Munro lost his temper, and started demanding we tell him what had happened to his gold. Noakes said if he wanted gold he could have some, and tossed a guinea down into the boat. Then he shot Munro. Captain Sloterdyke wanted to tip his body into the sea, but Noakes said they should leave him there so the others would know what happened to him. It would be a warning, he said, not to ask questions. They were still arguing about it when the revenue cruiser showed up and we had to make a run for it.’
‘And Cotton?’
‘We had watchers in Canterbury, and knew he was coming to see Hardcastle. I took the orders to Fisky and Noakes and told them the road by which Cotton was travelling. I had nothing to do with Batist.’
‘Eliza,’ said Mrs Chaytor softly, ‘this makes you an accessory to murder. You could hang.’
‘Oh, you won’t hang me. I can help you hang Martha Redcliffe. And you want that much more.’
‘But what you’ve said just now is enough,’ exclaimed Bessie. ‘If you testify against her, Eliza, she’ll swing.’
‘Smugglers don’t give evidence in court against their own, Bessie, you know that. Or if they do, they don’t live very long. If you find Martha, you can break her in a few hours; all you have to do is withhold her laudanum,’ said the young woman brutally, ‘and she’ll crack like a bowl of eggs. Same goes for Noakes, and a couple of the others too; they all use it. But you have to find Martha first, and you won’t do that without my help. She’s clever, devilishly so. She knows old Hardcastle must be onto her by now, and she’s left her house and gone into hiding. She’s moving around the country from one haunt to another, never in the same place twice. When she’s on the drug, she’s tougher than any man, and twice as smart.’
‘She is evil,’ said Mrs Chaytor.
‘Why do you say that? Because she orders people to be killed? Soldiers do that all the time, so do Preventive men. The law hangs people after every assize. Martha Redcliffe is no different from the men around her, except she’s more successful. I admire her,’ said Eliza. ‘Or I did.’