A Spectacle Of Corruption

CHAPTER 5

LONDON AFTER DARK is no place for the vulnerable, let alone the naked, but I had freed myself from the most dreaded prison in the kingdom, and I could rejoice that I still had shoes upon my feet. My state would otherwise be as unwholesome as it was humiliating, for in my journey I moved south and, consequently, near to the Fleet Ditch. On these streets a perambulator is likely to step in turds or bits of rotting dog or the discarded tumor of some surgeon’s labors. A man who had just escaped prison and near death in a narrow tomb, however, had no business feeling squeamish about a bit of kennel or amputated flesh on his bare legs, particularly when there was an icy rain to wash him clean. As to the problem of my nakedness, it was, though cold and wet, also dark outside- surely the best condition under which to undertake a prison escape- and I had little doubt that, in this city I knew so well, I should be able to remain hidden in shadows.

But not forever. I would need clothing, and quickly too, for though the joy of having won my freedom coursed through my veins, making me feel as alert as though I’d had a dozen dishes of coffee, I felt dangerously cold, and my hands began to grow numb. My teeth chattered, and I shivered so hard I feared I should lose my balance and fall upon the ground. I was not happy with the prospect of taking from another what I so desired myself, but necessity outweighed whatever peccadilloes of morality troubled my thoughts. Besides, I had no intention of taking any man’s clothes entire and leaving him in my own current state of nature. I merely wished to find someone who could be persuaded, one way or another, to share some small portion of his bounty.

There is something about having been in prison, and perhaps more so in having escaped from prison, that makes a man see the familiar as new. As I made my way to the west and south, I smelled the stench of the Fleet like some bumptious arrival from the country. I heard the strangeness of the cries of the pie sellers and the chicken men and the shrimp girls, “Shrimp shrimp shrimp shrimpers!” called out again and again like a bird of the tropics. The sloppy words scrawled on the walls that I would never before have noticed-Walpole go ye to the devil and Jenny King is a hore and slut and Com and see Misus Rose at the sine of the Too Biships for sheepskins- now seemed to me the outlandish scrawl of a mysterious alphabet. But the renewed strangeness of the city took little of my attention from the discomfort of being cold and wet and hungry- hungry to dizziness- and the cries of pies and pickled fish and roast turnips distracted me something immense.

My ramble through this unsavory part of town took on the grim, disjointed tone of a nightmare. Once or twice a linkboy or mendicant spotted me and hooted, but, for good or ill, in a metropolis such as this one, where poverty is so rampant, it is not so unusual to spy an unfortunate without raiment, and I was merely taken for some desperate victim of the current poverty weighing upon the nation. I passed by more than my share of beggars, who refrained from asking me for money, but I could see by the empty looks in their eyes that they knew me to be well fed and therefore more fortunate than they. A few ladies of pleasure offered their services to me, but I explained that I had, at that moment, no money about me.

Off Holborn, I saw a man of precisely the species I wanted. He was a drunkard of the middling sort who had abandoned his friends in an alehouse somewhere and gone in search of cheap flesh. For a staggering inebriant- that is to say, a man who is not overly particular- cheap flesh is easily found, all the more so because a man in his state might prove an easy mark for a woman with an eye toward his purse or watch or wig.

This fellow, bloated, soaked to the bone, and somewhat past the middle point in life, swayed toward a dark-haired woman who could be described in sadly similar terms. In some ways, I thought, I would be doing him a favor by preventing him from an intimacy with a creature far inferior to what he would desire in a state of sobriety- one who would almost certainly take what had not been offered and leave in return that which was not desired. I emerged from the shadows, lashed out at him with a hand on each shoulder, and pulled him into the alley where I had been hiding.

“Gracious God, help me!” he cried, before I could put a hand over his mouth.

“Be silent, you drunk fool,” I whispered. “Can you not see I am trying to help you?”

My words had the effect I had intended, for he paused to consider their meaning and how this naked stranger might be trying to lend him aid. While he drunkenly measured my intentions, I was able to help myself to his coat, hat, and wig.

“Just a moment!” he shouted, but it afforded him nothing. He stood up, perhaps to chase me, but slipped in some slick filth and fell back into the alley. Still naked, but with my booty tucked under my arm, I dashed off into the night. I would be using those things but a short time, however, for I had it in my head to steal the clothing off another man next, and that would be to far more purpose.

Half an hour later, I was at last under a roof and near a gloriously hot stove, conducting a conversation marred with violence. “You can either do as I ask you, or you can be bludgeoned senseless,” I said to the footman, a strapping lad of hardly more than eighteen years.

He glanced to the other side of the kitchen where the body of the butler lay facedown and slumped, a bit of blood trickling out of his ear. I had made the butler the same offer, and his choice had been none the wisest.

“I haven’t worked here more than two weeks,” he said, in a thick northern accent. “They told me ruffians have been known to break in without a by-your-leave. There’s been hungry men at the door, begging for scraps, begging awful fierce, but I never thought to see a housebreaker till now.”

I am certain I looked a frightful sight, wearing nothing but an outer coat, a periwig that hardly covered my own hair, and a hat propped haphazardly on top- all of which were drenched. I had thought to take the wig because I believed that if my escape had been discovered, the search might be for a man of dark natural hair, not a bewigged gentleman, but I looked no more a gentleman than did a chained African just arrived in Liverpool.

“You’ll see nothing but the back of your eyelids, lad, if you don’t do as I tell you.” I ought to have moved closer to him that I might appear menacing. Instead I backed up to feel the warmth of the stove.

He noticed nothing of my movements, however. “I’ve no cause for getting myself hurt in his service,” the footman said, gesturing with his head toward another room in the house.

“Then give me your clothes,” I said.

“But I’m wearing them.”

“Then perhaps you should remove them first,” I proposed.

He stared at me, awaiting further clarification, but when he saw none was forthcoming, he let out a confused sigh, mumbled to himself as though I were his father and had asked him to slop the pigs, and began to unfasten his buttons and unlace his laces. His teeth petulantly dug into his lower lip, he stripped down to all but his shirt and tossed his clothes toward me so they landed in a pile. I gave him in exchange my recently got coat, heavy with wet, and I then donned his livery- agreeably dry, though thicker with lice than I should have desired.

My goal was not to trick his master; I would not do so for more than an instant. I believed, however, that seeing me in his servant’s garb would prove disorienting enough to make him more pliable. I also knew that, once I left the house, the livery would make a fine disguise.

After the footman had put on my coat, I tied him with some rope I found in the kitchen. “Are there any other servants in the house?” I asked him, as I grabbed a half loaf of bread and bit into it violently. It was a day old, and hard, but it tasted wonderful to me.

“Just the lass what does the cleaning,” he said, “but she’s virtuous, she is, and I haven’t done nothing with her that would harm her honor.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Where is she now?” I asked, my mouth full of bread.

“This is her night off. She’s gone to see her mother, who tends children for a great lady what lives near St. James’s. She won’t be back for two hours at least.”

I considered the possibility that he was lying- about the time of the girl’s return, not her virtue- and concluded that he had not the guile to deceive me. Unwilling to set down my bread, I held it between my teeth while I took a kitchen rag and wrapped it around his mouth to keep him silent. I then told him that over the next few days he might review the daily papers to see if anyone advertised for the coat and wig and hat. The kind thing would be to return them to their owner.

I quickly finished the bread, found a pair of apples- one of which I ate, the other dropped into my pocket- and then thought it time to set out upon my business. The town house was not so large nor laid out in an unusual manner, and it was no difficult thing to seek out my man.

I found Judge Piers Rowley in a brightly lit study of red curtains, red cushions, and a red Turkey rug. Rowley himself wore a matching red dressing gown and cap and was hardly recognizable to me without the full regalia of his judge’s costume. I took this as a good sign. I would, perhaps, be equally unrecognizable in my own disguise- at least for the length of time I wished to effect a surprise. He sat with his back mostly to me, angled to get the most light possible from the blazing fireplace that illuminated a writing desk scattered with papers. Around the room a number of other candles burned, and a tray of apples and pears had been set out, along with a decanter of a brilliantly red wine- port by the smell of it. I could have used a glass or two myself, but I could not risk disordering my senses with drink.

As I drew closer, I saw that Rowley clutched a thick volume to his chest. He had fallen asleep. I was tempted, I confess, to take my revenge there. To grab him by his throat and allow him to wake to the nightmare of his own death. The cruelty of so mad an experience appealed to me, and certainly he deserved no less. But no matter how satisfying, I understood that the crime would accomplish little.

I stood before him and made coughing noises until he stirred sufficiently. His fleshy eyelids flickered and fluttered, and his jowls danced a rousing dance. He wiped the drool off his lips with the back of his sleeve and reached out for his wine goblet.

“What is it, Daws?” he asked absently, but when the silver rim of the goblet met his lips, his eyes, for the first time, focused upon my face, and he knew I was not Daws. He sat up straight, forgetting about the wine, which fell into his lap. “Weaver,” he whispered.

“Mr. Daws is incapacitated,” I told him, “and your butler, whose name I did not learn, has broken his head.”

He pushed himself backward into the chair. “You’ve got yourself out,” he noted, with the slightest of smiles.

I saw no point in confirming the obvious. “You were determined to see the jury convict me,” I said. “Why?”

“You must take that up with the jury,” he shot back, now attempting to escape by pushing himself through the back of the chair. The pressure forced his jowls out like wings, and he looked more like a costume mask than a man.

“No, I must take that up with you. You showed no interest in learning the truth of Yate’s death. You concerned yourself with nothing more than seeing me convicted, and then you did not hesitate to sentence me to hang. I want to know why.”

“Murder is a dreadful crime,” he said, very softly. “It must be punished.”

“So must be the attempt at murder, for I cannot regard your treatment of me as anything but.”

Rowley stopped squirming, as though he had decided all at once to be bold rather than timid. “You may regard what you like. Your opinions are your own, so you must not make me accountable for them.”

I took a step closer. “Allow me to state a fairly obvious fact, sir: I can be hanged but once. The verdict has been pronounced. If I am retaken into custody, I shall surely meet that most terrible of fates regardless of what transpires between us. You must understand that the law cannot now restrain my actions.” I leaned in toward him. “In your efforts to see me punished by the law, you have placed me beyond the law, and I have little to lose by acting upon every violent impulse. So let me ask the question once more. Why did you choose to see me convicted?”

“Because I thought you guilty,” he said, turning his face away from mine.

“I cannot for an instant believe that. You heard those witnesses confess that they had been paid to say they saw what they never saw, what they never could have seen, since it did not happen. You chose to ignore the falseness of the testimony. You all but ordered the jury to ignore the falseness of the testimony. I demand to know why.” Because I had anticipated a reluctance on his honor’s part, I had taken a carving knife with me from the kitchen. I now presented it and, rather than wait for him to decide whether or not I meant to use it, jabbed it quickly into the flesh under his left eye. I meant to do no serious harm, only show him that I was not one of those men who will speak but not act.

His hands shot up at once to cover the wound, which I must say was rather inconsequential. It bled some, but I’ve had more urgent injuries inflicted upon my face by my barber.

“You’ve blinded me!” he cried.

“No, I haven’t,” I answered, “but I see now that the idea of being blinded offers you some distress. I’ll not hesitate to slice your eye if you don’t tell me what you know. It may not have occurred to you that I am a man with little time to spare. I hope you will forgive me if I grow impatient.”

“The devil take you, Weaver. I had no choice. I did what I could for you.” He remained curled over, pressing both hands to the cut as though he might bleed to his death if he did not press all ten digits into service.

“Why did you have no choice?”

“Damn you,” he murmured, but not to me. He seemed to be speaking to the air itself. Then he faced me once more. “Look, Weaver, you’ve got yourself out. That ought to be enough. If you’re wise, you’ll not dawdle but get gone as best you can. You don’t want to anger these people.”

“What people? Who told you to sway the jury against me?” I demanded.

Silence. But I held up the carving knife, and he reconsidered his reticence.

“Oh, bother it! I’ll not be mutilated on his behalf. I hardly bear that much love for the man, and I curse that I ever involved myself in this. But there is a general election upon us, and no man can afford to remain neutral.”

I felt myself tense. “What? The election again? What does the election have to do with this?”

“It was Griffin Melbury,” he said. “Griffin Melbury told me to do it, but I must beg you not to say I’ve told you. The man is a dangerous enemy, and I won’t have him set his cap at me.”

His words so surprised me I nearly dropped my knife. I checked the loosening of my grip, however, and found that my hold grew tighter- so tight that my fingers turned white.

Griffin Melbury. The Tory candidate standing for Westminster. The man who had married my Miriam.

“Explain it all to me,” I said. “Omit nothing.”

“Melbury called me to meet him the instant I drew your trial. He said it was imperative that you be found guilty, that you hang. All the Tory values- a strong Church, a strong monarchy, controlling the new wealth and the liberal thinkers- all of it was to depend upon my taking this action. He made it quite clear that should I not do my duty in this matter I would find that, following the election, there would be by far more Tories in power than necessary to see me lose my place.”

I knew that most judges were political creatures and owed their loyalty to one of the two parties. I also knew well that these men thought nothing of allowing their affiliations to influence their rulings. I could not, however, imagine why the Tories should wish to see me convicted for this crime. How could my fate be bound up with the Tory cause? Unless, of course, Melbury only fabricated the urgency of the situation, and for him it was a matter of honor. But having never met Griffin Melbury, having never crossed him or angered him, I could hardly believe that he would hold so powerful a grudge against me simply because I had once courted the woman who became his wife.

“Why?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he snapped, as though I were his child and had asked him why the sky is blue. “I don’t know. He did not say; he would not say. I demanded an answer, but he only offered me threats. You must believe I had no satisfaction in doing as I did. I had no choice.”

“What have I to do with this? How can I have anything to say of the Tory cause?”

“How should I know when Melbury would tell me nothing? I would think that you might answer that question better than I. If I could have avoided the scene in the court today, I would have. I have no love of seeing my reputation weakened on your account- or on his, for that matter. I acted as I did because there was nothing else for me to do.”

I remained still for a long while, hearing nothing- not the crackling of the fire or the ticking of the clock or the deep breathing of Piers Rowley, whose hands had ceased their stanching of his long-clotted wound and had instead commenced to hold his teary face.

I found him nothing but risible. “Show me your banknotes,” I said.

Rowley removed his hands from his face. He had been content to cower and shake when I merely threatened his life, but now that I sought his wealth, I had roused the lion in him. “I thought you had more honor in you than to turn thief,” he said steadily. His voice had gained some composure, and I thought that either the man truly loved his money or the cowardice he had displayed had merely been a bit of mummery meant to stave off more brutal punishment.

“I have been convicted of a felony,” I said. “The court, I am certain, wasted no time in descending upon my rooms and confiscating my belongings. I now have no home and no money, but since you have been the architect of that conviction, I think it only just that you compensate me for my losses. Now, where are your banknotes?”

“I won’t tell you, Weaver. I’ll not be robbed. Not by you.”

I won’t tell you? Surely he had lost his wits. Better to say he had no notes. I brandished the carving knife, but Rowley remained defiant.

“I think this little wound you’ve given me proves that you are not a man of senseless violence,” he said. “You might have done worse, but you haven’t.”

At that moment, I heard a scuffle emanating from the kitchen. And then I heard a woman’s shriek. The serving girl, whose virtue was safe with the footman, had returned early and found her fellow domestics in a dire condition. I had not much time to dally in the judge’s house.

“The banknotes,” I said. “Now.”

He ventured the slightest of smiles. “I think not.” I could see his eyes go wide as he concentrated to find the courage to defy me. “You see, Weaver, your reputation has done you some harm. You may brandish sword and pistols, and even use them when threatened or facing dangerous rogues, but I am but an aging man of the law, defenseless in his own home. I doubt you will hurt so powerless a creature as I am, and I say that I have had enough of your threats. I’ve told you what you wanted and put myself at great risk in doing so. Now get out if you still can, for I won’t give you a penny, not one farthing. If you believe yourself entitled to compensation, you must take up the matter with Griffin Melbury.”

I considered his words for a moment and then reached out with a speed that even I found remarkable. With one hand I grabbed his right ear, and with the other I used my knife to sever a substantial part of it. I held the bloody thing in my fingers and showed it to him before tossing it onto his writing desk, where it landed on a pile of correspondence with a heavy slap. Too astonished to cry out or even to move, Rowley only stared at the little pieces of flesh.

“Where do you keep your banknotes?” I asked again.

To my delight, I discovered that Mr. Rowley had more than four hundred pounds’ worth of negotiable notes on his person- in addition to another twenty-odd pounds in cash- and I was able to gather them up and quit the house before the girl had returned with whomever it was she had gone to fetch. Although it was small recompense for the harm he had done me, it was nevertheless satisfying to relieve him of so large an amount and reassuring to have it in my possession.

I had no clear idea of how best to use the information that Rowley had provided me, what course of action I would pursue, or where I should find myself a safe hiding place. I knew, however, where I would go next.