A Conspiracy of Paper (6 page)

As I approached, I saw from a distance that a crowd had gathered, and I quickly realized that a man stood pilloried in the courtyard. A few dozen onlookers had gathered to cheer his misery and to pelt him with rotted eggs and fruit, and occasionally something much harder, for the poor unfortunate bled from several deep wounds about his head, and one of his eyes looked swollen and black and perhaps quite ruined. A sign above him read that he had been charged with Jacobitical sedition, a crime that could unleash the most hateful violence from the crowd. Many a man so charged and punished failed to emerge alive from three days in the pillories. As I hurried past, a ruffian in the crowd hurled an apple with murderous force, shouting, “This’n’s from King George, you papist bastard.” I cannot say if this man had any real loyalties to our King, but the delight for such a man was in the throwing. The apple landed high and burst on the pillory above the prisoner’s head, raining rotted fruit upon him. A few oyster women roamed the courtyard, crying their goods, and the men and women of the crowd devoured their oysters as they looked on merrily at this man whom they tortured, perhaps to death.

I took no pleasure from the spectacle, and pushed on, passing through the terrible prison gate, where I found a warder and instructed him of my business. He was an imposing fellow of average height but of more than average thickness. His arms were of twice the circumference mine had ever been, and he folded them boldly before me to indicate that he should not move without my
touching
him—that is to say, offering him some compensation for his time. Like all those who worked in the prison, from the governor himself down to the lowest turnkey, this man had paid a healthy sum in order to obtain his post, and he needed to exploit his power as best he could in order to earn back his investment. I therefore touched him for a few shillings, and he led me to the Common Side of the prison, where he expected he should be able to find Kate. “I remember her,” he said with a leer that spread like the Thames tide across his broad, stupid face. “She was new, and she didn’t have no money. Find her by her hollering, I reckon.”

What can I write of Newgate prison that my reader has not read already? Shall I describe the stench of rotted bodies—some alive, and some long dead—of human waste, of sweat and filth and of fear, which has its own scent, I assure you. Shall I write of the conditions, not fit for any creature that bears the name
human
? As I followed the warder through these dark halls, I, who had seen so much and thought myself so immune to the sights of misery in this world, averted my eyes from the spent and sickly bodies visible through the bars. Fettered to the cold stone walls, they lay in their own feces, their bodies a-crawl with all manner of vermin. Turning my head away accomplished little, for the sounds of their groans and their pleadings echoed through the ancient stones of that dungeon. I should like to believe, reader, that it is only the most dangerous and violent criminals who endure these tortures, but you and I know that is not the case. I have learned of pickpockets—pickpockets, I say—who have been chained and left to die, swallowed alive by rats and lice, because of a lack of money to procure their easement. I have heard of men acquitted of all charges who have rotted to death for want of their discharge fees. Better to hang, I thought, than to remain in this place.

I followed the warder through this worst of abodes and we climbed the stairs to the women’s ward of the Common Side. Perhaps my reader believes that there the female prisoners are protected from the molestation of the stronger sex, but in Newgate there can be no protection without money. Silver can procure nearly anything, including the right to hunt among the weak and defenseless women. When we entered the ward, we saw such bestial predators slink off into the shadows.

The warder called out Kate’s name. It took but a few moments for her to appear, not of her own volition, but shoved forward by fellow prisoners who, out of the maliciousness bred in prison, denied her the right to hide herself.

I confess I felt remorse as I looked upon her. She was not the comely, if well-used, girl I had seen the night before, but a beaten and bloody waif. Her clothes had been torn and soiled, and she smelled strongly of urine. Filth of some sort was streaked across her face and in her hair, and she had open and bleeding wounds stretching from her forehead to her chin. Her legs were shackled in irons, an unnecessary precaution for a woman like Kate, but she had no doubt been unable to afford their removal. Women such as you know, reader, would find themselves reduced to unstoppable tears or perhaps even rendered insensible by the treatment Kate received in her first few hours at Newgate, but her misfortunes only made her stony and remote. Perhaps it was not her first time in the great prison, and perhaps it was not the first time she had been used so ill.

I whispered to the warder to remove her chains. I would pay for her easement when the sight of my silver would not cause either of us a problem. He nodded and crouched down to unlock the irons; Kate neither thanked him nor acknowledged in any way that her state had changed.

I required a private audience, and for an additional shilling the warder provided me with a closet, illuminated only by a tiny slit of a window. After indulging himself in a knowing grin, he closed the door and bade me holler if I required assistance. It was an overcast day, and once inside it was hard to see in the dingy room, but I required not much light for my purposes. The only furniture, I was hardly surprised to note, was a narrow bed covered with a tattered blanket and a family of rats that scurried away as we entered.

I hardly knew enough of her to speculate how the interview would proceed—I knew not if she would fight or cower. She sat quietly upon the bed and looked down, neither asking nor expecting anything of me. “Well, Kate,” I said, forcing an ironic smile, lost upon her in the dusky cell. “You’ve landed yourself in a bit of a situation, haven’t you?”

“I won’t ’ang for something I didn’t do.” She so struggled to master her voice, I thought her jaw might snap from the pressure. She looked me full in the face. I could not mistake that she meant to challenge me. “Ah, Christ,” she muttered, “ah, Jemmy.”

“I am sorry for what happened to Jemmy,” I told her softly.

She shook her head. “Jemmy,” she muttered. Her head sunk low, almost to her lap. “Well, ’e won’t be ’itting me no more, least. Or making me ’oard that what we can’t sell to no one without Wild finding out. This is all ’is fault, I reckon.” She suddenly looked up and met my eye. “And yer fault too. And I won’t ’ang for what I didn’t do.”

“No,” I said. “You won’t hang, Kate, if we strike a bargain. I shall see to it. I cannot guarantee you will not be transported—but perhaps seven years in the colonies will help you to recover from the misfortunes of your life, as well as to escape the clutches of an unforgiving benefactor such as Mr. Wild.” She started at the sound of his name. “This is what I shall do for you, Kate. I shall give you money enough to keep yourself away from the common sort while you stay here. Further, I shall use my influence with the magistracy to make sure that if you are convicted you are not sentenced to hang. I shall do what I can to see you acquitted—I don’t want Wild to earn any money from your misfortune—but I can only promise you that you will not hang. Do you understand?”

“Aye,” she said, her lips turning in a hint of an ironic smile. “I understand yer afraid I’ll tell them about yer.” She used the ends of her hair to wipe blood and filth from her forehead.

“No, I’m not, Kate. For you don’t know my name and you don’t know who I am. Further, were I to be brought forward, I would be forced to tell the court the truth—that I killed Jemmy while he tried to rob me—while he tried to rob me with your help. I can keep you alive if you cooperate with me, but if you force my hand you will hang. You are angry to be sure. You have been betrayed by Wild; I understand that. But if you want to stay alive, you had better listen to what I tell you. I know you do not like me—you see me as the reason that you are here, but you must understand that I am the only person who is able to help you presently.”

“Why should ya ’elp me?” She did not look up, but her voice was steady and demanding.

“Not out of kindness, I assure you. Because it is in my best interest to do so.” I kept my voice calm as I spoke to her. She saw I had a little power—enough to bribe the guard. For a woman in Kate’s position, having a few pounds in one’s purse and a mighty wig upon one’s head was no great distance from influence with the courts. It was all a lie, of course. I had no influence, but I had to do everything in my power to keep her quiet. In return I would help as best I could, and make her believe that my influence would be enough. “Do not think you can harm me, Kate. You can make my life more complicated—no more. In exchange for promising to avoid these complications, I shall promise to keep you alive, and if I can, to have you declared innocent of this murder.”

The look about her face did not change, but I now had her attention. She stared at me for many minutes before speaking. “What do ya want of me?”

I had accomplished
something,
for she now showed at least that she was willing to listen to me. “Two things only. First, that you do not mention me in any way. I care not what you tell the court—but you are not to mention that a gentleman did this thing. Jemmy was a dangerous man with many enemies far more likely than you to shoot him. For all I care, you can hint that there was a rivalry with Jemmy and Wild—that should prove a just recompense for his treachery. But you must not mention me nor your own knowledge of this accident. Do you understand, Kate? There is no evidence to support a conviction. Tell the court you know nothing, and the evidence will work for you—the facts will do you more service than your words ever could.”

“Why should I trust you or the court?” she asked. “They ’ang them they want and free them they want. With Wild sayin’ I done it, I’ll never live to see Christmas ’less I plead my belly.” I wondered if she was indeed pregnant, or if she simply intended to plead her belly, as so many women did, to grant them a few extra months of life.

“You overestimate Wild’s influence,” I said, finding no alternative than to lie boldly, “and you underestimate mine. You can see I am a gentleman and that I have powerful friends who are gentlemen. Do you understand what I have been telling you? If you admit to being there, to seeing what you saw, you will be admitting to a capital crime—if not the crime for which you are sitting here. If you are quiet, you cannot be convicted. Do you want to live?”

“Of course I want to live,” she said bitterly. “Don’t ask me foolish questions.”

“Then you will do as I tell you.”

She eyed me boldly. “Give me any reason to doubt ya, any reason at all, I’ll tell what I know, and the devil take the consequences. That’s why I want ya should tell me yer name.”

“My name,” I repeated.

“Aye. Tell me yer name, or I don’t do what yer ask.”

“My name,” I said, attempting to think of some lie I might easily remember. “My name is William Balfour.” Perhaps I should have picked a name with even more distance from myself, but it was the first thing that came to mind. Besides, I thought, any confusion I might dump on Balfour was no less than the pompous fellow deserved.

Kate studied me. “I know a William Balfour, and yer not ’im. A niggardly gentleman what used to come see me. But I reckon there might be more’n one of such a name.”

Indeed there might be, I silently agreed, wondering if the Balfour she knew was the Balfour who had hired my services. But I could not worry myself about which whores a man like Balfour visited. “There is another, more important matter that we must attend to. As you know, I came to you to retrieve a friend’s goods. There was something in particular that he believed to be in his pocketbook, but that was not in there. Did you take anything from that book, Kate?”

She shrugged. “I don’t remember ’im. One drunken fool’s the same as the next.”

I sighed. “Where do you keep the goods you take?”

“Some Wild’s got—but most of the things I stashed before I went to tell him ’bout Jemmy.”

“What do you have stored now?”

“Wigs, watches . . .” She trailed off, as though forgetting of what she had been speaking.

I sighed. If Wild had the letters then I would have to tell Sir Owen that precisely what he wished to avoid had come to pass. “You know of no papers? A packet of letters, bound with a yellow ribbon, sealed with wax?”

“Oh, aye, the papers.” She nodded, strangely pleased with herself. “Quilt Arnold’s got those, ’e does. ’E thinks they’re worth somethin’. ’E saw ’em and said they must be some gentleman’s love letters—all smelling pretty and nice—and that such a gentleman would want ’em back, ’e said.”

I tried to disguise my relief. “Who is Quilt Arnold, and where might I find him?”

Quilt Arnold, it turned out, had been Jemmy’s competition for Kate’s affections before Jemmy had met with his unfortunate rendezvous with my ball of lead. He frequented an alehouse at the sign of the Laughing Negro located in Aldwych, near the river. She ran a similar buttock-and-twang scheme with Arnold there, but the pickings had been slimmer for the patronage had been poorer: mainly sailors and porters and others who could be taken for a few shillings at most. Kate had sent Arnold word after I’d put a hole in Jemmy, and he promised he would take care of her, although mainly what he did was load himself up with as much of Kate’s booty as he could carry and then advise her to talk to Wild.

“Have you any notion,” I asked Kate, “what exactly Quilt Arnold thinks these letters worth?”

“Oh, I reckon ’e expects to get ten or twenty pound, ’e does.”

I feared that this business was turning less and less profitable. I was loath to hand over twenty pounds to this blackguard, but I had no choice but to regain these letters. “Do you know where he keeps them?” If I could burgle the letters, I thought, rather than negotiate for them, I might save myself some time, money, and danger. Such was not to be the case.