The Hangman's Child Page 19

  It had been necessary to use counterfeit acceptance-stamps, carved from slate, on a dozen of the bills. Every other endorsement was genuine, the bill unimpeachable, tallying with all records, the stamp placed just where that scrutineer always placed it. No clerk was likely to query Miss Jolly's immaculate design. At the worst, with a timely warning, Samuel and Jack Rann would have left the

  Great Eastern Hotel or the Marquis of Granby before the first enquiries began. The messenger alone would be left to explain the fraud.

  One messenger had been detained at a bank. At Tomnoddy's signal, Miss Jolly scurried to the Great Eastern to alert Samuel and Rann. The two men withdrew and watched from a distance for the messenger or the police. Ten minutes later, however, the messenger returned with a sealed packet of Bank of England bonds.

  A greater risk was that the duffer, as Samuel was apt to call the messengers privately, might smell out the scheme and help himself to the contents of an envelope. Tomnoddy, otherwise unknown to the dupes, was to confront any man who varied from the direct route back to the Great Eastern Hotel.

  On the second day, the messenger who emerged from the City Bank, at the corner of Bishopsgate and Threadneedle Street, turned towards the river, rather than to the hotel where Samuel waited. He had gone a dozen steps when Tomnoddy tapped his shoulder and asked if he had lost his way. The messenger blushed, murmured something of lung tonic from an apothecary, and was escorted to the hotel. Cautioned by threats of dismissal and losing his character, he was plainly to be trusted for the remaining days. He never saw Tomnoddy again, his visits to the banks shadowed by Maggie or Jack Rann.

  Samuel chortled and rubbed his hands as the bonds were delivered. He swore there was 'no reason why it should ever end'. Each evening, Tomnoddy took the documents and added them to those already bundled under a board in the shabby upper tenement of Preedy's Rents. Before the end of the week there were twenty-seven bonds, representing more than £9,000. Jack Rann knew the loyalty of Short-Armed Tom. Moreover, Tomnoddy understood nothing of bills of exchange or bank bonds. Within his hidden world of Preedy's Rents and the tosher's hunting ground of sewers and outfalls, no policeman in London had heard of him. He was the safest custodian of all.

  Bills of exchange accepted by the banks were taken each evening to the central Bank Clearing House near Lombard Street. In this raucous financial market-place, their value would be credited to a bank against its day's debits, which it incurred when bills of its own were accepted by other banks. No scrutineer queried the bank-bills presented on behalf of Mr Wilberforce. A week or two might pass before the first duplicates were presented and the hunt began.

  Of the bills that Rann brought away from the vaults, seven were bank post-bills to the value of £950. These promised to pay any bearer of the note a sum of money and were as easily negotiable as bank notes. However, they were redeemable within a fortnight, during which the duplicates now lying in the Cornhill vaults would also be presented. To liquidate the stolen post-bills in London might alert the banks too quickly. If they were cashed in the provinces, there would be a further delay of several days before they could be suspect.

  As James Patrick supervised the last of the messengers' errands, Mr Wilberforce travelled, as he said, To Brighton and Back for Three-and-Six'. High above a stretch of glass-green sea, he stepped into the sunlight from the freshly painted station with its temple pillars of cast-iron and its arched glass canopies. For the benefit of the Southern Counties Bank, he had chosen to be Mr Samuel, prospective resident of the Royal York Hotel. The Southern Counties was a large institution but, being peculiar to the area, would take longer than its competitors to suspect a fraud. At Richardson's Bank in Western Road, which took special care of Indian Army officers, he would be Major Wilberforce. From previous use of the alias, he had a useful range of small talk.

  At Richardson's bank, Major Wilberforce was the prospective purchaser for himself and three sisters of a seaside mansion in Brunswick Square, Hove. He hesitated as he handed the head-cashier the bills.

  'I really wonder, you know, whether I should take so much money.'

  The cashier looked puzzled and Major Wilberforce admired his own master stroke. Whoever knew a trickster to decline the booty?

  'I wonder whether it is wise, you understand, to be carrying such an amount

  The cashier had the answer, as Major Wilberforce knew he would.

  'My clerk shall accompany you to Brunswick Town

  Major Wilberforce shook his head, such courtesy quite defeating him, gallant old soldier though he was.

  'That is kind,' he smiled. 'Exceptionally kind.'

  Brunswick Square was a ten-minute walk. Its fine white houses with their bow-fronted drawing-rooms promised evenings of waltz and quadrille. Morning sunshine danced on the waves where Brunswick Lawns lay open to the sea. The major turned to his escort.

  'Thank you so much, my dear young fellow. I can manage now, these last few steps. So very civil of you

  He walked slowly on, glancing once to ensure that the young man had gone from sight round the corner. Then he turned his back on the white houses and the sparkling tide. Soapy Samuel, thin and sleek, sped for the railway station again, sharp-faced and white-haired, nose forward in his urgency, a hunting rodent.

  Next afternoon, Mr Wilberforce and his clerk attended the Private Drawing Office of the Bank of England. Their visit concerned the settlement of their deceased client's estate. The Private Drawing Office was divided from the adjoining Bill Office and Public Drawing Office only by wooden partitions. It was a new banking-hall, tall windows recessed between pillars, where the bank's bonds and bills might be redeemed. Across its centre stood a polished wooden counter, attended by three clerks. A bank porter in red jacket, white breeches, top-boots and silk hat, was positioned at either end.

  A porter led the client to the counter. Mr Wilberforce had consolidated the proceeds of the client's estate in Bank of England bonds, recognized by the clerk as having been issued at the bank two or three weeks before. They were now negotiable and Mr Wilberforce wished them exchanged for Bank of England notes in denominations of fifty pounds. The clerk might think it unusual for such a sum to be dispersed by bank notes to the beneficiaries. But provided an attorney discharged his duties to the estate, the precise method was his own affair.

  In its pillared grandeur, the Private Drawing Office had the silence of a great cathedral. Jack Rann watched and supposed that a smartly dressed attorney's clerk was the last man in London to be arrested here as the fugitive of a murderous tap-room brawl in Clerkenwell. The bank clerk looked up at Samuel's white hair and noble smile. He glanced down again. The bonds had been recorded and bank notes were being counted.

  Rann knew that Bank of England notes were registered on issue, the holder's name traceable. Such was the fear of counterfeiting. But after such care, these notes might be taken a few hundred yards to the Continental Bank in Lombard Street and changed for Bank of Scotland notes, which were neither recorded nor traceable. Scottish notes might then be changed at will for sovereigns, American gold eagles or currency or coin of any denomination. This could in turn be used to buy bonds or stocks in any name the purchaser cared to write upon them.

  'Oh, Pandy Quinn, Pandy Quinn,' he said softly to himself. 'What a dodge it was - and what a man you were!'

  In four days more it might be over. Then, as the banks were presented with identical bills of exchange, the trail of the money would be lost among anonymous notes and coins, bills and bonds, bought and sold - and bought and sold again. A little less than £11,000, Samuel had thought. Jack Rann was not disposed to trust Samuel in everything but in this he thought he might be relied upon.

  There had been one disagreement.

  'We whack the lot,' Rann had said. 'Pandy and me decided. Equal shares.'

  Samuel made a querulous dissent. But Pandy knew how soon, once a job was done, the quarrelling began. And how easily quarrelling might turn to betrayal.

  'Better whack the
smash and be over the hills,' he had said philosophically. 'Better than snatch the lot and be informed on.'

  In any case, Rann had argued with Samuel, how else were they to value Miss Jolly's penmanship against Samuel's impersonations? Lord Tomnoddy as custodian against Maggie Fashion's seduction of Arthur Trent? And Mag Fashion, being Pandy's girl, was prime for a share. Each would have enough to cross the world and live a lifetime. With Pandy gone there were five: Jack Rann, Samuel, Miss Jolly, Mag, Tomnoddy.

  Rann looked up again and watched the clerk entering the numbers of Samuel's notes in the register. Whack the smash, as Pandy said. Enough for all.

  In four days Rann himself would be gone. Several men of his acquaintance had found cover in the flood of pauper migration. But he swore now he would be no emigrant, drawn through the streets of Liverpool in a crowded cart, left among ragged starvelings at Waterloo Dock, poked for lice by a Yankee commissioner, chosen and herded aboard a wooden six-weeks transport.

  A man might travel instead on a steamer, first-class cabin-passenger to New York or Philadelphia for twenty-five pounds, and never be troubled by a single question at departure or destination. Next week, before the first of Miss Jolly's forgeries was examined, he might be in another world.

  Pandy Quinn had told him, 'Let what name you go by be written on a Bank of England bill or bond for five hundred pounds. A man needs no passport but that.'

  Samuel turned from the counter, features composed and without expression. The sleek white hair clung thinly to his temples. Now he need only change the Bank of England notes to any coin or currency that was not recorded.

  An hour later, Rann sat in an arched window of Garraway's Coffee House, on the corner of Change Alley, a shabby cul-de-sac. He watched the Continental Bank across Lombard Street. The bulk of the funds was now purchasing bonds in the name of James Patrick and four others, beneficiaries of the estate which Mr Wilberforce was winding up. The rest of the money would be in Bank of Scotland notes, gold sovereigns and five-dollar eagles.

  Rann stared past the menu boards with which Garraway's was placarded, watching the green-liveried bank messengers and the clerks in tall hats and frock-coats. Samuel had warned him that the counting or weighing of sovereigns might be a lengthy business. Rann was to watch the side door, by which a policeman and a bank official would enter if there was trouble. But though it might be uncommon for an attorney to buy bonds with bank notes rather than with cheques, it was not remotely illegal.

  Ten minutes after the half-hour, Samuel reappeared, crossing the street with his scuttling furtiveness. He passed Garraway's window without a glance at Rann and turned into Baum & Son, at 58 Lombard Street, dealers in foreign currency. If a man changed £1,000 in Bank of England notes for United States gold eagle coins, it was not remarkable in a major house of this kind. Then Samuel reappeared, opened the glass door of the coffee-house and joined Rann at a table furthest removed from the other customers.

  'The way you walk, you look like a blackguard,' Rann said cheerfully as the old man sat down. 'That's half your trouble.'

  'What I look like, Handsome Jack, ain't neither here nor there. It's who I am that counts. Mr Wilberforce of Lavery, Stokes, and Froggart, attorneys-at-law, Regent Street, Cambridge.'

  'Which never existed,' Rann said dismissively.

  Samuel arched his eyebrows in surprise.

  'Which does exist, Jack Rann. I looked 'em up. Asked about 'em. You won't find a more estimable firm.' Rann looked incredulous.

  'Then you might have sold us all!' he said furiously. 'Suppose someone from a bank had written to Cambridge?'

  Samuel chuckled.

  'You don't think, Jack Rann. Why should they write? The first banks dealt with a bishop, a joint stock partner, and a guardian in chancery. Never an attorney. To be in-and-out in a week was always our plan, and we done it. Suppose the big ones round here, that met Mr Wilberforce the last day or two, were to write now. What's it matter? We'll be gone in a few days. No time now for them to write and get an answer. And with bills of exchange, we never went back to a bank where we'd already been. That's important: never go back to be recognized. Even suppose the jig's up and they could follow the money this far. They'd waste a week in Cambridge, ferreting, while you and me and the rest is travelling further off with every hour. See?'

  Jack Rann shrugged.

  'Two more days,' Samuel went on. 'Three more post-bills to be changed for cash. Monday morning, I'm Dr Wilberforce colonial bishop again, staying in Oxford at the Golden Cross off the Cornmarket. I can do Oxford and back by the Paddington train. Wilson Scrimgeour's Commercial Bank. Used to handling coins by the ton. What you need to remember Jack, is that you and Pandy never had all the answers. Locks you may know; walls you may climb; but with banks, my son, you are green as a leek and soft as new cheese.'

  Jack Rann looked about him, his mouth bitter and tight but his eyes uneasy.

  'You ain't seen Oxford yet, Sammy. And who knows you never may?'

  For reasons that Rann himself could never have imagined, he was about to be proved right.

  FIVE

  HANDSOME JACK

  26

  In the warm air of Saturday morning, Tomnoddy and Samuel paused to watch a street-circus. A temporary platform stood on waste ground near Wapping Pier. Its makeshift stage was enclosed at the back and the wings by a tall canvas triptych. Above this, the windows of tenements could be seen on one side and the tall masts of the docks on the other. The canvas was painted with scenes of Circassian horsemen and dancing maidens, jungle lions and rajahs on jewelled elephants.

  The childish audience was silent before the magic of Abanazar in his turban and evening cloak, and the feats of Goliath the strong man. Both were assisted by Madame Cynthia, her flaxen hair worn on her shoulders and fringed in the style of a Saxon warrior-maiden.

  The strings of a three-piece band played a gliding waltz as Goliath in a black leotard presented Madame Cynthia to the onlookers.

  'No more strength in him than you nor me,' Samuel said, 'only fat.'

  Madame Cynthia, firm and aggressive, crossed the stage with a paperbound volume, two inches thick, her bust carried high in a tight bodice, showing the same self-assured swagger of her backside in the black fleshings.

  Goliath took the volume. Bowing over it, he breathed and snarled a little. Then, as if it were gossamer, he tore it across, and across again.

  'Same as you could do,' Samuel said, 'suppose it was baked in an oven first. That got no more body than burnt paper, though they don't let it bake black.'

  Goliath was now engaged in bending an iron bar across his chest.

  'Work it in a vice first,' Samuel remarked, 'until it's ready to snap.'

  'You got all the tricks, ain't you, Sam?' Lord Tomnoddy said admiringly. 'You might go on the stage yourself.' Samuel chortled at the absurdity of it.

  'Not but what I wouldn't mind bending that Cynthia Smith over my chest, Tom. That's a trick for me. There again, you was never down Brighton with the Swell Mob for the races. That Jennifer Khan, the Asian Venus, in them tight trousers, riding the circus ring with her bum in the air.'

  Tomnoddy was about to reply when there was a movement in the audience, adults and children pushing their way to the street and the docks.

  'Found-drowned,' a woman said, impatient for the spectacle. 'Fancy girl from Ma Martileau's.'

  Samuel followed Tomnoddy to the wooden steamboat pier beyond the quay.

  'It's the outfall, Sammy. It got to be.'

  A claw worked in Samuel's entrails. Mother Martileau's was Bragg's house. He told himself there was not a chance in ten thousand it could touch Rann or Pandy Quinn. But the claw dug tighter in his guts.

  They walked out on the pier with a smaller crowd, looking diagonally over the shallows to a muddy foreshore. The flood was still running, waves jumping like a shoal of fish in the sunlight. The stone quay was lined with bystanders looking down at the uncovered flats. A dozen men on the sleek mud stood round a shape th
at might have been a bundle of cast-off clothes.

  Tt ain't Miss Jolly,' Tomnoddy said quietly, 'nor Mag Fashion.'

  'No,' said Samuel quietly, 'but from Ma Martileau's House, in them clothes and that long dark hair worn loose, I know her. I swear I saw her Sunday evening. While I was waiting in Trent's rooms, a girl in black with a veil rang the bell. She got that long hair. I half thought I knew her then but couldn't place her. In a hat and veil but with her hair down, like that - like a doxy does that's showing for hire. Ma Martileau's house! That got to be Pretty Jo, as they call her. I should've twigged last Sunday, Trent having photographs of her in his safe. I thought he must've bought them down Holywell Street, not that he might know her.'

  'And you never found out what she wanted?'

  'No, Tom, and never will. If it's Ma Martileau's house, that's her. I'll bet on it.'

  Two more men were bringing a shutter down the stairs from the quay. A boatman on the pier called out, 'Found this morning. Made away with herself, the doctor says.'

  Lord Tomnoddy looked carefully at the men by the body.

  'Policeman Fowler,' he said softly.

  Samuel studied the group, picking out Fowler by his fawn suiting. The examination was over, the doctor and his assistant turning away. The men with the shutter were lifting the girl's body, wet black clothes huddled round her and her feet bare. Samuel watched them with growing dismay.

  'Suffering God!' he said sharply. 'Look at him!'

  'Who?'

  Samuel took a step away, drawing back behind the crowd. 'Him, stood back from Fowler. Looking this way! See?' Tomnoddy stared and saw the man, whose frock-coat and tall hat had not at first made him seem like a policeman. 'Private-clothes, Sam?'

  Samuel nodded and swallowed, like a man confessing his sickness.

  'Verity. I know him and he knows me. Whitehall Division. Talk of Brighton, swell men like Sealskin Kite and Old Mole? He coopered the pair of 'em in Patcham railway tunnel. And he put that Jennifer Khan in a place where the turnkeys kept her dancing. Why the fuck's he here when he's Whitehall Division? You see how he looked straight this way? He knows something.'