Sergeant Verity and the Blood Royal (2 page)

The Lieutenant laughed good-naturedly at this rebuke. It cost him nothing. He patted the wash-leather courier bag.

'Take the chinkers, old friend. Count 'em and see you ain't been robbed. I shall have a minute or two close with the young Khan doxy. If she answers true to form, the dealing's done. I don't choose to stand idling where dogs and trackers can find us.'

'Not a whimper, not a yelp,' said Temple confidently. 'Hear 'cm a mile off on a calm night.'

He took the bag of coins, loosing the string at its neck. Taking up a dark lantern and opening its shutter, the Lieutenant crossed the path to Maggie. Her golden blonde tresses had a childish look in the way in which she wore them loose to her shoulders. In the oil light he surveyed the hazel eyes with their dark lashes, the pale firm features and the outline of her nineteen-year-old figure. She was a little too short to be a beauty, though her body seemed to him coltish rather than stocky. As he turned her chin to and fro, the Lieutenant promised himself that the young woman would prove to be an earner in a thousand before he had done with her. In this matter, at least, his expertise was universally acknowledged. A blush warmed her pale face at his voice.

'You may top and tail your tawny Jenny to your heart's content, missy, my word upon it. Only remember, if you please, that all pleasures have a price and a bill of reckoning.'

As the Lieutenant had promised, it was Jennifer's sullen, tawny skinned appeal which formed the greater attraction. He led her aside and questioned her expressionlessly for several minutes, his thumbs braced against the gold-topped stick which he held across his chest, as though he might strike her with it at the least provocation. Instead, he handed it to her and watched the Asian girl draw a square with it upon a smooth patch of damp earth. Within the four furrows she traced out a design, hardly speaking or looking up at him as she did so. The Lieutenant surveyed the completed pattern, put two more questions to the girl, and nodded at her replies. Then he turned back to the carriage once more, twirling the stick in his fingers like a band-master.

'This is all a great bore, Charley Temple. Count the chinkers, old fellow, and have done. Take the gold and leave me the horseflesh. They shall put themselves about for my profit or taste the back of Lucifer's knuckles otherwise. I don't choose to catch God's own plague out here!'

Temple glanced up at the impeccable arrogance of the young man.

'All done,' he said ungraciously. 'Five hundred tens.' Then his face relaxed and he came towards the Lieutenant, extending his hand as though in a sudden gesture of goodwill to seal the bargain. The young man laughed and ignored the proffered hand.

'Dammit, Charley,' he said reasonably, 'I ain't that anxious to have the rings filched off m' very fingers! Be off with you, y' damned old scoundrel!'

Joseph Morant-Barham, more familiarly known as Joey Barham, heir to the heir of Earl Barham, stood in the shadows of the trees, a dozen yards from the beginning of the Baltimore and Ohio bridge. A frown of concern marked the fierce young subaltern's face, its black moustaches and sun-reddened cheeks suggesting several years of service in one of the Indian regiments. The frown was caused by the sudden reappearance of Charley Temple, riding his own horse and leading the mare on which one of the two girls had been carried half an hour before. Morant-Barham had not expected to see him return so soon and he felt a pang of apprehension in his throat at the thought that the plan was about to miscarry. But he underestimated his own ability as well as that of his partner. Joey Barham had laid his information well, and the men to whom he had given it were not about to lose their advantage. Apart from which, it was not in the nature of plans laid by his partner, the English Lieutenant, to miscarry.

The hooves of Charley Temple's horse woke the first echoes of the planking which formed the surface of the bridge on either side of the railroad track. With a hollow resonance, the sound rang back from the iron trellis-work whose span enclosed the sides. Before him, Charley Temple must have seen a safe and open road to follow home. Even Morant-Barham thought the bridge was deserted, his apprehension rising as Temple trotted his horse close to the Virginia end. He was almost across when a murmur of voices rose in the stillness of the evening and several horsemen cantered forward from the shadows which had concealed them, beyond the far end of the bridge. The murmuring came from twenty or thirty men on foot who now rose from the ground on either side of the further embankment and pressed forward behind their mounted leaders. Charley Temple, encumbered by the horse he was leading, hesitated a moment too long before attempting to wheel round and ride for the Maryland bank.

It hardly sounded as though he were in any danger. The tone of some of the voices calling his name was more that of his saloon companions recognizing their crony. Morant-Barham caught the derisive greeting.

'Charley Temple, you goddam horse-thief! Where away so fast, Charley?'

The bonhomie of the crowd on foot would seriously have worried Morant-Barham, had it not been for the silent resolve of the leaders mounted on horseback.

'That's him!' said one of the followers impatiently. 'Rode across the slave-line with a dark-skinned girl not an hour since and come back without her! Whether she's stole from whorehouse or Bible School makes no odds.'

'It ain't the first time, Charley Temple,' said one of the riders. 'You had this coming to you a long while!'

The softer, more assured voice was the one which caused Temple to panic. At the best he could hope for a back laid raw by the whips of the riders, but the coiled rope on one of the saddle-bows suggested that the best was too much to hope for. He turned his horse about, spurred hard for the Maryland side of the bridge, and bowed his head over the animal's neck. But somewhere in the darkness of the mob which followed him, the first shot rang clearly in the cold air. Morant-Barham watching from the shadows had waited his chance, never expecting that the confusion would provide one so propitious. Joey Barham had unslung his rifle at the first sight of Temple. The gun was a Baker muzzle-loader, proved by the British army in the Crimea as the most accurate of its kind. Temple was going to pass within ten yards of him but Morant-Barham knew there would be time for only one shot.

When the moment came, several of the pursuers were firing after Temple, though without much hope of hitting him at such range and speed. It was the riders who would overtake and bring him to justice in the end. Before that happened, Joey Barham knew he must finish the business. Revising his plan and his aim, he sighted down the barrel of the Baker at a more distant gap in the iron trellis-work of the bridge, the last which Temple might pass before the leaders of the mob seized him. With the assurance of a marksman, he stood very still, shutting out from his mind the shouting and confusion, watching the lamplit space between the girders with as much detachment as if he had been observing a theorem in geometry.

He aimed low, at the chest rather than the head, knowing that it would offer a fuller target. Charley Temple's shape flashed briefly behind the further struts and then came into full view. Morant-Barham, in a long five seconds, followed steadily with his aim and then, just as steadily, brought an even pressure to bear on the trigger. The rifle barked, deafening as a cannon at such range, and left Joey's ears singing with the shock. But Charley Temple had thrown up his arms in a pantomine gesture of despair and was now at the feet of his hunters. No one, in all the uproar, would question that a lucky shot from one of the pursuers had brought him down. Joey Barham kept very still among the trees, not even attempting to reload the rifle for his own defence. Then his heart seemed to stop and his throat to tighten as he heard someone on the bridge say with mingled impatience and amusement: 'Why, the cunning old rat ain't even dead yet!'

There was no more that Joey could do, but Charley Temple was in safe hands. While he shrilly and blasphemously protested his innocence, his body arching convulsively with a fear that was greater than pain, half a dozen men had hoisted him level with the iron parapet of the bridge. Morant-Barham looked for a rope round the scraggy neck as they lodged Temple above the swirling waters of the Potomac, but there was none. With a great communal howl they heaved him over, the body falling spread-eagled through the air while a stutter of small-arms fire opened on the moving target.

Joey Barham slung his rifle on his back and prepared to move gently away through the woods. Temple had hit one of the stone piers and was lying there motionlessly. Then, to Joey's surprise, the old thief raised his head, shook it, and began to crawl awkwardly like a broken insect. There was a yell from the men on the bridge, partly of hatred and partly of delight at finding that their vengeance could be further prolonged. Another patter of shots followed. The body on the stone pier jerked spasmodically under the impact of several bullets and then, at last, lay still.

Almost at once, there was a stillness in the crowd and Joey Barham was able to hear the crunching tread of a regiment on the march, approaching the far bank. Charley Temple's assassins scattered wildly, running in every direction as the yellow oil light caught the first flash of blue uniforms. Since John Brown's attempt on the national armory at Harper's Ferry', a militia company had been kept permanently on the alert. Even the mounted brothel bullies and the mob which followed them had barely time to despatch Charley Temple. But they were keen to set an example to other traders and emancipationists alike. They made it time enough.

A militia captain had halted his men on the far bank and was rapping out orders to various details. As the company broke up into smaller units, each with its allotted duty, Joey Morant-Barham turned away. He walked softly through the Maryland woods, climbing the obscure path by which he had come. His horse was still tethered to the trunk of a silver birch, not half a mile from the road which led across the narrow neck of Maryland and into Pennsylvania. His rendezvous with the Lieutenant, an hour later and five miles further on, was easily kept. The Pilentum stood by the roadside, its dark hood raised and its carriage-lamps flickering.

The Lieutenant listened to Morant-Barham’s account of the tragedy at the Baltimore and Ohio bridge. Then the young officer whinnied with laughter at the extent of the old man's folly.

'BY God, Joey! What a fellow will do for five thousand yellow boys! Ain't it justice, though, truly speaking?'

'And the girl ?' asked Morant-Barham, unamused. 'What of her?'

The Lieutenant rested a polished boot on the foot-board of the carriage and sighed.

'Joey, Joey, there was never a word of a lie in it. When she was fifteen the cove that owned her left Richmond for Philadelphia. By a stroke of fortune the missioners never got to her and the young fool never took her liberty. Our Miss Jennifer chose a full belly before starving in freedom. For a year or more, the cove put her naked up chimneys to clean 'em. She worked for him and he pleasured her, until she fancied herself in love, Joey! Then he gave up the sweepin' concern and took her back south. Cured her of love by selling her to a bawdy-house. Ain't remarkable she should look a bit surly, old fellow, is it?'

'And the rest?' asked Morant-Barham. 'Is it bono?'

The Lieutenant laughed.

'Oblige me, Joey, by giving a fellow a little credit! When our Khan doxy was a sweep, she was in a state that might have been black or white, boy or girl. She was put up chimneys in the great buildings of Philadelphia and the small. She mayn't drawn builder's plans of the main rooms, but there ain't nothing she couldn't tell you about chimneys. Now, Joey, I know enough of ground plans. While you were galloping after us just now, Miss Jennifer drew a sketch in the dust of the one thing lacking.'

'Oh yes?' said Morant-Barham nervously.

'She has cause to remember it, Joey, from torn skin and raw joints. The stacks and flues of the United States Federal Mint.'

Joey Barham whistled appreciatively.

'And the locks? Vault doors and strongroom?'

'Come now, Joey,' said the Lieutenant reasonably, 'a man must do something for himself. Where's the sport in it all otherwise?'

'A million,' Morant-Barham said thoughtfully, 'a million in gold!'

The Lieutenant frowned.

'Hold hard, Joey! I ain't Charley Temple to be bought and sold cheap. More than two million but perhaps not three. And no one to know that it's been done.'

Morant-Barham chortled and the Lieutenant turned to another topic.

'Joey, old fellow, take Miss Mag and ride the horse with her a bit. I've a mind to put the tawny doxy on her back in the carriage. Curse Charley Temple, but these Newgate japes do leave a fellow feelin' frisky!'

2

Department of the Treasury Pennsylvania Avenue Washington District of Columbia

18th of November 1859

Captain Jefferson Oliphant, of the United States Treasury, presents his compliments to Inspector Henry Croaker, of the Private-Clothes Detail, Metropolitan Police, London. Captain Oliphant presumes, on the basis of their meeting two years ago, to solicit Mr Croaker's advice in a matter of some delicacy and confidentiality.

Mr Croaker may have read, in the latest exchange of intelligence, of an unfortunate incident at Harper's Ferry, Virginia, where pro-slavery feeling was already roused by the attack of Captain John Brown and his conspirators on the national armory. Captain Oliphant refers to the subsequent murder by lynch law of a known thief and trader in slave-women, Charles Temple, alias Samuel Edge. Having stolen a young woman, Jennifer or Jenny Khan, from her master, Temple sold her across the state-line to a brothel trader in Maryland. Being watched secretly, he was seized upon his return, gravely wounded by a shot during the struggle, and thrown to his death from the Potomac railroad bridge. A company of militia arriving soon after put the mob to flight and recovered Temple's body from the stone pier of the bridge.