Paul turned round to see the man to whom he’d talked beside the barrow. Before he could move, he was grabbed from behind in a bear hug and held by the bearded man who exerted steady pressure with his strong arms.
‘What’s your friggin’ game?’ he demanded.
Paul was trapped. His only hope of escape lay in taking immediate action against both of them. Otherwise, he’d be held by the bearded man, robbed by his accomplice then assaulted by the pair of them. He therefore responded quickly, kicking the young man in the stomach and making him double up in pain. Struggling against his captor, he flung his head back sharply so that he broke the man’s nose and elicited a howl of fury. At the same time, he rammed both elbows into his ribs then brought his heel down with full force on his toe. The bearded man had so many sources of anguish that he didn’t know which one to attend to first. He released Paul and put a hand to the blood dribbling from his nose. The young man started to flail away but it was a fleeting tussle. Paul pushed him backwards down the stairs and he rolled to the bottom where he lay in agony. As he fled from the building, Paul made a point of stepping on the man’s chest.
Before the two men could recover enough to pursue him and wreak their revenge, Paul trotted off through the narrow lanes and didn’t stop until he reached Covent Garden. The fruit was more enticing there and he felt much safer. Somehow he’d given himself
away in Seven Dials and learnt a valuable lesson. He could at least cross the district off the list of places he intended to visit. Tom O’Gara and Moses Dagg were not there. Two such unusual visitors would not go unnoticed by the sharp-eyed young man he’d met beside the wheelbarrow. If they were there, Paul decided, the man would have sought money for offering his assistance. As it was, he’d chosen to take it by force with the aid of his bearded friend. The two men were criminals who worked hand in glove. It gave Paul great amusement to think that they were now comparing their injuries and bemoaning their bad luck.
The Irishmen were soon displaced from his mind by Hannah Granville. He could imagine the look of horror on her face, if she’d seen him tussle with the two men. The fact that he’d escaped with comparative ease would not have reassured her. What would trouble her was that he’d gone into the volatile area of Seven Dials on his own, taking unnecessary risks as a matter of course. The moment it was all over, Paul had shrugged off the memory of the assault on him. Hannah would dwell on it at length. He racked his brains to find a way to win her back. One obvious way was to plead with her, promising to comply with her wishes while in fact having no intention of doing so. But that would mean their romance would be based on a resounding lie. Sooner or later it would become evident and she would consider the deception to be unforgivable.
Instead of thinking about his own predicament, Paul was moved to consider hers. Hannah was patently troubled. It may have been as a result of their acrimonious parting or it might be that she was ailing in some way. What was depressingly clear to him during the performance the previous night was that she was merely walking through a part she’d hitherto played to the hilt. Was she pining for him or was she ill? Had the former been the case, she’d surely
have accepted the flowers as a token of his love so he ruled out that explanation. Hannah must be unwell. That was why she’d struggled onstage. Paul felt impelled to express his sympathy in some way. Yet even as he wondered how, he saw that there was a drawback. To be aware of her sickness, he’d have to admit that he’d been in the audience watching her and he drew back from that. He certainly didn’t wish her to know that he’d joined the others at the stage door and waited for a glimpse of her because it revealed his desperation.
His other dalliances had always come to a natural end, leaving both partners with pleasant memories rather than injured feelings. Paul had never had to cope with an abrupt separation before, hence his confusion over how best to proceed. Hannah Granville was a woman so used to getting her own way that she expected instant obedience to her demands. Whenever someone tried to exert control over his life, Paul responded with defiance. He and Hannah had reached an
impasse
. His fierce pride was matched by her vanity, his need of independence by her need to control. On balance, therefore, he thought it best to do nothing. To approach Hannah directly would be seen as a sign of weakness and Paul wanted to maintain a position of strength. Fears about her health could be allayed by discreet enquiries. She need never know that he was asking about her.
Meanwhile, he had plenty to keep him occupied. O’Gara and Dagg might not be hiding in Seven Dials but they were certainly somewhere in London and his job was to find them. Dismissing Hannah from his thoughts, Paul set off to renew his search elsewhere.
‘
Nothing
?’ cried Micah Yeomans in disbelief.
‘Nothing at all, I’m afraid.’
‘Is everyone blind?’
‘They can’t help us, Micah.’
‘What’s the point of paying informers, if they can’t give us the information we need? How many have you spoken to, Alfred?’
‘I’ve talked to dozens of them,’ said Hale.
‘Did you tell them how important it is to find these fugitives?’
‘I did my best to do so.’
‘So why have you come back empty handed?’
‘They’ve let us down.’
‘Then it’s time to bang heads together.’
‘I tried that, Micah.’
‘They’re idiots – every damn one of them!’
‘They’ve helped us in the past.’
‘We need their assistance
now
.’
The Runners had met at The Peacock. Any hopes that Yeomans had held of good news had been dashed. None of the informers they kept throughout London knew of the whereabouts of the two American prisoners who’d escaped from Dartmoor. Since most of them inhabited the rougher areas of the city, Yeomans had expected that at least one of them would have caught wind of the new arrivals and been able to point the Runners in the right direction.
He drained his tankard of ale and belched loudly. A thought surfaced.
‘Someone is lying, Alfred.’
‘They swore that they’d seen nothing.’
‘What they’ve seen is what the newspapers have told them – there’s a reward for the capture of Tom O’Gara and Moses Dagg and it’s a tempting one. Instead of helping us to find the two Americans, they’ll try to do it on their own account so that they can claim the money for themselves.’
‘I warned them against doing that, Micah.’
‘Then they might do something even worse.’
‘What’s that?’
‘They could
sell
the information to Peter and Paul Skillen.’
‘God forbid!’
‘That’s the last thing we want.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Hale, ‘though we must remember that the Home Secretary did call on the Skillen brothers instead of us.’
‘I don’t need reminding of that,’ said Yeomans with asperity. ‘It’s one of the many mistakes made by the Doctor.’
It was the nickname of Henry Addington, 1st Viscount Sidmouth, and it was not a flattering one. The son of a physician, he’d spent his entire career at the mercy of his critics. His ill-fated reign as Prime Minister came in the wake of William Pitt’s administration and the two men were compared in a cruel epigram devised by George Canning. ‘Pitt is to Addington, as London is to Paddington.’ Though the judgement hung thereafter around Sidmouth’s neck like an invisible albatross, he bore it with great fortitude. The Runners were well aware of the low esteem in which the Doctor was held by his political enemies and by some wicked cartoonists. Whenever the Home Secretary exasperated them, as now, they joined the ranks of his detractors.
‘The Doctor is a blockhead,’ said Yeomans, irritably.
‘He never takes our advice.’
‘No, Alfred, he’d rather listen to those abominable twins.’
‘What do they have that we lack?’
‘Nothing,’ said the other, ‘except good fortune.’
‘Maybe they pay their informers more than we do.’
‘Gully Ackford holds the purse strings. He knows who and where to bribe.’
‘There was a time when
you
did, Micah.’
‘Hold your tongue,’ snapped Yeomans, thrusting the tankard at him, ‘and refill this for me. Anger makes me thirsty and I am furious.’
Glad to escape his companion’s rage, Hale went across to the bar. Yeomans was left to brood on the situation. It was vital to convince the Home Secretary that the Runners were far more competent than two brothers with no sanctioned position in law enforcement. Yeomans saw it as a battle between hardened professionals like himself and rank amateurs like the Skillens. While he was wholly committed to the task of policing London, they were mere dabblers.
When he felt a touch on his arm, he thought that Hale had returned with the tankard of ale. Instead, he saw that he was standing next to a chimney sweep whose sooty hand was on the Runner’s sleeve. Yeomans shook it off at once.
‘Don’t you dare touch me!’ he said, scowling.
‘I’m sorry, sir.’
‘Stand off before some of your filth gets on me.’
‘I’m told I could find Mr Yeomans here.’
‘Well, you’ve found him and I don’t want my chimney swept so you can get out of here before I kick you out.’
Donal Kearney took a precautionary step backwards and held up black palms.
‘I mean you no harm. Mr Yeomans. I’ve come to help you.’
‘And who says that I need help?’
‘They should be arrested, sir.’
‘What are you babbling about?’ asked Yeomans with a sneer. ‘I’ve got better things to do than to listen to the tittle-tattle of a chimney sweep.’
‘My youngest son told me, you see.’
‘I don’t care a fiddler’s fuck what the little runt told you.’
‘I set him on to one of Fallon’s brats,’ said Kearney with a sly grin, ‘and he got the truth out of him. It’s
them
, Mr Yeomans.’
The Runner glowered. ‘You’re asking for trouble, aren’t you?’
‘It’s them two Americans what escaped from prison.’
Having raised his fist to strike, Yeomans froze in position.
‘Could you say that again?’ he asked.
‘Those prisoners who escaped – I know where they are, sir.’
‘
How
do you know?’
‘I live in the same tenement.’
Yeomans lowered his arm. ‘And where’s that?’
‘It’s behind Orchard Street, sir. There’s lots of us Irish there.’
‘And you’re telling me that Tom O’Gara and Moses Dagg are hiding there?’
‘I’d swear it on the eyes of my children!’ vowed Kearney.
Yeomans looked at him more closely and decided that he was in earnest. At that moment, Hale came back with a full tankard in his hand.
‘Go back and buy another one, Alfred,’ said Yeomans, taking the drink from him. ‘I’m sure that our friend here would like a sup of ale as well. Unless I’m very much mistaken, he’s just brought us the intelligence we sorely need.’
When he left the offices of Rendcombe and Spiller, he was in high spirits. Peter Skillen had the names of two likely suspects, both of whom had worked for respected lawyers and been unable to find the same level of employment elsewhere. When he called at the first of the two addresses he’d been given, he was distressed to learn that he’d come to a house of mourning. A neighbour explained that Peter would be unable to speak to Adam Tate because the man had died a few days earlier.
‘The rumour is he died by his own hand,’ confided the neighbour.
‘Is there any likelihood of that?’ asked Peter.
‘Mr Tate was very upset when he lost his job.’
‘How did he live?’
‘He struggled, sir. He was too proud to borrow money so he did without. If you want my opinion, I think he starved himself to death. The last time I saw him he was skin and bone. It’s a shame, sir.’
The neighbour was clearly ready to hold forth on the decline in the fortunes of Adam Tate but they had no interest for Peter. If the man had died, by whatever means, a few days ago then he couldn’t have been the scrivener who drew up the document for the American prisoners. That had been dated after Tate’s death. Peter had to look elsewhere. As he set off in search of the second address, his erstwhile high spirits had shrunk into a distant hope. Realistically, he couldn’t expect to locate the person he was after so easily. It might well be that neither of the names he’d been given would be of any practical use. When he eventually found the house he wanted, he used the knocker without any real conviction. There was a long wait before the door was unbolted and thrown open by a podgy woman in a dowdy dress. Her resentful frown vanished when she saw a gentleman on her doorstep.
‘Can I help you, sir?’ she asked, politely.
‘I’m looking for Mr Nason.’
‘That’s my husband, sir.’
‘Is he in at the moment?’
‘I’m afraid that he isn’t,’ replied Posy. ‘He’s out on business. Is there a message I can take for him? My husband is excellent at his job. Whatever it is that you want, I’m sure that he can oblige.’
Peter took his cue from her because it suited him to act as a
prospective client. It would remove any suspicion from the woman’s mind and allow him to probe into the character of Jubal Nason and the nature of the services he provided.
‘Am I right in thinking that your husband works from home?’
‘Yes, he does, sir. We’ve a room he uses as an office.’
‘I believe that he once worked for a lawyer in Portland Place.’
She became defensive. ‘He left because of a misunderstanding.’
‘It couldn’t have been because of any deficiency in the quality of his work,’ said Peter, trying to put her at ease. ‘The person who recommended him to me was full of praise for him.’
‘Oh,’ she said, relaxing. ‘That’s good to hear.’
‘What I really need is for some documents to be copied.’
‘Then you’ve no cause to look any further, sir. My husband is an experienced scrivener. He’ll copy out whatever you wish.’
‘That’s reassuring.’
‘His charges are very reasonable.’
‘I’m always ready to pay well for work of quality,’ said Peter. ‘When do you expect Mr Nason to return?’
‘He told me that he’d be no more than an hour or so.’
‘Then I’ll call back.’
‘You don’t have to do that, sir,’ she said, afraid that he might take his custom elsewhere. ‘My husband will be very upset that he missed you. He may only be half an hour, even less. Why don’t you step inside and wait?’