He told them what had happened at the house, dwelling with pleasure on the crash the chamber pot had made.
"She thought she'd killed him," he said. "She thought she was going to be taken away and hanged; you could see it in her face. . ."
"I expect she was alarmed by the shot, and dropped it accidentally," said Mr Wentworth. "I dare say you'll be able to remind her of that. But it doesn't sound as though he's been harmed by it."
He looked out of the window and banged on the cab roof.
"Cabbie!" he called. "Turn up here, if you will - I'll walk up to Clerkenwell - it's only a step from here to the Tench."
"The Tench?" said Margaret, as the bird-like little man got up.
"Clerkenwell Detention Centre," said Jim. "Goldberg?"
The lawyer nodded. "Take them on to the hospital," he said to the driver as he got out, and then to the others, "I'll join you there as soon as I can."
And he was off. Jim watched him limping briskly up the road and turned to Margaret.
"He's a decent feller," he said. "Where'd you find him?"
"Around the corner from the office," she said. "He was there all the time, while that other helpless cringing weakling of a solicitor allowed them to take everything away from her. . . If only she'd had him from the beginning!"
"What a hell of a mess," said Jim. "I feel I ought to be in six different places doing things. There's this crazy charge hanging over Sal, there's Harriet still missing. . ."
"There's the firm nearly bankrupt," said Margaret bleakly. "He's taken out as much as he could grab, and it was all perfectly legal."
Jim looked out of the window. The cab was turning in through the gateway of St Bartholomew's Hospital in Smithfield.
"Here we are," he said, and looked at his watch. "Can you stay with her?"
"Of course. There's nothing to do at the office; there's nothing much left in it."
"I'm going to find a telephone. There's a number where there might be some news."
He looked at Sally for a moment, stroked her short hair with a rough tenderness, and swung himself out and away.
A little earlier, in a police station in Lambeth, Con and Tony had been arguing with the sergeant. They'd been dragged there by the constable who'd found them in the stables, and both of them were pouring scorn on his reason for pulling them in.
"Babies?" spat Con. "Is he touched in his head, that copper?"
"I'll touch you in yours -" began the policeman, but Con ducked out of the way.
"Here, look -" said the sergeant. "Constable, what's the complaint?"
"His complaint is he's blind," said Tony. "Blind or touched."
"Quiet!" roared the sergeant.
"They was seen," said the constable with dignity, "in the charge of a baby or young child, what the landlord or proprietor of the stables, Mr Hackett, thought was likely to be stolen--"
Jeers from Con and Tony. Bang of the sergeant's fist on the desk.
"- so I apprehended 'em," finished the constable lamely.
"And where's the baby?"
"Ah. Well, that was with the other lot."
"What other lot?"
"The first lot, what he kicked out."
"He what? He sees one lot with a kid, kicks 'em out, and you go and pinch another lot to make up for it?"
"Well -"
"Constable, I congratulate you. You've invented a whole new theory of policing. We don't look for the ones as did the crime, we pick up the next lot that comes along. What a saving in boot-leather! What an astounding advance in criminal jurisprudence! What a--"
"Can we go then?" said Tony.
"No!" shouted both sergeant and constable together.
"But sergeant -" said Con, and Tony said, "Oh, go on, we ain't done nothing," and Con said, "We'll be a nuisance, man! Ye'll have to charge us with something!" and the sergeant said, "I'll charge you with a bloody regiment of cavalry -" and Tony said, "I'll send for me lawyer," and the constable said, "I'd like to see you try," and Con said, "Where's this baby, then?" and Tony said, "Ye can turn me pockets out and hang me upside down but ye won't find no baby on me," and the sergeant said, "That's enough of that," and Con said, "Who wants a baby anyway?" and the constable said, "They did, sarge - he swears it -" and Tony said, "He doesn't know what he's talking about," and Con said, "I know the law! Habeas corpulus! You got to produce the corpse! So where is it, eh?" and Tony said, "Begob! Where's the body?" and the sergeant said, "GET OUT!"
Five seconds later they were out of the building and around the corner. Con shook his head with pity and contempt.
"Can you believe the helplessness of them?" he said. "Now let's find the others. I bet Ravelli's."
"I bet the Dog and Duck."
Ravelli's was their shorthand for The South London Imported Italian Goods Warehouse, Antonio Ravelli e Figli, Props. Italian goods were pasta, dried fruits, olive oil and the like, and Antonio Ravelli and the Figli stored them in an unsupervised shed behind an engineering works off Duke Street. The gang had found a way in a month before, and discovered a sheltered little yard behind the main building, and had loosened a plank in the fence to make an easy exit. Con and Tony went there first, and struck lucky.
They were lucky enough, in fact, to find Bill and Liam having a fight in the yard, with most of the gang enthusiastically watching and placing bets.
"What's got into them?" said Con to the nearest spectator, as he eased himself through the hole in the fence.
"Bridie," said the boy. "They's each of 'em jealous of the other."
"Oh," said Tony, disappointed. If they had nothing better than a girl to fight about, they must be getting soft, he thought. The scrap was furious though: fists and feet and heads and knees and elbows were all fair weapons between rivals, though belts and knives and knuckle-dusters were barred.
"Is the kid here?" said Con, but the fight was getting exciting, and no one answered. He looked in through the window and saw Bridie and the child both sitting on a heap of straw with a bag of macaroni between them. Bridie was showing the little creature how to blow a feather in the air through a tube of macaroni.
"Well, that's all right," said Con. "D'ye think they've got a telephone in the warehouse?"
Tony looked at the roof, nodded absently, and turned back to the fight. Sighing responsibly, Con began to pick the lock.
So it was that when Jim asked the operator to connect him with No. 4214 and spoke to the man in Soho, he was told to go to Duke Street, Lambeth, and there he'd find the child.
"Let me come," said Sally five minutes later, trying to sit up. "I must--"
"Stay there!" said Jim sharply. "You're not moving till you've had all those cuts and grazes cleaned and stitched and stuck together. Gawd knows what horrible diseases you picked up paddling around in that sewer. Isn't that right, doctor?"
The doctor nodded. "I haven't finished examining you, Miss Lockhart. I can't take any responsibility if you leave."
"Sit on her, Margaret," said Jim.
"But what happened? Where is she?"
"Apparently your man Goldberg managed to get her out of Parrish's place in Clapham. She's with some friends of his now, down in Lambeth. If you let me have my hand back, I'll nip across the river and fetch her."
Sally released his hand. "Goldberg?" she said, and then the tension and the relief were too much for her, and she began to cry helplessly. Jim left.
A crawling cab-ride over Blackfriars Bridge, a furious exchange with a dirty and suspicious Irish boy through a broken fence, a muddy scramble through a gap, and he was in the yard of the Italian Goods warehouse. A gang of - what were they? Leprechauns? Street-goblins? were squatting in the open pitching coins, and the boy who'd let him in pointed to the door.
"He's reading to her," he said proudly. "From a book."
The fight was over. Bill and Liam had decided that any girl tame enough to let herself be fought over wasn't worth the bother, though it had been a good scrap, and they were lolling at their ease on th
e straw, while Bill read his book aloud to Harriet.
"See the rabbits?" he said. "Listen to this, now. This is good. How very pretty the young ones look by the side of their mother; they all seem so happy."
"Bloody miserable-looking bunch," said Liam. "I wouldn't give ye three-ha'pence for 'em."
"Bloody misable," agreed Harriet.
"No, listen, listen. All brothers and sisters should love one another, and then they would be happy too. We should never let the dumb animals ex - ex . . . excel us in affection."
"Is that the best ye've got?" said Liam, but Harriet was pointing at the door, and the boys looked up, and there was Jim.
They sat up slowly, and each of them moved in closer to Harriet. Their expressions had changed in a moment: they were tense and dangerous, ready to fight. Jim was impressed.
He put down his knapsack slowly and crouched, holding out his arms, letting Harriet come to him.
"Look," she said, not letting them hold her, impatient. "Uncle Jim, look!"
She had a broken piece of macaroni in her hand, sticky and begrimed. She put it in her mouth and blew a feather off the palm of her filthy hand.
"Good game," said Jim. "That's a blowpipe. They have them in the jungle, where I've just come from. You going to come home now? See Mama?"
She looked doubtful.
"There's Uncle Webster at home now, as well," Jim went on. "And Sarah-Jane. And I bet Mrs Perkins has got some macaroni in the kitchen to play blowpipes with."
"Here," said the most beautiful voice Jim had ever heard. He looked up, astonished, to see a girl of fifteen or so, as wild as the rest of them, narrow-eyed, slender, dirty, but with a voice that you might hear in a dream and never forget. She was holding out a brown-paper bag to Harriet. "Take 'em home with ye, for yer dinner."
Harriet took something out of the bag and chewed it stolidly.
"Dried figs," the girl explained. "I found 'em in a sack. There's plenty more."
Jim stood up. The two boys were still looking wary, but the tension had eased.
"What happened?" Jim said. "Was she in Clapham then?"
"Yeah," said the boy with the black eye. "Mr Goldberg led the raid. We got her out."
"We dropped a jordan on the wee man's nut!" said a boy at the door.
Jim blinked. Twice in one night! he thought. I was wrong. . . "Good for you," he said. "You like reading?"
"Yeah," said the boy with the split lip. "I can read anything."
"I'll send you a pile of Penny Dreadfuls. I reckon you must've had some expenses, looking after this young lady. Here's five pounds for you. You've done a good job, the lot of yer."
The money was received with shrewd nods. What they were approving of was Jim's sensibility and perception in putting a realistic price on their efforts.
"Them Penny Dreadfuls," said the boy, "don't send 'em here. This is just a kip. Send 'em to Mr Goldberg's, in Soho."
"You're a pal of his, are yer?"
The boy nodded.
"He's in gaol, they tell me. In the Tench."
" 'S'nothing," the boy scoffed. "He'll be out. They can't hold him. They couldn't hold him in Russia, they couldn't hold him in Hungary. He escaped from this castle with a big round tower - place called Kufstein. He climbed down the outside. If they think they can hold him in the Tench, they don't know nothing."
Jim had been to Kufstein; he'd seen that castle. "So he's all right, is he, this Mr Goldberg?"
Nods all round, particularly vigorous from Con and Tony.
"He shared his last cigars with us!" said Con. "There's no bloody side on him, mister."
"Right," said Jim, hoisting Harriet up and discovering too late that she'd wet herself thoroughly. "Let's go home, then, princess."
Harriet, mouth full of fig, waved goodbye regally with the brown-paper bag as they set off along the busy street, which was beginning to steam in the watery sunshine.
The Most Noble and Sacred Order of the Blessed Emanation of Sanctissima Sophia
To whom it may concern:
I am writing this in order to correct a faulty entry in the Register of Marriages for the parish of St Margaret in Portsmouth, where I was Rector from 1870 to 1880. The entry refers to a marriage solemnized on January the 3rd 1879 between Arthur James Parrish and Veronica Beatrice Lockhart.
No such marriage took place. I myself falsely made the entry in the register, being at the time under personal and medical pressures of an intolerable order. I now regret my action profoundly and apologize humbly for the distress it has caused to innocent parties.
I beg that I may be excused any further involvement in this unhappy matter. I consider that I have discharged my responsibility to earthly truth, and intend to devote the remainder of my days to matters of far higher importance, namely the Salvation of my Soul and the contemplation of the Divine Mysteries.
G. Davidson Beech
Margaret put the letter down and looked across her desk at James Wentworth.
"How did you do it?"
"I told him that if he didn't do it like this, he'd have to come to court and do it, but do it he would. Oh, he whined and twisted, but there was no way out. He's a contemptible piece of work."
"And what happened in court?"
"We won, of course," he said, a little smugly, she thought. "Together with Mr Goldberg's notebook, and Miss Lockhart's paper, it did the trick in five minutes flat. Everything's going to be restored. And I think you'll find that there's not much missing: he was a careful businessman. Very efficient. There'll be a claim against him for any losses, and they'll be paid in full. All the paperwork will be done as soon as possible--"
"How soon is that?" she said. "I know lawyers."
"You don't know this one. It won't take long. Parrish has had the cheek to enter a claim for damages to his furniture, but that won't stand up. They're preparing the prosecution case against him at the moment, but it's taking longer than they thought; more and more stuff keeps coming to light."
"And what about Mr Goldberg?" said Margaret.
"That was more difficult. There's no doubt that the offence he's accused of, if it is an offence, is political, so extradition wouldn't be applicable, but they could still deport him if they had a mind to. And they did have a mind to - at least, the Assistant Commissioner in Lee's pocket did. So I showed him the affidavit sworn by the woman who ran one of the houses Parrish was taking money from."
Margaret made a non-committal sound; she wasn't sure how to talk about brothels without blushing. He went on:
"The scandal would be appalling. He saw that, and so Goldberg's safe. He's going to be released this afternoon, as soon as all the formalities are completed. Miss Lockhart's coming with me to meet him; so's Mr Taylor."
"Jim's desperately curious," said Margaret. "He's Sally's oldest friend, you know. They're like brother and sister. He feels angry with himself that all this happened when he was away and couldn't . . . be with her. I was going to say protect her, but they don't see it like that. He knows how strong she is. And now he's heard so much about Daniel Goldberg - and he was such a close friend of Harriet's father. . . Well, I think he's intrigued."
Next morning, behind Orchard House, Jim was working on the glass-roofed structure by the garden wall with a lean, tough-looking man in his sixties, with a grey beard and short grey hair, who was even more sunburnt than Jim.
As they carefully lowered another pane into position and trimmed away the putty, the older man said, "Tell me about this Goldberg then."
Jim squinted up at the sun and brushed the hair out of his eyes.
"Well," he said, "he's . . . I'll tell you what happened. There's me and Sal and the lawyer all in this stuffy little room in the prison lodge, and making polite conversation, what a relief the rain's stopped, do they really need so many keys, and so on, and Sal was twitching like a flea. Finally we gave up talking and stared out the window. Then there was another jingle of keys, and the door opened, and in he came with a warder.
"
He's a strong-looking feller; big shoulders, big hands. Dark - black hair - big nose - powerful eyes. And Sally's up on her feet as soon as the key turns in the lock, and he didn't seem to move and she didn't seem to move, but there they were, arms around each other, kissing as if they'd just invented it."
"Kissing, eh?" said the old man, amused.
"Words fail me, Mr Webster."
"No they don't," said Webster Garland. "You might fail to find them, but that's a different matter. No wonder she was all misty-eyed last night."
"I didn't know where to put me eyes. Nor did the lawyer. So we did the decent thing and left 'em to it. Anyway, they came out after another minute or two, or ten, and we were introduced properly."
"And?"
"Oh, yes. Yes, I could tell at once. He's a good 'un. He's afraid of nothing, like Fred was. Just think: he rescues Harriet in Clapham, gets shot in the shoulder, marches all the way to Whitechapel, faces a howling mob - and tells 'em a story to keep 'em quiet till the police come. Oh, yes, there's no doubt about it. He's a tough one."
Webster Garland nodded. "Good," he said. "That's all right then." He looked along at the house, where Ellie and Sarah were hanging curtains in the breakfast room. "Good," he said again. "Come on, boy. Give me that putty. We've got all this to do before lunch."
On the Victoria Embankment, just below the Temple Gardens, Sally was walking slowly along. Harriet was holding her hand, watching everything solemnly.
They stopped near the Temple Pier, and Sally lifted Harriet on to the wall to look at the boats. Steam launches, barges, skiffs, lighters laden with coal or grain or bales of wool, all moving busily on the grey-green water; and the trundle of traffic behind them, and the distant movement of vehicles and pedestrians on Blackfriars Bridge to the left and Waterloo Bridge to the right. . . It all seemed innocent now, harmless. There was no threat lurking in them; she could walk with her child without having to hide, she had money in her pocket, she had a home to go to.
The city was a safe place. But not a good place, not yet. She and Harriet had just come from the Mission in Whitechapel, where they'd been to say thank you, and they'd found Angela Turner dealing with a woman so badly beaten by her husband that the doctor wasn't sure if she'd live. And she couldn't give all her attention to that because of an outbreak of typhoid in the houses down the street, and women were besieging the Mission, begging for medicine.