Antonia Hodgson - The Devil in the Marshalsea

There was a moment’s silence. And then, from the darkest corner of the porch, a light flickered deep in the fog.

I gasped in shock. ‘Who’s there?’

The light came closer.

‘I have a knife!’ I lied.

A moment’s pause. And then a face loomed out of the shadows, grey as the mist, and streaked with dirt. A pale hand held the lantern higher and I saw…

Impossible!

‘Roberts.’ I stared at him in horror. It was the captain; there was no doubting it, he looked exactly the same as his portrait. But how could that be? I touched my mother’s cross and whispered a hurried prayer.

The phantom shuffled closer, groaning softly. I began to shake, terrified by this apparition standing so close in the dark, almost near enough to touch. There was a rope still hanging about its neck, dark bruises on its face and blood stains upon its shirt. ‘Murder…’ it shuddered. ‘Murder…’

And a waistcoat. A mustard waistcoat.

Samuel Fleet , I thought. Damn you. You’re a genius .

The ghost gave a wild shriek. ‘Avenge me…!’

‘As you wish.’ I folded my arms. ‘Tell me. Who was it murdered you?’

The ghost paused, thought for a moment. ‘Avenge me…’ it said again, more hesitantly.

‘Come now, Captain Roberts.’ I leaned up against the porch column. ‘Who killed you? You must remember, surely?’

The ghost cleared its throat. ‘It was dark…’

‘ Indeed. ’ I remembered Gilbert Hand’s request. ‘And what happened to the money?’

‘Money? There was no money. Was there…?’ The ghost looked hopeful.

I lost patience. Springing forward I grabbed hold of his perfectly corporeal body and swung him hard against the porch column. He gave a soft ‘oof’ as the wind was knocked from his lungs. The lantern crashed to the ground.

‘Who are you? Who sent you?’

‘Let me go!’ he cried. ‘Help! Help!’

I raised my fist to punch him but somehow he tore himself free, running blindly out into the fog. At the same moment another light appeared and I saw Jenings hurrying towards me with his lantern. ‘Who goes there?’ he called. ‘Mr Hawkins?’

I grabbed his lantern and swung it out into the mists. ‘I just saw the ghost.’

He staggered back on his spindle legs. ‘Heaven spare us!’

‘He’s just a man, Jenings; he won’t harm you. He must still be in the yard, we can catch him.’

We spent a good half hour searching for him through the mist. Jenings was terrified, despite my assurances that there was nothing spectral about our visitor. We brought another lantern out from the Lodge and even persuaded the turnkey on duty to hunt with us but Roberts – or whoever it truly was – had vanished into thin air. That much, at least, was a mystery.

‘It must have escaped through the walls,’ Jenings whispered. The turnkey gazed up at them with wide, terrified eyes.

‘ Through the walls ,’ he agreed, wonderingly.

‘Nonsense,’ I snapped. ‘He must have a key to the Lodge.’

‘We would have heard it go through the gate,’ Jenings insisted.

‘What about the Common Side? Could he have climbed over somehow?’

‘Climbed into the Common Side?’ Jenings frowned at the turnkey, who shook his head.

They were right; that made no sense. He’d been too well-fed to come from that side of the wall. And who would want to break into the Common Side? He must have slipped out another way, but I was damned if I could puzzle it out. And how was it he looked so much like the real Captain Roberts? I needed a sharper brain than mine to understand it all.

I swore quietly to myself. I needed Fleet.

‘Get up, damn you!’

I grabbed the collars of Fleet’s robe and pulled him from the bed, pamphlets slipping and sliding to the floor. He grinned back at me, eyes blazing with excitement.

‘Something has happened!’

I took a swing at him and he danced away, robe flapping and flashing parts of him I had no wish to see. ‘Tie your banyan, man, for God’s sake.’

He smirked. ‘Do I distract you, sir? Here, let us fight like the Greeks!’ And with that he shrugged off his robe and presented himself ready, fists high.

I turned my back, infuriated. I should have thumped him; he deserved a good beating after the trick he’d played on me. But I would not wrestle a naked Samuel Fleet, not for all the world, and he knew it. I tore off my wig and threw it in a corner. No – not mine, that was precisely the point. These were Captain Roberts’ clothes – the very ones he was wearing when he was murdered. I shuddered in revulsion and tore the waistcoat from my back as if it were infested.

I stood in front of the mirror to untie the cravat and glimpsed Fleet in the reflection, slipping his robe back around his shoulders and tying it tight. Thank God. I snapped the strip of muslin between my hands. I could throttle him with it now. Half the prison thought he killed Roberts; if I called it self-defence who would doubt it? I could name him the murderer and be free by morning. My stomach lurched at the thought. Could I really kill a man without provocation, just to save myself? The cravat slipped through my fingers to the floor.

‘A wise choice,’ Fleet said, watching me through the mirror. He was holding a dagger in his hand.

I spun on my heels to face him, heart thudding in alarm. He stepped closer, blade high. His expression was calm – almost bored – but his eyes never left mine. ‘Are you a fool, sir?’

I swallowed, staring at the tip of the blade, just a short step from my heart. ‘No. I don’t believe that I am.’

‘Or lunatic?’

I shrank back. ‘No, sir.’

Fleet considered this for a moment. ‘Then why would you think of killing the man who can save you from the Common Side? No, no,’ he snapped, as I started to protest. ‘Do not deny it. I know when a man is contemplating murder, Mr Hawkins. I’ve seen it enough times in the mirror.’ He frowned. ‘And do stop ogling that boot over there. I removed the pistol from it hours ago. Tell me,’ he persisted, his voice hard. ‘Has someone approached you? Offered you money? I have plenty of enemies…’

‘No. I swear-’

With a growl of annoyance he sprang forward, faster than a heartbeat, pushing me back against the wall with surprising force. Loose plaster crumbled from the wall, making me splutter and choke as the dust caught my lungs. By the time I was recovered, Fleet’s dagger was hard at my throat. ‘Tell me,’ he hissed again. ‘What do you have to gain from my death, Mr Hawkins?’ I struggled to push the blade away but he was much stronger than he appeared. He pressed the blade closer. ‘Well, sir?’

I took a breath, about to tell him of Charles’ letter and the investigation, when I remembered Edward Gilbourne’s warning. If I told Fleet the truth, there was every chance he would betray me to Acton in the morning, for money or for sport. I forced myself to match his gaze and reminded myself of what I was, at heart. A gambler. I knew how to read a man’s intent from the lightest expressions – even a man as strange and guarded as Samuel Fleet. And now I looked closer, I was surprised to see that there was no real anger or threat in those dark eyes of his. Just… anticipation. And curiosity.

He was testing me. And the trick, I realised, was not in telling him the truth. It was in keeping his interest.

I took a breath, the knife catching my skin. ‘Did you kill Captain Roberts?’

He blinked. Then smiled. ‘Deflection. Very good.’

I pushed the blade away. He would not kill me. Not here, not in this way. ‘Did you murder him?’ I asked again.