Bernard Cornwell - Gallows Thief

Sir Henry gestured feebly towards the doors. 'You're missing the duet, my dear,' he said, 'and Rider came here to see Hammond, of all people. Isn't that right, Rider? It's not really a social call at all.'

'Hammond, yes,' Sandman confirmed.

'What on earth do you want with Hammond?' Eleanor asked, her eyes suddenly bright with inquisitiveness.

'I'm sure that's for the two of them to discuss,' Sir Henry said stiffly, 'and me, of course,' he added hastily.

Eleanor ignored her father. 'What?' she demanded of Sandman.

'Rather a long story, I fear,' Sandman said apologetically.

'Better that than listening to the Pearman sisters murder their music teacher's setting of Mozart,' Eleanor said, then took a chair and put on an expectant face.

'My dear,' her father began, and was immediately interrupted.

'Papa,' Eleanor said sternly, 'I am sure that nothing Rider wants with Hammond is unsuitable for a young woman's ears, and that is more than I can say for the effusions of the Pearman girls. Rider?'

Sandman suppressed a smile and told his tale, and that gave rise to astonishment, for neither Eleanor nor her father had connected Charles Corday with Sir George Phillips. It was bad enough that the Countess of Avebury had been murdered in the next street, now it seemed that the convicted murderer had spent time in Eleanor's company. 'I'm sure it's the same young man,' Eleanor said, 'though I only ever heard him referred to as Charlie. But he seemed to do a great deal of the work.'

'That probably was him,' Sandman said.

'Best not to tell your mother,' Sir Henry observed gently.

'She'll think I came within an inch of being murdered,' Eleanor said.

'I doubt he is a murderer,' Sandman put in.

'And besides, you were chaperoned, surely?' her father enquired of Eleanor.

'Of course I was chaperoned, Papa. This is,' she looked at Sandman and raised an eyebrow, 'a respectable family.'

'The Countess was also chaperoned,' Sandman said, and he explained about the missing girl, Meg, and how he needed servants to retail the local gossip about the fate of the staff from Avebury's house. He apologised profusely for even thinking of involving Hammond. 'Servants' tittle-tattle isn't something I'd encourage, sir,' he said, and was interrupted by Eleanor.

'Don't be so stuffy, Rider,' she said, 'it doesn't require encouraging or discouraging, it just happens.'

'But the truth is,' Sandman went on, 'that the servants all talk to each other and if Hammond can ask the maids what they've heard…'

'Then you'll learn nothing,' Eleanor interrupted again.

'My dear,' her father protested.

'Nothing!' Eleanor reiterated firmly. 'Hammond is a very good butler and an admirable Christian, indeed I've often thought he would make a quite outstanding bishop, but the maidservants are all quite terrified of him. No, the person to ask is my maid Lizzie.'

'You can't involve Lizzie!' Sir Henry objected.

'Why ever not?'

'Because you can't,' her father said, unable to find a cogent reason. 'It simply isn't right.'

'It isn't right that Corday should hang! Not if he's innocent. And you, Papa, should know that! I've never seen you so shocked!'

Sandman looked enquiringly at Sir Henry, who shrugged. 'Duty took me to Newgate,' he admitted. 'We City aldermen, I discovered, are the legal employers of the hangman and the wretch has petitioned us for an assistant. One never likes to disburse funds unnecessarily, so two of us undertook to discover the demands of his work.'

'And have you made a decision yet?' Eleanor asked.

'We're taking the Sheriff's advice,' Sir Henry said. 'My own inclination was to refuse the request, but I confess that might have been mere prejudice against the hangman. He struck me as a vile wretch, vile!'

'Not an employment that would attract persons of quality,' Eleanor remarked drily.

'Botting, he's called, James Botting.' Sir Henry shuddered. 'Hanging's not a pretty thing, Rider, have you ever seen one?'

'I've seen men after they've been hanged,' Sandman said, thinking of Badajoz with its ditch streaming with blood and its streets filled with screams. The British army, breaking into the Spanish city despite a grim French defence, had inflicted a terrible revenge on the inhabitants and Wellington had ordered the hangmen to cool the redcoats' anger. 'We used to hang plunderers,' he explained to Sir Henry.

'I suppose you had to,' Sir Henry said. 'It's a terrible death, terrible. But necessary, of course, no one disputes that…'

'They do,' his daughter put in.

'No one of sound mind disputes it,' her father amended his statement firmly, 'but I trust I shall never have to witness another.'

'I should like to see one,' Eleanor said.

'Don't be ridiculous,' her father snapped.

'I should!' Eleanor insisted. 'We are constantly told that the purpose of execution is twofold; to punish the guilty and to deter others from crime, to which intent it is presented as a public spectacle, so my immortal soul would undoubtedly be safer if I was to witness a hanging and thus be prejudiced against whatever crime I might one day be tempted to commit.' She looked from her bemused father to Sandman, then back to her father again. 'You're thinking I'm an unlikely felon, Papa? That's kind of you, but I'm sure the girl who was hanged last Monday was an unlikely felon.'

Sandman looked at Sir Henry, who nodded unwilling confirmation. 'They hanged a girl, I'm afraid,' he said, then stared at the rug, 'and only a young thing, Rider. Only a young thing.'

'Perhaps,' Eleanor persisted, 'if her father had taken her to witness a hanging then she would have been deterred from her crime. You could even say, Papa, that you are failing in your Christian and paternal duty if you do not take me to Newgate.'

Sir Henry stared at her, not certain that she was talking in jest, then he looked at Sandman and shrugged as if to suggest that his daughter was not to be taken seriously. 'So you think, Rider, that my servants might have heard of this girl Meg's fate?'

'I was hoping so, sir. Or that they could ask questions of the servants who live in Mount Street. The Avebury house isn't a stone's throw away and I'm sure all the servants in the area know each other.'

'I'm sure Lizzie knows everyone,' Eleanor said pointedly.

'My dear,' her father spoke sternly, 'these are delicate matters, not a game.'

Eleanor gave her father an exasperated look. 'It is servants' gossip, Papa, and Hammond is above such things. Lizzie, on the other hand, thrives on it.'

Sir Henry shifted uncomfortably. 'There's no danger, is there?' he asked Sandman.

'I can't think so, sir. As Eleanor says, we only want to know where the girl Meg went, and that's merely gossip.'

'Lizzie can explain her interest by saying one of our coachmen was sweet on her,' Eleanor said enthusiastically. Her father was unhappy at the thought of involving Eleanor, but he was almost incapable of refusing his daughter. She was his only child and such was his affection for her that he might even have permitted her to marry Sandman despite Sandman's poverty and despite the disgrace attendant on his family, but Lady Forrest had other ideas. Eleanor's mother had always seen Rider Sandman as second best. It was true that when the original engagement took place Sandman had the prospect of considerable wealth, enough to have persuaded Lady Forrest that he would just about make an acceptable son-in-law, but he did not have the one thing Lady Forrest wanted above all else for her daughter. He had no title and Lady Forrest dreamt that Eleanor would one day be a duchess, a marchioness, a countess or, at the very least, a lady. Sandman's impoverishment had given Lady Forrest the excuse to pounce and her husband, for all his indulgence of Eleanor, could not prevail against his wife's determination that her child should be the titled mistress of marble stairways, vast acres and ballrooms large enough to manoeuvre whole brigades.