Bernard Cornwell - Gallows Thief

'Truth?' Sandman suggested. 'Honour?'

'Money,' Skavadale repeated flatly, 'and rank. My family may be close to bankruptcy, but we have rank. By God, we have rank, and that will restore our fortune.'

'Money and rank,' Sandman said reflectively. 'So how do you console a man like Sergeant Berrigan whose rank is lowly and whose fortune, I surmise, is paltry?'

Skavadale gave the Sergeant a lazy glance. 'I advise him, Captain, to attach himself to a man of rank and fortune. That is the way of the world. He serves, I reward, and together we prosper.'

'And where do I fit into this divinely ordained scheme?' Sandman enquired.

Skavadale gave a ghost of a smile. 'You are a gentleman, Captain, so you possess rank, but you have been denied your share of wealth. If you will allow us,' he gestured to include the sallow Lord Robin Holloway, 'and by us I mean the whole membership of the Seraphim Club, we should like to remedy that lack.' He took a piece of paper from his pocket, placed it on the table and slid it towards Sandman.

'Remedy?' Sandman asked bleakly, but Skavadale said nothing, just pointed at the paper that Sandman picked up, opened and saw, first, Lord Robin Holloway's extravagantly scrawled signature and then he saw the figure. He stared at it, then looked up at Lord Skavadale, who smiled. Sandman looked at the paper again. It was a money draft, payable to Rider Sandman, drawn on the account of Lord Robin Holloway at Courts Bank, to the value of twenty thousand guineas.

Twenty thousand. His hands shook slightly and he forced himself to take a deep breath.

It solved everything. Everything.

Twenty thousand guineas could pay off his father's small debts, buy his mother and sister a fine house and there would still be enough left over to yield an income of six or seven hundred pounds a year, which was small compared to the money Sandman's mother had once been used to, but six hundred pounds a year could keep a woman and her daughter in country gentility. It was respectable. They might not be able to afford a carriage and horses, but they could keep a maid and a cook, they could put a gold coin in the collection plate each Sunday and they could receive their neighbours in sufficient style. They could stop complaining to Rider Sandman of their poverty.

There was a great clatter of hooves and chains as a dray arrived in the yard, but Sandman was oblivious of the noise. He was being tempted by the thought that he was not responsible for his father's debts, and if he ignored the tradesmen who had been taken close to ruin by Ludovic Sandman's suicide then he could get his mother an income of perhaps eight hundred a year. Best of all, though, and most tempting of all, was the knowledge that twenty thousand guineas would be a fortune sufficient to overcome Lady Forrest's objections to his marrying Eleanor. He stared at the money draft. It made all things possible. Eleanor, he thought, Eleanor, and he thought of the money Eleanor would bring him and he knew he would be wealthy again and he would have horses in his stables and he could play cricket all summer and hunt all winter. He would be a proper gentleman again. He would no longer need to scratch for pennies or spend time worrying about the laundry.

He looked up into Lord Robin Holloway's eyes. The young man was a fool who had wanted to challenge Sandman to a duel, now he was giving him a fortune? Lord Robin ignored Sandman's gaze, staring off at a cobweb high on the parlour's panelling. Lord Skavadale smiled at Sandman. It was the smile of a man enjoying another's good fortune, yet it filled Sandman with shame. Shame because he had been tempted, truly tempted. 'You think we are trying to bribe you?' Lord Skavadale had seen Sandman's change of expression and asked the question anxiously.

'I did not expect such kindness from Lord Robin,' Sandman said drily.

'Every member of the Seraphim contributed,' the Marquess said, 'and my friend Robin collated the funds. It is, of course, a gift, not a bribe.'

'A gift?' Sandman repeated the words bitterly. 'Not a bribe?'

'Of course it's not a bribe,' Skavadale said sternly, 'indeed not.' He stood and went to the window where he watched the beer-barrels being rolled down planks from the dray's bed, then he turned and smiled. 'I am offended, Captain Sandman, when I see a gentleman reduced to penury. Such a thing goes against the natural order, wouldn't you say? And when that gentleman is an officer who has fought gallantly for his country, then the offense is all the greater. I told you that the Seraphim Club is composed of men who attempt to excel, who celebrate the higher achievements. What else are angels but beings that do good? So we should like to see you and your family restored to your proper place in society. That is all.' He shrugged as though the gesture was really very small.

Sandman wanted to believe him. Lord Skavadale had sounded so reasonable and calm, as though this transaction was something very ordinary. Yet Sandman knew better. 'You're offering me charity,' he said.

Lord Skavadale shook his head. 'Merely a correction of blind fate, Captain.'

'And if I allow my fate to be corrected,' Sandman asked, 'what would you want in return?'

Lord Skavadale looked offended, as though it had not even occurred to him that Sandman might perform some small service in return for being given a small fortune. 'I should only expect, Captain,' he spoke stiffly, 'that you would behave like a gentleman.'

Sandman glanced at Lord Robin Holloway, who had not spoken. 'I trust,' Sandman said frostily, 'that I always behave thus.'

'Then you will know, Captain,' Skavadale said pointedly, 'that gentlemen do not perform paid employment.'

Sandman said nothing.

Lord Skavadale bridled slightly at Sandman's silence. 'So naturally, Captain, in return for accepting that draft, you will resign any paid offices that you might enjoy.'

Sandman looked down at the small fortune. 'So I write to the Home Secretary and resign as his Investigator?'

'It would surely be the gentlemanly thing to do,' Skavadale observed.

'How gentlemanly is it,' Sandman asked, 'to let an innocent man hang?'

'Is he innocent?' Lord Skavadale enquired. 'You told the Sergeant you would bring proof from the countryside, and did you?' He waited, but it was plain from Sandman's face that there was no proof. Lord Skavadale shrugged as if to suggest that Sandman might just as well abandon a hopeless hunt and accept the money.

And Sandman was tempted, he was so very tempted, but he was also ashamed of that temptation and so he nerved himself and then tore the draft into shreds. He saw Lord Skavadale blink with surprise when he made the first rip, and then his lordship looked furious and Sandman felt a pulse of fear. It was not fear of Lord Skavadale's anger, but for his own future and for the enormity of the fortune he was rejecting.

He scattered the scraps on the table. The Marquess of Skavadale and Lord Robin Holloway stood. Neither spoke. They looked at Sergeant Berrigan and it seemed that some kind of unspoken message was delivered before, without even glancing at Sandman, they went. Their footsteps receded down the passage as cold metal touched the back of Sandman's neck and he knew it was the pistol. Sandman tensed, planning to throw himself backwards in hope of unbalancing Berrigan, but the Sergeant ground the cold barrel hard into Sandman's neck. 'You had your chance, Captain.'

'You still have one, Sergeant,' Sandman said.

'But I ain't a fool,' Berrigan went on, 'and I ain't killing you here. Not here and now. Too many folk in the inn. I kill you here, Captain, and I'm dancing in Newgate.' The pistol's pressure vanished, then the Sergeant leant close to Sandman's ear. 'Watch yourself, Captain, watch yourself.' It was the exact same advice that Jack Hood had given.