Michael Cox - The Meaning of Night

‘Speak out? What do you mean?’

‘Publicly declare what you have just told me.’

‘Now hang on a moment.’ Pettingale made to get up out of his chair, but I pushed him back.

‘Something wrong, Mr Pettingale?’

‘Look here,’ he said, ‘I can’t, you know. Implicate myself, and all that. And my life wouldn’t be worth a sniff.’

‘Don’t take on so,’ I said soothingly. ‘I might only need you to testify privately to Lord Tansor. No repercussions. Just a quiet conversation with his Lordship. You could do that all right, couldn’t you?’

He thought for a moment. To aid reflection, I picked up my pistol from the table.

At length, looking whiter and pastier than ever, he said that he supposed he could, if matters were so arranged that his identity was concealed from Lord Tansor.

‘We’ll need some evidence,’ I said. ‘Something unequivocal, in writing. Could you lay your hands on such a thing?’

He nodded, and bowed his head.

‘Bravo, Pettingale,’ I said with a smile, patting him on the shoulders. ‘But remember this: if you tell your former associates of our conversation, or if you subsequently take it into your head to be unco-operative, you may be assured of paying a very high price. I hope we understand each other?’

He did not reply, so I repeated my question. He looked up at me, with such a weary and resigned look.

‘Yes, Mr Grafton,’ he said, closing his eyes and giving a great sigh. ‘I understand you perfectly.’

*[‘He is known by his companions’. Ed. ]

†[A free-standing, raised fire-basket of wrought iron, usually on ornamental legs and having a decorated back-plate. Ed. ]

*[From Mozart’s Don Giovanni , sung by Don Ottavio, Donna Anna’s fiancé. Convinced that Don Giovanni has killed Anna’s father, Don Ottavio swears to avenge her and to return ‘as the messenger of punishment and death’. Ed. ]

*[i.e. Tasmania. Ed. ]

*[i.e. a member of King’s College. Ed. ]

*[A slang term for the criminal classes. Ed. ]

†[Heavily greased side-whiskers, which swept back to, or over, the ears. Ed. ]

*[A common method of rigging races, along with pulling favourites and doping. As Baron Alderson noted in his summing up of a case brought before the Court of Exchequer after the 1844 Derby, ‘if gentlemen will condescend to race with blackguards they must expect to be cheated’. Ed. ]

†[At 153 Aldersgate Street. Ed. ]

*[Ken-cracker: slang term for house-breaker. Ed. ]

†[A terrifying cloaked figure that began to terrorize London in 1837. His usual modus operandi was to pounce on unsuspecting passers-by, often women, and rip at their clothes with claw-like hands. He was sometimes said to breathe fire, had eyes that burned like hot coals, and was capable of leaping great heights over walls and fences. Whether Jack was real or imagined is still debated, though the attacks were widely reported in the press. Ed. ]

* [Sharp: someone constantly ready to deceive you; chizzler: slang term from chizzle , to cheat; macers: thieves or sharps (‘Flash Dictionary’, in Sinks of London Laid Open , 1848). By ‘the Highway’ the author means the Ratcliffe Highway, which ran from East Smithfield to Shadwell High Street. It was described by Watts Phillips in The Wild Tribes of London (1855) as ‘the head-quarters of unbridled vice and drunken violence – of all that is dirty, disorderly, and debased’. Ed. ]

*[i.e. transportation. Ed. ]

†[Slang term for a gullible victim. Ed. ]

31

Flamma fumo est proxima *

I left Field-court in the highest of spirits. At last I had the means to destroy Daunt’s reputation, as he had once destroyed mine. It was exhilarating to feel my power over my enemy, and to know that he was even now going about his business in ignorance of the Damoclean sword hanging over him. But still there was the question of when to draw on Pettingale’s testimony, and on the evidence that he claimed he could provide concerning Daunt’s criminal activities. To do so before I could prove to Lord Tansor that I was his son would be an incomplete revenge. How infinitely more tormenting it would be for Daunt if, at the very moment of his destruction, I could stand revealed as the true heir!

My thoughts now returned to Mr Carteret’s murder, and to the question of his ‘discovery’. He had said to me, during our meeting in Stamford, that the matter that he had wished to lay before Mr Tredgold had a critical bearing on Daunt’s prospects. I was now absolutely certain that Mr Carteret had been in possession of information relating to the Tansor succession that would have helped me establish my identity; it might even have provided the unassailable proof that I had been seeking. It therefore followed that what was of the utmost value to me had also been of value to someone else.

Suspicions and hypotheses filled my head, but I could come to no clear conclusion. Back in my rooms, I wrote a long memorandum to Mr Tredgold in which I attempted to marshal under various heads all the various matters relating to recent events. Then I walked briskly to Paternoster-row, and knocked on the Senior Partner’s door.

There was no reply. I knocked again. Then Rebecca appeared, coming down the internal stairs that led to Mr Tredgold’s private apartments.

‘’E’s not there,’ she said. ‘’E left for Canterbury yesterday, to see ’is brother.’

‘When will he be back?’ I asked.

‘Thursday,’ she said.

Three days. I simply could not wait.

When I sat down at my desk I found an envelope containing a black-edged card, with the following communication printed in black-letter type:

I duly sat down to write a formal note of acceptance to Mr Gutteridge, and a personal note to Miss Carteret, which I called for one of the clerks to take to the Post-office.

This business done, I determined at once to go down to Canterbury, to see my employer. I therefore instantly dashed off a note to Bella, whom I had been engaged to meet that evening, and consulted my Bradshaw.

I arrived in Canterbury at last to find myself standing before a tall, rather forbidding three-storey residence close by the Westgate. Marden House stood a little back from the road, separated from it by a narrow paved area and a low brick wall topped with railings.

I was admitted, and then shown into a downstairs room. A few moments later, Dr Jonathan Tredgold entered.

He was shorter and a little heavier than his brother, with the same feathery hair, though darker and in somewhat shorter supply. He held my card in his hand.

‘Mr Edward Glapthorn, I believe?’

I gave a slight bow.

‘I beg you to excuse this intrusion, Dr Tredgold,’ I began, ‘but I hoped it might be possible to speak with your brother.’

He pulled his shoulders back, and looked at me as if I had said something insulting.

‘My brother has been taken ill,’ he said. ‘Seriously ill.’

He saw the shock that his words had produced, and gestured to me to sit down.

‘This is sad news, Dr Tredgold,’ I began. ‘Very sad. Is he—’

‘A paralytic seizure, I am afraid. Completely unexpected.’

Dr Tredgold could not give me a categorical assurance, as things then stood, that his brother’s paralysis would pass quickly, or that, even if it did abate, there would not be severe and permanent debilitation of his powers.