The Russian White, page 3
As Terrington climbed down, William leant out and called up to the coachman. “I want you to be ready to help my man. We are here to catch a villain. Draw up to the entrance of that alley.”
“Yes sir.”
The carriage moved forward a few feet and then stopped. William motioned the man to jump down, and together they peered into the narrow passage.
Terrington returned to his place by the wall opposite the back of the Club. The gas lamp over the door flickered with a feeble yellow light. The rain poured down, and puddles spread on the cobbles.
The girls came out first, laughing and giggling as they ran towards Piccadilly. Then a young man with black floppy hair, and wearing a bright red frock coat. Then an older man with bristling sideburns. He was followed by shorter stockier man, pulling a large wooden trunk.
“Thank you James, most successful.” The man with the sideburns shook James’s hand. “Is there the possibility of a return visit? Perhaps in the not too distant future?”
“Of course. I suggest a couple of months from now. The authorities-you know-bit uncertain about our work.”
“Yes, yes-I see. Well, let me know won’t you?” They shook hands again, and the man with the sideburns went back inside. A key rattled as the door was locked.
Terrington assessed the situation. The short stocky man followed James. It meant taking two of them out.
Terrington waited until they were out of the light then sprinted after them. He reached the short man first and kicked his legs out from under him. The man shrieked and fell, and the heavy trunk pinned him to the ground.
Then running footsteps as James ran back, and Terrington leapt up, knocked him backwards and smothered his face with the handkerchief.
James struggled to escape, but Terrington held him with a tightening grip, until the chloral hydrate took effect and James’s legs buckled and his body went limp.
The stocky man struggled to free himself from under the trunk, and Terrington grabbed his hair, pulled his face up, and pressed the handkerchief over his nose. The man sighed and lay still.
Then more running steps. His Master’s carriage stood at the end of the alley, a black outline against the lights from the street lamps.
“Is that you sir?” It was the coachman.
“Over here.”
The man shuffled towards him.
“Quick!” Terrington grabbed James’s legs and dragged him towards the carriage. “Take his arms.”
They carried James between them, and William opened the carriage door as they approached.
“There’s two of them sir.” Terrington pushed James into the carriage and left him on the floor.
“Who’s the other one?” queried William.
“His servant I think. I couldn’t take one without the other.”
“Fetch him then.”
Terrington ran back, and the coachman followed. They heaved the trunk aside and left it propped against the wall, then dragged Peter back to the carriage and threw him in on top of James.
William pressed a guinea into the coachman’s hand. “Take them to St. Bethlehem’s Hospital. Ask for Doctor Hood. He is waiting for them. Quickly now.”
Chapter Five
Isobel reached the corner of Berners Street and Oxford Street and the boarding house where James lodged. She couldn’t believe it! A hack stood outside the apartments. Wasn’t that typical! She had walked all the way from Regents Park Crescent, through Portland Place and down into Oxford Street, and she hadn’t seen a single one.
Few people walked the London streets at night. Men she passed stared with hard looks. Somebody whistled from the darkness of a shop doorway, but she didn’t lose her nerve.
She pressed her arm against The Russian White. Her soft skin yielded to its hard edges. It reminded her, as if she needed reminding, of why she was out so late at night. Her cheeks burned with excitement. She wanted to run and laugh and yell at the top of her voice; “I’ve found The Russian White.” It took all her control to stay calm.
She gripped the front door key in her fingers and crossed Oxford Street into Wardour Street where the entrance to the apartments stood at the top of a short flight of stone steps.
She glanced up at his window. A soft yellow glow burned around the edges and her heart beat with excitement. She hurried up the steps and to her surprise found the front door open. How careless. She stepped into the hallway and shut it behind her, but when she turned the key, the lock failed to catch. She pushed it too, and hoped the wind didn’t blow it open during the night.
She ran up the stairs to the second floor landing. The lamp at the top of the stairs glowed pale cream. She knocked on James’s door, but there was no reply. She knocked again and tried the handle, and the door opened. The room was dark now.
“James?” Slow steady breathing came from the bed. Was he asleep already? “James, wake up.”
He muttered and turned over. He still wore his clothes, for they stank of smoke from the Club.
“James you’ve got to wake up.” She shook him, then recoiled. His shoulder didn’t feel right. She stepped back, alarmed. A floorboard creaked and she spun round, and the door shut with a bang.
The sheets on the bed rustled, and Isobel screamed. A cloth smothered her face and stifled her cries.
She smelt lavender, and something sour that made her sick, and the cloth pressed harder and harder over her nose and mouth. Her knees buckled as her legs turned to water, and the last thing she remembered was her brother’s voice whispering in her ear.
“Got you!”
Chapter Six
Doctor Hood sipped his port, closed his eyes and swallowed. “Well, well, William. What a risky business.”
Opposite him, William smiled, his own glass of port untouched. “Nobody saw us.”
“And -?” Hood gestured with a twist of his hand, aware that Terrington stood just by the door.
“It is quite safe.” William pressed his palm against his chest.
“Thank goodness for that.” Hood sipped his port. “So, two mad sisters eh?”
“It seems so.”
“How tragic that insanity is so prevalent in your family. Your mother too?”
William sighed, but Hood persisted. “I’m sorry it must be painful for you.”
“I feel that the present time is inappropriate for a discussion concerning my family’s health.”
“Of course, but Isobel?”
Hood determined not to move until his port was finished. William owed him this moment of indulgence. After all, he had secured the room in the Club where The Classical Beauties performed. William instructed him, true, suspecting his sister, but he had made all the arrangements.
William sat so prim and neat in his bespoke suit. Sharp creases, boot leather shining, the smooth young face betraying no signs of advancing years. The comfortable look of privileged upbringing. Underneath that pampered exterior he was the same as any man, subject to the whims of human frailty. Scratch just a little, and that well-bred decency might turn to black despair. He had seen it many times before, when men under pressure buckled. No sign of the mask cracking yet though. His control was admirable.
William began; “I found out about her acting with The Classical Beauties -.”
Hood interrupted. “It’s all so juicy. How did she meet them?”
“By chance I think.”
“She wasn’t informed?”
“Suggesting that she knew about the Russian White already?”
“Sssh!” Had he forgotten Terrington? “No,” Hood whispered. “But perhaps she found out.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. Luck?”
“She didn’t know anything about it until she ran away.”
“Oh good.”
William’s mouth tightened into a sharp thin line. “I dislike your suggestion that I was careless about the diamond’s security.”
“Don’t mistake me William. I’m not blaming you. But she’s a crafty one. Look at the merry dance she’s led you.”
“Indeed.” His lips relaxed and the tension passed. “I think James Turney told her about the diamond when they became lovers. In fact I’m sure of it.”
“Really?”
A vein throbbed in William’s neck. Hood had noticed it before during moments of anxiety, and it was being very active at the moment. This was a very dangerous situation. Neither The Chief nor Judge Buffrey knew anything about this clandestine meeting, and according to the terms of the Constitution regarding the safe keeping of the diamond, that was illegal. Mind you, The Chief’s cavalier approach earlier that evening towards that ancient document proved that nobody was prepared to be guided by its strict principles any longer.
William sipped his port and placed his glass with studied precision onto the small table beside him.
“The Classical Beauties,” Hood sniggered. “Who would have thought it? A simple, but effective front for smuggling Russian agents into the country, and to think that Isobel knows all about it. It’s an amazing stroke of good luck.”
He waited for William’s confirmation of this spectacular statement, but he sat in silence, his eyes downcast. Hood tried again. “Extraordinary.”
William failed to meet his gaze.
Hood leant forward, his voice conspiratorial. “But tell me, after everything she’s been up to, why on earth did she return home?”
“Remorse I think,” William sighed. “She was upset over father’s death, and quite right too. She hastened his untimely demise.”
“Why didn’t you throw her out?”
“Think of the scandal in the newspapers if I did that.”
“Yes, I see and what with the-.” He winked at William’s chest.
“Precisely. I could watch her at home, and now that I have seen proof of her activities, I must find out how much she knows.”
“Quite a bit I’d say, considering.”
“And the sooner I talk to her the better.” William rose, his port unfinished.
Hood gulped his down in one mouthful. A short moment of indulgence, but sweet, and the rest of the story would soon be told if William allowed him his special ways of questioning.
“Of course.” He jumped up. “Follow me.”
Chapter Seven
Isobel opened her eyes. Pitch dark. Had she gone blind? She shut them, squeezed tight, and opened them again. Nothing.
She patted the cold stone floor. Wet straw in bunches of sodden clumps reeked of human waste, and when she lifted her head, stale sweat and unwashed bodies stank in the heavy air. She covered her nose and breathed in tiny gasps.
She shivered and touched bare skin where her dress was torn. Her heart jumped and she reached inside her bodice. The Russian White was gone.
She stifled a muffled gasp. Her brother must have taken it. What would he do now? Did he know about James? What was this place? The straw rustled, and she recoiled, alarmed at her blindness.
“Who’s that?” she called.
“Who you?” a voice answered.
Something hard and cold and smooth attached to her right ankle, rattled. She ran her fingers along it. An iron ring, then a heavy chain. She followed its length until she came to a huge clamp bolted into the stones. She was manacled to the floor.
The terrible smell, and her rising panic heralded the beginnings of a faint, and she dug her nails into her palms and willed herself to stay calm. Was she in prison? Had her brother’s vindictiveness manifested itself into such a terrible act of retribution for his sister? What was he going to do to her?
She twisted to find a more comfortable sitting position, and her hand brushed across rough cloth; a blanket perhaps? She draped it around her shoulders to ward off the damp cold.
A terrible high pitched shriek pierced the darkness. Terrified, she jumped back, and the iron ring bit deep into her ankle. The scream intensified, and the blanket was snatched away
A second voice, babbling loud incomprehensible nonsense, joined the screaming. Another voice, further away, laughed, a constant jabbering yell that held no mirth or meaning.
And there were others, shrieking, yelling, crying, laughing, that filled the darkness with wild sound.
“Quiet!” A square of orange light burst like sunlight above her. One fear subsided, she wasn’t blind.
“Quiet! Or I’ll take the stick to yer.”
Keys jangled in a lock, followed by a loud scraping as wood scratched against stone. The screaming and the babbling and the laughing stopped as suddenly as they had started.
“I know you.” A huge ill-shaped man, haloed by orange torchlight, stood in the doorway. In his hand, a heavy cudgel. “Anymore an’ you’ll feel this over yer skull.” He hit the floor and the stones trembled from the blow.
All around her, people lay on the floor attached to lengths of chain, men and women, young and old. Their faces, greasy with dirt, gleamed with sweat and tears. Some attempted to cover their nakedness with bits of rag that might once have been clothes. One man, better dressed than the others, leaned up on his elbow.
“Peter!” She spoke his name from sheer surprise, and the guard took aim with his cudgel. She ducked as it whistled over her head.
“Lie yer’ down.”
The guard stamped his boot, and Peter obeyed and curled up into a ball. Satisfied that discipline was restored, the guard left, and slammed the door behind him.
Isobel stared into the darkness, scared that the guard might be listening. Then she whispered; “Peter?”
“Yes. It is me.”
“Oh thank goodness.” She crawled towards him, and the chain clanked against the stones. “Where are we?”
“I know not. James, he here too.”
“James? Where? Where is he?”
“He asleep. We attacked. I wake up and we here.”
“Attacked? Is he hurt?”
“Like me. Made to sleep.”
“Me too. My brother used a drug. Is James lying next to you? Try and wake him up.”
The straw rustled, followed by a moan, and then the sound of James’s voice, slurred and sleepy.
“I am awake. It’s just-my head.”
“Oh James.” She burst into tears.
“Sssh,” James hissed.
“I-I-.” She stretched out to touch him.
“We were jumped.” James coughed. “They were waiting for us. Are you hurt?”
“No. I-James..”
“Where did they catch you?”
“James. The Russian White. I had it.”
“What?”
“My brother had the Russian White. I found it.”
“What?”
“That room upstairs-in the Club. My brother was there with-with The Brotherhood. William had the diamond-in our house. I found it. I was bringing it to you. But they were in your room. I-I-they took it.’
“The Russian White?” James’s voice quivered.
“Yes. I held it.”
“The diamond here?” Peter’s loud exclamation made her jump.
“Sssh!” James and Isobel hissed together.
“Whisper,” James urged. “Or the guard will come back.”
“William knows about us James.” Isobel strained her fingers into the darkness. “He knows about The Classical Beauties and he meant me to hear that meeting, I’m sure of it. He set a trap. To catch us, all of us. Oh James, what’s he going to do?”
“Don’t cry. Isobel-who were The Brotherhood? Can you remember?”
She wiped the tears from her cheeks. “Yes-there was William, somebody called Doctor Hood. A man called Buffrey. He was a Judge I think. And The Chief. I didn’t hear his real name.”
The key clanked in the lock and she dropped to the floor and pretended to sleep. She peered through half-closed eyes.
The guard stood in the doorway. Instead of a cudgel, he now carried a lantern, which he held above his head. Behind him stood two men.
“That’s her.” The guard waved towards her.
She sat up, her heart thumping, and stared into William’s glaring eyes.
Her brother turned to his companion. “Who are the other two? I only saw them briefly.”
The man leant forward. The lamplight illuminated his long thin nose and one hollow cheek. “These two.” He pointed with a long crooked finger at Peter and James, who lay as if asleep.
She knew that voice. Doctor Hood, Principal of St. Bethlehem’s Hospital. Bedlam. The madhouse. Isobel pushed back, and the chain pulled tight and cut into her ankle.
“Bring the two men to the Operating Theatre,” instructed Doctor Hood.
Chapter Eight
On the 25th October 1853 a notice appeared in The Times newspaper;
It is with Great Sadness that Mister William Hunt and his Sister
Miss Sylvia Hunt, Announce the Illness of their Beloved Younger Sister
Miss Isobel Hunt.
From Immediate Effect, Miss Isobel Hunt will no Longer Reside at Regents Park Crescent, but will be removed to Parklands, the Hunt Family’s Country Seat in Sussex. It is Hoped that Clean Air will Invigorate and Revive her Delicate Nerves.
We Gratefully Appreciate the Kind Words that her Many Friends will no doubt wish to Bestow Upon Her.
We place our weak lives in the Almighty’s Hands and Pray For His Benevolence and Guidance, For His Will is to Test Us.
A gas lamp flared. Doctor Hood’s shadow loomed up the wall of the operating theatre. Before him stood a large oak table marked with cuts gouged deep into its stained surface. Thick leather straps attached to iron buckles hung from its sides. Beside the table, on a wooden trolley, lay a box of surgical instruments arranged in neat rows, their blades gleaming. There were saws and knives and scissors, and hanging off a hook at the back, an axe.
The table dominated the operating theatre, standing in an open space that allowed access from all sides. Dark wooden benches rose in a steep rake of ever widening circles around the walls.
Doctor Hood liked this room best in all the Hospital. So many interesting experiments carried out in the name of science had illuminated the workings of the human mind and body. A soft knock at the door roused him from his reverie.
