“Tom made you the licensee,” said Ceely. “Some time ago, as a matter of fact. I thought it might be a good idea, and he saw my point at once. As for me—I have no connection whatsoever with Cave’s distillery.” He shook the reins to gee up the horses.
William Thorne stood leaden-footed, unable to move. “Where are you going?” he asked feebly.
Ceely’s teeth, very white, flashed in a laugh. “To the Temple Backs, of course, to alert our confederate.”
“Wait for me!”
“You,” said Mr. Ceely Trevillian, “can walk home, Bill.”
The sledge glided off, leaving Thorne to confront Cave.
“How could ye do this to me, Tom?”
Cave’s tongue came out to lick at his lips. “Ceely insisted,” he bleated. “I cannot stand against the man, Bill!”
“And you thought it an excellent idea. You would, you lily-livered old turd!” said Thorne bitterly.
“It is Ceely,” Thomas Cave insisted. “I’ll not leave ye unsupported, that is a promise. Whatever it takes to get you off will be done.” Panting with the effort, he managed to haul himself onto his horse; Thorne made no move to help him.
“I will hold you to that promise, Tom. But more important by far is the murder of Richard Morgan.”
“No!” Cave cried. “Whatever else you do, not that! Excise knows, you fool! Kill their informant and we will all hang!”
“If this comes to trial, I am certainly going to hang, so what matters it to me, eh?” He was shouting now. “Best make sure it never does come to trial, Tom! And that goes for Ceely too! If I go down, Richard Morgan will not be the only snitch! I will bring you and Ceely down with me—we will all go to the gallows! Hear me? All of us!”
Mr. Benjamin Fisher summoned Richard to Excise House early in the morning of the next day, the 23rd of June.
“I advise you not to return to work, Mr. Morgan,” said the Collector of Excise, two spots of color burning in his cheeks. “My fools of men raided Cave’s distillery during the day, so no one was apprehended. All they did was seize the liquor.”
Richard gaped. “Christ!”
“Well but fruitlessly said, sir. I echo your sentiment, but the damage is done. The only one Excise can prosecute is the licensee for having illicit rum on his premises.”
“Old Tom Cave? But he is not the principal villain!”
“Thomas Cave is not the licensee. That is William Thorne.”
Richard gaped again. “And what of Ceely Trevillian?”
Looking absolutely disgusted, Mr. Fisher squeezed his hands together and leaned forward. “Mr. Morgan, we have no case against anyone save William Thorne.” He put on his spectacles, grimacing. “Mr. Trevillian is extremely well connected, and general opinion around town is that he is an amiable, harmless simpleton. I will interview him for myself, but I must warn you that were it to come to court, it would be your word against his. I am very sorry, but unless new evidence comes to light Mr. Trevillian is unimpeachable. I am not even sure,” he ended, sighing, “that we have enough to hang William Thorne, though he will certainly go down for seven years’ transportation.”
“Why did your men not wait to catch them in the act?”
“Cowardice, sir. It is ever the way.” Mr. Fisher took his spectacles off and polished them vigorously, blinking away tears. “Though it is early, Mr. Thomas Cave is already waiting downstairs, I imagine to negotiate a settlement by offering to pay a very large fine. That is where the money lies, Mr. Morgan—I am not so blind that I cannot see that William Thorne is a red herring. Excise will get no recompense out of the licensee, whereas it may from the owner. That includes you. Your reward, I mean.”
As Richard left he encountered Thomas Cave in the foyer, but was wise enough to say nothing as he passed. No point in going to the distillery; he went back to the Cooper’s Arms.
“So I have no job and at least two of the three culprits are to escape justice,” he told Dick. “Oh, if only I had known!”
“It sounds as if Tom Cave will buy Thorne off,” said Dick, and cheered up. “Be thankful for one thing, Richard. No matter which way it goes, ye’ll get that five hundred pounds.”
That was true, but less of a comfort than Dick suspected. At least a part of Richard wanted to see Mr. John Trevillian Ceely Trevillian in the dock. Quite why he did not know, except that it lay in Ceely’s insultingly blatant look of appreciation on that first meeting. I am less than the dust to that conceited, whinnying fop, and I hate him. Yes, hate. For the first time in my life, I am filled with an emotion that held no personal significance for me until now; what used to be a word has become a fact.
He missed Peg in these trying times. The grief at her going had been great, but diminished by those last years of opposition, tears, drinking, wandering in the mind. Yet as the days went by and he searched Bristol for a job, that Peg was fading, to be replaced by the Peg he had married seventeen years ago. He needed to cuddle against her, to converse softly with her in the night, to seek the only kind of sexual solace he deemed truly satisfactory—one wherein love and friendship contributed at least as much as passion. There was no one left to talk to, for though his father was firmly on his side, Dick would always look down on him as too soft, a trifle spineless. And Mum was Mum—cook and scullery maid in one. In a few years William Henry would be his equal; then all he would lack was sexual solace. And that, Richard had resolved, would have to be put away until after William Henry was grown to full maturity. For he would not inflict a stepmother on this beloved only child, and whores were a kind of woman he could not stomach no matter how he ached for the simplest, most basic relief.
On Monday, which was the last day of June, Richard left at the crack of dawn—very early at this time of summer solstice—to walk the eight miles of hilly road between the Cooper’s Arms and Keynsham, a hamlet along the Avon made larger and much dirtier by folk like William Champion, brass maker. Champion had patented a secret process for refining zinc from calamine and old tailings, and it had come to Richard’s ears that he was looking for a good man to deal with zinc. Why not try? The worst that could happen was a refusal.
William Henry left for school at a quarter to seven as usual, grumbling because the Head had insisted that school be held on the last day of June when it fell on a Monday. His grandmother’s response was a good-natured cuff over the ear; William Henry took the hint and departed. Tomorrow was the commencement of two months of holiday, for the wearers of the blue coat as well as the paying pupils. Those who had homes and parents to go to would doff their blue coats and quit Colston’s until the beginning of September, while those like Johnny Monkton who had neither parents nor home would spend the summer at Colston’s under a somewhat relaxed code of discipline.
Dadda had explained why he could not keep William Henry company over the next two months, and William Henry understood completely. He was well aware that all of Dadda’s efforts were on his behalf, and that put a burden on his young shoulders that he did not even know was there. If he worked very hard over his books—and he did—it was to please Dadda, who valued an education more highly than any nine-year-old boy possibly could.
At the gates of Colston’s School he stopped, amazed; they were festooned with black ribbons! Mr. Hobson, a junior master, was waiting just inside them to put a hand on William Henry’s arm.
“Home again, lad,” he said, turning William Henry around.
“Home again, Mr. Hobson?”
“Aye. The Head passed away in his sleep during the night, so there is no school today. Your father will be notified about the funeral, Morgan Tertius. Now off you go.”
“May I see Monkton Minor, sir?”
“Not today. Goodbye,” said Mr. Hobson firmly, giving William Henry a little push between his shoulder blades.
