did not occur to me to wonder what he did there, only that he was an employee of my uncle’s and he would surely help me. Instead he turned away from me, his face betraying a hardened kind of shame.
The man who had attacked me was standing and talking with one of the constables, elaborating upon his slander. “That man is the villain here,” I said, gesturing with my head toward my accuser, “and my witness is injured above and may fall victim to this man’s companion. I pray that if you will not free me, you will bring help to my friend on the upper floor.”
Murders have a curious effect on crowds. No one in the mob, you understand, has any particular desire to help—only the wish to see something truly terrible, something horrendous enough to make all the other men in the alehouse crowd around for the tale. So the revelation that there was yet another victim to be found sent the bulk of the crowd streaming into the building. I hoped their presence would be enough to protect Elias.
“Does anyone know who this man is?” one of the constables asked the remaining stragglers as he gestured toward the dead man.
“No,” said my accuser nervously, as though to speak definitively for the dozen or so people who looked on. “No one knows him.”
“I know him,” a voice spoke up. An older man shuffled forward. He held himself erect only with an old walking cane, chipped and cracked and looking as though it was ready to collapse under the man’s weight. “Aye, he’s the miserable blackguard what’s ruined me niece,” he said. “He’s a thief and pickpocket, he is, and I’m not sorry to see him there with all his life gone from ’im.”
“What’s his name?” the constable asked.
“Don’t nobody know his name,” my accuser interrupted. He glared viciously at the old man. “Pay no heed to what this old one has to say. He ain’t right in his head, he ain’t.”
“You’re the one who’s not right,” the old man spat back. “I can’t say I’ve ever seen you before in me life.”
“What’s his name?” the constable again asked the old man.
“Why that miserable shitten sod is Bertie Fenn, it is.”
And as the constables took me away, and as I fretted anxiously for the safety of Elias, I took no small satisfaction in the knowledge that I had just killed the man who had run down my father.
TWENTY-SEVEN
ONCE AGAIN I found myself facing Justice John Duncombe, and once again it was in the matter of a murder—a fact not lost on the judge. For such a serious crime, Duncombe would sometimes convene his court in the middle of the night. Murderers were tricky villains and were wont to escape, and when murderers escaped, trading justices faced more scrutiny than they liked.
Word of my adventures had already begun to spread through the streets, and the judge’s rooms, while by no means full with its usual number of spectators, held about a dozen onlookers—a sufficient audience for a midnight performance.
The judge studied me with his foggy and bloodshot gaze. His face was covered with the stubble of his thick beard, and his wig sat upon his head askew. The dark bags under his eyes suggested that he had not slept well, and I could not imagine he was pleased to be dragged from his bed at so late an hour to tend to the matter of a murderer he had himself set free so recently.
“I see I treated you with far too much leniency last time you appeared before my bench,” he intoned, as his skin flapped around his toothless mouth. “I shall not make the same mistake twice.”
If Duncombe was anxious to commit me to Newgate promptly that he might return to bed, then what appeared much like a desire to see justice served goaded him to follow correct procedures.
“I am told,” he said to the court, “that there are eyewitnesses who saw this man kill the deceased. Will such witnesses step forward?”
A moment of silence passed before I heard a familiar voice shout, “I am a witness.”
I felt an inexpressible relief when I saw Elias push his way through the spectators and, with steps unsteady and halting, make his way toward the bench. The stiffness of his movements bespoke his pain, and he looked haggard, not to mention absurd, for he still wore the robes of a Jew beggar, but with the mask removed he exposed his shaved and unwigged head before the world. His face had been spared any injury, but I winced to see him clutch at his side in pain.
“The dead man was one of a group of four men who attacked me without provocation,” Elias began in a tremulous voice. “This man, Benjamin Weaver, came to my rescue, and in the course of his efforts to save my life, one of my attackers fired a pistol. In order to defend himself, Mr. Weaver did the same, and the man you found paid the price of his villainy.”
A murmur spread throughout the court. I heard my name repeated, as well as details of Elias’s account. I sensed already that public opinion was with me, but I knew that the crowd’s desire to see me freed would have no effect on a man like Duncombe.
“The constable tells me he took of you a pistol that had been fired,” the judge said, “so that much has been confirmed. Yet at the scene of the crime there was another man who said the killing was intentional murder, is that not true?”
“It is, your honor,” the constable said.
“That man was one of my attackers,” Elias said. “He was lying.”
“And why did these men attack you, sir?” Duncombe asked.
Elias was silent for a moment. He found himself faced with a powerful dilemma—did he tell all he knew and expose our inquiry before the court, perhaps before our enemies, or did he remain as taciturn as possible, hoping a mere trickle of truths would spare me?
“I do not know why these men attacked me,” Elias said at last. “I would hardly be the first man in London to be attacked by strangers. I assume they wanted my money.”
“Were demands made for your money?” The judge pressed on. He stared hard at Elias, his face molded into a practiced mask of penetration.
“There was no time,” Elias explained. “Soon after these men forced me to follow them, Mr. Weaver attempted to assist me.”
“I see. And are you already acquainted with Mr. Weaver?”
Elias paused for an instant. “Yes, he and I are friends. I can only presume that he witnessed these men attack me and intervened with the intent of freeing me.”
“And where did this attack take place?”
“At Mr. Heidegger’s masquerade at the Haymarket.”
“So I gathered from your attire. Are you to tell me that these four men attacked you in the midst of a masquerade ball, sir?”
“They led me away from the ball, upstairs where I would be defenseless.”
“And you followed these men, whom you did not know?”
“They claimed to have important information to tell me,” Elias said hesitantly. It sounded like a question.
“And explain to me again how Mr. Weaver appeared in this exchange?”
“Mr. Weaver, who is my friend, was presumably suspicious and followed me. Once the men set upon me, he stepped in to aid me.”
“Very commendable,” the judge said. “And rather convenient, I should think. Are there any other witnesses to this affair?” he asked. He received no answer but the murmurs of the crowd.
“And what do you have to add, Mr. Weaver?”
It would have been pointless to mention that the man I had shot had killed my father—hardly the sort of information that would exonerate me. I believed that Elias’s story might prove as effective as any. However, I did not have much hope that Duncombe would grant me freedom. I had killed a man under mysterious circumstances. A trial would be inevitable unless I could say something to make the judge more sympathetic. I could not even hope my uncle would be able to bribe him if I had been bound over for trial. Once a prisoner was committed to Newgate, the matter was quite out of Duncombe’s hands. I would have to bribe him before his ruling in order to sway his opinion, and Duncombe, it was well known, did not accept credit.
