There, hidden behind a false section of wall, were two rows of 50-gallon hogsheads. Lips pursed in a silent whistle, Richard calculated how much excise-free spirit was flowing off each and every day-no wonder that William Thorne always drained the final distillate from its receiver tub! Only a skilled distiller with experience elsewhere would have wondered at the slowness of Mr. Cave’s apparatus, and there were no such men at 137 Redcliff Street. Except for William Thorne. And Thomas Cave. Was he in it too?
As he jumped back onto the top of the furnace Richard found the source of the hiss-the right-hand still was spraying a thin jet of fluid backward from a pinhole in its worn copper skin. As he crouched to plug it, Thorne walked in.
“Here! What are ye doing up there?” he demanded, face ugly.
“My job of work,” said Richard tranquilly. “A temporary one, I fear. I think ye’ll have to stand this pair down very soon.”
“Fucken shit! I keep telling old Tom to invest some of his profits in new stills, but he always has a reason not to.” Thorne stalked away, mollified, roaring for his acolytes, who had not been quick enough; the cat had come back sooner than anticipated.
When he returned to the Cooper’s Arms that evening Richard did not mention his discovery to Dick. Time enough when he knew more-knew, for instance, how many were involved in this huge excise fraud. Thorne, of course. Cave, possibly. And what about John Trevillian Ceely Trevillian? Why should a well-born idler like Ceely haunt a location far from the pastures where such ornamental ponies usually grazed?
When do they clear out the illicit liquor? Richard wondered. During the night, certainly, and probably on a Sunday night. The streets are deserted even of sailors and press gangs.
Getting out of the Cooper’s Arms on the next Sunday night was easy; he slept alone, Dick and Mag were snoring, and William Henry never roused, even in a thunderstorm. The moon was full and the sky cloudless-what good luck! As he reached the vicinity of 137 Redcliff Street, a lone bell was tolling midnight. He sought the dark shelter of a crane belonging to the pipe maker across the court and settled patiently to wait.
Two hours. They certainly cut it fine, he thought; two more hours would see the commencement of a leisurely dawn. And there were three of them: Thorne, Cave and Ceely Trevillian. Though it was difficult to recognize the last man; the mincing Bartholomew Baby had been replaced by a slim, decisively energetic man clad in black, with raggedly cropped short hair and boots on his feet.
Cave arrived on his elderly gelding, Thorne and Ceely drove up in a sledge drawn by a pair of massive horses, and the three of them proceeded to unload four dozen obviously empty hogshead casks from the geehoe. Cave unlocked a disused door into the back part of his distilling chamber and the barrels disappeared inside. A minute later Thorne was back, grunting as he rolled a full barrel; Cave bustled to the sledge and let down a ramp at its rear. It took Thorne and Trevillian combined to push each hogshead up the ramp, where they flipped it from its side onto one end with a deftness born of much practice.
Sixty minutes by Richard’s watch saw the job done; no doubt inside the building the empty hogsheads were in place beneath the illicit pipes-how often did they do this? Not every Sunday night or someone would notice, but, if Richard’s calculations were right, at least once in every three weeks.
Thomas Cave mounted his horse and rode off up Redcliff Street while the other two boarded the sledge, which headed on very smooth and silent runners eastward to the Temple Backs; Richard followed the sledge. At the river the casks were tipped onto their sides again and rolled down into a flat-bottomed barge tended by a man who was a stranger to Richard, though not to Thorne and Ceely. Finished, the three unharnessed one of the horses and tethered it to the barge; the stranger scrambled up onto its huge back and kicked it hard until it began to plod down the deplorable towpath in the direction of Bath, the floating cargo, with Ceely aboard, following behind. Once sure everything was going to plan, William Thorne drove off in the geehoe.
I know it all, said Richard to himself. The rum goes to some place nearer Bath, where Ceely and the stranger either sell it or trans-ship it to Salisbury or Exeter, and a fat, excise-free profit is divided by four. I would be willing to bet, however, that it is Ceely Trevillian gets the biggest share.
What was he actually going to do? After turning it over in his mind all the way home, Richard decided that the time had come to tell his father.
Dick and Mag were up and about, William Henry still slumbering when Richard walked into the Cooper’s Arms. His parents cast each other a conspiratorial glance, having noticed on their way downstairs that Richard’s bed was empty. How to let a recent widower know that they did understand an occasional absence?
“Mum, go away,” said Richard without ceremony. “I have to speak to Father in private.”
Looking worldly, Dick prepared to listen to a tale of basic urges and some pretty female face seen in St. James’s yesterday morning, only to hear a tale of staggering villainy.
“What should I do, Father?”
A shrug, a wry look. “There is only one thing a decent man can do. Go at once-and in secret!-to the Collector of Excise at Excise House. His name is Benjamin Fisher.”
“Father! Your business-your friendship with Tom Cave-it would ruin everything for you!”
“Nonsense,” said Dick strongly. “There are other makers of good rum in Bristol, and I know ’em all. Stand on best terms with ’em too. Tom Cave is more a very old acquaintance than a friend, Richard. Ye’ve not seen him sup at my table, nor do I sup at his. Besides,” he grinned, “I always knew he was a sly boots. It is in his eyes, ain’t you noticed? Never gives ye a good frank stare.”
“Yes,” said Richard soberly, “I have noticed. Still, I feel sorrier for him than I do for Thorne. As for Ceely”-he made a gesture as if to push something horrible away-“the man is a turd. What an actor! The apparent nincompoop is a very clever man.”
“No work for you today,” said Dick, pushing Richard stairward. “Go and put on your best Sunday clothes, my new hat, and off to Excise House-and do not breathe a word to anyone, hear? There is no need to look so down in the mouth, either. If those beauties have tapped off half as much rum as ye think they have, then ye’ll get a hefty reward for your pains. Enough to see William Henry is educated to your heart’s content.”
It was that thought drove Richard, clad in his dark-hued Sunday clothes, Dick’s best hat on his head, to walk toward Queen Square. Excise House occupied the end of a block between the square and Princes Street (upon which desirable avenue Mr. Thomas Cave’s house was situated), and Richard soon discovered that the Excise Men of Excise House were slugs who used their desks to sleep off their hangovers, especially on a Monday. They were unorganized, uninterested, and preferred to be unoccupied. Thus it took Richard several hours to ascend the hierarchical ladder. Looking at each of the bored faces, Richard declined to say anything more than that he had discovered an excise fraud, and wanted to see the Collector himself. As distinct from the Commander, higher up still.
An interview he finally achieved at three o’clock in the afternoon, dinnerless and with his famous patience distinctly frayed.
“Ye have five minutes, Mr. Morgan,” said Mr. Benjamin Fisher from behind his desk.
No need to wonder if the Collector of Excise had ever been in the field himself; he peered at Richard through the small round lenses of a pair of spectacles which he did not need to peruse the neatly stacked documents on his desk. Short-sighted. His home had always been a desk. Which meant that he would not understand in the way any of his field officers would. On the other hand, Richard’s mind went on, that might mean that he does not accept bribes. For surely the men in the field do, else I would not be here.
Richard told his story in a few succinct words.
“How much rum d’ye estimate these persons draw off in a week?” Mr. Benjamin Fisher asked when Richard ended.
“If they pick up their hogsheads every three weeks, sir, about eight hundred gallons per week.”
That put a different complexion on it! Mr. Fisher straightened, put his quill down and pushed the piece of paper on which he had been taking notes to one side. On went the spectacles again; his eyes, two pale blue marbles swimming beneath layers of glass, goggled.
“Mr. Morgan, this is a huge fraud! Could ye be mistaken in your calculations?”
“Aye, sir, of course I could. But if they change the hogsheads every three weeks, then ’tis eight hundred gallons weekly. Yesterday was the first of June, and I can testify that the casks the three men brought into the distillery were completely empty, for one man could kick one cask around like a ball. Whereas the casks they took out were so full that it took two of them to roll one up an easy ramp. The Sunday I imagine they will use next is the twenty- second of June. If your men are hiding nearby from midnight on, ye’ll apprehend all three of them in the very act,”
